woops...didnt realise i hadnt put up christmas eve and christmas day
here you go...
24-12-08 Wednesday
So we really didn’t do much today. Like we slept till late and then just bummed around the house. We did a bit of shopping. Bought Christmas presents for ourselves and that about wraps the day up. Like a said, we really did absolutely nothing of importance. The day is a bit of a blur in my mind.
25-12-08 Thursday
CHRISTMAS!!! Wooohoo!We were all awoken by Uncle Brian (I thought it was Sam) banging on a saucepan at around 8 in the morning and all trudged to the Christmas tree to open the presents. It was all snowy and cold outside. There’s just something right about being inside around a Christmas tree while it’s freezing and there’s snow outside. We opened pressies and just sort of chilled for a bit. Tamika and I then donned our new ski gear (compliments of Mum and Dad) and went out and played in the snow. It was truly a white Christmas. We had a snowball fight and made a snowman. We’d never made one before so that was pretty interesting. I think the one we made was pretty cool. Has 3 balls on top of each other, a carrot nose, buttons, hat and scarf. We took photos of it and have left it to melt to its heart’s content. Tamika and I made snow angels on the slightly icy snow…they didn’t really work but we had fun trying.We (and by we I mean Mum and Aunty Sharon) got Christmas lunch all prepared and cooked. We ate heaps. There’s also something comforting about sitting around a table eating hot food – turkey, baked veggies, mash, stuffing – while it’s cold outside. We were all pretty exhausted after the difficult task of eating so the rest of the day we all did our own thing. Dad slept, Tamika and I just kind of bummed around the house. We all went to bed really late after watching a movie.
Friday, January 2, 2009
After Christmas and New year
Apologies for the delay in uploading. It's 40% laziness, 50% couldn't be bothered and 10% lack of time. Anyway...if you don't wanna read the entire blog (because it is rather long) then i recommend you read about our new years eve...it was a night to remember - and its at the end of the blog.
26-12-08 Friday
Did you know that they don’t celebrate Boxing Day here? We all came up with our own reasons for boxing day. No one really knows what it is, just that we get a public holiday, a day to recover.
We did a tour around Fenway Park which probably means nothing to all you non-Americans. But basically it is the home stadium of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. When I say tour I mean an historical talk to a slideshow while we watched pictures of the history of the park. It was cool cause I learnt a bit about baseball and a lot about the history if the Red Sox. We wandered through their store and the clothing was so overpriced it was embarrassing. They had the nerve to charge $75 for a tank top with a red B and an American flag faded in the background. Who has that money? Apparently Bostonians do.
We then headed to the city (as if we weren’t already there) and did part of the Freedom Walk. It’s always nice to walk around a city in freezing temperatures while seeing buildings that have no relation to your history and that you only know exist because you saw that movie National Treasure. There was a cool thing that happened – we walked on water. Walked on water I hear you say. Yes…it may have been frozen solid but we walked across the lake on the water and avoided the bridge. It was cool. Something we’ve never done before. And the squirrels. So many of them, all over the place, eating nuts and just being general pains. But they are cute.
We didn’t get home till 8pm. Felt like about midnight though cause the sun sets so early here. We survived our day in freezing temperatures with only one fall. Mum fell on the ice on our last walking stretch. We went to Paul Revere’s house, the Old North Church and a couple of graveyards where important people to the American Revolution are buried. We walked through a holocaust memorial which was eerie. And we ate oreo cake which was basically chocolate cake with heaps of cream and an oreo on top. That about describes the day…
Till next time
27-12-08 Saturday
Today we checked out the U.S.S Constitution. It is the oldest serving boat in the world. I’m not sure exactly how they said it but basically if war was declared tomorrow then the US Navy could send this boat to the war. It probably wouldn’t arrive until after the war had finished because it’s a sailboat that’s been around for a VERY long time but I guess it’s the thought that counts. It has a crew and they take tours around the boat which is something that I would love to do if I signed up to the navy. Guess they lucked out…depending on how you look at it. We wandered around the Navy base place checking out the museums and stuff. It was pretty cool. We watched b-grade films about the boat, went to a couple of exhibitions and stuff. After we had done that we headed back to Andover cause we were all pretty tired. We then headed out and watched Australia. It was a really old school cinema and it was packed. The movie was good but it was long and obviously green screened. But it was a good movie and it was nice to hear more Aussie accents. We headed home and chilled as Emily tried to stuff all her new clothes into luggage to take home because she leaves tomorrow morning.
28-12-08 Sunday
Emily left this morning so we had a late start. We went to Marshalls, T.J Maxx and Off Broadway Shoes today where we spent our last pennies in New Hampshire. When we got home Mum and Dad went out with Aunty Sharon and Uncle Brian and they ate at a restaurant somewhere. They ordered calzone (unsure of the spelling) for us. We had buffalo chicken calzone. Let me tell you, it was incredible. It’s like pizza but sooo much better. I also think buffalo chicken is a fantastically flavoured topping. After stuffing our faces full of that we kinda chilled. I must confess I have been extremely lazy and although I have had access to internet I haven’t been bothered putting anything up. I apologise for the laziness. Not that I’m planning on doing anything about it but I would like to say sorry.
29-12-08 Monday
We left Boston this morning. We had to be up and out of the house at 5am which was an absolute killer. Caught the bus with no hassles. A big shout out to Aunty Sharon and Uncle Brian for letting us chill at your place and then driving us to the station at that ridiculous time of the morning. We really appreciate it. The bus trip was smooth and we slept for most of it. Arrived in New York and then caught a bus to Brooklyn. The GPS, Gazza, as we have affectionately named her, chucked a hissy fit and decided she wasn’t going to work. We walked to 388 Bergen Street where we were staying. It was a bit of a walk and when you add our luggage…well…it wasn’t much fun. We arrived, dumped our stuff and decided we should do the Empire State building. We headed into town after navigating the subway with some help from the guard and arrived to find an incredibly long line. They said it was probably over a 3 hour wait so we decided to ditch it and just wandered a little aimlessly through Manhatten. We visited the world’s largest Macy’s store (it was over 8 stories tall), walked past the world’s largest Ugg Australia store. Something I have realized is that Americans like to be the biggest in the world. We went to Times Square and then received a call from Dan to let us know that he and Rb had arrived. We headed back home via Target where we bought some food to sustain us over the next couple of days.
30-12-08 Tuesday
Today we hit New York. We slept pretty late. Dan and Rb have joined us and we are all squished into a 2 person, one bedroom apartment (which isn’t really one bedroom…its more of a one room apartment). We headed into Manhattan and went to Ground Zero. We walked around the site. It’s basically a huge hole in the city with construction work going on. But it was kinda moving. We then headed to the harbor to go to Liberty Isand and see the Lady of Liberty herself. The line was incredibly long so we gave that a miss and headed to the place where you buy cheaper Broadway tickets. Dad and Dan waited in the line for about 2 hours as the girls went to the toilets and then side tracked to the shops which we wandered through. We found something with Tamika’s name on it so we bought it and Mum found these cool Christmas decorations so we bought them. We headed back to the line where we found Dad and Dan at the front of the line. They bought tickets to see Avenue Q. if you have never heard of it, don’t fret, neither had we. We then caught a free ferry to Staten Island which drove past the Statue of Liberty and we took heaps of photos. We jumped off the ferry at the otherside and jumped right back on to get back to Manhattan. We saw the shoreline of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cool. We then headed to Broadway and grabbed something to eat and headed to our Broadway show. Tamika and Mum went to the Lion King (which is an incredible musical) and Dan, Rb, Dad and I headed to Avenue Q. I would like to let you all know that it was HILARIOUS. Its like an adults version of sesame street and it had us laughing for almost the entire time. So funny. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend that if you are ever on Broadway and want to see a show, Avenue Q is great. Tamika and Mum really enjoyed the Lion King. We headed home after that and hit the sack, ready for a big day tomorrow, New Years Eve.
