The walk and the fact that I hadn't eaten anything yet was making me so hungry, I couldn't bare it any more and decided to get some food in the festival thing. I chose a burrito as I was curious as to how it would compare to the one at Juan's in New Orleans. It wasn't quite as good but it would do, it was really nice but only had one kind of meat, I went for beef over chicken. Plus it only cost me about $6 and was filling enough to keep me satisfied for a short while at least. We didn't get too far into the village before we ran into trouble. I say trouble I'm not implying anything bad, just an inconvenience or something we weren't necessarily expecting. We knew there was some Gay Lesbian Bi-Sexual and Transgender march today going through the city somewhere but had no clue where. It made sense that it be in the village as there is the gay area of NYC. There were roads closed off left, right and centre and police everywhere you looked. The place was mobbed, to get from one side of the road to the other took about five minutes no exaggeration. We were still looking for a bar but couldn't find anything that looked worth going in, by that I mean cheap as none of us really has a budget for going to one of the more sophisticate establishments around here.

The next morning we woke up early as it was a big game for most people, England were playing Germany in the first game of the knockout stages. Germany looked very much on form and England were looking dare I say it 'awful', not as bad as Italy were so there is a positive in my statement. Last night we were joined by a German guy named Fabian, he was very passionate and made it funny because of the bater between him and the guys from Leeds. We went to midtown Manhattan to look for a bar that was showing the game, we had to leave around 10.00am or as close to as possible to give us time to get down and find a bar. False advertising everywhere we looked. All of the bars said that they were showing most if not every world cup game but most of them didn't open until after midday. This was ridiculous, none of us were standing for it but were fast running out of time so we walked around and round looking for a place to watch it. We found a saviour in the most bizarre of places. The Burger King outside of Madison Square Gardens had TV screens on every wall and were showing the full game complete with sound. As soon as we walked in Germany scored their first goal, the game was already off with a bang. I could not eat a single thing as my belly felt a little off from all the beer and bad fast food so I settled with a big, massive cup of iced tea. We stuck around to watch the whole game then when it finished the banter began between Fabian and the guys from Leeds, to be fair it was a game riddled with dodgy decisions one costing England a goal but from Germany's performance I thought no matter if the goal had been given or not, they would have still won. We were with another Irish girl, she had been at the hostel and came along to watch the game then had to get a train as soon as it finished from New York's Penn station. We were across the road from it so we said our goodbyes then we headed off downtown towards Greenwich village. We walked down and ended up in some Mexican market/street festival thing, it wasn't very big but took up a whole block outside of the Chelsea hotel. I always thought that the Chelsea was supposed to be some fantastic hotel but on the outside it looked pretty average, if I had the money I would stay at the Waldorf Astoria or the Plaza.

That night some of us planned to go out but once again ended up drinking at the hostel again until we all realised that it was about 4.00am and some went to bed but I couldn't stop watching this infomercial about some blenders or something. The advert was set up like it was an actual programme not an advert, there was a fictional family with friends all played by really bad low budget over the top actors. I couldn't tell if it was a real advert or if it was some comedy show, it was funny and it was the most stupid thing I have ever seen but I have to admit after I sat there for nearly an hour watching it I wanted the product they were selling. There was something called a magic bullet, sounds like some sexual toy but it was a miniature food processor. The other was some all purpose bigger food processor. While I'm on the subject of informercials, there is this product in the states called a 'shake weight' I don't know what to call it other than a thing that supposedly works on your upper body strength and muscles, it looks like a dumbbell with springs on either end and it shakes from side to side. The video clips on the advert look ridiculously sexual and the women’s version is even worse, I think they might have even banned that advert as I haven't seen it in a while. After the informercial finished I went to bed, this time it was only about 5.00am so not quite as late as last night but still rather late.

I'm wondering to myself if the guys from Leeds know my friend Harry from back home, he went to Leeds Metropolitan University and they went to Leeds University but lived in the same area and frequented the same pubs and bars. I never did ask them though.

I overslept ever so slightly and missed the first ten or fifteen minutes of the game. Something felt odd, watching a football game with no be was wrong. Matt was up and up for some beer so we went over the road and purchased some more 40oz bottles. That was better, having an ice cold beer to wash down a horrible tasting and textured pancake with the world cup on the TV. After the game I was pretty hungry, hadn't eaten any food yet, I had a bite of a pancake and spat most of that out so I went over the road and got myself a subway for lunch. A healthier option of black forest ham with the whole selection of salad and a very rich sauce, not so healthy after all. In fact since I have been in the states I have noticed that my belly has considerably grown. From losing lots of weight in Bolivia to gaining a lot in the states, in only about two and a bit weeks. It must be the diet of very fatty and sugary food mixed with lots and lots of beer and other forms of alcohol. I stayed in the hostel for the rest of the day, I watched the next game of football and had an afternoon nap. I slept for quite a while and woke up feeling revived, I had a shower and was ready for the what the evening could throw at me. Not much, just another 40oz and some new people to drink it with, the Australian guy left in the morning, the Irish girl left this afternoon and a couple of guys from Leeds arrived. They were drinking 24oz cans and I thought it necessary to mock their inferiority to my 40oz bottle but then it dawned on me that it makes more sense to drink the cans. For a start they cost $1.25 each, two 24oz cans equals 48oz for only $2.50 so you get more beer and save fifty cents a time. Plus another benefit of the cans was the fact that they don't get as hot as quick as the bottle, it takes a while longer to drink the big bottle so it gets hotter and more disgusting. As the beer was coors you really don't want to be drinking that beer warm, it was made to be drunk cold for a reason!

I met some English guy named Matt and he was drinking something called 'Mike's Hard Lemonade', its a malt based alcoholic lemonade drink, its labelled as a lemonade for grown ups. I didn't try it but I had a rough idea of what it would taste like, not quite to my liking so I stuck with my 40oz of Coors. There wasn't really anything going on at the hostel, I few hours later an Irish girl and some Australians and a whole bunch of other people arrived and started drinking. After a couple of 40oz beers later they all decided that they wanted to watch the Exorcist on DVD. Apparently it was to be the third time or something but it was the original and it beat watching Rush Hour 3 for the third time today. I didn't bother watching it and went into the kitchen and chilled out in there with a few other people until the film finished then everybody joined in. By this point I had already a few, maybe several 40oz bottles and I was pretty drunk. The good thing about drinking them was the amount of beer you got for your money, it was the equivalent to about three English size pints for $3. It wasn't until about 5.30am when we called it a night, we had or wanted to be up early enough to watch the football on TV in the morning.

When we were done with the empire state building we headed towards Times square, the girls wanted to see it at night with all the bill boards lit up and the whole area looking like a giant fruit machine, in my opinion anyway. I don't really like Times square much, it is way too full of tourists and it is busy twenty four hours a day. There seems to be a constant surge of people going through it at all times. We stuck around for a bit but needed to heads back to our hostel before midnight as the girls only had a day travel card for the New York metro and it expires at midnight on the day of purchase. We got the number 2 train back to the hostel and I got straight to business and bought some beer. I had really fancied a beer when we were walking around the top of the empire state building. I couldn't go to a bar, well I could but couldn't be bothered on my own, the girls were only eighteen and Chris was twenty, they legal drinking age in the USA is 21 and they are really strict about it. I tried to look for a bar called 'Jimmy's corner', it was a bar I really loved last time I was in New York. It is a really cool dive owned by Mohammed Ali's former boxing trainer. I met him and he is a really cool guy, just as I imaged him to be, shame I couldn't find the place. The good thing was is that I had a t-shirt I bought from the bar the last time I was there and it has the address as the main print. I think it is 144 44th St, but I couldn't find it any where when I went looking plus we were in a rush to get back to the hostel so we went back. I had about another two weeks left in NYC so I had all the time in the world to find it.

