Great Adventures of a Green Goddess

Just a lil bit country

I must admit to wondering what kind of place I’d ended up in the day I went to the local Farmer's Market and saw not one but two separate people playing the accordion (no other instruments were seen being played). Had I randomly and accidentally entered The Polka Zone???

 

Although admittedly this was a one off and mostly my experience despite being in the northern Midwestern state of Wisconsin was of country music. I had always thought of this as more of a southern states thing. As the south is Dixie because it is below the Mason Dixon line (that bit that separates us from the bible belt) and I like The Dixie Chicks.

Rosie had her car radio set to play country music. So every time we were cruising around it was to songs by Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw and the like.

I ended up downloading some of their music and now every time I listen to it I am reminded of hanging out in America with Rosie.

I have great memories, like the time when diving around we’d often passed the same barn. I told Rosie we should give it a name and she came up with the perfect name: Barney!

 

She also liked blue collar comedians like Bill Engvall and the ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. My favourite character was José the Jalapeno on a Stick but Achmed the Dead Terrorist is pretty funny too.

What I do know is that I like it when Rosie gets drunk (she likes to get drunk and cook days) with her favourite alcohol named Captain which she says tastes like cake. She will talk southern and make me happy by quoting trash talkin turleen. 

 

 

 

But my real country experience was when we went up nort as they call it. I wondered if it was like down south but without the banjos...

I must admit that I’ve never seen Deliverance and I probably should have to complete my education in the way of the American wilderness dweller.

 

Before we left for some northern exposure I took the dog for a walk. She dragged me around the house and jumped in the car. She did not want to be left behind! She didn’t have to worry, she was coming with us.

 

I really liked this husky, as I would call her a hairball with a bark. Seriously when brushing her we would stop when she got sick of it, not when she ran out of hair. She would sing along to squeaky deaky and when she got it in to her head that I was taking her out she would follow me around until I walked her.

There was a crime when in a doggy ducknapping she came into my room and took Devil Duckie but we rescued my travel mascot before any harm was done.

 

The wolf (she looks like a wolf but she’s really a dork) had a fish toy and she would shake it so much it fell apart.

I sewed it up for her one day and she carefully watched me performing the operation wanting her fishy back.

My other crafting in the country was making an iPod cover for Rosie. I love the eco felt and the craft stores in America have a fine selection.

Rosie requested a super Mario cover as she has a Nintendo NES she likes to play.

We went with a controller on one side and a fire flower on the other.

 

 

Anyway back to the backwoods.

We set off me, Rosie, her 9yr old niece (let’s call her Daisy) and the dog.

We passed Port Washington and I was all hey that’s the place from Step by Step, because I am cool enough to remember lame 90’s sitcoms.

For lunch we stopped in Green Bay, I didn’t see much of it but I know that the football team is called the Packers and they wanted to bus kids from there to Rome Wisconsin in an episode of Picket Fences which was a good 90’s American show. I love how America is full of places from the TV shows of my youth.

 

Our final destination was a place called Sturgeon Bay in the weirdly named Door County. It is the bit of Wisconsin that sticks out into the lake so maybe it should be Thumb County? Although I think Michigan has claimed looking like a mitten status. Seriously, I didn’t make this up!

 

Rosie’s family’s shack is apparently worth 5 thousand dollars and the lake front land half a million!

After settling in we went for a walk along the pier which is concrete and by a lighthouse and canal.

We looked at the lake. It was rather cold that day and there were big waves. The lake is huge! I couldn’t see the other side. I guess they don’t call it a great lake for nothing.

 

With the weather cold and it getting dark we went back to the cabin and got a fire going.

We played games Monopoly, Game of Life, Skip Do and Clue then watched a DVD (Despicable Me).

For dinner I ate veggie burgers. Rosie and Daisy ate meaty stuff and then made the American camping classic known as s’mores. Daisy managed to burn her finger on the melted marshmallow that is put with chocolate between a couple of crackers.

 

When it was beddy byes time, I slept on a pull out sofa bed beside the fire.

During the night it got very hot from the fire so I opened the door to let in some cool air. Then the fire went out and I had to get up to close the door as the temperature inside dropped during the early hours.

 

We were only spending a single night so after breakfast we cleaned up the place and headed back.

We stopped for lunch in a place called Sheboygan. It’s just fun to say! Oh and it apparently has a spaceport, strange but true fact I looked up online just now.

 

I didn’t manage to make it to The American Club in Kohler which is somewhere nearby. Yes Kohler as in the bathroom fixtures. That’s where the factory is and the hotel which is listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die and apparently has really nice bathrooms.

Shame we didn’t have the masses of cash needed to stay there.

