Day Six

This was effectively our last day in the US. I set my alarm for 6.45 again, which I could tell annoyed the living shit out of the others when Rage Against the Machine 'WAAAAKEEE UPPPPPP' started playing. Desperately reaching for my phone to turn it off, I eventually managed it. Nobody else in the room got up until 7.30, so there was the awkwardness after having a shower of having fuck all to do for half an hour, combined with the challenge of not waking any of them up. In hindsight, I probably should have woken them up, we needed to be downstairs and ready to leave at 8. I wandered into the others' room anyway, which was surreal, because they're such a strange bunch of kids, and Joe had ended up sleeping on the floor that night. There was a gym downstairs where I could have gone to pump some iron, but I was worried that they didn't make any of the equipment strong enough to handle my superhuman strength.

When we eventually left at 8, we went to the Supreme Court and Capitol Building tour. We had a great view of the Capitol Building from our Hotel, which was better than the strip club view in New York, definitely. Like most places in the US, they put you through vigorous testing on your way into these places, and made us take all the food out of our bag and then scanned us on our way through. Little did they know, the rebel I am, I had chocolate in my bag the entire time I was in there. Oh the things I could have done. But anyway, inside the Capitol Building they show you the most Patriotic film of all time, which began by expressing the great pride in the US Electal system, which was 'Based on the votes of the people, and not run by any monarch or dictator'. They genuinely expressed as some new concept that they were the first to exhibit, refusing to label it 'democracy', or point out that pretty much everywhere in the world had it. There were points in the film where the sense of nationalism was so extreme that I wanted to go home and learn about the Empire and how we ruled the world, that, or just use the bar of chocolate I had stolen into the building to create some massive explosion. I should also point out that this was Lindt chocolate bought on 5th avenue, not some of that Herschey's normal American shite, which is just plain sickening. Seriously, American chocolate is so bad. I describe its taste as 'Eating normal chocolate, and then feeling like you've thrown up in your mouth and are trying to reswallow the vomit', believe it or not, this is actually accurate. The aftertaste is more abysmal than the Jonas Brothers' attempts at creating any kind of song that doesn't make you want to vomit, smack your head on the ground and then stab them repeatedly with the nearest remotely sharp object.

The building itself was pretty cool, and the history behind it was actually quite interesting. I bought a copy of the Declaration of Independence from the gift shop at the end, naturally. This was also the point at which Joe decided he would be cool and take on the persona of his made up character 'Stanley Peterson', who speaks with a retarded voice and videos us saying 'Heyyy, Harrrvey. Whirrr arre weee?'. He also at one point decided to zoom in on my crotch. Which was disturbing to know, and perhaps backed up by his insecurities in his sexuality that he couldn't sleep with another male the night before...

We went back to the Hotel after this and had quite an experience. We had to finish packing up all our suitcases to get ready to leave, but we already knew at this point that there was an American White Supremacist group coming to stay at this very hotel on the same day we were leaving. In fact, Nick Griffin (Leader of the BNP) was supposed to turn up, but didn't in the end. Needless to say we ran into a crazy old American who followed us out to our coach and tried convincing us that we should vote for Griffin. He also said that 'clearly our parents had sense' because we were all white, as well as explaining Griffin's reasons for not turning up as 'having a busy schedule because he was doing so well'. Naturally we shouted expletives at him and I was particularly appalled at his distored concept of the 'revolution' that he perceived himself as leading, himself being shocked that it was the elderly who had to lead this 'revolution' whilst the lives of the young were 'managed by the Television'. I pointed out that a revolution should not take society back 100 years, but he was an idiot. This was also an extremely black neighbourhood, and the Hotel in fact was run by mostly black people, so there was a positive hope that he was at some point beaten up after we left. This run in really affected the mood in the coach on our way to the 'Potomac Mills Shopping Mall' just out of DC, in Virginia.

