A passport, backpack and a few dollars
The last time I flew long haul I was ten years old and travelling to Disneyworld with my family. Here I am 18 years later in week one of a round-the-world trip with a friend I met working at Marketing Birmingham who happens to share the same name.
We left our jobs and the apartment we shared together in the Jewellery Quarter earlier this month and set off with little more than a passport, an extremely heavy backpack and a few dollars.
We arrived in Chicago on Saturday to be interrogated by US homeland security and have every item in our bags taken out. It's quite intimidating having big burly security officers handling your smalls but finding no illegal substances or copies of our CVs they decided we had nothing to hide and let us go.
So far we've spent three days in Chicago, a day in Cleveland and are currently sitting in a motel reception in Buffalo. We are travelling from place to place by Greyhound bus and while the buses themselves are comfortable and clean but pretty non-descript, it's the other passengers that really make the experience.
We've met a young couple who are yet to discover the salad range at Macdonalds, a woman who lives on a trailer park and looked like she hadn't passed a comb through her hair in years, several ghetto fabulous women with fingernails that were works of art, and a Mormon man with his son, wearing matching navy blue trousers, waistcoats and shirts with straw boater hats and little beards. The son had just had an operation, was sporting a colostomy bag at the front of his trousers and they were travelling all the way to Nashville from South Bend, Illinois - that's at least a 15 hour trip. He didn't look well.
Over the next six months we're going to visit some amazing places and see some amazing things. Were we crazy to give up everything in search of adventure? Only time will tell.
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Fiona Handscomb - Freelance arts/cultural writer and editor of What's On Stage/Midlands
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Jon Bounds - Digital consultant and creator of Birmingham: It's Not Shit
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Nikki Aaron - English language teacher uncovering life in Beijing
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Brumcast Lite - A taste of the best of Birmingham's music scene by Brumcast creator Little Chris
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Sid Langley - Freelance writer and cultural commentator
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Charlotte Beeching - Former External Affairs Manager at Marketing Birmingham and currently taking a career break to embark on a round-the-world trip
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Hannah Waldram - Critic and writer/editor of www.westmidlandsdance.com, and dancer in her spare time.
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Michael Mclean - I love films. I live and work in Birmingham and make my living, managing a cinema.
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You girls sound like an amazing twosome. I hope the world is ready for you. It sounds as if your experiences to date are just the steady start that you will require. Wait until you meet a couple that know every MacDonald and KFC outlet in the US and need three seats each to prove it. Its going to be fun for you, Im sure. Look forward to reading more.
Sound like it'll be an interesting trip and something worth following on line! Is Chicago actually windy?! Does Buffalo actually have Buffalo's?! Will definitely be interested to hear more about the diverse citizens of the US travelling by Greyhound, hopefully next time without colostomy bags...
Glad your meeting interesting people already and great to hear from you to find out where you both are in the world. Look forward to the next stage of the US. Your going to have an amazing trip. Take care
Fairplay Char and Char !! I look forward to the next installment. T.X
Lol, I'm addicted already...enjoy girlies xx
I really laughed at that, soo glad your having a wicked time. Look forward to all the blogs xxxx
I remember when this used to be a newspaper. is this it now ?
Excellent post! this case study gives me a lot of things to think about. I think this would be nice and helpful to others. Thanks for the post.
I agree with the last comment by Passports for Children - you should read the rest of her blogs, they are all v interesting. Think I'll do the same if I go travelling.