 

And that concludes my account of my short venture into the backwoods of Wisconsin. It was a pleasant experience and I have not and don’t expect to suffer any future nightmares from it (I read the Deliverance wiki...)

 

Lastly I just want to add that my only other country thing was done safely back at Rosie’s house and was online.

It was hunting which is a very redneck thing to do, but being a vegan I found the perfect game Tofu Hunter.

I love killing wild tofu with high powered weapons, especially the trophy bucks!

Americana

So there I was in the mighty country known as the United States of America.

Yes the homeland of the seppo’s was being infiltrated by an undercover Kiwi.

I was in the great state of Wisconsin, what better place for a vegan than Americans dairyland? (Although I would have loved to find a magnet that said Wisconsin, come smell our dairy air).

I was near Milwaukee a place where the buses go to Lovers Lane (for group trips?) and the stadium collapsed during construction.

The city is where the TV show Happy Days was set and where Jeffery Dahmer did his serial killing (Rosie’s mom used to work in a building right by where his apartment was and showed me the spot).

The state is also where the onion began I was interested to see that you could get it in newspaper form there.

 

I was actually really into the whole small town Americana thing and I did my best to fit in.

During my first days as a Wild Kiwi in small town America I discovered that everyone loved my accent and I spotted a squirrel, two chipmunks and a crazy drunk neighbour in their natural habitat.

 

The area I was staying in despite technically being a city was so rural and surround by trees that there were deer that would just roam the streets and backyards. I would look around and be like this doesn’t look like a city, too much nature and not enough buildings.

The downside to this was that everything was spread out and I realised that it was true that America really is a country for cars. As I don’t drive and the public transport system was pretty lame I was kind of trapped at my friend’s house.

 

But it was nice there. I would walk her dog around the neighbourhood and marvel at how with the number of American flags of display there were surely more flags than people!

If I had to describe small town America by two items it would be flags and water towers.

 

I taped three shows on the DVR, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

It was cool as they were actually relevant. I mean the last two!

And oh I did laugh the day that Rosie’s mom called the tea party a bunch of tea baggers and Rosie had to explain to her exactly what tea bagging involves.

 

To really get into the American way of life I started couponing. I would cut out coupons from the Sunday papers and the good thing about being in America is the all the online stuff about coupons is actually relevant.

One of the tofu companies had a giveaway where if you sent in barcodes you could get shorts with extra firm written on the ass. It was suggested that if I wore them it would be false advertising. The cheek!

But back to me being the coupon queen, I was totally winning at extreme couponing. I shopped on double double daze coupon day at the grocery store. I even managed to get free products and I felt so American.

But deep down I tried not to dwell on thoughts about how I was probably better off in a country that was just cheaper without having to use coupons.

 

 

Religion is big in America and I was there for the (not) rapture.

We had a little yay The Rapture didn't get me celebration with Vegan nachos, virgin coladas and plans that didn’t quite happen to make some cookies as we all know that they are required for being on the dark side.

 

On the subject of food and especially close encounters of the vegan kind I have to say that America is pretty damn awesome.

They have a truly impressive selection of vegan products.

The vegan ice cream selection alone is almost enough to make me move there permanently.

Seriously they have alternatives made of rice, soy, almond or coconut milk and there are fancy flavours like cookie dough and chocolate fudge brownie. 

 

I made a vegan raspberry cheesecake (which Rosie renamed it 'soy cake'). I also made a tofu chocolate silk pie that was well received.

I tried a different state of vegan food with Hawaiian hotdogs. They are hotdogs in a bun with baked beans, bbq sauce and pineapple on top. Delicious.

The meltable joy of Daiya cheese is excellent and I drool remembering the twice baked stuffed jacket potatoes I created.

 

 

I was also there for the fourth of July (hey if I am going to fly for 14.5hrs to the other side of the world I’m going to stick around for awhile) and we went to watch the local Independence Day parade.

The parade was not unexpectedly very red white and blue small town America.

 Filled with local people on floats and walking the parade route. The funniest float was guys in huge top hats with faces on their bare bellies. There were also a lot of classic cars, marching bands and dogs in costumes.

 

It was a very hot day so I was glad that not only did they throw candy but also frozen ice sticks, I managed to get a big stash of these frozen ice lollies and used them to cool off. Every so often pulling a fresh one out from under our blanket and holding it against my neck.

 

Although instead of the free ice sticks I must admit I was more enamoured with the idea of eating a rocket pop.

They just seemed very American to me with their red white and blue colours.

But I discovered that I am retarded or they are more dangerous that bomb shaped coloured frozen ice would appear. Because alas as I ate one it the ice stuck to my lip and I had to squirt water from my water bottle to try and free myself.

In the end I declared them to be painful but tasty.

