Around the World with Charlie,Leon&Woods

Czech Republic

2007-10-14T15:33:18Z

Deciding we hadn't had quite enough beer, we moved on to Prague to sample the renowned cheap and awesome Czech beer (and wine for Leon, apparently not convinced by oktoberfest)

Whilst there we trialed the traditional Czech food of pork, dumplings, and more dumplings and also appreciated the beatifull architecture around the city.

Seeing as we were enjoying the cheapness of the Czech Republic so much, Katherine and Charlotte decided to head to another city near Prague - Cesky Krumlov.
Known as a mini Prague, Cesky Krumlov also had lots of cheap beer, including Budweiser - the original beer from the town Budvar in its best form, Super Strong!

Although after doing a tour through the local beer brewery in Cesky, which we suspect has not been updated or cleaned since it was built in the 1800's we decided to move on from the Czech beer and head to Austria!

Czech Republic remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Germany

2007-10-14T15:26:00Z

In Germany possibly the most important day in Charlotte's life arrived - OKTOBERFEST. Thats right, 1 litre jugs of beer from 11am - 10pm, our memories are hazy but they did involve a hell of alot of beer, dancing on tables, pretzels, german sailors and spanish pilots...
Even Leon drank beer - and we have the photo to prove it!

After we recovered from our intensive 2 days of Oktoberfest drinking we headed to Fussen, the home of Neuschwanstein, the castle that Walt Disney based his fairtytale castle from. Needless to say the scenery really was amazing.

Continuing with nice scenery, we next headed to the Rhine Valley. Basing ourselves in Mainz at the end of the Rhine River, we took a cruise all the way up until we got stuck in a random little town and basically drank wine until the next boat (4 hours later...). Once again, the countryside - with medievil castles, vinyards and cute towns was spectacular.

Next we hit Germany's capitol - Berlin which we found to be possibly one of the most interesting cities for its recent and past history which has left its traces throughout the city.

Whilst in Berlin we also visited a concentration camp just outside the city which was both informative and depressing. Needless to say Germany has not forgotten its recent past and the giant Jewish memorial is a testament to this.

Germany remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Porto - Brussels - Amsterdam

2007-10-14T15:12:55Z

The last stop in Portugal was Porto, renowned, yes you guessed it, for its Port. While in Porto we did a day trip to Coimbra; a small university town a few hours away with the 3rd oldest University in Europe.
Whilst in Porto of course we also sampled the port... Several times.
First we did a port tasting at a local bar, and we liked it so much we spent the entire next day doing a port crawl along the banks of the river where all the local port cellars were.
We are now official old men who enjoy a nice port in the afternoon (especially 20 year old tawnys).

From Porto we went to Belgium to visit our dear friend Kate who took us in for 3 nights in Brussels (Thanks Katie!).
We spent a very relaxing 3 days, enjoying having our own couch and the entire box set of sex and the city possibly a little too much...

Being the home of Beer, chocolate and waffles, Belgium became very dear to our hearts and stomachs and on our nights out with Kate we grew to appreciate their super strong beer (9.5%) as well as the local specialty - Moules Frites (mussels and fries).

After a sad farewell to Kate we made our way to Amsterdam, to experience a different way of life.
Coffee Houses (that sell alot more than coffee), the red light district and some crazy nights out corrupted our clean morals forever.

(This is one of the windows that the prostitutes stand in half naked but sorry boys, its empty...)
And then finally, after many weeks of nervous anticipation, possibly the most important day of Leon and Katherine's lives arrived.... The Geelong Grand Final Day!
Being avid Geelong fans we of course found the only pub in amsterdam playing the game live and got up at the ungodly hour of 4.30 am to be there for the 5am pre-game entertainment, only to be kicked out due to licencing reasons until the 6.30 bounce.
Thankfully Geelong won and all was well with the world.

Porto - Brussels - Amsterdam remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Lisbon

2007-09-19T15:32:51Z

From lagos we headed to the Portugeuse Capital of Lisbon, which was just the right mix of seedy and nice. It was quite pretty with a gritty edge, an old castle overlooking the city, cool student area up the hills in the Bairro Alto (where we were staying), old yellow trams shuttling through the tiny streets and the best custard tarts in Portugal in Belem next to its iconic cathedral.

