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Weeeeee'reeeeeeee baaaaaaaaaack! We're not sure if anyone is actually going to read this as you may have all given up on us by now, but hey ho, we've got time to kill.
So when we last blogged we were at Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand. Since then we've done a shedload, and we've travelled half way around the world.
So, New Zealand.....after Franz Josef we continued South to Queenstown, Stewart Island (for some midnight kiwi hunting with the strangest man we've ever met. We like to simply call him Swiss.), Dunedin, Christchurch, Kaikoura and back up to Auckland via Wellington. We then had a few days on our hands so we jumped into our new friend Purusha's car, lovingly named Barry. Much iced coffee, Leona Lewis and scenic viewing ensued (no more big trees, please, Big P!). Seeing Purusha running full pelt down a sand dune was one of the highlights of New Zealand. No, actually, that was a highlight of our entire gap year.
We then "got beef" with a silly Flight Centre employee, so to calm us down Purusha drove us to a petrol station where we spent a few minutes screaming at petrol pumps. This actually worked very well, though Barry wasn't impressed. We said a teary farewell to the most harmonious man we know. We miss you Big P, see you soon.
We then headed to Fiji. Why?!? We don't like heat. We don't like beaches. However, we did actually have a good time here, doing a three hour rain soaked rainforest trek, tubing down a river to a secluded waterfall, meeting some villagers, billi billi rafting, kava drinking and meeting the legendary Chris "the animal from down under" and Nat "the Canadiot". We saw a hell of a lot of rain as it was cyclone season so consoled ourselves with peanut butter and kit kat cookie doughs.
Next stop, L.A. A nice warm welcome into the country as Helen got interrogated as to her reasons for entering the U.S. and Sarah swanned through with two suspect packages of kava. L.A. was a load of old crap, except for seeing Matt Damon and the excitement of Sarah's toenail coming off. Brilliant.
We spent 12 hours on a lovely Amtrak train meeting some overly enthusiastic Californians who wanted to know what was an appropriate hour to have afternoon tea. We spent two weeks in San Francisco doing all the touristy things, like eating a HUGE pizza and discovering Lori's Diner. We also did Alcatraz, Golden Gate bridge, Coit Tower, Lombard Street, Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39, clam chowder, Bush Man, illegal street gambling and met a shouty Russian and an evil witch. We spent a night pissed off our faces taking this opportunity to practice our Californian accents (the verdict was not good), and tell a gangster that he wasn't a gangster, "not with a face like that." Sarah was told she was not allowed to try and talk to the d.j. anymore as he was fed up with her screaming "play Kate Naaaash" at him all night. We spent our last night in the Tenderloin where we were victims of verbal racial abuse from the guys on the street and a stuck-up Scottish girl who clearly did NOT want to watch America's Next Top Model.
Portland was rainy, dreary and bleak, but we loved it! Powell's Book Store and the rose garden shop being the highlights. Seattle was freezing cold and we saw a two-headed cow. We had a psychotic taxi driver who we didn't like. We made our feelings clear by not tipping. Whoa, we are crazy, do not mess with us. Space Needle was good, got free sweeties.
Vancouver? S'alright. Not as lovely as we expected, particularly as we kept ending up on Hastings Street, the most crack addicts you'll ever see on one street. Awful. Ridiculous. Depressing. Disgusting. Terrifying. However, we loved our new friends the racoons in Stanley Park and spent a lot of time stalking the wildlife there. We then rolled around in the snow in Jasper for a few days where we saw a big black bear, before taking a train for 3 days, 2 nights all the way to Toronto.
We liked Toronto a lot, the highlight was seeing Nat and Chris again, drinking gin from red cups, and heading to the baseball for shouts of "Touchdown!" and other inappropriate tourist behaviour. We then headed on to the Loose Moose for drinks we can't remember drinking and actions we can't remember performing. Poor Chris thought he had everything under control until he turned around to see Sarah being (once again) shouted at by the d.j. ("NO. No Kate Nash"), Nat laying on the dancefloor after an over ambitious line dancing move, and Helen on stage hammering away at the keyboard which he could hear over the speaker system. Needless to say the rest of the night (and all the next day) was spent with Sarah's head down the loo while Helen slept in the bathtub. It didn't help the next day when there was a fire in the room next door and we all had to evacuate, both still in our p.j.s, in the middle of the street surrounded by fire engines and police cars. Fetching.
Since then we've been to Niagara Falls which were spectacular (expect for the tacky Southend-on-Sea-esque township), had a LOT of Tim Horton's French Vanilla coffee, and are now in Ottawa where we saw George Bush jog past us. We are currently staying in a hostel that used to be a prison and is haunted by ex-inmates who were executed upstairs. Next stop Montreal for some poutine and some French practice. Oui, oui! Helen es une imbecile! Har har Sarah, you are so funny! I am going to summon Mr. Ghost to GET YOU in the night. Then Boston to see Corrigan, followed by a reunion with the boys in New York.
Who knows whether we'll blog again, we only have one and a half months left and judging by our past track record, it's simply not going to happen. Oh no, that's just made us very sad. Maybe we will blog again to try and prolong our adventure.
Au revoir, bientot, laterzzzzz
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