Well it has been over a month since I got home and well over a month since my last blog post. When I wrote the last blog post I was still sitting in Canada, pretty much packing up and ready to get the flight home. Did I say ready? Well prepared to get the flight home is more appropriate.
Its hard to believe its been a month already, just as it was hard to beleive a month traveling had gone by. In the last few weeks Ive been catching up with my other photo work, getting back in touch with students, starting to wade through the thousands of images to be edited, captioned and uploaded to various sites and sitting watching the rain bounce off the windows.
Its been a tough couple of weeks, not just from the work perspective and the fitting it all in whilst trying to get a house and everything back to normal. The boring mundane ordering of heating oil and cutting the grass dont quite compare to flying over nigara falls in the helicopter but they have to be done.
Its also been a wrench leaving my friends, its not that I dont have good friends here but there is something about traveling together that bonds people. I have 3 close friends that I have traveled the world with and I remember the first day they met, it was down in dublin airport and none of them had met before. I had traveled with them all individually but not as a group so hadnt even considered the dynamics. Our first task as a unit was to report all our luggage missing on arrival so it was a baptism of fire. There is something about the bonds of friendship made whilst traveling that go beyond normal friendship and I have that in abundance now with my friends here, in Canada and in South America.
People have asked what the highlight of the trip was, of course there are loads of things I could mention and already have in the blog but like my trip to South America there is one thing that stands out for me, the people I travelled with and the people I met. Whilst I didnt quite need emergency room treatment as in Buenos Aires, I was treated like a friends by strangers and welcomed into the family by people who didnt need to do that.
Oh but here, did I mention we got buzzed by a crop duster in North Dakota?
With the recent events in London and indeed Belfast it is sometimes easy to draw the conclusion that the world is going to hell and in a bloody quick manner but when someone in nowheresville Iowa comes over to your table and asks how you are and what you are doing there and recommends the platter then its not that bad. When you are invited to a family barbecue even though you arent part of the family but feel like it by the end of the evening then it shows there are more good people than bad in the world.
But Im not knocking the sales of water cannon photos or soldiers on the streets.
It was my first trip to Canada and definitely wont be the last, I felt at home there, I felt as though it was the same as here only different. Ive been so taken with the place I spent the first couple of weeks looking at visa regulations and work permits and the like. There is a danger that the grass is always greener and boy if I complain about the winters here then…
…well you get the point.
I have always been a traveler, even when I didnt know it, its not really about the start or the end or even the bit in the middle, its about the journey as a whole, its not so much about what you see but how it affects you and what you do about it afterwards. Its about meeting people and seeing that we are pretty much the same the world over, we want to be fed and a roof over our head and if we can all have a laugh in the process, so much the better. The world financial system can go down the toilet but as long as you can put food on the table, thats pretty much all that should matter.
I am back to earth with a bump here but it is home and always will be home, I missed the soft grass and the soft rain (ok Ive had enough of that already) and sitting out on the lough fishing as the sun goes down is now an experience having met someone who has never seen the sea. Not to mention the freshly caught mackerel barbequed with friends.
Im waxing lyrical about the trip and the place but I’ll bring it back to the people, it would not have been half as much fun without the old and new friends on the trip and I think if we’d sat in the house for a month it would have been equally as enjoyable.
Just saying thank you isnt really enough, I am a wee boy from the Falls Road in Belfast, I should never have seen the things Ive seen (good and bad) and would never have imagined Id have been to the places I only ever read about or saw on a wee small black and white portable tv as a kid. That means its all an experience, its all good (even the bad bits).
Life is not a rehearsal so even if its just lying on the grass, sitting out in the rain, go and do something you havent done before, say yes to something you would normally say no to and see what happens along the way.
So thanks to everyone I met in the US/Canada, its been emotional Its also been great craic and would I do it again – 4 weeks ago I’d probably have said no, now I’ll say maybe, in 4 weeks time I’ll probably have a bag packed.
After Ive got the rest of the photos edited of course…. ..better get back to work and pull a few all nighters!
Firstly a couple of my usual bug bears with travelling in the US or more specifically, spending money in the US. You walk into a shop and it might say 2.99 for a large coffee so you hand over 3 dollars to be told it actually costs 3.27.
That price doesnt include tax sir.
Why not?
It just doesnt.
FFS sort it out, get with the rest of the real world, if its in electronic format or stick on prices then add the sodding sales tax. If you are a hotel and quote 91 dollars then charge me 114 on my credit card then I will bloody well complain to my credit card provider in the UK. Ok I wont but its the principle of the thing.
Bloody stupid idea.
Oh and dont get me started on tipping. That 2.99 coffee now costs me 4 dollars as we tip here. Just pay your staff decent wages and include it in the price of the coffee! Its not rocket science.
How much to license this photo – 50 dollars – ok can you invoice us? Yes that will be 325 dollars total then. What? Well tax and sales and admin and issuing a paper invoice oh and we request a 500% tip at all times.