31-12-08 Wednesday
Ahhh, it’s the end of the year and we totally had a busy day. We went to the Empire State building which took a couple of hours of lines. There weren’t any lines outside the building so we were like…awesome…and then we entered the building. They don’t tell you how long you have to wait so you’re in the line and they do a fantastic job at hiding them. We first joined the line to go through security which took about 20 mins. We then had go through the line to buy tickets which took about 20 mins. We then joined the line to catch a lift to the top, there are two lifts to the top so we then had to join the line for the second lift. When we finally reached the top it was below freezing and if you add the wind chill factor I can tell you it was a ridiculously cold experience. Visibility was pretty bad but you could make out the Statue Of Liberty and a park and heaps of buildings and the harbor. We didn’t stay up for very long but we were determined to be up there for longer than 5 minutes. We had spent $20 to get to the top and we were gonna get out money’s worth. Let me tell you that by the time we walked back inside we were freezing. Little did we know that it was just the beginning of a very long and very cold day. We then headed to Central Park. We successfully navigated the confusing subway and arrived at Central Park as it was snowing. It was, once again, freezing cold but with the snow it made it so beautiful. It was pretty snow as well. Giant snowflakes were lightly falling as we wandered through the park. We walked across the bridge that they use in movies…you know the one, the bride where the lovers meet and they kiss. Unfortunately I didn’t meet any lovers…there was just us and Dan and Rb. Very unromantic. But we took a photo. We then put on all our warm gear (Tamika was wearing 10 layers on her upper body) and split from Mum and Dad. See, Dan, Rb, Tamika and I thought it would be really cool if we went to Times Square to welcome the new year in and watch the ball drop. We weren’t allowed backpacks so we wore all our warm gear, there were no toilets so we didn’t drink anything all day and once you enter a pen you can’t leave so we stacked up on the snacks and food. With those really comforting rules you would assume that smart people wouldn’t go to a place like that but we did. We were herded into these pens like sheep where we stood for a very long time cause there weren’t any seats. We met the people we were standing with. Bear with me as I try to remember their names – there was Canada (can’t remember her name), Bruce, Ben, Lauren, California (her name was Ariel but we called her California cause that’s where she was from), New Hampshire (again, I think his name was Kevin?), Neil, Steph and a couple of others. Dan the man made many friends that night. We all froze together and stood for over 10 hours to watch new years in Times Square. Let me break down the celebration for you. There is no entertainment until about 11:15pm. They didn’t beam anything onto the big screens, you couldn’t see the stage or the performers because they were performing to the cameras and a crowd of about 30 people, you stand in the freezing cold (it was -7 degrees Celsius with a wind chill making it -17 degrees Celsius – it was the coldest new years for over a decade and the 5th coldest on record), you stand 5 cm from everyone around you and you get pushed and shoved the entire 10 hrs you wait (its like being in a mosh pit for 10 straight hours), you can’t sit because the ground is so cold and you’re likely to be trodden on, you can’t pee because if you leave the pen you’re not allowed back in, your feet and fingers freeze until they are numb, your feet ache because they are not supposed to be stood on for 10 hours without a break, you make 10 hrs worth of small talk with the people next to you (which is relatively easy if you from a different country but still hard), they countdown every hour and let you know exactly how long you have left to wait which is really appreciated when you have another 6 hours and then, after suffering all that, they make you stand through b-grade musicians (if you can even call them musicians) like Taylor Swift and the Jonas Brothers as they perform to a camera as you stand staring at a screen that looks like the size of business card which is under a ball that looks like a pinhead for 20 minutes. At 11:59 they start the countdown as the ball “drops”. When midnight clicks over and the ball has dropped (or more precisely, taken a minute to slowly slide down a pole) the 2009 sign lights up and they project “Happy New Year” on the screen and have about a 2 second fireworks display. While you’re standing there waiting for more to happen you realize that they have released confetti which will never reach you because they released it up where no one was allowed to stand and you’re waiting for the fireworks and excitement and you wait, and wait, and wait and then you realize…it’s not coming. YOU WAITED FOR 10 HOURS IN THE BITTER FREEZING COLD TO WATCH A STUPID BALL DROP AND CONFETTI BEING RELEASED!!!!!!! I’m never, ever again subjecting myself to such torture. I cannot believe that Americans think that it’s cool/exciting/amazing. It’s crap. We then headed home after wishing all our new found friends a happy new year and waited in the subway for 40 minutes to catch a train home. We got home and just went to bed…talk about a total let down.
26-12-08 Friday
Did you know that they don’t celebrate Boxing Day here? We all came up with our own reasons for boxing day. No one really knows what it is, just that we get a public holiday, a day to recover.
We did a tour around Fenway Park which probably means nothing to all you non-Americans. But basically it is the home stadium of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. When I say tour I mean an historical talk to a slideshow while we watched pictures of the history of the park. It was cool cause I learnt a bit about baseball and a lot about the history if the Red Sox. We wandered through their store and the clothing was so overpriced it was embarrassing. They had the nerve to charge $75 for a tank top with a red B and an American flag faded in the background. Who has that money? Apparently Bostonians do.
We then headed to the city (as if we weren’t already there) and did part of the Freedom Walk. It’s always nice to walk around a city in freezing temperatures while seeing buildings that have no relation to your history and that you only know exist because you saw that movie National Treasure. There was a cool thing that happened – we walked on water. Walked on water I hear you say. Yes…it may have been frozen solid but we walked across the lake on the water and avoided the bridge. It was cool. Something we’ve never done before. And the squirrels. So many of them, all over the place, eating nuts and just being general pains. But they are cute.
We didn’t get home till 8pm. Felt like about midnight though cause the sun sets so early here. We survived our day in freezing temperatures with only one fall. Mum fell on the ice on our last walking stretch. We went to Paul Revere’s house, the Old North Church and a couple of graveyards where important people to the American Revolution are buried. We walked through a holocaust memorial which was eerie. And we ate oreo cake which was basically chocolate cake with heaps of cream and an oreo on top. That about describes the day…
Till next time
27-12-08 Saturday
Today we checked out the U.S.S Constitution. It is the oldest serving boat in the world. I’m not sure exactly how they said it but basically if war was declared tomorrow then the US Navy could send this boat to the war. It probably wouldn’t arrive until after the war had finished because it’s a sailboat that’s been around for a VERY long time but I guess it’s the thought that counts. It has a crew and they take tours around the boat which is something that I would love to do if I signed up to the navy. Guess they lucked out…depending on how you look at it. We wandered around the Navy base place checking out the museums and stuff. It was pretty cool. We watched b-grade films about the boat, went to a couple of exhibitions and stuff. After we had done that we headed back to Andover cause we were all pretty tired. We then headed out and watched Australia. It was a really old school cinema and it was packed. The movie was good but it was long and obviously green screened. But it was a good movie and it was nice to hear more Aussie accents. We headed home and chilled as Emily tried to stuff all her new clothes into luggage to take home because she leaves tomorrow morning.
28-12-08 Sunday
Emily left this morning so we had a late start. We went to Marshalls, T.J Maxx and Off Broadway Shoes today where we spent our last pennies in New Hampshire. When we got home Mum and Dad went out with Aunty Sharon and Uncle Brian and they ate at a restaurant somewhere. They ordered calzone (unsure of the spelling) for us. We had buffalo chicken calzone. Let me tell you, it was incredible. It’s like pizza but sooo much better. I also think buffalo chicken is a fantastically flavoured topping. After stuffing our faces full of that we kinda chilled. I must confess I have been extremely lazy and although I have had access to internet I haven’t been bothered putting anything up. I apologise for the laziness. Not that I’m planning on doing anything about it but I would like to say sorry.
29-12-08 Monday
We left Boston this morning. We had to be up and out of the house at 5am which was an absolute killer. Caught the bus with no hassles. A big shout out to Aunty Sharon and Uncle Brian for letting us chill at your place and then driving us to the station at that ridiculous time of the morning. We really appreciate it. The bus trip was smooth and we slept for most of it. Arrived in New York and then caught a bus to Brooklyn. The GPS, Gazza, as we have affectionately named her, chucked a hissy fit and decided she wasn’t going to work. We walked to 388 Bergen Street where we were staying. It was a bit of a walk and when you add our luggage…well…it wasn’t much fun. We arrived, dumped our stuff and decided we should do the Empire State building. We headed into town after navigating the subway with some help from the guard and arrived to find an incredibly long line. They said it was probably over a 3 hour wait so we decided to ditch it and just wandered a little aimlessly through Manhatten. We visited the world’s largest Macy’s store (it was over 8 stories tall), walked past the world’s largest Ugg Australia store. Something I have realized is that Americans like to be the biggest in the world. We went to Times Square and then received a call from Dan to let us know that he and Rb had arrived. We headed back home via Target where we bought some food to sustain us over the next couple of days.
30-12-08 Tuesday
Today we hit New York. We slept pretty late. Dan and Rb have joined us and we are all squished into a 2 person, one bedroom apartment (which isn’t really one bedroom…its more of a one room apartment). We headed into Manhattan and went to Ground Zero. We walked around the site. It’s basically a huge hole in the city with construction work going on. But it was kinda moving. We then headed to the harbor to go to Liberty Isand and see the Lady of Liberty herself. The line was incredibly long so we gave that a miss and headed to the place where you buy cheaper Broadway tickets. Dad and Dan waited in the line for about 2 hours as the girls went to the toilets and then side tracked to the shops which we wandered through. We found something with Tamika’s name on it so we bought it and Mum found these cool Christmas decorations so we bought them. We headed back to the line where we found Dad and Dan at the front of the line. They bought tickets to see Avenue Q. if you have never heard of it, don’t fret, neither had we. We then caught a free ferry to Staten Island which drove past the Statue of Liberty and we took heaps of photos. We jumped off the ferry at the otherside and jumped right back on to get back to Manhattan. We saw the shoreline of Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. It was cool. We then headed to Broadway and grabbed something to eat and headed to our Broadway show. Tamika and Mum went to the Lion King (which is an incredible musical) and Dan, Rb, Dad and I headed to Avenue Q. I would like to let you all know that it was HILARIOUS. Its like an adults version of sesame street and it had us laughing for almost the entire time. So funny. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend that if you are ever on Broadway and want to see a show, Avenue Q is great. Tamika and Mum really enjoyed the Lion King. We headed home after that and hit the sack, ready for a big day tomorrow, New Years Eve.
