The Empress Hotel.There ain't a great deal to Little Rock if you want to know the truth. It's a real Deep South kind of town - kind of quiet, kind of old-fashioned and hotter than hell in the dead of Summer. At this stage of my trip, I was begging for an opportunity to do absolutely nothing and I really found that opportunity in Little Rock. I only bothered to travel here for two reasons: one was for the Bed and Breakfast in the photo above and the other was to find the answer to a burning question I'd been asking since the primary planning stage of this whole trip:
Why the hell are Arkansas and Kansas spelt the same way but pronounced differently? Stop being so ridiculous America, you can't have it both ways all the time. After asking a few Northerners why Arkansas is pronounced Ar-kan-saw instead of Ar-kan-sas and not receiving any decent answers, I thought I'd go direct to the source.
The first thing I noticed about the city of Little Rock is that it's obsessed with lauding its one and only person of note: one former Arkansas governor-turned-president William Jefferson Clinton. The main street is named after him, as are many of the buildings and you can even visit the Clinton Presidential Center (I've heard good things about the library but do we really need to see an exact replica of Slick Willy's oval office? I really hope it has a pair of heels sticking out from underneath the desk). I didn't go because after several showerless hours on the bus I wasn't up for any more self-torture, just sleep. I was not disappointed on that front. If you ever find yourself stranded in Arkansas for whatever reason, I highly recommend crashing at The Empress.
The place is amazing. A fully renovated 1880's mansion turned into a sexy bed and breakfast, where every room is an exercise in antique overkill. I mean this in the best possible way. I was caught between feeling utterly charmed and flabbergasted by the place, it was far and away my favourite North American hotel. The rooms are reasonably priced, there's free liqueur in every room (always a drawcard) and the bed in the Eliza Cunningham room was so comfortable that I felt myself falling asleep whilst connecting the wi-fi. The housekeeper Mitzi was this wonderful Southern belle who turned out to be a total kitchen whiz as well. This was my breakfast on my first morning in Little Rock and oh my god, I'm amazed that I didn't hear a chorus of angels after the first bite.
Mind you, that would've been difficult as the chorus would've had to compete with my pontificating breakfast companions, who were some of the most insufferable people I've ever encounted. I realise that I was well and truly in the Bible belt at this point in my travels but I still didn't expect to hear a sermon over breakfast. I didn't even mean to bring Jesus into our conversation (hasn't he suffered enough already?) but the holidaying couple asked me about my university degree and well, what was I supposed to say? I can't help being a Religion major. As soon as the 'r' word tumbled from my mouth, they pounced with the obligatory "Religion major? So what faith are you a part of?."
Here's a tip, people. Never, ever say the words "Well actually you know what, after studying religion objectively I can't say I'm all that religious" to an American, unless you're talking to Steven Hawking, Richard Dawkins or someone you know full well is guaranteed to say "Oh yes, me too." and be done with it. Lie. Say you're a Pentecostal. Or a Catholic. Or a Puritanical Calvinist. If you're not an adherent to one of these and yet you still opt to tell the truth, look out.
I'm not going to elaborate too much on what happened next, but let's just say that by the end of my breakfast I was so enraged that my skin felt fit to burst, Incredible Hulk style. My eyes were flashing red and I probably could've melted the silverware with one direct glare. My breakfast preachers launched into an evangelical tirade in the vain hope that I would see the light and when, after arguing at length they realised I wasn't budging, they chalked their failure down to my mind being 'clouded by the lies of Satan, oooh look see how angry she is'. It was at this point that the tunnel vision began, so I rose from the table literally shaking with rage and politely excused myself.
The thing that annoyed me the most about that whole exchange was that they didn't even have the common decency to be from the South. They were from Los Angeles. What the hell. If you're from L.A, you're not supposed to be a friggin' Pentecostal! Be a Scientologist, follow the Kabbalah, go out and paint yourself blue and worship the Sky Father or better yet, go pay homage to the Almighty Dollar like everyone else in town. Don't give me this born again bullshit.
I took a long walk around Little Rock that morning and came to a conclusion about people in the American South. There are two very good reasons why Southerners have earnt their stereotype as fat bastards. First of all, have you ever actually gone outside in the dead of summer in a place like Little Rock? The temperature outside is warmer than the blood of a newly sacrificed virgin and on top of that, there's a thick curtain of moisture in the air. Unless there's a tornado in town, that humid air doesn't move. They get the shit end of the weather stick down in the bayou and I don't blame 'em for wanting to travel around in the air conditioned comfort of an SUV. Second, there's the matter of food. Good Southern food is enough reason to warrant being a fat bastard. Spicy fried chicken, cajun catfish, red velvet cake? That's the ultimate comfort meal right there as far as I'm concerned, oh yeah.
And what about them grits? Yes, my dear non-American readers, grits are a food now. That word used to make me think of those three last grains stuck to the bottom of a kitty litter tray. With this image in mind, I decided to take a punt and ordered a meal with grits for dinner, sitting rigid with anxiety for most of the preparation time. Believe me when I tell you my children, there's no need for this fear. They're just ground corn, fried with butter and cream and placed in a great goopy mess next to your BBQ shrimp. Grits are living proof that sometimes the greatest pleasures in life are also the simplest (and fattiest).
There's not much pleasure to be found in Little Rock unless you fancy watching a group of ducks waddle their way out of a hotel elevator (I'm not joking, that's a tourist attraction), although the Farmer's market on the waterfront was a mild diversion and there's some great architecture in the old part of town. I spent most of my time in my hotel room reading Palahniuk's Diary (boring, plodding and probably still sitting in the basket next to the bath in the Eliza room) and to be honest, I'd recommend that you do the same.
I'm going to close this entry with the tale of my last night in Little Rock. Freshly bathed, dressed and powdered from a long day of bugger all, I decided to walk the fifteen or so blocks from the Empress to the main part of town. It was about six p.m and still humid as all buggery but I thought nothing of it, even as the beads of sweat began to form at the top of my forehead. About five blocks into the trek those beads had turned into waterfalls cascading down my face, back and everywhere else. I was beginning to feel concern for my increasingly matted knot of hair at this point, but still...them's the breaks in the Deep South. I reached my reasonably swank (for Arkansas) restaurant only to have the maitre'd look at me in horror. Upon excusing myself to go to the ladies I discovered why - there was a GIGANTIC patch of black all over my cheek and nought but water where my eyeliner used to be. I looked like the lead singer of an all-panda emo band. Of course, a proper lady carries eyeliner with her at all times so within five minutes the crisis was over and I had nought but grits and dignity to fret over. I could swear the waitstaff were still snorting to themselves as I exited the restaurant that night.
P.S. I never received a satisfactory answer to The Burning Question. Whenever I stopped people to ask them, most of the time told me they'd never even thought about it before and the others appeared to be quite genuinely confused by the question. Goddamn idiotic, gun totin', tank drivin', fat bastard Southerners!