(Update from May 14, 2011)
Hello! Hoping you are all happy and well. I don’t think it’s been as long as I usually wait between group updates, but as we’ve done so many things and my travels through the United States have now come to an end, I thought it was a suitable time to send the next chapter to you all. So if you have a bit of free time and you’re interested in hearing what Marco and I have been up to since March, the next episode of our travels is below!
To pick up from where I left off, Brett, Marco and I had an absolutely wonderful time working our way up the East Coast of America. Our first stop was Washington DC, and though a friend later informed me that it was actually recognised as the murder capital of the US for quite a while, I have to say it’s one of the most charming cities I’ve ever been in and I loved it. We were lucky enough to be there in springtime, so the cherry-tree blossoms that cover the city were all in spectacular bloom, which I’m sure helped a lot.
One of the most distinctive things in Washington DC, I found, was the unique style of architecture. The buildings that line the downtown streets almost look European – lots of tall, narrow buildings with elaborate facades, and all joined together so that each building shares a wall with its neighbouring buildings. Also, of course, there are so many iconic buildings in the Parliamentary district that it’s like constantly walking through a postcard. We were only there for a couple of days but managed to see quite a lot in that time – the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and surrounding war memorials (which were unbelievably moving and got me quite teary). That whole area, actually, was amazing to visit. For me, one of the most memorable things was the plaque showing where Martin Luther King stood before the Lincoln memorial to deliver his mighty ‘I Have a Dream Speech’. To actually stand in that spot and think of all the incredible footage I’ve seen of him delivering that speech to those thousands of people was very, very powerful.
We also did the cookie-cutter tourist tour through the Congress Building, and I got my first glimpse of the Library of Congress which had the most BEAUTIFUL reading space I’ve ever seen... complete with leather-bound books, marble statues of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton, and dark mahogany desks for readers and researchers to work at. For someone like me who has had a long standing love affair with books and libraries, it was tremendous – particularly the room housing the personal library of Thomas Jefferson!
We actually had a couple of days of lousy weather while in Washington DC, but that was no problem at all as we escaped the rain and hail in the truly spectacular, world-famous Smithsonian museums! I have no words at all to describe how wonderful these museums were. We visited the Air and Space museum as well as the Natural History museum, and they were both utterly incredible. There’s not much point in trying to describe the content of a museum so I won’t go into it here, except to say that we saw the legendary Hope Diamond, the Wright Brothers’ plane, and that my favourite part was the section of the Natural History museum where they have an air-locked tunnel you can walk through filled with millions of living, exotic butterflies that land on your skin and fly about everywhere. Absolute magic. And the best part about these museums? THEY’RE FREE!!!!
Though we all really enjoyed Washington DC, we didn’t have too much trouble tearing ourselves away because we were all so excited about the next stop on our agenda – the city that never sleeps, the city Frank Sinatra sang about... the one and only, New York!!!
We took a bus up from Washington and arrived in the evening, and I’m so glad we did because in my opinion, New York looks much better by night. We were all absolutely giddy with excitement when we arrived. In fact, we were SO excited that we didn’t even have the patience to find our hotel to drop off our luggage. Instead, we spent a couple of happy hours charging around Manhattan Island with our big packs on our backs, until we were so exhausted we had to stop and recover before braving the subway system for the first time to find our accommodation. We stayed in NY for just over 2 weeks, and as such it worked out cheaper for the 3 of us to share 1 budget hotel room in the boroughs of NY rather than pay for 3 beds in a hostel. So it was a lovely change to have our own private space for such a long time!
Where to start? New York was such a brilliantly vibrant city, and I loved just drifting through the streets, listening to all the different languages and watching the different kinds of people. The atmosphere was so energetic and busy, and I have to say despite what TV and the movies had led us to believe about the attitude of ‘New Yorkers’, practically every person we encountered was friendly, polite and more than willing to help us out whenever we got lost or needed help. Perhaps we just got lucky, but the people there really seemed lovely!
