Hi everyone,

We've had an action packed first week in the USA, it's now our last morning in New York City so we thought we ought to squeeze in our first blog before we brave picking up the hire car in manhattan (thankfully Alex will be driving out of the city - looks too scary for me!) So I guess we should start at the beginning...

We arrived last Thursday and you'll be pleased to hear were met with an overcast and rainy Washington while you were enjoying the sun! In fact it rained every day in Washington although luckily enough the rain held off for long enough so we could see the sights. Jay was our guide for the day and we did the main walk around all the monuments and main buildings. We couldn't believe how small the Whitehouse was, nowhere near as impressive or imposing as you would expect, perhaps partly because you have to see it from behind a fence and it's partially obscured by trees. You could however see the snipers walking about on top of the building... definitely not worth trying to sneak in for a closer look, you wouldn't last too long!

Our favourite part was probably the WW2 memorial which sits at the bottom of the reflecting pool with the Lincoln memorial at the other end. I think this has to be the most impressive memorial I've seen for the war, with huge fountains and the names of all the US states around the walls surrounding it. It did make me laugh when they genourously mentioned on one enscription that the allies matched they Americans in their bravery, but then they do also think the war didn't start until 1941! Anyway, it's a shame we don't have somewhere as nice as that as a memorial.

The other really striking memorial is to those American soldiers who lost their lives in the Vietnam war. Black granite with all the names of those soldiers who died in chronological order stretches for a couple of hundred metres and there are books so you can look up relatives and find their names on the walls. there were many people taking pencil rubbings of the names of relatives on paper and leaving floers, photos etc which was quite moving - it becomes even more real when you see pictures of young men alongside the names.

If you've already seen our pictures you may have noticed that Paddington Bear makes an appearance in several of the photos. Just to explain, our gorgeous neice Sophia gave us a little Paddington to take around the world with us so we have to document his trip for her... hopefully by the end he will be one of the most travelled bears around!

While in Washington we stayed with Jay and Raquel in their lovely home so enjoyed a few days of luxury before roughing it in the hostels (thanks guys!). Obviously we had to sample some of their favourite restaurants and bars, it would be rude not to! We had a night out in Adam's Morgan, which is a bit like being on holiday somewhere in spain as there is a huge strip of bars (although not seedy ones like in Spain) and everyone just spills out onto the street when they close at 3am. It was then that we sampled what has to be the largest slice of pizza we have ever seen - good drinking food but we had to share it as was way to big!

So then on Sunday we took a bus to NYC and started the real travelling experience. Our hostel is in a great location, right next to Madison Square gardens and an easy walk to most of the sights. It did however have the smallest room and bathroom we have ever see - I guess it's actually quite innovative how they managed to get a tiolet sink and shower into such a tiny space! But it was clean and comfortable, if a little noisy, so we didn't really mind.

We've done so much walking in the last few days that we are quite glad to be able to sit in a car today to rest our legs. Into 2 days we have crammed a trip to the top of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, grand Central station, 5th Avenue and even a Broadway show. All the tourist attractions were really great to see, if a little busy so my favourite part had to be exploring Central Park yesterday as it was so relaxing. It's crazy to think you are in the middle of a city but every now and then you look up and see a huge skyscraper towering over the trees and remember where you are. the park is much more interesting than those in London as the landscape is so varied and you recognise lots of the landmarks out of various films and TV shows such as the Mall walk and the fountain famous from friends.

New York is a crazy place, lots of strange and interesting people - the funniest thing we've seen has to be people pushing their dogs in a buggy!!!

So now we're off to collect the hire car to start the drive to Niagara, lets hope I manage to get the directions right as we drive out of New York and we'll let you know how Alex gets on competing with those Yellow cabs!