I have certainly had a fun filled couple of days lately. Two days ago we planned for spending the day in Lane, a small town in Kansas with a population of about 300 people, and home town to Drew.

We woke fairly late and our first stop was to a sandwich place nearby for a bit of grub. We then drove the picturesque 30 minute drive over to Lane and stopped in the local bar, a warehouse looking building with no windows and the most un-bar like looking bar I have ever seen. If you had sent me by myself to find it I would have definately missed it.

On the way to Lane Drew was playing with a sat nav that a friend of his has lent him for the weekend. He punched in the address for his parent's house in Lane and then laughed himself silly every time the poor little sat nav told him to go in one particular direction and he cheekily went a different way to the suggested route, of course knowing the route to his parent's house like the back of his hand.

We had a couple of drinks in the bar in Lane, which I was advised is a 3,2,1 bar (or something like that). They only have a license to serve alcohol that containes 3% alcohol or less. I had an alcoholic lemonade, played some tunes on the juke box and people watched as the locals came and went.

After a while we made it up to Drew's parents, who live on a beautiful lake. We chatted for a bit and then headed down to the Lake for a swim. It was all very 'Dawson's Creek'. Very beautiful indeed and the water was literally as warm as bath water. I swam for about 15 minutes and then thought it might be fun to do my song for Kansas while swimming in the Lake! Please bear in mind that I had been swimming for 15 minutes already before singing, which might explain the slight shortness of breath! Please also bear in mind that I am in fact wearing a bikini - despite what it might look like in the movie!

I sang my song, then left the lake to sit on the pontoon for a bit in the sun. It was cooler than it had been for many days, and there were some greyish clouds in the sky and the rumor of a thunder storm.

We dried off and went up to the house to tidy ourselves up in time for dinner. As we walked up to the house, what did I see displayed proudly on the back of the house? One of the very same stars that I have seen on many houses here and wondered for days what the significance of them was. I had even told Drew that I was tempted to knock on someone's door to ask them. Drew's mother has had this star on her house for at least 5 years and he never even noticed. So we asked her, and she confirmed that it simply is for decoration.

Dinner was fabulous, a seafood crumble type thing, the recipe of which had apparantly been taken from a spy novel whose author was something of an amateur chef so wrote in minute detail the recipes of dinners that the star of the book would create. It was delicious and was followed with a lovely cup of tea (something that had been certainly lacking on my travels) and a blackberry cobbler.

Happy and full we left Drew's parents house and headed to the Elks - the local club that Drew is a member of. The average age of the patrons in the club was probably about 65 and they were all extremely generous in their round buying. It is very difficult for people under the age of 45 to buy a round in the club, as the seniors often beat you to it, being the ones of course that empty their drinks first. I was bombarded with drink after drink and finally left the bar very merry indeed.

The next day I woke feeling surprisingly chirpy considering how much wine I had consumed the previous night, and after a long chilled coffee on the front porch we jumped in the car and headed into Kansas City. We headed to the Nelson-Atkins museum, a fine looking museum with collections from all over the world, Egypt, China and also some Native American pieces too. I was looking at the dates of the articles in the cabinets and noticed that the time frame was referred to as BCE and CE, instead of what I know as BC and AD. I wondered if this was something new that had happened in terms of referring to dates. Recently I saw a program on TV called "Do you think you are smarter than a fifth grader" (roughly 10 year olds). I wondered if this was a new thing that if you asked a fifth grader they would know the answer to, but seeing as it has been many years since I was of fifth grade age, I was out of the loop.

So, I asked one of the staff members of the museum and found out that BCE stands for Before Common/Current Era and CE means Common/Current Era. They have marked the dates like this so as not to offend people who do not believe in the birth of Christ and therefore might be offended that things are dated to that event. Except, I thought after she had given me the explanation, although you might be changing the way you say it, the event that you are indeed referring to 'before' or 'current' is still the birth of Christ! What a load of politically correct nonsense!!

I didnt let it spoil my experience though, and very much enjoyed a bit of culture on my trip, until my tummy started letting me know that it was ready for a re-fill. So we popped into the car and drove five minutes to the Plaza area of Kansas city. It is very beautiful and full of boutiques, restaurants, street side cafe's and so on. It is said to have been built as a replica of Barcelona. We found a lovely italian restaurant that had a sunken patio and sat outside while listening to a band performing on the street. The food was excellent and the band was really good, much better than the sappy italian musak that the restaurant was piping out.

We had ordered spaghetti with a meat sauce, which we were advised came as a portion big enough for two. We both had plenty of pasta and there was still enough to take home for a snack at dinner time.

