N'Awlins...

It's our last day in New Orleans - and it's been somewhat of a blur. They're not lying when they see it's a party town. My sore head and emptier wallet attests to that. Bourbon Street is one long pub basically, where the 'Hand Grenade' and the 'Hurricane' compete for yard-long cocktail supremacy (personally I prefer the Hurricane). Our first night in town was supposed to be a quiet one, just a couple of beers in Pat O'Briens after dinner. That all changed when Al joined us.

Al is a podgy, middle-aged 'wacky' guy, who was wearing beads, holding a cocktail and shouting "Woo hoo!" a lot. He asked if there was room at our table for two crazy guys and two hot girls, and being polite Brits, we said there was. We were joined by one 'crazy' guy, one fairly drunk guy, one hot girl and a rather large lady. Over the next half an hour, we found out Al had met this larger lady on the internet, she had sent him nude photos, and this was their first date. They had hooked up with this other couple during the night, and we were fortunate enough for the woman to show us her new fake breasts, which were a present from her boyfriend. Al was encouraging us to join them all for some kind of party back at his, which I believe may have had sexual connotations (the phrase "wild animal sex" led me to believe this).

The other couple and their fake breasts made a quick exit and we needed an escape route; little did we know it would come in the form of projectile vomit. After a minute of talking amongst ourselves, we looked over to see Al patting his date with ice, as she was sweating profusely. I simply put this down to her size; but the sight of her throwing up all over her own ample bosom, as well as our table changed my mind. Suffice to say, Al took her home at this point - well, back to his home. There was still some wild animal sex to be had.

In other news, Liz took me on a very interesting walking tour of the French Quarter and we rode the only existing steam-powered paddlewheeler on the Missisippi, Steamboat Natchez. We've tasted gumbo (tasty), jamalaya (also tasty), po boys (soggy and meaty), beignets (lovely french doughnuts in powdered sugar) and real southern fried chicken (it's not quite the same as KFC). We've been in our first Walmart, where you can pick up your groceries as well as fishing rods and rifles. There are beads literally everywhere as well as live music, whether it's brass bands in the street, mini-orchestras on the riverfront, or cool blues bands playing in the bars. And we even saw a street wedding, complete with trumpeters marching them through the cobbled streets...

Outside the French Quarter, it's a different story; our local convenience store resembled a scene from The Wire (the oriental storeowner shouting at her customers, a group of drunks attempting to get 'credit' to buy alcohol, while a man pushes scrap metal around in a shopping trolley outside). The pavements are broken all over the place and many of the amazing grandiose Southern houses have been neglected, presumably after flood damage. It's a beautiful city, but it needs some help to reclaim former glories.

It's off to Memphis, Tennessee tomorrow on our first Amtrak - it will take the entire day so we will have to wait a while for another blog entry - unless you want to hear what we listened to on our iPod...

Happy Mothers Day

Hello Mummies, we wanted to give you a personal message on the day that honours mums everywhere- hope you have a lovely day... Aaron and Biloo

Yee-ha!

Howdy y'all

We have just left Texas, and it's been quite a week in the heart of the US of A. Very unlike the west coast, but it almost feels 'more' American.

We left San Diego's lovely sunny climate to arrive in San Antonio - and cold, rainy weather. Not very Texas you might think, and you'd be right. It was their first rain in 9 months or so and it was 'much-needed' according to the cabbie - not by us though! Things quickly heated up with our Mexican food in Pico de Gallo, accompanied by a Mariachi band...

The next day, it was still rainy and cold, but we remembered to see the Alamo. Davy Crockett really is a hero there, they display everything from his gun to his toothbrush. We then watched them dye the Riverwalk green to celebrate St Patricks Day - before we did the same. A few Guinnesses and green beers later, we joined in the sing-song in the Irish piano pub Durty Nelly's and thought we'd check out the Mad Dogs 'British Pub'. Red phoneboxes, a clock displaying the time in Glasgow and waitresses in very short tartan skirts made us feel we were at home in London. The drunk girl who insisted on grinding all over Elizabeth was our cue to go back to our motel...