We did so much during our 2 weeks in New York that if I put it all down here this email would never end, so I’ll just cover the highlights. Firstly, what I think is the most iconic part of NY - Times Square. Wow – I was blown away. It’s an absolute sensory overload... a media smorgasbord!!! LCD billboards soaring up into the sky in every direction, and all covered with advertisements that flashed, blinked, scrolled... anything to grab your eye and to compete with the countless other billboards around it. Times Square is intersected by Broadway St. too, so as well as all the ads for Coca-cola and Bonds, there were plenty of billboards promoting the various Broadway Shows playing... Wicked, The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera... so many classics! Unfortunately they were all quite expensive, but I did treat myself once because, as fate would have it, there was a production of my all-time favourite play in the world – Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’ As you would expect of a Broadway show, it was absolutely spectacular. Brilliant actors, brilliant sets, brilliant production in general. I loved it so much I cried a little when it finished!!!
Of course, we couldn’t leave New York without a visit to the top of the Empire State Building, so we waited for a nice clear night and paid the exorbitant entry price. We shot up to the top in an elevator, and although I hate to be so cliché I have to confess that the view was breathtaking and very romantic... twinkly lights as far as the eye could see – street lights, car headlights, building lights – and the Brooklyn Bridge all lit up like a Christmas tree in the distance. It was beautiful.
As we went up the Empire State building at night time, we decided that we’d do the Rockefeller Center during the day time to give us a chance to see the sunshiney version of the view. The Rockefeller Center is one of the tallest buildings in NY, and we were treated to an interesting display about its history (and some truly gut-clenching photos of the builders hanging from scaffolding hundreds of meters in the sky with no safety nets) as we waited for the elevator. Again, we had waited for a nice clear day and were rewarded with views out over all the boroughs of NY, and right out into Jersey. It was wonderful to really get to see the city from a bird’s eye perspective, and to be able to get a good unobstructed view of all the iconic buildings.
We did all the other tourist activities you’d expect... ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, wandered through Wall Street and visited the NY Stock Exchange, strolled through the Guggenheim, did a tour of the United Nations buildings, and spent some time sunning ourselves in Central Park (when the sun deigned to show his face, that is!). And of course... we spent lots and lots and LOTS of time gorging ourselves on amazing NY cuisine!! Well, I must admit that quite a lot of our meals came from Chinatown because it was so cheap, but we also indulged ourselves in some of the most amazing pizza I’ve ever tasted, as well as lots of traditional NY fare like cheesecake, bagels and Black & White cookies. Yum yum yum.
All things considered, though, that my favourite activity in New York was probably visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art... more commonly known as The Met. I realise this sounds ridiculously nerdy, but truly – it’s so much more than an art gallery!! They had entire wings stuffed with ancient Egyptian artefacts, overflowing with Aztec gold and Incan jewellery, piles of perfectly displayed ancient Bibles, Qurans, books, texts and manuscripts, and room after room stuffed with medieval armour and weaponry from around the world. My favourite bits, though, were the Sculpture Halls, where they had thousand-year-old marble sculptures, and statues so huge and impressive that they took my breath away.
So. Once we finally dragged ourselves away from New York, we headed further north to the oh-so-chilly city of Boston in Massachusetts. Despite the weather being absolutely freeeeeeeeezing, we had really good fun in Boston. It’s a beautiful city, bursting with American history. We took in a lot of that history walking a track known as the Freedom Trail, which is a walking path thoughtfully set up through the city for tourists that goes past all the exceptional points of interest, including the spot where the Declaration of Independence was first drafted and read to the American people. To top the Freedom Trail off, we had a drink in ‘The Bell in Hand’ – America’s oldest pub!
While in Boston we also visited two big-name American colleges – Harvard, and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). They were interesting places to visit and both had quite impressive buildings (particularly Harvard), but I have to remain faithful – my favourite college in the US is still the University of Florida in Gainesville! We just had such a good time there with the people we met... for details see my previous group update!
