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| Anywhere I roam Where I lay my head is home... Carved upon my stone: 'My body lies, but still I roam' (Hetfield / Ulrich) |
Saturday 24 December 2016
Sunderland, England
Wednesday 21 December 2016
Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn is chronically, achingly hip. It is the Home of the Hipster. It is truly Hipster Heaven. It makes Camden Town look like South Shields. There isn't an unbearded man in sight. Sniffer dogs track down non-organic foodstuffs; underground server farms and hacker networks are deployed to neutralise all electronic devices other than latest-generation Apple products. Office workers, heterosexuals, and people wearing unripped jeans are regularly subjected to violent pogroms and chased out of town with pitchforks.
This particular adventure is now at an end, and I think it'll be quite a few years before I do any more USA road-tripping. Other continents beckon for the next trip...which will be a lot sooner that you might think...
Merry Christmas, in the meantime.
At this time of year Brooklyn is also cold. Excruciatingly cold. The kind of cold where you step outside and think 'ooh, that's nice & fresh' and then three blocks later you're reaching up to check that your ears are still there. I pulled my hoodie up over my head, thinking that I might thereby stay warm and also blend in with the local delinquents: however, on catching my reflection in a shop window, all I saw was Obi-Wan Kenobi. I'd forgotten about the beard, as well as the ears. I ended up walking over the Brooklyn Bridge during a snowstorm at minus 7 degrees C, which is not an experience I recommend. By the time I got into Manhattan, my beard had literally formed icicles and my extremities were disappearing off the map of my nervous system one by one. Just as I was beginning to hallucinate about alien quadrupeds that I could slice open and disembowel and curl up inside of, I found a nice warm woolly jumper in a hip alternative bohemian clothes shop (TJ Maxx) for $10. Yes, I'm a cheapskate. But it's the continual hunting of such bargains that allows me to save up for these adventures in the first place.
This particular adventure is now at an end, and I think it'll be quite a few years before I do any more USA road-tripping. Other continents beckon for the next trip...which will be a lot sooner that you might think...
Merry Christmas, in the meantime.
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| Journey's end |
Thursday 15 December 2016
Dallas, TX
Some places are easy to imagine in all weathers. The brochure pictures of Machu Picchu always depict blazing sunshine, but when I got there in 2012 the mountain was shrouded in light fog and yet that seemed equally apt. Similarly, New York feels like New York whether it's sweating under blue skies or shivering under Christmas snow. The same goes for New Zealand, with its four seasons in one day, as the song goes.
But somehow I had only ever imagined Dealey Plaza in Dallas to be basking permanently in bright sunshine, with green grass and clear blue skies and Jackie Kennedy's pink dress glowing in the lurid high-saturation blur of the Zapruder film. There was something eerie and unsettling about arriving here on a grey and misty December morning to find the Grassy Knoll looking like any old roadside verge I might find back home. Also - and this may just be me - I'd always assumed that the road was flat, but in fact it slopes quite sharply downhill.
The whole thing - the plaza, the Grassy Knoll, the distance to that sixth floor window (remember that Americans call the ground floor the first floor, so in British terms it's only the fifth floor) - is smaller than you might think. That sixth floor is now a museum where you can pay $14 to go and check out the view that Lee Harvey Oswald had through his rifle sights. I didn't bother. It was ghoulish enough just to watch all the idiot tourists outside, grinning inanely for their selfies as they posed at a location famous only for a man having had his brains blown out there. A couple of blocks away, an exact replica of the open-top presidential limousine sits permanently parked by the roadside and you can pay $5 to be photographed sitting inside it. It all reminded me of my 2008 visit to Tuol Sleng, a preserved Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia from which almost nobody got out alive. There were English ra-ra girls in Ugg boots, smiling and preening for selfies next to the torture racks, with dried bloodstains still visible on the walls behind them. People, mostly, are morons.
While I'm being a grumpy old man (it happens from time to time)...here in Dallas I had my first ever taste of big-league basketball and it wasn't great. I was dismayed to find that they play constant loud music over the tannoy, while the ball's in play. For instance, when the away team is attacking, you get either the 'Jaws' theme or a military-style drumbeat for the crowd to chant 'De-fense!' over and over again. As soon as the whistle blows, the annoying loud music is replaced by annoying loud commentary. It never stops. And yet there's no real drama to the action: one team runs left and scores, then another team runs right and scores, and repeat, ad nauseam. I left after the end of the first quarter. The stadium was half-empty anyway. Needless to say, refreshments and merchandise were both ruinously expensive.