We only had two hours in this shopping mall, but it is huge. I didn't actually buy that much in NYC, and still had about $250 left just for this. It has 7 'Neighbourhoods' and in the two hours we were there only managed to explore one. But still, this had the cheapest Hollister outlet imaginable, where everything was $10, and mostly the same stuff as in the UK, only 20% of the price. I just went on a huge shopping spree, because I had money to spend that I couldn't be bothered to change back to sterling, and fuckloads of great shops to buy stuff from. But that was cool, anyway, great fun. And I was actually running around to make sure I got as much done as possible before we had to get back. George also replaced the £100 Sunglasses he lost in NYC with a lovely new pair of Sunglasses costing $235. With these and his £100 headphones, I now refer to him as having the most expensive face this side of Bristol.

After this we got back on the Coach and went to the Airport. I had to try and stuff in all these new clothes into my suitcase, which I managed, and also didn't beep on my way through security this time. I had to refrain from getting all excited then and there, however, as they would probably strip search me out of suspicion. Whilst sitting in the seats by the departure lounge at the airport, Alexej failed to notice that one of our teachers had stolen my place next to him when I had walked off briefly, and I had had to sit next to her instead. Unknowing of this, still, Alexej turned around without thinking saying 'I want to put my hand in your toffee pot', thinking I was sat there. It was probably one of the funniest moments of my life, and the combination of extreme shock and fright on the teacher's face was classic. He then ended up having to sit next to her on the flight back, until he managed to swap seats with someone.

At this point we were laughing at these American kids who came in suits to the airport and were sat by us. There were kids in suits and the airport on the way to NYC, as well, and they sickened me. It turned out that these American kids weren't even remotely posh, and sat behind us in our economy seating. Gutted. The plane on the way back didn't have the great array of movies as it did on the way there, which meant I didn't get to watch Inglourious Basterds, and had to watch the Invention of Lying instead, which is shit. By the time we got back to the UK, it was about 7.00 AM GMT, meaning that our body clocks were still on 2 in the morning. We laughed at all the suitcases coming out which had clearly been searched through customs, unknowing that George's had been as well. And then we got on the coach for our lovely 3 hour odd trip back to School. Me and Joe were the only ones not to fall asleep on the coach, which was good as it turned out we were being filmed, so naturally were the only ones not to look like idiots. Alexej was behind us, drooling. We were peeking through the seat looking at the drool drip down his face when we just burst out laughing. I'm still not sure whether it was our laughter, or the drool that woke him, but it was funny nonetheless. When I got back I showered and then slept until 3 in the afternoon. Good times.

So this was the best time of my life. If you've read it you probably know me in real life anyway, because nobody would really want to read through all this without actually having reasons to reminisce, and I apologise for my rambling skills, but I am an English Literature student. It was a huge bonding experience, with inside jokes that only we will understand, leading to strange looks from people who don't 'get' the true nature of this trip's awesomeness for the rest of our lives. I hope you've enjoyed reading this blog, or at the very least managed to get through it without having the urge to kill multiple strangers thrust upon you through sheer frustration, but thanks nonetheless. If you have read up to this point, message me and I will give you a prize.

Thanks to everyone who went on the trip, and the names that we put on our hoodies are disclosed after their real name...

Me: You got slade

George: G-Nade

Alexej: The Lethal V

Sam: G-Dawg

Joe: J-Man

Emily: Emmz (boring)

Kat: Kat (boring)

Jacob: Jacob? (Anyway, it was boring)

We must have looked like total idiots with these names emblazoned on our chests, but it was all worth it.

Thanks for reading, again. xx

Day Five

This was the first day in Washington DC. I slept with George this night. Apparently I groped his ass with my leg as we were asleep. Clearly the rufilin must have not been strong enough...

Anyway. The rooms were much nicer, and had a working shower, which ruled. We'd been up the night before having the most hilarious time discussing 'In a parallel universe...' things, naturally. Jacob didn't find these funny at all, and was trying to get to sleep in the bed which he didn't have to share with anyone. This was because Alexej wasn't man enough to sleep with another man for the night. He sat on a chair and was adamant that he was going to sleep there. It was quite hilarious, in the night he ended up falling off and just sleeping on the floor.

