End of the road!

After my Appalachian adventures in Kentucky and Tennessee, I recrossed the Mississippi and passed through the gateway into St Louis, Missouri. St. Louis struck me as a really great town, with just the right mix of interesting culture and general pleasantness. In some ways St Louis is to Chicago what Philadelphia is to New York – a very similar city in a similar geographical situation, only a little smaller and toned down. Apparently the Chicago mofiosos of the old days used to use St Louis as a get-away pad when they wanted to escape the pressure of their big-city work, and perhaps recover from the bullet wound in the leg they got at the latest shoot-out.

I spent my time in St Louis meeting some awesome couchsurfers, sampling the local “frozen custard”, checking out the expensive-but-awesome Washington University, and seeing all the cool neighbourhoods. These included the artsy “Loop” (which, incidentally, is also the name for down-town Chicago), the Italian “Hill”, and Forrest Park, which is one of the biggest urban green spaces in the country (several hundred acres larger than Central Park in New York), and which hosted the World Fair around 1906.

One of the enormous palaces that was constructed for this World Fair is now a museum, and it has a whole exhibition about the Fair. I have seldom spent a more fascinating 45 minutes. I’m not sure, but I believe that the World Fair in St Louis was part of the same series as the ones which were the raison d’être of the Crystal Palace in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. These things are incredible. A city would spend about a year creating an extraordinary setting, in St Louis’s case about a dozen Buckingham-sized palaces, and invite delegations from pretty much every country in the world, as well as each of the 48 states (as they were then), and then people would come in massive crowds for about eight months straight to sample all the incredible things that were being created and put to use across the globe. Imagine living in a time of such breathtaking innovation! Why don’t we have these things anymore? Has humanity lost its love of progress?

The other interesting thing about St. Louis is that it’s pronounced Loo-iss. In Kentucky I had arrived at Louisville talking about Loo-iss-ville and was sternly corrected by the locals, since apparently it’s Loo-ee-ville. So naturally I assumed Missouri would have a St Loo-ee. Oh the fickleness of Midwestern phonetics! Then again, Kentucky calls its famous horse race a “Dir-bee” (instead of “Dar-bee”, which every English person knows is the right way to say it), yet its whisky is “Ber-bon”, despite being spelt b-o-u-r-b-o-n, which I would assume should be “Bor-bon”. Go figure.

Slicing straight across the middle of Missouri, I entered the glorious state of Kansas, which I was very excited about. I couldn’t wait to see endless fields of mind-numbing crops stretching without a single topographical blemish to every horizon. So you could imagine how upset I was to find not only not a single stalk of wheat or ear of corn, but an extremely detectable up-and-downess in the landscape. The road didn’t even go further than the human eye can penetrate before changing direction.

Fortunately, my bitter disillusion was immediately cast away when I reached the fantastic city of Lawrence, home to Kansas University and…erm…Kansas University students and…well…some other buildings I guess. Now, you may think that being in Kansas, the state which famously banned the mention of Darwin or his theories in classrooms, the students at the state’s premier university would be a bunch of stiff-collared puritanical fun-killers. Actually, KU is just about as bohemian and crazy as anywhere that can’t be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the people I met were sincere nutters. One of them was telling me about their next-door neighbour, who was apparently a one-eyed, shirtless man with seven rabid chiuauas who was known to sit on his porch gripping a machete. Is Lawrence the best-kept secret of the Midwest? I certainly had a great time, and the university gets two thumbs up.

Despite lots of grey clouds on my first day in Kansas, and the fact that I spent every second praying fervently for God to send a tornado, no freak winds disturbed my stay in the Dorothy State, another disappointment. Still, when I left at least I could say I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, and I can officially do so for the rest of my life. This is probably the best reason for visiting Kansas.

I spent one night in Kansas City, which, confusingly, is mostly not in Kansas, but across the border in Missouri. I had a great hostess, Babette, who took me to the quintessential KC barbeque experience at Arthur Bryant’s restaurant, which proudly had pictures on its walls of John McCain and Sarah Palin patronising the establishment during the 2008 campaign. You know it’s authentic when politicians who publically wield guns do publicity stunts there.

The other authentic experience I had in KC was a baseball game, my second of the trip. With the home team losing 7-8, this was almost four-times more high-scoring than any game I had seen so far. There was a pretty cool fireworks display afterwards, although this wasn’t impressive as the baseball game which had taken place in St Louis while I was there, which managed to get Big B-dog Obamarama himself to throw the first pitch. I missed out seeing the world’s most powerful man by a mere $600, the average price of admission. The reason for the big occasion was that it was the yearly “All Stars” game, when the best players from all the teams in each league (charmingly named the “American League” and the “National League”, as if there were any other countries that played baseball) form two teams which play against each other. I’m not sure why they do this, because even though they are supposed to be the best in the country (or the world, as they want us to believe), they are still incapable of scoring more than three or four runs per team.

