grace
:Amie Grace Woodgate |
In the 2 weeks I have slowly been making my way from San Francisco to my current location of St Louis, Missouri, via Santa Cruz, Santa Ana, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Memphis. Attempted to write a blog jst over a week ago, but couldnt get internet access so here is it in all its glory: Blog Entry 07/06/12- All Change Here Currently sat on an Amtrak train from San Jose to Los Angeles, although has more similarities with a plane! SO much leg room (I know that doesn’t sound like a lot coming from myself, but even a 7 foot legged man would be comfortable). Listening to a bit of the old Kings of Leon, how did they digress so much from their early days? Scenery outside (hills, miles of vineyards and farms) is making the prospect of another 9 and a half hours on this train a little easier to process, but still, over 10 hours to get somewhere a car can get to in half the time? It’s like the opposite to trains in the UK. Leaving Santa Cruz lads and lasses was a bit too much at 7:00 this morning, didn’t help that I fell asleep before properly saying bye to everyone before going to bed, feel terrible! Woke up and first thought was “wow, I’m a dick!” I wrote a note apologizing and sent a text to Tom, so hopefully they’ll find it in their hearts to forgive me. Had so much fun hanging out with all of them this past week. All the girls were lovely, really easy going, so thank you for making me feel so welcome Jena, Kaitlin, Sasha and Sarah. Our trip to the Garden of Eden is also something I’ll never forget, so beautiful there, and the walk to it down a still functioning railway track made it all that much more exciting. Was a shame Charlie had to leave so early on in my visit, she seemed to have knowledge about everything! And Kaitlin and my attempts at creating mini red velvet cupcakes for Jena’s 20th didn’t fail quite as epically as we had expected after mixing the first bowl of mix and only being able to smell/taste the olive oil we were instructed to add. Also saw a dolphin at Natural bridges beach with Charlie and Jim, which was then abruptly switched from being a majestic moment by the arrival of their friend Ben who informed us that there is a real problem with dolphins raping people…. This then led to a very long discussion on the most uncomfortable and disgusting youtube videos we’d all seen, which included one about terminally ill people competing in their own Olympics to win money for their family when they die by cutting off limbs and other horrific contests. Also saw my first banana slug, so called for its vibrant yellow colouring. Apparently in Santa Cruz it’s custom to kiss one of these slugs if u see one, for good luck, so when neither Otis or I were willing to uphold this tradition, Jim took it upon himself to do the honours. Think the last week of drinking is catching up on me, absolutely exhausted, might just sleep for the entire train journey, but don’t want to miss out on where I’m going through. Almost feels like the end of an era! I’m really excited to start my trip across the U.S but at the same time I don’t want to leave California. It’s also going to be weird not having Otis around after living with him these past 10 months, but it’s ok, our house can’t be entirely split, planning on meeting Mikey in Austin (that’s if he actually puts words into actions) sure he will, might just need to nag him a little Actually, really thankful to Mikey for his bluffing and negotiation skills with our pedant landlords, who were asking for $2000 out of our $2400 security deposit. Nearly had a heart attack when he informed me that a grand of that was being appointed to a tiny paint job of 3 walls! It doesn’t cost that much to paint an entire house, let alone 3 measly walls in an apartment. Douchebags! They must think we’re absolute mugs! (which mikey informed them quite diplomatically that we’re not) Ooh, just passing one of those totally anonymous central Californian towns, seriously they all look so alike, it’s kinda disconcerting. Anyway enough ranting! On my way to LA to meet up with these Irish girls I unfortunately only really got to know in the last two weeks in SF, but they seem sound, and pretty hilarious. Off to Vegas with them. Was going to go to Grand Canyon with them as well, but they decided it was better for them to do vegas first rather than GC, which I completely understand. I would just go see it on my own, but trying to play catch up with Henry and Andrea, who are steaming ahead, think they’re on their way to Austin now, and if I do end up flying there, it won’t be till at least Monday (4 days from now) so time really is of the essence right now. Got a month to get to Boston, via New Orleans and cities along the Mississippi. Just want to start actually organizing transport for it, but kind of need to know plans of others to do this. What I really don’t understand about American transportation is that a bus that takes 2 days is MORE expensive than a flight that takes 4 hours….honestly it really is just flip reverse to England, where the faster a journey is the more pricey it’s likely to be. Was looking at Cait-Lynn and Mandrea’s photos from New Orleans the other day, and it looks so amazing, I can’t wait to just be there. Really got that