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Just before I left Auckland I decided to check my flight times to LA and it was a good job I did as Qantas had cancelled my original flight! I managed to get myself booked on to a flight on the same day but this meant I had to go to LA via Sydney. My arrival time would only be two hours later than originally planned and (call me a geek if you like!) it also meant I got to fly on one of the new A380 Airbus which is the biggest passenger plane in the world. It turned out to be the best flight I've had with the smoothest take off I've ever experienced, good food and loads to do during the flight so much so I was a little disappointed to get off when we got to LA!
During the flight I'd crossed the international date line so I actually landed 2 hours before I took off which was rather odd. I'd always wanted to travel back in time! Immigration was surprisingly smooth and my cheese sandwiches which I forgot I had even made it through the checks. Despite a two hour wait, I decided to make use of the hostel's airport pickup which turned out to be a blessing as it was chaos outside the terminal and very confusing. The journey to the hostel was basically one big traffic jam and the smog which I'd heard so much about was very apparent. A friendly greeting and chat with a New Zealander receptionist dressed like Edward Scissorhands at the hostel made up for a slightly cramped room but we did have the benefit of free internet and breakfast and I also signed up for the karaoke night that evening which had free beer and food. Not a bad start to the trip at all!
My first day in LA took in Hollywood Boulevard, the Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame with all the stars in the pavement. The stars go on for two miles and I didn't recognise half the names though! I also tried to get a photo of the Hollywood sign but it was too far away and you're not allowed to get close to it anymore so I made do with the grainy zoom on my camera. Hollywood Boulevard wasn't the glitzy place I'd imagined and there were lots of shady looking characters around most of whom looked like they were homeless. Having realised the sheer size of LA and what it would take to navigate myself, I decided to book another hop on - hop off bus tour which took me all around the main sights. My first hop off was at Rodeo Drive which had a very impressive array of cars parked along it. I didn't see any celebrities but did see a couple of stereotypical wealthy looking older guys with glamourous girlfriends half their age which made me smile. The highlight of Rodeo Drive was seeing the most exclusive men's shop in the world where you need an appointment just to get in the door and the cheapest suit comes in at $15000! Different world or what!? I took a walk along Sunset Strip that evening and went to a couple of decent bars but once again it didn't really live up to the hype as being a hotspot for nightlife.
I carried on my bus tour the next day and saw the Downtown area of LA which was nice enough but just like every other big city I'd seen so I decided to check out Santa Monica and then headed back to wander around the Farmer's Markets which were very nice. After booking the next steps of my trip and calling home, I headed out to Venice Beach the next morning. This certainly lived up to expectations and it was fascinating to see the locals playing basketball and the poseurs at Muscle Beach along with every other kind of loony you can imagine all along the boardwalk. I navigated my way between the cyclists and rollerbladers along the seafront and walked back to Santa Monica which was very pleasant and I even got ID'd going into a bar which was an unexpected bonus! I finished my time in LA with a trip to Universal Studios which was great fun although overall I was a little disappointed with LA as a whole. I certainly got a feel that this was the hub of the movie world but it was genearlly just a huge sprawling city where the only glamour was accessible to those with pots of cash. I've never seen so many Bentleys and Ferraris in one place!
Next stop was San Diego via the Greyhound bus which was very different to my Greyhound experience in Australia. The driver clearly didn't have any customer service training and spoke only Spanish and there were several more shady looking characters all about the station and on the bus. It made sense why the tickets were so cheap though! I arrived in San Diego in bright sunshine and tok a short walk to my hostel which was very nicely situated in the centre of town. After a wander around I went aboard the USS Midway aircraft carrier which served in the first Gulf War but is now a military museum. I loved it and spent over four hours on board taking the audio tour and talking to some of the vets who manned some of the exhibits. The deck was filled with old warplanes and helicopters and it took me back to my days when I used to visit RAF Mildenhall with my parents when I was a kid. I joined the pub crawl from the hostel that evening which was quite entertaining as there were lots of US Marines out who clearly hadn't had a beer in months as they were all hammered! Most of the Marines were only just old enough to drink which mirrored most of the other clientele so I headed home after a few and left them to it. Plenty of time for drinking in Vegas I figured! I had another full day sightseeing around San Diego the next day and even got to go to the beach to soak up the sunshine for a while which made me wonder how many people at home got to do this in November.