If I had been excited about Kansas, it was nothing compared to the sheer thrill I felt at the prospect of my next stop, Nebraska. Of all the big, utterly pointless states in America, Nebraska has to be the most random. All other ones have at least something going for them: Utah has the Mormons, Iowa decides primary elections, Colorado has a river, Kansas has the Wizard of Oz, the Dakotas have each other, Nevada has no gambling laws, Idaho has a cool shape, Montana has a Canadian border, and even the desolation that is Wyoming – a perfect rectangle several times larger than the UK but home to only a few thousand people – has Yellowstone. But Nebraska? I am convinced that if the state were to disappear off the face of the earth, it would be months before anyone noticed.

Well, at least I can confirm it actually exists as of now. I spent most of an intriguing day exploring the town of Omaha (in the words of the Counting Crows, “somewhere in middle-America”) with Bennet, one of its couchsurfing citizens, who was – I kid you not – a supporter of the Nebraska separation movement. It’s actually not too shabby a city, with a cool restaurant district made from the bricky ruins of old warehouses, a nice-enough river side, and some sweet cafes and vintage stores. Just don’t talk to anyone about Connor Oberst, they all hate his guts.

After Nebraska, I traversed the entirety of Iowa during the night, arriving at daybreak back in Chicago again! What fun! I met up with me ol’ mates that I hadn’t seen in, oh, it must have been several days, and we hit up Pitchfork music festival, where I experienced all the delights of bands such as The Thermals, Japandroids, Walkmen and a curious rapper called Pharaohe something. The highlights were some awesome European electronica from M83, some even awesomer European shoegaze rock from legendary Danish group Mew, and of course the spectacular headliners The Flaming Lips, who were probably more notable for the massive cannon-shots of confetti, the chorus of dancing frogs, and the lip-synched music videos on a huge screen behind the band than the music they actually played. Also present were my friend Steve from DC and his brother Michael who I’d stayed with in Cinncinati, who get special mention for getting me free tickets.

Anyway, after spending the next day recouping with some of the festival goers, I headed north to my Very Final Stop of the Whole Trip, none other than Minneapolis, one of the famous Twin Cities of Minnesota, a state mostly famous for an odd accent which I think is purely fictional because I didn’t hear it at all while I was there. I had some great hosts, and enjoyed the interesting delights of the town, which is a really nice place but hopelessly cold in the winter. Highlights included a local open-mic night where I saw some ridiculously talented performers, and a basement gig at someone’s house which included a touring band from Pennsylvania called Hop-Along, which was really really good and you should all go listen to now: www.myspace.com/hopalongqueenansleis.

Well that about brings up to date. Sorry for such a tediously long final update – at least you won’t have to read anymore. I’m sitting in the waiting lounge of Minneapolis’ Lindbergh Airport just about to board a domestic flight to San Francisco, where I’m going to decompress for a couple of weeks before returning to the lovely Isle of fair Britannica (may her name be eternally glorious), where the sun is always shining and the tea flows plentifully from the electric kettles, and the streets are paved with Daily Mails and the vomit from last night’s binge. Apparently we now enjoy representation from our very own British National Party who were victorious in an election while I was away, I wonder what else has changed.

Hearty thanks go out to my incredibly supportive boss, Harriet Plyler, who has been coordinating things from her HQ in Florida, and to the Good Schools Guide itself for making the trip possible. Thanks also to for the support of my family back in England. Hopefully the articles that I’ve written on the road (which will be receiving some touch-ups in the coming weeks to make them GSGI-worthy) will have been worth it all. Stay tuned for a some more conclusory blog posts, and also for more updates on what’s happening with Uni In The USA in the coming months – we’ve got a few more plans up our sleeves!

Finally, massive thanks to the huge number of other people who all helped me along the road – couchsurfers, relatives, complete strangers and old friends (including those who stayed in touch with me from England along the way!): from the tranquil coast of Alabama to the ghettos of West Philadelphia, from an LA frat-house to the beaches of Lake Michigan, I cannot stress enough how much you have all restored my confidence in human kind, and how heartwarming all your friendship and generosity has been for me. See ya all on the next adventure!