We spent this day on a 4 hour guided tour around all the Government buildings and monuments. Our tour guide was brilliant, in the sense that she was a total racist bitch who I wanted to smack more than Claire on Heroes when she goes on one of her episode rants about how she is 'only wants to be normal'. She persisted in pointing out regularly how they 'beat us in the war'. She also decided to point out how many of the buildings had been in 'Night at the Museum' and 'National Treasure'. Now, these are very famous buildings. They are in many movies. So why would she choose two such shit movies? Anyway. Some of the pavements were really icy, because it had snowed more than in DC's history in the past week, you know. But it wasn't too bad. They really deal with snow a lot better over there. It was predicted to reach 55 inches, and at this point in the UK they were saying 'Heavy Snow' forecast, with a mighty '2 Inches'. Now, I'm not trying to say that mine is bigger than yours, but trust me, it was huge. If only there was some way I could sneak in an immature joke about this...

The most memorable bits we went to on this 'tour' were the 'Nam memorial, The White House, The Smithsonian Natural History Museum (Yes, it was in Night at the Museum! *Cuts self*) and the Lincoln Memorial followed by the Washington Monument (Pencil). Firstly, with the 'Nam memorial, you might not understand it like we do. You weren't there, mannnn. It was at this point that our tour guide praised us for our walking abilities, saying that 'Americans wouldn't walk that far... they'd get the Subway'. Not us, this was only fuel to the fire in my ever increasingly burning idea that we were the true kings of men. We also went to the World War 2 memorial, so you can tell already that this was a light-hearted, joyous day out.

Anyhoo, the White House was awesome. Now, you might have already read about how me and George stripped down to our mere shirts in these serious sub-zero, arctic, far worse than the day after tomorrow, conditions. But this was nearly as good. Basically, I like Obama. I bought a 'Yes We Can' shirt, ages ago that has his Acceptance Speech written onto the front. Naturally, I decided to strip down on two occasions (One from the front, and then from the back, of the White House) just so that my shirt could get a showing in front of the White House. I like to think he was staring out of the window, thinking 'Wow, that's one cool kid there braving these conditions that would kill any mere mortal, just to show how politically aware and active he is', he probably was, in fairness. But I should probably have been more worried by the fact that there were two snipers on the roof genuinely focussed onto us as we'd stayed in front of the White House 'longer than we are allowed to', supposedly. They were probably thinking I was stripping down to unveil an explosive device.

The Lincoln Memorial was cool, and from it you can see the pool of water that has the Washington Monument (Pencil) in the background, which was in Forrest Gump (And Night at the Museum, probably FML). What made this awesome was the fact that it had completely frozen over and people were walking on it. Apparently this was dangerous. But as you might be able to tell, I like to live life on the edge. You know, every now and then I like to interrupt the teacher by a light cough, sharpening my pencil slightly too much, murdering those who go against me, that kind of thing. But yeah, I didn't walk on there anyway, we weren't allowed. The path next to it was so snowy/icy that it was unbelievably hard to walk on, however.

The Smithsonian Natural History Museum was where we went to fill in the final hour of time we had in the day before going back to the Hotel to prepare for our group meal out. I remember I was walking through some section about man through the ages when I received a text from my dad telling me that 'I had got Rage Against the Machine concert tickets'. This was one of the best moments of my life. It turns out I can't go now, due to exams, of course, but that takes nothing away from how good I felt then, with my friends walking through random museum sections. Me and Alexej wondered into some Movie about a Squirrel's party and how this related to evolution, and George tried eating everybody's muffins, naturally.

In the evening we went to the ESPN zone for a group meal. It's just a huge sports arcade where you can also eat. I lost to a girl at Basketball, 3 times, and then lost to her at Air Hockey, twice. My Air Hockey skills are crazy. I once managed to knock the puck roughly 20 yards into the Shoe Collection Zone in Bowlplex, after serving it against the edge of the table. When paying for Tokens, the lovely American lady shouted at me because instead of putting the money into her hand, I put it in front of her hand by about 1 inch. We passed China Town on the way back, so naturally I started shouting taunts of 'Free Tibet Town', and that ended our day. George couldn't get into the bed in the night, as he came in late after being downstairs most of the night and found I had taken up most of the bed. He slept for a couple of hours on the floor. I had a lovely night's sleep, however.

Oh yes, there was also some American in a shop who asked me where we came from, to my reply 'England', they said 'Oh, I didn't think you were even speaking English.' Win.

