San Francisco & New York

Our debate in Maryland was our final University stop, and our next stop, San Francisco was different to the rest. We were heading to California for the National Communication Association conference – the annual gathering of professionals and academics in the field of communication (which incorporates not only debate but lots of other related fields). The event is enormous, with about 5000 delegates, and hundreds of event over four days. This was a fairly low intensity pressure in terms of debating, with just one debate during our stay. The debate was on whether or not the NCA should 'strongly discourage the use of the 'public speaking pill' without physician advice'. The drug in question is an over the counter natural drug for public speaking anxiety. We were debating against each other and each gave a speech, and after the debate part of the event a panel of experts on public speaking and speech anxiety commented on the issue, followed by the audience, before we gave summary speeches. Fitting with it being our final debate of the tour, the audience vote at the end was tied! It was great to get a chance to be part of an academic conference, and unusually for debating the issues we were discussing were actually potentially going to chance something – the discussion was about a possible resolution to NCA's legislative body.

NCA was also an excellent chance to catch up with many of the hosts, coaches and graduate students we met over the course of our trip, and our evenings were very enjoyable and spent hanging out with people we'd met (Lewis likened it to the Big Brother final night, where everyone who was evicted returns..). NCA is a hugely sociable event, and every evening different University's communication departments hosted parties (with the aim to reconnect alumni and faculty, provide networking opportunities and to promote their graduate programmes) we very much enjoyed various Universities parties, and aswell as catching up with familiar faces got introduced to lots of new and very interesting people. And of course, with only one debate to do, we had plenty of free time to explore what is a truly amazing city – beautiful, diverse, laid back and, importantly warm (even in mid-November!). We spent a lot of time wandering around the beautiful streets, checked out fisherman's wharf, took a boat trip around the bay to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz with Brian and Dave (who was our host in Miami) and took one of the famous trolley cars up the cities steep hills.

Our final stop on tour was a brief, one-day stop in Manhattan. One can't fail to be impressed by the city, and we managed to fit a lot into our limited time, starting in downtown Manhattan to visit the ground zero site and stopping by the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street (where we saw the announcement by GM about their share price changes). After walking through China town, Little Italy, Soho and passing by the Empire State building we found ourselves amongst the impressive lights and sights of Times Square. We then headed East to the United Nations HQ for a quick tour, where we got to see the General Assembly room (so cool!). After brief stops at the Rockefeller centre and Trump tower, we jumped back on the subway to our hotel to go to the airport.

So, after 2 months, 14 states, 22 Universities and about 30 flights, we finally embarked on our final flight back to London (and, for both of us, onwards to a debating tournament in Cambridge...). It has been an amazing journey, and we'd like to take these final lines of the blog for anyone who has the stamina to still be reading, to thank everyone who has hosted us so generously and made the experience such a incredible one. We'd also especially like to thank the English Speaking Union, the NCA Committee for International Discussion and Debate, and tour co-ordinator Brian Lain for everything they have done to make this programme happen. Long may it continue!

Maryland & DC

As an avid West Wing Fan DC was a stop that I had always been looking forward to and fitting in with the pattern of this trip this stop did not disappoint. We arrived in DC from Virginia by amtrak which is a really comfy way of travelling especially since you can have your bags checked in at your destination leaving you free to leave you to wander around. We met up with Marlene our host who then took us on a night time tour of DC starting with the world renowned Lincoln Memorial to the less visited but equally impressive Jefferson Memorial. It goes without saying that we paid homage to the White House and Congress.

The next day we met up with Adam Bonnifield a great guy who I had got to know on my Japan Tour and a former Cornell and Cambridge debater. Adam is a funny guy who kept us entertained all day and coming from DC knew a lot about the city. We were later accompanied by Michael Baer someone who I got to know in Turkey and we drank the night away in the Dupont Circle area of DC.

Our final day in DC would feature Mary a I debating against each other on a motion about significantly increasing immigration. I was opp Mary was Prop and this turned out to be one of best events we took part in during our tour. The audience, largely comprised of African Americans were really involved in the discussion and in a close debate – I WON. In reality we were both winners because we both received an excellent welcome at a reception held afterwards with the honour students. Getting to spend a lot of time with the students at Prince George's County was a amazing experience especially since this school was really international.

Randolph-Macon College

After flying into Richmond, it was straight on the road with the debate team to drive to Hampton-Sydney, a nearby college and Randolph Macon's most ardent rival. Hampton-Sydney is an all male college, and in the 1970s Randolph Macon was too, and the rival that came with this is still strong. The week we were there was the week of the annual and very significant football match between the two colleges, and the week proceeding the big match saw a series of competitive events between the two colleges, and Monday night saw a debate! Lewis and I, along with a judge from Hampton-Sydney, judged the debate on animal conservation. Happily, Randolph-Macon put up a strong fight and won the debate!

