I was way too excited/nervous to sleep last night. Which gave me plenty of time to download some films for my tablet which I would later forget to actually transfer from my laptop. You cant blame me, I was a little stressed this morning because I’d consciously left a lot of stuff to do at the last minute. Which was of course quite a retarded idea. It also meant I almost left the house with my passport still in the scanner; literally hopeless.

I was waiting for the part where I got super nervous and was frozen still by my cold feet… but it just didn’t happen. I’ve been in such a good mood today, I wasn’t even remotely fazed by the 4 hour bus journey, 7 hour plane journey or many hours waiting in between, including the epic pilgrimage through Heathrow Airport to the terminals… a miracle cus I’ve only slept 4 hours and travelled over 5000km. What did you achieve today huh? But sat here in the hostel, I really don’t feel that far from home. The USA is just a bigger, fatter and louder version of the UK. No culture shock. Plus I’ve been to the States before. Yawn.

I was sat next to a friendly man named David on the plane. He was from Wisconsin and worked in insurance, and had just been to London on “vacation”. He proceeded to show me every single photo on his iPhone and camera, before the plane even took off, I kid you not. He delighted in showing me pictures of pretty girls (zooming in on their behinds) that he’d seen in Wembley Stadium, Shoreditch Bars etc. And he also showed me pics of his 18yo son, girlfriend, father and cats. We really got to know each other well it seems, in retrospect.  But he offered to help walk me to the hostel which was super kind, cus I was just planning on figuring it out once I got into the centre of the city. He wasn’t annoying at all though, he gave me a ton of recommendations for stuff to see in Boston, and gave me biscuits. Basically he is now my best friend in the whole of America, although the title isn’t hard to achieve cus I barely know anyone here.

Customs was fun, once the security got over how young I looked (to be travelling solo, or to have graduated) they seemed to wish me genuine good fortune in my travels though, most likely cus they fear for my life and reckon no one will ever see me again. Noticed the signs about Ebola, made me smile remembering Russel Howard’s bit about the difference in coverage between my old country and this one. Although they did make me self conscious about the ticklish throat I’d developed on the plane…

So there you go, I probably have Ebola, am likely to disappear without a trace, and made a friend. Hello America!