Monday the 13th I got up early and skyped home and got to see the girls and ash and mum and dad – so good! From Daytona we set off for Miami, we would have loved to stay in Dayton a big longer but we still had Nicky & Michal’s box of stuff they needed to post home and they were leaving from Miami to head back to the East coast on Tuesday so we needed to get it to them.
So we headed off further down the coast toward Miami, we headed straight to Nicky’s hotel in South Beach to drop off their stuff – they said their camping trip was really good but extremely tiring having to set up and pack up every day. We then went to our hotel – the Hilton in downtown Miami, which is was really nice – just a lill bit swanky!
Driving around Miami is an experience in itself, there are just so many good looking guys walking around with no shirts on and there are chicks walking around with bikinis even if they really don’t have the body for that bikini! All very interesting but very pretentious.
We drove back over to south beach to meet up with the girls for dinner, we walked along the strip which is directly opposite Miami Beach. It was packed full of restaurants and bars and they all had outside dinning with all the waiters yelling out their specials grabbing at you trying to get you inside. It reminded me so much of Thailand – remember Ash all the guys “ohh pretty ladies, come in, come in good price for you” it was exactly the same just more American!
We ended up at a café restaurant that gave us a free drink which was good, although the tables were outside on one side of the footpath then across the path the tables were inside so there were lots of people walking up and down the footpath trying to sell you things like flowers, CD’s, club tickets and don’t forget the bums asking for money – cant escape those buggers, their everywhere!
Dinner was ok and after we finished we went for a walk down the strip, then for all you ‘Jersey Shore’ fans we stopped of at the ice creamery where they work at, didn’t really mean much to us. Walked the girls back to their hotel and drove back to ours. Next morning it was raining and overcast, but by the time we got outside the rain had stopped and the day was just overcast which was good.
Nick and Michal were leaving that afternoon so we caught up for lunch at an Irish pub and said goodbye to them as they headed off to Vegas. After lunch we walked around the shops and headed down to the famed Miami beach, it was quite disappointing – sand wasn’t that clean and there was cigarette butts littered everywhere and it also could have had something to do with the fact that it was overcast and had started to spit again! They did have cute little beach huts up and down the beach which were painted all different bright colours.
We decided to walk down the strip and check out all the art deco style buildings, they were great – all the different pastel colours and the intricate details on the buildings give it a really unique feel. Headed back to the hotel as the rain had started to get a bit heavier and had a little afternoon nap. For dinner we walked 6 blocks to a complex called (something that I can’t remember) anyways it is on a marina has lots of shops and heaps of restaurants, so after walking around window shopping we stopped off at Hooters for tea, they had fried pickles!!! Which we tried and loved – delicious.
Wed 16th we left Miami bound for the Florida Keys, along the way we stopped off at a placed called Coral Gables, just outside of Miami, to visit the historical Venetian Pool claimed as the most beautiful pool in the world. It was situated in the middle of a suburban area and costs a dollar to have a look around and $13 if you want to swim, it was really nice. Very Venetian looking and extremely old as it was originally a quarry for the local area (which was one of the 1st settlements in Miami) but later converted into a pool.
Back on the road and the rain started again , the land down to the keys was quite small with the road/highway in the middle and hotels/shops/restaurants on either side with the sea behind them, & every now and then you could catch glimpses of the Caribbean Sea which was an amazing beautiful azul blue colour – and that was even on an overcast day – so imagine it when the sun was shining! The night before we had booked through hotwire at the ‘Keys Resort and Marina’ which sounded promising considering we were driving past some pretty snazzy looking resorts along the way. The area of the Florida keys is made up of 700 -800 little islands so there are lots of bridges connecting all the islands all the way down to Key West which is the very last one.
The area which we were staying at was called Islamorada about halfway down the keys, by this stage it was still raining and getting quite heavy so when Tomtom said we had reached our destination we were a bit apprehensive as it was hard to see because of the pelting rain and because the place didn’t look like much of a resort! We pulled into this small ‘motel’ right off the highway and looked at it in horror as we realised we wouldn’t be staying in a ‘resort’ for the next 2 nights ohhhhhh! It looked more like a scene out of CSI Miami where some one is murdered or goes to top themselves, an old white building with 2 stories and a gravel parking lot. When I went in I asked if we where in the right spot and if the had a booking for us (secretly hoping that Tomtom had made a mistake and our resort was up the road somewhere) “No no said the Indian lady behind the counter, we have your booking - here are 3 keys you can have a look at the rooms and decide which one you would like”
As we walked behind the building we realised that the ‘marina’ was in fact a dirty looking suburban canal lined with houses, and to make matters worse there was a stray cat hanging around. So after walking into the first room and realising the door didn’t lock it was upstairs to the second room that smelt really funky, so onto room number 3 it was 109 which was on the bottom floor, it wasn’t great but better than the other 2, it had all tiled floors with a hideous mural of palm trees painted on the back wall behind the beds along with 2 equally monstrous lamps in the shape of pineapples – great.
We didn’t even bother unpacking the car, we just took off to try and find something to do, after stopping in at the visitor centre and asking about fishing we were directed to a place called ‘Robbies’. It wasn’t very far & when we got there the big jolly guy behind the desk, Steve ,was really nice, and was saying that they don’t get many Aussies down at the Keys so he was very excited and he even joined us on Facebook. We booked a half day fishing charter for the next morning and it was only $35 – bargain, we chatted for a bit with Steve and it wasn’t long till ol’ gimpy appeared which he thought was fabulous and took pics with her. He then told us to follow him out onto one of the jetty’s as he grabbed a bucket of fish, walking along the little jetty the water was so clear and you could see a mass of fishing swimming around. As he grabbed a dead fish from the bucket he leaned over the edge and dangled it over there was a massive splash and this huge 2m fish jumped out of the water and grabbed the fish! It was huge and all of sudden there was 50 or so of some of the longest fish I had ever see swarming around for more food. They were called Tarpon fish but weren’t very good eating fish, Leigh had a go of feeding them and I attempted it but they had really big mouths and they scared me so I wussed out and just threw the fish out into the water, they went berserk and full on fight for it.
After feeding the fish it was about 4.30ish and we wanted to have a look at Key West so we drove the 2 hours to get there along the straightest most uneventful road, but when we arrived it was well worth it. I would def recommend staying at Key West rather than any where along the keys. It was such a nice seaside town it has a beach and lots of little boutique shops and cafes and a nice boardwalk where we stopped and got an ice cream and watched then sun set, where buskers where singing and playing music – really nice.
We drove back and it was pouring rain so not best visibility and it was getting late so we stopped off at Wendy’s and had a salad which wasn’t the greatest but ok all the same. So we finally arrived back at the dump to find about 5 stray cats roaming around and the place stinking like cat wee – nice. See we got ready and jumped into bed to watch so telly, I was in a bed to myself and Kel and Leigh we in the other. Just as we were turning off the lights I noticed something on the mattress……
As I sat up in bed there was this little brown bug crawling around as I squashed it blood came out of it like it was a mozzie, I jumped out of bed and pulled back the covers and they were every where….what the hell? When I got into bed there was nothing that I could see, so the girls checked there bed and nothing – thank goodness. The more we looked the worse it got, we collected them up in a cup and marched down to reception past the 100 cats and there of course was no one there, it was only 11.30pm and the sign still said open so we buzzed and rang the phone number for a while but nothing. Went back to the room and changed as I was feeling extremely itchy like I had bags all over me eeewwwww! To make matters worse they lill buggers had bitten me too, we had decided that they were bed bugs but they so much bigger than I thought they were.
So back in the room there was no way in hell that I was staying in that bed and Kel said even though they didn’t have anything in their bed she wouldn’t be able to sleep either, so her and I went out side and hopped into the car, first we were going to but the back seats down and lie half in the boot and half on the back seat but after about 2 seconds we realised that, that wasn’t going to happen. So we reclined the 2 front seats and lied their for a while itching ourselves with our ipods in and our eye masks on – looking ridiculous mind you. Having the eye masks on made us a little scared that someone was going to come up to the car and we wouldn’t be able to see them haha, and to make the whole experience even more enjoyable it was 27.5 degrees even with the windows down! So here we were lying in the car, itchy, sweating scared that some one was coming to get us, annoyed that there was no one at reception and not being able to sleep a wink and knowing that we had to get up in the morning to go fishing!
By this stage it was 12.30am and all of a sudden Leigh pops out and says that she cant sleep as she is getting freaked out by the bugs so we try reception again and still nothing so we grab our toiletry bags and hit the road to find another hotel minus the bed bugs, all the places we were passing didn’t look like there was anyone at reception or to expensive, driving 10 mins we stopped at ‘Days Inn’ Kel and I went in, in our pj’s and gave the guy our sob story, then he turns around and says ‘oh yeah bed bugs and turning into a big problem and they can get in your clothes and bags and then you transport them round’ ohh I was thinking he was going to tell us we were an infection risk and we couldn’t stay…….
But for 80 bucks we got a room at 1am and we checked that room up and down to make sure there were no bugs. Of course we didn’t sleep very much and we got up at 6.30am to have showers and get ourselves back to the other place to pack up our bags and throw everything in the car, we got our cranky pants on and went to the front desk with our cup of bed bug evidence. “Excuse me but we would like our money back, last night we came to complain several times but there was no one here and this is what we found in our bed!” as we thrust the cup at her. “Oh oh oh I'm very sorry but you don’t have a receipt of how much you payed as you booked online, so cant returnt your money” so she wasn’t sorry that they had a bed bug infestation or that we had to move hotels or that the place she was running was an absolute black hole, all she was worried about was the bloody receipt!
“Well can I use your computer” as I leaned over the counter and logged onto my email and printed out the bill – “there $88 a night for 2 nights” so she wrote us the check, we grabbed it and speed off the go fishing! Thank god we got the cheque now all we had to worry about was finding the bank and hoping it wouldn’t bounce, but we had fun to have so that could wait.
So at 9.10am we arrived at Robbies for the fishing adventure to begin, it wasn’t the best day it was still overcast and looked like the heavens could open at any second, but we soldiered on-nothing was going to stop us fishing! Leigh often goes out with her dad in their boat and is a seasoned fisher girl where as Kel and I not so much, Kel had only ever been once before. Once on board we met Anthony our deck hand and Captain Mike, there was about 14 people including us all blokes except us and one other old lady – no talent though! We headed out about 4 miles to the reef, along the way we had to go inside because it belted down which hopefully wasn’t a sign of things to come.
Once we stopped we got a bucket of squid as bait (which is apparently the best type of bait to use!) We baited our hooks ourselves – well I did mine and Kel’s and Leigh did her own, and off we cast. It wasn’t long time we got some nibbles and Leigh pulled up the first fish a white one called a a throw back but we had made a start. I was next with the same type, Leigh then with an orange one called a this time a keeper. Just before we cast off Anthony told everyone about 3 different type of fish that where deadly and shouldn’t be brought on board, if we did catch one we had to call him over so he could get it off the line.
My next fish was a keeper, then Leigh pulled up this tiny baby fish about 5cm and bright yellow. Kel got a bite and pulled it up but just as it got level with the deck the bugger of a thing flipped off. The next one I pulled up looked completely different from the others, it was a more round shape and was bright blue “Anthony” over he cames and lets me know in no uncertain terms not to touch it as it was a surgeon fish and had 2 razor sharp barbs on either side of its body that if touched would require you to visit the surgeon to get stiches – right mental check “don’t touch the blue fish’
We didn’t do too bad at that spot but it was time to go a bit further out so off we went to deeper waters and dropped our lines. More luck at this spot and I got another few throw backs and then I got a big bite, yanked up the line and for sure it was either one of 3 options #1 a dolphin was on the end of the line, #2 a shark was desperate for a morsel of food and had wanted some of my squid or #3 my personal favourite – I was about to pull up a mighty big marlin (one that I could get taxidermy –ed and sent home for the back patio wall) It was really hard to reel in and some of the other people of the boat had started to looked over.
More reeling – that even Rex Hunt would have to take his hat off too I finally pulled up the ugliest looking fish I had ever seen! All that effort for a fish that looked like a prehistoric rod cod. “Anthony” as he comes over “don’t bring that on the boat, don’t being it on deck” ok man settle down I thought to myself. ‘This is a scorpion fish, the most deadly in the Caribbean sea’ its spikes have a poison in them that is equal to the most deadliest snake bite and if anyone was to be bitten they would “haul anchor, speed back to shore, have and ambulance waiting for you and that’s if you made it” right – ‘mental note 2 don’t touch the ugly fish’.
So after Anthony had cut the fish off the line while it was dangling off the boat I realised that everyone from the boat had come over to have a look at it and some were taking pics, Leigh caught a few more and then it was time to head back in. All in all I had an absolute ball and caught 9 fish all together Leigh wasn’t far behind and Kel had 2, we beat most of the guys on board with our amateur efforts. I'm now determined to join the fishing club when I get home and convince dad he needs a boat!
When we arrived back to the little marina we got Anthony to fillet the fish and bag it up for us, it then started to pelt down like nothing before, the whole place flooded and was in ankle deep water, so we waited in the little hut where they did the bookings for a bit and talked to Steve the guy we met the day before. When the rain eased a little we got our fish and walked over to a little café where they cooked our fish up for us. In the end we think some of the guys on the boat took some of our fish because it turned out we only got 2 little pieces each but that’s ok because it was the best fish I have ever, ever tasted. After the little fish snack we agreed we had seen everything we wanted to and we hit the road bound for…….Well we didn’t really know where we were going but we would just drive and stop when we felt like it.
We headed in a north-west direction and drove and drove for about 2 and bit hours and it was raining so hard we could barley see the car in front, then we turned off the main road and little did we know we were driving through the everglades national park-which was stunning we could see the marshlands, swamps, grasslands and lots and lots of wild birds but for about 2 ½ hours there was absolutely nothing, just us on the road and one small toilet block half way along, so it was lucky that we had filled up before hand. It was a really long drive especially because of the rain and because the night before had been so traumatic with the bed bugs. To make matters worse the only radio station we could pick up was a Spanish station and we were getting extremely sick of the only CD that we had been listening to for 3 weeks!
So when we finally found civilisation again we were in a town called Naples by the coast on the Westside of Florida. It was a lovely, clean looking town with manicured gardens and lots of retirees. We drove until we found somewhere to stay that would suit the budget, La Quinta it was - so for $70 a night including breakfast we got a room. Leigh wasn’t feeling the best and had a bad cough so she hit the bed and Kel and I did the washing and went for a swim. We decided to book another night so we could rest up. That night for dinner we got take away from Olive Garden – a great restaurant that was right next door to the hotel which was perfect.
Cheerio xox
I know I have been extremely slow with the blog but I'm getting there x
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Parties & fun in the sun in Florida!
Tuesday 7th Sept
Up for free breakfast and trying to smuggle as much butter and free muffins into our bags as we could for the drive. We set out in search of Myrtle beach in South Carolina, we drove along the back roads and all the towns where really little and had at least 4 church’s each for a town on 50 people and the houses where really country looking with porches and rocking chairs out the front. Along the way we stopped for our traditional macca’s stop and had our mocha frappe and Angus snack wrap. It was a 5 & ½ hour drive and it was good to arrive. We where about 10 mins from the beach by car, staying at the Holiday Inn express which was nice and we got breakfast!
It was really hot when we got in so it was nice to have the aircon on, we had a lill 1/2hour nap, got ready to go out and then went for a drive to the beach, nice as far as beaches go but not the best, it was quite a long beach with lots of high rises and beachy shops, one in particular called the ‘Gay Dolphin’ looked good.
Right across the road from our hotel was a place called ‘Broadway at the Beach’ which was a huge complex built around a big lake with shops, bars and restaurants around it in a big circle. It was fairly busy considering it was low season. Walking around we decided on a seafood & steak place, we started off with some martinis Snickers, Surfs up and Berry (we thought we better have a drink seeing as though it was in fact ‘Super Tuesday’!) The food was absolutely delicious and the drinks were strong. Heading to the bars we wanted some where that played the tennis as Sam Stosur was playing Kim Clijsters. They had it on at a karaoke bar so we ducked in there for a drink…or 2 and watched as she lost .
The karaoke was good there was some really good singers and some really bad ones too, but it was getting a bit country for us so we decided on the next bar would be the next stop. Outside there was so many bars and we didn’t really know which one to choose, then 2 guys came up to us Ken an Asian accountant and Ali middle eastern a doctor who told us that ‘Senor Frogs’ was good and asked if we would like to head there with them, why not? So off we went and it was a mission just to get into the place, there was a bag check first up checking in all the pockets, inside the mint packet, then for the boys it was a pat down and the metal detector wand and for the chicks it was just the wand ‘geez what is this place, the airport?’.
Inside the boys bought us a drink and they told us they were from Toronto and had come down to Myrtle Beach for a golfing holiday, they were nice. While ordering another drink at the bar I got chatting to another group of fellas who where also from Toronto and were down for a golfing week! They were all really nice to and everyone was chatting having a good time. Now it was time for dancing so we skipped across the boardwalk and went into Maui Beach Club with all the guys and had a good boogie. Kel was getting cozy with Carlos, I was dancing with (as Leigh likes to call em, an Alabama Black Snake!) called Jamal from Maryland who was an NFL manager and Leigh was busy spin dancing with Ali & Ken.
Everyone was having a great time and Super Tuesday had come through again (just like in Toronto). All of a sudden it was time to go….but we decided everyone should come back to our place to continue the party, so walking back we some how managed to loose Ken and Ali, pick up 3 pommy’s and a guy called Rob an ice hockey player from Toronto! By the time we actually got back we had Rob, Jamal & Carlos. More drinks and fun it was now 6am Carlos and Jamal left and Rob was asleep, and then we realised that we had to check out at 11am that same morning ohh so we amazingly had it together enough to book another night online and thank god it was the same hotel.
