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

La La Land, 17th & 18th April 2009

Due to popular demand (2 people) we have pulled our finger out and are trying to get this blog back up to date.

Last time we left you, we had said goodbye to Mickey and friends and were heading to La-la Land, Hollywood.

So we spent 2 nights in a hostel in Hollywood; ohh apologies to anyone who was not sitting down just then I should have given you more warning, yes Sandy spent not 1 but 2 nights in a hostel. She shouldn’t complain too much as it was located less than 100m from Hollywood boulevard, Kodak Theatre/Mann’s Chinese Cinema.

As everywhere we go and everything we see is new and exciting to us, it is hard to be let down or even disappointed with anything. Saying that we can’t really say Hollywood was quite what we were expecting. Big and exciting yes, glitz and glam not really.

The ‘strip’ was a little intense though, especially for two small town kids like us! People everywhere; well tourists and not to mention the crazy impersonators’ on every corner - trying to grab you to have a photo with them. (Seriously painful seeing how they expected ME to pay them for it! Don’t they know who I am? No wonder they haven’t made it yet!)

We did all the touristy things, started with a bus tour; saw Rodeo Drive, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills, the Hollywood sign, Fox studios and a few famous locations from different movies and TV shows. Highlight was seeing a movie at Mann’s Chinese Cinema in their brand new ‘state-of-the-art’ D-motion seats. The seats move and vibrate taking the movie experience to a whole new level (Mr. Mann I expect a commission for that shameful advertising). We saw The Fast and The Furious 4 (at Sandy’s request, ohhhh Vin!!)

On our last day I went to Universal Studios, the best thing was the Simpson’s Ride, newish 3-D rollercoaster ride, very cool. And to top off our Hollywood experience were lucky enough to see a movie being made right on Hollywood Boulevard, “Zombieland” the Woody Harrison zombie thriller for those that are interested.

So Sunday 19th April rolled around; we checked out of our room, went outside and waited...

Jon V Mickey: Round 1

Los Angeles
15th April – 19th April

Apologies it has taken us a little while to update this blog, we know you are all hanging out for it. Truth is we just got into NY from Vegas, and haven’t really had any free time (Vegas was too emotional to get this out)

OK, LA, we broke this part of our trip up into two parts, firstly Anaheim – DISNEY LAND, and
then Hollywood. Disney Land according to Jon:

Disney Land was even bigger and bolder than what I was expecting. ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ – it’s a little scary how happy this place is. It is even scarier how efficient this place is, everything ran like clockwork, even waiting in line for rides ran smoothly. When you got into the line there was a sign informing you how long the wait was and every time they were spot on.
So we hit all the hardcore rides straight up, Dumbo, Tea-Cups, Frontier Train Rollercoaster, and Star Wars simulation ride. Too easy, bring on the kid rides.

Many of you may be aware I’m not too much of a fan of heights, mix this with a fast spinning contraption being controlled by over enthusiastic teenagers and hence it is easy to understand why I was a little cautious about tackling some of the more ‘adventurous rides’. That being said I also knew that if I passed on these certain death-traps it would more than likely come back to haunt me during ‘future’ celebratory speeches.

So with my eyes closed tight I took on the mighty Splash Mountain, the spinning top thing and the pride of the Park, California-Screaming (big rollercoaster). Yes before anyone starts I am well aware that it is Disney Land – designed for kids, something I was alerted to at every ride where kids who were about 5 years old were rushing past me to get on the rides I was dreading!
I am happy to say that once I did open my eyes, wiped the tears away and stopped screaming out certain obscenities (Sandy will attest to that 2 of these were true, you can guess which 2) I actually enjoyed the rides.

To sum it up, the day consisted of walking about 60km, eating possible the unhealthiest food on the planet, waiting in line for around 8hours and watching a fireworks display to challenge Perth’s Australia Day celebrations (Disney Lands nightly sceptical). All-in-all it was a pretty crazy (as in crazy crazy, not crazy crazy) day.
Jon over and out...

Part 2 of LA, Hollywood will be updated at a later stage.

Also keep a look out for the Adults Only ‘Las Vegas’ coming to the Jonathan-sandy adventure soon... Vegas Baby, Vegas.

Hawaii 10th April – 15th April 2009

So we jetted off from tropical Fiji, bound for Hawaii, USA. We left Fiji Good Friday night and due to the time difference we landed in Honolulu Good Friday morning, 6 am.

Aloha!

After being dropped off at our hotel by our taxi (who Sandy gave a 30% tip too?? She isn’t too good with the money/budget thing as most already know). (Lucky I have Jon, it’s a great way to get him to do all the work!!) We found we couldn’t check into our room until 12 noon (it was 7am), all good as we were still able to have the hotels continental breakfast. Consisting of, wait for it, mini donuts, pancakes, muffins, toast with the choice of butter, cream cheese or cinnamon sugar (most American guests where JAMMING on the cream cheese and topping it off with the cinnamon!) pineapples – which we have had coming out of our ears since we left Australia, and bananas. That was ok, at least there was some fruit and the bananas were perfect. Little did we know it would be the last time we saw banana’s on the menu, too healthy obviously.

First point about the stay in Hawaii. Tipping, what you need to know; Tip EVERYONE! if a bus driver smiles and says hello as he drives past you tip him, if the hotel receptionist answers a question you tip her, it is crazy, apparently the mainland US isn’t as bad, we’ll have to wait and see.