I didn’t know I was pregnant

At Chuck’s place I watched his cable TV.  His favourite channel was unsurprisingly Playboy. But I thought it was lame as they would pixelate the good bits. Really if you are going to show porn then show it all or don’t bother. Those that are against porn aren’t going to be satisfied with just blurring the genitalia and those that are for it will just be annoyed that they can’t see it all like they can on the internet.

 

Personally I preferred the Discovery Home and Health channel and I got quite into watching the show I didn’t know I was pregnant. Yep stories of women who didn’t know they had a little human parasite inhabiting their womb until it was emerging with a ‘surprise moron you’re a mommy!’ (Oh yes this show is very American).

 

In every episode the announcer always says something like ‘Cluelissa has just given birth vaginally to a baby boy’. It’s like dude we saw the re-enactment. It is obvious this fuck trophy came out her twat and didn’t burst forth from her abdomen like the bloody alien. She didn’t grab a scalpel and perform her own slash and grab now did she?

 

Quite a few of these surprise babies are born on toilets.

I guess giving birth really is like having the world’s biggest shit! The description I’ve heard of being like shitting a pumpkin must be pretty accurate.  

One woman even said that the splash was too big for what she thought it was... looked down and there was a baby!

 

Which leads to the thought of how are these poor kids that got their first swirly on their birthday gonna feel when they hit their teens and the other kids at school catch a rerun? 

Imagine the shame of your first swim being in a toilet bowl being broadcast for the entire world to see.

I wonder if they can sue the show for emotional damage (this is American after all) when the inevitable teasing and nasty nicknames start.

 

Ok so back to these unidentified pregnancies. I can understand it a little more if a woman has been told that she is infertile and can never conceive. But if not and you are having unprotected sex, start gaining weight and puking every morning. Yeah you might just want to consider the fact that you could be pregnant Ms Majorly Oblivious.

 

The freakiest are the stories where the women took a pregnancy test but it came back negative. One woman even took two and one of which was a blood test done at the hospital. Now that can make you paranoid!

Or the women who have twins. Seriously two babies and not one clue???

 

What also surprises me is that for a number of the women it wasn’t even their first pregnancy. Shouldn’t they know what they are feeling? It seems inconceivable (ha) that they didn’t recognise any pregnancy symptoms or that the pain they are feeling at the end is actually from being in labour.

They all say it was the worst pain they had ever felt and one woman who had previously bred, said it was worse than labour (before she realised that it was in fact the birth of another crotch dropping). Is this the lack of drugs? Or just the world’s way of balancing out the joys of a symptom free pregnancy?

 

It is amazing how many w0men have some symptoms that they self diagnose as something else and then put off going to the doctor. I assume this is because of the stupid expensiveness of the American healthcare system, where woman who don’t have health insurance can’t afford to seek medical attention.

But really, isn’t it far more likely that you have a stealth fetus than a tumour? And if you think you have a tumour you should really think of going to a doctor and getting it looked at. Don’t just shrug and say well at least I don’t have to raise a tumour for 18years...

 

On the show the actresses in the re-enactments often don’t look much like the real people. But I know it probably isn’t that easy to find a dumbass doppelganger. My main gripe is that I don’t think they give an accurate portrayal of the weight of the woman when she gave birth. This is important when we want to be all judgey on if she should have guessed she had a stowaway on board on not.

 

Oh and the newborns are huge. Apparently they all give birth to 3 month olds.

Yeah I know there are child labour laws for babies working on TV and all. But please no one could hide a rug rat that huge. Don’t they have realistic dolls these days? Hey and a doll would explain why the mother felt no fetal movement during the pregnancy...

 

On every show they all worry about not having prenatal care, I don’t think it is that big of a deal. Millions of women have had babies before the modern obsession with prenatal care.

The babies are always fine but I guess they won’t show the ones that aren’t...

 

Finally I don’t understand Why these women want to go on TV and let the world know how stupidly oblivious they were?

But I am so glad they do since it is fun (especially with friends) to watch the show and snark along.

 

The trouble with my travelling life is that I don’t have regular access to television and annoyingly this show doesn’t seem to have full episodes online.

During my search I did find a funny spoof on YouTube.

And this great photoshop on flickr.

 

Well now I must go double up on my birth control and buy a home ultrasound machine…

A small stay in the Jumbo Hostel

I had flown from Tina’s town as it got me directly to Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.

I was spending the night here in an airliner. Yeah not my first time but instead of roughing it in a DC10 engine this time I was living it up in the luxury of a Jumbo Jet converted into a hostel.  

 

The Boeing 747-200 aircraft was bought and converted into the hostel by a guy named Oscar Dios and named Liv after his daughter.

