May 17, 2014

Looking up Lady Liberty, being starstruck at Of Mice and Men and thrift shopping in Brooklyn

Nathan and I took our $7 megabus from Washington, DC to Philadelphia where we were meeting up with Josie and Heidi. We used Air B&B again (because it worked out cheaper than hostels) and stayed with Lisa, an Astrophysicist who studied at Yale (some very clever people use Air B&B!!). Her apartment was in an old mansion which had been converted into this block of flats. It was really nice and even had a friendly cat who was 18years old and acted more like a dog (therefore I liked it).

Our first day in Philly consisted of the historical offerings in the city. This included the Pennsylvania State Hall (now renamed Independence Hall) which was where the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 took place. This document announced that the thirteen American colonies, whom at the time were at war with Great Britain, were to become newly independent states seperate from the British empire and would form the United States of America. To be able to tour the Independence Hall, you have to get an time-allocated ticket. Ours wasn’t until half 4 and so we had a few hours to kill beforehand. We queued up for the Liberty Bell, a bell that used to be placed in the steeple of the Independence Hall and cracked upon its first ring in Philadelphia. It is an iconic symbol of American independence and currently resides opposite its old location in The Liberty Bell Centre. On arrival in the centre our bags were searched and we discovered the odd facts about the bell including how it used to tour around cities in America until it started to deteriorate and people chiseled pieces off of it. We then dodged the hundreds of school kids and headed to Benjamin Franklin’s grave where he was laid to rest in 1790. Next stop was Franklin Park, complete with carousel and mini golf, where another hoard of school children appeared and ruined the peace. It was then nearing half four so we headed back to Independence Hall and waited in the beautiful gardens outside. Our tour guide then greeted us and we were ushered into a room where he introduced us to the importance of the Declaration of Independence. After a tour of the court room and where the Declaration was signed, we headed back to Franklin park to ride the carousel and play the Philly mini golf course. I lost. Badly. Nathan obviously won and Josie came a fairly close second but I was miles away from any such victory. After a long day of tourist and cultural activities, we headed to South street near our accommodation and ate dinner at Johnny Rockets diner where the waiters and waitresses danced to Rockin’ Robin and you could spend a quarter to play a song on the jukebox. Classic America.

The next day saw us going to Reading Terminal Market. A massive warehouse-style building filled with hundreds of food stalls, baked goods, fresh fish and chocolate covered onions. Yeah, apparently it’s famous for it! We spent a good few hours wandering around trying to decide what to eat out of the insane choice of food. I settled for a sour cream and onion pretzel from an Amish pretzel stall (I didn’t realise they were Amish at the time, just assumed it was their work uniform) and a bagel with bacon and horseradish Philadelphia cream cheese. We also managed to binge on a lot of free chocolate samples and I even tried a maple bacon donut (the bacon bits were sprinkled on top; oddly delicious). We then checked out the other landmarks around Philly including the town hall which featured enormous boardgame artwork outside such as chess pieces, monopoly figures and checkers. Next was the ‘Love’ sign and fountain where a kind stranger offered to take our picture (he then turned out to be begging for money and made you feel guilty by taking an amazing photo), Logan park followed (which reminded me of Trafalgar square) and finally the China town friendship gate which is meant to bring good fortune when you walk underneath it (you’ve just got to make sure you don’t get hit by a car as it’s on a main road). In the evening we headed out to eat. Now, we’ve been travelling for over 7 months and so we’re still pretty tight when it comes to food pricing. We passed by a handful of restaurants that appeared to be expensive but if we weren’t backpacking on a budget, these eateries would be really cheap in comparison to meals out in Britain. So instead we traipsed around dismissing anything over $10 or too greasy and ended up walking pretty much the entirety of Philadelphia (which apparently after 8pm turns into a ghost town) and didn’t find somewhere to eat until after 10. An evening meal turned into an almost midnight snack. Whoops.

After a pleasant lie-in, we trekked to downtown Philly to catch our $10 bus to New York. We arrived at what looked like an abandoned homeless shelter with grubby toilets not fit for rats and wondered why we didn’t just pay the little bit extra and ride with Megabus. We needn’t have worried though because the bus was fine; comfortable seats and full of travellers heading to the Big Apple for Mother’s Day (yeah it’s at a different time of year here). Two and a half hours later and we arrived to a view of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty. We were in New York!!!!!! We got dropped off in Chinatown (our bus company was an Asian one after all) and found a McDonald’s to abuse their WiFi for directions to our next accommodation. The subway system here offers a week’s pass for $30 which works out a lot cheaper than buying individual trips (they’re $2.50 each way). Initially it was difficult to work out, did we need the local train or the express train or the A or C line… and when you’ve got a 20kg backpack on, the only thing you want to do is wish a teleportation device had been invented to speed up this process. After a couple of hours riding the metro, we arrived at our next Air B&B dwelling and were told via text by Matt (our host who couldn’t be there for check-in) to wait outside until someone called Conrad arrived. Three minutes later a man appeared at the door, held it open for us to come in and then disappeared. He wasn’t Conrad. He was just some Spanish guy who lives in the apartment block. Still, we were one step closer to getting into the flat! But then real Conrad arrived and let us in to our Manhattan apartment for the next 6days. Matt and Annie have put three bunk beds in two of the rooms in their flat making it feel like a hostel within an apartment. It was a good choice!

After some relaxation at our new abode, we headed out to Times Square. Only a few stops on the subway and we were in the heart of the ‘city that never sleeps’ surrounded by bright lights, billboards advertising TV shows and masses of tourists. It was difficult to walk anywhere, there was the constant noise of taxis beeping their horns and even a naked cowboy playing a guitar. We grabbed an authentic New York pizza slice and wandered around this crazy part of the city through gift shops, M&M world and the Hershey’s store. Delicious.

We awoke painfully early the next day to embark on our trip to Liberty and Ellis Islands. We’d bought our tickets online whilst in Philly and so were guaranteed tickets up to the Statue of Liberty pedestal level (tip: if you know when you’re planning on being in New York and it’s a few months in advance, book your Statue of Liberty tickets as soon as possible because you’ll more than likely be able to go all the way up to the crown and the best part is that it only costs $21 including the return boat journey!). There is also an audio tour included in the price of the ticket. Upon completion in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was the tallest structure in New York City. The statue honors the ideals of freedom and liberty and was a symbolic gift to the United States from France. Mr Eiffel tower himself designed the structure and it sits at an impressive 305ft in height. Just one of her fingernails is the size of your forearm! It is incredibly deceptive how tall she is! After learning of the history of the statue and the island (it represents freedom and yet woman weren’t even allowed on the island for its opening ceremony!), we got on the ferry to Ellis Island and explored what was once the passageway into the USA for thousands of people who immigrated into the country, often from as far as Europe.

We then headed to something a little more upsetting. After the terrible terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center back in September 2001, ground zero has recently opened to the public as the 9/11 Memorial. We gave our donation and a sombre feeling took over. We couldn’t help but feel like we shouldn’t be doing this. We would never have been queuing up and getting out bags searched in airport-style scanners had this not have happened thirteen years ago. I felt a mix of emotions as we approached the 9/11 Memorial site. It was incredibly moving. The old sites of the North and South buildings were now square pits of cascading waterfalls with the names of the 3000 victims surrounding the edge. There was a touching tribute of laying a rose on victims’ names on their birthdate. It was a powerful memorial and in an ideal world, one that shouldn’t be a remembrance site but still be the twin towers. The two newest towers around the old site of ground zero have already been built (One WTC and WTC Seven) and the National 9/11 Memorial museum displaying photographs and artifacts from the tragedy is opening on the 21st May. Although we agreed that the memorial was executed in the most beautiful, poignant and respectful way, we still felt extreme sadness when leaving the site and decided to do something a bit more upbeat for the rest of the afternoon; a stroll through Central Park. It was a really hot, sunny day and this made the most famous park in NYC ridiculously busy. It was also Mother’s Day and the park was awash with families basking in the sunshine and celebrating at various festival-style stalls dotted around the humongous park. We decided to lay down on a hill near an American flag pole, a girl dancing into a video camera and a guy being dragged by a leash clasped around his neck. All very normal, sane stuff. Yep. After exploring more of the park and lake areas (including the one featured in the Stuart Little movie), we found ourselves near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Heidi and Josie wanted a picture on the famous steps outside of this grand building (they were used a lot in the TV show Gossip Girl) and after a mini photoshoot on them, we headed back into Central Park to look over the stunning Resevoir Lake which engulfs a huge portion of the park. We grabbed some burritos and headed back to the flat to meet our host Matt. He is an incredibly friendly guy and extremely easy to get along with. We spent a good portion of the night getting to know him (he used to live in the Amish Mennonite community and was even asked to appear on the ‘Breaking Amish’ television show with his friends; Heidi immediately wished he was on there as she used to watch the show) and shared our travelling experiences so far.

The following day saw us head to 5th Avenue. The long strip of designer, high street and souvenir shops beckoned us and we ended up spending a lot of time and money there. After making sure our wallets were sufficiently empty, we headed to grab some food at Pax; a fresh salad and pasta diner where you choose what type of pasta you want, a sauce, three vegetables, a meat and then watch it cooked fresh in front of you. It was now dark and the beautifully lit Empire State building towered over us. We parted with the $29 fee to get up to the 87th floor observatory deck and began our ascent up the infamous tower. The view was absolutely incredible and made Manhattan look like a lit-up toy city. You could see for miles; North towards Times Square and Central Park, East towards Brooklyn, South towards the Statue of Liberty, which now looked miniscule in comparison to the skyscrapers, and West towards Jersey. It was well worth the money but at the same time it seemed crazy how such a man-made, concrete jungle can look so pretty.

We headed to the National History Museum the following morning to find out whether the animals really do come to life (damn you Night at the Museum!)… no okay we didn’t solely go for this purpose and revelled in the cultural and educational offerings of the massive museum. There werr Asian mammals, Aztec and the history of Mexican culture, African mammals and even DINOSAURS. I love dinosaurs. I just can’t get my head around the fact that something so big once roamed the Earth and we were treated to a real Tyrannosaurus Rex. What I do find crazy though is how we have this image of what dinosaurs looked like even though scientists have no idea what colour they were or what noise they made. We stopped off en route back to the apartment to pick up some alcohol ready for our night at the theatre. When we lived in Sydney we booked tickets for Of Mice and Men knowing that we’d be in New York for it. The night had finally arrived and we were all dressed up (the best we’ve looked in 8 months!) and ready to experience our first Broadway production. It starred Chris O’Dowd as Lennie, James Franco as George and Leighton Meester as Curly’s wife. The rest of the cast were also amazing and having never read or seen the play before, I absolutely loved it! We even got Chris O’Dowd’s autograph after the play!!

The next day meant another famous landmark in the city, Grand Central Station. We were all humming a certain Rihanna song, although it probably was the best one to pick (“Mama, I shot a man down.. in Central Station…”) and wandered around the beautiful transport station used in many films. Then we headed to somewhere else iconic. Something used a lot in a little known television programme called Friends. We caught the red line down to Christopher St station and walked around aimlessly, passing quaint streets and avoiding the hundreds of pink leaves creating a snow-like flurry. After a few blocks we made it. On the corner of Bedford and Grove Street lies the famous exterior of the Friends apartment building used hundreds of times in the credits and scene setting shots. We took a lot of photos and one passer-by, who was American, stopped and asked us what we were doing. I simply answered in two words, ‘Friends building’ to which she seemed content. Nathan, Heidi and I then got alcohol (‘Sweet Bitch’ wine) and readied ourselves for a night out in New York City. Two hours later and after three different subway lines, we arrived in the east village area. It was a Wednesday night and it was proving difficult to find anywhere busy and lively. We tried an Irish pub (came all the way to NY…) and had a bottle of bud. We then found a bar/club a little further down the street which looked busier and had two guys outside commenting how our accents make us sound clever no matter what we say (a girl also got us to say ‘hamburger’ in the supermarket because she liked how we said it). After a few more drinks and scaring off an American girl by singing ‘No Scrubs’ a bit too loudly, we called it a night and began our long journey back to the flat.

A dry mouth and the feeling like I’d been ill for a week greeted me the following morning. We were still up before Josie somehow and feeling slightly fresh. We headed to Times Square for some lunch at Dallas BBQ (where they gave you a complimentary red velvet cupcake with the bill) and then headed to Brooklyn for the afternoon (well, late afternoon by this point). After experiencing a slightly run down area of Brooklyn, we decided to jump back on the subway and find somewhere a little bit safer. We got off at Bedford Avenue, a quirky, indie area reminiscent of Camden in London. We ended up at the park at the bottom of the road and watched a local softball game. En route back to the subway we spotted a thrift shop. We hadn’t been in one yet and this was our last full day travelling all together so we needed to go in. Cluttered. That’s probably the best word to describe this store, it had a lot of vintage clothing, cameras and artwork. We each bought something from there (I got shorts for $10!) and left Brooklyn in upbeat moods. We were then faced with the mammoth task of packing all of these new purchases from the past week into our already overflowing backpacks. I’ve finally thrown away some of my old, used-to-be-white-but-are-now-yellow t-shirts and walking boots to make space for everything else (it’s still a tight squeeze).

The day we’d all dreaded then arrived. The final day together travelling. It’s been an insane 237days with Heidi, Josie and Nathan and I can’t believe how quickly it has come around already! Feels like only a few weeks ago we waved bye to my parents at Heathrow. Their flight was at 9pm and I’m not flying to Miami until 8am the following morning. We decided to have a last supper together and Matt recommended this local Mexican restaurant. He took us on a walk around the block through a very English looking ‘village’ apartment complex. The touch of rain also added to the authenticity of the place! After our final meal together, we said our goodbyes to Matt, who has been a fantastic host, and headed to the airport. Two hours later and we arrived into John F. Kennedy airport where I’d be spending the next 14hours. I joined them on their final check-in and after one last smelly fart and a group picture, it was time to bid farewell to three of my best friends. It’s been an amazing 8 months (I’m gonna get more soppy and reminisce on my last ever blog in a couple of weeks) and I couldn’t have done it without them! I’m currently writing this whilst camping out in the domestic terminal waiting for my flight to Miami where I’ll be spending the next week. Luckily I’m meeting up with Sam and Tres, who we met in San Diego, and so I won’t be completely on my own for the first three days.

May 8, 2014

Red Rocks, a lifetime on the bus and hanging out with Obama

Denver is known as the “Mile High” city because of its elevation of 5,690ft above sea level. In fact, Colorado as a state has an average height of over 6,000ft above sea level. This can cause a very varied weather pattern, for example during our stay we experienced a lot of wind (no, not that kind of wind!) and temperatures sometimes as low as 7º (for the first time in 8 months we were in a colder climate than Britain!). As our time progressed in the capital of Colorado, the weather started to get a lot warmer between the figures of 25-30º. See what I mean about being varied? Denver can change its weather not only on a daily basis but also hourly. The mile high city also boasts of its ‘300 days of sunshine’, although what they like to miss out in this claim is how even if its sunny for just 10minutes in a day, it’ll count towards their yearly total. Thursday was one of these days where the sun made an appearance and so we took the opportunity to bask in the UV rays and utilise the outside pool our new apartment offers (we used Air B&B again and found this apartment in the uptown area). We’re staying with Mike and Ned, two medical students about to embark on three more years of studying. With unlimited Netflix at our fingertips, we took full advantage of the video streaming website and hung out with our new roommates for the evening.

We booked to go on the Denver Mountain Parks tour on Friday. After a slight panic the night before about whether we were getting our free pick-up from a nearby hotel, we awoke to a sunny Denver and boarded the large coach that greeted us. This bus could easily accommodate around 40 people. Would we struggle to find a seat? Would we have to wait for the next bus? Nope. There were only 7 other people on this trip and they were all, let’s say, slightly older than Nathan and I. We headed out of the mile high city through Lakewood towards the Red Rocks. En route, the bus driver (who also doubled as our tour guide), gave lots of facts and figures on the local area. I tried to jot down a few whilst Nathan was fast asleep next to me; he was successfully fitting in with the demographic of the others on the coach. One fact Mr. Bus Driver told us was how there are approximately 367 mountains with a height of over 13,000ft in the rocky range in Colorado. The Rocky Mountain National Park also holds the record for the highest paved roads in the Northern continent at over 12,000ft. We then arrived at our first stop of the trip, the Red Rocks Park, where winding roads took us 6,400ft above sea level up to the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The amphitheatre is situated in a large rock formation 10 miles west of Denver and opened in 1941. It is a popular concert location for musicians with The Beatles being one of the first rock-and-roll bands to play there in 1964. Mumford and Sons, Jimi Hendrix and U2 have also performed there and Ellie Goulding was going to be stopping there as part of her American tour later that night. This of course meant unsuccessful attempts of trying to spot her and examining any tour buses we saw. Later on that day she did upload a video to Instagram of her jumping up each individual step of the amphitheatre (and those steps are considerably far apart). The amphitheatre was absolutely beautiful; positioned in between two massive boulders, one called Creation rock and the other Ship rock. They accompanied either side of the tiered 9,500 seated capacity whilst behind the stage was the aptly named Stage rock. The view from the top of the amphitheatre was incredible. The space is also used by a lot of people working out and keeping fit due to the sheer size of it. Whilst me and Nathan slowly walked down the steps towards the stage, there were plenty of health-conscious Americans choosing to run horizontal lengths of the theatre or pelt up the steps and back down before I could even begin my ascent back to the top (which was very painful after months of little exercise). It was time to head back to the coach and for our next destination. Due to the upcoming Ellie Goulding gig, certain roads had been closed and blocked off meaning the bus driver had to change the route slightly. It did mean we got to drive past a Bison grazing field and manage to see a handful of bison in the far, far distance. But that’s fine, I can now say I’ve seen a buffalo.

