W4 Chiswick - London, England

London...

OK, so we may have let this blog slip a little. My bad.

I realise we are nearing the end of this amazing adventure and have failed miserably in keeping an online journal. Whilst the first trip from Fiji to Hawaii and coast to coast across the States was ‘kind of’ recorded we have now been on several adventures around Europe and the UK with no written account.

It is probably a little late to rectify the problem; all we can do now is sum up with the use of our friend Mr Bullet-Point and soldier on.

London life is swell we are W4 people now, have settled into our new home at 9b Fairlawn Ave quite nicely.

Summer came and went, it was a nice 45 minutes of sunshine, and winter is now upon us. Damn rain! But like the English-folk say, it’s not London if it’s not raining. Damn English.

Some things we have learnt;
• Most important rule: Stand on the right, keep moving on the left and don’t get it wrong
• Newspapers are a must – Don’t talk either, you just get looked at funny
• Cling Film, not Glad Wrap (you can’t convert them – I’ve tried)
• Shepherds Bush..... At least there’s always something going on. Riots are fun.
• You get used to the repetition. Mind the gap. You get used to repetition. Mind the gap.
• People who sit upstairs during the pub quiz usually cheat. Damn iPhones.
• Blue is the colour. Football is the game.
• The Queen does not take visitors on a Sunday
• Avoid games where QPR are involved. Riots are only fun when organised by Algerians.
• Spelt Thames, pronounced Tems.
• Never mess with an old dude who drinks ale (even though the beer tastes like crap). Under no circumstances do you ever touch/look/taste/under-pour their beer – learnt that one the hard way.

There is a few more, no doubt anyone who has spent time here knows these already and many others.

London is an amazing city, before we began this trip we were set that we did not want to live in London like all the other Aussies, six months later we really couldn’t imagine ourselves having lived anywhere else, except New York – but that doesn’t count! It has an amazing heart-beat, (it is a little quicker than Perth’s) the city is really a being unto itself.

We are off to Berlin for Christmas with Ze Germans! Not sure about New Years as of yet. Suggestions welcome.

Will attempt to write up more of our thoughts and travel experiences in hope someone out there is still reading...

Jordan's Playground

Chicago

I know we are now a long way behind on this blog but figured seeing how winter is starting to set in over here it would give us a chance to get some thoughts down.

Chicago’s population is just under 3 million, making it America’s 3rd largest city. If we had to equate Chicago to an Australian city its closest match would easily be Perth. Beautiful skyline, built around an amazing river.

OK so to make up a little ground on this blog lets dot point our key Chicago moments;

· Visited family – had a BBQ with David, Jamie and kids
· Ate deep dish pizza, nearly died – you have been warned
· Went on a guided river cruise of the city checking out the buildings architectural significance
· Magnificent Mile – Hide the credit cards before you venture down this shopping precinct
· Observation deck on the John Hancock building
· Fell in love with Mrs Gothic
· Dicks Last Resort – Cheers Jamie for the heads up!

Chicago is a must see city, wish our time there was a little longer.

With America now done and dusted, next stop: London, England.

Crossing the border

Niagara Falls, Canada to Paramus, New Jersey

So it has been a little while since we have had a chance to update this blog, apologies to the 3 people who still may be reading our adventures on-line. Seeing how this blog is a fair way behind we’ll try not to slow it down anymore and jump through most of the usual tourist stuff we did along this part of the trip.

Having made it into Canada safe and sound, I cannot begin to explain how good it is to see speed signs in Km/h again!

We were a little tired after 9 hours in the car so by the time we checked into the hotel actually seeing the falls fell a distant second to getting some rest. We had booked ourselves into a nice little boutique hotel on the Canadian side of the falls for two days.

Niagara Falls - the town - is like a B-grade theme park; it is cheesy to the max, with a slight western country twist. There are side-show themed stores/games, two casinos and hundreds of little tourist souvenirs shops all over the place. It was like the carnival had come to town, set up and forgot to leave.

