So we’re in calgary and our odometer shows a figure of 175,000 which means we’ve driven ten thousand miles around north America!

ok so i just tried to make the route in google maps, and google maps couldn’t manage it, it found it too big and the page crashed, wicked google!

i have had enough driving for now, and we’re only 1,700 miles from where we started in Los Angeles, but we did take the scenic route, which has been great fun. i don’t think i need to recap here, as everything we have done is down below in this blog. i just have to show some photos!

i’m sat in some dingy econolodge, the radiator wouldn’t turn off, so we have the air conditioning on, don’t tell the environment, but somebody has removed all radiator controls, and the only other option was to sleep with the door open, but maybe the -4 outside would make it too chilly in here.

alan’s just woken now, so i guess time to do stuff.

regina was cool, we had no number or address for the guy who we were staying with, but we did know where he worked, and it all worked out as we arrived when he did, and he even got the night off. so we went and had dinner and saw some bars, alan picked up this pretty but really stupid girl and well it was fun.

yesterday we headed off out on the road for what was the hardest, most boring drive of the trip. we had 500 miles on prairie lands to cross. we had to do all we could to keep from passing out while driving. this involved absolutely horrible music, throwing grapes out of the window to have them crash on the front of the car and general being annoying to each other, but we made it here to calgary to drive past a bar showing the kiwi’s playing wales on tv.

so rugby, pie mac and cheese and a pint made for a nice finish to the day.

there seem to be a noticable number of english, ozzy and kiwi people around here, and i guess it’s the close proximity to the snowy mountains.

so alan has to goto customs and beg for his ski bag to be released and then off we go to banff, can’t wait, mountains, snow, and the lifts open wednesday!!!

photos: alan trying to play patience in the car, our greek breakfast yesterday and the nothingness expanse we drove across yesterday. i notice the iphone photos aren’t great quality, buggar!

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Alan and I have just been to the mall in Winnipeg, narrowly escaping the busyness. I bought a cover for my iPhone because I have seen so many iPhones with smashed screens. I went for the recycled plastic option. We also got some thermals, it’s going to be a cold winter.
So winnipeg was interesting. Out couchhost was a fun girl, plenty of time having recently been made redundant, along with most of her crazy friends but we spent most of the time partying, there isn’t much else to do in that town. It is the grain trading capital of north America.
And the people there are crazy, many of whom walk around making wierd sounds, screaming or talking to themselves. There’s too much winter, no excitement or hope, not even any population growth, the gun crime capital of Canada so we are told.
So we are now in the real prairies, you can see for miles and miles, forward the road dissappears on straight to the horizon and to the sides are endless yellow field where crops grew in the summer.
It’s so straight and boring that they have giant signs to keep you mind active like odometer checks. But no worries if you fall off the road asleep, there’s nothing to hit.
It’s barely above zero degrees and they’re still harvesting.
So wawa was no too interesting, lots of goose statues.
Thunder bay, out host wasn’t too talkative until we got him a bit drunk, and he hit on us.
So the most important thing we did was go to an employment centre to canadianise our resumes. We’ve applied for several jobs now. Not much response yet.
The car is super dirty because I decided to do some off roading just to wake me up from the boring drive.
Oh and I got myself a lovely yellow hat, mmm warm

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Alan and I just swapped over driving, he has to get us the last 100km to Wawa on the north east corner of lake superior. We’ll have driven around 850km, which doesn’t sound much, just over 500 miles, but these long straightish, boring road are tiring.
I can’t wait to get to a motel and lay on a bed, a bed I’ll have all to myself
So yesterday and Niagara falls, I found to be a bit of a dissappointment. Maybe because they are so hyped up, maybe because we couldn’t ride the boat under the falls due to it being winter, but they are real impressive and powerful, but just can’t compare with some of the things that we’ve seen on our tour. At least that’s another thing I can tick off having achieved in my lifetime.
We also crossed into USA, and the town on the otherwise is a dump, dirty, crumbling, boarded up and generally unhappy. We had two errands to do, one sucessful, one not. We did have lunch there, probably cheaper than Canada, but I’m not sad to see the end of USA for this year, ‘oh canada’
After a tedious trafficky drive back to Toronto in rush hour for me, we sat down and got productive. I think that we’re sorted for places to rest on this long drive, and we made a start on applying for work in the Rockies, so go us.
The night ended with pitchers and gravy fries in town.
Oh today we went into one of these drive in lube places for a service. I find it pretty novel that you can just drive up and have your car serviced. It puts my mind to rest that out car is healthy and should be problem free for our drive in the almost wilderness.
So goodbye Toronto, courtney, laura, Cara and all else like city culture and off into the endless prairies we motor.