At 10am Rob left for a golf Tee off and we slept, and slept and slept until 5pm! We finally dragged ourselves out of bed, showered and walked back over to the boardwalk for some food, we walking into ‘Johnny Rockets Diner’ which looked like it was something out of the 50’s with all the staff dressed like they did in the old days. As we walked in ever single person turn to us and yelled out ‘Hi guys welcome to Johnny Rockets ‘ with huge smiles and enthusiasm ‘oh what the hell is going on in here’ it really freaked me out and wasn’t the best thing when you still feel drunk.
After breakfast/lunch/dinner we walked around the shops for a bit and then walked back and went for a swim in the pool and put a load of washing on and went to bed. We actually made it to breakfast the next morning Thursday 9th, headed off to Charleston, it was a 2 hour drive and when we got there we parked in the main street and had a stretch, called into this really, really old chemist which was built before the civil war and has been in the same family since it opened and they have preserved it to look like it did when it first opened, the lady who’s family owned it talked to us about the town and gave us a map and showed us where we should go.
We then headed to the city hall which was absolutely beautiful and so old, it was amazing to see the great condition that the buildings where in. We went into the city hall and they had a movie in the lower level that you could watch about the building, it survived the civil war, 5 hurricanes in a row, an earthquake and another hurricane and it’s still standing. Up to the 2nd floor and the inside was beautiful with wooden polished floors and 2 big marble staircases with big banisters, up on the 3rd floor we went into the council chambers which were just as spectacular, all polished wood every where and lovely old paintings, we snuck a look in the Mayors office who happened to be sitting at her desk when we looked in…opps!
We came out and it was so, so hoy 100 at least and the meter was nearly up on the car park so we drove around the town and through the oldest part along the water front which had magnificent houses with 3 levels, mega white columns flanking beautiful big porches with manicured gardens and huge big chandeliers inside the foyers. The houses were just stunning, drove a little more around the town and then headed off to Savannah Georgia. It was another 2 hour drive and hotwire had come up with the Best Westin. It was in a really good location just one block back from the water front where all the bars shops and restaurants were.
Savannah is a really old town too and all the roads where cobble stones and the buildings had a really old feel about them. The river front street is only 1 of 5 places in the states where you can walk around with a bottle of opened alcohol, so there was plenty of people walking round with beers and drinks. For dinner we went to ‘Wet Willys’ an alcoholic slurpie bar, and yes we did have food not just a drink! We went back to the hotel and were in bed by 11pm. Free breaky again and more smuggling of the butter, fruit and muffins. We bought a loaf of bread and some days we have a vegemite sanga as a snack which is great and we always take the vegemite to breakfast.
Friday 10th was our drive to Jacksonville Florida, it was a short drive, 2 and a bit hours. We arrived and were staying at the Wingate by Wyndham, unpacked and hung around the hotel as it was outside of the main bit of town. For dinner we walked to Applebee’s a chain restaurant where we got 1 appetizer and 2 mains for $20 bucks – tasted pretty good and was good for the budget too. At the hotel I skyped home which was great and dad was being a bit of a goose dancing in the back ground while I was talking to mum and Leigh and Kel were in stiches laughing at him!
Saturday 11th it was time to hit Daytona beach and hotwire had come up with the goods of ‘Daytona Beach Resort’ we had a 1 bedroom condo with 2 double beds, fold out sofa, full kitchen, massive bathroom and an ocean view all for $90 a night. On the way we stopped in at a town called St Augustine an old Spanish community with lots of Spanish style buildings. We arrived at about 2.30pm at the resort which was great, it had 4 pools and from the pool deck we walked straight onto the sand of the beach!
Seeing as though we were at the beach we all decided it was time to go to the beautician/waxer so we headed to the mall and went to ‘Lee’s nails & Waxing’ lets just say we all walked a little more gingerly on the way out! On the way back to the resort we stopped at the grocery store to get some supplies and get our winning lottery ticket! Stopped in at the Liquor store and bought a 1.75L bottle of Smirnoff vodka for $20 out of the kitty. While getting ready to hit the town Leigh made up her famous ‘mules’ (which is now my new favourite drink!) in the bucket we won from trivia – see the bucket did come in handy for some thing.
A Mule is; Vodka, dry ginger ale and a squeeze of lime juice and a slice of lime on ice!
By the time we were ready we were lets say….merry! We had bought along a packet of koala’s that we had left over from the 200 that we started with and gave the guy at reception one along with our cab driver who we asked to drop us off at the most happening place in town, which was the ‘Beach Bar’. No sooner had we walked in and Leigh had already thrown a koala to 3 guys sitting at the bar, they threw it back so we threw it again and then they called us over. Sweet this koala thing works a treat. Kevin, Joey and Jeff turned out to be really nice guys and they bought us all a drink and we had a little boogie on the dance floor. They were from Tampa and had played baseball! They then invited us to another club in Seabreeze street called 515.
We jumped into a cab and headed off, when we arrived we jumped straight to the front of the que and got escorted up to the top floor to the VIP section with a bouncer guarding the area with a red velvet rope – these guys mean business! Next thing you know the biggest bottle of Grey Goose berry Vodka hits the table with sprite and cranberry juice as mixers and we didn’t have to pay a cent – this is awesome!!!!
So good times, Leigh loosing her watch and letting everyone know, and dancing the night went so quick and the club was closing, and after free Vodka lets just say everyone was very messy and needed lots of help from the enormous bouncer to navigate the stairs to get to the cab. We all headed back to our hotel, Leigh fell onto the bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow, and Kel and I weren’t far behind her.
The next morning Sunday 12th was a lazy Sunday, Leigh and I headed down to the pool and laid out in the sun on deck chairs and watched a man and lady get married on the pool deck, we had front row seats lying there in our cozzies! Mind you it was a bit trailer trashy, the couple would have been in their 40’s and before the ceremony the guys in the bridal party, who were wearing beige pants, white cotton short sleeve shirts and all different types of thongs, smoked a pack of cigarettes each in a space of 45mins. Every guest featured a tattoo of some kind and the mother of the bride was wearing an aqua green cotton t-shirt (yes I did just say T-shirt) with an 80’s inspired high skirt with a bright coloured floral pattern on it which she had the T-shirt tucked into along with black chunky thongs and hair that looked like it needed a good brush! In the back ground of the beach inspired wedding was a man in full Scottish regalia including a kilt who was playing the bag pipes. The bride looked really nice and happy and everyone who was at the pool clapped when they kissed.
Kel then came down from her snooze and we went swimming for a bit longer, headed back to the room as it turned really overcast and looked like it was going to rain. We got into our Pj’s and hopped into bed and watch cable TV, for dinner we decided that staying in was the best option so pizza from ‘Pappa Johns’ it was, and then bed.
Cheerio all
Love to everyone xox
Up for free breakfast and trying to smuggle as much butter and free muffins into our bags as we could for the drive. We set out in search of Myrtle beach in South Carolina, we drove along the back roads and all the towns where really little and had at least 4 church’s each for a town on 50 people and the houses where really country looking with porches and rocking chairs out the front. Along the way we stopped for our traditional macca’s stop and had our mocha frappe and Angus snack wrap. It was a 5 & ½ hour drive and it was good to arrive. We where about 10 mins from the beach by car, staying at the Holiday Inn express which was nice and we got breakfast!
It was really hot when we got in so it was nice to have the aircon on, we had a lill 1/2hour nap, got ready to go out and then went for a drive to the beach, nice as far as beaches go but not the best, it was quite a long beach with lots of high rises and beachy shops, one in particular called the ‘Gay Dolphin’ looked good.
Right across the road from our hotel was a place called ‘Broadway at the Beach’ which was a huge complex built around a big lake with shops, bars and restaurants around it in a big circle. It was fairly busy considering it was low season. Walking around we decided on a seafood & steak place, we started off with some martinis Snickers, Surfs up and Berry (we thought we better have a drink seeing as though it was in fact ‘Super Tuesday’!) The food was absolutely delicious and the drinks were strong. Heading to the bars we wanted some where that played the tennis as Sam Stosur was playing Kim Clijsters. They had it on at a karaoke bar so we ducked in there for a drink…or 2 and watched as she lost .
The karaoke was good there was some really good singers and some really bad ones too, but it was getting a bit country for us so we decided on the next bar would be the next stop. Outside there was so many bars and we didn’t really know which one to choose, then 2 guys came up to us Ken an Asian accountant and Ali middle eastern a doctor who told us that ‘Senor Frogs’ was good and asked if we would like to head there with them, why not? So off we went and it was a mission just to get into the place, there was a bag check first up checking in all the pockets, inside the mint packet, then for the boys it was a pat down and the metal detector wand and for the chicks it was just the wand ‘geez what is this place, the airport?’.
Inside the boys bought us a drink and they told us they were from Toronto and had come down to Myrtle Beach for a golfing holiday, they were nice. While ordering another drink at the bar I got chatting to another group of fellas who where also from Toronto and were down for a golfing week! They were all really nice to and everyone was chatting having a good time. Now it was time for dancing so we skipped across the boardwalk and went into Maui Beach Club with all the guys and had a good boogie. Kel was getting cozy with Carlos, I was dancing with (as Leigh likes to call em, an Alabama Black Snake!) called Jamal from Maryland who was an NFL manager and Leigh was busy spin dancing with Ali & Ken.
Everyone was having a great time and Super Tuesday had come through again (just like in Toronto). All of a sudden it was time to go….but we decided everyone should come back to our place to continue the party, so walking back we some how managed to loose Ken and Ali, pick up 3 pommy’s and a guy called Rob an ice hockey player from Toronto! By the time we actually got back we had Rob, Jamal & Carlos. More drinks and fun it was now 6am Carlos and Jamal left and Rob was asleep, and then we realised that we had to check out at 11am that same morning ohh so we amazingly had it together enough to book another night online and thank god it was the same hotel.
At 10am Rob left for a golf Tee off and we slept, and slept and slept until 5pm! We finally dragged ourselves out of bed, showered and walked back over to the boardwalk for some food, we walking into ‘Johnny Rockets Diner’ which looked like it was something out of the 50’s with all the staff dressed like they did in the old days. As we walked in ever single person turn to us and yelled out ‘Hi guys welcome to Johnny Rockets ‘ with huge smiles and enthusiasm ‘oh what the hell is going on in here’ it really freaked me out and wasn’t the best thing when you still feel drunk.
After breakfast/lunch/dinner we walked around the shops for a bit and then walked back and went for a swim in the pool and put a load of washing on and went to bed. We actually made it to breakfast the next morning Thursday 9th, headed off to Charleston, it was a 2 hour drive and when we got there we parked in the main street and had a stretch, called into this really, really old chemist which was built before the civil war and has been in the same family since it opened and they have preserved it to look like it did when it first opened, the lady who’s family owned it talked to us about the town and gave us a map and showed us where we should go.
We then headed to the city hall which was absolutely beautiful and so old, it was amazing to see the great condition that the buildings where in. We went into the city hall and they had a movie in the lower level that you could watch about the building, it survived the civil war, 5 hurricanes in a row, an earthquake and another hurricane and it’s still standing. Up to the 2nd floor and the inside was beautiful with wooden polished floors and 2 big marble staircases with big banisters, up on the 3rd floor we went into the council chambers which were just as spectacular, all polished wood every where and lovely old paintings, we snuck a look in the Mayors office who happened to be sitting at her desk when we looked in…opps!
We came out and it was so, so hoy 100 at least and the meter was nearly up on the car park so we drove around the town and through the oldest part along the water front which had magnificent houses with 3 levels, mega white columns flanking beautiful big porches with manicured gardens and huge big chandeliers inside the foyers. The houses were just stunning, drove a little more around the town and then headed off to Savannah Georgia. It was another 2 hour drive and hotwire had come up with the Best Westin. It was in a really good location just one block back from the water front where all the bars shops and restaurants were.
Savannah is a really old town too and all the roads where cobble stones and the buildings had a really old feel about them. The river front street is only 1 of 5 places in the states where you can walk around with a bottle of opened alcohol, so there was plenty of people walking round with beers and drinks. For dinner we went to ‘Wet Willys’ an alcoholic slurpie bar, and yes we did have food not just a drink! We went back to the hotel and were in bed by 11pm. Free breaky again and more smuggling of the butter, fruit and muffins. We bought a loaf of bread and some days we have a vegemite sanga as a snack which is great and we always take the vegemite to breakfast.
Friday 10th was our drive to Jacksonville Florida, it was a short drive, 2 and a bit hours. We arrived and were staying at the Wingate by Wyndham, unpacked and hung around the hotel as it was outside of the main bit of town. For dinner we walked to Applebee’s a chain restaurant where we got 1 appetizer and 2 mains for $20 bucks – tasted pretty good and was good for the budget too. At the hotel I skyped home which was great and dad was being a bit of a goose dancing in the back ground while I was talking to mum and Leigh and Kel were in stiches laughing at him!
Saturday 11th it was time to hit Daytona beach and hotwire had come up with the goods of ‘Daytona Beach Resort’ we had a 1 bedroom condo with 2 double beds, fold out sofa, full kitchen, massive bathroom and an ocean view all for $90 a night. On the way we stopped in at a town called St Augustine an old Spanish community with lots of Spanish style buildings. We arrived at about 2.30pm at the resort which was great, it had 4 pools and from the pool deck we walked straight onto the sand of the beach!
Seeing as though we were at the beach we all decided it was time to go to the beautician/waxer so we headed to the mall and went to ‘Lee’s nails & Waxing’ lets just say we all walked a little more gingerly on the way out! On the way back to the resort we stopped at the grocery store to get some supplies and get our winning lottery ticket! Stopped in at the Liquor store and bought a 1.75L bottle of Smirnoff vodka for $20 out of the kitty. While getting ready to hit the town Leigh made up her famous ‘mules’ (which is now my new favourite drink!) in the bucket we won from trivia – see the bucket did come in handy for some thing.
A Mule is; Vodka, dry ginger ale and a squeeze of lime juice and a slice of lime on ice!
By the time we were ready we were lets say….merry! We had bought along a packet of koala’s that we had left over from the 200 that we started with and gave the guy at reception one along with our cab driver who we asked to drop us off at the most happening place in town, which was the ‘Beach Bar’. No sooner had we walked in and Leigh had already thrown a koala to 3 guys sitting at the bar, they threw it back so we threw it again and then they called us over. Sweet this koala thing works a treat. Kevin, Joey and Jeff turned out to be really nice guys and they bought us all a drink and we had a little boogie on the dance floor. They were from Tampa and had played baseball! They then invited us to another club in Seabreeze street called 515.
We jumped into a cab and headed off, when we arrived we jumped straight to the front of the que and got escorted up to the top floor to the VIP section with a bouncer guarding the area with a red velvet rope – these guys mean business! Next thing you know the biggest bottle of Grey Goose berry Vodka hits the table with sprite and cranberry juice as mixers and we didn’t have to pay a cent – this is awesome!!!!
So good times, Leigh loosing her watch and letting everyone know, and dancing the night went so quick and the club was closing, and after free Vodka lets just say everyone was very messy and needed lots of help from the enormous bouncer to navigate the stairs to get to the cab. We all headed back to our hotel, Leigh fell onto the bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow, and Kel and I weren’t far behind her.
The next morning Sunday 12th was a lazy Sunday, Leigh and I headed down to the pool and laid out in the sun on deck chairs and watched a man and lady get married on the pool deck, we had front row seats lying there in our cozzies! Mind you it was a bit trailer trashy, the couple would have been in their 40’s and before the ceremony the guys in the bridal party, who were wearing beige pants, white cotton short sleeve shirts and all different types of thongs, smoked a pack of cigarettes each in a space of 45mins. Every guest featured a tattoo of some kind and the mother of the bride was wearing an aqua green cotton t-shirt (yes I did just say T-shirt) with an 80’s inspired high skirt with a bright coloured floral pattern on it which she had the T-shirt tucked into along with black chunky thongs and hair that looked like it needed a good brush! In the back ground of the beach inspired wedding was a man in full Scottish regalia including a kilt who was playing the bag pipes. The bride looked really nice and happy and everyone who was at the pool clapped when they kissed.
Kel then came down from her snooze and we went swimming for a bit longer, headed back to the room as it turned really overcast and looked like it was going to rain. We got into our Pj’s and hopped into bed and watch cable TV, for dinner we decided that staying in was the best option so pizza from ‘Pappa Johns’ it was, and then bed.
Cheerio all
Love to everyone xox
Philly Cheese Steaks, Presidents & Trivia
Wednesday 1st – Today we got up and packed our bags ready for the start of our road trip – whoo hoo! Went down stairs had a vegemite bagel (the best) hoped on the airport shuttle and headed to LaGuardia airport to the avis car rentals. Took about 30/40mins to sought all the paper work out but finally they handed over the keys to our brand new ‘Chrysler Sebring’ sedan in a light grey/blue colour, 4 door auto. Packed all our stuff in – just, and hit the open road! or more like the congested highway of queens! Luckily Kel had bought her GPS with her so we typed in the hotel we booked in Philly. I was quite cosy sitting in the back drawing where we had been while Leigh did a great job driving through Manhattan, New Jersey and then into Pennsylvania and Philly. It took us about 2 ½ hours and we arrived without a hiccup, luckily we had aircon because it was 95-100 degrees.
The Hotel was really nice chandeliers everywhere and it had a pool on level 8 that looked out over the city. Verena came in from her sister’s place that was about 20 mins away and we went for a walk downtown. The town of Philly is really nice its got an old school charm with historic buildings and old cobble stone streets. The main street is really funky with lots of different types of shops, bars and restaurants. We stopped at a pub that claimed that it was the home of the 3 stooges – not that, that means anything to me!
After getting back to the hotel Kel wasn’t feeling too well with a sore throat, we walked to the chemist and got some throat medicine and went to bed. The next morning we were up at 6 as Kel was even worse than the night before and she wasn’t looking to crash hot so we called front desk to see if we could get a doctor to come to the hotel, unfortunately they don’t have GP’s or anything like that so our only option was to go the “ER” as they call it.
