We have sucessfully arrived in LA, after having our most interesting Amtrack train journey to date. Here is the thing about Americans, they are very very friendly, polar opposite to the behaviour of English people. Im not saying its a bad thing, it is extremely helpful to lost travellers like ourselves but it makes for a very exciting and at times exhausting train journey. We boarded the train at New Orleans after our night out and were feeling a little delicate, sleep was needed, but oh no, on walked two hippies going to LA to find fame and fortune, clearly coming down off whatever drugs they had taken and wouldn't you know one of them had slept under a bridge, a tale/phrase we heard numerous times over the next 48 hours trapped on a train. Not to mention the fact that both boys had guitars with them, and were not afraid to use them! When they heard our accents they were very excited and couldn't wait to spend the next two days with us...a sentiment not shared by us! The 'free spirit' of the duo randomly made up new vocabulary and talked about the bible while his more saner friend liked to go back over things we had said previously which tickled him! Many looks of despair crossed our faces in the first few minutes of meeting the boys! Anyway as the train progressed they slept for a while and then asked us to join them downstairs for a jam, but we declined, over the course of the night many interesting people passed us by, stopping for a chat before heading down to the jamming session that we had passed on. The next day on the fun train was the Amtrack train bonding session whereby a whole train quiz was played and there was a mass sing along, Helen's idea of hell! During the quiz we were joined by a fellow passenger who was on our team. I commented that another table looked more intelligent than us, to which the man joked that he could be a neuro scientist for all we knew, how we laughed, only to find out later that he was a bloody neuro scientist! Anyway we sucked at the quiz but were the only people to answer all four names of the teletubbies, how the train mocked us! Next came the sing songs, where the guitars came out and we heard all the greats, red hot chili peppers, bob marley...free spirits own little ditty, complete with story of how it came about...mountains, children sing, hand of god (all the usual inspirations!) Me and Helen have come to realise just how reserved the english are as we tried to dodge the many conversations about higher powers, night terrors and broken families.

We do sound really cynical and actually we have met some lovely, interesting people on these journeys across America, not to mention have seen some amazing landscapes and all the oddities do make the journeys pass quicker however me and Helen are sure we are going to have recurring nightmares about hippies with guitars and tales of miracles and old testament heroes!

At one point in the evening we got off for a stroll at El Paso and were joined by possibly the most irritating and patronising girl in America, who repeadetly told us that she had done South America, by which she meant central america, and that we should avoid at all costs, dark alley ways and water. This came as a huge surprise to me and hel who were really looking forward to going down a dark, back alley way in Brazil! Finally the train pulled up at LA and we all had a big farewell with me telling the boys that I think we had been a calming influence on them, i.e we tried in vain to keep them quiet!