Boring blog

(This post contains lots of profound and deep thinking)

Read if you want - otherwise, just look at the pictures.

Its been a great trip. And its still got a week to go. When I think of all that we have done in the past three weeks, I realise that another week holds a great deal of potential. But sadly, we don;t nearly have enough time to do everything. New York was our one chance to do things thoroughly – and to a huge degree we have but sadly six days in a city of 8 million people is not long enough. I imagine however you could spend a lifetime here and not see everything. But I think we are doing well-at covering the main attractions.

Its no secret that I wanna a job here. I need to take a lot of steps to realise my goal of spending a few years here on a work permit being a vet in NYC. But I think I can do it and being here allows me to have some more motivation (as if I needed it).

Ok, boring stuff over – short recap on what I did today. Today was a day where the three of us split up and did whatever we wanted. Jason and I had initially planned to go to other cities, him to Washington and me to philiphadephia – however we realised we need all the time we can to see new york.

I slacked round early morning and posted the last blog.

Then I headed into central park. Its pretty and huge and green. We have things ten times bigger and a hundred times more varied in NZ. However, its huge drawcard is the green in the middle of a massive metropolis.



(There is a squirrel in this photo)

(Both times through central park – I missed the tourist stuff – I''ll get Jason to show me that stuff)



I then headed onto museum mile on 5th avenue. Sadly the guggenhiem was closed, only on Thursdays too. How annoying. Something I must do in next two days




Guggenheim

But it meant, I got to spend more time in the modern metropolitan museum of art.



(outside of the met. When I went in, I wondered why all these people were doing sitting outside. Later I realised - you need to sit down after the museum)

It was huge. I think I saw 20% of the exhibits – and I walked everywhere. And maybe .0000001% I actually looked at. I asked one of the guides – and she said it would take a month to do everything.

Exhibits – included painting by Monet and Picasso. Early Egyptian, roman, Greek and Byzantine artifacts, modern US photographs.
But my favourite was a walk through guide of the American women from 1890 to 2010. Sadly photos were banned – but I managed to get one.
It started with the suffrage movement, moved on to flappers, into actress like grace Kelly, Rita hayworth, shirley mclaine and greta garbo. Film clips were shown on huge screens of their top moments on screen. It finished with a huge montage of modern American women – from condalezza rice to Natalie Portman.



(from the american women exhibit)

(I may complain about the crowds at these tourist attractions, but I do realise that I am part of the crowd and that crowds bring in huge amounts of money. With these huge amounts of money the institutions can undertake successfully huge projects with a great deal of detail. The Bronx zoo yesterday showed off all the conservation efforts they do, all of which seems amazing. And today – the met, was able show these priceless works. I may complain about the crowds- but I know the sights we see and marvel at, are a result of those crowds)

OK – that's enough waffle. Madison square gardens and a rock concert tomorrow. And hopefully some good soccer watching and exciting detours.

New York city

New York

The drive outta New Hampshire took us a while. I drove in crowded traffic all the way to the interstate. But don't worry – we weren't bored. We were surrounded by people all the way out. These people had been drinking, in the sun all day – and therefore thought it was great fun to watch people stuck in traffic – whilst offering various incentives for passing females to lift their shirts.

By 7.30pm we had got out. Then I started padding my “states I've been to list”, we sped through Massachusetts at night sadly and then stopped in Connecticut overnight. Then we headed out to New Jersey – and said goodbye to Monty – the R/V.

I highly recommend getting an R/V to drive round. There are awesome. In my next life, I'm coming back as a turtle – having one's home with you all the time is brilliant.

We took the famous New Jersey turnpike. Nothing of interest happened whilst we did this.

Then – we hit New York!

It took us a while to settle into the hostel but its not too bad. We'll in New York for a few days – six nights. We are in a ten person dorm, and there's not much space – but its sweet

We took in a Broadway show on the Monday night – Green's day American idiot. 90 minutes packed with rock songs – tonnes of fun. Thanks to Jason for organising the tickets.