University Rankings Pt. 2

Here is the second in the series of university rankings, where I make some entirely subjective and unofficial lists out of the universities that I've visited so far. These rankings are comprised of the following universities:

Emory (Atlanta, GA)
Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA)
The University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC)
American (Washington, DC)
St. John’s (Annapolis, MD)
Hunter (New York, NY)
Barnard (New York, NY)
Boston University (Boston, MA)
The University of Chicago (Chicago, IL)

Best Academics:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Georgia Tech

Most Beautiful Campus:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: St. John’s

Best Campus Life:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Emory

Craziest Parties:
Winner: Boston
Runner Up: North Carolina

Best College Town:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: American

Best Overall Social Life:
Winner: Boston
Runner Up: American

Coolest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Hunter

Most Educated Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Barnard

Quirkiest Students:
Winner: St. John’s
Runner Up: Chicago

Kindest Students:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: American

Best International Program:
Winner: American
Runner Up: Hunter

Best Sports:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Georgia Tech

Coolest Scientific Facilities:
Winner: Georgia Tech
Runner Up: Chicago

Best Overall Public University:
Winner: North Carolina
Runner Up: Georgia Tech

Best Overall Private University:
Winner: Chicago
Runner Up: Barnard


NB: Many of these categories were extremely difficult to pick a winner for, and the result was a little random. Don't take these rankings too seriously.

Everything but Fried Chicken

Leaving Cincinnati I arrived in Bluegrass Country, which you can recognize because of the beautiful, rolling, tree-covered hills instead of the slightly gritty industrial farm-land of the rust-belt. First stop was Louisville, Kentucky, home of a ridiculous list of awesome things, including Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, the Lebowski Fest, the Disco Ball, the Slugger baseball bat, the Kentucky derby, Mohammed Ali, Colonel Sanders, Hunter S Thompson, the song “Happy Birthday to You”, and an extremely good record store called Earx-tacy.

I confess, I was expecting old wooden homes with porches adorned with banjo players, mint juleps and race-horse fanatics, so it was both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment to find that Louisville is actually an incredible cool, alternative town with masses of top-notch coffee shops, vintage stores, and a great sense of humour and eccentricities.

I had a fantastic couchsurfing host called Brigid Kaelin – she is a local folk musician who plays accordion and the musical saw and sings brilliantly. Go check her myspace. She had great stories about her touring in the UK and being friends with Elvis Costello. While I was in town Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp did a joint concert, which I was only $100 away from going to.

After Louisville I spent a night in the less cosmopolitan town of “Bowling Green”, where there isn’t any bowling green at all. Although it is in the same state as Louisville, Bowling Green is in a different time zone. Grrr. I had more fantastic hosts there; we cooled off from the ridiculous heat of the day by swimming in a river out in the sublime countryside, and then went back at dusk for a homely bonfire, and to my delight I did sample some mint juleps on a porch with a banjo: for real! I couldn’t actually believe it.

After this glorious Southern interlude, I rolled up in Nashville, Tennessee, like so many aspiring artists before me, lacking only a battered guitar and a demented sense of ambition. They’re not lying when they say there’s an abundance of great country music in Nashville. But no one ever believes me when I explain that we have some decent folk artists in the UK also. I found the romantic Nashville image to have been twisted out of proportion by unchecked tourism and the ever-present pressure of American profiteering. The glitzy honky-tonks were local-less, and were so crammed full of folksiness, tacky celebrity-worship and general cult of the country-singer legend that there wasn’t much room left for much soul.

Still, I had an awesome time in Nashville, not least because of my wonderful hosts Kristina and Chris, who drove me round to places and were just great fun to be around, as well as having a proper Southern twang in their voices. Among many other events (not to mention fine Southern eating), we went to a big-band swing dance in the famous Centennial Park, right next to a massive life-size perfectionised version of the Parthenon, as if it wasn’t surreal enough as it was. Why a Tennessean town happens to have a replica of an emblematic ancient Greek temple, complete with a 14 foot statue of Athena, I have no idea.

Kentucky and Tennessee must be among the coolest states in the union; they’re certainly earned a place up there on my list of where I might live in my middle age. Next, I plunge even deeper into the mid-west, praying that I can find a tornado somewhere, so stay tuned for more graphic Americana in the next update! And if you were wondering, Jack White’s house in Nashville is painted red, white and black after all.

Adventures in C-town(s)

Leaving the East Coast, I headed out into the “Mid-West”, which as far as I can make out is an area that goes from Ohio to Nevada and basically a get-out-of-jail-free card for anything that’s not on either coast. First stop Chicago, the city which taught New York everything it knows. The first sky-scraper was built in Chicago and it still has the tallest building in the country.