Hawaii wasn’t really what we were expecting. Actually, not too sure what we were expecting from this part of our trip, maybe exotic beaches, cocktails by the pool, hula girls, sun tanning babes! We stayed in Waikiki, which was pretty full on, hundreds of hotels, convenience shops, restaurants and retail shops.

Day 1:
Walked around the city for bit trying to get our bearings. Even though it was good Friday EVERYTHING was open, including the massive Almo Mona Shopping complex (second biggest in the USA). We caught the bus, yes Sandy caught public transport! And walked into the biggest food court we have ever seen, you name it they had it, mexican, chinease, french, mexican, fast food, slow food, mexican. After walking around and getting lost, we headed back to the hotel to rest up a little.

Day 2
Early start for us, grabbed a StarBucks Coffee and headed out on the bus again, for the farmers markets and hike up Diamond Head (I think I got a photo of it, will check and post). Both these activities were great. The farmers market was similar to our local Sunday markets just with Hawaiian produce, and the walk up Diamonds head had the best views of Honolulu. With nothing planned for the afternoon we figured we would just jump on the first bus we saw and see where it took us.
Destination Sea Life Park, on the south-east side of the island about 45-60min away from Waikiki. It didn’t look like much as we rolled up, sort of an old 80’s sea park, little run down, but it was pretty cool inside. Caught an insane dolphin show, checked out the usual sea creatures close up and got to have our first American Hotdog!
We ended the day with a guided twilight tour of the Honolulu Zoo (2 hours, of which 45 minutes was spent looking at and learing about Pink Flamingos???)

Day 3:
After experiencing the local bus south we figured it was a fairly decent & cheap form of travel around the island, so we got up early again jumped on the bus bound for Pearl Harbour.
This is a must do experience if you go to Hawaii, even as Aussies, the whole experience of the tour is pretty moving. Best part of the tour was meeting a survivor of the Arizona who told us his story about December 7, 1941 - it is definitely a highlight of the trip so far.
With that being said the low light has to have been the bus trip home, time waiting for the bus 1hour 15 min, bus ride home 1hour 30 min, chances of us catching public transport around the island again, 0%.

Figuring charted tours were the way to go we headed back to the hotel to book ourselves into as many tours as we could for our final two days on the island.

That night we were booked in for Germaine’s Luau, an authentic (or as close too, tourist experience) Hawaiian party. It was another hour bus ride to get out, although this time it was a private charter and the bus ride to and from the Luau was good fun thanks to our driver, Cousin Wally, who kept us all entertained with Hawaiian stories, jokes and songs. The Luau itself was an all you can eat buffet (man do Americans love their buffets, and boy can they eat) included in the price of the ticket was 3 complimentary cocktails (which was great as it only takes me 1 cocktail to start getting boozed) The night was like an Hawaiian cabaret show, good value all round. We sat with some other Aussies who were great fun. I won the 3rd prize on the door giveaway! Chocolates, lollies and a massive cocktail glass, which we had to unfortunately leave behind in our hotel as we really didn’t have time to post it home, would have made the perfect wine glass!!

Day 4:
3rd day in a row we were up and off early, only this time we had a 6am pick up. We had seen Hanuema bay on bus trip home from the Sea Life Park and it looked so amazing from the lookout point we knew it was a must for us. The tour consisted of hotel pickup & drop off and snorkel hire.
The bay was formed from a dormant volcano head that the ocean had breached and filled up. It consists of 36 different types of fish and if you’re lucky enough some morning sea turtles come in to feed, we were not lucky enough. Sandy was a little scared (shit scared) of snorkelling but once in the water took to it like a fish to water (pardon the pun). We snorkelled around for a couple of hours and then finally got to do what we came to Hawaii for, lay in the sun and sleep! It was awesome.

Tour 2 for the day was the North Shore tour of our island. We were picked up by our bus 20 minutes after being dropped off from snorkelling so it was pretty go go go, our tour driver was a surfer dude called Harry. He was a riot, and loved us Aussies! Although he had only lived on the island 5 years his knowledge of the island, its customs, history and natural environment was unbelievable, seriously not sure if we should believe everything he told us.
This tour consisted of a trip to the east side of the island, visited the shrimp farms (prawns for all you down under) whale watching, sunset beach, pipeline, turtle beach, and a stop off in the little town where they hold the triple crown surfing competition every year.

Day 5:
Ok, our last day on the island before we were due to jetset across to the mainland. This blog is a little lengthy so we’ll keep it short. We had booked ourselves in to a day tour of the Big Island (Kona). The gist of the tour was, got up at 3:30am, flew out at 7am, got on a bus for 10 hours, drove over 400km, it rained nearly all day, saw a cool waterfall, one of the world’s most active volcano, had a buffet for lunch (told you they love their food) stopped at a black sand beach and finished it off with a drive past the spot where our beloved Captain James Cook was killed. All in all a very long and tiring day, got home at 10pm and had to be up by 5am for a 7am flight...... good times.

Ok so we are now on the plane to LA, off to Disney Land tomorrow (rides, rides, rides) (Not on your life, it’s the tea cups for me all day!) (Don’t be a girl, Jonny! If he doesn’t go on some ADULT rides with me, I’m going to talk about the wedding for the rest of the trip, right up to January!! Tough decision, Sandy – 1 Jon - 0)

Talk again soon

Mahalo