The end of the road...USA

---

We're now writing this blog from sunny manchester, having finished our fabulous trip a couple of weeks ago. It's grey and wet outside so what better way to pass the time than looking back over our time in the USA!

After an absolutely amazing week in fiji we were quite sad to leave the island behind, but once we were on our flight to LA that was replaced with excitement at our american adventure still to be had. We landed in LA at 130pm on a saturday afternoon, having left Fiji at 10pm on a saturday evening....international time travel at it's best! Once we made it through the nightmare of LA airport immigration and the chaos of the shuttle buses outside, we arrived at our hotel in Downtown LA ready to explore. Our hotel was lovely, but seemed to be in the middle of the business district with not much around, not even a subway to feed our addiction. After reading the information in the hotel room that strongly advised guests against walking around outside after dark (oh my god!) we decided to spend our first evening in LA in the hotel bar.

Next day feeling slightly more refreshed we headed off to Hollywood for a day of sightseeing. First stop was the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars. From there you can also get a good view of the Hollywood sign which was really exciting! After which we went for a walk along Hollywood Boulevard looking at all the stars on the pavement, there are literally hundreds of them, we didn't make it to the end. Along the way we stopped at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where they have all the handprints and footprints of the stars in the paving stones outside. That's good fun, and Rich was very happy to discover he has the same size hands as Frank Sinatra.

With our brief stay in LA over, we headed to Union Station early the next morning to catch the 'Coastal Starlight' train up the west coast to San Francisco. I was ridiculously excited about seeing Karen and Charlie, and it was also quite a relief to be doing a long journey without it involving an aeroplane. The train was absolutely amazing! Double decker with loads of leg room, massive windows with spectacular coast views, and a bar. The 11 hours passed by really quickly, with never a dull moment. A particular highlight being when Rich and several other people in our carriage saw a large shark in the sea. I was looking the other way and completely missed it. Ooops.

We arrived into Emmeryville station at 11pm, and were met by Karen and Charlie! It was so good to see some familiar faces. We headed back to their (amazing) flat and had a few drinks and a catch up. Was lovely to be in a home as well after a long time staying in hostels and campervans. After an amazing night's sleep we headed off to explore San Francisco. It's only a 20 minute train ride from Berkley to the city centre which was great, in no time at all we were surrounded by the famous san francisco street cars. All very exciting! Our first point of call was Union Square area, with lots of nice department stores and big square that had some live music on in it. After this we went for a walk up to China town, apparently one of the biggest in the world. It was pretty impressive and we had a good wander around before leaving there and entering Little Italy.

That evening we went to our first real american baseball match! San Francisco Giants vs Atlanta Braves. The stadium was massive and really busy, we had quite good seats and could see the game really well. It's a good job karen and charlie understand the game otherwise we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on! We both really enjoyed it though, and feel as though we almost understand it now.

Next morning we took at bus out to the north west of the city to try and go to a museum, but there was a 2 hour queue! Deciding against that we went for a walk around the area, and ended up going for a very nice lunch on Union Street in an area called Cows Hollow (? I think that's right!). After which we headed back over the the Embarcadero to catch our tour to Alcatraz. The island of Alcatraz is only 1 mile off the coast of San Francisco, I thought it would be much further away. AFter a short ferry journey we arrived on the island where we went to watch a short film about the history of the prison and the island. Following on from this we made our way up to the prison building itself where you can do an audio tour of the prison buildings and surrounding area. This was amazing! So interesting, all the stories of the attempted escapes, famous prisoners, how the prison was run and why it shut down. Absolutely fascinating. We were allowed to go inside some of the cells to get a feel for what they were like which was quite scary.

After we had made it back to civilisation we headed to an area of San Francisco called Castro to have something to eat which was really nice if a slightly longer tram ride away than we were anticipating! After an exhausting day of sightseeing we finally (with a few accidental detours) made it back to karen and charlies, where we had a few drinks. And they introduced us to the best American TV programme....Wipeout! Hilarious.

Our final full day in San Francisco and we'd saved the best till last...the Golden Gate bridge! Along with several thousand other tourists we decided to hire bikes for the day to cycle the route from San Francisco, across the bridge and to the town of Sausalito. It was more like afternoon by the time we made it to the bike hire place, picked up our bikes and maps and off we went! The cycle ride takes you along the marina on San Francisco towards to bridge. On the way we stopped at Forte Point for some photos, apparently it's also a famous place for surfers to go as they can ride waves in under the bridge but we didn't see any that day. After a brief photo shoot we cycled up a VERY steep hill and made our way onto the bridge. It was an amazing view from there, and the bridge itself is very impressive. It was a liiiiittle bit windy and i got blown off my bike on more than one occasion. Good fun though! And at the other side of the bridge is a massive downhill road that eventually winds round into the lovely town of Sausalito. Unfortunately the bike ride took us so long we didn't have any time left to explore the town more than sitting for a rest on the main high street! We headed over to the ferry terminal to catch a boat back over to the san francisco pier. It was here we met the other thousand or so cyclists also hoping to get the ferry back. Chaos! One ferry came and left without many people being able to get on, luckily the next one was a lot bigger otherwise i think we might have had to cycle all the way back too! After a lovely 30 minute ferry crossing cam the fun moment when everyone had to find their bike among the hundreds, carry it up the stairs and off the boat. Interesting.

