The Mussels from Brussels

You know, given this blog has a distinct focus on beer and cheese consumed, I had a very strong feeling that Belgium was going to be a winner here. Sure Belgium doesn't evoke the same epic visions as other lands, but the reality is Belgium is so much more an adventure in taste than just sight. All edible pleasures gravitate here in a nexus of nom (as in the nom nom nom eating sound) and even though the people here are somehow not overweight, give me fermented curds and brewed hops and I will give you a traveler with pants suddenly one size too small.

Beer.

It permeates every aspect of Belgium to such an extent that liver complacency is essentially impossible. There is literally so much choice that mortals can be blinded by it, couple the temptation to try it all with stupidly high alcohol contents and you are now in a magical realm of blurry memories and photos. One beer house we went to offered no less than 400 different types of beer, all detailed in a menu that looked not unlike an ancient spellbook with a wooden cover. Somewhat comically, the first two pages were devoted to food just to keep up appearances.

At this point I now have to share with you a very special moment for me personally. There was so much beer to pick from that I resorted to the age old technique of "flick to a page and point". I really had no idea what I was going to get (nor did I notice the price tag!) but it turned out to be a moment of divine inspiration. By all accounts it seemed like a normal day so far, how was I to know that the incredible was about to happen. When the waitress returned I was delivered a rather plain, boring and nondescript beer bottle that wasn't even cool enough to have it's own dedicated, branded glass.

I suddenly felt a bit duped.

However, once it was poured and I began to drink, a surreal feeling occurred. I realised that what I was drinking was possibly, no, quite probably, no ... most surely the best beer I had ever tasted. Now as you can see on the list to the right, quite a few beers have been tasted now so at first I was skeptical but the more I drank the more I was stunned. Yes, this beer was stunning me! Ladies and gentleman I present to you my most favourite beer in the entire world: the holy brew of Westvleteran.

That was the high point of my beer experiences. It is all downhill from here, you see since my beergasm I've looked into this beer a little as I wanted to get more or send some home. Unfortunately, it's like a Shakesbeerean tragedy; this beer is possibly one of the hardest to get hold of in the entire world.

It's brewed by trappist monks and they only brew enough of this beer to run their monastery, and will make no more regardless of demand. They do not supply to wholesalers, they only sell to individual buyers who drive to the abbey in person and even then you must book an appointment months in advance and can only take one small case, per car license plate per month. The resale of the beer is also strictly prohibited, so what I had was essentially a "grey market" sale. The head of their order, Father Abbott, states "We are not brewers. We are monks. We brew beer to be able to afford being monks."

My untold joy is thus married to an unfathomable sadness that I may never drink it again and there may be nothing better from here on. I imagine this is what a dabble in heroin feels like. Oh well.

Mussels.

Big pots of them, cooked in a white wine and butter stock with fresh vegetables - always served with frites / fries. This meal is just amazing and was enjoyed at a small restaurant where the locals came from miles around just for this one dish. Table neighbours, two chaps from Antwerp who worked for Godiva chocolates, were also very happy to share their tales and experience of Belgium. These moments are always the best parts of traveling, a connection with strangers from another place, even if just for a passing moment, over great food.

Chocolate.

Belgium is renowned for it and for good reason. Sure they don't grow the beans, but it's what they do with them that truly stands out. There are pralines and truffles everywhere, made the same way for hundreds of years. There is also a chocolate museum too where you can not only learn the long and glorious history of all things chocolate but you can watch pralines being made too. If you're game, you can also partake in a spot of cocoa snorting. You know a country takes it's chocolate seriously when you can do a line of it.

Waffles.

Synonymous with the Belgian way of life. Is there truly a time or meal of the day they can not improve? In Belgium you'll become one with the waffle. You'll learn to respect it's crispy goodness and tremble in the presence of the sweet minions that accompany it. I really wish waffles were more common in Nottingham, especially the little portable honey Stroopwaffles. One can dream.

Add to all of this the pancakes, the roast eel, the Flemish rabbit stew, the Belgian breads and suddenly leaving Belgium becomes so very, very difficult. Partly due to a food addiction, partly due to digestive related lethargy.

All in all, Belgium is a lot better than one expects. It really just doesn't have much of a reputation but it should! It is actually very scenic in parts (Brugges and the Grand Place in Brussels are especially amazing), the people are really cool and the food, well, read above.

