In Georgia and Alabama, doing the usual: risking my life on a plane, taking part in a hunt, playing golf in a fashionable style and managing to lose in many english sports.

On travels.

I remember January . It was 10 months ago, just before February and after Christmas, when I clearly decided to avoid all that traveling that almost killed me in 2006.

You see, going around, seeing new places or old interesting ones, taking part in great orgies of food, sport and sex (mmh... one of these three elements has been added only to make it sound more interesting, guess which one).. It's all nice, until you come back home, and try to resettle in your daily routine that personally I like a lot.

You can say I'm a routine man: I work so they can give me the money to support my lifestyle made of violent sports and films.
Violence, but only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays morning. Films, only on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Other activities, whenever I don't go to movies.
A very simple lifestyle.

But coming back from travels ruins it every single time. It takes me ages to go back to normality. Last year I decided to put a halt to it.

Now, November. I'm back from Atlanta and writing this report and what I've just realized? That after all I've been already to Italy , Spain , Poland , South Africa and the United States. And all those trips were absolutely essential.

I want to be honest though. I've never really enjoyed going to Atlanta.
The 2004 experience was a fantastic trip that barely touched the capital of Georgia and really blossomed only in the Hooters in Santa Monica and behind Danny's in Las Vegas.
The next year I came back three times , all for work reasons, and while I was hoping to find someone who could give me a lift to Las Vegas (after all they're in the same Country), I spent my time in cubicles eating chicken wings every single night.

This is way my expectations of fully enjoying a trip to Georgia were very low. I don't mind the people I work with (they're actually great, most of the time at least) but let's say that when my mind thinks "USA" it means mostly hooters, LA, Vegas and cheap strip clubs.

Anyway, let's go back to the trip, shall we?

I met Guy, my colleague and long travel partner (in a totally not sexual way, he's married and I'm not gay) in Gatwick, and after a quick check in we boarded on the BA flight that would've taken us to Atlanta after just 8 hours and 3 crap movies.

The key was to stay awake to avoid jet lagging and be ready for a long day of semi work. So I boarded the plane with the magazines that make the life of every man worth living: Nuts , FHM , Arena (my favrourite!) and Zoo . An essential collection to every trip, and a tradition on mine.

Unfortunately because of some overbooking we sat on different sits, and I was sharing my row with a sleepy Indian guy and a very old lady.
The lady was actually quite nice to me, but she stopped talking when she realized I was more focused on my Zoo magazine then on her stories about some nephew in America getting married to some Atlanta girl. Or vice versa. Or to some other guy. Something like that.

With the old lady blocking my access to the aisle, the toilet was a forbidden place, approachable only when she asked for help to go to the loo (she was injured at one leg, by the way, did I mention that? Basically I was sitting next to a corpse, without the smell of the corpse).

On a side note, have you ever realized how much gas grows in your stomach over a long flight and how disappointing are your trips to the toilet? And let's not even start talking about the dryness of EVERY cavity (dryness that makes me wonder how people can join the Mile High Club ). Doesn't it bother you? Or it's just me?

I spent my 8 hours reading the latest Stephen King's book: Lisey's Story .
Now, dear Stephen, I really like you and I adore your books but please stop writing a book from the point of view of a girl married to a famous writer. And please find another nice editor, that book was way too long. Don't you remember how crap were Dolores Claiborne , Gerald's Game and Rose Madder ? Books about women too.
At least the last 200 pages were really good. Shame about the 300 before.

500 pages and more juicy pictures later on my stash, we were in Atlanta, ready to roll.

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