 

The plane was named Clipper Belle of the Sky when she was owned by Pam American Airways and this not so little lady got around in her time.

She was originally built in the seventies for Singapore Airlines and when she got a bit old to be a Singapore girl she moved on to Pan Am.

When that airline went belly up she headed up to Canada to fly for Nationalair and Air Club International.

After a couple of years there she took off back down to New York City and Tower Air.

 

Finally as a geriatric jet she ended up in Sweden with Transjet Airways. They lost their operating certificate so this Belle wasn’t going to any more mile high balls.

Sadly being past her prime and ready for retirement this old bird was grounded and labelled as too expensive to be made airworthy again.

Thus she was ready to be remade into a palatial plane inviting travellers to fly right inn (They took away her engines so there is no chance of her escaping).

 

There is a free bus from the terminal to the hostel.

You don’t have to stay the night but can just make a quick flying visit if you prefer.

Visitors can walk around the outside of the jet (the tail swing is fun).

Inside the nose of the aircraft is a small cafe area where airline style meals can be purchased. These are served by the nice staff wearing retro looking flight attendant uniforms.

Also in this area there is a nice model of the plane to be admired.

For those who want a little jumbo stay keepsake there are souvenirs for sale.

 

A little further back there was a door through which only residents could pass. I was happy that I was allowed past this gateway and could head back down the aisle to my room.

 

All the room numbers were painted on the doors in the Boeing typeface and all started with 7 just like the Boeing aircraft designation numbers.

The hostel has 25 rooms and there are a total of 85 beds.

The rooms have different configurations, private rooms for one to three guests and four bed dorm rooms. These all share bathrooms located to the front and rear of the aircraft.

 

The upper deck is a luxury suite with the best room number, 747 of course. The cockpit is a bedroom with private ensuite bathroom and there is also an upper deck lounge complete with first class seats.

 

As no one was staying in the cockpit luxury suite at the time I was able to go up the spiral staircase to have a look. Peering over the bed and out the cockpit windows all I could think was ‘wow it is really high up here!’

A little later using the hostel’s free wifi I said to my 747 flying friend how weird it must be to land. He said that you get used to it.

 

When I went exploring outside I read all the signs at various spots around the aircraft with information about 747’s, took photos and swung on the tyre swing under the empennage.

 

Oh it made my geeky little heart happy to be staying in the Jumbo Hostel!

To misquote Cat Steven’s 'Well I think its fine, sleeping in jumbo planes'.

I had first read about the jumbo stay hotel online and thought wow that is so cool, I so want to stay there one day. Subsequently when the Scandinavian idea took off it became added to my list of must do’s.

 

My Boeing bedroom was one of the dorms with four beds. The bunks had plenty of legroom. I got a bottom one and really who apart from the crew ever gets to sleep in a bunk bed on a Boeing? (Ok so they get extra points since theirs is going). I know that on some 747-400’s the crew rest area is up some stairs in the tail section. The back of this bird just had the bathrooms.

 

I do wonder I anything is going to be happening with Liv’s cargo compartment.

I didn’t see any access to it while I was there but I know that some aircraft types have lifts down to galley in the belly of jet. Although I did hear of it being fatal once, so stairs would be a much better idea. It would be cool to have a self service kitchen and laundry for the hostel down there. Or maybe a games room.

 

It would also be cool if they put up barriers on the wing so you can’t fall off (it’s a long way down) and then using one of the emergency over wing exits for access you could go for a walk on the wing.

If skin damage is what you are into, you could sunbathe there without the risk of being swept away in the slipstream.

 

To balance this report, there were a couple of negative points.

I don’t mean to whine like a jet engine but it was a pain that I had to take off my shoes at the entrance door.

 

Also annoying was that the rooms had the system where you had to put in the room key card to make the power run.

This sucked as the rooms had a TV but if for example you took out the card to leave the room for a quick trip to the bathroom during an ad break, it turned everything off. On your return you then had to turn switch on the TV again and by the time you found your channel you had missed some of the show.

 

I fixed this by cutting a rectangle out of a cardboard box and shoving that in. Worked like a charm although the TV did get its revenge by suddenly turning itself on and beeping in the middle of the night.

 

But all was forgiven as I took a shower onboard while thinking ‘Where else am I going to get the chance to shower on a plane?’ Well until the day I can afford to travel first class on the Airbus A380 and then I can wash while airborne.

 

Jumbo stay is a really nice hostel, certainly at the luxury end of the hostel scale. It is a little more to stay in as I paid 400SEK and a 4 bed dorm in a city hostel goes for around 300SEK per night. But really it is still in line with Swedish accommodation prices making it a relatively inexpensive place to stay and you can’t get any closer and or more convenient a location to Arlanda Airport.

