Once in Vancouver, I was relieved to discover that at our absurdly cheap $9/night accommodation (booked by CB as a way of negating the expense of our Seattle sponger) was not just a cardboard box hastily erected over some sleeping bags, but a real, bona-fide, fully-bricked building. Stepping into the massive, creaky house, we soon realised that the man in charge had the faintest whiff of body odour about him. (I had the distinct sense that this odour would only ferment as the hours went on).

Handwritten notes adorned the walls, such as: THERE ARE FRIENDLY PEOPLE IN THIS HOSTEL. DO NOT HAVE SEXX IN THE ROOMS. HAVE SEXX IN THE SEXX ROOM (…the ‘Sexx Room’ being where I inadvertently showered the next day). Non-plussed, we went upstairs to our dorm, where we discovered stained sheets and pillows, and a sharp metal edge that had the potential to gash thigh on CB’s bed frame.

We decided to make a quick escape, so we headed out for some food. After fantasising all day about the luxurious fish lunch we were going to devour as our first treat in Vancouver, we eventually settled on a 6-inch Subway in a downtown food court.

Once we had deftly mastered the public transport system, we hopped on the bus to Stanley Park, where I slept for a couple of hours and CB ‘covertly’ filmed a poor middle-aged Japanese lady doing some exercise in the form of a very bizarre penguin walk. (I’ve seen the footage, and I’d love to say my friend got away with her candid camera antics, but alas the camera doesn’t lie. Poor woman, being publicly picked on by a jumped-up young Brit.). A few hours later I woke up full of beans, so cajoled CB into some light sport events: a sprint around various objects such as a tree and some benches (which CB most certainly won but also most certainly cheated on), the high jump and triple jump. I may not have the cleanest of sporting techniques, but my passion is without question. I lost every time.

MB and arse take a snooze in Stanley Park

In the evening, we ended up on Davie St, which is the gay area of Vancouver. Had a cocktail and some lovely tasting beer in the first bar we frequented; being the geeks we are, we also enjoyed a light game or two of the board game Yahtzee. Afterwards, we headed for an (you guessed it) all-you-can-eat buffet, this time in the form of an Indian. It was OK, I guess.

Heavy with food and ale, we sloped back to the hostel, realising how whiffy our dorm was upon entering. Think the most smelly feet in the world, but on a man with forty legs. Horrific. Rested in a haze of stink, with mattress coils perilously close to escaping from their dirty bed haven and penetrating our vulnerable English flesh.

As a significant portion of our north American adventure had been framed within the urban landscape, we opted to take advantage of the beautiful Vancouver countryside and spent the next morning at Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. Due to a childhood fear of bridges (it was only relatively recently that I succeeded in mastering the 7m high footbridge in my hometown – a fear I have only known to constrain one other adult, my grandmother’s mentally troubled friend Sylvia), I was somewhat nervous, but soon became almost cocky in my behaviour, even daring to take one hand off the side to take a picture of CB. On the other side of the bridge, there was a wonderful forest area where we had lots of fun, concluding our time there by dutifully collecting all of the stamps in our Capilano passports in order to be rewarded with a certificate endorsing us as brave souls who had conquered the bridge.

Tourists tackle the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver

Thus buoyed up with a smug sense of courage (why, I don’t know – another ‘grown-up’ I witnessed having her passport stamped had a fishy smell of embarrassment about her), we took the bus up to our next physical challenge, Grouse Mountain, where you have to take a cable car up to the mountain and its activities. As there was bad visibility, we decided to try our luck the next day. Instead, as it’s my mother’s namesake, we dedicated the late afternoon to Lynn Valley: home of Lynn Suspension Bridge, West Lynn and East Lynn.

Having spotted a warning sign on the bus there, I had a passing fear of being attacked a massive bear. This thankfully abated once I had become engrossed in the very blunt ‘Welcome’ boards at Lynn Valley, which detailed the vast array of ways you could hypothetically drown whilst enjoying your visit there.