Seeing Niagara Falls for the first time is something special, once you get over the shock of them not being as high as the movies make out (damn Hollywood). Thanks to whoever recommended staying on the Canadian side to see the falls, it is definitely a much, much better view and experience.

Things we liked about Niagara Falls:
1. It is in Canada – Canada has the best Maple Syrup – Maple Syrup!
2. You don’t fear the police
3. The Canadian dollar is weaker than the US greenback, makes things cheaper!!
4. The locals are super friendly
5. We got breakfast in bed
6. Canadian beer is surprisingly good

Things we didn’t like about Niagara Falls:
1. It is in Canada – Canada is cold – Very Cold!
2. Once your time is up you have to cross back over to the US of A and go through “US Customs” again. Not cool.

We had a great time at Niagara Falls, took it easy, relaxed and got to tick off another attraction on our must see list.

Our next stop was New Jersey – The Garden State; home of Tony Soprano, The Devils, Jon Bon Jovi and family, “the Gianfrancesco’s”.

By the time we pulled into Paramus, New Jersey, we had clicked over 1000miles driving on the wrong side of the road.

While Dad (Big Lib) had told us of his cousins in New Jersey and informed us of our duties to visit ‘la familia’ we had never met them before and had no idea what to expect. Rookie mistake, wogs are wogs no matter where in the world they are.

The NJ Gianfrancesco’s were extremely welcoming and had invited the entire family around to greet us, then in true Italian family tradition poured food & wine down our throat. It was a surreal experience, we ate, drank, they argued, told stories of years ago, argued some more then ate and drank again – other than their strange American accents, it was exactly like home. To top the night off they organised for us to come past in the morning (for breakfast) so they could take us out to visit “Pizza Tony” - another cousin who.... owned a pizza shop, and yes eat pizza (which was/is without being bias the greatest pizza we have tried thus far on the trip).

Time in the US was now quickly coming to an end – less than a week till we flew out - UK bound.
Last stop on 'Tour USA 09' - The Windy City.

Washington D.C.

Capitol City

The drive to Washington from New York takes approximately 4 hours, little over 5 if you include stops and u-turns for missed exits. With only two hours of driving experience in the US prior to the drive down to D.C. it was surprisingly smooth.

Although it is not the drive to Washington that will be remembered from this trip rather the drive out of D.C.

Before we get into our drive out of D.C. story we better get the mandatory stuff out of the way... Washington D.C. has so much to see...blah blah blah, big buildings, history of America, blah blah blah, saw all the usual touristy stuff...loved it. Done.

Washington is, as most of you know the home of the American President. This is import to be aware of as anytime President Obama does anything outside the confines of his own home, the Whitehouse, the entire city goes into lockdown.

We had decided to drive up to Niagara Falls, we got up early, checked out, jumped in the car, set the GPS to Ontario Canada and were off. However, there was one small problem, not knowing that Barrack (we’re on first names with the main man) had decided to go out for breakfast caused us a little problem. Every road our GPS lady told us to turn down was blocked off by the local boys in blue, no stress we figured we’ll take the next street and our friend would quickly ‘recalculate’ and give us new directions.

After 30minutes of ‘recalculating.....recalculating’ something finally went our way, Barrack had finished his breakkie and was heading home, the streets cleared as if Moses himself had parted the Red Sea, the streets were clear...well at least for 10 minutes until we hit ‘The Road’

SIDE NOTE: This story, like so many others varies depending on who's account it is from. As I have the laptop, you will be told my version of events as best as I can recall.

Jon's version:

“We had been told by little Miss GPS that we were to take our next left and continue on for 2 miles. Following her instructions I indicated left and turned into the street, unfortunately finding the road turns into a ‘Do Not Enter’ one way only Private Road. Hmmm problem? So being the quick thinker I am, I pulled into the closest driveway and promptly turned around. Jumping back on the main road knowing our little friend would find another way for us to exit the Capitol city. After 30 minutes of our GPS constantly telling us to turn around and take the ‘Road from Hell’ we made it to a highway out of town; No thanks to the GPS or passenger, rather the driver’s level head, quick thinking and good sense of direction in making our way North regardless of others recommendations.”

