This morning, I started the day with a stroll along South Beach, which was pleasantly quiet, warm and sunny.

Miami’s South Beach is famed for its Art Deco buildings, which I ogled en route to the 11th Street Diner – itself an Art Deco dining car transported to Miami from New Jersey. A salmon omelette and breakfast potatoes with lashings of ‘cor-fee’ (note the vowel shift) were the order of the day.

From South Beach, I took a bus into central Miami and then a train to Dadeland South. Here, I transferred to another bus heading for the zoo. Not that I’d any intention of visiting captive rhinos, but it happens to be adjacent to the Gold Coast Railroad Museum. Captive locos are more my thing.

The museum’s draw card is the Ferdinand Magellan – the presidential railcar that is effectively the Air Force 1 of the railway. Armoured, with bullet-proof windows and two separate escape hatches, the carriage was used by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan to travel the length and breadth of the USA. It even has a built-in presidential podium with microphones on the verandah, to enable presidents to deliver speeches.

The GCRM is also the southernmost passenger-carrying railway in the States. It’s a short run, through the marshalling yard of what used to be the Richmond Naval Airbase to the main CSX freight artery towards Florida City. I travelled up front with the driver engineer, who was a very knowledgeable chap.

Shunting manoeuvres complete, it was time to head back to Miami, enjoying some stark contrasts along the way.

As evening approached, it was time for one more culinary experience. My colleagues in New York had enthused about the wonders of the Cuban sandwich. I happened upon a Cuban establishment called, appropriately but rather non-Cubanly, David’s and duly placed my order. I was not disappointed.

A further stroll along the seafront gave further opportunities to savour the 1930s architecture, this time floodlit. With a range of genres of live music at most of the venues, the clientele were dressed to kill. I felt distinctly un-trendy as I mooched by in my T-shirt and shorts which had developed a distinct aroma of diesel clag during my time in the loco cab.

A blueberry milkshake and slab of key lime pie rounded off the evening in my own preferred style. The enjoyment was enhanced when I used the BA app to check in for my flight home and discovered that I’d been upgraded to World Traveller Plus. Bring it on!

With a spare weekend before my flight back home, I’d already decided to complete my foray along Amtrak’s east coast route to line’s end at Miami. What I’d not counted on is tornado season beginning unseasonably early…

In British rail lexicon, Tornado on the line is a good thing. In Florida, less so. The threat of twisters had imposed speed restrictions, and a full-on tropical storm had derailed the freight train immediately in front of the Silver Star I was due to catch. Sunshine state indeed!

As it was, my wait at Orlando station grew longer and longer, as the clouds grew darker and darker. The TV in the waiting room was interspersing wildlife documentaries about puffins in the Shetland Islands with grave reports from ‘certified meteorologists’ (as opposed to vacuous blonde ‘weather presenters’ with all-American smiles) about the impending storm. 3½ hours later, my train – and indeed the rain – turned up. Shortly after the train left Orlando, fellow passengers were receiving reports that a tornado had ravaged through part of the city. We’d escaped just in time.

It was a memorable journey – not so much because of the scenery, which was obscured by the torrential downpour – but because of the train being buffeted about by the power of the wind. Because of the delay, we were treated to regular dispensation of the Amtrak emergency ration pack. Aptly, this included fish-shaped cheese snacks.

The route, via Tampa (and a reversal in Neve) and Okechobee was far from direct, and the weather-induced restrictions led to arrival in Miami being 5 hours behind schedule. After a quick taxi ride to my hotel, bed was a welcome sight.

 

Monday was very much a getting-ready kind of day, with a fairly relaxed (if Disney-fied) breakfast in the hotel restaurant, a planning meeting with some of the local Salvation Army team and an opportunity to check out the technical facilities. Mercifully, the internet connection was adequate for my purposes.

Colleagues in The Salvation Army’s USA Southern communications team invited my boss and I out for dinner… at an English fish-and-chips shop nearby. Staffed by a Scot and a Geordie, it did a very good impression of being back home – with proper chips, real tea and Only Fools and Horses on the TV.