We soon developed a rabid hunger, thus made our way back to the bus stop. Back on Davie St, we went to a quaint little Mongolian place which allowed you to be the master of your own grubbular destiny (picking your own raw ingredients and sauces, and then handing it the chef at the front of the house, who barbequed it in a matter of seconds.) I concede this wasn’t as easy as it sounds, but CB exceeded herself in terms of sheer ambition; by the end of the night, her three valiant attempts at creating the perfect dish could be witnessed on the table, uniquely created by her fair hand yet sadly abandoned in front of her swollen belly. And once again, the MB Love Bus ™ carried on rattling through North America; this time picking up the BBQ chef, who insisted on slobbering all over my hand as I left the restaurant – probably violating at least two public health codes on the way.

We went for a drink afterwards, where I received an insight courtesy of CB about The OC (I’m always about ten years behind such cultural events – hence one of my ‘new reads’ on the trip being Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone). The rest of the night was pleasantly uneventful, save for the nutter sharing a dorm with us who woke us up a number of times in the middle of the night, theatrically sitting bolt upright in bed and shouting “Oh my god. Oh my god. OH MY GOD!”. In the morning, I glanced over at her, thinking it strange that she was sleeping with her glasses on. CB later informed me that she wasn’t asleep at all, but staring at us whilst affecting a sleep position. We shall return to this oddity-ball later…

After this disconcerting experience, I headed to the shower. Whilst showering, my body was rocked by a large opera explosion which seemed to be occurring directly outside of the shower room. As I carried on scrubbing away (that cheesy feet smell! It was preposterous), I overheard a man speaking to a girl, who must have been brushing her teeth next to the soggy bucket filled with water the colour of an old man’s death. It sounded like he was sombrely explaining the reason for the music, but what with all the bad air molecules whooshing around, it was difficult to eavesdrop and catch his drift.

On the way back to the dorm I noticed a dusty, yet very present sound system that had been erected all over the rather large hostel, and it was this which was pounding out the opera. It later dawned on us that the music had been playing in homage to Pavarotti, who had passed away that morning, but to us, it served to add another string to the hostel’s owner rather eccentric bow. We made a hasty exit due to the weirdo girl in the dorm (who was still in her pseudo-slumber), and went to the café next door for some lovely egg soldiers. Headed to Grouse Mountain, where I had a rather sweaty ascent in the cable car up the mountain, but it proved not as vertigo-inducing as I had feared.

Once at the top, we headed straight to the lumberjack show, which was a heavily rehearsed sketch involving two lumberjacks fighting for the audience’s affection through a series of staged competitions. Boy, it was wooden. CB loved it. I spent the sketch cowering, scared I was going to be picked on as the recipient of the present for the young-un’ in the audience. (They gave the aforementioned present to a six-month-old child. What an ego I am!)

Admiring the view atop Grouse Mountain

After sitting and admiring the beautiful views (resting just in front of some freshly laid bear poo), we went for a calorie-pit-stop of Coke and pizza. As we pigged out in the café, CB got ridiculously star-struck when she spotted the lumberjack actors behind us, even going so far to put her sunglasses on to have a ‘discreet’ stare. She looked like a right wolly, I tell you. That girl does not do subtle…

Because it was our last night n’ all, we got quite drunk in an Irish bar (where an annoying British man gave us 50p), then had a meal on Davie St, before drinking whiskey and coke in a bar near the hostel. Back in the room, I soon had reason to press charges of common assault against aforementioned arch-nemesis nutter-girl, who screeched “WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?” in my face as I was trying to quietly close the door. As CB wet herself on her bed, I spent an anguished few seconds attempting to placate the girl by reassuring her that I was indeed a legitimate human being.

As I was very hungover and sleepy upon waking, I left the checking out stuff for CB to do, whilst I spent some productive time gazing at the newspaper article-addled wall. Suddenly, I noticed a piece which explained that our smelly Pavarotti admirer hostel owner was also a renowned reggae fan – who in the ‘80s had gone to the Caribbean to record a dub version of the Italian national anthem. Wonders never cease!

