Drivers and Drinkers

I have never played real golf before. My mini-golf/crazy-golf ability is limited at best. So my uncle (for lack of a better description), took Ed and I to a driving range. We tore up the golf course. Literally. The beautiful green ground magically turned to an uneven pile of dirt beneath our feet.

I must say I hit a few nice balls and could understand why people enjoy this game. Still not sure I'm willing to admit it's a real sport though. I believe I was better than Ed at driving the ball even though he had played before. On the other hand, he probably disagrees with that analysis, and I was using a driver mostly while he used a 7 iron. I'm still convinced I'm a natural, despite having terrible spatial awareness. Then it was on to the batting cages for an attempt to demonstrate our abilities at America's favourite pastime. As with the golf, those abilities were severely limited.

Now for the embarrassing part. Left on our own in a bar while the rest of my family goes to a recital, we have two tasks presented to us. One is to pass the time, the other is to get dinner. We succeeded in one of the tasks. In a bar Ed began talking to someone who claimed to have known someone from Pavement, one of Ed's favourite bands. So we put off getting dinner in order to accommodate his fascination, but kept drinking. After a certain amount of Budweiser the dinner no longer seemed important while the continued consumption of beer seemed a brilliant idea.

This part is mostly not remembered by me or Ed but it sure sounded amusing as I was told it the next day. Apparently when our family returned from their recital I went "Oh no! This is embarrassing. Drunk with my family". Then they very kindly paid our bar tab for us, but told us to take care of the tip. We asked what a fair tip was, the barmaid said "whatever's fair". I tried to explain that in England the bartenders never really get a tip "would you find that fair?". No. Then Ed emptied his wallet and thrust over all his money, adding "you're very beautiful". She kindly returned most of it, probably keeping a 20 or something like that. Following that, as we were leaving apparently I turned to my relatives and said "I think we need to pay the bill". On the way home, Ed leaned out of the window and casually threw up outside. With plenty spilling back onto my uncle's car.

Three in the morning and as a punishment for my sins, or as a logical consequence of consuming a lot of liquid, I have to use the toilet. The house is very dark so on my return I'm not entirely sure which room Ed and I are staying in, but I'm fairly sure it's the one I found. Then with a last minute epiphany I decide to double check, "Ed?" I whisper out. "Jen?" comes the reply in a southern accent (American southern). I back out carefully knowing that I had nearly climbed into bed with my relatives which would have probably caused some surprise in a best case scenario.

It was also on this day, probably spurred on by liquid courage, that I decided to buy my uncle's old car that he was selling. Yes dear reader, three Greyhound bus journeys and we were already sick of it.

Pilot Mountain

Family reunion on Pilot Mountain. Plus Ed. We had a lovely picnic on the mountain, a place with a great view of the surrounding scenery. Met many relatives I hadn't seen in years, or didn't really know that I had. Everyone was very friendly, and the relative who's birthday we were celebrating was delighted with the Euros I gave her. Accidentally. My mum had spent a lot of effort finding a great gift, and I had been tasked with carrying it in bag. In the same place as the present there were also a few loose coins floating about, and about 3 cents worth of European money found its way into the gift bag.

There was also torrential rain on the mountain side. The first rain we had seen since arriving in the country. I don't remember exactly but it may have even been the last time we saw rain in the States. Luckily we were beneath a roof. Even with the rain, the place was still very hot, hikers even went by with their shirts off.

Then we went to a golf club to watch England play the USA in the World Cup. I'm sure every English football fan remembers that unfortunate attempt at a save. A horrific moment made all the more brutal by being exposed to a certain American commentator. An idiot who declared with conviction that "Dempsey's shot was a great shot because it was on target". You could argue that it was a great goal with its greatness resulting from entertainment value. However, it definitely wasn't a great shot, or a good shot, in fact it resembled a pass more than a shot.

