Niagara's Fury...

27^th June Monday

Got up. Showered. Had an excellent breakfast; bagels, tea, coffee, and some really cool Canadian cereal called Lucky Charms. Left the house (we can’t get enough of the fact that we’re actually staying in a house!).

We drove to a nearby “parking lot”, and picked up one of Angela’s friends, Doreen, who would be joining us on our adventure to the falls. It was Doreen’s birthday, but we weren’t allowed to mention it! Doreen grew up near Niagara, and so was able to be a personal tour guide for us all across the area. It seemed like a completely idyllic place to live- the flower and tree arrangements everywhere were all created by people at the Horticultural College, and it was truly beautiful!

We arrived  at a beautiful little town called Niagara on Lake (by Lake Ontario), and wandered  around the streets. It was incredibly clean! We were very impressed with the general cleanliness- we’d thought Washington was clean and litter-free (compared to places such as New Orleans which just had a bit of a grubby vibe about them), but Washington doesn’t even get close to the beauty of the streets in this place. Flower beds lined the pavements (“sidewalks”), and neatly trimmed trees stood on every corner. We passed plenty of little souvenir stores and art galleries, and (to our utmost delight) some fudge shops. Fudge shops, might I add, which had free samples laid out for people like us to come in and try. Generosity here knows no ends! Having had a nice little appetiser to our lunch of fudge chunks, and pretzels with dips (another shop with free samples), we had all whet our appetites, and were more than ready for lunch. To be honest, when are we –not- ready for food?

The lunch we had was definitely the best lunch we’d had this entire trip! We sat on a bench in a park area right in front of Lake Ontario, the sun was out, and we had so much food: BBQ chicken, cheese rolls, regular rolls, sausage meat, cheese, Caesar salad, tomatoes (or as Angela and Doreen say, “too-mate-ohs”- we still love the accents!), cucumber, potato salad, apple juice, yoghurts, strawberries, blueberries etc etc. – it was a proper feast, and I can’t even begin to say how much we appreciated having so many fruit and vegetables after all the fast food we’d had to have while on the road.

After we’d finished, we hopped back in the car and drove along Lake Ontario, past some houses which we would all be very happy to buy on two conditions: 1) somebody else pays the several million dollar price-tag which comes with them, and 2) we no longer have any qualms about lavishly splashing out on houses which could easily fit Wembley Stadium inside. I think we could all happily concede to condition number 2. Any offers for #1??

Upon arriving at the Niagara Falls, we drove around the car park and while searching for a vacant spot, played the fun game which is impossible to play back home, but can provide endless hours of entertainment over here, of ‘where has that car we just drove past come from?’ You see, over here, on the number plates of the cars is a helpful little sign telling you which state in America, or province in Canada the car is from, and then an amusing little quip or statement about the place underneath.

E.g.
Nevada
79FJ 3493
The Silver State

Or

Ontario
29DH 38R8
Yours to Discover

We saw cars from: Ontario (obviously), Quebec, Manitoba, California (which we can say with experience is a freaking long way away!!), Wisconsin, Florida, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and a whole host of other places. See, wasn’t reading that list of places fun?

Niagara Falls. Wow, it’s pretty hard to describe what it was like, so I think we’ll let the pictures try and do some of the talking for a bit.

(The three of us and Doreen, at the top of the Falls).

Bessie, Alice, and Gillian decided to go on the famed boat ride, the Maid of the Mist, and after being equipped with their highly flattery (and totally stylish) blue, plastic ponchos, found themselves suddenly being rained heavily upon by spray, at the bottom of the Canadian Falls. It was a wonderful experience, and one we’re all going to remember!

Once we’d met up with Angela and Doreen again (who’d managed to find a prime spot for reading while we drenched ourselves in a giant waterfall), we headed up to what Doreen describes as the “tourist-trap”; the rather tacky, but nevertheless exciting Clifton Hill. Alice bought some fudge, and we all decided to immerse ourselves in a bit of true Canadian culture, and visit one of their most popular coffee shop chains; a Tim Hortons.

The fudge!

I know a lot of the day has been us having drinks, eating breakfast, or fudge, or lunch, but try as we might, we just can’t control our stomachs! So just ten minutes later we were in the car, and arriving at a lovely little restaurant called Betty’s. We all had some truly delicious meals, and finished it all off with an assortment of fruit pies; lemon meringue, strawberry and rhubarb, blueberry and cream... mhmm!