The inside of the Empire State building is very lavish indeed with marbled walls and floors and gold most places, mostly unnecessary but adds to the fact that it is the Empire State building and after all it a symbol of their supposed magnificence. The queueing system was something to be desired, it was an absolute joke. You had to go all the way round this stupid network of barriers just to get to somewhere which required you to do a similar sort of thing all over again. Once you had your ticket the same thing happened again, then you had to go through security and queue up again. Finally we were in the queue for the lift but for some reason they weren't letting us in right away, the lift was down, open and empty but we weren't being put in. I may be coming across as a little bit impatient, I'm not at all but it was really starting to piss me off a little. I just wanted to get up to the top now and chill out taking in the breathtaking skyline and surroundings of NYC. Once we were finally in the lift, it was nothing in comparison to the lift at the Rockafella centre. That lift had a glass roof and the lift chamber was illuminated so you could see the lift going up and up and up. This lift was fully closed and the numbers were digital and went up in multiples of ten until it got to seventy six or something like that when it went up in ones. We had to get another lift up six floors or something, I can't remember exactly and the details of it aren't too important so I won't trouble myself in finding them out. Once we finally got to the top, I say finally but the lift was actually really fast, I could see the floors going up in multiples of ten as fast as a normal lift would do one, two, three and four. It was really busy but I can imagine it being somewhat busier than this on certain occasions, maybe 4th July being one. Last time I was here, the only sunny day happened to be the one I when I went up to the 'top of the rock'. I have seen the NYC skyline during the day so at night was special for me. I really love it, especially with all the lights on. I could have stayed up there for ages just walking round and round the top. We didn't go right to the top as it cost an extra $15, it wasn't that I couldn't afford it, I just didn't think that it was necessary to go an extra ten or fifteen floors up when the general view is exactly the same. I was impressed with how much I knew of the New York skyline and geography, I could pretty much point out everything everywhere.

After I ate my food, I went to my room and met a few people in there, there was a Danish guy named Chris and a couple of northern English lasses. The girls were going to go up the empire state building and wondered if myself and Chris wanted to go, I was actually really up for it because last time I was in NYC I didn't get round to going up as the weather was so bad. Also it was night time and I would get to see New York from up above at night with all the lights on, I have to admit I was actually really excited so decided I was definitely going to go with them. Plus they had no idea how to get around New York and I had been here before and I knew it quite well, Manhattan at least. We got the subway there and it didn't take too long, I was very inexperienced with the New York metro so presumed that it would take nearly as long as the train I got to get up to Harlem, I was wrong, the number 2, the train I was supposed to get was an express train and it took us to Penn station in about fifteen minutes or there abouts. I knew roughly where the empire state building was so I led us in the direct, soon enough we arrived, I was pretty pleased with myself the fact that I somehow knew where it was but hadn't actually been there before. I find that I have a good way of navigating using land marks, especially sky scrapers or other tall buildings. In London I can navigate my way around by using Centre Point or the BT tower, if I can see them, I know exactly where I am and where I am or should be going.

As soon as I arrived I wanted to get straight to my hostel and drop my stuff off and chill out in central park or something. I had already been to NYC the year before so I had done a fair bit already and wasn't too fussed to see everything again. I went down onto the subway with my bags and it was really busy but lucky for me it wasn't quite rush hour yet so I hadn't been caught out. I bought the week unlimited travel card for the MTA transport system, it cost $27 and gave me unlimited travel on the metro and buses for a week from purchase date. I never used the subway last time but I was staying in Harlem so needed to use it to get anywhere this time. My hostel was on 128th st and Lennox/Malcom X boulevard. The nearest station was 125th and Lennox but I couldn't find the line for looking. The thing I did was get the number 1 red line to 125th and 8th and would have to walk across about five blocks or so and up three. I didn't realise how big the mistake was until I was walking along it. It took me forty minutes or so to get to the hostel and it was boiling hot, I was carrying my bags and a lot of it was up hills or down hill and around blocks and all sorts, it was hard work. As soon as I arrived at the hostel, I checked in, put my bags away and went straight across the road and bought myself a foot long meatball Subway.

Getting on the bus was easy, I had my reservation number written on a piece of paper and showed it to the driver, he checked me off on a sheet, I gave my bag to the man putting them on the bus and got on. The bus was good, my first impressions of it were that it was very comfortable, nothing amazing but would serve me just perfect. Plus I had a seat all to myself. The bus was a double decker but it wasn't crammed full of seats. I did a bit of reading but found it hard to stay awake, every so often I would drift off to sleep and wake up halfway through a page. I would finish the page and fall asleep again. I slept for most of the journey in the end and it wasn't a long on, within two hours or so I was in downtown Manhattan.

I woke up early, had a shower and packed all my things. I left the key and said bye to the hotel manager and then left towards the bus terminal to get my bus to New York city. I thought I would walk as it would save me money and hassle getting a taxi or a bus there. It looked quite far on the map so I left with plenty of time. I gave myself about three hours to get there and to wait for the bus in case there were any problems I would have enough time to sort them out. I left too early, the walk I thought would take me a lot longer than it did. It must have only taken me about forty minutes maximum and I was there nice and early for my bus. I was hungry so found a Taco Bell and had there really cheap meal deal of a burrito, a drink and a bag of Doritos. I was hungry so got two of the meals in the end, one chicken burrito and one beef, the chicken one was tastier. My bus stop was over the road from the Amtrak terminal but I was seating comfortably with my food and on the free wifi. When I had only about half an hour until my bus I went to wait at the stop to get in the queue so I could get on early enough to get a good seat.

It was my last night but I wasn't in the mood for doing anything big so I went and had another cheesesteak, this time I had a complete. It had roasted peppers, fired onions, mushrooms and provolone cheese not cheezewiz. I got it from Campos of course. I walked around with it checking out the river front, and a walk around some of the old city that I hadn't seen yet. After I had finished I headed straight for the bar to get a pint and make the most of the remaining happy hour. I had about forty minutes left of happy hour so I had two pints. On my walk earlier on I bought a ticket to see an art house Japanese film called 'Air Doll'. The premise of the film is a blow up sex doll some how turns to life and grows a heart and soul. I felt a bit weird going in to see this film especially on my own as the sound of it was of that it could have been some kind of soft core porn film. When I got in the theatre there was only about five people in there most of the men, in fact all but one. There was a girl on her own, two separate men on their own and two guys together. The guys together were the film geek sort and I guessed that they were into watching arty films. The two guys on their own were old, fat and balding and really struck me as the sort who would actually own and do things with a sex doll. The film was really good, it wasn't like anything that I would have expected. I enjoyed it and would recommend it for anyone to watch, it had twists and a lot of thought provoking ideas.

Just as I got to the edge of the old city it starting pouring with rain, not heavy just really wet. I had never seen anything like this before, it was like the storm in Cuba but not as big rain drops, it was like a fine mist had completely filled the air. There was no escape, it seemed everywhere you went that was outside you got wet, even if it was completely covered. It was madness and it went on for about five minutes. I found a little bit of shelter underneath the awning of the Hard Rock Café. Once it stopped I walked on only for it to start pouring again, this time I just walked through it as I couldn't possibly get any wetter than I already was. When I got back to my hotel room, I changed my clothes and went back out for a walk, it had cleared and if you weren't outside or hadn't been told about it you would never had know that there had just been a massive storm. According to a local these are common storms, apparently they occur relatively frequently along the east coast of the states.

