Good news

Well it looks like everything's going to turn out OK after all! My bag was in Atlanta all along, and (fingers crossed) arrived into New Orleans last night. Our bus, in theory, leaves here for Miami at 3.15pm, so that'll be the moment of truth...

Yesterday was not entirely wasted anyway - Greyhound paid for another night in the hostel ($30), and we used our bus passes to visit Baton Rouge, the state capital of Louisiana - so called because the French explorers who founded it discovered sticks smeared with animal blood which the natives used to mark their territory.

Louisiana politics has always been dramatic. The capitol building (30 storeys high - and there's a law prohibiting any Baton Rouge building to be built higher) was constructed by the populist Governor Huey Long: vehemently anti-big business, practically communist by American standards. He was assassinated in its corridors by a young local doctor four years later - officially, the motive is still unknown (although it's not too hard to guess). The building is now open to the public, and you can see the bullet holes in the marble walls where the gun battle took place. In one of the chambers there's a pencil stuck in the ceiling, embedded there by a bomb blast. You can take an elevator up to the 27th floor, views from which are fantastic. The Mississippi river in particular, which runs right past Baton Rouge, is stunning.

Well, my time is running out so that's all for now. The next post will be from Miami, OK?

Pathetic fallacy

Guess what? We're not in Miami. :-)

Oh well, we were 50% successful, in that we now have Katherine's bag back. Mine is still in limbo somewhere - news is due at 5pm tonight. Still, at least we're making progress!

Anyway, that means we're stuck in New Orleans for at least another night. The NO Greyhound people were kind enough to pay for our hostel (I guess $15 each isn't going to break their bank :-), so it isn't costing us anything except time and frustration.

And as if to reflect this, there's a huge thunderstorm going on outside, so we're stuck in the library until further notice. (We got drenched even getting this far).

So, this is something of a trough, but I guess that means a peak is right around the corner...

N'Awlins

Well, here we are again, on the (achingly slow) Internet connection in New Orleans Public Library. The bus to Miami leaves at 3pm, so this is a convenient place to waste an hour or two.

With any luck our bags will be sitting waiting for us at the Greyhound station, which is just five minutes down the road. Of course, more likely they've been sent to Dakota or something, but the New Orleans Greyhound people seem to know what they're doing so we should get them back eventually. Last we heard both bags were in Atlanta, which isn't too far away :-).

Living on little more than one set of clothes and a toothbrush has been instructive - we've actually coped pretty well, and I'm starting to fear that we've over-packed!

So we had a fairly lazy day yesterday. After Katherine's post (at 5.30pm) we went back into town, sat around for a bit, then started to look for places to eat. Eventually we found a nice bar/restaurant that was fairly cheap, and, rather more importantly, offered something without seafood in it.

Katherine had a pizza (more or less staple for New Orleans vegetarians - do they exist? -, it would seem), whereas I got to try - at last! - a bowl of gumbo, a plate of rice and beans with smoked sausage, and a stuffed crab. This is absolutely my kind of food - hot and fishy! The shrimp in the gumbo was so fresh I can only imagine that it was caught that very morning.

OK, I'd better write about something else - I'm making myself hungry...

After our meal we strolled up and down the (in)famous Bourbon Street, lined with laid-back jazz clubs, thumping live music bars, seedy strip clubs, tacky tourist shops. Neon lights, alcohol, music, sweat... it's certainly a place to get your senses reeling. We hovered around a couple of the jazz places, soaking it all in, then headed back home on the trusty 42 bus.

And that's more or less that for the Big Easy - we left India House this morning, waved goodbye to the turtles and made for the Library. We'll head to the bus station in about thirty minutes or so, with our fingers firmly crossed. When you next hear from us, I hope we'll be in Miami!

Burning the midnight oil

Sharp-eyed readers may have been worrying that Katherine and I have been posting updates at 3.26am and so forth. Rest assured that that was 3am GMT - a rather more reasonable time when you're six hours behind!

Just to confuse you all further, I've set the time zone correctly now, so with any luck this post should appear at about 12.05pm...

Running late...

OK, there's no time to write about what we did yesterday, since we're getting the 9.30 Greyhound from DC to New Orleans (a mammoth journey, lasting over 24 hours!). Suffice to say we did loads of cool stuff, which you may eventually get to hear about :-).

Amorphophallus Titanum

With any luck we'll write a longer post later on, but this anecdote is pretty funny so I'll relate it now.

Remember yesterday I wrote that we went to the Capitol "via the Botanic Gardens, accidentally..."? Well, in truth we were looking for the ticket booth for the Capitol building, so we went to the right block, saw a long queue and joined it, assuming that everyone was queuing for tour tickets.

As the queue advanced, we realised that we were in fact waiting for entry to the Botanic Garden Conservatory, and that the Capitol booth was across the street. We were fairly close to the entrance, so we decided we might as well pop in for a look: we zoomed round the 'jungle' section, noticing a huge, odd-looking flower on the way out that lots of people seemed to be peering at and photographing. Feeling somewhat silly for queuing for the wrong thing, we hurried past and went to the Capitol as planned, giving the mysterious flower not a second thought.