On Tuesday – we went out to see the Statue. Sadly the world's longest line was present to get us onto Ellis Island where the statue actually is (seriously – look outside your window – you'll see the end of line in New Zealand)– so instead we took a one hour boat tour around it. Was worth it – no lines and we got to see the Manhattan skyline, governor's island and the statue.




We then explored wall street – Jason made a million on the stock exchange in ten minutes and went to see Trinity church. Its beautiful – as can be seen in the photos.

Empire state building was next. Before that we stopped in another mini brewery in the city (we have a knack for finding these) and sampled 150ml each of six different beers.



Trust me – a litre of beer makes the lines at empire state much more amusing. We went to the 86th floor – and marvelled at the skyline. 10 miles of 360 degree visibility is pretty darn good. Jason and Alister went up to the 102th floor and took some more shots.



We then got back to the Hostel – took in a bbq and then went on a pub crawl. End of story

The next day, we woke up with headaches.

But the Bronx zoo beckoned. Anytime you have a chance to see 450 different species of animal, you jump at it. Sadly it was donation day, so we had screaming children and strollers everywhere. I mean everywhere. It made the experience very crowded – and hard to get good views of things. But we saw tigers, sea lions, gorillas many different birds and a snake. Sadly there was a very bored polar bear too. I hope as soon as the zoo closed he managed to get a feed and settle down.



(I have faith that the zoo staff know what they are doing - and this bear is not suffering too much)

We then went to Yankee stadium, sadly the yankees lost – we have decided that we are terrible luck for home teams. But we had great seats – and loved watching the scoreboard provide endless gimmicks. Yankee stadium is truly an example of how the modern sports stadium should be.




On the subway ride home, we sang Disney songs (well Alister did). This is because the subway was packed. Imagine 100 people in an area the size of your living room, so if the people next to you are singing - you better as well. Its pretty cramped – and annoying when it flies forty blocks past your stop.

Ok – its a short blog today. I need to go see central park, I haven't done very much today.

Out with the old, in with the new

(I had to post this photo. Us with the mounties - in the CN tower-sadly no horses allowed in the tower)

Its all new, you know.

Currently we are residing in New England. However we have spent the last two days in upstate New York. When I last left you, we were in Toronto, suffering the all whites bowing out of the world cup.

From that tragic start to the morning, where Jason and I found a pub to follow the game, and Alister went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Alister enjoyed the Hockey Hall of Fame. Seeing such legends as Wayne Gretzsky and Bobby Orr almost inspired him to find out a way to become a real hockey player. He had to settle for marvelling at the Stanley Cup instead.




So, we left Toronto and drove 123 km to Niagara falls. There we were greeted with a beautiful day and hundreds of people watching giant amounts of water cascade.

“It would be more impressive if the water went the other way” - Oscar Wilde

Thankfully, Mr Wilde is understating the effect of the falls. We took a tour on the : “Maid of the mist” boat respelent in our blue rain slickers.



Its hard to describe the falls, I'll try and be more eloquent than merely using the words awesome and fantastic.
The water doesn't fall from a particularly great height, but the width of the drop and the horseshoe shape of the falls create a waterier amphitheatre of spray and noise. We spent time trying to figure out, if (volume wise) more water went over the falls in a second, than the entire amount of beer the steamwhistle brewery produced in a year. We gave up our calculations pretty quickly and agreed that if the falls were made of beer, it would be awesome.



We then decided to leave Canada and heaed to the US of A. It took a bit longer than expected. The friendly people at border control decided we were so nice, we needed to stay in a room for an hour and a half with lots of other frustrated people. Annoying, but that's what international travel is like. Thankfully the actual processing took nary a second and we headed with glee into New York State.

From there we moved on to Buffalo. Buffalo is famous for two things – losing the superbowl four times and buffalo wings. We took the option of trying the second. So we went a “wing hut” - my name for this nice restaurant and ordered fifty buffalo wings and a plate of wedges. Here we also discovered the beer – rolling rock – which helped wash the wings down nicely. Fifty wings took a lot of eating – I'd like to take this moment to shout out to our wing eating champion.