For breakfast we went to a Chinese-cum-breakfast joint called Smile where, for old times sake, we enjoyed a final North American breakfast of cheese omlette, hash browns and toast. After a touch of shopping and one last food fling (sushi), we headed the Vancouver Airport, where (barring a very smelly man sat behind us), we had a dream flight home. We even wangled a free meal. Lovely stuff.

It was very hard to say no – so we didn’t, and instead sat in our self-made hell, inner cheeks raw with bite marks whilst we attempted to listen to a quite spectacularly high-pitched version of ‘Dock of the Bay’ with a dignified composure. With the aforementioned earnest-flute man standing by – eyes closed in rapture, singing and finger-clicking along – this proved somewhat difficult. CB joined in the harmonising in order to relieve any energy which might otherwise had manifested into a Grade A giggly-fit, but I instead chose to stare at the Washington State landscape, solemnly contemplating all that is wrong in the world to prevent my own sniggers from emitting and interrupting the otherwise intense atmosphere.

Arrived later than anticipated in Seattle (Amtrak trains are rarely on time), and headed straight to what proved to be our relatively expensive hotel. Filled up the ice bucket and kicked back with some cans of Dr Pepper and Diet Pepsi, watching people on the telly biggying up Jesus. Thank God we weren’t sleepless in Seattle that night.

Woke up on Labor Day (a big federal holiday in l’America), and decided that in order to get the most out of our only day in Seattle, we should target specific neighbourhoods.

Headed to Capitol Hill, where after much dithering, we settled on a pizza place to eat. Whilst we slurped on our post-meal drinks, a lovely waitress told us about a local festival taking place that day called Bumbershoot. When we discovered it was only $35, we decided to go and check it out.

Home of Bumbershoot: the Space Needle in Seattle

Upon reaching the Space Needle (where Bumbershoot was being held), we were distraught to have discovered that we had missed the first act of the day – Miss. Joss Stone. Oh well. Went into the beer garden, and had a few beers while performing the dual task of chuntering and soaking up the atmosphere. Headed over to what looked like a school hall, where we moshed to Kill Hannah (only jessing – no moshing was allowed) and drank more beer. After having an excessively munchy tea, we ended the night by honouring our friend Paddy and going to watch Steve Earle.

As we were catching a very early train the next day, we decided to call it a night at the rock n’ roll hour of 10pm, going back to the hotel via a shop so I could feed my gossip-mag addiction and CB could buy some coffee beans for her male creator. Unfortunately, the latter task went somewhat wrong when CB misinterpreted how to unleash said beans from the dispenser, thus spilling a significant portion of them on the floor. This problem was compounded when I crashed over to see what the Dickens was going on and subsequently helped to crush them further into the carpet. Being British and hence a little scared of confrontation n’ all that jazz, I suggested we make a hasty escape. Which we did.

“Went to City Lights Books. Headed to Alcatraz on the second day, where we got to play around in the cells and meet an actual Alcatraz inmate, who sat in the gift shop behind a large desk waiting to sign copies of his book. (He didn’t say much. Not that this was his fault as initially nobody was going up to him. I felt sorry for him until he grunted at a little girl.)”

However, you can read CB’s much more insightful thoughts on our San Francisco leg here.

Don't do it! Taking a ride over the Golden Gate bridge

Briefly, we definitely ate a substantial number of ‘all-you-can-eat buffets’ – thus why we had to order extra airplane seats on the way back. If we weren’t merrily chomping away on the array of delights that bedazzled us on the buffets, we were gorging on McDonald’s.

I believe we consumed three within a three-day period.