I'll sign this blog off with a bit of trivia for those of you  know of my fond love of the beer called Kwak and it's rather eccentric chemistry-set-like glass. In Brussels I found a small story on why the glass is so shaped.

"Under Naploeonic law, the coachmen where not allowed to down as the diligence other travellers, so created on a glass shaped may contain some amount of beer and stay within reach. On the diligence, was an easel set in which the glass was put to that beer does not escape despite the shocking and road horses started at a fast pace."

Appalling English aside, what it means is basically the Kwak glass was designed so apparently people could drink in bumpy old stage coaches without spilling their beer when they put it down. Clever!

Yarrghhh!!!

'ello me hearties! Another travel blog has thus formed to tell the story of a trip down to the south west of England. It's not actually the first time down that’ away, having previously been refreshed by the beauty of Bath, engorged with gorgeous Cheddar cheese at Cheddar gorge, amazed by Henges made of Stone. The accursed jackpot of the 2p luck machines has been struck at Weston-Super-Mare, combine harvesters have been sung about, the finest Scrumpy has been sipped. But this time sights are set further afield, to the Lands End, Cornwall!

If you're not au fait with the lay of the English land, the Cornish part is the long spiky bit down the very south-west. It actually looks like it might be quite easy to get to as well, that is until you encounter what many refer to as the quintessential Cornish summer experience ... being stuck in your car on a winding one lane road behind campervans for hours upon end. In Cornwall, your definition of a "highway" is extended beyond all sane limits and here .... no one can hear you beep, especially when you are stuck behind a steam powered car. That's right, a steam powered car.

In case ye foolhardy sea dogs hadn't noticed, there is a distinctly pirate-esqe twang in the blog and a peg-leg glide in its stride. Cornwall is pretty much the epicentre of the salty pirate stereotype. Sure things have changed from those times of old, but one could really imagine some of the old dock towns like Lynmouth back in the day. Visions of classic night time scenes, where the cobbled streets are swathed in shades of blue, interspersed with the welcoming glow and warmth of a street light or doorway to a pub filled with grizzled old sailors. I think the Cornish people still hold the pirate dream close, it's one of the few places where "we be" is acceptable English, their flag is basically the English flag crossed with a jolly roger and they've really only just started widely accepting the pound sterling over pieces of eight.

Cornwall is an absolute stunning part of England to say the least. At its edges sit a perplexing contrast of wild, rocky headlands and cliffs pounded by a mercilessly angry sea or stunning beaches lying in a surreal calm. Up above the shore lie verdant rolling moors and forests with ponies and horses running wild like some school girl's childhood fantasy come true. The sky seems more blue here, the green more green, and the gentle forest canopied roads like some car ad, the people so relaxed they grow moss on them.

A belt-busting culinary adventure, it's here that you can get the most decadent scones and clotted cream teas in all of England. Couple this with Cornish pasties the size of a small dog (I highly suggest the Pork & Apple), ye olde crab sandwiches and regret stares back at you in the mirror long after your fair-weather friend "satisfaction" has since deserted you.

On the way to Lands End are many gorgeous sites, you can really get so much out of the endless daylight afforded by the English summer. There are seas side towns crusty with salt air a plenty, water powered trains, giant bio domes (please, no Pauly Shore quotes), miniature donkeys, Shakespeare played on open air theatres overlooking the open sea (as sharks circle below waiting for the actors to exit stage left). There is the car-less town of Clovelly - balanced on a hill of 30 degree angle - where the locals zip to and fro amongst flower pot lined streets on their little tree trunk legs. There is Tavistock, the home of Sir Francis Drake - who finished his game of lawn bowls before routing the Spanish stating "there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards."

Finally, upon reaching Lands End, you are greeted with a foreboding sight. A rolling mist, thick and enveloping. It masks a silent peninsula, where waves have crashed endlessly upon jagged rocks and countless shipwrecks. But then there is a tacky gift shop, cafe and ghost ride that kind of spoil it a bit.

It was here that the voices called, to venture, to seek THE HOLY GRAIL!

Indeed one last side quest was in order, to Tintagel, the legendary birthplace of Arthur, king of the Britons. How did he become King you ask? Well, Monty Python summed it up best ..

