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.

Atlanta by day, from the top of the Westin Hotel

 

Atlanta by night, on a long exposure

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.

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.

The dogs of AirBnB:
Bentley (l) and Winter (r)

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.

My AirBnB

Not my AirBnB

Ditto

Broad Street

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.

USS Yorktown, a decommissioned US navy aircraft carrier.
It's moored permanently in the Cooper River as a floating museum.

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.

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.

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!

Downtown Indy

By the canal

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.