The next day we were taken into Richmond to see what is a beautiful city with and a rich and interesting history, and John, who worked with the debate team, was a great guide. We also had some incredible BBQ food for lunch! That night was the debate, on whether religious toleration was tenable in an age of terrorism and extremism. We were proposing, and ran a case about the need to take lots of necessary steps to foster integration and not allow communities to isolate themselves, in order to secure a safe and cohesive society. It was a great debate, and a very interesting topic. We enjoyed hanging out with the debate team that evening, and all in all had a great stop in Virginia.

University of Central Missouri

Our next stop, and 11^th State on the tour, was Warrenburg, for our visit to the University of Central Missouri. After checking out the campus, we did a quick interview with a local TV station about the debate and our tour, and then headed back to the hotel. That evening the President of the University hosted a dinner for us along with some of the University administration in his home. It was a great welcome to UCM, with excellent food and company.

Saturday was an exciting day of competition for UCM, not only because of our debate against the 'Talking Mules' (the debate society) that evening, but the day also saw one of the UCM's biggest Football matches in recent years against Northwestern Missouri, and was a cup match for the end of the season. That stadium was full of faithful Mules fans, as well as an actual Mule, with very intense support. It was a very closely fought match. With literally seconds to go the score was 16-14 to UCM but, in what was probably the most tense sporting moment I've ever seen, Northwest kicked a field goal as the clock turned to zero, giving them them the match and the next spot in the state league. The crowd stood in shocked silence, whilst the opposite side of the stadium errupted in a roar of University pride. It was a pretty dramatic game with an incredibly dramatic final moment.

That evening saw an even more exciting sporting (kind of..) moment in the British vs. Talking Mules debate. We did the extremists on campus topic again, and it was another lively debate. We were lucky enough to be honoured as 'Honorary Talking Mules' after the debate. We then headed to Applebees, a true American experience (we've seen them everywhere we've been!) and had fun hanging out with the team. UCM was hosting a tournament the weekend we were there, and Sunday was mostly spent at the tournament, and our time in Missouri ended in truly American fashion, with a great Mexican meal followed by hanging out with the team watching football.

Washburn University

The next day we took the relatively short drive up to Topeka, to Washburn University. We met Kevin and Steve, our hosts at Washburn, and after lunch took a ride through Topeka. We were shown some of the sites of Kansas's state capitol, including the Phelps family compound, the family who are a part of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (stars of the documentary “America's most hated family”); the infamous nature of the family and their church was demonstrated by the 'God Hates America' banner on the side of the building.

After meeting the debate team and checking out the Washburn campus, that evening we judged Washburn's 'Speak-off', a public speaking contest the Department of Communications hosts each year for students new to debating and public speaking. It was interesting to see a different kind of competitive speak, with the contestants offering an 'informative' speech, and were fighting to win a scholarship. We headed out that evening for an excellent Thai meal, followed by drinks at a local sports bar with some of the team. The next day, after a bit of shopping at a local mall, we went to the cinema with Steve to watch Inception (again!). Our debate that evening was on the motion of banning extremist speakers on University campuses. The topic was a particularly pertinent one in the context of Topeka, with the Westboro Baptist Church as local residents, who regularly picket military funerals with homophobic protestations.

Kansas Wesleyan

After our extended stay in Texas, we fly from Dallas into Wichita, Kansas, to be greeted by Gary Harman of Kansas Wesleyan College. He took us back to Salina where the college was based, and after settling into our hotel we headed to dinner with Gary and his wife, and the two students we'd be debating the next day. Dinner was both delicious and exciting – it was a Japanese Steak house, where we sat around the grill on which our chef for the evening cooked our food, a cooking process that involved impressive flair and many a trick involving fire and throwing things around. It was a great evening!

The next day, we got to see some of the campus and meet more of the debate team. Meriah, who we'd debate later, took us out to show us a bit of Salina. The day was punctuated with the excitement of it being election day, with polling stations around the town and people with stickers patriotically proclaiming their commitment to the democratic system. Our debate that evening was in-keeping with the theme of the mid-terms election, where we proposed the state funding and capping of election campaign spending, and a very interesting debate ensued. We headed out afterwards to a great steak house, and then watched some of the election result coverage with some of the team. As keen followers of American politics, and having visited states of a variety of hues of both red and blue, it was an exciting night

University of North Texas

After flying from Austin to Dallas, we were met by Brian Lain, coach at our next stop of UNT, and also our tour manager. It was great to finally meet the person behind the whole operation! Upon our arrival in Denton, where the University of North Texas is based, we were filmed my student journalists and asked about our trip and the debate. A quick turn around later and we went to dinner with the debate team to a 'traditional English Pub'. They offered number of "English delicacies" I'd certainly never seen in England, or anywhere else for that matter, including 'English dipping sauce' (still unclear what this is..). We then headed to the University for the debate, which was on making development aid conditional on women's rights, which is a great motion and created a good and very heated debate, and the evening ended well hanging out with some of the team in one of Denton's bars.