We headed back to the car and wearily wove our way home. We decided a chilled night on the porch was in order so sat in the cool of the evening drinking german beer and watching all the night creatures coming out to play. I tried to get a picture of the lightning bugs, but there were only one or two out, unlike on my first night here where there had been what seemed like hundreds, making the whole front garden light up. Some friends came over and we passed the evening away telling silly stories until it was finally time for bed.

I am starting to look slightly diseased. The american mosquitoes are happily sucking on my blood any chance that they can get and I have bites all up and down my legs and arms, hands, fingers, toes - you name it!

There is also something in the air today that I am extremely allergice to, so I went to Walgreens the Pharmacist today and walked out with my arms full of after bite, mosquito repellant and aftersun for my sunburn.

Two days ago was my first full day in Kansas and I had asked Drew if there was any possibility of going to a Baseball game. I was in luck as the Kansas Royals were in town playing the Baltimore Orioles so we headed up to Kansas City to watch the game. We got excellent tickets about 5 rows up from the field, right behind 3rd base. Drew was great at explaining to me what was going on, especially advising me to be very careful when someone hit the ball as we were directly in line for a number of foul balls that might come our way. In the end only one ball came in our direction but thankfully it sailed right over our heads.

The game was a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. Our seats were directly in the sunshine and it was quite a hot day. Every three innings or so we would go up onto the concourse to get a beer or some more cold water. We wanted to get a hot dog at some point also, but I was just far too hot, I didnt have an appetite.

The game lasts a while and there is plenty of entertainment to keep people going in between innings. One of the most popular games is when one of the mascots or publicity girls throws out free hot dogs. The kids go crazy for it, and sometimes not just the kids either! They also had a kiss cam, which would focus in on various couples around the stadium and they would oblige by kissing for the whole stadium to see.

The Kansas Royals apparently havent been doing too well recently, but we were very lucky and they won the game!

We drove the hour or so home and noticed our sun burn along the way. It had been a hot day, and we hadnt noticed just how red we were getting under the sun.

That night we walked down the street for a couple of blocks and ate in a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Drew's tennant also joined us for dinner and as we were eating I brought up a couple of things that I had noticed since I have been in the US.

Firstly, coins which are marked Nickel and Dime do not indicate their value in numerical terms. Of course I have heard of Nickels and Dimes, and I could figure out what a quarter dollar was, but I had no idea how much a nickel or a dime was worth. Most americans that I have pointed this out to have no idea that the value is not indicated on nickel and dime coins.

Secondly many of the houses in all of the states that I have been to have big red, blue or bronze stars on the outside of them. I asked some of Drew's friends yesterday what the stars mean and they told me that they were just decoration. I googled it today and it seems that the stars are 'Barn stars' and indeed have been used for quite a while to decorate barns and more recently houses, sometimes thought to be a bit of a good luck charm, like an upside down horse shoe.

The third thing that I have noticed is how proud everyone is to be american, and how easy it is to display this pride. Many people have a large american flag raised on a flagpole outside thier house, many businesses also display the american flags, and the american national anthem is sung at the beginning of every sporting activity.

We pondered these thougths while trying to finish off the enourmous plates of food we had been served, and eventually wound our way home.

The next day Drew took me to the town of Lawrence - a university town that has an impressive main street of shops and restaurants. We went to the Mad Greek for lunch, and I had Pasta. Wonderful beautiful pasta that I have not eaten for so many weeks. It made me very very happy indeed!

As we had arrived in Lawrence quite late it was rather too hot to fully explore the main street, so we thought we might save it for another day. Rather instead we headed over to Topeka, where Drew works, to join his colleagues for an after work drink. I have been lulled into forgetting to take my ID with me, as most people know Drew in this small town and dont question my age, but it did get questioned in the bar in Topeka. We managed to convince the landlady that I was older than 21 and I settled down with my Bud Lite to talk nonsense with Drew's friends. Eventually we finished our drinks with the younger group of friends and headed home where I quickly at the leftovers of the pasta that I had had for lunch and we took a quick stroll down the road to Drew's local private club to hang out with his older friends.

There was a group of men surrounding the bar betwen the ages of 60 and 80 and they were all clearly very good friends who passed thier time chatting, making fun of each other, and putting away drink after drink after drink. I drank my first drink quite quickly, getting carried away with the chatter and ordered my next drink which lasted me the rest of the night. I am only young and have not had the years and years of drinking practice that these old guys have had and simply could not keep up! I was feeling distinctly poorley on my way home and thought it might have something to do with having been too hot, or maybe too cold in the airconditioning, or maybe I didnt re-heat the pasta properly when I ate it. Of course, this morning I have admitted to myself that the poorley feeling was nothing to do with any of these things, and rather more to do with the fact that I had had a touch too much to drink!