31-12-08 Wednesday
Ahhh, it’s the end of the year and we totally had a busy day. We went to the Empire State building which took a couple of hours of lines. There weren’t any lines outside the building so we were like…awesome…and then we entered the building. They don’t tell you how long you have to wait so you’re in the line and they do a fantastic job at hiding them. We first joined the line to go through security which took about 20 mins. We then had go through the line to buy tickets which took about 20 mins. We then joined the line to catch a lift to the top, there are two lifts to the top so we then had to join the line for the second lift. When we finally reached the top it was below freezing and if you add the wind chill factor I can tell you it was a ridiculously cold experience. Visibility was pretty bad but you could make out the Statue Of Liberty and a park and heaps of buildings and the harbor. We didn’t stay up for very long but we were determined to be up there for longer than 5 minutes. We had spent $20 to get to the top and we were gonna get out money’s worth. Let me tell you that by the time we walked back inside we were freezing. Little did we know that it was just the beginning of a very long and very cold day. We then headed to Central Park. We successfully navigated the confusing subway and arrived at Central Park as it was snowing. It was, once again, freezing cold but with the snow it made it so beautiful. It was pretty snow as well. Giant snowflakes were lightly falling as we wandered through the park. We walked across the bridge that they use in movies…you know the one, the bride where the lovers meet and they kiss. Unfortunately I didn’t meet any lovers…there was just us and Dan and Rb. Very unromantic. But we took a photo. We then put on all our warm gear (Tamika was wearing 10 layers on her upper body) and split from Mum and Dad. See, Dan, Rb, Tamika and I thought it would be really cool if we went to Times Square to welcome the new year in and watch the ball drop. We weren’t allowed backpacks so we wore all our warm gear, there were no toilets so we didn’t drink anything all day and once you enter a pen you can’t leave so we stacked up on the snacks and food. With those really comforting rules you would assume that smart people wouldn’t go to a place like that but we did. We were herded into these pens like sheep where we stood for a very long time cause there weren’t any seats. We met the people we were standing with. Bear with me as I try to remember their names – there was Canada (can’t remember her name), Bruce, Ben, Lauren, California (her name was Ariel but we called her California cause that’s where she was from), New Hampshire (again, I think his name was Kevin?), Neil, Steph and a couple of others. Dan the man made many friends that night. We all froze together and stood for over 10 hours to watch new years in Times Square. Let me break down the celebration for you. There is no entertainment until about 11:15pm. They didn’t beam anything onto the big screens, you couldn’t see the stage or the performers because they were performing to the cameras and a crowd of about 30 people, you stand in the freezing cold (it was -7 degrees Celsius with a wind chill making it -17 degrees Celsius – it was the coldest new years for over a decade and the 5th coldest on record), you stand 5 cm from everyone around you and you get pushed and shoved the entire 10 hrs you wait (its like being in a mosh pit for 10 straight hours), you can’t sit because the ground is so cold and you’re likely to be trodden on, you can’t pee because if you leave the pen you’re not allowed back in, your feet and fingers freeze until they are numb, your feet ache because they are not supposed to be stood on for 10 hours without a break, you make 10 hrs worth of small talk with the people next to you (which is relatively easy if you from a different country but still hard), they countdown every hour and let you know exactly how long you have left to wait which is really appreciated when you have another 6 hours and then, after suffering all that, they make you stand through b-grade musicians (if you can even call them musicians) like Taylor Swift and the Jonas Brothers as they perform to a camera as you stand staring at a screen that looks like the size of business card which is under a ball that looks like a pinhead for 20 minutes. At 11:59 they start the countdown as the ball “drops”. When midnight clicks over and the ball has dropped (or more precisely, taken a minute to slowly slide down a pole) the 2009 sign lights up and they project “Happy New Year” on the screen and have about a 2 second fireworks display. While you’re standing there waiting for more to happen you realize that they have released confetti which will never reach you because they released it up where no one was allowed to stand and you’re waiting for the fireworks and excitement and you wait, and wait, and wait and then you realize…it’s not coming. YOU WAITED FOR 10 HOURS IN THE BITTER FREEZING COLD TO WATCH A STUPID BALL DROP AND CONFETTI BEING RELEASED!!!!!!! I’m never, ever again subjecting myself to such torture. I cannot believe that Americans think that it’s cool/exciting/amazing. It’s crap. We then headed home after wishing all our new found friends a happy new year and waited in the subway for 40 minutes to catch a train home. We got home and just went to bed…talk about a total let down.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
the last week or so leading up to chrissy...
17-12-08 (Wednesday)
Magic Kingdom
Today we did the Magic Kingdom. You know, the place with the giant Disney castle, the place where all your dreams come true. Well…mine didn’t. I still don’t have my Prince Charming and I still can’t sing like a Disney Princess. But I did meet a couple of characters. Guess what guys!! I met Prince Caspian. Yeah, take that. And he kissed me and told me I was beautiful. Then I got a photo. And he did it all over again with Tamika. And I thought I was special. Loser. We also met Aladdin and Genie. Yes, that’s right girls, the one and only ALADDIN!! He was cute. Do you know what’s awesome? Having an accent. It makes you totally cool. Tamika and I are the oldest people in the line wanting photos with characters. We stand in line and everyone else in like 5. We feel kind of odd standing there. Our excuse is that we never met them when we were little so we’re making up for it now. We watched Aladdin while in the line and he would sign for Genie and then Genie would point to the paper and ‘sign’ so the kids thought he used magic. It was cute. We hit the rides and they were all pretty cool. We watched a couple of shows and chilled. It was a long day. We got to see fireworks behind the castle. Like at the beginning of all Disney movies and they have Tinkerbell who starts the fireworks…well it all happened just like that. It was pretty amazing. We then headed back to our hotel that has a bed just for me. Tomorrow we hit Animal Kingdom.
18-12-08 (Thursday)
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is pretty cool. There’s animals everywhere and rides and all that jazz. Dad absolutely loved it. Lions and tigers and bears…oh my. Actually there weren’t any tigers or bears. But there were monkeys and birds and dinosaurs. Yeah, real live dinosaurs that we brought back from the past. We even saw the dinosaur on all the surveillance cameras. We experienced what its like to be an honorary bug. It was kinda scary. The 3D movies were great at Disney. Waaay better that anything we’ve ever seen before. We checked out more of the animals, saw an awesome Lion King show and an amazing Finding Nemo puppet show. It was all really cool. We totally let Stitch escape but I did all I could. It wasn’t my fault I was strapped to a chair. One thing I will say, when Disney do a ride or a show they totally go all out. We have decided that it is the attention to detail that totally makes all the Disney theme parks so good.
19-12-08 (Friday)
Busch Gardens
What can I say about Busch Gardens? There were no lines, heaps of awesome rollercoasters and animals. It was sooo much fun. Tamika and I did all the rides at least once. Cause there were no lines we often did then a couple of times. We did the water ones first and we survived the first 2 with a token amount of dryness left but the third one we did, the river rapids, it totally soaked us. We had no dry clothes, our hair was saturated and it took us the rest of the day to dry off. It also didn’t help that when we were not in the sun we froze. We saw a couple of shows and they were all of the highest quality which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the people on the shows had probably done it over and over and over again. But they were good. Mum and Dad walked around in a daze most of the day. We got Dad to do the SheiKra. There’s a massive drop and Dad was kind of petrified. But he enjoyed the ride. Tamika and I defied the 5 (as they say) and did the 5 wildest rides there a couple of times over. It was a great day for all.
We, once again, experienced the joy of being Australians. People come over and chat to you. Then they kind of expect you to continue talking and all you want to do is get on rides. It does get kind of annoying.
Dad won’t stop talking about this chick from brekky. Apparently she ate heaps and Dad counted it all. We hear about her over and over again. I guess we’ll see her tomorrow at brekky.
One thing that we have noticed is Dad’s complete disorientation in America. He gets lost so easily. And he doesn’t know which way to go. It’s actually quite funny to watch him. He gets to experience what it’s like to be a female. He’s hating it. Know he kind of knows what it’s like for every female to drive somewhere they’ve never been before. A learning experience for him.
20-12-08 (Saturday)
We did the Busch Gardens again today. Tamika and I had done all the rides so we were pretty ok with just chilling and seeing the animals. One thing we realized is that Mum and Dad did nothing yesterday. They must of just wandered around in a complete gaze for the entire day. We kept going on walks and Dad would be like “this wasn’t here yesterday”. They seriously did nothing all day. The animals were cool. They had meerkats, lions, hyenas, the black swan, pelicans, ugly seagulls, lemurs (the heeby jeeby monkey from Madagascar), elephants, skunks, humans (lots of humans), and fat people. There were lots of birds, school kids (everyone is on holidays), giraffes, zebras, chimpanzees, gorillas (we have come to the conclusion that I have inherited my small thumb from our chimpanzee ancestors). Let’s just say that we saw heaps of animals. That’s about all we did today.
I was craving veggies today (I know, shock horror!) so we hit a cheap buffet and ate heaps of veggies and salad. Dad ate a fair bit of meat. This living off Taco Bell and free brekky thing is really taking its toll on us. Maybe it explains our constant state of tiredness. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have all this energy. Like I do now. I’m not an expert on jet lag but I totally thought it would have been finished by now. Don’t sleep well at night but always tired during the day. It sucks.
Well…I have an early morning tomorrow – 5am so I’m gonna hit the sack. This brings you all fully and completely up to date with all the happenings of the Sutton Family (who, unfortunately, do not have a family holiday t-shirt, which, if we did, I would NEVER wear in public like so many Americans seem to be able to do)
21-12-08 (Sunday)
Today we went swimming with manatees. They are these really ugly, really gentle sea cows. They are so super protected that you can’t swim up to them, can’t swim over them, can’t swim down to them. You basically have to get them to swim up to you while you remain stationary. The water was cold so the whole not moving thing totally made it colder. They were pretty cool though. And very slimy. I had a couple swim up to me and we could touch them. They move for like 5 metres then they fall asleep. They are like the sloth of the ocean. They sleep all night and then have to sleep about 10 hours during the day which leaves approximately 4-5 hours of activity. I wish I was a manatee. Manatees have also starred in a very famous Veggietales song. Larry sings it – Barabara Manatee…you are the one for me. He dances with a toy manatee. Now I know what they are and it makes me happy. After we had taken enough punishment in the water and were beyond freezing with blue lips and giant shivers we left and got a little warmer. We headed back to the hotel and had warm showers which was nice. We then went to Denny’s for breakfast/lunch/dinner. Tamika and Mum shared a meal and Dad had his own. I got them to order a soup and salad side which I ate. I’ve been craving veggies and I would love to just eat a couple of bowls of vegetable soup (I’m craving it so much I actually wrote vegetables and not veggies!). We then raced to the next touristy thing which was a ride on a hovercraft boat thing. It was pretty awesome. The wind in your hair, the freezing temperatures coupled with the wind chill. They showed us coral and everyone on the boat got really excited but it was kind of ugly. And they showed us these pelicans which also got everyone excited but they were just like the pelicans back home. But it was a pretty cool ride. When we got back it was back to Orlando for us. A nice 2 hr drive. It was nice.
22-12-08 (Monday)
Today we slept in. And by slept in I mean till about 9am. Then we had brekky and chilled till we had to checkout then we went and re-did the Magic Kingdom. The crowds were totally crazy. 80 minute waits for a 2 minute ride. Retarded. Tamika and I did the fastpass thing so we did 2 rides and hardly waited at all. It’s a fantastic system. We then headed to the airport and we totally hoped that our plane wasn’t delayed. After over 48 hrs of constant snow in Boston and cancelled planes everywhere we were kinda worried. Luckily there had been no snow for the last 12 hrs so our plane took off and landed without much fuss. It was really cool landing in the snow. A cool experience. The landing was fun and everyone clapped when we made a safe landing. We left the plane and the cold just hit us. It was freezing. Its like -6 degrees Celsius. AGGGHHH!!!! Freezing. Below freezing in fact. We got to Aunty Sharon’s without much fuss and here we are. Chilling (literally) with fellow Aussies. And now for sleep.
