Hey friends and family :) It's been a little while since our last blog, but if you check out all the photos we uploaded last night, you may see why... They're all down the right hand column of the main page, listed by city.
Before we tell you about Vegas, I don't think we wrote about our last couple of days in New York. We got up early on the 28th and headed down to jump on the 'downtown' tour bus. First stop was Empire State building. We were really glad we went so early, on the way down, the line went down the whole block! So, we didn't have to wait too long before jumping in the first elevator that takes you up 80 floors in about 8 seconds! Our ears were popping the whole way, kinda freaky. Then, there's another elevator that takes you up the final 16 floors and you can walk right outside onto the deck. Pretty amazing view from up there (obviously!) and we were lucky to have picked a really clear morning to go up :) We didn't stay up for too long because it was freezing and started to get quite packed. After heading back down, we jumped back on the bus and drove to our next destination which was Ground Zero. There isn't too much there now as they are doing construction to make a five building conglomeration (of which one of the buildings is going to be bigger and taller than the two towers!). They've taken down all the memorials and now all that's left is a massive plaque listing all the peoples names who died. It was still pretty eerie being down there, especially to see how tall the buildings around the site were, only to be told that the towers were double their size! Incredible!! We had to climb up onto construction fences to see inside, which is basically just two big holes in the ground. After this, we walked down to see about going over on the ferry to ellis island/statue of liberty. The line went the whole way around the paths at Battery Park and we were told the wait time was 4 hours!! We weren't too keen on wasting the day waiting in line, so we took a couple of pictures from the bay where you can see lady liberty and kept walking! Next was another short bus ride over to the East Village which was easily our favourite part of Manhattan. First stop was Pete Wentz's bar (just for you Courtney!) then a walk over to St Marks Street which felt really similar to a Brunswick kinda place. Really arty and full of punks and poets. We fit right in!! We had the best coffee that we've had in our entire time in the US, beause all the rest have been CRAP!!! Then we walked over to a special stop for Jude - Joey Ramone place!! Very unassuming, a small sign on an already signposted street! It was actually called 2nd street, but I guess they gave Joey the 2nd honour of a signpost. We took some photos, then walked up broadway, over to another famous punk landmark - the Chelsea Hotel! Another quite unassuming hotel, could have missed it if we weren't looking up. This is where Sid Vicious killed Nancy Spungeon (or if you're listening to Sid, this is where Nancy repeatedly rolled over onto his knife. Hhmmmm). More photo ops, then back up to the hostel to get changed and out to dinner at the Hard Rock Hotel. Seemed like this Hard Rock had the best collection of memorabilia, so we took a bunch of photos here too.
So! Bring us to the 29th! This day we went for a walk up 5th avenue, past all the super rich shops (without stopping!) and over to Central Park. Walked through central park for a while, checking out squirrels and ice skaters in the rink over there, then we came back and went to see Sweeny Todd on Broadway! Sounds more exotic than it actually was, we went to the movies, haha! Basically, we only had another hour or so before we had to be at the airport, so we had a couple of drinks at a bar then took our bags to the bus depot and headed down the Jersey turnpike to the Newark airport.
We arrived in Vegas at about midnight on the 29th which was fantastic. The airport is right next to the strip, so flying over we could see all the hotels and the big city lights of Vegas. We hit the sack as soon as we arrived at our hotel, so we could get an early start the next day.
30th we went to grab some breakfast then walked pretty much the entire strip. Took pretty much the whole day to walk up and down, checking out the enormous hotels and their lures to bring you in and gamble your savings away. The MGM was my favourite, with a lion enclosure just inside the doors. They had two young males in there and about 3 trainers playing with them and feeding them etc. Was incredible to see! Also saw the Bellagio fountains which were amazing! The lake out the front of the hotel is huge and every 15 mintutes there is a water jet display in time to music. The jets shoot the water up 10 stories into the air! Also caught the volcano outside the Mirage 'eurupting' which is a fire and water display, and the 'Sirens of TI' which is a pirate show featuring two lifesize pirate ships outside Treasure Island (one of them sinks at the end!!). We were planning to head out that night, but after all the walking, we crashed out when we got back to the hotel. New Years eve we took another stroll down the strip and all the way to the 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign. We stopped off at New York New York hotel on the way back and got ourselves some oversized frozen drinks (which can be seen in our photos). Every second person walking down the strip has one of these giant vessels and every other person is drinking beer. Crazy to see drinking allowed just out on the street, and even through the malls etc! We checked out the Bellagio fountains again and filmed the whole thing this time (will chuck it up online soon for all who want to see). Then headed back to the hotel to get ready to head to Hard Rock Hotel. We walked down to Hard Rock at 7pm-ish and had dinner at AJ's Steakhouse, which was unreal. Best food we've eaten since being in the states. We had to leave AJ's at around 9 for Richard Cheese to set up, so we had a drink at another bar, then went back to queue up for the Cheese show. The band played for around 2 hours and this is where we were for the countdown. After the show, we got to meet Richard cheese and got a photo with him and then were on our way back to the Imperial Palace. We were both kinda tired and couldn't be bothered dealing with the masses on the strip, so we hung out in the casino of our own hotel and had another couple of nightcaps and talked to locals. I tried my hand at a game of blackjack with one of the 'dealertainers' (dealers dressed up as famous people) and Roy Orbison was my lucky man - won $80 from $10! Walked away while I was up though :)
The first was unfortunately spend mostly horizontal. Not much to report here apart from praying to the porcelin god....hhmmmm..... not pretty.
Finally, we're up to yesterday!! We picked up our car around 9am and started the drive down to LA. Most of the scenery consisted of desert, but that was to be expected. We stopped at a truck stop along the way for some lunch (along with the other 150 truckies that belonged to the trucks parked outside!!), then back onto route 66 for the final leg of the trip. Arrived at the Standard hotel (another one to check out online: www.standardhotels.com) at around 3pm and went up to the spectacular rooftop for a martini :) We had dinner down in the restaurant last night and crashed pretty early again (but not before we spend a couple hours uploading all those photos!!)
Today, so far we've been for a walk around downtown, but haven't found much to our interest. The Walt Disney concert hall was pretty rad though, got some photos of that. Next we're heading over to Beverly Hills and then? who knows? I guess you'll find out next time we write!!
Off to Hawaii tomorrow morning for 4 days in the sun (hopefully!) so will write more then.
Phew! Super long update this time. Fingers are sore - off to Rodeo Drive!!
J & X
