America bound...

So here it is. After a good few months of planning, Apryl and I leave for our month in America tomorrow and right now I couldn't be more excited or more nervous.

I've wanted to visit the 'States since I was little, but I never had the opportunity until now really and it's taken me a while to save the money required for a 29 day sourjon to one of the biggest, diverse and most wonderful countries on earth.

Stephen Fry said it best when he talked of the phrase "Only in America!" When uttered by our neighbours across the pond, it, usually, refers to some extraordinary feat of human or natural accomplishment or some sort of endearing quality. When it's said here, replacing the America with "Britain", it invariably refers to some sort of god-awful queue or the insufferable weather.

After so many months longing to visit though it feels strange that tomorrow is the day when I'll finally be able to see and experience all the things that I've wanted to do for so long. I'm not just referring to the tourist element of our trip either, but also all the niche shops and awesome shows that we'll be attending and just generally sampling the food, atmosphere and culture of each place in which we'll be staying.

Obviously, as with any unknown quantity, there is an element of nervousness but I think this is purely down to it being uncharted territory for me. I'm incredibly fortunate that Apryl has been to both San Francisco and New York before and therefore knows her way around and where everything is. Equally I'm indebted to Jim and Steph who have provided us with guides to Boston and Portland respectively, as both have spent some time in these cities and have been only too happy to give us a head start and a slightly different perspective from the one you may get in the standard guide book. (NB The Lonely Planet travel guides have been a massive help too though!)

Added to these nerves is the fact that I'm not a brilliant flyer. However, I think the fact that I finally get to watch 'Grand Torino' and 'Coraline' on the plane as well as episodes of Friends and Peepshow, plus listen to my ipod and read my book will make the 10 hour flight to SF a great deal more bearable. Oh and I get a vegan meal on board; although it remains to be seen whether this is anything more than dry bread, pasta and a piece of fruit.


Anyway, as we're heading off for a month we managed to gather a few of our mutual friends for a farewell Nando's last night. Although a few of our bests were sadly absent, it was good to have those present there and it made up for what has been a thoroughly - and largely unnecessarily - stressful couple days. My friends are one of the few things I'm going to miss while I'm away so it was good to see them all in one place. Postcards for all. Annoying I forgot to take any photos of the meal and the other regualr blogger at the table Mr James Moore made the same error, so unfortunately the night is lacking visial documentation. I'm sure you'll get over it.

Also last night we had another Jackals band practice and recorded everything we have so far on to the four track at Plug Studios. I'm really pleased with how it's going so far and hopefully we'll be recording a proper demo/EP towards the end of the year and then starting to play shows from January onwards. Oh and remember Myspace? I know it's turned in to the internet equivalent of the grandparent that goes in to a home and you see once every couple of months and every time you do go and visit you promise yourself that you'll visit more but never do, but go and pay a visit now and add us up. Cheers.


So obviously as I'm going to be away for a few weeks without regular access to the internet apart from when we take advantage of the Mac store or scam wireless using my Blackberry, I'm not really going to be updating this much before I get back. Only three people regularly read this anyway so it doesn't really matter, but in the meantime go and read all of the blogs in that list over on the right hand side of the page.

BRB, see you in a month.

xo