After a wonderful day out, and two meals to die for, we all clambered back into the car, and headed home. As you can probably imagine, in the one and a half hour drive back to Newmarket, we all partook in our favourite pastime, and slept.

We ended the evening on the computers doing a bit more booking of hostels. You may well be wondering why we were booking more hostels when we’ve already booked everything (don’t worry, we’re not extending our stay indefinitely- as much as we’d like to!)
We discovered to our mild horror a few days ago, that we are leaving Canada on the evening of the 30^th June, and that on the 1^st of July is a national celebration of an annual event called Canada Day. We couldn’t help but massively regret that we’d be experiencing Independence Day in the States, but miss spending Canada Day in Toronto by just one hour. Obviously, we weren’t having any of that.
We emailed the hostels to un-book two nights in New York, and to try to extend our stay in Toronto by two days. Remember this part of the story, because part two is coming in tomorrow’s blog entry, and it’s all a bit embarrassing!  

NB// If you scroll back down to 'A Day in New York', the video is finally working!

"At one with Nature..." (Ottawa to Huntsville)

25^th June Saturday

After very little sleep, we packed in a mad rush, waking up the rest of the room, and ran out with jam on toast in our hands. We made the 30 min walk to the bus station in a full on power walk through the rain. We saw the girl form last night at the station (also feeling a little worse for wear) who was visiting her parents at a cottage. Small world. We got the coach to North Bay (saw some Mormons), then to Huntsville (the bus had free wifi- get in!), then a taxi to Wolfsden Bunkhouses(fell asleep) where we were staying that night.

We met Ben, the man we’d been emailing  with countless questions in the last few days. Despite this he still seemed very pleased to see us and showed us round the lodge. It has a communal kitchen and living/dining area all decorated rustically complete with small library on wild plants and animals. Outside there was a campfire area, some outdoor-ish showers and even a free sauna! Our room had 8 beds all about 1 foot of the ground, supposedly to enchance the camping atmosphere. We cooked an excellent of broccoli soup with broccoli and microwave-heated bread rolls. Our cooking skills had progressed since Ottawa and today we successfully cooked the soup on the hob rather than the microwave, producing a much more consistent texture of soup. Baby steps.  After this fulfilling meal and a tea/coffee session, we went to inspect the sauna. To our mild horror, someone was there before us, wearing absolutely nothing. I think we scared them off with our slightly surprised comments. After making a hasty getaway we got changed into bikini (being the conservative Brits that we are) and got in the sauna- now thankfully naked people free. Gillian and Alice were sweating profusely whilst Bessie stayed cool and composed. Not fair. We had a shower with a view of the trees.

We sort of set up camp in the living room, writing journals and playing chess. Gillian taught Alice how to play, no-one really lost because Gillian failed to put Alice in checkmate despite the fact that Alice had one piece on the board. Nothing new for Gillian to be honest. 

On our way to bed we were stopped by a fellow guest who invited us to join him and his friends at the campfire. He offered us a free beer so we decided to follow him! It was a slightly more impressive campfire than the one we’d attempted to make in Virginia. Our new friends were by the lake for fishing (and drinking beer). And making fun of our accents as it turned out.  Ben was there and taught us what to do if you meet an aggressive bear (ignore it if it looks busy, or make lots of noise and look scary if the bear looks aggressive/like it’s ready to get the salt and pepper out). He also told us some of his bear chasing stories. After a nice chat by the fire, we all heated off to bed via ‘flashlight’.

Canoeing, Waterfalls, Chipmunks and Raccoons

26th June Friday

Again, highly nutritious jam on toast for breakfast. Thankfully it wasn't raining. We walked down the road towards the canoe hiring place. The road was long, and empty and surrounded by fir trees, it looked like it was out of the Twilight film! The highlight of this walk was spotting a chipmunk on the roadside. We originally thought it was a squirrel but it was far too cute! The locals seemed amazed that we found them so fascinating!