23-12-08
Woke up this morning at around 9am. And its below freezing. And its really pretty. Icicles on the roof, snow on trees, snow everywhere. There is sooo much snow. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life. Even when we go skiing. There’s more snow in the backyard here then the entire ski field. Ok, so that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but you get my drift. There is a lot of SNOW. The houses are all like little gingerbread houses. Just like in the movies. The ones where it is all wintery and snow is everywhere – that’s what it’s actually like.
There is one thing I would like to say here. In America, the small print actually matters. They’ll advertise a swim with the manatees for a certain amount but if you want a wetsuit and snorkel and mask then you have to pay extra. A $6.99 buffet meal (excludes lunch and dinner and weekends). The small print really matters. And tax isn’t included in the price. So the advertised price is not what you pay. It’s annoying.
We experienced the supermarket today. It was just like it is back home only there was waaay more sugary cereals and hardly any honey. They pack your bags for you and put them into the trolley for you. I wore my “I’m mean because you’re stupid” jumper and it got a lot of laughs. People were commenting on it. The ladies at the cash register (the check out chicks) chatted to us about Australia and the weather and other stuff. It was cool. We bought a heap of veggies and fruit and are gonna make a massive veggie soup (just like we have all been craving). Uncle Brian bought eggnog which we tried. It tastes really good. Like a liquidy sweet custard. Its nice.
Check out the photos –
Las Vegas - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56340&l=62330&id=694975793
Hoover Dam - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56341&l=335e6&id=694975793
Orlando – Disney Parks - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56342&l=30d47&id=694975793
Tampa – Busch Gardens and swimming with the Manatees http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56343&l=12f74&id=694975793
Magic Kingdom
Today we did the Magic Kingdom. You know, the place with the giant Disney castle, the place where all your dreams come true. Well…mine didn’t. I still don’t have my Prince Charming and I still can’t sing like a Disney Princess. But I did meet a couple of characters. Guess what guys!! I met Prince Caspian. Yeah, take that. And he kissed me and told me I was beautiful. Then I got a photo. And he did it all over again with Tamika. And I thought I was special. Loser. We also met Aladdin and Genie. Yes, that’s right girls, the one and only ALADDIN!! He was cute. Do you know what’s awesome? Having an accent. It makes you totally cool. Tamika and I are the oldest people in the line wanting photos with characters. We stand in line and everyone else in like 5. We feel kind of odd standing there. Our excuse is that we never met them when we were little so we’re making up for it now. We watched Aladdin while in the line and he would sign for Genie and then Genie would point to the paper and ‘sign’ so the kids thought he used magic. It was cute. We hit the rides and they were all pretty cool. We watched a couple of shows and chilled. It was a long day. We got to see fireworks behind the castle. Like at the beginning of all Disney movies and they have Tinkerbell who starts the fireworks…well it all happened just like that. It was pretty amazing. We then headed back to our hotel that has a bed just for me. Tomorrow we hit Animal Kingdom.
18-12-08 (Thursday)
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is pretty cool. There’s animals everywhere and rides and all that jazz. Dad absolutely loved it. Lions and tigers and bears…oh my. Actually there weren’t any tigers or bears. But there were monkeys and birds and dinosaurs. Yeah, real live dinosaurs that we brought back from the past. We even saw the dinosaur on all the surveillance cameras. We experienced what its like to be an honorary bug. It was kinda scary. The 3D movies were great at Disney. Waaay better that anything we’ve ever seen before. We checked out more of the animals, saw an awesome Lion King show and an amazing Finding Nemo puppet show. It was all really cool. We totally let Stitch escape but I did all I could. It wasn’t my fault I was strapped to a chair. One thing I will say, when Disney do a ride or a show they totally go all out. We have decided that it is the attention to detail that totally makes all the Disney theme parks so good.
19-12-08 (Friday)
Busch Gardens
What can I say about Busch Gardens? There were no lines, heaps of awesome rollercoasters and animals. It was sooo much fun. Tamika and I did all the rides at least once. Cause there were no lines we often did then a couple of times. We did the water ones first and we survived the first 2 with a token amount of dryness left but the third one we did, the river rapids, it totally soaked us. We had no dry clothes, our hair was saturated and it took us the rest of the day to dry off. It also didn’t help that when we were not in the sun we froze. We saw a couple of shows and they were all of the highest quality which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the people on the shows had probably done it over and over and over again. But they were good. Mum and Dad walked around in a daze most of the day. We got Dad to do the SheiKra. There’s a massive drop and Dad was kind of petrified. But he enjoyed the ride. Tamika and I defied the 5 (as they say) and did the 5 wildest rides there a couple of times over. It was a great day for all.
We, once again, experienced the joy of being Australians. People come over and chat to you. Then they kind of expect you to continue talking and all you want to do is get on rides. It does get kind of annoying.
Dad won’t stop talking about this chick from brekky. Apparently she ate heaps and Dad counted it all. We hear about her over and over again. I guess we’ll see her tomorrow at brekky.
One thing that we have noticed is Dad’s complete disorientation in America. He gets lost so easily. And he doesn’t know which way to go. It’s actually quite funny to watch him. He gets to experience what it’s like to be a female. He’s hating it. Know he kind of knows what it’s like for every female to drive somewhere they’ve never been before. A learning experience for him.
20-12-08 (Saturday)
We did the Busch Gardens again today. Tamika and I had done all the rides so we were pretty ok with just chilling and seeing the animals. One thing we realized is that Mum and Dad did nothing yesterday. They must of just wandered around in a complete gaze for the entire day. We kept going on walks and Dad would be like “this wasn’t here yesterday”. They seriously did nothing all day. The animals were cool. They had meerkats, lions, hyenas, the black swan, pelicans, ugly seagulls, lemurs (the heeby jeeby monkey from Madagascar), elephants, skunks, humans (lots of humans), and fat people. There were lots of birds, school kids (everyone is on holidays), giraffes, zebras, chimpanzees, gorillas (we have come to the conclusion that I have inherited my small thumb from our chimpanzee ancestors). Let’s just say that we saw heaps of animals. That’s about all we did today.
I was craving veggies today (I know, shock horror!) so we hit a cheap buffet and ate heaps of veggies and salad. Dad ate a fair bit of meat. This living off Taco Bell and free brekky thing is really taking its toll on us. Maybe it explains our constant state of tiredness. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have all this energy. Like I do now. I’m not an expert on jet lag but I totally thought it would have been finished by now. Don’t sleep well at night but always tired during the day. It sucks.
Well…I have an early morning tomorrow – 5am so I’m gonna hit the sack. This brings you all fully and completely up to date with all the happenings of the Sutton Family (who, unfortunately, do not have a family holiday t-shirt, which, if we did, I would NEVER wear in public like so many Americans seem to be able to do)
21-12-08 (Sunday)
Today we went swimming with manatees. They are these really ugly, really gentle sea cows. They are so super protected that you can’t swim up to them, can’t swim over them, can’t swim down to them. You basically have to get them to swim up to you while you remain stationary. The water was cold so the whole not moving thing totally made it colder. They were pretty cool though. And very slimy. I had a couple swim up to me and we could touch them. They move for like 5 metres then they fall asleep. They are like the sloth of the ocean. They sleep all night and then have to sleep about 10 hours during the day which leaves approximately 4-5 hours of activity. I wish I was a manatee. Manatees have also starred in a very famous Veggietales song. Larry sings it – Barabara Manatee…you are the one for me. He dances with a toy manatee. Now I know what they are and it makes me happy. After we had taken enough punishment in the water and were beyond freezing with blue lips and giant shivers we left and got a little warmer. We headed back to the hotel and had warm showers which was nice. We then went to Denny’s for breakfast/lunch/dinner. Tamika and Mum shared a meal and Dad had his own. I got them to order a soup and salad side which I ate. I’ve been craving veggies and I would love to just eat a couple of bowls of vegetable soup (I’m craving it so much I actually wrote vegetables and not veggies!). We then raced to the next touristy thing which was a ride on a hovercraft boat thing. It was pretty awesome. The wind in your hair, the freezing temperatures coupled with the wind chill. They showed us coral and everyone on the boat got really excited but it was kind of ugly. And they showed us these pelicans which also got everyone excited but they were just like the pelicans back home. But it was a pretty cool ride. When we got back it was back to Orlando for us. A nice 2 hr drive. It was nice.
22-12-08 (Monday)
Today we slept in. And by slept in I mean till about 9am. Then we had brekky and chilled till we had to checkout then we went and re-did the Magic Kingdom. The crowds were totally crazy. 80 minute waits for a 2 minute ride. Retarded. Tamika and I did the fastpass thing so we did 2 rides and hardly waited at all. It’s a fantastic system. We then headed to the airport and we totally hoped that our plane wasn’t delayed. After over 48 hrs of constant snow in Boston and cancelled planes everywhere we were kinda worried. Luckily there had been no snow for the last 12 hrs so our plane took off and landed without much fuss. It was really cool landing in the snow. A cool experience. The landing was fun and everyone clapped when we made a safe landing. We left the plane and the cold just hit us. It was freezing. Its like -6 degrees Celsius. AGGGHHH!!!! Freezing. Below freezing in fact. We got to Aunty Sharon’s without much fuss and here we are. Chilling (literally) with fellow Aussies. And now for sleep.
23-12-08
Woke up this morning at around 9am. And its below freezing. And its really pretty. Icicles on the roof, snow on trees, snow everywhere. There is sooo much snow. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life. Even when we go skiing. There’s more snow in the backyard here then the entire ski field. Ok, so that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but you get my drift. There is a lot of SNOW. The houses are all like little gingerbread houses. Just like in the movies. The ones where it is all wintery and snow is everywhere – that’s what it’s actually like.