Boston was our last stop on the Eastern coast, and from there we took a flight across the country to begin our explorations of the Western coast, starting with Las Vegas in Nevada. Now, I have to be honest here – although we did have fun there, Vegas really made me feel a bit sick to my stomach. A place of such obscene, wanton excess and luxury... at every hour of the day people sitting in the casinos spending huge sums of money – not just on gambling, but also on the unfathomably expensive shoes and clothing that fill the shops and boutiques. In a boutique in one casino I held a pair of high heels that cost over $2000 – I was far, far too scared to try them on!
We spent most of our time walking around looking at all the different casinos. I’ve never seen such opulent sumptuousness in my life... my favourite casino was the Bellagio, which had an entire, huge garden in its foyer, complete with lawns, beautiful flowers, exotic plant conservatory and country-fair themed rides including a Ferris wheel and carousel. Another good thing is that many of the casinos put on free entertainment and shows, so we spent a pleasant evening wandering around watching the Treasure Island casino sink a Pirate Ship in their pool, the Mirage casino put on a Volcano display complete with African jungle music and lots of pyrotechnics, and the famed Bellagio fountain display.
We made the pleasant discovery that when you’re at a table gambling the cocktail waitresses bring you drinks for free, but consequently made the unpleasant discovery that the more you drink, the worse you gamble! Obviously we didn’t bet much money at all as we travel on a strict budget, but you’ll be pleased to hear that all up, I finished $10 ahead. In total, we spent a weekend in Vegas... and that was plenty!
Saying goodbye to Nevada, we hired a car and drove north into California to Los Angeles, where we were lucky enough to have Marco’s lovely sister Belen and her family to stay with. We spent a week there, and really had a lot of fun. I was very surprised by how suburban most of LA is... I don’t know why, but for some reason I’d been expecting a huge city of skyscrapers, when actually most of the city is filled with general suburbia. We took advantage of beautiful sunny weather to visit Santa Monica, and along with hundreds of other people hired bikes to ride along the boardwalk to Venice Beach, which is a stretch of beach filled with hippies selling handcrafted trinkets and jewellery. It was lovely to see the beach again, and we all enjoyed the sunshine after such a long time on the cold East coast.
We also did the obligatory trip to Hollywood to check out the Walk of Fame, and we wandered along with our heads bent down and shoulders hunched scrutinising the pavement as we saw the names of various singers and actors in stars. We also visited Grauman’s Chinese Theater, which is where celebrities sign their names and press their handprints into wet cement, so we were able to put our own hands into the handprints of plenty of Hollywood icons, including Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Jack Nicolson and Rita Hayworth (to name just a few) . Also, Marco’s brother-in-law Richard is a producer for Warner Brothers, and he was kind enough to give us a tour of the Warner Brothers movie studios, driving us around on a golf-buggy showing us sets where famous films and TV shows were shot. We even got to watch as a huge orchestra in a recording studio played the score for an upcoming movie and was recorded by sound engineers sitting behind elaborate, complicated-looking sounding boards with millions of buttons. It was a very, very cool day.
Another fun thing in Los Angeles was cruising through Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills, watching all the Ferraris and Lamborghinis whiz past through those tall, palm-tree lined avenues that we’ve all seen on so many telly shows. We also spent an enjoyable – though somewhat scorching hot – day hiking through the Hollywood Hills in the Runyon Canton... a hiking trail with lots of great views out over LA and not far from the famous Hollywood sign on the hills.
Marco and I had to say quite a few sad goodbyes when we left LA – not only to Marco’s sister and her family, but also to Brett who has been travelling with us for the past 6 months. It was sad to say goodbye after so long, and felt strange to be just the two of us again. But we headed up and spent a very enjoyable 4 days in San Francisco, highlights of which included riding bicycles along the San Francisco Bay as we looked at the Golden Gate Bridge, and visiting the district known as Haight-Ashbury, credited with being the site where the hippy movement was born. Nowadays, it’s a couple of streets lined with kooky little shops and stalls, and the occasional smell of someone smoking pot floating up from the streets. All in all I really enjoyed San Fran – the houses were beautiful, the people were friendly and we had a lot of fun together.