So 2 hours later they were back with antibiotics and pain killers and a diagnosis of ‘strep throat’. Kel went back to bed and so did Leigh, Verena had arrived for the day so her and I went swimming as it was soo hot 95+. Leigh came up and joined us and we lazed around for a bit. We decided it was time for lunch and we headed off into town, it was extremely hot and very sweaty. While we were in Philly we just had to have a famous “Philly cheese steak” which they are famous for all over America. We stopped off at the best place in town which was a small, small skinny shop with stools on one side of the counter and a stove/hot plate on the other side. They cooked it right there in front of you which was cool but just added to the heat! We ordered and it was massive, its on a long Baggett type roll and its just thin strips of beef (like what you would get on a kebab) with melted cheese on it! It was ok and I have had one now but I wouldn’t be rushing back to have one.
More looking around the town and we decided to head back and check on Kel – still asleep. It was still really hot and we wanted to see some more things so we jumped in the car and headed out for a drive. We saw the famous Philly ‘Love’ sign in the park and lots of the old buildings, town hall and then we managed to end up in China town. Back to the hotel and we walked to the ‘Independence Hall’ which s a famous building were the declaration of independence was signed and the ‘Liberty bell’ was hung. It was really old but nice looking, then onto the museum where the ‘Liberty Bell’ is now housed, it’s a famous bell! People where lining up and we even had to have a security check and bag checks before we could get in and see it!!
Coffee time, too hot for coffee so an ice frappe it was, back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We decided on an Italian place up the road (when we arrived at the hotel a few days before we signed up for their rewards program and got to spin a wheel and won a free desert, which just so happened to be at this particular restaurant!) It was really nice and we tried scamming 3 free desserts but one would have to do.
Leigh and I then drove Verena to the train station, parked in a towing zone and raced down to drop her off on the platform as it was 11pm and we wanted to make sure she got there ok. While saying goodbye this crazy man came up to us and literally was telling us his life story which included how he is now looking after his own kids and his ex partners kids as she left him, he works hard so the kids can have the best of everything while he is left with holes in his shoes (which he showed us) all his friends and family think he is gay as he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years, but this is only because he is nervous around women and it takes him 6 months to even kiss a woman let alone sleep with one which he says takes him about 2 years, but this is all due to the fact that he was raped by men while he was in jail, the whole reason he was in jail was because one day he and his mother where at the markets and a big black man pushed his mother down so he couldn’t stand for that so picked up a jar of pickles and bopped this guy on the head and knocked him out and was charged with assault. Then he says thanks for letting him speak to us and walks away, the whole time I'm thinking don’t make eye contact, don’t look at him, ‘I'm sure I could out run him if he tried anything’, ‘oh god we have to leave Verena here with this guy’, ‘oh crap the car is in a tow zone’ So another quick goodbye to Verena and a scan around the place to make sure the nutter had gone and we bolted back up the stairs back up onto the street, past the congregation of homeless people and round the corner to find our car…………………..still there and all in one piece!
The next morning we checked out, Kel was still feeling crappy but we were headed to Washington DC. We hit the road with trusty Tomtom to help us along the way and drove through the state of Delaware and into the state of Maryland and stopped at Baltimore for lunch, it was a nice town by the water which had a marina with shops and restaurants which is where we ate, then drove around the town and headed on our way. We got into Washington and arrived at the ‘Hilton Washington’ which was massive and had hundreds of people all there for conferences and work functions. We booked through our trusty hotwire and it had come through again with the goods all for about $25 each a night. By the time we got in it was about 5ish and Kel still wasn’t feeling good so we all decided to have a snooze. Got uo and headed out for dinner, the hotel was located in an area called ‘Dupont Cirlce’ where there are lots of shops and place to eat, so we stopped at ‘Bistro Bistro’ a French restaurant. Walked about the street for a while and then headed back for an earlyish night.
The next morning we got up and headed down stairs to the tour desk to inquire about the hop on hop off bus that went around all the sights. We decided it was a bit pricey so we just put our names down for only the night tour and told the lady that we would decided if we wanted to do it we would let her know, she just gave us the seat numbers and the number to call to let them know. So we set off to catch the subway into town and it was just down the road which was good and the station was fascinating, there was an escalator that you had to ride that went down on a steep, steep 45 degree angle into a big tunnel that they had built into the ground. Down on the platform it looked like a space age tunnel with a roof that had a concrete rectangle cut out pattern, if that makes any sense. Anyways it made the place really quite which was really bizarre considering there were lots of people.
Everything is really well sign posted and it was easy to find which train we needed to be on and which one not to catch! A change of trains got us to the ‘Smithsonian’ stop. We popped out in the middle on this great big long park called ‘The Mall’ we looked right and saw the Capital Building and to the left we could see the Washington Monument and all along each side of the park was the Smithsonian museums. Another hot day to be walking around but it was nice. We headed to the Smithsonian museum of Natural History, we got security checked and bag checked before we went in but it was free which was great. As you walk in you come face to face with a massive African elephant that’s right in the middle of the room. It’s a 2 story building with all different rooms leading of into different exhibits, dinosaurs where first but so we walked through massive t-rex bones, stegosaurus heads, and diplodocus bodies it was really cool with all the different fossils and things to look at. Onto the worlds biggest diamond the ‘Hope diamond’ which was huge and was apparently sent to the museum in the regular post?
Next exhibit was evolution and animals, the human body and the first American settlers, then ancient Egypt and under the sea. We spent a good few hours there, next stop was the Capital, along the walk on either side of the park there is so much to see like art museums and botanical gardens. The park its self stretched for at least 2km so we did lots of walking up and down the park. We got to the capital and it was closed you couldn’t get up into it but we just got pics outside, architecturally it was beautiful. Back down through the park to the other end to the Washington Monument, which is the tall obelisk building, more pics and onto the White House. There were so many cops out the front patrolling the area and the actual house was really far away from the gates you could see the house but it was at least 500m away, more pics and more walking to the World War 2 memorial which had fountains and flags and all the states of America around the fountains. Walked another km to the Lincoln memorial which was my favourite, there were lots of people but when you walked up the stairs and looked back out across the pool of reflection you could see the Washington monument and the Capital building all in a row which was cool. The actual statue of Lincoln was huge but really awesome.
Walked back to the park in front of the white house and grabbed a hotdog for dinner and a nice cold ice block, it was almost time for the bus tour so we thought we would just rock up and buy a ticket when we got there. We lined up and the bus driver got off and said if you had a seat number please come to the front of the line, so we had a seat number so we gave it a shot and he just looked at the numbers and said yep go on up, se we got on and sat there not saying anything till we took off and had started the tour!! Whoo hoo a free tour – that saved us 39 bucks! So we drove around the capital, past the Washington monument, then over a bridge and saw the Jefferson Memorial, past the mint and onto the President Franklin Roosevelt memorial. We got off here and our tour guide took us through and showed us around the place with commentary about all the different era’s in his life, he seemed like pretty amazing guy and he was the only American president in history to serve 2 terms in office, after him they changed it so you could only have 1 term. The memorial was beautiful, it was all outside but the way they built it with different walls and things made it feel like different rooms and there was water falls and streams running through it, it was quite big 7 acres worth. Back on the double decker bus and onto the Lincoln memorial – even though we had seen it all in the day it was so much prettier at night time with all the lights it had a completely different feel.
The Lincoln was even better at night but the pics we got just didn’t do it justice at all. We then headed to the Korean war memorial which was very sombre on the granite wall that lined the memorial there was the faces on the men and women that served etched into the wall it looks so real and life like (they looked similar to those crystals and dog tags you can get printed with a photo on it) its all outside and in the middle are 12 bronze statutes of 6 foot men in battle gear with different facial expressions that reflected their feelings like fear, courage, horror and weariness.
After that we got back on the bus and drove over to the state of Virginia to see the Iwagima memorial (I know that’s not how you spell it but it will have to do), it’s the one with the American soldiers bunched together and pushing up the American flag, you would know it if you saw it, its about conquering Japan or something like that. More driving and we were on the outskirts of Arlington cemetery and we could see all the white headstones in the dark along with the flame that constantly burns on the Kennedy’s grave sites – spooky.
We got dropped back off at the main train station and caught the train home, and back to the hotel. We had only booked up until that night and we still had things we wanted to see so we booked through hotwire again and hoped it would be the same hotel but it wasn’t but it was the Westin just down the road so it wasn’t to bad. In the morning we packed up and headed to the Westin checked in and decided to go for a drive around the place and find Arlington Cemetery, even with Tomtom with us it was no easy task, we ended up in a high security area of the army base ‘Forte Myers’ and had to have our id’s and car inspected just to drive in and turn around and go back out. We weren’t too far from it but eventually made it after passing by the pentagon a few times.
Finally arrived and went it in, all for free too. It was really quite and sad there was just thousands and thousands of rows of grave after grave after grave all lined up in rows. We saw the gravesites of JFK, Jackie and there son and their stillborn baby girl, also his brother Robert Kennedy, we also saw the civil war grave, the outdoor amphitheatre and the Lockerby bombing memorial. We walked to the grave of the ‘Unknown Solider’ which is guarded by a member of the US Army all the time and while we were there we got to see the changing of the guard where the commanding officer came out and ordered the men to swap over, they are dressed in full dress uniform and the tomb of the solider looks out over Washington and has fresh flowers in a wreath laid next to it.
It was now time for lunch so we headed into George town for some tucker and looked around the shops, it was Labour day weekend today so there was quite a few people around. Back to the hotel and we retired for the night as the next morning we were off again.
Today (Labour Day Monday) we left Washington and headed south to a town called Richmond, on all the maps we have its quite a big town and it mentioned that it was great day to stop at??? Not to sure why as when we got there it was deserted and not much there at all we couldn’t even find a place to eat and in the end we decided to ask Tomtom to find us a McDonald’s ! The town didn’t even have one of those and everything else seemed to be shut because of the public holiday. Luckily the visitor centre was open and we ducked in there for a quick look, this little old lady was the only person there and we was about 80 – bless her, she rang all these different places to see if they were open and they weren’t but she told us to take a drive along their famous street, so we got back into the car. Leigh had just stayed outside and she got chatting to these 2 men that where in town helping their kids move there for college, they both told Leigh that Richmond was a quote “Hell Hole” with nothing in it.
We drove along the famous street for a bit and it had a few statues along the road every now and then, nothing much to see but a guy had crashed into one of the statues and the cops where there so that was at least something to see. Back on the road and we continued south, stopping of the highway at the 1st Macca’s we saw. More driving and our destination today was Durham/Raleigh a university town in North Carolina. We had booked at the ‘La Quinta inn & Suites’ for $50 including breaky. For dinner that night we headed into the uni area called Chapel hill which was full of young people with bars and places to eat, we settled on a bar called 4 corners ate and had a drink. While we were there they had a game of trivia on so what the hell we signed up and ‘Grandma Gimpy’s Gaurdian’s’ where on their way to winning the trivia comp! That dream didn’t actually come to fruition but coming last and being from a different country had its perks – got a free ‘Coors’ beer bucket and 3 tumbler glasses!!!
After it had finished this group of people came up and started chatting to us and wanted to know if we wanted to come to the next bar with them, so we went along and down into the under ground bar and it was dead we where the only people there and by this stage it was 12.30pm and we had to leave the next day so we said chow and off we went. On the way home we saw all the frat houses of the university, it was so cool they were massive houses with big porches with signs out the front like Alpha house and omega house just like ‘Legally Blonde’. Then a bloody big deer jumped across the road along with 2 little Bambi’s!! We made it back to the hotel and crashed out.
The Hotel was really nice chandeliers everywhere and it had a pool on level 8 that looked out over the city. Verena came in from her sister’s place that was about 20 mins away and we went for a walk downtown. The town of Philly is really nice its got an old school charm with historic buildings and old cobble stone streets. The main street is really funky with lots of different types of shops, bars and restaurants. We stopped at a pub that claimed that it was the home of the 3 stooges – not that, that means anything to me!
After getting back to the hotel Kel wasn’t feeling too well with a sore throat, we walked to the chemist and got some throat medicine and went to bed. The next morning we were up at 6 as Kel was even worse than the night before and she wasn’t looking to crash hot so we called front desk to see if we could get a doctor to come to the hotel, unfortunately they don’t have GP’s or anything like that so our only option was to go the “ER” as they call it.
So 2 hours later they were back with antibiotics and pain killers and a diagnosis of ‘strep throat’. Kel went back to bed and so did Leigh, Verena had arrived for the day so her and I went swimming as it was soo hot 95+. Leigh came up and joined us and we lazed around for a bit. We decided it was time for lunch and we headed off into town, it was extremely hot and very sweaty. While we were in Philly we just had to have a famous “Philly cheese steak” which they are famous for all over America. We stopped off at the best place in town which was a small, small skinny shop with stools on one side of the counter and a stove/hot plate on the other side. They cooked it right there in front of you which was cool but just added to the heat! We ordered and it was massive, its on a long Baggett type roll and its just thin strips of beef (like what you would get on a kebab) with melted cheese on it! It was ok and I have had one now but I wouldn’t be rushing back to have one.
More looking around the town and we decided to head back and check on Kel – still asleep. It was still really hot and we wanted to see some more things so we jumped in the car and headed out for a drive. We saw the famous Philly ‘Love’ sign in the park and lots of the old buildings, town hall and then we managed to end up in China town. Back to the hotel and we walked to the ‘Independence Hall’ which s a famous building were the declaration of independence was signed and the ‘Liberty bell’ was hung. It was really old but nice looking, then onto the museum where the ‘Liberty Bell’ is now housed, it’s a famous bell! People where lining up and we even had to have a security check and bag checks before we could get in and see it!!
Coffee time, too hot for coffee so an ice frappe it was, back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We decided on an Italian place up the road (when we arrived at the hotel a few days before we signed up for their rewards program and got to spin a wheel and won a free desert, which just so happened to be at this particular restaurant!) It was really nice and we tried scamming 3 free desserts but one would have to do.
Leigh and I then drove Verena to the train station, parked in a towing zone and raced down to drop her off on the platform as it was 11pm and we wanted to make sure she got there ok. While saying goodbye this crazy man came up to us and literally was telling us his life story which included how he is now looking after his own kids and his ex partners kids as she left him, he works hard so the kids can have the best of everything while he is left with holes in his shoes (which he showed us) all his friends and family think he is gay as he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years, but this is only because he is nervous around women and it takes him 6 months to even kiss a woman let alone sleep with one which he says takes him about 2 years, but this is all due to the fact that he was raped by men while he was in jail, the whole reason he was in jail was because one day he and his mother where at the markets and a big black man pushed his mother down so he couldn’t stand for that so picked up a jar of pickles and bopped this guy on the head and knocked him out and was charged with assault. Then he says thanks for letting him speak to us and walks away, the whole time I'm thinking don’t make eye contact, don’t look at him, ‘I'm sure I could out run him if he tried anything’, ‘oh god we have to leave Verena here with this guy’, ‘oh crap the car is in a tow zone’ So another quick goodbye to Verena and a scan around the place to make sure the nutter had gone and we bolted back up the stairs back up onto the street, past the congregation of homeless people and round the corner to find our car…………………..still there and all in one piece!
The next morning we checked out, Kel was still feeling crappy but we were headed to Washington DC. We hit the road with trusty Tomtom to help us along the way and drove through the state of Delaware and into the state of Maryland and stopped at Baltimore for lunch, it was a nice town by the water which had a marina with shops and restaurants which is where we ate, then drove around the town and headed on our way. We got into Washington and arrived at the ‘Hilton Washington’ which was massive and had hundreds of people all there for conferences and work functions. We booked through our trusty hotwire and it had come through again with the goods all for about $25 each a night. By the time we got in it was about 5ish and Kel still wasn’t feeling good so we all decided to have a snooze. Got uo and headed out for dinner, the hotel was located in an area called ‘Dupont Cirlce’ where there are lots of shops and place to eat, so we stopped at ‘Bistro Bistro’ a French restaurant. Walked about the street for a while and then headed back for an earlyish night.
The next morning we got up and headed down stairs to the tour desk to inquire about the hop on hop off bus that went around all the sights. We decided it was a bit pricey so we just put our names down for only the night tour and told the lady that we would decided if we wanted to do it we would let her know, she just gave us the seat numbers and the number to call to let them know. So we set off to catch the subway into town and it was just down the road which was good and the station was fascinating, there was an escalator that you had to ride that went down on a steep, steep 45 degree angle into a big tunnel that they had built into the ground. Down on the platform it looked like a space age tunnel with a roof that had a concrete rectangle cut out pattern, if that makes any sense. Anyways it made the place really quite which was really bizarre considering there were lots of people.
Everything is really well sign posted and it was easy to find which train we needed to be on and which one not to catch! A change of trains got us to the ‘Smithsonian’ stop. We popped out in the middle on this great big long park called ‘The Mall’ we looked right and saw the Capital Building and to the left we could see the Washington Monument and all along each side of the park was the Smithsonian museums. Another hot day to be walking around but it was nice. We headed to the Smithsonian museum of Natural History, we got security checked and bag checked before we went in but it was free which was great. As you walk in you come face to face with a massive African elephant that’s right in the middle of the room. It’s a 2 story building with all different rooms leading of into different exhibits, dinosaurs where first but so we walked through massive t-rex bones, stegosaurus heads, and diplodocus bodies it was really cool with all the different fossils and things to look at. Onto the worlds biggest diamond the ‘Hope diamond’ which was huge and was apparently sent to the museum in the regular post?
