I'm back!

Last night I fell asleep watching Gordon Brown dry paint on C-SPAN. When I woke up he'd turned into the Reverend Al Sharpton. Much more entertaining.

Don't know where to start really, been a long few days...

Maybe hiking 22 miles along the Appalachian trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains (they really are blue) with a fellow-traveller from Oz called George.
Or Rusty's "Hard Time Hollow" - a shelter for "Trail Walkers" where the food, bed and board is all yours for a donation (and help fixing the chimney) and where the hospitality comes southern style: first thing he asked was whether we'd seen Deliverance, then put it on especially for us that night.
Or hitch-hiking the 40 miles back to Charlottesville, first with some tourists along the Blue Ridge Parkway (one of them asked me what I thought of Tony Blair, I think they wish now they hadn't) and then with the Master Sous Chef from Charlottesville country club.
Or "America's 400th Anniversary" here in Williamsburg, with Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby doing a bluegrass cover of "Superfreak" (cold, cold murder).

Virginia is an amazing, intoxicating, confusing place. Maybe all of the south is. I'm not sure that I've ever met people as warm and friendly, and yet walking round the Williamsburg festival wearing my "I AM A EUROPEAN" t-shirt drew me really funny looks. And for all that hospitality, I'm slap in the middle of the old plantations and you can feel the undercurrents. A museum here talks about "a nation coming to terms with its past" and I doubt there's anywhere that that's more true.

Before that I was in Washington. That was nice too.

Here's what I've learnt this week:

- American streets are very very long, don't try to walk to number 4510
- Queeny is following me around (and is more popular than me)
- "The Brits" burnt down Washington then ate the First Lady's dinner (there was a long pause after the guy (a policeman) told me this - wasn't sure what to say, but I think "well, arson's hungry work" wasn't the right response)
- 90% of Native Americans died, mostly of disease, in the 150 years post-Contact
- Religious freedom had its limits. The 1882 Indian Religious Crimes Code punished native Americans for practicing their religions and led to sacred objects being forcibly removed. Most ended up in private hands or museums. The Code lasted 50 years but it took til the 1978 Native American Religious Freedom Act for native religions to get full recognition (a 1994 amendment to that Act "guarantees" the use of peyote for religious rituals - not sure what "guarantee" means in this context, money back?)
- Jet planes and space-ships are more fun than mocassins. I've some great photos from the Air and Space Museum - one day I'll get to a computer that lets me upload them.
- The Car is King and nobody walks anywhere ever. In "Colonial Williamsburg" they've reconstructed the town as it may have looked in the 17th century, complete with (badly) cobbled streets, but left the tarmac roads intact. They should dirt them over and force people to get out and walk (or have their cars towed by pony).
- Al Gore is going to win in 2008, apparently.
- DO NOT THINK in museums or at events. They will explain what you see and how you should think about it. You don't need to imagine, speculate or wonder.

Top tip: Get some bluegrass (e.g. Ricky Skaggs). It's like celtic folk meets American folk meets country and blues. Brilliant.
What's am I listening to today: The Smiths (partic What Time is Now)
Where next: Hiring a car then up the east coast through Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey to Philly.

Sorry this is so long - will work on saying more with less...