Bloody hell, travelling through the US is just a series of Ryanair purchases.
Right, got that off my chest.
Facebook is a marvellous thing, it enables me to turn my phone off and avoid all those Indian call centres, wedding price list requests, photography students looking summer jobs and the odd strange request to see if I can help photographing bull semen. (yes that is real – you really couldnt make that one up – 2 calls – each time I was travelling and in the middle of the night where I was).
Just turn on wifi and use facebook on the phone for updates.
Well thats when it does update of course, which explains why Im sitting in my boxers with a cup of coffee in my hotel room when the leaving time has been bumped forward to 9:30 and the rest of the team are in the hotel lobby.
Still they went and got me a cracker barrel breakfast – took them a bloody hour and a half but if Id got my arse out of gear quicker it wouldnt have been a problem.
Today it was all about Memphis, getting to Graceland. Its hard to meet someone who isnt an Elvis fan of some description so being this close and not going would be a waste of an opportunity. Yes its about a 4 hour detour but we may not be this way again so didnt want any regrets. The original plan was to stay in Memphis and spend the evening on Beale Street after Graceland but with the change of route home due to the flooding (including a nuclear power station – safe my arse!) and the apparently horrific crime rate in Memphis, it was wise to get on the road as soon as we can.
I had expected that Graceland would be a bit OTT but I cant really say it was that out of place. Elvis invented bling long before the word bling ever came along and certainly if I had his money, fame, good looks and status Id be a hell of a lot more tacky than he was. Again you have to remember this was in the 50s/60s/70s so totally beyond the normal for then but compared to some of the tat thats shown on MTV its quite tame.
It was a great insight into Elvis life, I was only a kid when he died and remember seeing TV pictures of people with candles outside Graceland and here am I standing in the house itself. The upstairs is still closed to visitors, the sceptics saying that when the visitors start to dwindle they will open that as well but I prefer the conspiracy theory that hes sitting up there in his rocking chair having a laugh at the rest of us.
Hes not really dead at all but working on a duet album with Michael Jackson and going out for a morning ride each day on Shergar.
Just in case he was at home we pressed the old original gate intercom to see if we could catch anyone out.
I know you are all wanting to know what we had to eat at Graceland, why southern fried chicken, sweet potatoes, potatoes and gravy and cornbread. So there you go..
Back on the road we gave serious thoughts to just hitting the highway North but we would be long enough in the car so a quick trip into downtown Memphis.
Another must see was the Lorraine Hotel, on this spot Martin Luther King was shot as he walked out of his hotel room on the second floor. Its now the National Civil Rights Museum and has a wreath where he fell and the car is still parked outside. Judging by the coach loads of people arriving and leaving this too is an important spot.
As Beale street was close we headed for a walk down it and a quick drink in one of the bars. There is a bar there just serving slush cocktails but unfortunately as we were all going to be driving at some point it was the one and only non-alcoholic one in the bar. We probably looked like aliens all asking for the non-alcoholic varieties.
The downtown area has a bad reputation and the place was swarming with cops, I suppose it is reassuring there are that many squad cars around but inevitably lead to the ‘lets get the f*ck out of dodge’. I wonder if Dodge City is nice
Doing such a momentous trip really gives you an appreciation of what the life of the interstate truckers is like, hours and hours of open highway driving, not knowing where you are sleeping and all that. Each day we drove a larger distance than is possible in Ireland in a straight line. Sooner or later you are going to end up in the water!
A few years ago I did a tour of the west coast of the USA and tried to keep off the interstates and visit some of the non-chained restaurants, hotels etc on the way. It made for a more interesting trip and ave Gorman did an ‘unchained’ trip where he did just that but with a lot of hassle.
Of course the problem with doing this is that there are few roadsigns and driving off the interstate seems to be meant for locals, not tourists. Of course if we had turned the voice on, on the sat nav we might have got by better but with the huge amount of flooding and roads closed it was inevitable that we would get caught up in it.
The other issue with this sort of travelling is that sometimes when you give yourself a cut off time for driving and just pick the nearest hotel/motel then you can end up staying somewhere where you have absolutely no clue where you are. Our first stop after Memphis was somewhere near St Louis but to this day I still have no idea where.
It does have its plus point though as you find wee places like Mount Pleasant, the town square looking like the set out of back to the future and lovely local diner where the local poetry group was meeting and doing some readings etc.
Oh and they served food as well.
For me this is pretty much the real USA, people here are very welcoming and want to hear strangers stories and have the time to sit and chat with them. I like others often judge the book by its cover and often only get to see major cities, airports etc which are impersonal in most nations but get out into the sticks and meet some real people and the attitude changes. Without doubt in every small town we were welcomed and genuinely felt guilty that we didnt have more time to spend in those communities than just sitting in some nice but bland hotel waiting for the next tour bus.