After a hearty Texas breakfast in a cafe full of people with cowboy hats and lots of pictures of guns (some of which were accompanied with omnious signs such as "We don't call 911"), we dealt with an impending clothes shortage at the laundromat, and Lewis, as the most high maintainence member of this team, got his haircut. After more food, we headed to Dallas with the UNT debate team to judge at the Dallas Urban Debate Alliance tournament, an organisation aimed at spreading debating amongst Dallas's High Schools. We spent the first couple of rounds getting aquintated with judging policy debating, and the next day judged a couple of rounds. Like many of the equivalent and fantastic programmes in the UK, the organisation really seems to be making a difference to the aspirations and educational experiences of many young people in the Dallas area. We also got to do a show debate about Afghanistan at lunch time against a couple of the UNT debaters,.

After the Dallas tournmanent, we headed into downtown Dallas for a bit of sight seeing, first stopping by the 'Sixth Floor Museum', which is dedicated to the JFK assasination, and overlooks the spot where he was killed - . is a re-creation of the 'sniper’s nest' where the assasin shot from, and the displays really illuminate the very historic event. We then checked out the conspiracy theorists on the street outside offering alternative, inside job, explanations (the evidence for is offered at the bargain price of $30...), and took the obligatory photos on the 'grassy knoll', where some claim shots were also fired from, and on the X marked spot on the road. We then wandered around downtown Dallas, checked out a few tourist shops (Lewis tried on some genuine cowboy boots!) and had a great dinner on a Dallas rooftop restaurant. We then spent the evening back in Denton at the house of one of the coaches, where we enjoyed an evening of great company and beer pong.

Sunday started with an excellent brunch in Denton, followed by a workshop with the debate team, where we introduced British Parliamentary format to them (UNT does Policy debate), using videos of last years worlds finals. We then headed to an enormous mall in the Dallas suburbs somewhere, where we took advantage of the exchange rate and cheap American prices for cloths, as well as replacing some the items we've worn out/broken/lost over the course of the tour. Our time in Denton ended well, with Lewis's poker skills winning out in a game with some of the debate team (making some headway into counter balancing some of the previous gambling losses of the tour).

Texas State

Although the tour did not stop in Louisiana Wayne Kramer, head coach at Texas State (and a former resident of Louisiana) introduced us to Cajun cuisine by taking us to an excellent seafood restaurant as soon as we arrived in San Marcos. Afterwards Mary and I ran a BP workshop for their debate team which aimed to get the students ready for the Oxford IV.

Perhaps one of the most impressive places that I’ve been to in a very long time was San Antonio. Firstly the town really did make me feel like I was in a South American old city a feeling that I have never experienced since I have never visited a country with a strong Spanish/Mexican influence. Secondly we were able to visit the Alamo – the site of a famous battle with Mexican Soldiers who greatly outnumbered the mostly American force of 186 men. The Alamo was something that I’ve constantly heard references in pop culture so actually visiting the site and knowing some of its history has made me feel like less of a pleb.

The students we were debating against were experienced veterans who had actually competed at Worlds before. Luis and Laura took the opposition side on the motion “thw incentivise environmentally sustainable choices. We argued that this policy would work because people’s decisions are based on economic grounds and why we had an obligation to protect the future generation. They ran that this would not work and would be regressive. It was a fun debate which we eventually won but in reality debating was the winner. Yes I actually wrote that.

We were shown a great time by the debaters at Texas State. Two back to back house parties were held in Laura’s house both of which were really good fun. All in all Texas state was a very cool stop

Baylor University

After early flights from Amarillo, we arrived into Waco late morning (the fact we took two flights and remained in Texas is indicative of the epic size of this State...). Matt, the director of the debate programme met us and we took a tour around campus. Baylor's campus impressively has had a live bear on campus for nearly 100 years (it being the University's mascot), and has a million dollar bear habitat! We headed to lunch with Kyle to a great Mexican; we've become used to having excellent food in Texas, but the one surprising thing about the was that a man at the table next to us casually had a gun in a holster around his belt. He was also wearing a cowboy hat, and so I definitely felt we were getting the genuine Texan experience...

That evening saw our public debate, on THW negotiate with terrorist, which we again proposed. We were against grad students and debate coaches Amanda and Kyle, and it was and fun debate, with another really great turn out. The audience were also able to be the first to sing Lewis 'Happy Birthday' in advance of him turning 24 on Sunday. Afterwards we headed to one of Waco's finest restaurants, for what was probably one of my top meals on the tour so far.

Friday morning we experienced some Waco history, with a trip to the Dr Pepper museum, which originates (or as they like to say, 'discovered') in the town. Perhaps due to the not so subtle pro Dr Pepper message (which amusingly included trash talking other fizzy-drinks brands) the Dr Pepper we sampled in the cafe at the end was bizarrely good, and I have since been converted to the cause of Dr Pepper... We then headed to lunch with the debate team - which not only offered great food, but is also an eaterie favoured by George W Bush, who has a ranch in Crawford which is just outside of Waco (the walls of the restaurant are adorned with pictures of the owner with the Bush family). The afternoon saw more animal related fun, with a trip to Wacos very impressive Zoo; the baby monkeys in particular were unbelievably adorable. As per the picture to the right, Lewis tried some of his debating skills on a Leopard; they didn't work quite so well though. The day ended well, spent eating and hanging out with the debate team, who are luckily a great group of interesting and funny people, making our weekend a great one.

