So another day over in the big apple. The more time I spend here the more I like it, it's a shame we're leaving tomorrow but oh well. This morning, got on a boat and floated around the harbour and saw ellis island (statue of liberty) and the statue is really nice, but a lot smaller than it looks. Then we went to the former WTC site, which is, a construction site for the horrible "freedom" tower, it was, odd, to be there. Didn't really expect to feel anything, but what I did feel was quite unusual and unexpected.. It should just be a monument, but I guess real estate is just far too expensive to "waste" it on something like that.
We got on the subway and went to the Ed Sullivan theatre to get our (free, they just give them out on the street) tickets to the Late Show, and thankful to Alice's joyous manner, they thought we showed enthusiasm, so they put us in the front row, and on the show was an impressionist and Kirsten Dunst! Because Spider Man 3 comes out this friday here (the world premier was tonight, here in NYC) it was about that. She is ridiciously skinny, kinda gross, but it was a great experience and something I hope to remember forever (like most things this trip!)
We went to dinner and then * hang on, I just remembered, yesterday I had chocolate and peanut butter (sorry my diabetes) ice cream and it was the best icecream I have ever had * anyway, dinner, then walked around and went back to Macy*s. It's large and I got Alice to try on some clothes to my tastes and didn't get anything, and came back home. Fun day.
-Andrew
Highlight of the day today was the Letterman show for me. We saw Kirsten Dunst and some random illusionist guy. Letterman is smaller than you think and not as funny as you would think. Did a cruise around the statue, very impressive.
We'll be sad to leave the big apple, have really liked it here. Onwards and upwards and all that. Scary to think of going to Europe next all on our wee own selves.
-Alice
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
New York New York
Before I start could someone please inform me of who won the world cup???!!!!!!!!!!
Here we are in NYC, love this place. Have walked so far over 200 blocks. Spent some time in Central Park, up the Rockafella center, Times Sq and the 'garment' district. So huge and so many people. Going to be an audience for David Letterman tomorrow and then to see the phantom.
And the big news is...... Andrew bought a tie!! Can you imagine it! I love it
-Alice
Well we dropped off the car and had driven ~2000 miles since Saturday. Including LA I've driven about ~3000 miles on the wrong side of the road now. It now feels normal to drive there, weird..
Now we're in Manhatten, NYC and I love it. You know how when you talk to people about New York and they say "It's not that big", well, it's huge. There are so many people and shops and things to do, and the buildings are large and everyone dresses nicer than me and it has a real unique feeling, I think it's because this city has everything in it and people's entire lives are conducted in a large metropolitan city. It's hard to explain. And I think the bright lights give Vegas a run for their money, not strickly in size, but in taste. And we went to the world's largest department store today, Macy's NY, which was pretty big, as you'd imagine. The view from the Rockefeller centre was amazing, got to look at the Empire State Building and everything else. Tomorrow we're off to visit other places and go in the Audience for the Late Show. Love it here!
-Andrew
Here we are in NYC, love this place. Have walked so far over 200 blocks. Spent some time in Central Park, up the Rockafella center, Times Sq and the 'garment' district. So huge and so many people. Going to be an audience for David Letterman tomorrow and then to see the phantom.
And the big news is...... Andrew bought a tie!! Can you imagine it! I love it
-Alice
Well we dropped off the car and had driven ~2000 miles since Saturday. Including LA I've driven about ~3000 miles on the wrong side of the road now. It now feels normal to drive there, weird..
Now we're in Manhatten, NYC and I love it. You know how when you talk to people about New York and they say "It's not that big", well, it's huge. There are so many people and shops and things to do, and the buildings are large and everyone dresses nicer than me and it has a real unique feeling, I think it's because this city has everything in it and people's entire lives are conducted in a large metropolitan city. It's hard to explain. And I think the bright lights give Vegas a run for their money, not strickly in size, but in taste. And we went to the world's largest department store today, Macy's NY, which was pretty big, as you'd imagine. The view from the Rockefeller centre was amazing, got to look at the Empire State Building and everything else. Tomorrow we're off to visit other places and go in the Audience for the Late Show. Love it here!
-Andrew
Friday, April 27, 2007
End of the Road Trip
Once again you'll get two posts about the same events, redundancy and all.
