December 1999

(Various notes from around America, mildly edited for coherency. Most of these are just the brief emails I sent from various ecafs, however every now and then while I was putting this up I got carried away and added other memories; and several years later I edited a little and added some more; so it's a bit of a mish-mash.)

Los Angeles 1 - 2/12/99
Arrived in the airport and took a bus and a train and another bus, waiting for which I had a lovely conversation with a lovely lady. It's possible a fourth leg of transport was involved, but by several years later I've forgotten. It turns out, in any case, that LA is rather large and it takes me three or four hours from the airport to the youth hostel.

The youth hostel is at a place called the Korean Bell, that's what the bus stop was named. So called because there's a Korean bell there. A nice view of the harbour as well just from there; got a photo of the sunset and a rose bush, though it was the first photo I took so don't know if it will come out or not.
While trudging uphill I managed to destroy the wheels of the wheelie-bag Dad lent me. Oops...
Met Becca from Kansas City in my dormitory in the youth hostel, and she's offered to drive me around on the 2nd. My pack is also very heavy. Very heavy. Luckily it gets to spend today in Becca's car, but in Kansas City I'll have to check it in somewhere. Hopefully it'll get lighter when I'm wearing everything in it! Better go; just got half an hour here. (Public library at a walkable distance from the youth hostel, free access, yay!)
I had a poptart (some big junkfood biscuit) for breakfast; a nasturtium, a piece of fennel, an oreo and a few triscuits for lunch, and a couple of mini donuts for tea. For some reason I didn't feel hungry at any stage.
Went around LA with Becca and Jonathan -- a couple of art galleries, a couple of beaches, and a quick stop at the "Venice Canals" before trying to make our way through long motorways full of rush hour traffic to the Amtrak station. When checking my big red tramping pack in, it turned out to be five pounds overweight, and I had three minutes to take out however much I guessed five pounds might be. Seems I got it about right, anyway, since they took it. So now it's only 50lb.

Los Angeles - Kansas City 2 - 4/12/99
Long train trip -- 36 hours -- made my ankles swell up. One had a small bruise on which soon became a very large sore spot. Guy sitting next to me had had to get a ticket in a hurry as his car'd broken down. Apparently, while I was stretching my legs at Albuquerque (Al-bu-kirk-ee) some cop came and flashed his badge at him wanting to search his bag -- frisked him and all -- thought he might be trying to get out of town quick for some less innocuous reason.... He gave me a US road atlas, said he doesn't need it anymore. People also keep giving me food.... (Should write an article on how to cross America on $0 a day!)

Nice scenery, when it wasn't night. :-) California to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas; green trees, to dry red rock with just a few scrubby plants, to deciduous trees. And at nighttime, passing through towns, there were the Christmas lights up everywhere. Got a couple of photos of the red rocks, tried more of later scenery but recently it's just plains and trees, and the trees are bound to come out blurry. Also the windows are dirty...
The air in Arizona (also in New Mexico) is making my hair static. It's incredibly annoying.
Still don't feel hungry today, but I'm making myself lots of salad sandwiches (if only to get rid of my bag of bread and of salad. I've got too much to carry around as it is.) Also had a yoghurt and some pears.

Kansas City 4/12/99
Kansas City is in Missouri. This doesn't seem to strike anyone else as really really dumb.
The train was two hours late, rumour has it because there were two separate heart attacks en route. Interesting how rumours fly on a train...
I planned on arrival to leave my bag at the station and go a-wandering. However, as I got off the train someone came up to me and introduced herself. It was a friend of Becca (who'd phoned her from LA), and she kindly took me back to her place, let me check my email, phone my sister's friend, and recharge my laptop batteries!
*Her* friends then took me to a bustling place for lunch. Much fun. Huge pizza slices. (Bigger than the plate, and covered in heaps of toppings.) Then back to the station, where I met my sister Sasscat's friend + her family before leaving.

Houston 5 - 7/12/99
On the way down, the bus I was on stopped at a petrol station. I went in to get a bottle of fizzy. Saw the price on the fridge and got exact change ready -- but the attendant said some other number. Some other incomprehensible number, in his heavy accent. I managed to give him enough money to make him happy and realised later that sales tax was being added to the displayed price.

