Been chilling out with themba for a few days and been out a few nights locally too. Today we all went to Maryland's capital, Annapolis. As we drove through the centre of this small town it immediately felt familiar, probably because it is very colonial, so the streets are winding and narrow and many of the brick buildings wouldn't look out of place in an English town or village. Its quite leafy and very pretty. Every other group of people included at le...

Dan Themba and I drove to Baltimore today. Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland and was founded as a tobacco and flour milling centre with a good harbour. it developed as colonial America's shipping centre, but in 1812 we, the British, bombarded it with ships. American soldiers resisted the attack and kept thier flag flying, an event which inspired a Maryland lawyer to write a poem called the 'Star Spangled Banner' which became the national anthem! Balt...

Arrived in DC on Sunday midday after an overnight journey from Nashville. We spent Saturday afternoon in Tennessee State Museum which was really interesting, lots of stuff about slavery and the civil war and loads of examples of old glory (the name of the USA flag) over the years - different designs and with various numbers of stars on it. The journey from Nashville takes you over the Appalachian Mountain range into Virginia which is lush and feels expensive...