With the good comes the bad, with the fun and interesting comes the profoundly dull. Welcome to Charleston, West Virginia, the largest city in the state. I picked it for two reasons. Firstly, because I needed a place to stop in West Virginia to tick off the state. Secondly, it was a large town on the Greyhound bus route that wouldn't put me out of the way to continue on to Virginia. Finally I decided that as it was quite a cheap nice-looking hotel (from its website) I would take two nights there to relax after an early morning start to catch the bus.

I had to get up at 4:30am in Cincinnati to get the bus out, which was delayed coming in after all. I had a transfer in Columbus, Ohio and of all the places there was an English girl in the queue behind me so we had a little chat out of sheer excitement to meet another English person in the randomest of places.

The hotel was the easiest one to find so far since I followed one road from the Greyhound bus station all the way to the hotel. And then came my first mild disappointment: the hotel was clearly an old Super 8 Motel - I could still see the faded impression over the door where the sign used to be. That wasn't too bad because the price was the same as a Super 8 and I'll give them their credit - the website looked fantastic and classy.

It was only 4pm by the time I had checked in, unpacked and had a rest and I went out to explore the town. My overall impression was, sadly, similar to my hometown of Milton Keynes. The reason for this impression is that I found nothing more than an occasional shop or bar until I hit the mall where all the action was. It wasn't a bad mall for its size; in its centre was a Starbucks and seating area with a fountain that was pleasant to sit in, and on the outside were four good looking restaurants.

On my two evenings there I attended the Outback Steakhouse and Chilis. Chilis was clearly the place to be because it was packed at 9pm on a Friday night and a lot of the clientele were teenagers. The waiter in Outback was much nicer though because he said if I ever came back in I should ask for him and he'd take care of me.

Aside from the mall there was a movie theatre. It was on my first evening that I went to there from the mall - a distance of two blocks - only to find all the movie had just started and the next screenings were 90 minutes away. So I opted to return to the mall and enjoy a Starbucks but during the five minutes I was inside the light spots of rain had turned into a downpour. So my return walk resembled that of an SAS operative as I darted between trees for cover (both from the rain and any Soviet snipers that might be positioned in town - I must have been good because they didn't get me). I had to run the last intersection, ignoring the red hands as I darted over then across it, and then half a block to get to the mall entrance. When I arrived I was a one man wet T-shirt competition so I did what any sensible person would do - I went into JC Penney and bargain hunted in the sales for a $12 shirt and changed in the changing rooms. I did pay for it first though. It turns out I'm an American 'small' size. It was hard to find anything less than a medium in most of the sale items. XX Large would not have been a problem but I wasn't in the market for a tent.

Incidentally, I did return to the movies and saw Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. It was okay. I also played on a Family Guy pinball as I waited. But it was hard to know what was going on because when I put the money in it said "hold right flipper for Spanish" and for whatever reason I did so. Don't ever do that. I found out the hard way that there is no way to get it back into English once you have started. So for 20 minutes I didn't know if I was being congratulated or admonished in Spanish. The $2 had lasted a long time though.

On my second day I had nothing left to do in town so I gave myself the day off travelling and spent most of it in bed watching TV on the internet. I found I could watch full episodes of the last five or so Family Guy, Simpsons, King of the Hill, Scrubs and more... I did go a bit stir crazy around 4pm though and went out for a walk the other way down the river from the mall. The south bank of the river looked nice - a hillside covered in trees and dotted with cute houses. But I found nothing much else until I turned back and saw what I assume was the state Capitol building with a glorious gold dome, and a small cluster of shops near the interstate exit.

In summary Charleston was quite dull. Had I had a car I could have driven out into the countryside but when I looked into that the cost of hiring a car for a single day didn't seem worth it and I have to watch my budget because I'm forced to stay in a lot of hotels these days due to a lack of hostels in these places. I have invented a little game though where I book a room with a king bed (assuming it's the cheapest) and see if I get what I asked for. So far every time they've been all out so I have had to 'put up with' a room with two queen beds. The game is in seeing how apologetic the hotel desk clerk can pretend to be. The guy in this place loses.