NYC – Big lady statues, disco fries, Geordie accents in America and tall buildings at night

So it’s almost over (until next time, more on that later!). The last night in DC closed in and the following morning we packed up and loaded up the gold bus for our final journey to the big apple.

Our first stop on this journey was in a place called Annapolis where we stopped at the United States Naval Academy. Those of us who had booked went on a tour of the facilities where we saw where the cadets trained and lived. The regime is so harsh, they get hardly any time off, have to do so much work, I wasn’t sure whether to admire them or think they were crazy. Our tour guide was very very boring and talked a lot. Not great since we were all a bit worse for wear and it was super hot (as usual on this trip). On a plus point we stumbled across all the cadets marching to class in their little white uniforms. Sailor boys <3.

How excited were we when we saw this???

We rebussed after the tour and headed onwards to the city or Philadelphia, home of Rocky, the liberty bell and philly cheese steak sandwiches. Our first stop was the Rocky ‘steps’ at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. No, I did not run up them, but I did walk up very fast (there are a lot of them!). There is also a statue of rocky outside the museum which you could take a picture with.

Whilst in Philly I passed on trying the infamous cheese steak and instead hit up the Liberty Bell (it’s a bit bell . . .) and saw Liberty Hall. Quite nice to see some real American History, especially after visiting Washington.

De de de de de de de de de de . . .

So onwards it was to NYC. We arrived late afternoon and got dropped off at the Contiki hotel and it was a bit of an anti-climax as we just kind of dispersed. There were plans to meet later thankfully. I headed off to my hotel, the Pod Hotel. It was about 10 blocks away so I got a cab. Check in was super quick and easy and it was a great hotel, such a good location. I did however start to feel lonely. After a month of having a roomy and constant companionship I was alone. Hard to get used to :(

That night I decided to walk to the bar to meet the others (concierge – 15 minutes walk, actually 40 minutes walk!) and happily lots of people had made the effort so we got a chance to say goodbye. My ex-roomy Erin was there and upon hearing how bad her hostel was, convinced her to take the extra bed in my room, I was no longer alone! I then directed a bunch of us to Times Square (since I went to NYC a bazillion time with Virgin) and saw the lights etc. We also checked out BB Kings, which was dead and no where near as fun as in Memphis. I then headed back for an early-ish night and arranged to meet Naomi the next day to sightsee!

NYC's finest (and me looking tres rough)

Day 2 of NYC Naomi and I decided to see lady liberty first. I had previously been over there but was more than happy to go back! We went down to battery park and with our tickets followed to massive queue, took 5 mins just to get to the end of it :( In the queue we saw Mark and his sister Vicky so we cheekily pushed in. Still was going to be a long wait. As luck would have it, a worker saw a couple of the guys had NYC City Passes which gives you a q jump. Mark and I didn’t but he said it would be okay, so what would have been a 2 hour wait became a 20 minute one. Happy days! We boarded Miss Liberty and headed to Liberty Island, got some photos with the lady and souvenired a little and then got back on the ferry and checked out Ellis Island, the place where thousands of immigrants first set foot on American soil. You can practically taste the history.

Post lady Liberty we did an emergency clothes shop ( 4 weeks in same clothes = bad) and visited Macys, Tiffanys and build a bear workshop where I treated myself (watch, necklace, statue of liberty bear!).

Trend setters!

Me and the statue of liberty bear!

That night I headed to the Contiki hotel and met up with a bunch of people. We got some dinner at an ‘Irish’ bar, where the menu included the interested, but ultimately gross Disco Fries and then hit up Times Square again. We then headed to the Empire State Building and went up to see the views at midnight. Very fun, there were quite a few people up there and no queues, and we bumped into some more Contiki’s! I called it a night at about 2am – no partying in NYC, Jill was partied out by now!

Strike a pose!

Last ever group shot at the top of the Empire State

The next day, Naomi wasn’t feeling great so we took it easy. We visited Wall St, the ground zero area, Century 21 and China Town. We then went to the TKTS booth at Times Square and waited in a ridiculous queue. We made a short list of shows and when we got to the booth plumed for Billy Elliot based on cost and what we hadn’t seen. Still cost $70 each for restricted views, Broadway is expensive!!!