Next exhibit was evolution and animals, the human body and the first American settlers, then ancient Egypt and under the sea. We spent a good few hours there, next stop was the Capital, along the walk on either side of the park there is so much to see like art museums and botanical gardens. The park its self stretched for at least 2km so we did lots of walking up and down the park. We got to the capital and it was closed you couldn’t get up into it but we just got pics outside, architecturally it was beautiful. Back down through the park to the other end to the Washington Monument, which is the tall obelisk building, more pics and onto the White House. There were so many cops out the front patrolling the area and the actual house was really far away from the gates you could see the house but it was at least 500m away, more pics and more walking to the World War 2 memorial which had fountains and flags and all the states of America around the fountains. Walked another km to the Lincoln memorial which was my favourite, there were lots of people but when you walked up the stairs and looked back out across the pool of reflection you could see the Washington monument and the Capital building all in a row which was cool. The actual statue of Lincoln was huge but really awesome.
Walked back to the park in front of the white house and grabbed a hotdog for dinner and a nice cold ice block, it was almost time for the bus tour so we thought we would just rock up and buy a ticket when we got there. We lined up and the bus driver got off and said if you had a seat number please come to the front of the line, so we had a seat number so we gave it a shot and he just looked at the numbers and said yep go on up, se we got on and sat there not saying anything till we took off and had started the tour!! Whoo hoo a free tour – that saved us 39 bucks! So we drove around the capital, past the Washington monument, then over a bridge and saw the Jefferson Memorial, past the mint and onto the President Franklin Roosevelt memorial. We got off here and our tour guide took us through and showed us around the place with commentary about all the different era’s in his life, he seemed like pretty amazing guy and he was the only American president in history to serve 2 terms in office, after him they changed it so you could only have 1 term. The memorial was beautiful, it was all outside but the way they built it with different walls and things made it feel like different rooms and there was water falls and streams running through it, it was quite big 7 acres worth. Back on the double decker bus and onto the Lincoln memorial – even though we had seen it all in the day it was so much prettier at night time with all the lights it had a completely different feel.
The Lincoln was even better at night but the pics we got just didn’t do it justice at all. We then headed to the Korean war memorial which was very sombre on the granite wall that lined the memorial there was the faces on the men and women that served etched into the wall it looks so real and life like (they looked similar to those crystals and dog tags you can get printed with a photo on it) its all outside and in the middle are 12 bronze statutes of 6 foot men in battle gear with different facial expressions that reflected their feelings like fear, courage, horror and weariness.
After that we got back on the bus and drove over to the state of Virginia to see the Iwagima memorial (I know that’s not how you spell it but it will have to do), it’s the one with the American soldiers bunched together and pushing up the American flag, you would know it if you saw it, its about conquering Japan or something like that. More driving and we were on the outskirts of Arlington cemetery and we could see all the white headstones in the dark along with the flame that constantly burns on the Kennedy’s grave sites – spooky.
We got dropped back off at the main train station and caught the train home, and back to the hotel. We had only booked up until that night and we still had things we wanted to see so we booked through hotwire again and hoped it would be the same hotel but it wasn’t but it was the Westin just down the road so it wasn’t to bad. In the morning we packed up and headed to the Westin checked in and decided to go for a drive around the place and find Arlington Cemetery, even with Tomtom with us it was no easy task, we ended up in a high security area of the army base ‘Forte Myers’ and had to have our id’s and car inspected just to drive in and turn around and go back out. We weren’t too far from it but eventually made it after passing by the pentagon a few times.
Finally arrived and went it in, all for free too. It was really quite and sad there was just thousands and thousands of rows of grave after grave after grave all lined up in rows. We saw the gravesites of JFK, Jackie and there son and their stillborn baby girl, also his brother Robert Kennedy, we also saw the civil war grave, the outdoor amphitheatre and the Lockerby bombing memorial. We walked to the grave of the ‘Unknown Solider’ which is guarded by a member of the US Army all the time and while we were there we got to see the changing of the guard where the commanding officer came out and ordered the men to swap over, they are dressed in full dress uniform and the tomb of the solider looks out over Washington and has fresh flowers in a wreath laid next to it.
It was now time for lunch so we headed into George town for some tucker and looked around the shops, it was Labour day weekend today so there was quite a few people around. Back to the hotel and we retired for the night as the next morning we were off again.
Today (Labour Day Monday) we left Washington and headed south to a town called Richmond, on all the maps we have its quite a big town and it mentioned that it was great day to stop at??? Not to sure why as when we got there it was deserted and not much there at all we couldn’t even find a place to eat and in the end we decided to ask Tomtom to find us a McDonald’s ! The town didn’t even have one of those and everything else seemed to be shut because of the public holiday. Luckily the visitor centre was open and we ducked in there for a quick look, this little old lady was the only person there and we was about 80 – bless her, she rang all these different places to see if they were open and they weren’t but she told us to take a drive along their famous street, so we got back into the car. Leigh had just stayed outside and she got chatting to these 2 men that where in town helping their kids move there for college, they both told Leigh that Richmond was a quote “Hell Hole” with nothing in it.
We drove along the famous street for a bit and it had a few statues along the road every now and then, nothing much to see but a guy had crashed into one of the statues and the cops where there so that was at least something to see. Back on the road and we continued south, stopping of the highway at the 1st Macca’s we saw. More driving and our destination today was Durham/Raleigh a university town in North Carolina. We had booked at the ‘La Quinta inn & Suites’ for $50 including breaky. For dinner that night we headed into the uni area called Chapel hill which was full of young people with bars and places to eat, we settled on a bar called 4 corners ate and had a drink. While we were there they had a game of trivia on so what the hell we signed up and ‘Grandma Gimpy’s Gaurdian’s’ where on their way to winning the trivia comp! That dream didn’t actually come to fruition but coming last and being from a different country had its perks – got a free ‘Coors’ beer bucket and 3 tumbler glasses!!!
After it had finished this group of people came up and started chatting to us and wanted to know if we wanted to come to the next bar with them, so we went along and down into the under ground bar and it was dead we where the only people there and by this stage it was 12.30pm and we had to leave the next day so we said chow and off we went. On the way home we saw all the frat houses of the university, it was so cool they were massive houses with big porches with signs out the front like Alpha house and omega house just like ‘Legally Blonde’. Then a bloody big deer jumped across the road along with 2 little Bambi’s!! We made it back to the hotel and crashed out.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Niagara Falls & New York the 2nd time around!
Next morning Wednesday, we had booked a tour to Niagara Falls. We decided that we had a pretty good idea were the bus stop was so looking like ‘terry the tourists’ with my back pack on we headed off in the supposed direction off the bus stop. Walking, walking, walking we had left at 10.30am to get there by 11am for the 11.30am bus. We thought that we would have enough time to grab a coffee when we got to the bus station, but instead we had no idea where we were going!! I had my cranky pants on and Leigh was busy asking everyone which direction the bus stop was in, luckily every pointed us in the right direction but their ideas on just how far it would take us to get there varied widely, everything from 5 mins to 10 mins to just up the road – arrgghh we are going to miss the bus!
Eventually we found it and had just enough time to grab a sanga and jump in line. The bus was pretty packed and when we got to the next stop 3 older women got on (they were aged from late 50’s to 70). After the got on the walked up the aisle and back down to the bus driver and informed him that the bus was full. “ladies and gents in this situation when we have overbooked the bus, if 2 skinny people are sitting next to each other they can squash together and 3 people can fit on 2 seats” what the hell???
So these old ladies walked to the back of the bus where we were sitting and stood up hanging onto the back of the seats, no one else looked like they were moving so Leigh and I stood up so they could have our seats. Lets just say sitting on the bus feeling a bit green from the night before is one thing but standing and trying to hang on and then seeing if its more comfy sitting on the floor in the aisle is a whole other thing! So this continued for 2 hours and no one else even battered an eyelid or bothered to get up. We talked to the old ducks and they were really nice and very thankful that we gave up our seats.
We finally arrived at the town called ‘Niagara’ (mind you with no apologies from the bus driver) we hoped off the bus in this little town that looked so run down we thought it was a joke ‘is this where the famous falls are’?? No, no it wasn’t we then had to catch a smaller shuttle bus to the falls, it wasn’t far only 10 mins. Got off and wandered down the road and there they were. When you first arrive you are looking at the falls from the top of a ridge, from our point of view the falls where across from us and on our right. I didn’t realise that there are actually 3 different waterfalls. They are all very pretty and so spectacular!
Bought out ticket on the ‘Maid of the mist’ and decided it was time for some lunch. The town where the falls are is huge, its got lots hotels, big casino’s lots of touristy shops and museums and timezone type shops, bright lights and neon signs all a bit tack-a-ramma! We found the ‘Rainforest’ café and had some lunch and walked back down to the falls. Lined up for a boat ride which we had to catch a lift down the cliff and onto the dock, the boat is absolutely huge holds 400 people at a time and on both the American and Canadian side there are at least 2 boats on each side running every ½ hour. Got our very attractive blue poncho’s which every one had on, and boarded. From the water the falls seemed humongous so massive and spectacular – 1/5th of the worlds fresh water flows through the falls, its incredible. The boat takes you past the ‘American falls’ first then there is a gap and a smaller waterfall called the ‘bridal veil’ then onto the nicest one and the biggest the ‘horse shoe falls’ you get absolutely soaked from the spray of the crashing water. Took lots of pics and even gimpy got herself out there and had a few pictures!
Off the boat and a little bit more looking around, caught the shuttle bus back to the town of Niagara, for some reason we thought that there would be more to do at the falls so we had booked the last bus back to Toronto at 10.15pm that got us back at midnight – why?? At the bus stop we only had to wait for 5 mins when the bus pulled up, trying to sweet talk the driver into letting us onto the earlier bus didn’t exactly work – especially as she was a chick. Great so we had another hour before we could try our luck again with the next bus and it was only 5pm!
The town was so dead, we could see a train station and boarded up hotel with weeds growing everywhere and a Chinese shop. Bloody fantastic! So………
There has to be more to this town – surely?
About 5 minutes up the road we found the main street which was even more bizarre, it was really quirky with shops like ‘pretty and twisted’ with all emo/punk type clothes, there was an organic health food shop, an army and gun shop, a massive laser tag shop, a pub that had about 4 bikie men that looked they could kill us if they stared at us long enough! And a really cute chocolate & ice cream shop. The town was deserted apart from the people working in the shops that were actually open we were the only 2 in the street very bizarre. We walked up and then back down the street and had an icecream and bought some chocolate covered bacon(voted in the top 10 foods on Toronto??) the chick that sold it to us said she hadn’t met anyone who didn’t like it, well………. She hadn’t met us yet! – it was gross, if you get the chance don’t try it.
Time for the next bus, walked back and tried our luck again, it was now 7pm and this time it was a boy bus driver – yes! Worked our magic and got our toosh’s on the bus 3 hours earlier than our original ticket, GREAT. Cabbed it back to the hostel and relaxed and watched some telly in the lounge room.
The next morning Thursday 26th August was our last day in Canada, we slept in and decided we would try and find Toronto’s biggest and best souvenir shop we ended up walking around for about an hour having walked past the shop 3 times before we realised it haha and it was as big as a newspaper stand at a train station! Needless to say we saw the shop looked around in 3 minutes and we were done. Did some more shopping had some lunch and tried to drag the day out as we were catching a bus from Toronto back to NY at 7.30pm. Tried hanging round the hostel as much as we could without looking sus, when the owner asked us if we wanted a lift so for 5 bucks he dropped us and all our luggage at the bus station at 5.45pm – nothing like being early we wanted a good seat!
While waiting for the bus we needed food, so one last ultimate Canadian hotdog. While I was getting the dogs Leigh was in line for the bus and it came a bit early so the line had started moving before I had arrived back so when I got there I had to juggle 2 hotdogs drag my luggage through all the people as Leigh was at the front of the line and had so much stuff that she couldn’t move all of our stuff. In the time that I had gone to get dinner Leigh had been interviewed by a local tv station CBC who were doing a story on megabus and over crowding! Haha so she got her gob on telly and told them the story of yesterdays escapades and the overbooked bus, we eventually got on and we both got 2 seats to ourselves and I got the seat behind the stairs so it had a bit more room as there was no one in front of me to recline their chair back.
Travelled on the bus for 3 hours and we arrived at the US border crossing – the moment of truth, will they are wont they let us in? We had to take all of our stuff of and line up, we were in the first lot of people to be processed and we were almost the last people to get back on the bus, it took us ages at the desk as all most everyone else was American and it was really quick for them. So we did get let in and we are allowed to stay for 6 months! Back onto the bus and some buggers stole our bloody seat despite the fact that everyone else was back in their original seats – they broke the unspoken bus riders rule ‘no swapping seats’!!!!
Urrghh so now we had to sit together as the bus was now over full as we had picked up more passengers. It was getting late about 12am and we still had no luck in getting to sleep so we took a sleeping tablet with no success, another one down and still nothing- just a drowsiness feeling but no actually sleep. Tossing and turning in a bus seat for 6 hours is not comfy! Finally we were back in the big apple. Off to the Marriott it is, so we rocked up and snuck (if that’s what you can call it) in with our 50 bags and up to the room level 34!!! Kel, Hol, Nicky and Michal (Nicky’s friend from Melbourne) were already there and they had made up a makeshift bed on the floor with blankets and pillows – they were still in bed and then we got there so they got up and onto floor bed and we got into bed and slept until 12pm. Verena had caught the bus up from Philly and was staying for the weekend.
Off to see more of NY on a beautiful sunny day – bliss. We headed up town and stopped off at ‘Whole foods’ which is a huge chain over here that combines a fresh food super market and a café with the nicest healthiest food in America mmmm delicious and it was within walking from the hotel. After lunch we walked through the neighbourhood streets of Tribeca and the West village and had a look at all the shops, some of the girls saw the famous midget guy from ‘Death at a funeral’. Being in the West Village we had to go to ‘Magnolia Bakery’ the famous cupcake shop from ‘Sex & the City’. Eating our cupcake we headed for the meat packing district.
Nathan the Aussie guy that Nicky has been talking to has friends living in NY so we were planning on meeting up with them later that night but they happen to be at a pub in the meat packing district so we headed to the Bier ‘Garten’ a German beer garden under the ‘Standard hotel’. We stayed only for 1 drink as it was a bit pricey $11 for a vodka and sprite. Headed back to the hotel for a kip and to get ready for a big Saturday night, we firstly headed back to the ‘Bier Garten’ for a while then we headed to a club called ‘Carnival’ we got there and it was 8 flights of stairs up to the club – that’s quite a task after a few bevy’s let me tell you!
When we reached the top and into the club it was a real spin out, it was decorated like a circus, the roof was a massive tent/big top and was red and yellow, there was funny mirrors, arcade/carnival games, a fashion show on a runway, people walking around on stilts it was amazing! We met up with Nathan’s footy mates there and burnt up the dance floor. We some how managed to get this old black guy in a brown tweed suit in our little dancing circle??? All of a sudden Verena (who by the way was tanked) popped up with a chicken wing “where did that come from” we all asked “just over there” as she pointed to a table full of food “those people over there told me to help myself”. As it turned out there was an older couple (40’s) who were having their wedding reception at the club (only in America!). They invited us to the food as they said that they were all done and that it was only going to go to waste! They were really nice and we wished them well, got pics with them and crashed their wedding! The old dancing man now made sense – he was from the wedding!
More dancing and chicken wings later we thought we needed to head to another bar, ohh the stairs – thank goodness they had a life down. Along the way I somehow managed to get hold of a red glitter top hat which I thought was pretty Sicko! Wearing my lovely new hat we hailed a cab to take us to ‘Bar 519’ during the taxi ride I got over my sparkly hat so I graciously donated it to the cab driver – he thought it was great! This bar was fun it had good music was smaller and had cheap drinks. Having a good boogie here it was almost time to leave as the bar was closing. Verena and I ran next door to another club to have a quick dance there and then back out the front with the rest of the gang when it was closing time. ‘What’s the plan now?” off to one of the footy boy’s house, stopping of at macca’s first half of us managed to waste an hour there before catching a cab to Izzy’s house. Geez this is the longest cab ride ever, it felt like we were driving back to Canada!! It was up half way up central park and cost about $24, which in New York is a long way.
At the house some of the guys started playing drinking games…..
Verena and I decided that we had done our dash for the night and we cabbed it home. Got in at 5.30am – not a bad effort! 2 by 2 the rest of the girls came home and we were all back by 7ish. We slept for a bit more and headed back to whole foods yum. It was now Saturday and Nicky and Michal had to leave to start their 2 week camping tour. We said good bye and it was down to 5, we stayed at the hotel for a bit and then headed to ‘Steve’s pizza’ for a burrito! Back to the hotel and into bed.
Sunday 29th – Today we got up and decided that we would do some more sight seeing, but first we needed to book some more accommodation as this was going to be our last night in NYC so we decided that seeing as though we are here why not pop over to queens and flushing meadows to see the US Open? Booked ‘The pan American Hotel’ ($60/night) and then booked tennis tickets $96 for a pass into the ‘Louis Armstrong’ stadium which was where Stosuor and Hewitt where playing – sweet. We then headed off to find some lunch, went back to Europa café and got take away and walked to central park to have a picnic. It was so hot and the park was busy, busy, busy. It was so strange to see people at the park with their bikinis on and their towels stretched out sunbaking, people just stripping off to their undies and sun baking, people walking their dogs, people pushing prams, people jogging, cycling, horse drawn carts, people with easels painting just about every type of person you could imagine was in the park.
After lunch we went for a walk through the park, it is so huge you would need a whole week just to see everything, took lots of pics and it was nice in the shade. We went to ‘strawberry fields’ a place in the park that is famous because of John Lennon and there is a mosaic mural on the floor with ‘Imagine’ written on it and people put fresh strawberries around it? It was then time for Verena to catch her bus back to Philly, so another goodbye and we set off for Times Square. Being so hot 95, we caught a cab back and then wandered around the shops and down the strip. Time for dinner and the ‘Hard Rock café’ it was.
