Sunday 4th March

Well! So much has happened I don't even know where to start! So, I should probably try and start at the beginning, huh...

The bus ride to New Orleans from Vegas, that would be the beginning. First of all, I almost missed my bus because we were running around downtown Vegas and we couldn't find the Greyhound station. Luckily I made it in time, and there were only about 4 other people on the bus with me. I was sat near this Canadian boxer guy and a very overly-friendly girl called Judy, who, after she had ascertained that the boxer guy was no boyfriend of mine, started hitting on him like mad. He told her I was from England, and she asked me if I spoke English.

???!!!?!?!?

So anyway, she got off the bus in this Hicksville town called Kingman, and after that I was going to try and sleep, I was curled up in my seat watching the movie (this wasn't a Greyhound bus - it was a subsidiary, so they had movies to watch which was cool) when suddenly I felt something tickling my foot. Mice! Nope, it was the boxer guy playing footsie with me. At first I figured he thought my foot was just part of the seat but then it got more insistent so I ended up sticking my feet straight up in the air against the seat in front of me just to escape. *Shudder* I don't think I look like the sort of person who would have sex with random Canadian boxer guys on buses but I guess he must have been blind or something. Anyway, when he finally gave up trying he pulled out this big blanket and laid it over himself and then started wanking underneath it, which was one of the freakier moments of my trip so far. I just pretended to be asleep because I was nervous he might attack me, since there were only 2 other people on the bus besides us. Eventually he stopped, thankfully, and then he started wriggling around his shoulders like he had a sore back - the words "Are you stiff?" were right on the tip of my tongue but I didn't want him to take it the wrong way (grin)

That was bus adventure #1. Bus adventure #2 was in Texas (the whole trip would be way more enjoyable if Texas was abolished - it's 800 miles across) when I gave my address to some guy who wanted penfriends, then he nearly got arrested by a couple of cops for having a dope pipe on him, and I realised he had tattooes saying "White Power" on his arms, and he was high as a kite playing dice all night - he kept throwing them and then writing down the score, and wandering over to people on the rest stops and muttering, "I'm flying! I'm flying!". Not a good choice! They didn't search my bags because one of them has family in Southampton, and when he found out I grew up in Portsmouth he was really happy. Then, between Houston and Lafayette I was sat next to this old guy who looked like Santa Claus going on a fishing trip - he had a big white beard and long white hair, and dungarees and a baseball cap, and he talked and talked all the way there, even though I was almost asleep. He was very interesting though - I was just tired. Quality moment was when he was asking me if I'd ever eaten crawfish, and he turned to me and said, with the straightest face you can imagine, "Do you suck head?" I nearly died trying not to crack up because he meant it in total innocence - you could see it in his face - because a lot of people suck the brains out of the crawfish as well as eating the tails - but I was almost hysterical. But he came out with all kinds of interesting stuff and funny phrases like, "The snow was arse deep on a 9 foot Indian that year.." so after he got off the bus I got out my notebook and wrote down everything I could remember. Maybe I will try and write a travel book about America and living among the natives. Goodness knows, there are enough weirdoes here.

I MEAN..."Oh, you're from England? Do you speak English?" WHAT?! I still can't get over that one.

So, I finally reached New Orleans, and Tina and her girlfriend Amanda met me from the bus and took me home and fed me and gave me things to smoke and then laughed at the "cute English girl! She's so cute! She can't stop giggling! She's not making any sense!" Tsdk. I also met their three cats - Pompeii, Britain and Jericho (Jericho has a lilac chest from when they dyed the white bits on her purple) - who took a liking to me and insisted on curling up around me often when I went to sleep. I love cats - they must be psychic about who is allergic to them - but I took a lot of allergy meds so it was fine. Andrea - Tina's little sister - and 3 of her friends came down the next day. Tina sadly had had her wisdom teeth out, so she didn't go to any parades, but we went to Endymion on Saturday and Bacchus on Sunday. Andrea's friend Jess flashed the universe at Endymion and came home with about 50lbs of beads, which we had to carry on account of her being too drunk to stand. I bet some guy our last beer that he couldn't lift me up on his shoulders, and he managed it (impressive or what!) and so I felt very thin for about half an hour. The next night at Bacchus, we managed to get a spot right up by the railings so we all got a bunch of beads, and Tina lent me her snakeskin trousers (I love staying with Tina and Andrea because their clothes fit me and I can borrow them (grin)). I kept nearly trampling this little girl so finally I picked her up and sat her on my shoulder and everybody started saying how cute we looked (grrr) but she was cute. Every time a float came by her entire body would go stiff as a board and I had to cling onto her to stop her from sliding off my shoulder, and she'd wave her hands in the air and start yelling "Beeeeeeeeeads! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaads!!!" But her hands werte so tiny she didn't catch any, so finally I gave her some of mine. After that we went and dumped our beads in the car and went into the Quarter through Bourbon Street. It was NUTS. I was leading and the crush was ridiculous, we were holding hands in a chain and fighting our way through, it was actually pretty scary because a fight broke out in the crowd right next to us, and then this girl squared up to punch me (ha...she was a toothpick...I could have taken her) because she said I'd pushed her, and random hands kept appearing out of nowhere and groping me but I couldn't do anything because it was so rammed. It's because people stand on the balconies above and flash, and there are about 6000 men waiting in the street with their disposable cameras so you can't get by. I'm like, "They're TITS for crying out loud! That's all! Go and buy Playboy!" But then, the balcony people do crazy crazy things like live sex shows, so Bourbon gets totally crammed and nobody can move.