The bar was called 'the Irish Pol' I found a piece of paper with it written down and I double checked it online. I remember saying that I would send them a bottle of Fullers Vintage Ale, was talking about it for a proportion of the night before. I managed to secure another nights stay at the hotel so had the whole day worry free to enjoy, another thing was that it was beautifully hot and sunny, a perfect day for a walk to the museum to see the Rocky steps and sculpture. I walked all the way to the museum and had a look at the architecture and other works of art along the way. I really like the buildings in Philadelphia, they have a much older feel to them, and they are made predominantly of brick so are much more solid to those in other places I have been. I saw the impressive city hall building, and walked right through it as it has an open walkway with construction work going on so you can't really see anything. I walked past the first temple (at least in the states) of the Freemasons. The building had a massive spire with engravings and all sorts all over it. It was a very grand building with huge windows and high ceilings, marble and guilt edges. It was very lavish indeed, made me want to join the Freemasons just so I could go inside and have a look around.
On the route to the museum, I walked down the main road and the sides had flags of the world along it, I don't know if it had anything to do with the world cup or if it was just a coincidence but it looked good and I got to see the Italy flag right at the front. When I got to the museum, they had a Renoir exhibition, I'm not the biggest fan of Renoir and there was a cover charge so I didn't bother going in just walked around outside. There was a big queue by the Rocky sculpture so I waited for it to get smaller or go. Soon enough it went and there wasn't anyone around so I used this opportunity to take some photographs of it. It was donated by Sylvester Stallone after he obviously made his fortune from the original Rocky trilogy and thought it only right to honour and pay respect to his home town in the films. After that I walked back to the old city. On the walk back, on the same road was a complete replica of the Auguste Rodin museum with a couple of Rodin sculptures in it. I sat there for about five minutes to get out of the sun and take a breather, it was so hot and getting really humid maybe a storm was a brewing.

I had an original cheesesteak with no extras and cheezewiz as per original, it was cheaper than both Pat's and Geno's at only $7.50 plus tax. I got a take out and took it straight to the bar from last night and wolfed the thing down. It was fantastic, better than both Nathan's and the one from the bar, it was much better in fact and was so moreish. Luckily for me during the baseball games, the bar had hot dogs for $1. I ordered two, this was about an hour after my cheesesteak, I'm not a fat bastard and it was all I had eaten all day so I needed a bit more food. I didn't stay at the bar for very long and left during the baseball game.

I overslept quite a bit and was a little worried about the prospect that I might have to leave Philadelphia already and I haven't even done anything yet, apart from getting drunk in a bar opposite my hotel. I watched Italy crash out of the world cup by losing 3-2 to Slovakia and losing their group for the first time in my lifetime. Just in case I packed my bags and went downstairs to ask the manager if she had been able to sort me another nights stay.
All good, I paid for the next night and went to my new room, put my stuff down and relaxed in the knowledge that I was sorted for another night. As it was still quite early I went for a walk down the road, went to the Benjamin Franklyn museum as it had no entry fee and sounded quite interesting. The museum wasn't that great, I learnt some things about Mr Franklyn but nothing too important that I can actually remember. I was getting hungry and went off to find some Philly cheesesteak, I had one at Nathan's at the Miami airport and also one in the sports bar in New Orleans. I hadn't had one in Philadelphia yet and the excitement of it was starting to build. I spoke to the barman about them last night and he recommended this place on Market between 2nd and 3rd avenue called 'Campos deli' they were supposed to be the best ones in Philadelphia according to the locals. I watched a programme on the TV when I was in New Orleans about some guy who travels around sampling all the local foods in cities across America. In the show he went to Philadelphia and had some cheesesteaks, he went to two places, two rivals across the road from each other in the Italian quarter. They were 'Gino's' and 'Pat's' and according to the show were the best but when I asked locals about them all they said was that they were tourist traps and that Campos are the best.

Lucky for me there was a bar across the road from my hotel, it looked pretty good from the outside with loads of beer signs and a sign that really caught my attention saying that they had the most beer taps in Philadelphia, another bonus for me was that they had happy hour from 17.00-20-00. Three hours of low priced beer drinking. When I went inside they had one wall full of taps, they had so much you couldn't even see the wall. I was in paradise and I was loving it. I sat at the bar, put my money on the counter and asked the bar man for what he thinks I should drink, he asked me what style of beer I normally go for. I told him I was from England and was after an English style ale, he didn't have anything exactly the same but had so many beers I couldn't really go wrong. I pretty much had a sampler of all the beers in the bar and chose what ones I felt like drinking. He explained to me that they had just finished a world cup of beers, not really a world cup as most of the beers were from the states. Most of the beers they had left were the strong ones or really strong ones, the average beer was about 6.5% abv and most were 9%+. I was there for a long time, I hadn't even noticed that happy hour had finished and I had been paying normal price for my beer. I watched the Phillies beat the Cleveland Indians 2-1 in baseball, wasn't a good game, really boring in fact but I was in Philadelphia so why not. I was getting peckish so I ordered some pulled pork rolls. The food was good, the beer was even better and I was probably pissed off my face at this point. Many more beers later I decided to call it a night, to save my money as I was dunk and was losing control of my spending, I just wanted more and more. I wasn't tired so watched some TV and tried to do some reading and writing.

After a two day journey I finally arrived in Philadelphia. Like most times I didn't have anywhere to stay but had looked into a hostel I could try out. Annoyingly there are only two hostels in the whole of Philadelphia, one is in the old city centre and the other is a long way out of town. I had an address of a hostel that I got from Google maps, it was right near the other hostel that was listed on all the websites. The hostel I found was cheaper than the others so I tried there first. Like I thought it was too good to be true, the place didn't even exist and the address was a shop or something. I went to a café that had free wifi to try and assess the situation and see what I could do about it, I was in a sort of predicament. I found a cool little coffee shop and got an iced mocha and looked into solving my problem. I found the address of the proper hostel and headed straight there. It wasn't good news when I arrived, they were fully booked until after the weekend and it was only a Tuesday. They let me sit in the common area and watch some football game on TV. The staff there were pretty cool, in fact really cool, they looked into other hotels and gave me some ideas of what I could do. The hostel out of town was fully booked and all the hotels around the area cost an arm and a leg. I tried pricerunner.com but had no such luck, they didn't accept my lowest bid, the lowest I could find and afford would have been $70 a night which is way out of my budget but it was the only choice really. After the football game I could hear talking at the reception desk, the staff were talking to a hotel manager from a local hotel down the road. I was saved, she said that she would give competitive rates and offered me $50 a night to stay in the hotel. She said she should have some space for the first night but wasn't too sure if I could stay for any more, I would have to check in the morning. I took her up on her offer and had the room for $50. The room was okay, it had two separate rooms broken up by a bathroom in the middle. I had a view overlooking a park and Chestnut st, the main street with all the museums on. The hotel was in a really cool location, it was just on the edge of the old city so was walking distance to all the sights. I settled into my room at the 'society hill hotel' and relaxed, I at least had a nights accommodation sorted. There was a bar under the hotel but I had a look at the prices and it was extortionate, the cheapest beers were over five dollars. I had to find a better place to get my beer from.

The only thing that I was aware of was that I was going through lots of states, I didn't care to be honest but at least I can say I have passed through however many states that I have. I downloaded some game when I was at one of the bus terminals, it was a really crap game but was addictive and passed the time on long journeys. I also had another film to watch and now that there were power points I could charge my laptop and not worry about the laptop cutting out half way through a film. I watched 'shutter island' now I would call this film great, not amazing but great. It kept me on the edge of my seat and was full of twists, there was a big twist at the end and I'm still not so sure what was actually going on if it was real or not?