Saturday was an exciting day in Baylor, with it being homecoming weekend, and a big game for their football team, the Baylor Bears. The day started with the homecoming parade (which we were told was the biggest homecoming parade in the country) passing by the road outside our hotel; sorities and fraternities spend literally tens of thousands of pounds on super impressive floats, one of which included a working ferris wheel. The marching band and great atmosphere was out first taste of the days festivites! Dressed in our newly acquired Baylor green and gold T-shirts, we headed with Matt to Baylor's 50,000 seater stadium for the big game against Kansas State. Baylor traitionally hasn't been that successful with College football, but this year the team has been doing well, and winning this match would mean gauranteeing them the chance to play a cup game - the stakes were high! The stadium had an incredible atmosphere, with it being pretty much full of green and gold fans. The pre-match hype was unlike anything I've seen before; there were entire troops of dancers and cheerleaders, an enormous band that played the national anthem (a stadium of people with their hand on their heart is always an impressive sight) and the state anthem (the band even made the shape of Texas whilst they played this!). The freshman ran onto pitch the welcome the players, whose enterance to the stadium included a wall of smoke. A bit different to University sports in the UK...The game however, only lasted about 2 minutes before it was delayed due to an imminent storm; all 50 or so thousand fans were then told to shelter under the stands, and the game didn't resume for about 2 hours. The atmosphere remained very friendly and exciting though, with people continuing the singing and chanting in the very cramped area below the stadiud. Baylors is a Baptist institution, which was was evident with the spontaneous 'He's got the whole world in his hands' amongst the crowd whilst waiting for the crowd to pass! The game eventually restarted, and it was a close game, but Baylor managed to get and maintain an upper hand; due to the late start and the fact that the weather remained wet and a little cold, we left at half time, but were very glad to hear later of a Baylor victory! We again spent the evening with the debate team, and at midnight were able to sing Lewis 'Happy Birthday', this time for real!

Sunday saw a pleasantly late start, before heading to the debate squad room, where we got to see our first full policy debate. I remain in awe of the speed and quantity of information the debaters both follow and produce! Our final night in Waco started with Lewis trying to protect his ego by not loosing at FIFA on the X-box, followed by a great meal at a local restaurants, where the list of new things I've eaten in America was extended to include Alligator and 'Hush Puppies', which are not shoes but rather fried Corn bread, and also very good. We ended the night watching, for a second time, The Social Network (which remains a good movie, to be recommended!).

West Texas A&M

After what, due to engine failure and other inexplicable delays in Dallas, turned out to be a 10 hour journey, we arrived in Amarillo, in the 'panhandle' of Texas. We were picked up my faculty member coordinating our trip and were taken to the house of one of the University Professors. It was a nice chance to relax with some of the students on the speech and debate team. We then drove back to Canyon, the small town outside of Amarillo in which the University is situated. The drive was punctuated by great excitement for me when we passed signs to Hereford, the Texan version of my hometown.

The next morning we headed to some classes with Katie, one of the debate students. The discussions we have with students in classes like these are always interesting, but particularly now we're in what is quite a different part of the country. This part of Texas is known often as the 'buckle of the Bible belt', and is one of the most Republican and conservative parts of the country (Canyon was until very recently a 'dry' town, and even now only one place that serves alcohol, by pretending its a private members club..). The paradigm from which we were coming in from in discussions was quite different to what we're used to in the UK; the students were open about their backgrounds and and we had a some great discussions.

After classes, we headed with Micah, another of the debate team students, to see some of the local sights. Our first stop was 'Cadillac Ranch', a public art installation off an interstate. It consists of ten old Cadillac cars, half buried in the ground, covered in graffiti and constantly being added to by people stopping off and visiting and taking part in the art piece. Micah had brought some spray paint, and we made our mark (including, since we are such excellent ambassadors, writing 'ESU' and 'UK' on the cars). We then headed to Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest Canyon in the America. There was a superb view of the Canyon, and we also checked out the very impressive outside Amphitheatre where they hold plays during the summer months. It was yet another demonstration of the incredible geographical variation of this country. We finally headed to a museum on Campus that had lots of stuff on the history of the area (from dinosaurs found in the local area to a room full of guns), and then to another class where we talked about how cool our accent is and how Hereford is pronounced wrong in Texas. Good times.

That evening saw our 20th debate of the tour, a milestone clearly recognised by the students of West Texas, who turned out in such large numbers that the originally location was so overwhelmed with people that we had to move to another venue to fit everyone in. The debate was “This House would allow prayer in schools” and the large audience were wonderfully vocal and engaged. Unusually, we were split up and each paired with a West Texas speech team student, where I proposed and Lewis opposed. The result was decided at the end by 'division of the house', Oxford and Cambridge Union style, with the audience exiting the door of the side they most agreed with. The count was close, with Lewis's team victorious (making the count between us 2-1 to Lewis..). We headed out into Amarillo for dinner with the speech team, and had a great final night in the Texas panhandle.

Detroit

Detroit is a city that has a (unjustified) reputation for being a dangerous and lawless city however I had an excellent time in this great city. Like most big cities there are places around town where it would be ill advised to walk around on your own at night but for the most part the residents of Detroit were incredibly friendly and welcoming.