There is one thing I would like to say here. In America, the small print actually matters. They’ll advertise a swim with the manatees for a certain amount but if you want a wetsuit and snorkel and mask then you have to pay extra. A $6.99 buffet meal (excludes lunch and dinner and weekends). The small print really matters. And tax isn’t included in the price. So the advertised price is not what you pay. It’s annoying.
We experienced the supermarket today. It was just like it is back home only there was waaay more sugary cereals and hardly any honey. They pack your bags for you and put them into the trolley for you. I wore my “I’m mean because you’re stupid” jumper and it got a lot of laughs. People were commenting on it. The ladies at the cash register (the check out chicks) chatted to us about Australia and the weather and other stuff. It was cool. We bought a heap of veggies and fruit and are gonna make a massive veggie soup (just like we have all been craving). Uncle Brian bought eggnog which we tried. It tastes really good. Like a liquidy sweet custard. Its nice.
Check out the photos –
Las Vegas - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56340&l=62330&id=694975793
Hoover Dam - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56341&l=335e6&id=694975793
Orlando – Disney Parks - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56342&l=30d47&id=694975793
Tampa – Busch Gardens and swimming with the Manatees http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56343&l=12f74&id=694975793
Saturday, December 20, 2008
the rest of Olrando and the Busch Gardens
17-12-08 (Wednesday)
Magic Kingdom
Today we did the Magic Kingdom. You know, the place with the giant Disney castle, the place where all your dreams come true. Well…mine didn’t. I still don’t have my Prince Charming and I still can’t sing like a Disney Princess. But I did meet a couple of characters. Guess what guys!! I met Prince Caspian. Yeah, take that. And he kissed me and told me I was beautiful. Then I got a photo. And he did it all over again with Tamika. And I thought I was special. Loser. We also met Aladdin and Genie. Yes, that’s right girls, the one and only ALADDIN!! He was cute. Do you know what’s awesome? Having an accent. It makes you totally cool. Tamika and I are the oldest people in the line wanting photos with characters. We stand in line and everyone else in like 5. We feel kind of odd standing there. Our excuse is that we never met them when we were little so we’re making up for it now. We watched Aladdin while in the line and he would sign for Genie and then Genie would point to the paper and ‘sign’ so the kids thought he used magic. It was cute. We hit the rides and they were all pretty cool. We watched a couple of shows and chilled. It was a long day. We got to see fireworks behind the castle. Like at the beginning of all Disney movies and they have Tinkerbell who starts the fireworks…well it all happened just like that. It was pretty amazing. We then headed back to our hotel that has a bed just for me. Tomorrow we hit Animal Kingdom.
18-12-08 (Thursday)
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is pretty cool. There’s animals everywhere and rides and all that jazz. Dad absolutely loved it. Lions and tigers and bears…oh my. Actually there weren’t any tigers or bears. But there were monkeys and birds and dinosaurs. Yeah, real live dinosaurs that we brought back from the past. We even saw the dinosaur on all the surveillance cameras. We experienced what its like to be an honorary bug. It was kinda scary. The 3D movies were great at Disney. Waaay better that anything we’ve ever seen before. We checked out more of the animals, saw an awesome Lion King show and an amazing Finding Nemo puppet show. It was all really cool. We totally let Stitch escape but I did all I could. It wasn’t my fault I was strapped to a chair. One thing I will say, when Disney do a ride or a show they totally go all out. We have decided that it is the attention to detail that totally makes all the Disney theme parks so good.
19-12-08 (Friday)
Busch Gardens
What can I say about Busch Gardens? There were no lines, heaps of awesome rollercoasters and animals. It was sooo much fun. Tamika and I did all the rides at least once. Cause there were no lines we often did then a couple of times. We did the water ones first and we survived the first 2 with a token amount of dryness left but the third one we did, the river rapids, it totally soaked us. We had no dry clothes, our hair was saturated and it took us the rest of the day to dry off. It also didn’t help that when we were not in the sun we froze. We saw a couple of shows and they were all of the highest quality which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the people on the shows had probably done it over and over and over again. But they were good. Mum and Dad walked around in a daze most of the day. We got Dad to do the SheiKra. There’s a massive drop and Dad was kind of petrified. But he enjoyed the ride. Tamika and I defied the 5 (as they say) and did the 5 wildest rides there a couple of times over. It was a great day for all.
We, once again, experienced the joy of being Australians. People come over and chat to you. Then they kind of expect you to continue talking and all you want to do is get on rides. It does get kind of annoying.
Dad won’t stop talking about this chick from brekky. Apparently she ate heaps and Dad counted it all. We hear about her over and over again. I guess we’ll see her tomorrow at brekky.
One thing that we have noticed is Dad’s complete disorientation in America. He gets lost so easily. And he doesn’t know which way to go. It’s actually quite funny to watch him. He gets to experience what it’s like to be a female. He’s hating it. Know he kind of knows what it’s like for every female to drive somewhere they’ve never been before. A learning experience for him.
20-12-08 (Saturday)
We did the Busch Gardens again today. Tamika and I had done all the rides so we were pretty ok with just chilling and seeing the animals. One thing we realized is that Mum and Dad did nothing yesterday. They must of just wandered around in a complete gaze for the entire day. We kept going on walks and Dad would be like “this wasn’t here yesterday”. They seriously did nothing all day. The animals were cool. They had meerkats, lions, hyenas, the black swan, pelicans, ugly seagulls, lemurs (the heeby jeeby monkey from Madagascar), elephants, skunks, humans (lots of humans), and fat people. There were lots of birds, school kids (everyone is on holidays), giraffes, zebras, chimpanzees, gorillas (we have come to the conclusion that I have inherited my small thumb from our chimpanzee ancestors). Let’s just say that we saw heaps of animals. That’s about all we did today.
I was craving veggies today (I know, shock horror!) so we hit a cheap buffet and ate heaps of veggies and salad. Dad ate a fair bit of meat. This living off Taco Bell and free brekky thing is really taking its toll on us. Maybe it explains our constant state of tiredness. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have all this energy. Like I do now. I’m not an expert on jet lag but I totally thought it would have been finished by now. Don’t sleep well at night but always tired during the day. It sucks.
Well…I have an early morning tomorrow – 5am so I’m gonna hit the sack. This brings you all fully and completely up to date with all the happenings of the Sutton Family (who, unfortunately, do not have a family holiday t-shirt, which, if we did, I would NEVER wear in public like so many Americans seem to be able to do)
Magic Kingdom
Today we did the Magic Kingdom. You know, the place with the giant Disney castle, the place where all your dreams come true. Well…mine didn’t. I still don’t have my Prince Charming and I still can’t sing like a Disney Princess. But I did meet a couple of characters. Guess what guys!! I met Prince Caspian. Yeah, take that. And he kissed me and told me I was beautiful. Then I got a photo. And he did it all over again with Tamika. And I thought I was special. Loser. We also met Aladdin and Genie. Yes, that’s right girls, the one and only ALADDIN!! He was cute. Do you know what’s awesome? Having an accent. It makes you totally cool. Tamika and I are the oldest people in the line wanting photos with characters. We stand in line and everyone else in like 5. We feel kind of odd standing there. Our excuse is that we never met them when we were little so we’re making up for it now. We watched Aladdin while in the line and he would sign for Genie and then Genie would point to the paper and ‘sign’ so the kids thought he used magic. It was cute. We hit the rides and they were all pretty cool. We watched a couple of shows and chilled. It was a long day. We got to see fireworks behind the castle. Like at the beginning of all Disney movies and they have Tinkerbell who starts the fireworks…well it all happened just like that. It was pretty amazing. We then headed back to our hotel that has a bed just for me. Tomorrow we hit Animal Kingdom.
18-12-08 (Thursday)
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is pretty cool. There’s animals everywhere and rides and all that jazz. Dad absolutely loved it. Lions and tigers and bears…oh my. Actually there weren’t any tigers or bears. But there were monkeys and birds and dinosaurs. Yeah, real live dinosaurs that we brought back from the past. We even saw the dinosaur on all the surveillance cameras. We experienced what its like to be an honorary bug. It was kinda scary. The 3D movies were great at Disney. Waaay better that anything we’ve ever seen before. We checked out more of the animals, saw an awesome Lion King show and an amazing Finding Nemo puppet show. It was all really cool. We totally let Stitch escape but I did all I could. It wasn’t my fault I was strapped to a chair. One thing I will say, when Disney do a ride or a show they totally go all out. We have decided that it is the attention to detail that totally makes all the Disney theme parks so good.
19-12-08 (Friday)
Busch Gardens
What can I say about Busch Gardens? There were no lines, heaps of awesome rollercoasters and animals. It was sooo much fun. Tamika and I did all the rides at least once. Cause there were no lines we often did then a couple of times. We did the water ones first and we survived the first 2 with a token amount of dryness left but the third one we did, the river rapids, it totally soaked us. We had no dry clothes, our hair was saturated and it took us the rest of the day to dry off. It also didn’t help that when we were not in the sun we froze. We saw a couple of shows and they were all of the highest quality which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the people on the shows had probably done it over and over and over again. But they were good. Mum and Dad walked around in a daze most of the day. We got Dad to do the SheiKra. There’s a massive drop and Dad was kind of petrified. But he enjoyed the ride. Tamika and I defied the 5 (as they say) and did the 5 wildest rides there a couple of times over. It was a great day for all.
We, once again, experienced the joy of being Australians. People come over and chat to you. Then they kind of expect you to continue talking and all you want to do is get on rides. It does get kind of annoying.
Dad won’t stop talking about this chick from brekky. Apparently she ate heaps and Dad counted it all. We hear about her over and over again. I guess we’ll see her tomorrow at brekky.
One thing that we have noticed is Dad’s complete disorientation in America. He gets lost so easily. And he doesn’t know which way to go. It’s actually quite funny to watch him. He gets to experience what it’s like to be a female. He’s hating it. Know he kind of knows what it’s like for every female to drive somewhere they’ve never been before. A learning experience for him.
