hello from middletown new jersey! we landed into a heavy rain storm on sunday afternoon. the car we hired is chevy lumina, its a boat! we were worried that four blokes and luggage wouldn't fit but there's room for a couple of hitch hikers! we came down the new jersey turnpike, I was in the front passenger seat doing the navigating, so of course we missed the turning for the garden state parkway! but apparently even locals find it tricky.

so we had a slight deviation via the scenic route.

the howard johnson is a dodgy motel in the finest tradition of planes trains and automobiles! nothing you could put your finger on but it feels like quentin tarrantino is going to come bursting throught the door with guns blazing any minute. I don't have a vibrating water bed but it has that tacky old/new thing going on. even though every thing is new the style is still very fake wood panelling seventies. I blend right in!

work is nerd central, yesterday I had lunch with a system operator who was wearing a shirt with the sun java logo on it. he was bemoaning a lack of ip address and the fact that windows networking was all based on lanmanager, I pointed out that lan manager was an ibm product that microsoft got for free out of the os/2 debacle, that set him off again. you know dilbert cartoon about the os wars? the one where wally meets the unix guru in the corridor and the guy flicks him a nickle and tells him to buy himself a better computer? well he looked like that (huge beard, braces and pony tail). his wife is a russian nuclear physicist who works at the power plant up the road (he lives right next to it, he reckoned that as most of new jersey was polluted with toxic waste that you may as well live somewhere where they monitor it!). the office is a rabbit warren of tiny square offices, its so techy that the door numbers are in hexadecimal! only kidding

this may sound very stupid but every thing is just so american! I can't get over how cinematic the place looks, you could just point a camera out the window and starsky and hutch would burn past! there is an austrailian resturaunt next door to the hotel that sells VB and fosters, we had a meal there last night. I was expecting trucker bars like the one out of the deer hunter and there a bloody oz bar next door! there are plenty of cool looking trucker bars as we are right on the highway.

good morning, we went to the mall last night. its the biggest one for miles around and was very unimpressive! there was a macys and a jcpenny and quite a few good shops. but shopping in cardiff is much better! there were lots of cheap clothes and some quite good book shops but nothing like the diversity you find in any town in the uk.

we're going on the nj transit system into penn station new york tommorrow. empire state building and basket ball game at madison square garden. we've got nosebleeder tickets (the seats are very high up!). we wanted american football but tickets for the jets have been sold out since 1979!

On saturday we got the new jersey transit into New York! the train is a local one that serves the jersey coastline. but it had all of the things that you'd want in an american train experience. the guard said "allll aboooooord!" at every station and as we went over level crossings the barriers made that "clang, clang, clang claaaaang, claaaaaaaang" noise that you always hear in movies!!

the train took about an hour and a half to go up through new jersey, passing lots a heavy industry and freight yards. after stopping at newark it went into a long tunnel under the Hudson river, the final stop was Penn station (penn for pennsylvania). we came up out of the station onto 7th avenue and there was new york! cops, yellow cabs the works. usually I am the worlds worst tourist (I head for the nearest bookshop and hide in there all day) but I thought that this is new york, the mother of all cities and I'd better make an effort to be the perfect tourist, think chevy chase in National Lampoons Vacation, that was me.

Our plan for the day was to watch a knicks (new york knickerbockers, "I got a colour tv, so I can see, the knicks play basket-ball" - rappers delight, the sugar hill gang) basketball game at madison square garden that evening.(both football teams, the giants and the jets have been sold out since 1979! no joke!) we thought we'd reserved some tickets on the internet but when we got to the ticket office we'd done it wrong and there weren't any seats available. bummer. our only chance was to come back at 4pm and queue for cancelations.

so from madison square garden we walked east along 31st street to fifth avenue (avenues go up and down, streets left to right). we'd been told that all the best shops are on fifth. we stopped for a cheese burger in a mcdonalds and I noticed that the receipt said "Empire State" on it. sure enough when we went outside there was the empire state building!! we'd walked right past it!! so after an hour of queueing we went up to the top (86 floors). the view was amazing!! I don't think I can describe it but it feels like being in a helicopter or like being superman flying over the city. we stood at the top until it got too cold and then came down. we walked down the top six flights as the express lifts only go up as far as 80, that was cool, just going down the stairs in the empire state buidling.