The staff at the canoe hire place were really friendly and fitted us out with lifejackets, a map, safety rope, and some 'a-loo-min-um' paddles. We even got a demonstration of the "C" stroke and the "J" stroke. Map in hand, we set off to find the waterfall. Surprisingly, canoeing with three people was easier than we first thought and we got a bit of speed up as the sun came out. And it really came out; all the grey clouds disappeared to make way for gloriously blue sky! This provided a perfect tanning opportunity for Gillian and Alice, Bessie was very keen to cover up!

Having said we were going pretty fast, we were still easily over taken by the British lady we unexpectedly walked in on, in the sauna last night (there were only two in her boat, much to our shame).
We also got passed by a speed boat with our campfire friends from last night in. They were a little bit quieter than they were last night, but still enthusiastically showed us the 2 foot long bass they had caught.    Their strange Italian friend said nothing but filmed us as we paddled past. Very odd.

Having arrived at the waterfall, we expertly manoeuvred our canoe into a small spot and hopped elegantly off. A short hike away was the top of the waterfall, our British friend, Sarah, was already there swimming in the water, with her German canoeing partner. We ate lunch on a rock with a view of the rapids and Sarah told us about her PhD in Stem Cell research, which sounded really interesting (and allowed her to have business meetings in Canada -not a bad life!)

After lunch, Gillian and Alice went for a paddle in the shallows. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't long before Alice slipped on the algae-covered river bed and fell in up to her thighs. Gillian, spotting a great Kodak moment, ran to give her camera to Sarah. While running back in to join Alice (in hindsight, running was just asking for it!), she fell in up to her chest.

Now already a lot more wet than we'd previously intended, we threw caution to the wind and went for a swim fully clothed. There was quite a lot of complaining about the cold at first, and some interesting examples of doggy paddle to swim against the current, which was dragging us towards the waterfall.

Whilst lying out to dry, we spotted this butterfly on Gillian's top.

Don't worry, there were not many people about!

Whilst Gillian and Alice were swimming, Bessie took herself off on a little hike down the waterfall. Although this time she didn't get lost, she still managed to let her camera go for a swim in the river. (It took several days to dry out but thankfully has fully recovered from its ordeal!)
From this peaceful spot in the middle of nowhere, we canoed, walked and taxied back to Huntsville station. Our taxi driver was very chatty and told us stories of his previous passengers. At Huntsville we took a bus to Barrie. At Barrie we took a bus to Newmarket. At Newmarket, Alice's dad's cousin (Angela) took us to her house. The idea of being in a house was exciting, we didn't have to share rooms with strangers, and had our own bathroom. Small pleasures. In fact, this was the longest we will have ever stayed in one place since the end of May, all the way back in Los Angeles!

On the way to Angela's house we spotted what we thought was a dog running across the road. However, when Alice asked what it was, Angela casually replied that it was a raccoon. All drama ensued. We made her stop the car to admire it. It was standing on it's hind legs, hugging the tree, with it's triangular, stripy face staring right at us -so cute! Apparently they are a menace in this area and raid rubbish, a bit like foxes at home.

We stayed up talking really late then went to bed.

Parlez-vous Francais?

24^th June Friday

We slept in that morning and were only moderately disturbed by our roomies, including a very elusive Asian man sleeping underneath Alice who never seems to be around apart from late afternoons. After a nutritious breakfast comprising jam on toast, we headed out into Otttawa, praying that it wouldn’t rain. Since we were in the capital, we made the trip to Parliament Hill. There were free tours, ours was obviously in English (the tour guides could switch between English and French mid-sentence – we were very impressed!). We were shown all round the building, although we weren’t allowed in the House of Commons because all the MPs were in there discussing the postal strike, and had been ALL night! I suppose the benefit of a postal strike is that we didn’t need to feel so guilty about still not managing to post some of our final postcards. For the locals, there is no benefit- profound insight right there. We saw a picture of the House of Commons though, and to be honest it all looked very familiar, which is probably because it was based on the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, which is rather cool.

After the tour we sat outside on one of the stone walls amongst all the statues of famous Canadian politicians and ate our packed lunch (yes we were looking very classy sat in the shadows of people including Queen Victoria). After this lunch, a kind policeman started talking to us, and we all got some photos with him. Before sending us on our way, he gave us each a cute little pin with the Canadian flag on it which was nice!