While in California, we also took a day trip to see the immense Northern Californian Redwood forest in the Muir Woods national park. What can I say? These trees are said to be the largest living organisms in the world, and looking at them I can easily believe it. They are so tall that it boggles the mind – stretching up and up and up, and so broad that you can stretch your arms out wide in front of them and not even be close to spanning their breadth. Many of the trees are over 1000 years old, and standing among them is the kind of experience that really puts your problems into perspective! We spent a good few hours wandering through the redwoods, and loved every minute.
I had to say a teary goodbye to Marco in San Francisco as well, as from there he was headed back to LA to spend some more time with his family while I headed north on a 24 hour bus ride to visit some friends in the little town of Spokane in Washington State. Spokane was a very, very pretty place.... nestled in amongst snow-capped mountains, it’s small but had some really fun points of interest, including a pretty spectacular waterfall (we took a chairlift ride over it) and a fun ‘downtown’ scene, complete with American marching bands parading through the streets! I was staying with friends that I had worked with in Australia – Dan and Julie Tylman – and they were incredibly good to me, showing me all around Spokane and even taking me for a wonderful day trip into Idaho, where we spent a merry few hours on a cruise boat circling Lake Coeur d’Alene. The kind of scenery I saw that day is like nothing I’ve ever seen before – a beautiful, huge, still lake with snow capped mountains in the distance, and deep green pine trees covering everything in between. Breathtaking.
From Spokane, I made my way to Seattle (my very last US Greyhound bus trip!). Seattle was a pretty enough city with very friendly people and some cool sites to see, particularly the Space Needle (which I looked at from the ground, but didn’t go up) and an absolutely wonderful market called the Pike Place market. It sold everything under the sun, but most notably freshly caught seafood, fresh fruit and vegetables, beautiful bunches of flowers and handcrafted souvenirs and crafts. I spent a good 2 hours in there just wandering through, listening to the buskers and looking at all the items for sale.
As I think most of you know by now, I’m actually back in Australia at the moment. I arrived home on Thursday for a visit to family and to arrange some visas. It’s been so lovely to catch up with family after such a long time overseas. Marco is staying with his parents in America at the moment, and we will meet up again in approximately 8 weeks time to continue our travels. In the mean time, it’s wonderful to be back enjoying this fabulous weather in Australia, and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone and exchanging some long overdue hugs.
Hello! Hoping you are all happy and well. I don’t think it’s been as long as I usually wait between group updates, but as we’ve done so many things and my travels through the United States have now come to an end, I thought it was a suitable time to send the next chapter to you all. So if you have a bit of free time and you’re interested in hearing what Marco and I have been up to since March, the next episode of our travels is below!
To pick up from where I left off, Brett, Marco and I had an absolutely wonderful time working our way up the East Coast of America. Our first stop was Washington DC, and though a friend later informed me that it was actually recognised as the murder capital of the US for quite a while, I have to say it’s one of the most charming cities I’ve ever been in and I loved it. We were lucky enough to be there in springtime, so the cherry-tree blossoms that cover the city were all in spectacular bloom, which I’m sure helped a lot.
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| Cherry tree blossoms, Washington DC |
One of the most distinctive things in Washington DC, I found, was the unique style of architecture. The buildings that line the downtown streets almost look European – lots of tall, narrow buildings with elaborate facades, and all joined together so that each building shares a wall with its neighbouring buildings. Also, of course, there are so many iconic buildings in the Parliamentary district that it’s like constantly walking through a postcard. We were only there for a couple of days but managed to see quite a lot in that time – the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and surrounding war memorials (which were unbelievably moving and got me quite teary). That whole area, actually, was amazing to visit. For me, one of the most memorable things was the plaque showing where Martin Luther King stood before the Lincoln memorial to deliver his mighty ‘I Have a Dream Speech’. To actually stand in that spot and think of all the incredible footage I’ve seen of him delivering that speech to those thousands of people was very, very powerful.
