New York, New York!

Day 31:


Another super early start – 5.30am in the humid Miami heat + tired + hungry as nothing is open for breakfast = fail. We dragged our stuff to the street and waited for our taxi to the airport – luckily for us, he played ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ in Spanish, and we sang along in English. He was mighty impressed with our bi-lingual abilities, “You know Spanish? Or you like this song?” and so with the sounds of 80’s pop at 6am in the morning to raise our spirits, we said goodbye to Miami and boarded our flight to New York.
Luckily the flight was relatively short, so we landed at around lunch time. The cab ride into the city took ages though – we were banked up in traffic for roughly 1.5hrs – usually this would frustrate us, but we felt it was more typical of NYC (yes, we said NYC – it’s easier than typing the whole thing every time we want to refer to it, it’s 2010, acronyms are all the rage) to have traffic jams and lots of honking, so we took it on board and felt that it enhanced our first taste of the Big Apple. This how ever wore off, as does every novelty when you need to pee like a pregnant woman and have to hold it for longer than 2hrs.
FINALLY we made it into downtown Manhattan and onto 5th ave – where our hotel was. We stayed at the lotus, a half hotel, half hostel place – you have your own NYC style apartment with a private room to sleep in, but share a kitchen and a bathroom. So we dumped our stuff and tried to conquer our first mission: food. That didn’t take long, we made it to the corner of the street and found a cafe that served everything from pasta to sandwiches, so we opted for the pasta which was cooked fresh for us on the spot and inhaled it. So with a full tummy and an entire city to explore, off we went to destination 1: times square. Times Square was by far the most chaotic place we had seen yet – literally droves and droves of people coming from all directions, in combination with the billboards and the lights and the taxis made it very congested. It was pretty overwhelming, but in a good way. Everyone was so busy and rushing around – it would be so easy to just lose yourself and become a complete stranger in a city like this.


We decided we’d take a look in the Toys ‘R’ Us – average you say? We think not. It was the most amazing toys r us ever – FERRIS WHEEL IN THE LOBBY! A bit cool. You get your photo taken at the door – it was difficult to wipe the stupid grins off our faces – clearly toy stores are just as cool as they were when you were 5. So we continued to be impressed – a life size t-Rex robot from Jurassic park, a life size spider man, a superman holding up a semi trailer, the BARBIE mansion, empire state building and the statue of liberty made out of Lego- all of these on the main floor. Yes, there were three floors, one entire floor was devoted to the Toys ‘R’ Us candy shop :p


We decided we had to go and see a Broadway show – and we think everyone else should, if they get the chance. We couldn’t decide what to see, the selection was huge: The Adams Family, West Side Story, The Lion King, Chicago, Jersey Boys, Wicked, Mamma Mia! and so much more. Our decision was made for us when a double decker bus pulled up next to us on the sidewalk: Mary Poppins. We got a great deal – if you ever want to see a Broadway show, go directly to the box office to get tickets, we got a private balcony seat for $30 each. The show surpassed all expectations, it was absolutely friggan awesome – and everyone was into it – even the adults were singing along...Super –cala- frigil-istic expi-alidocious. Lol. But well worth it. So we wandered back to our apartment via times square and made it through our first NYC day without being mugged, shot or run over - a big thumbs up all round :p


Day 32:


We would just like to point out that we have reached our 1 month travel anniversary, as today is now the 17th of June. We are already having trouble recalling what we did in San Fran – it seems like so long ago. So we had a little moment, as we can’t believe it’s already been that long, and gone by so quickly. We feel it is a rather big achievement :)
We give a quick shout out to Amy Williams and she provided us with the lonely planet guide to New York which has been most valuable during our visit to the big apple – thanks lady!


After reading the Bible (in actual fact it was Totti’s trusty lonely planet guide) I have discovered she harbours many basic animalistic instincts, her moods are often determined by how well fed and slept she is. And so she was quick to identify a “vital” and MUST see destination; I was expecting some monument dedicated to an old dead guy who has made a significant contribution to world history – but alas it was in fact a shop was called Zabar’s. It turned out that this MUST SEE place was four shops long, filled with delicious treats and delectable items from all around the world. So we made our way to the Upper West Side, a stroll turned into....................................... 3 hours later: – we reached the Upper West Side and couldn’t miss Zabar’s. We started in the ‘cheese’ shop – this shop contained cheeses from all over the world. Totti’s eyes popped out of her head when she saw the variety of cheeses – she died and went to cheese heaven! The next shop was like a deli and contained a whole heap of yummy hams, salamis, chicken etc. Ah....it was truly amazing! The next shop was full of bread – anything from a freshly baked bagel to baguettes. This shop also had delicious cookies, donuts etc. The last shop was a coffee/tea/more cookies/fruit and everything else that didn’t fit in the other three stops! We bought some cheese, blueberry cream cheese, ranch dressing, carrots and celery, choc chip cookies, biscuits, bagels, olives and a bar of Belgian milk chocolate....ahh... Now it was time to eat – so we quickly (prac tically ran) back to Central Park and enjoyed the afternoon in the sun scoffing our faces with deliciousness!


