This won’t be a particularly large post, firstly because we didn’t spend much time there, and secondly because I’m tired and have had a few drinks.

Best policy is honesty, right?

But no, Vermont. The scenery in Montreal was okay, but within a couple hours south and you’ve crossed the border, it becomes quite impressive. It’s almost a little like the geography knows it has to change, because you’ve changed country. The trees become a verdant, lush rug across the landscape, vast and uninterrupted. The hills are long and rolling, but seem to be always miles away. You just lose all sense of distance.

Barely anyone lives there. We stayed in a hotel in a relatively populous town, Rutland, which had about 40,000 people. On the way there, though, the road passed through innumerable small villages, all with their own local shops, farms and motels. This is the thing about Vermont which I’ve not noticed about any other state: there isn’t a chain to be seen. Every village appears to have its own brand of bank, its own hotels, its own restaurants. It’s tranquil and untouched by corporate America. Which is lovely, it really is, and gives the endless winding roads real character.

We only had one night in Rutland, which meant we only had the day we arrived to explore. As soon as we checked in, we set about quickly finding a walk to do. The only walks appeared to be real hiking trails, but we thought we could find one and walk a bit along it and then back. We even brought a couple of beers. Then it turned out that we found the Appalachian Trail.

Okay, that’s a joke. Ottawa is not a renegade city, but there was a Canadian Football team by that name several years ago. If you’ve ever been to Ottawa, you will know that, well, it’s not exactly a place associated with renegades.

It is, in fact, one of the most genteel, civilised cities you’re likely ever to visit. For your average British person coming to North America, you could not have an easier transition. It positively oozes British culture, and I can’t quite describe why it is so. But, the skyscrapers are nowhere near as intimidating. Cycling and walking are not only possible, but a popular pasttime – and you will find it is the easiest way to get into the centre of town. Which, now I mention it, is stonkingly beautiful, and a joy to explore. The combination of greenery, low rise buildings, and the view across the Ottawa river, it’s practically made to see at a slow pace. It is pretty much the opposite of a big city, and appears to have more in common with Durham than Toronto. There are street markets, victorian era buildings, and pubs that start to resemble home.

As said, we were staying with family (more precisely, my uncle David, aunt Fran, and our cousins Chris and Katy). This enabled us to get a bit of rest, save some money, and save our stomachs from fast food. However, this does not save us from our daily visits to Tim Hortons. I am clueless as to why there are none in the UK. Coffee is just over a dollar, donuts just under a dollar. We’re talking Krispy Kreme style indulgence here. Two bucks for a coffee break, as opposed to approaching a fiver back home. God damn.

I also got my camera fixed. It cost a lot of money, but they did fix the circuit board (! which had apparently snapped), clean the lens and reset the lens cover (that has needed doing for a while). I’m a bit snap happy, and proceeded to take loads of photos of Ottawa the day it got fixed. Today I have taken over 200 photos. There’s a lot of redundancy, I tend to take different angles, different zooms, different exposure and focal settings, and see which ones look best back on the computer. You could call it professionalism. I, however, prefer to call it central limit theorem.

(for the non-statistically literate, I should explain. The general idea is that the larger your sample size, the more it will resemble what you are sampling from. This idea extends quite nicely to photography, non?)

In Montreal at the moment, not sure I’ll finish the entry for it tonight. We’ll see. It’s already our last day in Canada, and we’ve got a week left on our trip. It’s all gone very, very quickly.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve already been to Canada. Toronto, in particular, was an electrifying and different experience. It was my first major North American city, and also my first overnight stay, alone. I pretty much threw myself into the deep end, but I figured that since I was in Canada, I might as well appreciate it whilst I could. And I did: I scared myself witless up the CN tower, I got lost in the 6 lane traffic and zipping trams (sorry, streetcars), I marveled at the buildings lit up at night. As a result I didn’t really get a true picture of the city, because I was still adjusting to how alien the entire place seemed.

Because, Toronto, for all I thought it was boring and lifeless before, is a happening place. It also has very strong streaks of home compared to most large cities in the US. Queen Street is a good example. It’s basically an above average high street in London, full of independent shops selling all manner of things. But it isn’t a strip mall. It’s in the middle of a city. It’s meant to be walked down, your car parked somewhere else. There are restaurants, and bars, and it’s outside.

This seems a pretty boring thing to get excited about, but this just doesn’t exist in the USA, for the most part. People go to out of town malls, to rows of shops with masses of parking spaces right outside. You can’t walk to, or around, these places. You live through your car. The centre of town is where people go to work, not to drink or to shop. Even Chicago was like this to an extent – I ask my friend, Jessa, anywhere downtown to drink, the response is somewhat along the lines of “nobody drinks downtown”. It’s all in the neighbourhoods.