As a reward for our hard work that day we headed back to chinatown for a well deserved meal. Following this we headed to the hyatt hotel to meet karen, charlie and some of their friends for a few drinks before heading on to a club. We went to an amazing club called Popscene, where we saw The Enemy live which was pretty exciting. It was a great night, first time we've been to a club in quite a while.

Next morning as the hangovers started to clear we started to plan our weekend away. We decided that we would head up to wine country with Karen and Charlie, and a mere 8 hours later we had finally managed to find somewhere to stay! Apparently advanced booking is quite important in America...! Although the place we managed to find was incredible. We ended up hiring a house for the four of us for the whole weekend, staying just outside the town of Sonoma. After a relaxing evening and a relatively early night we were up the next day, into town to hire some bikes! By lunchtime we all had matching bikes and helmets and a map of the area. After a quick picnic lunch in the town park, we set off on a mammouth bicycle ride around the Sonoma wineries.

We stopped at some amazing winneries and sampled some really nice wines. by the end of the day we had cycled about 30km and visited 5 wineries. It had been a fantastic day out. We decided to stop in Glenellen for our tea and had some really nice steaks, we needed the energy for the hour long bike ride back home.

By the time we had finished eating it had got dark (something we had forgot to consider) so we set off on an interesting bike ride home in the dark, luckily we managed to not get lost and an hour later had safely made it home, just in time to sit in the garden and watch the shooting stars.

The next day after returning our bikes we headed off to the north Californian coast. It was great fun driving through the countryside with the roof down on the car. We reached the beaches and decided it would be fun to buy a stunt kite and take it down onto the beach. We decided on a cool kite and headed offf down onto the sand.

After we had a quick paddle in the ocean (the water was freezing and the waves huge!) we set about building the kite and attempting to fly it. Karen was first to try, and with no problems she had the kite flying and made it look easy. THe other three of us struggled somewhat at first and any sun bathers nearby were lucky to escape unharmed as our kite smashed into the sand around them.

That evening we set off back toward San Francisco along the coast. The views were amazing as the sun was setting. We got back into San Francisco and decided to go for a drive along the famous Lombard Street. Lombard Street is very steep and zigzags all the way down, it was great to see. That night we had a lovely italian meal in one of the restaurants.

The next morning we were up early to go to the airport to catch our plane to Vegas! we were sad to leave San Francisco as we had had an amazing time staying with Karen and Charlie, and there was so much more to see and do in San Francisco.

We arrived at the airport and had the customary mad dash to get our flight (we seem to cutting things finer each time). 10 minutes later and we were on our way to Vegas! As we neared Vegas the plane began bouncing and shuddering violently due to the turbualnce, a few people were a little sick, but amazingly Rich didn't notice a thing and was completely relaxed all the way through landing....turns out he had discovered Mah Jong on the games and was completely addicted, it was a struggle to get him off the plane even once we'd landed.

We collected our bags and joined a bus to take us to our hotel in Vegas, the Stratosphere. As we drove down the strip it was exciting to see all the big themed casinos. After dumping our luggage in the room we headed straight out to explore the strip. First on our list was the Mirage, where we went to Roy and Sigfreids secret garden. They had dolphins, lions, tigers, alpacas (very cool) all in the grounds of the hotel! Amazing! After the Mirage we headed over the road to the Venetian hotel. Rich was very impressed with the fake bridge of sighs that has an escalator which is curved. We walked through the venetian hotel, where they have an actual canal with real gondolas on it, crazy! After this we went to find somewhere for our tea before heading back to the Stratosphere. Back at our hotel we decided to head up the observation tower, the tallest building in Vegas, where you can see the entire city, It was dark when we went so we got to see the entire strip lit up in neon, it's a really impressive view. We also got to see the crazy people who think it's fun to go on a rollercoaster at the top of the tower. On the outside. I couldn't even look at it let alone contemplate going on it! Rich was very disappointed I wouldn't have a go as that meant he couldn't go on either.

On our way back down the tower (which is much harder to leave than you'd think...took us ages to find the lift!) we stopped in at the bar, which is one floor below the observation deck. We had vouchers for a free martini so that was good! After finishing our drinks we felt it was time to hit the casinos and attempt to win enough to continue the trip for another year (Well, you've got to aim high). After a walk around the casino which took about 30mins we decided to brave the blackjack tables, we found the one with the lowest minimum bet. We were joined by a couple of lads from texas who kindly helped us with our tactics. And we stayed sat at the same table for the next four hours! We managed to stick to our budget which was very impressive, our money lasted much longer than we had thought. ANd we were entertained the entire time by the drunken texans. Very funny and a really good night.

