After 8 and half months of travelling, we're finally back in London!
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Monday, 16 May 2011
New York
Our last stop on our round the world trip was New York. We'd always planned to come here last, and luckily for us Kelly moved here just a few months ago giving us an extra reason to visit.
We'd been to New York only a few years ago and had seen all the major sites, so this time we just had a relaxing week.
Kelly's apartment is really close to Time Square and Central Park so we didn't have too far to go to explore the city. On our first Sunday here Kelly took us to Greenwich Village, Washington Square park and the High Line walk.
On one of the days we took the train to Brooklyn and walked back across the bridge, did some shopping at South Street Sea Port and saw the Wall Street area. On another day we went shopping in Macy's and saw the Flatiron building and on our last weekend Kelly showed us round Central Park. In between time we met some of Kelly's workmates, went for brunch, had Ben and Jerry's ice cream, went shopping at Bloomingdales and ate plenty of good Mexican food.
We've had a nice time in the USA, it's been a good way to end our trip, and Annastasia has really enjoyed the shopping.
From New York we head back to London.....back to reality, but we will still do a few final blog posts, so stay tuned.
We'd been to New York only a few years ago and had seen all the major sites, so this time we just had a relaxing week.
Kelly's apartment is really close to Time Square and Central Park so we didn't have too far to go to explore the city. On our first Sunday here Kelly took us to Greenwich Village, Washington Square park and the High Line walk.
On one of the days we took the train to Brooklyn and walked back across the bridge, did some shopping at South Street Sea Port and saw the Wall Street area. On another day we went shopping in Macy's and saw the Flatiron building and on our last weekend Kelly showed us round Central Park. In between time we met some of Kelly's workmates, went for brunch, had Ben and Jerry's ice cream, went shopping at Bloomingdales and ate plenty of good Mexican food.
We've had a nice time in the USA, it's been a good way to end our trip, and Annastasia has really enjoyed the shopping.
From New York we head back to London.....back to reality, but we will still do a few final blog posts, so stay tuned.
Friday, 13 May 2011
Washington
We arrived in Washington on the red eye at 6am, and it was cold and raining. I know we weren’t very complimentary about LA, but the weather at least was better there than in Washington that morning. We made our way to the hotel where we met up with Les and Eileen (Colin’s parents) who were themselves coming to the end of an American trip. After catching up and getting some much needed Maltesers, Kelly arrived and we all went out to explore the nation’s capital. The weather had cleared up a bit and we decided to get a hop on hop off trolley bus to see the numerous sights of the City. We started the tour at Union station, this was the first of many beautiful historic structures that we would see. Although there was the option to hop off, we were quite sleepy so did the whole loop back to the station where we left the rest of the Greener’s and headed back to the hotel for a snooze. When we awoke it was evening so we went for dinner in a really nice steakhouse.
The next day we felt a lot more awake so explored much more of the city. We went to Arlington cemetery in the morning, saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier and the Kennedy’s grave site. We also went to the Lincoln, Korean, WW2 and Vietnam memorials. After a long lunch we got back on the Trolley bus and did a different loop through Washington, seeing sites such as the Cathedral, weirdly only finished in 1993, the front of the White House and Embassy Row. That evening we went downtown....down to Chinatown for dinner and drinks with Kelly.
The next day we started at the Jefferson and FDR memorials, then headed towards the White House and finally Capitol Hill. That evening we had Mexican at a bar on the Potomac River, we had tried to get in the night before, but it was absolutely packed. It seems like everyone left Washington at the weekend, so the bar was quieter on the Friday, but still had a good atmosphere.
On our last morning we didn’t have much time to see more sights, but had seen everything we really wanted to, so after a lazy start we took the train to New York.
The next day we felt a lot more awake so explored much more of the city. We went to Arlington cemetery in the morning, saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier and the Kennedy’s grave site. We also went to the Lincoln, Korean, WW2 and Vietnam memorials. After a long lunch we got back on the Trolley bus and did a different loop through Washington, seeing sites such as the Cathedral, weirdly only finished in 1993, the front of the White House and Embassy Row. That evening we went downtown....down to Chinatown for dinner and drinks with Kelly.
The next day we started at the Jefferson and FDR memorials, then headed towards the White House and finally Capitol Hill. That evening we had Mexican at a bar on the Potomac River, we had tried to get in the night before, but it was absolutely packed. It seems like everyone left Washington at the weekend, so the bar was quieter on the Friday, but still had a good atmosphere.
On our last morning we didn’t have much time to see more sights, but had seen everything we really wanted to, so after a lazy start we took the train to New York.
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Los Angeles
We had spent the whole day in Fiji on Saturday 30th April and only left Fiji at 10pm that night. After a long flight we arrived in LA, but due to the time difference we were right back in Saturday 30th April and got half the day back again. It sounded great to us to gain a day, but in reality it was just really long (40 hours) and tiring.
