Florida City II, New Orleans I

And relax I did, well and truly. The people were excellent, especially Sweet River Revolver, who I later accompanied back to Miami to get my bus out. Got on the bus (on time! On Time! ON TIME!) and set off amidst a hail (have I used that quirky statement yet?) of worrying text messages: Teri told me Sheffield was flooded and they had no electricity and furthermore her phone was just running out of battery so I wouldn't be able to find more; and Rowan saying "I've just got out of hospital but don't worry and I'm not telling you why". I finally wrung an explanation out of her (also available at rowanwithafiddle.blogspot.com).

ANYHOW after a truly long bus Journey (27 hours hostel to hostel) I got to New Orleans which is very cool although I'm only just about to go and explore properly because I was looking up Sheffield and Rowan on the net first after changing hostels because the first one was horrrrrible although there was a nice guy who was trying to rebuild NewOrleans (it's funny having a city with the initials 'NO' - makes acronyms funny - NO police force, NO-Bank etc) but could only find companies making profit by building houses in the front yards of people's destroyed property. 120,000 people are still displaced after Katrina, by the way, but all the big companies etc are shining fine already.

Was that all boring? I can't tell - I think sleeplessness still affecting me. Pretty sparse of details, maybe I'll put another entry about the same time with more actual stuff on.

Miami III, Florida City I

I'm alive, still, by the way; I haven't yet been killed, but not for lack of trying on the part of the mosquitos down here. I'm staying in the everglades hostel, florida city, which is south of miami and near the everglades (suprisingly) which is a reciepe for insect attack extreme. I just bought some nasty chemical spray, though, so should be alright.

The hostel is fantastic, again, lots of nice people etc musicians (a duo influenced mots by Ani Difranco - hooray) to play the guitars and drums in the lovely gazeboey (best word in this blog so far) thing outside, skydivers, and just down the road from ROBERT IS HERE, the greatest farm shop ever, filled with fruits i'd never heard of and still don't quite believe - dragon fruit?

The last day in Miami was spent examining the hopelessly trendy hordes skating by, then going to a jazz club with Luke the Australian. We saw a pretty odd act (a massive scatting-filled monster-bassy version of 'Fever' complete with some kind of scary erotic dancing) and had a drink - a bottle of beer for $6 - which scared us off until the main act came on -$6 for 6 beers in the supermarket across the street - then returned to dance to the excellent south american band now playing - we bought whiskey, which we figured would be cheaper, but actually cost $10 a go - an entire day's food budget, pretty much. Strong though and the next day travelling by bus, monorail, more bus and foot was pretty much hangover filled. It was worth it though as this is a good place for relaxing. Speaking of which...

Miami II

Two posts in one day? You lucky scoundrels. But I'm in an internet cafe (I bought a radiohead cd earlier - I know I'm bad, but it was only released in America - and I'm putting it onto my mp3 player and 'm also looking up live music in Miami (near the new hostel I moved to this morning which is miles nicer and only worse than the other one by a single count - the beautiful playful kittens that lived at cockroach hostel), and, for reasons too tedious to explain, looking on wikipedia for the history of motorcycles. Really) so I thought I might as well.

I met some nice people (the classic way of meeting people and getting into conversation; they asked me how to pronouce 'tzatziki'. We were in a pita shop, I suppose. Naturally I set them straight) earlier called Mike and something possibly Kate I can't remember. They invited me to their house for a jewish celebration of some kind tonight. I think. Anyway, I'm awaiting a text message. And if I dissapear forever tonight, it's because Mike and maybe Kate kidnapped and ate me. Just so you know.

Fort Lauderdale III, Miami I

I finally made a move. To bring you up to date on the last few days;

I went to the beach. I lay in the sun for about half an hour - my legs shone like pearls studded with the rubies of mosquito bites. I had 'sunblock' on, but pathetic english stuff is no match for mighty floridian sun, and after only 30 minutes some locals came and told me I looked like a lobster, so I retreated into the shade. I had a good time looking at the sky and the pretty beach.
Another day lazing around after that - Blondie gig on TV and a classic game of american football - American-style TV sloth is a part of the experience - I even ate some 'chips'.

Then I scored a lift down here to Miami with Uncy Mike, and returned to hostel-life. This hostel -The South Beach - is the deep end of the hostelling experience (im writing from the front parlour thing so I don't know how nasty I can be in case some of the staff see, but briefly it's dirty and cockroachy and loud and unfriendly and smeeellllyyy boohooo but cheeeaaap)

So I spent the morning walking down the beach here (turn a corner and see a massive postcard with white sand curving into flawless sky sided by a sea which is that shade of blue we all know to mean 'perfect for paddling and for swimming and for frolicking. FROLICK IN ME.'.
I didn't have my camara, but if I did, I would have taken photos of:
-my feet stepping out through inches of perfectly clear water.
-tiny greywhite fish that swam in even the shallowest waves around people's feet.
-topless sunbathers.
-naw, not that last one really.