The richer parts of the city - Uptown, Turtle Creek, Oak Lawn - are spotlessly clean, but also depressingly bland and uniform. Bars and restaurants that make you feel like you're in a foreign hotel; shops that make you feel like you're in a foreign airport. Fortunately I can't afford to stay in the rich places, so instead I'm in an area called Deep Ellum which is a bit more bohemian. In a local bar called Dada, there was a costumed lady on stage staring vacantly into space. I sat at the bar and waited for her to start singing, or taking her clothes off, or both; but she didn't move. Perplexed, I got about halfway through a pint of Deep Ellum IPA before turning away from the bar to discover that the whole place had been booked out for a sketching class and she was the model. Doh.
One more stop to go on this trip. It's almost time to head home for the festive season. I wonder if I can find somewhere on America's east coast where I can fly home from, a place that one might associate with Christmas in some way?
But somehow I had only ever imagined Dealey Plaza in Dallas to be basking permanently in bright sunshine, with green grass and clear blue skies and Jackie Kennedy's pink dress glowing in the lurid high-saturation blur of the Zapruder film. There was something eerie and unsettling about arriving here on a grey and misty December morning to find the Grassy Knoll looking like any old roadside verge I might find back home. Also - and this may just be me - I'd always assumed that the road was flat, but in fact it slopes quite sharply downhill.
The whole thing - the plaza, the Grassy Knoll, the distance to that sixth floor window (remember that Americans call the ground floor the first floor, so in British terms it's only the fifth floor) - is smaller than you might think. That sixth floor is now a museum where you can pay $14 to go and check out the view that Lee Harvey Oswald had through his rifle sights. I didn't bother. It was ghoulish enough just to watch all the idiot tourists outside, grinning inanely for their selfies as they posed at a location famous only for a man having had his brains blown out there. A couple of blocks away, an exact replica of the open-top presidential limousine sits permanently parked by the roadside and you can pay $5 to be photographed sitting inside it. It all reminded me of my 2008 visit to Tuol Sleng, a preserved Khmer Rouge prison in Cambodia from which almost nobody got out alive. There were English ra-ra girls in Ugg boots, smiling and preening for selfies next to the torture racks, with dried bloodstains still visible on the walls behind them. People, mostly, are morons.
While I'm being a grumpy old man (it happens from time to time)...here in Dallas I had my first ever taste of big-league basketball and it wasn't great. I was dismayed to find that they play constant loud music over the tannoy, while the ball's in play. For instance, when the away team is attacking, you get either the 'Jaws' theme or a military-style drumbeat for the crowd to chant 'De-fense!' over and over again. As soon as the whistle blows, the annoying loud music is replaced by annoying loud commentary. It never stops. And yet there's no real drama to the action: one team runs left and scores, then another team runs right and scores, and repeat, ad nauseam. I left after the end of the first quarter. The stadium was half-empty anyway. Needless to say, refreshments and merchandise were both ruinously expensive.
The richer parts of the city - Uptown, Turtle Creek, Oak Lawn - are spotlessly clean, but also depressingly bland and uniform. Bars and restaurants that make you feel like you're in a foreign hotel; shops that make you feel like you're in a foreign airport. Fortunately I can't afford to stay in the rich places, so instead I'm in an area called Deep Ellum which is a bit more bohemian. In a local bar called Dada, there was a costumed lady on stage staring vacantly into space. I sat at the bar and waited for her to start singing, or taking her clothes off, or both; but she didn't move. Perplexed, I got about halfway through a pint of Deep Ellum IPA before turning away from the bar to discover that the whole place had been booked out for a sketching class and she was the model. Doh.
One more stop to go on this trip. It's almost time to head home for the festive season. I wonder if I can find somewhere on America's east coast where I can fly home from, a place that one might associate with Christmas in some way?
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| The Grassy Knoll and the sniper's window. It was cold and grey the first time I came here (see text), but the weather was better the next day. |
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| Dallas by night, from the east |
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| Motorcycle, or possibly Batmobile |
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| NBA basketball: Dallas Mavericks v Denver Nuggets at the American Airlines Center. Meh. |
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| Edd vs Food #48 Velvet Taco, 3012 N Henderson Avenue, Dallas TX Two tacos in flour tortillas: 1. Crisp chicken tenders, Buffalo sauce, Danish blue cheese, ranch creme, carrots and micro celery. 2. Akaushi beef burger, peppered bacon, smoked cheddar, lettuce, onion, tomato, pickle and velvet sauce. |
Sunday 11 December 2016
San Antonio, TX
San Antonio is home to the Alamo, a focal point for the long and muddled history of Texas - which wasn't part of the US until 1845 - in relation to Spain, Mexico and the Native Americans. Ozzy Osbourne urinated on the Alamo, unknowingly and drunkenly, while on tour in 1982. He was accosted in mid-tinkle by a local policeman and legend has it that the dialogue went as follows:
Cop: (stern Texan drawl) "Goddamnit, Sir, how would you like it if I urinated on Buckin'-ham Palace?"