That is by all accounts an exact version of events, others ie. Sandy would tell the story along the same lines with additional bonuses, all lies.

Sandy's version:

It seems Jon has kept you all entertained with a fantastic fictional story, I apologise his memory is going a little hazy in his old age. While the basic outline of the truth was in there somewhere he seemed to have missed out several key points; more so comments/screams of desperation that occurred during this entanglement.

So not to bore you with the minor details of where we got stuck and how, just re-read Jon’s version of events and include the following cry’s of terror anywhere and everywhere along the storyline.

Please note the following where all comments made by Jon to the GPS, yes he was literally yelling at the GPS, these are all true statements and have in no way been changed for dramatic effect. It is sad to say I am marrying a man who argues with a machine that cannot respond, it is even sadder to say that he lost the argument.

Jon to the GPS – Several of these occurred more than once in the hour of panic whilst Jon tried to navigate out of DC. I apologise for all the swearing.

“NO, I’m not going down that road!”

“NO, re-fucking-calculate, I’m not going down that road!”

“Fuck-off, NO, IT’S A ONE-WAY ROAD, give me a different path”

“Were going to die in Washington”

“Fuck-off, I’m not going back that way, tell me a different way”

“Were never going to get out of here”

“I’m FREAKING OUT”

“NO, NO, NO, FUCK OFF”

It would be nice to say that Jon’s little dispute with the GPS lady ended there, but it didn’t. We had finally made it out of Washington, Jon had calmed down, although he wasn’t speaking to our GPS anymore. We were heading north, making good time, all the directions were spot on.... until.... Interstate 99 N. We had been on I99 North for over an hour, when out of the blue, GPS Lady informs us that we need to turn around. This was a problem as Route 81 N has no exits; you can’t even do a U-Turn because the lane travelling south is a separate Highway. So for the next 30miles with GPS lady yelling at Jon to turn around it was fair to say he may have freaked out a little. It is also fair to say I had to look out of the window for those miles trying as hard as I could not to break out in laughter. Funniest part of our trip by far. Sorry Jon

We did finally find a petrol station to pull into, where I raced inside bought a road map and seeked help from the 16year old petrol attendant. Her words of wisdom;
“Oh yeah that’s a new road, nobody’s GPS works out there. Niagara Falls is North of here, you need to be heading north, I aint never been there myself though”

FANTASTIC, we were doomed!

A week in New York is never enough...

New York, New York

New York has always been the dream. When we first talked about doing this big trip New York was the place we knew we had to visit no matter what.

From day one our expectation for the world’s most famous city were extremely high. More importantly was how would it stand up against the world’s greatest city, Perth?

We landed at JFK late Friday afternoon. Over the coming week New York was going to teach us several of life’s important lessons, we just didn’t expect the first one would be within an hour of getting off the plane. The lesson was simple; never trust a NY Cabbie. This conversation will explain;

Cabbie: “Here we are, Holiday Inn”

Car pulls up in front of hotel, everyone jumps out. Driver throws the bags out of the boot

Jon: “OK, so we are still very new to this whole tipping thing” – (OK that’s a little lie as all you do in Hawaii and Las Vegas was tip every mother #$@%$er. But every state/city has their own tipping rules)

Jon: “How much do you usually get tipped for an airport pickup?”

Cabbie: “A pick up from JFK is the fare plus $15 tip... per passenger”

Jon: “$15 per passenger? 30 dollars on top of a $45 fair?”

Cabbie: “yep”

Jon: “Look all I have is $60”

And with that he had pocketed my last dollar and was off.