By the way, men in San Antonio all have two things in common - they all have moustaches, and they all wear cowboy hats and boots without irony.

After another day in the Mexican Market Square and more Riverwalk-based drinking, it was time to go to the Mayan Dude Ranch in Bandera - and become a cowboy! As soon as Greg (one of the very friendly 53 members of the Hicks family who run the ranch) dropped us at the ranch, we were climbing onto horses and trotting around the grounds. I must add I was worried about riding a horse - they're a lot bigger than me and who really knows whether they enjoy carrying people on their backs?

Anyway, the sun came out in a big way and we had a great time there - whether it was sitting on a longhorn (that's a type of bull, not sexual innuendo), shooting BB guns, Liz thrashing me at ping pong or enjoying the complimentary beers in the saloon. We even had our own little cabin with saloon doors - it's just a shame we were woken up at 4.30am by a bloody rooster!

Me walkin' like John Wayne after riding my horsey...

It was then time to get the Greyhound to Austin - and our Super 8 motel. On Interstate 5, junction 237B. Yes, we were out in the sticks a bit with just a motorway and other motels for company. Luckily, we found out the next day, it was 2o minutes to get downtown...

As well as sunning ourselves in temperatures that would signify a heatwave in Britain, and looking around the very interesting Bob Bullock Story of Texas museum (really, it was very interesting, trust me - there was stuff about cowboys and indians, civil wars, all sorts) and the Texas State Capitol, we were lucky enough to time our visit with the SXSW music festival. The city's unoffical motto is 'Keep Austin Weird' and this festival did that.

Japanese soft rockers, a man with a snake, bands spontaneously performing in the street, two men with signs offering free hugs and not a single functioning toilet were just some of the sights on E 6th Street this week. As well as hopping in and out of bars, we caught a cool Canadian band called The Nods, a hip hop fusion outfit called Mike Truth and the Replacement Killers, ex-WWE Women's Champion Lita's band The Luchagors and one of the worst metal bands ever to perform.

Anyway, after a week full of Lone Star Beer and gun slingin', we left Austin - and even saw Mark Henry, the World's Strongest Man, at the airport. But he looked too mean to say hello to, so we just sat behind him in the sports bar looking at his arms... And now we're in New Orleans - and we'll be sure to let you know what happens on the infamous Bourbon Street...

Don't Mess With Texas.

Hey

Apologies for lack of posting but we've had limited net access in good ol' Texas. Hopefully I'll do a full post tomorrow telling you all about celebrating St Patricks Day in San Antonio, riding horses on the ranch in Bandera and checking out the bands at Austin's SXSW festival. Which I'm about to do now! See you later...

Luck of the Oirish.

Happy St Patricks Day weekend from Aaron and Elizabeth

It rains on the plains.

The sun blessed us in Vegas, LA and San Diego, but it's back to rain in San Antonio! Just a quick note to say we've arrived and enjoyed a proper Mexican meal accompanied by Mariachi music and broken English. That was before our first night staying in an American motel, which is actually quite nice surprisingly. Off to the Alamo now...

6-1-9!

Just a quick note to say San Diego is a great place to visit - and I'd actually consider living here. If you do come here, make sure you visit La Jolla ('The Jewel' in Spanish) as Liz mentioned, and the brilliant San Diego Zoo, where we saw lions and tigers and bears... oh my! Also, elephants, rhinos, hippos and all sorts of monkeys...

The Gaslamp Quarter has good nightlife while not being too scuzzy - despite the amount of college girls arguing unable to 'hold their liquor'. Check out Sammy's Woodfired Pizzas if you're in town.

We also looked around the old mission settlement in San Diego's Old Town, seeing for ourselves how such a big city had such humble beginnings. There's also a few Mexican restaurants where you can eat way too much rather quickly.

