Swanning around the Americas (stats)

London life

Oh, y'know, I've been spending my daytimes investigating perplexing crimes with Sherlock. Checking out Philip's medical chart with Elizabeth. Watching the sunset from Waterloo Bridge with Ray. Hanging out with Pete and Amy, smoking crack in the evenings. And if I don't get used to people driving on the left in the UK sometime soon, I'll be experiencing the joys of the London Ambulance Service.

Ohne Titel 35

Time for a little limbering up in Photoshop, I think, with some doodling.

The last day

I'm one of those people who tends to allow himself to sink a little when the end is nigh. The last couple of days of a holiday, my brain is already thinking about being back home. The post-holiday blues tend to kick in early. I'm sure I'll be a fun person to be around should some sort of Doomsday event be on the horizon. The same happened in Mexico City. Going to the baseball game was a good way to counteract that; and, on Friday, the last day of my 29-week journey, I went to look around Teotihuacán, a place about 40km outside of Mexico City, that was built a longtime ago, before the Beatles in fact. You could get organised bus trips, which worked out at about forty US dollars. For around ninety dollars, it was possible to hire a taxi driver for seven hours. Seeing as though Naomi wanted to go, too, it seemed like a lot more fun, and less hassle, to go for the latter option.



The site is about half the length of Central Park, and along the middle there's a big avenue, the Avenue of the Dead, which is about a mile long, flanked by lots of ruins where, one assumes, the olden day version of Starbucks and cell phone shops used to be. Just ruins now. And there are lots of people selling souvenirs. A bit too many, really. Travelling around Latin America, you get used to being offered stuff at every turn, but at Teotihuacán it was a bit too much. I'm don't think I've ever said "No, gracias" as much in my life in any language.



The highlights, though, are a couple of big pyramids, Pyramid of the Moon and Pyramid of the Sun. The latter of the two is the biggest, so that's the one we walked up. Bit exhausting. Lots of out-of-breath tourists at the top. And a nice view.





After a spot of lunch in the cafe there, we were back with our chauffeur, heading back into the city's traffic to go to the Museo de Arte Moderno.

Inside there was a rather nice Robert Turnbull exhibit, and an excellent thing called "Diseñando México 68: una identidad olímpica" ("Designing Mexico 68: an Olympic identity"), with loads of pictures and artifacts from the 1968 Olympics. Pretty stuff.









That was it, my sightseeing, and thus my trip, was over. It was a... I dunno how to describe the moment, actually. Strange isn't the right word. But sitting outside Mexico City airport, having a last smoke before I went through security into the departure lounge, it hit me that I was returning. Not home, because London or the UK isn't home, but returning to the familiar. I dunno, it's strange when you are conscious of something being a 'big' moment, and it's tough not to turn the moment into some sort of Hollywood ending. The temptation to listen to something melancholy on my iPod was immense. So I did. Lump in throat for a while, as I stood next to a yellow barrier looking out at a road full of cars, then I remembered I was born and Englishman and that that sort of behaviour simply won't do.



Every step from there was a reminder that I was closer to the end. Removing my cap for the security woman (if I'm being asked to remove my cap, why, by that logic, am I not asked to remove my trousers?). Buying 800 duty free cigarettes and some duty free manfume (Thierry Mugler's A*Men, if you must know). Buying water and Tic Tacs for the flight, and doing my best to get rid of all my pesos by buying expensive American magazines. Getting on the aeroplane. Putting my bag and duty free stuff in the overhead compartment. Getting it down again so I can get my book out. Sitting down. Buckling up. Undoing the buckle. Getting my bag down again so I can get my notebook and a pen out. And eventually hearing the captain telling us that we'd be arriving in London at 1.50pm local time.

I settled down after the meal and found that they now have on-demand stuff on BA flights, which is nice, so I watched "Be Kind Rewind" and "The Visitor." The first one was entertaining, the second one was excellent. The guy next to me had already turned on his iPhone, pulled up a photo of what I assume was his wife, kissed the screen, and put his eye mask thingy on, so I didn't nudge him when something amazing happened.

