So my last blog left you at the end of my holiday. I got back the Friday night, and then that Sunday, Sarah Steph and I all decided to stay in and have a movie marathon, seeing as they wanted to save and my holiday had wiped out my week's pay! We then went out to our fav restaurant The Cheesecake Factory for dinner.
The following weekend, Sarah and Steph ventured to D.C for the weekend, and Frannie came home from her month long holiday. On the Sunday her and I went into the city to walk the streets of Chelsea and into a bit of Greenwich Village. We went into some vintage stores and the Barney's Coop where they send all the sale items from Barney's. It was so scary, because they lead you down a few alleys, into a huge room, make you sign your bag in, and then when you enter the female section, there is women EVERYWHERE! Getting undressed, trying things on, grabbing shamelessly at sale clothes and shoes! It was crazy and very claustrophobic so we got out of there quite quickly! Then we ate lunch at Papaya Grey's, which is a famous hot dog store that also sells Papaya (paw paw) drinks. It was the first good New York hot dog I've had - I don't like the ones they sell in the side vendors, but these ones were amazing.
That night we headed back to Frannie's place and Alissa came over so we could eat dinner and watch the Sex and the City movie.
Then the weekend that has just passed, Saturday Sarah, Steph and I went to see a movie, get a quick bite to eat, and chat at the river. It is now Sunday, 4pm, I'm waiting for the girls to pick me up so we can go out bowling maybe or for dinner. I've had a few good saving/low key weeks so hopefully next weekend I can plan something big in the city, maybe even go to see Wicked!!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
My Lovely Little Holiday
My lovely little holiday started Friday 7th August, as soon as my family left for their vacation. Very like me for most things in life (except usually when I travel) I had left things to the last minute. So after the family left, I did a load of laundry, and packed my bag, ticking things off a check list I'd made a few days earlier, so I wasn't completely rushing around like a headless chook!.JPG)
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I then took in the Imax film, that used cute little cartoon characters to explain the creation of the falls. Then you move into a 4D viewing room, where you have to hold onto a handlebar. In 360 degree screen, they take you on a journey through the ice age, through nature, through the creation of the falls, then take you down them. YOu have to hold on because they spray you with water, shake you about, it snows, there is fake lightening. It was so awesome, and I got saturated with water!
Then I lined up for 'Journey through the falls'; which is a serious of tunnels underneath the Canadian falls. You can stand at the end of the tunnel and see the water flowing down in front of your eyes!.JPG)
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and people are so stupid, because they all had their cameras out (as did I) but as we got closer to the falls, they didn't put them away (I did cuz I have brains) and then started crying and complaining when their cameras got wet and wouldn't work!The boat goes first past the America falls, which are beautiful but don't seem as powerful, then you go right up to the Canadian falls and the boat is getting throw in this direction and that direction, and so is everybody on board, everyone is screaming and cheering because they are so close and they are getting so wet. All you can see is water, feel is water, and taste is water! Of course you can feel the wind and power too. It was one of the most amazing experiences of nature, and I Will never forget it.
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I had dinner, and went souvinear shopping (so expensive!) and got my little jar of maple syrup, my cute misty bear
and my usuals (postcards, patches, magnets). Then I waited to view the falls at night. It was really pretty as they shine all the different coloured lights on them, but much more breathtaking and worthwhile in the day. MY camera wouldn't capture the falls at night, but I will always remember them.After this, totally exhausted,I made my way to the bus station to wait until my 1am bus! The bus trip was an absolute disaster, and after I write this blog, I am writing a letter of complaint to greyhound buses. The 1am bus was late picking me up (and I had to pay twice as much for the trip, then stated on the website, for no apparent reason), and then we were alotted a small amount of time to make it through customs, however the American customs people are very thorough and quite frankly very rude, which meant that we took about three times the alotted amount. This factor, plus the initial 30 min late pick up, meant when we arrived at Buffalo, our first rest stop, we were obviously very late. What I didn't realise, was that I was suppose to get on a connecting bus at Buffalo, that would take me to Boston. This is course had left, meaning I had to wait from 3am till 6am at the empty and freezing cold bus terminal until another bus arrived. In the end, a 12 hour trip was suppose to have me into Boston by 130pm, instead the bus crawled in at 530pm. Needless to say that night I slept quite well, and finally in a bed!