Night-time on the Strip

As we’re not really gambling types (er, and didn’t really have pots of cash going spare), we largely frittered our dollars at the Fremont Street Experience, which is tucked away from the hotshots on the strip. The Fremont is like a rich man’s Southend-on-Sea – good enough for us. Anyway, we won bits n’ bobs here n’ there (big prizes including $20 for MB on a 25c poker game, $14 for CB on roulette and $28 for MB on roulette.) Both of us left the casinos with more money than we entered, so that was jubbers.

This is where we stayed in Los Angeles. My own tuppence worth on the Gershwin Hotel: very hospitable. Anyway, moving on…

We arrived in L.A at around midday. Our aforementioned lodgings were in north Hollywood, so we ditched our stuff there and walked straight to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, pausing en-route for a nourishing Maccy D’s. Once at our destination, we did typically touristy things, like taking snaps of our bare feet squished into Mazza Monroe’s miniscule imprints.

Teeny-seltown toes: Marilyn Monroe's petite feet - being trod on by 10.5 stones of solid Yorkshire mass

Soon satiated with celebs, we left the Walk of Fame and headed out for a Thai. I had been suffering the classic ‘Thai green veg curry withdrawal sweats’ since leaving Britain, so this had long been marked in the diary as a real treat. The meal seemed to go down well, being pleasantly accompanied by an accomplished in-house Elvis impersonator.  Perhaps naturally then, I was distraught to be duly rewarded for this Thai loyalty with an all-out, multi-orificial attack of food poisoning.

Well. The next day we were due to go to Disneyland, but frankly I didn’t want to end up soiling Minnie – plus I was truly knackered, having spent the night collapsed in a disabled toilet with only a burly security guard for company. (Poor guy.) The safer alternative was to take my grey-pallored self to the beach, where a vast expanse of water could swill away any regrettable leakages.

We thus caught the bus to Santa Monica, but had the blessed misfortune to be sat next to a lady who incessantly screamed obscenities and said some very lewd things about her grandmother. After she threw a smoothie in somebody’s face, I decided we (or I, at least) had had enough drama for the day thank you very much, so we alighted in Beverley Hills and muffined-it-up in a cafe for an hour or so.

The sun sets over Santa Monica

Thankfully, the day perked up substantially upon reaching our intended destination, with a glorious bike ride on Santa Monica beach proving one of the highlights of the trip.

MB-strength fully restored the following day, we set out on the big one: Disneyland! Despite having only seen three Disney films in my entire life, I managed to get very, very giddy about this indeed. CB had never seen me in a rollercoaster environment, so tested out my nerve on a beginner’s ride. My northern steel proudly shone through and I am pleased to say I was allowed to go on adult rides for the rest of the day.

Jumping for joy in Mickey's mecca

A large portion of our time at Disneyland was spent waving at anybody and anything that might wave back. I also got chided by the spotty American jock running the Robinson Crusoe canoe ride for not rowing and filming on the camcorder instead: “Steven Spielberg, you are not…”. What a comedown.

However, the real boo-boo of the day fell to CB, who managed to obliterate four children on the official Splash Mountain picture by waving her arms with glee whilst smugly strapped into the first seat of the flume. Indeed, this proved to be so galling to the kids that I saw one of them excitedly scramble for the picture after the ride, only to see it and forlornly sigh: “Why did SHE have to be sat at the front?” Hehe. Actually, it was heartbreaking.

Oh dear.

We concluded the day in an Anaheim sports bar, cheering on our much-loved Blue Jays, who were playing the LA Angels. As we were sat in a bar crammed with ardent Angels, I wore CB’s Blue Jays cap to make her squirm. (They’re very serious about their sports in the US. And if anyone can make sense of this gobbly gooky score card, I’d love to hear from you.)

*Update: A few months after this trip concluded, I tried to get back on the Thai horse – in glamorous Cardiff, of all places. That was a big mistake. It has now been deduced that I have developed a belated but severe allergy to Thai food. Boooo.

This 55-year-old blonde bombshell had broken such earnest proceedings to praise my hair, somewhat soiling the compliment by adding she was striving for the same look. I sensed CB stifle a giggle at this, but onwards we go.