Day Four

This was our last day in New York, before we moved on to Washington DC. In the morning we went to the Museum of the Moving Image, in Queens. The reason we did this was so that we could all use it to help us with our Media Studies learning. This was a Media Studies trip, but only half of us took it (I didn't take it), because as there weren't enough people who wanted to go on the trip, they opened it up to everyone. That was pretty cool. They had a showing of how early video technology worked by taking pictures really quickly so that they can go onto a flick book. The idea in this is that you actually do something that would be funny as having in a flick book, like dancing, or having a pretend kung fu fight. Alas, this was not what our feeble minded Joe decided to do. He donated his set of pictures to me, because he didn't want them. But they really are artistically profound in every sense of the word.

Notice how he doesn't move, at all. The brilliance of the man; he knows that this technology is nothing to him, it is inferior to his very being.

They also had a device where you get to choose a famous movie scene, and dub over the original lines with your own voice. The idea is that you copy the original lines, and watch back as the characters magically speak with your voice all of a sudden. But, no. This was no challenge for our brilliance. We did the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy first meets the Oompa Lumpa/Hobbits/Whatever the fuck they are things, dubbing over every one of her lines with 'Maatttt Dammonnnn', varying the tone depending on the emotions she was trying to convey, such is our acting talent. We recorded it, and George has it, and it is hilarious, but he hasn't uploaded it... if you wish to see it, please hassle him. It's a shame, because we appear to have now missed the Oscar ceremonies, and I was sure that this would be a shoo in for best short picture.

After that we had lunch at some random Mall thing. It was ok. (I know, right, gripping stuff)

Then we left New York once and for all. It was probably the saddest moment in the history of the world, perhaps only surpassed by that bit in Titanic where that rich guy ends up not getting his diamond back. Or maybe the fact that Troy and Gabriella don't get shot in the face by a Sniper, causing their inevitable deaths, during High School Musical. Yes, it was that sad. Sadder than all the teen girls on twitter tweeting about He Who Must Not Be Named (Bieber) hoping he follows them because they are so insecure about their very being that they constantly need reassurance from a pathetic mimic of an idol through the most trivial manner possible. Sadder than when Vegeta dies on Dragonball Z. Sadder than when you lose to the Lance in the Elite Four, when you were so close to doing it, and one revive would have saved you.

The coach to Washington DC was four hours, and I listened to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, naturally, and lots of the Doors and RATM. We stopped off at a Burger King for dinner, where we bet George that he couldn't down a cup of what would be a mixture of Iced Tea, Coke, Dr.Pepper, Lemonade, Ice, Fanta and lots of other stuff in one go. Alexej is an idiot when it comes to these things. He genuinely bet him $50, and only managed to escape on the formality that George didn't finish off the Ice Cubes.

The Washington Hotel was really nice. It was much smaller, so inevitably Elevator Riding became impossible, which was a great shame. But other than that it was good. They even had free internet on the two computers they had in the lobby. "What is the internet?", I hear you ask. I didn't know either. But believe me, I sure relished the opportunity to see how many Facebook notifications I had. "How many?", I hear you ask, with a sense of excitement and admiration for my brilliance, well let's just say it was approximately 31. It was that moment when I realised that I truly was the master of the internet. Nothing could stop my plans for world domination, as I updated my status like a true god of men. In an entirely unrelated note, I enjoy using sarcasm, I don't really take myself that seriously.

That was basically our day. I would like to reassure you that I genuinely don't think I am God of all men... or master of the internet. But one day, maybe. But I did die inside without the internet, in fairness. It's probably more important to me than breathing. I haven't checked, but I'm fairly certain that somewhere there is a wire that keeps me running connected to the internet.

Day Three

Day Three

I think I've mentioned the 5 'magic phrases' before. These were basically phrases that we used so repetitively that we had to impose sanctions against using them, for the good of mankind.

1.) 'You sunk my battleship'. It is important that this is said in the voice of that old guy from the Simpsons, who always says this. Alexej coined this in the airport, and it was largely me and him who were the pioneers of this genius phrase, which would never be relevant, just purely said because me and him would find it hilarious.

2.) 'Man up'. After Alexej's serious lack of manliness due to falling prey to illness, this phrase became poignant. We would even say it to the girls, but generally this was a phrase used whenever somebody wasn't conforming to our supremely high level of masculinity.

