Hey y'all,
I'm starting to get requests for more travel details so that usually means its been a while and time to churn out another edition of the Roni Chronicles...where to start...
I arrived in the States a couple of months ago (wow, it's been that long!) to my fabulous aunt and uncle in Brownsburg, Indiana. I had a great time catching up on sleep, having hot showers, and getting used to the cold again (although I kept getting told that it wasn't cold, to me, it most definitely was!). Arriving in America was a opportunity to completely restock my toilet bag with new lotions and potions with labels in English so I could actually know what I was using rather than pretending all this time. It was also a time for reacquainting myself with american menus. My poor Aunt Val and Uncle John spent many hours sitting at retaurant tables, patiently waiting for me to read through what seemed like endless pages of options, repeatedly telling the poor waitress that we needed 'just one more minute', to eventually come to the decision on what to have for lunch, and then again at dinner, and occasionally at breakfast too...there were just too many options and not seeing tortillas on the menu completely threw me, I had no idea what to order if it didn't come with a tortilla! But eventually we made it through the readjustment period, and although I still get laughed at for eating with a knife and fork, rather than just a fork, meal times are now somewhat less of a mission for us to get through.
Within a week of arriving in America, I had already stepped foot back into a hospital, itching for work that I was, Aunt Val organised for me to job-shadow in the ED of her hospital for a day. Well, that was some experience. It was great being back in the hospital environment, made me realise even more how much I was looking forward to getting back to work, although I really can't wait to get back to my babies rather than the older people in ED, they just didn't respond as well to me blowing bubbles for them! But it was a good introduction to the america health system, the user-pays deal, not my scene, but when you don't know any different then you don't realise how wrong it feels for those of us that do! It definitely had its pros - the technology was fantastic, a computer in every assessment cubicle, a computer for every nurse in the nurses station, everything electronic, and it even comes with its own scanning machine like a supermarket checkout! "Would you like a bag of saline with your order of penicillin today? Beep!". A well-oiled machine...the down-side being the little old ladies, blue in the face and unable to breathe properly that were having to 'sign their life away' as such for insurance purposes before they were even assessed, not so much fun really. But it was a good day, a great experience and a bit of an eye opener...
The next day, I saw in 25 years on the planet, it was a quiet day, no raucous parties, instead lunch out with friends, an afternoon spent holed up in a bead store picking out all new delights, and then dinner out at a Texas Steakhouse where I was completely humiliated to my Uncle's delight by being made to sit on a saddle-chair thing and having it announced to the whole restaurant it was my birthday and then getting "Yea-haa'd!"...so embarassing but all in good fun of course! That weekend, Aunt Valarie and I were off to do the Race for the Cure in downtown Indianapolis, a fundraising walk/run for breast cancer. It was great, thousands of people showed up, survivors, family, friends and everyone inbetween and all pacing out the course around Indianapolis to raise funds. The Zoo even got behind it by having one of their elephants out displaying a huge pink ribbon banner over her as we walked past. And that night we hopped a plane to Orlando, Florida for a few days of rest and relaxation in the Florida sun. I was well-ready to warm up by then and soaking up those warm rays was my number one priority for four days straight. Inbetween times we took in the Great American Pie Festival - although we skipped the All-you-can-eat pie buffet, a couple of nights wandering Downtown Disney, dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (I still love the fact that it rains inside!), and negotiating the huge 25-theatre movie complex and the Mega-Virgin record store. It was a great few days.
In the weeks after that, between organising a job in Canada and trying desperately to sort out my Canadian work permit, I managed to buy myself a new camera so I can now continue to record my journey, organise and upload the photos that I do still have from my travels and write a few emails and make a few phone calls to long lost friends! Its amazing how much organising there is to do when you've been 'in transit' for so long! I also managed to go to the races a few times, my friend Dean has long bred race horses and has been saying for years that he'd take me, so the opportunity arose and off we went to the races and his little beauty Easy-Dashing Gal took out the race, hooray! My winnings of $31.40 was the most I've ever won and probably ever will win, but all from a $2 bet! And I got a photo in the Winner's Circle! Of course the next time she was racing, I had to go again, for moral support of course ;) and she did us proud and won again, hooray! Another photo in the Winner's Circle and a trip back to the stables to congratulate the girl herself, and I have, according to Dean, officially become the good luck charm, a title that comes with a bit of pressure, but I'm willing to bear it of course (thanks Dean!).
The next day it was off to King's Island amusement park in Ohio with my new cousin Matt where we spent an entire day getting thrown around on rollercoaster after rollercoaster, each one faster and scarier than the next, and each line longer and hotter than the next, until we completed our day with a ride on the longest wooden rollercoaster in the world, The Beast. It really was a beast, it was, I think, 4 minutes in duration and fast and scary and very very cool. Our headaches (read brain damage) at the end of the day proved just how cool the rollercoasters were, although I think that I've had my fill for at least the next year!
