Around the Americas

Montreal!! By Rachael We hadn’t originally planned to go to Canada, let alone to Montreal in Quebec but we heard such great things about the city along the way that we decided we couldn’t miss it! We were slightly concerned before arriving that our lack of French knowledge would be a problem but we were assured that everyone was bilingual and you can get by with just English. So unperturbed we rocked up in Montreal with only our English. We had a nasty surprise when we attempted to get something for dinner – we were feeling lazy and cheap so went to Subway and MacDonald’s. I was very surprised when the woman serving me in Subway, clearly a local, didn’t speak English and I had to order my tuna sub in broken French ‘un sandwhich du ... read more

By Rachael LA has far surpassed my expectations. Before I came I was expecting all the stereotypes you hear about LA to be true - that it is a car-obsessed, polluted city populated by wannabe actors, models and singers, size 0 women with botoxed faces - in other words superficial people hungry for fame. I imagined glamorous Hollywood, and white beaches. To some extent I found all of those things here, but I also found a lot more. First of all LA is a very vast diverse city. During our time here we managed to experience a taste of a few of those different areas and its different peoples. We started off couchsurfing in West Hollywood. We could not have asked for a better host - an actor/ singer-songwriter, and his roommate also an actor and ... read more

Texas! - by Jo I have to admit that Texas wasn't one of the places that I was overly excited about. Whenever I pictured it in my head I just imagined a lot of boiling hot desert with cacti dotted about and hay bales blowing past. Well the heat part wasn't far from the truth, for the majority of the time we were there the temperature was well into the thirties, most days in the forties. The desert part is also probably true in some areas, but thankfully not in the parts that we went to. We started off in San Antonio, famous for the Alamo which served as home to missionaries during the Texas revolution. We paid it a visit on a particularly scorching day and mostly it was a relief to get inside where ... read more

Orlando! - by Jo We reached Orlando by Amtrak, the most well-known train company in the States. The journey was comfortable apart from the fact that the air conditioning was being pumped out so hard that we almost froze to death... But in comparison to the Greyhound buses that we were soon to encounter, it was total luxury. Rachael felt similar to how I had been feeling on our flight to Miami, as her boyfriend Chris was flying into Orlando that night to meet us. Our accommodation was called 'Palm Lakefront Resort and Hostel' which conjured up images in our heads of a relaxing place by the lake, complete with swimming pool and hotel-style rooms. The reality was a roadside motel - one of those truly American-style motels that you see in films, where dodgy people ... read more

Miami! - by Jo Miami was extra exciting for me as Natalie was coming out to visit for 3 weeks! On the plane ride there I couldn't control my excitement, partly as we were going to an English speaking place finally and partly to see her after 3 months away! Arriving at the airport I was a bag of nerves and we had to hang around waiting for her flight to come in for almost 3 hours, but when she eventually walked through the gate all the waiting was definitely worth it! We got into one of those typically American yellow taxis and the excitement levels rose, especially for me as I've been wanting to go to the States for my whole life and have seen those yellow cabs on so many films and TV shows. ... read more