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Dear All,
Free internet has been at a premium recently so I have not been updating my blog. Today, however, I am stuck at the airport in Boston for several hours as my flight has been delayed so I bit the bullet and bought some internet. I now have plenty of blog time. The following is the running blog that I've been keeping on my computer so it may not make sense timeframe wise. It starts on September 2nd and runs up until today, the 18th.
You will be quizzed at a later date.
Love Josie
It's been a while since my last blog, mostly because my utter stroke of genius in not buying an American adaptor before I left home. Radioshack, however, has come to my rescue and I have acquired said adaptor. There is also a lack of free internet at the moment so it may be a while before this reaches the interweb.
Had a brief detour to Canada last week, catching the bus up to Vancouver at Tuesday lunchtime. Wandered around Stanley Park on Tuesday afternoon but it was too late to go to the aquarium so I returned to the hostel after a while. I deliberately picked a hostel with a nightclub on the bottom floor so I went there on Tuesday evening and found some random Canadians to have a few drinks with. Wednesday I got up early to go to the aquarium which I enjoyed immensely. They have a new baby bluga whale which was extremely cute, as were the sea otters, although there was a plastic barrier around them which was obstructing my photography. As you can see from the photos, I fancy myself a fledgling 'wild'life photographer and have been practising at the aquariums and zoos where the animals generally sit somewhat still. It can be difficult, however, when you have the wrong lens on the camera, no tripod, etc so there is a prevalence of out of focus and not quite right photos. Anyway, the aquarium also had some cool exhibits on frogs, octopi etc. After I finished at the museum, had a quick wander around a few more of the Stanley Park sites, including the totem poles, which I liked, and then it was pretty much time to catch the bus back to Seattle. Nick, Kat and I had dinner out with some of their (all Australian) friends and then played card games until far too late as I had to be up at 5:30am on Thursday to catch my plane to New York (another stroke of genius).
Arrived in New York at about 4pm on Thursday, found my hotel and went in search of food. I am not having a great time with food in this country. I seem to be fairly consistently sick from the food and have become a pseudo-vegetarian for the time being as I can't seem to eat the meat, cheese or bread in this country. I have found one nice Italian place nearby that has good food and have been visiting there about once a day. Other than that, I'm mostly living on bagels, fruit salad and frozen yogurt. I'm also somewhat unimpressed with the hotel that I am staying in as it has no living room for backpackers to lounge in and no kitchen - I'm not even allowed to have food here so I'm forced to eat out all the time. They also don't have free wireless internet which all the other (cheaper) places I've stayed in have. The location is good however and there has been a big screen set up in Madison Square Park to watch the tennis at so I have been dropping by there fairly consistently to watch a set or two of tennis.
Friday I started doing tourist-y things, starting with Central Park and Central Park zoo. I wandered down 5th Avenue for most of the afternoon and shopped at FAO Schwarz which is the giant giant toy store here, featuring the giant walk-on piano (played by both Tom Hanks and Homer Simpson in various shows). Central Park and 5th Avenue are probably my favourite places in New York at the moment. I went to Rockefeller Centre which was on the spectacular side and then to the Empire State Building. Friday evening is probably not the best time for the Empire State Building as it was FULL of people (and we know how much I like people). The view was nice but probably not worth the $34, hour of waiting and airport security that I went through to get there. Went out for a few drinks in the evening with a Korean girl in my dorm.
On Saturday, I continued my tourist-y tour of New York, heading to the Statue of Liberty. She's a very big green lady. It started to RAIN on the way back from Liberty Island so I skipped Ellis Island and came straight back to Manhattan where it continued to RAIN. I assumed that it couldn't rain that hard for more than 15 minutes or so and continued to wander up towards Ground Zero. I was VERY WRONG, however, and by the time I figured this out, I was so drenched that it really didn't make much of a difference if I continued to wander around in the rain so that is exactly what I continued to do. Ground Zero is pretty much just a construction site now, apparently there's a plaque somewhere but I couldn't find it and by this stage was getting a bit sick of wandering around in the rain so found my way back to the hotel. I got changed, procured an umbrella and once again went in search of food. There's a place in Madison Square Park that every previous time I had walked past had a MASSIVE queue of people waiting for food and, on the day of rain, when there was no queue, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. VERY BAD IDEA. Very bad hamburgers which made me feel very ill for the rest of the night and thus ended my only Saturday night in New York.
By Sunday, I had decided that the tourist-y things were somewhat expensive and overrated so I did some off-map wandering around the city and found myself at NYU and Greenwich Village both of which were nice areas. I also went to the Museum of Sex which had an exhibit on the Sex Life of Animals which was good, although didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know. I was, however, surprised to see a contribution from one Mark Elgar (for everyone who is not Rebecca, Mark was my lecturer and supervisor for my possum project). Had a pleasant Sunday evening watching the women's tennis final in Madison Square Park, where I was in the minority in not barracking for Serena Williams. The majority were pleased at the conclusion of the evening.