After we left the Chatanooga library we got on the road. The interstates are pretty good really, real fast and always enough lanes so it moves at the speed limit. We drove until we got to the turn off to go to the JD Distillery, and once we were off the interstate the speed slowed down and we got a real taste of what backcountry redneck America looks like. "kill all gays" inscribed into public toilets says a lot I think, but the people are generally nice, they wave at ya from the street even though they don't know who we are.
The Distillery was amazing. I have a new found respect for JD now, and really respect the Tennessee Whiskey, and it fully contends with Bourbon. I had always thought that the JD Single Barrel was the smoothest whiskey I had tasted, and now seeing how it gets made, well, it was a golden experience. I was impressed with how close you got to everything (standing over the fermentation vats, I could have spit in it if I felt the need) and where they burn the wood to make the charcoal and also a bottling plant. Man they make a lot of whiskey though. It's quite hard to fathom just how much they have in stock considering it has to be aged for at least 5 years, and so you have to have enough barrel houses to hold 5 years of stock at any one time.
We finished that evening by rolling in Nashville, and we went to a mall! How authentic. We looked around the stores and some people tried to sell us a time-share and then we went to the "Rain Forest" cafe which is like a themed restaurant. Nice enough. We toured the main street and it was full of country music funnily enough. We found another rest stop and slept.
Next day we got up and intended to go to these mountain ranges, and on the way got a log cabin. The place was mint, and I loved every second there, and I made pancakes with sugar-free syrup which was enjoyable! If I ever get another chance to upload some photos you'll get a chance to see it!
We got back on the road and drove into Virginia, and the scenery changes again. The scenery around America is really nice, quite different to NZ and quite a lot like you see in TV, saw a few farms with white wooden post fences. The scenery doesn't change as often either, but that's more or less expected.
Stopped somewhere random, close to DC, which we then drove into in the morning. What a mission! The traffic was horrible and the signposting even worse and no parking. We basically played car tourist that day, and didn't even see that much! We did go to the Arlington cemetary, a massive military cemetary (all the little white uniform tombstones) and that was kind of interesting. We drove to Baltimore and stumbled across a baseball game which was cool, Orilose vs Red Sox, we got a hot dog but not peanuts and enjoyed American Sports atmosphere. It felt a lot more civilised that going to a rugby game back at home.
Next day (today) we got up early and tried to get to DC early but it actually took us 2 hours to get 30 miles and park. We walked so much and so a whole bunch of thing. The big Lincoln Memorial with him sitting on a seat is really big in real life, and then you turn around and see the reflecting pool reflecting the Washington (maybe?) monument and it's really impressive. The reflecting pool was in Forrest Gump when he does the unintended speech in his Army Uniform and Jenny runs into the pool to come to him? Remember that? Well, I was there. The Natural History museum was AMAZING and I saw some cool rocks and some dinosaurs and a whole bunch of awesome things which aren't really all that interesting to talk about but were interesting to look at.
Now we're close to Dulles Airport just outside of DC in Virginia, having a night NOT sleeping in the van, about to fly to New York (thanks lastminute.com, you were cheaper to fly than to train, no wonder no one trains) for a few days then to visit the Scott of Jeremy in London.
After we left the Chatanooga library we got on the road. The interstates are pretty good really, real fast and always enough lanes so it moves at the speed limit. We drove until we got to the turn off to go to the JD Distillery, and once we were off the interstate the speed slowed down and we got a real taste of what backcountry redneck America looks like. "kill all gays" inscribed into public toilets says a lot I think, but the people are generally nice, they wave at ya from the street even though they don't know who we are.
The Distillery was amazing. I have a new found respect for JD now, and really respect the Tennessee Whiskey, and it fully contends with Bourbon. I had always thought that the JD Single Barrel was the smoothest whiskey I had tasted, and now seeing how it gets made, well, it was a golden experience. I was impressed with how close you got to everything (standing over the fermentation vats, I could have spit in it if I felt the need) and where they burn the wood to make the charcoal and also a bottling plant. Man they make a lot of whiskey though. It's quite hard to fathom just how much they have in stock considering it has to be aged for at least 5 years, and so you have to have enough barrel houses to hold 5 years of stock at any one time.