3.) 'MAAATTT DAMMONNN'. Now, funnily enough this phrase would have taken off even had we not lied to Alexej about seeing Matt Damon, it was just a brilliant phrase. It must be said in the voice off of Team America, and this was the main perpetrating phrase when we decided that we weren't allowed to say any of these phrases for the goodness of mankind.

4.) 'That's what she said'. We basically just did this whenever something vaguely related to innuendo came up. In my case it didn't even have to be vaguely related, I'd do something which didn't even make sense just to see their confused, 'trying to figure it out', expressions. My personal favourite was when we went to the Washington Monument (Which is the huge Pencil that is seen in many movies) and our tour guide asked "Now, who wants to touch it?". Naturally I said it loudly and was delighted when some of the Year 13s turned round laughing. There were funnier ones than this, but I think me having the sheer balls to say it loud enough so that our teachers could hear was the defining factor.

5.) 'In a parallel universe....' we just sat for hours on end discussing random scenarios, such as 'In a parallel universe, Alexej wasn't ill when we saw Matt Damon'. Eventually these became more and more obscure and strange, until we ended up saying stuff like 'In a parallel universe me and Alexej are siamese twins who murdered the rest of you for drugs money'.

Anyway. In Day Three we went to the UN building, and then Grand Central Station for lunch. Grand Central Station is seriously packed at all times, and it's a real mission to try and find seats. After lunch, we needed to get back to the meeting point, but Alexej needed to go to the toilet. Me and Joe kindly waited for him, but naturally we decided that it was only fair to lie about seeing Macaulay Culkin walking down the escalator. After this, we went to central park, which was truly brilliant. It was snowing quite strongly at this point, and bearing in mind that New York had seen it's heaviest snow in about 100 years only the week before we came, it was unbelievably picturesque. We had a snowball fight whilst walking through Central Park, which was great, and then we went to 5th Avenue.

5th Avenue is notoriously well known for shopping, and has an Abercrombie and Fitch store. Unfortunately I couldn't be bothered to go in here, as the queues were fucking massive, just to get into the store. I bought some Jeans from H&M, however, just to make sure I can officially say how I bought something from 5th avenue. I was also desperate to go into the Toy Store round the corner, which is massive and has the Piano that you play with your feet from 'Big' with Tom Hanks, which is a great movie, by the way. I would have taken a picture of it, but I was worried that the parents there would think that I was taking pictures of their children, and inevitably chase me out the store, so I didn't.

We got to chill back at the Hotel for a bit after this, but luckily our Hotel was basically right in the Centre of Manhattan and only a few blocks away from The Empire State Building, and right next to Macy's Department Store (The biggest in the world). Most people had a view of the Empire State Building from their room, in fact. Except us, who had a view of a strip club instead. So we went there, and basically failed at shopping. Bearing in mind there are 17 floors, we went past the men's stuff on the first floor, thinking there wasn't much there, and preceded to go up the escalator on every floor saying 'there's no men's stuff'. Apparently it was all in that same corner all the way up the floors, which we didn't notice (FML). After that we had a McDonalds, which was kind of what I lived off for a week, as they didn't appear to sell fruit anywhere.

In the evening we went to Times Square again. It was still snowing heavily, which made it inescapably pretty, and once more I was just in plain awe. We spent about two hours shopping for everything we needed, such as hideously cheap, 6 for $10 'I heart NY' shirts, and then realised we only had 20 minutes left to get George's headphones. Now, let me tell you the story of these headphones. George had had no headphones up to this point, as he had broken them before the trip and had planned on buying these $135 ones, which we couldn't find anywhere. But we were directed to 'Best Buy', which is about two (very long) blocks off of Times Square.

It took us 15 minutes to walk there. But everyone else left early, because they were worried about being late (man up). It was just me, George and Alexej left. We had 5 minutes to get back across two blocks, and from one end of Times Square to the other. We did the most epic sprint to make it in time. J-Walking across every red light possible, passing all the strangely dishevelled tourists, it was awesome. The snow was still falling, and we even ran too far in the end, and had to track back slightly. But we still made it early. Genuinely epic, I tell you. You appreciate these little things more than the big ones once you eventually look back in hindsight, which I'm given the benefit of doing now, but it was hilarious, picturesque like you would not believe and one of the best times I have had in my life.

