Flying solo!

Hello all, and greetings from your favorite tomato.

I may or may not be sporting a healthy bright red glow currently, based on me forgetting that despite it being cloudy, you can still sunburn. Lesson learnt.

Chris, Rhys and John have all left so I'm back to flying solo for a while, so the blog posts might become slightly more frequent as I don't know anyone here yet! Chris, Rhys and I headed down to Ocean City, Maryland in search of drunken college folk after Philadelphia. We developed a new tactic of telling Americans that the Brits can out-drink them, which more often than not leads to them buying you a drink to try and prove otherwise.

So after the guys left I spent an interesting few days in Richmond, Virginia, which didn't start off too well, with the taxi driver attempting to charge me $60 for a ten minute ride. Fortunately I was in the very strong bargaining position of not having $60, so I managed to get him to back down to a more reasonable $30. My room in the hotel was a smoking room (who knew they still existed?) which meant that it smelt pretty strongly, which in turn led to my clothes smelling like those of a 40-a-day man.

My hotel was also fairly remote, very convenient if you have a car, but completely impractical if you don't. I fitted into the latter category, and with the absence of a bus, the walk into town was a casual hour and forty five minute trek. Having previously discovered that Americans don't walk anywhere, I now discovered that this often meant that pavements didn't either. This led to a few sketchy moments, attempting to cross ten lane wide roads with a small central reservation for a break, it was very reminiscent of the arcade game frogger at times. Fortunately I managed not get squashed or arrested and made it to and from Richmond successfully both days. I did my best to do the cultural sites, the Fine Art Museum for example where I made sure to make the appropriate 'hmmm' noises if anyone caught me staring blankly at a piece of art for too long, not exactly knowing what to make of it. But in general it was a very nice place to spend a few days.

So now I am in a hostel in Miami called 'Posh South Beach Hostel', where they have really done their best to be upmarket and snazzy. It kind of works, but looks quite a lot like what might happen if you crammed 30 beds into the changing room of a nice gym. However, there is a pool and the beds are comfortable, so I can't complain. I have now perfected my ability to introduce myself to someone, hear their name, and then completely forget it within seconds. I tend to go with 'mate' in situations afterwards if I see them again.

I spent my first full day in Miami hiking up to the top of South Beach to a place called Bay Harbor, exclusively because it is mentioned in the tv show Dexter which I love. However, once again, I may have overestimated the walking distance, and it took me the best part of three hours to trek there. Upon getting there, it also became clear that despite being based there, the tv show was evidently not filmed there, so I had pretty much entirely wasted the day. Oh well, at least I got a healthy sunburn for my troubles.

I've booked myself onto a tour of the Everglades tomorrow to go in search of 'gators etc so if I don't update again, look for me in the swamps. Wish me luck!

Sam/Tomato face