Finally we made it down to Tropical Isle, where they used to sell fishbowls full of liquor and plastic fish, but they didn't have any so we had grenades instead. God only knows what was in them but they were super strong and super large and I was severely giggly after just one. We went back for refills and then we started on our bead mission. We flashed, got spanked, kissed, groped and graffitied on for beads. It's nuts what people will do for plastic beads. Some of them were very pretty though. Andrea and her friends introduced me to every guy they met as "Bambi" (which is my Girl Scout camp name - which is what everyone from camp still calls me) and one of them asked me if I was a porn star. Andrea and I chased these sailors around trying to get pictures of them (eventually they turned around and posed with me, so it was worth it), and we met some Irish rugby players and some homesick Indians and all sorts of people, and generally had a lot of fun, until it got to 4am and we lost Andrea for 3 hours. That was very scary because I had to suddenly become sober (which was very, very difficult) and try and stop her friends from running off with people. Dina had flashed for a jacket but then she set it down in a puddle of vomit, but was so drunk she didn't even notice, it was bad! Anyway, we searched for Andrea for 3 hours in vain, and finally we gave up and Darian drove her car back to Tina's and Tina got up and came out to drive around and look for her. Finally she showed up at 8am after an eventful trip to a hotel room with 2 guys, which she doesn't want to talk about.

Crazy Mardi Gras! I'm never going back (grin) it was way too much, especially Bourbon - I was ready to burst into tears by the time we got out of the crowds. But then, probably I will change my mind after I forget how scared I was when Andrea disappeared.

So, Andrea and her friends left that day and Tina and I slept a lot, and for the next couple of days we slobbed around in our pyjamas and ate tacos and watched movies and talked - which was quite an achievement for me because I lost of voice from screaming for beads on Sunday (the shame...for plastic beads! The shame...). On Tuesday night we went to the emergency room so that she could get more pain meds, and the ER doctor was a total weirdo, who, when she told him she was from Wisconsin, told her she should "buy her daddy a cow". On Wednesday, Amanda got back into town (she went to visit her mum in Virginia) so we went and slobbed around in her apartment and watched movies, for a change of scenery (grin). On Thursday, we went to Pizza Hut and got a whole bunch of food for only $13, because the waitress screwed up our order, so that was a really good deal. After that we went to get doughnuts at a place called Krispy Kremes - they were the best doughnuts ever! And you could see them being made through this big glass viewing window, so we took a bunch of foolish pictures in front of it all wearing our Krispy Kreme hats. That night we went to an 80s night at a club called the Shim Sham which was full of strange looking Gothic types. Tina told me that in New Orleans, they claim that one in ten people you see are actually ghosts, because they don't bury their dead so the dead think they are still living (all New Orleans graves are above ground, because it is the only American city below sea level - so if they dug their graves, the dead would float right out of them in the next rainstorm - leading to some "I miss Uncle Abe...oh there he goes, floating down St Charles Avenue!" moments) and if that is true, these ghosts hang out at the Shim Sham. There was a signed photo on the wall from Shane McGowan "and the Popes" which amused me greatly. Then after we left there we went to Denny's and sat over coffee for 4 hours talking as only girlies can, until this horribly obnoxious American with blue hair started laying into Tina and Amanda for being lesbians, so we left. What a total git. It's hard to believe, sometimes, that there is so much intolerance left in the world, especially when you don't experience it firsthand. All I know is, they are braver than me.

The next day was my last day in New Orleans, so we went to lunch and then we walked around the French Quarter and saw the oldest bar in North America. It's called Lafitte's and it was opened by a pirate. We also did some shopping in the French market, and I bought some custom made rings and some feathery masks, which were both bargains of the century. Then they set me on the bus to Pittsburgh, a trip which was supposed to take 29 hours but actually took 32. This was because we got held up in Nashville and I missed my connecting bus in Columbus by 10 minutes and had to wait 3 hours for the next bus. Luckily I had a seat to myself for most of the way - between Memphis and Nashville there was some young guy sitting next to me who promptly fell asleep and then stuck his elbow into my ribs because he thought I was the arm rest, and then between Columbus and Pittsburgh there was this older guy with a son my age, and we talked about politics and history for the entire 3 hour journey - which was very interesting. I was happy because I told him stuff he didn't know (weird quirky history facts) and it made me feel very clever. He also gave me travel tips for the Grand Canyon, for when Mother Hand visits.

And now here I am with Lisa in Pittsburgh, and IT'S SNOWING! I'm so excited. When I got here, I took a shower and ate a sandwich and cleaned my teeth - which felt like the best shower, the best sandwich and the best tooth-brushing ever, on account of being so mulchy from the bus ride. That's weird - it was the same when we got into San Antonio in Texas and I cleaned my teeth in the bus station bathrooms - it was like, better than sex. Well, almost. Then I got into bed and Lisa tucked me in, and it felt like the most comfortable bed in the world, ever. One thing about bus rides - they really make you appreciate creature comforts.

