With my friends across the Atlantic celebrating Thanksgiving the next thrilling installment brings me to the USA for the first time of my life. As you may remember I was in Vancouver and the time had come to move on. I wandered over to the Greyhound bus station (which was actually clean and light and friendly) and purchased myself a ticket south of the border.

Bags in tow I wandered out in the late August sun to await my chariot. While waiting there a young lady asked the time and she stood out by not having a local accent, however rather than actually communicate and find out more I reverted to my safety zone and answered her question as directly and quickly as possible. Thankfully this would not be the last I saw of this young lady for we were actually catching the same bus and therefore had each others company for about 30 hours.

As I sat quietly reading my book a friendly face popped over and commented that she had read the same book and enjoyed it. For the first time in my life someone other than a librarian or teacher had actually talked to me about a book, so I clamed up again. Bizarrely, in years to come reading Terry Pratchett books has made me many more friends, but Carrie was the first person I owe him thanks for. For some reason carrie kept talking to me, I learnt about her degree from Durham and her life in Wales, even her year visa to work in Canada. As the other strangers grew stranger we grew closer. By the time the bus pulled in for breakfast the next day we managed to confuse the waitress with our combined Britishness and random companionship. Although the waitress managed to confuse me right back by asking if I wanted my sausages in patties - surely that isn't a sausage then.

But eventually we arrived in Sacremento and said our goodbyes. As she boarded the bus to San Francisco I watched the person I'd spent more time with in the past three weeks walk out of my life forever. Suddenly I was back to being on my own, except for the woman with her life in a black plastic sack asking everyone for $10 to buy a ticket to Valero.

But there I was. I had paid scary men with big guns $6 to enter the country, I had discovered American dining, TVs in bus stations, pan handlers trying to move around and Welsh women exploring the world. I was in the US for the first time. It was everything I'd imagined and full of surprises. The next few days would see me swear to never go near the place again and the next few weeks would see me fall in love with the strangest place in the world. My life was changing...