5 Days in NYC - Our US tour is almost over!

More on San Fran
So as I said in the last blog, we loved San Fran... Public transport is a pleasure to use. The people are great, and the city is beautiful. It has some amazing architecture both in the public buildings, and especially the private houses. The crazy hills up and down, and a general great feel to the city just make it an awesome place, and one I'd love to re-visit.

I do however have to say that Fisherman's Wharf is overrated in my opinion. I don't really see what the attraction is. Yes the piers surrounding it have some cute tourist shopping, there are crazy Russian electronics and photography store owners, and of course there is GAP - but the Wharf itself holds nothing great for me. I might have it wrong, and be missing something, or the whole surrounding area could be a suburb of Fisherman's wharf (not that we could work out).

Pier 39 though is very cool - it held my attention for quite a while and I dragged Shereena back twice so I could take more photos - of the Sea Lions. There are literally hundreds of them that flockt o pier 39 - you can research more on it elsewhere but its funny to watch them fight, swim and play. Took WAY too many pics!!

All in all we did the golden gate bridge, golden gate park, Coit Tower, City Hall, Palace of the Arts, and a whole heap more - oh yes - and more shopping.... San Fran is a great place to shop for clothes! Now I just have to get my butt into gear and get a job over at ILM and then we could live here!

So we were sad to leave our hotel room at La Quinta on Geary and Van Ness, and left San Fran and headed across to the air port for our 8am flight- where we had everything but the cavity search. We had non-US passports so we had to remove our shoes and everything was checked and double checked as we went through - and we headed to NYC.

NYC
So we arrived in NYC at around 4pm local time - we got off the plane pretty quick, but by the time we got our luggage and on the Air Train it was close to 6pm. An old family and school friend was kind enough to let us stay at his place here in Brooklyn on Old Fulton street, right under the Brooklyn Bridge, and literally right above the famed Grimaldi's Pizza (your own google skills apply here).

As its getting late I have to cut short, but NYC has its good, and has its not so good aspects. I mean in our eyes - not bad parts of town or anything. I'll have to fill you in on the details later - but to sum it up - its as we found a lot of things here in the US to be - amazing, yet due to the years of hype and word of mouth marketing - didn't, in some aspects, meet out expectations.

More on this later, but for now - I must head to pack - then to sleep... If I don't get another chance - we'll be in London by this time tomorrow and onwards we go!!

Cheers, Nathan

Goodbye LA - Hello San Francisco

Well we ended our LA trip with our second last day in literally the happiest place on earth - Disneyland. It really is a place of magic and we had a ball. Our feet got sore again - but the day was fabulous, a far site better than our day at Universal.

Our last day in LA was spent packing, I brought too much stuff. It all fit before! Anyway no more car incidents, and we drove to pick up our Greyhound tickets. We found that LA is really not the best place to be unless you're in a tourist area. Not the safest place with a LOT of dodgy sorts. The bus station was a prime example, and neither Shereena or I felt very safe at all.

In the end the bus trip was fine - if not a little cramped and we arrived in SF safely.

San Fran is an awesome city, one we're we could both see ourselves living. The city feels a lot safer, cleaner and more "real" than LA was and is a big contrast. The hotel we got is in what's known as the "tenderloin" area, apparently not the best part of town so we were worried. However it is great and the area is fine.

Anyway sorry for not updating sooner but my 10 minutes are up. We're off to New York tomorrow so we'll update when we can.

Cheers, Nathan.

Universal Studios 27/11

We woke to find today foggy.smoggy and overcast. After the awesome hot weather here yesterday - we weren't expecting this. We headed on back to the rental place in the morning, filled out an incident report, and swapped out the car... Same white Focus sedan... I'm a little more careful of the right side of the car.... It was great and a little strange to just swap it for a new one!

Anyway we were off to Universal - its a fair way from the airport - but with Shereena directing it was pretty good and we got there without any issues. The place is AMAZING and really fun... The rides were awesome, we did Van Helsing (a walk though house of horrors style), Back to the Future which was cool, the Backlot Tour (even Jaws after 19 years!!), Backdraft, the special effects thingy and Jurassic Park (that's all I can remember). It is a really fun time and the scale just huge... It was drizzling, then sprinkling, then raining - then it poured down! We had some clear ponchos (thanks Mum & Dad) so we were okay, but our legs and jeans got wet. We finished up at about 8pm or so... a long day!

You can tell Fox Studios was modeled on it, as Universal has cinemas and shops in a particular style that Fox has adopted.... Anyways lots to remember and lots to see!

On the way back we grabbed dinner at In-n-Out burger - then headed back to the hotel to change. We then went out and drove down Sunset Bld all the way through Beverly Hills & Palisades to the beaches. Along Ocean Drv (I think) then back on to the hotel after looking around. Everything was closed as it was after ten.

