New York, New York!

I'd say that this pic pretty much sums up our impressions of New York

So it was quite a commitment going to New York... cause it meant that to avoid spending LOTS of money we had to get a reallllllly early bus. We got up at 5am ergh! to get our cheap China town bus from town. We had spent days trying to give Greyhound our good money to get tickets that would have been twice as expensive but to no avail. So we spend half as much and got there quicker with the Fung Wha. Seriously recommend it. It was comfy and quick... our only issue was with the camp kid behind us who had an unusually loud, brain-piercing and head-ache giving voice. It takes me quite alot to be confrontational, but as I saw Adam creasing his little brow... ear plugs in and still unable to get this kid out of his head I had to say something. The only other issue was that at this time in the morning people were eating egg fried food at every angle. Now I can list several things that I wouldn't want to smell after only a few hours sleep... fried chicken is at the top of that list but ah well.

That is the Statue of Liberty on Adam's shoulder... lets hope she isn't luring him with her promises of freedom

We got to New York sometime before midday... I was still trying to avoid my watch at this point... and went to get the Statton Island ferry. A great way to see the Statue of Liberty it has to be said, especially cause it was FREE! It only took like 20mins each way and we got to see some great views of the city from the water as well as the Statue of Liberty of course! Sleep and caffeine deprived we went in search of Central Manhattan to find a Starbucks (it had to be done).

We looked for the Big Apple for ages but we didn't even see an unusually large one

We passed Ground Zero on the way which was sort of moving. Just to be in that place where such a horrible thing had happened... in real life. And the space was just so big! They really must have been Huge.

Our rather over-sized tourist map made sure we stood

out as practical and well planned people

Walking through central park was just like on tele and in the movies. People jogging, picnicking and reading under the trees. All very cool but we really didn't get a sense of the size of it until later, when we saw it from above. As yet we had not encountered one Starbucks. Which really went against everything we had heard about the coffee fueled citizens of the Big Apple. Walking down 5th Ave (where all the expensive and posh shops are) it was not until we hit the Rockefeller that we found one! Course afterwards we saw them all over the bloody place but thats Sods Law I guess. Adam took pride in ordering a very complicated coffee as fast as he could just to test the efficiency of the staff.

Recharged we went in search of Grand Central Station to get some lunch and watch people buzzing about being city-going Americans. Now i imagined the station to be a but like..well a train station, but as we entered the huge chandliers, arches and amazing painted ceiling (and lack of trains, as these are hidden behind some posh looking doors) made it seem like the entrance to an art gallery or museum. True to our word we grabbed 2 salads and sat watching the world fly by. Adam set up his camera on a slow shutter to try and capture the hussle and bussle of all these people moving around.

Us at the top of the Rockefeller in front of the Empire State

After food we headed to the Crylser building and the UN before walking back up to the Rockefeller center to go up the 70 floor to the top of the rock observation area. Part of the visit incluced a video (an advert for the center) and a photo made to look like the famous one of men sitting having their lunch on a girder 70 floors up. Now everyone else in the que sat nicely and smiled, me and Adam, knowing that we were not going to buy the photo decided to have a more eventful shot, i hung from the girder, whilst Adam stood on it trying to pull me up... tehe!

We tried to wait on the roof until the sun went down and the city got lit up, but after an hour and a half we were just too bored of waiting and decided to go for a cocktail (not that it wasn't an incredible view but there is only so many times you can walk to all 4 sides of the skyscraper.) We had a Manhattan in Manhattan and a Long Island ice tea just for good measure... felt like we were in Sex and the City. So which characters do you think we'd be? ooo, we'll put pics up on Flickr soon... after we have had some more sleep.

Adam rather enjoying the cherry in his Manhattan

Day trip to ....Plymouth!

As promised we headed off yesterday to see Plymouth, Plymouth rock, the Mayflower and the Plimoth plantation. I could go into the details of all the things we saw in excutiating detail .... however i hope a few small select stories should suffice....

Sooo we are at the Mayflower, and im reading about scurvy when a delightful family decides to join and parks their ass right in front of me (not that uncommon, its seems) now the small ( i use the term 'small' to describe age, not his pyhsical attributes) child starts asking his mother about scury and the british...' Oh all british have black teeth, cos they dont eat them vegtables, and they die cos the vegtables stop scurvy, thats why the english eat limes so we call them limies but they call them lemons'

wow... i would have grinned and beared it, but that may of scared them more!