Jamie (Lisa's 9 year old daughter) and I had a big snowball fight earlier. I'm glad I bought my Polish deer stalker hat, it will finally get some use. Apparently there are deer and wild turkeys all over the place here, and Jamie and her friend Kiara (who is Lisa's boyfriend Ray's daughter) showed me the deer vertabrae they found and the groundhog skull (they found them on a nature hike - Lisa found a Pepsi bottle from the 70s which she was very pleased with). I slept 12 hours straight after the bus journey, I was knackered, and then today we played in the snow and then we sat around playing Boggle with Cyndie (Lisa's 17 year old daughter) and her boyfriend Bug. They were all happy I was playing because Lisa always gets super long words and I kept getting the same ones and cancelling her out - but in the end she won with a score that was double mine, so I guess I have some more learning to do (grin).

And that's about it! I feel like that whole story was really random and bitty, but so much has happened I can't even remember it all in the right order. I'm having the most amazing time, I keep thinking about how lucky I am to be able to take this trip. I kind of miss Vegas, and I miss Father Hand and Frankie and the Little Treasures, and yesterday on my way here through Ohio I really missed England because the scenery was very English, and this guy in the seat behind me showed me all his holiday snaps from London, and there was a number 13 bus in the background of one of them which I used to take home to Golders Green sometimes, and I miss talking to Mr Z and Jen every day. But on the whole, I am still having a great time. They're expecting a lot more snow tomorrow, but hopefully it will thaw out towards the end of the week so I can get to Washington and then to New York. Next weekend, Lisa and Jamie and I are going to drive up to Niagara Falls which I am unbelievably excited about, since I would happily not see New York or Washington DC as long as I can see Niagara Falls. One night we're going to go and do karaoke and play drinking games, and we might go and see Ohiopyle - which is by all accounts a very pretty nature reserve with rivers and waterfalls and stuff near Pittsburgh.

Oh. And one of the coolest things. Lisa doesn't actually live in Pittsburgh - she lives in a suburb called South Park. Honest to God! I am currently a resident of South Park! So I'm going to wear my hooded jacket and go and stand under the sign and get my picture taken. Then I might die and get eaten by rats - but probably not because my jacket is blue and not orange.

I talked to Mother Hand today and she said I was getting an American drawl. ARGH! Tim said the same thing when I talked to him a couple of weeks back, but he is hardly one to talk because he has the thickest Pompey accent I have ever heard. He's flying out to Vegas to stay with Father Hand on Tuesday - he'll leave April 4th, so we will probably overlap by a couple of days. Then Mr Z is (flights permitting) coming out April 9th, then after he leaves Mother Hand is coming for 2 weeks, and then after that it will almost be camp time - assuming I am working there, because I *still* have not heard a word from them - so that's the rest of my stay pretty much figured out. The year seems to have gone much quicker than expected - although admittedly it is only 6 months over so far.

That's about everything! Keep checking back for the next thrilling installment. Maybe I will walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Maybe I will jump off the Empire State Building. Maybe I will write messages in bottles and throw them off of the Statue of Liberty to see if they at some point get washed up in Bristol (stranger things have happened). Maybe I will go to New York and *not* get mugged! Maybe they will make a snow Sally out of me and I will never be seen again. Maybe...just maybe I will get eaten by rats (or Jamie's mouse). But whatever happens...read it here first

Tuesday 13th March

So much is still happening and I can never seem to find the time to sit and write it all down! I'm having a great time here in Pittsburgh, even though I miss the desert because it has been cold, cold, cold. Thankfully it's warming up a bit now though - it's raining instead of snowing.

Last weekend, Lisa, Ray, Jamie and I all went to Niagara Falls for the day, since it is only about 5 hours' drive from here - which to Americans is nothing. Before we went I called the INS helpline to ensure that I wouldn't have any problems crossing the border to Canada - which is where the best views are - because I didn't have my I-94 with me (the INS centre in Vegas sent it back last week but it wasn't in time for Father Hand to send it up here). The INS told me I would be fine because I have a multiple entry visa.

They lied!

So...we crossed Peace Bridge and got to Canadian immigration. Canadian immigration took one look at my scanned I-94, resplendant with its new stamp, good until September 18th, and promptly refused me entry and made me sign a form saying I withdrew my "petition to cross the border", on the grounds that if they let me in, the Americans might not let me back and then the Canadians would be responsible for my welfare. They really couldn't have been nicer about it, but it was a bit depressing and I felt like a criminal. We returned to US immigration. The lady in there couldn't have been more disparaging. She said, "Don't cross that border cos I ain't letting you back in if you do." Gotta love their politeness! She couldn't understand why I had a "photocopy" of my I-94 and not the real thing - since, she reasoned, if I could be sent a photocopy I could be sent the real thing. I explained 3 times that it was a computer scan but it was like talking to a wall, or, in fact, a dumb American. I scraped and sorried and kissed up and explained what the INS centre had told me when I called them, so she went off to her supervisor and asked about it, all the while eyeing me suspiciously as if I was an Arab with 50 pounds of semtex strapped to my thighs. Then she came back and, in the manner of a school teacher telling an errant child he could go out to play after all, told me that since she could see that all my paperwork was in order and I had followed the correct procedure and wasn't just trying to hop the border for an extension of my visa, she would let me in "just this once" as long as I promised to be back by midnight.