After a chill out at the hotel (much needed!) we med at the theatre and had fun watching Americans try and do Geordie accents, with varying degrees of success! It was pretty amazing though and we were only about 7 rows from the front, only couldn’t see a foot or so of the stage on the left hand side, well worth it it seems! Afterwards we headed back to Times Square (AGAIN!) and had some famous NYC cheesecake at Roxy Delicatessan, yummy but HUGE uneatable slices. With that, my last night in the states came to a close

The next day, I did some last minute shopping and met Naomi for Lunch at Olive Garden and finally got myself a paper hat at Hershey World (the best freebie ever!). I then said a sad goodbye to Naomi, who had been my constant companion that past month. I am reasonably confident we will meet again soon (private joke ‘Omi!).

My trip ended with a long journey to Newark airport, a thankfully decent flight back to LHR (and nice people sitting next to me!) and a hop up to Newcastle – and funnily enough Erin was on my BA flight to NCL.

So that is it. Over. Kaput. Finale. Or is it?? Come on, this is me!! Miss Itchy Feet herself. I’m off to Austria at Christmas and will be hopefully touring Europe next year. So this blog will continue and I hope you will continue to read.

As always, I am seeking a life less ordinary.

Love, Jill xxx

Orlando in 36 hours, Harry Potter(!), Pool party part un and falling asleep in the everglads

Soooo onwards and downwards to the beautiful state of Florida which was to be our home for the next 7 days – the longest we would spend in one state. Soo much happened that we will do Florida in two parts – number one Tallahasse to Miami.

We left New Orleans and bussed our way along the coast. Today Justin decided we would be stopping for lunch in Pensacola Beach. Pensacola Beach is one of the tourist communities affected by the BP oil spill in the gulf and he thought it would be nice for 50 hungry people to go and spend some dollars there. To get there we had to drive along a very long bridge which I can’t find on the map but I remember it took ages to get there! Little Erin, Naomi and I headed to a local sports bar for lunch and Naomi and I enjoyed (?) $2 margaritas just because they were $2!

Onwards to Tallahasse the state capital of Florida, surprisingly as it seems like a really small place. We got there late so didn’t see much, we went to Applebees for one of our better included dinners (and it seems to be a hot place as when we left people were paying to get in to for some karaoke thing, I guess not much happens there!). Some of us then headed for a local bar which had a ‘wheel of fortune’ for free beer and played some pool and air hockey. Headed home at a reasonable hour to enjoy a room to myself, which resulted from a reservation muck up (after Erin and I had shared a bed in Memphis too!). Worked out quite well as I was ill and could not stop coughing due to *still* being ill.

Orlando beckons the next day and we get there early afternoon and a bunch of us decide to check out some water slides at Wet’N’Wild. Lots of fun, lots of queues and pretty hot. Managed to do most of the rides which was a good effort considering we were only there about 5 hours. The best had to be ‘Disco H2O’ where you go down into this funnel type thing with disco balls inside and disco music and you spin round a bit before getting chucked outside, pretty fun! That evening (still a little ill) we went for our included dinner – pizza which we waited nearly an hour for and a laundry party with Naomi. I hadn’t washed my clothes in a washing machine since the grand canyon, it was a crisis situation! The others went to a bar and got drunk and had a pool party at crazy oclock and I got woken up a few times, fun and games!

Our only full day in Orlando was next! We had decided to hit Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios as that is where HARRY POTTER world is! We upped the stakes and bought express passess (best $70 I had spent in a while!) so we could skip all the queues. They were amazing, walked past all the people queuing and didn’t wait more than 10 minutes, which is pretty good in the middle of August! Our first stop was of course harry potter world (officialy ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’). Something was wrong when we got there so had to wait an hour in the queue with De, Trudy and Naomi. So we sat on the ground (it was hot and we weren’t precious) ate Choros, pretzels and slushy drinks for breakfast and got excited.

Finally getting in to Potter land - so excited!