travelling bug now, kind of couldn’t be bothered with it all last week, but think that was because of the stress of moving out and cleaning up and deciding what things I’ve accumulated over the last year was worth keeping or sending home, and what was just junk that could be thrown out or given away. And back to the present. New Orleans was as amazing as I had expected, if not more so. The French Quarter was beautiful, although Bourbon Street was a bit too cheesy and touristy for my liking, but went out for a night out on Frenchmen street, and that was far superior. Live jazz and blues bands playing in pretty much every bar, and you could just saunter in and out, enjoying and soaking up as much of the atmosphere as you could. Henry foolishly drank two hand grenade cocktails too fast, as the alcohol was barely detectable, but it was there, which Henry soon found out.... he just kinda wondered behind us, not really knowing what was going on. We were able to watch quite a lot of the Euro football matches which was a good and bad thing, always great to watch nationalistic sport, but it did delay our exploration of the city to a certain extent. Went to try and see the remnants of devastation Hurricane Katrina left 7 years ago, but the lady at our hostel (The India House,really good hostel may i quickly add) directed us to the completely opposite part of town for this, could have been because she was looking at the map upside down, but that's no excuse! Ended up having really good bbq in that area tho, so every cloud has its silver lining. Then Mikey, Henry and I walked through the french quarter again (stopped to watch some guys break dance as they threatened the crowd that if they didnt donate some money for the show hey'd be robbing their houses) I gave $4. Decided to walk all the way to the warehouse and arts district to see the guide book labelled a house constructed of debris from the hurricane by an artist. At first when we got to the spot it was supposed to be at we thought maybe because the book was slightly dated, the house had only been temporary, but then we came out of the park we thought it had been, to find this tiny little sculpture of a house in a tree.....yeh, not so much a house, more of a statue. But hey ho, it was still kinda cool, if not what we'd exactly envisioned. Anyhow, since then I've travelled northwards with henry and andrea and stayed in Memphis with them for a couple of nights (they were couch surfing, I was doing chores to earn my keep in the Pilgrim Hostel, not actually as bad as it sounds, I just had to wipe down the surface of the hob to get my deposit back, which I didnt actually end up giving them as they wanted it in cash, so I basically just cleaned for the fun of it). Oh nearly forgot, one last thing about New Orleans, watch out for the huge green Io Moth caterpillars. One unfortunately took a liking to the inside of Henry's pj bottoms.....the girly scream that echoed in our dorm was kinda hilarious, but the caterpillar was massive and terrifying and did cause quite a lot of pain on Henry's part.....was close to being his more private parts, but once again, every cloud, could have been a WHOLE lot worse! Memphis was alright, didn't really do it for me though. Bit of a mismatch of things, I mean, what is a mid-town part of a city? Uptown i understand, downtown, I understand, but is there really any need for a mid-town? Also the neighborhoods there are manic, one minute you're commenting on how beautiful the houses are, next minute you see a shack with barred windows and posters declaring unsettling religious statements about how everyone's going to hell unless they sacrifice a dog, by gouging its left eye out whilst also drowning it simultaneously and then eat its spleen, chewing only on the right side of your mouth! or something along those lines. MADNESS! Had a quick glance at Graceland and bought a t-shirt from sun studios, standard procedure. Went to the same suchi place we'd gone to the night before and went for drinks, where i parted ways from Henry and Andrea, who are off to nashville, the smokey mountains and ashville. Really hope they managed to replace their tyre. It's the second time a tyre has burst whilst ive been in the car on this trip, and Andrea's wheels are pretty much brand new....perhaps i should stay away from cars for a while, obviously not the luckiest of companions. Had to get up at 5 this morning to get a bus from memphis to st louis. Was really hoping there would be lockers at the station so i could have a look round downtown as the only hotel i could get was like 10 miles out and a good $40 cab fare, but alas, st louis is stupid, so didnt really get to see much more than what i saw from the bus on arriving, and been cooped up in my room all day! But HEY, CHICAGO tomorrow, hostel and bus all booked, and already have a vague plan of what i want to do when im there, so that's something. This whole being organised thing is such a foreign concept to me, but i really dont want to have to sleep on the streets so kinda making it happen, had to book another hotel in Cleveland because, like St Louis, they dont believe in hostels, absolute travesty! Anyway, I should probs be getting to sleep, got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.