On Tuesday, the ‘Global Conversation’ got underway properly, with delegates arriving from all over the world. The opening meeting was well attended, and was followed by me briefing the 24 delegates who had been selected to record the conversations in their groups. I then needed to create user accounts for them all, and email ‘invitations’ to the live text facility for the appropriate seminar, etc.

A formal dinner rounded off the day, which was considerably posher than the previous night’s chipfest. Suit and tie was the order of the day, as various Salvation Army luminaries spoke.

Wednesday and Thursday were exceptionally busy, with three consecutive seminar streams to provide live text streams for twice a day. As well as the scripted text, downloadable papers and contributions from the 24 ‘facilitators’, the events were open to salvationarmy.org visitors to comment on. This meant a lot of rapid decision-making, and collating appropriate remarks from Twitter, Facebook and the micro-site I’d set up for the conference. EventStudio did us proud, and we had interaction from more than double the number of delegates that were physically at the event in person.

 

Cobbling all this together for Friday’s plenary session (in the presence of Salvation Army top bod, General Andre Cox, no less) was no mean feat. Both Wednesday and Thursday nights were very late ones, as I edited together the most illuminating comments from around the tables and around the internet.

The Friday morning sum-up was an almost entirely unscripted meeting, which I provided live text commentary for. Fairly hair-raising… but well-received.

Yes, I could have flown from New York to Orlando in a tenth of the time. But where would be the fun in that? The overnight train journey has given me glimpses of nine American states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia). Waking up near the Florida state line revealed a tropical new landscape.

Amtrak’s Silver Meteor dining car provided a fine breakfast of ‘southern-style omelette’ (sautéed mixed peppers and onion with jack cheese) accompanied by sausage, fried potatoes, a freshly-cooked ‘biscuit’ and maple syrup.

On arrival at Jacksonville, Florida, a truck drove alongside the locomotives and started refuelling them. Not a procedure that I’ve witnessed on the east coast mainline in the UK!

The journey south continued, with palm trees and pampas grass being punctuated by the occasional small town or village. Being a Sunday morning, there was little going on – except at the little whitewashed churches along the route.

After lunch, the Silver Meteor pulled into Orlando station just a few minutes behind schedule. I, along with half the train, disembarked.

The temperature was markedly higher than in still-chilly New York… probably around the 25°C mark. I leapt into the air-conditioned comfort of a waiting taxi for the final leg of the journey to the hotel/conference centre I’d be working at for the next week. The driver was a typically gabby cabby, who appointed himself as tour guide and pointer-out-of-things. Should I wish to buy a gun in the greater Orlando area, I now know the best purveyor.

Mr Taxi was also strangely fascinated by the British ‘obsession’ with roundabouts. ‘We don’t have them here,’ he claimed as he weaved through 100 lanes of traffic on the burgeoning interstate highway. I bristled. And then we pulled into the hotel entrance, only to encounter… a roundabout.

 

The New York I’ve experienced so far has been big, brash and bawdy. I’m not especially a city person, so I’d been looking forward to a gentle amble around Central Park. I’d expected it to be… well… a park. But it’s much more than that.

I entered the park at its northern extremity, and was pleasantly surprised to see not a manicured formal garden but an area of quite rugged beauty. There were hills and lakes and woods and trails to explore. Plenty of wildlife too – from blue jays to Carolinan wrens. And plenty of squirrels.

It took a good couple of hours to walk the length of the park, and there was much, much more to explore. As I headed south, the number of other people enjoying the surroundings increased, but it was largely traffic-free, quiet and picturesque – although with a backdrop of monolithic buildings. At the southern edge of Central Park, the skyscrapers are in such close proximity that the sun does not penetrate – one of the lakes was still frozen over.

But perhaps the most unexpected highlight was underneath the Central Park arches. A vocal group was performing a number of Christian and secular songs, and the acoustics were fantastic. They were clearly very talented singers and musicians. But then it became apparent that their audience was primarily composed of a youth choir and their director. Suddenly, the roles reversed and the choir gave their own rendition. It was unquestionably the best performance I’ve ever experienced… truly moving.