Coming out from dinner we spotted the famous ‘Naked Cowboy’ in his y-fronts, cowboy boots, cowboy hat and a guitar there was a huge crowd around him and he was raking in the dough, people lining up to have their photo taken with him. Walking a little further down we headed for ‘Union Square’ it took quite a while we walked for almost 40 mins and it was still really hot. On the way we were walking past a movie theatre and I hear a familiar voice. “who is that, I know that voice” I thought to myself as I looked around to see who it was there was ‘Chris Rock’ the actor leaning against a pole talking to his friend!! Wow we spotted a celebrity in NY so cool!!
Finally got to Union Square and went to the chocolate shop ‘Max Brenner’ and had a choc shake it was nice but very filling. It was def time to head back so right outside was the subway so down we went and on we hopped to the train which we thought was going back down town in our stop ‘Wall Street’. Got on and looking up at the places where the train stopped none of them looked familiar and none of them said ‘Wall street’? Umm guys I think we are on the wrong train ….crap! ‘Excuse me maam where are you try to go’ said a policeman who happened to be on the train with us ‘Wall Street’ “Well you girls are quite a bit of track, your going to the Bronx” What the……..
We told us where we had to go and which colour we needed to take ‘the green one’ thank goodness for him, so we jumped off at the next stop and followed his directions and caught the next train back to where we had just been. Right off to find the green line, on our way there was a sign that said yellow line and listed the stops one of which was Wall Street “yeah guys but the police guys said green line and look its just down there” ‘Yeah but yellow goes there too and its on this level’ ‘ok ok then lets just go yellow’!! That was just the beginning of our problems.
Onto the yellow line and we go past 3 stops and an announcement comes over the speaker we couldn’t hear most of it but the parts we did catch said something about track work and change here for some stop. We of course didn’t get off and the next thing you know we pop out into the night (each time we have caught the subway it was been in the under ground tunnels, no tracks outside) and we are racing away from NYC and across the Brooklyn Bridge!! Oh crap again wrong train, so at the first stop we jump off and ask a station worker where we were and how do we get back. Turns out that over the weekend not all the train lines work as its not peak and most of thee trains are diverted and especially a Sunday night when there are track works!
Our plan was now to catch the next training heading in the same direction as the one we just got off and head to one more stop further down get off and change platforms and find the number 4 line. At this point it was 9.45pm there weren’t that many people on the platform and I was getting cranky (and scared for our lives I didn’t want to die in ‘Queens/Brooklyn’. Ok so we get to the next stop and find line number 4 which has big closed gates and a sign saying “line 4 is currently not running please use line 2 or 3” ohhhh the pain……… So found line 2 & 3 but they were on different platforms so we chose number 2 and went up, waiting, waiting, waiting no train as of yet so we ask a lady and she tells us “no, no your on the wrong one, you need to be on the other side over there on line 3” @#$%* By the way did I mention that it was still at least 35 degrees outside so it was about 40 degrees underground!
Onto line number 3 and if it was possible I was feeling even more scared now, I had may bag gripped so tight my fingers were hurting, I wasn’t making eye contact with anyone and all I kept thinking was that everyone looked like a gangster and at any given moment someone could, as they say ‘Bust a cap in our ass’, and we are all sweating like there is no tomorrow. Finally we caught train number 3 and we headd back over the bridge and off at Wall Street and walked back to the hotel. So what was meant to be a 10 min train ride and walk back to the hotel it took us 2 hot, sweaty fearful hours to get back. I then had to contend with packing up my ‘Big bertha’ bag ready for the 6am start the next morning.
Monday 30th – up at the crack of dawn to see the sun rise for another beautiful day. Checked out and had our prearranged cab waiting for us, at this stage Nicky and Michal had left us with a massive 30kg box that they were going to post home but didn’t get a chance too. We told them that we would do it for them but it was so big and took up so much room. The cab ended up being a new black Mercedes Benz 4wd with the blackest windows I’ve ever seen. We felt pretty spesh driving in that thing. Our driver was really nice and told us lots of things about NY and how he had dropped a man off at the world trade centre 10 mins before the plane crashed into it and the man died, he also told us about the main road in Queens ‘Queens Boulevard’ and that so many pedestrians had been killed because they don’t wait for the signals and told us to take extra care when crossing the road. He was more of a corporate driver and hadn’t been out to queens so was a bit unsure of where we were meant to be going, it took him a while but we finally found the place and when we arrived he looked a bit apprehensive about the hotel and said “here’s my number make sure if anything isn’t right call me and ill come and get you” Lets just say it was quite a down grade from the Marriott.
None the less we checked in and had some breakfast at the small restaurant/café thing they had going on there. The room was ready so we went up and dumped our bags and got ready for the tennis. It was so hot outside at least 38 degrees, the hotel had shuttles to the tennis so we got one of those and arrived at 10.45am ready for the first game at 11am. Walking around it was so cool to actually be at the US Open, we went into the Louis Armstrong stadium and it wasn’t even that busy so we sat anywhere we wanted and watched the Daveydenko vs. some American guy, didn’t stay for the whole match we went and had a look at some other matches on the outside courts, we saw a young Aussie girl called Sophie – she lost. Then we saw the French man Monfielis – his muscles were great! Then we thought we would have a go at trying to get into the main arena Arthur Ashe stadium, even though our ticket was for that particular stadium. Leigh just walked in like she knew what she was doing they checked her ticket and let her in , so we did the same and we all got in it – sweet! We got to see Kim Clijisters play and win, then it was time to see A-Rod, Andy Roddick play.
Today was also the day that Hollie was flying home at 11pm, Hol left at 3ish and was planning on catching a cab back to the hotel getting her bags then catching the subway back into NYC and then catching a bus back to Boston and flying out from there back to England.
Went back over to the Armstrong stadium and watched Sam Stosuor play – it was awesome we sat behind these 8 Aussie guys in yellow Australian singlets, we gave them all koala’s and we all had little Aussie flags, we where yelling out and cheering and then all of a sudden a security flag Nazi came running up the stairs and told us that we had to put the flags away as there was strictly no flags due to the fighting at the Australian open between the Serbs and the Croatians – talk about fun police!
It was so hot everyone was sweating and there was absolutely no air flow in the stadium. After Sam, Leyton Hewitt came out and started playing, he was going well but we were all very tired after getting up early and had been out in the sun for 9 hours. So we were getting ready to leave when we heard from Hol, as it turned out she wasn’t able to get a cab back to the hotel in time, was late in getting the subway back to the bus station in NY and missed her bus. So she was all by herself with all her luggage having missed the bus and not having any way to get back to Boston. She ended up having to get the train and the whole time thinking she wasn’t going to make her flight. At Boston she had then to catch a cab to the airport and was 10 mins from the close of check in!!! ohh thank goodness she made it!
Back to the hotel and into bed. The next morning Tuesday 1st we slept in and walked down the road to the big mall but we had to cross the big road first, there were big sign every where saying ‘a pedestrian was killed here’ so as soon as the light was green for us to cross we practically bolted across the road and made it safely to the other side of the road. We took the laptop and planned the start of our road trip, after a few hours of searching we booked an avis car for 60 days and then booked our first night in Philadelphia. Verena had told us about this website called www.hotwire.com where you book mystery hotel for cheap prices so we gave it a go and snagged the Holiday inn right in the historic district of Philly for $92 night. We went back to the hotel and watched a movie with Beyonce in it called ‘Obsession’ it was pretty good! Then went to bed.
Eventually we found it and had just enough time to grab a sanga and jump in line. The bus was pretty packed and when we got to the next stop 3 older women got on (they were aged from late 50’s to 70). After the got on the walked up the aisle and back down to the bus driver and informed him that the bus was full. “ladies and gents in this situation when we have overbooked the bus, if 2 skinny people are sitting next to each other they can squash together and 3 people can fit on 2 seats” what the hell???
So these old ladies walked to the back of the bus where we were sitting and stood up hanging onto the back of the seats, no one else looked like they were moving so Leigh and I stood up so they could have our seats. Lets just say sitting on the bus feeling a bit green from the night before is one thing but standing and trying to hang on and then seeing if its more comfy sitting on the floor in the aisle is a whole other thing! So this continued for 2 hours and no one else even battered an eyelid or bothered to get up. We talked to the old ducks and they were really nice and very thankful that we gave up our seats.
We finally arrived at the town called ‘Niagara’ (mind you with no apologies from the bus driver) we hoped off the bus in this little town that looked so run down we thought it was a joke ‘is this where the famous falls are’?? No, no it wasn’t we then had to catch a smaller shuttle bus to the falls, it wasn’t far only 10 mins. Got off and wandered down the road and there they were. When you first arrive you are looking at the falls from the top of a ridge, from our point of view the falls where across from us and on our right. I didn’t realise that there are actually 3 different waterfalls. They are all very pretty and so spectacular!
Bought out ticket on the ‘Maid of the mist’ and decided it was time for some lunch. The town where the falls are is huge, its got lots hotels, big casino’s lots of touristy shops and museums and timezone type shops, bright lights and neon signs all a bit tack-a-ramma! We found the ‘Rainforest’ café and had some lunch and walked back down to the falls. Lined up for a boat ride which we had to catch a lift down the cliff and onto the dock, the boat is absolutely huge holds 400 people at a time and on both the American and Canadian side there are at least 2 boats on each side running every ½ hour. Got our very attractive blue poncho’s which every one had on, and boarded. From the water the falls seemed humongous so massive and spectacular – 1/5th of the worlds fresh water flows through the falls, its incredible. The boat takes you past the ‘American falls’ first then there is a gap and a smaller waterfall called the ‘bridal veil’ then onto the nicest one and the biggest the ‘horse shoe falls’ you get absolutely soaked from the spray of the crashing water. Took lots of pics and even gimpy got herself out there and had a few pictures!
Off the boat and a little bit more looking around, caught the shuttle bus back to the town of Niagara, for some reason we thought that there would be more to do at the falls so we had booked the last bus back to Toronto at 10.15pm that got us back at midnight – why?? At the bus stop we only had to wait for 5 mins when the bus pulled up, trying to sweet talk the driver into letting us onto the earlier bus didn’t exactly work – especially as she was a chick. Great so we had another hour before we could try our luck again with the next bus and it was only 5pm!
The town was so dead, we could see a train station and boarded up hotel with weeds growing everywhere and a Chinese shop. Bloody fantastic! So………
There has to be more to this town – surely?
About 5 minutes up the road we found the main street which was even more bizarre, it was really quirky with shops like ‘pretty and twisted’ with all emo/punk type clothes, there was an organic health food shop, an army and gun shop, a massive laser tag shop, a pub that had about 4 bikie men that looked they could kill us if they stared at us long enough! And a really cute chocolate & ice cream shop. The town was deserted apart from the people working in the shops that were actually open we were the only 2 in the street very bizarre. We walked up and then back down the street and had an icecream and bought some chocolate covered bacon(voted in the top 10 foods on Toronto??) the chick that sold it to us said she hadn’t met anyone who didn’t like it, well………. She hadn’t met us yet! – it was gross, if you get the chance don’t try it.
Time for the next bus, walked back and tried our luck again, it was now 7pm and this time it was a boy bus driver – yes! Worked our magic and got our toosh’s on the bus 3 hours earlier than our original ticket, GREAT. Cabbed it back to the hostel and relaxed and watched some telly in the lounge room.
The next morning Thursday 26th August was our last day in Canada, we slept in and decided we would try and find Toronto’s biggest and best souvenir shop we ended up walking around for about an hour having walked past the shop 3 times before we realised it haha and it was as big as a newspaper stand at a train station! Needless to say we saw the shop looked around in 3 minutes and we were done. Did some more shopping had some lunch and tried to drag the day out as we were catching a bus from Toronto back to NY at 7.30pm. Tried hanging round the hostel as much as we could without looking sus, when the owner asked us if we wanted a lift so for 5 bucks he dropped us and all our luggage at the bus station at 5.45pm – nothing like being early we wanted a good seat!
While waiting for the bus we needed food, so one last ultimate Canadian hotdog. While I was getting the dogs Leigh was in line for the bus and it came a bit early so the line had started moving before I had arrived back so when I got there I had to juggle 2 hotdogs drag my luggage through all the people as Leigh was at the front of the line and had so much stuff that she couldn’t move all of our stuff. In the time that I had gone to get dinner Leigh had been interviewed by a local tv station CBC who were doing a story on megabus and over crowding! Haha so she got her gob on telly and told them the story of yesterdays escapades and the overbooked bus, we eventually got on and we both got 2 seats to ourselves and I got the seat behind the stairs so it had a bit more room as there was no one in front of me to recline their chair back.
Travelled on the bus for 3 hours and we arrived at the US border crossing – the moment of truth, will they are wont they let us in? We had to take all of our stuff of and line up, we were in the first lot of people to be processed and we were almost the last people to get back on the bus, it took us ages at the desk as all most everyone else was American and it was really quick for them. So we did get let in and we are allowed to stay for 6 months! Back onto the bus and some buggers stole our bloody seat despite the fact that everyone else was back in their original seats – they broke the unspoken bus riders rule ‘no swapping seats’!!!!
Urrghh so now we had to sit together as the bus was now over full as we had picked up more passengers. It was getting late about 12am and we still had no luck in getting to sleep so we took a sleeping tablet with no success, another one down and still nothing- just a drowsiness feeling but no actually sleep. Tossing and turning in a bus seat for 6 hours is not comfy! Finally we were back in the big apple. Off to the Marriott it is, so we rocked up and snuck (if that’s what you can call it) in with our 50 bags and up to the room level 34!!! Kel, Hol, Nicky and Michal (Nicky’s friend from Melbourne) were already there and they had made up a makeshift bed on the floor with blankets and pillows – they were still in bed and then we got there so they got up and onto floor bed and we got into bed and slept until 12pm. Verena had caught the bus up from Philly and was staying for the weekend.
Off to see more of NY on a beautiful sunny day – bliss. We headed up town and stopped off at ‘Whole foods’ which is a huge chain over here that combines a fresh food super market and a café with the nicest healthiest food in America mmmm delicious and it was within walking from the hotel. After lunch we walked through the neighbourhood streets of Tribeca and the West village and had a look at all the shops, some of the girls saw the famous midget guy from ‘Death at a funeral’. Being in the West Village we had to go to ‘Magnolia Bakery’ the famous cupcake shop from ‘Sex & the City’. Eating our cupcake we headed for the meat packing district.
Nathan the Aussie guy that Nicky has been talking to has friends living in NY so we were planning on meeting up with them later that night but they happen to be at a pub in the meat packing district so we headed to the Bier ‘Garten’ a German beer garden under the ‘Standard hotel’. We stayed only for 1 drink as it was a bit pricey $11 for a vodka and sprite. Headed back to the hotel for a kip and to get ready for a big Saturday night, we firstly headed back to the ‘Bier Garten’ for a while then we headed to a club called ‘Carnival’ we got there and it was 8 flights of stairs up to the club – that’s quite a task after a few bevy’s let me tell you!
When we reached the top and into the club it was a real spin out, it was decorated like a circus, the roof was a massive tent/big top and was red and yellow, there was funny mirrors, arcade/carnival games, a fashion show on a runway, people walking around on stilts it was amazing! We met up with Nathan’s footy mates there and burnt up the dance floor. We some how managed to get this old black guy in a brown tweed suit in our little dancing circle??? All of a sudden Verena (who by the way was tanked) popped up with a chicken wing “where did that come from” we all asked “just over there” as she pointed to a table full of food “those people over there told me to help myself”. As it turned out there was an older couple (40’s) who were having their wedding reception at the club (only in America!). They invited us to the food as they said that they were all done and that it was only going to go to waste! They were really nice and we wished them well, got pics with them and crashed their wedding! The old dancing man now made sense – he was from the wedding!
More dancing and chicken wings later we thought we needed to head to another bar, ohh the stairs – thank goodness they had a life down. Along the way I somehow managed to get hold of a red glitter top hat which I thought was pretty Sicko! Wearing my lovely new hat we hailed a cab to take us to ‘Bar 519’ during the taxi ride I got over my sparkly hat so I graciously donated it to the cab driver – he thought it was great! This bar was fun it had good music was smaller and had cheap drinks. Having a good boogie here it was almost time to leave as the bar was closing. Verena and I ran next door to another club to have a quick dance there and then back out the front with the rest of the gang when it was closing time. ‘What’s the plan now?” off to one of the footy boy’s house, stopping of at macca’s first half of us managed to waste an hour there before catching a cab to Izzy’s house. Geez this is the longest cab ride ever, it felt like we were driving back to Canada!! It was up half way up central park and cost about $24, which in New York is a long way.
At the house some of the guys started playing drinking games…..
Verena and I decided that we had done our dash for the night and we cabbed it home. Got in at 5.30am – not a bad effort! 2 by 2 the rest of the girls came home and we were all back by 7ish. We slept for a bit more and headed back to whole foods yum. It was now Saturday and Nicky and Michal had to leave to start their 2 week camping tour. We said good bye and it was down to 5, we stayed at the hotel for a bit and then headed to ‘Steve’s pizza’ for a burrito! Back to the hotel and into bed.
Sunday 29th – Today we got up and decided that we would do some more sight seeing, but first we needed to book some more accommodation as this was going to be our last night in NYC so we decided that seeing as though we are here why not pop over to queens and flushing meadows to see the US Open? Booked ‘The pan American Hotel’ ($60/night) and then booked tennis tickets $96 for a pass into the ‘Louis Armstrong’ stadium which was where Stosuor and Hewitt where playing – sweet. We then headed off to find some lunch, went back to Europa café and got take away and walked to central park to have a picnic. It was so hot and the park was busy, busy, busy. It was so strange to see people at the park with their bikinis on and their towels stretched out sunbaking, people just stripping off to their undies and sun baking, people walking their dogs, people pushing prams, people jogging, cycling, horse drawn carts, people with easels painting just about every type of person you could imagine was in the park.