Ozzy: (sozzled Brummie mumble, still pissing) "I wouldn't give a s**t, mate."
From an English perspective, it's amusing how Americans get excited about things being a mere one or two hundred years old. In my blessed hometown of Sunderland, there's a church that was built in 674AD. In York, there are pub toilets containing dinosaur footprints. "There can be no true beauty without decay," as Uncle Monty once said.
I'd actually forgotten about the Alamo until I chanced upon it, wandering around downtown. It's funny how you can encounter notable places without even looking for them. Much earlier in this trip, heading north-west through New Hampshire on the way to the Hill Farmstead brewery, I found myself in Bretton Woods, which is where the post-war global economic settlement - the IMF, the World Bank, and all the rest of it - was cooked up by the Allies in 1944. Similarly, on a sunny day in Washington DC, I walked past a bland-looking hotel and I only just happened by chance to notice the name over the door. It was the Watergate. And I've also had an unexpected spell of walking the Appalachian Trail: Harpers Ferry in West Virginia is one of the few towns which the trail passes straight through.
On an even less interesting note, I've belatedly discovered that there are four places in the USA called Sunderland, and that already on this trip I've been within ten miles of three of them without even knowing it. (Vermont, Maryland and Massachusetts). The fourth is in Portland, Oregon: it's right next to the airport from which I flew to San Francisco last year. Talk about missed photo opportunities.
So anyway. Where was I? More to the point, where am I? Oh yes, San Antonio. The downtown area is small and sleepy. It's a very big city population-wise, but most of that is placid suburban sprawl. Tough-looking Latino types and white guys in flannel shirts cruise beat-up old pickup trucks along wide empty streets; dogs snarl at you from behind wire mesh fences. My motel room has a distinct tinge of 1970s brown-ness about it. Those of you who've seen 'No Country For Old Men' will understand why I've been having occasional nightmares about dodgy haircuts and compressed air.
Overall my three favourite states are Colorado and Utah (which are uniformly wonderful) and California (which has some manky bits but more than makes up for it with the good bits). Texas is pretty much up there with them: see my previous visits to El Paso, Austin, Houston and the Big Bend National Park. And more Texas is to come in the next blog. I'm still not going home yet.
Cop: (stern Texan drawl) "Goddamnit, Sir, how would you like it if I urinated on Buckin'-ham Palace?"
Ozzy: (sozzled Brummie mumble, still pissing) "I wouldn't give a s**t, mate."
From an English perspective, it's amusing how Americans get excited about things being a mere one or two hundred years old. In my blessed hometown of Sunderland, there's a church that was built in 674AD. In York, there are pub toilets containing dinosaur footprints. "There can be no true beauty without decay," as Uncle Monty once said.
I'd actually forgotten about the Alamo until I chanced upon it, wandering around downtown. It's funny how you can encounter notable places without even looking for them. Much earlier in this trip, heading north-west through New Hampshire on the way to the Hill Farmstead brewery, I found myself in Bretton Woods, which is where the post-war global economic settlement - the IMF, the World Bank, and all the rest of it - was cooked up by the Allies in 1944. Similarly, on a sunny day in Washington DC, I walked past a bland-looking hotel and I only just happened by chance to notice the name over the door. It was the Watergate. And I've also had an unexpected spell of walking the Appalachian Trail: Harpers Ferry in West Virginia is one of the few towns which the trail passes straight through.
On an even less interesting note, I've belatedly discovered that there are four places in the USA called Sunderland, and that already on this trip I've been within ten miles of three of them without even knowing it. (Vermont, Maryland and Massachusetts). The fourth is in Portland, Oregon: it's right next to the airport from which I flew to San Francisco last year. Talk about missed photo opportunities.
So anyway. Where was I? More to the point, where am I? Oh yes, San Antonio. The downtown area is small and sleepy. It's a very big city population-wise, but most of that is placid suburban sprawl. Tough-looking Latino types and white guys in flannel shirts cruise beat-up old pickup trucks along wide empty streets; dogs snarl at you from behind wire mesh fences. My motel room has a distinct tinge of 1970s brown-ness about it. Those of you who've seen 'No Country For Old Men' will understand why I've been having occasional nightmares about dodgy haircuts and compressed air.