After watching fellow countrymen fail to win a game in a sport they had invented against a country that had only had a real league since 1994, it was our turn under perform. I hadn't played basketball for several years and even when I did play it was only intermittently. I had never seen Ed exert himself beyond going for a long walk, usually to get to a cinema. However, it was still an embarrassingly bad performance that saw us lose a game to my...I guess I'll call him uncle to save working out 3rd cousins/removed stuff I don't understand, and his young daughter. Who we kept running into accidentally and knocking to the floor. Luckily I will always have the fall-back excuse I'm not tall enough for basketball.

Country Roads, Take me Home

Now for the big one. It wasn't the longest trip we had to take on a Greyhound bus, but it was the longest one so far. The first test for the legendary bus company.

It didn't start well. The problems we had faced earlier with our tickets had perplexed the staff who then spent a ridiculous amount of time searching for a solution. Here, in a much busier station than we had yet been to, solution was the farthest thing from the cashiers mind. She began shouting at us on production of the sheets of paper that should be exchanged for tickets, "WHAT IS THIS?"

"It's a ticket, honest."

"I'VE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE". Thankfully, a woman who had experienced these strange sheets of paper came to our rescue. Not just for that day, but for the entire trip. She exchanged them for the proper American tickets that we really should have been given on our first trip.

At the cafe in the station Ed ordered some slush. He was given a bucket. It was more than even this ice-craving maniac wanted but he made a good job of it, I think he even finished it. He admitted later "it wasn't even that nice".

Neither was the bus journey. Though it could have been a lot worse. After waiting in a long line to board, the only seat available to me was next to a rather large man wearing a baseball cap who was taking up most of the two seats available. At least the aisle seat gave me some legroom. He seemed like a perfectly nice guy but I was still very glad to see him get off at the first stop.

My next sitting partner was a chatty lady from Florida. Not chatty to me though. Perhaps the sun and shadows were reflecting the words fuck you off my face. Or perhaps my often inexpressive face simply suggested it. However, she did begin a conversation with nearly everyone around me in the segregated part of the bus.

Now, I don't think this segregation was consciously intentional, but for one reason or another nearly every member of the white minority decided to congregate near the back of the bus where I was sitting.

I learnt so much about this woman, her job, her upbringing as "an army brat", her home in Florida, her two day journey from Maine. I learnt all this and she hardly said a word to me. Instead she decided to give her neck a workout by keeping it in constant motion swaying from one topic with the people behind us to another to the people on our right and a few questions for those in front. Again a perfectly nice lady, but still I felt somewhat relieved that I didn't spend the entire journey sat next to her. Far more entertaining was the man who sat next to me after she decided to move away from my unfriendly presence.

Now this guy claimed to have never ridden a bus before. And he demonstrated it brilliantly by breaking most of the rules/suggestions set out by the bus driver. Especially the "do not have loud phones or phone conversations, do not use walkie talkie technology as it interferes with the system." This man didn't even know how to turn his phone off (neither did I but that is a different story, bloody iphone), the constant beeping, loud whispering and just plain ignoring all the sounds coming from the phone began to seriously irritate what had been a largely catatonic bus crowd.

For some reason neither Ed nor I can explain, after exiting the bus after about a 9 hour bus journey, we decided to go around and enter the station through the back. A lot of things make sense after 9 hours of having your brain on standby. Completely missing the person who was meant to pick us up. I barely knew what he looked like, though he is family I hadn't seen him in years and had just been shown a small photograph which I had already forgotten. Eventually he found us and managed to recognise me. We had arrived in North Carolina, the home of my ancestors. Well some of my ancestors. My recent ones. Recent ones who had lived in America. So I was home in a strange and poetic kind of way. But not really in a realistic or factual kind of way. It still felt good.

Happy Birthday Mr. President

Even more trouble at our next Greyhound venture. The cashiers had to phone the UK to get confirmation that these were real tickets. Bloody Sta Travel. When we got on to the bus the loader whose job it was to lift bags on to the bus had an issue with my bag. "It's too heavy" he complained, "have you had it weighed?". I hadn't had it weighed, but later weighing would show that my bag was 51 pounds, roughly one pound over the Greyhound limit, which would usually be ignored anyway. This guy had no authority to make a decision, even if his back was the one breaking. I would have put it on myself but that just wasn't done. Again the bus was very nice, part of their newer line of models I believe, with wifi connection and slightly more legroom.