We then witnessed two fat ladies waddling back to the city....wait....that was our reflection! Ha. We got half way and decided our body wasn’t handling the cheese too well, so in true Aussie fashion we got half way, decided it was too hard, and hailed a taxi back to our apartment. After a quick shower, it was time to jump onto the subway and head to the Bronx....completely safe and a nice place to hang out, yo. Relax Mum...we were on our way to Yankee Stadium, which is in the Bronx – go figure!
So we had no idea wtf was going on – we yelled “yaaaayy” at the wrong time, with our novelty hands held high. We received many disapproving looks from the hardcore Yankee fans :p So we decided to get all traditional and buy a hot dog at the game. They even had those guys that walk through the stands yelling “HOT DOGS! GET YOUR HOT DOGS!” we had a small giggle. 4 hrs later and the Yankees had several disappointed fans – they’d lost to the Phillies. Either way, we still had a great time – Yankee Stadium is spectacular, it houses 45,000 spectators, has state of the art sound systems and really great hot dogs :p
The train ride home was rather entertaining – we had a little boy in our carriage that thought it was hilarious when he made fart sounds under his armpit. We encouraged him. It was hilarious. That is all. Yes, we are mature 24 year olds travelling the world on our own – it was still funny. So after an action packed day, we were ready to pass out. That’s what we did.


Day 33, 34 & 35:
After consulting our trusty travel book, we decided it would be a good idea to oblige one of the sales people on the street corner and purchase a Hop on Hop off bus ticket, the city is so big and there is so much to see. These tours are a great idea and well worth the money – you get a comprehensive run down of the city’s history narrated to you by a local tour guide, while driving around on a double decker bus. You can get off where ever you like, and get back on at any time – the buses are literally there every 5 minutes. We got the $54 ticket which pretty much covers all of NYC, and the ticket was valid for 2 and a ½ days. We went to ground zero, China Town and Little Italy. We got off in each of these stops. Ground Zero is overwhelming – we finally got to see how much ground the twin towers physically occupied, and what is more amazing is that they are just laying the foundations for the new structure now, almost ten years later. From there we went to Big Wong’s Chinese restaurant in China Town for a cheap but delicious feed – (The Book told us to) and headed into Little Italy for some Gelato and a stroll into some authentic Italian looking streets.


We caught the Staten Island ferry (a free service which anyone can take). The ferry takes you directly past the Statue of Liberty – a 15minutes each way. We bought some I <3 NY t-shirts and a hoodie and decided to purchase some Comedy show tickets to entertain us for the night.


The Comedy tickets we bought were valid for 3 nights so we got to see a lot of funny people. When we walked in the comedian was talking about the I <3 NY t-shirts. He was saying that the only people that wear the t-shirts are tourists and that’s why they are so cheap, you can buy 10 for $5. He said the t-shirts scream “I’m carrying travellers checks – come and mug me” – at that moment we looked down at our newly purchased I <3 NY t-shirts in shame as everyone in the club was in hysterics!


Another funny joke was when the comedian was talking about texting and how kids these days are so absorbed in their technology that in 10 years time people will approach children and say “Hello, how are you?” only to be replied with a “hsssss” (Imagine an angry cat noise). We thought it was funny – guess you had to be there!
The next day we did the Brooklyn loop which took us over the Brooklyn bridge and into Brooklyn. As it had become custom to consult our trusty book for tips on what to see – we opted to suss out something to eat first (surprise :p). We got off at Water St - the book said there was an amazing pizza shop there. We were quick to find the popular eatery – it was the one with the 30 people long line outside a rectangular shop no bigger than our bedrooms back home. We decided that the people in the shop were getting slightly weirded out by Totti and I fogging up their windows and salivating while watching them eat, so we went next door to a little pub instead. We were super keen to find Jacque Torres chocolate shop, so after lunch we located it and restrained ourselves into buying only a few bits of chocolaty goodness. On the way back we decided to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge – we’d recommend everyone do it if they get the chance – the view of the city, the bridge and the river is pretty cool – and for photography geeks like me, is perfect for taking countless photos of the same thing :p


Once we got back we decided we’d use another ticket to a comedy show, so we showered and dressed and made out way to the comedy club.


The next day we did the Upper loop – this took us past a couple of famous attractions like the Julliard School of Arts, Museum mile, and showed us a bunch of old mansions and buildings built in commemoration to some famous dead people :p forgive the lack of detail but we were pretty much sun stroke and delirious by this stage.

After that loop, we went to the Rockefeller Centre and went to the “top of the rock” to see the view of NY. Took lots of photos and decided to retire for the night....via Dunkin Donuts! We recommend the view from Rockefeller because it’s less crowded than the Empire State (well we assume) and you can actually see the Empire State so your photos are more complete.