Overall my three favourite states are Colorado and Utah (which are uniformly wonderful) and California (which has some manky bits but more than makes up for it with the good bits). Texas is pretty much up there with them: see my previous visits to El Paso, Austin, Houston and the Big Bend National Park. And more Texas is to come in the next blog. I'm still not going home yet.
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| Downtown San Antonio |
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| San Fernando Cathedral |
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| The Alamo |
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| San Antonio Riverwalk |
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| Out on the Riverwalk a few miles to the north: a rattlesnake. Dead, and with its head bitten off, by assailants unknown. |
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| Edd vs Fast Food #14 Little Caesars The only mass-market budget pizza chain that I know of. For just $6.75 you get an unspectacular but edible 16-inch pepperoni. Those of you with kids may wish to keep this option in mind next time you're in the USA. One pizza like this will incur silence and sleep in at least two rugrats. |
Wednesday 7 December 2016
Asheville, NC
There are 50 states in the USA. North Carolina is the 19th state of this trip, and the 15th which has been new to me; my lifetime tally is now 40. I'll visit the other 10 eventually. I'm not sure when, though. Iowa and Nebraska do not greatly stir my imagination.
I'm here in North Carolina mainly because it's the second home of the Sierra Nevada brewery, whose California head office I visited last year. I won't bore you with beer talk: suffice it to say that everyone has their own private little vision of paradise, and this is very close to being mine.
Last year I did the Pacific Coast Highway, which is pretty much the world's greatest drive. Close behind in second place for me now is the trip north here from Atlanta across Georgia and South Carolina, through autumnal forests and hairpin-riddled mountains. My new rental car is a Chevy Camaro RS V6: not quite the beast that last year's V8 was, and nor is it in a colour I'd have chosen, but it still does 0-60 in 5.1 seconds and I'm not complaining.
(My previous Camaro was black and it had a wide rear end, so I called it Beyoncé. Now I've rented another Camaro, and I kind of feel like I'm cheating on Beyoncé. With a blonde, as well. I've called it Becky.)
After collecting the car in Atlanta, I drove east to Stone Mountain, which is a rather stark tautology. It's also a quartz monzonite dome manadnock. In layman's terms, a big geological zit in an otherwise flat area. Like Ayer's Rock in Australia, just smaller and less colourful. On the north face is the world's biggest bas-relief carving, a Confederate memorial, one of many monuments you see in this part of the world dedicated to the heroism and sacrifice of men who selflessly gave their lives in defence of, er, slavery.
I stopped one night in Athens, Georgia. There I ate soul food at Weaver D's, a tiny little café where the motto is 'Automatic For The People'. That's where the REM album of that name, omnipresent on the airwaves during my late teens, got its title. Weaver himself, a big sleepy black dude, still ladles out the grub and still repeats his slogan every time he rings the till. But he's clearly become jaded over the years, and now it just comes out as "Aumafuhpil". (Actually I've never really been a fan of REM, but my 'been there done that' list is a hungry beast and insists on being fed with new additions wherever I go.)
The car's going back to Atlanta airport, and that's where I'm flying out from. Not home, though. Not just yet.
I'm here in North Carolina mainly because it's the second home of the Sierra Nevada brewery, whose California head office I visited last year. I won't bore you with beer talk: suffice it to say that everyone has their own private little vision of paradise, and this is very close to being mine.
Last year I did the Pacific Coast Highway, which is pretty much the world's greatest drive. Close behind in second place for me now is the trip north here from Atlanta across Georgia and South Carolina, through autumnal forests and hairpin-riddled mountains. My new rental car is a Chevy Camaro RS V6: not quite the beast that last year's V8 was, and nor is it in a colour I'd have chosen, but it still does 0-60 in 5.1 seconds and I'm not complaining.
(My previous Camaro was black and it had a wide rear end, so I called it Beyoncé. Now I've rented another Camaro, and I kind of feel like I'm cheating on Beyoncé. With a blonde, as well. I've called it Becky.)
After collecting the car in Atlanta, I drove east to Stone Mountain, which is a rather stark tautology. It's also a quartz monzonite dome manadnock. In layman's terms, a big geological zit in an otherwise flat area. Like Ayer's Rock in Australia, just smaller and less colourful. On the north face is the world's biggest bas-relief carving, a Confederate memorial, one of many monuments you see in this part of the world dedicated to the heroism and sacrifice of men who selflessly gave their lives in defence of, er, slavery.