We had a quick stop off on the freeway to view the Colorado Rocky Mountains and the continental divide in the distance and as a strong group of 9, we left the bus in force equipped with cameras in hand and binoculars around neck. If you were a passer-by who didn’t see the mountain range, we would’ve looked like a bunch of tourists who’d never seen a motorway before. We all raced to get back on the crowded bus (lol jk) and headed toward Lookout Mountain. We were informed that this next stop was going to be at an elevation of 7,500ft. We were treated to beautiful views from Lookout mountain and could see for miles; the local town of Lakewood, the city skyline of Denver and the nearby town of Golden were all visible. I said in my last blog how Denver and the surrounding areas faced a boom in wealth and population in the late 1800s due to the discovery of gold in the area. This was (maybe not so ironically) discovered in Golden, a small town engulfed by mountain ranges and flat plains. Lookout mountain also houses the famous Buffalo Bill Museum and grave. William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was born in 1846 and started working at age 11 after his father died. When gold was discovered in the Colorado territory, Cody went to the gold fields but was propositioned by an agent for the Pony Express, a postal service delivering mail and newspapers. He accepted the offer to work with them and was given a job as a rider. He acquired his nickname “Buffalo Bill” when he had a job supplying buffalo meat to Kansas Pacific Railroad workers after the American Civil war and it is speculated that Cody killed over 4200 American bison in eighteen months. The bus driver then informed us of a buffalo shooting competition William Cody competed in against William Comstock. This was to decide whom would have the exclusive right to use the name “Buffalo Bill”. Conveniently, in terms of going to see this museum and grave, William Cody beat Comstock killing 68 bison to his 48 in just 8 hours. Ultimately, Buffalo Bill became famous for his Wild West shows of which he took on tour across Great Britain and Europe. These tours ran between 1883 and 1906 and were immensely popular across the globe making Cody world famous and an American icon. It is also thought to have helped influence many 20th century portrayals of “the West” in film and literature. The museum was packed full of old artefacts and possessions belonging to Buffalo Bill. They ranged from portrait paintings of him to his clothing, rifles and medals. Once we’d had a wander around the museum, we headed to his grave situated atop Lookout mountain. He died in January 1917 from kidney failure but wasn’t buried until June 1917 due to controversy surrounding where he should be buried (his wife claimed he wanted to be buried on Lookout mountain whilst others thought his grave should be in Cody, Wyoming which is the town he founded) but also due to the extreme weather conditions on Lookout mountain during the first half of the year. His funeral was held in June 1917 once the snow and ice thawed with thousands travelling up to the mountain to pay their respects.

The next day saw another hot day in Denver meaning relaxing by the pool and heading out to grab some lunch. The city centre was a lot busier today (it was Saturday) with street performers playing the piano or painting as well as a whole road closed off for kid’s slides and a bouncy castle. Instead of having endless hours of fun on the inflatables, Nathan and I partook in a mature spot of drinking beer. The main reason for this was because of the pub we’d seen. When we were in LA one of the guys at the MoonPad (ha, remember that cruddy hostel?!!) suggested we checked out a bar called the ‘Yard House’. We never did because, to be honest, we forgot and so when we saw the establishment within walking distance from where we ate lunch, we thought we’d test my indecisiveness and let me choose from over 125 different beers. Brilliant. I knew that I couldn’t go for one we can get anywhere else (no Bud for me) and decided upon one brewed locally in Denver (unfortunately not Coors which is brewed in the rocky mountains). The beer I opted for in the end was definitely a grower.. I mean I started to like it after maybe the sixth sip.

After a day of laundry, food and relaxing, it neared 6pm which meant we had to go catch our long ass journey from Denver to Washington, DC. This epic voyage would take 1 day, 14 hours and 45 minutes and would ensure we saw pretty much every midwest state as we ventured to the east coast. The route consisted of Colorado to Kansas to Missouri to Illinois to Indiana to Ohio to Pennsylvania to Maryland and finally to Washington, DC. Phew. Our bus pulled up for our 7:10pm departure from Denver. It looked old. Brilliant, we’d be spending 32hours on this bus before our first and only transfer and we’re going to be stuck on an old and dirty coach like the one to San Francisco. I was wrong. This bus had everything you could ever want; plugs, wifi, leather reclining seats, a persistent cougher at the back who sounded like they were dying and a guy snoring so loudly that maximum volume on your headphones still doesn’t drown it out. With all of these features on board, who wouldn’t want to spend a day and a half on it?! This journey was going to be full of fun.

The Greyhound bus service showcases the weird, bizzare, wacky, strange etc etc. Every journey we’ve undertaken with this company since being in America has had at least two or three oddballs either in the station or on the bus with us. Now I’m not trying to be mean or make myself seem like a better person but it’s just an observation we’ve made since travelling on buses here. The coach trips in New Zealand were overall mostly pleasant, quiet and full of travellers. I know America is a whole lot bigger than the Kiwi islands but the mixture of people who use the service just baffles me everytime. I can’t quite believe the amount of people who have had awful body odour and left a cloud of stink either on the bus or in the queue to get on. A handful of fellow passengers are friendly and interested in getting to know you/telling you their life story. Some look like drug addicts and if the driver has to state “no smoking or illegal drug use in the restroom” every time we begin driving again then surely that says something about the majority of people who use this mode of transportation. One guy kept going to the toilet for over ten minutes at a time and would always take a pen, notepad and plastic bag of other accessories in with him. Suspicious? My favourite couple of people who have boarded this bus though has got to be the short-lived duo who got on at Indianapolis. One girl sat at the back of the bus behind me whilst a man went to sit in front of Nathan. Said girl behind me then exclaimed to said guy, “Come sit back here. I don’t bite.”. He hesitantly sat at the back with her. Within a few minutes I noticed them getting well acquainted with one another. Oh, they must’ve known each other prior to getting this bus. An hour later she kisses him goodbye as she leaves the coach, he moves seats to near the front of the bus and someone else takes their place and asks “have they left?”, the reply he gets is from another guy who happened to be sat next to this frisky couple the whole time (the back row is three-seated) “I hope so. They were all over each other and they’d only just met.”. Yep, I heard that correctly. This lip locking pair had accelerated their fresh relationship at full speed and wasted no time. Does this mean that the Greyhound is also a match-making service? If so, I’m going to pretend I’m already in a relationship.

After the longest bus journey of my life (we saw two sunsets and two sunrises), Nathan and I arrived in Washington, DC on time at 11:55am. We stank (yeah, what I said earlier about smelly people on the bus… that was now us, oops!) and desperately wanted a bed to lay down in. We jumped in a taxi, got to our hostel (which has won awards for being the best and cleanest hostel in America) and were told our beds wouldn’t be ready until 3pm. This didn’t stop us from showering and feeling human again though. We decided to head out and do the tourist activities on offer in the capital city of America. After a 15 minute walk, we arrived at one of the most famous houses in the world; The White House. It was as grand and beautiful as you’d expect it to be and the security was insane. There were loads of police officers cycling around or patrolling in their ‘secret service’ cars (don’t understand what’s so ‘secret’ about it), a lot of areas were fenced off and they even had cameras in the lamp posts! Obama was be inside!! We took the essential pictures avoiding the various protests occurring nearby and headed past the Eisenhower executive office block building toward the rear end of the White House. The Washington monument was our next landmark and it was in its final stages of restoration work following damage from an earthquake in 2011. We then headed toward the World War II memorial, past the reflection pool and arrived at the Lincoln memorial. These three monuments were extremely thought-provoking and really helped to show how these historical markers have helped to shape America and the world today. The newly built Martin Luther King, Jr memorial was next on the agenda and it was incredible. A lot of thought and planning had gone in to this monument. Based on Dr King’s iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, the quote “Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope” is brought to life as the main entrance requires you to pass through the “mountain of despair” (two 30 feet high pieces of granite) and walk toward the “Stone of Hope” where Martin Luther King, Jr stands.

We awoke the next morning to a soggy Washington. Thunder echoed the streets and rain fell heavily on us as we made our way to one of the 19 free museums in the city. Our first one was the National Museum of Natural History. It had everything: birds of DC, ocean exhibition, mammals, human evolution, mummies, insect displays and an even an imax! Tickets for 3D showings were on offer at $5 each and unfortunately we’d missed the final showing of ‘Titans of the Ice Age’ so we decided to see ‘Island of Lemurs: Madagascar 3D’. It was awesome, informative and made me want to visit Madagascar and hug a lemur (which means ‘wandering spirit’). What made it even better was that it was narrated by none other than Morgan Freeman. We then headed to the National Air and Space museum and caught the next showing of the Dark Universe in the Einstein planetarium dome. This was incredible and narrated by Neil Degrasse Tyson. I still find it all too difficult to comprehend though… dark matter?! A whole other universe you may never see?! I’ll stick to words I think. We then explored some of the museum in the remaining time we had before it closed and got to see the ‘World’s First Power-Driven Heavier-Than-Air Machine’ (i.e. aeroplane) built and flown by the Wright brothers in 1903! We also saw the actual Red Bull stratosphere capsule Felix Baumgartner used to reach the edge of space and then jump from. We then headed back to the hosr hostel via the White House and managed to see a convoy of the secret service police force and some blacked out vehicles with a very important person inside. Unfortunately it wasn’t the president and the police officers guarding the road couldn’t disclose who it was but still it was exciting to see! I’ve really enjoyed our short time in Washington. It’s a lovely city with a lot of character and history. The architecture is some of the oldest and most beautiful I’ve seen so far in the US and the city as a whole has a nice atmosphere. We meet up with Heidi and Josie tomorrow in Philadelphia to spend the final week and a half of travelling together. Oh and the only dislike to report so far is that America likes to shove heaps of animal faeces on certain patches of grass and you only notice once you’ve walked through a good amount of it. On that note…

May 1, 2014

Prisoner of Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge gazing and creepy hairdressers

We boarded the Greyhound from Las Vegas to San Francisco at half 3 in the morning. Too early to think and way to early to have rude staff tell you off for queuing to get on the bus (don’t tell us seating is first come first served and how we potentially may not even get on a bus we’ve bought a ticket for and we’ll wait patiently). Luckily, we managed to get seats and were headed for LA 6 hours away for change over. It was weird stopping off at the bus station where Nathan smashed a bottle of beer and we caught our bus to San Diego a couple of weeks ago. It was also weird to see LA again after visiting much nicer places in America, honestly Los Angeles is a completely different to your expectations; more poverty, run down areas and gangs than the painted picture of desirable Hollywood.

The changeover consisted of moving from a bus with leather-seats, wifi and plugs for each person to an old, dirty vehicle with broken seats, no wifi and no plugs. And this was the one we’d be on for the next 8 hours, brilliant. On arrival into San Francisco, we saw a lot of people wrapped up in many layers. Yeah, it was cold here. We’d just come from sunny Vegas where we dealt with 35º heat to windy San Fran where it’d be around 14º in the day. We grabbed a taxi and arrived at our hostel which, to Josie’s delight, was situated on a hill. We needed to get some cash out when we were informed of the fee for the next 5 nights and used the ATM in this hostel lobby. American ATMs charge non-US cards a transaction fee and this differs across banks, usually between $2.50 and $3.50. The machine in the hostel said $3.50 but when Josie and I had withdrawn our money, we noticed we’d been charged considerably more than it said (I got charged $8 for withdrawing money and Josie was charged $10!!). After a minor argument with the person on the reception (we just kept going round in circles and he wouldn’t let us talk), we agreed that we’d discuss being overcharged with the manager the following day. Finally checked-in, we headed for our 4-bed dorm to find a freezing room with windows that wouldn’t close or lock. This place is gonna love us with all our complaints. Heidi went to find anyone who could help whilst I kept making eye-contact with a bumper sticker on the locker opposite that simply read, “Are we having fun yet?!”. Funnily enough no we weren’t, we’ve paid an extortionate fee to get our money out and we’ve been given a room with a broken window which anyone could climb through. A handyman soon enough came along to fix the windows with screwdrivers, planks of wood and anything else that he could find and left us in peace with the noisy old radiator which looked like it could blow up any second. We spent the first night wrapped up warm watching television on our phones and abusing the free wifi. I also tried to book us onto the Alcatraz cruise to spend a day on the island. The next available day for this though was Sunday in five days time and also the day Nathan and I leave for out flight to Colorado. Crap. We weren’t going to be able to go to the famous prison island (tip: as soon as you know the dates you’ll be in San Francisco, book your alcatraz cruise straight away!). Our only option was to book the Alcatraz and Angel island combo tour which was double the price at $63. But we had to do it and booked for Friday. We couldn’t miss out on going to Alcatraz!

After a long lie-in, resulting in us missing free pancakes, we set off on our walk to the Golden Gate Bridge. Our favourite parts of the walk were definitely the hills, I mean as soon as we left the hostel we were treated to two steeply-inclined mountains to climb. The trek took us via the coast where we stopped to take pictures and watch a man using rocks to build towers. But not just any skyward building, boulders balancing on top of one another with the most intricate precision in placement, especially when making a pointy rock balance atop a uneven stone beneath. After a while gazing at this patient man building towers, we continued onward to the pier viewpoint where the views of the Golden Gate Bridge to the left and Alcatraz on the right are often enough for some, for example Josie who didn’t fancy the long walk to the bridge. Nathan, Heidi and I continued via a boulevard lined with rich houses, recreational parks and boats in the marina. We finally made it to the Golden Gate park near the bridge and did the touristy thing of having numerous pictures with the iconic landmark in the background. We were lucky with the weather being so clear and sunny because the next two days saw quite a bit of cloud and fog shrouding the majority of the bridge.

The following day saw us head to Pier 39 via Chinatown. Minus the colder weather, we definitely felt like we were back in Asia with the atmosphere of the street; stalls selling wallets, iPhone covers and chargers that’d break after a week’s use but also shops selling exactly the same clothing and keychains as the store next door or the one across the road. We then arrived at Pier 39, a tourist attraction in the area which boasts a handful of restaurants, gift shops and sea lions. Yes, they have loads of sea lions living on the jettys adjacent to the pier. There were hundreds of them play fighting or just struggling to stay out the water and with the noise they were making and the smell of fish surrounding the area, they were an interesting attraction to see. We ate our lunch in the freezing cold winds at the end of the pier and then seeked warmth in a nearby sweet shop before heading past the left-handed store, the sock shop and the overpriced chocolate store to begin our trek back up hilly San Fran roads. We stopped off at an Asian bakery en route which sold the same delicacies we loved whilst in Thailand and Malaysia. And what was even better about this was the price, they were cheap like in Asia! What we did forget though was how sweet everything tasted. I bought a chicken filled pasty and had to deal with the overly sweet taste of the pastry. The sugar-coated donut I bought to eat later on turned out to be less sweet than any of our savory items… how?!?!

We awoke bright and early (and actually made it in time for the free pancakes!) and headed out for our day trip to Alcatraz and Angel islands. It was raining and cold and miserable but for once, we didn’t care! All of this added to the Alcatraz mood and definitely made the island appear more sinister as we approached it on the ferry. We arrived to a tour guide informing us of the day’s events and how to do the audio tour of the prison up on the hill. Alcatraz island used to be a haven for rare birds with the name deriving from the Spanish “La Isla de Los Alcatraces” translating to the “Island of the Pelicans”. It was also used as a military base before becoming a federal prison from 1933. The majority of inmates were jailed for bank robberies and murders. During the 29 years it was in operation, the jail housed some of the most notorious criminals in American history such as Al Capone (who was actually prisoned for tax evasion… wtf?!), Robert “Birdman” Stroud and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. The penitentiary claimed that no prisoner successfully escaped but a total of 36 prisoners did make 14 escape attempts. Three criminals are still listed as missing and presumed drowned and have Wanted posters displayed for their arrest after they broke out of their cells using a spoon. Whilst on the audio tour of the prison, we learnt of the Battle of Alcatraz which occurred on May 2nd 1946. Bernie Coy, a prison inmate, had planned to slip through the gun gallery, overwhelm the guard and steal the set of keys to free 5 accomplices and escape to freedom. It backfired though when the keys they needed had already been hidden by a guard and the siren went off alerting the island of a planned escape. The inmates, however, had taken five officers hostage and so when the alarm blared, Coy’s conspirators shot the guards. In response, Marines dropped grenades through the roof killing Coy, two other inmates and two correctional officers. The history of this place is so interesting and to hear about these stories, not only through narrative but also from previous inmates who had lent their voices to the audio tour, was incredible. We also learnt of the ‘hole’ prison cell which was pitch black and used for those who had committed the worst crimes. One former inmate revealed how he’d throw a button and then try and find it, all in the pitch black and on repeat. The audio tour took us through the cell blocks, the library where only prisoners with reading abilities could request a book, the visitor quarters where you could have only one visitor per month and the sunny part of the prison which was known as the most desirable spot to have your cell. We ended the tour in the dining hall, the room that was branded the most dangerous place in the whole prison. Why? Because they would give these criminals knives. The prison was closed in 1963 with the final inmates shipped to nearby jails. The reason for its closure related to increased costs in the upkeep of the place, the deterioration of buildings (including worker’s quarters) and the lack of an advanced sewage system on the island.

