First time in the States and it's been a blast. Have sneaking suspicion this won't be the last time!
San Francisco was so gorgeous. We spent a lot of the time there strolling up & down the hilly streets & down around the pier. Headed out to Alcatraz for tour of the prison. The recorded tour was given by former wardens and prisoners. Has won awards, with good reason. Could really get a feel for what it must have been like. Another day we rented a car & went out to Muir Woods where walked through a forest of Redwoods. These enourmous ancient trees. Oh yes, everything is big in the States!
We got to Boston morning of Christmas eve. We were welcomed into Malte's friends' house, the Kellys. Dan, Selina, their 3yr old Caitlin & Guinness the dog. The Irish coffees were introduced early on & kept coming. A drink by the name of Bacardi 151 was also invited along. 75% proof. It´s what I imagine turps to taste like. All the neighbours called in, we played some Wii bowling & maybe took it more serious than drunk people should. Christmas morning was great. We got to see the surprise on Cailin´s face when she came down the stairs to see her princess castle and 2 hungover Irish backpackers on the couch. Seriously, it was cool to watch her rifle through all her pressies. We had a really relaxing day of lounging around & eating. Had a very quick & frantic snowball fight outside and did some boxing on Wii. That´s about the extent of our exercise. For the rest of the time in Boston we mostly chilled out, walked around the city & met Malte´s other friend, Rich. Was a memorable Christmas, very happy we were there for it.
With heavy hearts we headed to airport on 30th. Though I perked up once we landed in New York (very early). After a few complications (my fault, doh!) we made it to our hotel. We headed to Times Square for New Years eve. It was crowded so we were nowhere near the ball. After a while we made the decision to head to a bar where we drank far too much. As New Years should be eh? Was good fun and have memories of practising salsa dancing while no one else was on the dance floor...or was that even a dance floor??? hmmm. Mainly did the usual touristy things in New York. Statue of Liberty, Empire State building, Ice skating in Bryant Park, Central Park, Natural History Museum. I think this is quite commendable considering the weather hit lows of -7C. I can´t remember ever being as cold! Also saw a couple of Knicks games in Madison Square Garden... experience was great...Knicks were awful! Got quite star-struck & was very taken aback by the size of the players! Our friend Ange took us out in Brooklyn a couple of nights. So much fun, great to catch up, but also good to move away from the tourist check list. It was my first time in New York & the funny thing was how familiar it all was coz I´ve seen so much of it on TV or Films in the past. It´s a fab city though & I know I´ll go back as we only scratched the surface.
So now we´re in 40C heat in Buenos Aires. Seriously!! Can´t even go outside! We´re taking a few days to relax in front of a fan as it´s been pretty hectic over the last week or so. Have met a few people from the hostel we´re in so heading out for Argentina steak No 1 tonight. I imagine there´ll be quite a few more over the coming weeks.