Next stop was Las Vegas and my long awaited reunion with the boys. I took the Greyhound bus back to LA which was once again a delight and then picked up a pre-booked private shuttle bus to Las Vegas. The shuttle was due to get me in to Vegas at 8pm so I took it a day early as I didn't want to miss out on meeting the boys when they arrived at the hotel the next day. I was very excited about the stag do and thankfully the trip to Vegas was good fun as there were only 5 of us aboard and we all swapped travel stories and generally had a laugh. We drove along Death Valley and passed the world's biggest thermometer (very random!) on the way before I was dropped at Motel 6 where I stayed on my first trip to Vegas seven years ago. It had been upgraded since I last stayed and I had a very pleasant night's sleep in a big double bed for the first time in weeks. Little did I know it would be the last decent nights sleep I'd have for the next week!
I took a walk along the strip to kill some time before the group arrived and happened to see Jerry Springer about to do a PA outside one of the hotels. Like all good tourists I managed to snag a photo with him before he did his thing on stage promoting America's Got Talent. I'm not sure I'd have bothered if it was Simon Cowell though! I met the boys in the reception of the Bellagio although my original plan to line up the mojitos for their arrival fell apart when I was quoted $150 for the priveledge! A quick shower and change and we were out on the town for 5pm and didn't return until 3.30am the next day! Aside from a trip to the ice hockey and a trip to see the Rat Pack dinner show this was the pattern for the next seven nights. All in all an awesome stag do which almost broke several of the participants but the memories will live forever!
I took a flight to Washington DC after Las Vegas and after checking in to my hostel I felt more lonely than I had since I first landed in Bangkok in June! Seeing all my closest friends again had reminded me of home and that coupled with missing my family and a certain someone meant I was a little envious that they were heading home before me. I did some calculations and figured I'd have more than enough time to do everything I originally planned to do in the US so I enquired about bringing my flight home forward that night. After a good night's sleep I felt a little better and set off to explore Washington. It was a very interesting day and I visited the Capitol and the impressive Library of Congress before heading to the National Air and Space Museum which despite the fact that I dozed off in one of the movie theatres was actually very good! It turns out that most of the museums in Washington are free too which was an unexpected bonus although it was going to be tough to fit them all in if I chose to do them all. My vow never to drink again lasted one night as I headed out with some guys from the hostel on a pub crawl that evening although I did manage to get to bed before 1am which was an early night by Vegas standards!
The hostel had organised a free monuments tour the next day which was very good and we walked several miles during the day. I was a little disappointed to find the Whitehouse hidden by a big gazebo (it was for a state dinner with the Indian PM) and the reflecting pool drained of water but it was a cracking day out and our volunteer guide was very good. I met a German guy on the tour and we filled the rest of the day by taking a trip to the top of the Washington monument (the big tall one that looks like a pencil!) and then a trip to the Pentagon which was most disappointing but we did get to see the point where the plane hit on 9/11. I was still feeling the after effects of my Vegas excesses so I bailed out of another pub crawl early that night and headed for my bed. The next two days were filled with more museums and monuments with the Natural History museum and Newseum (journalism museum) being particular highlights. There's certainly plenty to do in DC and I'd love to come back in the future to complete the tour of the sights and museums.
After the usual Greyhound experience, the next port of call was Philadelphia where I had planned to meet up with Pete who I travelled with in Vietnam and Cambodia. Once I'd managed to get my bearings I wandered across town and met him for a few beers and a bite to eat that evening and it was like it had been five minutes since we'd left each other as we waffled on for ages putting the world to rights. After taking the local's advice (and his family passes to several museums!) I headed out in the rain the next day to take in as many museums as possible. First stop was the Philadelphia Museum of Art which sounds impressive but I was mainly going to run up the steps and jump up and down at the top like a certain boxer did in the Rocky film! Once I'd done my tourist thing I visited the very impressive museum and then took in the Science museum but I must confess to feeling a little 'museumed out' after the last few days so decided to head home. It was all very educational though! It was Thanksgiving (and a national holiday) the following day and Pete said he had family coming from all over the US so sadly couldn't come out to play that evening! Thankfully the hostel had a pub crawl planned so I hopped on that and had a decent night out around some local bars. I polished off the remaining sights the following day including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and Benjamin Franklin's grave but headed back to the hostel at around 4pm as Philadelphia turned out to be relatively small and many places were closed due to Thanksgiving holiday. The hostel were holding a 'pot luck' Thanksgiving dinner that evening where everyone had to bring something along to eat. I took bread and pumpkin pie (as advised by the girl on reception) and it turned out to be a fantastic feed with a huge amount of food and a good atmosphere in the hostel. I finished the night with a cup of tea and Mrs Doubtfire on the telly. Who says travelling is all rock and roll!?
