Well for starters my camera arrived. It came in delievered by Andrew which was a quick goodbye as he headed back to work. Shortly afterwards I would be waiting in the heat for Travis after walking a few blocks to make the last big of navagating easier. Then it was a case of kicking back in the park with me, new camera and the luggage.

He took me to his parents house and we went out on the trail on his parents mountain bikes. I was naffed. I guess I'm really unfit, but I think dehydration played a big part as my only refreashments for the day was a Corrs Light and a Root beer. We ordered a deep dish Chicago pizza, so yes I did get that before I left which I'm really glad I got to do, as well as see Travis, however brief it would be. On the way home with the pizza we stopped off at a liqour store and when I presented my passport the guy lost his shit and was saying I'm the most foreign person who came in today. I don't know what he meant by today as his reaction was astonishment, if this happenes every third day I don't really know what to say.

After eating the pizza, which was the best thing ever in case you are wondering, we went to a bar and got some pitchers of Miller Light. Well I'm told it was Miller Light, it tasted like dishwater meetes urine to me. Seeing as he was driving I had to drink the lions share of that nasty beverage and off we headed back to his house to play pinball, pool and old sega sports games such as Madden 95 and NHL 95. Good times. He won Madden I won NHL.

Of course this was all part of the devious nature that is Travis. For he had a bad flight from New York to Chicago, so by trying to get me drunk and stay up late for my 6am wakeup call, I was meant to have a miserable flight too. Yes, he's a tricky one. Of course the flight was fine, I did win the special prize of being selected for extra screening. I was stunned, I expected to have to undress in the name of national security. No, not quite, it was more just a pat down like you get when going into a concert or something. No major. The flight went fine, I wanted to sleep but resisted and it was only the connecting flight that sucked as the air conditioning sounded as loud as a plane window being open. And once I landed, here I was at University Park, PA.

Yesterday was a good day. A lot of walking, but we managed to see quite a bit. I saw North Beach, Navy Pier, The shiny metal jelly bean thing in the park and the Buckingham fountain. We also checked out the Blues place known as Smoke Daddy. Andrew had some older friends there who he hadn't seen for a while and were nice enough to pay my bill and object to the notion of me paying. I also got an ID request for the first time here. We caught the last train home and that was the end of a long day.

Today was pretty cool, rather than trawling back to the city we decided to go to the beach. The lake has no surf, excellent sand and can get pretty crowded. Oh not to mention you can't go out far enough to stand much more below waist deep (takes ages to change elevation) as they have a lot of life guards in Lake Forrest. It's all kind of messed up to the scenes of a beach at home.

Managed to get hold of Travis who is in Chicago right now. He has a job interview tomorrow and then afterwards he will drive out here and from what I gather we will hang out tomorrow and he'll drop me off at the airport, which is awesome. That sounds much better than taking my stuff to the airport late at night and risking the whole getting stabbed element/sleeping at airport, or getting up at 4 and walking to the train station and running the risk of getting stabbed/missing my flight. So yeah I'm quite pleased with that.

Hoping my camera arrives tomorrow, it says it is scheduled to and the memory card says it has already arrived, but the mail room is locked on weekends so I'll assume it is true.

I also found out my room assignment for this year and my room mates cell phone number. Not that I'm anxious to call the guy, I mean I'll be sharing my sacred bubble of space with him for a semester, I'm sure we can wait a week for contact.

In the mean time I'll be living at Atherton Hall later:

Well as promised Vicky delivered on the t-shirt. And I must say it is rather dashing. I'll try and work out images but it's red with what appears to be a blatant steal of the NZ air force logo. Which does indeed look awesome.

She also included a free jump off the Auckland harbor bridge, which lasts a year - thankfully as I don't think I could muster the stones to go just before my flight.

The gifts really are the icing on the cake for tonight being the All Black series win. I'll hold my breath for the world cup though. Those boys can really break a mans heart.

As for trip planning goes I haven't hit any snags. Manik will pick me up from the airport, we'll see a baseball game that night. I then have Saturday and Sunday to do whatever kids do these days, then an early morning ride to the train (7am departure) which after a brisk 36 hours land me in Denver, Colorado.

Luckily at this point Elisa by either grace of my early warning or gods of trip planning have given her about a week off which coincides with my arrival. Sounds like she has a lot planned so I guess I'll just try and hang on as I adjust to high altitude.

Next will be my Chicago leg of he tour, which will have Andrew, Alli and perhaps Travis. I'll then take the train from there to Altoona, PA and then bus up to University Park to do my paper work.

After all that is done, I try and get to Upstate New York and spending a week or so with Aliza and Ben, then head back down to Philadelphia, catch up with Dave and if I'm lucky, bum a ride to University Park.

It all seems like just a series of connect the dots and if my lazy planning pays off then I hope all goes well with no down time between stops.