One of the stops, I'm pretty sure it was Atlanta, Georgia was rather strange. The bus terminal was full surrounded by police and Police boarded our bus. It was obvious that they were looking for somebody as they went round checking the Id's of the young black men on my bus. I could hear them talking in the background about the suspect they were searching for. No such luck on my bus, nobody matched the name or description of the suspect. This stop was one of the short ones but nobody was allowed of the bus until the police were done with their search. At least on this bus there was a little bit of excitement to get me through my journey, nothing much happened but it could have. At this time I still have a day left on my journey time. I had a short journey to some place in South Carolina, Charleston. When I was waiting at the terminal I got myself some food, I had a chilli dog from the restaurant. The chilli dog was really tatsy, very meaty and it filled me up nicely. Then I was to change buses to a nicer bus, with plug sockets, individual air conditioning and more comfortable seats. At least I think I changed my us there, I can't really remember or took note on where I was at any time, all I know was that I was going through state after state and not seeing much.

My bus ride went on and on and what made it worse was the fact that much worse was that my ipod battery had run out, my laptop battery had run out and I didn't feel like reading too much. I only read a page or so at a time. It wasn't boring, just meant that I slept a hell of a lot, not proper sleep though, after an hour or two I would wake up, have a sip of ice tea maybe eat a burger if I was hungry or had any left. I ended up running out of my burgers after having them for breakfast, lunch and dinner once. I had to get some food. Soon but I wasn't starving and could wait a while more if I slept which I did.

The rest of the time on the bus I read, listened to my ipod and watched a film on my laptop, until the bloody battery ran out. I luckily managed to finish watching Quentin Tarrantino's 'Inglorious Basterds'. I thought the film was actually really good, I don't like Tarrantino as a person as he seems like an arrogant bastard. This film was really good I wouldn't go as far to say amazing but I would watch it again. He does make some good films, especially 'Jackie Brown' my favourite Tarrantino film.

I was being cheap and decided to get to Philadelphia the cheapest option which ended up being by Greyhound bus, I had over ten stops passing through a total of twelve states including Louisiana and Pennsylvania. I got my ticket and itinerary at the Greyhound/Amtrak terminal, then I sat in the waiting area for my bus, I only had about twenty minutes to wait so I didn't bother doing anything too time consuming. When my bus was called I got in line and went to board when called forward. The bus itself wasn't too bad, I was led to believe that greyhound buses are really bad, uncomfortable seats, no space and not much else going for them. I thought it was pretty good for a bus, it definitely wasn't luxury but it was a lot better than some of the buses I have had in South America. The ride was quite comfortable too. I had two seats to myself until one of the several stops. A whole load of people got on and the bus was now full which was annoying but I sort of expected that to happen. Some of the stops the bus made were short, simply to let a few people to get on and some to get off. Some of the stops everybody had to get off the bus and wait in the terminal for up to an hour or two.

There was no point getting too drunk as I had a bus to catch soon and the journey was about two whole days worth. We left the bar and headed for Walmart to get supplies, by supplies I mean McDonalds. I bought five double cheeseburgers to eat as breakfast lunch and dinner whilst I was on the bus, I also got some Arizona ice tea. Once I was sorted I went back to the hostel packed my stuff and got a shuttle ride provided by the hostel staff to the bus terminal and waited there for my bus to arrive and me to get on and be on my way to Philadelphia.

When I woke up, Rowan was walking out the room. We had been sharing a locker to put our valuables in and I completely forgot what I had done with the key, the last thing I could remember was that I gave it to him to get something out. In my underwear I quickly ran out after him, hopefully he was still there and his taxi to take him to the airport hadn't come yet. I caught up with him and asked him. He said I had them but I couldn't find them anywhere. Any ways I said bye and good luck and all that and went back to bed. Before I went back to sleep I checked my trouser pocket and would you believe it, there they were, in my pocket all along. I fell asleep and didn't wake up for ages. When I woke up, it dawned on me that this is my last day in New Orleans and I couldn't be bothered to do anything. When the Jeff and Mark woke up we decided to go to the bar to watch the football and chill out with some beers. We were in the bar for a while watching the game and I got really hungry, Mark and some Mexican guy from the hostel ordered some food from a bar across the road and they delivered it in about ten minutes, it was half time now. I was starving, I'm pretty sure Jeff was just as hungry so we went back to Juans flying burrito. I ordered the flying burrito again, Jeff was a wimp and only went for some nachos and cheese. The game finished, we drank some more beers, played some pool, then drank some more. It was only about 16.00 and I didn't have to leave until about 20/20.30 to make it to the Greyhound terminal in time for my bus. The Mexican guy left and we went and sat at the bar and played 'uno'. I won most of the early games then Mark and Jeff teamed up against me. After a while we were all pretty equal then I decided to screw them and tear them apart, I won all the next games that we played until it got boring for me winning all the time and them losing. I was the winningest!

We stuck around Frenchman st a little while longer, then it got late, we weren't doing anything of any worth so we went back to the hostel. It was Rowan's last night and he had to be out of the hostel by 6.30am to get his flight back to New York and then home.

Jeff had an arrangement to meet up with some girl in a club near to here so we thought we would all go and see what it was like. The place had a cover charge but something weird happened, Jeff disappeared upstairs and we walked in, somebody had paid for us but we had no idea who? Probably Jeff but he was gone somewhere and we couldn't see him. The place looked okay but it was a dubstep night and I really don't like that sort of music, I was at a festival in England the year before and it was predominantly dubstep and I didn't enjoy it then. The place was packed, full from front to back, in all the rooms and corridors. The upstairs floor had a balcony that was a little cooler than in the room but the balcony didn't feel safe at all. It was at a strange angle and was one of those traditional French style New Orleans balconies. I stood as there weren't any spare seats, Rowan and Mark stood, we saw Jeff waiting at the bar presumably to meet the girl (he had no idea what she actually looks like) and to buy a drink. After about ten minutes of not enjoying it much, we decided to leave, we had to consult with Jeff as it was only fair. We think he paid for us to get in and we really didn't want to be in here any more. We went back to the bar to let Jeff know, he still hadn't been served yet, more than ten minutes had gone by and nothing. If he met up with the girl and wanted to stay we would leave him to it and he could call or we would see him later, if not he could come with us now as we were going to leave for sure. We all had one walk around the club, into the downstairs room, out in the back garden and then out we went. The girls was nowhere in sight and so Jeff left with us.

We walked around looking for another place but couldn't find any with the same sort of music or bands with the same enthusiasm for the music they were playing. A bigger club down the street had a cover band and it sounded the same as the music you can hear anywhere and we hadn't come all this way to hear this shit. Not too far down the road was a corner with nothing much on it and there was a band playing. The band were even better than the one before and it was just out here on the street. I was surprising at how good they were and how they sounded so good and tight outside, on a street corner and not in a club or another venue of some kind. Jeff spotted Lenny Kravitz walk by and he glanced over at the exact moment that we all turned around. The band had finished now and we went to track down Lenny Kravitz again, he was being escorted into a car by his entourage. Somebody said something to him and he sort of covered his face and the car sped off, poor bastard must get this sort of thing so many times, every time he goes out.