From Lisbon we did a few day trips to towns in the area including Obidos and the fairy tale like town of Sintra with its Moorish Castle high on the hill overlooking this cute village.

While in Lisbon it was also Leons birthday (the big 23!) and even his parents managed to be there to celebrate which made it even more of an occasion.
We all headed out to a famous local restaurant for a nice sit down dinner and later headed to the hostel which had hosted a little party for Leon.

Lisbon remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Lagos

2007-09-19T15:24:28Z

After a hectic time travelling through Spain we took the bus to Lagos on the Algarve coast of Portugal for some time to chill out and rejuvinate.
Its true what they say of the place, come for a day and stay for a month, fortunately we managed to escape after 4 relaxing nights of rest and days spent at the many beaches.

In fact the only vaguely touristy thing we managed to accomplish while there was a boat trip, or should I say a Swan Love Boat tour through the grottoes.

Lagos remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Madrid / Granada / Seville

2007-09-19T15:17:13Z

After a sad farewell to Liv, the four was reduced to three again and headed to Madrid, a beautifull city with statues, old squares, amazing parks and even greater art, with the worlds best post office:

From Madrid they did a day trip to the medieval walled city; Toledo, home to El Greco and famous for its marzipan made by nuns, which was rather tasty.

After Madrid, they took the train to Granada too see the Alhambra; an Islamic fortress and Palace. It really was quite incredible.

Granada turned out to be a bit of a favourite city amongst our travellers and after wandering around its cobbled streets and tiny market streets they headed out for a night of drinking with free tapas for every drink, yes thats right, Granada´s lovely bars actually give you your choice of free tapas with EVERY drink. This of course turned into a rather massive night of drinking and eating that shall not be forgotten.
From Granada, a very hung over train journey was taken to Seville. Where Charlie and Leon caught a bull fight in supposedly the worlds oldest bull ring (Charlie didn´t get it). Leon also took a trip to Cordoba as he had already been to Seville and Charlie and Woods walked around the city to see the sights including the worlds largest cathedral, a mini version of the Alhambra - the Alcazar and Plaza Espana.

Madrid / Granada / Seville remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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La Tomatina / Valencia

2007-09-19T15:03:05Z

From San Sebastian, Liv, Leon, Woods and Charlie took the train to Valencia to prepare for La Tomatina.
Due to late booking we sadly missed out on any available hostels and unfortunately had to stay in a hotel with not only a pool, free buffet breakfast and our own tennis court sized balcony but also our own kitchen, two bedrooms a sitting room and yes count them - TWO bathrooms. We were very sad indeed.
We had heard that la tomatina could get a bit rough so on the day we all donned our white shirts and strapped our shoes to our feet and headed off at 6am to get there early enough for a good spot.
Little did we realise that getting the good spot would soon be Woody and Charlie´s downfall. despite warnings we were not prepared for the mayhem that was la tomatina. After about 10 minutes of fun waterfights and throwing the odd tomato, the local boys got a little out of control, and after half an hour of pushing and struggling to get out, woods and charlie emerged, clothes and ego´s torn to shreds, tomato´d and limping went directly to the nearest bar, got 2 giant beers and collapsed.
Meanwhile Leon and Liv clutched to eachother to survive and watched the tomato trucks roll by as they were waterlogged by the firehoses just above them.

After spending the rest of the day at the pool recovering, the next day they all set out to see Valencia, which turned out to consist of a search of the Holy Grail (and not a whole lot else). The Holy Grail was made of amber and gold but as we all know who have seen Indiana Jones it clearly wasn´t the humble wooden chalice, shame catholic church shame, you have chosen incorectly...

La Tomatina / Valencia remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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San Sebastian - Spain

2007-09-06T15:32:38Z

In the eyes of Jesus, Woods, Leon, Charlie, Liv and Kate overindulged in the 1 euro 1.5 litre bottles of Sangria whilst in this cute beachside village.