I stopped one night in Athens, Georgia. There I ate soul food at Weaver D's, a tiny little café where the motto is 'Automatic For The People'. That's where the REM album of that name, omnipresent on the airwaves during my late teens, got its title. Weaver himself, a big sleepy black dude, still ladles out the grub and still repeats his slogan every time he rings the till. But he's clearly become jaded over the years, and now it just comes out as "Aumafuhpil". (Actually I've never really been a fan of REM, but my 'been there done that' list is a hungry beast and insists on being fed with new additions wherever I go.)
The car's going back to Atlanta airport, and that's where I'm flying out from. Not home, though. Not just yet.
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| The Sierra Nevada brewery, Mills River, North Carolina. It's a 184-acre site, and you drive up Sierra Nevada Way to get to the front door. You don't have to drive. You can crawl over broken glass if you prefer. It's worth it. They let you leave cars overnight, as I did with Becky (see above). I booked the only AirBnb within walking distance. |
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| Off of REM |
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| Downtown Atlanta, seen from about thirteen miles away on Stone Mountain |
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| I don't know why this bar is called the 'Royal Peasant'. It genuinely appears to be just a combination of two random 'English' words. An example of a reciprocal equivalent would be the 'Superbowl Cadillac'. |
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| Continuing on the booze theme: the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I got through a lot of JD in my mis-spent teenage years, and I still like a sip every now and then. Don't we all? |
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Edd vs Food #47
Heritage Farms green chile pork, creamy Carolina gold rice and Three Graces queso blanco.
Flavoured with cilantro and Sierra Nevada Otra Vez beer.
At the Sierra Nevada Taproom, Mills River, NC.
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Saturday 3 December 2016
Dollywood, TN
There are three car parks at Dollywood. They are not called A, B and C. They are called Applejack, Butterfly and Cotton Candy. As you might expect.
A grown man alone in Dollywood can only be taken for one of two things: gay, or a paedo. So today I wore my tightest T-shirt and clapped along with all the show tunes. There isn't anything in England comparable to Dollywood, as far as I'm aware. Is there a gap in the market for a camp-kitsch British theme park? Elton Towers, perhaps? Actually, Flamingoland is pretty camp. All those dainty little pink dudes, standing on one leg...
Here I was expecting to find some kind of colossal Dolly-glorifying ego trip, but in fact Dolly's name and image are mostly absent once you're past the entrance area. It's just a regular theme park, with big rides and overpriced food and plenty to keep the kids occupied. Anyway, it'd be hard to begrudge an ego trip from a woman who's seventy years old and only five feet tall.
If I had my own theme park, it would be called Edd-wood. Or if there was a theme park based on the lead actor from the TV series 'The Equaliser', it would be called Edward Woodward-wood...I'll shut up now, and let the pictures do the talking. Dollywood gets a thumbs up. My regular series of heroic manly adventures will be resumed in the next blog.
Here I was expecting to find some kind of colossal Dolly-glorifying ego trip, but in fact Dolly's name and image are mostly absent once you're past the entrance area. It's just a regular theme park, with big rides and overpriced food and plenty to keep the kids occupied. Anyway, it'd be hard to begrudge an ego trip from a woman who's seventy years old and only five feet tall.
If I had my own theme park, it would be called Edd-wood. Or if there was a theme park based on the lead actor from the TV series 'The Equaliser', it would be called Edward Woodward-wood...I'll shut up now, and let the pictures do the talking. Dollywood gets a thumbs up. My regular series of heroic manly adventures will be resumed in the next blog.
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| Dollywood |
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| This is the Dolly's Closet clothes shop - 'Her Style, Your Size!!' Also the Chasing Rainbows theatre. Shed Seven may yet sue. |
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| Dolly, I will. I will do all of these things. For you. |
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| Possibly this is a pun? |
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| Rollercoasters at dusk |
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| I looked up the actual King James Bible text for Philippians 4:6 and it reads: "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." I suppose "Pray More Worry Less" is a reasonable paraphrase of that. |
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| The WonderWorks museum in Pigeon Forge, just round the corner from Dollywood. |
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| Right back at you, D! |
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| This is how I got here, and this is how I left. In style. |
Saturday 26 November 2016
Atlanta, GA
In the South, vowels are lengthened interminably, and syllables subdivide with gay abandon. Yesterday a checkout girl said to me 'Well, hello there' and made it into a full-blown piece of iambic pentameter.
And on the topic of American speech - is everyone aware that it's now mandatory here to put absolutely everything into the future tense? For example, when you check into a hostel, the spiel goes as follows: 'So...you're gonna go up to the second floor, and you're gonna turn right, and you're gonna be in dorm 3 [I suppose this is all literally correct] ...and there's gonna be a shared bathroom at the end of the corridor [meaning there isn't one now?!] ...and your bill's gonna be $75 [OK, so I'll pay later]...which you have to pay now, sir [oops]"
No doubt it won't be long before this makes its way across the Atlantic. Perhaps such usage merely reflects the influence of Schrodinger; the receptionist is implicitly contending that such things as bathrooms cannot be truly said to exist until they are perceived.