We finished that evening by rolling in Nashville, and we went to a mall! How authentic. We looked around the stores and some people tried to sell us a time-share and then we went to the "Rain Forest" cafe which is like a themed restaurant. Nice enough. We toured the main street and it was full of country music funnily enough. We found another rest stop and slept.
Next day we got up and intended to go to these mountain ranges, and on the way got a log cabin. The place was mint, and I loved every second there, and I made pancakes with sugar-free syrup which was enjoyable! If I ever get another chance to upload some photos you'll get a chance to see it!
We got back on the road and drove into Virginia, and the scenery changes again. The scenery around America is really nice, quite different to NZ and quite a lot like you see in TV, saw a few farms with white wooden post fences. The scenery doesn't change as often either, but that's more or less expected.
Stopped somewhere random, close to DC, which we then drove into in the morning. What a mission! The traffic was horrible and the signposting even worse and no parking. We basically played car tourist that day, and didn't even see that much! We did go to the Arlington cemetary, a massive military cemetary (all the little white uniform tombstones) and that was kind of interesting. We drove to Baltimore and stumbled across a baseball game which was cool, Orilose vs Red Sox, we got a hot dog but not peanuts and enjoyed American Sports atmosphere. It felt a lot more civilised that going to a rugby game back at home.
Next day (today) we got up early and tried to get to DC early but it actually took us 2 hours to get 30 miles and park. We walked so much and so a whole bunch of thing. The big Lincoln Memorial with him sitting on a seat is really big in real life, and then you turn around and see the reflecting pool reflecting the Washington (maybe?) monument and it's really impressive. The reflecting pool was in Forrest Gump when he does the unintended speech in his Army Uniform and Jenny runs into the pool to come to him? Remember that? Well, I was there. The Natural History museum was AMAZING and I saw some cool rocks and some dinosaurs and a whole bunch of awesome things which aren't really all that interesting to talk about but were interesting to look at.
Now we're close to Dulles Airport just outside of DC in Virginia, having a night NOT sleeping in the van, about to fly to New York (thanks lastminute.com, you were cheaper to fly than to train, no wonder no one trains) for a few days then to visit the Scott of Jeremy in London.
Tennesse and onwards
Hey everyone
Feels like we are just getting into the real traveling thing now we are about to get rid of the car. My legs are feeling it after a day walking round DC. The road up here was interesting. Stopped at the Jack Daniels distillery (did I already tell you about that?) anyways, great place, sooo interesting. They let you see all the corn mash and the coals they filter the whiskey through.
After that we headed up to the smokey mountians for a wee bit of a break along the way. We shouted ourselves to a night in a log cabin in the mountains. We loved it there, our cabin had a loft and a basement, a heart shaped spa bath and a hot tub on the deck overlooking the mountains. Andrew made me a proper dinner with lots of vegges (yum) and pancakes for breakfast in the morning. Very nice experience!! The next day we decided to take life a bit slower and headed onto a road through the woods. We saw wild deer on the side, they were so cute!!
Another night in the van and onto DC. What a freaken mission. I wont go wildly into the details but I would recommend anyone going to DC, dont take a car and please plan your trip. We got stuck in traffic for a couple of hours and when we got to where we wanted it was closed. It turned out ok in the end though. We found ourselves in Baltimore, Maryland and as we got into town saw that there was a baseball game on. We decided to embrace this all American tradition and went along. Primo seats for only $15. We didnt really understand too many of the rules though.
Today we got stuck in traffic again in DC, took us 2 hours to go 20miles (I'm so thankful that Andrew is so much more patient than I am). After a terrible start of not being able to find a park, only finding spanish speaking info people and not having any way to get to NYC the next day the day did get better. We saw the White house, Lincon Memorial, Reflective pool, the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the American Indiain (thanks Marsha for the tip- had lunch there was yummy).
We are flying to NY tomorrow and then onto London to see Jeremy and Sarah!! Can't wait to see you guys!!!
Feels like we are just getting into the real traveling thing now we are about to get rid of the car. My legs are feeling it after a day walking round DC. The road up here was interesting. Stopped at the Jack Daniels distillery (did I already tell you about that?) anyways, great place, sooo interesting. They let you see all the corn mash and the coals they filter the whiskey through.