It gets to the stage you do just live out of your luggage and it was time for me to buy some new luggage. The wheels had literally come off my previous bag (bought in Chicago funnily enough) and I got a set of new ones which will probably kill my baggage allowance on the flight home. How come when you leave home with 5kg left in your allowance, and you buy nothing (ok a bottle of Jack Daniels, oh and some ice wine, oh and new socks and boxers and and) your bag is overweight on the way home.
Saying that though I did used to regularly fly with one airline which would not penalise people for being overweight leaving Belfast but would sting them severely on the way home.
As we decided to give the area involving the flooded Nuclear power station (which was safe apparently) a miss we headed North via Iowa then Minneapolis (which I still cant pronounce). This gave us the opportunity to visit the Mall of America.
Now it is argued that this can be seen from space but someone should tell the highways agency it might be worth while sticking a few signs up. The only signs we saw were within one interstate turn and by then it was too late, that was after the sat nav took us 10 miles out of the way. Even in the hotel across the road where you could see the Mall itself, people were asking for directions.
We arrived at the Mall just after closing so had something to eat – sorry no photos – I was too hungry – buffalo burger I believe, just in case you are wondering. Got a hotel across the road and then would hit the mall in the morning.
The mall was amazing, not just for the size of the place.
Oh and wee tip, if you are busting for a pee, run into the mall of america with one of your travelling companions, head straight for the row of urinals where he decides to make comment on the vastness of the mall with the immortal words ‘can you believe the size of this thing’ whilst relieving himself, you tend to find the people around you zip up quickly and head out of the bog with wet fingers.
Have to say I nearly peed all over my shoes at that comment I laughed so much…
The Mall has a funfair which would rival one of the disney resorts but we couldnt stay and only saw about 1/10th of the shops before hitting the road. We needed to get to the border for 9pm to make sure all the road crossings were open…
We raced through the flat lands of North Dakota, which has to be seen to be believed. I know people tell you its flat but you have no comprehension of the term. Even when Im out on my boat on the sea in a flat calm day you can still see coastline and mountains in the distance, this is just flat. So flat we could see the crop duster dusting the fields in the distance. They would dust, fly up and round then fly under the power lines, over the interstate and start dusting again. When he made his turn when we approached he probably thought he would time it just right to pass behind us. Of course with me hanging out the back with the camera giving the driver instructions to hold up just enough let him pass in front of us, well lets just say it was very close and I can still almost taste whatever they were spraying.
We reached the border about 10pm and Canada was closed. Sorry folks, closed for the night, try again later.
Like seriously? WTF? So we drove back the 12 miles to the nearest town and scared the shit out of the local cop by walkin up to the car in the dark and asking directions to a 24hr border post.
He did wish me well on my journey and Im sure the guy was genuine and meant well but when hes sitting in his car with his hand on his gun, its not very reassuring.
On the way to the 24hr post this stupid wee bird decided he wanted to hover over something on the road just in front of us as we were doing 70mph. We didnt get to see the aftermath, probably just disintegrated, like pigeons perhaps.
We got to the border post and it was a less arduous experience than entering the states.
Do you guys have any alcohol?
I have a bottle of Jack Daniels Single Cask I bought at the factory.
Awesome!
Do you guys have any livestock on board?
Umm no?
Are you sure?
Umm yes?
Ok then, on you go.
Pulling out of the border post it did feel like a weight removed but we couldnt get too complacent as not more than 100 yards on a deer ran out across the road in the darkness and behind it a whole field of deer looked on.
It was all about putting the miles in then, up to Brandon and do the drive around looking for hotel at 1am in the morning. Found a lovely hotel – Victoria hotel or something like that – beautifully cooked hot breakfast – again no pics, sorry I was starving but it was eggs benedict.
Packing the car in the morning the front of the car was covered in dead mosquitos, oh and a small black bird headfirst into the headlight assembly, cartoon style with feet sticking straight out. Straight to the scene of the accident! The border guard must have seen it, he couldnt have missed it!
Finally we managed to make it back to Saskatoon.
The stats are 11 US states, 2 Canadian provinces, 2 time zones, 4642 miles driven in 11 days, one dead raccoon, one smuggled illegal immigrant dead bird, back in time to put the kettle on before band rehearsals.
Would I do it again? Standard answer is not in a million years, then ask me a week later and its a maybe and a month later I’ll be planning the next one.
Thing is though, after 3 full days in Saskatoon we are on the road again to Winnipeg for another 9 hour each way drive and a couple of days at the Winnipeg folk festival.
Ah this rock and roll lifestyle, you could get used to it…
I think my headstone should say something along the lines of ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ but more likely to say ‘watch this’ or ‘I know I shouldnt be doing this but whats the worst that can happen?’
Ive been here (whereever here is) too long already as I wanted to add ‘Eh?’ at the end of that sentence.