And it was good to see the mighty Gunners stumble past Roma to get to the next round, as well as enjoy an English breakfast in a pub called The Shakespeare - where you can eat 'proper' bacon and Liz enjoyed a 'proper' cup of tea!

Anyway, we may have no internet access for the next week or so as we're off to Texas, where hostels apparently don't exist! But they do have horses, which apparently I must learn to ride! See you in 8 days!!!

A crackwhore and a kayak!

Well this is the first blog from me (Elizabeth) so here goes..

In San Diego at the moment and we decided to explore a bit more and hop on a bus to La Jolla. Firstly, I have to mention the fact that every bus we have been on seems to also have the weirdest people in American society on too - we've had transvestites, mental old people, people who think taking a wash is a crime and our favourite..a crackwhore.

This particular crackwhore shared our journey to la Jolla and she kindly decided to brush past Aaron leaving a chalky residue on his shorts and sit in the seat behind us whilst sniffing constantly and looking as if she might at any moment throw up on our heads - oh she also smelt like a B.O. ridden rodent! After some stealth-like acting from Aaron we switched seats so we could breath through our noses again and get a better view of the crackwhore picking her scabs and our fellow passengers all with their hands to their noses!

Anyways back to kayaking..Two things we have realised about ourselves is 1. We are idiots. and 2. we have more faith in our kayaking abilities than is sensible. The Reason we are idiots is that both of us thought that we wouldn't get wet whilst kayaking - in fact we even thought that we could take our cameras and phones with us and not a drop of water would get on them..we were wrong..

As for our kayaking abilities we couldn't even get on the kayak without a wave coming and tipping us and the kayak over - 15 attempts and too many knocks on the head later we were both in and happily heading towards the caves. Unfortunately it wasn't long before a huge wave came and I was surfing along it all the way to shore until it knocked me off and I was back to the start!

Anyway we soon mastered it and were off to the caves which are amazing and the amount of sea lions and seals sitting on the rocks is incredible. The big beaked birds however were flying a bit too close to us for my liking but were still a pretty amazing sight as there were so many of them!

Despite being a bit battered kayaking was so much fun and La Jolla is one of the prettiest places we have been to so far. Also both of us trying to get onto the kayak is one of the funniest things we have done..although we do still have horse riding next week so it could be a contender..

Follow our blog.

By the way, it would be great if everyone reading this could also 'follow'' the blog - just scroll down looking at the right hand side and see where it says 'Followers'. If you have a gmail account, it's really easy to do this, and it means my friend Nath won't be the only loner doing it.

At Home With The Maddens.

While in LA, we also got the opportunity to spend the day with my step-grandmother Carol's daughter Leah and her family. By the way, doesn't 'step-grandmother' sound like a sinister fairy-tale character? She isn't, by the way.

Anyway, Leah and her husband Andy (who does a spot-on impression of my Grandad John) were kind enough to show us the sights of their home of Long Beach, as well as parts of the O.C. (allowing me to fulfil the dreams of my friend Dave Finnigan, who always thought I was the Ryan Atwood to Jim Reid's Sandy Cohen). I feel I'm getting distracted again.

They showed us around 'Surf City'- Huntington Beach, before showering us with much-appreciated home comforts: homecooked food and La-Z-Boy reclining armchairs. We also got the chance to meet their sons Jack and Vince, who are so cute I think Liz wanted to take them with us! I've tried to convince her that my brother and I looked quite similar at their age, but I'm not sure she believes such a hairy, beer-bellied beast could ever be so cute... But there's proof:

I'd like to thank Leah and Andy again for driving us around and looking after us so nicely - oh, and for telling us that story about the strip club...

La-La Land.

We're in San Diego now, but thought we'd tell you a little about our time in LA. We stayed at Banana Bungalow Hollywood, with the Walk of Fame literally on our doorstep. This has been the nicest hostel we've stayed at, with a big room, fridge, microwave, cable TV, own bathroom - all the luxuries we've missed on our travels. Oh, and it was clean.