Toronto is different in other ways. As mentioned in my last post, there is a massive chinese population. Chinatown is expansive and not designed for tourists, but for first or second generation immigrants. The public transport is good. There are things happening downtown: loads of trendy bars (the likes of which Mark and I sort of looked at one another and thought, hmm, ain’t got the money for that). Whilst I was in the city I was lucky enough to be able to go to TCAF, which only happens once every two years. It’s a comics festival. Mark wasn’t particularly happy, but me? I’m not into my comics, but what I am certainly into is webcomics. A lot of artists I highly respect were there, including:

Ryan North from Dinosaur Comics. There are six strips which stay static every time, only the dialogue changing. The genius is the combination of his insight into various topics, often quite deep (like the nature of happiness, economic systems, and quite detailed scientific papers), and his surreal sense of humour. I can honestly say I’ve learnt quite a lot over the years through T-rex.

John Campbell from Pictures for Sad Children. He has a very, VERY dry and black sense of humour. It is difficult to convey how funny I find this comic, but it seems to relay it through a sense of eternal disappointment with everything, ever.

Joey and Emily from A Softer World, again a very black sense of humour. Emily takes photos, usually blurred and set over various panels. Joey writes captions over them, usually about the people in them, or from an unseen narrator who has something to do with the picture. Not necessarily always funny, but very, very unique.

And Kate Beaton, who writes Hark, A Vagrant. She actually won an award at this show. She writes comics about historical figures and sometimes autobiographical ones, about adult kate and child kate talking to one another. The historical figures usually act ridiculously and completely out of character. A personal highlight is Napoleon’s wife cheating on him, to which he begins to binge on cookies and cry.

I also saw some other people and saw a lot of very well written comics that I had neither the time to look at nor the money to buy. I felt kind of bad, because an incredible amount of time and effort seems to go into something that not many people appreciate. And here I am going on about someone who merely changes the words of talking dinosaurs.

I haven’t updated since we’ve been in Canada, so it’s high time I did. I’m falling behind a little, I updated the Chicago entry about three or four days after we left. Woops. Now I’m talking about Canada in general after having spent nearly a week here. I’m going to fiddle some of the dates to more accurately reflect when we were passing through the relevant areas (ooh, cheater!).

Yes yes, I’ve not updated in a while. My writing muscles have been fatigued from other things recently, and I haven’t got the online time to update both.

(this is sort of a lie. I am basically lazy. It’s a good thing I didn’t become a journalist like I intended as a child)

Chicago, though. So far, it is my favourite place on our trip. There have been a variety of reasons, but largely because it is a city that has managed to constantly surprise me. It’s also strangely homely, because it shares a lot of traits with London. The contrasts between rustic historical monuments and dazzlingly contemporary architecture is too familiar to bear. Unlike the rest of America, Chicago seems to understand that history should surround us. The Loop of the CTA* groans shudders on a regular basis above your head, like a creaky wooden roller coaster, as you skip in between art students who wear skinnier jeans than even me (okay, that’s a lie, I’ve never met another guy who does that). At the same time, you’re in a modern US city, with public modern art, city slickers, neck-destroyingly high sheets of glass that masquerade as buildings.

*[to explain: the CTA is the Chicago Transit, basically the train metro of the city. It's centred around an elevated loop of track around downtown, with rusted iron arches and wooden planks still holding it together - it shows its age. It's such an integral part of the city that they actually refer to the part of downtown encircled within it as The Loop]

It’s also has a lot less of New York’s cheesiness. New York is easily accessible for European tourists at the weekend, and it shows it – Chicago is a place outsiders, particularly foreigners, do not visit. Which is one of the reasons it has its charm, and one of the reasons we wanted to do this trip. We’re basically immersing ourselves in the culture. A good friend of mine lives in Chicago, and we spent some time with her, going to bars, and even a local gig. Said gig reminds me of an East London art student gig so much, it makes me miss home.

No, Chicago was full of surprises for me. If you get to visit anywhere in the US, I would highly recommend it. It’s not as immediately full of attractions as NYC, but the charm and atmosphere is entirely distinctive. And if I ever moved anywhere in the USA, it would be here.

As I type this, I’m in Columbus, Ohio, yet to explore the city. Brother and I are going to go exploring some bars near the university later, but I’m going to take the opportunity here to make some miscellaneous observations.

