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Published: June 18th 2008
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Last stop - New York!
The view from the top of the Empire State Building We left Yosemite and headed west through California and to the coast - to the super city of San Francisco. We still had a few hours before we handed our hire car back so we weaved our way through the city and drove right across that great big Golden Gate Bridge (a nice looking bridge it is too) and on into Muir woods. Muir woods is home to a very nice indeed collection of Giant Redwood trees - the tallest trees in the world. Giant Redwoods are taller than Sequoias but they aren’t as ‘big’ because Sequoias have a right big girth on them (as well as being fair tall). We liked the Giant Redwoods a lot - Muir Woods is a gorgeous place and you could easily spent a few hours walking around those trees. They’re so big you get a sore neck from constantly looking upwards.
Back in San Francisco our numbers grew as we teamed back up with Pippa (Janine‘s sister), Brother Thompson (Richard) and Sarah (Fiancé to Richard) who had been following separate itineraries to us following the wedding. We liked San Francisco a lot - a very pretty place indeed. We walked the famous steep
streets (and rode the cable cars too), checked out the worlds most wiggly street (Lombard Street), ate fish and chips down on fisherman’s wharf (checked out the resident sea lions there too), walked in Golden Gate park and did a tour of Alcatraz! - phew! Alcatraz (an island off the mainland that used to be a jail - Al Capone was famously held there) was good, eerie it was - they give you an audio guide to walk around with and so you effectively get led around the place by ex jailors and inmates - spooky man. The Alcatraz tour also gives you good views of the city. We waved goodbye to Pippa, Von, Ric, Sarah, Mum and Dad in San Francisco (they all headed back to blighty), picked up another hire car and headed down the famous Highway 1 coastal road down to Los Angeles. It was a great (2 days) drive - super coastal scenery.
We stayed in Santa Monica in LA - a pretty, little lively place with a small town feel right there on the beach - where they used to film Baywatch. The first night we were there we went for some good old
English pub food at the Kings Head Pub - Steve had his first pint of bitter (Boddies) in 6 months! - heaven. A lot of stars in LA frequent this pub, including Adam Sandler - after tea (although some may call it dinner) we went to watch his new movie - You Don’t Mess With the Zohan - it’s very very very funny indeed.
On day 1 in LA we did a bit of a self drive tour around the city - we drove down the famous Rodeo Drive (where the stars shop apparently) - thankfully (writes Steve) we couldn’t find a parking space on Rodeo so we had to move on. ;-) Next stop was the famous Hollywood Boulevard - we parked up near by and walked the walk, looking down at all the ‘stars’ in the street e.g. Woody Allen, Brigette Bardot etc etc. We also found the famous Chinese Theatre, outside of which is a collection of many hand & footprints of movie stars set in the concrete. Steve was strangely disappointed to learn that Matt Damon has bigger feet than him although that disappointment was countered when he realised that Matt Damon does at least
have smaller hands than he! We had a drive past lots of houses of the stars, had a look at the Hollywood hills and spent a good few hours in the Universal Studios theme park. The studio tour they do there was ace - explosions, fires, floods, film sets and even the street they use to film Desperate Housewives.
On day 2 in LA we met up with even more family - Janine’s Auntie who lives in Lille with super French husband Christophe, on holiday with said Christophe and Pierre (son) and Antoin (nephew). We had a great day with our French family - we walked down the beach walk from Santa Monica to Venice beach, we ate loads of food and we went cycling up and down the beach path (it‘s a good few miles each way) along with loads of Los Angelinos who walk, run, skate and ride up and down this path every day. You can see an amazing variety of clothing on display whilst spending time on this path! We saw a beggar on this path holding up an amusing sign ‘money wanted for alcohol research’.
The next day we left LA on a
plane bound for New York and the final destination of our around the world trip. NYC is of course a great place to spend a weekend - loads to do and see here oh yeah. On our first day here we joined the queues and got ourselves up the Empire State Building - the tallest building in New York. Breathtaking view from up there on a good day and fortunately for us it was a good day. You look down upon this huge spectacular man made jungle whilst listening to the sounds of city drift upwards and you can’t help but be impressed. After that we caught the Staten Island ferry (it‘s free!) for the great views it gives you of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. We then afforded ourselves a few minutes for a quick change of clothes at our gigs in Greenwich Village before heading to the New Amsterdam theatre on Broadway to watch Mary Poppins - it was ace. No sooner had Ms Poppins done her final flypast (literally) at the end of the show we headed back out to the Empire State Building and went up it for the second time in one day -
this time to check out the super sparkling night time view of the city. We watched down over the city that never sleeps and saw midnight come and go and then we headed off into Times Square for something to eat.
The next day we had a walk across and back along the Brooklyn Bridge and (when it started raining) checked out Grand Central Station - it really is grand too. That night we had a blow out and went for a nice Italian meal and then did some serious drinking - that Greenwich Village is a lively area of an evening so we worked our way around the area and had a fab night. During our meal we were sat next to a couple on their first date - the geezer was trying to get himself back to her place but his luck was out on this occasion. The bars we went too were great, atmospheric indeed - at one point a stranger bought us a Jack Daniels each but soon after that we realised that our stranger was in fact………strange…….so we downed our drinks and made a sharp exit - we ended up in a bar at
Steve in Alcatraz
..some say that marriage is a life sentence..ah ha haa. 4 in the morning drinking Guinness and listing to a live band - we managed to just about beat the sun coming up before we got into bed. Our hangover day we spent in Central Park with tonnes of New Yorkers - it’s a great park with loads of space for people to enjoy - with paths going every which way, it took us a few hours to walk the length of the park.
And that was day 199 of our 200 day around the world adventure. On day 200 we had our last look at Times Square and then flew back eastwards to Manchester, 200 days after we set off from there eastwards to India. We’ve had a mega mega trip and thanks to all you geezers out there who’ve helped us and sent us messages along the way - hope you’ve enjoyed the journey too. That’s all folks………………………:-)
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