Anyway, we were just down the road from the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre - my hand twin is Jack Nicholson, while Liz's was Doris Day, as you can see in the photo. Quite a couple. Hollywood is a little run down and full of 'smoke shops'and tattoo parlours (how many bongs could you possibly need?), but there are some cool costume emporiums, if you wanted to impress at a fancy dress party.

LA in general is a little difficult - everyone drives their car everywhere, and seem to spend their entire lives in traffic. We relied on the buses, which were ok when we knew where we were going, but it takes forever to get from one location to another. However, Santa Monica and Venice Beaches are well worth the journey.

While Santa Monica is a nice place to enjoy the view from the world's only solar-powered Ferris Wheel and relax, Venice is Freak Central and all the better for it. In our short time there, we saw a moving statue guy row with a grown woman with her nipples showing (and her young son), the most argumentative basketball game ever (between friends), a freak museum which got Elizabeth excited ultimately to leave her feeling quite disgusted (she was enticed by a two-headed turtle) and what appeared to be a spontaneous psychadelic dance circle. I'm pretty sure they all had horrible hairy sex with each other later.

San Francisco Gooners...

By the way, if you're ever in San Francisco, check out http://sfgooner.com/ and join them for a match and a Guinness at 7am in the morning - that's why I look rough - promise!

Mark (who runs the group) and his bunch are very welcoming and it was a fun morning, even if the result wasn't so great... I even got a SF Gooner sticker!

The Vegas.

Everything you hear about Vegas is true. Zoo-size buffets, an army of guys shoving stripper/call girl cards in your hands, fat middle-aged women sitting with their bucket of pennies stuffing them into the slots.

But what great fun! Elizabeth spent the entire time saying "I love Vegas", apart from when we were sipping Mojitos at half 11 in the morning or playing our own unique Blackjack strategy.

I would thoroughly recommend the value-for-money $15 Tropicana buffet, as long as you enjoy looking around the sea of caps on middle-aged men's heads and women with missing teeth (NASCAR was in town). ESPN Zone (in NY-NY) is amazing - we watched the Arsenal v Roma game in our own touch-screen booth while munching HUGE mountains of meat. The Bellagio Fountains and Mirage Volcano are great spectacles (the different musical arrangements of the Fountains mean you can stand for an hour enjoying the view). Paris and New York-New York are fun casinos with typically Vegas exteriors.

Our most 'Vegas' night was thanks to our friend Raj, who is living in Vegas at the moment. He treated us to a lovely meal in the Italian restaurant in NY-NY - two bottles of Chianti later, we visit the Coyote Ugly bar, which is just like the film apparently.

Attractive yet mouthy young ladies insult the men and pour shots into the women's mouths, as long as they're prepared to get up on the bar and dance. A certain Ms Fisher was invited up to dance, although no photographic proof exists of her freestyling - anyone who has witnessed Elizabeth's rhythmic skills knows this was a must-see event.

We then staggered back to the infamous Hooter's Casino Hotel - Liz crept up to bed, while several sheets to the wind I bluffed hands on poker and played the naive beginner - doubling my money while Raj chatted up the two buxom blondes in our game (not Hooters girls unfortunately). Unfortunately I lost some of it on Blackjack but Raj cleaned up - and we dragged our tired bodies to bed, unaware that it was half 6 in the morning.

I have no idea whether Raj made it to his 3pm meeting or whether he called the buxom blondes - maybe you could leave a comment here mate?

This Canyon is Grand.

Immense. I've never seen anything like it.

Will just say: I'd love to raft the Colorado River one day. And check out the IMAX movie if you visit yourself.

One eight hour Greyhound ride later...

...and we're in Hollywood. By the way, Greyhounds - good for Liz's people watching, terrible for people with large bums.

I'm afraid we had no internet access while in Vegas, so no blogging. However, we hope to tell you all about the Vegas and the Grand Canyon later today...