I’ve spent my first night in Seattle in a bar watching the election results come in. All the bars were full of Obama supporters screaming, cheering and applauding every result that came in the democrats favour. When the California result was called (only 10 minutes after the polls closed) the place erupted, there was singing and chanting and the bar owner pored everyone a glass of champagne. The atmosphere was pretty electric. After Obama made his victory speech a samba band came into the bar and gave 10 minutes of drumming and the bar emptied to follow a street procession down to the market square 1 mile down the road followed by half a dozen police cars. The party conveniently stopped directly outside the hostel. And with screams of “yes we can” I left the party. ... read more

I arrived back in San Francisco after a 7 hour bus journey through the desert just in time to go on the pub crawl that the USA Hostel organise. They worked out a deal with each of the bars for half price drinks or 2for1's which to really took advantage of resulting in nasty hangovers for the next days sightseeing. I have been collecting points from a company called ipoints for a couple of years and I managed to pay for 2 tickets to Universal Studios and 2 Alcatraz/City tours with them. I think Alacatraz is probably the biggest tourist attraction in San Francisco so it was quite full of people. You can stay on the Island all day if you want, but as we had to get back for a city tour we only had ... read more

...and Canals, pyramids, cities and volcanoes I spent most of the last two days in San Francisco either watching movies in the Hostel TV Room or hanging around the park or Union Square reading. I did make a little geeky pilgrimage to the CNET building in the business district where a lot of the Tech podcast’s I listen to every day are recorded. I guess it’s a bit like a “normal” person going to the set of Coronation Street or something. The evenings on the other hand were a bit more lively, drinking in the basement party room of the hostel, playing pool and table football. I flew to Vegas on Thursday afternoon, where I met up with Lisa again at the airport. We stayed at the Sin City Hostel which is in Downtown Vegas where ... read more

According to my geeky USA by Rail book, the California Zephyr is one of the world’s great train lines. It takes 2.5 days to cross the 2,438 miles (3,922km) from Chicago to San Francisco, spanning 3 time zones, passing through Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, Reno and Sacramento. You might think it’s a bit crazy to sit on a train for well over 50 hours when I could have flown in less than 10% of the time. But by far this has been the best train journey I’ve done in my life. The scenery is gorgeous and the trains not to bad either. The seats are comfortable and recline back with a footrest that comes out and you get about 3 foot legroom between you and the seat in front. There is a dining car for ... read more

...Columbus sailed the Ocean blue. I arrived in Chicago early this morning and wasn't able to check in to the hostel until 3pm. Luckily a couple of blocks away the city's annual Columbus Day Parade was happening to keep me busy for a few hours. It's organised by the Italian American communities and basically consisted of all the local school marching bands and a few local business putting on floats. Chicago is without doubt my favourite city so far, it's got the young busy cultural feel of New York, but without the dirt and negative attitude. I'll write some more about Chicago soon, probably on the train to San Francisco. ... read more