Jason powered through the wings like a hawkes bay prop through a wellington backline.

The next day (Friday 25th of June) – was a sleepy little town in upstate New York. Cooperstown. We took a stunningly scenic drive from Buffalo, east across the top of state. I drove 200 of the easiest miles, whilst Jason and Alister snapped photos of the scenery. We arrived at the baseball hall of fame at 2.30 – and I died. Well, I didn't really die – but I did go to heaven. I took tonnes of photos. I won't write too much more here, suffice to say, its a brilliant hall of fame, up to date and I wanna go back.

However, the rest of the evening is worth writing about. We headed to Doubleday field – the place where baseball started. Alister and I had a go at the batting cages, suffice to say – neither of us will be professional baseball players (Jason may have a shot). We then sat in sunshine – and watched college baseball players play a decent game. We sipped beer in the stands and laughed as foul balls narrowly missed cars.



On Saturday, we headed out from our campground and started into New England.
(Aside – its a running joke on this trip that I love all things New York and dislike all New England sporting team. Jason has taken up supporting New England teams to antagonise me)

Vermont – is a beautiful state. It green, peaceful and not overcrowded. Its state nickname is the green mountain state – and its the 49th least populated state. It has many beautiful attractions, quaint traditions and charming people.
We drove straight through it, barely stopping. But at least I can say I've been there.

New Hampshire was upon us before we knew it. We found the racetrack in loudon and stopped to pick up tickets. The sights consisting of people tailgating, mustaches and Dale junior shirts. Yep, we were in motor racing territory. Where driver loyalties are fierce as the red on the back of necks. Where beer bellies are marks of a great life spent watching racing. Where speed is king and rubber queen.

NASCAR - After a night parked in the Walmart carpark, we got up and out to the track not much after 7am. After the initial shock of an early start, we were glad that we did this. Sitting back, mixing it with the fans in the parking lot was a great experience. Nothing is done by half measures up there. A few beers and some sunshine was a great way to get the raceday underway. After sending out a search party, Alister was located at the mechanising tents, and we got the the track. With our seats on the front straight away, we enjoyed an entertaining race with the other 100,000+ fans. A good clean race meant that we didn't get to see much 'action' (we all go to watch the crashes don't we??), but the last 30 or so laps livened things up. We talked Geoff out of buying a Danica Patrick t-shirt from one of the numerous mechanising trucks behind the stands, then headed back to the RV for a sit down and wait for the fans to leave. An experience well worth repeating we think.

Canada - what its all aboot, eh

(Another cool photo from indy)

Ok, enough of this decent writing – back to Geoff.

We left Indy with smiles on our faces and a heavier R/V thanks to Jason's shopping. We then drove up the interstate to South Bend, Indiana. South Bend is a sleepy little town on the northern border of the state – but it has one of the most famous colleges in America attached to it – Notre Dame. Being the uncultured buffoon I am – I only really wanted to see the football stadium where the famous fighting Irish football team play. Jason and Alister managed to snap several photos of the beautiful campus buildings as well as me with several statues of famous coaches. Its a beautiful university and just another place I wanna go back to- during football season of course.



(Jason - the football star)

From there we headed into Amish country – still in Indiana. We had drag offs at the lights with horse drawn buggies (we won cos Jase was driving) and got memorised by barns and cornfields.


Then we headed into Michigan. Sadly I reckon Michigan will be one of the biggest regrets of the trip. Nothing bad happened, but we merely didn't do it justice. We just drove through it and shopped there. We didn't go to Detroit, made no detours and took very few photographs. The most memorable part was being stuck behind a huge farm vehicle for 30 miles – the only 30 miles of one lane roads we have driven this time (Murphy's law). Alister and I entertained ourselves making up purposes for this vehicle
They included
-Canadian tank
-R/V for snakes
-Ice cream truck for rural kids
-crop circle maker
-portable milking machine
(there were more – trust me when you are stuck behind this vehicle slowly going crazy, these names amuse you)
We stayed overnight in Lanseng, Michigan- and then headed to Canada. We laughed at the sign saying “turn left for Canada”. Being from New Zealand, international travel is usually a lot more difficult than simply turning left.