Its hard to tell where I am or when I am or what bloody year it is. I know Im sitting in the hotel foyer in Nashville, that bit is easy, it says it on the leaflets in front of me. I havent slept in the same bed twice in almost two weeks. Now normally that would be one hell of a boast but by now it just means a pile of washing and not believing what the gps says.
It was a simple concept this trip, Saskatoon to Nashville 2-3 days of easy driving, sightseeing, looking around us, 5 days in Nashville and the same on the way back. Put into that few a words and saying it not too loud and not mentioning it to anyone with any sense in their head and it really did seem like a good idea at the time.
We started well enough, we left Saskatoon early on Friday night (I think it was Friday, I had to look it up) and hit Regina and stay at Nathans house (promised Nathan a mention in the blog, so there you go Nathan, youve got a mention and thanks again for letting us stay at your house). So Nathan had been away himself for a while so looked a bit shell shocked when we arrived just before midnight. Nathan was off up himself in the early hours of the morning, before we’d managed to prise our eyelids open. I had heard a lot about him, his trips to the world cup in South Africa and various other football games. At another time we’d probably have spent a lot of time swapping football stories over a few beers but it wasnt to be – maybe in Brazil
We had great intentions of getting up and on the road early but it was absolutely chucking it down. Id been introduced to the concept of basements in Canada, where we tend to convert attics to add extra rooms, all the houses here seem to have basements to do the same job, Nathans was superb with the TV room underground. Also its common practice here to take your shoes off going into the house, probably why all the carpets and floors look really good years on.
But you dont want to hear about that, you want to hear about the Wicklow Cafe which was about as irish as well something that isnt really irish. I misread the menu and ordered their 8 oz burger, but what I had ordered was a double 8 oz burger. It was big enough to choke a horse or as a mate of mine once remarked, thats probably the whole arse of a cow…
Now I take pride in being able to inhale food rather than just bite, chew and digest like normal people but even I had to take one of the burgers out so I could get the rest in my gub.
Im pretty much setting the scene for this trip, its all really about the food to be honest.
That and the ‘Are you hungry?’ ‘No, but I could eat something’.
As we drove south the fields on both sides of the road were flooded, and I mean really flooded, at one point the protective banks had burst on the road and we were sent out the way by a cop, it will be worse probably by the time we get back. The train line was flooded and the trains stopped, some of the wee villages had their fire crews out pumping water from the centre of town. It really did look like something out of a disaster movie…. ….it would turn out to be small change.
The next big hurdle was the US border, last year I went to Argentina and the stupid idea of having to clear US immigration even though I wasnt leaving the airport for a transfer meant that one of my exit visa cards wasnt collected by the air crew. So at some point I thought I was going to be scooped. I didnt fancy sitting on a case for 11 days in the arse hole of nowhere waiting on my friends coming back to me. It would also be difficult trying to justify my photo selection for the tour book. ‘But these look like all the same pictures of the same place with feck all but horizon’, ‘Ah you dont understand art’, ‘get the f**k out of my office and dont come back’. Maybe I could get them to buy postcards and stick them in the album.
Even though Id a new passport I thought something would sting me so I got called into the office and there on the wall was my mate Barack of the Moneygall Obamas. I thought it might not be wise to mention this at this time. It was bad enough we crossed the border in an SUV with totally blacked out windows. Now my car at home has the rear windows tinted, the guy tinting them said not to get the limo tint would look like I was in a hearse…
…so even the border official couldnt see me, but of course the xray they were taking of the car probably did. What do you mean they dont x-ray the cars….
I suppose it could have been worse, I could have been chained up with a gimp mask in the back seat, I nearly bought one of those once, for a photo prop you understand but I did think that if the plane went down and my family went to identify my belongings, even though I was dead, it would be a hard one to explain. Still…
Oh and the old Jedi mind trick of ‘you dont need to bring me into the office’ didnt work either.
Anyway to exaggerate a really nothing happening, I got through and passed from the arse hole of nowhere Canada to the arse hole of nowhere USA. I dont mean that to be derogatory because they were definitely the best arse holes of nowhere Id ever been. Nothing but flat boring land for miles. It is weird and interesting but after 1000km it all gets a bit, well, ‘samey’.
As the sat nav had said we dutifully turned left at North Dakota and kept driving into the night.
Time to find somewhere to stay and being behind schedule we were never going to make it to Sioux Falls so we settled on Jamestown and spent a while driving round to find a hotel room and ended up in the Holiday Inn for the night.
Jamestown is famous for having the worlds largest buffalo statue. We saw it at speed from the road and it was a massive bloody buffalo statue. To be fair though I dont know what competition they have and if someone told me the worlds largest buffalo statue was 3 feet tall I would believe them.