Anyhow, you'll just have to look up Miami South Beach on the internet - it's pretty pretty though, but with a crazy violent diamond sun to threaten my neck. I'm checking out and moving to another hostel now - Adios.

Fort Lauderdale II

Yo um.

I've pretty much been relaxing amongst the glorious home comforts here. I must apologise to the great number of you who still harbour the illusion that I'm a hard bitten beatnik-bum travelling the highways and gutters of america.

17th I went for pizza on the beach, then got caught in the most enormous thunderstorm with lightning, which was accompanied by a fair amount of rain causing me (Me! An Englishman!) to take shelter in a bus-stop. Apparently I should have done that anyway because of the lightning, apparently, actually being a threat (apparently). Then I looked around the trendy area, saw the art musem closed for renovations and discovered, via the back roads on the way home, that Ft. Lauderdale is secretly like lots of other cities.

Yesterday I went for a swim.

Thirty-Eight Thousand Words

the boat

My cabin on the boat - #1

My nailed down CD player

My tied down TV

My nightime view of liverpool docks.

Oil rig with fire!


My boaty bedroom

My boating bathroom

Alarming sign on my door.

The actual boat, from Philadelphia docks

dc

My bed for the night all the beds were full

The view from said bed

Not the view from said bed

For a moment, I could see this in one direction...

...and this in the other

Tourism

etc

Dubious statement on WWII monument

The lake I boated and felt at home

charlotte, showing off

asheville


Miriam smoking something


My precious hard-won walk





atlanta

Same zen leaf with flash

and without

Where God (jesuslordoflordskingofkings) and I fell in love

Look at the people for Butch Cassidy

and the Sundance Kid

I actually just wanted the abandoned baby shoe, but mother turned up

Flowers I liked

Friendly frog on bench

Crazy glass sculpture

Fat bird, reminded me of Sonic. Hello, Sonic.

Close geese

Asheville III, Atlanta I, Ft Lauderdale I

A day's recovery in Asheville is a shockingly productive activity. After lounging around and making friends (asheville friends) me and Miriam went out for tasty pizza. She paid - perfect pizza. I watched 'Hero', which was ok - not very 'asheville' though.
The next day, however, I truly reaped the reward of the asheville-friend making. I awoke to find breakfast pancakes (six) had been cooked for me by Yana from puerto-rico and Aldi, and they were nice (very). The cool guy whose name escapes me (not pablo) gave me a radiohead sticker for my guitar. Downtown I met, in a nice coffee shop in the bohemian district (one of), a person who had helped me with directions the other day. I next found a brilliant cafe called Loretta's where catwoman (it was superhero wednesday, of course) sat down with me to lunch and told me about a gig of her friend's, playing that night indian music on the chora.
I would have killed to have gone but people were still queueing up to be nice to me and Wallace and Jackie (not wallace stevens and robert frost) drove me to atlanta. Which was superb - they were good company and played good music loud in the car (their friend's band: 'the human art department'). We got to Atlanta and met Mr+Mrs Frost, Jackies Uncle+Auntie, who scared me a little with tales of downtown areas where "white people are set on fire for fun". They drove me to a train station which I could use to get to my hostel. I rolled in safely at 11.30.

The next day I left Atlanta hostel, not so friendly as the rest, and went to the park. I bought a book of Allen Ginsberg poetry from a gay bookshop (I seem to be spending a lot of time in gay bookshops - I think because I just like lively looking bookshops - and now I remember the names of the last two - 'out-spoken' and 'out-write', maybe I should learn to take a damn hint) and took it and read it in a secluded treehouse thing I found in the botanical gardens, which also had some real pretty orchids and enormous insect sculptures.
That evening 'Screen On The Green' happened to be showing, so I went and watched, as the sun went down, 'Butch Cassidy+The Sundance Kid' amongst thousands of happy americans, who cheered when the bad-guys got shot, in the park again. I spent all day in the pretty park, in fact. A man came and told me at one point that God (not just any god, he hastened to add: 'Jesuschristlordorlordskingofkings') loved me because of the peace I understood - he knew I understood such peace because he 'saw me chillin'. The park had lots of what I believe were chipmunks. Cool.

The next day I spoke to a crazy southern man that explained Europe was run by socialists, especially Germany ('noone from the east isn't a communist'), and that Sarkozy was only pretending to not to be socialist, and that was why the poor were suffering. He got very angry when I asked what he was talking about. After reeling for a few minutes, I enjoyed a classic 19.5 hour Greyhound journey south, the highlight (lowlight) of which was the bus leaving the guy I was sitting next to - Muhammed - in a gas-station. I tried to get the bus to stop, but the driver was cold, man: cold. I tried to ring Muhammed but the phone number on his bag didn't work. So there was nothing I could do but stretch out my legs a little further and listen to Paul Simon, who is one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

I just got into Fort Lauderdale and it's brilliant to be here. Say hello to my family of uncles and auties and cousins, and two binny-pigs.