Today was my third day in Kansas and both Drew and I were ready for a down day. I woke up late, headed quickly to the pharmacist to get some antihistamines and bug stuff. I took two antihistamines as soon as I got home and fairly quickly fell into a long morning doze.

We summoned up the energy to go to the Sandbar for something for lunch and then we came back home and I had yet another snooze. We are gearing up for a lazy evening in and getting our energy back fo another day of proper sight seeing tomorrow.

Day two in Georgia heralded a trip to the big city of Atlanta. We got up early so that we could arrive in good time in Atlanta, but that idea went out the window when we got a phone call on Skype from my sister and my niece and nephew. God bless the invention of Skype. It is lovely to not only be able to talk to everyone but actually see them too while we are chatting. It has meant that Viki has been able to talk to and see all of her old friends while I have been visiting them too.

We jumped into the truck, punched the address of the Coca Cola Museum into Maggie – the sat nav – and headed on our way.

The trip went by fairly quickly and we soon hit the Atlanta traffic. Maggie didn’t do too badly with the directions, but didnt really get us exactly to our destination. We drove around in the city trying to locate exactly where the museum was, at one point we drove the wrong way up a one way road and all of the city folks were beeping at us and flashing their lights at the stupid tourists going the wrong way. Some kindly paramedics pointed us in the right direction and we finally found a parking lot close to the places we wanted to visit.

Our first stop was the Coca Cola museum. Basically a huge advertisement for Coca Cola that attracts millions of people (including us) and that you have to pay for the privilege of seeing. I thought I was cheesy, but this place has levels of cheese that I have never before experienced. Our tour started with a little chat in the entrance hallway where the steward pointed out all of the old coca cola artifacts, including the syrup containers that would deliver just the right quantity of coca cola syrup into the glass before being topped up with soda water and stirred to produce the perfect coca cola. Next was the ‘hall of happiness’ which showed us a ten minute commercial about what happens when you put your coin into the slot of a coca cola dispenser. Cute, and very very cheesy.

We took our time walking around the museum, and had a lot of fun in the tasting room, tasting all the variations of coca cola products from around the world. I don’t think I have every drunk so much fizzy drink in such a short space of time.

Slightly bloated and on edge from all of the sugar we exited the museum (after declining to pay 25 dollars for the cheesy shot that had been taken of us at the entrance of the museum) and headed accross the lawn to the Aquarium.

Once again we hit the tourist trail found oursleves in queue apon queue. The aquarium had four different climate zones and had the appropriate fish and sealife in each zone. By the time we had finished all of the zones we were fairly hungry and I felt that it was definately beer o clock.

We left the aquarium and walked across to the Olypic park, which was full of people especially lots of chilren running in and out of the fountains getting soaking wet and cooling way down in the hot Georgian summer. We consulted the navigator to find restaurants in the local area, and promtly headed off in the wrong direction. It was really hot and a 10 minute walk the wrong direction stripped me of my usual chirpyness and revealed the grumpy whiney hungry and hot Veronica. Crystal recognized the signs and, as most of my friends do, tried to quickly find a restaurant to feed the grumpy Veronica so that happy Veronica would re-appear. We found a pizza place and I devoured my half of the Pizza and then sat sipping my second cooling beer as Crystal finished her pizza at a more human pace.

It was time to head back home, so we jumped in the car and drove the hour and a half back to Warner Robbins.

We were fairly tired from our long day so just had a couple of drinks with Luke before heading off to bed.

The next day was our down day and Crystal and I spent most of the morning trying to find accomodation for me in Florida. I got fed up of looking at the computer and all of the options just ended up confusing me, so we turned the computer off and headed out to the shops to gather ingredients for dinner.

Two more of our friends from our old group were travelling down from Prattville (!) Alabama to spend the weekend with us. They turned up early evening and it was time to fire up the outside stove and cook our dinner – a Low Country Boil. A Low Country Boil is made from putting some water in a pot with some crab stock, and adding various ingredients in order according to how long they take to cook. First off were the potatoes and onions, followed at various points with corn on the cob, prawns (shrimp in American) and crab legs. It didnt take long and we all enjoyed a couple of beers and catching up on 9 years of life while the boil boiled.

Eventually it was done and we tipped the contents of the pot onto a large platter and everyone helped themselves. It was delicious! Viki, please can you get the recipe from Crystal so that you can cook it for us one day?

After we had all filled ourselves with good food we headed off to a local ‘Irish’ pub for a spot of Karaoke, the right and traditional thing to do with our group. There was a long queue for the Karaoke and we amused ourselves with more chatter and a spot of people watching. Finally it was our turn and we sang the songs that we used to sing all those years ago, including my favourite version of You dont bring me Flowers.