We were met by Kelly Young and his wife Amy and were then taken to a nice Mexican restaurant in downtown Detroit. Driving around Detroit it becomes clear that Detriot a city that was hit hard by the global downturn and the city has pockets of blighted buildings however the vast majority of the town feels vibrant, multicultural and brimming with life.

The students we spent time with at Wayne State were incredibly funny and great to hang out with. The night before our debate we were taken to a famous brewery called the motor city brewery. I can officially say that we had the most amazing pizza that I have ever had in a restaurant. The theme of good food continued on the day of the debate with a lunch at one of Michigan’s most exclusive private member’s club. Eventually we got round to doing some debating and despite the amazing but heavy lunch we were able to put in a good performance debating whether or not we should negotiate with terrorists in what was a very enjoyable debate. We were lucky to be debating in front of the alumni of the debating team and we even met a debater who debated our predecessors in 1961! I felt really privileged to speak to former students who still obviously have a close connection to their debating societies and really felt that debating had a significant effect on their lives. The post debate dinner made me realise alumni relations was something that debating societies back in the UK could focus some of their attention on especially since many debating societies over here receive substantial donations from their alumni.

And a video of debate can now be found here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10286941

Days 27, 28 & 29 - Iowa City

After a mix up with our booking at Indianapolis airports, a few phone calls with Brian in Texas who coordinates all our travel, and the re-booking of tickets, we eventually got on a flight to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for our next stop. We were met at the airport by Iowa debater Corey, who took us back to our hotel. That evening we went for dinner with Paul, debate coach and team coordinator at Iowa. It was a great meal, and good to hear about the long history of debate at University of Iowa. Our trip coincided with the 150^th anniversary of debate at Iowa, and a debate alumni reunion hosted by the debate union. Iowa also has a long history of hosting international debaters, having started hosted British teams since the 1920s. It was great to hear about the long tradition of which we are now a part.

The next day we headed to breakfast with Paul at the 'Hamburg Inn' in Iowa City. The Hamburg in is a famous for its part on the US presidential campaigns – since Reagan it's been an essential stop for hopeful presidential candidates during their Iowa caucus campaigning. In addition to the great breakfast, we very much enjoyed the pictures on the wall of the many presidential candidates (as well as the West Wing when they filmed there). We then headed to campus, and met some of the debate students and coaches, and checked out the impressively well set up debate team's room, and Ryan (our opponent in the debate) kindly took us on what was a great tour of Iowa City and the university campus.

Iowa city claims to have more bars per capita of any US city, and Corey and Ryan took us out that evening to sample a few of them. We had a great meal and good fun experiencing Iowa City; cultural understanding was fostered with exchange of colloquialism and practising of accents (Ryan's, though he sounded like he was a character from Oliver Twist, was reasonable; Lewis's American accent sounded more robotic than anything else...) . The evening ended with Lewis proclaiming Corey's truly remarkable talent of being able to instantly alphabetise the letters of any word, 'the most impressive thing so far about America'.

On Friday morning, after a late breakfast, some debate prep, skyping and 'The Thick of it', we joined the Iowa debaters at the first event of the alumni reunion weekend. The team had prepared some great displays of Iowa's debate history, and we particularly enjoyed checking out past programmes of British debates, and talking to some of the alumni who had debated against British team alumni such as Tony Benn. We then headed to the Iowa Hawkeyes football stadium (which holds an impressive 70,000!) for a reception and pre-debate dinner, with alumni and University guests. The debate that evening was the same motion used by the British Debate in 1935, on “That the American written constitution is a safeguard rather than a hindrance to social progress”. It was another fun debate, again using cross examinations, and with an interesting audience discussion after. The alumni weekend celebrations continued in downtown Iowa, where we to experience more of Iowa's bar, and enjoyed great hospitality from the University and alumni. Iowa was a great stop!

Day 26 - Wabash College

We awoke on Tuesday morning to see that yet again we were staying on a very beautiful campus. Wabash college is in a small town in Crawfordsville, Indiana. It is one of only three remaining all-male colleges in the US, and is fairly small with around 800 students.

After breakfast with some students, we had a tour of the campus. Wabash has a very good endowment, and as a result has excellent facilities, especially given its small size. It is also a college full of traditions; with a bell that rings new students in and rings out graduates, a bench you can't sit on but must paint under the cover of dark, and an arch you can't go under.

It was also interesting to hear about the dominance of 'greek life' on campus - about 60% of Wabash students are members of fraternity. Unlike most Universities, students at Wabash 'rush' (the process of choosing and being intiated into a fraternity) before the start as a Freshman, and most live in Fraternities throughout their time in College. We got to learn more about the frat system when we went for lunch with Tommy, one of the debate team students, at his fraternity 'Sigma Chi'. It was great to meet some more students and to experience a meal in a frat - like most frats, Sigma Chi has chefs who cook thier meals in the week, and they all eat together in the dining room. There is a definite sense of community around the greek system, that Wabash students are very proud of.