My time in Houston was great. The Hanlons took great care of me and fed me up good. I got a wonderful sleep in on Monday morning, and in the evening was able to watch an episode of Due South on TV. (There are far too many channels over here; it took us a couple of minutes just to figure out which one to tune to for TNT.)
In between, I borrowed Jane's bike and proceeded to get the wheels all muddy by riding it on an unpaved path through the wooded area towards Lake Houston. Saw my first squirrel, and then my second, but they were too fast for my camera. Bruised a toe by trying to lift a large branch off the path and only succeeding for a second. It was a beautiful day and I was very glad I'd brought my sunglasses as well as all my winter gear; sun was reflecting straight off the lake. Took a good number of photos; hopefully a number of good photos too.
A bit after Due South, Jane and I went to the church Christmas Tea. Tables crammed the church hall, all decorated with fine china and fancy centrepieces, and laden with the most delicious deserts. We sang carols at a few points in the evening, and had wonderful fun. On the way home, attempted one or two photos of the Christmas lights as well; some as single shot at night, and one multiple exposure coming back to a chalk mark at day. Really just experimenting at the moment; will print some in Florida, I think, and see how it's gone so far. :-)
Someone got confuddled when I talked about the 'queue' in the supermarket getting long. Seems they don't have that word. I'm slowly getting used to pronouncing the place names properly.
Had to get up early the next morning to pack my bag again and leave. Now on to Florida.

Houston - Kissimmee 7 - 8/12/99
Wouldn't you know it, the crossing of the Mighty Mississippi came after dark, so couldn't take any photos of it. There are around about fourteen hours of dark here at the moment, for those interested, and it's enough to make me very sleepy....
View's a bit more boring this side of the country, but trains are okay.

Kissimmee 8 - 10/12/99
Currently breakfasting on lettuce, cheese, peanuts, slice of bread and mug of milk -- all the major food groups. Have real protein, ie meat, in my sandwiches in form of luncheon.
Er... internet cafe... library... a main street... A few photos of pretty buildings and trees. Gotta catch the bus shortly so must stop.
Later: Missed the bus. Finally arrived at the transfer point half a second after the second bus left, so arrived altogether an hour and a half late. It's things like this that eat up your time. Just had time to check in bags and use library's net connection for half an hour.

I did have a bit of a walk at the lake behind the youth hostel last night (tried one picture with sunglasses lens in front of the camera lens to try and get the start of the sunset; will see how that turns out. :-) but my film ran out. This was a good thing. I was accompanied by someone who'd seemed interesting at the time, but who revealed himself to be a racist jerk. He asked if there were any black people in New Zealand because he didn't like black people. I got to use the film running out as an excuse to go back to my cabin and hide from him.
Otherwise, I was just spoilt for choice -- in a ten minute bus ride there's fourteen tourist attractions, not including hotels, restaurants and shops. Therefore I did nothing. I thought about Maze World, but by the time I got back from town to drop off my bag at the youth hostel, and had my lunch which I forgot to take with me, and got rid of the jerk, it was already dark. Not enough sunlight! They might still have been open, but I couldn't find any info and it was a fair walk down the road (a busy road, btw -- leads straight to Disney) and then finding a place to cross where there weren't roadworks. So I preferred not to risk it. Maybe I should tell people I came to Florida for the sun, and not mention that I was barely five miles from Disneyworld. :-)

Orlando 10/12/99

Had a few hours spare there and was allowed to leave one of my day bags (ie the big heavy one; I kept my lunch, camera, papers, and water) behind the counter. Went for a wander to see what was around. The station was right in the medical centre; surrounded by hospitals, various clinics etc. Found some cool plant parasite type thing which I later found out was Spanish moss; this was very exciting to me, so I took a few photos. Further north was downtown, so I headed towards there, on a bridge over a lake. Took more pictures.