Luke was ‘des’ so he drove us home and we finished off the night hanging out in the hot tub and talking a lot of nonsense – which is all we could manage after several beers and wisky and cokes. I stumbled off to bed at about 3 and tore myself out of bed again at about 10am so that I could shower and pack my things as I was leaving Georgia that day.

Luke had cooked up a good hearty breakfast, and we all tucked in. It was about 12 o clock by this point and we realised that no-one was in any condition to drive me to the airport, which had been the original plan. We came up with a plan ‘B’ and after some tearful goodbyes Luke drove me to Macon to catch the shuttle bus up to Atlanta Airport. We hit some traffic near Atlanta and I was slightly concerned about missing my flight, but we got there in time and I boarded my flight no problem

The flight was quick and I was soon landing in Kansas. The captain had announced after we had all boarded that some of the suitcases had to be left behind in Georgia as there wasnt enough space on the plane, but luckily my case was one of the cases that was included. I saw Drew straight away on disembarking from the plane and we took the quick walk to the car.

I got a little confused when Drew pointed out the sign saying ‘welcome to kansas’. Kansas City airport is actually in Missouri. The City crosses the state line so some of it is in Kansas, and some is in Missouri!

It was about an hour’s drive to the small town of Ottowa and once we got there we had time for a quick bite to eat at the local and a couple of beers before calling the town’s only taxi to take us off to a little concert that was being held in someone’s field in the middle of nowhere. The band was Clevermax and it was an old band that was quite popular in the 80s in this area, having something of a reunion. There were old classmates also taking the opportunity to have a reunion and we bumped into a few of Drew’s highschool pals who had travelled down from wherever they were for the occasion.

The concert was a lot of fun, and it was wierd for me to think that I was standing at a country concert in a field in the middle of nowhere in Kansas instead of at work or rehearsal in Cyprus. After a few hours we called the taxi again and she drove the 20 minutes out of town to come and pick us up and take us home after a quick nightcap at the local. I went to bed tired and excited at the thought of exploring more of this beautiful country the next day.

Yesterday we decided to explore the area of Georgia that is close to where Crystal lives, in Warner Robins, Georgia.

After a leisurely start we headed to Lane's Peach factory. The Peach is the national fruit of Georgia, and there are peach trees everywhere as well as Pecan (pronounced Peekahn) trees.

The Peach factory consisted mostly of a shop, so we spent a good while perusing the shelves, looking at all of the different manifestations of peach products that were available. Peach bread, peach wine, peach jam, peach salad dressing, peach crisps... as well as other local products containting pecans or local onions.

After we had taken a good look around and earmarked some of the tasting things that we wanted to try after lunch, we took a walk around the factory. I have never been to a Peach factory before, so it was quite interesting to see how that all worked. There were thousands of peaches being loaded onto sorting belts with various workers along the way responsible for checking the quality of the peaches, and sorting them into 'Fine for packaging', 'Suitable for consumption within the next couple of days', and 'Needs to be consumed TODAY'. There were some that didnt even meet that criteria so they were just dumped straight into the water shute to be washed away.

We had a good look around, and then headed back into the shop and the cafeteria so we could get a bite to eat. I ordered a chicken sandwich, and picked up my cup to get my self service drink as many as you like coca cola. There were signs all over advising us to 'try our peach cobbler with icecream', so - we did!

Everything in Georgia seems to be sweet. They have a cold drink called 'sweet tea' and by golly it is SWEET!! It's 'suck the inside of your mouth and teeth jarring' kind of sweet. The peach cobbler was sticky and sweet too, and the icecream was also sweeter than I am used to.

As we were eating, we decided that the Peach factory (Crystal has just corrected me - the Peach processing plant) would be an ideal place to film my song for Georgia. The factory was large enough and loud enough for us to find a little corner on the observation deck to film the song, and my thanks go to Crystal for her excellent cameramanship - as you will see from the movie.

As we came out of the factory, we saw that the heavens had opened and it was pouring down. We took our time tasting all of the various dips and salad dressings, and then did a wine tasting (we had to pay 2 dollars each!! The cheek of it!). I tried some of the sweet wines, because that seems to be the preferance over here, but I just couldnt bring myself to like it - except for one that was quite fruity and almost liquery, and might have been nice extremely cold and in a shot glass after a meal.

By the time we were ready to leave the rain had stopped, and we headed in the direction of the tourist information bureau to pick up some leaflets on Atlanta, and run a couple of errands for the house.

We arrived home and I had a little snooze because I hadnt slept too well the night before as I had been a bit chilly. It is 101 degrees outside at the moment (that's about 38 degrees centigrade), but the airconditioning here is very efficient. Most houses have a central airconditioning system, which is pushed through the whole house through ventilation shafts, so you can set the temperature for the whole house. This system of course is used for heating in the winter, but at the moment it is set to very cool, which is a real blessing when you step in from outside, but chilled me a little bit at night time.