The photos are; niagara falls, the car in mr lube, niagara falls town and the view I can see out of the windscreen right now.

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Last night super tired after I love you man
Nightmares underground growing progressing each time I fell back to sleep
Then this morning and disaster dreams
To top it off the road construction going on from early.
All in I’ve seem thousands of people die in my dreams, too much bad energy.
I sooo need sleep some day soon.
Well on a lighter note, Halloween was great fun, always great getting dressed up.
So alan went in a suit and my pig mask, a corporate pig. Some of the guys at the party just didn’t seem to understand this concept, stupid.
And I wen as popeye, simple, fun but with a can of beer instead of spinach.
We all had fun playing cards and drinking before we went down to a house party. Then an after party back at courts and well that led to waking up feeling pretty rough yesterday.
But having pizza in a restaurant around the corner, it felt good to see plenty of the employees had been having fun the previous night, not looking tip top.
Alan, Cara, Laura and I went for a walk to Kensington Market, toronto’s Camden style area. We had the idea to have a contest to see who could have the most interesting costume collected on our tour of the shops, and if the picture shows then you can see mine, and I won! So they all owe me a burger from this excellent veggie restaurant across the park, I’ll cash in later and have a great breakfast tomorrow.
So off we’ll go today to see niagra falls, so it should be cold and wet.

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Was the best personalised plate I’ve seen in a while, on an Audi S4, nice.
So now we’re in Toronto headed out in the car to go and see courtney’s dad, the dentist, because has cavities which need sorting now.
So back to the other day and our journey away from America. With ian in the car we had a gorgeous drive up through Vermont to the border, the car clean and tidy we expected the worst. I guess it was a bother that we had to cross the border on the highway, putting us an extra hour out of our preferred route to the cottage.
But upon talking to the border guard, she seemed so overwhelmed by these English guys asking for their work visa that she didn’t even care about our lack of car registration, let alone check our vehicle contents, score 1.
Then inside the building we had to await for a grand 8 minutes and were issued with a Canadian work permit, score 1. It couldn’t have gone more smoothly
So we spent a couple of nights at ian’s dads cottage on lake mamphemagog, peaceful, beautiful totally chilled.
We had a hike up the ski hill, showing us how unfit we are, but the views were awesome.
Then we all had a campfire in the Cold and a BBQ, damn my garlic aubergine steaks were killer.
Wednesday we went up to Montreal. Ian spent all day stressing having left his phone charger in the states, we not having a place to crash, so we stayed in a hostel, so great to meet some random people. And later we met ian’s uni mates for a few drinks, finished off with a tour of mont real to see the city from above at night, stunning.
It’s a nice city, an the girls are gorgeous, but it was time to move on.
So on the boring drive down the 401 to Toronto we got the blue and red flashing lights of trouble. So we got pulled by an unmarked police, very amiable man. But still he issued us with a $170 fine for driving with a radar detector, fair enough, but if we’d known then we wouldn’t have driven with it. So now he has it and we can only guess that in general it’s saved us money on speeding fines on our 7000 mile drive around the states.
So toronto. It’s obviously pretty wealthy compared to most places that we’ve been to on our trip, I’m judging by the abundance of nice European cars and expensive fashion around here.
So the city skyline is nice especially at night with the CN tower pulsing with different colours.
Hangind with courtney and laura and their friends we are getting to see the cooler side to the town, bars and music and it’s great to hang around with some lovely ladies.
So far we’ve been having a great time, though it’s been a while since I’ve not felt tired, maybe linger since we’ve had a night off from partying, but good times.

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Feeling pretty rough in Amherst.
Last night we saw jay-z and it’s was one of the best gigs that I’ve been to in my life. I’m not a huge fan of hip-hop, but jay-z is one of the biggest acts there is. The stage setup was awesome and the live acts awesome. The arena was packed out, 10000 people, all loving it, knowing the lyrics, the energy was unbelievable. The security was totally anal, but it’s cool because the whole experience was such a surprise and gotta say it, sic!
Before that we drank round another student house and it was so stereotypical of an American party, like in the films. Kegs, beer pong, music, girls who love the english accent, general madness.
After the gig we partied some more and now feel pretty tired.
So now we’re chilling, waiting for Christian so that we can find a printer to print off our Canadian work visa because we’re going to cross the border. Ian’s taking us up to his dads cottage for some time out.
America has been unbelievable, we’ve driven over 7000 miles through 20 states. We’ve met some great people, had many once in a lifetime experiences, lots of first times, a trip of a lifetime that words will never quite describe.
I’ve taken some nice photos and will upload some when I find time.
So fingers crossed that we don’t have too much trouble getting into Canada.