Day 37:

We left our lovely hotel room and said goodbye to our friendly hotel staff and headed for the Port Authority to catch the bus to Worchester, Connecticut – the Swenson’s. Our bus was rather packed and stank of stale pee. The ride to Hartford, Pennyslvania was about 4 hours and then another 1hr to Worchester. We were greeted by the friendly Cheryl Swenson (Sarah’s MOM) and off we went to Woodstock, Kentucky. So...we’d been in 4 states in one day – New York, Pennyslvania, Connecticut and Kentucky! Woo! (Now I don’t know if these places are right – I’m going off what Totti has dictated, Swenson, perhaps you can clarify :p)


We arrived at the Swenson’s house in the countryside – there were plenty of rolling green hills and old style looking farmhouses – we were so delighted to be reunited with fresh air and silence, we sat outside for a while and took in the amazing scenery – how’s the serenity!


We were extra excited knowing we were going to have a home cooked meal for the next couple of days. We sat down with Cheryl and enjoyed some cheese and crackers and waited for Dana to return from his camping trip. Dana then cooked the most amazing steak on his new toy – the Weber No.2. It was sort of nice to be able to sit down at a proper dinner table and have people fuss over you, mum’s back home, despite our whinging, we do actually appreciate it :p


So after a great dinner we sat in the lounge room with Dana and he talked us through the baseball game being played on the television. Now that the rules have been explained properly it makes a lot more sense. We were also able to have a good cup of tea – FINALLY! And Totti busted out the vegemite and explained the finer details of how this spread should be consumed. Well tired by now, we decided it was time to get some shut eye – much to our delight the bed was extremely comfortable and we passed right out :)


Day 38:
We got up and showered and made our way down to breakfast – again so nice to have some fresh fruit and cereal! Cheryl drove is into Boston and left us to our own devices, so we decided to take the advice from Swenson’s little To Do list and bought tickets for the duck tour. We got stuck in a group full of fourth graders on a school excursion, we were totally the coolest kids on the bus once we told them we were from Australia :p So that took up about 1.5hrs – we just got driven around Boston and got an overview of the town history. After the duck tour we went into the Imac store, we will have you know that they provide superb lavatory facilities and free wifi :p But we had to go in there because Totti needed to get a new phone – her old one had been having epileptic spasms and kept coming up with error messages, so she had to replace it. She was most devastated when she was informed that she would lose all her music (I secretly relished this, as I can only handle the Dixie chicks in small doses :p)
So after that we headed to the north end – it is a predominantly Italian area of Boston and we were keen for a good feed. So we found a small cafe on the corner and got ourselves a bowl of pasta each, and went in search of Maria’s pastry’s for a couple of fresh Cannoli. I have to say, she’d give my auntie a run for her money – the pastry was superb and the filling was as fresh as you can get – it was put into the Cannoli on order.
So with a mouthful of delicious cannoli goodness, we made our way to the train station and caught the train into riverside where we were to be picked up by Cheryl who informed us we would be having homemade ham burgers for dinner and then strawberries for dessert. Yumo! After dinner we introduced Cheryl to our new favourite pastime – the grand game of Shit Head (great for killing a lot of time while waiting in airports, or great to play on long bus trips) I think I have only beaten Totti like 3 times at this grand card game, she’s fairly ruthless, there’s only so many times you can lose at cards until it starts to hurt your feelings :p But it was a hit – Cheryl and Dana loved it, and we were introduced to one of their favourites called Up Stairs, Down Stairs – simple but a lot of good fun. So we whiled away the evening playing a couple of rounds of each game, then headed to sleep – we were gearing up for a big 48hrs of travel.


Day 39:
We started the day with homemade pancakes which were friggan amazing, so after we finished feeding our faces it was time to say goodbye to the Serenity and head to the bus station, back to NYC and catch our plane to Rome via London. The bus trip went quickly enough – luckily the bus was equipped with wifi – so we downloaded this application on our iphones called ‘words with friends’ – its pretty much like scrabble on your iphone. It is the coolest game ever ! It entertained us greatly, I guess you had to be there lol. Totti also downloaded a ‘Step Brothers’ quote application – occasionally I get lovely insults played to me when she can’t be bothered doing it herself haha.
So we made it to NYC and hailed a cab for JFK airport. Things just seemed to get worse from there – there was a huge storm and we ended up sitting in an aeroplane traffic jam on the run way for THREE ENTIRE HOURS! It was tedious to say the least. We were most fortunate to have a woman in front of us coughing her lungs out for the entire time. It sounded like she was unleashing swine flu onto us – so Totti proceeded to pull our her trusty bottle of sanitiser and literally sanitised the back of the woman’s seat.....and the wall....and her own face. I then took the sanitiser and squirted it in the shape of a crucifix to ensure divine intervention would save us from the swine flu. By this stage we were both in stitches – we have a running joke with sanitiser; at first I used to pay Totti out about carrying it everywhere, but then in Brooklyn I came across little sanitiser holders that you clip onto your bag and I now have one dangling off my bag. Go figure. ANYWAY, so in addition to being stuck in a storm on the run way with a swine ridden woman, there was a gentleman who smelled like he’d neglected to bathe for about a century. It. Was. Fal. So we sanitised in his direction also. So after surviving the coughing fits and the stink, we FINALLY got clearance to take off.

The next couple of days were sort of mushed together, so we feel that this entry is to be continued........
Say hi to your dad for us,
Love Ela & Kate xxxx