By now, I was running a little behind schedule – so grabbed a quick hot dog from one of the numerous vendors. As I munched, a harpist struck up. Music, it seems, is a way of life in New York. The subway buskers cover genres from opera to gospel, hip hop to blues. I even encountered someone playing Beatles hits on a musical saw at one point.

On the way back to the apartment to pick up my luggage, I realised that I’d been through Times Square station several times but not actually surfaced. Taking the opportunity to remedy that, I bumped into Batman.

Taking the subway for the final time, I checked in at the Club Acela lounge at New York Penn station, for my Amtrak train to Orlando. Train 97 was on time, I was assured. Penn station is something of a Birmingham New Street… underground, dark and mildly sinister. But the lounge was a comfortable place to wait, with free cinnamon whirls, blueberry muffins, hot drinks and Pepsi on tap.

Boarding took place at about 2:45, and the sleeping car attendant introduced herself. ‘My name is Avia,’ she said, ‘and my job is to look after y’all real good’. She continued: ‘Have y’all travelled sleeper before?’. Travellers in the adjacent cabin muttered that they had. ‘Not with me, you haven’t,’ chimed Avia. ‘I’m different and I will give you 101%. Anything you need, you jus’ holler for Avia.’

The cabin itself was pretty comfortable, and the train left New York right on the dot of 3:15pm. Within seconds, Avia was offering coffee and juice, explaining how everything worked. After emerging in New Jersey, the journey was pretty speedy through to Washington DC where the electric loco was switched for two hulking diesels. As dusk fell, there was a a brief glimpse of the Capitol building.

In the dining car, I was assigned a seat on a table with a retired couple from Boston and a retail manager from Pennsylvania. They were delighted to have a Brit on their table, and they were all train enthusiasts. Many tales were shared of TGVs, the Orient Express, less luxurious trains in Cambodia and Vietnam and a Hungarian express that apparently includes a cocktail bar and after-dinner pianist. Although there was no piano, the Amtrak dinner was excellent – beautifully cooked steak with a rich mushroom sauce, a baked potato with sour cream and green beans. The meal was rounded off with a strawberry cheesecake and some more ‘car-fee’.

Returning to the room, ‘101% Avia’ had transformed the cabin into sleeping mode, and the motion of the carriage rocked me to sleep in no time.

A 6:45am start today to head to The Salvation Army’s International Social Justice Commission, near the UN HQ. This week, the team has been involved in the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women so it was good to be able to demonstrate to the ISJC team how to upload video clips to their website and train them in the use of The Salvation Army’s Web Manager tool. As well as the formal training, I was able to fix a number of outstanding glitches while I was there.

After a late lunch at another New York favourite, Ess-a-Bagel, I headed for Staten Island via the ferry at South Ferry.

The boat heads very close to the imposing Statue of Liberty, although my photo doesn’t really do it justice. While on Staten Island, it would have been rude not to get in a quick trip along the Staten Island Railway to Tottenville and back. The return ferry crossing was as dusk fell, giving a different perspective of the Statue.

Tonight’s dinner was a traditional American meat loaf, with gravy, sweet potato fries and carrots. Enormous. Delicious. But, tragically, no space for the mouthwatering cherry pie I’d been eyeing up.

Today’s main objective was to meet with communications colleagues in The Salvation Army’s USA Eastern Territory. Their headquarters are, theoretically, in New York state, but out in the sticks somewhat. An early start was required to devour a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit at NY institution Kitchenette, before a brief foray to the World Trade Center site.

From here, a quick nip on a PATH train under the Hudson took me to Hoboken, whereupon a New Jersey Transit train conveyed me up the surprisingly scenic Pascack Valley to the middle of nowhere.

The Salvation Army’s headquarters are in a rather unlikely location nestled above a stream amid a wood.

The team were welcoming, professional and good humoured. The meetings went well, including lunch and a tour of the territory’s extensive facilities such as a fully-equipped TV studio and editing suites. I’m not at all covetous. Oh no.

