Sweet Home Alabama

Well well folks - i'm now 1000 miles away from where i was when i last blessed y'all with a little Aaron-esque chatter!!

Since then soooo much has happened, and i only have 10 minutes to type it up so...

New York was awesome, and i made some awesome bud's in my room - namely Brooke from Oz (i spent all my time with her whilst in NY... fun times... i'll leave it at that haha), and Olof from Sweden - we hit NYC at night and had a few to drink, which was awesome. I ended up walking over 100 blocks that day by accident. I'm too cool it seems!! But the skyscrapers... wow... looking forward to re-arriving there again at the end of this trip!

Also had my first experiences with the ol' Greyhound, which i gotta say - isn't as bad as people have made out!! It's actually pretty comfy and 99% of the folks on it are sound as a pound too. Been on it twice so far - once from NYC to Washington DC, and from there to Birmingham, Alabama - where i currently am!!

DC was pretty cool too - i just went on a rampage taking photos of everything, as well as going out for a cheeky few with some folks from the hostel, which was ace. It's taken me over 20 hours (900 miles) to get to Birmingham, Alabama... and was it worth it?? Maybe... It's not that it's lame here, it's just that it's SUCH a departure from the North-East coast - there's no hustle and bustle, no liveliness - i love that chaos, and this place lacks it. What it DOES have is about 10,000 car dealerships and every random fast food joint in the world... including (to the best of my memory): Popeye's, Sonic, Mom & Pop's, Wanda's Waffles, Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Pizza Inn... etc etc. Hell, i thought that Sam L. Jackson was making up those names in the opening scenes of Pulp Fiction, but it turns out not!! Though i haven't seen a Big-Kahoona-Burger ('that Hawaiian joint up on 3rd') - again that's a reference that'll be lost on too many of you!!

Oh, and while i remember - i'm living the Forrest Gump dream - i'm slowly re-enacting that movie!! In DC i went to the huge spike thing (which i referred to as 'The Spike' to every local, which may have horrified them as it's 'The Washington Monument', but they'll get over it!), just as Forrest does in the movie... but alas there was no Jenny to come running out to me. And now i'm in Alabama... though i don't quite fancy running like Forrest as it's easily 28oC plus!! I'll soon be down on the bayou (swamp to me and you), come 3 days time!

Speaking of ladies... i came to the south thinking it'd be overrun with Southern Belle's. I loooove that southern accent on a lady - it's the draawwwlll, but none have been under the age of 30 in Alabama... i still have hopes for New Orleans, Memphis and Texas, which will be my next three stops!

On another vaguely-linking paragraph - my accent seems to get me quite a bit of attention!! On the VERY first night there were two Canadian girls sharing the room with me, Olof and Brooke, and they just sat there looking blankly at me - which i thought was peculiar, but figured it was down to my awesome good looks (joke haha)... but one then piped up 'i love listening to you speak', which was all well and good... and then was followed by 'you sound like that guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall'. That's a film by the way, and that 'guy' is in fact Russell Brand. Now, forgetting how much i think the guy is a total legend, i sound nothing like him - i sound neither cockney nor Dickensian! I took it as a complement though. It's amazing how many US folks think i'm from London... or Australia... weird.

Anyway... i've just about fit everything in. I'll be back in touch when i hit NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana), which'll be around the end of the week. I want every day to last forever (except bus days), but also can't wait for what lies ahead... Vegas, Cali, Texas, ALASKA etc... exciting times!! And Hannerz mate - you best be ready - i'll be walking the walk and talking the talk by time we hit Cali and Vegas!!

Hope you're all well folks!

Aaron! x