To which I replied, "Oh THANKYOU Fairy Godmother, God bless this wonderful golden nation, how terrible of me to think about leaving it for even a second when you are all so kind and polite and friendly! How can I ever thank you enough! I would grovel before you and kiss the ground beneath your feet if it were not for the fact that my conniving British lips are not fit to graze the soil of this proud land..."

Well, if I had really said that it would have made for a good story. But I just produced the best big toothy happy smile I could (it wasn't easy) and said thankyou about a dozen times. She then got on the phone to Canadian immigration and explained that they could let me in, I could hear her saying, "Yes, it is very strange that she has the photocopy and not the realy thing.." ARGHHH! Have these people never heard of new technology?! On the way back, I got this old bloke who was even dumber than "Bev" (the first lady's name was Bev - she is chubby with short red hair - be on the look out) and had to explain the entire thing again, he just looked like someone had sucked the brains out of his head though his eye sockets and wrote me a new I-94 (which I had to pay 6 dollars for) and stamped my passport for September 18th, seemingly totally oblivious to the entire situation. It makes me so angry - I only wanted to leave for a single day of sightseeing, and they made me feel like I was part of a plot to assassinate the president.

Anyway, that was the only black spot on an otherwise damn fine day. Niagara Falls were as beautiful as I had imagined - even more so, because it was so cold that they were half frozen, and these big chunks of ice kept floating past and going over. The water was really green, and the lake that it was flowing into was half frozen and covered with this wrinkly skin of ice and snow. The strange part is, that the picture that made me want to see Niagara Falls in the first place was one of them half frozen, in a travel brochure when I was a child, and so this was the perfect time of year to go because they looked just like the picture. The temperature remained a chilly zero degrees for the whole day, with a biting wind, but just as we were driving past for one last look, the sun came out and caught the mist and there was this amazing rainbow, right out in the middle. It was like a gift from heaven

On the way home, we stopped at this truck stop diner, which was like something out of a movie - it had a square bar in the middle surrounded by old men in caps talking about trucking and chain smoking. I got a vast amount of food for the bargain price of 8 dollars (this is my rule for the whole trip - don't eat all day, and then eat if there's money left in the evening). The waitress came over to give us our cutlery when we first sat down, and she gave Jamie a kid's placemat with puzzles on it and a little box of crayons, and Jamie looked at her and pointed at me and said, "She wants crayons too." I swear, this is one bright kid - she totally read my mind, but after she'd said it I could hardly ask seriously. I have crayons anyway. But every time we go to the buffet at the Orleans I draw all over the placemat with the Keno crayons. Jamie thinks I'm weird, and secretly only 12. Today she bodily dragged me off of the sofa, and then she squeezed my toes for me which was really nice because my feet were so sore from yesterday (more on that shortly...). Sometimes in the evenings she'll say, "Do you want to know what you looked like when you were sleeping last night?" (because we're sharing a room and I'm never awake when she gets up for school) and then she shows me, with snoring sound effects if applicable. It's just precious.

Yesterday I went to New York City for the day. I got an overnight bus on Sunday night and got into the city around 8am. I found out that they don't offer a one day travel card as my guidebook had led me to believe, and so I was a bit pissed off because I had budgeted for that, so I decided to walk everywhere instead.

I calculated that I walked roughly a total of 139 blocks thoughout the day. My knees still feel as if someone's taken a hammer to them, and by the end of the day I could barely take a step without whimpering. It was just sad. But, on the plus side, I got to see a lot of the city that I would have missed otherwise. I walked through Greenwich Village, and SoHo, and Chinatown, and Little Italy, and I saw Times Square, the Empire State Building, and that really skinny wedge shaped building on 5th Avenue where it meets 6th Avenue, and a lot of Gothic looking churches and and awful lot of kooky buildings besides. I saw "Beau Brummel's" which is a clothing store..and that was very pleasing because last week, Tina and Amanda and I couldn't stop singing "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" out of Annie, and there's a line in that which goes, "Your clothes may be, Beau Brummelly" and I never really got it before. I also saw "Warehouse of London" which amused me. I bought a cap which says NYPD on it, it's the most touristy thing and I love it. Actually I had to play tourist for the whole day which I hated, because I know how much gawping tourists annoy me in London, but I suppose it couldn't be helped. New York reminded me a lot of London actually - but maybe with less Americans. Ha ha.