I'd kind of expected that nothing else magnificent would happen on my trip, but, when I - for no real reason - pushed the window blind up as we flew over North Carolina, and, for the first time in my life, I saw a thunderstorm from above. And it was stunning. Really beautiful, like a horizontal fireworks display. For about 20 minutes, too, so it must've been a fairly massive storm on the ground.

Daylight came somewhere east of the United States, about half an hour's sleep came somewhere closer to Europe, the "continental breakfast" came, and then I saw the southwestern tip of Wales. And the Severn Bridge. And some English fields. Then the sprawl of London, and welcome to London Heatrow where we've arrived ahead of schedule, and the local time is 1.20pm.

I managed to finish my flight with a little argument with some BA employee. I'd been sat in a seat at the front of my section. So, once the seatbelt signs were off, I was out of my seat, I grabbed my bag and I found myself right next to where the door is. I exchanged a couple of pleasantries with the stewardess, and hardly noticed a male stewardess stood next to me, next to the door. (He didn't have lipstick and jutting breasts; how was I supposed to notice him?) Once the skywalk thingy had been attached, the door came open, and I smiled goodbye to the stewardess and took a step to go out, when suddenly, the BA dude's arm came out to stop me passing. I don't remember the exact phrasing of what he said, but the key words are correct, "Wait here a moment while we let the first class people off." First class people!? I think you might mean people who were flying in our first class section, motherfucker, cos this isn't the Victorian era, and I'm certainly not gonna doff my cap to the rich folks. Three wealthy people got off the plane as my blood boiled and, of course, a clever answer didn't find its way from my brain to my mouth. Instead, I gave him the stink eye and in an exasperated tone, muttered "Jesus Christ, class warfare!" Wrong thing to say, really. I should've been clever and said something like "upper class warfare." At that point I pushed passed his arm, and he said, "There's no need to swear at me." I told him that "Jesus Christ" wasn't swearing. He and another colleague looked at me like I was some oik and in unison said, "It's blaspheming!" I walked away, fuming at BA's implication that the people travelling in the non-First Class section were considered to be the underclasses. Fuck them. If I can be arsed I'm gonna write a letter. But then I'll be one of those people who writes letters-of-complaint.

Welcome to England, Craig. And, of course, it was raining.

It's over

Man, it was tough to fall asleep last night. Twenty nine weeks of stuff going through my head, all with a big full stop of Mexico City International Airport at the end. Which is where I'll be in about 12 hours time.

Before I begin, I want to apologise in advance to the friends I will see in the next few weeks. Within a few minutes of us meeting, I will begin a sentence with the words "when I was in." What will follow those words will be the name of a country or town and a tedious description of something a-maaaaaay-zing that I did or saw. Sorry about that, chaps.



So, my trip is more-or-less over. It began on a drizzly January morning, getting on the Piccadilly Line, seeing the other people in the train, and bursting to tell someone what I was about to do. And, fuck, I did a lot of stuff.

I get a bit misty-eyed thinking about it, and images go through my mind with a melancholy soundtrack, like some local news coverage of a kid in a wheelchair going to Disneyland. The beautifully decorate boats at Xochimilco in Mexico City; snorkeling, seeing howler monkeys, and getting bitten by a kinkajou in Belize; meeting a girl with fake tits who wouldn't eat a Tic-Tac in Panama City.

Giggling at paintings in a museum, and riding through the streets of São Paulo on the back of a motorcycle; seeing the amazing buildings in Brasília; getting drunk with strangers in Curitiba; walking along the beach in Florianópolis in the rain; going to a Santo Daime ceremony; hanging out with Grêmio fans in Porto Alegre; the beautiful fishing village of Punta del Diablo; watching Liverpool beat Arsenal on telly in a shitty hotel in Buenos Aires; bumping into my mate from London on the street there, too; the singing of the Boca Juniors fans.

