Week Ten - Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same, You wanna be where everybody knows Your name

Dodgeville (Wisconsin) - House on the Rock, Chicago, through Indiana, through Michigan, London Onterio - Niagara Falls, through New York, Boston

Day 63 - Monday
18.05.2009

Monday morning and a fresh start to the week with us leaving Dodgeville to go to Chicago via The House on The Rock.
Of course we thought Dodgeville was a brilliant name for the place and posed quite dodgily in front of their town sign before we left.
Like I said before, The House on the Rock was written about in the fiction novel, American Gods which is one of Gem’s favourites. Basically the house is a weird and wonderful place built by this eccentric guy filled with everything imaginable for the purpose of challenging people’s senses, predominantly sight and sound.
There was an infinity room, a China doll collection, a Victorian street complete with shop displays you could walk through, and the world’s largest carousel which is used heavily in the book. It was such a wacky place - it was a cross between Labyrinth and Willy Wonka’s factory. It was weird but cool.

As soon as we were done Gem took the first leg and we got us on our way to Chicago. It was only supposed to be a 3 hour drive but with traffic it was 6 - ridiculous.
We arrived at the AAE hostel, the same chain of hostel that we stayed at in New Orleans. It wasn’t a brilliant hostel in the slightest, we were up three long flights of steps, it was boiling with no air con, and the only place you could access the wireless was in the common room which was tiny in comparison to the amount of people having to use it - I wouldn’t recommend this place.
Anyway there wasn’t a lot we could do as it was quite late so we headed out to the cinema to watch Angels and Demons, the Da Vinci code sequel. Very predictable film but enjoyable all the same.


Day 64 - Tuesday
19.05.2009

So after everything we did before Chicago plus everything we needed to get in before we leave for the UK we only had one day in the city.
There are a few things recommended to us, like the aquarium but we’d already done that and got the t-shirt. The biggest touristy thing there which we would usually pass up was the Sears tower, Chicago’s viewing tower. As it is the tallest building in the states and we always want to do something which embodies that particular city we wanted to go and check it out. It is of course what you expect, and after a walk around the perimeter you don’t spend a lot of time there for the money spent but it was something to do. We did have fun spotting our hostel from one of the windows and got a little giddy when we saw Bluey in the car park over the road - of course we took pictures to later play “Where’s Bluey?”

After that it was such a lovely day we found the nearest inner city park area, chilling in the sun and writing blogs. Unfortunately from all of this sun I did get a little burnt and as Paul so kindly described me from previous pictures I looked like a “microwaved albino” - thanks Paul. When we realised this and had more than enough sun we hopped into the car and drove over to Lake Michigan as we wanted to chill by the water. The sun made us so sleepy that chilling is all we did and I fell asleep on the grass, of course with my burn covered up to stop its severity.

While doing a bit of research on the city I had read that Chicago was the birthplace of stand up comedy, with the likes of Bill Murray and John Belushi honing their skill here so we thought what better to do than take in a stand up show at Zanie’s Comedy Club. There were two acts on with the hostess doing her bit in between, the first guy was like Will Ferrell in Step Brothers with him mumbling everything he said and doing far too many jokes about living with his parents and the main act, Hannibal was very sarcastic and cynical, almost bordering on angry. They both had their moments and the night was a laugh.


Day 65 - Wednesday
20.05.2009

It was time to leave Chic-a-go and once again go and party with our British counterparts, Emily and Sarah. They were now back where they live in London, Ontario and we had been invited to stay and party before we go see Niagara Falls in a few days.
Gem got to put her new driving confidence into action as I wanted to write and she drove the whole 9 hours - awww, I’m so proud.
This time before we left the states we stocked up on alcohol and fags (for the ladies) as it is so much more expensive in Canada. Now, when you watch late night commercials here in America they are repeated every thirty seconds so the same adverts become instilled into your brain. One of them in particular stuck out for us as it was so cheesy. It was an advert for Extenze, a male enhancement, aka Viagra. Honestly it has been on so much I could probably quote it word for word. Anyway the reason I bring this up is because on the counter as we were buying our beer and Marlboro Lights was a four pack of Extenze. We chuckled as soon as we saw them and I think both had the same thought as we added a pack to our pile of goodies for a laugh and to see if they would do anything to women - I’m sure I’ll be blogging if ever we try them.

We went through Canadian border control which took all of five minutes (ridiculous in comparison to our last experience) and entered Ontario straightaway. It wasn’t long before we rocked up in London, found the ladies and got the party started.

We went out straightaway to the Oar House, a straight sports bar but it was cheap so we were loving it. It was also the kind of bar where they give you free nuts and once you eat said nuts you just discard the shells on the floor. Basically the entire floor was covered. Mum, it would have been your idea of a nightmare.
We had loads of fun chatting to the girls and random locals.