Or if you have some spare time at the airport, just head over for little stopover at this unique and fun place.

The Medical Guinea Pig Travel Guide (or how I got a free trip to Mexico)

The good thing about having a job where one gets paid to do nothing is that there is lots of spare time to spend down in the dark depths of the internet.

As mentioned in my last post I began reading online version of The Daily Mail newspaper. One day they had a story about a drug company offering free trips to Mexico for participants in their clinical trial.

While the other readers were busy writing comments on how they wouldn’t do it. I was like ‘Wow sign me up!’

So I went and found the website and applied.

 

I just had to answer a few questions, they called me up and we went over the questions and then an appointment was made in Reading.

I only lied on one question and by the time I took part in the trial it was no longer a lie. The question was if you had gotten travellers diarrhea in the last year (the trial was a test for a vaccine for it) and when I answered the question it had been less than a year but by the time I was on my way to Mexico it had been a full year of healthiness for me.

 

At the first appointment they went over the paperwork, made me take a pregnancy test, took my blood and a photo of the vaccination site (upper arm area). Then the vaccine or placebo patch was stuck on.

 

I went to meet friends that evening in Hyde Park. The patch had to be taken off after six hours and I was obsessing about doing it exactly on time. The problem was that the public loos were locked at the same time it was due to be taken off. So I ended up doing it a couple of minutes early but I could then rinse the site with warm water as directed.

 

Two weeks later I went back to the clinic for the same routine (minus the blood sample) and a patch was applied to my other arm.

This time I went to Cornwall straight afterwards and ended up taking off the patch on a train platform there and rinsing with a splash from my water bottle.

Within a month I had to be in Mexico.

 

The travel agency they used was pretty useless. They ignored me and then when they did get around to planning my travel they were like ‘oh the airfares have increased so we can only pay for 5 days’ (I had to be in the country for a week). Luckily my dates were flexible so I went a few days later and got my full week paid for.

 

I got my whole trip paid for upfront. There was another option to plan your own travel and be reimbursed periodically during the trial. But since I didn’t know where I would be for the six month follow up appointment (when the largest payment was made) it seemed easier to do it that way. So they paid for my airfare, hotel and I was sent a corporate pay MasterCard that was loaded over time until it had a total of £100 on it.

 

So on the day of departure I had to get up at 4am (I did get a little sleep despite my flatmate’s bad attempt to keep me up all night by hiding my bag) to catch a night bus to Heathrow.

At the airport I broke the self check in machine (it had like a red triangle and did nothing, at least it didn’t self destruct) and thus had to slink back into the long slow regular check in line.

 

The flight was on American Airlines and my boarding pass was given to me in a paper holder that had printed on it ‘we know why you fly AA’. I wondered if why was because I am a masochist as before I left I read a review of the airline that compared it to Aeroflot, it was actually quite amusing:

“It was like something out of a Kafka novel - I was obviously being punished but didn't know why. The service on board was non-existent as the flight attendants apparently didn't know there were passengers on the plane. The seating was straight out of a Roman galley ship - the worst I'd been subjected to in 35 years of flying. I sent American an email expressing my displeasure at being jammed into a plane like cord wood for nine hours and, of course, I received no reply”

 

The flight actually wasn’t that bad, although I wasn’t impressed with the inflight entertainment system. I am used to the ones where you pick what you want to watch and it plays. On AA you pick what you want and then have to wait for the screening time!

 

The flight arrived in Chicago O’Hare late, took ages to taxi in and I was sitting in the back section of the Boeing 777 so was one of the last off.

I stood in the very long and very slow line at ORD for so long I think I met the residency requirement as I was eventually directed to use the American citizen line.

 

It was my first time doing carry on only and as I walked past customs they were like where are your bags? I just spun around to show them the laptop backpack I was wearing (I didn’t take my laptop, just stuffed everything in this bag as it was all I had that was the right size).

 

Rosie from the Morocco ferry, who is now back in the states, came to meet me and hang out but I hardly got to see her. I was supposed to have four hours between flights but I was so late that I pretty much had to go straight to my next flight. Poor Rosie told me that my flight had disappeared from the arrivals screen and she didn’t know where the fuck I was. But it was so nice to see her again.

We did go outside the terminal so that I could claim that I had been to Chicago.

 

The silliest thing was that with all the walking I did: from the gate to immigration, past customs, to check in for my next flight and then thru security to the gate etc... My next flight left from the gate right next to the one my first flight arrived at!

 

On the Mexicana flight I didn’t understand the flight attendant. I was trying to explain I had a special meal. Turns out she was asking me what I wanted to drink (well she did get me the meal after that so some success).

As we flew over Mexico City I was wowed by how huge and spread out the city is.

