Richard and Paula

Day Three We organised a Pentagon Tour through the New Zealand Embassy and had to report at 1000 hours sharp! We arrived via the Metro which we have now mastered as it’s much easier than the New York Subway and walked up to the armed guards with our invitation letter. I’ve started to collect a lot of American coins, especially the 1c ones which are totally useless because nothing costs 1c and you can’t even use them in vending or ticket machines. I’ve also moved onto wearing my trusty cargo shorts due to the hot weather. This means that when I get to a security screening, (and we’ve been through a lot of security screenings on our trip so far), I need to spend about ten minutes rifling through the many pockets of my cargo shorts ... read more

Day One: Goodbye New York and Hello Washington This is how catching a cab in New York works: First, you look out into the street to a sea of yellow cabs hurtling towards you. Second, yell or wave randomly, applying a shotgun approach hoping at least one cab will see you. Third, when a cab does spot you, it is as he is going past you at speed, so he slams on the brakes and stops in the middle of the road. Fourthly, you are forced to walk into the middle of the road to load your suitcases in the cab as cars are now backed up behind your desired cab and he cannot reverse, (and doesn’t seem to care anyway). There are signs up at each intersection warning against hooting and displaying a $250 fine ... read more

New York Part IV. Today's Agenda: Shopping We headed off down broadway, (which is close to our apartment) as it runs all the way into 5th Avenue and Macy's which we had seen when we went to the Empire State Building. First stop, SuperDry. The boys were straight into it. I'm not sure the girls had seen shopping skills of this calibre. The boys were focused, determined and taking full advantage of their inability to multi-task and the generous pre-recession limits on their plastic. We had decided to walk because it didn't look very far on the map. Unfortunately, thats the fundamental objective of a map, to be far smaller than the actual distance so there was a quite a bit of 'Are we there yet?' and 'I feel toilet' on the way. On the way ... read more

New York Part II So today we were up early and made our way down to Battery Park to catch the ferry to Lady Liberty. After the full airport security at the entrance we were all aboard and on our way. Looking like complete and utter tourists we used the audio tour which involved a set of headphones and a lot of time not talking to each other as we each learnt all about the Statue of Liberty. We wandered around the base and then up 156 steps (girls caught the lift) and checked out the New York skyline, which was quite the view. General consensus was that not only did the statue look fake, but was too small , (Only 30 stories high) but it was built in 1886 so we figured we’d give her ... read more

Leaving Cleveland after breakfast in our trusty hire car, Steve, Jo, Rich and I took to the highway to Canada. It took us around 4 hours to find our way and after a few cheeky comments to border control (from Richard) we were allowed to enter the wonderful country that is Canada. Cheeky comments as follows:- Security Guard “Why are you going to Niagara Falls?” Richard “To see Niagara Falls” (said with the tone of - are you completely stupid?) Security Guard “Do you have any firearms, knives, mace or pepper spray?’ Richard “No, but we passed a shop back there but we didn’t stop, we kept on driving” We very quickly realised that our hotel was literally overlooking Niagara falls and we had all of about 45 mins to check in at our hotel and ... read more