Harry potter world is really cool, if a little smaller than I imagined. The Hogwarts village has been done in such detail, you can go in all the shops, buy things from the movies (like butter beer and bertie botts beans) there is an owlery to send postcards and you can visit ollivanders. Trudy and I headed for the duelling dragons ride which was lots of fun and our first use of our express pass, it was set up like the challengers for the tri-wizard cup, very cute. Something I loved about universal studios was the quality and detail everywhere. All the rides are so well maintained, no wear and tear and really well made! Every ride the staff have uniforms themed to that ride (not just that area) its soo cute! On this ride they were dressed like the people who look after the dragons in the film! We skipped the ride inside Hogwarts as there was a huge queue and our queue jumpers didn’t work on that ride (bummer) but we cheered ourselves up by buying wands and other paraphernalia!

We next hit up the water ride section of the park, and oh my god the rides there get you SOAKED! Not damp, not wet but ‘oh my god everything I am wearing (including my underwear) is so drenched if I stripped off I could fill a paddling pool with the water I squeeze out of it’. Much fun, but kinda icky when its humid! We also checked out some more rollercoaster and superhero themed things, waited in a queue for 30 mins for bad fast food (there were only TEN people in front of us) and relaxed a little as our wonderful express passes took all the stress out of the day!

That night we had a barbeque (where even though I paid I ended up with no food – hmmmmm) and a party with a ‘D’ theme (Well gold bus was ‘D’ theme, white bus all had different letters which made it hard to tell who was what). Most of us got in on it (I was a domino!) but some lazy sods didn’t bother – you know who you are :P! It was actually pretty tame, lots of us went in the pool, some of the guys had nerf guns so there was a bit of a nerf war and Amy decided to have a little strip in the pool but pretty calm! Stayed in the pool until the security guy kicked us out (hmm, will that happen again??) at a rather early 12.30am and had a good nights sleep for the journey to MIAMI!

Okay, a side note on our journey to Miami. We were told we would get a tour of the Everglades included, yay we said. Justin says, if you don’t want to do it you don’t have to but there is nothing to do at the place we leave the bus. So we go on a little tour in these trolley type things. One of the most boring 90 minute periods of my life. Grass. Water. Birds. A gator. Repeat. For 90 minutes. Also one of the most boring tour guides in the world, he talked about alligators for 20 MINUTES! I was tired, ill, a little hungover and just wanted to sleep. We nearly killed Justin for not warning us. Bad times.

It really was that boring!

But, we were on our way to MIAMI!!!! So all is good.

TBC – Miami clubs, DASH, Miami Ink, booze cruises, SHOTS!, beach bumming and NASA baby!

21 days and counting!

Okay so it is now 3 weeks, or 22 days, or 540 hours till I get on the (first) plane for the loooong journey to LA. Yesterday I received my travel documents from Contiki which was a nice surprise as I was not really expecting them for a week or so, so for the last couple of days I've been obsessing over minor details such as which hotels I'm staying and and which optional things to do (yeah, I know but I'm unemployed and the only other activity I have is filling in job applications which is very, very dull . . . ) and creating a handy dandy little google map showing all the fabulous places I will be visiting and how far they are from each other.

(*On that note I must admit when I booked the tour I didn't really think about the fact I was going to be stuck on a tour bus for hours on end when travelling between cities. I'm not the biggest fan of buses as it is so I will let you know how it goes. I anticipate for at least 50% of the journey times I am either going to be knackered - and therefore sleep - or hungover - and hopefully be sleeping . . .)

I'm also now thinking about all the practical stuff - what to pack and what things I really want to do. I'm actually a little stuck! I guess in LA I want to do the tourist thing as I've never been to downtown LA, but in Vegas I've already seen a lot so I guess I will try and act as helpful tour guide to some of the others and as for NY I'm stumped. Due to a little 'mix up' with the travel agent I have 3 whole days there. Sounds great in theory but I've been there lots of times before so I need to be a bit creative about where I go. I definitely want to check out some of the different areas like Greenwich Village and soak up a bit of city culture, meet some interesting people. I guess, this summer the USA is my oyster, so lets see what fun and adventures can be found!

xx