First port of call in Atlanta was an appointment at the office of the British Consulate-General, to get an emergency travel document to replace my passport, which I lost in Indianapolis. Yes indeed. I didn't mention it at the time, partly because I'm a firm believer in the stiff upper lip, treating those two impostors just the same, beneath the thingummies of what-d'you-call-it, etc. But mainly because I don't like to burden the blog with my misfortunes unless they have comedy value, and this one didn't. I have no idea how I came to lose the passport: I only know that I unwittingly achieved a smooth and seamless transition from having it to not having it.
Anyway it's all sorted now, with no harm done other than me being relieved of £172.50 by Her Majesty's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (£100 for the emergency travel document and £72.50 for the replacement passport when I get home). As a foreign national without a passport, boarding my plane to Atlanta at Indianapolis necessitated a rather heavier degree of physical intimacy than usual between me and the guy with the plastic gloves. There was a pat on each buttock, an inside-of-belt-line forage, and also some cupping. But no prostate exam. I can hardly complain.
As for Atlanta itself...meh. Lovely AirBnB house, though. I shall miss those dogs.
And on the topic of American speech - is everyone aware that it's now mandatory here to put absolutely everything into the future tense? For example, when you check into a hostel, the spiel goes as follows: 'So...you're gonna go up to the second floor, and you're gonna turn right, and you're gonna be in dorm 3 [I suppose this is all literally correct] ...and there's gonna be a shared bathroom at the end of the corridor [meaning there isn't one now?!] ...and your bill's gonna be $75 [OK, so I'll pay later]...which you have to pay now, sir [oops]"
No doubt it won't be long before this makes its way across the Atlantic. Perhaps such usage merely reflects the influence of Schrodinger; the receptionist is implicitly contending that such things as bathrooms cannot be truly said to exist until they are perceived.
First port of call in Atlanta was an appointment at the office of the British Consulate-General, to get an emergency travel document to replace my passport, which I lost in Indianapolis. Yes indeed. I didn't mention it at the time, partly because I'm a firm believer in the stiff upper lip, treating those two impostors just the same, beneath the thingummies of what-d'you-call-it, etc. But mainly because I don't like to burden the blog with my misfortunes unless they have comedy value, and this one didn't. I have no idea how I came to lose the passport: I only know that I unwittingly achieved a smooth and seamless transition from having it to not having it.
Anyway it's all sorted now, with no harm done other than me being relieved of £172.50 by Her Majesty's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (£100 for the emergency travel document and £72.50 for the replacement passport when I get home). As a foreign national without a passport, boarding my plane to Atlanta at Indianapolis necessitated a rather heavier degree of physical intimacy than usual between me and the guy with the plastic gloves. There was a pat on each buttock, an inside-of-belt-line forage, and also some cupping. But no prostate exam. I can hardly complain.
As for Atlanta itself...meh. Lovely AirBnB house, though. I shall miss those dogs.
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| Atlanta by day, from the top of the Westin Hotel |
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| Atlanta by night, on a long exposure |
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| When I lived in Edinburgh, I used to laugh at Chinese tourists taking photos of the Elephant Café (where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter books). Now here I am, taking pictures of the house where Margaret Mitchell wrote 'Gone With The Wind'. And I haven't even read the bloody thing. It only goes to show, doesn't it. |
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Edd vs Food #46
Mediterranean stromboli, artistically photographed by me at the Pizza Joint,
125 Richland Avenue West, Aiken SC.
Chicken, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, feta, mozzarella, Romano cheese, and a side of marinara.
How come I got to age 40 without trying stromboli, or even knowing what it was?
All a bit dough-heavy for me though.
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| The dogs of AirBnB: Bentley (l) and Winter (r) |
Monday 21 November 2016
Charleston, SC
And so begins Part Two of this adventure. It's nice to be back in the Deep South. See picture for my temporary abode: it contains my AirBnB hostess Colleen (friendly Southern hospitality), her elderly dog (sleepy indifference), and three cats (lofty disdain).
I flew Delta from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (Indianapolis Airport has immediately become my favourite airport in the whole world. It's only got one terminal; it's clean, bright, spacious and airy; everything's easy to find; and there are almost no queues at all. Surreal, but heavenly.) After the plane I took a Greyhound and now I'm here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's only a couple of hours' drive from Savannah, Georgia, where I passed a pleasant few days a couple of years ago. The two places are pretty similar really: low-key, genteel, old-fashioned and expensive. South Carolina is pronounced by the locals as "South Ca'lina", in much the same way that "Sunderland" is generally abbreviated to "Sun'land".