Our second half of the day was spent travelling on a cold ferry in the rain to Angel island. We were leaving Alcatraz in high spirits, exclaiming how much we loved visiting the place, “Alcatraz was so good!!”. A, no doubt, polar opposite reaction to what the inmates would have been thinking when leaving their cells upon the jail’s closure. We arrived on Angel island half an hour later and were greeted with a friendly welcome to San Francisco bay’s biggest island. It was absolutely freezing and the rain had decided to pour down even harder. We joined the queue to board our tram tour of the island and were met with a rude lady telling us that every seat must be taken and how she’s not leaving until it is. This obviously caused a massive stampede of people trying to grab seats together and suddenly made the place feel like a zoo at feeding time. We didn’t make it on the first tram (which got a flat tyre as soon as she went to pull away) and ended up on a tour with a much friendlier gentleman. The island is a former military quarantine base which would accommodate those who fought in the war overseas. Before returning to mainland, they would come to Angel island to receive medical treatment and be checked for any fatal diseases. The island today is a national park with a tiny population (those who work here and their immediate family) and a lot of nature. The tour guide informed us of each viewpoint to see the bridge and the city skyline (Heidi pointed out how this island seems to just be a good place to be able to see other places) whilst we were also told of the animals we would not see here (such as a rabbit). We were then taken past the old military ground and barracks (which was pretty interesting) and also past the island’s own emergency service buildings. After seeing a deer, we headed back to the café near the ferry port, grabbed a hot chocolate and couldn’t help but feel like we would have enjoyed the tour a great deal more if it was sunnier and the audio track didn’t skip every five seconds.

Nathan and I headed out to get haircuts. I wanted something cheap and cheerful (which would be the Asian hairdressers nearby) whereas Nathan wanted something where he wouldn’t worry about how his hair was to turn out. We took a seat at Elizabeth’s hairdressers; a salon which looked like it used to be a Chinese takeaway complete with waving kitty and chunky television in the corner showing TV programmes no one ever watches. Nathan soon got up and left after we sat down leaving me to explain to the Vietnamese woman (who was meant to cut his hair) that he was ‘just looking’. They believed me though and here I was having my hair cut by a short Vietnamese woman who, instead of moving herself around the chair to cut my hair, would swivel me around to suit her. This was just the beginning of the weird haircut experience. She whispered “are you from England?” in my ear and spoke to me about credit card fraud as if advertising how easy and appealing it is to use people’s cards. To top it all off she applied nearly the whole tub of gel on my hair in the style of a 90s boyband reject and in politeness, I had to keep this new hairdo until out of eyeshot of the salon. For $14 though, it was a really good haircut.

It was time for our final day together as a foursome until we go to the east coast and for mine and Nathan’s final day in San Francisco. We’re splitting up for a week; Heidi and Josie are heading to Hawaii whilst Nathan and I go to Colorado and then across America to Washington, DC. We headed into the centre of San Francisco and ended up at the Cheesecake Factory on the 7th floor of Macys, a restaurant with not only amazing cheesecakes but also delicious food which will fill you up by just by looking at it (honestly, huge portions! Especially if you get a free soup because your meal came out ten minutes later than everyone elses). We were incredibly stuffed and bloated and decided the best thing to do would be to get a tram over to Fisherman’s wharf. One-way on the tram costs $6 so we made sure we picked the longest route possible to get our moneys worth. It was amazing. It was like being on a rollercoaster through the city, cheering whilst picking up speed downhill, screaming whilst speeding round corners and clapping when somebody doesn’t fall out. We arrived at Fisherman’s wharf and looked around the souvenir stalls and restaurants (although we couldn’t face eating anything for a while, I still had half of my sandwich from Cheesecake Factory!) and wandered back toward the hostel via another tourist attraction in the area; a hill, a hill where the road to drive down zig zags due to how steep it is.

We said our goodbyes to Heidi (who informed me of my polite sleeptalking in the night, “I’ll have that one thank you”) and Josie and caught the bus to the airport ready for our flight to Denver. This was brilliant timing to get diarrhea and sit on a three hour flight in pain. After three trips to the toilet, we collected our bags, headed outside to get our shuttle bus and waited in the torrential rain and freezing cold. Welcome to Denver! After a painful half hour wait, a shuttle bus arrived and took us to our home for the next three nights. We decided to use Air B&B where people rent out their flats or a room in their apartment. Our hosts greeted us and showed us around the place. After a quick skype with the parents, Nathan and I headed for some lunch and to explore the local area. We’re right near the Capitol State building and surrounding parks which are beautiful. Also nearby is a semi circular building which looks like a smaller replica of the White House. Unfortunately it turned out to just be a legal building, pah. We visited the art gallery nearby where the art wasn’t as pretentious as previous galleries we’ve been to, a lot of the pieces related to the history of Colorado and the rocky mountains nearby, somewhere we hope to visit whilst we’re here.

The next day saw us watch a plethora (ey, Jamie got some plethora in my blog for you) of family guy and then head out for lunch. Denver is windy. So so windy in certain parts of the city that you almost get blown over so we seeked shelter in a cinema and watched Captain America 2. The warmth for a couple of hours was necessary (not jealous of Heidi and Josie laying on a hot beach, honest..) and we thought the movie was awesome. I miss going to the cinema (hint hint Empire). We headed back to the flat to get ready for a gig we’d booked tickets for. Situated in The Fillmore Auditorium a couple of blocks away, we were about to see Childish Gambino live!! He is a rapper/hip hop artist who is also an actor in the American show ‘Community’ but that’s not all, he also does stand-up. With all of this being said, we were a little nervous. Why? Because we were in a city we’ve never been to before, going to see an r&b artist who would potentially attract a rough crowd and we weren’t wanting to get mugged again (damn you Sydney!). We grabbed a taxi to the venue and were greeted with a long, long, long queue. Our fears of not making it out the gig in tact were starting to vanish and soon enough we were in the beautiful auditorium complete with chandeliers and luxurious pillars and an expensive bar. The support dj was awesome (and kept making everyone chant Worldwide in a monotonous tone) but got the crowd suitably pumped for Childish Gambino. The Deep Web Tour is currently touring America and stopped off in Denver to a packed auditorium, which is probably a small venue in America but it felt huge in comparison to our equivalent O2 Academies. His show was awesome and his talent was demonstrated in his free styling sections, he also sang a whole lot more than I expected. He is a very angry guy though and I knew this before coming to see him (especially after listening to his lyrics in his first album ‘Camp’) but when he’s on stage performing, he expresses his anger not only through his songs but through a crazy routine. Due to the technological theme of his show, he was surrounded by screens with 3D images portaying his house. These screens were used heavily throughout (especially prior to the show when you could write a message on the screen via an app on your phone) and for a few songs in the middle of his first set. It wasn’t until over halfway in that performed his latest single ‘3005’ and after playing his new album in its entirety, he came back on stage for an encore and told the crowd “it’s time for some old stuff” before breaking into ‘Heartbeat’ then a medley including ‘Firefly’ and ‘All The Shine’. His final song, ‘Bonfire’, was by far the best of the night (but also showcased his angry side the most).

Today we headed to the Capitol State building once more but this time to go on a tour inside the building. A free tour (yes!) of the state’s government building where all laws and legislations are heard and either passed or rejected. The tour guide informed us how a majority of the materials used inside the building were sourced from Colorado (which we found out is Spanish meaning ‘coloured red’), such as the marble floor coming from Marble town (brilliant) and sandstone from Fort Springs. The guided tour took us to the office of the Govenor, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Department of the Treasury. Learning about a state government was fascinating, especially in comparison to our governing body covering the whole country. The building itself is incredible in an architectural form and our tour guide even told us how one employee’s job is to clean all of the brass (and there’s a lot of brass) in the building. Surprisingly he loves his job. The dome that tops off the building stands 272 feet above the ground and gleams in the ‘300 days of Denver Sunshine’ because it is made out of gold. The gold represents the history of the state with the discovery of gold in 1858 bringing fortune seekers to the area and creating the mining villages and communities. Since then we’ve moved apartment to another one we found on Air B&B and are currently staying with two medical students in the centre of Denver.

April 23, 2014

One day in Mexico, partying in the eiffel tower and Roman bathing at Caesar’s Palace

I loved San Diego. It exceeded all expectations and overall, it was better than LA. The atmosphere was a lot nicer, the city was ridiculously clean and you actually felt safe walking the streets at night. Plus our hostel was a million times better than that RV and had every amenity you could ever want from budget accommodation (free wifi, herbs and spices in the kitchen, a communal iPad, $1 towel rental and laundry and a plethora of plugs which is a rarity in backpacker places).

We spent our first evening meal eating chocolate fudge and confetti candy pop tarts and met some fellow English travellers Sam, Tres and Andy. They’d just got back from Vegas and Phoenix and arrived into San Diego the same day as us. After informing us of free beer in the common room at 9pm, Heidi, Nathan and I made ourselves pretty (not hard) and headed downstairs. Josie was feeling a bit ill and tired so rested in bed. We missed out on the first round of free beer but some crazy Aussies were to the rescue with disgustingly strong vodka red bulls. More beer arrived shortly after much to our delight and soon enough we were all getting quite merry. Sam and Tres had bought a 1.75l of vodka (for $10!!) for Vegas but didn’t drink it and so kept offering it around the table. After a couple of drinks and a slightly fuzzy head, we were convinced to go out and see what San Diego’s nightlife was like. Why not?!

We paid the extortionate $10 door charge for a bar a few blocks away from our hostel. It was packed, had a really good atmosphere but closed at 2am. With no where else to go in San Diego, Heidi and I met a couple of guys outside the nearby pizza place. After some intellectual conversations (of which I don’t remember now but I recall them being good), I got a free slice of pizza and we continued back to the hostel where we found a group of German guys outside. We spoke to them about how they, as a county, don’t like to queue for things and demonstrated how a queue works. A guy representing his mate’s new clothing business then appeared from nowhere and gave me and Heidi a couple of free California Republic t-shirts. Successful night overall!

The following day was game day! We were about to experience our first American baseball game with the San Diego Padres taking on the Detroit Tigers and for $20, it was definitely worth it. We got there just as the national anthem was playing and trekked around the entire stadium to find our seats. For the price we paid, we got really good central seats although they were in the shade so we were absolutely freezing. After pretending to know what was going on for a while, we got some greasy food and stayed until the end to watch the Padres win 5-1. Our favourite parts were definitely the home runs and the music played in between, oh and the old man sitting in front of us eating the same bag of popcorn non-stop for over an hour. We then headed to the Westfield shopping centre, which is themed like a little Mexican village, to find the Vans store. Josie’s wanted to buy some for the past few weeks now and they’re a lot cheaper in America than back home. In fact so much cheaper I accidentally bought a patterned pair of shoes and matching hat for the bargain price of $45 (£30). We finally got back to the hostel in time for free hotdog night (another reason why this place is awesome) and saw Sam and Tres who were also recovering from last night. They informed us that they and Andy were going to Tijuana in Mexico the next day and when we asked how long for they replied with “just for the day”. Eh, come again?! They told us how there’s a trolley train that you can catch from central San Diego all the way down to the border. Here’s the best part because this hour long journey only costs $2.50 (£1.50). Yep, we could get to Mexico and back for £3!! Insane.

We awoke bright and early for our day trip to Mexico. How could we pass down the opportunity to visit Mexico for the day?! After the one hour train ride, we arrived at the border and were joined by Sam, Tres and Andy. Getting into Mexico was incredibly easy, a bit too easy; we didn’t even have to show our passports to anyone! We began the day avoiding the taxi drivers asking us where we were going and looked for the beach. In order to get there though, we required said taxi. Sam found a taxi driver and he told us he could take all 7 of us there. Brilliant, we’d be getting a big people carrier for next to nothing… well, it was indeed cheap but it was also only a four person car. He informed us that it’s legal to take more than four passengers and because we were so desperate to go to the beach, we all squeezed in. On arrival at our destination, Playas de Tijuana, we were immediately greeted with colder weather. Still sunny and a lot chillier and definitely not warm enough to lie on the beach. We walked along the promenade and admired the run down, ghost town-like atmosphere of the place. It wasn’t what we were expecting in the slightest and after seeing three people get arrested in the back of a police pick-up truck, we hailed down a cab and decided to check out downtown Tijuana, a much more touristy area.

We got to Revolucion Street in downtown Tijuana and found a bar serving $1 coronas (they accept American dollars here due to how close they are to the border). We couldn’t refuse this cheap offering and headed upstairs to the rooftop balcony. After a few coronas and a Spanish band playing for tips, we moved on to another bar. This time the drinks were a little bit more expensive but we got free nachos and dip and we were even treated to our own private balcony in the sun. After getting a free shot of tequila, we grabbed some chicken quesadillias and a couple more coronas for lunch and sat overlooking a zonkey. A zonkey is a donkey which has been painted with zebra stripes and is used as a tourist attraction where you pay to have a picture with it. With evening fast approaching, we figured it’d be best to head back to the border to get back into the USA. This is where it differs to how you get into Mexico. Gone is the simple walk across a bridge with no checks and instead we were faced with a massive queue to get through customs. And not just any normal customs queue you get at the aiport but instead a two hour queue littered with lots of food and drink stalls. Yep, after our cheap day of eating and drinking, a slight downer was put upon it by having to queue for over two hours to get back into America.

The following morning saw us checking out of the amazing Lucky D’s hostel and picking up our hired car ready for our road trip to Vegas. All that stood between us and the city that never sleeps was 330 miles in the car. We left within good time, were stocked up on drinks and snacks and had many radio stations to choose between. An hour into our journey and the car in front of us on the freeway ran over a lorry mudguard loose on the road causing it to launch up into the sky and hurl itself towards our windscreen. Within seconds the mudguard had cracked the glass and caused us to pull up in a nearby service station. After Nathan made numerous phone calls to insurance and the car rental company, a replacement vehicle was sent from LA and within three hours, we’d be on the road to Vegas again. This delay called for a Wendy’s burger to drown our sorrows.

Nathan and I shared the driving duties and I clocked over 150miles on the I-215 across California and Nevada. The drive was completely different to anywhere I’ve driven before and the scenery was spectacular. Mountains made up the backdrop and sparse areas of desert surrounded us as we drew nearer to the state where Las Vegas lies. We made a quick pit stop at a nearby shopping centre/hotel which housed its own rollercoaster and themed castle and continued onwards to the strip. Half an hour later, we were parallel to the strip of bright lights, glittering hotel names and themed buildings. We pulled up to our hotel, the Royal Resort, where the lobby consisted of a multicolored piano beneath a couple of chandeliers and chez lounges surrounded by lavish mirrors. You’re probably thinking what the hell are we doing checking into a hotel? Are we suddenly flashpackers splashing the cash whilst in Vegas? Don’t be silly! Heidi found this online for £10 a night each. Cheaper than that RV we stayed in and a hell of a lot nicer.

We took the car back the following morning but not everything went plain sailing; Josie left her purse on the back seat and only realised when we got off the shuttle bus ten minutes away, cue frantic rush back with a bus load of concerned Americans wishing us the best in finding the purse before the car got cleaned and given to the next customers. She got it back though and we began our time in Vegas by starting at the south end of the strip where the Egyptian themed, pyramid shaped Luxor hotel stood. Vegas is reknowned for its casinos and impressive hotels and so as the first accommodation to visit, it certainly didn’t disappoint. The pyramid shape worked effectively with the bedrooms making up the inside walls of the building. We then wandered to Excalibur, the medieval castle themed hotel. A bold block of turrets stood tall before the main hotel building with the interior matching the theme perfectly. This is where Nathan played his first game of blackjack for a $10 buy in. Unfortunately, he didn’t fare too well but it’s the taking part that counts… right?! We then found ourselves eating lunch in New York before paying ($14!!!) to ride the rollercoaster that engulfs the entire hotel, complete with upsidedown loop and a lot of headbanging. We left the big apple and headed across the road to the MGM Grand hotel. This one didn’t have a specific theme but instead comprised of lavish furnishings and a rainforest café. Unfortunately the lions that were once inside the hotel are no longer there.

Vegas is like one massive theme park. You walk from hotel to hotel via walkways which are themed correspondingly and are often made so that you walk through the copious amounts of high-end shopping malls (no 99p stores here) each hotel has. We even visited the Coca Cola store which featured every possible item you’d ever want with the Coke design on it. On the way back to our hotel we got ourselves onto a guestlist for the Paris hotel and I walked over some knickers in the street, pointed back at them when telling Nathan and then walked straight into a bollard groin first. A painful double whammy.