20-12-08 (Saturday)
We did the Busch Gardens again today. Tamika and I had done all the rides so we were pretty ok with just chilling and seeing the animals. One thing we realized is that Mum and Dad did nothing yesterday. They must of just wandered around in a complete gaze for the entire day. We kept going on walks and Dad would be like “this wasn’t here yesterday”. They seriously did nothing all day. The animals were cool. They had meerkats, lions, hyenas, the black swan, pelicans, ugly seagulls, lemurs (the heeby jeeby monkey from Madagascar), elephants, skunks, humans (lots of humans), and fat people. There were lots of birds, school kids (everyone is on holidays), giraffes, zebras, chimpanzees, gorillas (we have come to the conclusion that I have inherited my small thumb from our chimpanzee ancestors). Let’s just say that we saw heaps of animals. That’s about all we did today.
I was craving veggies today (I know, shock horror!) so we hit a cheap buffet and ate heaps of veggies and salad. Dad ate a fair bit of meat. This living off Taco Bell and free brekky thing is really taking its toll on us. Maybe it explains our constant state of tiredness. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have all this energy. Like I do now. I’m not an expert on jet lag but I totally thought it would have been finished by now. Don’t sleep well at night but always tired during the day. It sucks.
Well…I have an early morning tomorrow – 5am so I’m gonna hit the sack. This brings you all fully and completely up to date with all the happenings of the Sutton Family (who, unfortunately, do not have a family holiday t-shirt, which, if we did, I would NEVER wear in public like so many Americans seem to be able to do)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
the last week (minus the last 2 days)
we've had dodgy internet for the past week. It's two days behind so bear with me cause I'm pretty exhausted.
12 Friday
Today we did the Grand Canyon. It was pretty cold when we woke up. There was ice on the ground (not like a little bit of ice but enough ice to pass as snow). It was all very exciting. We had a pretty awesome spread for brekky. Thankyou America and you included continental breakfast. We always eat heaps when its free so we tucked in and devoured our way through a fair amount of cereal, bagels, bread, yoghurt and eggs (we never know when we will be eating next!). We then headed to the departure place for our helicopter ride. They didn’t know who we were and couldn’t find our booking so that was kinda stressful. Turns out we were supposed to be departing from the west rim of the Grand Canyon and we were currently at the south rim. We decided to head to the west rim cause we wanted to do our original helicopter ride cause it sounded waaaay cooler then what they were offering us. Let me tell you, the drive from the south rim to the west rim takes a long time. About 4 hours. Of driving. On freeways. Dad was not impressed. But we are glad we did cause the Canyon was amazing! We got on a helicopter and they flew us around for a bit and then took us to the bottom of the canyone where we jumped on a boat and went up the river a little and then back down it. The current absolutely pelts down that river. Like seriously…going back down the river took hardly anytime and we let the current do it ALL. We got some pretty awesome photos and stuff. We then headed to Phoenix, Arizona. A nice 6 hour drive to add to our already hefty total of driving for that day. When we finally arrived in Arizona we basically just bunkered down for the night. Although Dad did say there was decent Christmas lights closeby so we went on a little excursion to find them. We didn’t find them. We went to bed.
13-12-08 Saturday
Sunday, Sunday we headed to New Orleans (pronounced New Orlans). We didn’t drive there because that would have taken forever so we said a fond farewell to our rental car and jumped on a long flight to New Orleans. We arrived in New Orleans and went to the hotel via these amazing Christmas lights. They totally left Arizona’s lights for dead. We then headed into town and meandered down Bourbon Street. Apparently it’s all changed since the hurricane so we didn’t hang around and listen to the music and drink in the atmosphere for very long. It was a little wild for the family with all the drinking and drinking and dodgy music and drinking and smoking and drinking so we headed home. But it was nice to see New Orleans “at it’s best”. We did get told off for taking a photo. The woman was so incredibly rude about it as well.
We then headed to these gardens and walked around for a while. They had their Christmas light out and it was all romantic with couples all around, hugging and stuff. Mum and Dad caught the bug and it was like total third wheel for me and Tamika. Apparently old people still enjoy holding hands. I think they should do it in the privacy of a cosy corner without children anywhere near. We then went home…to this amazing Inn. It was pretty sweet but the beds were really skinny. Tamika and I haven’t slept that close in like…forever!
14-12-08 Sunday
We hit the town of New Orleans today. Went to Café du Monde, had their awesome beignets (icing sugar covered fried pastry donut things – really really good), we checked out the Mississippi (which may have been nice if I wasn’t sick of hearing about it from Huck Finn – stupid year 12), wandered down the markets (all the artwork…), caught a tram/bus thing (so loud…and SLOW, but unlike cityrail it was always on time) and drove around and saw some pretty cool bayou trees. We also saw some of the devestation from Hurricane Katrina. Three years on and it’s still pretty bad in areas. There was this one house, in a rich area, and we were looking at it going, “there’s something strange about that”. We looked a little closer and it turns out that the guy was raising the house so that it was on stilts. And he wasn’t just raising the house, he was also raising the concrete slab foundations. Strange. We then headed back to the airport and chilled there for a couple of hours while waiting for our plane. When we arrived in Orlando, Florida, it was late…like 11pm so we headed to our hotel. When we walked through the door we were totally in love with the place. There’s 2 rooms, a bathroom, a kitchenette and I’m sleeping on the sofa bed. I get my own bed, in my own room. Who could ask for more?? Boy am I gonna sleep well tonight.
15-12-08 Monday
Today’s breakfast was pretty good. We eat heaps when its free at the hotel cause we’re never quite sure when we’re gonna eat next. We hit Epcot today. The place that has the giant golf ball looking structure. The first of four days at the Disney theme parks. It was pretty cool. Mainly it was all educational stuff with a few rides thrown in and shows. We got to ride a Segway (a awesomely cool mode of transportation) and we played a recycling game (it was waaay cooler than it sounds) we also checked out the nations. We are so totally buggered now. A huuuuge day it was full of walking and standing and walking and standing. We didn’t eat anything at the park cause we were way to busy doing rides. There was this Coke place and so we went there and grabbed a whole heap of free drinks and that’s all we consumed over the period of the day. The night show was pretty cool. Lights, lasers, fireworks, water, a giant earth with images projected onto it and fire. Breathtaking, but the fireworks were a little bit like the San Christmas Carols, or new year in Sydney. We are totally spoilt with fireworks back home. We headed home via Taco Bell (their food is awesome and its pretty much all we’re eating over here along with the free breakfasts).
We are totally exhausted now. Ready to hit Hollywood Studios tomorrow.
16-12-08 Tuesday
We caught up with Daniel today. He dropped in, stole breakfast, chatted and took off. It was great seeing him. We are half way around the world but in the same state, 2 miles from each other and we totally didn’t plan it. We then headed to Hollywood Studios.
We have totally figured out the line thing. The trick is to grab a fastpass (which gives you a time to come back) and then you head out and watch a show. You then go ride and then head off and get another fastpass then see another show. Basically means you don’t wait in any lines. We saw a couple of stunt shows, a couple of music shows (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid), did a couple of rides, it was great. We walked, and stood, and walked, and stood. It was heaps of fun. I have one thing to say though, Americans seem to have a fascination with wearing matching shirts. Not accidentally, but entire family groups. There was this one group that had shirts that said “Disney Family Vacation 2008”. Retarded!!!
Anyway, I’m pretty tired and wanting to go to bed so until next time…
12 Friday
Today we did the Grand Canyon. It was pretty cold when we woke up. There was ice on the ground (not like a little bit of ice but enough ice to pass as snow). It was all very exciting. We had a pretty awesome spread for brekky. Thankyou America and you included continental breakfast. We always eat heaps when its free so we tucked in and devoured our way through a fair amount of cereal, bagels, bread, yoghurt and eggs (we never know when we will be eating next!). We then headed to the departure place for our helicopter ride. They didn’t know who we were and couldn’t find our booking so that was kinda stressful. Turns out we were supposed to be departing from the west rim of the Grand Canyon and we were currently at the south rim. We decided to head to the west rim cause we wanted to do our original helicopter ride cause it sounded waaaay cooler then what they were offering us. Let me tell you, the drive from the south rim to the west rim takes a long time. About 4 hours. Of driving. On freeways. Dad was not impressed. But we are glad we did cause the Canyon was amazing! We got on a helicopter and they flew us around for a bit and then took us to the bottom of the canyone where we jumped on a boat and went up the river a little and then back down it. The current absolutely pelts down that river. Like seriously…going back down the river took hardly anytime and we let the current do it ALL. We got some pretty awesome photos and stuff. We then headed to Phoenix, Arizona. A nice 6 hour drive to add to our already hefty total of driving for that day. When we finally arrived in Arizona we basically just bunkered down for the night. Although Dad did say there was decent Christmas lights closeby so we went on a little excursion to find them. We didn’t find them. We went to bed.
13-12-08 Saturday
Sunday, Sunday we headed to New Orleans (pronounced New Orlans). We didn’t drive there because that would have taken forever so we said a fond farewell to our rental car and jumped on a long flight to New Orleans. We arrived in New Orleans and went to the hotel via these amazing Christmas lights. They totally left Arizona’s lights for dead. We then headed into town and meandered down Bourbon Street. Apparently it’s all changed since the hurricane so we didn’t hang around and listen to the music and drink in the atmosphere for very long. It was a little wild for the family with all the drinking and drinking and dodgy music and drinking and smoking and drinking so we headed home. But it was nice to see New Orleans “at it’s best”. We did get told off for taking a photo. The woman was so incredibly rude about it as well.
We then headed to these gardens and walked around for a while. They had their Christmas light out and it was all romantic with couples all around, hugging and stuff. Mum and Dad caught the bug and it was like total third wheel for me and Tamika. Apparently old people still enjoy holding hands. I think they should do it in the privacy of a cosy corner without children anywhere near. We then went home…to this amazing Inn. It was pretty sweet but the beds were really skinny. Tamika and I haven’t slept that close in like…forever!
