So I am in the US!! I made it!! So I had a few fears about crossing the border into the US, I was an English person on a holiday visa, who had briefly been in the US for 3 days at the beginning of August and then disappeared into Canada on the West coast, to emerge on the East side with a BC registered car, being driven on an English driving licence. I heard sometimes they could be fickle or picky and turn people away if they were not convinced of your stories.

So I was driving south from Quebec City, going through some remote places and going further into wilderness it seemed, less and less downs, the road was a country type road with trees all around and I kept wondering where the border control would be!

All of a sudden it comes out of nowhere, this grey building with stop signs everywhere. So I pull up to the man in the booth and hand him my passport. He looks at me, looks at the passport and then looks at the car. He looks again. And again. Finally he asks if I have an ESTA, which I have. He takes it and walks inside, leaving me wondering. Why is it that whenever I come across customs or police that I feel instantly guilty, even though I haven't done anything!

He comes back and tells me I need to park up and come inside to get a new visa thing for my passport, phew! So I go inside and the guy there starts questioning me about where I am going, what I'm doing and he just gets more and more interested about my trip in general, he obviously doesn't care less where I am going in the US, he is just nosy about my travels. He was shocked to hear about my couchsurfing (I thought he was starting to sound like a parent at this point) and told me that I should be careful of weirdo's, he was curious to know if I had stayed with any wierdos so far!! Ha ha!! So I got a visa waiver in my passport and they didn't even ask me about what I was bringing into the country, as I know they have restrictions, he wasn't bothered and they let me through!! Woo hoo!!

I am in the US!!! So the state I drove into was Maine. Absolutely beautiful, mountains and trees everywhere, stunning and would be lovely to come here in the spring or summer and do some hikes with friends.

So the first night I couchsurfed around a guy's named Thom in Bangor. Bangor is where Stephen King lives, I asked Thom about this and sure enough he lived round the corner, where he took me so I could take pictures! They do tours in the summer but everything is closing down for winter, so I had to make do with peeking through the gates. Bangor is not a very big town, all the towns of Maine seem to be a bit smaller than I thought, but I know the further south I get the busier it will be.

So the weather is a little bit better than Quebec, no snow but still so cold! So I carry on south, I take the coastal route, stopping in places and head to Portland in Maine where I am couch surfing with a lady called Alex. She lived in an amazing converted warehouse where everything was in one room, it was awesome. So I got there in the afternoon and then headed into Portland. It's a beautiful coastal town with little shops, bars and restaurants everywhere. I walk around for a bit and then decide to try a clam chowder in a bread bowl, recommended to me by some random guy I was talking to in a coffee shop. Awesome food, it's a massive round loaf, dug out and filled with clam chowder and you eat it all!! Well I did, it was massive and filling! I then headed to the local cinema where movies were only $5 and watch a film, good times as it was freezing by now and I needed a place to hide!

So I only stayed here one night as well before heading to Boston. I'll do Boston in another entry as this one is getting too long!

So a bit about me after I left Montreal, I couchsurfed for 4 nights in total and crossed into the US. I had by the time I reached Boston been wearing the same T-shirt and socks for nearly 5 days! My eating habits again are becoming quite sketchy but I'm enjoying myself. I'm on the road again and getting to see the US. Yes there are overweight Americans everywhere but also lots of thin ones and I also have met Americans who have travelled around the world, which I thought was rare, but there are about 300 million US citizens so the few I met doesn't really change the statistics I suppose.

Anyway, enough rambling, that's Maine, over and out