We are still novice travellers but the signs were there; his eyes lighting up after asking such a green question and still being able to hear him laugh his arse off from 2 block away where the obvious two. Lesson learnt, NY 1 – Jon & Sandy 0

Alarm bells are ringing!

For the most part the streets of Manhattan run like a grid. To get around the island effectively you have to master this system. Roads that run north to south are Avenues and the roads that cross the island east to west are streets. Streets are numbered lowest to highest starting from downtown heading north with Fifth Avenue being the dividing line between east and west. Ok to make things even worse Broadway Street is a little different as it cuts diagonally down the island and if Broadway intersects both an avenue and a street at the same point then it creates a square; Times Square, Madison Square, Union Square etc. Confusing? It is at the start but once you get your head around it (and walk around for 24hours straight) it really makes getting around New York very easy.

OK so we took a hop-on-hop-off tour on Saturday. This was by far the best thing we could have done as we got a good look at the city sitting atop of an open double-decker bus. The bus tour was also very informative, being studious pupils that we are (well one of us, the other was really only concerned where the shops where) the ride was as much an educational tour as a sightseeing one, here is a quick NY educational lesson for you all.

Five boroughs make up the City of New York, 1. Manhattan – the main island, where we were staying 2. Brooklyn – The most populated borough. 3. The Bronx – The only borough not situated on an island, it is connected to mainland USA. 4. Queens – Where you will find JFK and George Costanza’s parents house. 5. Staten Island – Ummm, the island to the south of Manhattan?

We had booked 6 nights initially but once we got sucked into the vortex of New York we knew we had to extend our stay; that and we (Jon) really wanted to check out a Yankee game at the NEW Yankee Stadium. To really experience the city like a true New Yorker there were three things we had to do (or so every tour guide had told us). They were chill out in Central Park, eat a Gray’s Papayas dog (only a Gray’s dog not a Papaya King or Papaya Dog) and get to a baseball game – REAL New Yorkers follow the Mets, but seeing how they suck and the Yankees just finished a massive 50-million-cachilllion dollar stadium, we really only had one option.

There is no way that this blog let alone your attention span has enough room for us to get out everything we saw/did/bought in New York. The place is hands down the most impressive city in America (yes we know it is only the fourth American city we have visited and yes we are aware that so far on every blog we have stated that ‘wow this is the best “thing/place” ever’) New York is. While every place we have visited has been very impressive, we wouldn’t say that they are places we would like to live for an extended period of time. New York was.

Here is just some of what we did in New York: Walked up and down the avenues, checked out the view from the top of Empire State Building, ate a cannoli in Little Italy, did tours of Brooklyn, the Bronx and a night tour of Manhattan, had a beer at the South Street Seaport, checked out the Statue of Liberty, cruised over to Staten Island on the free ferry, chilled out in Central Park, visited the Smithsonian, paid our respects at ground zero (World Trade Centre site), saw a show on Broadway – THE LION KING, drank the world's most dangerous thick-shake at the Shake Shack, Times Square at night, bought a pair of Jordans (you know it), rode the Subway at night and survived, ate a Grays Papaya dog (they have nothing on Bunning’s hot dogs though), got lost at Grand Central Station, and yes checked out a baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium – Yankees won 7 – 4 over the Los Angeles Angels.

So having finally made it to New York, the experience went above and beyond our expectations. This is one big city that we will definitely be coming back to one day... or even in six days as it were.

This brought us to the end of our pre-planned holiday. For those of you who know Sandy well, will know that everything she does is well organised and planned out. So much so that everything in her life is coordinated and matching! Not having anything planned the next seven days of our holiday was a massive step for us. We knew where we wanted to go, roughly, had booked a car but that was it, let the adventure begin.

First stop capital city, Washington D.C.

Viva Las Vegas.

The drive to Vegas
OK so as a quick prelude to Las Vegas, we drove from Los Angles to Las Vegas with another couple who are very good friends of ours; Kathryn & Ash. (Yes the same Kathryn & Ash from Fiji, NO we were not tagging along on their honeymoon!)