 

Arrived and was met by a drug test company concierge, well when he finally showed up. He then stuck me in a car with a nice driver and I was taken to the hotel.

I had my own room, ah I could get used to this four star hotel kind of travel. Too bad I only have a hostel budget on my own dime.

I liked that the bathroom was sterilised for my protection, the toilet paper was folded into a fancy fan shape and that the do not disturb sign said no molestar, yeah as in ‘No don’t molest me!’

 

Most channels on the TV in my room were in Spanish so I took to watching CNN as it was in English. Well until they decided to show a guy eating live baby octopuses. Horrific! Seriously it was the most disturbing thing ever. He just swallowed the first one so they made him eat another and chew it. He kept chewing and chewing and all I could think was how much pain the poor baby must be suffering. I must admit that I am a bit creeped out by octopuses and their suckery tentacles, but I loved Paul the psychic octopus. Since CNN constantly repeat their “news” I couldn’t watch that channel again.

 

I went to bed at 10pm which was 4am London time so it had been a very long day.

The next morning the driver returned to take me to the clinic. I ended up in a car full of Germans (the study participants came from both Germany and the UK).

We were given some gifts: backpack, pen, sunscreen etc plus a sample collection kit (I met another participant at the hotel who said he wanted to get sick and have to submit a stool sample as you got paid £18 and he wanted to be paid for that!). We signed more consent forms and were given a study new diary. In return there were more patch site photos taken and our blood was required.

I hadn’t eaten breakfast so I was worried about fainting. I insisted on having the blood drawn while lying down. I had dreamed about an earthquake the night before so asked if there had been a little one, to distract myself while I was drained (it hurt when they kept pushing the needle in when changing vials). The nurses said there hadn’t been any quakes and I am sure just thought I was rather odd.

 

An appointment was made for the day before I left to take more photos (although I think the cute doctor was a bit shocked when I just took my shirt off as it was easier than rolling up my long sleeves) and I had the rest of the week free to sightsee.

I had chosen Mexico City from the list of places in Mexico and Guatemala as Chuck had recommended it saying that there was plenty there to keep me occupied for a week (we had to stay within three hours of the local clinic). It was one of the few times when Chuck was completely right.

It is not as hot, polluted or dangerous as I thought it would be. Mexico City is an excellent place to visit!

 

I returned to the hotel and a manager was nice enough to help me with my list of veg places I had made and plotted them on a map.

So I headed off to a place nearby Vegetarian Madero.

I got a great vegan set meal of salad, tacos, rice, drink and dessert for 57 pesos.

The place had a piano player and the view over main walk was great for people watching.

And dog watching. I saw a couple of Chihuahua’s with jockeys.

 

The next day after filling my belly at the free hotel breakfast (smuggled out some bread rolls and pineapple jam for lunch too) I caught the metro and then a bus to Teotihuacan.

 

Being the brilliant traveller that I am I somehow managed to walk in the wrong entrance (there were two gates, I had a 50% chance of being right) walked all the way to the area where they checked tickets before I realised this and had to walk all the way back to the other gate to buy one.

While I was there a guy asked me if I was alone. He said he was too and so we teamed up. He was from Brazil and also had the same first name as my Middle Eastern travel buddy known as The Brazilian. So he shall be known as Brazilian2.0.

I suspect that Brazilian2.0 wanted me around so he had someone to take his picture. A lot.

Like the first Brazilian he took many photos. Are Brazilians the new Japanese tourists?

But I liked having him around to hold my hand on the steep steps. I only fell over once and luckily went down backwards on my butt and not forward face first...

 

So Teotihuacan is all kinds of fabulous.

The first thing we did was pick out way over ruins to the biggest monument.  The Sun Pyramid.

We climbed up and the funniest moment was when brazilan2.0 dropped his camera lens cover and it went bouncing down the pyramid. Someone who was climbing up caught it and carried it up to return it to him.

 

We also climbed the Luna Pyramid but it the very top was inaccessible.

The nearby souvenir stalls had the tackiest souvenir I had been keeping an eye out for. It was a t-shirt this time.

 

I really liked the part of the museum that had a model of the whole site on the floor (you walk over transparent bridges) and there is a huge window so you can see the real Sun Pyramid right outside.

 

Met up with brazilian2.0 again the next day and we went to the Templo Mayor ruins. Apparently when the Spanish turned up they were all ‘screw you guys and your precious history let’s build our cathedral on top of it’. So the ruins are under and beside the church. In front of the church there are glass panels so you can look down on some of the ancient ruins.

Also outside that church there are traditional costumed dancers. Being the good tourists that we were we stopped to watch them.

 

We went to the National Palace. The guards checked Brazilan2.0’s passport but not mine so we wondered if women just weren’t important? Inside the National Palace is nice as it is where the walls have murals painted by Diego Rivera.