I wouldn't last a day here in the sweltering height of summer. Thankfully the temperatures now are only in the 70s and it's not too humid. I can just about manage long-ish walks. There is an abundance of colonial-era architecture, or at least neo-colonial, and there are almost no major chains visible downtown: there's one single Subway, and that's about it.
Can't help but observe that Charleston takes the prize for the most expensive plain black coffee of my life to date ($4.50). That's all very well for the rich preppy Ivy League WASP types who make up most of the tourists here, but impoverished bohemian backpackers like me can't stick around for too long. Another Greyhound looms.
I flew Delta from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (Indianapolis Airport has immediately become my favourite airport in the whole world. It's only got one terminal; it's clean, bright, spacious and airy; everything's easy to find; and there are almost no queues at all. Surreal, but heavenly.) After the plane I took a Greyhound and now I'm here in Charleston, South Carolina. It's only a couple of hours' drive from Savannah, Georgia, where I passed a pleasant few days a couple of years ago. The two places are pretty similar really: low-key, genteel, old-fashioned and expensive. South Carolina is pronounced by the locals as "South Ca'lina", in much the same way that "Sunderland" is generally abbreviated to "Sun'land".
I wouldn't last a day here in the sweltering height of summer. Thankfully the temperatures now are only in the 70s and it's not too humid. I can just about manage long-ish walks. There is an abundance of colonial-era architecture, or at least neo-colonial, and there are almost no major chains visible downtown: there's one single Subway, and that's about it.
Can't help but observe that Charleston takes the prize for the most expensive plain black coffee of my life to date ($4.50). That's all very well for the rich preppy Ivy League WASP types who make up most of the tourists here, but impoverished bohemian backpackers like me can't stick around for too long. Another Greyhound looms.
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| My AirBnB |
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| Not my AirBnB |
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| Ditto |
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| Broad Street |
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| The Arthur Ravenel Jr bridge, which connects Charleston to Mount Pleasant. I don't know why they call the place 'Mount'. It's as flat as a fart. |
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| USS Yorktown, a decommissioned US navy aircraft carrier. It's moored permanently in the Cooper River as a floating museum. |
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| Edd vs Food #45 'Santa Fe chicken' wrap at the Brown Dog Deli, 40 Broad Street, Charleston. Applewood-smoked bacon, roasted corn, guacamole, tomatoes, lettuce... Red onions, black beans, cilantro, sour cream, monterey jack, roasted chicken... Tortilla strips and chipotle dressing in a jalapeno-cheddar wrap. Potato salad (featuring crispy bacon) on the side. |
Tuesday 15 November 2016
Indianapolis, IN
Indianapolis is a wholly unremarkable place, and I haven't got anything interesting to report, other than the following:
a) I went round the track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As in off of the Indy 500.
b) I saw an ongoing Black Lives Matter protest. With actual African-American participants, as opposed to nitwit white English trustafarian types.
Anyway. Token photos - and a video - are below. Bye for now!
a) I went round the track of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As in off of the Indy 500.
b) I saw an ongoing Black Lives Matter protest. With actual African-American participants, as opposed to nitwit white English trustafarian types.
So we have two new additions to the famed List Of Things Which I've Done And You Probably Haven't, Not That Either Of Us Cares. For example, that picture on my last blog where I ate a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky. I don't even like KFC. Never have.
Anyway. Token photos - and a video - are below. Bye for now!
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| Downtown Indy |
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| By the canal |
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| Edd vs Food #44 'Mediterranean' pizza at Bazbeaux, 329 Massachusetts Avenue, Indianapolis. The base is tomato and cheese (provolone / mozzarella / Pecorino romano). Extra toppings are chorizo, pepperoni, feta cheese, spinach and house roasted red pepper. No particular local significance. I just really fancied a pizza. It was yummy. |
Going round the Indy 500 racetrack. Obviously I'm doing the filming, not the driving.
Thursday 10 November 2016
Cincinnati, OH
I rode a Greyhound here after taking the rental car back to Pittsburgh. As we approached Cincinnati, a young black woman in the back seat was carrying on a steamy telephone conversation with her significant other. Clearly her phone had a poor signal because she kept repeating herself, and speaking ever more loudly and slowly, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everybody else could hear the whole thing. Indeed it got to the point that the whole of the rest of the bus was plunged into an awkward silence. We all listened, eyes wide and facing squarely front, while she repeated herself one barked word at a time in a steely deep-fried Southern twang. "Baby. I. Can't. Wait. To. Touch. You. And. Taste. You. What? Say what? WHAT? I said, BABY! I! CAN'T! WAIT!..." And so on.