We pre drank in our hotel room with our $11 bottle of vodka and played blackjack in preparation for the tables at the casinos. Our first proper night out in Vegas was to Paris, the French hotel complete with its own eiffel tower, which is also the location of where we’d be partying. The club is situated on the first floor of the tower and overlooks the strip including the grand fountains of the Bellagio hotel opposite. We all got free entry and girls got free drinks before midnight. We got there at twenty to and because we’re cheap backpackers, we had to make the most of these free beverages. Heidi and Josie found themselves in frantic rushes to each of the three bars to get their complimentary drinks whilst Nathan and I held the growing collection of vodka mixers. Due to this free drinks marathon, we didn’t need to buy any more and managed to get another couple of free drinks off of a group in the VIP area. It got even better when Josie and I met a couple from LA who’d been together since high school 13 years ago. They bought us a drink and we insisted we paid them (we must’ve been drunk) but they didn’t accept our money and so when they finished their drinks, we sneakily bought them their next drinks and spent $27. Yep, a glass of champagne was $18 on its own. We didn’t quite realise how much we’d actually spent until the following morning but they were very nice people so it was all worth it!

The words difficult, painful, sick, never drinking again and ouch help describe the following day. I felt absolutely awful. Hungover is an understatement, I woke up feeling like the desert surrounding Vegas had crawled into my mouth whilst a ten tonne brick had been dropped on my head. A swim, that’ll help? Well it did a little but the 35º sun that came with it didn’t. We then thought that food would help. Dennys, the American diner that never closes, was just opposite our hotel. We’ve been meaning to go there for a while because of how cheap it is. Well, as soon as we were seated, I crashed. My hangover turned to feeling sick and after a quick vomit scare in the toilet (I wasn’t sick Dad) and Nathan capturing the moment over the top of the cubicle door, I was faced with a massive chicken burger and chips and a strawberry milkshake. This was gonna be a long day.

We spent the rest of the afternoon feeling sorry for ourselves and traipsing around various other hotels along the strip. These included Caesar’s Palace, which is as luxurious as you’d expect it to be, Treasure Island, which is like a pirate themed part of a theme park and The Mirage, where the volcano outside explodes once an hour after 7pm complete with red coloured jets of water and fire, it was a magnificent spectacle. We played a few slot machines, avoided alcohol beverages at any cost and munched on some fast food at 11pm. Bed was definitely calling.

We awoke the following morning with fresh faces and got ready for our upcoming pool party at Caesar’s Palace. We were on the guestlist and wandered up to the Venus pool entrance where our bags were searched. Not just any quick look in, a proper bag search worse than any we’ve had at airports throughout our travels. They didn’t allow for any outside food or beverages and almost didn’t let Josie take in her antihistamines!! We made it in, grabbed a towel and looked for somewhere to lay down. We found four sun loungers and were immediately greeted by a friendly waitress wearing only an orange bikini. She informed us that the minimum spend on drinks for where we wanted to lay was $50 each. I thought I’d misheard her say $15 and so for clarification I had to double check, 5-0?! Yeah 5-0. She also told us that the double beds around the pool were $250 minimum spend. We were definitely out of our depth here. Err, anywhere free? The edge of the pool. If it meant we didn’t have to guarantee spending the rest of our travelling money then I was prepared to look a little out of place at this posh pool party. We laid our towels down at one end of the pool and got given menus. $300 bottles of vodka? Maybe. $1000 bathtub with 6 bottles of champagne? I’ll think about it. A bucket of 8 coronas? That sounds about right. Earlier in the week we were paying $1 for a corona in Mexico and now we were forking out over $10 for one (the taxes on top were ridiculous!). But we didn’t care about the money (kind of) and made the most of being at a Caesar’s Palace pool party! We were surrounded by the rich and famous; Tinie Tempah, Pitbull, Bruce Willis, Jason Derulo and even Gemma from TOWIE… lookalikes. Yeah okay they were all just dopplegangers but that’s good enough for us! After saying for the one hundredth time how cool it was to be at a pool party in this setting and then witnessing a guy who was on a $250 bed throw up everywhere, we decided to head back to our hotel and prepare ourselves for a night out at Pure (which is also in Caesar’s). But not before heading to Denny’s diner again and this time we were served by a woman who seemed like she had just popped a few pills prior to her shift.

After some pre drinks in our room, we headed to Caesar’s Palace and joined the long guestlist queue. We got free entry and once again girls got free drinks until midnight. We didn’t have long this time though and it was a lot busier than the Parisian club so we weren’t as successful in the number of free drinks. The nightclub was one of the poshest I’ve ever stepped foot in. There were pillars and draped curtains, a VIP section overlooking the dancefloor and extremely expensive drinks. After a couple of hours on the dancefloor and an inflatable tiger, we headed back to the hotel and stopped off at the dingy Casino Royale where Nathan tried his hand at some $5 blackjack.

The following morning saw us relaxing by the hotel pool, having Denny’s for the third time (it’s just so cheap and delicious!) and then sorting out our travel to San Francisco and our accommodation for there. This took up a good proportion of our afternoon meaning our evening was then spent looking around other hotels such as the nearby Wynn (which is as extravagant as it looks from the outside, they even have their own brand of watches) and the Venetian, which is the Italian themed hotel complete with gondolas paddling along the river running through the building.

Sunday saw us relaxing by the pool, getting Denny’s once again (not only is it good food but we’ve had 20% off vouchers as well) and looking at a discount ticket stall along the strip which sells show tickets for that night at a lot cheaper rates. Josie and I wanted to see Penn and Teller which was 40% off the original price whilst Heidi and Nathan opted for a Cirque du Soleil Zumanity circus/burlesque show. Penn and Teller was being shown at the Rio and Josie and I needed to exchange our vouchers for our tickets (the earlier we did it, the better seats we got). After initially walking in the opposite direction, we wandered down the strip, stopped off at Caesar’s Palace to ask for directions and were told of a free shuttle bus from the hotel across the road. It was boiling hot by this point and time was getting on but we made it to the Rio in good time and ended up staying until the show started in a couple of hours. There was a jazz band playing prior to the show and they invited you up onto the stage to look at a wooden box which would be used by Penn and Teller and to sign our names on an envelope. The show started at 9 and the first trick included an audience member’s cell phone being magically transferred into a fish inside a briefcase underneath another audience member’s seat. All of this was recorded on her mobile and so she’ll be able to watch it back to see how they managed to do the trick. Other acts included the classic sawing of the assistant in half (but this was with a twist which saw them physically saw it in half), mind reading people in the audience after they were told to pick a joke at random out of books provided by stage hands and Penn and Teller fooling us by doing a trick within a trick within a trick. Their final piece saw them using people from the audience to initial and draw an icon on the bullet casing and then Penn and Teller fired their guns at one another and caught the bullets in their teeth. How? I’m not sure but the guns were definitely fired. The show was definitely worth it and I liked that they explained how they did the tricks (although they often then added something extra to boggle your mind). After the show they ran out to the lobby so that everyone could get pictures with them and yes, Teller actually spoke whilst using people’s phones to take selfies! Heidi and Nathan enjoyed their show and to quote Nathan, “I met 14 pairs of boobs tonight”. A good night all round.

We’ve ended up staying a lot longer in Vegas than initially planned. We were going to drive to the Grand Canyon and then drive from there to San Francisco but car hire costs a lot more for us because we’re under 25. Plus, we didn’t quite fancy a journey that long after what happened on our previous road trip. So instead we stayed a couple more nights in our hotel (making the most of the pool and spa!) and enjoyed more of the sights of the strip. Vegas is like no where else I’ve visited. I mean what other city has its own monorail system? Or escalators to cross the road? Or themed hotels followed by posh hotels followed by themed hotels? Or where else is it acceptable to drink anywhere you want during the day or buy a yard stick full of slushy cocktails? This place is in its own little bubble and it’s as if no where else matters. Our final day in Vegas saw us looking around the remaining hotels we wanted to see, including the Bellagio which is in a different league. It’s decor is rich and it also houses a section near the entrance with a butterfly farm and a plethora of real flowers. We’ve now departed the busy scene of Vegas and are on our 14hour greyhound bus to San Francisco where we’ll spend the next five nights.

P.s. If you do have answers to those questions and know of anywhere else that’s like what I’ve described above then sssh.. I want Vegas to have this moment.

April 13, 2014

Time travelling, roughing it at the MoonPad and cruising around Beverly Hills

You lucky people. This week, due to the multiple time zones we’ve experienced, you guys get an extra day in this blog! That’s 8 days worth of activities and thoughts in just one week!!

We left New Zealand’s capital Wellington on Sunday morning at 7:30am. We were prepared for our 13hour bus journey all the way back to Auckland via the Naked Bus company. Now the name of this bus service was an appealing one and when we trekked from our hostel to the station half an hour away, we were greeted by a friendly chap who ushered us onto the bus and told us we’d be stopping an hour and a half away to change buses. This is where it started to go sour. We moved our bags onto the next bus, got a seat each at the back and waited to set off north for 9hours until our next bus change. Then the bus driver spoke. He told us the basics (wear your seatbelt, no consumption of hot food and drink etc etc) but also told us that if we feel sick and throw up, we’d have to pay $250 for the cleaning. Our main gripe with him was how he conveyed this information; in a rude, patronising and unprofessional manner. He treated the coach full of adults like a classroom of five-year olds.

The highlight of the first part of the journey was driving through Bulls town again. ‘A town like no udder’ greeted us as we entered and many more puns were spotted on toilets (‘reliev-a-bull’), bins (‘response-a-bull’), a bakery (‘delect-a-bull’) and a school (‘knowledge-a-bull’). Bulls town certainly didn’t disappoint and we were all fairly content… until the bus driver told us to remove our headphones ‘coz we can’t hear him’ (we heard every single word you were saying in that condescending tone) and informed us to get off and change bus. But we didn’t need to and he couldn’t understand this (even after showing him our itinerary) and made us get off the bus to then decide that we were actually on the correct bus and to get back on. Make up your mind!! I wish we did change bus because we wouldn’t have had to endure this rude man for the next 8 hours. He was also incredibly unhelpful when the bus had a flat battery half way through the journey. After an hour delay, we continued onward to Auckland and finally arrived at our hostel for the night, The Fat Camel (where we got a free upgrade to a room with a window! Didn’t even realise we’d initially booked a room without a window).

The next day we checked out, grabbed some bacon baps at an indie café in the city centre and waited for our taxi to the airport. When checking in, we were informed that our flight to Fiji was as planned but our connecting flight to Los Angeles had been delayed by 9hours. Luckily for us though Fiji Airways had sorted out accommodation for the night and a free dinner! We arrived in Fiji at 7:30pm and were welcomed with a Fijian band complete with ukuleles and tropical notes to see us through customs. The Fijians are incredibly friendly; all of the flight attendants were accommodating (and would even offer to replace your beer once you’d finished) and those working on the baggage checkers would lift up our backpacks and help us put them on our backs! We got our free accommodation for the night sorted out (an on-site airport hotel) and managed to bag a room each (first time in 7months that I’ve had my own room!). It was like living a life of luxury compared to the cramped dorm rooms of hostels and we even had a concierge who carried our bags to the rooms! We then headed upstairs for the all-you-can-eat Asian buffet and demolished it. We were eating as if we hadn’t seen food before but hey, you’ve got to make the most of free dinner!

The next morning saw us finally boarding our plane set for Los Angeles. Now, our original time traveling plan (leaving New Zealand on 7th April at 16:30 and arriving in LA on 7th April at 13:30) was ruined due to the delays, but we did still manage to do some time traveling. Due to this stopover in Fiji, we managed to land in LA the previous calendar day to what we’d left and impressively visited three countries on the 7th April. What’s weird is that we’re now 8 hours behind the UK and this is the first time in 7months that we’ve been behind you guys. After three movies, three episodes of Modern Family, two episodes of Big Bang Theory, music and plenty of food, we arrived suitably jet-lagged in a dark Los Angeles. Flying over the city was an amazing sight, seeing the strips of lit up blocks and downtown LA and wondering where the hell we’d be staying for the next few days. It was now midnight and we were meant to have checked-in 7 hours earlier at 5pm. But it was all going to be fine because I had sent them an email before we left NZ to tell them we’d arrive around 1am and whether it was possible to do a late check-in. All would be fine, right?

We jumped in the first taxi we could find and headed for Boyle Avenue, a half hour drive away from the airport. On arrival we were greeted by four guys sat out the front in seated hammocks and surrounded by tables made out of old doors. This matched the description of the hostel online, “MoonPad hostel: a place for artists and budding astronauts” (neither of which apply to us). One guy, Nick, asked if we were checking in and whether we had a reservation (he needn’t have bothered asking that last question because when we did state our reservation, he had no record of it). After a few minutes of trying to find our booking and not succeeding, he informed us that because we weren’t here by 10pm, our room (well, beds) had been given to people who had walked-in with no reservation. That email I told you I’d sent? They didn’t see it. This was not the start to our LA adventure we wanted. After a frantic half hour of Nick looking for spare beds (he only found one), he offered us ‘The Morroccan room’. Now, this room may sound exotic and was sold to us as ‘a large open space where we can put four mattresses for you to sleep on’ but in reality it was just a large landing at the top of the stairs, outside of everyone’s dorm rooms and next to the communal bathroom (so in a way we got an en suite…). We had no other choice but to accept this space and call it ‘our room’, after all it was now 1:30am and we were exhausted and hungry. We told him we’d stay there for this one night and sort out this mess in the morning. Before bed we had no success searching the surrounding area for places to eat and so decided to meet our new hostelmates (is that a term?!) sitting out the front. Nick, the maintenance guy from New York, Alex, a Frenchman travelling with his girlfriend and Daniel, an ex-marines guy from Indiana, were all suitably drunk and welcoming us to this crazy establishment. Another guy then joined us outside. He was originally from Georgia and moved to LA 13 days ago to live the American dream. In his own words ‘Acting. That’s what’s gonna get me there if my singing and comedy stand-up don’t work out’. Yep, he was a classic American guy moving to the sunshine state to pursue a better career and become famous. He even sang us two songs (yes, two!) and not only did he sing us an R&B number, he also treated us to some country ‘to show us his range by singing two completely different genres’. He was definitely one of the most confident guys I’ve met and didn’t know when to stop talking which did provide much amusement for the night. We hit the hay after that and slept pretty much on the floor (the ‘mattresses’ were made of foam and couldn’t have been more than 3inches thick).

After a long lie-in to rid some of the jet lag, we attempted to sort out our room but were told that the manager was only in from 5-10pm (what kind of manager only visits his hostel for 5hours a day?!). We weren’t gonna let that ruin our first full day in LA and decided to catch the metro into town. What’s brilliant about this metro is that you can buy a $5 all day pass which lets you ride anywhere on any train or bus for the whole day! After a few train changes, we arrived in Hollywood. The land of the rich and famous and home to its world reknowned sign and walk of fame. We were immediately greeted by Adam Sandler’s star and a tour guide trying to sell us a Hollywood tour around the celebrity houses and up to the sign. We were hesistant up until he told us the price, he’d give us the $25 child price instead of the $40 adult price… tempting. But we decided to have a wander round for a bit seeing as we’d only just arrived there. It was interesting. The area we found ourselves in seemed a bit run down and not how I imagined Hollywood to look like. After being hassled by a few more tour guides (the prices started going as low as $20), we went back to the first man and bartered with him to get his tour for $20. Bargain!

But first we needed food. Good ol’ American food. A greasy burger, greasy fries and a gre..fizzy drink. We found Juicy burger; a fast food joint where you create your own burger and can have unlimited refills on your drink. And you definitely need unlimited refills because the choice is unbelievable. Over 100 options adorned the hi-tech drinks dispenser; Coca Cola with raspberry or orange or cherry or Dr Pepper with vanilla or Sprite with strawberry or grape or Powerade or Sunkist or any other combination you could think of. It was awesome and Josie for one made the most out of this crazy selection, trying every possible drink she could and getting high on E numbers and sugars. So excitable she seemed drunk. Oh yeah and the burger was delicious. Complete with food babies and a cup full of Coca Cola with lime, we boarded our tour bus, well, a converted 8-seater pick-up truck, and met Kenny our friendly guide. He immediately took us to the hotel used in Pretty Woman (I’ve not seen it) and then onwards to the Hollywood sign up in the hills. After some questionable driving, we arrived at the closest point you could get to the sign without trespassing and acquiring a hefty fine. This is where Kenny excelled in his duties and became a professional photographer for ten minutes, ushering us onto a rock in front of the sign and doing several angles (and sound effects, “BAM”) to capture the perfect shot.

Our tour continued down Hollywood Boulevard passing by a Disney-only movie theatre, the Hard Rock Café and the Dolby Digital theatre where the Oscars are held. Kenny drove us down to Sunset Boulevard and en route we passed The Hills’ reality tv show house, the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ house and the house from ‘Halloween’. We then approached Beverly Hills so cue famous Wheatus song ‘Beverly Hills’ and we were ready to explore the area of the rich and famous. We passed by Ellen Degeneres’ house, Ringo Starr’s, Jennifer Aniston’s, Gene Simmons’, Michael Jackson’s, Christina Aguilera’s, Tony Stark’s and even Hugh Heffner’s Playboy mansion.