I decided to take a break from the Greyhound experience and used a company called Megabus for my trip to New York. Everything from the website to the drivers were much better than the Greyhound buses and they even had free Wi-Fi on board which was a brilliant bonus. I arrived in New York and it was just as I had imagined it with huge skyscrapers and lots of hustle and bustle on every corner. I'd booked a hostel in central Manhattan which was quite close to the bus drop off point so it took me no time to find my hostel. Unfortunately the hostel had cancelled my original booking (lack of communication between staff apparently!) so after producing my confirmation email, I found myself in an all female dorm with 5 girls! I dumped my bags and headed out to visit the Empire State building for some fantastic but bitterly cold views across New York and then took a walk to Grand Central Station and Times Square. I'd chosen well on location with the hostel as lots of the main sights were within walking distance. That said the kitchen was tiny and the room was a little cramped but the female company made up for the lack of space! I was up and out early the next day and after a walk to the STA Travel office to sort out my flight home I took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge and spent the rest of the day walking across the bridge and then back to Ground Zero (very disappointing) and Wall Street. After a very amusing drunken episode with the two Scottish girls that night, I got chatting to the other girls in my room and was kindly invited to spend the day with them the following day.
So I set out with Alma, Andrea and Kat (from Venezuela, Columbia and Chile respectively) the next day to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was a glorious autumn day with blue skies and bright sunshine and the Statue of Liberty along with Ellis Island totally lived up to expectations. The girls left to hit the shops so I took a trip to Central Park and then went back downtown to watch the New York Knicks a Madison Square Garden that evening which was great entertainment. I rounded off a cracking day by sinking a few beers with the girls at the hostel before heading to bed to get ready for the trip to Boston the next day.
The Megabus experience took a bit of a hit as the bus was over an hour late but after a wet and grey trip I arrived safely in Boston and set off to find my hostel. After a little confusion I found my way to my hostel and was immediately invited onto a bar crawl, bowling night and theme night in the hostel over the next three nights. No need to worry about being bored here! The HI hostels in the US had been excellent so far so I decided to book my return stay in New York with the same company that very night. I also (finally) confirmed my flight home and booked the National Express bus back to Norwich that evening before heading out on the pub crawl which was good fun.
I walked the Freedom Trail the following day which took me around all the historical sights of Boston. I stopped halfway along the trail for a beer and some delicious Boston clam chowder before climbing the Bunker Hill monument which nearly killed me! Despite the bitterly cold weather it was a very enjoyable and educational day out giving me a real feel for the history of the city. A slow walk home coupled with a visit to the famous Cheers bar followed the completion of the trail before heading out that evening on the free bowling night organised by the hostel. Yet another random meeting occurred that night when I met Marcos from Brazil who was in my dorm room in Philadelphia. This along with all the other totally unplanned meetings along the way will be one of my fondest memories of the whole trip. With sore legs from the monument climb the previous day, I visited Fenway Park (the oldest baseball stadium in the US) and Harvard University the following day and then headed back to the hostel for a slap up meal served up by Ralph the hostel manager. A great feed served up by a great bloke and a nice way to end my time in Boston.
It was back to New York the next day and thankfully the Megabus was back to it's best. I'd booked into the HI hostel and once again it lived up to expectations although it did require a walk through a slightly dodgy area to get to it. An added bonus was that I was given a bottom bunk for my last two days on the road. It may sound like nothing but these little pleasures make all the difference sometimes! I spent the next morning wandering through Central Park and briefly visiting the National History Museum before taking a subway to Coney Island and Brighton Beach. It was an interesting place with a huge boardwalk along the seafront although it had a slightly rough air about it and was literally full of Russians and Russian shops and bars. I took a subway back to Central Park and visited the Met but decided against spending $20 to visit an art museum which, despite my initial plan, I had no desire to see. I am officially 'museumed' out now! My last night in New York was spent having a nice meal at Planet Hollywood followed by a couple of beers and 'a slice of Norfolk in New York' at the George Keeley (Norwich City FC) pub.
It was home time the next day and after a hilarious transfer to the airport with a mad Indian guy driving like a loony in the snow which had started to fall, I checked in and waited for my flight home. While I waited I started to revisit my experiences from the last 6 months which resulted in me smiling randomly to myself several times drawing some funny glances from my fellow travellers.
Unfortunately my flight was delayed by an hour to de-ice the plane but I set off for home safe in the knowledge that I'd had an amazing trip but looking forward to being home!
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