So, I started walking around 9am with my Starbucks and my camera, and I reached the World Trade Centre about an hour later. The Plaza was, to my disappointment, closed - I wanted to go and stand where Homer Simpson's car got dumped (fiction...reality). I was a bit dejected and so went to sit on a bench to regroup. Then, a miracle occurred. I looked up, and right in front of me was a Krispy Kreme's - and then the hot doughnut sign went on. Choirs of angels massed around me and carried me on their wings through the door. Well, not really, but I was that euphoric. Succoured by my 89 cent piece of heaven, I sallied forth to Battery Park and purchased my ticket to the Statue of Liberty, and then went and waited in line for the ferry. There were 4 acrobats there who put on a free show for the waiting crowds, they were both bendy *and* funny - every time one of them performed an amazing feat the others would run up and down yelling, "APPLAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUSE!" and at the beginning one of them stood up and said, "Don't look at we like we's weirdoes or freaks - we is not all cray zee in dis city, we is just tryin to make a honest livin". I was very amused. When I got to Liberty Island, there was a huge queue to get inside, but I joined it anyway, and waited 2 and a half hours for my view from the crown. I am sorry to say that it was an anti-climax - it's a tiny space and there are plastic windows so I don't even know if my pictures will come out. But nevertheless - I did it - I climbed the 354 steps to the top. I knew all that time on that bloody stair-climbing machine in the gym would pay off! The last hundred or so steps were in the form of a very narrow and steep spiral, I felt a bit like a worm climbing a corkscrew (that's a line from a film, but I can't remember which one). After I'd taken a bunch of pictures from the base (which had an outside viewing gallery) I went and sat by the shore and ate a muesli bar and looked at the view. It was sunny and windless although still a bit cold - but almost my favourite weather conditions - and I sat there and glared at the seagulls which were enormous and thought myself very lucky and very happy. Seagulls always make me think of the time my cat tried to drag one through the catflap - it was bigger than she was because she was still a kitten, and it was squawking like crazy, I don't know how she escaped with both eyes. But now every time I see one I wonder if it's the same one, which is crazy because that one probably died of a heart attack or a head trauma or something. I saw a couple of ducks swimming around too, which was quite surreal because I suppose I sort of associate ducks with small bodies of water. I wrote Mr Z a message in a bottle but then I didn't throw it in the water because I didn't want the ducks to think I was feeding them and then be all disappointed and hungry.

That done, I set out back the way I had come. I stopped for a while and rested in Washington Park and tried to take a picture of this amazingly acrobatic black squirrel that was performing death-defying life leaps thought the trees in front of a pretty church, but the battery in my camera was just about dead so I couldn't. I also saw this strange sky scraper of pinkish-brown marble, which was amazingly high and yet had no apparent windows, and a lot of CCTV cameras around the base. I looked on my map and nearby there's a Federal Reserve building marked, but as far as I could tell this building was a block or 2 over from where that was supposed to be. I decided it was the Ministry of Love, and hurried off without taking a picture of it for fear of them dragging me inside and torturing me. When I told Lisa, she said it must be the Men In Black building, which makes a lot of sense since it's quite close to Ellis Island and all that immigration stuff, so it would figure that outer space immigration would be roughly in the same geographical location.

Eventually, after much walking and whimpering and a sunset, I reached Carnegie Deli, which I had read about on the web as a famous East European diner with the best cheesecake in the city. By this point I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and very hungry, and discovering that their sandwiches went for 15 dollars each did not improve matters, so I just ordered a slice of cheesecake and a diet coke and chatted a little with the man seated opposite me, who was also dining alone. He was up from Miami on business and explained what all the specials were, because Carnegie's is his favourite restaurant and he'd eaten there a lot. He ordered this corned beef sandwich, and when it arrived it was at least a 6 inch thick stack of sliced meat barely contained by a couple of pieces of bread, and most delicious looking chips ever. However, I was not at all jealous because the cheesecake was easily the best cheesecake I have ever eaten. Urrr...I've got chills thinking about it. It was gone far too soon - but happily they ship anywhere within the US so I might get to have some more at some point. The waitress brought the bill over but she'd mistaken me as with the bloke on the other side of the table and rung my order up with his. I tried to give him the money but he wouldn't hear of it, since, he explained, he was claiming the money back from his company, and he insisted on it being his treat. I was ridiculously overwhelmed by his generosity, almost to the point of tears - it was like the whole day was totally blessed because every time I started feeling lonely and sad, something really nice happened.

"God protects the dingbats", hehe

So, apart from the fact I am lame until my poor body recovers from the shock of being used correctly for once, I had a brilliant day. I think I'd like to go back one day and see more of it, since I wanted to go to Central Park, but it would be good to do it in company, since I wouldn't have to ask random strangers to take my picture and then panic about them running off with my camera. Also, being a tourist is easier if you're with other tourists, I think.

We had a funny bus driver on the way home - the bus was going all the way from New York to Los Angeles and he was reciting the stops and then the expected arrival times at them, and he got to the end of the list and said, "Arriving in Los Angeles some time in 2005" which was funny because it was so unexpected. Then he told us all to shut up and ask our neighbour if we had any questions because he wanted to take a nap. I pulled my extremely loud personal stereo/hacking coughing fit/pretending to be asleep shennanigans and managed to keep the seat adjacent to me empty for the greater part of the trip back, which was quite an achievement because the bus was packed. I'm glad I decided to put off going to Washington DC though because I would have been hobbling around growling at people after all the walking and the lack of sleep. As it was, I got back here, talked to Lisa for a while, talked to Mr Z for a while, took a shower and lay down "for a moment" and didn't wake up until Lisa called me for dinner 5 hours later. By that time my hair had merrily dried itself into a disgraceful mess of tightly packed curls so now it looks like I've had a perm. Grr.