Overwhelmed we are.
Right now we’re sat on the Q train headed back to manhatton.
Yesterday we woke up and wandered off to the Bronx to have some food. The Bronx is considered the least safe area of new York. We went to find the real little Italy. It took us time, getting lost but we found a sweet Italian restaurant. So the pizza wasn’t up to our expectations, the guy who ran the place was a great character and singer to boot, i’d say he made my day, shame about the pizza, but the risotto balls were the beat tasting thing I’ve had in this country.
After, we wandered back to time square to find some broadway tickets. The price for hair, musical, was to high so we went to tkts where we got tickets to Burn the floor.
Well off we walked to the Empire State building. It’s a wise move to go there after dark, when it’s bloody cold, because we only queued for 5 minutes. Go us. It’s awesome to see manhatton and the surrounding area by night, but bloody hell, how much electricity it must take to light this place up.
Alan and I headed to broadway again to see out show. We were the youngest guys in there to see it, and it’s certainly not usual for 2 straight guys to go and see a dance, but what the hell, it’s entertaining and amazing and mezmorizing, and the girls are beautiful. If say it was worth the cost. I already had a desire to learn to dance, but this just hightens it. One day, one day.
Afterwards we spent way too long walking around in the rain downtown, in the wrong direction, getting WET. Well, we hooked up with omri and itmar in a bar, where there were too many loud and pretention new yorkers. On to the next bar, too lazy to chat up girls, we chatted to some geeks, and headed to another bar with them. We were treated to a horrible coffee liquor and I spent too much of my time arguing with a pig headed Jewish guy about democracy and war. The highlight after getting lost on the way home was chatting to a guy on the subway. If he’s sucessful he’ll be a super famour millionaire, good luck, bit he deinately has it going for him.
Today it has been grey, grey, and rainy, it makes me feel like we’re in England. Alan and I skipped out on a rainy day at six flags and wandered around Harlem. I’m pretty upset that we didn’t find any ghetto, though I got some stares in on place.
Brunch involved organic wraps, so there was us two White guys hanging about in Harlem outside the organic veg place, super gangster.
We headed down to the water front to be shouted at by a policeman for walking where we shouldn’t, and a policewoman had told to walk there for safety. So we crossed the Brooklyn bridge, some nice rainy photos were taken, and I tried to invade as many photos being taken by other people.
We’ve changed train, but there doesn’t seem to be another train coming, hmmm, maybe we’ve buggered up. I hear thunder.
Well we’re trying to get back from coney island. We went there to ride the rollercoaster, see Brighton beach and whatever else. The amusments are closed down and it was real grey. It’s like a land a million miles from new York, lost in time. We had a bad beer in a crazy rockabilly bar, felt like we were tripping out, intrigued about this strange world, we left before we became a part of it.
So now we sit in this rainy station, are we going anywhere?

I’m on the subway going back to I it Harlem? Wherever we’re staying.
We’ve just been at Madison square garden to watch the rangers play the devils, ice hockey. Well the rangers lost which sucks, but it was pretty fun. It’s a crazy sport, and five minutes in, we were entertained by a fight. The beers were so overpriced at $8.25, but it’s all part of the experience.
The ticket touts also fun, playing these big black men of each other, trying to get the best price without erring screwed over, eg fake tickets.
So D.C. was cool, we were treated by our host to a night time tour of the monuments, while all lot up and not too touristy. Strangest of all was the memorial for the second world war, which is a beautiful monument, more of a celebration than we Europeans are accustomed to, which goes to show the American mentality to war, especially WWII.
Well going out in Washington was dull, but it’s a pretty town.
So yesterday we went to Princeton, super lush, lots of mansions, über posh, and great with the beautiful autumn colour trees. What to say but we partied, got drunk, played pool, danced, sang kareoke, have some terrible photos, chatted about stuff, and cut harry’s hair. Alan managed to get messy, much to the amusement of harry and jack’s dad.
I had to drive into new York, alan being to drunk still this morning, we got lost, and the gps couldn’t even handle navigating manhatton.
This place is crazy and full of so many different people, it’s like being at home.

Moving on up the I95 state to state, the trees are turning to gold and red.
It’s cold now, and maybe too cold for flip flops, which sucks. And I guess tgere is no need for air conditioning until next summer, winter is nigh.
Welcome to virginia our thirteenth state.
Right now we’re driving up from rocky mount to D.C. and still enjoying the journey. The last two days of just driving have got boring, but we have a little bit of a schedule to keep to. They’re pretty hardcore reminding drivers not to speed, do we beleive that the radar detector is illegal?

