A Momentary Diversion on the Road to the Grave: Lots to report!!

I had planned to update a couple of times during the last week but things just turned out to be so busy that I didn't get chance. I know that 3 whole people will probably be waiting for this update so here's what I've been up to recently!

I'll start with the last Thursday at Cornell, as a celebration of the end of the program we all went on a cruise on Cayuga Lake, this included a three course dinner, which was very nice and the lake was stunning. Afterwards we retired to the Zeta Psi basement for our final party. We danced late into the night, which made getting up on Friday morning very difficult. So, myself, Fiona and Mihai then set off on our travels. Getting the coach on Friday morning was almost a complete disaster, we were late leaving and got to the coach station 10 minutes before the coach was scheduled to leave. I had booked tickets online (in an effort to make things as easy as possible) but it turned out we were supposed to arrive at least 1 hour early to collect our tickets. The woman behind the counter was the grumpiest person I've ever met and the fact that I was late was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back because she was very annoyed, if looks could kill I wouldn't be here now! So, as we waited for the tickets to come through with no guarantee that they'd be sent in time I realised that I had left one of my bags in the car that had dropped us off! After some frantic phone calls the bus ended up being an hour late, which meant plenty of time for the tickets to come through and for my bag to be brought back down to tme. We missed our connecting coach on the way to Philadelphia so had a 3 hour wait in Scranton (where the American version of 'The Office' is filmed) before finally arriving in Philadelphia at around 7pm.

The hostel we had booked was a few miles out of the city centre in one of the parks and was generally very nice (apart from the mattresses on the beds, they were so thin, fortunately there was an empty bed in our room so I stole the spare mattress and had 2 on my bed!). On Saturday we borrowed bikes from the hostel and rode into downtown Philly, we first met Maria and Sonja for brunch. They were en route from Ithaca to Germany and so only had a few hours in the city. The rest of the day we spent doing general sightseeing, we visited the liberty bell and went on a Duck tour (like an open topped bus tour but in an ex-army amphibious vehicle (Duck) which goes in the water as well as around the streets). we finished the day by visiting the Rocky steps (if you've seen the original Rocky film you'll have seen him run up them) outside the Art Museum. We joined in with everyone else who was running up the steps and celebrating at the top, a la Sylvester Stallone. On our second day we were lazy and got the bus into town. I went ringing while the girls did a bit of shopping. Later in the day we played crazy golf and then ate at the Hard Rock Cafe before finishing the night with some ten pin bowling and pool action.

Next day (Monday morning) we flew from Philadelphia to Chicago, landing at lunchtime. A quick update on American geography... Philadelphia is in the state of Pennsylvania,which is below New York state and the city itself is not far from the east coast, north of Washington DC. Chicago is in the state of Illinois, west of New York and Michigan, the city is on the south-western tip of Lake Michigan, essentially an inland freshwater sea (the city centre has beaches!). We stayed in a very nice hostel in downtown Chicago and our stay included lots of walking, visits to the planetarium, institute of art and natural history musem, a trip up to the top of the Sears Tower (very tall) and a couple of films (Rush Hour 3 and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the second one being part of the Chicago outdoor film festival). I really enjoyed Chicago it is a very vibrant and beautiful city so if anyone is ever in the area make sure you pay a visit!

Up until this point all of my US tourism had involved cities and big tourist attractions, so, for a bit of a change and on the reccommendation of Miriam (who grew up not too far from Chicago) we rented a car and drove up into the countryside for a few days. We stayed in Door County (in Wisconsin, Door County is the Peninsula of land north of Chicago that separates the body of Lake Michigan from Green Bay). On the way up we stopped in the town of Green Bay and visited Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers (an American football team, who happen to be my favourites). We stayed at a very nice (budget) hotel in a little town called Sister Bay. Highlights of the stay included Pirate Adventure Golf, eating at Al Johnsons Swedish Restaurant (complete with a grass roof grazed by goats!) and a trip to Washington Island and Rock Island State park. The scenery was stunning and all the people were really nice, it was obvious that not many British tourists head up there because everyone wanted to know where we were from and why we were there! Also the weather was much cooler than it had been in the other places we had visited and very windy, we felt quite at home!

After driving back down to Chicago on Saturday morning we all went our separate ways, Mihai flew to New York for a couple of days before heading back to England, Fi has gone to visit friends in Virginia and I got on a coach to Georgia. It was a very long journey (left at 4:15pm Saturday and arrived at 1:20pm Sunday) but now it's over and I'm in Athens, Georgia with Miriam. So far I haven't done much but it's been so nice to be able to relax after the hectic week I've had! It is very hot here in Georgia (over 100 degrees Farenheight) but thankfully the house is nicely air conditioned :). Iam here until next Wednesday and then I fly back from Atlanta to Gatwick. I will try to get round to updating before I head home, but if not then I'll see everyon really soon!

Thanks for reading :)

Stephen