Gee, two weeks gone and all I showed you of Mexico is a toilet. That's pretty poor isn't it. I tried to get started but sorting out hundreds of pictures...

Well, and I've just returned Sunday night from a weekend road trip to Montana (the US state south of the Alberta border) which by the way was my first real time ever in the US. (Apart from touching US soil at the airports of Seattle, Salt Lake City and Phoenix).

It was so funny: our first stop in Montana was a family restaurant in a small town called Shelby which basically provided a summary of all popular prejudices about America. The waitress was extremely obese, the food was crap, the people next table prayer loudly (before having it's crappy food) and the local newspaper hailed the army with the headline "Freedom is not free". Really, it was so stereotypical that we were pretty amused.

It was a world of it's own. Churches everywhere, mostly Baptist, Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. Huge billboards with the ten Commandments in almost every village. Redneckistan at it's best.

But at least we made it into the country. I'm really glad to have a European passport. Giving my fingerprints, get that retina picture taken and fill out a form that I'm not a drug addict and did not commit any war crimes in WWII and stuff like that is a nuisance but still a formality. I wouldn't want to be from a Middle Eastern country though..

And I'm actually fairly pissed off about their restrictions. Your not allowed to bring any food like meat or fruit over the border. I'd sort of understand it if coming from the South where you could have all kinds of exotic pests and stuff - but from Canada? Are authorities afraid that visitors may bring samples of food that actually show US citizens that if they want to have good stuff they better buy it from abroad? That difference in taste between the great Alberta Beef Jerky (of which we of course had to get rid of before the border by quickly munching it up) and the US Beef Jerky (which we bought afterwards) was simply sad..

Oh, and to stop the rant positively: Montana was absolutely beauuuuutiful! That landscape.. First the endless plains, then blue mountains appearing at the horizon and then the drive through the Glacier National Park.. Awe-some.