14-12-08 Sunday
We hit the town of New Orleans today. Went to Café du Monde, had their awesome beignets (icing sugar covered fried pastry donut things – really really good), we checked out the Mississippi (which may have been nice if I wasn’t sick of hearing about it from Huck Finn – stupid year 12), wandered down the markets (all the artwork…), caught a tram/bus thing (so loud…and SLOW, but unlike cityrail it was always on time) and drove around and saw some pretty cool bayou trees. We also saw some of the devestation from Hurricane Katrina. Three years on and it’s still pretty bad in areas. There was this one house, in a rich area, and we were looking at it going, “there’s something strange about that”. We looked a little closer and it turns out that the guy was raising the house so that it was on stilts. And he wasn’t just raising the house, he was also raising the concrete slab foundations. Strange. We then headed back to the airport and chilled there for a couple of hours while waiting for our plane. When we arrived in Orlando, Florida, it was late…like 11pm so we headed to our hotel. When we walked through the door we were totally in love with the place. There’s 2 rooms, a bathroom, a kitchenette and I’m sleeping on the sofa bed. I get my own bed, in my own room. Who could ask for more?? Boy am I gonna sleep well tonight.
15-12-08 Monday
Today’s breakfast was pretty good. We eat heaps when its free at the hotel cause we’re never quite sure when we’re gonna eat next. We hit Epcot today. The place that has the giant golf ball looking structure. The first of four days at the Disney theme parks. It was pretty cool. Mainly it was all educational stuff with a few rides thrown in and shows. We got to ride a Segway (a awesomely cool mode of transportation) and we played a recycling game (it was waaay cooler than it sounds) we also checked out the nations. We are so totally buggered now. A huuuuge day it was full of walking and standing and walking and standing. We didn’t eat anything at the park cause we were way to busy doing rides. There was this Coke place and so we went there and grabbed a whole heap of free drinks and that’s all we consumed over the period of the day. The night show was pretty cool. Lights, lasers, fireworks, water, a giant earth with images projected onto it and fire. Breathtaking, but the fireworks were a little bit like the San Christmas Carols, or new year in Sydney. We are totally spoilt with fireworks back home. We headed home via Taco Bell (their food is awesome and its pretty much all we’re eating over here along with the free breakfasts).
We are totally exhausted now. Ready to hit Hollywood Studios tomorrow.
16-12-08 Tuesday
We caught up with Daniel today. He dropped in, stole breakfast, chatted and took off. It was great seeing him. We are half way around the world but in the same state, 2 miles from each other and we totally didn’t plan it. We then headed to Hollywood Studios.
We have totally figured out the line thing. The trick is to grab a fastpass (which gives you a time to come back) and then you head out and watch a show. You then go ride and then head off and get another fastpass then see another show. Basically means you don’t wait in any lines. We saw a couple of stunt shows, a couple of music shows (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid), did a couple of rides, it was great. We walked, and stood, and walked, and stood. It was heaps of fun. I have one thing to say though, Americans seem to have a fascination with wearing matching shirts. Not accidentally, but entire family groups. There was this one group that had shirts that said “Disney Family Vacation 2008”. Retarded!!!
Anyway, I’m pretty tired and wanting to go to bed so until next time…
Thursday, December 11, 2008
10-12-08 (Wednesday)
So, this will be posted late because Dad used up all the time we had left on the internet. I will now give you a description of what we have all been up to in Las Vegas, the city of ultimate sin. We arrived here without fuss, thanks to Gazza (the really unattractive name we have given to our really attractive GPS). We are staying at the El Cortez which, we have come to believe, is the casino for old people in downtown Las Vegas. The room is like twice the size of anything we have stayed in so far. We don’t have to step all over each other to the bathroom and there’s enough room between the beds and the T.V to do a couple of star jumps (f we were that way inclined). It’s pretty good. Dad is continually telling us that we have to come up with some rules, but I think the rest of the family is pretty happy to just continue doing what we’ve been doing so far – keep you clothes in your bag and in your little confined area of space.
The first day we got here (Sunday) we chilled in our overly big room and then headed down to Fremont Street to experience
what they call “The Fremont Street Experience”. It was pretty cool. Apparently all the old facades from “The Strip” have been moved into Fremont Street as the buildings are all updated so we really got this old school Las Vegas experience. They also have this incredibly huge T.V screen and if you listen to what the Americans tell you they reckon it’s the biggest one in the world. It was pretty big. Every hour they have this light show thing going on and it’s pretty amazing. There will be video of it up on youtube asap. It’s like a 100m screen with music and video. CRAZY sensory overload. We had deepfried oreos and twinkies which was kinda feral but seeing as we’re in America we decided to try out all their feral concoctions. All you could really taste was deep fried batter. Yummmmy. We then headed down to The Strip for a bit just to check it out. I was pretty exhausted from a day of sitting in the car and just wanted to go home to bed but we all soldiered on with some whinging involved. Can I just say here that Las Vegas doesn’t have the same tacky lights that Dad told us it would have. They have gotten rid of most of the lights and replaced them with video screens and stuff so the tacky, over-the-top-ness that we were expecting wasn’t there. It was still pretty impressive though. We headed home on the bus (which takes forever) and crashed.
Monday was also a day of fun. We walked up most of The Strip (something that I don’t think a lot of people can boast of doing seeing as most of them are pretty drunk and are too busy playing the pokies) and were harassed by little fat men trying to give us cards with pictures and phone numbers on them. I wouldn’t recommend walking up The Strip if you are not into being harassed everytime you pause to look at a building, or wait for the lights to go green. We went to M&M world which was 4 stories of purely M&M related stuff. It was pretty cool. T-shirts, mugs, cups, jumpers, toys, key rings, movies (it was 3d and pretty dodge compared to what we’d seen at Universal Studios) and a whole lot of chocolate. It
was soo goooooood. We found the sales rack and went a little crazy. Tamika and Mum bought a t-shirt each and I got these wicked pajama pants and we got a Christmas decoration and then a free gift for spending too much money. We then crossed over into Coca-Cola World which was only 2 levels of Coke related stuff. BUT they did have these smelly shirts that smelt like drinks. It was pretty cool. They also had a pretty poor imitation Bundy bear. I don’t think they meant to copy Bundaberg but they did, only the Coke bear is way creepier. We then wandered back down the Strip. Did you know that one of the Casinos had a lion display? Like real live lions in the Casino. We didn’t even have to travel to a zoo. Crazy. It cost $9 million to set up and we don’t even wanna know how much it costs to maintain. We then headed down to another casino (called the Flamingo) and checked out their Flamingo collection along with other exotic birds. Yes, that’s right, they had flamingos and we got to see them. They were all asleep but that that’s beside the point. Their exotic birds consisted of Ibis’ (yeah, that’s right, those ugly birds at the beach that steal your chips and stuff), black swans, ducks (yeah DUCKS – exotic? I think not) and some other bird that was actually pretty cool. We then headed to the Cirque du Soliel (unsure about spelling) which was AMAZING!!! totally cool. There were clowns, acrobats, muscle men, pole climbers, trapeze artists, awesome costumes. It was awesome. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wishes to feel insignificant in strength, flexibility or clothing selection. We then headed home to the casino…took forever.
Tuesday
Today we totally slept in. Tamika and I went and watched Twilight (yeah, that’s right, we totally saw it before anyone of you guys living in Australia) and it was pretty good. The movie had a delayed start cause there was something wrong with the movie. An hour we waited. How hard is it to press the play button? So we didn’t start touring till 5pm. We ate lunch/brekky/dinner at the hotel at around 3ish. The food here is pretty cheap considering the size you get. Like a $7.50
Caesar salad is HUGE!! It totally beat me. I could only eat half of it before having to give it away. I tried root beer (which was something I’ve always wanted to do). It’s just sarsparella under a different name. Liquid liquorice. I’m never getting it again. They lie on the movies…it doesn’t taste any good. We then caught the bus to Tuesday night’s show. It was a variety show with a whole heap of different acts. There was comedy, amazing magic (he used birds I tell you), awesome juggling, the TV guy and lots of laughs. There were a heap of Aussies in the audience and one of them started the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant. It totally confused the host for the night…he wasn’t expecting it at all and he was just like “what the?”. We then jumped on the bus and did a full loop. It takes forever to do a full loop. Like 2 hrs cause the bus has to stop at like EVERY stop along the strip. But it was a nice drive. We also checked out the local free shows which were cool and I ran into Captain Jack Sparrow. He was pretty cute, smelt like rum, smoke, rum and alcohol. I wouldn’t date him…ever…he smelt terrible.
So, this will be posted late because Dad used up all the time we had left on the internet. I will now give you a description of what we have all been up to in Las Vegas, the city of ultimate sin. We arrived here without fuss, thanks to Gazza (the really unattractive name we have given to our really attractive GPS). We are staying at the El Cortez which, we have come to believe, is the casino for old people in downtown Las Vegas. The room is like twice the size of anything we have stayed in so far. We don’t have to step all over each other to the bathroom and there’s enough room between the beds and the T.V to do a couple of star jumps (f we were that way inclined). It’s pretty good. Dad is continually telling us that we have to come up with some rules, but I think the rest of the family is pretty happy to just continue doing what we’ve been doing so far – keep you clothes in your bag and in your little confined area of space.
