Disoriented Landing

This is how I flew from Adelaide to Philadelphia:
via Auckland (with a pat-down in both ADL and AKL)
via San Francisco (with another pat down, i believe, and a long enough stop-over that i could get the BART train into town, and have an awesome Indian lunch in Mission with my mate Pat and his Indian boyfriend, Waylon)

...and then i landed in Philly the same day, after 25 hours of travel. C'mon - that 'going back in time' time difference thing, never gets old.

So, i'm sitting on the train on the way into San Francisco, and my mind is racing, and a smile is growing huge on my internal face. And i'm walking down Mission - definitely not San Francisco's 'poster street' - and i'm radiating happiness, completely overcoming tiredness. It's all these little, irrelevant American nuances - eavesdropping on loud conversations that are difficult not to; ridiculously cheap things (relatively speaking); a warm, sunny winter day in San Fran (now how can you go wrong with that); a girl wearing thrift shop clothes and a Belle and Sebastian sticker on her bag.

What can i say - i like the USA - and i know all the negatives - probably the biggest negative being the blandness and repetition of shops and restaurants as you cross the country - not a family-owned fish & chip shop in sight. That's what you were going to say, right? Ugh, those diners and fast food chains turn me off. OK so maybe i've changed...but on the other hand, i don't think i've ever enjoyed Denny's. Not a single good memory.

So, arriving in Philly i hit the ground running - with a slight sleep-in, i'm in the office the next morning.

I'm staying with Ned, the Vice President of Travel for Teens, and his wife, Kate. The house, in Conshohocken, PA, is a dream house for someone like me - that is, late 20s, with a disposition to be hospitable. Funny, that's a pretty similar non-detailed description of Ned and Kate, too.

I'm using the master bedroom, and N&K have been brilliantly welcoming. Watching football or basketball on the massive TV, eating good food, drinking great wine (a very tidy little cellar in the basement) - Ned and Kate are fun to be around - it's getting a little serious, i gotta say: I've met their parents.

Ned's parents are cool - dad watches football and mum makes sensational art. Quality. Kate's mum cooks a mean roast, and Kate's dad is hilarious. I pretty much fell in love with Kate's dad because his wit is cutting, and, on his advice, i even had a little horse-radish on my roast meat (ahh the things you do when you're in love. Actually, a little horseradish is a good thing, and i knew this already, but it's always good to give credit to 'love' - it brings about good karma).

I don't believe in blogs being too long (see i have changed), and although this one hasn't gotten across the info i intended...

...there's always the next blog.