This isn’t what I expected from Chicago, but it’s what I got. I had a few down days in Chicago, where I wanted to go out, or at least hang out with someone, but no-one was around, and for a while I felt pretty low, but then I finally got chatting to a few interesting people, then went out for a quick pint with some Irish guy which turned into 9 or 10, and felt a lot better. I went to the zoo whilst hungover and saw loads of cool animals. I’m not really into zoos but it was free and penguins are awesome. Afterwards I laid about on the beach and decided that all hangovers should come with a free beach.
Washington was hot, hot, hot, and extremely humid. I sweated 24 hours a day and generally felt icky. The place was pretty cool though: I saw all the necessary sights to call myself a true tourist. Sadly I didn’t get to go out and see the nightlife much but I made it out with a bunch of people from my hostel on Saturday night into Adams Morgan, which is the cool part of Washington where all the good bars are. I met a guy named Trevor who is motorbiking around the US alone, which sounds all kinds of awesome.
A couple of weeks off from hosteling and sight-seeing makes for boring blog posts, I’m afraid. I’m heading to Washington in a few days so I’ll have more to talk about when I get there, but in the meantime, I’m just hanging out in Lancaster, PA, with some friends of Beth, playing video games and avoiding expenditure for a while. I’m still alive and well though, don’t worry!
While I was in Philadelphia I went to the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is scary and ruined and awesome, and the Mutter museum, which is full of dead babies in jars, and as such also scary and awesome.
That’s right folks, it’s pronounced how it looks: I’m in Conshohocken, PA. That’s somewhere outside Philadelphia, and it’s a lovely little place where real Americans live, away from the tourists and the crazyness of the big cities. I’m out here staying with my friend Beth while she pet-sits for her aunt. Our days are mainly spent pampering the dog, Sally, and the two baby birds, Flounder and Chuckles. All three of them are beautiful animals. Shortly before I spent a few days with her family who were far, far too nice to me and fed me well (Thank you so much!). It was really great to be in a real US household in a real US place, because it has occurred to me that I haven’t really spoken to many Americans since I’ve been here.
This weekend we went to Otakon, a huge anime convention in Baltimore. I don’t really know what to say about it: thousands of beautiful people (as well as plenty of nerds) all in costume, lots of mucking about and people watching, staying in a swanky hotel room, lots of anime to watch (I missed most of it), and a generally awesome time was had. I met some people from Glowsticking.com and talked juggling and dancing for a while, and I finally got to have a decent dance thanks to the Otarave in the evenings. Over here glowsticking is far more common and I got to see some really superb dancing going on.
Woop, I’m in Boston. It’s a really cool city, much nicer than NYC. I can’t really afford to do anything after the extravagance of the last few weeks, but I’ve been very happy just wandering around the city or sitting in the park and reading. Boston has a massive Irish population, which is weird - last night I went out with some Dutch guys to check out the Irish bars. I miss the pubs back home.