After that we headed up to the smokey mountians for a wee bit of a break along the way. We shouted ourselves to a night in a log cabin in the mountains. We loved it there, our cabin had a loft and a basement, a heart shaped spa bath and a hot tub on the deck overlooking the mountains. Andrew made me a proper dinner with lots of vegges (yum) and pancakes for breakfast in the morning. Very nice experience!! The next day we decided to take life a bit slower and headed onto a road through the woods. We saw wild deer on the side, they were so cute!!
Another night in the van and onto DC. What a freaken mission. I wont go wildly into the details but I would recommend anyone going to DC, dont take a car and please plan your trip. We got stuck in traffic for a couple of hours and when we got to where we wanted it was closed. It turned out ok in the end though. We found ourselves in Baltimore, Maryland and as we got into town saw that there was a baseball game on. We decided to embrace this all American tradition and went along. Primo seats for only $15. We didnt really understand too many of the rules though.
Today we got stuck in traffic again in DC, took us 2 hours to go 20miles (I'm so thankful that Andrew is so much more patient than I am). After a terrible start of not being able to find a park, only finding spanish speaking info people and not having any way to get to NYC the next day the day did get better. We saw the White house, Lincon Memorial, Reflective pool, the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of the American Indiain (thanks Marsha for the tip- had lunch there was yummy).
We are flying to NY tomorrow and then onto London to see Jeremy and Sarah!! Can't wait to see you guys!!!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Road Trippin'
For the first time ever, Alice and I have access to more than one computer so instead of putting two posts in one, we're doing it simultaneously, so expect redundancy!
Anyway, right now we're in Chatanooga, Tennessee, and it's quite nice, although we've only just got here.
We left the ship Saturday morning and we walked into the car park with only an idea of driving up. We hopped on a shuttle and after a while of messing about with going backwards and forward trying to get a good deal we finally got a big Dodge Grand Caravan to drive up north in. We got on the road and out of Miami as quickly as possible. We ended up driving out through the slums and they looked far worse than anything I had seen in LA. We drove up and stopped and got some cheap food and then continued and got to Daytona Beach. We weren't really planning on stopping there but it's a cool place. A massive long beach that you can drive on and it's really like going back to the 50's, so much more so than South Beach in Miami, and we went to a mall and shopped! I really liked Daytona, and we saw the race track, which was HUGE. We got back on the road and found a rest area which is basically designed for people to park up and sleep in, and stayed there.
Sunday we woke up, and drove to St Augustine which is the oldest permanent settlement of the country, and visited the oldest house in the country and looked around the "olde tyme stores" but they were quite commericialised (as you probably expect) and everything costs money to go visit here so we didn't go to too much more. Got on the road again and went to a Wal*Mart which was an experience. Not as nice as target but a bit cheaper and generally big and holy crap it would be cheap to furnish your house (albeit, not necessarily nicely) over here. We got some gas and drove onto Atlanta, Georgia, which is one of the nicest looking cities I have ever seen. Either that city is all fancy and tidy and clean or we somehow drove through the entire city only sticking to the rich parts. Anyway it's so nice and we went to the Movies. We drove onto another rest area and made our beds. We have an airbed in the back of this Mini-Van which cost us $10..
We got on the road today and drove here to Chatanooga, and soon found a library in which to internet on, and now we're going to the Jack Daniels distillery, which ironically is in a dry (no alcohol) county, and then up to Nashville, TN, and then who knows.
Got some great news today that Tim Anderson got engaged, congratulations, and I'm quite priviledged to have been able to meet Christine and give her my approval so that Tim could commence with the engagement activities. CONGRATULATION
Keep in touch everybody!
Anyway, right now we're in Chatanooga, Tennessee, and it's quite nice, although we've only just got here.
We left the ship Saturday morning and we walked into the car park with only an idea of driving up. We hopped on a shuttle and after a while of messing about with going backwards and forward trying to get a good deal we finally got a big Dodge Grand Caravan to drive up north in. We got on the road and out of Miami as quickly as possible. We ended up driving out through the slums and they looked far worse than anything I had seen in LA. We drove up and stopped and got some cheap food and then continued and got to Daytona Beach. We weren't really planning on stopping there but it's a cool place. A massive long beach that you can drive on and it's really like going back to the 50's, so much more so than South Beach in Miami, and we went to a mall and shopped! I really liked Daytona, and we saw the race track, which was HUGE. We got back on the road and found a rest area which is basically designed for people to park up and sleep in, and stayed there.