We had booked a car prior to departing the great state of Western Australia and had no idea what exactly we had booked. So it is a little of an understatement to say we were surprised to see Ash roll-up in the Golden Giant. Will post photos on here for those who haven’t seen the facebook pics yet.

It was a fairly smooth ride, Ash and Jon shared the driving, and bar one wrong side of the road “incident” (I wont say who was driving, but as a small clue it wasn’t me!) we arrived safely to the glowing lights of the city in the desert.

Las Vegas

We are not sure how much we should include into this blog from our time in Vegas. The rules of Vegas are clear and simple, well there really is only one rule; what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

That being said I don’t think we really ‘experienced’ the true Vegas to its full potential to upset the Vegas Gods. So here goes...

After sitting a car for 5 hours, walking through two outlet-shopping complexes and negotiating the ‘right hand’ side of the road we finally arrived.

It is impossible to describe the experience of seeing the lights of Las Vegas for the first time, nothing really compares so I won’t bother.

Side note: If you plan on heading to Vegas for the first time we strongly advise arriving at night (as we were wisely recommend), oh but don’t be the driver - it is too dangerous to be a first time driver in Vegas, way too many distractions.

So we pull into our hotel, the Monte Carlo, check in (tried to negotiate a room upgrade by telling them we were newlyweds. Upgrade Fail) threw our bags in our room and hit the strip.
Ash had come to town on a mission; he had planned to visit 40 casinos to collect 40 $5 chips for his casino table back home. Night one - we hit 3 casinos!

Vegas is a temptress, you must treat her well, do not play her at her own game or she will chew you up and spit you out. Make sure you have done your homework before you go into battle, plan your attack carefully, time your run and stick to a plan or you are going home $5000 in debt, 50kg heavier not slept a wink and married to a showgirl called ‘Jasmine’. So what did we do?

The first two nights we thought we were kings, played the big tables ($10 blackjack) drank, drank and drank; $1 margaritas at Bills are not to be trifled with, and walked around 20km a night. We got to bed around 3am for the first two nights thinking we had out danced Vegas. Second Fail.

Our third day in Vegas and we had run out of gas? This was not possible, we still had 3 days to go! Vegas was laughing at us, give up? Not these little ducks.

So we hit the pool deck to recharge, booked a few shows – L.A. Comedy Club & Circ De Soli Believe (It was Chris Angles new magic show, hmmm no comment) and prepared for our last few nights in town.

Although Vegas was is an amazing place we also got to experience something greater, the Grand Canyon. This was probably our favourite experience of the trip so far. The day consisted of a flight out to the western rim, helicopter ride down to the base, boat cruise up the Colorado River, bus trip to Eagle Point for lunch and a terrifying ride flight home. We will try not to go on too much about the Grand Canyon as you really can’t describe the experience and the photos don’t do it justice.

Ok, so we did heaps of things in our time in Vegas, checked out around 20 different casinos, hunted down a boot shaped drinking glass (long story), ate at hooters ... for the chicken wings, shopped at the forum, went on the rides at the stratosphere (well Sandy, Ash and Kathryn did, no comment), watched pretty much all the light and water shows along the strip and did about a hundred other things.

By the last night we were pretty much on the floor for the count and ready to pack our bags tuck our tail between our legs and scamper on to our next destination.
So long Vegas.

We boarded our sixth plane in just over 20 days and headed on to New York, New York.

Oh for those who had money on us getting married in Vegas, sorry, just couldn’t find a black midget Elvis impersonator celebrant. I looked.

New mobile number

Just a quick administration update, we have a new UK mobile number

07979 017 094

Not sure how you Aussies ring it, sure you can figure it out. Our Australian mobile number wont be used.

We have arrived in Sunny London. Will try and sort an update for Vegas & New York some time soon, maybe.

Hope all is well down under

Jon & Sandy