43 Days To Go - Check Out My Blonde Routes.

*boom tish* *crickets*

I have remade this map so many times I've officially become the Mistress of Microsoft Paint. This is the one true map of the first leg of my journey, the U.S.A tour (I thought I'd get the worst part over and done with first heh heh heh...only joking Milly). I'm surprisingly overexcited about this trip (further details to come in my next posting) because the more I look into crazy U.S tourist destinations, the more places I find to squeal over. I've started to look forward to going to the South...to the extent where my excitement for my stop in Arkansas is almost more than, say, New York City. What on Earth is wrong with me?

If you can't read the map (my crow seems to be flying over a lot of place names) my nineteen cities of choice, in order of my appearance, are:

Seattle, Washington
Salt Lake City, Utah
San Francisco, California
Las Vegas, Nevada
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Roswell, New Mexico (yeah I know, three stops in New Mexico and only one in California, go figure)
Amarillo, Texas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Memphis, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
New York City, New York
Hartford, Connecticut
Boston, Massachusetts
Chicago, Illinois
Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota
Portland, Oregon (after another short stay in Seattle)
Salem, Oregon

Stay tuned for a map of my Canadian destinations...as soon as I can find a map of Canada big and detailed enough to have all my cities on it. It was hard enough finding an American map that had both Pittsburgh AND Amarillo on it at the same time. Someone remind me, why am I stopping in Texas for four hours?

Introduction/Disclaimer

I'm assuming that the vast majority of my readers are friends of mine (uh, Hi Tim) so most of you can feel free to ignore this post. This post is going up in the unlikely event that I turn into something of a social butterfly/blogwhore/internet phenomenon whilst I'm travelling and people start reading this who have absolutely no idea who I am, or what I do.

I'm Sam, as in Samantha. Yes, I am a fan of Tiger Lou. Yes, I did nickname my blog after an English subject I studied at Sydney Uni but in my defence, all the good blog names were taken, it was one of my better subjects (after all, it did introduce me to The Marx Brothers and The Beat Generation and we studied the marvellous T.S. Eliot again) and I am essentially entering into a state where I'm negotiating, transatlantically.* I'm an acerbic young woman, very sarcastic, have a thing for languages and travel but a memory worse than that of a goldfish hence my tendency to remember only the most lowbrow of phrases and forget my most important journeys. I'm prone to excessive comma use and have no sense of spatial reasoning (walk me around a circular room and I will find a corner to bump into - there was no actual point to me listing that, just a fun fact).

I'm also likely to be considered offensive to a sufficient chunk of the population...so in that regard, I'm exactly the same as 99.99% of all other bloggers. If I do offend anyone over the course of this blog (and that's likely to happen if you're American, Canadian, Australian, drink American or Canadian or XXXX/VB beer without complaint, morbidly obese, morbidly skinny, a Scientologist, a Stonecut...Mason, a Mormon, a Christian who doesn't fulfil their religious duty correctly, a member of the Brotherhood, the Moral Majority, a Republican, a Democrat, a Liberal Party voter, a supporter/employee of the RIAA, a Southerner, a Tasmanian, anyone from Adelaide who will admit to it, a Shire folk, a Kiwi (sorry Paul), a NRA member, a talkback radio listener, a reader of Miranda Devine or Samantha Brett or if you read the SMH at all and still think it's an example of well-balanced media, if you have too many opinions that don't match mine, if you have too many opinions that do match mine, if you have no opinions at all, if you dislike italicised text, if you listen to any of the following: third-wave (re: current) whiny emo, one-dimensional R&B/hip-hop divas/groups who recycle exactly the same shit every year and then release a 'greatest hits' album after their sophomore effort, hardcore rap or country, if you consider The Beatles to be the greatest band everrrr in terms of instrumental/lyrical skill/innovation, if you read Dan Brown and enjoy it, if you read, watch or listen to ANYTHING with the word post as an prefix, if you can define any term starting with post- and ending in -ist or -ism...if you enjoy defining any movement starting with post- then I will kick you in the head) IF you fit into any of those categories and do take offence to anything I may write...I apologise in advance.**

My situation is this: For the past 22 years I've been a resident of Sydney, Australia and I'm bloody well sick of the sight of this place. In an attempt to stave off a destiny filled with years of wasted potential, on June 30th, I'm escaping Sydney for the greener pastures of North America and Europe with a view to eventually move somewhere within the borders of one of these continents, seek my fortune and get a life. Before this can occur I have to get lost in each of these areas: The U.S.A (why stay with the copycat when you can go for the original?), Canada, The U.K and greater Europe (because no recent university leaver has ever thought of doing something like this before!), armed with only two working visas, a newly-acquired laptop, a shitload of sweet cashola (which will be reduced significantly by the time all the exchange rates kick in), three decent pairs of shoes (including, here's hoping, these babies perhaps teamed with this and this?), my unfailing sense of direction and well-rounded knowledge of European and American geography***.

So what can you expect from this, my second attempt at coherency through a digital medium? I'm trying to restrict myself to trip-related musings - whether it's the preparation, the act or the aftermath. There will be photo posts, or at the very least, links to Facebook albums. If you don't have Facebook then I suggest you get one. Once I start working, I will most likely rant, it's my one true vocation in life. I will be scoring my entire trip, so look out (or, if you're one of my friends, ignore :P) for music recommendations everywhere. Oh, and I'm a huge fan of the top ten list, an oldie but goodie.

I hope you all enjoy reading my bullshit as much as I enjoy avoiding any real work by writing it.


* Sam is choosing to ignore the people presently crying out 'But Vancouver is on the WEST re: PACIFIC coast!'
**Mission accomplished.
***Me, two years ago: "What? New York City and Manhattan are on some ISLAND now?"

Preface

V

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentations,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph.
And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration.
A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.
So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always -
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Stolen from Little Gidding, in the Four Quartets by T.S Eliot.

Sam's nb: Yes, I am well aware of how cliche it is to use this particular T.S Eliot poem as a first post/commemoration of the start of a huge journey but what else was I supposed to use, The Waste Land?