John and Tom

(John) Well, I may have seen the Statue of Liberty, the Empiter State Building, the White House, and lots of other famous buildings, but only now, having endured a 17-hour bus journey from Washington to Chicago, and then lost my bag for three days, do I really feel I've experienced life as a traveller in America. Having got up at 6am, and then arrived in Chicago at 12.30am the next day, all I wanted to do was find my hostel and go to bed, but the bus officials contrived to lose my bag somehow. Fortunately, it has now been recovered, but I had to live a serious back-to-basics lifestyle for three days, surving on only the set of clothes I travelled in, a couple of books, and a pad of paper and pen. It was certainly a memorable experience, I can now really empathise with Jack Kerouac. Some things I have noticed about America thus far: people in cars like to beep their horns for no reason, dogs are friendlier, shops tend to try and outdo each other in terms of who has the best punning name (e.g Bloomingnails for a manicure place), girls love a guy with an English accent (I'll say no more on that one...), their sports are far, far, inferior, food is cheaper and bigger, the cities and public transport system are easier to navigate. Next stop is South Dakota (Mount Rushmore, etc), then on to California. Oh, and the weather's nicer, I'm working up quite a tan out here. All in all, life is sweet.