Here's where the story gets more interesting. We picked up an abandoned copy of the Washington Post on the Metro this morning. In the 'Kids' section at the back was the following item:

Thursday, July 24, 2003; Page C14

Welcoming the Big Bud

The world's largest flower bloomed in Washington yesterday -- and it smelled like rotting fish.

Dozens of people lined the Botanic Garden Conservatory, just behind the U.S. Capitol, for a rare look at -- and whiff of -- the titan arum flower. The 41/2-foot-tall flower, also known as amorphophallus titanum, is bright red, frilly and stinky.

"It reminds me of 'The Little Shop of Horrors' with this big plant that talks and they said came from outer space," said 9-year-old Jessica Moss of Manassas when she went to see the plant Tuesday.

Still, it might be worth checking out. The plant's flower lasts only about 48 hours (so it will still be in bloom today) and it blooms only every few years.

You just might want to hold your nose.

-- From staff and wire reports

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

The article, and a hi-res photo of the ultra-rare, ultra-pungent flower in question is available at washingtonpost.com.

In retrospect, it did seem a little odd that there was a long queue for the Botanic Gardens. Katherine and I both saw the flower, but if we'd known that the damn thing only appeared for 48 hours once every few years we might have paid more attention to it :-).

There's probably a moral to this story, but I can't for the life of me figure it out...

More from the Capitol

Phew, we've had a busy (and successful) day today!

We woke up incredibly (well, 7am) early, and took the Metro downtown. We had planned to get in the queue for a White House tour - but, guess what? No tours since 9/11 (our Rough Guide is a bit out of date ;-). Ditto for the FBI building - I was most disappointed, because apparently you used to be able to watch FBI agents on their firing range. And ditto for the Pentagon. Ah well.

Undismayed, we took the elevator up the clock tower of the old Post Office building, which gives a fantastic view over the city. Back on terra firma, we walked to the Capitol Building, home of the US Senate and House of Representatives (via the Botanic Gardens, accidentally...). We picked up tour tickets for later in the day.

Behind the Capitol is the Library of Congress (for me), and the Supreme Court (for Katherine), so we went on tours of both, and then returned to the Capitol for another! After fighting our way through waves of security and metal detectors, we eventually reached the large room under the famous rotunda. On the way round, we learnt that as foreign nationals we were allowed to pick up tickets to visit the House and the Senate, both of which were in session. After yet more security checks we sat in both for a while - in the former we saw a vote (which passed 402 - 23); in the latter we heard some proposed amendents to some bill or other.

We finished the day off with a quick whizz around the National Air and Space Museum, but it closed (at 5.30pm) before we got to see much.

We went home via Safeways (I'm now the proud owner of a US Safeway Club Card) to stock up on food for the next few days - prices were a lot cheaper than they had been in the Food Emporium in NYC.

And so here we are - just finished tea (pasta with a tomato and green bean sauce) and watching the baseball (a rather dull game between the Yankees and the Baltimore O's). We've got another busy day planned tomorrow, including visits to Arlington Cemetery and the (outside of the) White House.

Humph!

"A tall marble pillar basically" she says: how about a towering enconium to a nation's spirit of perseverance and dedication? At over 700ft it's the tallest masonry structure in the world.

We were hungry and thirsty by the time we'd done all the below, so we stopped off at a conveniently-located Pizza Hut for bottomless Pepsi / Mountain Dew and a large stuffed crust pizza with red onions. Yum!

There is indeed a huge storm going on at the moment - with any luck it'll be a lot less humid tomorrow.

So long (and thanks for all the e-mails ;-).

'The Late Show With Conan O'Brien' - and our last hours in NYC

We did indeed get into the Conan O'Brien show. There were about seventy reserve ticket-holders, most of whom got in, into an audience of about 200.

I'd never watched the show before (it airs daily at 00.30 - a bit late for me :-), but Katherine remembered watching it on cable in England. The star guest on our show was Joaquin Phoenix (of Gladiator, Signs and Quills fame); there was also a popular American rock band (neither of us had ever heard of them) and a Canadian comedian.

Even though the show was recorded at 17.30 on a Monday, it doesn't air until Thursday (00.30) - normally it goes out the same night or the day after, but they're planning a big 10th anniversary special or something. I don't think the camera ever picked us up in the audience, so don't bother setting your VCRs :-).

Nevertheless, it was great fun, of course. We had to queue for a while, probably about an hour in total, before being ushered through several security checks and a remotely-controlled elevator. It was cool to see all the cameramen, the live band and the producers doing their respective things. Conan was good too. I'd seen Jay Leno's show - which is on NBC immediately before Conan -, but the later one is much more risqué and sharp. He even made a sarcastic joke - something more or less unheard of in this country :-).

After that (we were 'home' by about 7pm) we stayed in in front of the TV - ironically! - and ate rolls and fries from the excellently-named Burger Heaven.

And now for today...

Back at Peter's

OK, here's a proper update from Saturday to today.

