Washington, Philly and New York City


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June 10th 2007
Published: June 10th 2007
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Days 1-6 (by Iain)

Hey, so 6 days down and we've managed to get from D.C. to Niagara without any real problems. It's gone pretty quickly so far, not least Washington where we hung about for a whole 7 hours looking for a place to stay, finding nowhere, wandering past the main sights and getting on a train to Philadelphia. We do now realise that booking ahead is probably a good thing to do when your getting into another country at 1 in the morning. As it was we enjoyed the airport seating on our first night, only waking up every 15 minutes or so.

We were then overjoyed to be able to get into Washington at 6 in the morning and walk around with heavy backs for about 8 miles, feeling like Mary and Joseph did that Christmas. Still, before we left the city we did catch some sights, Washington Monument was pretty impressive and at least 4 times taller than you think it's going to be (unless, of course you know), the White House is right in the middle of town which is kind of odd - I'd always thought it was surrounded by a massive park, but no. Other highlights involved drinking lots of water and seeing a dead rat.

Philadelphia was our next stop several hours later and a place where we managed to get a bed for the first time in about 48 hours. Nothing much happened in Philadelphia, it was pretty much one big long street, like the ones you see in Western movies that have big wooden planks propping them up. We had a couple of drinks there and then slept off jet-lag.

The next day we kind of jumped straight onto a bus and went to New York where we were actually planning on spending some time and not just walking to hostels. New York was indeed very much fun. Our hostel was right beside Central Park which was huge. It even has a large reservoir in the middle named after Jacqueline Kennedy because she ran around it so much, which makes you wonder why you can't nip down to the Greg Hawkins to put money on the horses. The park also has this cool wee pond that is full of real turtles. It sort of answers the question of where the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles came from, because no-one really believes you just find turtles wandering about New York streets.

Whilst in New York we also went to a comedy club, went up the Empire State building, went to some Irish bars with hot pretend Irish barmaids and generally walked around quite a bit. This seems to be the current theme of the holiday so far. We also took a bus tour down into Harlem which looks just like you've seen it in films like 'Die Hard 3' and whatever other films Harlem has been in.

We stayed 3 nights in New York and then yesterday enjoyed a tree-filled bus journey up-state for 9 hours into Niagara to see the big waterfall. That is what we plan to do today, our hostel here is pretty cool. It's a wee house on the corner of a street. The neighbourhood is just like one of the areas you find in Grand Theft Auto where all the Mexicans live but it's quite nice and good fun to walk about in.

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10th June 2007

Yeeeeah!
Great first post, I enjoyed that a lot. Best of luck!
10th June 2007

Thank God some news
Hi Ben and Ian Great to hear from you and you sound like you are having a fantastic time. Keep in touch you know how much mummy's worry about their wee boys. Only 9 weeks to go and can't wait to read your next log. Lots of love xxxxxx
10th June 2007

Seems like your having a brilliant time.Wish i was there right now.See you soon. lots of love alex
11th June 2007

Good work
Sounds like you guys are having a great time! keep up the good work!!!!!!!
11th June 2007

Glad your surviving. Your blog makes great reading! Have great time. Take care.
11th June 2007

fresh prince
did you see wil smith aka the 'fresh prince' in Philadelphia? If so i hope you told him he was very good in that 'Ray' film. Im not sure if your aware but Stingray died in neighbours :D and Dylan has left :D.
12th June 2007

re: Greg
It was Stingrays death that made living at home too hard to take. Thats why I'm here Greg
13th June 2007

Time of your life
Looks as though you are having a great time. Did you go over Niagra in an empty beer barrel? Or possibly walked over on a tight rope doing yoy Henry Houdine act? Did you see Maryln? Anyway keep on trucking and go light on the booze!

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