I think we all can learn a bit about English culture from this - People eat your VEGTABLES thats whats killing our youth! I almost expect this family to get an BA flight to heathrow, and during the preflight saftey talk, just after ' to buckle your saftey belt (by the way, if you cant do that, you shouldnt be on a plane) 'Ladies and gentlemen in the event of scurvy limes will drop from the ceiling, please eat your lime before assisting those around you'
Just in case you have started to get worried....

http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleid=332&sectionid=10


if you have any of the symptoms eat a lime, dont just do it for yourself, do it for me...

im sorry, this is why Tess does most the blogging (i hate people)

Next we get onto Plymouth rock. So for a game, which below do you think is the plymouth rock...






Yup its the 2nd one, behind dirty plastic, metal scafolding it really was just a rock, the only real way to see it was to scrabble down the side of the beach. We decided against doing this and so went to see some of the other interesting less famous rocks in the area (end photo) and had a game of rock, paper sisors.

Next we took the 1/2 hour bus (totally empty, just us the driver and his remixed versions of 8o classics played on the panpipes) to Plimoth plantation. I have to admit that it was quite fun here, a small indian camp, a english villiage and lots of role players. My only issues were that all the 'english' were this weird mix of accents, they had been told how to say certain words in a 'English way' such as Laaaandan, or toon instead of town, but everything else was in an american accent. Also i find role players a little scary, dont know why, but hey ho.

I promise to let tess start blogging again soon.....
adam

Random Boston Days

Over the past few days we have done a few things that weren't quite blog worthy but together they may just pass as a half decent Blog...
Sooo we went to the science museum to see the world largest Imax (tess had never been to one before) we went to see a movie about the Grand canyon- preparing ourselves for the real thing in a few weeks! anyhoo.. after pushing the thousands of kids away( or by using foul language so their parent moved them for us ....whats sad is that really happened...) we had a play on some of the toys (we spent about 5hrs there)

Later in the week we went to Harvard, which was very cool. We spent time wondering round and going into book stores. Whilst in the Harvard Bookstore, as tess looked at history book i found possibly the only 'pub humour, dirty joke book' in there and so spent much of my time giggling away in a corner. I admit Harvard is nice, but Nottingham, i believe is nicer....we have a Lake for example.... and errr.....lots of concrete buildings!

Then we headed off down the Freedom trail....basically a trip that reminds everyone how America won its independence and how they beat the British etc etc (yawn). Most the time it sounds like the script from Star Wars (The big evil tea swigging empire trying to take the universe whilst the republic saves the day and destroys the death star) anyhoo we got near the end and wound up at USS constitution, which was very cool (even though the HMS Victory is older and has a better name, and won battles by not cheating) there were loads of Navy folk hanging out all over the path which just made we giggle lots ... lots of seamen all over the place covering the freedom trail etc etc

anyhoo tomorrow we are off the Plymouth rock, which i am assured is just a rock (not even the first place they landed, that would be Provincetown in Cape Cod) but should be Fun......

cya later Adam

Salem

So a few days back we got up nice n early and trudged down to the port to catch a boat to Salem, a nearby historic town which is most famous for its witch trials and then hangings in 1692. This was our first boat trip so we took LOADS of pics on the boat trip looking back over the sunny cityscape of Boston... Don't know if you'll find these at all interesting but just in case ...

After the usual social dance with the locals on the boat ("oh you're from England! These people are from England too!") we sat back and enjoyed the stunning views of the New England coast. The sea front houses were idyllic, of the typical American style but with views of the ocean and set against little tufts of woodland. Most of them also had steps going down the cliff to their HUGE private yaughts... *sigh*. On arriving we wondered down a huge painted red line that conveniently took us to, and on a tour of the town. I swear I have never seen anything so many bizarre exhibits that claim to be 'museums' in one place. Every corner we took there was another Ghost museum, Witch wax works, Horror museum, Witch village, Witch life museum. It wouldn't be sooo bad had they not had big, tacky, Halloween-costume style window decorations that made them look really tacky and kitsch. We decided to go to 'the most visited museum in Salem', the Witch museum in hope that we might get a proper idea of the history of the town trials etc etc.