Very hot still; even now at 6.30pm is still about 20celsius (69F). The library was indicated on several signs right where I was headed, so I let myself finish up there. Only had one email message though, and again no disks allowed so couldn't send prepared emails. Also (finally) made myself a photocopy of my passport and visa, and refilled my waterbottle. Walked back to the station with plenty of time to spare; on the way took yet more pictures, this time of some sculptures outside the town hall. Waited for the bus; an hour later discovered the train connecting to it was late, so had to wait another hour and half for it. Could have walked more but too tired.
I think this was the station where the windows started too high, so that when I was sitting down I couldn't see out of them. This bugged me quite a lot. There were also displays of train travel history, which kept me interested for most of my spare time there though I've now forgotten everything I learnt.

Charleston 11/12/99
Found the intersection of King/Queen Sts. Or rather the taxi guy drove me there. :-) [I wanted to see these streets because months before, I'd written a scene set there as a challenge; I'd done lots of web research to find out what it was like, and now I wanted to see how right I'd been.] I'd planned to get a bus into town, but the train station guy and the taxi guy ganged up on me to convince me that, being Saturday, the buses weren't coming frequently this time of the morning (not long after 7am), and that it wasn't the safest place to wait around. The nice taxi guy gave me a discount and showed me the sights along the way.
Wandered around for a while, and made my way to Waterfront Park. Wandered some more. Found the library and wrote:
Have been wandering around since about eight o'clock, now past twelve. (Admittedly spent some of that time reading downstairs; my feet got sore.) Have rediscovered bundles of places my research came up with a year ago, now from the view of walking through the place instead of squinting at a strange map. That intersection, btw, has the Charleston Preservation Society on one corner, an antique shop on another, a bank on another, and a parking garage on the last. Not entirely how I'd imagined it from all the pictures of restaurants etc! But it's pretty cool being here.

Panorama of the King/Queen Sts intersection

Washington, DC 12 - 14/12/99

My first day of Washington, I managed to get found by Joy after I at first went to the wrong exit. We started the day at the National Museum of American History: the First Ladies' gowns, New Mexico history, the 'history of clean' and a hands-on science exhibit where we joined kids a fair bit younger than us to do chromotography on grape Koolaid. After that, we went to Dumbarton Oaks and saw everything there except the gardens. Lots of pieces from various places and various eras. Included coins from the early Byzantine period, and masks from South America, and mosaics on the floor. By the time we'd done, we were both pretty tired so made an early night of it.
Melanie took her turn to keep me busy all day Monday with the Capitol, Library of Congress, Air and Space Museum (including an Imax film, "To Fly" which was the first filmed in 1976 and remains very cool), the Museum of Natural History for the Hope Diamond and various other gems and rocks, the Museum of American History again for the original Star-Spangled Banner (currently being laboriously restored). Various other exhibits in those museums as well. Had lunch at the Post Office at some stage, but the tower was closed so couldn't go up for the view. Walked past the White House and took a few photos, though it was dusk and I don't know how well they'll come out.
Then back to Melanie's place, and Joy joined us for pizza and some Due South videos. We kept watching until after eleven, but decided eventually we'd better get some sleep. :-)
I still can't believe we managed to see so much in just two days -- even if it was only a tiny bit of the city itself. I was awfully tired by the time I left Tuesday morning, though!

New York City 14 - 15/12/99
Caught the DC metro (as nice as Paris's system) to Union Station, and went on the way to NYC.
Arrived in NYC with a local transport strike looming. Mum's friend Miriam picked me up and drove me to her place in about two hours without detours - that's Penn Station to Brooklyn. Had only an hour there before having to leave for the rasf* meeting in Greenwich Village via subway.
Once above ground I got turned around and had to ask for directions. Finally managed to locate the place and the people, just about half an hour before half of them left to the theatre. But a couple of the remainder offered me a tour of the locale and we walked around with them pointing out various cafes and bars and the sort of shops you wouldn't necessarily recommend to your grandmother; all in all a lot of fun. Took the subway back to Brooklyn and Miriam picked me up then fed me up.