We begrudgingly headed back to our hostel to see the manager. He apologised when he realised we were the ones who had slept on the floor the previous night and we told him how we weren’t paying for last night, explained how it shouldn’t have happened due to us having emailed and said how we wanted a room with four beds like we had booked. He still didn’t have four beds free and so came up with an alternative. Somewhere he thought we would really like. Somewhere which isn’t even located in the hostel but instead, is in the garden. An RV. Yep, he was putting us up in his motor home and we had no other option but to choose it. We paid our reduced rate and got comfortable in our cozy, cramped new living space. Thank goodness it was only for two nights.

The following morning we were up bright and early for our free breakfast and to visit Auntie Mary, Nathan’s mum’s friend who has lived in LA for the past 30 years. After an hour and a half on metro trains, we were greeted by Mary at Redondo Beach train station. She was immediately welcoming and took us to a New York pizza restaurant where we got the best pizza I’ve ever tasted. A medium was the size of an extra large in England. We napped off the doughy deliciousness on Hamosa beach; a beautiful stretch of golden sand adorned with rude, chavvy 14-year old kids on their Spring Break. All of that aside though, Hamosa beach and the surrounding area was how I pictured LA. Mary then took us to our first American supermarket (where we spent ages drooling over all of the amazing food) and then to her beautiful home where she cooked us good old English bangers and mash. It was a pleasure to spend the day with Mary and her friend Terry, they were some of the friendliest and most accommodating people I’ve met and it was really nice knowing that not only did we appreciate spending time with her, she was blessed to be meeting us as well. After receiving bags full of free shampoos, socks, hair gels and beauty products (the airplane sized ones because Mary used to be an air hostess), we decided to unwillingly head back to our campervan before it got too dark. We had three different trains to catch and one change was at a dodgy area of the city. We were pretty much travelling through the ghetto and had to get off and change lines. This would have been fine if a cleaner at the station didn’t sign off his interaction with us with “keep safe and be careful guys”. Err.. well now we’re worried. Four British adults wandering around the platforms with all of our prized possessions amongst the potential gang members of this district of LA. Heidi later said that if they were clever enough, they would’ve mugged us. All was fine though and we managed to get back to our hos..RV in time to book some new accommodation by the beach and get drunk to forget that we’re sleeping in a second-hand motor home.

We left the MoonPad before you could say ‘check-out’ and headed on our long journey to Venice beach (still in LA but the transport in this city takes ages due to size of the place). We arrived in a much nicer area than our last hostel and found our motel (classic America). Well, this felt like luxury. We had a bed!! And a TV and an ensuite and a maid and a fridge and a microwave. Okay, it wasn’t the most extravagant place but compared to the hell hole we’d just come from, this was on par with a Hilton! After a much needed lie down on the bed, we ventured to Venice beach. Building walls used as canvasses for street art greeted us as we approached the boardwalk. It was a lot colder today than the previous couple of days which made us question why we decided to head to the beach but this place seems to be vibrant any time of the week. The boardwalk was lined with the odd (voodoo dolls and 3D portraits of aliens), the tacky (generic holiday t shirt stalls and henna tattoo carts) and the wacky (a ‘green doctor’ of whom you could pay to give you a medical marijuana card to enable you to get weed from the pharmacy). There was also a street performance by a talented bunch of breakdancers. Not only did they each perform indiviually, they used members of the public for humorous acts and then scoured the audience for money. They were really good at what they did and if I wasn’t a budget backpacker, I probably would have given them some money. Maybe. A stop for some dinner and then we continued down the strip towards Santa Monica pier. Along the way we played on swings, climbing frames and hanging ropes with the sun setting in the distance. The pier resembled one used in Grand Theft Auto 5 (which btw is very accurate here in terms of the people you meet whilst walking around, a lot of them either talk to themselves or take the opportunity to introduce themselves to you) complete with Ferris wheel and rollercoaster, takeaways and a terrible busker. We headed back to grab a beer and noticed a sign showing that the pier marks the official end of Route 66!

Before returning to our motel room, we visited Vons the supermarket and spent a ridiculous amount of time (and money) in there on classic American snacks like Jolly Ranchers, Reese’s puffs peanut butter cereal, a Joey Tribianni massive sub sandwich and white chocolate covered pretzels. We were definitely prepared for any eating situation and with that we returned to our motel room to binge whilst watching some US TV.

The next day saw us waking up later than planned (“ooh we can get free coffee until 11am” … “yeah I think it’s only 9am, oh wait.. it’s 11:05”) and head to the Griffith Observatory in the Hollywood hills area. This journey took longer than expected, not only because the buses are very unreliable here but also because you have to change train lines every ten stops! We finally arrived at the closest stop to the observatory and noticed that you could catch a bus up there.. but no, you could only do that on weekends. When a bus did pull up, she said the closest she goes to the observatory is Los Feliz and from there we’d have a 1mile walk.. uphill (“have you all got water?!”). After our long, long walk up to the top of the hill, we were treated to beautiful skyline views of Los Angeles. Seeing it from this high really shows how big and flat the city is. Griffith Observatory is a popular tourist attraction full of science and space displays including telescopes, a Tesla Coil and and a planetarium. We also caught a lecture called “Let’s make a Comet” and even though we were surrounded by a class of 5 year olds on a field trip, the comet they made from water, sand, charcoal and dry ice was pretty impressive. See, travelling is also educational!

Our final night in LA was spent in bed watching The Hangover and eating. We had to be up at 6:30am to catch our Greyhound bus to San Diego. But before we could do that, I had to scour the entire internet (very slight exaggeration) to find out where we had to get this bus from because handily our tickets nor the website didn’t state the address. We left in the morning with a lot of time to spare in case the public transport was even more unreliable than usual. But we made our bus which came complete with wifi and even a plug (in your face NakedBus) and arrived into a sunny San Diego almost three hours later. One final bus journey and we were at our hostel and this one’s a keeper. They actually had our reservation, were friendly and helpful and we even get free breakfast, the kitchen’s clean and we each have a bed. And what’s crazier is that this one is only $2 more than our first one in LA and is in an even better location in the middle of San Diego. Today has been spent exploring the area, visiting the marina and shopping at a ridiculously cheap grocery store two blocks away from our hostel (yeah, I just said blocks). They have Ben&Jerry’s tubs for $1.99 and Pop Tarts for $1.49. I think I’m going to get very fat in America.

April 5, 2014

Smelling of eggs, swinging over rivers and Josie’s 22nd birthday

We left Rotorua and headed to Taupo, a one hour bus journey south. The route was through foggy valleys with mountains either side, one word best to describe it? Beautiful. The smell of rotten eggs started to fade as we left the geothermal hostpot of Rotorua (although our clothes definitely still had a hint of sulphur which we were told could take months to go away.. looks like you guys at home will get to experience this delightful smell as well!). We passed a few more springs and steam filled lakes en route to Taupo. It was certainly one of the most picturesque journeys I have been on since beginning our travels and is definitely how I imagined New Zealand to look like.

When we arrived in Taupo it was cold and resembled Rotorua a great deal. The bus dropped us off in the town centre and we wandered the streets with our heavy, heavy backpacks looking for our next hostel. Through crossroads and long streets, we finally arrived at our next home for three nights; The Rainbow Lodge. This hostel was immediately busier than Cactus Jacks in Rotorua and came equipped with a lot of common room areas, a big clean kitchen and our spacious 9 bed dorm (shotgun single bed!). The staff are very friendly and there’s a great deal of Germans here. The noticeable difference about these hostels to ones such as Base and Nomads (which are chains, there’s usually at least one of them in each city) is that the staff actually care about your stay. They take the time to show you around the hostel and to your room and are always willing to answer any queries or help you find the best deal on excursions. The free coffee is also a great bonus as well!

This hostel also boasts a small sauna. Nathan, Heidi and I decided to try it out and whack it up to full temperature straight away. We can deal with a 125º dry sauna right? I, of course, was first to start sweating. We amused ourselves with a few games of ‘I spy’ then jumped straight into the A to Z memory game of ‘I went on holiday and in my bag I packed…’ … ‘an aquarium’ followed by ‘an aquarium, a broach…’ … ‘an aquarium, a broach, a clock…’ and so on (I won’t bore you with our complete A to Z list). This game started out fun but as soon as we started getting to the latter end of the alphabet (‘an STD, a T-Rex, a Unicorn’), the time-consuming nature of repeating all 18 previous words and adding on the next became difficult, especially when you’re sweating out of every single pore of your body and the humidity is at an all time high. We were determined to finish the game though and weren’t content until we got to ‘a Zebra’ to then run out of the boiling pit and straight into a cold shower. Won’t be rushing to do that again anytime soon!

In the afternoon we explored our new surroundings. Our hostel slightly resembles a little holiday resort in the country and it definitely feels like we should be sleeping in log cabins by the fire. Especially when the weather is cold in the morning and at night (in the daytime, however, the sun definitely heats you up). Lake Taupo is a strong focal point of this small town, except this lake is almost 30miles long. We decided to find a patch of the lake, which actually looks like the sea, where we could lay for a bit. We managed to find a spot with a pebbly beach and a lot of seagulls and ducks. The sound of the waves crashing onto the shore (surely lakes aren’t meant to have this description?!) was incredibly relaxing causing a few naps to be had. Heidi and I then wandered the streets of Taupo town to shop for Josie’s birthday presents. In doing so, we inadvertently entered the “World’s Coolest McDonald’s”. Honestly, it was proudly displaying this title on the entrance doors. Why? Because it had a real full size plane in the kids play area for you to sit and dine in!! They definitely earned that title and I’m proud to have bought at 60cent ice cream from that establishment. After getting Josie’s amazing presents (and accidentally buying things for myself) we headed to Pak’nSave to purchase our necessary food for our stay. Pak’nSave is a cross between a bulk buy store such as Makro (it also resembles it a great deal) but with the cheap prices of Asda, for example. Nathan and I decided to make a meal that’d last our three night stay. A meal that would not only feed us for the duration of our time in Taupo but probably a family of ten as well. Beef mince, potatoes, onions, carrots and beef stock to create a quick stew or deconstructed shepherd’s pie.

The following day saw us go on a two hour return walk to Huka Falls. The walk was not as bad as expected and again, stunning. We passed the Taupo Bungy and Cliffhanger (Giant swing) site and were in awe of its beautiful location over the Waikato River. Unfortunately no one was about to endure the freefalling activities and so we only had the structures to look at. We continued onwards with our walk through the Thermal Spa park walkway. This took us over a few hills and back down to the hot springs location. A little footbridge led us across the thermal pools where tourists and locals bathed in the 37º water. It is an absolutely amazing sight to see and we were definitely going to have a dip in there after our mini trek to the waterfall. The walk was nice; a few hills on the way but they were balanced out with descents and lovely views of the river and surrounding areas. It took us just over an hour to reach the Huka Falls viewing area which was definitely worth it. When approaching the waterfall, the river got increasingly faster bringing back memories of studying rivers in geography at school. The water level can be ridiculously high at certain times in the day when they open up the dam further upstream. I think we missed this but the falls were still a beautiful sight to see and the constant rush of water through the narrow valley made me want to go white water rafting again. After many pictures and gazing at the falls, we started our return journey. We stopped off at the hot springs and bathed in the natural thermal water where areas of the river were extremely hot whilst other parts were freezing (well, relatively). There was a small waterfall going into this part of the river which was completely hot water. Think of running a bath and only running the hot tap and sitting underneath this hot tap for a few minutes. It was like that. The transition from this area of the river to the colder parts was amazing. These hot pools were the most natural ones we have visited and were definitely a highlight of our trip to Taupo. You could see the hot patches of water from the rippling effect and catch a perfect spot to bathe in; not too hot, not too cold but warm, tepid (or similar adjectives) and just right (this is sounding an awful lot like Goldielocks now). A friendly dog with two completely different coloured eyes then appeared and we spent a good twenty minutes stroking him wondering where his owner was (we came to the conclusion he just wandered off down here to relax and watch the world go by.. he had his usual spot). We left after some lunch and sun bathing and headed to Burger King by the lake to use their free wifi and browse bookme.co.nz (a discount website for all the tourist attractions) to book onto doing the extreme river swing the following day. We also spent a good hour and a half in the blistering sun looking for a hostel in Wellington. There were only five to choose from ranging from the dirt cheap with bad reviews to the pricy ones with moderately good reviews. We finally booked one though and headed back to our current hostel for dinner, beer and card games.

We awoke the following morning with mixed emotions (this keeps happening in New Zealand). These emotions were once again a cross between nervous and excited. Nathan, Josie and I were about to partake in the Taupo Cliffhanger, an extreme canyon swing over the Waikato River. We found it online for $60 cheaper than through the company themselves. I wore my walking shoes for only the second time since England (honestly, no matter how many times you read about bringing walking boots, ignore it. You don’t need them!). After completing the usual safety checks, Nathan and Josie were advised to pair up for a better swing whereas I was heavy enough (all of this muscle weighs a lot alright!) to still get a good swing. We approached the platform which hung over the river below and were kitted out in our harnesses. The only thing holding us in above this fast flowing river. The river leading towards the Huka Falls we had seen the previous day. Nathan and Josie were first. They were secured in by the two instructors (who claimed to be hungover from the previous night. Brilliant) and then hung over the river by a crane. They were then told to wave to the camera and then to look behind and wave to Heidi who was filming this on Nathan’s GoPro. This is where the instructors were mean. Whilst innocently waving to Heidi, they suddenly dropped. The 45metre freefall and begun and neither of them had a chance to even think about what was happening. It’s evident from the video footage Heidi got that she probably screamed more than they did. Josie was apparently speechless in the descent whilst Nathan exclaimed that it was the most he has felt like a bird in his life. I, however, had just witnessed the two of them drop in a split second and then swing up the valley and back down a few times. It was my turn next and now I was definitely more nervous.

Nathan and Josie returned safe and sound. I slowly approached the launch platform and was secured into the harness. The crane then moved to the left and I hung over the river like a toy in the grabber about to fall out. I knew their trick now though and so when they told me to wave to their camera and then to Heidi with the GoPro, I was expecting the worst and the sudden drop. They didn’t do it straight away though. What was now worse was that when I was expecting to fall, I didn’t. What were they about to surprise me with? My heart was beating fast and this only increased when they told me to let go of the harness rope and put my hands behind my head. They thought I was too ‘soft’ to not go through with it. I hesitantly released my grip from the harness and started to put my hands behind my head and lean back. I was shitting myself (pardon my French) but this just didn’t feel natural. In a situation like this you want to hold on, especially when you’re about to fall 45metres before the rope takes your weight and swings you back up. Reluctantly my hands were now somewhat placed behind my head. I looked down a few times and could see the rocky bank of the river. Mistake. Then bam they dropped me. I lasted approximately a second without holding on and screamed at the top of my voice. And swore. But the experience was unbelievable and my hands were soon up in the air as I soared above the river and parallel to the cliff face full of pigeons.

As we’re in New Zealand, we thought it’d only be right to watch the first Lord of the Rings. I had never seen it before (I know.. but I have seen the first two hobbits) and I loved it! It prepared us for our 6hour bus journey the following day to Wellington. We checked out at 10am and waited. Waited in the hostel common room until our 1pm cheaper-than-the-9am bus to the capital.

The coach left Taupo at 1pm and was fortunately pretty empty like our previous two bus journeys in New Zealand. This meant the four of us spread out occupying two seats each for maximum comfort. Halfway into our journey saw us stopping at a remote, small, old service ‘station’ called Flat Hills. It housed a café, souvenir and convenience shop and two chickens. One chicken was very heavy footed and walked as though it had wooden legs. We continued onward to Wellington and half an hour later, drove through Bulls town. It was definitely a very unforgeta-bull place to drive through (I would normally say excuse the pun but there’s really no need because they liked to have a joke in this town. Wait, it gets better..). On the local pub was a ‘remark-a-bull’, ‘love-a-bull’ on a pre school, ‘bank-a-bull’ on the bank, ‘consum-a-bull’ on McDonald’s, ‘const-a-bull’ on the police station and ‘unmiss-a-bull’ on the bins. There was also a large cardboard cut out of a bull with the slogan “bet my bulls are bigger than yours”. Excellent.

The journey was incredibly pretty and picturesque. We passed loads of small towns with barely any shops, cafés or people. Experienced many winding roads and no motorways. Just long stretches of beautiful countryside. When approaching Wellington six hours after leaving the small town of Taupo, the bundles of lit up houses on the hills and the harbour sitting in the sunset was reminding me of when we would drive through Port Talbot, Wales when we were younger.

We trekked for a good half an hour from the bus drop off point to our hostel with all our possessions on our backs. On arrival to our hostel, it was a little less beautiful than the coach trip. A window of the adjoining bar was smashed in, the entrance looked like we were going in to a crack den, the communal toilets resembled grotty public ones and our 8-bed room was a nice tight squeeze. The atmosphere of the whole hostel was odd and unlike any we’ve experienced in any of the hostels we’ve stayed in… but us being the budget travellers we are, we obviously opted for this accommodation over any of the others due to the price tag, $16.