The give away should have been the big ugly hag statue and the painted witches on broomsticks out the front of the building but we were trying to keep an open mind! We were led into a large auditorium where we sat in the dark for about 15minutes before the presentation finally kicked in... honestly we had begun to believe that the 'horror' of the story would be being stuck in a room with about 50 motionless, silent strangers with no air con.... but that turned out just to be part of it!

The presentation told the story of the trials... sort of... it seemed to add some weird comments and conclusions as to why the whole thing started... like the repression of young women (ok maybe...) then the idea of the devil as a black person causing these girls to go insane (what?). Then, to conclude, they tried to justify the whole thing by saying "19 people were killed in the village its ok, cause we weren't as bad as Europe... they killed more". Also they mentioned that it was a good thing in some way because it reminded Americans to be tolerant and in that way better than Europeans... (hmmm can you say Mc Carthy witch hunts?). Just as we raised our eyebrows the final concluding statement told us to "Ask Europe who the devil is and who's side he was on". You can understand why this caused offense to the few Europeans in the room who stared at each other in utter confusion and disbelief. We left with the cliche pagan anatromical midwife started talking about being a 'strong women'.

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After a wonder around the town taking pics of the old houses and gravestones we headed to the Peabody museum to see the Maori tattoo expedition which was very cool. Then we had a really delicious and HUGE dinner in a harbour front pub. I tried the local delicacy of clam chowder which was really very tasty. I thought I was very brave!

On the way home we did get a little scared as at the habor we were the only two people waiting for the last ferry home.... so when the 400 person capicty ferry arrived it was quite fun to go to the very front and play lots in the cold wind ( a much more sexy version of Titanic i think you will agree!) we also tried our hardest to get some pics of the city at night without a tripod. Still pretty but next time we will go more prepared!

Call me Ishmael...or Adam.....The story of Adam Dick

So for my Birthday i decided we were going to go Whale watching, Tess had been reading Moby dick and the timing seemed perfect. The only problem was dragging our sorry butts out of bed at the crack of dawn so we could get to the boat!
I have to admit that i was expecting to see one whale several miles off for a second and that be it...and thats how it started


.....then they just seemed to appear around the boat, the marine biologist started by saying 'now look to the left and you will see ...' to then 'Wow! just look anywhere off the boat and you will see something!'


They managed from people photos on the journey back to identify over 20 different individuals! We saw several mothers and calf's humpbacks and lots of feeding!.




The feeding basically involves swimming round under water blowing bubbles so the fish get confused and trapped in the middle of the circle, then the whales come up in the middle with their mouths wide open.




The sea birds fly round looking for an easy meal and often sat on the whales whilst they swam round! Then one woman shouting something about 'Believing' and grabbing an oar jumped off the ship and danced on the nose of one whale whilst the rest of us chanted 'SHAMU, SHAMU'




Ummm......
The three hours flew past then we headed back into town for some food shopping and a movie. A good day allround! Anyhoo the pics dont really do it any justice, kinda just look like wet rocks!, but it was truly amazing!

The JFK Museum

Sooo yesterday we headed off out of Boston (well just south) to the JFK museum to see what it was all about... i shall not bore you with the details of the exhibits that we saw... instead we have some pics of the architecture which was really cool! (Few more on Flickr!)




Ps. Todays favorite moment came whilst on the 'T', with my map out a friendly local came over to see if i needed help. 'nope im fine' i replied....a look of amazement appeared over this face....'Your English...my brother visited England once...Hey mike come over here, there from England!' i saw the look on tessa's face, she was turning away trying to avoid the fast approaching awkward conversation.... HA! like a lightning bolt it hit me, the perfect way to end this ...' You know tess is from London' i said it quickly waiting for the inevitable response 'HEY!, i went to London do you know the.......' i turned with my map and chuckled, the best thing about coming from the Midlands is no one ever goes there.....

Boston, week one.

So I'm sure you all know by now that we arrived safe and sound in Boston. After a mild panic attack on the first couple of days... which we wont talk about... we settled into our place here for the month. We have been finding it hard to blog about Boston because we have been so darn busy exploring! We have yet to take the camera out into town I am afraid but we have got some pics from the highlights of the week.