We also did the cookie-cutter tourist tour through the Congress Building, and I got my first glimpse of the Library of Congress which had the most BEAUTIFUL reading space I’ve ever seen... complete with leather-bound books, marble statues of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton, and dark mahogany desks for readers and researchers to work at. For someone like me who has had a long standing love affair with books and libraries, it was tremendous – particularly the room housing the personal library of Thomas Jefferson!
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| The spot where the 'I Have a Dream' speech was delivered |
We actually had a couple of days of lousy weather while in Washington DC, but that was no problem at all as we escaped the rain and hail in the truly spectacular, world-famous Smithsonian museums! I have no words at all to describe how wonderful these museums were. We visited the Air and Space museum as well as the Natural History museum, and they were both utterly incredible. There’s not much point in trying to describe the content of a museum so I won’t go into it here, except to say that we saw the legendary Hope Diamond, the Wright Brothers’ plane, and that my favourite part was the section of the Natural History museum where they have an air-locked tunnel you can walk through filled with millions of living, exotic butterflies that land on your skin and fly about everywhere. Absolute magic. And the best part about these museums? THEY’RE FREE!!!!
Though we all really enjoyed Washington DC, we didn’t have too much trouble tearing ourselves away because we were all so excited about the next stop on our agenda – the city that never sleeps, the city Frank Sinatra sang about... the one and only, New York!!!
We took a bus up from Washington and arrived in the evening, and I’m so glad we did because in my opinion, New York looks much better by night. We were all absolutely giddy with excitement when we arrived. In fact, we were SO excited that we didn’t even have the patience to find our hotel to drop off our luggage. Instead, we spent a couple of happy hours charging around Manhattan Island with our big packs on our backs, until we were so exhausted we had to stop and recover before braving the subway system for the first time to find our accommodation. We stayed in NY for just over 2 weeks, and as such it worked out cheaper for the 3 of us to share 1 budget hotel room in the boroughs of NY rather than pay for 3 beds in a hostel. So it was a lovely change to have our own private space for such a long time!
Where to start? New York was such a brilliantly vibrant city, and I loved just drifting through the streets, listening to all the different languages and watching the different kinds of people. The atmosphere was so energetic and busy, and I have to say despite what TV and the movies had led us to believe about the attitude of ‘New Yorkers’, practically every person we encountered was friendly, polite and more than willing to help us out whenever we got lost or needed help. Perhaps we just got lucky, but the people there really seemed lovely!
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| Newly arrived in New York - to excited to even drop off our packs before exploring the city |
Of course, we couldn’t leave New York without a visit to the top of the Empire State Building, so we waited for a nice clear night and paid the exorbitant entry price. We shot up to the top in an elevator, and although I hate to be so cliché I have to confess that the view was breathtaking and very romantic... twinkly lights as far as the eye could see – street lights, car headlights, building lights – and the Brooklyn Bridge all lit up like a Christmas tree in the distance. It was beautiful.
As we went up the Empire State building at night time, we decided that we’d do the Rockefeller Center during the day time to give us a chance to see the sunshiney version of the view. The Rockefeller Center is one of the tallest buildings in NY, and we were treated to an interesting display about its history (and some truly gut-clenching photos of the builders hanging from scaffolding hundreds of meters in the sky with no safety nets) as we waited for the elevator. Again, we had waited for a nice clear day and were rewarded with views out over all the boroughs of NY, and right out into Jersey. It was wonderful to really get to see the city from a bird’s eye perspective, and to be able to get a good unobstructed view of all the iconic buildings.
We did all the other tourist activities you’d expect... ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, wandered through Wall Street and visited the NY Stock Exchange, strolled through the Guggenheim, did a tour of the United Nations buildings, and spent some time sunning ourselves in Central Park (when the sun deigned to show his face, that is!). And of course... we spent lots and lots and LOTS of time gorging ourselves on amazing NY cuisine!! Well, I must admit that quite a lot of our meals came from Chinatown because it was so cheap, but we also indulged ourselves in some of the most amazing pizza I’ve ever tasted, as well as lots of traditional NY fare like cheesecake, bagels and Black & White cookies. Yum yum yum.