Sunday we woke up, and drove to St Augustine which is the oldest permanent settlement of the country, and visited the oldest house in the country and looked around the "olde tyme stores" but they were quite commericialised (as you probably expect) and everything costs money to go visit here so we didn't go to too much more. Got on the road again and went to a Wal*Mart which was an experience. Not as nice as target but a bit cheaper and generally big and holy crap it would be cheap to furnish your house (albeit, not necessarily nicely) over here. We got some gas and drove onto Atlanta, Georgia, which is one of the nicest looking cities I have ever seen. Either that city is all fancy and tidy and clean or we somehow drove through the entire city only sticking to the rich parts. Anyway it's so nice and we went to the Movies. We drove onto another rest area and made our beds. We have an airbed in the back of this Mini-Van which cost us $10..
We got on the road today and drove here to Chatanooga, and soon found a library in which to internet on, and now we're going to the Jack Daniels distillery, which ironically is in a dry (no alcohol) county, and then up to Nashville, TN, and then who knows.
Got some great news today that Tim Anderson got engaged, congratulations, and I'm quite priviledged to have been able to meet Christine and give her my approval so that Tim could commence with the engagement activities. CONGRATULATION
Keep in touch everybody!
Road Trip USA
Feels like ages since we've been in touch here. We're in Catanooga now (choo choo) but heres the storey so far.....
After Jamacia we had one more day onboard and enjoyed a few last meals of fillet steak, quail and escargo before we reverted back to crackers for breakfast. On the last night at dinner all the waiters (about 40 of them) in the dining room lined up and sang us a goodbye version of Leaving on a Jetplane (they sang leaving on a funship). Our waiter was really nice, Lama from Nepal. He told us that he works from 0530 till 1100 with 3 hours break in the middle, 7 days a week for 7 months! They had a huge show in the Rome Lounge with lots of dancing, better than the one we saw in Vegas I think.
Anyways we didnt do much that day, mostly say around a had a few pina coladas. My wasp sting swelled up the whole side of my body though so we had a wee visit to the ship doctor.
The next day we were up early with the idea to hire a car and drive up north. We managed to jump on a courtesy van to the rental car place and hook ourselves up with a Dodge minivan (almost the same as we had in San Fran with Doug and Becky). We've kitted it out with an airbed and pillows (and some extremely indulgent 800thread count pillowcases) and have spent the last two nights sleeping on the side of the freeways. Its actually pretty good to do that here, they have rest stops with bathrooms and one the first night there was security there to keep us safe also. Stupid Georgia law says that you cant actually sleep at a rest stop but we did anyway. So we drove first up to St Augustine, stopping at Daytona and the space center on the way. (Actually the space center was nearly closed so we just went to the gift shop.) St Augustine was recommended to me by Jason at work and its a really lovely old settlement. We took a tour of a house from the 1500s and had a walk around town and the fort. Yesterday we found ourselves in Atlanta, Georgia. Beautiful city! We kept thinking we were in its Fendalton but everywhere we drove was equally as nice. We decided to do something special and went to see Fracture at the movies (I liked it). Kinda a bad idea to see a scary movie when you are lost in a city and about to sleep illegally in your car. To get over the feeling we stopped in at a truckers stop and I had a big bowl of chilli.
Today we are heading up to Linchburg pop316 and the center for the Jack Daniels distillerly. Interestingly it is in a dry county! Tonight we hope to be in Nashville and might even treat ourselves to a cheap hotel.
Miss you all, Thankyou for your messages!! Nana I hear you are getting internet savy- thats great!! Hope you are enjoying it.
After Jamacia we had one more day onboard and enjoyed a few last meals of fillet steak, quail and escargo before we reverted back to crackers for breakfast. On the last night at dinner all the waiters (about 40 of them) in the dining room lined up and sang us a goodbye version of Leaving on a Jetplane (they sang leaving on a funship). Our waiter was really nice, Lama from Nepal. He told us that he works from 0530 till 1100 with 3 hours break in the middle, 7 days a week for 7 months! They had a huge show in the Rome Lounge with lots of dancing, better than the one we saw in Vegas I think.