Anyway its late so I'm heading to bed.. Disneyland tomorrow!!!

Cheers, Nathan.

Day 1 - LA

Experiencing 26/11 (or is that 11/26) twice....
Well we got into LA after two flights, 3 hours from Sydney to Auckland & 12 hours from Auckland to LA. I have to say that Auckland airport is possibly the most boring and dodgy airport I've been to... for any length of time. Dodgy as in it looks as though everything is put together with a staple gun. Checking into out flight they had what looked like a school desk that the airline staff checked our tickets at!!!

Anyway the flight was okay from Auckland, and the only issue was I didn't get any sleep at all on the flight. Shereena only got a bit of a recharger of 4 hours, but none for me! By the time we hit the ground in LA I was feeling a little hazy... It was more than 24 hours on the run, LAX was pretty easy to get through, the only security quirk being the scanning of our index finger prints.

We hopped on a shuttle bus to take us out to our car rental place, and it didn't really 'feel' any different from home - until I saw a late model Mustang... then some SUV's... We were in the USA :)

The freeways here are a bit freaky, especially driving on the wrong side of the road/car combo... Strange - kept going to the right - more on that later.

Our hotel is right behind Hollywood Blvd, and Kodak Theatre (where they shoot the Oscars). It's all a bit surreal and the scale of all the buildings, all the cars, and all the people - is larger. The shopping is amazing; the range of clothes is awesome - far too easy for both Shereena and I to spend money!!

Anyway we tried to get to a camera store by walking, yet the area was dodgy, and the way was long. This little strip of Hollywood Blvd is compressed, and outside it is not the most comfortable area.

So the tiredness I was feeling hit home when after giving up our search for the camera store, we headed on back to the hotel. Shereena was checking out shops, whilst I drove to the camera store.. That was the plan... I took a right instead of a left at Fairfax, and then had to turn around so I pulled into a side street - onto the left hand side of the road... Okay right? Wrong - there were no cars but I realised I was on the wrong side, and swerved to the correct side - over correcting, and collected the mirror of the Focus on a parked mail truck, I corrected in time to not do any more damage - to my care, but the tyre of the Focus pulled the rubber bumper off the front... I looked for the driver, reported it, and had to hang out for the super... long story short - I didn't get to the camera store.

Upset I headed back to the hotel, and Shereena met me at the room - we went out had dinner at Hooters... hmmm.... and then shopped. As I said; some GREAT shopping here. GAP has some great stuff, and some other really nice outlets...

Anyway got to head... write soon.

Cheers, Nathan.

Should be sleeping....

Well I was only at work till 6.30pm tonight (last night) fixing up stuff, and cleaning up my inbox - but here I am at home typing away whilst should be sleeping. Only just finished sorting some things, like insurance and printing - final packing, and sent off the last of what I can do for the aforementioned site design.

Anyway - all packed, and got my camera insurance paid, now I must sleep. I'll update as soon as possible, hopefully it'll be LA. Still trying to wrangle the hosting of images with easy upload (Kym :p ??)

I must sleep... g'night/morning!!

Cheers, Nathan

Getting it all together...

So Shereena and I are going to be jetting off in just 5 short days.... Around this time next week we'll probably be asleep after our first day of the holiday, and our first day in LA. I think we're shopping, and I'll be testing the waters of LA traffic and driving.. Interesting, it will be - driving on the right hand side of the road - left hand side of the car.

Anyway... In between now and then there's more than enough to keep us busy. We've both got to ensure that we've got everything needed to take away: clothes, toiletries, meds, camera gear, passport, cash, cards, tickets, passport, book, iPod (to take or not to take?!?) etc etc. Yes the standard travel deal all in all - but I've never been traveling for as long as a month before, so the volume required is a little different.

We also have our own things to do, I've got to finish a website, work till Thursday: even more stressful for Shereena, as she has her two day OSCE (right spelling - I think) assessment exam for Med! Anyway it's getting more and more exciting as time goes on, though we'll miss our little one... Mia :(

Apart from yabbering on, as I suppose most blogs do.. this is pretty much going to be a sporadic diary of our journey. Likely to be a mind dump at the beginning or end of the day, and more for us than anything, however this medium allows us to share the experience with all. Read along if you will, and if we can keep this updated regularly, we will. Relying on Internet cafes, and wherever else we can log-on will be 'fun'.. I'll also have to see, whether we can upload pics - depends on the access of the establishment.

I don't have any grandiose intentions with this Blog. It was simply a spur of the moment decision to create - and here it is. My mind dump at quarter to 1 on the Sunday morning before we jet off! Signing off.

Cheers, Nathan.