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.
Phoar, it’s been a busy week. On Monday morning I met a couple of girls, Romi (Australia) and Sarah (Scotland), who were awesome. Sarah and I ended up going to the Natural History museum and later we met up with Romi to generally run around and eat and suchlike. In the evening we got drunk and played a card game called Spoons with some others from the hostel, including 2 new guys, John (Britain) and Dave (Ireland). We decided that everyone would be known by their nationalities at that point and I’m struggling to remember real names.
Hello from sunny New York, blog fans! I’m currently sat in a Ben and Jerry’s bar somewhere near Times Square, which is the only place I could find that would sell me net access.
I arrived at my hostel last night after 15 hours travel, soaked through with sweat and utterly running on empty, but feeling good. Harlem is a really exciting place and it looks exactly like the movies said it would. New York subways look just like the ones in Silent Hill. Basically, modern culture has prepared me for life here.
Well, believe it or not, I’ve finally got round to organising myself, and I am now in possession of a rather expensive collection of flight tickets that will take me around the world. My flights are as follows:
London - JFK, New York 30th June 07
New York - LA Airport, Los Angeles 16 Aug 07
Los Angeles - Nadi, Fiji 30 Sep 07
Fiji - Auckland, New Zealand 10 Oct 07
Christchurch, New Zealand - Melbourne, Australia 30 Oct 07
Cairns, Australia - Singapore, Malaysia 5 Jan 08
Bangkok, Thailand - Heathrow, London 15 Feb 08
The last 2 flights are subject to change depending on how long I work in Australia.