The Canadian border took us thirty minutes to get through. We got questioned and then they searched the vehicle. Even the dog at border control wanted into Monty, whilst we waited outside nervously
Anyway – once they removed the guns and Vegas hookers from the vehicle – we were free to go in Canada. Turns out the reason border control is so strict is because the G20 conference is on in Toronto at the weekend and security is tighter than me at a souvenir shop.

The “ehs”, “aboots” and “maple syrups” started flowing from our tongues as we commented on the differences between Canada and US. We have noticed that Canadian flags are everywhere, the notes are coloured and no obeys posted speed limits. Driving in Toronto was insane – its a huge huge city. Thankfully 6 lane highways and 8pm at night made negotiating traffic a little easier.

We are currently resided at the Glen Rouge camp ground. Its scenic, almost too much like a New Zealand camp ground. Its by a river, we have tents and caravans scattered around and power hooked up to the R/V. Alister did some very good work finding us a camp ground this close to Toronto – that is decent.



(Me drinking on the roof of r/v)

So we headed in Toronto on the morning of the 23 June. (This trip has gone very fast – yet we feel we have packed a lot in). We walked through flash residential neighbourhood to the train that took us to central Toronto.
We got off at union station – and saw police everywhere. With guns. They were very friendly but their job was to provide security for the G20 – and it looked like they were doing a good job.
From there we headed up the CN tower. Its high. Like 447 metres up the the air. It also has a glass floor – that you can see all the way to the ground. Its pretty freaky looking down and we were tentative to begin with to step on something you can see right through. Once the guide told us that it can hold fourteen hippos we grew in confidence. Jason jumped up and down on it – rather loudly scaring a number of people around him. Then it got interesting. Whats the one thing you don't want to happen when you are 347 metres high?
An Earthquake
Yes – one happened. A small one – but still an earthquake none the less. Amazing thing was – it happened exactly same time as Obama's helicopters were doing practice landing around the CN tower base. Which we saw through the glass floor of the CN tower We thought it was the helicopters shaking the building but no.

Then our stomachs told us we were hungry. So we headed across the road to a brewery. They gave us free beer -so we decided to stay. We took a tour and sampled some more of the product. If steam whistle beers ever come to New Zealand – we are buying shares.



We were still hungry – so we went to a sports bar (notice a theme here?) and watched Germany win their group and Australia leave the tournament. The bar had a number of German fans and 136 tvs. I wanted to move into it (minus the German fans).

It had been a brilliant day – and we planned to finish it off with a trip to the hockey hall of fame.Sadly it thought summer starts in July – and closed fifteen minutes after we got there.



24 of June. Sadly – the all whites are done. But they had a great run. Alister is hopefully enjoying hall of fame now

indy motor speedway

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Ladies and gentlemen – we are lucky enough to have a guest author today. His name is Alister Lang and he is here to share with you our experiences at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Indianapolis:

After a fortuitous false start the previous day, we packed up the RV and headed off the the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After the previously dry, and hot day, things turned messy very quickly, with a heavy storm hitting us overnight meant a dry camping area turned in to a wet one. This proved we could pack up all our stuff in a matter of minutes.

So through the rain, we drove the speedway, including Alister having to negotiate the tunnel under the speedway track. Luckily the RV survived. Alister and Jason then hit their motor sport mecca. The designers of the museum were very crafty, putting the merchandise shop before the museum. After sending a search party out to find Jason and wrestle his wallet out of his hand, we then got on to the museum.

The museum was very impressive, with pretty much every winning car being on show at the museum. Unfortunately Scott Dixon's car wasn't there though. After seeing it all on TV it was great to be able to see things like the Borg Warner Trophy (Indy 500 winner) in person.