After lunch we went for a walk through the park, it is so huge you would need a whole week just to see everything, took lots of pics and it was nice in the shade. We went to ‘strawberry fields’ a place in the park that is famous because of John Lennon and there is a mosaic mural on the floor with ‘Imagine’ written on it and people put fresh strawberries around it? It was then time for Verena to catch her bus back to Philly, so another goodbye and we set off for Times Square. Being so hot 95, we caught a cab back and then wandered around the shops and down the strip. Time for dinner and the ‘Hard Rock café’ it was.
Coming out from dinner we spotted the famous ‘Naked Cowboy’ in his y-fronts, cowboy boots, cowboy hat and a guitar there was a huge crowd around him and he was raking in the dough, people lining up to have their photo taken with him. Walking a little further down we headed for ‘Union Square’ it took quite a while we walked for almost 40 mins and it was still really hot. On the way we were walking past a movie theatre and I hear a familiar voice. “who is that, I know that voice” I thought to myself as I looked around to see who it was there was ‘Chris Rock’ the actor leaning against a pole talking to his friend!! Wow we spotted a celebrity in NY so cool!!
Finally got to Union Square and went to the chocolate shop ‘Max Brenner’ and had a choc shake it was nice but very filling. It was def time to head back so right outside was the subway so down we went and on we hopped to the train which we thought was going back down town in our stop ‘Wall Street’. Got on and looking up at the places where the train stopped none of them looked familiar and none of them said ‘Wall street’? Umm guys I think we are on the wrong train ….crap! ‘Excuse me maam where are you try to go’ said a policeman who happened to be on the train with us ‘Wall Street’ “Well you girls are quite a bit of track, your going to the Bronx” What the……..
We told us where we had to go and which colour we needed to take ‘the green one’ thank goodness for him, so we jumped off at the next stop and followed his directions and caught the next train back to where we had just been. Right off to find the green line, on our way there was a sign that said yellow line and listed the stops one of which was Wall Street “yeah guys but the police guys said green line and look its just down there” ‘Yeah but yellow goes there too and its on this level’ ‘ok ok then lets just go yellow’!! That was just the beginning of our problems.
Onto the yellow line and we go past 3 stops and an announcement comes over the speaker we couldn’t hear most of it but the parts we did catch said something about track work and change here for some stop. We of course didn’t get off and the next thing you know we pop out into the night (each time we have caught the subway it was been in the under ground tunnels, no tracks outside) and we are racing away from NYC and across the Brooklyn Bridge!! Oh crap again wrong train, so at the first stop we jump off and ask a station worker where we were and how do we get back. Turns out that over the weekend not all the train lines work as its not peak and most of thee trains are diverted and especially a Sunday night when there are track works!
Our plan was now to catch the next training heading in the same direction as the one we just got off and head to one more stop further down get off and change platforms and find the number 4 line. At this point it was 9.45pm there weren’t that many people on the platform and I was getting cranky (and scared for our lives I didn’t want to die in ‘Queens/Brooklyn’. Ok so we get to the next stop and find line number 4 which has big closed gates and a sign saying “line 4 is currently not running please use line 2 or 3” ohhhh the pain……… So found line 2 & 3 but they were on different platforms so we chose number 2 and went up, waiting, waiting, waiting no train as of yet so we ask a lady and she tells us “no, no your on the wrong one, you need to be on the other side over there on line 3” @#$%* By the way did I mention that it was still at least 35 degrees outside so it was about 40 degrees underground!
Onto line number 3 and if it was possible I was feeling even more scared now, I had may bag gripped so tight my fingers were hurting, I wasn’t making eye contact with anyone and all I kept thinking was that everyone looked like a gangster and at any given moment someone could, as they say ‘Bust a cap in our ass’, and we are all sweating like there is no tomorrow. Finally we caught train number 3 and we headd back over the bridge and off at Wall Street and walked back to the hotel. So what was meant to be a 10 min train ride and walk back to the hotel it took us 2 hot, sweaty fearful hours to get back. I then had to contend with packing up my ‘Big bertha’ bag ready for the 6am start the next morning.
Monday 30th – up at the crack of dawn to see the sun rise for another beautiful day. Checked out and had our prearranged cab waiting for us, at this stage Nicky and Michal had left us with a massive 30kg box that they were going to post home but didn’t get a chance too. We told them that we would do it for them but it was so big and took up so much room. The cab ended up being a new black Mercedes Benz 4wd with the blackest windows I’ve ever seen. We felt pretty spesh driving in that thing. Our driver was really nice and told us lots of things about NY and how he had dropped a man off at the world trade centre 10 mins before the plane crashed into it and the man died, he also told us about the main road in Queens ‘Queens Boulevard’ and that so many pedestrians had been killed because they don’t wait for the signals and told us to take extra care when crossing the road. He was more of a corporate driver and hadn’t been out to queens so was a bit unsure of where we were meant to be going, it took him a while but we finally found the place and when we arrived he looked a bit apprehensive about the hotel and said “here’s my number make sure if anything isn’t right call me and ill come and get you” Lets just say it was quite a down grade from the Marriott.
None the less we checked in and had some breakfast at the small restaurant/café thing they had going on there. The room was ready so we went up and dumped our bags and got ready for the tennis. It was so hot outside at least 38 degrees, the hotel had shuttles to the tennis so we got one of those and arrived at 10.45am ready for the first game at 11am. Walking around it was so cool to actually be at the US Open, we went into the Louis Armstrong stadium and it wasn’t even that busy so we sat anywhere we wanted and watched the Daveydenko vs. some American guy, didn’t stay for the whole match we went and had a look at some other matches on the outside courts, we saw a young Aussie girl called Sophie – she lost. Then we saw the French man Monfielis – his muscles were great! Then we thought we would have a go at trying to get into the main arena Arthur Ashe stadium, even though our ticket was for that particular stadium. Leigh just walked in like she knew what she was doing they checked her ticket and let her in , so we did the same and we all got in it – sweet! We got to see Kim Clijisters play and win, then it was time to see A-Rod, Andy Roddick play.
Today was also the day that Hollie was flying home at 11pm, Hol left at 3ish and was planning on catching a cab back to the hotel getting her bags then catching the subway back into NYC and then catching a bus back to Boston and flying out from there back to England.
Went back over to the Armstrong stadium and watched Sam Stosuor play – it was awesome we sat behind these 8 Aussie guys in yellow Australian singlets, we gave them all koala’s and we all had little Aussie flags, we where yelling out and cheering and then all of a sudden a security flag Nazi came running up the stairs and told us that we had to put the flags away as there was strictly no flags due to the fighting at the Australian open between the Serbs and the Croatians – talk about fun police!
It was so hot everyone was sweating and there was absolutely no air flow in the stadium. After Sam, Leyton Hewitt came out and started playing, he was going well but we were all very tired after getting up early and had been out in the sun for 9 hours. So we were getting ready to leave when we heard from Hol, as it turned out she wasn’t able to get a cab back to the hotel in time, was late in getting the subway back to the bus station in NY and missed her bus. So she was all by herself with all her luggage having missed the bus and not having any way to get back to Boston. She ended up having to get the train and the whole time thinking she wasn’t going to make her flight. At Boston she had then to catch a cab to the airport and was 10 mins from the close of check in!!! ohh thank goodness she made it!
Back to the hotel and into bed. The next morning Tuesday 1st we slept in and walked down the road to the big mall but we had to cross the big road first, there were big sign every where saying ‘a pedestrian was killed here’ so as soon as the light was green for us to cross we practically bolted across the road and made it safely to the other side of the road. We took the laptop and planned the start of our road trip, after a few hours of searching we booked an avis car for 60 days and then booked our first night in Philadelphia. Verena had told us about this website called www.hotwire.com where you book mystery hotel for cheap prices so we gave it a go and snagged the Holiday inn right in the historic district of Philly for $92 night. We went back to the hotel and watched a movie with Beyonce in it called ‘Obsession’ it was pretty good! Then went to bed.
Monday, September 6, 2010
New York, New York!!!
So onto the second part of the last week…….
Leigh and Nicky were leaving at 8am the next morning (wed) for a bus to Canada to get their visa stamped. Check out was 11am and it literally took us all morning to pack and get ourselves ready, all feeling very green we dragged our bags down the 100 flights of stairs and checked out, we were able to store our bags at the hostel which was good. After my bag getting quite heavy I decided I needed to ditch some things…. After trying to decide for a while I came to the decision that it would be my Walmart sneakers, so with those tied to my bag we headed in the search of food we had lots of little cafes to choose from and we ended up at Macca’s!
We sat there for about 2 hours talking about the antics of the night before and surviving the waves of nausea. Decided that beautiful park in downtown Boston was our next port of call (and the best place to find a homeless person to give my shoes too!). On the train and we arrived at the park, it was a beautiful sunny day with a slight breeze. Found ourselves a nice shady spot under the trees lied down and watched the world go by – bliss! After a little snooze I could smell what stunk like off dog poo?? I looked up and heading towards us was a homeless man shaking a cup asking for money, ‘perfect’ so I asked him if he fancied a new pair of shoes…….. in no uncertain terms told me all he wanted was money “GOT IT LADY”, ‘fine don’t have my great shoes, but I’m not giving you any money either phhh get a real job!’
Right enough lazing, Verena and I went for a walk further into the park and it was huge, there has a huge shallow pool with heaps of little kids wading around, guys playing soccer, we walked further and crossed the road into the 2nd part of the park and that was even better immaculate gardens and really pretty flowers – took lots of pics and they had really cute statues in the gardens I like the ones of a mother duck and all her little baby ducklings all in another line. I found a lady that was sitting on the edge of the park in a deck chair under an umbrella, she had a sign up asking for money. She was dressed in dirty clothes and was wearing a beanie with bird feathers sticking out of it, She had no teeth and was mumbling to herself, the best way to describe her and what she sounded like was, as Hol put it a girl version of Mr T. The prime candidate for my shoes, I started talking to her and offered her my shoes, after saying no thanks and thinking I was playing a joke on her she accepted and I was free of more weight in my bag!
Back on the train and back to the hostel by 5pm, walked past reception like we were still staying there and into the TV room. Hol snuck down to her bags and got her shower stuff and crept into the shower. I stuck my head under and washed my hair which was nice and refreshing after lying in the park for most of the afternoon. We still had until 12pm to catch our ‘Mega Bus’ to New York – more time to waste. At 6 we headed back to ‘McGreevy’s’ the Irish for, my favourite Trivia! We were the ‘international nuns’ and we had no idea, about 96% of the questions we didn’t know but at least we didn’t get last place. We had dinner and I had the best Sheppard’s pie it was delicious. Time to head back to the hostel to get our bags and make our way to south station bus terminal – guess how we got there…..yep the train!
I swear my bags keep getting heavier, onto the bus that costs us $5 (bargain) and now I know why it was $5 there is not even enough room to sneeze comfortably let alone sit for a 4 1/2 hour bus ride, but on the up side the bus wasn’t full so we got 2 seats each which was good. I don’t know if it was because I was uncomfy or if it was because I was excited that I was going to the big apple – whoo hoo!!!
Finally getting into the city I looked around and realised we were in Harlem oooo just like the movies all the shops with their roller doors down and on every corner there was a deli/quickie mart. Dropped off in the middle of Manhattan at 4.30am in the morning may seem a little daunting but it was all very thrilling we were in ‘New York, New York’. Hailed a cab (well it was already waiting by the bus stop) lucky it was a 4wd cab so all our bags fit in the back – just! The Marriott downtown here we come. Checked in at 4.45am and just by luck our room was already ready so we headed up to the 22 floor and into a room of luxury! 2 doubles with clean sheets and doonas a private bathroom that you can close the door and carpet… real carpet! Into bed and we were asleep in no time, got up around 11ish and headed out for a walk.
We walked to the water and rounded the corner, off in the distance I saw her……….the great ‘Lady Liberty’ herself! So awesome just like the movies, our hotel was in the downtown district so not very residential just lots of tall office buildings and workers. After walking along the waters edge for a while we decided to catch the subway into Times Square. Bought our ticket and down we went – ohhh this is so surreal it looks exactly like Speed, Die hard, Taking of Pelham and every other American based movie! Lots of under ground tunnels and walk ways a bit hard to know were you are going but its all colour coded so that made it easier. It was cleaner than I thought to no graffiti or rubbish the only off putting thing was the giant rat we saw running over the tracks! The train itself is a bit unusual as you sit facing each other and there are some weirdo’s on there.
Times Square – we popped out of the subway into the amazing hustle and bustle that is the epitome of New York City! It was fabulous, so many people, so many bright lights and colours, it’s like an assault on your eyes, and even the police station has neon flashing lights along with Macdonald’s and every shop imaginable. Our first stop was right in the middle of Times Square where you could see where they drop the ball for New Years Eve. Feeling hungry we headed for the ‘Hard Rock Café’ I had the veggie burger and it was delicious. More walking around, I was under the impression that Times Square was literally a square! Ha well its not - it’s a really long section along Broadway with restaurants, shops and just a huge advertising Mecca. We went into the biggest forever 21 shop it had 6 levels of just clothes shoes and accessories – bliss! The M&M shop with was 3 levels and had chocolate every where. Saw lots of other stuff too and took lots of pics, saw the ‘Naked Cow Girl’ just a girl version of the ‘Naked Cow Boy’ but instead of being young cute and fit she was 70yrs old, wrinkly and had furry star nipple covers aarrggghh!!
We bought tickets for the blue sight seeing bus, it was $86 dollars and went for 3 days, so we decided we would start the sight seeing the next day. I bought myself a Pandora bracelet and have decided that ill fill it with charms from the all the different places I have been. For NYC I bought a taxi which is quite fitting because very 2nd car is a yellow taxi! They are pretty cool, you can spot them anywhere and there is no problem flagging one down. More walking around and we then caught the subway back to the area in which we thought was the hotel, instead we found ‘Centaury 21’ which is a massive department store with big name brands at cheap prices. We had a look but there weren’t any great deals, in fact the clothes were all pretty hideous so instead we just had fun trying on the ugliest clothes we could find and then taking pictures!
Walking back to the hotel we got slightly lost but eventually made it back safe and sound. Got into bed watched some telly and fell asleep ready for the next day in the big apple.
We got up early (only Hol, Verena and I went) and left at 7.30am grabbed a starbucks and headed down the road to the bottom of Manhattan Island and got our ticket for a cruise on the Hudson River. We boarded and watched as the statue of liberty came closer and closer. From the shore she seems big but getting closer she is huge! We hopped off on ‘Liberty Island’ and walked around to the front of the statue, took 100’s of pics and even gimpy got in there and had her pic taken! We caught the first ferry across so there were less people which was good. The day before when we walked past at 11am the line for the ferry was at least a km long!
They have only just opened up the crown for people to go up into but the day we went there were no people allowed up but the view from the island looking back at Manhattan is still pretty spectacular – even if it is a bit smoggy!. From ‘Liberty Island’ we got back on the ferry and went across to ‘Ellis Island’. This is where all the migrants came first to be processed before being allowed into the country. Its now a national park and they have a museum dedicated to the migrants. It was interesting and they also had a section on international ‘Barbie’s” the Aussie one was so funny looked like something out of Texas with a cowboy hat, boots and a western outfit! And according to ‘Barbie’ the official language of Ireland is ‘Irish’ – who would have known?
Back on the ferry and back to Manhattan, we got off at ‘Battery Park’ which is where they have a monument to 9/11. It is actually a big sculpture that was originally out the front of the world trade towers and was amazingly hardly damaged. It is now in the park with a flame and a plaque. Walking a little further up the street we were getting closer to ‘Wall street’. We found the big bull and lined up for our picture – both ends! Down Wall Street, saw the NY stock exchange and a big statue of George Washington. A little further down we saw the Trump Towers and Tiffany’s. We had to have a browse, looked around it was beautiful so many sparkly diamonds!! Way out of our price range though – just a tad!
More walking uptown to the city hall where we met Ola and jumped on the sight seeing bus, which took us back through down town and gave us commentary about the area. Past the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges we were in china town. We thought it would be a cheap lunch so we jumped off and walked some more down ‘Mott’ street looking around I felt miles away from NY, more like China or Cabramatta! Decided where to eat was the hard part, in almost all of the shop windows was dead animals hanging upside down looking fairly rank! ‘So let’s go somewhere that doesn’t have the food hanging form the roof’.
We decided on a place with nothing in the windows, walked in and it was packed – must be good. Waited for a table and realised we were the only non Asians in the place, and the table the took us too was big and round, already had 4 people sitting on one side with a rolled up table cloth down the middle separating each side hahah. Getting the menu most of it was in Chinese so we just pointed to the pics. It arrived in 3 mins and it was delicious and cheap 6 bucks each!
More walking, pasted ‘Little Italy’ and back to the bus. Heading up to times square we went past the ‘East Village’, the ‘United Nations’ –which was in session as we went past because we could see all the flags of each nation flying out the front. Past the Waldorf Astoria (which if you ever need it, has its own private train station underground that you can use to dock your private train…..FOUB??) past the Rockefeller Centre where the big Christmas tree is erected in the winter along with the big ice skating rink.
Off in Times Square, more looking around and we decided we would start to head back as it was about 4ish and we were meeting Kelly and her parents for dinner. Following Ola’s directions we headed about 6 blocks in the wrong direction ehhh!! Just what we needed more walking, so back up the street and to Times Square jumped on the bus headed down town. Through the theatre district we saw all the theatres and shows that were on, the massive flagship Macy’s store, past the huge ‘Empire State’ building, the ‘Flatiron’ building which is cool (Google a pic of it, it looks like an iron, the only one like it in NY) through the fashion district, Soho, Greenwich village and off near our hotel, more walking to get back and then straight into the shower to get ready.