After an afternoon nap (the sign of a good day), we got ready for the debate and headed to dinner with a couple of faculty staff and the students who we'd be debating. It was a great meal (good Mexican food is definitely something the UK is lacking in compared to the States..). We then headed back to campus for the debate; the motion for the evening was 'This House Believes the US has a duty to spread democracy by any means neccessary'. It was a great debate, in particular because the audience were great and really engaged in the debate, which made it much more fun and entertaining. You can watch the debate on youtube in the link below!



After the debate, some of the students very kindly invited us over to their fraternity, TKE. We continued what is now a tradition (of two years..) of British Debate teams visiting TKE at Wabash, and enjoyed visiting their house, continuing to foster Anglo-American relations. We again had such a great welcome, and as always it was interesting to talk to some of the frat brothers and compare cultural differences (questions included "Do you all do cheese rolling?"). Another good day on tour.

Days 24 & 25 - South Carolina continued

After another Brunch in the Furman dining room overlooking the lake and beautiful campus, we headed out with Lee (the debate society president) to a local shopping mall for a bit of shopping. This is always welcome, particularly for Lewis who likes to buy new clothes and throw away his old belongings as we go.

As those of you who know Lewis will probably know, he is a big fan of Inception (verging on obsessive). In part so I can participate in some of the many conversations Lewis strikes up at every stop about the film, and in part because Lewis's company has convinced me it must be amazing, we had been keen to see it for a while. Watching it in South Carolina required some research; we eventually located a cinema about an hour away that was showing it, and headed over there and watchted it with Brandon. We all came out kind of confused (even Lewis who was watching it for the 4th time..), but definitely enjoyed it. After a car journey home discussing whether or not it was a dream and other such perplexing and important questions, we went back to Campus for a debate meeting with the team. We discussed and agreed the format, and it was great to meet some more of the Furman students.

Monday started early, with breakfast with some of the debate team at a local restaurant. We then headed to some classes with Lindsay (one of the students we'd be against in the debate), which as always was an interesting comparison with UK University education. Then came the debate; the motion was 'THW allow extremists to speak on University campuses', and we were opposing. It was another great debate, with a nice combination of formats - incorporating Points of Information, as well as a cross-examination time, and second speeches for each speaker. The audience vote saw a shift in our favour, and the judge panel (of a student and professor) was split. We're going to say this pretty much means we remain undefeated...After a great final meal with Brandon in the University cafeteria, we headed back to the house to pack up and go.

The rest of the day was just more flying, with us making our third visit to Charlotte Airport (definitely know the best places to eat there now..), and completing our 11th flight of the trip. We arrived late into Indiannapolis, for our next stop - Wabash College. More on this later...

(Photo: Furman campus)

Days 22 and 23 - Furman College

We arrived by car in South Carolina after being picked up by our new host Brandon Inabinet - the professor we would liaise with everyday. The evening began with a mini debate over a lovely dinner at a Mexican restaurant with 20 other students present. Mary and I sparred over the motion “Thb that America has a duty to spread democracy around the world by any means necessary”. A group of middle aged women who looked like they were pregaming for a night out initially seemed to be very interested in my argument about why this would be perceived badly part of neo-colonialist agenda; in fact they were more interested in my accent.

Afterwards we were taken downtown by a resident student called Zack and a South African student called Ben Fogel to a large community fair called Fall of Greenville, named after the city that we were in. There were tens of thousands of people from all walks of lives, colours and faiths taking samples from the hundreds of stalls and attractions on show. The food was excellent and our tokens allowed us to mix and match to our hearts content.

Saturday witnessed the British debate team attend their second live college American football game between Furrman and Howard. Furman dominated the game so naturally our attention focused on the non-sporting entertainment at the game. Mary and I befriended the Paladin (the official mascot of the school sports teams). This guy was pretty brave wearing a full set of armour in the searing heat on Saturday lunchtime. Mary and I also met the cheerleading team however we were disappointed to find out that the school doesn’t book in cheerleaders for debates.

We put our diplomatic hats on to meet the President of the College in the VIP box (yes VIP). He was a very affable man who I had noticed was wearing a shirt and a jacket but with Khakis and military boots. It soon transpired that today was Military appreciation day and at half time there would be a ceremony to commemorate the Furman students who had died defending the country. As we would expect America has a deep sense of respect for war veterans and the moving ceremony at half time confirmed this.

The next stop was hiking with Brandon. We saw some incredible views on this hike, the highlight being us drinking beer on a cliff edge overlooking rural South Carolina. I’m not normally a huge fan of hiking but as the pictures show the experience was an amazing one. Fall for Greenville continued into Saturday night and so we headed there for some more food related shenanigans. So far we’ve had an amazing time.

Days 20 & 21 - Wake Forest

We arrived in Winston Salem, North Carolina after two flights from Miami. The frequency of flying on this tour has led me to develop excellent sleeping on plane skills (I'm rarely awake for take off), but also an increasing level of Carbon footprint guilt... This was especially acute on this journey, where the second of our two flights between Charlotte and Greesboro took about 12 minutes, covering a distance that takes just over an hour in the car...The flight was one of many that day and full, making America's very high Carbon output unsurprising.