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Tuesday, I took a 9am train down to Plymouth, which was about an hour trip. I then bought a pass for the Plymouth trolley and took that straight to Plimoth Plantation (It's spelt differently cuz some old guy back in the day, couldn't spell, so the plantation thought that would be clever name for them. wrong). Annnyway, so P.P is two different colonies the Wampanoag Native Americans and a 17th century pilgrim colony. Then Native Americans aren't roleplayers, but actually Native Americans, who work at the plantation, building things for the village and teaching visitors about their life and history. Some people I found very short and didn't really seem to want to answer any questions, but some people were very talkative and open to even silly questions.
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this lady was lovely! Then onto the pilgrim village, we roleplayers dressed and spoke as those back then did, and got all confused if you me mentioned things like nikes, the internet or obama. Youcould also ask them all kinds of questions about the time or their "history" or "beliefs" - it was a very fascinating museum overall. After this I took the trolley down to the beach, and got the 'world's best icecream' (voted 05) and bought my souvys and then had a gaze at plymouth rock.JPG)
where the pilgrims sailed in on the mayflower. wasn't that exciting, but what was kinda cool was the replica of the mayflower..JPG)
It's run by same people that do the plantation, so it had all roleplayers as the captain, crew and passengers. It was very interesting as well, and down by the beach and wharf was so pretty, it was a lovely end to my day.JPG)
Because I was going to Niagara I decided against taking my laptop, and decided to zip lock everything - camera, cords, passport, money! NOTHING was getting wet!!At 9pm that night, I set off, carrying a backpack and handbag. I walked down to the train station, took the train into Grand Central in the city then taxi to Port Authority where all the buses leave from. My bus was at 11.45pm, and you are suppose to arrive 1 hour before, so I arrived at 10, but the line had already formed, and I was lucky to get the last window seat! I ended up having a guy sit next to me, who used me as a pillow the whole trip! Everytime I tried to move, he would just fall more in my direction, it was so frustrating. The trip was 8 hours, I probably slept for 3 or 4, and arrived safetly in Canada (customs was a breeze) at 9am.
I decided to go for a pass that included transport, through the falls, maid of mist, imax and white rapids walk. I took the 5 minute bus from the bus station to the main strip of Niagara. They dropped me at the first lookout and the falls were utterly breathtaking!
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I decided to go for a pass that included transport, through the falls, maid of mist, imax and white rapids walk. I took the 5 minute bus from the bus station to the main strip of Niagara. They dropped me at the first lookout and the falls were utterly breathtaking!
On the Canadian side, you really get the best view, because you can see across to the American, and you can look across to or stand literally right next to the Canadian (or horseshoe falls). Its funny because on one side you have these amazing powerful forces of nature, and then on the land you have all these touristy gimmicks, and amusement parks and casinos. Its ridiculous. After I got my first glimpse, I wanted to get closer, so I went right over to the Canadian falls, and looked from right next to it. I could see the river that lead up to the falls and the water gushing over the top..JPG)
I then took in the Imax film, that used cute little cartoon characters to explain the creation of the falls. Then you move into a 4D viewing room, where you have to hold onto a handlebar. In 360 degree screen, they take you on a journey through the ice age, through nature, through the creation of the falls, then take you down them. YOu have to hold on because they spray you with water, shake you about, it snows, there is fake lightening. It was so awesome, and I got saturated with water!Then I lined up for 'Journey through the falls'; which is a serious of tunnels underneath the Canadian falls. You can stand at the end of the tunnel and see the water flowing down in front of your eyes!
Another tunnel takes you to a landing, thats half way down the falls, and literally right next to them..JPG)
This tied with the Maid of the Mist, as the best Niagara experience. You really got a sense of the power of the falls, even though you could hardly look at them from all the water sweeping down into you!
After lunch I took the 'White Water Rapid Walk' which is located a few ks (omg they use the metric system in Canada, horray!) down from the base of the falls. You walk along side the rapids, on a wooden boardwalk, and see classification 6 (highest classification) white water rapids, in fact the Niagara ones are said to be the world's most dangerous!
Finally, in the afternoon, I got to the 'Maid of the Mist'. I wanted to leave it to last, so I wasn't walking around wet. The sight of all these little blue people boarding a ferry is hilarious
This tied with the Maid of the Mist, as the best Niagara experience. You really got a sense of the power of the falls, even though you could hardly look at them from all the water sweeping down into you!After lunch I took the 'White Water Rapid Walk' which is located a few ks (omg they use the metric system in Canada, horray!) down from the base of the falls. You walk along side the rapids, on a wooden boardwalk, and see classification 6 (highest classification) white water rapids, in fact the Niagara ones are said to be the world's most dangerous!