Day 66 - Thursday
21.05.2009

So by day 66, two months of wearing the same clothes me and Gem were sick of the same old shit and had a real jonesing for something new. The girls took us shopping in London’s mall and we well and truly hit that shit up. We basically shopped all day buying every type of clothing you can think of barring children’s underwear and tabards, despite Gem constantly talking about wanting one (I don’t know why.)
It was really late when we got back, we were surprised at how long we went at it for but sometimes it just has to be done.
That night Sarah wasn’t feeling well and recently Gem and I had been sick of eating shit on the road so we got the ingredients together to make a salad to get us all feeling better - it was fit.
While all the girls departed one by one to go to bed I stayed up watching the Butterfly Effect.


Day 67 - Friday
22.05.2009

So we’re leaving London to eventually go to Boston with a stop off visit to Niagara Falls right on the border. This was quite a full day as alone it’s a three hour drive to the falls then we’ll obviously spend time there, and then on top of that, an eight hour drive to Boston - we do like a busy day. Not ones to break from tradition we didn’t leave early in the slightest and after speaking to Mum, Rich and the Grandparents on the phone we left at 12.30pm.

Niagara Falls was crazy beautiful and complete with its own rainbow at the base. What we weren’t expecting was that when the wind changed direction it brought all of the fine rain blowing over you and it did soak you right through. It was mad you could literally stand just slightly away from this and the day would be beautiful with the sun blazing - it was a complete contrast. What was also crazy to think was that the USA was literally on the other side of the falls, to stand on the other side you would be in the states.

After eating our muchly-appreciated homemade sandwiches from Rider, we hightailed it out of there to once again go through America’s border control a little worried due to our lack of time. It turned out to be a very uneventful experience however as he only asked a couple of the usual questions and we were on our way - just goes to show you shouldn’t enter the states via middle America at 1am. Oh well, you live and learn.

We hit Boston and it was quite late. With no grid system there and it all being one way it was a nightmare to navigate. It took us an hour and half with us asking 4 sets of people for directions to get to our hostel.
We later found out that nobody drives in the city as its so bad - brillo.
We fell into bed at 4am.


Day 68 - Saturday
23.05.2009

We had decided to have a mini lie-in to try and catch up before heading out to see what Boston had to offer us. After getting the subway to the info centre and finding a gaggle of things to do we decided to first check out Fenway Park - home of the Boston Red Sox (that’s baseball, everyone.)
I get the impression that this could quite possibly be the most famous and beloved team in the whole of the states but really for us it was made famous in the Field of Dreams when Ray Kinsella took Terrance Mann to a ball game - “go the distance.” Anyway because of this we wanted to take the tour around the park and it wasn’t too expensive for the pleasure. It was really cool and I loved hearing about all the little stories throughout their history. I wrote my Dad a post card while I was there as it definitely made me think of him.
After that we headed for the city’s very famous bar, any guesses? It was Cheers of course! There are two in the city, one the TV show took inspiration from which looked the same from the outside and the other which was the set they used. We went off to the original for a beer and something to eat. It was very cool and I even got myself a free old man Cheers beer glass to take home. Hopefully it won’t break on the return journey.

I was very sleepy after my afternoon beer so after a little chilling time on the park reading my lesbian fiction which was strangely enough about time travel (lesbians!) we trotted off to our entertainment for the evening - a comedy play called Romance. I had only read one sentence describing it - “a courtroom comedy that takes no prisoners in its quest for total political incorrectness.” - Yep definitely up our street.
Throughout the hour and a half duration the play managed to offend: Jews, Christians, black people, white people, Indian people, homosexuals, priests, lawyers, and even chiropractors. Not bad going really. There were a lot of the Jew jokes especially, as the British aren’t very Jewist it slightly went over our heads but it was a laugh and we enjoyed ourselves.


Day 69 - Sunday
24.05.2009

We had a couple of other things to see and do in and around the city so after a spot of guitar browsing for Gem, we headed back on the subway for the town centre.
We went straight for America’s municipal library, located here in Boston. Apparently it was the first public library of its kind. Unfortunately however, library opening hours still apply even to libraries as big as this, and due to it being Sunday it was closed - we hadn’t even thought.

After Gem’s obligatory “outside the library” photo our next activity was the Mapparium. This is a giant glass globe you can walk inside of that’s three storeys high and has a lightshow to illuminate all of the different countries. It was very cool, the only downside to it though was it was inside and run by Christian scientists and also for some reason you couldn’t take photos - rubbish.

After our second visit to Cheers in as many days, (albeit this time to the actual set) we wandered back to our hostel to “chill” with Gem’s newly acquired $20 1.75litre bottle of Jim Beam.

See I’m catching up readers; it’ll all be over soon.

---

---