CB enjoys the observation deck

Gerald’s wife soon departed for her sleeper car, but the pleasure that was Gerald stayed, and he proceeded to fill us in on land irrigation, toll roads, freeways, American weather, American floods… and the intricacies of air conditioning systems, funnily enough. He was also obscenely patriotic. CB tried to put in a good word for Blighty, but he was having none of it.

Anyway, the two-hour conversation came to an end when his wife strode by, loudly hollering (tactlessly, some might say) that we shouldn’t be embarrassed to send him on his way once we got bored of his seemingly boundless chatter.

Our acquaintance came to its inevitable conclusion soon afterwards.

The beautiful landscape en-route to LA

In an effort to heal our Gerald wounds, we made friends with Yolandra and Mattisea towards the end of our epic train trip. Yolandra took a shine to me, cooing that I had “such pretty eyes”. Much in the same vein of Gerald’s wife – not knowing when to shut up – she then noted that my hair looked like “babies’ hair”, immediately qualifying this statement by rattling on about how much she loved the manes of babes. I spent the remainder of our conversation trying to decide whether I loved or hated her. In the end, love won through. What can I say? They were incredibly charismatic 10-year-olds, and I just HEART kids, big time.

If I had to efficiently summarise our time in this Texan mecca using two words only, it would be as follows: food and telly. Tackling the latter category first: Predator Raw. Its basic premise is this: paedophiles are tricked into thinking they are about to meet a 12-year-old in an abandoned house (filled with hidden cameras), all for our viewing pleasure. “Crazy shit”, as CB said.

CB looking very chipper indeed by the River Walk

We also enjoyed watching The Price is Right as a post-sleep treat. I must say: US quiz contestants are just of a different standard to their British counterparts. We were smitten by one Boston University student, who was absolutely adorable but came across incredibly thick as she was thrown by everything the host said. However, our gal went on to win lots of exciting things, like an exercise bike, a jukebox (oh, and a car), so it proved a great start to the day for me n’ CB.

When we weren’t sat in front of the tellybox, we were out shopping and troffing. We stumbled upon a fantastic Goodwill charity shop one afternoon, which amused us for a good hour. CB spotted a pair of delightful 1980s gold spangly evening dresses, which we fleetingly considered buying so as to lounge in style in Vegas. However, I knew our ever-fleshy derrieres would never fit in the $5.99 dresses, and it was with much regret that we left them behind for a pair of ladies with infinitely better self-control than us.

Upon leaving the Goodwill shop we came across the Market Square, which was very Mexican-influenced and lovely fun. Shared a muffin in a café while avoiding the Marakeshi singers. Garish is a word I wouldn’t hesitate to use when describing this place.

Stocking up on goodies in San Antonio

On one San Antonian evening we went to Rita’s on the River, where we supped Budweiser and got some free ‘chips’ with some very hot salsa sauce. Later headed to Dick’s Last Resort (situated in a former morgue), where the barman thought it amusing to throw screwed up pieces of paper at our heads. Got a free mojito out of this though, so we came up trumps in a way.

One last note on San Antonio: the supermarkets. Good heavens! We went to one which had samples of virtually everything so that you could nibble away whilst leisurely perusing the aisles. In fact, it was so good that we had to forego our planned trip to the piccies to revel in food ogling heaven some more.

In the whirlwind of vitriolic debate that ensued, I can safely say I made as many enemies as I did lovers.My main argument was that thousands upon thousands of people are clamouring to buy RATM’s Killing in the Name for its “fuck you, I won’t do as you tell me” sentiment, only in the process managing to do what they are being told. ‘RATM for Xmas No 1′ campaigners argue that Simon Cowell has turned us into a nation of compliant sheep, but at the end of the day: people who don’t want to buy Joe McElderry’s The Climb, don’t. People who don’t want to buy RATM’s Killing in the Name, but do want to make some sort of inane point, do. Who are being the real sheep in this?