Finally, in the afternoon, I got to the 'Maid of the Mist'. I wanted to leave it to last, so I wasn't walking around wet. The sight of all these little blue people boarding a ferry is hilarious and people are so stupid, because they all had their cameras out (as did I) but as we got closer to the falls, they didn't put them away (I did cuz I have brains) and then started crying and complaining when their cameras got wet and wouldn't work!The boat goes first past the America falls, which are beautiful but don't seem as powerful, then you go right up to the Canadian falls and the boat is getting throw in this direction and that direction, and so is everybody on board, everyone is screaming and cheering because they are so close and they are getting so wet. All you can see is water, feel is water, and taste is water! Of course you can feel the wind and power too. It was one of the most amazing experiences of nature, and I Will never forget it.I had dinner, and went souvinear shopping (so expensive!) and got my little jar of maple syrup, my cute misty bear and my usuals (postcards, patches, magnets). Then I waited to view the falls at night. It was really pretty as they shine all the different coloured lights on them, but much more breathtaking and worthwhile in the day. MY camera wouldn't capture the falls at night, but I will always remember them.After this, totally exhausted,I made my way to the bus station to wait until my 1am bus! The bus trip was an absolute disaster, and after I write this blog, I am writing a letter of complaint to greyhound buses. The 1am bus was late picking me up (and I had to pay twice as much for the trip, then stated on the website, for no apparent reason), and then we were alotted a small amount of time to make it through customs, however the American customs people are very thorough and quite frankly very rude, which meant that we took about three times the alotted amount. This factor, plus the initial 30 min late pick up, meant when we arrived at Buffalo, our first rest stop, we were obviously very late. What I didn't realise, was that I was suppose to get on a connecting bus at Buffalo, that would take me to Boston. This is course had left, meaning I had to wait from 3am till 6am at the empty and freezing cold bus terminal until another bus arrived. In the end, a 12 hour trip was suppose to have me into Boston by 130pm, instead the bus crawled in at 530pm. Needless to say that night I slept quite well, and finally in a bed!The next day (Monday, in case you lost track), I met up with Allysha, one of the girls I flew over with. We walked part of the Boston Freedom Trail (a walk through the town, stopping at historic places and buildings) and saw the Public Library, the Boston Gardens and the Boston Common. The Gardens have the swan boat rides, which are known to Boston, and looked so fun, but I didn't end up going on. The Common was okay, basically another name for a park haha. Then we had lunch at Quincy Markets, which like last time, I loved. Then a brief stroll (With some yummy icecream) down to the wharf, and lazyed around chatting till dinner time.
Tuesday, I took a 9am train down to Plymouth, which was about an hour trip. I then bought a pass for the Plymouth trolley and took that straight to Plimoth Plantation (It's spelt differently cuz some old guy back in the day, couldn't spell, so the plantation thought that would be clever name for them. wrong). Annnyway, so P.P is two different colonies the Wampanoag Native Americans and a 17th century pilgrim colony. Then Native Americans aren't roleplayers, but actually Native Americans, who work at the plantation, building things for the village and teaching visitors about their life and history. Some people I found very short and didn't really seem to want to answer any questions, but some people were very talkative and open to even silly questions.
this lady was lovely! Then onto the pilgrim village, we roleplayers dressed and spoke as those back then did, and got all confused if you me mentioned things like nikes, the internet or obama. Youcould also ask them all kinds of questions about the time or their "history" or "beliefs" - it was a very fascinating museum overall. After this I took the trolley down to the beach, and got the 'world's best icecream' (voted 05) and bought my souvys and then had a gaze at plymouth rockwhere the pilgrims sailed in on the mayflower. wasn't that exciting, but what was kinda cool was the replica of the mayflower.It's run by same people that do the plantation, so it had all roleplayers as the captain, crew and passengers. It was very interesting as well, and down by the beach and wharf was so pretty, it was a lovely end to my day Wednesday's plan was Salem, and I was most excited about visiting here. I wanted to catch the 8am bus, to be there by 9, to make sure I got everything in. So I ended up waking up way to early, and waited around for 30mins at the bus stop, took the 740 bus, and got there at 840, and found out nothing opened till 10! But at least I was first in line for the trolley and bright and ready :D
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I did one whole run on the trolley, to hear all the history of the town - the architecture, maritime history, witch trial history and literature history. It was really interesting and is such a beautiful town with lovely homes and buildings. The first museum I went to was the Witch History Museum.It had pretty poor audioanimatronics.JPG)