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| Marco admiring the skyline of New York |
All things considered, though, that my favourite activity in New York was probably visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art... more commonly known as The Met. I realise this sounds ridiculously nerdy, but truly – it’s so much more than an art gallery!! They had entire wings stuffed with ancient Egyptian artefacts, overflowing with Aztec gold and Incan jewellery, piles of perfectly displayed ancient Bibles, Qurans, books, texts and manuscripts, and room after room stuffed with medieval armour and weaponry from around the world. My favourite bits, though, were the Sculpture Halls, where they had thousand-year-old marble sculptures, and statues so huge and impressive that they took my breath away.
So. Once we finally dragged ourselves away from New York, we headed further north to the oh-so-chilly city of Boston in Massachusetts. Despite the weather being absolutely freeeeeeeeezing, we had really good fun in Boston. It’s a beautiful city, bursting with American history. We took in a lot of that history walking a track known as the Freedom Trail, which is a walking path thoughtfully set up through the city for tourists that goes past all the exceptional points of interest, including the spot where the Declaration of Independence was first drafted and read to the American people. To top the Freedom Trail off, we had a drink in ‘The Bell in Hand’ – America’s oldest pub!
While in Boston we also visited two big-name American colleges – Harvard, and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). They were interesting places to visit and both had quite impressive buildings (particularly Harvard), but I have to remain faithful – my favourite college in the US is still the University of Florida in Gainesville! We just had such a good time there with the people we met... for details see my previous group update!
Boston was our last stop on the Eastern coast, and from there we took a flight across the country to begin our explorations of the Western coast, starting with Las Vegas in Nevada. Now, I have to be honest here – although we did have fun there, Vegas really made me feel a bit sick to my stomach. A place of such obscene, wanton excess and luxury... at every hour of the day people sitting in the casinos spending huge sums of money – not just on gambling, but also on the unfathomably expensive shoes and clothing that fill the shops and boutiques. In a boutique in one casino I held a pair of high heels that cost over $2000 – I was far, far too scared to try them on!
We spent most of our time walking around looking at all the different casinos. I’ve never seen such opulent sumptuousness in my life... my favourite casino was the Bellagio, which had an entire, huge garden in its foyer, complete with lawns, beautiful flowers, exotic plant conservatory and country-fair themed rides including a Ferris wheel and carousel. Another good thing is that many of the casinos put on free entertainment and shows, so we spent a pleasant evening wandering around watching the Treasure Island casino sink a Pirate Ship in their pool, the Mirage casino put on a Volcano display complete with African jungle music and lots of pyrotechnics, and the famed Bellagio fountain display.
We made the pleasant discovery that when you’re at a table gambling the cocktail waitresses bring you drinks for free, but consequently made the unpleasant discovery that the more you drink, the worse you gamble! Obviously we didn’t bet much money at all as we travel on a strict budget, but you’ll be pleased to hear that all up, I finished $10 ahead. In total, we spent a weekend in Vegas... and that was plenty!
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| Vegas, baby! |
Saying goodbye to Nevada, we hired a car and drove north into California to Los Angeles, where we were lucky enough to have Marco’s lovely sister Belen and her family to stay with. We spent a week there, and really had a lot of fun. I was very surprised by how suburban most of LA is... I don’t know why, but for some reason I’d been expecting a huge city of skyscrapers, when actually most of the city is filled with general suburbia. We took advantage of beautiful sunny weather to visit Santa Monica, and along with hundreds of other people hired bikes to ride along the boardwalk to Venice Beach, which is a stretch of beach filled with hippies selling handcrafted trinkets and jewellery. It was lovely to see the beach again, and we all enjoyed the sunshine after such a long time on the cold East coast.