Seeing the sea lions in the Beagle Channel; walking on a glacier in Tierra del Fuego; seeing the awesomeness of the Perito Moreno glacier; chatting to a lovely, friendly girl on the bus from Posadas to Iguazú; being blown away by Iguazú Falls; getting drunk with two Italian guys in a casino; everything about Rio de Janeiro.

There was being in New York with old friends; baseball, beautiful beautiful baseball; the friendliness of strangers in Pittsburgh; talking about guns with a soldier on a Greyhound bus; the wonderful storms over Milwaukee; Wrigley Field and the hot dogs of Chicago; getting drunk with new friends in Denver; seeing old friends in Seattle; shooting guns in Wenatchee; swimming in Lake Chelan; hanging out with a couple of groovin' hippies in Estacada; the Oregon Country Fair; watching the Oregon and Californian coast out of the back of Walt & Jenny's RV; and probably a bunch of stuff since then that's still a bit too fresh for me to fully appreciate.

There were times of great happiness, times when I've felt sad, and times when I've been downright miserable. Times when I felt very homesick, and times when I've not been able to imagine returning to a "regular" life. I feel like I've changed, too. I've become a little bit more open. More open to new experiences, too. And less obsessed with planning every step of my life. I hope that feeling sticks around.

I've hung out with some great people. Thank you to Amy, Andrew, Ariel, Barbara, Bill, Brendan, Derick, Flavia, Guilherme, Heather, Ian, Jennifer, Jenny, John, Juliana, Kate, Kraig, Laura, Marta, Melanie, Naomi, Nina, Ozorio, Rebecca, Rebecca, Renata, Robin, Vicky, Wade, and Walt. And, well, without wishing to be mawkishly sentimental, you. Doing the blog while I've been travelling has been a wonderful way of keeping a record of what I've been up to, and having your emails and comments has only made it better. Thank you.

There's plenty of stuff in my head and notebooks that I'm looking forward to cracking on with on the website. And, oddly, I'm looking forward to actually doing some work. Real work. For money. But for now, I'm gonna be trying to enjoy my last day, before getting on British Airways flight 242. After the safety instructions, a few films, some over-heated food, some water in those weird-feeling plastic cups that you only ever get on aeroplanes, and (more than likely) no sleep, I'll be at Heathrow. And life will continue; with longer hair, a suntan, some new baseball caps, and a smile on my face.

Baseball (slight return)

I had a nice relaxing day yesterday. Went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Museo del Estanquillo. Arty stuff blah blah blah, so fuck writing about that. You wanna know about this, I'm sure: I went to see one more baseball game. Woo! Hoo! Only, it was béisbol this time. It had crossed my mind when I was on the aeroplane from San Diego, I wonder if Mexico City's baseball team is playing in the next couple of days? Type type type click: yes! Diablos Rojos del México vs. Piratas de Campeche.

After a fairly pedestrian start, full of hitters swinging at pitches they shouldn't've, los Diablos got a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 4th. Things heated up when the visitors came back level after loaded in the bases with nobody out in the 7th, but a fine rally by the Diablos in the 8th, coupled with some terrible pitching gave the locals a 7-2 victory.





It was a good game. Especially as I went with my friend Naomi, who was a baseball virgin. And good to see the differences between Liga Mexicana de Béisbol and baseball in the US. Firstly, the prices were cheaper for beer and snacks. A beer at the game costs less than in a bar in Mexico City, which is a nice change from nine dollar beers at MLB games. And you can smoke in the stadium. There's even ushers walking around holding Marlboro and Marlboro Lights aloft, shouting "cigarros!" like the hot dog/peanut/candy floss ushers up north.



There's no jingo jingo la of a national anthem before the game. They have cheerleaders with pom poms, satin jackets and short, short skirts. And instead of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" in the seventh-inning stretch, they played "Sweet Caroline," a song that I really like, but is slightly tainted by being a favourite of fans of that team who wear red-coloured socks.



Throughout the game, to gee up the crowd, they played a song that I've heard a lot at baseball games all over North America: "Rock and Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter. How the heck the teams who choose to play this song haven't heard about this, I don't know, but he's a convicted paedophile. Great song and everything, but he likes to fuck children!