Our first night in Wellington was spent away from our far from homely hostel. We decided the best way to deal with this change in comfort was to drink and so went on a mission to find a pub. It didn’t take long to find a nearby strip of pubs, clubs and fast food joints. We settled for an Irish bar where a live band (well, duo) were playing. All was going well; we had pints, a few card games on the go and two men singing Bruce Springsteen and other such classics. Then there was the solo drunken guy who went and made it weird. With his Guiness in hand, he approached the stage with some sultry moves you’d expect to see in a seedy film and not some classic Irish pub. After much hip gyrating (him, not us) the band went for a break and we got out of there. Welcome to Wellington! We hadn’t eaten since our plethora of snacks on the six hour bus journey and headed to find our dinner… until we got sidetracked by a Kebab shop which had Shisha for $20. Where did we do this shisha? Right outside the kebab window with a backdrop of chicken and lamb. After five minutes we were getting asked by a Māori man what we were doing. He had seen stuff like shisha on TV before but couldn’t grasp why people did it or why we didn’t have anything stronger and illegal in there. After a lot of repetition on why people do shisha and what it is, he called Nathan Ricky Martin and left.

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand. It is known as the cultural capital and prides itself on its quirky cafés, indie pubs, mountains of restaurants and cuba street; a street not far from our hostel reknowned for its out-there style. There’s a plethora of coffee shops, vintage clothing stores and busy bookshops nestled in a street full of cool fountains, talented buskers, artists painting via puppets and even an adult playstore. We spent the first full day in Wellington on this street walking up and down, browsing what the shops had to offer and looking at tattoo parlours. After a lunch at the best coffee shop in Wellington, we abused the free city wifi and headed to get quotes for tattoo designs for Nathan and Josie.

I really like Wellington. The only downside to this city is our hostel. It’s bearable but the people who are staying here (whether long-term or short-term like us) are unlike any I’ve met before. There’s a mix of loud, messy and odd individuals who have no respect for their surroundings. They leave dirty dishes everywhere, smoke in their rooms and generally don’t clean up after themselves. Luckily the four of us are staying with nice roommates; a Chilean girl studying in Wellington to become a yoga instructor and three guys, two of whom are working at the hostel to earn their stay. We, however, have spent so much time outside of the hostel experiencing the vibrant life of the capitial that it hasn’t been much of an issue.

Friday the 4th April. A normal day for many.. but not Josephine Atkinson. She was turning 22! She awoke bright and early to Skype her family whilst we wrapped her presents, blew up balloons and drew faces on them (one for each of us and her family members), decorated her cake and made a lollipop trail for her to follow from the hallway to the room. We sand happy birthday at 9am in the morning (much to the delight of our sleeping roommates) and let her blow out the magic candles which never blow out. This bit didn’t exactly go to plan though because the candles gave off so much smoke that we had to put them out in a bottle of water incase that we set off an alarm (pah, as if there’s any alarms in this hostel).

After cake and sparkling wine for breakfast and Josie loving her presents, we headed out for a wander down the harbourfront and to find a restaurant for her birthday lunch. One immediately stood out amongst the rest; The Crab Shack where their slogan was “we’ve got crabs, do you?”. Josie and I ordered the slow roasted lamb shank, Heidi ordered the cajun fish of the day whilst Nathan opted for 1kg of crabs. Smelly crabs. It took him the best part of an hour to munch through this mountain of crab and even gave him crab scented farts. We were all suitably full (the food was absolutely delicious) and headed to a pub for a birthday pint in the sun. Then came the ice skating. There’s a temporary rink on the harbourfront which costs $20 for however long you wish to skate for. We were all (well, not Nathan) displaying Bambi-like footwork on the ice to begin with whilst holding on to the sides for dear life and going 2mph to ensure we didn’t slip up. But once we got used to it, we were professionals. I was skating around happily, speeding up a little and then crash. I fell. Straight onto my derrière in an awkward slump on the wet ice. Confidence knocked complete with a sore knee. Josie was growing in confidence by the minute and after a few laps holding on, she was soon enough gliding around without a care in the world. After an hour and a half of skating, we headed to the liquor store to prepare for the night ahead. Josie’s birthday celebrations were, you could say, a very drunk affair.

The following morning saw a few groggy heads and empty wallets. We were up surprisingly early though and on the hunt for refreshing beverages to cure the dry mouths and sore heads. Nathan and I decided to head to Zealandia, an eco-sanctuary experience just a ten minute drive away from the city centre. It is the world’s first fully-fenced urban eco-sanctuary with its aim to restore the valley to its pre-human state. The fence stops any inference from predators such as mice and possums (your bag is checked prior to entering for any rats or similar) and thus ensures these rare birds and reptiles are safe in recovery of this beautiful valley. The whole park is breathtaking and really is like paradise. We saw a range of rare birds and lizards, including the flightless Tahakē, the Tuatara; the ‘living fossils’ reptile that was extinct on mainland before being released in the sanctuary and the Kākā, a large parrot which we got to see feeding. At the top end of the valley was the upper dam. Now the view from this part of the sanctuary was absolutely incredible. Looking back down the valley and seeing all the surrounding wildlife in its natural state was an awesome experience and one that I would greatly recommend to anyone on the North island.

We’re now getting ready to leave Wellington and head back up to Auckland for our flight to Los Angeles on Monday. Now the most difficult thing about this journey is the length. It is going to take us 13hours to get back to Auckland via ‘the naked bus’ (we’ve told Josie that a requirement to board the coach is to in fact be completely undressed, I’ll let you know how this pans out). I have loved Taupo and Wellington and although I am gutted we didn’t manage to make it to the south island, we have managed to fit so much in and been to some pretty amazing places in the past two weeks here in New Zealand that I guess I’ll just have to come back at some point to explore the southern half.

Ciao for now and hopefully the next time I blog I won’t be stinking of rotten eggs!

March 22, 2014

Freefalling, seeing bacon and saying bye to Sydney

Since the last blog a fair bit has happened. Our final few weeks in Sydney comprised of 45+ hours a week of working followed by weeknights of watching My Kitchen Rules (an awesome cooking gameshow in a style that reminds me of The Apprentice) and activities at the weekends such as the Mardi Gras parade and a cocktail making competition our friend Jimmy was in (which meant a lot of ‘chartreuse and juice’ resulting in drunken conversations with people inviting us to their own rich restaurants and cabins in the Blue Mountains).

Then came my last day at Vivo café (8am til 7:30pm) and much relief of finally finishing working at the most stressful, loud and busiest place I have ever experienced. But it doesn’t matter anymore because I’m free and I managed to save up a fair bit of money from the job. We all made sure we quit our jobs with a week to spare to give ourselves a final week in Sydney to do fun activies and see the city from a different perspective (i.e. not the job hunting/working role we’ve become accustomed to in the past three months). Josie and I went to visit her uncle and auntie and their three children for one final time. They put us up for three nights when we first arrived in the city, something of which we were very thankful of. Our weekend consisted of playing a card game called ‘Sleeping Queens’ which initially sounded very confusing (meh, I still found it confusing after a few attempts), helping Josie’s uncle get a very heavy treadmill and having my first roast dinner since leaving home six months ago!!

The following day I awoke to mixed emotions. Anxious, excited and a little bit constipated (of which I was slightly thankful due to the activity we were about to partake in), we headed off to the North coast of Sydney. A good two hour train ride from the city centre and we arrived in Wyong; a small old-fashioned town with a community feel to it. We all got in a taxi and headed on a ten minute drive through winding roads and fields and paid our $5 fare (at this point we definitely knew we were out of the city!). Even more nervous and excited, we wandered into a metal warehouse where we filled in our forms and waited for what felt like an enternity for our group to skydive. Yep, we were about to throw ourselves out of a plane at 14,000ft. We got equipped in the not so comfortable harnesses and were briefed about what we were about to endure. A quick video interview (for our $130 dvds we were purchasing) and we were boarding the bus to head to the runway. It was by this point that Josie was doubting herself.. well, we did almost leave on the minibus without her skydive instructor. But all was fine and our tandem partners were making us feel at ease.. sort of. The ascent in the plane was long but the views of the surrounding coast, rainforests and bays were calming… okay, not really. It was difficult to get your head around the fact that this scenery was about to look like the size of a pea.

We made it. We had reached 14,000ft and we were now securely fastened to our instructors (well, who knows if Josie was…). Okay, the next part flew by (excuse the pun) but one second we were all in the plane and the next thing Josie’s falling out and then Heidi and then Nathan. I was last out of the plane. Sitting on the edge of that plane is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. Feeling nothing but wind beneath your feet and looking out to only see blue skies and the miniscule land beneath you is certainly something I will never forget. It was my turn to fall out.. no going back and nothing to do but scream and try to enjoy it. F**K… is something I suddenly start to say a lot… in between screams and other expletives. The freefall from that plane is something I can only mildly compare to Oblivion at Alton Towers (think of that drop but for 20x the amount of time). It was truly terrifying to begin with but as soon as you’re falling, there’s nothing you can do and the fear turns to excitement and adrenaline and next thing you know you’ve got the parachute out and you’re gliding for the final part of the descent. The instructor lets you steer the parachute for a while and the views you get to see are pretty special. I have honestly never experienced anything like it in my life. The whole transition of emotions from the fear to the rush of adrenaline is something I will never forget.. and I won’t forget it because I have the video of my skydive to keep reliving for the rest of my days. Honestly, if you ever get the chance to do a skydive then jump at the chance (again, pun not intended) because it is something you won’t regret.

That night we decided to celebrate our daredevil activity with a glass of wine.. or many. We headed to the city to Scubar. The door staff did their usual thousand questions on anyone entering (where have you been tonight? How much have you had to drink? Why are you drinking? Why are you having fun?) and almost didn’t let us in because they thought we were too drunk (we weren’t). Honestly, they’d probably stop you from coming in even if all you had done is looked at a bottle of alcohol. They eventually let us in but half an hour later all I could see was bacon. Streaks of bacon in horizontal lines. Streaks of bacon covering up people’s faces. I turned to a bacon-faced Josie and told her how I was ‘seeing bacon’. Luckily it was just a very odd phase and I continued the night being able to see as well as you possibly can in a dim lit, smoke-filled club.

The next day of fun consisted of going to Balmoral beach which is about a ten minute bus ride from our Neutral Bay apartment. This beach is one we’ve been to a few times in the last few weeks due to its close proximity and beauty. I’ve even witnessed two weddings here and a lot of PDA. We swam off our hangovers and after a few relaxing hours on the beach, we rewatched our skydive videos. Honestly cannot wait for you guys to see them! Highlights include Josie looking like she’s just been born and is seeing the world for the first time, Heidi being kissraped by her instructor who is also caught smelling his armpit and Nathan screaming ‘maaaaayyyyyttttteeeee’ when his parachute opens.

On Wednesday we headed to the infamous Blue Mountains. Located a two and a half hour train journey from the city centre, we traveled out of Sydney to the national park of the Mountain range. We arrived at Katoomba (one of the small towns in the area sitting 3336ft above sea level) and made our way to the Echo Point viewing platform. The view was breathtaking. I have never seen nature like it. A vast amount of rainforest nestled between mountain ranges. One landmark of the Blue Mountains is ‘The Three Sisters’. A rock formation over the Jamison valley consisting of three rocks (their names are Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo). After taking a picturesque cliff side walk from Echo Point, we arrived at the ‘Scenic World’ cable car which would take us across the valley almost 650ft above the ground. We then boarded the world’s steepest land train which descended down a mountain face at 52º. A stroll along the rainforest boardwalk through old mining houses and furnaces, Monty’s tree which has a hole in the middle of its trunk due to a bush fire and many eucalyptus trees (which is where the Blue Mountains get their ‘Blue’ from due to sunlight and the ecualypts giving off a blue haze to the area). The final part of our ‘Scenic World’ tour consisted of a cable car back up the mountain where we ate lunch looking out to the wonderful views of the area. Be warned though, these modes of transportation set you back about $35 (can’t remember exact figure) but it is definitely worth it if you want to see the beauty of the Blue Mountains.

Thursday saw us running a few errands in the city such as collecting my final weekly pay (gonna miss that!), closing our bank accounts and finding a new backpack. It also consisted of meeting up with one of Josie’s coursefriends from university who is traveling with her boyfriend. It is crazy how many people we have met up with in Sydney whether they were people we’ve met since traveling or friends from home and school. We then decided to walk back to the flat via the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The bridge walk provides some beautiful views of the Opera house and Circular quay as well as the city skyline as a whole. After three and a half months in this place I sure am going to miss it!!

We decided our last proper night out in Sydney would be at Greenwood. The place where Nathan and I saw Snoop Dogg give a ‘DJ set’ a few months back. The club is situated in an old church and is usually packed on a Thursday night. We pre drank for the final time at our flat and grabbed a taxi. A taxi which caused a lot more hassle than it was worth. After half an hour arguing over the fare (he was lying to us over the pricing even after we called up the company who told him he was wrong), we celebrated our final drunken night out in the city.

Heidi, Nathan and I (Josie was far too hungover) met up with Nathan’s half brother Leigh and his girlfriend Danielle on Friday. After a long and stuffy hungover bus journey, we began our 8km walk from Bondi beach. The walk took us from the famous surfing spot all the way to Coogee beach with a handful of smaller, beautiful beaches along the way and also a clifftop graveyard. It’s safe to say we cured our hangovers by sweating out all of the previous night’s alcohol. We stopped off at the beach just before Coogee. The water was freezing but the marine life underneath you was incredible. This inlet of water was surrounded by concrete and you would never expect to see so much life in this seemingly man-made area. Nathan had his snorkeling gear on and immediately spotted the Groper fish. It was a massive, blue, ample-lipped fish almost the size of Heidi. We followed it around for a good half hour and when I marvelled at it, it would pick up rocks off the sea bed and throw them around causing other fish to go crazy thinking there was food. Speaking of food, we were pretty hungry from all the walking and so we headed back to Bondi to this cool Burrito place Leigh recommended. It was amazing.

Our final adventurous day saw me, Josie and Nathan heading to Wet’n’Wild waterpark. The park only opened in December 2013 and is branded the biggest in the world. It cost us $70 but it was definitely worth it! There was a plethora of slides ranging from the tame (four people rings down slower tube slides) to the extreme (one with a 90º half pipe ramp, one with a massive enclosed cylinder where you slide up and down either side to eventually shoot out the bottom again). There was even a lazy river which we decided would be the best way to wind down and let our food settle after lunch. Nothing says relaxing like laying back on a double rubber ring, letting the current take you around the course in the blistering hot sun… with Rihanna ‘Where Have You Been’ blasting out of the in-park speakers and a hoard of noisy, bratty, splashing children flipping rubber rings and following you around this ‘relaxing’ stream. Perfection. Back to the extreme slides free of screaming children.. unless you count us as screaming children that is.

Our favourite slide was definitely the 360Rush. Before you could even climb the stairs you had to be weighed and given a back brace which resembled a jet pack. The flights of stairs seemed never ending but once you reached the top, the sounds of hydraulics became all too familiar. The slide was like nothing I have ever been on before, nothing I have ever seen before. You enter a capsule which feels like a coffin and stand upright with your feet crossed and your arms crossed onto your chest. A countdown is played into your ear and as it gets to 1 the floor beneath you suddenly disappears in a trap-door fashion and you freefall down the slide vertically, up into a 360º loop and back down straight out the bottom into a pool. It was such an insane slide and the feeling of freefalling for the second time in a week definitely made me shout my best French at the top of the drop. We spent a good eight hours at Wet’n’Wild and decided to call it a day when the weather started to turn colder.

Our final day in Sydney consisted of cleaning the flat, packing all of our possessions into our backpacks, having our final meal in the city (I opted for an amazing Chicken Katsu curry which was better than Wagamamas) and a drink at a German beer bar down by The Rocks. My time in Sydney has definitely flown by but I’ve loved every second (okay not the beating up and mugging Nathan and I experienced) but to have been lucky enough to live in two amazing apartments in almost central locations in the city and work at a bustling CBD café have definitely helped shape our time and experience in this amazing city.

Now it’s off to Auckland in New Zealand where our next chapter in this adventure begins. I’ll be keeping a more regular blog now that we are entering the final eight weeks of our travels.

February 23, 2014

I come from a land down under

G’day readers,
No, I’ve not really started talking like an Aussie. I don’t say words like ‘arvo’ (for afternoon), ‘nervo’ (for nervous), ‘devo’ (for devastated), ‘glad wrap’ (instead of cling film) or ‘capiscum’ (for the vegetable pepper). Despite being in the country for almost three months now (and in Sydney for over two months of that) we’ve still not got the hang of all this slang.

And what is crazy is that we’ve been here for two months already. The two and a half months in Asia flew by but this just seems to be going even quicker. We are all now working backpackers. Yep we all found jobs in Sydney – woooooo (kind of). Josie works as a sandwich maker/deli girl at a local café in Cammeray, Nathan’s a waiter at The Rocks Café down by the harbour bridge and Heidi works at the Gulyian café as a waitress also in The Rocks area. I, however, work at a café in the centre of the city underneath Australia’s biggest insurance company. A busy café where I initially applied to be a barista… times were getting tough so this little white lie was necessary. Before that I had many interviews, face-to-face sales job trials and not much luck at finding a stable, casual, hourly-paid job. What was I meant to do?! I got given a trial where I had to get around this miniscule porky I had told. Erm…. crap.