Time to hit the road again and now whizzing through South Dakota, trying to keep within the speed limits. Whilst we did have the technical wizardry of a sat nav, my co-pilots had their trusty map with the route in yellow highlighter. Long thought out in advance but not the route I would take but hey looked more interesting. Of course the map was a one off, bought for the purpose, treated with care as it was the blueprint for the journey, carefully looked after, folded up properly and stowed in the same place.
Then of course some shit for brains photographer decided that a photo of the map with on the car bonnet (sorry hood) with a couple of coffee cups on it would add to the journey. I should have of course used empty coffee cups….
…it will dry out…
…besides its more lived in, needs some tomato ketchup, blood and maybe a bit of vomit and wee stains to make it a true road trip map but maybe thats just going too far.
Time for lunch, well its always time for lunch or should I say breakfast, even in Dennys at 10pm I asked what was good there and the manager read out the entire menu but highlighted the breakfasts!
It was a nice wee local restaurant with a staff of about four thousand, with more staff than customers but the people welcomed us in and asked where we were from and what we were doing etc. Really nice to see and the food was good too. This is a half skillet apparently. Id hate to see the size of a full one.
Back on the road again and I thought Id take my turn driving, at least in daylight to get used to it again. I didnt hit anything, maybe Id get brave and try it in the dark…
We were a bit unlucky as we hit about 50 miles of roadworks on the trip down to Sioux Falls and Sioux City. The plan was to see if we could get down to Kansas City or St Louis for the evening. Although I might make a detour along the way to visit someone I know from the internet. Now normally every person I have met on the internet or converse with is nice and a good person – I have to bloody say that, most of you are reading this and know where I live. But occassionally you just come across someone who one day would benefit from two fairly well built Belfast boys turning up on their doorstep in Hicksville USA, saying nothing and just smacking them in the mouth. ‘Thats for nothing, wait until you do something’. Wont be such a smart arse in forums then would we? Oh and we could still do it on the way home
All joking aside, the journey from Sioux Falls to Kansas City was a bit of a nightmare but nothing compared to what the people living there have went through. We had all vaguely heard something about floods last year and this but hadnt even thought it would impact on us, after all it was a while ago, wasnt it.
We were all dozing off through the afternoon as the heat creeped up but one ‘holy f*ck’ from me had everyone looking out of the window. Long diversions into the countryside as the main road just went straight under the Missouri River. The levees had been breached and there was devastation everywhere. Roads closed, houses covered, streetsigns just sticking out of the water and fields just looking like a big lake with trees sticking out of it.
Its one of the issues with travel in the US, all the roads seem to be a grid system, odd numbers north/south, even numbers east/west but when a road is closed you have to go across and then down and this added maybe a hundred miles to our journey. It did make it more interesting… …interesting in a Top Gear visits Alabama sort of way. Or put in the Belfast vernacular, a couple of dicks in a pickup truck and an ex cop car ‘acting the ballix’. Racing each other and us stuck in the middle, unarmed, in hicksville usa…
We managed to gt rid and get back on the highway again, just in time to ignore the roadsigns for the last 1000 miles or so that advertise which turns off the motorway turn into gas stations, food establishments and hotels. No we decided to take the turn off that took us into downtown St Joseph. Now buildings that are boarded up, people sitting on their porches eyeing up the fresh meat, sorry visitors. 20 mins of driving around produced the sort of physical reaction that meant it would be difficult to put a playing card between our arse cheeks…
Im not exaggerating how bad this place looked, earlier on the trip there was the floods devastation and we had driven through an area that had been hit recently by a tornado with the odd building wrecked but this was on a different scale. Maybe getting a few rifles as soon as we crossed the border might not have been a bad idea.
We decided to push on down the road to catch up time and go halfway between Kansas City and St Louis in a place called Columbia and try and find a hotel. It was my turn to drive and although I dont think Id ever driven in the US at night, nevermind in pishing rain, in a thunderstorm that there were weather warnings about, I thought Id give it a go. After all whats the worst that could happen. Besides which it would be a dry run for the return trip in case we were running late and had to drive through the night to get back to safety, sorry Canada.
One thing I discovered early on is that the US could fecking do with cateyes and luminous lane markers on the interstates and highways. Driving in heavy rain at night it really was a case of keep it between the hedges. The whole driving experience was interesting. A few friends work for a company that makes the see sensors that measure tyre pressure and other things to do with the wheels. These seemed to be widely used in the US and is it any wonder. There are so many different road noises, all of which would have me normally pulling in to check for a flat tyre, wonky wheel or part of the car falling off! But the sensors would tell us if there was any problem with the tyres. Good idea. Now tell us where the road is and we are laughing.
I managed to make it through the main part of the thunderstorm without shitting myself, well mostly.
As the roads cleared I just saw on the side of the road some sort of animal, now it was like a racoon or badger. It ran right across the road in front of me to the central reservation. Id slowed down but driving this big boat of an american car at night, in the rain on the wet road I wasnt going to break too hard.