It’s been a few days. After I last posted alan had a trip to the sea at night, I’ll let him explain this.
Then we drove up to key largo to venture off to the reef. I had my first experience scuba diving, which was fucking awesome. There were sharks, lots of coral and fish. I took some photos down there, some are pretty cool, a lobster tried to have my camera off me, and a moray eel was pretty peeved to be invaded. I was real lucky to have an ex-dive master/driver/instructor as my buddy, so I was in serious safe hands, thanks donna.
Dive sites were pete’s reef 35ft and … 55ft. Not bad that the camera is guarenteed to 33ft and it’s still going strong.

Next up came Miami. I guess we should have expected really, but through lack of sleep were not prepared. Our host rafael from venezuala is a party crazy animal. He has a disliking for chilled out people, and a love for techno.
We went to vegabond, pretty cool, beers for a buck. Three rooms, girls there to steal your drinks.
So Raf raves on about girls. He dent introduce us to his mates, people in Miami are very pretentious, but we met some nice guys. Alan left first through tiredness, and I lost Raf at some point. That left me chatting with Carlos. Oh yeh, there aren’t many Americans, or White people in Miami, an definately not that club. Well I have to say that my favourite Hispanic accents are the colombian and Peruvian. Carlos and I spent time meet people, girls mainly, guys seem to be homophobic and unfriendly, and I ended up dancing with a cute Peruvian girl. So I got a lift home, can’t complain.

Saturday once we’d all managed to get out of whichever beds we woke up in, the three of us headed on down to little havanna for brunch, which was rather lacking in choice for me, c’est la vie. Then on to Miami beach city. A break in the apple store gave us Internet acess. Also something greatly needed, I bought an iPod speaker system. So out main gripe with the car, for we haven’t worried about 12mpg, is the radio can’t maintain a constant volume. So the ghetto fix is to play music from the back seat via a 12V adapter, bangin’ mate!
So after some mighty boosh we made ready to go out, a little rum for the journey, chat with some hobos, and back to vegabond. For good or bad they had vodka drinks for free. I had a good chat with a policeman out for a party. I wouldn’t like to live in a city with such corrupt police as this man, but he was fun, having lost his home in katrina. Of note is alan befriended a hobo later who lost his family and hone in katrina.
So we went to see Bassnectar play in another club. I don’t remember, alan tells me that we had lots of fun, and I have a photo to show for it. All I do remember is accidentally putting my elbow through our hosts glass door in an attempt to get in. Well oops, glad he sees the funny side to it, because it’s pretty stupid

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So today I did something new, I ate fish! I have good reason to.
Alan and I did stuff, and finished off with breakfast burgers while driving across town to meet a man with a boat.
This man with a boat is known as duck, strange, but true. Duck took us on this boat out towards Cuba, until we couldn’t see land any longer.
We went out into the deep blue to fish, deep sea fish. I think we were inspired by the large photograph that grandpa has hung in his house of him stood by a very large marlin, or sail fish I’m not sure, that he caught down here in key west.
We sun creamed up, and from the red patch on my back, I can’t quite reach my whole back, oops! For it was a glorious sunny day, and then we went in search of birds and sea grass. The birds tend to hover around fish activity which they can see much better and from much further then we on the surface can. And the grass makes for a good hiding place for small fish trying to avoid predation.
Six hours at sea went by in very little time. We dragged lines, searching for tuna and dolphin. The dolphin are not the mammels that we all know, but a fish which goes by the same name. And bites we got, catching a couple of dolphin.
This didn’t last long, and so we motored off further toward the horizon. And before long, by aid of the birds, we found more activity. But now this school of fish was hungry and excited. So we used some more classic rods, making for harder work, but more fun. We caught 8 dolphin so far, lost a couple, threw one back as it was too small. Fish polulations need to be maintained.
Time running out we head back to land. But following sone birds we came across commotion, tuna. However there were dolphins, the mammels, chasing them around, so we started the chase. You have to get ahead of them, so as not too spook them by getting too close. Yet to no avail, we caught no tuna.
No matter as we were lucky enough to see some great turtles, who watch us then dive into the blue below. And even more beautiful we were entertained by the dolphins to a dance, some flipping in the sunset!
Alan and I got set up in the supermarket with some olive oil and Ginger sauce, and I made a salad. So the moment came, and it must have been maybe 8 years since I ate fish, but I did, and enjoyed it, but don’t think that I’ll be making a habit of it. Well that’s pretty extreme for me.
The other guys here commended us on our great fish, so yeh, a great day and successful.
What next but to watch ‘into the wild’ and chat about life and loss. It seems that most of us here out of 7 have lost a sibling within the last year, strange, connection, but most of all the realisation that we all go through these strugles and surprises that come at us as we go through life.
So the film has been done beautifully, not to the book, but based upon real life, it is beautiful while sad, but paints well the picture of his life and the effect he left upon the world after death.
And with that it’s that. Another day in America, doing the American thing!

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