Adventures in the USA: 2011

Previously published on my Tumblr site, I’ve now pulled together here all my blog entries from my adventures travelling around the USA in 2011, so they are now easier to browse and look back on…

USA 2011 Chapter 1 – Dallas and Russell Osman Square

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

So, first stop after leaving London saw me heading to Dallas for a couple of days. Starting things off well, I had a beauty of a journey over, with a free upgrade on the plane waiting for me at the gate as I boarded; surely a good start to any trip. First night in Dallas then involved some brief exploring and a light drink before reality set in as I realised it was actually about 2am UK time and I’d probably had about five hours kip in about two days.

USA 2011 Chapter 2 – Austin: Bikers, bats and Back In Black

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

So, I’m currently sat in my hotel bar and it’s the last night of my stay in Austin, taking it easy before heading out on a road trip to New Orleans tomorrow. I’m also going to try to go into less detail than I did about Dallas or I could be here all night; suffice to say that it has been great here in Austin, a brilliant city.

I arrived here on Friday with a five hour Amtrak journey through the oilfields, deserts and small towns of Texas. As I said in my last post, it’s so much more pleasurable an experience than any train I’ve ever caught in England, especially with the right tunes to soundtrack the sights. I was certainly listening to a lot of Glen, Gram and Gene amongst lots of other country/southern rock.

The Amtrak to Austin

USA 2011 Chapter 3 – On the road: Austin to New Orleans

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

So, it was time to bid farewell to Austin and head off on my first road trip. Picked up the motor at the airport and had decided to go for a convertible, definitely a good choice (you can see the car in question below). The plan for the first day was to head to Galveston, about a 4 hour drive. I set off with “Born To Run” cranked up as the first tune on the iPod, with the power of the Genius kicking in afterwards. I know I’ve extolled the virtues of this function before many times but I am now beginning to worry that Apple are able to directly read my mind, such was the appropriateness of this auto-generated playlist.

My lean mean white touring machine

USA 2011 Chapter 4 – New Orleans: Jimmy Hates Jazz

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

I really don’t like jazz. There, I’ve said it. Now, I accept that saying I don’t like jazz and going to New Orleans (birthplace of jazz and all that jazz etc) is like saying I don’t like snow and heading off to the North Pole. However, just thought I’d put it out there to start my post on New Orleans. You might also deduce that I haven’t had such a great time here in the Big Easy but that is definitely not the case. What I would say is that it is an interesting, sometimes confusing city. And while not essential, it would probably help if you are a big fun of jazz and seafood, not my strongest points as many of you will know.

I arrived here on a Friday afternoon in a good hotel right in the heart of the French Quarter, just down from Bourbon Street, probably New Orleans’ most famous street. I’d heard before getting here that this was the cheesy/ touristy hub and that the best place to go was actually Frenchmen Street, about half a mile away (more on that later). So, wandering out for a stroll to get my bearings I was pretty much immediately on Bourbon Street and quite a bizarre place it is, day or night really.

Bourbon Street, Friday night

USA 2011 Chapter 5 – On the road again: New Orleans to St Petersburg

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

Time for my second (and longer) road trip, driving to Miami from New Orleans. However, I ended up staying for three nights in St Petersburg in Florida directly before Miami so that will get its own post: lucky St Petersburg, eh?

First day saw me heading out of Louisana and towards Mobile, Alabama. The drive was good, with some of it over more swampland plus variable weather too. I’d pre-booked a hotel in Mobile as it seemed a sizeable city, checked in and was perhaps inordinately excited that they had a complementary guest laundry service, so I could actually wash some clothes. Life on the road – the rock and roll doesn’t stop.

Wake Up – Boo Radleys in Sweet Home Alabama

USA 2011 Chapter 6 – St Petersburg

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

St Petersburg (Florida version not Russian city) is part of the Tampa Bay area alongside the slightly larger city of Tampa, a zone probably most famous in the UK due to the NFL’s Glazer owned Tampa Bay Buccaneers, although the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team actually play in St Petersburg itself. I chose to stay in St Petersburg (or St Pete’s as everyone calls it) as it was meant to be a bit more relaxed than Tampa with a livelier nightlife so that sounded the best place in this part of Florida to visit en route to Miami. I ended up staying here 3 nights in all as I realised that leaving on Sunday morning as per my original plan probably wasn’t such a good idea; a decision made on the Saturday morning when feeling a little delicate really.

After arriving Friday afternoon and scouting out the city, I went on a huge bar crawl, starting at this great sports bar called Ferg’s, right by Tropicana Field where the MLB Tampa Bay Rays play. An old converted petrol station originally, this place is huge and I can imagine is very lively on match days. Met some new “buddies” there and had a great night moving all around St Pete’s, resulting in probably my biggest hangover of the trip yet. Also, saw some massive tropical storms on the same day that Glastonbury coincidentally (or not) started.

A cheery welcome from the local paper in St Petersburg, which I read in between some torrential downpours in the “sunshine state”

USA 2011 Chapter 7 – Miami: quite a sound machine

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

Final road trip and the car safely returned, it was time to see what Miami had to offer. I stayed in South Beach in Miami, which is its main holiday destination but is frequented by locals too so not a “tourist ghetto”. It’s also where the Art Deco district is and I stayed in a great Art Deco hotel there: really well preserved, fantastic pool, private beach behind and the hotel interiors made you feel like you could be in an episode of “Mad Men”, especially the impressive lobby and martini bar.

I did get out and explore other parts of Miami though, including a boat trip around Biscayne Bay that was pretty good and very funny. About half of it seemed to consist of going round this exclusive island where many stars live or have lived. Our guide would point these out and then a blast of music would play out: for example “here is Ricky Martin’s house, he likes living La Vida Loca” (cue music). This was very funny every single time it happened. We also saw Gloria Estefan’s house, someone I had totally forgotten about but it would appear that Miami Sound Machine are to Miami as The Beatles are to Liverpool. The piece de resistance though was seeing Tony Montana’s house from Scarface, accompanied by “say hello to my leetle fren” and sounds of machine gun fire. Obligatory photo of the house shown below.

Say hello to my leetle fren. Yes, it’s the “Scarface house”

USA 2011 Chapter 8 – Boston: Red Sox and rum & coke

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

After a flight up from Miami with more turbulence than I can remember on any plane, which I found very entertaining and exciting although I don’t think this was shared by most of my fellow travellers, I landed safely in Boston. I’ll say up front that I really liked Boston as a city; I had more than a feeling that this would be the case and it was certainly true. Due to its historic status, it’s often stated that it feels more British/European than other US cities, which makes it much easier to navigate on foot although the street layouts are also more European so it can be harder to know exactly where you are – no grid systems as are more typical in the US.

“Let’s go Sox”. At the ballgame at Fenway Park in Boston

USA 2011 Chapter 9 – New York: Timmy Malletts, thousands of ’em…

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

Another day, another US city then, but this time it was the biggest of them all and the only place I had actually previously visited as well. For this reason, when planning my trip I had actually contemplated not going to New York only to think it would be pretty odd not to visit such a great city while travelling down the North East American coast. And while it is undoubtedly a great city, I would say that I actually didn’t enjoy my time here as much as many of the places I’ve visited so far.

Upon disembarking from the train at Penn Station, the famous bustle of New York was immediately noticeable, even more than upon my last visit. Of course, this could be to do with the fact that last time I had come directly from London and was only having a week’s break from my job whereas I have now barely spent much time in the land of the beefeaters since April and not worked since the end of March.

New York’s High Line