Next stop on our fleeting tour of Ottawa was the National Gallery. There was an exhibition going on about this artist called Caravaggio. He is famed for his paintings, which were often depicting ugly images, which was almost unheard of at this time. He inspired many other artists. He was good, we’ll give him that. There was an interactive section where you could dress up and pose in period costume like you were off of a Caravaggio painting. Here is our attempt:

Just across the bridge from Ottawa was Quebec. We decided to walk across the bridge and set foot in this exciting new province. In Quebec they speak French obviously, so in an attempt to embrace a new cultural experience we decided to try and speak only French whilst there. Almost as soon as we set foot across the bridge spanning the Ontario River it started to rain, really really heavily. Undetered we ploughed on with cries of “il pleut! Il pleut!” (because thats pretty much all we could say!). At the end of our epic voyage across the bridge, and upon reaching the new and exciting promised land of Quebec, we hastily shetlered from the rain under the eaves of the National Museum of Civilisation. Struggling to decide what to do, especially trying to discuss it in French, we spied upon a bus making its way through the downpour. Alice bravely ran out to flag down the bus, at which the bus driver took pity on us and pulled over.  Apparently “Je voudrais un bus returner a la hostel” was not good enough instructions for Quebecian bus driver so we soon gave up and reverted back to English, much to his relief I’m sure. Our excursion into Quebec was short but quite the adventure.

Some of us appreciated the rain more than others...

On the way back we sheltered from the rain in a shopping mall within which there was a La Senza sale that had attracted just about every girl in Canada. We joined the fray and emerged an hour later with a load more underwear, not only was it cheap, but it also means we don’t have to do any washing for a few more days! J we also stopped at a ‘grocery store’ for groceries. obviously.

Back at the jail hostel we made a huge amount of very excellent pasta which we gobbled down. After a bit of faffing with showers and catching up on this blog (we’re about a week behind if you haven’t noticed!) We ordered a pitcher of beer at the hostel bar, drank it and headed off into the night...

It was our first night out in the capital of a country where we were completely allowed to go anywhere we liked, and we didn’t know where to go. So following one of the instructions from aone of the hostel staff we hit the ‘strip’ and didn’t see very much. We walked into a bar and asked the barman what to do. He pointed us in the direction of upstairs. To be honest, we should have spotted the signs: the bar was called ‘Kinkis’, we got our hand stamped by a woman with very short hair, sporting a wife beater with lots of tattoos, the stamp was a twist on the female symbol, everyone comes out for a smoke looked similar with equally short hair and plentiful tattoos. Yes, we’d done it again. Somehow we’d managed to end up in another gay bar. Determined to get our $3 worth, we carried on regardless. After not very long the whole situation got a bit too awkward to handle. We tried hard not to make eye contact for fear of any unwanted attention, but I think it was quite obvious we had come to the wrong place. We escaped back downstairs to confront the bar tender who’d sent us. He turned out to be a very nice man called Sean who gave us discounted cocktails (possibly he felt bad for our traumatic experience). Anyway, he suggested another club with whom he had ‘contacts’. He texted his friend working at ‘Mercury Lounge’ who agreed to let us in for free! At the club however, the lady didn’t seem convinced that we shouldn’t pay anything. We tried to turn on the British charm but were saved fairly quickly when Sean’s friend and our saviour Zach, turned up and said we were on the guest list. We even got VIP entrance free of charge! Unfortunately we’d missed the live band but did enjoy the music. In the lounge part of the Mercury Lounge we got chatting to some Canadians, one of which said she was getting a coach the next morning.

Hello Canada!

23^th June Thursday

At about 6 in the morning we all stopped at a place called Buffalo to use their restrooms, and then a few hours later we had to cross the border at Port Erie. This was a crazy amount of effort for that time in the morning, because we had to unload the entire luggage section of the coach, plus all the overhead lockers etc, and show our passports, and answer some very complicated questions (e.g. how long are you staying? Have you been here before? Why are you here?) Then we had to put all our luggage back on the coach about 2 metres further along from where we’d unloaded. We were officially now in Canada!!

We arrived in Toronto at about 10am, and in order to collect our next set of tickets (to Ottawa), we had to present our reference number. Which we’d temporarily lost. As a result, we had a nice little excursion of Toronto to try and find some wifi, to get onto Gillian’s email, to find this reference number. We were running out of time, and had just bought breakfast (bagels and cups of tea/ coffee) which we were clinging onto whilst dragging our cases around town (I’m pretty sure we left a trail of bits of cream cheese and bread behind us). After following many different people’s instructions, we chanced upon the most beautiful sight- a Starbucks. We were all well aware of Starbucks free wifi. With the newly gained reference number in hand, we raced back to the bus station, and arrived just in time to get our next 5 hour coach journey to Ottawa.