but it still told the story well. A priest and his daughter and niece moved to the town of salem, and bought with them their slave Tatunya from Barbados. She began to tell the girls stories of voodoo and witchcraft, and then the girls began to fall ill, sometimes going days without speaking, moving, blinking and being stiff as a board. They would hurl their bibles, acting crazy, speaking in tongues or worse. So they went to the doctor, and he said he could find nothing physically wrong with them so it must be spiritual. Then the word witch got brought up and its all down hill from there. The girls began accusing everyone under the sun, those people accused others - even a 4 year old girl accused her mother! In the end 19 people were hung and one person was crushed to death by rocks. In the end the girls revealed it was all bullshit, and now its all history. As dreadful as this time in American history was, it was rather a blip on the timeline when you compare it to the thousands of people persacuted for being witches in Europe.So back to my trip...after the witch history musem I went to the salem witch museum, .JPG)
where they pretty much did exactly the same thing - retold the story with audioanimatronics, pretty lights, and deep scary voices. Same thing again at the Witch Dungeon. I missed out on going to the pirate museum because it closed early, but the witch museums were my top priority. Each one was very good, but they were all so similar it would have been okay just to go to one. While I was in Salem, I also saw a psychic. I wasn't going to originally because I thought being Salem, they were probably all fake and gimmicky, however then I found a lady who had been dubbed the 'witch of massachusetts' by the govener, so made an appointment with her. Unfortunately she wasn't there, and I saw her assistant, and I didn't think he was very good at all, to say the least!I ended up leaving on the bus at about 730, home about 9, and crawled into bed very exhausted but happy!.JPG)
I did one whole run on the trolley, to hear all the history of the town - the architecture, maritime history, witch trial history and literature history. It was really interesting and is such a beautiful town with lovely homes and buildings. The first museum I went to was the Witch History Museum.It had pretty poor audioanimatronics but it still told the story well. A priest and his daughter and niece moved to the town of salem, and bought with them their slave Tatunya from Barbados. She began to tell the girls stories of voodoo and witchcraft, and then the girls began to fall ill, sometimes going days without speaking, moving, blinking and being stiff as a board. They would hurl their bibles, acting crazy, speaking in tongues or worse. So they went to the doctor, and he said he could find nothing physically wrong with them so it must be spiritual. Then the word witch got brought up and its all down hill from there. The girls began accusing everyone under the sun, those people accused others - even a 4 year old girl accused her mother! In the end 19 people were hung and one person was crushed to death by rocks. In the end the girls revealed it was all bullshit, and now its all history. As dreadful as this time in American history was, it was rather a blip on the timeline when you compare it to the thousands of people persacuted for being witches in Europe.So back to my trip...after the witch history musem I went to the salem witch museum, where they pretty much did exactly the same thing - retold the story with audioanimatronics, pretty lights, and deep scary voices. Same thing again at the Witch Dungeon. I missed out on going to the pirate museum because it closed early, but the witch museums were my top priority. Each one was very good, but they were all so similar it would have been okay just to go to one. While I was in Salem, I also saw a psychic. I wasn't going to originally because I thought being Salem, they were probably all fake and gimmicky, however then I found a lady who had been dubbed the 'witch of massachusetts' by the govener, so made an appointment with her. Unfortunately she wasn't there, and I saw her assistant, and I didn't think he was very good at all, to say the least!I ended up leaving on the bus at about 730, home about 9, and crawled into bed very exhausted but happy!The next day I had originally set aside as a spare day, to do whatever I missed out on or whatever I could find. So earlier that week I had decided to go whale watching. However, when I woke up on Thursday I was in so much pain from my blisters on my feet, I literally couldn't move. I ended up skipping the whale watching, and stayed in bed till I could walk, then took a bus to the movies.
Friday, my bus to new york left at 1230, and I got in at 6, and met up with the girls that night! Such an awesome holiday in the end, I loved it so much!
Friday, my bus to new york left at 1230, and I got in at 6, and met up with the girls that night! Such an awesome holiday in the end, I loved it so much!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Quick Catch Up....
So after the last post, I had two weekends with not two much going on. The first weekend, a good friend of mine here lost someone back home, so me and the girls put all plans on hold to be there for her. The following weekend, we had a farewell party for Matt on the Friday night. We knew we couldn't afford anything fancy, so decided to be as lame as possible with party hats, kids games, leis and of course some vodka in water bottles haha. Then Saturday morning Frannie left on her one month vacation, and on the Monday, Matt moved to a family in Minnesota. Frannie is having her vacation before the end of her work time. She went to Chicago, Las Vegas, San Diego and Los Angeles, she gets back this friday and then has 3 more weeks work before she finishes aupairing and moves back to Germany! So sad!
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