I had my snooze and then we were up to get ready for dinner before our trip to the Theatre.

We punched the address for the theatre into 'Maggie' the sat nav and headed on our way. The area of Macon that we drove through first was quite run-down. Definately one of those scary towns you see in the movies where people get mugged or killed quietly in a corner and no-one sees anything. There were signs along the road advertising 'the largest indoor market in the road' and also 'The gun shop, buy your guns here - only $5.99!' This is where we chose to stop for gas, and I was given the task of going into the shop, with iron bars on all of the windows to stop robbers at night time, to ask the teller for 20 dollars of gas please, thank you very much, please dont shoot me. Of course, it wasnt nearly as bad as my imagination and the chinese immigrant behind the counter was pleasant enough, and of course I didnt get shot on my walk back to the car.

We found the theatre quite easily and parked the car to go in search of food. We found a restaurant that had a farily good reputation - the Rookery. There has been a fair bit of investment in Downtown Macon, and so this area was more pleasant and spruced up. We ordered our food, starting with a plate of fried green tomatoes, and a couple of beers. I asked for a half, and the waitress looked a little confused. Crystal explained that there is no regulation on measures of alcohol or drinks here. It just depends on what size glass they have in the bar you are drinking in. I got ready to show my ID, but they dont seem to be that concerned with that here either. As long as you dont look like you are 12 - you're ok!

We finished our meal and made our way quickly to the theatre as we had taken a bit longer over dinner than we had intended. 'Cats' is touring the country and last night was their second and final night in Macon (pronounced like bacon). We had fairly good seats in terms of viewing the stage, but we were on the balcony on the second floor, and the theatre was quite old - so the same ventilation system that kept the houses nice and cool didnt work so well in the theatre and we were pretty warm in our seats. The Macon crowd seemed to be a bit blase about the fact that such a wonderful production was in town, and continued to talk on their mobile phones, send text messages, munch away on loud rustling snacks, or slipping their shoes off and hanging their big smelly feet over the seats in front of them, which meant the rested gently on the shoulders of the people sitting in front of them!

Despite all of this, we thoroughly enjoyed the show, getting goosebumps when Grizabella sang memory. Despite the apparant casualness of the Macon audience, they did seem to enjoy the show, and gave a standing ovation at the end.

We left the theatre and did a bit of people watching and then headed home for the evening.

Day two in Indiana was thankfully a touch cooler than my first day. Heather's partner cooked us up a hearty american breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, mini sausages and pancakes with maple syrup. Mmmmm. I showed my 'foreigness' by starting off with the savoury stuff and having the pancakes second, instead of lumping everything all on the one plate.

Our mission today was to find Olivers Winery, not far from Franklin, about an hour's drive, apparently close to a lake and with beautiful gardens.

Luckily we had the trusty Sat Nav with us on Heather's mobile phone, so we punched in the address and away we went. The directions took us towards Oliver's winery and before long we saw a sign indicating that Oliver's winery was just 9 miles away. Shortly after that the Sat Nav started getting a bit upset and told us we had to do a U-turn so that we could turn right (or what would have been left as we approached it the first time). We were a bit confused as it was taking us in the other direction from the signs, but surely the Sat Nav knew what it was talking about - perhaps it was a back way there, or the old road? The route took us along a beautiful tree lined road through the hilly countryside with large houses on plots with private lakes and woods flanking each side of the road. After a short while the Sat Nav declared that we were almost at our destination, and then advised that our destination was on our left. Unfortunatley all we could see on our left were many, many trees!

We kept driving, with the Sat Nav getting really upset now that we had missed our stop, and frantically re-calculating our route. We decided to listen to the Sat Nav - perhaps we had missed something, did the required U-turn and headed back to where it told us to go. Once again it told us our destination was close, and this time advised us that our destination was on our right. We desperately tried to find some kind of building structure amongst the trees that the Sat Nav was sure our destination was to be held, but we really couldnt. We decided our best bet would be to go back to the high way, and maybe rely on the huge signs by the side of the road that told us, and all those other folk who were looking for the winery that maybe didnt have Sat Nav, how to get to the Winery. Our detour took us about an hour, and shortly after we got back onto the highway, we were relieved to see another sign. Ten minutes later we triumphantly found the winery and parked the car.

Our first stop was the wine shop, it seemed to be where everyone was headed. The shop was packed full of tourists, and after a swift walk around, I headed towards the wine tasting area. I quickly found my passport to prove to the staff that I was of age to taste the wine, and worked my way through some recomended options. I try to taste wines that I normally dont like, to see if there are versions of a particular wine that might surprise me. I tried a Rose which as usual I didnt really care for. The Sauv Blanc, which I usually like, was fine, but the surprise for me was the Pinot Grigio that had quite a nice citrusy flavour to it which I quite liked. We went on a tour of the vineyard, and then for a walk in the gardens down to the water area - which personally I couldnt really describe as a lake - more of a big pond really, with enormous golden coy carp in it.