(George and Alexej after our epic run)

Day Two

Day Two.

Naturally our room had no lock on the bathroom door. Which was fine. But it didn't close either. The showers were also harder to master than the kid from The Omen. Like a Ninja I was up and out of bed first, just because I knew it would take me at least 5 minutes to ensure that I wouldn't burn/freeze to death in the shower. Mastering this shower was very much like 'Nam. In the sense that many brave men had died in the past trying to do it. But largely because you just wouldn't understand the trials and tribulations that it required if you weren't there, maaann.

This day was when we would do most of the big tourist bits, like The Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero. The good news is that Alexej was on the verge of dying from jet lag and had to stay behind. It got to the point when I went to get him some paracetamol from my bag and he fell asleep on my bed. The other main trouble encountered in the morning was breakfast. Now, I am from England. When I get up in the mornings, there's nothing I like better than eating a Scone, drinking some Tea, and generally conforming to stereotypes. (I lied, I don't actually like Scones). But nonetheless, I said with a touch of pride within my middle-class English accent 'Can I have a Croissant and a cup of tea, please.' Now, firstly, don't chastise me for having a Croissant, I'm not French, it's just that all they had in the place were doughnuts, huge cookies and cakes. Secondly, I'm not sure how inept Americans are, or whether this was just some malevolent plot akin to the Boston Tea Party to deprive me of my sacred beverage, but they completely forgot my tea. They did this the next day as well. I think it's fair to say that this is easily the largest injustice that mankind has ever faced.

After I had recovered from this dreadful period by giving the woman evil looks through the window, we soon left for The Statue of Liberty. I said on many occasions, intentionally loudly, how THE STATUE OF LIBERTY WAS BUILT BY THE FRENCH, in hope that this would deny any patriotic Americans their primitive joy at staring at some woman holding a torch. Naturally, however, I was not the only one to jokingly pronounced how 'I'd tap that' with reference to the mighty fine being that Liberty is. I also heard on a few occasions 'It's a lot smaller than I thought it would be', to which naturally I had to provide my vital input of 'That's what she said :('. You'd also think that this being such a huge tourist hotspot and all, the restaurant there would be able to afford to have chairs. It didn't. I also still regret to this day not ordering a drink with that meal. If only I'd realised that they were on the right hand side as you walked past... *sigh*, still the only way to compensate for this is by listening to copious amounts of Radiohead whilst slamming my head against the desk.

There are lots of tall buildings in New York. I realised that they were going to be tall, but they really were massive. Anyhow, after the Statue of Liberty we went off to the Museum of Immigration. We used this as a rest stop, and basically sat down the entire time. We also discussed the settings on George's camera whereby it allows him to focus in on kids' faces which he dubbed 'Paedo-mode'. (No, I'm not going to spell it the American way, even if we were in America at the time).

After this, we went to Ground Zero. I should add that for his Extended Project (An AS Level Qualification where you do an Essay on whatever you want) George was doing Conspiracy Theories on 9/11. Despite being worried that he was going to say something stupid, I was more worried going through Airport security that Alexej would point to his arms and say how he 'was carrying guns'. Something I forgot to mention was how I was frisked twice at Heathrow, which is no doubt due to my raw sexual magnetism that I exuded to the extent that the Security could not resist me. Or because I beeped, whatever, one of the two. Anyway, Ground Zero was pretty shit. I know it sounds obvious to say how there is nothing there, but... there wasn't. (Ground Zero is the resting place where The Twin Towers used to be, if you don't know). It wasn't particularly interesting, anyway, sad perhaps, but we were busy entertaining ourselves with obscure attempts at 'That's what she said', most probably.

I've mentioned how Alexej was ill, but he had to stay in the Hotel for the entire day up to this point. Naturally we decided to lie and tell him we saw Matt Damon, as you would. But like a phoenix from the flames, his comeback was akin to Take That, Jesus, and Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League Final. He manned up, and got a taxi to meet us for the Sunset at the top of the Rockefeller. We didn't go to the Empire State Building, but the Rockefeller is very marginally smaller, and the second biggest in NYC, so it was all good. The views were astounding, and despite it being absolutely freezing cold at the very top, I managed to take more photos than Roman Polanski after he invites round children for casting. It really was a magnificent view, and the Sunset looked brilliant as you could see the shades of red going onto the Empire State Building.

