PART ONE

AUGUST 19th 2001

SPACE!
That's by far the biggest difference between the UK and USA. Space. There is so much space here! Each shop has its own car-park, each house a massive driveway, each town spread over a huge distance and miles between each other. You must have a car: there is no real public transport system at all. Buses barely exist, train tracks rare and roads are more... well, sacred than English roads. For example, people feel daring crossing anywhere else other than a pedestrian crossing. That's jaywalking!
So what does all this space mean? More freedom? Space = bigger distances to cover = more isolation = ...what? Less knowledge of the world outside? Is this where Americans get their naivety of other countries from? I mean, for Christ's sake, Val's local church would take me two hours to get to on my bike! This great difference in space makes everything so different. America really is more different than I could have ever imagined.


AUGUST 23rd 2001

DENVER!
"Excuse me, what type of luggage is this? This is beautiful luggage. I've never seen anything like this before."
Wow. I love that. What a nice introduction to the country, well, Colorado. That and a gorgeous woman with a iridescent sign "Trevor Ferdy" all printed and professional. Personal service. I really feel special. That gorgeous woman is called Holly. She's American and she's great. She seems to like my sense of humour, another hopeful sign that I'll find others like her. Spent my first night [in the university] chatting, playing Volleyball (which was fun while it lasted) and watching "Evolution" outside. I appreciated the escapism but also had a good chat with... er, can't remember... three girls. They seemed more than shallow, which everyone else (especially the blokes) seem to be. But the question "what am I doing here?" still spins round my head.


AUGUST 24th 2001

MICHAEL MOORE
Well, my room is TINY! Smaller than my room at the NOC [Oxford Brookes halls of residence] and I have to share it with another person. Bunk-beds! Bit of a shock! Well, we separated them and now the room is full of nothing but beds, desks and closets and a huge chest of drawers! Others may not think so but I believe my room mate to be a a god-send. He's a black guy from Colorado with a briefcase, a car and plenty of baggy pants. He plays chess, dominoes, cards and when I told him about Valerie, he said "sheeit man, I don't believe in that sheeit! (love). But he's more than I could've hoped for. He believes very much in common sense and keeps himself to himself from other whiney "let's go have fun"-style Americans. I liked him immediately. Dreadlocks, earrings, bad-ass attitude, direct and blunt, I look forward to getting to know him better. He's the only person I've told about Valerie and it should stay that way.


AUGUST 26th 2001

UTOPIA
Scanning across the campus grounds, everything seems se new, clean, tidy, ordered but also a little sterile and cold. This is common of a lot of America. It really does seem as if they are the front-runners in creating the perfect utopian society and I think that's great. Such a new country has no previous styles of living on which to learn from so it goes straight ahead into trying to create the ideal society. Of course guns, murder, muggings and rapings don't help but when I look at such 'perfect' backdrops as the university campus, I can easily forget that this type of thing happens at all. Brand-new computers, airy bright canteen, idyllic set-out of buildings, clear signs, friendly people, sprinkled grass every night (looks quite nice) and shiny pavements try so hard to create the perfect society that you could forgive them for anything else.