King Arthur : "The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am king."
Peasant : "Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you. If I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"

Sadly there is not much left of the castle that once was at Tintagel, in fact there is naught but some stone steps and rocks that ascend precariously up a steep headland. Likewise Merlin's cave is now nothing more than an intertidal death trap for daft tourists and Camelot is but a dated 70's hotel ... and a silly place at that. In general, the town certainly has no shame in making the most of its Arthurian fame, boasting such fine traders as the King Arthur's Arms B&B, Merlin’s Gifts and Confectionery, King Arthur's Bookshop, King Arthur's Bistro and Ye Olde Merlin's Pasties (formerly Merlin's Milkshakes).

Cornish is a language which is on the extremely endangered list, so it's good to finish up with a useful bit of Cornish for you should you find yourself voyaging to this land filled with delicious cheesy comestibles. "Ple'ma keus, mar pleg?" means 'where is the cheese?'. Oh one does like to temporarily live beside the sea side. 

Our Country Reeks of Trees ...

Continuing the northwards trend, the next destination was a mystical and far off land that few Americans even know exists - Canada!

Now, some of you will immediately think "Canada. February. WHY!?". Well what can I say, adversity is no barrier, a bit of rough is good for the soul. A part of me had a hungering for some REAL snow .. not that light smattering of white back in old blighty. To that end, I can guarantee that Canada more than sated the snow appetite. From what I could tell, Canada is actually made entirely of snow and somewhere underneath are houses and people. New York was farewelled from a nice, cosy and warm Amtrak train bound for Montréal. Upon exit from this cocoon of warmth was a welcoming, facial hair destroying -35 degrees and a wind that tore into the soul, leaving naught but hollow, Gortex marshmallows of tourists behind.

After donning half a dozen layers of clothing and rolling out the door like some kind of padded marshmellow, sight seeing is possible. There are two sides to Montréal. Firstly, there is the "Overworld"; this is the part of the city visible from Google maps, incredibly picturesque and boasting an old town that is the closest thing you will ever see to Gotham City. However, it's also sheathed in ice and bitterly cold. One day, a few folk were discussing the merits of hats with ear flaps when the radio played Jeff Wayne's War of the World's soundtrack ... suddenly, the lyrics hit home ..

"So we gotta make a new life. You know where? Underground! You should see it down there - hundreds of miles of drains - sweet and clean now after the rain, dark, quiet, safe. We can build houses and everything, start again from scratch!"

And thus the French-Canadian morlocks built the "Underworld" of Montréal, connecting the entire downtown area with a complex network of tunnels and shopping centres that would be capable withstanding the next ice age if need be. Here the human race could regroup through the coldest winters safe in the knowledge their bunker and excellent health care system would see them through any bitter end .. so long as you could get good reception for the ice hockey.

Despite numb extremeties, the Overworld had to be braved in the best interests of sight seeing. Luckily, Montréal has two epic cathedrals that are really, really impressive. Firstly, the Basilique de Notre Dame is an absolutely astounding cathedral - the outside is somewhat unassuming (as far as cathedrals go) but the inside is truly a stand apart masterpiece of detail. It's probably the most amazing outside of Rome. Secondly, Saint Joseph's Oratory, though fairly modern and simple compared to the previous cathedral, is absolutely HUGE. The main hall is surely something out of Star Wars and in a somewhat macabre act, the heart of the now deceased blessed Brother André (for whom the cathedral is famous) is kept on display in a glass box for all to admire. Creepy, yet awesome to see a real boxed shaped heart. Suddenly a hearty lunch felt appropriate.

Destination: the internationally renowned Lester's Deli. Here one can order a meat sandwich with so much meat that the bread is little more than a garnish. The proprietor takes great pleasure in watching hapless tourists eat it with all the etiquette of cro-magnon man. You can also enjoy a side of the Canadian national dish - Poutin (pronounced Poot-sin). In case you don't know, Poutin is a bowl of chips deep fried to hell in the oldest of old fat that has been reused again and again for days. Once the chips reach a sufficient brown hue they are placed in a bowl, covered in fatty gravy so they become really soggy and then topped with cheese curds. Some might call it "comfort food", I call it "the bowl of endless regret". It's essentially a heart attack on a plate.

The visit coincided with La fête des Neiges de Montréal, which is basically an outdoor winter snow festival where everyone participates in a variety of family sporting events. Who could forget such greats as largely uncoordinated curling, the bizarre tag sled race where only one man is left standing after all others have died of exhaustion, or sliding down a hill on an uncontrollable piece of plastic aptly named "crazy carpet", or perhaps the epic down hill simultaneous snow tube ride where you are destined to fail and sldie down on your ass without a tube, all under the disapproving eye of the local Québécois.