This night, we did go to Time Square. Time Square is brilliant. I think it might be my favourite part of the trip, as we went there again the day after. You just walk around in awe of everything around you. Despite the huge moving signs, billboards et al, the most impressive thing was definitely the sign saying 'Run Forrest Run'. There was a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant there, and apparently these existed before the Film/Book. See, you learn something new every day. I got many pictures taken in front of this, because quite frankly it was the most awesome moment in history since I was immaculately conceived onto this earth. Unfortunately, George hasn't uploaded his NY photos yet, so I can't show you any.

All the Restaurants in Time Square were packed, so we walked all the way to the end and went just outside what was probably the Time Square 'area' to go to an empty Subway. We then spent an hour with Alexej making jokes about his 'cheesy meatballs'. I bought a shirt at Hardrock Cafe, which I wear with pride and a hint of arrogance that I've been there and nobody else around me will have. After leaving Time Square, we had to get the Subway back to the Hotel. Now I don't think I've talked about the Subways much, but we were warned of their witchcraft and treachery. I spent the entire week shit scared that I wouldn't be able to force myself on in time, and would be left alone on the platform, probably about to be mugged. But the English stereotypes prevailed, and George remarked on our keen ability to queue for the train and shuffle forward whilst letting the passengers out. We really are Gods amongst men.

But anyway, Alexej is the person who managed to lose his passport and belongings on the flight, so I found it hilarious when he couldn't manage to work the ticket system in the subway correctly. Naturally I ran over from behind the barriers and took pictures of him, as any good friend would. After arriving at the hotel, me and George went to do some elevator riding. Now, if you're not familiar with this sport, basically you just go onto the elevator, don't press any buttons, if anybody in there asks you what floor you're going to, ignore them and from then on just keep on riding until it stops. There were some great characters we met from this uber cool form of socialising with strangers:

1.) The guy who was stood the entire journey staring at us, and the women with dogs, and on getting off shuffled backwards shifting his eyes side to side. This was hilarious, so I had to shout 'COME BACK, I LOVE YOU!'

2.) The drunk Japanese tourists. They weren't very good at English, so when I asked them where they had gone to get their pizza, they said 'Tokyo'. After a little chat with these two, and one of them admitting they had 'had a few too many', the elevator stopped. Here are the flaws in this ingenious game of ours. As we were not allowed to choose a floor when they asked us, which they found strange, to our amusement, we had to pretend that their floor was the floor we wanted to go to. So we got out, walked around a little bit until they went round the corner, and got back on another elevator, for more endless journeys of fun.

3.) Those two really were the standouts, so I'm not sure who I'm going to put here, there were lots of crazy dog ladies in the hotel, anyway, probably one of them.

Oh, yes. I forgot one key thing. The 'Obama Condoms' man, who can be seen here. We saw him twice. He must make a huge amount of money from selling what are just normal condoms in amusing packaging. Naturally I bought three for $10. Money well spent, they're hilarious, and the best souvenir a man can possibly wish for.

New York/Washington DC

Well, as some of you may know, a little while back me and some friends went to the US, specifically NYC and then DC. If you're reading this because I linked you from my Twitter, then you're probably sick of me talking about it all the time so I thought I'd do a blog post on what was probably the best time of my life.

Day One.

We left school at about 11.30, 30 minutes after we were supposed to. Upon arriving at Heathrow we were told by the teachers that we weren't allowed to take food past the first bit, so we all tried to eat all the food we had as quickly as possible, which we did, throwing what was left away. We then learned that this was a lie. Needless to say, the teachers were very lucky that I knew for a fact that we weren't allowed to take in Ninja weapons to the Airport.