When not lying in bed complaining of sangria induced migraines they headed to the beach (voted the best city beach by the lonely planet, go san sebastian) and soaked up the serenity with their el cheapo home-made bocadillos

From San Sebastian they also did a daytrip out to Bilbao which was filled with people for their local festival that none of us can remember the name.
We also checked out the famous Guggenheim while there and Leon and Liv even managed to fit in a bullfight.

San Sebastian - Spain remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Paris / Bordeaux - weekend trip

2007-09-06T15:25:59Z

After our last night in Barcelona, the five travellers went their separate ways; Kate to Bilbao, Kath and Liv to Paris, and Leon and Charlie headed to Bordeaux (having already done Paris).

Kath and Liv had a whirlwind three days in Paris, arriving very early in the morning after a uncomfortable sleep on the overnight train. First stop was the eiffle tower to beat the touristy queues.

They then continued on to spend the day walking around Paris seeing the rest of the sights (including running into steve martin filming the sequel to the pink panther film).

On Day two they headed out to versailles to bask in the luxury of french royalty with mary antoinette

Meanwhile....

Charlie and Leon headed to wine country - Bordeaux only to find it freezing cold and pissing down with rain.

The city was quite beautifull however and the next day they got down to business and went on a winery tour of the area sneaking quite a few extra tasting glasses as they went.

While they were in the area, they also decided to take a look at La Rochelle, a beach town not far from Bordeaux where it was also pissing down with rain, but they managed to escape it by heading to the cities many medieval towers with tiny tiny spiral stairs (the most fascinating you will ever see according to our friendly guide).

After 3 days of being apart, they could stand it no longer and each made their way back to the five and met up in San Sebastian in Basque Country.

Paris / Bordeaux - weekend trip remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Barcelona

2007-08-19T15:09:50Z

After working in London for a couple of months (and Charlie´s minitrip to Eastern Europe with her mama) we regrouped and arrived in sunny Barcelona the start of our European adventures.
On the first day we did a tour of Gaudi´s Barcelona starting with Casa Battlo, the ¨Most amazing house you have ever been in¨with the ¨most amazing room¨and ¨sink you will never forget¨- according to the audioguide woman.

It was actually pretty amazing and so was Sagrada Familia - the Cathedral that is still being built today after many decades. We then walked to the Hospital he designed and Park Guell with its awesome mosaics and views over the city.

The next day we took a day trip to Tarragonna, the Roman capital of Spain.
It was leading up to festival time so there were decorations everywhere.

Tarragona was beautiful with roman ruins around every cobblestoned corner and a massive amphitheatre overlooking the sea.

That night we decided to head to the local festival and experienced our first sangria fuelled night the festival was fun but the sangria was awesome!
We stumbled home in the wee hours only to discover that LEON had lost the door code to our hostel so thanks to Woods´belly we had to spend a night on the marble waiting for someone to let us in.

Leon has not yet been forgiven...
We also visited the Gothic area of the city, wandered down las Ramblas and sampled the market food.
So far loving the cheap tapas and set menus.

Barcelona remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Washington

2007-06-06T19:34:42Z

Well by the time we got to Washington after 3 months of travelling we were a little travelled out and looking forward to settling down in London. This did make Charlie and Katherine a little lazy but Leon managed to get us out at least a couple of times and did the rest by himself - bless him.

In our defence it was scorching hot and really busy - we didn't realise the weekend we decided to come to Washinton it was Memorial day weekend so the museums were packed with queues just to get in the door. We even saw some of the infamous vietnam veteran bikies which apparently storm washington every year for memorial day.

Whilst visiting the Whitehouse Charlie and Katherine even managed to get a peek at the president! exciting stuff! Ok well he was in a tinted 4WD, among another 6 such tinted 4WDs... but we're definately sure he was in one of them.
Here is where he lives.

If you're ever in Washinton - a great night out is to be had in Dupont Circle where we grew to love to hate the game - Shuffleboard... I think possibly we ended up worse than we started but fun was had by all, and greg - english lad (who i swear to god is Dwayne's long lost twin).

Now that we've left the good old US of A, one thing we are missing are Junior Mints! those loveable deadly mints Kramer dropped in some guys stomach during an operation viewing in Seinfeld.