Finally we arrived at a busy bus terminal. In the capital, Washington DC. After meeting our host for this trip, a professor at George Washington University, Ed and I set off for The White House. Someone passed us on a Segway, that ridiculous looking contraption for people with enough energy to stand up but not quite enough to put one leg in front of the other. Then a whole group of them went by, all wearing helmets. I had never heard of a Segway gang before. On closer inspection it seemed they were part of a group offering Segway tours of Washington. This made it all less ridiculous. Slightly.

Ed and I were both amazed by how small the White House seemed. We had expected it to tower over us with an grand enormity that typifies the American style. But it just seemed like a normal suburban house owned by a well to do family. Apart from the police presence and the various political commentators (read nut-jobs) trying to make a point to Obama and the other passers-by. Well, when in Rome...my political adviser was of a Tea Party persuasion.

A Tea Party fan whose eyes lit up when we mentioned we were British, how ironic. She had a sign with Obama defaced to look like Heath Ledger's Joker, and a stereoplayer playing eerie music. She would later tell me that this is the music that is playing in heaven right now. Dear reader, I would love to be able to tell you where you could find the soundtrack to Heaven's background, but I didn't think to ask, so you shall have to make do with your Lady Gaga CD/download for now.

Ed left the conversation early on, when Obama was referred to as a socialist and communist. I can understand that frustration, American critics of socialism almost always seem to have a huge support of the US military, one of the largest social institutions in the world, implying that they either don't fully understand the meaning of socialism, or that the word has been so politicised that it has in fact changed meaning in American English. However, I was interested to hear what the woman had to say. I knew very little about the Tea Party agenda and was interested to learn more. Plus we didn't have much else planned. Explaining that I didn't share her Christian faith was no barrier to her enthusiasm, nor did it stop her rationalising everything thing through a Christian doctrine. A very limited Christian doctrine, focusing on the Book of Revelations, which I have never read but have been told it is filled with horrifying images. She asked me if I had a Bible, which I did, planning to read it on our bus journeys. She told me I should start at the back, with Revelations. But, as I explained to her, I didn't want to spoil the ending. Before leaving she decided to pray for me. That probably wasn't such a bad idea.

Ed wanted us to buy "Obama is the New Hope" t-shirts just so we could walk back past the poor woman trying to save my soul from communism.

After that, we decided to check out the Clinton monument. Obviously it is the Washington monument but remembering a joke from Ahmed the dead terrorist sketch where it is suggested a better name is the Clinton monument I kept accidentally referring to it that way.

We saw more of the sights that DC has to offer, a beautiful lake by the Capitol Building, we walked to where we thought the Supreme Court was but I can't say we really found it. Damn iphone. We only found the Library of Congress, completely useless without a DC library card.

Finally everyone had told us to go to the Smithsonian, so we decided to do that. What people didn't tell us, probably assuming it was common knowledge, was that the Smithsonian is a collection of about 19 different museums. Also, no-one mentioned that they were all free entry until it was too late. So we decided to see the main Smithsonian building. But the main Smithsonian building, or the centre, is more like an information point. Not really very interesting, but after all our walking we were in no mood to go looking for another museum.

I loved the architecture in DC. The buildings were older than most American buildings, but they were still modern in comparison to old European architecture. They mark the beginning of a new country, a new society, but the beginning of a place that began very late.

We seriously considered staying an extra day in the capital. It certainly would have been nice to see more of the Smithsonian and we had scheduled extra time on the West Coast to allow for extra days. However, I didn't want to use up all that extra time too early, and I had already confirmed with the part of my extended family who were hosting us in North Carolina that we were coming the next day.

Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness

I like to read. I read a lot. But when we went to AVAM, the American Visionary Art Museum, Ed read every last detail. It took him hours to go through the museum, our host worried if we would be back in time for dinner.

Admittedly, the museum was very interesting. Visionary Art is defined as "art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself". Thank you Wikipedia. If you want to take a cynical view, you could argue that it is crap put out by the rejects of society. An area of expression for the criminal and the insane. It may well be that, but it is also brilliant.