 

I talked Brazilian2.0 into going to Xochimilco with me and it was my favourite Mexican experience.

Takes awhile to get there, gotta go to the end of a metro line and then catch a tram to the end of its line. But the crowded canals full of boats are so much fun!

 

We went on a Sunday afternoon so it was very busy with lots of local people, boats and music. It’s just like a big fiesta on water.

You rent a boat, Brazilian2.0 just went up to a group of travellers who were also walking to towards the canals and said we wanted to share a boat with them to cut costs and they were like ‘that’s cool’.

The bright boats have a table and chairs inside and are steered by a guy with a pole.

People have picnics on the boats and there are smaller boats that travel the canals selling things: Food, drink, plants, trinkets and mariachi!

 

When I returned to my hotel I met a couple of people in the lift, who were like ‘oh you speak English, are you part of trekstudy?’ they told me there were a group of participants up on the roof. So I went up and was all ‘hey fellow guinea pigs! So who thinks they got the real thing and who thinks they got the placebo?’ We all had a good old chat on the obvious benefits of being medical drug test guinea pigs.

The hotel had a roof top swimming pool and I managed to go for a swim when it started drizzling. It’s kinda funny to be in a pool on a roof in the middle of the city, in the dark and in the rain...

 

I took a day trip to the silver city of Taxco and nearly missed my bus. There were a few doors out of the bus terminal to where the buses were lined up. I showed a worker my ticket and she told me to use gate 4.

So I did and there was a bus with the name of the bus line I had a ticket for. So I lined up with the other people there.

But it turned out that wasn’t my bus, mine was down the end nowhere near gate 4. The driver had shut the door and was about to leave so I just made it on time.

It turned out that I had somehow ended up on a luxury bus. I found out on the return trip that on boarding I was supposed to get a soft drink of my choice and some peanuts. There was lots of leg room, pop down screens showing Spanish movies and even separate toilets for men and women at the back of the bus with signs at the front to show if they were occupied.

So the two and a half hour trip to Taxco was quite nice.

 

Taxco is a hilly colonial town and all buildings must blend in with the historical look. So the petrol station even has old style signs.

It is also cute that all the taxis in Taxco are old white VW beetles. I liked watching them drive around the main square Plaza Borda. This is also the location of the church which I thought was decorated with a lot of gold for a silver city.

 

I bought a very cheap ring with made out of a pretty copper and nickel twist. It turns my finger green when I wear it but it amuses me that I went to a silver city and got a ring that is not silver.

 

While I was looking at the silver jewellery in the Mercado de Artesanías Plata a woman without asking me first, put a necklace on me. As she did it the necklace broke and the beads went bouncing everywhere.

I shook out my shirt but when I got back to the hotel and took off my bra a stealthy self smuggling bead broke out to freedom. It wasn’t fast enough to get away from me and I have kept it as a Mexican memento.

 

Another day back in Mexico City I visited the anthropology museum. It is huge. A central courtyard has an arty umbrella like fountain and a pond full of huge fish and turtles.

Each era of Mexican history has its own wing. I made sure to check out the Mayan, Teotihuacan and Mexica sections which were full of amazing artefacts.

 

I walked back to the hotel stopping at a vegetarian restaurant called Yug on the way. The food was good but the service was so dreadfully slow that I began to wonder if they were growing their own soy beans...

 

The good thing about walking was that I got to admire the street art on the way. There are some very cool and very random things. (I met a guy next to the crocodile who was very interested when he learnt I had come from London. I was like ‘dude I can’t help you get in, they are kicking me out soon...”).

 

But the best way to get around the city is the metro which is awesomely cheap. The outside of the Mexico City metro carriages are painted a bright gaudy orange and interestingly each station has a logo as well as a name. I was amused to see in one carriage that someone had put a Donkey sticker over the horse for Potrero.

 

There are lots of people who walk along the carriages selling stuff. They will even carry a big speaker to play songs from CD’s they are selling.

I saw the most fucked up thing ever while on the metro. A guy got on holding a t-shirt with something inside it. He then proceeded to lay it open on the floor of the metro car and revealed that it contained broken glass.

He then slammed his elbows and knees into this causing them to start bleeding!

Afterwards he gathered up his glass in the t-shirt again, walked down the carriage and people then gave him money. I don’t know if this is considered entertainment or if they were basically bribing him not to do anymore self harm.

 

The metro broke down one day and I ended up walking the rest of the way to my destination (a great vegetarian place called Gold Taco, I recommend it!).

I was advised to catch a bus but they were so crowded that people were hanging out the doorways. Seriously I should have taken a photo as it was so unbelievably dangerous. I didn’t as I was distracted by being just so frustrated and wondering why does such a big city have such little buses?