I also have to be honest and say that curling is much more fun to watch on TV then it is to play ... although it pays to keep the volume down if watching a women's curling event in your hotel room as a bunch of women yelling "Hard, hard, HARDER" can cause alarm...

Toronto was the next destination, a pretty cool city and a very multi-cultural one at that with pockets of the world like Chinatown, Little Italy, Little India and Little Greece spread throughout the city. There is also the CN tower you can go up to look down upon the city and it's beautiful traffic jams. It has several unique qualities - it is one of the highest man made structures in the world, it has glass floors on the viewing platform and the elevators for extra vertigo and the security check is some strange amalgam between an x-ray machine and a space age delousing station. It's an experience not to be missed in any case.

Toronto was ultimately little more than a launchpad for a trip through the snow to Niagara Falls. All I can say is wow. The falls are astounding in every way and even more picturesque in the middle of winter partially frozen. It truly was incredible to see and enjoy it in virtual solitude, the polar opposite of summer where this place heaves.

You cannot come to Canada and not be left jaws agape at the sheer number of uses they have found for maple tree sap. Sure there's the syrup we all know and love but you can also get maple sauce, maple candy, maple sugar, maple shampoo, maple soap, maple cookies, maple beer, maple tea, maple cookies ... we even had maple taffee which is basically heated up maple sap poured on snow. You then wrap it around a wooden stick like a chuppa chup and proceed to unwittingly cover your face, hands and hair (and those of anyone who has the misfortune of standing slightly downwind) in an immense and elaborate spider web of sugar strands as you try to eat it. It only gets worse before it gets better but it tastes so good!

So, we bid you farewell from a land where a one dollar coin is called a loonie, a two dollar coin a toonie and looking at a nickel gives you the rare opportunity to see the Queen of England, flip her around and then say "Hey, nice beaver!". That's Canada, eh!

AMERICA! F!$K YEAH! (Part Two : The North)

And thus it came to pass that the adventure should head back northwards, to the colder climbs, forthwith to a place as high as it is wide - New York City. The journey was arduous and riddled with many calories. There were times on the NYC metro that the fake wallet felt more threatened than any gypsy encounter and the cold spires of an unforgiving city loomed overhead whilst navigating suspiciously logical street naming conventions. The big apple begs travelers to take a bite their entire lives, it felt like a big thing to finally be here.

New York is a huge place. There are more people in the greater NYC area than there are in all of Australia. Jeepers. The skyscrapers are immense and the city blocks they line trail into the distance to create streetscapes like no other. People rush to and fro, coffees in hand, amongst a blur of yellow cabs and street vendors selling dubious foodstuffs. Without a doubt there is no other place on Earth like this city.

New York is so big it has it's own micro climate and regardless of what that actually means, I can neatly summarise NYC's weather pattern for you - first, take a hundred or so 4 x 2 lego bricks and stack them up in little towers in a grid like pattern. Now once you have done that, point a desk fan at it and voila, you have a working 3D model of what it is like to be in the middle of NYC. The wind is unearthly and through more investigation (by following a debris trail of lost scarves, hats and gloves) I determined the Empire State Building to be central vortex. The gale was absolutely incredible up there and worth every bad Twister movie joke.

Of a day time NYC is daunting in all it's vertical glory, of a night time it becomes the closest thing Earth has to a man made sun. The amount of electricity flowing through it's veins is mind blowing and the only hope you will have of seeing stars is walking down Broadway or perhaps by looking at your bank account and the unmerciful pounding it takes here at every turn. Times Square, as many of you will attest to, is something else altogether. It has to be one of the only places in the world where you can take night time, outdoor group photos from several metres away without a flash. This city truly never sleeps.

To be honest, it's quite amazing people still live here - considering it has been attacked by aliens so many times, destroyed routinely by "end of the world" disasters and is a regular stomping ground for giant rampaging marshmellow men and angered sea monsters alike. The ability to rebuild and get on with the job is a hallmark of the NYC spirit. Jokes aside of course, the ground zero site is still under reconstruction and is pretty disarming to see. The memorial they have planned for the site looks amazing and it would be great to be able to see it again one day finished.

Lower Manhattan is really cool, it is actually like London - on steroids. There is most certainly an affinity with ornate buildings and greek pillars in and around Wall Street, which has been now Rage Against the Machine free since 1999.