There are all sorts of free money saving activities that we have been taking FULL advantage of. Our favorite so far came about from the rivalry between two local Boston beer companies Sam Adams and Harpoon. So we thought it was only fair that us beer drinking Brits go and show them what it is all about.


We had a nice early start so as to fit in the optimum about of beer tasting. Off we ventured on the T (Boston underground) to the far end of town in search of the fabled Samuel Adams. Arriving at our stop we made a point of looking gormless until a very nice assistant gave us directions. By the time we got there it was only about 9.45am... this was gonna have to be bloody good beer to settle on our stomaches so early. We got two tasters on arrival, a blackberry and a coffee one.


My God were they delicious, more than made up for the association of Sam Adams with the Boston tea party. The tasting continued through the tour and into the official tasting room. I have to say that there wasn't one that I disliked and to top it off I won a posh beer tasting glass for guessing the secret ingredient in their most expensive brew was (c: not bad for a mornings work eh!


After a hearty and delicious meal at a local pub with sweet potato fries and freshly battered onion rings we headed off to the docks to compare Harpoon. The brewery here tried a different approach to a beer tour, less of a tour more a open bar with free samples of all there beers. While drinking you would get a brief history of each drink and how it was made. Seeing from our ID's that we were British, the tour guide/barman immediatly assumed that we would allready know about different types of European Beer and so would regularly redirect questions to us (Are German beers fruity?, whats your option of French strawberry beer...etc etc) and at several points during the 'session ale' taste asked about how we would drink this at every meal and what an Englishman would consider a good alcoholic content for such an Ale...


Anyhoo maybe it was the 2 free tasting glasses, or the fact Tess won a prize, but we preferred Sam Adams, sorry harpoon.....

Ps .. my favorite moment came when a southern man , who proclaimed himself to be a true beer drinking American asked the tour guide at Sam Adams why they were effeminate beer by adding fruit and 'delicate girly' tastes. All he wanted was a real American Bud!. He looked proudly at his son, as if he had just beaten some sense into all these 'beer homos'. The tour guide sighed and asked us in the calmest manor ' i hear in Europe Bud is seen as an effeminate drink compared to Ales such as Sam Adams? Oh yes! Tess replied, something you would give to children..

Charleston

First off we need to say a BIG BIG thank you to Owen for letting us stay with him and carting us about the place for three days! You were an excellent host and tour guide... you should really go into the business!

Charleston was beautiful, even better than Savannah... I'm going to label it the Henley-on-Thames of the USA (although there were more dolphins, Spanish moss and quaint colonial homes.)

The shops were posh and pricey so we tried to stay out of them but we much enjoyed prancing about pretending to be part of it all. It was the first place that we have been where we felt we could live ... we would just have to win the lotto first so we could afford one of the plush, elegant homes on the seafront looking out for pirates whilst enjoying a gin and tonic. Owens place was gorgeous. Set into suburbia (just like on tele) with the rocking chair out front and a back yard overlooking the wildlife of the trees and pond. We got to feed the ducks, watch the local wild deer and see Owen prove that you can put a cat on a lead and take it for a walk around the back garden!
On our second day Owen took us out to see one of the old rice plantations called Middleton Place. It was incredible, with breathtaking scenery and charming French style gardens to wander round.

We also took the woodland path where we encountered some HUGE spiders... spiders are even yuckier when you see them that big... as well as some turtles, frogs and strange ducks whose necks make them look like snakes when they are swimming (creepy!).

Then we went off to the swamp gardens of another plantation to look for gators. We didn't see any but the swamp was pretty cool and lots of other wildlife to admire.

On our last day we explored the town a little more and went to the Charleston Museum. It was all very interesting and then... dun dun duh... we found the dressing up section. The day was made.

We ate out on a pretty harbour where Owen's mum works. It looks just like Amity Island but without a great white killer shark. Anyway I swear she must be the luckiest woman in the world as wild dolphins swim and play about the boats every day and were great fun to watch. I ate my first Mahi fish and it was delicious... Adam tried it too aswell as Owen's Flounder and declared that he like them both! He may turn into a fish eater yet...