We spend most of the coach journey catching up on sleep we’d lost from the previous night, and arrived in Ottawa later that afternoon. It was very hot, and a seriously long walk was required to get to the hostel. We seemed to be dragging our suitcases through unknown cities a lot recently.

The hostel was another Hostelling International, but with a twist. It was a converted jail house, closed in 1972 for inhumane living conditions, and later became a hostel. Doesn’t that just fill you with a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

We were in a 8-bed mixed dorm, and had some interesting roomies. This one guy, Ian, who had crazy, peroxide blonde hair which seemed to make he was in a permanent state of electric shock, was really nice and gave us some good advice on what to do whilst there.

Staying at that hostel was an interesting experience, and made us all realise what zoo animals must feel like all the time. Because of the interesting heritage of the building, there were school groups being led around on part of a tour for most of the evening. A lot of the kids looked at us as if we were completely off our rockers, asking incredulously “why are they eating here?”. Our dinner that night was good, so maybe they were just jealous.

We’d been to the grocery store and bought ourselves some bread rolls, tomato, vegetable, and broccoli soup. The soups were delicious, but didn’t initially look all that appetising; we had to add water to this paste and microwave it, and we were a bit repulsed by the gooey, separated, watery mixture it started out as. By our expert use of the microwaves it looked and smelt like gourmet soup though, so it was worth it.

We did a bit of planning for the next few days using the hostel’s wifi, and used the showers. They  were in the old cells complete with heavy doors with ominous locks. Thankfully the school tours didn’t reach the showers, although they would have been in for a treat! That night there was a thunderstorm. Gillian and Bessie battled the weather like troopers to check out a few of Ottawa’s bars. It was their first time out (legally) for over a month and their first time out in Canada. Fully embracing the culture, they went first to a Scottish pub and then an Irish one, getting soaked on the way.  Alice was lame (“sensible”) and went to bed.

A day in New York.

22^nd June Wednesday

We woke up ridiculously late. We had one hour for everyone to shower, pack, and check out before we were charged for taking too long.

We made the epic journey, using public transport (a shuttle, a free bus, another bus, a metro train, and a mile long walk) to Sas’s hotel. We met a few interesting characters on this adventure. The driver of the free bus decided to give us a free gymnastics demonstration using the railings on the ceiling to hang upside down (breaking his phone in the process as it fell out his pocket onto the floor), and another odd, Greek man started chatting to Alice at the bus stop, and invited us to have dinner with him. Don’t worry parents and other people, we’re not planning to take him up on this offer . Three hours later, we arrived, with very tired arms and legs, at the hotel which was a whole ten miles away from where we’d started. The US once again demonstrates its highly efficient public transport system.

Upon arriving at Sas’s hotel (which was amazingly posh) we spent a while admiring the view she had from her 20^th floor room.

We then walked up the street to Central Park.

We were all pretty hungry by this point, so we went into the nearby Plaza Hotel (definitely 5*, and probably costing an arm and a leg to stay there each night) to ask the concierge where any cheap cafes were. By the time we’d walked across the marble floors and underneath the sparkling chandeliers, we thought better of this plan, and decided to save ourselves some dignity, and not ask such a cheapskate question in such a wealthy place.

Instead we walked outside, and bought some pretzels and a hot dog off a street vendor instead. Much more us!

(Sas isn't completely won over by the pretzel.)

We ate our lunch on some grassy part of Central Park, right by a lake, which was beautiful and really serene.

Next stop was Chinatown. We had to make a stop here because Gillian required an extra bag to fit her growing amount of belongings. She is absolutely convinced that her clothes are getting it on and breeding like rabbits in the bottom of her case. That, and things like a large, blue, LA Dodger hand, and a poster of the Grand Canyon are taking up precious room. If only things like extension cables and laptops took us less space!
We found a nice cheap, smallish case with wheels and a handle (which later turned out to be the most ineffective handle ever made by mankind. It twists every time someone touches it, and especially in the middle of busy roads when we’re all about to get run over by an enthusiastic taxi driver at any moment) which was exactly what we were looking for.