We also did the obligatory trip to Hollywood to check out the Walk of Fame, and we wandered along with our heads bent down and shoulders hunched scrutinising the pavement as we saw the names of various singers and actors in stars. We also visited Grauman’s Chinese Theater, which is where celebrities sign their names and press their handprints into wet cement, so we were able to put our own hands into the handprints of plenty of Hollywood icons, including Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Jack Nicolson and Rita Hayworth (to name just a few) . Also, Marco’s brother-in-law Richard is a producer for Warner Brothers, and he was kind enough to give us a tour of the Warner Brothers movie studios, driving us around on a golf-buggy showing us sets where famous films and TV shows were shot. We even got to watch as a huge orchestra in a recording studio played the score for an upcoming movie and was recorded by sound engineers sitting behind elaborate, complicated-looking sounding boards with millions of buttons. It was a very, very cool day.
Another fun thing in Los Angeles was cruising through Rodeo Drive and Beverly Hills, watching all the Ferraris and Lamborghinis whiz past through those tall, palm-tree lined avenues that we’ve all seen on so many telly shows. We also spent an enjoyable – though somewhat scorching hot – day hiking through the Hollywood Hills in the Runyon Canton... a hiking trail with lots of great views out over LA and not far from the famous Hollywood sign on the hills.
Marco and I had to say quite a few sad goodbyes when we left LA – not only to Marco’s sister and her family, but also to Brett who has been travelling with us for the past 6 months. It was sad to say goodbye after so long, and felt strange to be just the two of us again. But we headed up and spent a very enjoyable 4 days in San Francisco, highlights of which included riding bicycles along the San Francisco Bay as we looked at the Golden Gate Bridge, and visiting the district known as Haight-Ashbury, credited with being the site where the hippy movement was born. Nowadays, it’s a couple of streets lined with kooky little shops and stalls, and the occasional smell of someone smoking pot floating up from the streets. All in all I really enjoyed San Fran – the houses were beautiful, the people were friendly and we had a lot of fun together.
While in California, we also took a day trip to see the immense Northern Californian Redwood forest in the Muir Woods national park. What can I say? These trees are said to be the largest living organisms in the world, and looking at them I can easily believe it. They are so tall that it boggles the mind – stretching up and up and up, and so broad that you can stretch your arms out wide in front of them and not even be close to spanning their breadth. Many of the trees are over 1000 years old, and standing among them is the kind of experience that really puts your problems into perspective! We spent a good few hours wandering through the redwoods, and loved every minute.
I had to say a teary goodbye to Marco in San Francisco as well, as from there he was headed back to LA to spend some more time with his family while I headed north on a 24 hour bus ride to visit some friends in the little town of Spokane in Washington State. Spokane was a very, very pretty place.... nestled in amongst snow-capped mountains, it’s small but had some really fun points of interest, including a pretty spectacular waterfall (we took a chairlift ride over it) and a fun ‘downtown’ scene, complete with American marching bands parading through the streets! I was staying with friends that I had worked with in Australia – Dan and Julie Tylman – and they were incredibly good to me, showing me all around Spokane and even taking me for a wonderful day trip into Idaho, where we spent a merry few hours on a cruise boat circling Lake Coeur d’Alene. The kind of scenery I saw that day is like nothing I’ve ever seen before – a beautiful, huge, still lake with snow capped mountains in the distance, and deep green pine trees covering everything in between. Breathtaking.
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| Lake in Ohio |
From Spokane, I made my way to Seattle (my very last US Greyhound bus trip!). Seattle was a pretty enough city with very friendly people and some cool sites to see, particularly the Space Needle (which I looked at from the ground, but didn’t go up) and an absolutely wonderful market called the Pike Place market. It sold everything under the sun, but most notably freshly caught seafood, fresh fruit and vegetables, beautiful bunches of flowers and handcrafted souvenirs and crafts. I spent a good 2 hours in there just wandering through, listening to the buskers and looking at all the items for sale.
As I think most of you know by now, I’m actually back in Australia at the moment. I arrived home on Thursday for a visit to family and to arrange some visas. It’s been so lovely to catch up with family after such a long time overseas. Marco is staying with his parents in America at the moment, and we will meet up again in approximately 8 weeks time to continue our travels. In the mean time, it’s wonderful to be back enjoying this fabulous weather in Australia, and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone and exchanging some long overdue hugs.
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