This was a good opportunity to do my song for Indiana - and I think you might find my inventiveness quite amusing when coming up for an appropriate song for this stage in my travels!

It had taken us so long to get here that we were getting a bit peckish by now, so I bought my souvenir bottle of Pinot Grigio and we headed back towards Greenwood in search of food. Luckily Heather knew the way back to Greenwood, so she turned the Sat Nav off, which was good because it was draining the battery of the phone. We saw the exit sign for Greenwood and took it, in the happy knowledge that we would soon be able to get some food, and I was particularly happy because a delicious cheescake had been promised afterwards. Unfortunatley, it seemed that somebody had come along and re-arranged all the roads in Greenwood, because Heather soon realised that she couldnt quite figure out where we were. The phone - and therefore the Sat Nav was dying, so we couldnt risk turning it back on and being incommunicado. We drove around for quite a bit and finally, thankfully found a landmark that we recognised - the town's Target. We put in an SOS call to Heather's partner, quickly managing to tell him where we were before the phone gave up its last gasp of breath. We sat, hot and slightly despondent in the car-park of Target, and before long were saved by our knight on a shiney blue motorbike. Heather's partner threw us a withering look before leading us in the direction of the town's best Chinese buffet.

We re-fuelled on chinese food and refillable soft drinks and then headed to the town's italian restaurant for the most delicious creamy cheescake with a bruleed crust. Superb!

The next day we decided to have a down day. Two days of driving about in the summer heat had taken it out of us, so we spent the day catching up on old times, as I tried desperatly to find a way to plan my trip to the Grand Canyon. I have left it far too late, with much of the accomodation in the area being booked up to a year in advance. I have toyed with the idea of staying in a nearby town and hiring a car, but I dont think that would be wise from any way you look at it. The current option seems to be going to Las Vegas and taking a tour bus from there. We shall see.

We did take a trip to Wal-Mart in the afternoon so that we could pick up some bits and pieces. Heather had explained to me that Indiana seems to have suffered particularly from the current economic crisis. Many people have lost their jobs, and in fact many of her neighbours have had to move away from her area to try to find a rental with a lower rent, simply not being able to afford the small semi-detached houses in the estate any longer. In Wal-Mart car park we saw the perfect example of people just having to make-do. A truck had clearly had an engine fire, and you could still see the patch of burned metal on the bonnet of the car. The owner of the truck clearly had no money to fix the truck or the engine properly, so had wedged a common household fan underneath the bonnet, seemingly plugged in to the cigarette lighter inside the truck.

I also had to get some cash, so we drove to a drive-thru cash machine! You just drive your car up to it, and lean out of the window to use the machine! We had to drive the wrong way to position my window next to the machine, but once we did that it was quite easy! And pretty cool.

The afternoon passed in a blur of playing with Heather's cute one year old and opening my wine, which I was happy to find I enjoyed just as much at home as in the environment of the Vineyard.

The next day I woke early to pack my bags and we headed off back to Indy so that I could board my plane for Atlanta, Georgia. We found our way to the airport no problem and I was sad to say goodbye to my friend. I went through security pretty quickly and found a seat outside my gate. Just before we were about to board one of the AirTran staff announced that they were looking for 5 volunteers to offer to take the next flight to Atlanta at 7pm (instead of 12.30) as the flight was overbooked - and they were offering a free return ticket to any AirTran destination. Unfortunatly Crystal's trip from her home town to Atlanta Airport took about as long as my flight, and I didnt think it would be fair to tell her to go home and wait for me, so I let this one pass, but have my fingers crossed that this offer will come up again when I havent got someone waiting at the other end for me!

The flight to Atlanta was very quick and we were soon landing. Atlanta airport is HUGE and it took me ages to walk from the arrivals hall to baggage reclaim. I kept on ignoring the train that indicated that it was going to baggage reclaim - favouring to walk and get a bit of excercise to try to walk off all these cheese-cakes that I have been eating. But you know what? They offer a train for a reason - beacause it is a really, really long way!

Anyway, I finally got there, and was delighted to see Crystal, the next in my list of friends that I am visiting that I havent seen for about ten years!

We jumped into the truck and drove the hour and a half down to Warner Robins and her home.

We talked non-stop until Luke came home from work, and after warm hugs we set off for some good old fashioned southern cooking. I ate all sorts of dishes with Ocra in it, fried chicken and fried pork, and for the first time ever - Fried Green Tomatoes! (Which, by the way, were very yummy).