Ruled by our stomachs, as ever, next on our list of places to go was Little Italy.

We had a very pleasant dinner in a very nice little Italian restaurant, with some rather charming waiters. This was our final meal with Sas, which was pretty sad since she’d pretty much instantly become part of our little group, and we’d all spend almost every waking moment with her since June 1^st.

We made the journey back to her hotel after the meal to collect our cases so we could make our way to the Greyhound bus terminal. Saying goodbye to her as we waited for the elevator down from her room was really awful- we felt like we were just abandoning her in some foreign city in some foreign country. It was all pretty sad, and I think as we made the long descent down in silence, we were all missing her terribly already. It’s okay though, because we have faithfully promised to meet up with her when we’re back in the UK for a good catch up. It will be very strange seeing her again back home rather than in some crazy American state in the middle of absolutely no where.

From our last experience on a Greyhound bus (if you remember it was from San Francisco to Los Angeles back in May!) we’d all dressed up warmly. Which was a massive hassle when dragging our many cases, uphill, through a hot and sticky New York, for miles. We eventually made it though- hot, and sweaty, and exhausted, and seriously dreading what kind of night’s sleep we were about to have.

There’s not really all that much to say- I think we were all very excited to be finally on our way to Canada. America and the Americans had been very hospitable to us, and we’d all very much enjoyed our four week stay, but we were all ready for a bit of a change of scenery, and for a new country to home us for a while. The bus was a whole lot more crowded than our first experience, and we only got one seat each (gutted).

By the way, we forgot/ couldn't be bothered to put this in the correct blog post, but this is a fun little video of us actually arriving in the Empire State (which as Bill Bryson points out in the book we've all been reading, is a ridiculous name for New York- since out of its many achievements and world renown, owning territories overseas has never been one of them).

DC to NYC

20^th June Monday

Spying, Flying, and the Bill of Rights

Got up, had breakfast. At breakfast we met another guy from the UK who was on his way south to the places we’d just come from- Memphis, Austin, New Orleans. We gave him tips on what he definitely had to do (most of it was us babbling on about how awesome the jazz band was, and how he absolutely had to go see them). Our great advice didn’t go unrewarded though; he told us to make sure we went to the National Archives, which had been something we’d not even thought of doing- so we have him to thank for a pretty great afternoon.

We begun our tour of the city with a trip to the Spy Museum.

 It was actually a very fascinating place. We learnt that Daniel Defoe and Ian Flemming were both spies back in the day, and that Washington D.C. is the city with the highest spy population in the world. Naturally, for the whole rest of the day we were wandering around giving everyone we passed in the streets second glances, trying to discern whether or not they were part of some sort of espionage scheme. There was an exhibit on ninjas, and for all the history lovers out there, there were plenty of rooms dedicated to spying in all the world wars, and even some pretty awful facts about how Pearl Harbour could so easily have been prevented, if only some people would pay attention to what others told them. There were some old school gadgets: lip-stick pistol, microphone chips, umbrella guns, video camera sunglasses etc.

Two of the things we found most interesting were:
 1) the fact that the Navajo tribes (the Native American tribe we were telling you all about earlier) helped with the war effort in WWII by using a coded version of their language to baffle the Japanese. Their code was never once broken.
2) That cyber terrorism could result in a murderous society of complete anarchy. Basically we saw a timeline which went something like this:

1.       American banks are hacked into- all credit cards stop working, money quickly becomes useless. Communications fail across the nation.

2.       Electricity, gas, and clean water begin to run low, and disappear completely. People start tapping into underground gas pipes, stealing becomes common place, as does breaking and entering into houses.

3.       Hospitals unable to run- no sanitary equipment, drugs, or healthcare available.

4.       Food is in very short supply because of complete disruption throughout the country, as people get desperate for their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, they will turn to violence.

5.       Chaos ensues.

After we’d fully saturated our minds with fun spying facts, and decided that our childhood fantasies of being the next James Bond were even more ridiculous that we already imagined, we met up with one of Alice’s friends from her travels in Kenya earlier this year for lunch. Meeting up for lunch in Washington D.C . with a friend one has made in Kenya may seem a bit extreme, but the girl in question (her name is Nelle) actually works in Washington D.C., and is originally from Connecticut, so it did make sense- no one was flying half way across the world or anything crazy like that.

