When we arrived in Riga it was Lativian Independence Day (the 1990 one) and we took in a parade in old town. There was also a festival on the river. The next couple of days were spent exploring the old town. ... read more

After a very early morning start, flying out of Liverpool, we arrived in Riga in time to meet our friends Craig and Julia. They had been in Lativa an extra day and after picking up a hire car, had spent the night in the coastal resort of Jurmala. We were headed for Sigulda but first had to drive straight through the middle of the capital. It was snowing. After about a hour's drive, we arrived in Sigulda and after a quick search of the area, booked into a couple of rooms at the "Melnais Kakis" (Black Cat) hotel (a choice swung by the fact that they had a pirate-themed bar in the basement called the "Jolly Roger"). We dropped off our gear, had a long lunch in a local cafe and then set out to the ... read more

Well, it's 7.20am in New York and I've been up since 5am. Emma's somehow managing to sleep but I think my body has already switched back onto GMT. Today is the last day of our world tour and the end of 10 months on the road. We've completed thousands of miles journeying and had more experiences than it's humanly possible to take in. We've visited 8 countries (China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and the United States) whilst travelling across (in some cases literally) 3 continents. We've seen the most amazing natural wonders and met some incredible wildlife as well as scaring ourselves silly doing scary things and partying in the coolest places on the planet. We've met hundreds of people (including a fair clutch of famous ones!) and made some great new friends ... read more

On Monday, we took the Subway with Craig, Eleri and Nadine to the site of the World Trade Centre and looked at "Ground Zero" from the observation areas. There are some signboards which tell part of the story and provide quite a moving experience. Across the street we visited St. Paul's Chapel which miraculously escaped unscathed. The chapel is beautiful and houses a pew once used by George Washington. It was used as a base for rescue workers during the WTC clean-up operation and there are displayboards in place to tell part of their harrowing story. Afterwards, we (sombrely) walked along Wall Street to South Street Seaport where we bought half-price tickets to see the Broadway show "Rent". We had lunch together and then Emma and I spent the afternoon walking over the Brooklyn bridge (from ... read more

On Veteran's Day we drove through Virginia and arrived in the nation's capital, Washington DC by early evening. Our hotel was centrally located downtown, just a stone's throw away from 'dubya's' place (but no, this time we didn't try to measure by throwing stones!). After dinner, Fitz took us on a night tour of the National monuments and memorials which included the Capitol building, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial (FYI Lincoln's statue is saying his initials in American Sign language!), both the Korean and Vietnam War Memorial's (which were quite harrowing) and finally we walked to the back of the White House - they were all pretty impressive as were the numerous other grand city buildings. The next morning, we all went off separately to see different things. Washington has many things to see and do - ... read more