The return to NYC did not go entirely to plan, as the bus schedule bore little relation to the timetable I’d acquired online. I was therefore stranded at the Palisades Center ‘maul’ for a couple of hours. This proved to be a cavernous place dedicated to extracting money in as many ways as humanly possible. It was so large, in fact, that there is a bowling alley, a multiplex cinema, a spa, about 50 restaurants and a full high-ropes course in the middle.

Eventually a bus turned up to return me to the right side of the Hudson, connecting (just) with a Metro North train along the river bank. This was strangely akin to the Dawlish sea wall line in Devon – very pleasant. 45 minutes later, the train pulled in to the ubiquitous Grand Central Terminal, in some ways the holy grail for a rail enthusiast like me. Ornate, spacious, luxurious, uber-American. Wow. Just wow.

Grand Central has a ‘dining concourse’, which houses upwards of 40 eateries. One that came highly recommended was Two Boots, a pizza emporium that sells such delights as a thin-crust ‘pie’ (I know, I know…) topped with corned beef and coleslaw. Delicious.

Next port of call was the iconic Empire State Building. Unashamedly touristy, but it was a clear night offering spectacular views. And on Thursday evenings there is a jazz saxophonist on the open-deck 86th floor, just to add a certain razzle-dazzle. Being about 2 degrees at ground level, it was considerably colder 300 metres up in the air, and distinctly breezy too. New York really does seem to be a city that looks better at night. I commend it to you…

My body clock is entirely broken. I woke up at 4am and didn’t know what to do with myself, so decided to take an early morning subway journey over to Brooklyn for a leisurely crack-of-dawn saunter back to Manhattan island over the Brooklyn Bridge. Well, as close an approximation to ‘leisurely’ as one can reasonably get when surrounded by several lanes of horn-honking SUVs.

And then it dawned on me. New York reminds me of a children’s book that I greatly enjoyed my dad reading to me 17,000 times when I was little: Mr Blogg’s Bridge. For the uninitiated, Mr Blogg lives a life of quiet contemplation on his peaceful island. Until property magnate Mr Turnover weasels his way in and fills the place with houses, businesses, traffic and pollution – to the disgust of the permanently disgruntled Parkinson, Mr Blogg’s seagull sidekick. Perhaps, once upon a time, Manhattan was an island idyll. Not so much now.

Brooklyn Bridge (and newspaper-reading squirrels) successfully navigated, and the exhaust-filled air proving strangely restorative, it was time to find some breakfast. Where better than a traditional American diner? The ‘car-fee’ started flowing within about 5 seconds of sitting down, and was thick, gloopy, high-octane stuff to match the fug of the expressway outside. My ‘lumberjack’ breakfast comprised of sufficient food to feed a family of four for at least three days: three very large pancakes with syrup, five rashers of bacon, a plate-sized slice of ham, sausage, scrambled eggs, and something curiously referred to as a ‘biscuit’, that bore no resemblance to a Rich Tea whatsoever. Replete, I set about my work for the morning.

By midday, I felt it was time to leave the USA… for the United Nations headquarters which is technically an international zone, complete with passport and security checks. First stop was the delegates’ dining room, which enjoys commanding views over the East River and offers an all-you-can-eat feast from around the world to ambassadors, UN delegates and unimportant members of the public like me.

Today’s fayre included a rather British beef and barley broth (presumably chosen for its alliterative qualities), clam salad, pork loin in fig reduction, poached salmon in French white wine sauce, smoked chicken legs, steamed jasmine rice, roasted sweet potatoes, and various side salads… including an authentically Thai som tam. Desserts were similarly extensive, featuring cheesecakes, flans, pies, fresh fruit, and a rather decadent mocha tart. Yum. There was also a cheeseboard featuring all manner of loveliness from each continent.

The delegates’ dining room wasn’t just about the global gastronomy, it was about the eavesdropping. Sitting in close proximity was a group of officials debating disarmament (‘I firmly believe that alcohol is a prerequisite for withdrawing weapons’). Another pair were talking about the ramifications of 9/11 on UNHQ security. And a further conversation covered the technology investigating the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370 – although sadly it yielded no exclusive ‘scoop’.