After putting my environmental guilt aside, we were met at the airport by two of Wake Forest's graduates who took us to us to our hotel. We've been really lucky have always stayed in great places thus far, but our North Carolina abode is ridiculously luxurious; it looks just like an English country estate and is super nice. We particularly enjoyed doing our debate prep in the 'hospitality room', complete with a freezer full of ice cream.

After settling into our new and plush surroundings, we headed to dinner with some more of the Wake Forest guys. Wake Forest is one of the top Universities in the US for policy debating, and has a strong team of grads who coach and help out with the programme. Anthony, one of the grads who help out with the programme, was coordinating the debate and also took great care of us. After an excellent dinner, we heared to a bar in Winston Salem, the small town in which Wake Forest is situated (we also saw an Obama doppelganger! My theory was that it was him in semi-disguise, chilling out in North Carolina...others disagreed). We then moved on to what we would now call a 'getty' (Miami lingo for 'get together'; we're trying to spread it across America). We enjoyed some great hospitality and an excellent welcome from everyone. Excitingly, there was a fire pit in the garden, which was particularly educational for Lewis, whose London-centric world has not incorporated the concept of fire before. A great first night in NC!

Our second day in North Carolina was a welcomingly relaxed one. We spent the morning, after an excellent hotel breakfast, sleeping, blogging and debate prepping. Having some time out in such nice surroundings was good, and allowed us to catch up a bit. We headed to lunch with Anthony and Jarrod, who is the Director of Debate at Wake Forest, and then returned to the hotel for more debate prep/napping/free ice cream. The evening saw our public debate, on "The House should prohibit women from wearing the burqa and the niqab in public". We were prop, and it was a tough side, but an excellent debate. Due to the primacy of Policy debate at Wake Forest, the debate incorporated 3 minutes of cross-examination between speeches, which we really liked as part of the debate. Our opponents, both grad students and past Policy debate champions, were very good, and were able to adapt well to what for them was a new format of debating. After the debate, we headed to a great restaurant in Winston Salem with the debaters and some of the members of the department; we had some very exciting discussions about how great the Worlds format is, and hopefully we did enough to encourage them to continue it in some way... After dinner we continued our journey towards greater cultural understanding, with Beer Pong at the house of some of the grad students in the department. We had a great night, and Lewis almost managed to go undefeated (though largely due to having a good partner...). We're so lucky to continue to have such excellent hopsitality shown to us! The night ended with the continuation of Lewis's education, this time with the discovery of stars in the sky without light pollution. Good times!

Day 19 - More Miami

Today was a really interesting day. Mary and I accompanied Dave to two of his classes the first one was Political Communication which seems like a really fun class that I wish I could have taken as an undergrad. We had a discussion about the role of the media in dictating the message of political campaigns and then had a discussion about how political campaigning in the UK differs from the campaigns in the United States. (As an aside Mary and I have found the negative campaign ads on TV totally hilarious)

We then went to Dave’s debate class and had a rather heated group discussion about immigration – specifically whether or not immigration become more restricted and was the “path to citizenship” plan a good idea or not.

In the afternoon Mary and I decided to explore Miami on our own and after spending a while working out how the ticketing system worked (we ended up getting a travel card) we headed down to Dadeland South to a huge shopping Mall then went to the opposite end of town to government centre and went to do...some more shopping. A good days worth of shopping is always a great way to prepare for a debate...

Before our debate we had dinner at a restaurant called the Titanic which was themed around...the Titanic. I had one of the best steaks that I have ever had at this place so Titanic got a big thumbs up from me.

Our debate was going to be televised on a student run TV station and the show was called “We the students” This was an incredibly professional operation with really expensive gadgetry and surroundings. The topic up for discussion was “Thw allow prayer in schools” which is a huge issue in America. There were really no rules and we could interrupt each other at length whilst the other side was speaking but that meant that the debate was much more vibrant and fluid. We argued that the separation of church and state was a concept that did not have to extend into the classroom whilst our opponents argued that this would impose religion children and this would be unfair. We really enjoyed this very unique experience.

Afterwards we headed to a Shisha bar and chilled out with the University of Miami’s policy debate team over beers. This was a fun stop and it’s really sad to leave but North Carolina awaits...

Days 16, 17 & 18 - Welcome to Miami!

After an early start in cold Pittsburgh and a couple of flights across America, we arrived in Florida early evening. The landscape was quite a change with, sun and palm trees rather than the cool climates, forests and lakes of North East. It was a welcome change! We were met at the airport by Anthony, one of the debaters we'd be facing on Monday, and taken to our hotel across town. We headed out that evening with Anthony and his wife Lauren, to South Beach, a pretty famous part of Miami (not least due to its mention in Will Smith's 'Miami'...). We had an excellent dinner in a restaurant on the beach, enjoying the amazing weather. We down the street of bars and restuarants, taking in the buzz of the city and enjoying the luxury of such an amazing climate.