Only Verena, Hol and I went as Ola said she didn’t have enough $. Caught a yellow cab (what other colour is there?) to ‘Smith & Wollensky’ on 47th and 3rd, a high end steak house. Very flashy – meet Mr & Mrs Singleton and Tracey, Kel’s older sister. The meals were massive so Hol and I shared, we ordered the chicken and it was latterly a whole chicken! We had sides of mash and veggies to all share it was so GOOD to have nice food. Mr Singleton paid for the whole thing which was so so nice of him! Thanks Mr Singleton!!!
It was funny, we hadn’t seen Kel for 2/3 days and it felt like so much longer. They all went home and the 3 of us decided it was too early to go to bed so we walked down to 9th Ave where there are lots of bars. Found an Irish one we liked called ‘The Snug’ in the ‘Hell’s kitchen’ area (named because back in the days it was a huge druggie area that was really bad and notorious for crime). The bar tender was funny when we walked in he did a double take and looked at us funny, after ordering our drinks he said to me “I’m really sorry for starring at you but you look exactly like me ex girlfriend!” haha ok then. Next thing you know he’s out from behind the bar and asking to take a picture with him!
Taking the pic with him must of worked, while we were sitting down one of the workers brought over 3 pineapple shots for us “With compliments form the bar tender” whoo hoo free drinks! The bar had 2 happy hours one from 4-7pm and another 11pm-1am it was 11.30pm so the drinks were only $4 – bargain. We ordered another round and low and behold another free shot! After a 3rd round we where exhausted, all the walking we had done that day and then the alcohol we were nearly asleep on the table so cab back to the hotel at 1am and the whole night in NYC cost us under $20!
Ola got up early and left for the Brooklyn tour on the bus which we weren’t too fussed on and we were still in bed! We caught the bus to Times Square and then up to the edge of ‘Central park’, walked past the illustrious ‘Plaza’ hotel (the one in ‘Bride wars’ were they both want to get married) walked up the renowned 5th Ave and met Kel for lunch, ate at ‘Europa’ café – yummy!. Walked down 5th Ave past Gucci, Luis Viton, Prada and Armani just to name a few. Went onto ‘Saks on 5th’ and bought some make up, walked further down to the big ‘Best Buy’ (like JB Hi-Fi) and used the free internet.
Left Kel and walked from 5th Ave down to 12th Ave which is basically half of the Island! 12th is right on the water and we thought it would be a good idea to do the night boat tour round Manhattan. Just in time we hopped on the boat and headed off, it was a great view at night and it went from one side to the other side of the Island past Brooklyn and Queens.
Off the boat and we decided that tonight was the night for ‘Empire State’. We lined up and waited for one of the local buses (not the NY tour bus) but we needed coins argh of course we only had notes so it was walking AGAIN! ‘Nah lets cab it’. Out at Empire State, which was included in our bus ticket. It was about 9.30pm and the wait was about 1 ½ hours so we decided to do the only thing we could……. head to a bar and wait it out. The last elevator up to the observation deck was at 12.45am so we had plenty of time!
Into ‘Legends’ and we parked it at the bar, several dozen $7 cocktails later, we knew the bar tender was from Cork Ireland, had lived for 2 years in Coogee, was now working in NY and was giving us free shots! Oh 12.30am time to head to Empire state. Walked straight in, no line and straight up to the 86th floor. Up on the deck it was so, so, so windy. The view is so spectacular and pretty, it was cloudy and the sky was a pinky peach colour which looked really eerie. We took lots of pics and having the few cocktails on board we had a fab time, so did Gimpy she was hanging out the top and having pics with the guards.
Got some great pics and it was so much fun! They made an announcement that they would be closing and we had to leave, we wanted to be the last people their so we hid in the bathroom until security came and knocked and told us we had to get out. ‘fine fine, we’re leaving’ so we walked as slow as we could and caught the lift down with all the workers to the 80th level where you have to walk across to the lift to the bottom of the building. We were escorted by the head of security through some doors into a corridor which had signed pictures of all different famous people that had been up the top. “cool we are going down in the VIP lift, how exciting is this-bet not everyone gets in here!” Out into the lobby we were boasting about the VIP lift when one of the guards whispered “that’s not a VIP lift it’s for prams and the disabled” opps haha right not so VIP now! There was another couple in the lobby loitering the same as were trying to be the last to leave. We stopped to let them leave first but they would go, so after waiting for a bit we all held hands and walked out together!
Back to Legends bar, more cocktails and this time we met the manager a Turkish guy that order pizza for the staff and gave us some – sweet free drinks and food this place is great! The bar closed at 4am and Hol who had quite a few on board was ready to keep partying at the next club but me and Verena had, had enough so we started walking back and on the way we spied a hotdog stand……
We hadn’t yet had a NY ‘Hawt Dawg’ so what better time than at 4.30am so Verena and I tried hard to get it for $1 but no luck even with our international smiles! ‘No you pay $2.50’ ok ok $2.50 it is. The hot dogs in America are really small not what I would have thought, imagine a hot dog you can buy from ‘Wendy’s’ at home and then cut it in half! We have a normal beef hotdog (not that I think its actually beef!) with mustard, ketchup, pickles and sauerkraut – Verena pipes up “hope this doesn’t give us diarrhoea”. Caught a cab back home and into bed by 5am, what a day.
Next morning my hotdog had a little surprise in store for me, and kept on giving and giving – not fun, but I have a pill for that so not to worry! All fixed and ready to face the day despite that fact that we didn’t get up till midday. It was a miserable day overcast and raining so we decided to stay indoors. Ola went to met her friend so it was just the 3 of us. At about 3ish when it was only drizzling we walked up the street to ‘Steve’s’ pizza and bought a salad and a slice of pizza, walked back to the hotel, put on out pj’s, hopped into bed and ate lunch and watched telly. It was so nice not to be doing anything and so relaxing. We watched ‘Keeping up the Kardashian’s’ and I’m addicted to it! We watched all afternoon till 9pm when I had to leave for the bus to Canada.
It had been perfect weather up until Sunday the day I happened to be leaving. As we got down to the lobby I realised just how hard it was raining, no not raining – Pouring! Great so with my massive pack my smaller back pack and my handbag I ran out into the rain and practically belly dived into the taxi and headed to pen station. Trying to get out of the cab was a whole other story I had to squirm out with the pack trying to pull me back into the cab. As I stepped into the curb (with jeans on) it was flooded with water that came up to my shins – fantastic!
Waiting for a bus on the street with no markings or signs where I’m meant to be, packed with 100’s of people in the pouring rain, with soaking jeans and the heaviest bag you can imagine-does it get any more dismal?
Finally the 10pm bus arrived at 10.40pm and we loaded up, the bus was full so I sat next to a big young Asian guy who was from Toronto and had came to NY for the weekend. Settling down the lights were dimmed and people were trying to sleep. There was 2 girls sitting next to each other about 2 seats back that decided that seeing as though they had just met they would tell each other their whole life story at the top of their lungs. No I don’t want to know about your half German parents, or the fact that you lived in India for 6 months or that your ex boyfriend cheated on you – BORING with a capital B and I’m trying to sleep!! I had my eye mask on and my ipod on loud and I could still here them. Other people were getting annoyed, making comments about how loud they were being. I was just about to ask them to be quite when all of a sudden……….nothing, quite, finally they had shut up!
Dozing on and off but not really sleeping we stopped at a road house at about 3am and went to the loo, got some snacks to eat and kept going. We arrived at the Canadian border at 7ish all hopped off took all our luggage, lined up and waited to be called to the desk. All they did was look at my passport, ask me where I was staying and then stamped the page – easy as. All back on the bus and more driving, we finally got to Toronto at 10am – Not having slept much and not having any clue about Toronto I jumped in a cab and asked him to take me to ‘Clarence Castle Hostel’ ok he says but what’s the address??? Oh right an address ‘crap’ I don’t know I didn’t write it down – how dumb am I? ‘ummm well do you know where there is a starbucks that you can drop me off at so I can jump out use the free wi-fi get the address and jump back in?’ sure, so I jumped out at starbucks taking my 2 little bags with me, constantly looking out the window paranoid the cab would drive off with my big bag! Got the address then back into the cab, using the GPS he had it still felt like we were going to circles.
Arrived at the hostel and it was opposite a really nice park, and from the outside looked like cute old apartment. Got inside and it was 10.30am check in was not till1pm so I dumped my bags, got changed and used the net. I was getting peckish so headed off outside. The view from the hostel was great, looked straight onto the CN tower (the main attraction in Toronto, like centre point). It was a bit chilly I had jeans, and a cardigan on and a scarf – felt like autumn. Went to a coffee shop called ‘Second cup’ had a lovely coffee and a sandwich and sat for 4 hours people watching and using the net. Walked back and got the keys to my room – 6 bed female dorm with our own bathroom. It is the nicest hostel I have been in. The bunks all looked new, the beds were so comfy and the down stairs living room and kitchen was beautiful.
Having not much to do I did all my washing and drying and made my bed. There was already 2 Asian chicks in the room and their hair was all over the bathroom which made me feel like I was going to puke. Another new girl, Katie, came in and she was 19 from England and had been working at a summer camp that was 1 ½ hours from our camp. She was in Toronto for a week and said the only reason she was there was so that she could have a drink! Whoa and I think us girls were bad! She said she had just been walking around for an hour and a half looking for maccas??? Was she serious there were lots of nice cafés and bars around instead of maaca’s.
I was headed out for dinner so asked if she wanted to come along. So we set off and found ‘Elephant & Castle’ an English bar and got Katie a drink! I had meatloaf – don’t ask me why I ordered it but it was lovely! (nothing like that time grandma made us meatloaf – ewww) Walked back to the hostel – its in such a great place just a 5 min walk to the tower, the baseball stadium, bars, clubs and restaurants.
Leigh was arriving from Quebec the next day Tuesday morning, I got up at 7am and met her down in the lobby. She and Nicky had enjoyed Montreal and then when Nicky went back to NY to met her friend Michal Leigh headed up to Quebec. She said it was a beautiful city, she caught the bus overnight to Toronto and didn’t sleep much so she was really tired. We walked down the street for some breakfast and found ‘Tim Horton’s’ a coffee chain had some brekkie and walked to the CN tower, didn’t go up it just looked around and headed to the harbour. On the way we walked through a park that, FOUB you would have liked, it had all these different old trains like steam train and the Canadian Pacific with a museum I think, got some pics anyways.
Back to the hostel we went to bed and had a snooze, got up and decided we would go to the baseball – Toronto Blue Jays vs. the Yankees. Walked to the stadium and had a look but decided that we should just go to a bar and watch it. Off to the ‘Loose Moose’ and had dinner and watched the game – Blue Jays won! Met a man that was in town for the Gynaecologists Convention who offered us a job in Brisbane at the new office for ‘Cook Medical’. Next bar – Jack Astor’s there was a fair crowd considering it was a Tuesday night. Gimpy made an appearance and we ended up meeting a group of guys from a town about 2 hours from Toronto who were in town for the game.
We stuck with them and headed back to the Loose Moose, then after a few more drinks they decided it was time to go to the strip club, somehow Leigh and I ended up in a cab with them! Free entry into the club which we are told is one of the most prestigious strip clubs in the whole of Canada. So ushered in, Leigh took a pic of me and one of the guys at the bar and she was pounced on by one of the bouncers who made her delete it even though it was only of us and no one else. Sitting down we weren’t the only girls there (not including the chicks that worked there) then this old Japanese man dressed up in a tweed suit, with a long white beard and a orange marigold flower behind his ear with a little press hat on who looked like Mr Miargy (from the karate kid) came up to Leigh and wanted her to “sit” with him she was quick to say no thanks so instead he gave her his flower!
Some of the guys decided that they had had enough so we went with them. So 5 of us squeezed into a taxi, I managed to end up with my head behind the guy in the middle and my legs sticking up the air! Back to the Loose Moose and it was closed so we started walking back to the hostel when we saw these 2 racoons running through the street and up the side of the princess theatre (They were like a cross between a cat and a rat and a skunk) we dropped the boys off along the way and ended up at another hotdog stand so we thought it only appropriate to sample a Canadian hotdog – just to check if they are any different. So this time it was big, like a normal size hot dog. And it was so cute they had a little salad bar of things you could top your dog with like onion, sauerkraut, bacon bits, pickles, relish, olives or spicy peppers. This was the best hotdog yet, gimpy even like the hotdog and got us a backstage pass into the hotdog stand while some random took pics of us!
While eating our hotdog this Indian dude popped up out of no where are asked us if we wanted to go back to his place for a 3some??? Is this guy serious?? Needless to say we high tailed it outta there and told him to get a life. More walking and we were closer to the hostel when we bumped into 2 guys from Sweden. We ended up stopping and chatting to them for ages and gimpy had her fair shares of pics. Next thing you know one of the guys is kissing me! Haha we said goodbye and headed to the hostel, got into bed at 4am.
Still more to come……
Love that everyone is liking the blog hopefully I can catch up enough to put it up every few days!
Missing everyone lots but having a ball!
Cheerio xox
Leigh and Nicky were leaving at 8am the next morning (wed) for a bus to Canada to get their visa stamped. Check out was 11am and it literally took us all morning to pack and get ourselves ready, all feeling very green we dragged our bags down the 100 flights of stairs and checked out, we were able to store our bags at the hostel which was good. After my bag getting quite heavy I decided I needed to ditch some things…. After trying to decide for a while I came to the decision that it would be my Walmart sneakers, so with those tied to my bag we headed in the search of food we had lots of little cafes to choose from and we ended up at Macca’s!
We sat there for about 2 hours talking about the antics of the night before and surviving the waves of nausea. Decided that beautiful park in downtown Boston was our next port of call (and the best place to find a homeless person to give my shoes too!). On the train and we arrived at the park, it was a beautiful sunny day with a slight breeze. Found ourselves a nice shady spot under the trees lied down and watched the world go by – bliss! After a little snooze I could smell what stunk like off dog poo?? I looked up and heading towards us was a homeless man shaking a cup asking for money, ‘perfect’ so I asked him if he fancied a new pair of shoes…….. in no uncertain terms told me all he wanted was money “GOT IT LADY”, ‘fine don’t have my great shoes, but I’m not giving you any money either phhh get a real job!’
Right enough lazing, Verena and I went for a walk further into the park and it was huge, there has a huge shallow pool with heaps of little kids wading around, guys playing soccer, we walked further and crossed the road into the 2nd part of the park and that was even better immaculate gardens and really pretty flowers – took lots of pics and they had really cute statues in the gardens I like the ones of a mother duck and all her little baby ducklings all in another line. I found a lady that was sitting on the edge of the park in a deck chair under an umbrella, she had a sign up asking for money. She was dressed in dirty clothes and was wearing a beanie with bird feathers sticking out of it, She had no teeth and was mumbling to herself, the best way to describe her and what she sounded like was, as Hol put it a girl version of Mr T. The prime candidate for my shoes, I started talking to her and offered her my shoes, after saying no thanks and thinking I was playing a joke on her she accepted and I was free of more weight in my bag!
Back on the train and back to the hostel by 5pm, walked past reception like we were still staying there and into the TV room. Hol snuck down to her bags and got her shower stuff and crept into the shower. I stuck my head under and washed my hair which was nice and refreshing after lying in the park for most of the afternoon. We still had until 12pm to catch our ‘Mega Bus’ to New York – more time to waste. At 6 we headed back to ‘McGreevy’s’ the Irish for, my favourite Trivia! We were the ‘international nuns’ and we had no idea, about 96% of the questions we didn’t know but at least we didn’t get last place. We had dinner and I had the best Sheppard’s pie it was delicious. Time to head back to the hostel to get our bags and make our way to south station bus terminal – guess how we got there…..yep the train!
I swear my bags keep getting heavier, onto the bus that costs us $5 (bargain) and now I know why it was $5 there is not even enough room to sneeze comfortably let alone sit for a 4 1/2 hour bus ride, but on the up side the bus wasn’t full so we got 2 seats each which was good. I don’t know if it was because I was uncomfy or if it was because I was excited that I was going to the big apple – whoo hoo!!!
Finally getting into the city I looked around and realised we were in Harlem oooo just like the movies all the shops with their roller doors down and on every corner there was a deli/quickie mart. Dropped off in the middle of Manhattan at 4.30am in the morning may seem a little daunting but it was all very thrilling we were in ‘New York, New York’. Hailed a cab (well it was already waiting by the bus stop) lucky it was a 4wd cab so all our bags fit in the back – just! The Marriott downtown here we come. Checked in at 4.45am and just by luck our room was already ready so we headed up to the 22 floor and into a room of luxury! 2 doubles with clean sheets and doonas a private bathroom that you can close the door and carpet… real carpet! Into bed and we were asleep in no time, got up around 11ish and headed out for a walk.
We walked to the water and rounded the corner, off in the distance I saw her……….the great ‘Lady Liberty’ herself! So awesome just like the movies, our hotel was in the downtown district so not very residential just lots of tall office buildings and workers. After walking along the waters edge for a while we decided to catch the subway into Times Square. Bought our ticket and down we went – ohhh this is so surreal it looks exactly like Speed, Die hard, Taking of Pelham and every other American based movie! Lots of under ground tunnels and walk ways a bit hard to know were you are going but its all colour coded so that made it easier. It was cleaner than I thought to no graffiti or rubbish the only off putting thing was the giant rat we saw running over the tracks! The train itself is a bit unusual as you sit facing each other and there are some weirdo’s on there.