Okay okay so I may not be the most experienced barista in the world (it’s pushing it calling myself a barista in the first place) but I knew how to work the coffee machine from the one I used in my days working at the cinema… but I only know how to make lattes, cappuccinos and americanos. As soon as I arrived for my trial, they’re making flat whites, doppios, piccolos and chai lattes. It didn’t start too smoothly and I thought I’d be shown the door in the first hour. That initial hour passed though and next thing I know I’m having a meeting with the manager 9 hours later asking me to come back tomorrow. The first few days of working there were definitely shrouded in a cloud of fear, a cloud of coffee fear. The pressure of making coffees and doing the fancy leaf and love heart art was all too much for me so I avoided it as much as I could and now I’m a general bar hand making all the soft drinks, fruit juices, milkshakes, smoothies and teas. Phew. Oh and I often have to wash up all of the cups, saucers and glasses but hey, it’s good money!

At first, I hated it. The standard of every drink was so high that any small mistake was picked up on. There was also a lot of shouting from the managers and supervisors and whenever it was busy, everybody was stressed. Since then though I have settled in a lot more and can somewhat handle the pretty much constant busy periods at work. I work roughly 45 hours a week and it still hits me pretty much every day that I’m living and working in Sydney. One major bonus of the job is the free food and drink I get for my break. Anything from a toasted turkish sandwich to a range of salads to a wide selection of hot food on the deli counter. It’s safe to say I eat well whilst working and even get to bring home the occassional leftovers.

Anyway, enough about work! Since my last blog (all the way back in December last year!), we’ve been making the most of our days off. I work Monday to Friday, 9am til 6pm and so the weekends are my only real chance to see the sights of Sydney. We’ve spent many a weekend at Manly and Bondi beaches, drank a lot of goon and met up with old school friends. The first was Carla who I used to hang out with during the Pulse youth club days back when I was 15/16 years old. We met up in Sydney for a few happy hour drinks; it was good to catch up! Last weekend me and Josie spent the day with Gemma and Sophie, who are currently traveling, and their friend Nathan. I knew Gemma from middle school all the way back in the early 2000s when we were just 10/11 years old. We knew that we’d be in Sydney at the same time so took the opportunity to have a few drinks at Darling harbour… in the rain. A nice welcome to Sydney for them! We then went to the club Scary Canary in the night where Sophie put on a splendid performance with a stranger. The music started to get a bit tamer towards the end of the night with ‘Time of my Life’ making Sophie turn into a professional dancer with her new dance partner. Scenes from ‘Dirty Dancing’ were played out in front of our very eyes and a rather large crowd soon formed around them. The epic finale, however, was to the tune of ‘My Heart Will Go On’. The dancing was taken to the next level and soon enough Sophie was running into the arms of said stranger, getting lifted in the air and being span around. Celine Dion would have been proud.

A few days later we met up with them again and went for a meal and a few drinks at a pub down The Rocks on Circular Quay. It felt so weird to be able to exchange traveling stories because they had just come from being in Asia for two months. They did pretty much the same route as us and it was cool to swap the different experiences we had in each place and country. Unfortunately, they had to call it a night and head back to their friend’s house where they were staying for the night. Heidi and I, however, didn’t feel like going home yet and so grabbed another $12 (roughly £6.50) bottle of wine and headed to the steps of the Opera House to drink like tramps… just in a really nice location. It was a school night for me (work at 9am the following day) but that didn’t stop us from sitting there for a good hour, taking in the sights of the lit up harbour bridge and the city skyline. It made us realise how lucky we are to be out here and able to do things like this.. but yet at the same time it felt so normal to see the bridge and the opera house. I guess two months of traveling into the city via the bridge has become a normal thing to do.

Some other activities I’ve done since my last blog include going to a Ben and Jerry’s open air cinema with Heidi. She got us tickets to the one in Bondi where live bands played whilst the sun was setting, free ‘Scotchy Scotch Scotch’ ice cream was at your fingertips and the evening was finished off with a screening of Anchorman 2. It was an awesome evening. We also experienced the awesome sights of Chinese New Year when heading back from Bondi. Some of the main buildings along George street in the city centre were used as blank canvases for projections of Chinese artwork celebrating the year of the horse. Me and Heidi also visited the Sydney Museum of contemporary art and oggled at some odd ‘art’. Nathan and I saw Snoop Dogg/Lion at a club night about ten minutes away from our old flat. Instead of playing his own songs, which we all assumed he would, he didn’t. I mean you’d think he’d at least play ‘The Next Episode’ or ‘Young, Wild and Free’ right?… surely?… nope. Just songs off of what seemed to be his iTunes playlist. Still, it was cool to have been able to see him “dj” and in a pretty unique setting outside an old church with office blocks towering over you.

We’ve now moved out of our two bedroom apartment in Cammeray (the one we furnished with chairs off the street, corner sofas off of gumtree and mattresses from our landlord) and settled into our new abode in an area called Neutral Bay. Our new apartment is far too nice for us. We’re sub-leasing again and found this gem on gumtree (seriously going to start using that more when I’m back home). It came fully furnished with comfortable cream sofas (of which we’re desperately trying not to stain) and a 50″ tv complete with Sky (well, it’s called Foxtel out here). It’s so easy to get into town via the freeway bus taking roughly 5minutes.

The most recent activities we’ve partaken in is some sightseeing, eating and drinking. Nathan’s half brother Leigh and his girlfriend Danielle arrived back in Sydney after traveling to pretty much every country possible over the past year. They are now living in the city again and wanted to take us to their favourite getaway spot in Sydney. A good 45minute drive away from the CBD is The Basin, located near to Palm Beach where ‘Home and Away’ is filmed. We had to catch a ferry to our destination which conjured memories of the boat transport between islands in Thailand; it did not feel like Australia at all. The sun was shining as we travelled from the Palm Beach ferry port to the entrance of the Basin National Park passing secluded beaches and extravagant cliff side houses (of which Leigh has aspirations to live in). The Basin National Park was beautiful. You had to pay a small fee of $3 to spend the day there and as soon as you entered, there were wallabies jumping freely near the camping spots (which housed copious amounts of children who liked to bug the wildlife). The Basin is one of the most tranquil places I’ve ever been to. We spent the afternoon relaxing by the shore of the lake. Around us were ducks, wallabies and lizards and after a quick dip in the freezing cold lake, we tucked into a picnic whilst fighting away the annoying tiny ants that insisted on crawling all over you. After a few hours at the Basin, we caught the ferry back to mainland and Leigh and Danielle took us to The Newport Pub where we got a drink in an idyllic setting overlooking the Pittwater lake and beaches.

We then drove to Danielle’s family home where her parents, Rick and Deb, put on a feast of epic proportions. We experienced our very first Australian barbie with lots of meats, oysters, prawns, salads and calamari rings. After filling ourselves with some of the best food we’ve had since traveling, we drank a lot of beer and wine (we even brought some goon to this civil gathering). Danielle’s parents were extremely welcoming and it was really interesting to hear them say how much they loved the history of Great Britain. It was a lovely evening and I really enjoyed getting to meet Leigh, Danielle and her family. I remember Nathan first mentioning his brother living in Sydney way back in the first year of university. Three years on and we got to spend the day with them!

On Sunday, Josie and I ventured to MacCallums Pool. Leigh and Danielle had highly recommended it so we headed there because it isn’t too far away from where we’re currently living. After a half hour walk, we arrived to spectacular views of the city skyline with the iconic landmarks of the Opera House and harbour bridge looking deceptively further apart from one another than they are. The pool was situated down some steps and surrounded by decking which hung over the harbour water. Every now and again the waves would increase and splash through the slatting. The pool was definitely worth a visit and quite popular with locals and serious swimmers doing their daily lengths. It’s days off like these mentioned in this blog that really make it worthwhile working and living in Sydney. Being able to visit one of the many beaches in Sydney or hanging out with the country’s wildlife is something I’m really grateful of. Obviously it sucks to be working loads of hours in the week but I’m thankful for the opportunity to do so.

Right, enough of the soppiness. I’m going to try and update my blog more frequently again from now on. I will definitely be doing weekly blog posts when we travel through New Zealand and America on the last leg of our journey. I think it’s quite understandable if I don’t update it as often at the moment because nobody wants to be bored with the ins and outs of a working week at a café.

Ciao for now possums.

P.s. I really like possums.

December 24, 2013

Pooing in the Sydney Opera House, Heidi’s 22nd birthday and hunting the streets for free furniture

Since my last blog post we’ve settled into our apartment! Yep, about an hour after publishing my previous blog we went and saw an apartment in a place called Cammeray in North Sydney. Josie’s auntie and uncle were of great help taking us to the viewing and moving us in a few days later. It was done very quickly and we could finally relax in our own space after two and a half months of moving around. Now begins the not so fun part though as we search for jobs and do real world stuff like the weekly shop.

I last updated this blog two weeks ago so since then a fair bit has happened. I won’t bore you (too much) with all the mundane stuff like job searching on Gumtree or trying to decide whether to have pasta and tuna for dinner or pasta and cream cheese or pasta and cream cheese and sweet chilli or pasta and… you get the idea. We celebrated our first night in the apartment with goon. Lots and lots of delicious box wine and we also made a lot of use of the sofa we had in the living room. We knew its days were numbered as our landlord was going to get some smelly furniture removal guys to take it away in a couple of days (seriously they stank, they left a trail of B.O in the hallway and living room). But before all that happened we had Heidi’s 22nd birthday to celebrate in true Reading style (and for the first time in three years it was minus our other Reading housemates 😦 ).

As with every Heidi birthday, the day starts early. Think of Christmas day when you were a child; it’s a lot like that. She was exciteable, jumpy, loud, happy and wearing a party hat. First rule: You must always wear your party hat. Present exchanging, cake, hand made birthday cards and more cake and then we headed into Sydney city centre for the first time since coming here. Our bus route uses the Sydney harbour bridge so cue looking like tourists and pointing at the Opera House in awe in amongst a bus full of business people who must get this every day. But seriously it’s so cool using that bus to get into town, I feel pretty privileged to see these landmarks every day. One of Nathan’s gifts to Heidi was a boat ride along the harbour but not just any boat ride, a jet boat ride that speeds around the harbour doing 270º turns, spins and gets you very wet. Whilst Heidi and Nathan enjoyed their not-so-relaxing journey, Josie and I played a little game on Heidi’s ipad: to take pictures of ourselves with things Heidi loves. It was a competition to see who could get with the best things in photos. I had snaps with stuff like a nose inhaler, alcohol, a Ben and Jerry’s van and a boat named ‘friendship’. Josie had pictures with sweets, mouthwash, Aboriginal buskers and a dog. The dog that clinched her the win. I was gutted. Oh and we had a picture with a McDonald’s employee.

We got some free Ben and Jerry’s, grabbed some lunch and did the touristy things like going to the opera house and harbour bridge and using any free wifi we could find. Whilst in the opera house I needed the toilet. Now I had heard good things about these toilets. Josie’s cousin had told her mum that the favourite part about her trip to perform at the opera house were the toilets. They were uniquely designed and each cubicle had mood lighting to really add to the atmosphere of doing your business. I feel very privileged to have poo’d in the Opera House. I’d definitely do it again and I can see why these restrooms overshadowed everything else about the Opera House for Josie’s cousin. Relieved, we readied ourselves for a crazy night out in Scary Canary. The club that the cast of Geordie Shore went to in the series where they came to Oz. We pre drank our goon, played musical statues to much amusement and got a bus to town. A bus journey where Josie fell off of her seat and almost out of the emergency exit. She sat there for a moment as if nothing had happened and it was a normal place to sit. It’s safe to say we were all fairly drunk, Nathan even thought that everyone on the bus was heading to Scary Canary. Not quite.

We had a fair walk to the club. Josie obviously found time to throw up on the way which we found hilarious. It came out of nowhere and every time she went to talk, more would just projectile out. On entry into the club we made sure we got the free bottle of sparkling wine they’d promised us for Heidi’s birthday. We danced like crazy (apparently I kept getting low) and had fun using my camera to take pictures. My camera is more like a GoPro now (not intentionally) as the screen is broken so every picture is a surprise when looking at them on the iPad the next day. It makes taking photos a bit more exciting though. We don’t quite remember much from the club (except a brief moment where we shared a four way hug telling each other we loved one another and kissing each other on the cheek… alcohol makes you soppy ey?!). Alcohol, dancing, more alcohol, more dancing (probably can’t really call whatever we do dancing) and then it was Nathan’s turn to be sick. A lot. Surprisingly Josie let someone else do the throwing up and looked after him. She sorted him out with loads of water whilst Nathan spewed up the spinach pasta dish we’d cooked Heidi earlier that night. We called it a night after that and grabbed a taxi back to ours where Heidi and I were adamant we would continue drinking goon when we got back. We poured ourselves a generous glass each, had a sip and realised what a mistake we’d made. Of course we weren’t going to continue drinking, there were four Josie’s running around the room!!

The next day featured a few sore heads, much amusement at the pictures taken on my broken camera and a lot of fizzy drinks and bad food. And this was also the day the sofa got taken away. It was as if the bailiffs were round and we had to surrender the one item of furniture in our lounge. Me and Nathan decided to scour our peaceful, family-oriented neighbourhood for furniture as it was ‘clear our weekend’. Yep, here in Australia they have a fortnightly clear out where they can dump their unwanted stuff outside their homes for anyone to have and if it’s not taken by Monday, the council come along and dispose of it for them. So we set off and initially found four wine glasses (it’ll make goon taste that little bit better) but then in the distance next to an old desk and a lamp we saw what could only be described as ‘the perfect chair to come across when hunting the streets for furniture’. A Lazyboy recliner 3000 with built in speakers and a cup holder and a massaging headrest and… Okay maybe it wasn’t exactly like that but we did come across a reclining leather chair which had a bit of mould and a funny smell but nothing a clean couldn’t sort out. We found this chair about a 15minute walk from our flat and decided instead of making two trips, we’d add a computer spinning desk chair on top of this already insanely heavy recliner. Easy… was not a word I uttered at all during our painfully long trek back. We live in a hilly area so even the smallest incline felt like an expedition, stopping every two minutes to ease the burning pain in our forearms. 50minutes later and we were home. Heidi and Josie couldn’t quite believe what we had come back with. We cleaned the chairs up and whilst tipping the recliner on its side, we heard a rattling. A familiar noise of loose change. I found where it was coming from and we made a small incision in the fabric at the base of the chair. Josie was quick to quip “I bet it’ll only be like $2”. Oh how wrong she was. The first thing I pulled out was a $2 coin (we were already going to get more than Josie’s prediction) and was quickly followed by $1, another $2, and then a bit more loose change. Whilst rooting around for any more, I touched something plastic-y, resembling the feel of a note in Australian currency. It was $10! Altogether we found $16 in the seat. Not bad being paid for a free recliner. So since then we’ve slowly furnished our flat with other people’s unwanted stuff:

1) Brown leather recliner

2) Two computer desk chairs

3) Four fancy wine glasses

4) A toaster

5) Cooking pots and pans

6) A musical baby’s chair (for Heidi)

7) A tripod

8) and a blanket we cut up and used as rags to clean the furniture with

All in all it’s not a bad haul for the one and a half weeks we’ve been living here.

We partook in our first bit of paid work in Sydney last weekend. Gumtree is the hub for basically everything out here…seriously they love it. The majority of jobs are advertised on there including one asking for ‘Santa’s little helpers’ for casual charity work in the city. When we arrived bright and early for it, we found out that we were going to be dressed head to toe in reindeer antlers and flashing badges. We were going to be the people we’d passed on Heidi’s birthday looking like this. We were about to become those annoying street hasslers. We got kitted out with roughly 25 foam antlers on each arm and another 50 around our belts making us look like peacocks from behind. The badges were placed just about anywhere, including on our ear lobes. Complete with our collection bucket and big red bag, we were ready to head out to the city centre in search of kind hearted Australians to donate or buy antlers for $5 each. Josie and I found a spot on a busy crossroads with a constant flow of people, plus when they were waiting for the crossing to turn green they kinda felt guilty hearing us state what charity we were helping and thus donated. We were fundraising for ‘Children Cancer Institute of Australia’ where they are working to seek cures and save lives. The area we were in had a couple of homeless people who weren’t happy we were getting in the way of people helping them so I moved to the other side of the road where a big issue seller was. He too wasn’t happy I was there but I stayed put because it’s all for a good cause at the end of the day! He did inform me of a man who goes around insulting people who are homeless and begging. Across the road I could see this heckler abusing a man trying to get medicine money for a life saving operation for one of his family. To see him receiving further abuse like that was horrible but the police were called to diffuse the situation. Over the two days we did this fundraising, as a four we collectively raised over $3300 (over £2000) which for about 9hours work over the two days isn’t bad at all! This was paid fundraising though and so you got to keep 20% of what you made which inevitably made you work harder to raise more money for the charity.