We watched Top Gun late into Friday night on Peter's gigantic TV, so Saturday morning was rather slow. We went into downtown Manhattan, popping into famous stores: Tiffany's (of Breakfast at fame), Bloomingdale's (where Rachel shops in Friends) and Macy's (the largest store in the world apparently: we bought some stamps there). We also saw St. Patrick's Cathedral: rather extravagant (Catholic of course). In the evening we ordered cheap and cheerful Mexican takeaway and plonked ourselves down in front of a DVD.

Sunday was rather more active: the weather was gorgeous (hot and not at all humid), so the four of us went up to Central Park. We hired a rowing boat for an hour and tootled around the lake - which was full of turtles, cormorants, storks and other interesting fauna. After lunch we went to the Met(ropolitan Museum of Art), which is massive - far too much to do in an afternoon. Highlights included an entire Egyptian temple, flown in especially and housed in a giant greenhouse; art inspired by the American Civil War; cool suits of armo(u)r (Katherine in particular liked those :-); and designer dresses based on classical forms (including ones as worn by Jackie O, Kylie, and so on). In the evening we went downtown to Little China, and ate in a fantastic restaurant (as recommended by the Internet :-), where we stuffed ourselves for about $6 each.

Katherine and I got up early this morning to try and get tickets for the Late Night with Conan O'Brien show on NBC. We're standby tickets numbers 35 and 36, so I don't fancy our chances, but we're about to head over to the Rockefeller Center (where the NBC studios are) at 4.15, so we'll see what happens. We also popped into Columbia University (see below :-) and what will be the largest cathedral in the world when it's finished.

And as a convenient link, we also stopped off at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to check the coach times for tomorrow. If all goes well, we'll be hitting the road at 10am, on a Greyhound coach bound for Washington DC.

From Columbia University

We'll write a longer post later today, probably, but I thought I should write something from here. We're officially "visiting students from Cambridge University" (not really true anymore I guess :-), and as such entitled to use the library facilities here at Columbia - thanks to Caroline for letting us know that we could do that!

Anyway, I shouldn't waste too much time on this, because there's still lots to see. Thanks for all the nice e-mails we've been getting - we'll endeavour to reply at some point :-).

More to follow (unless of course we end up in the audience for the Late Night Show with Conan O'Brien on NBC - we have standby tickets for tonight's show).

Reykjavík - New York

Well, here we are in New York, chez Pierre. There's lots to tell so far - all of it good! -, so this'll probably end up being a looong post.

First, Iceland: we touched down in Keflavík on time on Saturday, at around midnight. The bus from the airport cost ISK 1000 each, which was a nasty surprise - around 8 pounds for a thirty minute trip. We arrived in Hafnarfjörđur (try pronouncing that!) at around 00.30, still on schedule and checked into our youth hostel there fifteen minutes later. It sounds terribly late of course, but the sun was still shining and it was more or less as bright as in the day (which isn't all that bright, actually). Happily we got a big room to ourselves for the whole stay.

Hafnarfjörđur is about twenty minutes bus drive away from Reykjavík (a much more reasonable ISK 220 each), so the next morning we went to the Tourist Information there. Everything seemed shockingly expensive, but we gritted our teeth and paid up for a trip to the Blue Lagoon. This turned out to be wonderful - a natural hot spring, the temperature of a hot bath, complete with blue water and steam rising from the surface. The air temperature can't have been above about 12 degrees celsius. There were big pots of silica stuff (to cover your face with) and all sorts of natural caves, waterfalls and so on. We stayed in for about three hours, and lolled about in the various steam rooms and saunas too. We took plenty of pictures, which I'd like to see to remind me of the experience :-).

The youth hostel in Hafnarfjörđur was well-equipped, with a fridge, hobs and plates, so we cooked ourselves meals there every night, meaning we didn't have to spend any money on anything but transport and accommodation for our stay.

The next day (Monday, if you're keeping count), we visited Iceland's premier tourist attractions Gullfoss and Geysir. We took a guided tour - the only kind available - which incorporated both. On the way we stopped at an Icelandic riding school and poked the (famous?) Icelandic horses, which are very small, and - this is the key feature, apparently - have five gaits rather than the usual three. The two extra ones are tilt and pace, the former being a very smooth way to ride, apparently - you can carry a pint without spilling it ;-).

The next stop was an impressive volcanic crater, then on to Geysir, home of the eponymous jet of water shooting out of the ground. The original Geysir is all bunged up, and doesn't work any more, but there are several other ones that seemed impressive enough to us!

On to Gullfoss, a huge two-tiered waterfall, and one of Iceland's most impressive. The second step is the best - it plunges down a good twenty feet into a sheer chasm. Hard to describe in words: you'll have to wait for the pictures ;-).

Tuesday was a day of travelling mostly. We went into Reykjavík for the final time, and pottered around visiting its cathedral and Parliament. After lunch we caught the bus back to the airport...

After another smooth flight we arrived in New York at about 7.30pm (00.30 for us, of course), but we managed to stay awake long enough to get the subway to Peter's swanky Manhattan apartment and go out with Peter and Caroline to grab an evening meal (Pizza Burger for Tom; Veggie Burger for Katherine). New York at night is stunning, particularly the shining lights of Times Square.

More to follow...