After a very pleasant sandwich lunch, Nelle had to go back to work, and the three of us, and Sas went to a frozen yoghurt shop (called Frozen Yo!) We absolutely stuffed ourselves- the yoghurt was so good, and as you can see from our photos below, there was a huge selection of toppings to be had as well! Yum!

(We passed the Capital Building)

Next on our list of museums to visit was the Air and Space Museum, which is the most visited museum in D.C. We all got our photos taken next to Apollo 11 (the one Neil Armstrong and his buddies Buzz Aldron, and the one no one can ever remember the name of, poor guy, travelled to and from the Moon in.) Then we wasted a perfectly good $7 on the most shockingly awful simulation ride any of us have ever been on, before spending $9 on an absolutely fantastic Planetarium show. We sat in very comfortable, tilted back chairs, under a high definition, domed screen, in a darkened room, listening to the soothing tones of Whoopi Goldberg’s commentary, as we zoomed through space. Yes, we did struggle to stay awake. It was completely mind-blowing, so the tendencies to fall asleep were certainly not because it was dull, but rather because all this travelling has exhausted us, and we’ve got used to napping every time we sit down for more than ten minutes.

We also visited the National Archives.

We had to queue for about an hour outside, and then get security checked, and then s tern talking to about no photos, and then queued some more inside. We saw a copy of the Magna Carter (which all the Americans were duly walking past and mostly ignoring), and then we attempted to read the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Constitution. We felt a little bit out of place considering 99% of the tourists her were Americans, and they were celebrating their independence from Britain. Oh well, as Alice said quite loudly ‘we didn’t want them anyway’, at which point the security guard in front of us started grinning conspiratorially at us- yes, someone who gets our humour!

Later that night we had our ‘last supper’ together as a tour group at a restaurant called Busboys and Poets. John felt sick so left as soon as his soup arrived. We all managed to get a table together, and we chatted, and laughed, and generally had a fab time.

Then we went to bed.

21^st June Tuesday

The Final Goodbye

The next day we passed through many states: Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and then ended in New York.

When the New York skyline first came into view, we whacked on: Empire State of Mind, Empire State of Mind II, New York (Paloma Faith), New York New York (Frank Sinatra), and Manhattan in the Sky (Kate Voegele) and sung like crazy.

 After exhausting our voices, and probably Kat’s patience, we stopped off in Liberty State Park in New Jersey, where plenty of final photos were taken with the iconic New York skyline and Hudson River behind us.

We gave Kat a present- a book of ‘Would You Rather...’ – a staple boredom game we’d played over the past few weeks. We thought she could make use of it for future Van Appreciation Days.

We dropped everyone off at the Newark Hilton Hotel, and said goodbye to most of the people. Then Kat dropped the three of us, and Sas at the Wyndham Garden Hotel, also in Newark. We hadn’t been planning to stay in New York for the night, but part way through the tour we discovered that we’d managed to book the entire rest of the trip a day out, and had one night spare.

After dumping our belongings, we’d arranged to meet Dave, Ashleigh, Carl, and Leanne in Manhattan for a final evening together, so we got an extortionate train ticket into the city.

We saw Times Square, Broadway, and the Empire State Building.

Then we popped into Macy’s for dinner (as you do)- Ashleigh, Carl, and Leanne had disappeared off into the Abercrombie and Fitch, so we met up with them later, as food was our priority, rather than clothes. We all finished off our meal with a New York cheesecake (we couldn’t resist).

On the way back, we passed Macy’s again, which had now developed an enormous queue outside- consisting entirely of teenage girls. Apparently Justin Bieber (sorry to mention the Bieber word, people) had a new perfume being realised the following day, and the first 300 people to buy it would get to meet him. We found this info out from these two completely fanatical 15 year old teenage girls, who full on admitted to stalking The Bieb on numerous occasions. Kind of feel like we’re missing out on something big here. Ah well, I guess we’ll have to wait until he releases his second perfume, or maybe a nail varnish range. Who knows???

When we got back we stayed up until 3am watching Michael McIntire clips about revolving doors, and pens etc. Love for Youtube.

Then we slept. Yay.