Times Square – we popped out of the subway into the amazing hustle and bustle that is the epitome of New York City! It was fabulous, so many people, so many bright lights and colours, it’s like an assault on your eyes, and even the police station has neon flashing lights along with Macdonald’s and every shop imaginable. Our first stop was right in the middle of Times Square where you could see where they drop the ball for New Years Eve. Feeling hungry we headed for the ‘Hard Rock Café’ I had the veggie burger and it was delicious. More walking around, I was under the impression that Times Square was literally a square! Ha well its not - it’s a really long section along Broadway with restaurants, shops and just a huge advertising Mecca. We went into the biggest forever 21 shop it had 6 levels of just clothes shoes and accessories – bliss! The M&M shop with was 3 levels and had chocolate every where. Saw lots of other stuff too and took lots of pics, saw the ‘Naked Cow Girl’ just a girl version of the ‘Naked Cow Boy’ but instead of being young cute and fit she was 70yrs old, wrinkly and had furry star nipple covers aarrggghh!!
We bought tickets for the blue sight seeing bus, it was $86 dollars and went for 3 days, so we decided we would start the sight seeing the next day. I bought myself a Pandora bracelet and have decided that ill fill it with charms from the all the different places I have been. For NYC I bought a taxi which is quite fitting because very 2nd car is a yellow taxi! They are pretty cool, you can spot them anywhere and there is no problem flagging one down. More walking around and we then caught the subway back to the area in which we thought was the hotel, instead we found ‘Centaury 21’ which is a massive department store with big name brands at cheap prices. We had a look but there weren’t any great deals, in fact the clothes were all pretty hideous so instead we just had fun trying on the ugliest clothes we could find and then taking pictures!
Walking back to the hotel we got slightly lost but eventually made it back safe and sound. Got into bed watched some telly and fell asleep ready for the next day in the big apple.
We got up early (only Hol, Verena and I went) and left at 7.30am grabbed a starbucks and headed down the road to the bottom of Manhattan Island and got our ticket for a cruise on the Hudson River. We boarded and watched as the statue of liberty came closer and closer. From the shore she seems big but getting closer she is huge! We hopped off on ‘Liberty Island’ and walked around to the front of the statue, took 100’s of pics and even gimpy got in there and had her pic taken! We caught the first ferry across so there were less people which was good. The day before when we walked past at 11am the line for the ferry was at least a km long!
They have only just opened up the crown for people to go up into but the day we went there were no people allowed up but the view from the island looking back at Manhattan is still pretty spectacular – even if it is a bit smoggy!. From ‘Liberty Island’ we got back on the ferry and went across to ‘Ellis Island’. This is where all the migrants came first to be processed before being allowed into the country. Its now a national park and they have a museum dedicated to the migrants. It was interesting and they also had a section on international ‘Barbie’s” the Aussie one was so funny looked like something out of Texas with a cowboy hat, boots and a western outfit! And according to ‘Barbie’ the official language of Ireland is ‘Irish’ – who would have known?
Back on the ferry and back to Manhattan, we got off at ‘Battery Park’ which is where they have a monument to 9/11. It is actually a big sculpture that was originally out the front of the world trade towers and was amazingly hardly damaged. It is now in the park with a flame and a plaque. Walking a little further up the street we were getting closer to ‘Wall street’. We found the big bull and lined up for our picture – both ends! Down Wall Street, saw the NY stock exchange and a big statue of George Washington. A little further down we saw the Trump Towers and Tiffany’s. We had to have a browse, looked around it was beautiful so many sparkly diamonds!! Way out of our price range though – just a tad!
More walking uptown to the city hall where we met Ola and jumped on the sight seeing bus, which took us back through down town and gave us commentary about the area. Past the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges we were in china town. We thought it would be a cheap lunch so we jumped off and walked some more down ‘Mott’ street looking around I felt miles away from NY, more like China or Cabramatta! Decided where to eat was the hard part, in almost all of the shop windows was dead animals hanging upside down looking fairly rank! ‘So let’s go somewhere that doesn’t have the food hanging form the roof’.
We decided on a place with nothing in the windows, walked in and it was packed – must be good. Waited for a table and realised we were the only non Asians in the place, and the table the took us too was big and round, already had 4 people sitting on one side with a rolled up table cloth down the middle separating each side hahah. Getting the menu most of it was in Chinese so we just pointed to the pics. It arrived in 3 mins and it was delicious and cheap 6 bucks each!
More walking, pasted ‘Little Italy’ and back to the bus. Heading up to times square we went past the ‘East Village’, the ‘United Nations’ –which was in session as we went past because we could see all the flags of each nation flying out the front. Past the Waldorf Astoria (which if you ever need it, has its own private train station underground that you can use to dock your private train…..FOUB??) past the Rockefeller Centre where the big Christmas tree is erected in the winter along with the big ice skating rink.
Off in Times Square, more looking around and we decided we would start to head back as it was about 4ish and we were meeting Kelly and her parents for dinner. Following Ola’s directions we headed about 6 blocks in the wrong direction ehhh!! Just what we needed more walking, so back up the street and to Times Square jumped on the bus headed down town. Through the theatre district we saw all the theatres and shows that were on, the massive flagship Macy’s store, past the huge ‘Empire State’ building, the ‘Flatiron’ building which is cool (Google a pic of it, it looks like an iron, the only one like it in NY) through the fashion district, Soho, Greenwich village and off near our hotel, more walking to get back and then straight into the shower to get ready.
Only Verena, Hol and I went as Ola said she didn’t have enough $. Caught a yellow cab (what other colour is there?) to ‘Smith & Wollensky’ on 47th and 3rd, a high end steak house. Very flashy – meet Mr & Mrs Singleton and Tracey, Kel’s older sister. The meals were massive so Hol and I shared, we ordered the chicken and it was latterly a whole chicken! We had sides of mash and veggies to all share it was so GOOD to have nice food. Mr Singleton paid for the whole thing which was so so nice of him! Thanks Mr Singleton!!!
It was funny, we hadn’t seen Kel for 2/3 days and it felt like so much longer. They all went home and the 3 of us decided it was too early to go to bed so we walked down to 9th Ave where there are lots of bars. Found an Irish one we liked called ‘The Snug’ in the ‘Hell’s kitchen’ area (named because back in the days it was a huge druggie area that was really bad and notorious for crime). The bar tender was funny when we walked in he did a double take and looked at us funny, after ordering our drinks he said to me “I’m really sorry for starring at you but you look exactly like me ex girlfriend!” haha ok then. Next thing you know he’s out from behind the bar and asking to take a picture with him!
Taking the pic with him must of worked, while we were sitting down one of the workers brought over 3 pineapple shots for us “With compliments form the bar tender” whoo hoo free drinks! The bar had 2 happy hours one from 4-7pm and another 11pm-1am it was 11.30pm so the drinks were only $4 – bargain. We ordered another round and low and behold another free shot! After a 3rd round we where exhausted, all the walking we had done that day and then the alcohol we were nearly asleep on the table so cab back to the hotel at 1am and the whole night in NYC cost us under $20!
Ola got up early and left for the Brooklyn tour on the bus which we weren’t too fussed on and we were still in bed! We caught the bus to Times Square and then up to the edge of ‘Central park’, walked past the illustrious ‘Plaza’ hotel (the one in ‘Bride wars’ were they both want to get married) walked up the renowned 5th Ave and met Kel for lunch, ate at ‘Europa’ café – yummy!. Walked down 5th Ave past Gucci, Luis Viton, Prada and Armani just to name a few. Went onto ‘Saks on 5th’ and bought some make up, walked further down to the big ‘Best Buy’ (like JB Hi-Fi) and used the free internet.
Left Kel and walked from 5th Ave down to 12th Ave which is basically half of the Island! 12th is right on the water and we thought it would be a good idea to do the night boat tour round Manhattan. Just in time we hopped on the boat and headed off, it was a great view at night and it went from one side to the other side of the Island past Brooklyn and Queens.
Off the boat and we decided that tonight was the night for ‘Empire State’. We lined up and waited for one of the local buses (not the NY tour bus) but we needed coins argh of course we only had notes so it was walking AGAIN! ‘Nah lets cab it’. Out at Empire State, which was included in our bus ticket. It was about 9.30pm and the wait was about 1 ½ hours so we decided to do the only thing we could……. head to a bar and wait it out. The last elevator up to the observation deck was at 12.45am so we had plenty of time!
Into ‘Legends’ and we parked it at the bar, several dozen $7 cocktails later, we knew the bar tender was from Cork Ireland, had lived for 2 years in Coogee, was now working in NY and was giving us free shots! Oh 12.30am time to head to Empire state. Walked straight in, no line and straight up to the 86th floor. Up on the deck it was so, so, so windy. The view is so spectacular and pretty, it was cloudy and the sky was a pinky peach colour which looked really eerie. We took lots of pics and having the few cocktails on board we had a fab time, so did Gimpy she was hanging out the top and having pics with the guards.
Got some great pics and it was so much fun! They made an announcement that they would be closing and we had to leave, we wanted to be the last people their so we hid in the bathroom until security came and knocked and told us we had to get out. ‘fine fine, we’re leaving’ so we walked as slow as we could and caught the lift down with all the workers to the 80th level where you have to walk across to the lift to the bottom of the building. We were escorted by the head of security through some doors into a corridor which had signed pictures of all different famous people that had been up the top. “cool we are going down in the VIP lift, how exciting is this-bet not everyone gets in here!” Out into the lobby we were boasting about the VIP lift when one of the guards whispered “that’s not a VIP lift it’s for prams and the disabled” opps haha right not so VIP now! There was another couple in the lobby loitering the same as were trying to be the last to leave. We stopped to let them leave first but they would go, so after waiting for a bit we all held hands and walked out together!
Back to Legends bar, more cocktails and this time we met the manager a Turkish guy that order pizza for the staff and gave us some – sweet free drinks and food this place is great! The bar closed at 4am and Hol who had quite a few on board was ready to keep partying at the next club but me and Verena had, had enough so we started walking back and on the way we spied a hotdog stand……
We hadn’t yet had a NY ‘Hawt Dawg’ so what better time than at 4.30am so Verena and I tried hard to get it for $1 but no luck even with our international smiles! ‘No you pay $2.50’ ok ok $2.50 it is. The hot dogs in America are really small not what I would have thought, imagine a hot dog you can buy from ‘Wendy’s’ at home and then cut it in half! We have a normal beef hotdog (not that I think its actually beef!) with mustard, ketchup, pickles and sauerkraut – Verena pipes up “hope this doesn’t give us diarrhoea”. Caught a cab back home and into bed by 5am, what a day.
Next morning my hotdog had a little surprise in store for me, and kept on giving and giving – not fun, but I have a pill for that so not to worry! All fixed and ready to face the day despite that fact that we didn’t get up till midday. It was a miserable day overcast and raining so we decided to stay indoors. Ola went to met her friend so it was just the 3 of us. At about 3ish when it was only drizzling we walked up the street to ‘Steve’s’ pizza and bought a salad and a slice of pizza, walked back to the hotel, put on out pj’s, hopped into bed and ate lunch and watched telly. It was so nice not to be doing anything and so relaxing. We watched ‘Keeping up the Kardashian’s’ and I’m addicted to it! We watched all afternoon till 9pm when I had to leave for the bus to Canada.
It had been perfect weather up until Sunday the day I happened to be leaving. As we got down to the lobby I realised just how hard it was raining, no not raining – Pouring! Great so with my massive pack my smaller back pack and my handbag I ran out into the rain and practically belly dived into the taxi and headed to pen station. Trying to get out of the cab was a whole other story I had to squirm out with the pack trying to pull me back into the cab. As I stepped into the curb (with jeans on) it was flooded with water that came up to my shins – fantastic!
Waiting for a bus on the street with no markings or signs where I’m meant to be, packed with 100’s of people in the pouring rain, with soaking jeans and the heaviest bag you can imagine-does it get any more dismal?
Finally the 10pm bus arrived at 10.40pm and we loaded up, the bus was full so I sat next to a big young Asian guy who was from Toronto and had came to NY for the weekend. Settling down the lights were dimmed and people were trying to sleep. There was 2 girls sitting next to each other about 2 seats back that decided that seeing as though they had just met they would tell each other their whole life story at the top of their lungs. No I don’t want to know about your half German parents, or the fact that you lived in India for 6 months or that your ex boyfriend cheated on you – BORING with a capital B and I’m trying to sleep!! I had my eye mask on and my ipod on loud and I could still here them. Other people were getting annoyed, making comments about how loud they were being. I was just about to ask them to be quite when all of a sudden……….nothing, quite, finally they had shut up!
Dozing on and off but not really sleeping we stopped at a road house at about 3am and went to the loo, got some snacks to eat and kept going. We arrived at the Canadian border at 7ish all hopped off took all our luggage, lined up and waited to be called to the desk. All they did was look at my passport, ask me where I was staying and then stamped the page – easy as. All back on the bus and more driving, we finally got to Toronto at 10am – Not having slept much and not having any clue about Toronto I jumped in a cab and asked him to take me to ‘Clarence Castle Hostel’ ok he says but what’s the address??? Oh right an address ‘crap’ I don’t know I didn’t write it down – how dumb am I? ‘ummm well do you know where there is a starbucks that you can drop me off at so I can jump out use the free wi-fi get the address and jump back in?’ sure, so I jumped out at starbucks taking my 2 little bags with me, constantly looking out the window paranoid the cab would drive off with my big bag! Got the address then back into the cab, using the GPS he had it still felt like we were going to circles.
Arrived at the hostel and it was opposite a really nice park, and from the outside looked like cute old apartment. Got inside and it was 10.30am check in was not till1pm so I dumped my bags, got changed and used the net. I was getting peckish so headed off outside. The view from the hostel was great, looked straight onto the CN tower (the main attraction in Toronto, like centre point). It was a bit chilly I had jeans, and a cardigan on and a scarf – felt like autumn. Went to a coffee shop called ‘Second cup’ had a lovely coffee and a sandwich and sat for 4 hours people watching and using the net. Walked back and got the keys to my room – 6 bed female dorm with our own bathroom. It is the nicest hostel I have been in. The bunks all looked new, the beds were so comfy and the down stairs living room and kitchen was beautiful.
Having not much to do I did all my washing and drying and made my bed. There was already 2 Asian chicks in the room and their hair was all over the bathroom which made me feel like I was going to puke. Another new girl, Katie, came in and she was 19 from England and had been working at a summer camp that was 1 ½ hours from our camp. She was in Toronto for a week and said the only reason she was there was so that she could have a drink! Whoa and I think us girls were bad! She said she had just been walking around for an hour and a half looking for maccas??? Was she serious there were lots of nice cafés and bars around instead of maaca’s.
I was headed out for dinner so asked if she wanted to come along. So we set off and found ‘Elephant & Castle’ an English bar and got Katie a drink! I had meatloaf – don’t ask me why I ordered it but it was lovely! (nothing like that time grandma made us meatloaf – ewww) Walked back to the hostel – its in such a great place just a 5 min walk to the tower, the baseball stadium, bars, clubs and restaurants.
Leigh was arriving from Quebec the next day Tuesday morning, I got up at 7am and met her down in the lobby. She and Nicky had enjoyed Montreal and then when Nicky went back to NY to met her friend Michal Leigh headed up to Quebec. She said it was a beautiful city, she caught the bus overnight to Toronto and didn’t sleep much so she was really tired. We walked down the street for some breakfast and found ‘Tim Horton’s’ a coffee chain had some brekkie and walked to the CN tower, didn’t go up it just looked around and headed to the harbour. On the way we walked through a park that, FOUB you would have liked, it had all these different old trains like steam train and the Canadian Pacific with a museum I think, got some pics anyways.
Back to the hostel we went to bed and had a snooze, got up and decided we would go to the baseball – Toronto Blue Jays vs. the Yankees. Walked to the stadium and had a look but decided that we should just go to a bar and watch it. Off to the ‘Loose Moose’ and had dinner and watched the game – Blue Jays won! Met a man that was in town for the Gynaecologists Convention who offered us a job in Brisbane at the new office for ‘Cook Medical’. Next bar – Jack Astor’s there was a fair crowd considering it was a Tuesday night. Gimpy made an appearance and we ended up meeting a group of guys from a town about 2 hours from Toronto who were in town for the game.
We stuck with them and headed back to the Loose Moose, then after a few more drinks they decided it was time to go to the strip club, somehow Leigh and I ended up in a cab with them! Free entry into the club which we are told is one of the most prestigious strip clubs in the whole of Canada. So ushered in, Leigh took a pic of me and one of the guys at the bar and she was pounced on by one of the bouncers who made her delete it even though it was only of us and no one else. Sitting down we weren’t the only girls there (not including the chicks that worked there) then this old Japanese man dressed up in a tweed suit, with a long white beard and a orange marigold flower behind his ear with a little press hat on who looked like Mr Miargy (from the karate kid) came up to Leigh and wanted her to “sit” with him she was quick to say no thanks so instead he gave her his flower!
Some of the guys decided that they had had enough so we went with them. So 5 of us squeezed into a taxi, I managed to end up with my head behind the guy in the middle and my legs sticking up the air! Back to the Loose Moose and it was closed so we started walking back to the hostel when we saw these 2 racoons running through the street and up the side of the princess theatre (They were like a cross between a cat and a rat and a skunk) we dropped the boys off along the way and ended up at another hotdog stand so we thought it only appropriate to sample a Canadian hotdog – just to check if they are any different. So this time it was big, like a normal size hot dog. And it was so cute they had a little salad bar of things you could top your dog with like onion, sauerkraut, bacon bits, pickles, relish, olives or spicy peppers. This was the best hotdog yet, gimpy even like the hotdog and got us a backstage pass into the hotdog stand while some random took pics of us!
While eating our hotdog this Indian dude popped up out of no where are asked us if we wanted to go back to his place for a 3some??? Is this guy serious?? Needless to say we high tailed it outta there and told him to get a life. More walking and we were closer to the hostel when we bumped into 2 guys from Sweden. We ended up stopping and chatting to them for ages and gimpy had her fair shares of pics. Next thing you know one of the guys is kissing me! Haha we said goodbye and headed to the hostel, got into bed at 4am.
Still more to come……
Love that everyone is liking the blog hopefully I can catch up enough to put it up every few days!
Missing everyone lots but having a ball!
Cheerio xox
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