Earlier last week, Lisa took me out to Ohiopyle state park which has a few waterfalls - she said it was warm up for Niagara - and it was very pretty and covered in icicles and snow. She wanted me to climb on this particular rock so she could take my picture, which involved clambering precariously across a few other rocks out across the river, but it was a lot of fun. I'd almost forgotten how much fun road trips with Lisa are (grin). We stopped for candy and jalapeno poppers and she showed me all the places that she and the girls swim and jump in along the rapids, and we broke down huge icicles and threw them about on the rocks. Earlier in the week she took me to see a covered bridge in Mingo Park and I made a mini snow man on a picnic bench, and I gave him my gloves and my hat and she added deer shit eyes (no joke..) and made him anatomically correct - and, um, in a *happy* mood - with a pine cone. Jamie took one look and yelled, "That looks like my Uncle Pete in the mornings!" which was just the funniest thing. Lisa said, between giggles, that she shouldn't have been looking and that she should never say that in front of him because he'd be really embarrassed, but he doesn't have a computer so I think it's fairly safe to say it here, since it has such comedy value. After that I lay in the snow and made a snow angel for the first time ever, which was also very exciting.

On Wednesday night we went to the local bar and did karaoke, and I drank lager for the whole evening because it was only a buck a pint. I went from thinking I was sober to being heavily drunk in about 3 seconds, and when we got home Lisa made us eggs on toast and I was reading the slogan on the ketchup bottle - which is "Keeps your buns dry and happy" (because the new Heinz bottles have an anti-drip device to stop the watery stuff from getting out and onto the burger buns, or whatever) - and I thought it was the most amusing slogan since, "Little Debbie's always happy because everyone eats Little Debbie" for the star cakes Tina bought in New Orleans.

Really, my whole stay here has been one long laugh (grin). I got my New Orleans pictures back a couple of days ago and they all came out really well, particuarly the one of me and the sailors, and there's one of me and Jess and Darian with some Irish rugby types we were talking to that I don't even remember being taken, and one of Jess's tits, and one of me being smothered by this very tall drag queen in a pink satin dress in which I look about as drunk as anyone can look, and one of Tina and I pretending to be sailors in our Krispy Kreme hats, and standing under the Bourbon Street sign...I am extremely pleased with them, and I'm dying to get them online but, well, good things come to those who wait and I need to get back to Father Hand and his scanner. I miss Vegas more than I thought I would - particularly the fact that it's the desert, and it's still pretty cold here. But even that's nice - some weather variation is good.

This weekend I'm off up to Madison where I will see some of my friends from camp, one of whom works in an Irish bar - and Saturday is St Patrick's Day. I have never made a thing of St Patrick's Day before, but I have a feeling this might be the first time. This trip is turning out to be even more fun than I expected!

Saturday 24th March

I'm sitting in Denise's car in Indiana, typing this up on her laptop as we go back east across the country from Madison, Wisconsin to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with her cat Artemis, to visit her boyfriend Dan. I have decided that I need a laptop. It's not a desire - it's an absolute need. I may have to knock over a liquor store when I get back to Vegas.

I left Pittsburgh and Lisa a week ago to visit all my old camp friends in Madison. This past week shall go down in history as "The week Bambi ate out every night and only paid for herself twice". It's nice to be called Bambi again, although I often get the feeling that Bambi is actually an entirely separate person from Sally and must thus behave differently. Bambi is the sort of person who runs around jumping up and down a lot and trying to pull freaky cheerleading stunts in parking lots; who stands outside cars dancing to YMCA; who does high kicks whilst shouting "RAR! RAR! double rar coming up...RAR RAR!!!"; who thinks nothing of jumping into lakes in her underwear; who has no shame; who doesn't smoke and rarely swears; who basically acts drunk and silly even whilst sober. Bambi's Vegas is a big sandpit just off camp where she can smoke her Scooby Snacks in peace; Sally's Vegas is sin city where she gets her Scooby Snacks for free. Bambi wears leopard skin bras with lacy slips to Spice Girls concerts, where she dances until she falls over and screams until she loses her voice, then goes and gets drunk and has pictures taken of her arse, while Sally lives (for the past 4 weeks anyway) in jeans and a green sweater monogrammed with the insignia of a distinguished university, and mouths along to her personal stereo. Bambi enjoys folk songs about honour and loving people for who they are, sung by a Girl Scout playing a guitar, whilst Sally prefers angry lesbian folk singers howling about their untouchable faces and unhealed cu...(both Bambi nor Sally have issues with that word). Bambi adores chicken nuggets after eating them three times a week for an entire summer, and likes maple syrup on all breakfast items, including Gandalf's vile egg and hash brown concotion because it's the only way to make it edible; Sally on the other hand will eat pretty much anything as long as it's free. Bambi enjoys spending her afternoons rowing Brownies around the lake and telling them that leeches wear life jackets, whilst Sally just likes to eat brownies (the chocolate ones...not the children...so innappropriate). Bambi likes to spend her free time floating around the lake on a blow up Simba and doing Spice Girl theme leaps off of the raft; Sally wouldn't be caught dead in a white swimsuit in public, let alone mounted on an inflatable lion. Bambi applies Tater's cancer juice to repel pesky mosquitoes; Sally takes the lid of a bottle of mosquito repellent in England and all mosquitoes in a 15 mile radius die instantly. Bambi considers a daily dip in the lake full of Brownie pee to be enough to keep her clean; Sally is having a love affair with Father Hand's shower and really appreciates nobody borrowing her towel. Bambi sees spiders and kills them on impulse, since it isn't worth the hassle of convincing arachnophobic children that once out of a tent they probably won't come back; Sally picks them up by one leg and throws them outside, only to have them reappear with evil expressions on their faces (I refer you all to the Killer Spider from Hell with Scary Mystical Powers saga, August 2000). Bambi throws everyone into the lake fully dressed, although Sally would probably do this too, if she had a lake handy. It is only being called Bambi that draws this out of me, since all my camp friends call me Bambi and they all know me as Bambi. It has been rather confusing, since I've been hanging out with Denise all week, and now I'm calling her Denise instead of DC, and she's calling me Sally instead of Bambi (most of the time) and I am confused as to how to act. I think Denise would appreciate Sally being in her car though, instead of Bambi, since Sally just sits, types, sings badly, and plots how to afford a laptop, whilst Bambi would probably be tormenting Artemis and flashing the truck drivers.