The bottom floor was filled with signs from one Jesse Howard. A farmer who had a couple of signs vandalised, he responded by creating more signs, directed at the vandals. They responded by vandalising these signs. He responded by... well you can see where this is going. Hundreds of signs later, problems with neighbours with shrivelling land values and an eyesore, a government sick of complaints. I don't remember all the details but I believe the government at one point removed some of his signs. Which he responded to by putting up a new sign saying "The government took all my signs away". This delightful insanity was just a fraction of what the museum had to offer. Art from tortured and self-proclaimed innocent (or close to innocent "I was in Al Qaeda but only because I needed a job, I didn't know what they were going to do") inmates at Guantanamo Bay.

After our fill of museums, tortilla chips and another excellent meal featuring the Baltimore specialty crabcakes, it was time to head out again for a night out. This time without our neighbour, who we never saw again. Fell's Point is the main spot for drinking in our area. The first bar we went to was of course, an Irish bar. Again the only thing making it Irish was the green décor. So were we out and on the Boh. In the second bar we were explained that there were messages on National Bohemian bottle caps, or under them. In picture form. For example you might have a picture of an eye, a picture of a wave and hand pointed at you. The translation would be I see you. They were better than that but I can't remember what the messages were. I suppose they serve as crossword puzzles for the drunk. Eventually we found a message that no-one could decipher, not the barman or his designated expert. Ed held on to the lid in hopes of making an interpretation by the end of our trip. I think he lost it at some point, we still don't know what it said.

In the third bar, some drunk American guy came in and bought us a round of Candy Floss Bombs, presumably because we are British. The Candy Floss Bomb barely tasted alcoholic, but the drunk guy nearly couldn't get it down. He left soon after, but not before imparting his inebriated wisdom. In discussing possible racial tension we might encounter as privileged white boys travelling on the form of transport utilised only by the poorest members of US society, I was told "but you're not white, you're British. "

Charm City

7.35am, we arrive in Baltimore, go to our hosts house, and go to sleep. Then we go to the aquarium. Ed has been told that Baltimore has a great aquarium, and that's about all it has to offer. The aquarium is a very interesting place, filled with various strange and wonderful fish, including the Barramundi, a fish that typically starts life as a male and naturally turns into a female later in life. It looked fairly tasty.

We saw a dolphin show, as you do, playful creatures. They didn't look as tasty. But you never know. Sharks move constantly, this means that unlike lions in the zoo, they never look defeated. They look like predators, constantly searching for their next kill, even if they are restricted to a few square metres of water.

After that, we wandered around the harbour and went to a book store. We didn't buy any books, it seems that people tend to go to book stores for coffee rather than books. So we had a Starbucks. Ed ordered a hot chocolate. On a boiling summer day, in a humid city.

Later we had another exquisite meal cooked by our host, to balance out the fast food crap that made at least half our diet by the end of the trip. Then we went with our hosts neighbour (who provided essential beer) to a park where a Johnny Cash cover band was playing. After they finished we watched Walk the Line on a large screen. Little flickers of light started appearing around the park. At first I assumed people were just lighting cigarettes, but I don't think you can smoke in USA's parks anymore. Eventually I realised they were fireflies. So Baltimore, a city depicted by TV show The Wire as crime ridden and run-down essentially provided us with a vivid experience of wildlife.

After that we went to what our neighbour described as "a white trash bar". Ed was giddy in anticipation. We decided to try the local delicacy, a beer called National Bohemian. Or Natty Boh for short. Or Boh for even shorter. I have never been served a can in a bar before after asking for a beer, a can on a napkin seemed even more absurd. I wasn't a huge fan of the beer, but it wasn't terrible and it didn't have too strong of a taste.

Out of nowhere, our neighbour, who we had just met, starting telling us about his relationship problems. In detail. I wasn't too surprised by this, having once sat on a bus from Chatham to Boston, MA listening as a man behind me described his entire love life over the phone to his friend on the other end. It's probably healthier I guess just to get all your problems out there. It's cheaper than psychiatry. But I could never be that open with a person I had just met, or even knew for a while. Unless I was drunk.