Princeton 15 - 17/12/99
In the morning, the subway strike had been called off, so no problems for me to get into Penn Station. That's about when I realised I hadn't planned ahead for my arrival in Princeton -- as in, when and where to meet jessie! We had a tentative arrangement so I decided to go with that; fired off an email before I left, negotiated the subway, Amtrak, and the Dinky (shuttle from Princeton Junction to the campus), asked everyone I met if they knew where her hall was. Finally someone did, took me to the right door, and by some great luck for me (I was already working on timetables back to Brooklyn for the evening, Just In Case), jessie was there; her classes only started half an hour later!
So I'm currently installed safe and sound here in Princeton, NJ, without a care in the world except making sure I'm more organised for next time...
Got snuck into dinner. Very yummy. Chocolate cake for desert, mmm.
It's the end of semester, so everyone's busy with assignments and applications and is a little slap-happy from lack of sleep. It was very fun for me to watch the witty repartee and various obscure injokes. :-)
Got a lovely sleep-in on the first morning, then had lunch and spent the afternoon talking writerly talk with jessie. Extraordinarily fun to have a chance to talk in real life with someone who knows exactly what I'm talking about! For that second evening we watched a MST3K movie, played a bit of pool, and fulfilled the stereotype of students drinking alcohol when its free. :-)
Had to leave mid-morning during one of jessie's classes because of mismatched train timetables - the "Dinky" (Princeton -> Princeton Junction shuttle) arrived at P Jct either a few minutes after or an hour before my Amtrak train. Managed to find my way from the dorm to the station.

Poughkeepsie, NY 17 - 26/12/99
And a couple hours later met Becky in NYC as I started to realise that my sore throat was me losing my voice....
Currently in Poughkeepsie whispering to communicate. [Sounds like "P'kipsee" - don't ask!]

18/12/99 A couple of DVDs to watch were the most strenuous activity today, and that after a good twelve hours sleep.
Am planning a trip into NYC tomorrow to meet Walter who's going to show me around a bit. Hopefully my voice will be a bit better by then, but otherwise I guess he'll just have to do all the talking. :-)
Not much else new here. Becky is spoiling me rotten. The temperature at noon might have been a little bit above freezing. I have cat hair all over my clothes. (Adorable creatures. One of them visited me in the night.)

19/12/99 Went into NYC to meet Walter and Marva; walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, visited Central Park with statues and an obelisk, the Museum of Natural History, bits and pieces here and there. Lots of fun. After dinner at a Burmese restaurant (where I met lemongrass for the first time in my life), we went back to Penn station so I could catch my train back to Poughkeepsie, and discovered that there'd been a fire and all the trains were delayed.
I waited around for a while since one (poor overworked) employed said he thought it'd just be three quarters of an hour, but after an hour or so I conceded defeat and started to phone people. I ran briefly into problems there: tried ringing directory service for Becky's phone number, but when I spelt the name my accent confused them and they said it didn't exist. I had to go into a police kiosk and ask them, and only then, seeing them write down what they thought I was saying, did I realise and fix the problem.
Everyone notified, I caught the subway to crash on Walter's couch for the night. Probably a good idea; trains were still running late in the morning but I got back eventually.
My voice is better, but still very croaky.

21/12/99 Went into the City today to visit the Met, full of art exhibits and stuff. Got back late and should go to bed early which is why this is a short scribble again. Was wonderful; in the medieval exhibits there were ivories and wood carvings, miniatures with incredibly intricate details. Some nice Rodin sculptures and I've now been introduced to Ingres paintings and portraits. Plus some good food -- and three flavours of sorbet in the museum restaurant -- and as I may have mentioned before, Becky has been spoiling me rotten. :-)
Um, what else? New Year's may be a bit crowded at Times' Square, and recent explosives discovered at a certain border crossing suggest that security may be an issue. Apparently they're going to have pens up to herd people into and out of easily. So we're going to think about this a tad more and see what other options are out there.
Things are cool, even aside from the weather. (Which is actually not too bad.)