Now you might think that, being in the middle of the country, Chicago isn’t on the coast. In fact, Chicago is on the coast: the coast of the Sea of Michigan. A lot of people call the Sea of Michigan a lake, but this seems misguided to me, seeing as when you’re in the middle of this “lake” your eyesight would have to be 30 times better than the average person to see either side. There are beautiful beaches all along the coast of this sea, and one of the great strokes of city-planning genius that Chicago has achieved is that they have left a big strip of luxurious parkland all the way down the shores.

Other than that, Chicago is not an aesthetically pleasing place, but it makes up for it by being incredibly fun. I was lucky to catch a few days of the “Taste of Chicago”, a food festival where all kinds of restaurants set up tents and sell samples of their trademark dishes, including the delicious deep-dish pizza which, I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, is conclusively far better than New York’s.

On one of the days I headed down to the infamous South Side and took a spin around the homely University of Chicago, the academic powerhouse where “fun goes to die”, according to the T-shirts. This is where Obama taught law during his stint as an Illinois politician, so I took a peak at his house, which is frankly far too big for any self-respecting family with only two kids. Elitist scum.

Then came July the Fourth. It’s always a little awkward being British in America on Independence Day, but also very fun. Chicago likes to make a statement by having its big fireworks display on the 3rd instead of the 4th, but it was still pretty impressive and went on for ages. In the UK, on Guy Fawkes night or New Years Eve, there are great fireworks shows, but they last about five minutes at most. In Chicago it went on for about half an hour. The combined presence of fireworks and lots of interesting food meant that the crowds were unbelievably dense across the huge area of Grant Park and the surrounding fields, so I got a taste of what things must have been like on election night when Obama gave his victory speech in the exact same place.

On the Fourth itself I headed down to a local party with my Chicago host, a great guy named Parker, where there were local bands playing and barbecue food to be devoured. It kind of went Glastonbury after the second or third hour of rain, but we were leaving anyway to head back to Grant Park to watch legendary bluesman Buddy Guy give a free performance, which was seriously cool. After that, we headed out to a couchsurfing “Revolutionary Party”, a fancy dress affair where you had to go as a famous historical American, making me feel even more awkward. Naturally I went as John Lennon. They actually had King George III up on a dart board. It was a fantastic party and I now have lots of life-long friends in Chicago, hurrah! One of the best bits was that you could go up on the roof of the building and watch the local fireworks going off all around the city, a beautiful experience.

The next morning I managed to groggily managed to pull myself into consciousness and suddenly realised that the bus was leaving soon and I had left some stuff in my hosts car, which was down by the party place. After some serious rushing I just caught the bus in time, but it was all in vain because once we got to Indianapolis, we had to change buses. They told me the new bus was leaving at eight, so with some time to kill I took a stroll around the city centre and got back for about 7:30 (Indianapolis is actually quite pleasant, contrary to what people had told me). Of course what I didn’t realise was that we had crossed a time zone and it was actually 8:30. So I spent the night taking assorted buses through various states and eventually got to my destination, Cincinnati, Ohio, about ten hours after I should have.

The whole thing was worth it though, because when I stepped out of the bus station in Indianapolis, I suddenly heard a huge roaring, like a jet plane taking off behind me, and I turned to see thre REAL LIFE Hell's Angels shoot past on REAL LIFE Harley Davidson motorbikes and REAL LIFE handlebar moustaches and shoulder-length hair, and REAL LIFE leather jackets, one of which said, for real life, "Hell's Angels" on the back. Even if I had seen nothing else in America, this would have been more than enough to justify the whole trip.

Cincinnati was also nicer than I was expecting, even if it wasn’t the most hip-hop happening place in the universe. I took a pleasant stroll around the Mont Matre-esque Mt. Adams, and then hooked up with my hosts, who were actually the brother and sister of my Obama campaign friend Steve from Washington DC. They were very enjoyable and made a great dinner for me. I also managed to sample a “three way”. For all you dirty-minded people, this is obviously a famous Cincinnati staple, basically spaghetti with chili sauce and cheese.

When I was in the bus station to leave, I saw a group of REAL LIFE Amish people. The women had long plain dresses and those white puritan head bonnet things, and the men had incredible facial hair. One old dude had a massive fluffy white beard down to his bellybutton. It was exactly like in that film whose name I can't remember with Harrison Ford. Can I just say for the record that Amish men have the coolest dress sense ever. They have these vibrant shirts and snappy waistcoats, and awesome broad-brim hats. I wish I could be as cool as them.

And so now I’m on another bus, completing the next leg of my mid-western meanderings. For now, I leave you with the million dollar question: how do you pronounce “Illinois”? Is it A) illy-no-is (rhymes with show-biz), B) illy-noi (rhymes with the French, pour quoi), C) illy-noy (rhymes with McCoy) or D) illy-noise?