The tour itself was somewhat frustrating. The general assembly chamber was closed due to reconstruction. The security council chamber was inaccessible due to a closed meeting (although a tantalising glimpse was afforded when the door was briefly opened by a security guard telling our guide to be quiet). We were briefly ushered through the public gallery of another chamber, though photos were prohibited. Only in the room intended for the resolution of colonisation squabbles were we allowed to take photos.

Like all good tours, we ended up in the gift shops (plural), which did have the novel distinction of including a post office. As it’s not part of the USA, the UN headquarters has its own postal service, stamps and post boxes. It also offered free wifi, which was handy for my first Skype call home from no-man’s-land.

Today I’ve notched up a new continent. My first trip to the US of A.

The British Airways flight was suspiciously quiet, and I had a row of three seats to myself. I therefore fashioned a longitudinal bed from it and spread myself out, smug in the knowledge that those up front in the real flat beds would have paid considerably more for their tickets.

The food was passable – tarragon chicken breast for lunch, with a tasty chocolate and caramel mousse. The drinks service was much more regular than on other long-haul flights I’ve taken.

I decided to prepare myself for the American Dream by watching Nebraska. It was in the ‘comedy’ section of the entertainment guide, but was very, VERY slow. Nothing much happened at all, in fact. Already bored of America, I chose Richard Curtis’s About Time for the second film. What can I say? Brits are just funnier.

Much of the flight was over water, but the part over Canadian territory was fascinating. The ice floes in the Gulf of St Lawrence created an ever-changing Arctic patchwork, and I may have even seen a polar bear from 39,000 feet. It was off-white and it moved, so I’m counting it.

The approach to JFK was also interesting. We flew the length of Long Island, affording views of the beach and (more importantly) the railroad. As if from nowhere, the towers of New York City sprang into view, looking uncomfortably crammed in to the limited space of Manhattan Island.

Immigration procedures were efficient, and my first task was to navigate the New York Subway system. Purchasing the ticket was the first challenge… and I saved myself a dollar by buying from a real person rather than a machine. Top travel tip there.

The subway has been described as ‘complicated’, which is probably true. Some lines have local and express variants, take different routes during rush hour, or arbitrarily switch tracks because of supposed engineering works. My main navigation issue at Jamaica station, however, was the ‘elevator’. I knew that Americans don’t bother with such trifles as ‘ground floor’ and therefore start their numbering at 1. But I’d blithely assumed that ‘B’ (for ‘basement’) might be the logical choice for an underground railway system. Not so. It transpired that ‘A’ was the correct floor for the subway station. I still cannot fathom what it stands for.

And so, 90 minutes after touching down, I was checking myself into the Broadway apartment that I’m housesitting for the next few days. A quick McDonald’s later (minty Shamrock shake for St Patrick’s Day!) and I was very much ready for bed. But as head hit the pillow, I realised that sleep was not going to be easy.

It seems that in New York, there is a fire every 2.5 minutes. And New York fire engines make a LOT of noise. Also, it seems that the city’s taxi drivers use their horn at least as frequently as their steering wheel. Furthermore, the New Yorkers on this particular part of 96th St appear to be unable to talk to each other. Instead, they shout. Which is audible even on the twelfth floor of an apartment block.

In short: it is LOUD.

I’ve been presenting on web and social media best practice at The Salvation Army’s European Communications Network gathering in Prague today.

It was a mixed group, with various disciplines represented, so it was a challenge to cover the basic essentials while also stretching the other web practitioners. But we managed to cover topics as diverse as Google In-Page statistics, eye-tracking ‘heat map’ analysis, responsive design for mobile, different approaches to engaging and seeking interaction with website visitors, Facebook Power Editor, Twitter optimisation (including a fine example of the Danish rail operator favouriting a Salvation Army tweet right on cue).

It seemed to go pretty well. Colleagues from Germany and the Netherlands are also sharing some of their experience – I’m looking forward to the segment on harnessing Pinterest. I’m presenting again on Wednesday… this time with a specific focus on Twitter.