Americans very much seem to have modes where they really want something, but lack it from that into their ordinary lives. They sort of have modes where they take something rather than incorporate it into their surroundings. Take an example: history. There are very heavily historical districts, but they like it to be cordoned off. Enjoyed for a day out, when they feel like it. Americans seem to complain they don’t have much history, but it’s just experienced in a different manner to Europe. We’re surrounded by it back home, it’s part of our everyday lives. Period houses are very desirable, and city centres tend to be a dolly mixture of the very old and the modern, cathedrals next to office blocks, and such. Another one is scenery. Go a few miles out of the suburbs or off the interstate, you’ll find lush wilderness hardly found in the UK. Driving through the Appalachians reminded me of north wales. Not exactly the same, but the same feeling of awe, isolation, and natural beauty. Fitness is another: no pedestrians, only the larger cities have (some) cyclists. DC center had a lot of joggers and cyclists, but the vast majority of Americans who exercise seem to do it in climate controlled running factories. Which they drive to.

Another thing I’ve noticed, and been severely warned about by Bill Bryson: pedestrianisation. It doesn’t exist. You’re some sort of massive weirdo if you walk any sort of distance outside of an inner city. We were walking from our hotel in Pittsburgh towards a bar, and it must have been just under a mile walk. Was there a sidewalk there? Was there hell. We walked down the side of the road, getting dirty shoes and being honked at by presumably bemused motorists. Most bars are far away and out the reach of public transport (which is shoddy at best). It doesn’t surprise me why there’s a problem with drink driving in the US, or that the drinking age is so high, or that there’s less of a drinking culture here. How the hell are a group of people meant to go out for the night if you can’t get to the bar and back? It defies explanation.

On the brighter side of US culture, the attitude towards business seems to be generally healthier here. Entrepreneurial spirit is high, service is better, competition seems to be better amongst most markets. Profit, in general, is not a dirty word, because they understand it means more jobs. They also seem to be more computer savvy, and do things more efficiently. Smaller businesses seem to do better, too, and I’ve seen lots of adverts for all kinds of things. Adverts are also a lot more informative in nature. When’s the last time back home you saw an advert that was trying to tell you something? Rather than the European ‘lifestyle’ type adverts, more about associating their brand with a particular way of living. Beer adverts that are about making blokey jokes than the taste/price, or mobile phone adverts which is more about making it look cool or sophisticated than actually talk about the features.

Also, the Americans know how to make a hearty meal. We went in Denny’s earlier and I was fit to burst after only having spent about $8 (full breakfast platter plus a stack of pancakes), and it was damn tasty too. Although it will probably make me die of a heart attack if I eat that every morning. Inner fatness indeed.

By the way, I’ve uploaded all the photos on Facebook, but for those who aren’t on that (aka family), you can also check them out here:

New York

Philly

My camera is kind of broken, but I’m going to see whether I can get it fixed in Chicago, or maybe buy a new one (sigh). For now, we only have Mark’s iphone camera, which we used in DC.

Now, I’ve heard bad things about DC. Dave Gorman said he hated it when he ended up there Googlewhacking, another friend said it was crime ridden, and I had the overall impression it’d just be a bit like.. Democracy Land. I’m not sure where this impression came from, because I had two distinctly seperate experiences in DC, and both were positive.

When we first rolled in, we had some teething troubles. The hotel room only had one bed in, the internet wasn’t working properly, the bus was terrible. We were going into town to meet a very old friend I know through forums long passed away (pdark/ninten). We waited at the meeting place, he was very late, but eventually turned up (actually, as we were leaving). All night we hung with Joe and a few of his friends, and had a pretty normal, but fun, night of drinking in the suburbs. We remarked at the time that it would probably be the closest we get to experiencing the average American’s evening.

That’s us.

The next day, after a rather severe hangover, we eventually dragged ourselves for some cheesy siteseeing. Yes, we saw the White House, yes, we saw the Lincoln Memorial, and Capitol Hill, and everything else. We didn’t spend a dime on any attractions, just wondered around in the sweltering heat all day. I don’t think I’d enjoy living there, but just for the day, it was a spectacular sight. There are a lot of parks for wondering through, everything has been pleasingly (if artificially) set out in perfect symmetry. I think I prefer the UK’s haphazard streets, but to see miles of grass and monuments perfectly laid out for miles on end, it kinda takes your breath away.

My camera has broken though, which is possibly the worst place ever for it to happen. DC is a photogenic place.

What amazed me is that there’s probably no more than 2-3 blocks separating these two places. Hardcore americana and fashionable liberal culture.

I’ve already done Washington DC, but brother is moaning and wants in on the computer. Another day. Maybe it wasn’t a tale of two cities after all.