Back to the bar to watch the rest of the football and play some more skee ball. Rowan and myself really wanted to go to an area of New Orleans called 'Frenchman st'. It was where all the locals went to see local bands and go to good bars and clubs away from all the money makers and tourists in the French quarter. It was Rowan's last night in New Orleans so we were going to have another big one so drank some beers at the bar, back to the hostel for more beers then headed out to Frenchman st. Jeff had arranged to meet a girl in a club on Frenchman st, we all went there together, from just looking at it you could see that it was going to be a million times better than Bourbon st. the bars looked cool not tacky, the music we could hear sounded like proper modern jazz not covers of classics and the people walking around didn't have cameras around their necks or were they wearing Hawaiian shirts. The first bar we went in was the one we could hear from the street opposite and about a hundred metres down the road. The music we could hear was jazz but had a very modern twist and sounded like it was a brass band with a little percussion. There was no cover charge to get in, the man on the door said a minimum of one drink was required but they don't really care to enforce it. The band was comprised of three trumpet players, two on the trombones, one on a tuber and two on percussion. The sound coming from them was amazing, and very bizarre as they looked like the kind of guys that you would see playing American football or basketball or something like that, not playing jazz. The only thing that let them down was that the lead one had a bad singing voice. The tuber being used instead of a bass guitar was phenomenal, the beat was so good, the sound so deep and catchy. We stayed in for the whole set, gave a tip, had a drink and then left to go elsewhere. I had a red bull because I was unusually tired but was in no way ready for backing down and going to sleep.

As soon as we walked into the hostel, we went straight for the common room and suddenly we weren't tired any more. There was a huge watermelon sitting on a seat like it was a person or something. We couldn't resist and picked it up and threw it around a little, we played a game of catch until somebody dropped it. It didn't smash but we knew it was bad as there was red ooze and seeds spilling out all over the floor. Instead of reacting in a logical way we just sat or stood there and laughed. Mark had the initiative to go and pick it up and try and sort it out. Instead of picking it up he dropped it on the floor again, this time it smashed. It didn't smash that badly but there were now bits of watermelon on the floor. He tried again but dropped it once more. This time it was well and truly smashed, the whole thing had smashed to pieces and there was juice all over the place. None of us could even stand up we were laughing so much. I laughed and laughed and laughed and started crying. I can't remember the last time I laughed this much, the 'incident' was so funny we were all rolling over the place and pissing ourselves with laughter. I think I might have actually pissed a little bit. The kitchen was closed at this hour so there was no way of getting a mop and cleaning it up, our only option was to get some loo roll and try to soak up the juice. Drunkenness and tiredness got the best of us and it showed, we just went to and from the toilet getting a little bit of tissue at a time. We couldn't think straight, we were all still laughing our heads off. I went into the toilet to get some more tissue, I had a fart brewing and thought it would be great to put it to good use with comic effect. Whilst Mark was on his hands and knees I went over to him, gave him the tissue and then let one rip right in his face. I couldn't contain my laughter, none of us could, it was gone 4.00am and we were laughing our heads off in the common room right next to some peoples bedrooms. It didn't matter, none of it did, we were just having the time of our lives and laughing like we have never laughed before. After about twenty minutes of laugher I couldn't handle any more and hit the sack.

We waited a few minutes for a taxi and then one pulled up and offered to give us a lift, for some reason that none of us could figure out there was a random lady sitting in the front seat. The driver was fine with giving us a lift and the lady was so out of it that she didn't seem to care. We got in but everybody else were really drunk and wouldn't and couldn't stop making jokes about the fact that we were sharing this taxi with some random woman. We were all coming up with theories as to what was going on, one was that she may have been on crack or heroin, another was that she was a prostitute and was going to pay the driver in sexual favours and there were others but they seemed pretty insignificant to those. After a few minutes of piss taking, the driver pulled over and refused to take us any further, we got out or at least I tried to get out but Mark was just sitting in his seat taking the piss out of the woman. We had to walk a few more blocks to get to the hostel but it didn't matter much as the others were pissed and I was feeling much better and my stomach ache had gone. On the walk Jeff ran over and picked up this bag of shit, it looked like a few turds in a sandwich bag, the bag was smothered in sauce and made it look even more like poo. It ended up being sausages but thinking it was poo made it funnier, especially when he smeared it over a car window, blaminng it all on the woman/bitch in the front seat.

A band came out, a bunch of white guys playing a kind of jazz, I'm not too up on my jazz so don't know the specifics which doesn't matter because it was good music. The band were ridiculously talented and were emphasising this point by really showing off. They way I could describe them would be like the Grateful Dead of jazz, they had these five minute solos and looked as though they were in a jamming session rather than playing a concert. At one point they changed drummers and the new one who came out was out of this world, he has to be the greatest drummer I have ever seen or heard. He could play anything and was making sounds that looked impossible to make by one person. The man playing the organ and keyboard was also out of this world, he would do solos that went on and on but to me they never got boring. This band were really good, its a shame I never got there name. The club pretty much completely shut down as soon as the band had finished leaving us with little or no optimism of an encore. The bald guy had left at some point during the performance, maybe he was tired or too drunk too stand any more. He had left his bike somewhere, outside one of the bars we had gone to earlier in the evening. We left soon after the band had finished playing and the bar had closed back to the hostel. Pull my pork was still open and they offered more delights, not just a pulled pork sandwich. Rowan bought himself an alligator hot dog, I had a bite and it was delicious, so meaty and juicy and full of flavour.

As soon as we got in there I had to go to the toilet, I was busting and wasn't having a very good night. I wasn't feeling it, plus I had another stomach ache. After I voided my bowels I felt a bit better but didn't feel like having any more drink even though someone had bought me a rum on the rocks so I was obliged to drink it but that was it, last drink of the night.

We met a few girls in the bar, well we didn't exactly meet them, the bald guy went over and spoke to them then came over and introduced them to us. It looked like he was trying quite hard to chat them up but didn't have any luck, then they met us and he was totally out of the picture. The bald guy had admitted earlier on that he has a thing for fat girls and told us a few of his stories, he really did like them fat and kept going on about it. The girls stuck around and told us that they knew of a bar/club that had no cover charge and had good live music and went on till the early hours. We all went along and got in a taxi to take us there. Outside the place was a fast food vendor with a name on top of the menu saying 'pull my pork'. The place had a massive bbq and they even had their own smoker to make beautifully smoked, bbqued pulled pork sandwiches. They tasted delicious but cost a lot, about $7 for a small sandwich. I never bought any but tried other peoples, I wanted some but never plucked up the courage to fork out that much on one small sandwich. The place was called 'Tipitinas' and is a relatively famous venue for local bands and some bigger bands to play. We were planning to go to some bars on Frenchman st but we were easily swayed by the idea of a free bar/club with good bands.

Later that night we all went to the same bar, started off a sort of bar crawl along Magazine away form the centre venturing more into the Garden District. We stopped off at a few bars along the way and in one some bald American guy came up to us and started chatting, he wouldn't leave us alone but was quite funny so we didn't mind. We all played a few games of skee ball to see who could get the highest score. I managed to get another two eighty but there was this one man who appeared to have perfected his technique. He aimed his shot, focus and rolled with the exact amount of force necessary to get the ball to plop into the fifty hole. The fifty hole had bell in it so everybody knew when you got the top score. We heard 'ding, ding, ding' six times, the man managed to get six fifty pointers in one go, he racked up a final score of three hundred and sixty, he got that even by getting a no score on one of the balls. The bald guy stayed with us the rest of the night and took us to a couple more bars, some good, some not so good. He had a bike and he brought it along with him, so every bar we went in he would chain it up outside. Outside one of the bars was a sofa, it must have been dumped at some point but was there still and looked pretty clean so we sat on it and had some photos taken. We were actually really drunk by now and the night wasn't going to end soon so there was lots more drinking to do. There was one we were in that we selected a big list of songs on the jukebox but they didn't seem to play. There must have been a queue but how long nobody knows. We left with the Bald guy and went to a bar that he said was amazing, we were all pretty excited but when we got in it was dead and the only people in there were men!