Next morning we were introduced to the famous Vegas hotel buffets. Oh my god! For about $10 you can get all you can eat breakfast buffet, which must cover every single kind of breakfast food (and some not so breakfasty items such as fajitas?!) it was an amazing start to the day! Incredibly full we set off to see the rest of the famous casinos, calling in at the Luxor which is a big pyramid, the MGM where they have actual lions in the casino, and New York New York. We decided at this point it was time to see if our luck had changed, so found ourselves sat at one of the millions of slotmachines. To stick to our budget we decided to go crazy and play the 1cent games. We had only been playing for about 10 minutes when we somehow managed to win $100!!!! Off 1cent! Couldn't believe it! We put the winnings to good use and bought ourselves a very nice pizza for tea.

Fresh from our win and our technically free pizza we headed back out to the strip, stopping off outside the Bellagio to watch the fountain show. They do this every 15 minutes in the lake outside the hotel, each time they play a different piece of music and the fountains dance. It's spectacular! We stayed to watch a couple of the different ones before heading to Caesars Palace for a look around. With that done we were exhausted and headed back to pack ready for our early flight the next day to New York!

The next morning we boarded our plane at Vegas, only to be told as soon as we sat down that we would have to get off again as there was going to be a 90 minute delay. 90 minutes later we boarded again, this time getting to actually taxi out to the runway before the captain announced that we would have to return to the gate again as a passenger had an emergency and had to get off the aircraft....

another half an hour later we took off and were on our way to NYC....the last stop in our trip. We arrived at 9pm, and after getting a guided tour of New York as our shuttle bus dropped off lot of other passengers we eventually arrived at our hotel just after midnight. The Algonquin hotel was amazing, we'd not been able to find any hostels available in New York, and this had been the only hotel we could find without having to re-mortgage sals flat. The rest of the guests in the longbar seemed a little amused to see two scruffy people turn up with backpacks. Sal was really pleased to see that the hotel had a resident cat, a beautiful white and grey fluffy thing. we dumped our bags and had a quick wander around times square to get some food as we'd not eaten since breakfast and were starving!

The next morning we headed out for breakfast, we'd aimed to go to the cafe next to our hotel, except when we tried we saw a notice in the window saying it had been closed by the environmental health people....soooo, instead we found a place called cafe europe that did an amazing breakfast, and indeed we ended up eating there every morning...and lunch.

After breakfast we decided to set off walking south along fifth avenue, checking off the sites on the way. We saw the New York City Library, the Flat Iron building, the Empire State building, Wall Street and some other places. Eventually we arrived at the ferry terminal and caught the Staten Island ferry over to Staten Island funily enough, but on the way we got great views of both the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline.

As we got back to Manhattan a big thunder storm erupted from nowhere with torrential rain, so we had timed our trip well! After sheltering in a nearby pub for a couple of hours the storm seemed to clear so we headed back towards our hotel, via Wall Street.

The next day, we decided to continue our foot tour of Manhattan by going to visit the New York Library, possibly the poshest library in the world, then Grand Central Station and the Chrysler building. With the main sights done the afternoon was spent taking in the delights of the shops on Fifth Avenue, I think i appreciated Bloomingdales slightly more than Rich. We ended our shopping trip in FAO Schwartz, an amazing toy store near central park. You can play with all the toys which was very helpful as we had to try them all out before deciding what to buy for rich's nephew and nieces. The shop is also the home of the giant piano from Big. Last time i came the piano was a massive disappointment as it didn't work, so i was glad to see that this time it has been restored and is back to it's former glory. Sadly we didn't get a chance to play on it as the queue of small children was too big for us to join!

That evening we went for some mexican food and a wander around times square before heading back for some much needed sleep, 7months on the road was really starting to take it's toll!

After a good nights sleep we decided to spend our last day in Central Park. That place is amazing, it's huge and so green and quiet you easily forget you're in the middle of New York. We went for a walk to the John Lennon memorial garden, then continued round to watch some people playing baseball. We then stopped to have a picnic lunch somewhere in the middle of the park, before carrying on for another hour or so. After a nice relaxing day we meandered back to the hotel, picking up some presents on the way back that we had seen the day before on our shopping trip. That evening we decided to round our trip off in style and went for a nice Italian meal and some traditional New York martinis! Lovely.

Our final day we had planned to go up the Empire State building, it was a nice clear day so we set off to join the queue. Turned out the queue to go up was around 2 hours, and we only had 2hours until we needed to leave for the airport, so sadly we had to leave. We'll just have to go back again to see that.

So, after 7 months, 9 countries and approximately 29,000 air miles it was time to leave and board our flight home. We've both had such an incredible time it didn't seem real that it was finished. Still, it's nice to go home for a bit and see friends and family. We'll just have to start planning the next trip. Now, where to first....?

---

Photos

The west coast
view from the train

Go giants!
Our first baseball experience

California sunset
after a day at the beach

Dolphin
Roy & Sigfreids secret garden

Venetian gondola....
...in vegas

Vegas by night
from the top of the stratosphere