So, this week I have spent quality time with Panda, Reggie, Chile, Neigh, Elmo and Izzy, aka Andrea, Amy, Katie, Naomi, Laura and Liz. We've had a great time gossipping about camp and talking people out of going back ("YOGI'S not going back...you know camp is ruined when even Yogi leaves..") since the Camp Director has by all accounts messed up the entire shebang. We celebrated Denise's birthday at Ella's Deli, where almost everyone on staff ate on 4th July weekend the summer I was at camp - we were 23 in number, ultra obnoxious, insisted on singing grace before we sat down to eat (camp tradition - another thing Sally wouldn't be caught dead doing) and ordered a 35 scoop sundae. Since there were only three of us this time, we just ate real food and made ourselves sick on ice cream sundaes afterwards. On Monday Andrea took me to the bead store on State Street and also to Urban Outfitters (a shop which Bambi considers to be pretentious and overpriced, but which Sally could not live without) where I found 2 unbeatable items in their dollar sale - one reduced from $7, the other from $16. That night we ate Mexican food with Reggie and Denise, and then Chile joined us for ice cream (more ice cream..I am becoming one big sundae, the only thing I am missing is the cherry..har har har) at the Students' Union. On Wednesday Denise's parents took us out for dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant called Benveneto's, and then on Thursday Elmo took me to TGI Friday's and then refused to let me pay. I'm working on the Mother Hand principle - when you don't see someone for a long time, they want to spoil you rotten.

On Saturday night, St Patrick's Day, Panda and I went to McGovern's, which is the bar where Denise works, and although it didn't seem that we drank too much, we did. We ended up smelling the men that came to the bar to buy drinks, since I explained my theory about American men showering more than English men and therefore smelling...different - not necessarily better, but just different. My theory is that even though they wear the same aftershave or deoderant or whatever else it is that makes men smell the way they do, it smells different when applied to clean skin. Anyway, sadly the men we were smelling took it as a come on (why?! it's a sorry world when a girl can't even smell a man without him thinking she's trying to pick him up) so we took pictures of ourselves instead, with the ketchup bottle and with men with tongue studs and...actually we took 17 pictures and I have no idea what most of them are of, so that will be interesting, when I get it developed. Andrea sadly got sick, as a result of not eating all day, but thanks to this we discovered that there was a reason for the bench in the ladies toilet - I sat on it while I held her hair back and soliloquised about the sweet melon smell of a man at the bar who taught at Andrea's old high school. Sweet melons...I have a feeling this is one of those phrases that will follow me around for the rest of my days, since I repeated it so often that night that Denise and Andrea teased me about it for the whole week. He told me what it was about a dozen times, with a patience I have rarely experienced whilst being drunk and obnoxious, but I have totally forgotten, of course. Eau de something. Eau de Sweet Melons

I spent my last week in Pittsburgh recovering from the shock of walking so far in New York, and hanging out with Lisa doing Pittsburghy things. She took me to eat at Eat'n'Park which is a small Pittsburgh chain that serves the original Big Mac. The story goes that McDonald's stole the Big Mac recipe from Eat'n'Park and now they're famous for it. Since I was on my "no McDonald's for a year" challenge, I was enthralled by the prospect of a non-McDonald's Big Mac, and it lived up to expectation. In fact, it was even better than the McDonald's version because it was grilled instead of fried. Unfortunately, we stopped for lunch today in McDonald's and I just couldn't resist, so I have broken my vow after all that anyway.

Lisa also took me down to the Pittsburgh Strip, where we ate seafood in Woolly's and I took pictures of the captive crabs and lobsters and lamented their plight, since they were crawling over each other in a double layer and all I could think of was that clip of nature video of the lobsters marching across the sea bed with their little snouts in the air looking very proud. Lisa said they were happy to be in their tanks - that their sole purpose in life was to be eaten and they had been bred for the purpose, thus they could not remember marching across the Pacific with their snouts in the air. This was exactly what I told Jamie when she wondered aloud if potatoes had feelings (except of course I didn't say they missed marching across the sea bed etc etc) so I couldn't really argue. But it led me to wonder whether lobsters have a longing for the sea that they're born with and whether, as they clambered over the dead lobsters on the bottom of the tank ("Maybe they're sleeping," said Lisa...upside down on the bottom of the tank? Hmmmm....), they sub-consciously knew that they were meant for more; that they were meant to proudly roam across the sea with their little snouts in the air in a long marching line.