Only a couple of days after that, I hit the road again, heading for Washington D.C.. I bought my ticket for the Greyhound bus, 'the only way to see America', and thinking that I'd experienced some pretty rough bus trips in the last 15 months, really, how bad could 16 hours on a Greyhound be? Well, I now understand all the laughing at my expense that coincided with that. The Greyhound bus was, hands down, the worst bus ride I have ever had in my life. I was harassed by hideous men from the second I stepped on board til the moment I got off in Washington \nD.C., I got no sleep all night after waking to find someone's hand in my lap(!), and so as you can imagine the trip crawled by. Thankfully I arrived in Washington eventually at 6am and I have never been more grateful to get off a bus in my life! I spent 4 days in Washington seeing all the sights, the monuments dedicated to all the past presidents and the fabulous Smithsonian museums - Museum of Natural History, Memorial Museum of the Holocaust, and the Museum of the Native Americans. I loved Washington, it was so clean and spacious and not at all the grey concrete office-type city that I had imagined, with trees and parks everywhere, and a great coffee shop on every corner! From Washington, I caught an express chinatown bus (never again the Greyhound!) to New York City where I spent a week living the city life. It is such a crazy city, it was everything I imagined it to be really, but better I think. It wasn't as dirty as I had imagined (although it was no Washington), and it was easy to get around and I always felt safe there. I saw all the usual sights - the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Times Square and of course Ground Zero at the World Trade Centre site which is now a huge construction zone for the Freedom Tower. I was lucky enough to be staying right on the edge of Central Park so enjoyed the greenery there, although I did go to relax in the park over the weekend and was scared away by the THOUSANDS of people there on the grass, we're talking not even 30cm between each different group of people, agh! Not nice. I trawled through the Guggenheim and Met museums on cheap night, and had to go to the Natural History museum just to compare it to the movie of course (Night at the Museum, very funny!). So I had a great few days seeing New York before meeting up with a friend Alex from home that I hadn't seen in years we worked out later. We caught up in Times Square, saw the new Shrek 3 - anyone that hasn't seen it yet has got to, its fabulous! We had a fabulous time enjoying Times Square at night, the lights are just overwhelming, so bright that I was actually wondering why the sun hadn't set yet at 11pm but when I looked up it was just the power of the billboards all lit up, crazy! The very next day my friend Lisette from nursing arrived in New York and we had a great couple of days together, wandering all the villages of New York - Little Italy, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Soho, and then treating ourselves to two(I know!) Broadway shows over two nights. We were in heaven. Lisette's last night in the city we celebrated with New York cheesecake after the show, and the next morning was a wander through Central Park again to the Central Park Zoo where if you have seen Madagascar, you, like myself, will be disappointed to hear that Marty, Alex, Gloria and Melman are not actually residents of the Zoo! No, there are no lions, hippos, giraffes or zebras at the Central Park Zoo. There are however, lots of cute penguins, some sealions and 2 poor bored polar bears. It was a sad farewell to Lisette after that as she carried on her way to camp for the summer, and I headed downtown on my last afternoon to check out the New York Stock Exchange. Now, naive as I am, I thought I could go in and check it out in person...well no, after 9/11 everything has changed and visitors are no longer allowed in to see so it was a little disappointing but I got the photo of the front just like everyone else, and I can at least say that I saw the building...hmph...I did see the Trinity Church which is close to Ground Zero but somehow managed to stay completely untouched in 9/11, talk about saving grace... So that was really it for my time in New York. The next morning I caught another Chinatown bus to Boston but by the time I got to Boston I was sick as a dog with a flu that had been trying to get me down in New York for a couple of days but only succeeded on the bus to Boston. I was in Boston for only 3 days and truthfully didn't really see a lot of the city coz I was just too sick. I found the original Cheers bar, walked part of the historic Freedom Trail and then did a city Trolley tour which takes you around all the important sights - slack I know but it was the only way I was going to see anything in the state I was in! The next day I found the beach right at the end of the subway line, and, still feeling miserable, dipped my toes into the icy Atlantic ocean, and then lay on the sand and tried to absorb a few sun rays. After only a few hours I headed back to the hostel for an early night and then the next day flew back to Indy.
Now I'm back in Indy, again working on my Canadian work permit, and planning a trip for next week up to Chicago for my immigration medical - fun, fun, fun! There are more adventures in the works but you'll have to hear about them all in the next installment. Til then, take care, feel free to check out all my photos I've finally uploaded at www.flickr.com/photos/ronimcgill - you can see all the different sets on the side and just click on them to open, everything from NZ onwards is up there! Enjoy!
Ronald McDonald