The locality of Tribeca is probably the best spot, it has such a great little quiet inner city vibe to it. The back alleyways are latticed with fire escapes and red brick, shrouded in steam coming from sewer vents making for what we all know to be the iconic NYC street visage. It's also home of the Ghostbusters fire station (they still have the sign on the wall inside next to the trucks!) and might I say the Standard Hotel was well worth sneaking into for a look at their elevator!

Amongst all the hustle and bustle though, there is a green side to New Yo... SQUIRREL!!! ..... rk City. Central Park is a low lying forest surrounded by a concrete cage. Whilst really quite picturesque, it's important to enjoy nature in moderation. You must vacate by 6pm, at which point they lock the gates and anyone in there is pretty much given up for dead.

No visit to NYC is complete without seeing the Central Library. The grand entrance seems to be permanantly covered in scaffolding throughout history and is guarded by the famous lion statues that keep an eternal vigil against buskers. Inside, the hallways are amazing and the reading rooms are epic in every way. Here you can relive classic Ghostbusters scenes... "Back off man, I'm a scientist"

NYC, being a "crossroads of the world", is also a crossroads of culinary delight. There were some staples such as pizza, pretzels, bagels and the highly ambiguous "hot dogs". But there are also fantastic cabaret restaurants, such as the spectatcular Stardust 50's diner featuring singing wait staff! I'll always remember enjoying malted milk shakes while listening to the waitress recite her romantic ballad about her forbidden love with Taylor the latte boy. You see, all these years she had waited, she never thought love could be so caffeinated ...

Now call it good fortune, call it destiny, but this visit coincided with a hot chocolate festival. New York delivered some strong contenders, but Europe is still one up over ol' US of A in the hot choc stakes. That being said though, the variety of all things sweet here is extraordinary including a whole manner of dessert pizzas that would make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles go (more) green with envy. As hard as you try to resist, America is bound to break down your will to eat healthy one way or another.

To wrap up, America is not what you expect it to be and everything you expect it to be. It's big and it's crazy. Sure, many Americans might not seem to care too much for the world outside their borders but when you live in a country as weird, wonderful and spoiled for choice as this I guess it is easy to see why that could happen.

The USA is an amazing place, but remember "Freedom isn't free. It costs folks like you and me. And if you don't give in your buck o'five, who will?"

"Mmmmm buck o'five...."

Rock on USA.

AMERICA! F!$K YEAH! (Part One : The South)

As indicated by the title, the USA adventure is split into more edible chunks - North and South.

Do note that the reason for the blog post split has nothing to do with an American civil war thing (or the "recent unpleasantness" as it is kindly described), it's simply the case that this country generates enough content for two posts at the very least.

Let me start off by saying how non-confrontive and relaxed the border control interrogation is upon entering the USA, where everyone is assumed to be a terrorist or free loader until proven innocent. However, once you pass this and the hand scan / retina scan / controlled substance scan (controlled substances apparently being Vegemite, Cuban cigars and Kinder Suprises) it's smooth sailing into the land of the free. A land dedicated to liberty, equality, justice and the pursuit of happiness. A nation filled with quirks a plenty and countless miracles of deep frying. A place where justice is ruled like a baseball game - three strikes and you're outta there. A country united with Burma and Liberia to the defence of the world against the perils of the metric system.

The first night was spent at a hotel nestled in the most romantic crossroads of the 17th, 26th and 44th West conduits and 31st and 32nd arterial roads outside JFK airport coming to grips with the daunting beast lying ahead whilst trying to work out the filter coffee machine with which Americans have an unbridled fascination. The next day began with some type of dessert for breakfast and a flight south to New Orleans - a city where the sun shines, people are more relaxed, bodies don't stay buried and the water is so soft y'all be washing the shampoo out of your hair 'til the cows come home.

Americans as a whole love to talk yet don't often mince words. It is a land of obvious extremes. In general, EVERYTHING is louder, bigger, higher, longer, wider, faster and generally doesn't get many miles to the gallon. The south is a particularly great example of the latter where it is your god given right to drive an SUV verging on a monster truck - and thanks to the fact Louisiana is the only state to use Napoleonic code as law, the pedestrian does NOT have the right of way here. This essentially means everyone is too scared to walk anywhere, further made feasible as a way of life by their obsession with "drive thru" services. You can get drive thru food of almost any variety, drive thru Daquiris (but you can't drink em in the car, that would be silly!), drive thru cashing in of jewellery and even drive thru ATM's. And yes, believe it or not, the drive thru ATM's actually have braille on the keypads too as blind people "may want to walk through the drive thru to get money out." Do these blind people even know about the Napoleonic street law and the monster trucks?