Anyway, there were a couple of mascots that came onto the field between innings. One that looked like a some furry dog with devil horns, and another that was Winnie the Pooh. At one point, they both whipped off their furry heads to reveal lucha libre masks, and they did a little bit of wrestling. Frankly, it's the best thing I've ever seen a mascot do.

All in all, a fun evening. It was great to see some baseball one last time. And rounded off nicely with a couple of excellent quesadillas.

Hot Dogs USA

Click here to see larger version. The best one? That has to be the appropriately-named "Magnificent Dog" from Gold Coast Dogs in Chicago (second row, third from left).

Blimey

From BBC News.

An earthquake measuring 5.4 has caused buildings to shake across a wide area of southern California in the US. The epicentre of the quake was 29 miles (46km) south-east of central Los Angeles, near Chino Hills in San Bernardino County, officials said. The quake was felt as far south as San Diego, witnesses say.

I feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger at this end of this clip. Or like someone who did a trump on a bus and got off at the next stop before it kicked in.

Bye bye, baseball

So, that's it. My baseball stadium trip is over. Fifteen of thirty visited. Those of you with a maths degree will know that that is exactly 50% of them. Hopefully in 2009 or 2010 I will be able to come back and do the rest of them.



I've seen 15 Major League games (3 American League, 7 National League, and 5 Interleague games); I've seen 12 home-team victories; and I've seen 107 runs scored by 21 teams. It's been fucking magnificent.

The game I saw earlier was at PETCO Park, home of the San Diego Padres. They were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team who I don't really like, and have managed to see three times on this trip. Decent stadium. The best bit, though, is "The Park in the Park," a nice bit that's outside the actual stadium, where there's some bleachers and a little grassy hill where people can put down a rug and have a picnic whilst watching the game. Yay for that.



I didn't sit there, though. Being the last game of my tour, I decided to splash out and get a good seat; seven rows behind the Padres' dugout. It was pretty good being so close. I enjoyed all the more for being sat next to two very knowledgeable fellows who were entertaining all the way through ("84mph fastball? That's an oxymoron right there!"). I've had some good luck with seeing good pitchers, but it was nice that I got to see two of the all-time greats pitch for the Padres. The starting pitcher was Greg Maddux (below), ninth on the all-time wins list. And their closing pitcher was Trevor Hoffman, first on the all-time saves list.



It was a good game, too. A fine game with home runs, errors, bases loaded jams, and a few broken bats. Eventually, Hoffman got the final out, the Padres won, and, well, it was time to leave. I lingered more than I normally would after a game. I kept taking one last look at the field, one last look at the stadium, and vowed to myself that I would come back as soon as possible to visit the other 15 stadiums. Of course, by then, I'll feel a tinge of completism, and will need to go to Oakland again to see a game rather than just taking the stadium tour. And there'll be two new stadiums in New York to see, too. Hurrah for baseball: you're a fucking magic sport.



My time in the United States is also over; bar a few hours of sleep, my morning ablutions, a cab ride, and faffing around in the airport. It's been an excellent two months here. I'd only ever been to the East Coast before coming on this trip, and I've loved exploring different places. Chicago was excellent, Milwaukee and Denver, too. But, for me the West Coast states - Washington, Oregon, and California - have been the highlights. It's pretty special out here. Can I have a green card please, Mr Obama or Mr McCain?

Mexico City, here I come.

San Diego Zoo

Apart from ZOOMAT in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico, where all the animals are indigenous to the region; the San Diego Zoo is the best zoo I've ever been to. I can almost forgive their bragging on the posters around the place proclaiming it to be the "World Famous San Diego Zoo." Nobody likes a braggart, San Diego.

Of course, to men of my age, San Diego Zoo means one thing, and one thing only:



Wherever that photo was taken, it doesn't seem to look like that any more. Either that, or I'm a dimwit who didn't find it. Anyway, that's just dorky Beach Boys stuff. For the rest of you, here's some pretty aminals.