Unlucky for the Racoon who was on a suicide mission and having made it to safety decided to retrace his steps.
This led to the inevitable ‘thump’ ‘thump’ and the inevitable ‘f*ck’ ‘f*ck’ from me. Silence from the rest of the car and then this big broad Belfast accent ‘Joe, weve had this car for three years and havent hit nathing! You bloody hit a raccoon on your first attempt’.
What could I say? I must have been in slight shock as what I thought I would say and what I actually said are two different things.
Firstly, ‘God I hope that was a raccoon and not a man in a fancy dress suit or davy crockett hat’
closely followed by
‘have you ever hit a pigeon? They just explode in a hail of feathers you know!’
Hard to drive through the night when you are fighting back tears of laughter..
We reached Columbia without further incident except to find out there was almost literally no room at the inn at 1am. So we would all have to share a room.
It had been a traumatic experience and eventually something has to give. Now if you consider Id been eating enough food to keep a small nation going for a week you can see where this is going.
When you make that sort of bathroom deposit, generally speaking a formal written apology might be more appropriate than the old ‘you might want to give that a minute before going in to clean your teeth’.
Id like to formally apologise to my travelling companions for any inconvenience or stinging eyes, runny nose or general feeling of illness caused as a result of my actions.
No more cracker barrell platters for me. Well not for a few days anyway.
Its late now and Im in a half decent hotel in Nashville and its time to get on with the rest of the trip so thats it for now. Just to say we took a quick run into the Gaylord Opryland hotel. And yes for all the Norn Iron people reading this who have just spat out their coffee, yes indeedy theres a huge hotel run by the Gaylord corporation. Now its childish immature and just plain wrong to laugh at the mention of the word Gaylord but you have to admit when you see a big butch guy who would beat seven shades of shit out of you wearing a t-shirt and cap with the words ‘Gaylord Security’ all over it, its hard not to laugh.
The place seemed quite dead and it wasnt until we went on the boat tour (yes they have an indoor river with fish and ducks and everything) that we realised that this time last year the whole building was under 20-30 feet of water. The mall across the parking lot still hasnt re-opened – probably a total loss. The cinema still has advertising posters from May 2010 on the walls. Brings it all home with a bump.
Well not quite but if it wasnt so bloody cold I might have.
Its been almost two weeks since I embarked on what would be a reasonably long journey home. I left after I was scheduled to leave and got home at the same time as I should have, but did it feel like a long journey.
Firstly the outbound flight from Buenos Aires was delayed as expected. Washington was snowed in so my much anticipated visit to the Smithsonian museum was cancelled. Slightly gutted but having waited in the queue for check in for two hours Id have paid everything I owned for a teleport system.
So two hours waiting, we know the flight isnt leaving, we are through ‘security’ and standing in line, of course they decide to stop check-in right as muggins gets to the front of the queue. So two hours of waiting for them to officially tell us we were going to Chicago even though we’ve known it for hours. With an hour left to wait I received the email from United Airlines telling me the flight that should have left an hour ago was delayed. Well no shit sherlock.
At this point United did appear to be the worst airline I’ve ever flown with, they could have just checked us all in, given us our seats and sorted it out later. No. Of course they did a re-check-in which seemed to me stupid as about 1/4 the passengers had already got their seats and boarding cards and were waiting at the gate. Again I would have assumed that it would cause chaos to reassign those seats to the next 1/4 of passengers. They didnt and it did. I did mention that everything in South America seemed to result in a discussion that would normally last about 30 secs at home before someone said ‘look just sit the f**k down’.
Even the first class passengers and the 17 levels of segregation that United apply to passengers above cattle class had to stand and wait as well. Sometimes theres a lot to be said for Ryanairs, every man for themselves policy.
The flight the day before was delayed and so this one was packed. Now I’ll have to admit, being a single bloke on a 14 hour flight you do hold out hope of some nice looking woman taking the empty seat beside you. If she could speak english and was looking a part exchange on an EU passport then all the better.
No.
Dont be stupid.
Now, in the last couple of days there was the case where a larger than life film actor/director was asked to leave a United airlines flight because he should really have booked two tickets. Well normally Id have sympathy but now Im thinking of asking for a refund on the 40% of my seat that I didnt actually use on the flight due to the overspill of the passenger beside me.
So after 6 hours awake I went to the stewardesses and asked if there were any spare seats or could I just sleep on the floor in the kitchen. Their reply of ‘you must be joking’ wasnt exactly what I wanted to hear.
I did think about my reply carefully from quips like ‘if I was joking I would have said, a man walks into a bar with a duck on his head’ to ‘can I have some clean water as I’d like to wash my body before we all meet my maker’ to just taking her overly made up face and smashing it into the still warm plate of microwave airline meals beside her.
No matter what I said would probably end up in the plane diverting to some central american airport with my heathrow ticket being exchanged for one to Guantanamo Bay.
