I’m using the Internet connection of the public library in St. Louis. It did take me about half an hour to arrange all the papers, but now I get to use the Internet for free for half and hour and I can even borrow a book!

I arrived in St. Louis yesterday and the day before yesterday visited the Navy Pier while still in Chicago. That was a very nice place. St. Louis does not impress me that much… although they do have a very interesting arch and that’s about it.

I did notice a very high number of empty/abandoned buildings. I even visited a shopping mall which contained only five shops in business and the rest was just empty.

Tomorrow I continue to Memphis :-p

It is my last day here because tomorrow I will continue my journey towards St. Louis. Today I spend a big part of the day just relaxing on the beach reading some of the local literature (eXcalibur – He’s Back, great story!!! By: Marvel)

I really noticed the differences on the beach. In the Baywatch series you always saw people running, bicycling, roller skating, do whatever on the boulevard. Here it is exactly like that, but the difference is in the life guards who could not be more different… In the rare case that the lifeguard is a female they normally wear a coat and they never run across the beach. They just keep standing in some fixed point and when someone enters the water and ventures to deep they just start to shout. Venturing to deep means going further then knee deep. This way for sure no-one will ever drown. If you do manage to enter the water and swim a little bit you need to do it at a prohibited spot. Then if they stop you the lifeguards just call the cops, who show up to give you a fine!

Real lifeguards often wear shorts, unlike the baywatchers.

Today I visited the free zoo in the park right across my little hotel. There were a lot of animals, camels, lions, monkeys, kangaroos, snakes and you name it. What I did note was that a lot of there animals had a really small cage. Many animals had a cage that was actually smaller then the bathroom of my home, and the only thing the animal could do (and did) was walk back and forward in their cage. It was a sad situation.

Thanks to a colleague from my past (Sunil) I was already acquainted with the principle of a Madam Chenet… these are very small peppers which are much hotter then a normal pepper. I think in Holland you can only buy them in special shops. These peppers are so hot that you should never eat them. If you want you can keep one or two in your dish, but you need to cut them to very small pieces. The rest you take out and put aside and you don’t eat them.

Well, I went to a local Chinese place and ordered some food. I did not know what it was I ordered, because it was called the ‘chef’s choice’. The waiter asked me if I minded hot food but I thought it would be okay, and told him not to worry. When I get my food I directly notice quite a large number of pepper and the waiter gives me the advice not to eat them, because they are very hot. During my dinner I separating the little peppers from the rest but it did not go without problems. The amount of ingredients and the sauce made it difficult to recognize the peppers and after separating 6 peppers (with chopsticks of course) the next pepper slipped through.

I never drank my beer so fast…. and I still feel the heat in my mouth when I breath.. :-(

It is really very hot over here! I was just on the beach for a few hours, and now I’m all red :-(. I was happy to find out that the lack of Pamela’s with the lifeguards was compensated nicely by the people visiting the beach.

Right now I’m standing (there are no chairs) behind a Mac. The machine I’ve got was the only one available of around 80 machines that are displayed here. Mine is a 23 inch widescreen monitor of only 2000 dollars. The Mac itself costs 3000 dollars. If anyone needs a hint for a possible birthday present now they have a little hint.

Chicago lies right next to a big lake and this lake is so very big it almost seems that it connects to the ocean. This morning I notices that it was possible to leave my hotel, walk to a park, and then go through a tunnel that takes me past the freeway, right to the beach. Lifeguards all over the place, but sadly there are no Pamela’s amongst them :-(

This morning I walked from the beach to the city center and got an extra fresh fruit-shake with an extra vitamin booster in it. Afterwards I did some shopping. I even saw a t-shirt that cost $120… Didn’t buy it.

Tomorrow I will also spend in Chicago, and then my journey continues.

This afternoon I arrived in Chicago, and compared to the horrible Detroit this is really a true paradise.

What’s also nice is the Apple store here where you can use the machines and browse the Internet for free. To bad I don’t know how to run MSN on a Mac.

I spend yesterday and this morning in Detroit… well, usually I tend to be a positive person and kind of focus on the good and not see the bad, but my experience in Detroit was incredible. There was no white. Everything that should have been white was gray of a brownish yellow. Detroit houses a very big factory of Ford… and that was made perfectly clear. My hotel was located in downtown Detroit, right next to a 7 lane road. The roads in Detroit were always very big, having multiple lanes, and where were few roads that had less then three lanes going in a single direction. In addition to the enormous amount of concrete and a huge amount of cars everywhere there was surprisingly little to do… a casino, a survival tour crossing the roads avoiding the potholes everywhere, and that’s it.

I also encountered quite a few burned down buildings and a few buildings that were demolished partly. Lets not forget I located another fall-out center, to safeguard the people against that nasty atomic radiation. In the middle of the city there were chimneys expulsing a greasy thick white smoke, just like the industrial areas near Rotterdam. The only difference being that in Detroit the chimney reached about 1 meter into the sky and you could literately hold your head in the fumes (which I did not test)

This morning I quickly left resulting in a very happy feeling.

I just escaped the hot burning sun and I’m now recuperating in a nice air-conditioned room. It is a really hot day. This morning I was lying in the part listening to some musical group and yesterday I hardly slept. so I kept falling asleep during the kung-fu hip-hop movie. Afterwards I entered the hot son and realized that I needed to find shelter fast.

I’m going to catch my breath a little now and tonight I plan to visit another part of Toronto. I heard here should be parties scattered across the city. I only wonder it I will be able to stay awake.

Tomorrow morning I will continue to my next destination… I’m not really sure what is the name of the city, because I did not bring my map, but I’ll try to return to America.

I just cannot believe my luck! Yesterday I went for a walk to explore Toronto. I wanted to view the lake from up close and near the lake there was a REALLY WICKED party going on. The seemed to be celebrating something that was there for 30 years. What exactly was the subject of the celebration remained unclear to me. First I attended a concert by the Belgian (!) group Buscemi, who gave a really good concert. If they every play in Holland I will go there for sure! Afterwards I visited Fertile Grounds with really nice drums, and afterwards until far into the next morning loud techno!

The result is that I’m staying here one more day, because today the party continues!

This afternoon that is a free movie theater with Hop-Fu, “A brilliant melding of kung-fu energy with two of the top hip hop DJ’s in the country” :-p, and afterwards techno again! Yeah!!!!!