Anyways we didnt do much that day, mostly say around a had a few pina coladas. My wasp sting swelled up the whole side of my body though so we had a wee visit to the ship doctor.
The next day we were up early with the idea to hire a car and drive up north. We managed to jump on a courtesy van to the rental car place and hook ourselves up with a Dodge minivan (almost the same as we had in San Fran with Doug and Becky). We've kitted it out with an airbed and pillows (and some extremely indulgent 800thread count pillowcases) and have spent the last two nights sleeping on the side of the freeways. Its actually pretty good to do that here, they have rest stops with bathrooms and one the first night there was security there to keep us safe also. Stupid Georgia law says that you cant actually sleep at a rest stop but we did anyway. So we drove first up to St Augustine, stopping at Daytona and the space center on the way. (Actually the space center was nearly closed so we just went to the gift shop.) St Augustine was recommended to me by Jason at work and its a really lovely old settlement. We took a tour of a house from the 1500s and had a walk around town and the fort. Yesterday we found ourselves in Atlanta, Georgia. Beautiful city! We kept thinking we were in its Fendalton but everywhere we drove was equally as nice. We decided to do something special and went to see Fracture at the movies (I liked it). Kinda a bad idea to see a scary movie when you are lost in a city and about to sleep illegally in your car. To get over the feeling we stopped in at a truckers stop and I had a big bowl of chilli.
Today we are heading up to Linchburg pop316 and the center for the Jack Daniels distillerly. Interestingly it is in a dry county! Tonight we hope to be in Nashville and might even treat ourselves to a cheap hotel.
Miss you all, Thankyou for your messages!! Nana I hear you are getting internet savy- thats great!! Hope you are enjoying it.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Grand Cayman & Jamaica
Well, we're in Jamaica right now and it is hot, but it's really nice. We got off the boat at 8.30 and started to walk to these famous water falls instead of taking a tour and half way there we stumbled onto some other falls which may or may not have been as nice but they weren't full of tourists and we met some rastas and spent most of the morning with them, they're pretty nice people and we got photos and they showed us some cool stuff and we swam in the ocean and sat under some waterfalls, it's seriously like something out of a catalogue, probably one of the more authentic and unique experiences we're going to have this trip!
-Andrew
I really liked Grand Caymen. Its a small British Island and very pretty. We walked along and found a nice place to snorkel and spend most of the morning doing this. They have stringrays you can swim with. I got a bit freaked out after being stung by a Jellyfish though so it took a bit to get back in the water. We had lunch at a resturant on the beach and they looked after our stuff while we went back out into the ocean. It was heaps deeper here, we swam out a bit and found an old shipwreck. I got scared again when we saw sharks (just little ones) so that was the end of snorkelling for the day.
Jamaica is AWESOME! I love it here, the people are so beautiful. We hung out with our new rasta friends Andrew and Rowan for the morning it was fun. They showed us how to break open and almond and coconut shell. Really nice guys. I got stung again here by a massive Jamacain wasp, its 4 hours later and still stings like crazy but they tell me its ok. Rowan got some special leaves to rub on it and then some garlic a bit later (?). We are back on the boat soon heading back to Miami.
-Alice
-Andrew
I really liked Grand Caymen. Its a small British Island and very pretty. We walked along and found a nice place to snorkel and spend most of the morning doing this. They have stringrays you can swim with. I got a bit freaked out after being stung by a Jellyfish though so it took a bit to get back in the water. We had lunch at a resturant on the beach and they looked after our stuff while we went back out into the ocean. It was heaps deeper here, we swam out a bit and found an old shipwreck. I got scared again when we saw sharks (just little ones) so that was the end of snorkelling for the day.
Jamaica is AWESOME! I love it here, the people are so beautiful. We hung out with our new rasta friends Andrew and Rowan for the morning it was fun. They showed us how to break open and almond and coconut shell. Really nice guys. I got stung again here by a massive Jamacain wasp, its 4 hours later and still stings like crazy but they tell me its ok. Rowan got some special leaves to rub on it and then some garlic a bit later (?). We are back on the boat soon heading back to Miami.
-Alice
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)