On arrival we had to get through the tedious USA security, which involves some questions, fingerprints of all fingers on both hands and a photo. One of the passengers, a Japanese girl, couldn't understand English well and the officer struggled to explain this whole process to her. He finally managed through miming the actions to get her right hand fingerprints. Then for the left hand he lifted his own left hand up to demonstrate that she should do the same, but somehow the instructions she got from that was that the 2 of them were playing peek-a-boo. The girl lifted her left hand to her eyes, looking really confused and unsure, but still doing what she thought was expected of her, so this game of peek-a-boo went on for a bit until the officer physically came round to put her hand on the scanner. The whole scenario was hilarious, but I have to say I totally understand that she didn't get what to do, because all the security does seem very over the top.
On our way to pick up our luggage I overheard 2 Americans complaining about the flight staff and food. The man was very upset, because of the sandwich we got on the plane which we were told was a chicken sandwich, but this man didn't agree: "That wasn't a chicken sandwich, that was a chicken... chicken... um... chicken salad sandwich." As if this is such a major difference, I think the Americans just like to complain.
We got our luggage and immediately noticed that something was missing. Colin's Aunt Lynda and cousin Jenni had bought us the cutest luggage tags, they were bright yellow and on them said: "Are we nearly there yet?" We had these on our bags all round the world and people would comment on them all the time and even take photos. Somewhere between checking in at Fiji and checking out at LA, someone had taken both our tags and I was not happy about this. I did throw a bit of a tantrum, typical Annastasia style with my foot stomping and all, which you might think is a bit dramatic for luggage tags, but did I mention that they were really cute and they'd travelled all the way round the world with us?!
Our journey from the airport to our hotel was a bit of a nightmare. We had to change trains and buses 5 times and only finally got to the hotel 4 hours after landing. So that was our welcome to America and unfortunately was a sign of more annoying experiences and people to come.
In general we found the people rude and unfriendly and weren't very impressed with Hollywood and LA. It's not glitzy like we imagined and everything seemed shabby and grimy. Even the stars on Hollywood Boulevard looked tacky (that didn't stop me from taking photos of a few of them though). Also, we went to McDonald's and couldn't even get a Coke. Nothing seemed to work as it should here.
So we decided to get away from the "real" Hollywood and went to Universal Studios for a more glamorous experience. We had a great time on the simulators, enjoyed the 3D shows and the rides were really good fun too, particularly the Jurassic Park one which was a water ride that ends with you going almost completely straight down on a slide. We also met a few characters like The Simpsons and Shrek and had perfect weather on the day to enjoy the whole park.
On our final day before our flight we headed to Downtown LA, but there wasn't much to see and it wasn't very nice. We didn't really enjoy our time in LA, but I guess we're pleased we've been once so we know not to go back again.
From here we flew to Washington.
On arrival we had to get through the tedious USA security, which involves some questions, fingerprints of all fingers on both hands and a photo. One of the passengers, a Japanese girl, couldn't understand English well and the officer struggled to explain this whole process to her. He finally managed through miming the actions to get her right hand fingerprints. Then for the left hand he lifted his own left hand up to demonstrate that she should do the same, but somehow the instructions she got from that was that the 2 of them were playing peek-a-boo. The girl lifted her left hand to her eyes, looking really confused and unsure, but still doing what she thought was expected of her, so this game of peek-a-boo went on for a bit until the officer physically came round to put her hand on the scanner. The whole scenario was hilarious, but I have to say I totally understand that she didn't get what to do, because all the security does seem very over the top.
On our way to pick up our luggage I overheard 2 Americans complaining about the flight staff and food. The man was very upset, because of the sandwich we got on the plane which we were told was a chicken sandwich, but this man didn't agree: "That wasn't a chicken sandwich, that was a chicken... chicken... um... chicken salad sandwich." As if this is such a major difference, I think the Americans just like to complain.
We got our luggage and immediately noticed that something was missing. Colin's Aunt Lynda and cousin Jenni had bought us the cutest luggage tags, they were bright yellow and on them said: "Are we nearly there yet?" We had these on our bags all round the world and people would comment on them all the time and even take photos. Somewhere between checking in at Fiji and checking out at LA, someone had taken both our tags and I was not happy about this. I did throw a bit of a tantrum, typical Annastasia style with my foot stomping and all, which you might think is a bit dramatic for luggage tags, but did I mention that they were really cute and they'd travelled all the way round the world with us?!
Our journey from the airport to our hotel was a bit of a nightmare. We had to change trains and buses 5 times and only finally got to the hotel 4 hours after landing. So that was our welcome to America and unfortunately was a sign of more annoying experiences and people to come.
In general we found the people rude and unfriendly and weren't very impressed with Hollywood and LA. It's not glitzy like we imagined and everything seemed shabby and grimy. Even the stars on Hollywood Boulevard looked tacky (that didn't stop me from taking photos of a few of them though). Also, we went to McDonald's and couldn't even get a Coke. Nothing seemed to work as it should here.
So we decided to get away from the "real" Hollywood and went to Universal Studios for a more glamorous experience. We had a great time on the simulators, enjoyed the 3D shows and the rides were really good fun too, particularly the Jurassic Park one which was a water ride that ends with you going almost completely straight down on a slide. We also met a few characters like The Simpsons and Shrek and had perfect weather on the day to enjoy the whole park.
On our final day before our flight we headed to Downtown LA, but there wasn't much to see and it wasn't very nice. We didn't really enjoy our time in LA, but I guess we're pleased we've been once so we know not to go back again.
From here we flew to Washington.
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