back on down on fifth avenue we continued north towards central park, we went in barnes and noble the book shop (there was a russian guy in there with his son, copying bits out of the software books). we saw the new york public library (where ghostbusters opens with the ghost in library basement) I sat on the same place outside where dan ackroyd sits contemplating the loss of his grant!! ("I've worked in the private sector, they expect results!")

as we were going north a fire truck went past with all lights and sirens blazing (another amercian experience crossed off my list). there were four black guys doing break dancing for the crowd, they were very good. gave them my pocket change.

we went in the NBA shop where basketball shirts cost $350! saw radio city music hall.

almost at central park now, hey there's the rockafellar centre! saw the huge christmas tree and the ice skaters going round on the outside rink in the plaza. also passed trump towers, gold-plated symbol of the eighties. completey without style and awful!

whey hey! central park. there's the building where john lennon was shot. we walked into the park as far as the ice rink, where the tannoy was playing bob dylan. It was getting very cold as the sun went down so we headed back down seventh avenue going south from the park. we stopped for a warm, a bran muffin and a cup of tea in "Andrews Deli" a genuine new york deli (no way I was going into a starbucks). after getting nice and warm again we headed back out into the city. going down 7th we came to broadway (which cuts diagonally across the grid system) and time square! the others needed to go to the toilet after the teas so they went into a macdonalds while I stood outside in the street. A group of women asked me if I'd "take them south" I looked quizically?? "In your cab". I realised I was standing by the drivers door of a parked yellow cab and looking very taxi driverish in my leather jacket, hooded sweater and john lennon new york cap (the one that looks like robert redfords in "The Sting"). I apologised like hugh grant which they thought was very funny and we had a joke about it, "lets go" says I and then faked forgeting my car keys.

also while I was waiting in time square a yellow plymouth prowler stopped next to me in the traffic. this is the new car made by plymouth that is a very retro looking hod-rod. in fact this one in yellow looked a lot like the hot rod from amercian graffiti (my dream car). a woman ran out into the street while her husband took a pictue of her standing next to it. when the lights changed the driver burned off down 7th avenue like a real hot rodder. this day could not get any better!

time square in the dark was very impressive (it was about 5pm by this time). we kept going south and were getting colder and colder, it was -4 for most of the day. we passed carnegie hall and got back to madison square garden at around 5.30, too late for the queue for cancelations which was already about 100 people long. so we decided to go home. found out later that paul mcartney was at the game! (with court side seats, bet he didn't queue for cancelations!!)

penn station was a bun fight, same system as waterloo and paddington, they don't anounce the platform until 5 minutes before the train departs, so there was a mad rush to get to the platform. we "lucked out" as they say here and happened to be standing just next to the right platform. we actually had seats for the hour and half ride, lots of people stood all the way.

On saturday we took the i95 down to Pensecola ("all we found were a bunch of holy rollers!" - Sheryl Crow), not really that far, the I95 goes all the way from new york down to the florida keys. we took it just as far as washington dc.

we came down the new jersey parkway past philedeliphia and baltimore ("hey that's my home town!" - police squad), philly was too far away to really see, but baltimore was a full blown port with mucho mundo heavy industry. the houses were a distinct change from the garden state (new jersey) as they were built of brick where as jersey buildings were all wooden weather boarding and aluminum siding.

the overwhelming impression ("bring me some new cliches!" - louis b mayer (as in metro goldwyn mayer, MGM)) coming into washington from the north east was of poverty, there where many slums being demolished and lots of black people (didn't see no white folks) obviously living on the street. and this is the capital of the country??? all this was in complete contrast to the centre which was imactulatly clean and tidy. we parked up about 500m from the white house (the whole place was deserted as it was the weekend) and walked up to meet bill and hilary.

the white house was, as everyone says, much smaller than you'd think. we passed the back (front??) entrance first with the concrete tank traps disguised as plant pots and the guy in a control tower like structure on the roof (no joke) looking at everyone with binoculars. we walked down past the franklin delaney roosevelt executive offices to the front of the white house. there was a huge christmas wreath hanging over the pillars at the front. there were also lots of (very) ordinary amercians doing the same thing as us (taking pictures and looking like tourists). after doing the do we decided to hike up the washington memorial (the big spike). this had the old pyramid effect of looking like we were very close but were in fact quite far away.