Back to my half seat I went and resigned myself to elbowing my fellow passenger in the ribs and kicking him in the ankles when he tried to play footsie. Im sure he wonders where all his bruises have come from.
Travelling through the US is a nightmare. Im not going to do it again if I can humanly avoid it. Ive mentioned the one carry on bag and the queues for immigration even though you are going nowhere near US soil. If I have to go through the US again it will be from Dublin where I can clear US immigration in Dublin. Another hour queueing for immigration, then waiting for my bag and taking it through customs only to drop it off a further 100 yards later for it to go to Belfast.
To be honest though it was a relief to see it, and to see it intact. There were rumours about stuff being nicked from bags in Buenos Aires airport. When checking through security there I was asked what was in my checkin bag, I was specifically asked if there were any camcorders, digital cameras and anything else worth nicking, sorry above 50 USD. When I said yes, there was a big sticker put on my bag. I dont think it said ‘ransack through here’ but it may as well have. One of the joys of travelling with an old beaten up bag with only one wheel and one other trick I learned years ago. Three days before you are due to come home, soak some of your dirty clothes. t-shirt and trousers is enough. Put them in a plastic bag and leave them in the heat. When you go to leave, put it at the top of your bag and cut it open before quickly closing the bag. If anyone opens that bag, smells that and still rifles through it looking for valuables, they are more than welcome to the contents.
By the time I got to my destination gate I had no idea who I was, where I was, where I was going and quite frankly I didnt really care. Having been to Chicago a couple of times before I just wanted to lie down somewhere but needed something to eat. If you are in Chicago they have their own brewery called Goose Island and they do a nice Christmas Ale. This wasnt christmas but I thought Id try the local brew anyway. Of course I got funny looks at 9:30am asking for a beer but hey I’d no idea what time it was.
I splurged on the 50 dollars it cost to get access to the frequent flyer lounge as quite frankly it was a bargain. Lovely soft seats, free net access, tv, papers etc etc. Free soft drinks, well not like UK free, but US free served by a barman which attracts the obligatory 1 dollar tip. Now Im not against tipping barstaff but hey if you are travelling to another country and I know the US people find that strange you dont necessarily carry US money. Particularly when you dont think you are going to spend much time there. Besides which in the UK you have fridges with cans of stuff and dont need 4 bar staff to change the TV station for you.
I just want to go home.
To cut another long story short, soon enough I was home, in my own house and I realise how quiet it is where I live. Silence.
I remember moving here from Belfast City and spending the first couple of weeks waking up because it was ‘too quiet’. When things went quiet in the area of the city I lived it generally meant it was going to get real loud real quick.
So Ive had a few emails from people asking me to go through what gear I use, how I used it etc etc etc. To be perfectly honest I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than talk photo gear and Im sure most peoples eyes would glaze over as well. I’ll leave the photo talk to photo forums but heres a few things that did make my life a lot easier whilst travelling.
Noise cancelling headphones – absolutely superb. I baulked at the price of these things just to use on planes etc but they really are worth their weight in gold. Apart from using them on planes, ferries, in airports etc they are useful in noisy hotel rooms, disconnect them, turn on the noise cancelling and go to sleep.
Wee small plastic bottles less than 60ml. You dont really realise how difficult air travel has become until you try to book a flight with hand luggage only where the destination is full of mosquitos and 40C+ You cant buy that small a bottle of sun cream so the ability to pack some into smaller bottles to pack in hand luggage and avoid a one way rendition flight is understated. I do wonder why they persist with this rubbish as lets be honest if I wanted to take a plane down, I’d buy a bottle of vodka and a lighter in duty free and then see if the aircrew thought I was joking.
Besides which if they’d applied the air safety laws that were in force on September 11th, the hijackers would never have got on the planes in the first place. When you have a load of people on a watch list, you just dont let them get on a plane. Back here during the troubles you couldnt go 100 yards in the car without some military patrol appearing from somewhere.
Maybe if security spent less time robbing us all of our purchased in the security zone bottles of water and duty free which by its nature had to be purchased airside, and actually out chasing ‘terrorists’ then wed all travel a lot easier with less hassle.
Im ranting again but seriously, who gives the UK border protection jobsworths the right to photograph me then stick a sticker right across the front of the harp on my irish passport. It might only just be a sticker but that harp can get you out of trouble quicker than you can say ‘no inglaterra’. Yes it does wash off but thats not the point, Im going to tell the minister for foreign affairs, after all the passport is his property still.
My smartphone, ok I couldnt make any actual calls with it for some reason to do with no reciprocal arrangements with some networks, but the ability to use wifi to check email, carry pdf maps etc etc. Its not an iphone so the battery lasts about a week and if Id had the wit to bring a headphone adaptor I could have used it to play my mp3s and could have left the ipod at home.