22/12/99 Slept in today. In the afternoon we went to a Vanderbilt Mansion, which includes fully furnished rooms from the early 1930s. Four floors including the basement where the servants cooked and ate etc. One room modelled after the queen's bedroom in Versailles. Absolutely gorgeous. A nice view, but unfortunately the gardens don't look so nice in this season.

23/12/99 Had a cool day today. Started with a ferry ride over to the statue, during which we had great weather, blue sky and all. I climbed to the top of the statue and attempted photos of the tablet and the torch from inside the crown; also got one of the inside of her nose. :-) Didn't get to spend lots of time in the crown as it was very crowded there and people were continually arriving.
Next, the Museum of the American Indian, which was great; I read just about everything at first, but my legs started protesting (as did Becky's) so I started getting more selective and finally finished.
Finally a brief look at the Strand (huge used book store) before dinner at a Chinese restaurant near Grand Central Station. Started snowing as we arrived back at Poughkeepsie, but only lightly; not a huge chance of a white Christmas unfortunately.

Exton, PA 26 - 29/12/99
Nice train trip. I noticed (on the way from Poughkeepsie towards NYC) a beautiful golden sunrise in the sky. At about noon! I am hoping that this was 'merely' pollution, rather than a sign of the impending apocalypse. :-)
Have had a lovely dinner of Christmas leftovers, including my first taste of pumpkin pie. Mmm. Can we import that idea to New Zealand instead of Halloween? Please?

First day in PA we toured Lancaster County -- an Amish museum with heaps of info re the culture(s) (conservative vs modern, and relationship with the Mennonites), and from there to an Amish house. Lunch at a restaurant where we were seated at tables of about twelve people, and served with bowls to pass around at our whim, all-you-can-eat style. Very filling and incredibly delicious.
Second day we took the train into Philadelphia -- went to the US Mint and saw lots of bright shiny new pennies being punched out of sheets of metal. Also saw posters trying to get businesses to be happy with the idea of a dollar coin because people will spend it more easily than dollar bills. I thought perhaps they shouldn't really be announcing this subtle plan to the general public, but hey...
Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the Franklin Court Underground Museum, which had an adorable puppet show thing -- sets with dolls were raised and lowered and each doll was spotlighted as its 'voice' came through the loudspeaker. Also phones where you could 'call' various famous people of the time in America and Europe; but we had to catch a train so I just had time to listen to "La Rochefoucauld".

Poughkeepsie, NY 29 - 31/12/99

30/12/99 Back in NYC, we "finished off" the Met with the Egyptian exhibit (saw a dollar coin in the water surrounding the pyramid, but was not believed: "There _is_ no dollar coin!"), the costume institute (very briefly -- rock and roll clothes, which wasn't quite our thing) and the arms and armour exhibit. Then lunch, a wander through Times Square (already being cordoned off by police, and bustling with thousands of people tooting horns and eating candy floss aka cotton candy aka fairy floss in pink, purple, blue, green and yellow) and a look in the Virgin Megastore for CDs. Got a cool free bag when I bought a CD for Sasscat. Getting pretty tired by then so headed back to Grand Central.
Tomorrow's festivities are still up in the air; will see what things are like before deciding between being at Times Square or on TV with the rest of the world.
BARGAIN OF THE MILLENNIUM: had the bright idea that the problem I was having with Mum's camera might be the batteries. So popped into a shop to check on getting new ones. Was offered the... interesting... price of US$30 for each one. Discounted to US$40 for the two if I paid cash. I said 'thanks but no thanks' and got right out of there! ... just seemed a little over-the-top!
I feel obliged to be honest to everyone reading the webpage, and say that the Times Square photo was taken as we passed through on the afternoon of the 30th, rather than anytime on the 31st. The astute viewer will of course have noticed that anyway, as there are clear gaps between people in the photo. :-)

31/12/99 The weather hasn't been too bad here, as far as winter goes -- up to about 45 degrees, and not expected to get below 35 even overnight for the New Year.
Hope you've been watching some of the millenium celebrations -- we've been tuned in to CNN most of the day and I caught the dawn celebration at Hikurangi and Gisborne, though I was still asleep for midnight at Auckland. :-) Loved the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower.

On to January 2000.

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