Today I arrived in Little Rock. At first glance it looks like a boring little town, but still it seems to be the capital of the state I’m in. It does have it’s charm. The first thing that happened to my while I visited the post office was that the girl behind the desk took really a lot of time to inform me about all the interesting places to visit (there were not so many, expressing it positively) and she mentioned that at night Little Rock was a dangerous place with lots of weird people. Luckily I could always call her if I had any questions. :-p

Tomorrow I will probably continue my journey to the next place. I’m thinking of going to some of the big parks that are around here.

I, Robot rocks! Only too bad that now I need to find an Audi to drive and I need to get some of those very nice shoes.

More typical American things I have noticed..
· I just saw an overweight police officer on a motorcycle wearing cotton black pants, a shirt with short sleeves and an old fashioned flowerpot helmet..
· On the TV and on the radio they have a lot of advertisements for medicines.
· Next to the freeway there are a lot of advertisements for ‘Jesus’. But the advertisements don’t mention where you can get it.
· As I approach the middle of nowhere I notice that prices are dropping incredibly fast. For a small bottle of water I used to pay around 3 or 3 dollars but now I can buy an entire tray of bottles of water for only 1.50.
· Street artists are almost always accompanied by a big sound system.
· Those typical barrels with water, that are always there in action movies to make a big spash, right before leaving the freeway are really there!

This morning I visited Graceland and what can I say… Elvis lived here of course and that makes it a special place and the property is impressive with a big home and a very big garden, but the style of is all does not really agree with me and that’s about it.

The real tourist value is in the extreme Elvis craziness that affected the entire town. Souvenir shops everywhere selling Elvis incense, Elvis underwear, Elvis soap, Elvis flags, Elvis towels, Elvis t shirts, Elvis jogging pants, Elvis necklaces, Elvis earrings, Elvis glasses, Elvis books, Elvis DVDs, Elvis candy, …..

I did make a picture of his grave, but borrowing a little bone was not an option; the stone was way to heavy.

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.