The first day we got here (Sunday) we chilled in our overly big room and then headed down to Fremont Street to experience
what they call “The Fremont Street Experience”. It was pretty cool. Apparently all the old facades from “The Strip” have been moved into Fremont Street as the buildings are all updated so we really got this old school Las Vegas experience. They also have this incredibly huge T.V screen and if you listen to what the Americans tell you they reckon it’s the biggest one in the world. It was pretty big. Every hour they have this light show thing going on and it’s pretty amazing. There will be video of it up on youtube asap. It’s like a 100m screen with music and video. CRAZY sensory overload. We had deepfried oreos and twinkies which was kinda feral but seeing as we’re in America we decided to try out all their feral concoctions. All you could really taste was deep fried batter. Yummmmy. We then headed down to The Strip for a bit just to check it out. I was pretty exhausted from a day of sitting in the car and just wanted to go home to bed but we all soldiered on with some whinging involved. Can I just say here that Las Vegas doesn’t have the same tacky lights that Dad told us it would have. They have gotten rid of most of the lights and replaced them with video screens and stuff so the tacky, over-the-top-ness that we were expecting wasn’t there. It was still pretty impressive though. We headed home on the bus (which takes forever) and crashed.Monday was also a day of fun. We walked up most of The Strip (something that I don’t think a lot of people can boast of doing seeing as most of them are pretty drunk and are too busy playing the pokies) and were harassed by little fat men trying to give us cards with pictures and phone numbers on them. I wouldn’t recommend walking up The Strip if you are not into being harassed everytime you pause to look at a building, or wait for the lights to go green. We went to M&M world which was 4 stories of purely M&M related stuff. It was pretty cool. T-shirts, mugs, cups, jumpers, toys, key rings, movies (it was 3d and pretty dodge compared to what we’d seen at Universal Studios) and a whole lot of chocolate. It
was soo goooooood. We found the sales rack and went a little crazy. Tamika and Mum bought a t-shirt each and I got these wicked pajama pants and we got a Christmas decoration and then a free gift for spending too much money. We then crossed over into Coca-Cola World which was only 2 levels of Coke related stuff. BUT they did have these smelly shirts that smelt like drinks. It was pretty cool. They also had a pretty poor imitation Bundy bear. I don’t think they meant to copy Bundaberg but they did, only the Coke bear is way creepier. We then wandered back down the Strip. Did you know that one of the Casinos had a lion display? Like real live lions in the Casino. We didn’t even have to travel to a zoo. Crazy. It cost $9 million to set up and we don’t even wanna know how much it costs to maintain. We then headed down to another casino (called the Flamingo) and checked out their Flamingo collection along with other exotic birds. Yes, that’s right, they had flamingos and we got to see them. They were all asleep but that that’s beside the point. Their exotic birds consisted of Ibis’ (yeah, that’s right, those ugly birds at the beach that steal your chips and stuff), black swans, ducks (yeah DUCKS – exotic? I think not) and some other bird that was actually pretty cool. We then headed to the Cirque du Soliel (unsure about spelling) which was AMAZING!!! totally cool. There were clowns, acrobats, muscle men, pole climbers, trapeze artists, awesome costumes. It was awesome. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wishes to feel insignificant in strength, flexibility or clothing selection. We then headed home to the casino…took forever.Tuesday
Today we totally slept in. Tamika and I went and watched Twilight (yeah, that’s right, we totally saw it before anyone of you guys living in Australia) and it was pretty good. The movie had a delayed start cause there was something wrong with the movie. An hour we waited. How hard is it to press the play button? So we didn’t start touring till 5pm. We ate lunch/brekky/dinner at the hotel at around 3ish. The food here is pretty cheap considering the size you get. Like a $7.50
Caesar salad is HUGE!! It totally beat me. I could only eat half of it before having to give it away. I tried root beer (which was something I’ve always wanted to do). It’s just sarsparella under a different name. Liquid liquorice. I’m never getting it again. They lie on the movies…it doesn’t taste any good. We then caught the bus to Tuesday night’s show. It was a variety show with a whole heap of different acts. There was comedy, amazing magic (he used birds I tell you), awesome juggling, the TV guy and lots of laughs. There were a heap of Aussies in the audience and one of them started the Aussie Aussie Aussie chant. It totally confused the host for the night…he wasn’t expecting it at all and he was just like “what the?”. We then jumped on the bus and did a full loop. It takes forever to do a full loop. Like 2 hrs cause the bus has to stop at like EVERY stop along the strip. But it was a nice drive. We also checked out the local free shows which were cool and I ran into Captain Jack Sparrow. He was pretty cute, smelt like rum, smoke, rum and alcohol. I wouldn’t date him…ever…he smelt terrible.Wednesday
So today we did LOTS of shopping. We went to the local factory outlet which is basically a more expensive, more glorified version of a DFO. Kind of disappointing really. But we found this store called Hot Topic and it was awesome. Like, it has shirts from movies and tv programs. Tamika went wild on the Twilight stand. I found an Invader Zim stand which was pretty cool. I didn’t get anything from Invader Zim but I now have a Gryffindor tank top and a “Team Jacob” Twilight shirt. Tamika bought a “Team Edward” jumper. Now we have an excuse to fight like vampires and werewolves J. If anyone wants anything maybe check their website out (http://www.hottopic.com/) and if we find another one I’ll get it for you…maybe…if you pay me back. We also discovered the cheap Disney store. 80% off and it was cool. We bought a couple of t-shirts and jumpers and stuff. We then headed back into town ate at this buffet. There was soooo much food. And it was all gooood. We were all pretty starving and it was nice to be able to sit down and stuff our faces. Ice-cream, cake, ice-cream, moose, ice-cream, chocolate. We also had a few veggies and stuff. It was really good. Tamika, Mum and I then went to Madame Tussauds. Wax museum. We met some cool wax people, got married to George Clooney, shot hoops with Zac Effron, chatted with Oprah, danced with Beyonce, kissed Johnny Depp and chilled out with George Bush (after the people in front of us kicked him in the unmentionables). We then had to look for Dad who had moved the car around and we got a little stressed. We found him and headed home. Tamika and I went and saw Madagascar 2 which is pretty funny. We then headed home after the movie and had an “early” night.
Thursday
We left Vegas today. Thank goodness. We were all getting pretty sick of the smoke and little men handing out calling cards for “Hot Babes”. We travelled for ages in the car. The scenery went from dirt with a few rocks, to rocks with a little dirt to mountainous rocks, to brown rocks, to rocks and dirt to rocks, dirt and an excuse for greenery to more greenery to trees to pine trees. Now it’s green and really quite cold. We drove along Route 66 for a while and the towns along it hold on to their “historic” roots. They actually seem to collect old cars and rednecks and hicks. They don’t update their town, there are Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE to the point where it over-the-top. Whatever, you know, if that’s what they wanna do and have everyone think they are retarded then so be it.
We went to Hoover Dam today. It’s a pretty impressive piece of manmade infrastructure. Huge, deep and lots of concrete. Crazy. One side of the dam is in Nevada (and all touristy) and the other side is in Arizona (not at all touristy). It’s pretty cool.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon just before sunset. It’s really beautiful. And huge. And Dad’s fear of heights kicked in and he was freaking out. We have some nice photos but it got dark pretty quick. And there was snow and ice all over the place. Not blanketing the ground but enough to tell you that it’s gonna be cold. And it was. Freezing almost. And tomorrows forecast is -5 to 12 degrees Celsius. That’s kinda cold. But it’s gonna be a fun couple of days. Helicopter ride tomorrow and then heading to the warmer climate of Phoenix, Arizona. The fact that we are currently in Arizona means nothing. I’m hoping its warmer in Phoenix (note to all those Twilight fans, yes, it is the same place that Bella comes face-to-face with death and becoming a vampire).
Well that just about gets you all up to date with our happenings…will post later when I have something interesting to say.
So today we did LOTS of shopping. We went to the local factory outlet which is basically a more expensive, more glorified version of a DFO. Kind of disappointing really. But we found this store called Hot Topic and it was awesome. Like, it has shirts from movies and tv programs. Tamika went wild on the Twilight stand. I found an Invader Zim stand which was pretty cool. I didn’t get anything from Invader Zim but I now have a Gryffindor tank top and a “Team Jacob” Twilight shirt. Tamika bought a “Team Edward” jumper. Now we have an excuse to fight like vampires and werewolves J. If anyone wants anything maybe check their website out (http://www.hottopic.com/) and if we find another one I’ll get it for you…maybe…if you pay me back. We also discovered the cheap Disney store. 80% off and it was cool. We bought a couple of t-shirts and jumpers and stuff. We then headed back into town ate at this buffet. There was soooo much food. And it was all gooood. We were all pretty starving and it was nice to be able to sit down and stuff our faces. Ice-cream, cake, ice-cream, moose, ice-cream, chocolate. We also had a few veggies and stuff. It was really good. Tamika, Mum and I then went to Madame Tussauds. Wax museum. We met some cool wax people, got married to George Clooney, shot hoops with Zac Effron, chatted with Oprah, danced with Beyonce, kissed Johnny Depp and chilled out with George Bush (after the people in front of us kicked him in the unmentionables). We then had to look for Dad who had moved the car around and we got a little stressed. We found him and headed home. Tamika and I went and saw Madagascar 2 which is pretty funny. We then headed home after the movie and had an “early” night.
Thursday
We left Vegas today. Thank goodness. We were all getting pretty sick of the smoke and little men handing out calling cards for “Hot Babes”. We travelled for ages in the car. The scenery went from dirt with a few rocks, to rocks with a little dirt to mountainous rocks, to brown rocks, to rocks and dirt to rocks, dirt and an excuse for greenery to more greenery to trees to pine trees. Now it’s green and really quite cold. We drove along Route 66 for a while and the towns along it hold on to their “historic” roots. They actually seem to collect old cars and rednecks and hicks. They don’t update their town, there are Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE to the point where it over-the-top. Whatever, you know, if that’s what they wanna do and have everyone think they are retarded then so be it.
We went to Hoover Dam today. It’s a pretty impressive piece of manmade infrastructure. Huge, deep and lots of concrete. Crazy. One side of the dam is in Nevada (and all touristy) and the other side is in Arizona (not at all touristy). It’s pretty cool.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon just before sunset. It’s really beautiful. And huge. And Dad’s fear of heights kicked in and he was freaking out. We have some nice photos but it got dark pretty quick. And there was snow and ice all over the place. Not blanketing the ground but enough to tell you that it’s gonna be cold. And it was. Freezing almost. And tomorrows forecast is -5 to 12 degrees Celsius. That’s kinda cold. But it’s gonna be a fun couple of days. Helicopter ride tomorrow and then heading to the warmer climate of Phoenix, Arizona. The fact that we are currently in Arizona means nothing. I’m hoping its warmer in Phoenix (note to all those Twilight fans, yes, it is the same place that Bella comes face-to-face with death and becoming a vampire).
Well that just about gets you all up to date with our happenings…will post later when I have something interesting to say.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