Since then we’ve been hunting for more stable, hourly paid jobs. This has been more difficult than imagined, a lot of retail places had already hired for Christmas and some of the cafés and restaurants may be hiring in the new year. Call centre work isn’t available until the new year and the majority of jobs on gumtree are for face to face sales which is very difficult to do when you’re not covered in very noticeable antlers (so yeah face to face sales for another charity wasn’t really my thing.. Plus it was all commission based). I have had a fair few interviews for things though and have somehow managed to get interviews for proper full time career jobs whereby I’ve had to tell little white lies on how long I’m in Sydney for. One of my interviews saw me arrive at an office full of people in proper suit attire, all scribbling away their vast sales experience and skills ready to be interrogated in a group interview and big themselves up in an Apprentice style manner to ensure they get the job, “I am always the best at what I do…I like to see my name at the top of the sales charts” …. “Hi I’m Matt and the most sales experience I have is selling store cards and insurances in Argos… Oh and upselling popcorn and drinks at the cinema”. Okay I was a lot more confident than that and tried to get the job I didn’t want (a door to door sales person, again completely commission based…). Another interview I went to for a company who are also based in London and New York (ahhhh) saw me sitting in the lobby watching all the important office people walking around in their high heels and laptops in hand. One girl near me turned to a guy waiting next to her and uttered, “are you here for the graduate job interview too?” to which he replied “yes” …. Er what?! I’m going for a graduate job now? I haven’t even looked for any of those back in England let alone going for one in Sydney when I’m only here temporarily. Oops. Other interviews had gone a bit better though. One for a recuitment agency saw us giving all our experience in between questions such as “if you were an animal, what would you be and why?” (Obviously a dog…) and ” what is your unique or weird habit” (I can blow bubbles off of my tongue… oddly enough she didn’t want to see this) and in one group interview I met a Welsh girl who could also blow bubbles, ate cheeseburgers from McDonalds without the burger or relish or gherkins and was best friends with Carley from the MTV show The Valleys.

I did get offered one job but it relied completely on getting people to sign up to a charity to start monthly donations from January. You had to get two sales a week to get your basic pay and get a lot more in the week to even get anywhere near enough money to make it worth doing the job. I don’t fancy working a job where I may not even earn any money in a week. I’ve decided I’ll continue the job search after Christmas and hope everywhere that’s not face to face sales or commission based needs staff.

In a bit of a sour end to this blog (and it pains me to say this in this festive season) we were involved in an incident on Saturday night when about to go enjoy a night out in town. Heidi stayed in as she had her first day at work the following day so me, Nathan, Josie and her friend Hazzie from home (who’s currently out here with her friends) all pre drank our goon and got the bus into the city Centre. Whilst en route, I was stating how I needed the toilet and so we decided we’d go to the public toilet just next to the bus stop we got off at. When we joined the queue, the two girls in front were getting verbal abuse off of a group of about 15-20 Aussie guys and girls. We tried to calm them down saying that we were sure these girls weren’t ‘mouthing off’ to the girls in the group and it seemed to work for about two minutes as they stopped harassing them. We soon realised that we were waiting for a toilet which wasn’t even open so turned around to go back to Josie and Hazzie who were sat at the bus stop trying to fix Josie’s sandal. As we turned around to them, some of the guys approached us and touched our pockets saying “give us your shit… Give us what you’ve got”. We obviously said no and next thing Nathan is punched by one of the guys and pushed up against the bus shelter and I’ve got people surrounding me throwing punches. All I remember is trying to get away from them whilst shouting to Nathan that we should just run. There was a pub on the other side of the road that we could run to and so without even thinking we began to run from them. They kept grabbing us, ripping both of our t shirts and continuously punching us. I tried my best to hit them back but I honestly have no recollection as to whether I did manage to or not. Nathan got hit pretty badly on his left cheek leaving it swollen for the past few days. Next thing I know we’re by the pub with two rather blasé men sitting there saying “they won’t hurt you here” but that’s mainly because they’d run away by this point. I was mainly concerned where the girls were but luckily there were escorted over by some people passing by. It was then that I realised they had stolen my phone from my pocket. I honestly cannot believe this happened and I’m still so shocked by it all. It was so unprovoked and they were definitely out with the intent to mug someone. It was just so scary how something like that could happen in such a busy area with plenty of people at 11:15pm and also so shocking that this happened in Sydney considering all the places we’ve been on our travels. You always hear horror stories about places in Asia and not in the main city centre of Sydney. We were very lucky in that they weren’t carrying any weapons as far as we know. We rang the police and gave statements and called it a night. Those low lifes better get what’s coming to them!!

We’re not gonna let this get to us though. It’s now Christmas Day here in Sydney and we’re gonna celebrate it with a little flat Christmas morning of presents, goon and food and then head to Bondi beach to spend a very different Christmas! Missing everyone at home this festive season and I hope you all have an amazing Christmas and New Year! Here’s to 2014! 😀

December 9, 2013

Checking into the Asylum, diving with Nemo and visiting Peter Andre’s waterfall

Our flight from Brisbane was pain free. We checked-in in record time, boarded with way too many sandwiches and snacks for a two hour flight and landed in Cairns just before midnight. We took things slowly again because we knew we were about to sleep in the arrivals lounge for our third airport sleepover. This one, however, was quite different. We were greeted to a lack of chairs (no sofas here like in Brisbane) and the seating that was available had to be sought out and fought for amongst the crowds of fellow travellers (or squatters) looking for a place to rest their head. We found a row of seats big enough for us when suddenly we heard the voice of an Aussie cleaner telling us ‘to not get too comfortable’ (it wasn’t really possible to so we ignored her thinking she was making a joke). What she meant however was that they were closing until 3am (it was now midnight, what is the point in the airport closing for three hours?!). I wouldn’t have minded leaving as much if it wasn’t for said cleaner looking all smug at the fact she was kicking us out whilst masticating her bubblegum in an unattractive manner. There was just no need to be so rude about it, a simple ‘you can’t sleep here as we’re closing’ would’ve been fine (sort of..). Plus, they would never have spoken to us like they did if we were older and weren’t surrounded by massive backpacks (but then I guess we are the minority who do this to save money). We felt defeated and joined the other travellers being ushered out and found the space where they told us to stay… a coffee shop seating area. The concrete floor seemed to be our best bet so we set up camp by laying on our microfibre towels, using our bags as pillows and any piece of clothing as a blanket. Well, it turned out to be one of our comfiest stopovers at an airport. So much so that we slept through the other twenty squatters going back inside at 3am. We finally awoke at 6am and boarded the free shuttle bus to our hostel:

Driver: “Where am I taking you?”
Us: “To the Asylum please…”

Never thought I’d say that in my life. Yep, our hostel for the next 5 nights was the Asylum. The cheapest we could find in Cairns; dubbed as the party hostel where it’s hard to get to sleep. Josie couldn’t wait, she loves a sleepless night. We pulled up outside the Asylum at half 6 in the morning, greeted with ‘Asylum’ graffiti plastering the walls and the main lobby locked up. There were still three guys drinking from the night before as it was Nick’s birthday the following day (one of the guys working there). We weren’t quite sure what we’d got ourselves into. The place actually looked like an old asylum from the front and surrounding us were boxes of goon, empty plastic cups and cigarette butts. We luckily got to check-in to our room early, make our own beds and manage to get some more sleep before heading out for the day.

Our first day in Cairns had us exploring our new surroundings. Our hostel was located in a quiet neighbourhood away from the busier part of the town. It was in an area where when we asked a cyclist which way it was to Woolworths she replied in a frantic manner:

“That way.. over there, quickly go now as this is the Aboriginal area. They’ll take everything you’ve got. Byeeeee”

Brilliant. Not only were we staying at a place called the Asylum, but now we were having to be careful where we walked (all is fine though and if we were to have to sacrifice anything to the Aboriginals then I’m sure Josie would have been willing to take one for the team). We decided to look into diving the Great Barrier Reef as soon as possible (it was the main reason we flew to Cairns) and booked to find Nemo and friends on Thursday with the best value company offering us the most for our money (the breakfast roll, buffet lunch and glass of wine on the return journey definitely swayed it). $175 later (about £100) we headed to the lagoon about a fifteen minute walk from our hostel; you can’t spend any money when you’re sunbathing right? The lagoon overlooked the east coast and reminded us of the fake beach in Brisbane. It is currently stinger season in Cairns due to the rising amount of jellyfish in the sea and thus this man made swimming area is the ideal way to cool off from the 30º+ heat. There are also loads of BBQ stations dotted around the park the lagoon is in. These are for public use and during a short downpour we had to take shelter by one filled with sausages, onions and burgers.. there may have even been some kangaroo on there. It was torture being next to it knowing that when we returned to our Asylum we’d have to cook spaghetti tuna. It just doesn’t really compare.

The student lifestyle we commandeered in Brisbane has continued here to an even greater extent. We had to trek into town for Woolworths and a drive-through bottle shop (oh the irony) and then back with our shopping. It was like the hour trips to Iceland and Lidl from our student halls back in our Bulmershe days at university. Except now it was hotter and 4litres of goon wine can be quite heavy. We were definitely in for a crazy night at the hostel as it was Nick’s birthday at midnight marking the end of his three day binge. Everyone was suitably stocked up with alcohol and after we made our pasta based meals, we joined in with the celebrations.

The Asylum has the craziest and oddest mix of people. There are around 8 of them working and living there and a lot more staying there. It isn’t just a backpacker hostel but a place where the slightly older generation holiday as well, for example one Welsh guy has been going back there for 14 years. The atmosphere is great and the staff (many of whom are between the ages 21-35) are very friendly and welcoming, introducing not only themselves but other travellers and colleagues. They party and socialise with you, are hungover with you in the pool the next day and eat with you. Our first night at the Asylum sure was mental. We met Hampus, a Swedish guy who works there and has been for a couple of months. He was awesome and came out with some funny stuff. I had a pretty full on drunken conversation with him about how powerful English is as a language whilst he argued how Mandarin may soon become the most widely used language.

The following day was spent at the lagoon recovering. We had a quiet and early night to save all of our energy for diving the next day. We got picked up at 7:30am on Thursday where we were taken to the harbour for our boat. We went for the ‘Reef Experience’ trip which included all of your food, equipment, wetsuit and sun cream for the day. It also included all of your tuition and the first introductory dive. The boat was full of beginners (except Nathan and a few others who had dived before and obviously the instructors weren’t beginners… we hoped). We were divided into groups of four and assigned one of the three diving instructors who talked you through the proceedings. We put on our wetsuits, snorkels and flippers and got kitted up with our tanks. Me, Nathan, Heidi and Josie were the third group to go on the introductory dive. We were informed of the three rules of diving (to breathe, pop your ears whilst descending and be within arm’s reach of the instructor). We then had to show that we could clear our mask underwater by exhaling sharply from our nose whilst looking up at a 45º angle and be able to clear our mouthpiece. We were ready to explore the Great Barrier Reef.

I loved diving!! It has got to be one of the most amazing things I have ever done. It felt like a completely different world and being able to swim at depths like those with fish, seeing coral and touching giant clams was awesome. We hired an underwater camera for the day and managed to get some good photos. The first dive at Hastings reef lasted for about twenty minutes and coming back up to the surface and seeing the boat made us realise just how much of a different world it was down there. Our instructor was extremely impressed with us and couldn’t quite believe it was our first time. We decided to do the second dive which was an extra $55 but this was justified by the fact that it’d be a longer time underwater at a different reef (Breaking Patches) and that we’d probably only do this at the Great Barrier Reef once in our lifetime. Although I can definitely see now how people get addicted to diving!

The second dive was a lot more relaxed. We swam through valleys of coral, saw bigger fish and of course Nemo and Scar. I’d also got a lot more used to the breathing and therefore was able to take in a lot more of the surroundings. Annoyingly we didn’t see any turtles and so the mission to get a selfie with one wasn’t accomplished. The one time we have an underwater camera and we don’t see a turtle!! When we weren’t scuba diving, we could snorkel in each reef, taking more underwater pictures of the marine life…and Heidi and Josie’s many attempts at an underwatwr kiss. We also obviously made sure we got the most out of the food available by having two breakfast rolls insead of one and piling our plates with the buffet at lunch (Kathryn, you would have been proud).

The day was a success and one of the best trips I have ever been on. I’m extremely grateful to have been able to dive the Great Barrier Reef and would recommend doing an introductory dive to anyone. We headed back to the Asylum for their weekly BBQ which was $4 for unlimited meat and salads. Nate (another guy who works there) introduced us to three English girls, Lizzie, Tash and Amy, who’d checked in that morning. They met at university like us and so were dotted around the country (mainly up t’north). We drank with them and a few others exchanging stories about our travels so far, Lizzie’s tattoo experiences and how Amy was on The Cube (yes, she was actually on the TV gameshow The Cube with ol’ Schofield!). We found out that pretty much everyone drinking at our hostel had some red wristbands on to get them entry to a club in town. We missed out on this freebie but were told if we went with everyone, we’d get in for free. We just didn’t realise how soon we were leaving and within 5minutes of deciding we’d go out, we were told by Joe (another guy who works there) that we were heading there now. We tried our best to buy more pre drinking time to which he told us to down a few drinks. Goon is not made for downing. It’s just not nice.

The club was pretty empty when we first arrived with the majority there being from the Asylum. Lizzie, Tash and Amy headed straight to the dancefloor and danced crazily. Josie kept saying how she wished she could dance like that and not care. After many confusing drinks (they don’t call things singles or doubles but instead a half dip or a full dip) and some more dancing we headed back to the Asylum to see who was still up. We saw the night off with a few guys who worked there, a man who claimed he forgot to go to rehab and a bouncer named Dre but hates being called Dr. Dre.

We spent Friday with our new English friends down the lagoon. Tash and Amy believed that the lagoon would have a crocodile in it. This artificial lagoon. They did say they were gullible to be fair. Hampuss and a few others also joined us. After me and Josie shared a family box meal at McDonald’s, we decided to go look into hiring a 7-seater car for the following day with Lizzie, Tash and Amy. We found one for $20 each and went back to pick it up the next day bright and early at 8am…ish, we got lost for a bit. Cairns is a lot smaller than we imagined (especially after coming from Brisbane) but even though it’s small, each street looks practically the same.

We set off on our journey south of Cairns to Bruce Highway (classic Aussie) to do the route that a lot of tour companies do for a charge of $100 per person. But we could take our time at each place and not be stuck on a stuffy minibus. Our first stop was Babinda Boulders which featured a freezing cold lake of which you had no choice but to walk into due to the stairs entering it. There was also a walk to viewing platforms of more boulders and before entering the walk there were a lot of danger signs warning of the currents taking lives at these boulders. We’ll stick to the paths then…

Our next destination was Josephine falls. We’d been informed that this place was beautiful and one of the best waterfalls in the area. After a short trek we arrived at the bottom pool and cooled off, slid down the rock and avoided the botflys buzzing around (yes Sian, actual botflys like those in the disgusting videos you made us watch of them laying their eggs in people’s skin). Within ten minutes we’d attracted a whole coach load of people who took over the tranquil pool and splashed around. When we left soon after, they followed… we think they thought we were on their trip and that it was time to go. Oops.

Nathan took over the wheel and drove us to our next destination. A much anticipated place that the girls were looking forward to seeing since they found out about it the previous day. A waterfall that caused the humming of one particular 90s pop song for a good few hours. Where were we headed? The famous Milla Milla waterfall featured in Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl music video. It’s safe to say I assumed the role of ol’ Peter in this scenario… It was breathtaking.. literally. It was so cold that when we swam over to the waterfall it was difficult to breathe normally, if at all. We were flailing around waiting for a picture on Amy’s GoPro and as soon as that was taken, we headed out of the painful blasts of the waterfall and back to the warmth of our towels feeling as though we’d just run a marathon. How did Peter make it seem as though the water wasn’t freezing?! I took on driving duty and headed towards the Curtain fig tree. A tourist attraction in the area. A tree so big with roots enveloping it that it slightly resembles a curtain. It got a mixed reaction from the group (Amy was underwhelmed due to her expectations of a talking woodland tree…) but Nathan and Tash loved it.

Our penultimate destination was the Platypus viewing platform where we waited patiently and quietly to spot a platypus. We didn’t see one. We just gazed at the river and banks and decided to head to our final point on the circuit, a national park en route home. Amy took over driving and fumbled around in one of the compartments near the steering wheel. We heard a gasp. Amy had found $57!! We looked around the national park and lake Barrine and were joined by a very friendly pelican who used us for our food. On the way back to the Asylum we stopped off to fill up the car with petrol. We knew we had $57 to put towards the total petrol cost and we watched as the price gauge increased steadily past the $40 mark, the $50 mark and then it slowly crept up to… $56.95. I’ve never seen Heidi so happy in my life as she realised we didn’t have to pay towards the petrol. A brilliant end to the day!

After a long day of travelling and accumulating around 4hours of driving, we returned for our final night’s stay at the Asylum where we were so tired we just slept. Cairns was brilliant and I’m glad we went there. Brilliant weather, people, activities and the Asylum wasn’t as bad as we first expected. In fact, it was one of the best hostels we’ve stayed in.

We flew to Sydney with Tigerair who kindly ‘upgraded’ us to the front row emergency exit seats with plenty of leg room. Arrived in the airport to Josie’s uncle who we are now staying with. He and his wife Ness have three children who have worn us out over the past couple of days. I forgot how much energy children have. Another tiring activity we’ve partaken in is apartment hunting. It is so difficult to find a furnished apartment in or around the city so close to Christmas and in their summer season. Wish us luck!

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	Laura M George (@lmg… on Sipping Grey Goose, holding Sn…

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