 

Luckily the metro was working when I used it to get to the airport.

I had an extra bag with the new backpack as well as my original backpack carryon and my day bag as my personal item. But the nice American Airlines check in guy said I could carry it all on and also gave me my boarding pass for my next flight.

 

Mexican security screening is stupid. I went thru security to airside and made myself a nice little breakfast of jam and rolls I had liberated from the hotel. I also bought a bottle of water to go with it.

I liked how an airport shop had a nice pyramid display of water bottles. (Of course I bought my bottle from a nearby store that was cheaper).

 

So we go to board the flight and there is another security check as we board the flight. I was all ‘didn’t I already go thru security? What was the x-ray etc before?’

They confiscated the water I had just bought. And wouldn’t even let me keep my empty water bottle. But the most stupid thing was that during the two security screenings no one found the two unfrozen gel icepacks (part of the sample collection kit) that I had in my backpack!

Yeah I feel safe.

 

The flight arrived early at DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth Texas). So we sat on a taxiway between two runways to wait for a gate. Great view of the landing aircraft but I really needed to pee. They made announcements that we could use the toilets in the terminal. Yeah great, let me just run across the runway...

 

At immigration (after peeing) I chatted to the agent and she told me that I should be used to the heat being from Australia. My NZ passport was still in front of her when she said this!

 

I was going to catch the train into the Dallas city centre, see the grassy knoll and all.

But I missed the train and figured by the time I caught the next one (seriously public transport sucks in Dallas) and with the time needed to get back to the airport in time for my flight I would only have an hour in the city.

So the bus driver (who I now realise must be a sadist) suggested that I walk to the American Airlines museum.

Yeah this did not go well for me.

It was the middle of the day, in the middle of summer, in the middle of Texas. This means it was stinking hot and humid.

 

Luckily I had decided to check in a one of my bags with my heaviest items and shove my daypack into my bigger backpack so I only had one bag to carry.

It was rather annoying to me that DFW has no luggage lockers. The guy at the info desk had told me I should just check in a bag and I’d replied ‘but I have things I want to see again’ which made him laugh.

 

So the walk to the museum was along a highway and I got lost.

Hot and bothered I ended up at a convenience store asking for directions (I’m sure everyone thought I was a real foreign freak).

One guy offered me a lift. I was all ‘are you a serial killer? Wait at this point I just don’t care!’

More walking by the highway and I found the American Airlines training centre, its car park and then finally the museum.

 

I liked the museum. It had a theatre where they showed a movie about the history of AA and all the seats where first class airline seats. I looked at the exhibits and even did the kiddie activities like solving a puzzle and etching a plane picture.

In the gift shop I admired the bumper stickers and pilot rubber ducks (I bought an AA Boeing 777 magnet).

 

I had hoped to catch an AA employee shuttle from the training centre back to the airport but when I returned to the car park there weren’t any.

But there was a taxi so I figured it was gonna be cheaper to pay the $20 fare than whatever it would cost me to get home if I missed my flight.

 

I had time to buy a Taco Bell bean burrito in one terminal (I think it is funny to eat fake Mexican food in America after being in Mexico) then catch the skytrain to another and eat it at my gate. Boarding started as I finished so the timing was pretty perfect.

 

On the flight to LHR I got the cutest bottle of balsamic in my vegan dinner. But the breakfast was so lame. It was a vegan cookie, yoghurt that had dairy in it and melon which I hate. Ok the cookie was pretty damn good. But even if I could have eaten everything it wasn’t much of a breakfast.

 

At Heathrow immigration I asked the agent to stamp my passport on page 13 as for some strange reason that page was always skipped over. As it was Friday the 13^th I thought it was the perfect time to break it in. The agent was amused and complied with my strange request.

 

So that was it except for another trip to the Reading clinic seventeen days after my return. They checked the vaccine site (more photos! my upper arms are apparently as popular as supermodels now...) and I handed in my diary, the collection kit and the mobile phone they had given me to use in Mexico.

I was supposed to return for a six month follow up appointment but I told them that I didn’t know where I would be then and they said that was fine.

 

In conclusion I must say that being a medical guinea pig is pretty awesome!

But remember that it is important to pick the right clinical trial, when I told people about mine they invariably mentioned the Northwick Park guys and their trial that went wrong.

But this trial was a stage 3 which means that the vaccine had already been tested on people and they were fine. Apparently the vaccine was even somewhat effective (but according to an update I found, not enough to continue developing it) so I figured it would be a good thing if I got it.

Although I am pretty sure I got the placebo.

I didn’t have any reaction, didn’t get sick and got a free trip to Mexico.

Sweet deal!