Monday, I did some more off-map wandering with a German boy from my dorm. We went downtown to Wall Street which he found exciting as he was studying economics and I found pretty dull. We then wandered back uptown and found the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across that to Brooklyn. We found the Brooklyn Ice cream Factory which was CLOSED ON MONDAYS. I was unimpressed. Then we wandered back uptown, stopping to watch a movie along the way.
Tuesday was again off-map wandering and I met up with the German boy again after he called me 5 times and we went to Chinatown, where I sampled ice cream flavours from the Chinese Ice Cream Factory, and Little Italy. I managed to shake off the German boy to meet up with Katie, Amelia's sister, and her boyfriend, Raj, for dinner. We ate a vegetarian thai restaurant where the food was exceptional (which was nice after a week of crappy food) and had drinks at a Saloon bar, where Raj and I tried out hands at mechanical bull riding (it's harder than it looks) and I discovered that tipping the bartender means you get very strong drinks. I have a rather spectacular bruise (see New York photos when I get around to uploading them) and quite a number of less spectacular ones (not pictured) from bull riding, but I can't complain because they made me sign a waiver before I was allowed on the bull.
On Wednesday I went to see Wicked on Broadway (as you may or may not recall, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on a premium Broadway ticket whilst still in Melbourne). It was spectacular and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. I went out for drinks in the evening with a random Scottish guy to a pirate themed pub, where I learnt the traditional college sport of beer pong. Since I had an early flight on Thursday, I refrained from playing more than one round and opted instead to meet up with Katie again, in a quieter location for a farewell drink.
Flight to Boston on Thursday was fine and had a quiet day, walking around Marblehead for a while, which is rather like stepping into a colonial book of some kind, and then going to see a documentary on living in Antarctica at a spectacular old theatre in Beverley.
Spent Friday in Salem, which I have become quite enamoured with. There is a very strange mix of extremely kitschy witch museums, which tell a more-or-less accurate story of the 1692 witch hysteria of Salem, maritime histories and Wiccan-affiliated shops. Despite the kitschiness, I enjoyed the museums. I visited the Witch History Museum, Witch Dungeon Museum, The Witch House (actually a house from the 17th Century, belonged to one of the judges who sat on witch trials)and the Lizzie Bordon Museum, which is a recent addition to Salem. I also spent quite a bit of time in the Wiccan-affiliated shops and the ridiculously tourist-y shops and had lunch at a waterfront pub, which was pleasant. I didn't, however, see everything I wanted to in Salem and so resolved to spend some more time there later in the week.
Jan and I went on a whale watching (or bird watching in his case) trip on Saturday. We were a little light on for whales, seeing only 2 minkes and 1 finback, however, the dolphins were very cooperative and put on a good show. I also saw a few dolphin calves which kept me happy. Other sightings included Harbour Porpoises (I didn't see them very well and got no photos), a couple of Ocean Sun Fish and a couple of Harbour Seals. The weather was also very good and I had a bit of a snooze on the boat on the way back, interrupted only when Jan spotted something that he thought I would like to see.
Yesterday (Sunday) was a fairly miserable day weather-wise, however, that doesn't usually stop me so I went back into Salem for the day. Took in the New England Pirate Museum which was also extremely kitschy and hilarious. The guy running the tour seemed somewhat upset that no one was laughing at his very lame jokes. I, myself, got the biggest laugh of the tour when the guy explained that the 13th American President was the grandson of a pirate - I asked if he was a republican.I also went the Salem Witch Museum, which was by far the least kitschy and most accurate of the witch museums. It also included a section on the changing perception of witches throughout history and on modern day paganism, which pleased me to see.
Some of Jan's friends came over for a lobster dinner party as I had never tried lobster before. After one claw I decided that I didn't like the taste particularly and definitely didn't like my food looking at me while I ate it so I reverted to the vegetarian option of polenta and eggplant which was very good.
Monday I got up early to do a much-needed yoga class and have spent the remainder of the day lounging.
I went into Boston proper with Jan on Tuesday morning and had a brief tour of his office. Spent the rest of the morning at the New England Aquarium, where one of the staff was particularly taken aback when I correctly identified a species of seaweed. Spent some time shopping (no purchases) and looking around the Boston freedom trail, the old cemetaries and Boston Common before going to Harvard for the afternoon. I must have looked like I fit in at Harvard because people kept giving me things like a free 3day gym pass for Harvard students and asking me if I needed help picking my concentration. I gatecrashed a cell biology lecture which was fun but unfortuently a freshman class so I didn't actually learn anything new. (Yes, that's right, I spend 5 & 1/2 years at uni so that I can leave the country and go take classes at a different uni that I'm not actually enrolled in). Anyway, Harvard was quite fun and I browsed through their bookshop and resisted the urge to buy many things.
Yesterday (Wednesday) was my last day in the US. I forced myself to go out for a run at 11am. The second I closed the door I realised that I had locked myself out. So I spent the whole day outside in my gym clothes with no money or food. I turned my 20 min run into a 3 & 1/2 hour walk. And that's how I spent my last day in the US.
Off to London today and am very excited about it!
Love and hugs to Neptune and Bunni (still in foster care) and love to Sammy.
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