We headed back home and sat in the back garden watching the various bits of wildlife enjoying the cool of the evening. Where Cyprus has ants and cockroaches, there is a little army of millipedes making their way around and in the house every so often. They are not as gross as ants or cockroaches, and you simply have to scoop them up and flush them away. More interestingly, there were plenty of birds eating from the bird feeders scattered in the garden, and then, after the sun went down, raccoons coming to get their evening snack of dog food from their little perch on the fence!

We spent the rest of the evening looking up exciting things to do in Georgia and researching my song for this state, which I will post in due course!

It was time to leave New York. I gladly packed my bags to leave the hostel and stepped outside to wait for my taxi at 7am, the earliest I had been awake for many days! My flight was at 9.45 from La Guardia, which was pretty cool as I got to explore a second New York airport. I arrived at the internal flights section of the airport and quickly got my boarding pass, left my bag at the drop off area and went through security. I was surprised to see that the section of the airport that I was departing from was quite small and in need of refurbishment. I was also fairly surprised to see that my flight was delayed for an hour and a half!

Luckily I had bought some chic lit to read, so happily tuned everything out and read my book. My flight was finally called and we boarded pretty quickly, and as I was looking out of the window as we were taking off I was surprised to see that we were leaving New York. One airport is much like the next, and I had quite forgotten that I was in NEW YORK!!

The flight was quite quick, and after about 20 minutes of snoozing and the head bobbing that went with it, and more chapters of my book, I landed at Indianapolis Airport. On disembarking from the aircraft, we had to walk through the departures hall to get to baggage reclaim. I had seen landing passengers walk right past me in the departures hall in New York and was surprised that arriving and departing passengers would be mixed up like this. But of course, this was an internal flight I was taking, not international, so the protocol is different. I walked out of the departures/arrivals hall and into the main terminal, where I then had to take an escalator to the floor below to collect my luggage, another change from what I am used to.

Shortly after that I saw my friend Heather. I haven't seen her for ten years, but there was no mistaking her clear blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. We got into her car and quickly drove the 30 minutes to her house in Franklin, and I was excited to see another side to America from what I had seen in New York, and the kind of houses that you see in films like Erin Brokovich, brick built houses with wooden slatted fronts. Beautiful big front yards and picket fences out back. We soon arrived at Heathers house, and had time to drop off my bags before heading back to Indianapolis - or 'Indy' in search of a couple of the museums. We were using the sat nav, but unfortunately as we had ten years of talking to catch up on we didnt really pay much attention to what it was telling us. We took one wrong turn after another, chatting all the while, but not really minding that we were getting lost as we were seeing different parts of Indianapolis along the way. We finally reached the museum we were looking for, but as it was shut by that time we took a walk around the beautiful gardens attached. The route we chose had quite a few stairs which were difficult to negotiate with the stroller and in the heavy heat of the afternoon. Up and down stairs we went until we finally found a huge fountain where we greatfully stuck our feet into the waterfall to cool them off and sat in the shade and the breeze. Heather and I were both getting grumpy from the heat, so we decided to call it a day, and drove home via a nearby liquor store where I picked up some Coors beer (I had had a couple of Budwisers in New York so thought it would only be right to try Coors this time.) I was looking for an American wine, but they were all Reislings or Zinfandels which I am not a huge fan of, so I chose a New Zealand Sauv Blanc.

Heather's partner had fired up the BBQ to cook us some chicken, I opened up the wine and we settled in for a pleasant evening of good home cooked food, nice wine and UNO with the next door neighbours.

My last day in New York today. I woke up even later than yesterday, and dragged myself into the shower. There was a bit of a queue for the shower this morning - or should I say a 'line' - that's what they call it here. But eventually I had my turn and was finally out the door.

I had a few things that I wanted to try to do today, things like visiting Astoria, a walk in Central Park and finalising the few eating bits and pieces that I wanted to try.

So, first stop was Astoria. This was my first foray off the island of Manhatten (not counting the trip to the statue of Liberty) and it felt good! I sorted myself out on the right train to take me to my destination and before I new it there were signs for 'Andrew Michalides - attourney at law' and 'Hermes Bakery' and all sorts. The language spoken on the train changed slowly from mostly Spanish to Greek. I hopped off the train at the end of the line and then just followed the train line back down again, walking up and down the various shopping streets as I went. Astoria seemed familiar like the Manhatten skylilne, and this neighbourhood had more of those smaller houses that you see in the movies, with wooden slated fronts painted yellow or light green. The skyline was generally flatter, although not particularly more attractive. It was raining today though, so everything always looks a lot duller in the rain, doesnt it?