we got there and then saw capitol hill (I couldn't stop thinking of richard prior in superman II doing the "pentagon general" when he gives the kryptonite to superman), then we went round the other side and saw the lincoln memorial and the long rectangular lake straight out of forest gump (the vietnam protest speach where he wades through the water) it was too cold for swimming but we walked right up to the memorial and I read lincolns "fours score years" speech right off the marble. I was the only one who did this!! all the real americans were talking pictures and eating hot dogs. surley they are not all that shallow!

the korean war memorial was even worse, one of the most sacred spots in the country and there are kids running about and parents making stupid jokes. I was suprised at the amount of "south east asian" tourists in this area. surely they can't want to see the iwo jima, korean and war vietnam memorials! I could understand if they were with their grandparents on some sort of pilgramildge trying to make amends. but these groups were laughing and joking and making "pop gun" motions with their hands towards the statues!!!

as we were walking back from the whitehouse we were thinking of heading back out of town for a hotel, for a laugh I suggested the hilton as it was just next to where we had parked. "montel - may I help you" behind the counter said it was $95 a night! just under the lucent ceiling. super cool, "houston we have a room!" and we're about 500m from the white house!

montel the consiege in the hotel recommended an italian resturaut just around the corner, the wine list "maxed out" at 395 dollars a bottle!!! we had a soup and pizza there and made a sharp exit!

montel had also slipped us a card of a sports bar called "Fanatics" that was just up the road. we headed there after the italian. It looked ok from the outside, we climbed the stairs to the bar and on seeing an empty joint the barman said "sorry guys the girls are off", "ok" thinks I, we just came in for a bevy, thats no problem. in the midst of the emptyness the one and only bouncer arrived for his shift, obviously not the sharpest chisel in the toolbox as the barman tied his tie for him!! nice place!!

sunday was much better, we drove down to the captitol buidling and went for a walk around that area, saw the statue of Grant and the J Edgar Hoover, FBI building. We ended up in small park that was really nice, it had a small skating rink and beutiful cafe. we had a sandwhich and a cup of tea and watched the skaters from the canadian embassy going round and round (they were all wearing "Canadian Embassy" hockey shirts! - cool)

that was washingtonton, be quite honest I feel like a manchester united fan from some far off country who has finally got to old trafford to see them play only to find that they loose the match (to wimbledon). I'm really not that bothered about this as its half the fun and part of almost any culture, but I'd thought washington would be a bit more idealistic.

well anyway I got my white house snow globe and took all the right pictures.

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday which said "Charlton Heston is my President" as in president of the NRA. all the chevys pickups have "bush and chaney" stickers and all the volvos have "gore and leiberman" stickers.

you were right about the choice of shops here, there is quantity but no quality, if I wanted 5 check shirts for 9.99 then I'd be a happy man. but trying to find a nice present for a girlfriend can not be done in the states!! the folks here are saying that europe is too expensive, its not! it just has much nicer things!!

As its my last day here I'd thought I'd jot down some observations on life here that I've made during my trip.

Resturaunt Portions - These are ridulously huge. I've seriously considered asking for a childs menu in some places. Americans coming to europe must get a big shock, its no wonder that being over weight is the norm here.

SUVs - The Size of a 'sports utility vehicle' is inversly proportional to the diminutiveness of its female driver. Some of the 4x4s you see over here are huge!! and they're mostly used to ferry kids from school to burger king. My pop-psychcology take on this is some sort security factor in having a huge car.

Static - for some reason everytime I touch something metal I get a huge static shock that is very painful. My theory is that there is a higher polyester content in the carpets over here.

Shopping - The quality of goods on sale in shops is much lower than in europe. Conversley its possible to buy 5 check shirts for $9.99. People here regard europe as expensive but thats not true, we just have much nicer things.

Water - Its impossible to drink the tap water over here as its heavily loaded with chemicals. Even ice cubes taint the flavour of drinks.

Friendliness of the people - I realise that Lucent, as high tech company, is probably not a fair cross section of the american public. But everyone we have met have been helpful and very informed. Some of the political conversations overheard in the canteen have been great.