It was a long trip, about 8 hours, but I wasn't bored in the slightest. I was sat next to my friend Alexej, who had the brilliant idea of putting all his important personal belongings into his 'Super Secret Bag of Mysteries'. This included his passport, his iPod, his phone, his Visa card forms and his Camera. Now, you may think that this plan seems flawless, but trust me, it wasn't. He ended up losing this bag about half way through the journey and it took us about an hour to find it. Naturally, it was under my chair, which I assure you I knew nothing about..

We arrived at about 2AM GMT, which was 9.00PM East Coast US Time. Upon arriving at the Airport, I made countless jokes such as 'Wow, they have windows here in America' and 'Look, they even use phones over here!'. This was probably the point at which Joe coined the phrase 'Nuff of that wit, Slade'. That was one of the 5 magic phrases which we used endlessly on the trip. More about these 5 magic phrases later. After getting past the scary man who checked me through immigration, we stepped outside into what we were told would be unbelievably cold temperatures. Now, it was well below 0 Celsius, granted, but me and George immediately decided that we were man enough to withstand this, and preceded to strip down to just our shirts. Naturally, the rest of our group looked on with a sense of compassion, admiration and lust for our sheer manliness.

The Hotel in New York was shit. It really was fucking awful. The ground floor was nice, but it hit me as we arrived on our floor that the smell of Cannabis and the worryingly unidentified stains all over the carpet were not particularly appealing. Adding to that, it turned out that our key didn't work so we had to get a new one, after standing outside our room worried for about half an hour. I should say at this point that there were 5 of my friends going with me, and we had to stay in rooms of four, so me and another friend manned up and went with two Year 13s. Well, I say 'manned up', but it turned out that those Year 13s were quite keen on trying to convey as many homoerotic experiences as possible, naturally.

We were supposed to go to Time Square on our first day, but we didn't because it was too late in the end. We could have eaten at the Restaurant at the Hotel, but we were warned how much of a rip-off it was so I just didn't eat anything. We also learned at this point that there was a very large dog competition going on in Madison Square Gardens, which was literally across the road, so there were about 500 dogs and their crazy American owners in the Hotel. This was very surreal as we ended up sharing lifts with the biggest dogs I have ever seen, and then had to listen to their owners discuss these dogs. It was quite funny hearing one dog owner subtly mock another for not winning anything and the other's look of disgust. Strange people. Also, am I allowed to fucking swear in this blog? Hmmph.

Well that just about made up day one. It was pretty much just a long plane journey in which I ended up listening to my iPod and not reading any of the hideous amounts of Books for English I was supposed to read. Ah, before I end this post, I should inform you of the mighty iPod selection which I went through many arduous hours deciding on (because my iPod only holds 500 songs, retro, right?)

250 Beatles Songs.

Rolling Stones

Dire Straits

Pink Floyd

Regina Spektor

Arcade Fire

The Doors

The Hold Steady

MGMT

Rage Against the Machine, naturally

Rise Against

Say Anything

The Smiths

A Wilhelm Scream

Radiohead

It should also be noted that my official song for the trip, following on from my dad aptly playing it in the car on my way to school was 'L'america', by the Doors. And Rage Against the Machine were pretty much the biggest thing in my life at this point. In the leadup to the trip, two days before we left, the RATM gig had been announced and I had applied for tickets, just before going to my Sixth Form Party. Rock on.

The 'Internet'?

Hi.

This is kind of an introductory post, but really just me seeing how this thing works. I realise nobody will be reading this, so maybe I can just use this site as some kind of creative outlet. If, by some strange reason I actually begin using this blogging thing regularly, and by some even stranger coincidence you (Yes, you) actually enjoy reading it, then please feel free to follow me on Twitter (I'm YouGotSlade there, too); I spend the majority of my life on there. My existence really is bound to the internet, were my Facebook to be deleted then I'm fairly sure that my very existence in the 'real' world would cease to be, as well. It's got to the stage where I don't use the internet to inform people about what I've done, I use my life as a resource to do things so that I can write about them on the interwebz. It's a vicious cycle.

My life isn't exciting in the slightest, so reading this blog will not bring you any joy in the slightest, I promise. I have a very warped sense of humour in the manner that it is so defined that humanity is not at a stage where they have evolved enough to understand it, or find it funny. I mostly spend my days procrastinating, listening to music and writing about my procrastination and music I'm listening to on the internet.

I'm bored now, toodlepip.