Furthermore, those buying the RATM track as some sort of protest against ‘the machine’ are:

a) Buying into a campaign that only grew exponentially when it got sucked into the machine itself.

b) Investing in an anti-capitalist song brought to us by Sony… the same multinational conglomerate corporation that churns out McElderry’s single. One of my Facebook friends argued that the ‘RATM for Xmas No 1′ campaign is aimed at the ‘manufactured shit [that prevents] talented musicians’ from getting a record deal. However, will the money Sony makes from this campaign be siphoned from the pot so that it only supports ‘talented musicians’, or will it just be ploughed into yet more ‘manufactured shit’?

Cowell has a monopoly on the UK mass-market, but – especially with the deluge of media platforms available to us in the present day – nobody is forcing up to 20 million people to tune into The X Factor every week. The vast majority of people enjoy mixing in both subcultures and the mainstream – and participating in the latter does not make you a sheep, nor does it force you into buying its products. Perhaps Cowell is so extraordinarily successful because he has stumbled upon a market that holds mass-appeal, rather than having imposed a mass-appeal market upon us?

If the ‘RATM for Xmas No 1′ campaigners really wanted to rage against the machine by bringing down Cowell and his monopoly on the Xmas No 1, then why didn’t they pick a beautiful, unsung song from an indie label – or is this because most ‘rebels’ wouldn’t have bought it because it didn’t hold enough mass appeal?

…Anyway, enough of my turge. I wish you all a lovely Christmas, whichever song you happen to be belting out over the festive period. (Of course, you may not have bought either tune – to which I say, you are perhaps the only ones raging against the machine in all of this.)

Merry Christmas!

Upon pulling into the motel car pack (about six miles south of Fort Worth), the taxi-driver somewhat sinisterly warned us that we should look be looking into other places to stay as our motel was in a very dodgy area. However, after surviving our St. Louis experience, we remained undeterred and opted to battle on. The actual motel felt a helluva lot safer than our St. Louis motel, although this feeling unraveled the more we realised we were staying in Drug Dealer Central. (Gangs of shifty-looking men pulling conspiratorial faces at one another in a trashy motel in the middle of nowhere led us to this conclusion.)

Muffle those giggles! Our fondness for puerile English slang meant we much enjoyed this little slogan beauty en-route to downtown Fort Worth

Doing a quick turnaround, we left the motel and headed for the Stockyards, which required us to hop on three buses – the first of which was about twenty strides away from our motel but which yielded as many honk-honks from men passing in cars. (Thankfully this never happens to us in Britain, but in Texas we were evidently exotic goods.)

Our first port of call in the Stockyards was the Cattleman’s Steak House; a delightful place where I, as a recently re-established carnivore, experienced my first-ever steak, and where meat fiend CB went loopy and ordered a steak which cost as much as two nights stay in a dorm.

Honky tonk: Enjoying a country dance at Billy Bob's

If Cattleman’s Steak House proved to be one highlight of our Fort Worth stay, then Billy Bob’s Texas honky tonk, where we went the following night, was another. Still not sure what a honky tonk is, but we went to one. Think restaurants, bars, rodeo, arcades, pool tables, live music and dancing under one gigantic roof. And cowboys.

In other Fort Worth news, CB got on the wrong end of a bollocking for attempting to swim in a pool which had been shut down by the health authorities, and we also nearly made ourselves sick by gorging on ice-cream directly after we had stuffed ourselves silly with some heavenly southern-fried chicken and chips. My hips have never looked the same again.

A middle-aged college professor, this man would give us seemingly final directions and scurry off down the road, only to turn on his heel after ten seconds to come back and help us some more. Six loops in and tiring of saying “Thank you”, “Cheerio” and “Oh! Hello” to this strange man, we realised we were existing in a Benny Hill sketch. Whilst his intentions were good, he definitely made us feel a little uneasy, which was compounded when the next man who walked down the street tried his luck on with me.

Worried that St. Louis subjects were ultimately sinister, we sought refuge in the nearest plush hotel (not ours, I might add), where a valiant valet phoned for us a cab.