After that, we walked down the streets looking in the shops and Lisa bought me a T-shirt with all the Pittsburgh slang on it, and she took me into Premanti Brothers, which is apparently a very famous bar/restaurant with very famous sandwiches, and I got my picture taken with the most famous waitress there whose name I can't remember right at this moment, but she lives next door to Lisa's grandmother and she offered us sandwiches, which consist of sliced meat, chips and coleslaw between a couple of pieces of bread. The place opened as a quickstop for truck drivers, so they make their sandwiches with everything in them.

On my last afternoon there, Lisa, Jamie, Ray and I went to the Chinese buffet and on the way we stopped at the South Park police station and I had my picture taken with a policeman. This will be a good shot to add to my "Policemen from around the world" collection; it will also make a lovely addition to my "Green Hooded Sweater's tour of America" (coming soon!). Then Jamie and I went and stood under the South Park sign with our hoods up and Lisa took our picture. I was happy to escape the place uneaten by rats, although Jamie's mouse tried to gnaw my finger once or twice (grin).

I really enjoyed my time in Pittsburgh and I'm glad to be going back. I thought it was great to be in a place where there aren't very many tourists, because everyone was really interested in me. For example, Lisa and I were standing in the supermarket car park and I was talking to her rather loudly, as I do, and there was this bloke standing there staring at me. Eventually I paused and turned towards him because it was rather freaking me out, and he said, "Oh..oh, excuse me, is that your real accent?" and I said, "Yes.." and he said, "Oh wow, I LOVE YOU! I'm a TOTAL Anglophile, I love your accent, it's amazing..." and so on. I got quite a kick out of that, heh. In Vegas, the majority of the people in the city are tourists so I'm nothing really out of the ordinary - and I think one of the few benefits of being a tourist is that you're a little bit unique to the people around you. When Justine and I went to Cuba, all the Cuban staff were amazed that we were English and not Canadian - I guess they didn't expect girls of our age to be able to afford a holiday in Cuba. They were right!

Sunday 25th March

I am currently a resident of a large house in Pittsburgh. It has wood floors and lots of expensive toys, and I am being spoiled rotten! Last night when we got here, Denise's boyfriend Dan had made us lobster chowder and then we went and bought brownie mix and we made brownies and ate them with ultra strong cocktails and sat up half the night talking, as drunk people tend to do. When I woke up this morning, I was handed a mimosa and a plateful of freshly made eggs benedict, and then let loose on the cable modem for a little while. After that we went out to Dave and Buster's, which is a bar and restaurant with a huge arcade all around, full of racing games and shooting games and penny pushers and all good stuff. We played for about 3 hours and earned enough tokens for me to get a new hooded sweater (although, of course, nothing could possibly replace the Green Hooded Sweater...I'm just in a hooded sweater phase) and a Baby Psychedelic Swine. On the box it says, "I'm a groovy little piggy - turn me on baby, and I walk, wiggle my cute little snout and really shake my tail man! Dig my crazy oinks baby!" I'm completely enthralled with it. When I got the batteries installed and started him walking around, all the fur on Artemis' back and tail went up and she sat on the rug, where he couldn't get to her, staring fearfully. I turned him off a little while ago and she watched him for a few minutes until she was sure he wasn't moving any more, and then she came over to inspectigate (she's a good little inspectigator, says Denise). So, I have just turned him back on and she's sitting watching him and prodding him with her paw. She doesn't quite know what to make of it, it's very cute. Artemis looks a lot like my cat, but without the Siamesey skinniness, so needless to say I adore her already.

When we came out of Dave and Buster's it started to snow, and it got heavier as we drove Dan's white Ford Explorer with leather interior (sigh) back towards his house, and past it to Bruster's, where we bought balls of ice cream (MORE ice cream!) rolled in pecans and topped with hot fudge and whipped cream and the necessary cherry. The ice cream parlour was the quintessential American kind with no inside to it and lots of chrome. You could tell the waitress thought we were crazy as we stood, teeth chattering, in the veritable blizzard that blew into Pittsburgh tonight. But they were really excellent sundaes.

This week, we plan to go to Washington DC and to Baltimore Aquarium, and possibly to Philadelphia and maybe Luray Caverns - basically, Denise, Dan and I are going to tart around the northeast together for a couple of days, probably scarfing down ice cream sundaes everywhere we go. I'm having a wonderful trip, and today consider myself luckier than ever, for 2 reasons. Firstly, Mr Z managed to find a reasonable flight and will be visiting in..da da DAAAAAAAAA!!!....a mere two weeks. This is by far the best news in a long, long time but it hasn't really sunk in yet and I am annoyed because AT&T decided to change the policy on their phone cards just yesterday and now I cannot use them to call English cell phones, in spite of the fact that this was really the only reason I bought them in the first place. So I cannot call and this is upsetting me much more than I thought it would. But such is life, and if this is the worst of my problems then I am truly blessed. The second reason is this: Dan has a laptop with a cracked screen and has been trying to give it away...can you see what's coming?! Major excitement on my part. Of course, it will cost to get the screen fixed, but not as much as a whole new laptop. My luck just gets better and better.