After my stroll through Astoria, I got back on the train to head to the Rockefeller centre. I had gone past this on one of the tours yesterday and found that there was a branch of Magnolias Bakery here - that famous bakery with the cupcakes. So, that was my mission, and I found it quite easily. The actual space of the shop was quite large, but the majority of it was given over to the actual business of the producing of cupcakes and tasty baked goods. The retail area was quite narrow, and it was packed! They do a roaring trade in cupcakes! There must have been about 10 or 11 members of staff in there, either serving excited customers or preparing trays and trays of more cupcakes and other treats to put into the oven. The smell was overwhelmingly sugary, and I was totally caught up in the excitement of trying to figure out what delicious looking thing I could make MINE.

I decided to forgo the cupcakes and I chose a key lime cheesecake and a cup of tea. There are no tables to enjoy your hard earned cake at, the place is just too busy for that, but they did have a bar stuffed into the corner of the room where people could stand and hack into their pudding if they wanted to. As it was still raining outside, I chose this option and my oh my was that cheesecake tasty. Yummy, yummy, yummy. I was so dissapointed when I couldnt eat anymore!

Back out into the rain and I needed to search for a bathroom somewhere. I remembered I had seen a Hilton hotel back up the road, so made my way towards it and nearly cried when I stepped into the Lobby. This is where I belong! I dont belong in a hostel, where bugs, imagined and real crawl across the carpet, and weird fellow hostellers decide to just cut their hair in the bathroom - as you do when you are travelling! I belong in a place that has soft music piping into the lobby. Where young men in crisp white caps open the door for you, and where somebody rushes in of an evening to turn down your massive duck down duvet and fluff up your pillows for you before you retire for the evening!! Anyway, I woke up from my reverie with my bladder nagging me and headed instinctively to where I knew the toilets would be.

But the luxury couldnt last for long, and, having noticed how massively HUGE my hair had gotten in the rain and tried to tame it back with a hair bobble, I left the hotel to try to achieve the last couple of things on my list. I was heading in the direction of Central Park and I passed one of the many Tee-shirt sellers and picked up my mandatory 'I heart New York' tee-shirt. And then I plunged myself into the depths of Central Park.

It is indeed a very clever little space. Quite literally as soon as I stepped into the park the hustle and bustle of the city seemed to dissapear. A few steps in and the sky scrapers were obscured enough to let me forget about them and enjoy the tranquility of the park. There were many people enjoying the park today, families out with their children, couples walking hand in hand, tourists taking rick-shaws around the park or for the foolish with too much money a horse drawn carriage ride. There were musicians, mostly saxophonists, but one guy was playing on his bagpipes. The saxophonists were busking, with their cases out for any donations, but the bagpiper was under a bridge out of the way, so I can only assume that this was one of the few places that he could come and practice his bagpipes without disturbing anyone too much. You cant exactly practice something like that in your home when there are 40 other people living on the same floor as you, with the same number of people living above you and below you. He wasnt bothering me at all, and in fact I thought he was quite good.

There were some people playing baseball in the park too, there are special pitches set aside just for this purpose. I thought that I may have stumbled across the New York Yankees practicing or something, but then I noticed that the men were all oldish, and, shall we say, past their prime? There were women playing in the teams as well, so I swiftly concluded that this probably wasnt the New York Yankees, but fun to watch anyway.

It was at about this point that I received a text from Sarah asking me if I had done my song for New York yet, and with all the excitement of the last few days I had completely forgotten! So, now was my chance in Central Park. So, I got the camera out, tried to find a spot where there werent too many people and did my thing. It only took me three takes until I got the shot I was satisfied with. See for yourself the video at the end of this entry!

I continued on my walk, but, as you might imagine, as I had no neatly numbered roads to follow and was using only my dreadful sense of direction, I came to a road at some point and realised that I had just walked a complete cicle, and had also somehow managed to miss out the majority of the park! But, to be quite honest with you, by this point I had run out of energy and desire to do anything else that involved walking or doing anything new. Ideally I wanted to go back to my room at the Hilton, have a lovely soak in the bath, crawl into the big bed and switch the TV on. Of course, the prospect of going back to the hostel was not quite as inviting, but then I remembered that wonderful Martin had filled my laptop up with all sorts of movies and things while I was in the UK, so that would definatly do me for entertainment.

I got back to the hostel, watched a couple of the TV programmes that were on there for me, nipped out of the hostel up the road to a sushi place that I had spotted at some point on my walks and got myself some yummy sushi and a very big bottle of Japanese beer, and returned chirpily to the hostel.

And now I have managed to pack all of my bits and pieces into my case, and I am ready for an early start tomorrow morning, flying off to Indianna to catch up with the first of a group of friends that I am visiting that I havent seen for ten years!