The ipod nano itself is again worth its weight in gold. I’ve the ministry of sound chill out sessions just for travelling, put the headphones in, get into bed, press play…. …and I’ve never heard the end of that album.
A microfibre travel towel. Small, light, very absorbent, for places like the waterfalls and easy to carry. It was a tip from a good friend of mine who travelled a lot.
‘Memory’ AA batteries. I was very sceptical about the use of these type of batteries. Basically they discharge slowly and keep their charge longer. Its not until you are travelling until you realise that the ability to keep charge for a couple of days is a godsend. No need to bring chargers for a quick trip with light or possible usage.
Ive mentioned the plastic carrier bag tricks before, to keeping the camera dry, putting all your creams and lotions in in your main baggage in case one goes pop and wrecks all the clothes in your bag, to putting on your hands and feet to avoid leaving footprints… …sorry meant to say to avoid your feet and hands getting soaked…
Pencils. Its like the old joke, NASA spent 1 million dollars developing a pen that would write in space, the Russians just used pencils.
The netbook I left at home. I have since found out that the hard drive failure in my macbook is a ‘known problem’. Known in that it was known by mac and theyve sat on it for 3-4 years. They issued an advisory note and extended warranty last week, a month too late for me. If I’d known the hard drive was likely to fail, I’d have had it changed before I left. Dont get me started on the ipad.
Only one last thing to do (other than edit the photos from the trip) and its to retire the passport. Its my 2nd full Irish passport and the first one was a four continenter. This one has been to all 5 continents and I think it deserves a break from travelling…… …although theres some cheap flight emails on the go at the minute…
Thats it I’ve had enough, snow, frost, cold, wet, dreary, etc etc etc.
Sunnier climes beckon.
Its been a while since I flew on a ‘proper’ airline, as opposed to low cost or booking a seat on a charter plane. Its unusal to be asked where you would like to sit and to have boarding passes for belfast to heathrow to washington to buenos aires printed out automatically in less than 2 mins. Not having to stand and queue for half an hour just to reach the checkin desk or just sit and wait until your seat row number is called at this point in time seems well worth the extra. Of course not every route is open to this so it will still be a case of no frills (sorry not low cost as sometimes its dearer than others) for the time being.
I booked this trip before the underpants bomber decided to try and make a statement, so am awaiting the check in for a flight to the US with dread. I havent flown from the UK to the USA for over 14 years, all other times have been via Dublin and you clear US customs and immigration in dublin making the whole experience a lot easier (well you used to dont know about now). I just went through the flight connections section of Heathrow Terminal one and a lot of people have been caught out by the extra layer of internal security. There are piles of water bottles and duty free alcohol being taken off people. The folks naturally assumed that if you have a connecting flight you are airside so buying the duty free seemed the normal thing to do.
For me theres an issue. I couldnt buy anything in Belfast as it would be taken off me in Heathrow. I cant buy anything in Heathrow as it would be taken off me in Washington, if indeed it got that far as the one piece of cabin baggage would have divested me of bushmills finest long before I got stateside. So if I want to bring my hosts in Buenos Aires some alcohol it will have to be picked up in Washington and theres probably nothing Irish on sale there at all. Also I find it strange that transitting US airports, even if you are staying airside and going on to another country you have to clear US customs and immigration. Dont get it? Any ideas?
So In Belfast city airport I got three boarding passes, got my luggage routed (hopefully) to Buenos Aires but I still have to collect it in Washington, clear customs and immigration and then hand it back to the airline staff even though I’m not setting foot on US soil (unless of course I am and I dont know it yet). Odd. Still at least I’ll know by that stage that my bag is still with me.
Which leads me on to the single piece of hand luggage thing, surely you can do as much damage with half a bag or one bag or indeed a pair of underpants or your shoes as with half a dozen bags. A young family checked onto my Heathrow flight just in front of me in security in Belfast, two small kids, one toddling, one in a papoose thing. They must have had about 10 items to go through security. I know the reasons why all this is being done and yes its a small price to pay, but seeing security taking a bottle off a toddler who is drinking from it and asking the father to open it and drink out of it is a bit of a shock. Yes I know it could be a false teat and all that and yes I do know there are enough psychos out there who would blow their kids up as well as themselves to try and make a point.
I think its all self defeating really, but I dont have an answer, its like back when I was a child, to get into Belfast city centre you had to go through a security zone and were body searched, all bags were opened and searched. Compared to that current airport security seems a little on the liberal side! I remember being body searched as a 7 year old but that was normal for the times. I guess the people who grew up in ‘normal’ times before that were wondering what on earth was going on.
Right time for me to go and buy my 2nd bottle of water for the day, might even get to drink this one this time. Some enterprising souls should rent water bottles out in transit lounges in airports, or maybe they are doing this already!
Its also been great craic and would I do it again – 4 weeks ago I’d probably have said no, now I’ll say maybe, in 4 weeks time I’ll probably have a bag packed.