Timing wasn't with us to be able to do a full grounds tour, so we instead had to settle for a track tour instead. The storm had abated slightly, so we were able to get the bus around the track, checking out famous landmarks like the yard of bricks and the pagoda. Sadly the bus driver wouldn't let us out of the bus, apparently he values his job.

For anyone in the Indy area, it's definitely worth a look.

(Blame Geoff for poor editing)

The Indiana Hillbillys

We Hillbilly it up

(sorry about weird typing around photos)

We're in an R/V lot, shirtless (but all 20 metres apart), drinking beer (don't worry mums, we don't have enough beer to get drunk) and talking in hillbilly accents. Yes, we have reached Middle America. (There are no shirtless photos in this post)

We're in Indiana. The Hoosier state. Where we can't buy beer on Sundays. Its stinking hot, 86 F at 7pm. But its nice, we have the air con running full blast.

OK, a short recap since my last blog.

We left the hotel in Vegas – and headed to a huge outlet mall. Sadly, after my losses in Vegas – I lacked money to spend – but I still had fun. Alister did a decent amount of shopping- getting himself some decent sneakers.

Then we hopped on a plane from Vegas – getting our first taste of domestic security – which was a lot more strict than LAX. But we all got through OK – and headed off to Chicago. Alister had the luck to sit next to a girl, who freaked out at flying and converted her vomit bag from empty to chunky. Thankfully I was five rows back and only got minimal whiffage.

We hit Chicago at 10.15pm, just in time to watch the last 6 minutes of game 7 of the NBA finals, in a tiny corner bar at O'Hare. It was close and tense but the heroic Lakers pulled it out over the evil Celtics. It was a great environment – people keeping piling in front of two tvs, cheering on every point.
We when finally got to baggage claim – we were the last three bags waiting by the carousel.

At the hostel – we dropped our bags off – and ventured out into the Chicago night. Its beautiful. The houses are old style – and three high. They have stoops, small lawns and balconies – I have to live in Chicago for at least 6 months – just to live in one of those houses. It was boiling warm and muggy at midnight, almost too hot to sleep. I tossed and turned for nearly an hour – whilst the other two slept. Thankfully Jason didn't snore.
The next morning (Friday 19 June), we walked around Lake Michigan, looking at pretty sights and even prettier girls.

Twas a great morning – fueled by a complimentary breakfast including the best coffee I have had in America so far. We also watched America pull back a two goal deficit to Slovenia after half time – only to have the winning goal disallowed by bad referring. Its great watching sport with a crowd – every moment is amplified, every bad call discussed and dissected and every goal celebrated with vigour.

Then we got our taxi. Across Chicago in rush hour traffic. It took us an hour to go eight miles. But we eventually got to the R/V site, and got ourselves into the R/V. Then....

You know how I've been discussing the weather, using phrases like hot, very hot and stinking hot. Well at the precise moment we started driving the R/V – a storm hit. Branches went off trees, underpasses become flooded and lightning forked through the sky. Alister had a great time dodging rubbish bins, tree branches, and homeless people. Eventually it slowed down, we took refuge at a Wal Mart for four hours – and kitted up the R/V.

A bright and beautiful morning dawned the next day (Saturday 19th June)- and we went via the field museum – and the picturesque Solider Field – to get the Red Line train to the North Side.

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On the North Side – there is a baseball team. The team with the most tortured fan base in all of sports. They haven't won world series since 1908 and haven't been there since 1945. However, the Chicago Cubs play in one of the most beautiful stadium in the world. Wrigley field is steeped in tradition – the Ivy, the very old scoreboard and the old seats. We ate hot dogs, drank beer – and took tonnes of photos. I marvelled at the fans watching from across the road. We even stole better seats behind home for the last three innings and chatted to long suffering Chicago fans.

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Oh yeah – the Angels thrashed the Cubs 12-0. However the score was irrelevant.

