DJBEECH

and so begins the final full day of my holiday. We made the most of it with an early start which turned into a rather late start by the time everyone got ready. The girls once again went shopping downtown, The guys also went downtown but bypassed the shopping. First we went to check out the WTC site, you don't realise the size of the area until you get there. There doing construction work there at the moment, they're building seven new buildings, one has already been completed (Tower number 7, which collapsed 10 hours after planes hit). Its quite strange being there, to think that around 3000 people died right where i was standing. Very strange feeling. Its the only place where you can look up and not see a building covering the sky which ... read more

Another early morning today because we had to catch the bus to head to Washington, DC. The bus trip took 4 hours but i was looking forward to getting there and seeing where all the important decisions get made the affect the whole world. We arrived at about 1130 and set off to find a place to get some lunch. Once lunch had been downed we got map and did our own tour of washington on foot mainly. First Stop, The White House. On the way to The White House we walked passed the Treasury building, there were lots of people and a secret service car out the front so we thought the president might have been there, but we wasn't. they were lining up for a tour. So we continued walking around to the south ... read more

Today we thought we'd better actually get out and do some of the touristy things in NY. So after some deliberation in the living room we decided that first we were going to go to Central Park, so we did. We caught a cab to Central ParkAlong the way there were police cars everywhere. We later found out that night that a police officer shot someone dead in times square (they were apparently scamming tourists, the officer went up to them and asked for their ID, they ran off and tried to shoot the police officer...so he killed him, rightfully so...Good stuff NYPD.) Anyway... Dad, granny, mum and i caught a carriage ride through the middle of central park, it was really good but really cold, about 5C. This took about 20 minutes, we went passed ... read more

Today was the start of an exciting day, movning from the west (reasonably warm and sunny) to the east (bloody cold and wet) haha. But before that we still had half a day to do whatever we could in LA. We started by talking a drive and a walk down Rodeo drive in Beverly Hills. There is a lot of big houses in this street and down a bit further there is alot of premium brand shops like Tiffany's, Gucci, Dior, and the list goes on and on and on. There were a set of earings in one of the shopfront windows for $5000......you get the idea, This is Beverly Hills afterall. After we were finished with looking at stuff we couldn't afford we drove back to Hollywood to see if the chinese theatre was doing ... read more

Today was the first day of the whole trip that we could actually sit down and just relax all day. It was good too, i think we all needed it. Had a BBQ for lunch and couple of drinks. We were supposed to go to Seaworld but we were all too tired. This morning though we did get a treat, dolphins playing just out the front of our apartment. Later in the afternoon we did however go downtown for about an hour just to see what it was like. We saw the USS Midway which is an Aircraft Carrier which was been turned into Museum. The ship was huge!!! took some good photos. Tonight we went to a chinese restaurant for dinner. Tonight is our last night in San Diego. We say goodbye to San Diego ... read more