When I arrived in Arkansas after 23 hours in transit I planned to sit in a classic southern USA style diner at least once for the 8 days I would be here. Well, that's exactly where I ended up on the way to Michael's Mum's house from the airport. We sat surrounded by cheesy American patriotic objects, like mosaic American flags plastered on walls and 'God Bless America' banners. We ate fried shrimp, fried catfish, fried chips, fried chicken and yep, fried frogs legs. It felt so bad but I just had to taste the South USA fried specialities.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much all that's available to eat down here. So I got sick of it pretty fast. It's actually really hard to find some healthy food here. There are about 20 different take away food outlets and even the supermarkets (or WalMart) are chock full of bad food. We couldn't even find aborio rice to make a risotto!

I'm staying in the middle of nowhere in a little town called Calion. Everyone knows each other and everyone says 'ya'll'. I love listening to this accent. The house I'm in is on a huge lake and cos winter has just finished the trees are really bare and there is a really eerie vibe. We took the boat out on the lake and it's so peaceful and calm. We saw a few abandoned duck houses, where people park their boats and shoot ducks from perches. There is a lot of hunting down here.

We also went down to New Orleans in Louisiana for a couple of days. Most of the city is restored but you can still see some of the damage that hurricane Katrina left behind, especially in some of the poorer suburbs. The city itself is a little sleazy, particularly at night. You can walk around with alcohol on the streets and every second shop is a sleazy, cheesy cover band joint with middle age boozers dancing around. We tried to find some jazz but had no luck. By day the city is nicer, especially The French Quarter, which is a bit more picturesque. We did, however, eat a lot of very nice food, included cajun food, which is a style of cooking special to New Orleans. My favourite was probably some snails I had which were marinated with mushrooms and came with French bread. It sounds gross but it tasted amazing. We also went on an airboat tour in the swamps and marshes, as a lot of south Louisiana is covered under water. We saw some alligators and I held a tiny one.

Just trying to get some relax time in before the busy backpacking kicks in. Next stop is Chicago.

Ya'll have a good time, ya'll.

Photos