We awoke on Sunday to another day of pretty much perfect weather in beautiful Miami (around 30 C and perfect blue sky..). Our host at Miami Dade, Professor Todd, picked us up from the hotel and we headed out South towards Key Largo, and to the Pennekamp State Park. The Florida Keys are made up of Islands off Miami, connected by bridges. I got to snorkelling, which was really incredible; there were loads of tropical fish swimming inches away from us (think Finding Nemo) and super impressive coral reefs. There was also a 9 foot tall statue of Christ about 10 ft from the surface (see left), which somewhat of a suprising sight when swimming around, and also really impressive to see. Lewis, who is not a keen swimmer, took a trip in a glass bottomed boat, and so also got to check out the reefs and fish. We then headed to 'Robbies' dock, where you can feed some of the hundred or so Tarpon fish in the water with baitfish. They're nicknamed the 'Silver King' due to the colour of thier scales, and they reach an impressive 8 feet. We got to watch them jump for their food, which was a pretty cool sight!

Whilst I realise this blog has tended to excessively mention food in America (though this is largely because of the fact our trip has been largely based around being taken from restaurant to restaurant...), our evening meal was definitely worth noting. We went to 'Golden Corral', one of a chain of buffet restaurants around the country. It's a fairly self explanatory concept, in that you pay for entry and then eat as much as you want. The choice and amount people were eating was pretty remarkable though; I'm going to put it down to the fact I'd spent an hour and a half in the water, but I inexplicably ate four large plates of food - perhaps the mentality of over-eating in the US is having an effect... But we were pretty conservative with our portions compared to most... The other bizarre thing about the experience was the extent of functionality of the restaurant - there was no real decor and it really was just focused on the food bars... It was a good meal though!

After heading back across town to our hotel, and after I had washed the salt off, we met up with Anthony and Paul (the other debater for Monday's debate, and also Anthony's brother-in-law); we hung out at Paul's house for a bit, where the football was on - we (/mainly Lewis) are getting better at being able to talk about football and sound clued up! We then headed out to the cinema and watched the 'Social Network' which was really good . In a couple of the scenes where there were British characters, their accents sounded really odd - we are clearly getting accustomed to the Ameircan twang!

Monday saw another beautiful day in Miami, with locals eulogising about the 'cool weather', at only 30 degress C! We headed with Professor Todd to a local Cuban restaurant, Paul and Anthony. Miami is a really interesting place, that feels very different to the other places we've visited. This is partly due to the tropical climate and the palm trees everywhere, but is also due to the diversity of the place. About 75% of the population is hispanic, with Cubans the largest group (Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, and Cubans qualify to settle as political refugees in the US legally if they can reach American land). The massive Spanish influence is clear, with Spanish the primary language for a lot of the population; we heard Spanish being spoken more than English around the city, and a lot of signage in both languages. The other impact of this influence though, is the excellent food, and we very much enjoyed an excellent Cuban meal in one of Professor Todd's favourite restaurants.

We then headed to Miami Dade College for our debate. Its an enormous College, wtih 50,000 students on the one Miami Campus alone. The debate was "This House belives America has a duty to spread democracy across the world, using force where neccessary", and we were proposing. There was a really good audience, who got into the debate, and Anthony and Paul did an excellent job in opposition. Certainly one of our most enjoyable debates so far.

After the debate, we were picked up by our next host, Dave Steinberg, from the University of Miami. After checking into our next hotel, we headed for dinner, in a restaurant in 'Little Havana' and ate at Versaille (a Cuban restaurant, curiously decorated to mimic a French palace..). We then headed out to 'Coconut Grove' with some University of Miami students for some drinks in a popular area of town. The warm night air was punctuated by cries of joy and (more often) cries of despair as the Miami Dolphins were defeated by the New England Patriots 41-14... In no small part due to the joyous novelty of being able to drink outside comfortably in the late evening, it made for the end of a good day.

Day 15 - The Pittsburgh Debates

For some reason Mary and I decided to wake up at 7am to work on our case (we were opposing Thbt amnesties are a necessary tool in addressing human rights violations). We came down to breakfast and met Gordon Mitchell, a formidable debater in his prime, who took us on a brief tour of where we would be debating. Before the main debate of the day we were asked to do a debate in front of a class with Mary and I speaking on separate sides. We ended up doing a brief debate on abolishing slander laws. This served as a good warm up for the debate ahead.

At midday we arrived at the swanky hotel which would hold the round and met up with our opponents (who were immaculately dressed) and shook hands. Despite the deep subject matter this was one of the most enjoyable debates I have been in. Our opponents were energetic, witty and persuasive and the debate was faced paced, aggressive and funny. Readers would be glad to hear that we managed to secure a victory after a hard fought contest.

After celebrating very briefly we were whisked away to the cathedral of learning which the tallest academic building is in the western hemisphere. This is a great building. It had classrooms which incorporate the culture of different nations (the British room was based on the House of Commons). After our tour we started our third debate of the day – Thw would mandate bilingual education. Mary and I were on different sides and eventually the opposition prevailed.

In the evening we were treated to a very entertaining jazz concert courtesy of Gordon and his wife then headed into town for some drinks in a snazzy downtown bar. This life is hard.