New Orleans is a fantastic place at it's heart where people party for no apparent reason other than "it's too quiet". There is a huge history of jazz culture and the French Quarter has an incredible old charm to it not becoming of such a big city. It has an amazing atmosphere for a place that is still very much recovering from the ravages of hurricane Katrina and unfortunately now boasts one of the highest crime rates in the country. I guess despite the murder rate, you still feel pretty safe with non other than STEVEN SEAGAL AS A COP ON YOUR BEAT! Even if he is "just a chef"...

The timing of the visit was unfortunately a bit off, the Mardi Gras celebration was set to occurr in the following week, which from my understanding is a sequence of parties interlaced with big parades where you must contend with giant plastic beads and other projectiles constantly being thrown at you from the floats. If you are a woman and you are not rendered unconscious from being smacked in the head by a giant novelty pacifier, it's more or less expected that you show of your "assets" in return as thanks for your near death experience. There is also a quirky tradition of eating King Cakes, which are basically cakes that contain a little plastic baby inside them. If you choke on the plastic toy, and you survive, you are punished by having to bake the next cake. It's like a playing a game of Russian roulette while enjoying a nice cake at the same time.

Despite missing Mardi Gras, another big event was on never-the-less: the New Orleans Saints NFC final vs the Minnesota Vikings. Like many without tickets, our group of friends instead joined in the phenomenom that is "tail gating". Basically, everyone who couldn't get a ticket drives to the stadium anyway and parks beside it and watches the game on a TV in the carpark. You'd of course be naive to think that it would be a small TV on the back of a car. This is AMERICA! We saw camper vans that convert into outdoor electronic, supersonic, non-ergonomic home entertainment centres that put Transformers to shame. The Saints won the match by a field goal in extra time and to say the city partied a little harder than usual is an understatement. The city boulevards became a seething mass of people yelling "WHO DAT!", bands playing street jazz, "pimped up" yellow school buses and a cacophony of car horns rivalling a south east Asian city during peak hour. The Saints then went on to make history and win their very first Superbowl the next week. You could put it down to their skill and hard training, but I prefer to think that random Aussie blow ins bring good luck to any team they choose to root for.

It wasn't all party time of course. There was time out to go visit a swamp and see resident gators. Unfortunately we had no meat to throw at them to liven the place up but they were pretty cool none-the-less. Later that night, gators appeared again, this time on the menu. While they look cool, they really do just taste like chicken. Gators included, New Orleans is a total and utter gastronomic heaven. The jambalaya, the gumbo, the spicy crawfish, the fried shrimp and the beer join forces with a range of Tabasco sauces (that only being home to the Tabasco island can provide) to make anyone's mouth water.

Before this post is wrapped up, here's some USA tidbits ...

- Walmarts are HUGE. I think it possible that tourists could get lost and die in a Walmart due to inadequate preparation.

- Home maintenance becomes easier the closer you get to the Mexican border. Basically you buy your wood, buy your nails, buy your hammer ... and then as you are driving out of the parking lot you stop by the big group of illegal Mexican immigrants that loiter there and take one or two to do the work for you for only a few bucks! ¡Grande!

- The world's longest bridge is very long. It feels even longer in the middle of the night, surrounded by fog, lightning and thunder with nothing but radio Tornado warnings to pass the time.

- If you intend to visit the states any time soon, remember to bring along a massive wad of one dollar bills. Tipping is most certainly NOT a city in China to these folk and you'll be handing those bad boys out left right and centre.

- Only in the USA can strip clubs advertise by naked girls dancing around a pole in the back of a moving truck with glass walls. So much class.

- Medicine ads here are awesome. Essentially they run for at least 45 seconds to a minute, where the first 15 seconds describes the product and the rest is a chilling tale of the side effects, nicely coupled with scenes of people laughing at a picnic, throwing frisbees or other happy B-roll momemts.

- A small drink in the USA is what we call a big drink everywhere else ... and the 711 "big gulp" is really what we call a small bucket everywhere else.

- The USA has some of the best damned steaks in the world, which they promptly ruin by burning the living crap out of.

- Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are awesome! Peanut butter jelly time! Peanut butter jelly time!

- Twinkies are not awesome. Given their list of ingredients, they should not be classed as food period. So if you know someone wanting to try one, PLEASE GOD STOP THEM. Tell them about the twinky ...