Once we had arrived at our motel – the dubiously named Econolodge – our lovely taxi driver Linda warned that we might not want to be wandering around the area at night. Being girls of sensibleness, we took Big Linda’s pearls of wisdom to heart and decided to stay in the safe haven of our room for the evening.

Unfortunately, this could not have felt less of a good place to be barricaded. Looking out onto nothing – and with no security to protect us from those potentially creepy St. Louis residents – we flung our rucksacks against the feebly locking door, phoning for Dominos takeaway and settling down to Singing Bee with that old heartthrob of yesteryear, Joey Fatone of N-Sync. Slept with one eye open.

Bus-ted! Worry not, it's only the mind-boggling City Museum in St. Louis

Woke up intact. Decided to get out and explore St. Louis, being duly led to the local ‘museum’ by our treasured guidebook. Befuddled by the big junkyard outside and mecca of slides within (with lots of excitable children running around), we asked the museum attendant if twenty-somethings constituted the museum’s target audience. Reassuring us in an indirect fashion that we would enjoy ourselves, we paid up our twelve bucks and headed in.

Well: it was not a good day to be wearing a dress. The museum was essentially a big children’s playground, and with its plethora of slides, climbing frames and the like, it provided lashings of opportunities to inadvertently flash at many an unsuspecting pre-pubescent.

Once satisfied that we had mentally scarred scores of young American children with our unintentional floozy behaviour, we decided to embark on one last big slide down and out of the museum. I picked up an alarming amount of speed on my descent, prompting a man at the bottom of his slide (waiting for his toddler, no doubt) to whistle a satisfying “jeeeeez” through his teeth once I had thudded to a halt a fair distance away from the designated landing area.

Plane fun: Still wondering how this play area passed health and safety regulations

Post-museum, we headed to Schlafly’s, a local bar suggested by our friend India (a St. Louis native). There we met some lovely people, such as Vinny and Danny. Vinny owned a napkin company, which briefly formed part of our conversation but thankfully didn’t dominate proceedings.

They bought us a beer before heading off into the night, leaving us to go and “shoot some pool”. Evidently our English nature must have served as some form of magnet in America, because before long we had attracted another pair of gentleman, this time by the names of Brian and Michael.

We mostly chatted about American politics with them, with Ms Politics Degree CB having to stifle her own political understanding whilst conversing with a you’re-English-so-must-know-nothing-about-US-politics Brian. I, on the other hand, had to perform the reverse trick; confidently cocking my head at random intervals in the hope I would appear learned while talking to a somewhat-presumptuous-about-an-English-person’s-knowledge-of-US-politics-and-all-its-wonderful-intricacies Michael. Anyway, Bri/Mi were husbands and artists (these titbits provide the most important facts about them) – and before long, had invited themselves along to dinner with us.

They drove us to a Mexican restaurant, where (according to CB) I began to fire off question after question about their wives in a seemingly covert attempt to gauge their authenticity. Happily, the pair passed my interrogation with flying colours and after enjoying some lovely burritos, they drove us back to our Econolodge and waved ta-raa.

The next day, I woke up feeling dredders. Having perhaps consumed one beer too many the night before, I left CB to do all the adult things like packing up and checking out, while I slolled around in a sea of nausea, clutching onto a feeble cup of water n’ ice in a wishful attempt to keep vomit at bay.

Once we had checked out, we headed to the highly recommended Forest Park, where I was very graciously sick against a tree trunk. After enjoying a rejuvenating snooze on the grass, we gathered enough energy to go the zoo. However, as we happened to be in St. Louis on its hottest day since 1936, we didn’t spend long there, because a) it was bloody hot, b) we felt so sorry for the animals having to endure such unbearable heat and c) it was bloody hot. At the zoo shop we bought some cute little t-shirts that were clearly aimed at children (indeed, one which I wanted CB to buy transpired on further inspection to be a baby-gro).