I got off the bus at Cincinnati, but I think she was going all the way south, so to speak.
Cincinnatus was a Roman leader in the 5th century BC who was famed for renouncing the supreme office, after a string of military victories, in order to return to his farm. George Washington followed his example in 1797 and voluntarily gave up the US presidency after two terms, once the survival of the republic was assured. The two-term limit was observed informally for nearly 150 years, until the exigencies of World War Two prompted Franklin Delano Roosevelt to go all the way to a fourth term. This in turn prompted the 22nd Amendment, eventually ratified in 1951, which enshrined the two-term limit into law. And now, 65 years later, the 22nd Amendment has prevented Barack Obama from running for a third term which he probably would have won, and we have The Donald instead. It only goes to show, doesn't it? Indeed there was recently a half-hearted campaign for 'Repeal The 22nd', to which Trump supporters responded with 'Repeal The 19th'. The 19th is the one that gave women the vote.
Anyway, Cincinnati is named after Cincinnatus. (Welcome to my blog, where It's Fun To Find Out.) It's quite a nice place; it's one of those mid-sized cities that's big enough to have an impressive skyline, but small enough that you can wander around and be the only tourist in sight. One revealing comment from a local is that Cincinnati is often used in movies as the stereotypical unremarkable American city. If a character is introduced as being from DC then they're probably a politician; somebody from LA will be in movies; somebody from Texas will be an oilman. Introduce a character from Cincinnati and you have a blank slate.
Personally I will always remember Cincinnati as the place where I watched the 2016 presidential election, and I will always remember the Roebling Suspension Bridge as the place from which I contemplated throwing myself into the Ohio River as I walked home after the result became apparent. The river marks the state line: Cincinnati is in Ohio but my AirBnB is in Kentucky. These two are the 15th and 16th states I've visited so far on this trip, and there's a few more to go yet.
I got off the bus at Cincinnati, but I think she was going all the way south, so to speak.
Cincinnatus was a Roman leader in the 5th century BC who was famed for renouncing the supreme office, after a string of military victories, in order to return to his farm. George Washington followed his example in 1797 and voluntarily gave up the US presidency after two terms, once the survival of the republic was assured. The two-term limit was observed informally for nearly 150 years, until the exigencies of World War Two prompted Franklin Delano Roosevelt to go all the way to a fourth term. This in turn prompted the 22nd Amendment, eventually ratified in 1951, which enshrined the two-term limit into law. And now, 65 years later, the 22nd Amendment has prevented Barack Obama from running for a third term which he probably would have won, and we have The Donald instead. It only goes to show, doesn't it? Indeed there was recently a half-hearted campaign for 'Repeal The 22nd', to which Trump supporters responded with 'Repeal The 19th'. The 19th is the one that gave women the vote.
Anyway, Cincinnati is named after Cincinnatus. (Welcome to my blog, where It's Fun To Find Out.) It's quite a nice place; it's one of those mid-sized cities that's big enough to have an impressive skyline, but small enough that you can wander around and be the only tourist in sight. One revealing comment from a local is that Cincinnati is often used in movies as the stereotypical unremarkable American city. If a character is introduced as being from DC then they're probably a politician; somebody from LA will be in movies; somebody from Texas will be an oilman. Introduce a character from Cincinnati and you have a blank slate.
Personally I will always remember Cincinnati as the place where I watched the 2016 presidential election, and I will always remember the Roebling Suspension Bridge as the place from which I contemplated throwing myself into the Ohio River as I walked home after the result became apparent. The river marks the state line: Cincinnati is in Ohio but my AirBnB is in Kentucky. These two are the 15th and 16th states I've visited so far on this trip, and there's a few more to go yet.
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| Downtown Cincinnati. From the top floor observation deck of the 45-storey Carew Tower |
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| This photo is taken from the far end of the right-hand bridge in the photo above |
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| Cincinnati by night from the Kentucky side |
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| Wall mural at West Court Street |
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| Ban this filth |
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| Edd vs Fast Food #13 Kentucky Fried Chicken In Kentucky!! Yay!! |
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| Edd vs Food #43 Cincinnati chilli at Skyline The most disappointing piece of 'local speciality cuisine' I've tried since chicken Parmo. Basically it's grated cheese, over tinned chili, over tinned spaghetti. I used to get served better meals than this at Hill View Junior School. |
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