From now on when we went to watch a game of football we went to a bar around the corner just off Magazine St, one of the cooler roads in the garden district of New Orleans. The bar was really cool. They had daily promotions on beer, lots of TV screens and they had some games tables. They had this game in there called 'skee ball'. Skee ball has an alley where you roll a wooden ball down over a ramp and aim to get the ball into different scoring holes, fifty being the highest score but most difficult to get and ten being the smallest scoring but easiest to get. I straight away set the record of two hundred and sixty, nobody could even come close. Then I smashed this record and got two hundred and eighty. The game was so addictive, every go you wanted to beat your highest score or whatever score was already on the board, very very competitive, and it only cost 25c per game of nine balls. The bar had two pool tables that only cost 75c so to play a game of pool was fun and cheap and the table was a million times better than the one at the hostel. Compared to the table at the hostel in LaPaz it is like the greatest table ever. We played a few games, best out of five the English versus the Australian's, of course the English won every time.

Everybody was getting tired now so we all headed home and got in taxi. We were back in no time, Rowan in the front speaking to the driver, I sat in the back in the middle and had Mark and Jeff either side of me. Both Mark and Jeff had passed out and not woken up until we were outside the hostel and needed to pay the driver. It was late and I went to bed.

After the disappointment of the last place we stuck to bars for the rest of the night. Bars weren't as expensive and you didn't get hassled as much, or at all especially from dancers. This one bar we went in was pretty cool and had chilli popcorn on the bar for snacking. The chilli popcorn was amazing, I have never had it before and think that all popcorn manufacturers use this idea and start producing chilli popcorn as a mainline product. The beer wasn't too bad either. There was a hottie bar maid and it wasn't full of tourists, it was just a normal bar in the middle of Bourbon st. When we got in there they said it was closing but we stayed in there for easily over an hour. Jeff and I noticed that Mark was being chatted up by a girl who looked remarkably like she was a prostitute, we didn't think he realised this so just as they got up to leave we jumped in and put him straight. He came back in a minute later alone. He claimed he knew but from the way he was talking to her it didn't show. Just to paint a picture of what she looked like she was a short and fat, wearing a skin tight leopard print top and tight leggings, she had straightened black hair with highlights and a big handbag and she was all on her own. All the signs were there to point out that she was a prostitute but somehow mark hadn't noticed. What's better was her chat up line was 'so, you gonna buy me a drink'.

After that bar we headed off to another bar but got distracted by a strip club on the way that had no cover charge, you only had to buy a drink and the cheapest was $5. We all stayed in there for about an hour or so. As the time went by the quality of the dancers got better, much better. The first one was not too great, the second was a little better, you get the picture, until after they had all danced the first one went back on again. One of the dancer did this thing where she went to the top of the pole and span around the pole really fast and slowly slid down to the floor. Time to leave. We headed out and went to the next place, as soon as we arrived the place looked so much worse. The sign out side said 'sex acts' sounded enticing but inside is a completely different story. For many reasons; the place looks really run down, a really crap stage, really ugly dancers, it was full of red necks, the beers costed a fortune, the dancers would not stop hassling us, I could go on and on forever but it would start getting boring. What was worse about this place was that we were forced to get a beer once we were in there and the dancers came over and sat on Jeff and Rowan's lap. The dancer on Jeff's lap was a big fat bitch, she would not get off him, helped herself to his beer, she tried to steal his beer and ended up pouring it all over him, plus she stole his moustache comb. He had a moustache comb because he had been growing this little moustache that shouldn't even be called a moustache, it was nothing in comparison to how mine used to be before I shaved it off.

We had to buy some more food and beer at Walmart so got ready to go there, on our way out we met some other guy called Mark, another Australian. We had been talking about cooking some food on the bbq so had chicken wings in mind, a bbq sauce and maybe hot sauce variety. We had to buy some more veg to make kebabs and the sauces to marinade the wings, of course we got some beers to wash the food down. The wingd were fantastic, a little burnt because the person tending them was a little bit distracted and it wasn't until I went outside to have a look that he noticed the wings were burning. The food was consumed quickly as the final game of the NBA final between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers was about to be shown on TV. As soon as we had finished eating, we gathered the troops and headed off to get some more beer. The troops being Jeff, Rowan, Mark (the other Australian) and myself. We walked the same route as the night before but went to a couple of different bars, we went to one of the same ones as the night before but I didn't buy a drink, it was about $7 for a bottle of beer, plus it smelt really bad of sick.

The next morning I woke up for the football, Rowan had not come back at all last night, where could he have gone. Most probably he went back to that girls house he was chatting to in the bar. I'm sure he'll turn up at some point. Just into the second half I get a phone call from Rowan, he's at the door and says he hasn't really got any sleep even though he was in a really comfortable bed, he claims nothing happened but it doesn't really matter. We watched the game, had some of the left over beers and relaxed a bit, knowing we were going to have another big night, that every night with Rowan in New Orleans was going to be a big one.

I couldn't believe that he had passed out in the toilet of ihop for over forty minutes. We walked down the street to try and hail a taxi but there weren't any in sight at all. I should have gone to the toilet at ihop because I was now busting to go to the toilet, the only place I could see was the Marriot hotel. I walked straight in and went to the toilet, a maid was in there cleaning but she left as soon as I walked in and when I left I saw her waiting patiently outside. When I got back to the street Jeff was speaking to a hooker on the steps of the hotel. I saw a cab and hailed it. This isn't making Jeff sound good in any way but he passed out in the back of the taxi, didn't wake up till we got to the hostel. The driver had got lost but only charged us $9 in the end which wasn't too bad. As soon as we got inside I went straight to sleep, but Rowan was nowhere in sight.

Jeff and I were both really hungry and the only place we could see that was open at 5.00am was ihop. It was some all day breakfast restaurant and we could go in there and chill out for a while. We sat down, ordered our food, the food came out pretty quickly. I was starving so I wolfed mine down instantly and was still hungry. Jeff had a few bites of his and then went to the toilet, I said to him if he wasn't back within ten minutes I would start eating his food bite by bite one thing at a time. The time was going by so slow, minute by minute and soon enough ten had passed so I took a piece of bacon and devoured it like I had never eaten something like that before. Twenty minutes had gone by and Jeff only had half of his scrambled eggs left, no bacon, and pretty much half of whatever was on his plate. I was getting a bit worried now, had Jeff left and done a runner and left me to pay for the food. What was going on? I went to the toilet to see if he was in there, I knocked on the door and he answered, I told him to hurry up as he was taking far too long. Another ten minutes passed and he was really taking the piss now. I went back to the toilet to get him out but when I went in he was passed out on the bowl, pants down and all. I was shouting his name, knocking on the door, I tried almost everything to wake him up. As I couldn't get his attention the only thing I could do was throw something at him but there was nothing to throw at him. The only thing available to me was tissue for drying your hands, I took a piece, wet it and launched it right at his back. I did this about ten more times until he began to wake up. I was playing around a bit and started to make a pile of wet tissue on his shoulder. He hadn't notice so it made it that little bit better when we went out. All he knew was that he had a wet back and I told him I was throwing wet balls of tissue at him. I could see the waitresses laughing about it in the background.

I don't really know why what happens next happened but it did and it can be seen as funny, bearing in mind we were both so drunk we weren't too aware of what we were doing. There was this box with napkins, straws and matches in on top of the bar, both Jeff and myself took a couple of match books but we couldn't stop there. Before long the box was empty and our pockets were as full as they could be. There is no real reason why we took the matches or why we ran around lighting them and throwing them at things, Jeff more so than me, he was going wild with these matches and throwing them at cars, lighting whole books and putting it on car bonnets. This went on for a while. Until we got bored and decided to walk back to the hostel. We walked completely the wrong direction, in fact we went the opposite direction to the hostel. We ended up having a race with two girls on bikes with our drinks in our hands, they won of course. We back tracked and went to the main road before the French quarter.

