Chapter 2....well, this begins in Boston. I really enjoyed Boston, it's a very cool place to go. We spent 3 nights here which wasn't really enough to explore the city properly....well, maybe it is for normal tourists but when you consider we spent our nights drinking and mornings recovering the time kinda ran out quickly. We did manage to do a few things though which were good. We found an amphibious tour boat which drives around all the touristy and famous spots of the city, including going into the river, very interesting. We found this particularly useful because it meant we could see the whole city and not have walk around, also our guide was very knowledgeable and good for a laugh. We went to Harvard Uni one day but never managed to get into any of the main buildings because the security was too tight. We had lunch in the square there, feeling a little guilty because we sat down right in front of a black homeless man trying to sell magazines. He had a good technique though saying "Helloooo little lady, you look nice today....would you like to help the homeless?  Well thank you Maam, you have a nice day.  Helloooo young sir..would you like to help the homeless?"   Definitely the friendliest hobo i ever saw...Chris gave him a dollar for his magazine because he felt so guilty.

From Harvard the 3 of us made our way to the NHL (ice hockey) stadium to watch the Boston Bruins vs Calgary Flames. We bought our tickets from a tout outside and watched as he disappeared into the crowd...we were quite apprehensive about whether we had been diddled or not but thankfully we got in ok. We couldn't believe though that there were so many hot chicks at this sports event...it was incredible. Anyways...Bruins won so we were happy with that. We also paid a wee visit to the Cheers bar...which is totally different on the inside than in the programme.

From Boston we went onto New York, which was a big disappointment to me. This was possibly because it seemed a lot less friendly than Toronto or Boston, but it was probably the Hostel we were staying in that influenced me. When we paid our money to the wee Japanese man at the hostel, he told us we would be staying in a building a few blocks away. When we turned up there another wee Japanese man led us in and asked us if we wanted a dorm with a door, or without one!! That summed it up......this place had no locks on the front door, none on the bedroom door, no lockers for luggage, no reception, no kitchen, no common room, no internet, no telephone and a 2am curfew. Anybody could have walked in off the street, into our room and stolen our luggage, and no-one would know about it.

We cheered ourselves up a bit by going to an NFL game, the Jets vs the Lions.  We bought tickets from a tout outside and again, we got lucky and managed to get in.  Jets won and it was a good experience.  We also did a bit of the touristy stuff like the Empire State building, Ground Zero (very moving) and Central Park. Having said that me and Chris only spent about 20 minutes in the park because we had a bus to catch. Baz at this time was off trying to pull a chick he met on the bus from Boston.  Me and Chris ended up in Carnegies restaurant...a must go for a meal when in New York.  People queue outside to be seated shoulder to shoulder with strangers and have enormous portions of food put in front of them. The sandwiches are the famous meal.  The guy sitting next to Chris said to the waitress when he got his food "excuse me, I only ordered 'half' a sandwich".  The waitress just said "That 'is' half a sandwich".  The boy couldn't even finish it, it was so big.

Me and Chris then bought tickets for the Killers concert that night at Madison Square Garden, once again from a tout.  We then made our way to the Statue of Liberty but typically managed to miss the last ferry ride out...even though we had tickets for it.  However we got on the Staten Island Ferry (it's free) which goes past the statue....so at least we got some pictures of it.  We then raced over to Brooklyn by subway so we could say we'd been there.  We only had time for 2 pints before rushing back to get to the concert.  This time our luck was out though.  The door staff saiod our tickets were fake and told us to leave. Both of us were $60 down for the touting scam....well...2 out of 3 ain't too bad.

After New York we endured another 19 hours bus ride down to Atlanta to visit our friend Leigh Beninato.  Atlanta is a rubbish city though so I'm not gonna write anyting about it.  Just don't go.  The only good thing about it is Leigh.  From there we bussed it again to Asheville, North Carolina to see our other friend Claire Ginn.  We were met by her and her friend Jessie Curcio who kindly put us up for a few nights as she lived in the centre of town.  We extended our planned stay in Asheville because Claire kept introducing us to cool people every day.  Another friend, Elizabeth Ogletree even drove up from Alabama to see us at the weekend.  It was great seeing all our friends again after two years.  One morning we were watching Trainspotting on DVD as Elizabeth was brushing her hair.  She heard Renton speaking about injecting heroin, and recognising the Scottish accents quite genuinely asked "Is that Y'all?".  It's just as well me and Chris we already on the floor cause I think we would have fallen over laughing.  We loved being in Ashville and I could have stayed there a lot longer partying with Claire and Jessie....every night there was brilliant.