After leaving Wrigley – we ventured down the Magnificent mile in downtown Chicago. We window shopped and just checked out street entertainers. Then by a group decision – we missed our train stop home – and instead, walked through people going to an Eagles concert in Solider field.

We stopped a dodgy diner out of Chicago on the once famous Route 66. Sadly the cuisine was not up to the high standards that we had researched. I think the Italian sausage I ate, will remain with me for a while.

Then Jason drove Monty (my name for the R/V) down the I-55 to Indianapolis. We stayed a roadhouse car park overnight and finally got a decent sleep.

Indianapolis – dawned bright and beautiful. We hurried in downtown and found a bar on Sunday morning that had four tvs baring out the All Whites. So lucky. We cheered on the last minutes and celebrated our draw with the World Champions Italy, with a stunning plate of Buffalo Wings.

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Then we headed on to the NCAA hall of champions. A homage to college sports in America, it was pretty boring until we headed upstairs and found the inactive section. There we practiced shooting free throws, pitching baseballs – Jason averaged 56mph on his fastball, whereas I merely got up to 43mph. We faced a tennis serve at 70mph (scary even with a glass wall in the way), playing umpire and doing a vertical leap. Sadly we didn't get into Lucas oil stadium but that's for another day.

We tried to track a swimming place – but the guide at the Indianapolis tourist building wasn't very intelligent – the place he lead us to had rapids. We decided to skip that.
So all that – lead us to here. A small R/V lot, with power, showers and washing fatalities. Its warm and very quiet.

Final note - we actually in Michigan now and have internet! More later.

Vegas!

Now usually - what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. But due to intrepid Journalism skills, photos of our trip have been leaked onto this fine blog.



Vegas

Its a blast. Its insane. We die in the heat. I'm losing money very fast. We barely sleep. Neon signs dominant our lives. Its Vegas baby! Its a blast. Two nights is no where long enough (its my fault for changing our plans – from three nights here to two).

Its awesome. We have been to all the big Casinos. MGM grand – where I lost a lot very quickly. Bellagio, New York New York, Rio.
All my blackjack practice came to nothing – Alister's tactics ended up being far more awesome. I played at one table for four hours- was never up and lost my entire stake. But the fact that you get free drinks whilst gambling – is insanely cool.

Five exciting things about our trip so far:

Cate blanchett was on our flight from Sydney to LA.
We found the world's more incompetent taxi driver, Ever
We have clean clothes, thanks to a Laundromat.
Alister is a gambling genius.
I think about tipping all the time. I may tip you for holding a door open for me.

Ok, back to Chronological writing-

So we leave Anaheim at 8am in the morning. We were sad to leave Anaheim – it was great. We could have spent heaps more time there – and I have a huge list of things I wanna do when I get back.
Anyway, we travelled via Luxbus to Vegas. It earned the sobriquet Lux -as it has air conditioning. I highly recommend travelling it – merely for the comedy value of the Russian lady that held the microphone. She loved cows, hated repeating herself and though Jason should dress in garters and a thong. So she was crazy – but hilarious. On the way – we enjoyed views of the Mohave desert, Joshua Trees ( they look like you Stro) and learned the pitacchio nuts grow on trees. Interesting, indeed.
So we rolled into Vegas! Its 38 degrees. Its like being in oven. We got out of the bus – and gasped at the heat. We continued our bad run of drivers failing to drop us at the correct place (at least time it was much closer). And we check into our hotel. Its pretty flash – and very expensive.

So three, twenty something single guys hit Vegas -for the first time in their lives. What do we do?

a) get insanely drunk straight away
b) Gamble, whilst getting insanely drunk

or c) nap

wait a minute! Sadly c) is correct.

Oh well. We then made for our old man-ness – and went drinking $1 beers in our hotel, whilst watching the Lakers thrash the Celtics. Then we hit the town – as shown by the photos.









We've had pizza for breakfast, seen most of the casinos and had a good time. We didn't take in any shows but you have to leave something for next time.

Next stop – Chicago!