We left Rowan in some bar, he had met some girl and was chatting to her for ages, myself and Jeff were far to drunk to even consider doing anything that required the use of any brain power so we just went to another bar and had more drink. Unbeknown to Jeff he had lost his ID and his credit card, when he finally realised none of us had any idea where it could be. There were so many options how could we remember the exact one where he may have left it. Maybe he had left it in the bar that we were thrown out of???

Rowan was being his usual funny self, he had bought this fire retardant shirt and was putting it to the test. He had a zippo lighter and lit it and moved the flame up and down his arm and nothing, not a single spark or flame, the fire retardant shirt was well and truly safe. What made this even better was the fact that the first time he showed us this trick the band in the background were playing 'ring of fire' by Johnny Cash. It was perfect, made us laugh so hard our sides began to split, he even tried it out on others too. We went from bar to bar getting drunk and drunker until none of us had any idea what we were doing. I can't even be sure what we did and where we went, I usually have a great memory of the night before but this night has slipped my mind. One thing I can say is that we went to some karaoke bar to see what was going on and if it was good or not. When we were inside Jeff had a whisky on the rocks and Rowan and myself had rum. We sat next to the stage and watched the performances. All of which were really really bad, so bad and the MC looked like such a twat with one of his trouser legs rolled up to his knee. I asked him what the idea behind that was and he made some bullshit up about it being 80's themed but I have never seen anyone do that before when dressing for an 80's themed event. He was rude in his response and kept on chatting shit and I was losing my nerve and could no longer handle it. This called for only one thing, I had finished my drink and was left with a cup full of ice. I had to throw this ice at the MC, right at him, as close to his face as I could. We exchanged words and then two bouncers appeared at my shoulders and I was forcefully removed even though I would happily have walked out on my own. They barred me, I think I must have been one of the only people to have been barred from a bar on Bourbon St in the history of New Orleans.

There was no question about it, we were going to get well and truly shit faced tonight and what better place to do it than here on Bourbon street. We went into a couple of bars firstly, they were all quite expensive a lot more than I thought and would ever want to pay. We did find a couple of cheaper bars and mainly drank in them. This one bar had a drink called a 'hand grenade' it was a really sweet concoction that had crushed ice and didn't taste like it had any alcohol in but we were assured that it was actually quite strong. On the plus side there was a band playing in the back with only two members but if you didn't look you would have thought it was a whole band. They were playing covers, some good some bad but it was a nice thing to have on in the background. They had a small cloth hanging from the ceiling with these tiny little plastic grenades in. we must have been pretty drunk by now as we had been drinking a lot at the hostel and it was probably our third bar so far on Bourbon st. I found a cup full of these little plastic grenades and we just went at it, trying all sorts of throws to try and get the grenades into the cloth. Most of the bar joined in and there was soon little plastic grenades flying all over the bar, even the bar maid was getting in on the action.

What a surprise to see Rowan walk through the door, the time had just flown by I completely forgot that he would be arriving later. After he took his things to the room and spent bloody ages getting sorted we were nearly ready to get our beer on. Firstly though we had to go to Walmart and get some ingredients and some beer and just get some general things that we might need or not need as is sometimes the case. After we had eaten, well a little while later we sat in the common room discussing what we were going to do that night. Of course we were going out, it was Rowan's first night in New Orleans I hadn't actually properly been out yet. We were planning to go to Bourbon street, the main strip with bars and clubs and strip clubs in the French quarter. I heard some other guy talking about going out on Bourbon street, why not head out together, made perfect sense as he was planning on going alone. I wonder where he was from...Australia of course. The most people I have met so far on the first leg of my travels in the states have been Australian. He had actually been out during the day and walked around a bit and knew where he was going when we walked towards the French quarter. I had no idea where I was, I had been there once earlier but went a different route and didn't have any bearings in New Orleans. The walk wasn't as far as I thought, for some reason I had in my mind that it was ages away. When we got there though I wasn't impressed, not one single bit. It reminded me of all the things I really don't like about the red light district in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The next few days pretty much went the same way, waking up relatively early, watching football, drinking beer, eating the crap unsubstantial meals and cooking up some vegetables. I was waiting for my friend Rowan to arrive, he was travelling the states and was currently in Portland, Oregon. I was early as I was supposed to be in the Caribbean but obviously I've had some problems so thought it best I leave and get to mainland US. Rowan should be arriving in a couple of days so I still had time to kill doing not much at all. I watched the Italy game and was very disappointed by their drawing the game, I was relieved actually that they had drawn after conceding the first goal. By this point I hadn't really ventured out to the French quarter at night, the only place I had been at night was the hostel. The good points of this were that fact that I wasn't spending much money whilst sacrificing potential fun, plus I would be going out the whole time Rowan was here to make the most of the time of actually having a friend to do things with. By that I don't mean the people at the hostel were inferior, its just that most were under 21 or into completely different things. The next couple of days went exactly the same way; watching football, drinking beer and not really doing much.

We basically went to Walmart, bought some beer and these 88c microwave dinners and went back to the hostel. We drank the beer, ate the food and stayed at the hostel all night. None of us went out that night as the boys were getting there train to Texas the next morning early. Actually no they weren't, the argument that they had earlier was about the fact that one of them had accidentally bought a ticket on the 6.00am train instead of the 18.00 train. Something that was easily rectified but caused a lot of stress at the time. After a few more beers and several of the 88c meals later I went to bed unsatisfied and still hungry longing for more. The hostel had a rule that the common area closed at midnight so you had to be quite, go outside or go to bed. Outside wasn't an option unless you wanted to go to bed dripping wet with sweat.

One thing led to another and the Australian's a little bit drunk ended with me having to break up a fight between them, there supposed to be best mates and there nearly at fisticuffs. With things not looking to great we headed back to the hostel, the fun wasn't over but it was time to rest.

There were a couple of Australian girls with us, they wanted to get the ferry across the river so I followed suit and went with them. I had nothing better to do and it was turning out to be a funny day. The ferry was a bit shit, didn't really go anywhere, it literally crossed the river and lasted about five minutes, we'll at least it was free. I was really desperate for a piss now, or did I need a poo, and the nearest place was the casino. We had been passed the casino to have a look in but I had forgotten my Id so was refused entry. I was anxious that it might happen again and I was getting beyond desperate now. I used one of the Australian guys Id, we look nothing alike but it worked, they let me in. I went in with the other Australian guy as he also needed the toilet, plus he said the toilets here were the best in New Orleans. He couldn't find the toilets he was looking for so we just went to the standard ones in the casino, they were fine by me, I was so glad to sit down and let it all come out. All that bloody natural ice has gone right through me and given me the worst shits for a long time, its like Bolivia all over again.

The game was great, Germany VS Australia. Germany won obviously 3-1 but Australia put up a fight and got a player sent off for no reason at all, he should never have been sent off. The referee made some pretty bad decisions in the game which ultimately cost Australia the game, to be honest though there wasn't really any way that they would have beaten Germany, maybe struggle to tie but never win unless a miracle happened which it didn't, more the opposite. We finished our drinks and shortly left, we weren't going to hang around a place because the Australian's may have pissed a few people off with their foul language.

I woke up early in the morning to watch the morning games, I didn't quite make it in time for the first game, the first game starts in New Orleans time at 7.00am and I wasn't up and about until about 8.30am so I got to see the last bits of the game. Australia were playing the afternoon game and I met a couple of Australian lads who were up for going to the French quarter to find a bar to watch the game in. The day before to watch the England game, they went to a bar down the road from the hostel. Unfortunately the bar was closed, even though there was a sign clearly posted on the wall saying that they were showing all world cup games, obviously not as the case may be. This meant we had to go and find another bar and the time was ticking down, not long until kick off and none of us had any idea of where we could go to watch the game. We ventured further into the French quarter, we were walking and walking and could not find anywhere to go. We asked somebody and they gave us directions to a supposed sports bar but when we got in, it turned out to be a restaurant that had TV screens and expensive drinks. We left abruptly and searched elsewhere, we randomly stumbled upon this Irish pub that had an Italian flag hanging, not an Irish flag, silly bastards, clearly not Irish. It was a dive but was perfect for what we were looking for, they were showing the game and had cheap beer. They had a bucket of beer for $10, the beer was Miller High Life so not the best but it would most certainly do.

The game got under way it started off very quick indeed with England getting a goal in the first four minutes. Then it went on and on until USA had a long distance strike and their keeping Robert Green fumbled the ball into the back of the net. I won't get too much into the game but it wasn't that great although it was quite entertaining to watch. The game finished 1-1. I just spent the rest of the afternoon chilling at the hostel, reading, not doing any writing and generally getting quite drunk. When I went to Walmart I bought myself some vegetables, I got courgettes, some strange little yellow squash, some onions, and some peppers. I fried these all up and it tasted fantastic, very simple quick and easy and tasted great, only thing was I didn't have anything to eat it with so for this day I just had veggies. I went to bed at some point that night, can't have been too late as I was pretty much alone and didn't have a clue what to do.

I was early enough to get a good comfortable seat in direct view of the TV, I had some chilled beers twelve of them, this beer called natural ice. Natural ice was a I had when I was in New York last year, it was one of the only ones that actually advertised the ABV of 5.9%, plus it was one of the cheapest beers only $8 per twelve pack. It tasted pretty awful but it was strong and it got the job done, it got you drunk.
Out the player came for their countries national anthems, the game was to begin in only a couple of minutes now, everybody here was getting excited and cheering and everything. For this game I was unbiased, I do live in England and have lived there all my life but for some reason I just can't find it in me to support their national team, I support Arsenal but I can't bring myself around to supporting England. My team is Italy, it always has been, I mean both my parents are Italian, my grandparents are Italian my whole family is Italian.

When I got to Walmart I had another surprise in store for me, there was a McDonalds in the actual store. I hadn't eaten a MaccyD's in a long time, since at least February, I was actually quite excited to give it a go so I got a burger of some kind, they all taste roughly the same so I can't say for sure which one I had. I ate the burger as I walked around Walmart taking in the sights and in awe of how vast it was, it was bigger than most of the biggest superstores in England. I had to be quick as I thought the football match was going to start at 13.00. I rushed around got some vegetables, some juice, some milk, some cereal and some beers, I went and had a quick look for a US phone but couldn't decide so I settled with just getting some camera film for my camera as I only had one roll and it was already used up. I quickly went through the checkouts and then headed back to the hostel. I had bought far too heavy things so it was a big strain on my arms and hands carrying it the short distance back to the hostel. I was late, I looked at my watch and it was already about 13.20 so I thought I had missed twenty minutes of the match. When I walked through the door, the people sitting in the lounge room shouted to me that it hadn't even started yet so I had rushed for absolutely nothing.

Both of the other guys in the room had come to New Orleans in search of work along the Gulf coast to help clean up the oil spill, the worst oil spill in US history. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was gone (asleep I mean). The hostel had a free breakfast of 'all you can eat' pancakes from about 7.00am till about 10.00am. I woke up early, had some pancakes then watched TV because the world cup was on and USA were about to play England. The game was actually the afternoon game so I had some time to get things done, I needed to do some shopping to buy some food supplies and drinks so I asked where the nearest supermarket was and it ended up being a Walmart superstore about a five minute walk away, perfect.

The plane didn't land until gone midnight so I was very tired now, fortunately I had booked a hostel for a few nights so I did have a place to stay, it wasn't all bad. Another delay with the baggage coming out, we were waiting by the baggage claim conveyor belt for bloody ages, must have been over an hour and still nothing, it was really annoying, all I wanted to do was go to bed and get some sleep. My bag finally appeared and I was right out of the door to get a taxi to my hostel. The taxi I got has a flat rate of $33 US, I was willing to pay that as I had no other choice really, I didn't know what New Orleans was like or what the transport links were like. The driver was saying that he had been a taxi driver in New Orleans for twenty five years and had never even been to the neighbourhood where the hostel was, from that I gathered that he had no idea where he was going and I could be in for a very long night. Worse still was that I wasn't booked in until the morning, even though it was technically the morning, it was still classed as the night before so I would have to check in for one extra night which didn't matter, it was what I was expecting but I didn't actually know if they had space or if it was still open or anything so I was a little worried at the least. Fortunately when I arrived about half an hour after leaving the airport, the place was still open, there was somebody at the reception. He said that I'm really lucky as he was just about to close up and go to bed. It was now gone 2.00 am. Well, I was in and they had beds available. The receptionist who was actually the owner of the hostel showed me around briefly as it was pitch black and really late, and there were people sleeping. For some reason everybody was awake in my room, one guy (some old guy in hostel terms) was having a phone conversation to his wife rather loudly. Another was on the internet doing something or other and then there was me!

I had such a long time to wait in Miami that I had no idea what to do, the internet had to be paid for and my ipod battery was running very low. I read some of my book, walked around loitered here and there. In hindsight I should have used the time to catch up on my writing but I wasn't thinking too logically so I went around looking in the shops. I fancied getting a new book because I was coming to the end of my tether with 'the wild boys', as it was Burroughs it was a hard read and it was just getting a bit too descriptive for my liking. I didn't have a clue what book to buy, I had asked for one before but they didn't have that one here so I just looked around and found George Orwell's '1984' I had heard so many good things about this book and had already read some other dystopian novels so thought I might as well give this one a go and bought it. I also bought a copy of the June issue of Playboy magazine, I had also heard good things about playboy. It regularly features great writers and has very clever and witty articles, much better than the sort you would find in the likes of FHM or Loaded or other men's magazines. I boarded my plane to take me New Orleans, I was really excited now, I was actually getting somewhere after travelling all day and not really going any further than one hundred miles.

This time I was only going to stay in the airport for a bout two hours, no worrying about getting a taxi anywhere or having to pay extortionate prices for one nights stay. Everything was going smoothly and all I had to do was go to the American Airlines wing of the Bahamas international airport. The check in was easy and quick but the customs leaving the country was the same as entering the States, I presume to reduce the amount of waiting time upon arrival. I had to go through the fingerprint scanners and have my photograph taken again, all the same procedures I went through when I first arrived in Miami nearly two weeks ago. Once I was through the customs I went straight to the departure lounge. The departure lounge was this huge open room with market like stalls scattered throughout and restaurants along its sides. There were a couple of bars, one a pub like bar and another was a swanky cocktail bar with an annexed VIP lounge bar. I wanted to watch some of the football because the FIFA 2010 World Cup had just started and there was a game on right at the moment. Uruguay were playing France, I watched the game in a bar and grill at the far end of the terminal building and ate a salad. The game was really boring and ended in a 0-0 draw. The time for my flight was drawing nearer so I headed to the correct gate. Of course things can't go too smoothly as I always seem to have bad luck when it comes to flying. My flight was delayed by about an hour but it didn't make much difference to me, my connecting flight in Miami wasn't until about 22.00 and it was only about 15.00 now so I still had a long while yet. There was a little confusion when my flight was announced but it was sorted very quickly and everybody began boarding.