And that concludes our American continent adventures - it was tacky and loud and full of way too much pizza - and dodgy stomach bugs (thank-you dodgy mexico).

Washington remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Boston and Philly

2007-06-06T19:23:03Z

Boston was a slight shift in mood after having so much fun in New York - it was cold, raining and our hostel was more than questionable. we were paying $40 a night for a room with 24hr neon lights above a bar which played live music till 2am. It was definately a case of the red light in Seinfeld.

We did part of the freedom trail in Boston which incuded a pretty awesome Holocaust memorial.

And we went to the bar that Cheers was modelled off - which conveniantly has renamed itself - Cheers.

Whilst in Boston we also made a trip out to Salem to see the Witch museum (the place which the crucible was based). It was fairly lame but interesting.

To be honest we did spend a significant amount of time at the movies in Boston sneaking into second and third shows in order to avoid the creepy hostel manager and bad weather but finally left for Philadelphia via Providence (yes we did book those flights after a few drinks and clicked the wrong airport...)

Ahhh the beautifull Philly hostel - Chamonix Mansion actually, was a nice refreshing change after the Boston Backpackers. It was only a half hour bus ride out of the city and surrounded by Horse studs, forest and lakes. We did head into Philly tho and saw the steps which Stallone ran up to eye of the tiger in Rocky.
- they even made a statue for him at the bottom.
At the top of the steps is an art museum which was also lovely - this is the view looking out over Philly from the top.

Boston and Philly remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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New York

2007-06-06T19:12:50Z

After Toronto we all headed to the big apple - New York. We got right into sight seeing on our first night there with a visit to Statten Island on a FREE tour organised by the hostel we were staying in. On the way there and back we got a great view of the statue of Liberty.

And on the island we got the best value pizza slice in all of USA - $1.50 slices that were bigger than our heads - and the guy who owned the shop loved us so much he gave us all a free slice. I believe that makes 75cent slices people...
(us with another aussie we picked up - the girl not the pizza guy)
We saw all the sites in New York including the famous Times Square.

where we spent a good deal of our time queuing for cheap broadway tickets. Whilst in New York we managed to catch Hairspray, Mary Poppins and our favourite - Wicked. As well as the New York Ballet.
We also made sure we visited all the villages and different areas of New York while we were there including Chinatown and had great Yum Cha in which we may have consumed some things we didn't recognise but enjoyed nevertheless.

We also went to a Yankees game at the Yankee stadium in the Bronx in which we watched the Yankees totally lose to the Texas Rangers up in the nosebleeds.

And although we didn't manage to get tickets to the show, Leon couldn't resist a photo outside his favourite - the late show.

Of course Charlie and Katherine couldn't resist a photo outside their favourite either - Tiffany & Co on fifth avenue after also being unable to resist some ahhhh *small* purchases?

And that was it - 10 days in New York and we loved every minute of it, even playing kill the cockroaches in Chelsea.

New York remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Canada

2007-05-09T00:11:39Z

From Chicago we flew to Buffalo and bypassed this sleepy town directly for Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
The hostel we were staying in happened to be in the deserted part of town, I'm pretty sure they all turn into vampires at night.

We went and saw the falls the next day - they were watery and fally (leon: they were a magnificent wonder). we also travelled behind the falls on a waste of money journey ending in a small tunnel of white. Unfortunately we missed the maiden of the mist by one friggin week but we'll survive.

Niagara Falls is like a sleepy country town with a giant waterfall and a Vegas Strip of hotels and casinos. On our second night we went on a pub crawl ending in the pub that all the underage americans come to get drunk in and were all reminded of bad yr 11 socials.

From Niagara we took the bus to Toronto. Toronto was a fun town we chilled out a bit here, saw some cheap movies and got to cook our own food finally. We saw the CN tower but decided it was too expensive to go up. We walked to the Shoe museum and the Royal Ontario museum but decided it was too expensive to go in. All the same Toronto was good.

We also met up with some Canadians that we met in LA - who we went to Disneyland with. They very kindly took us all round a few suburbs and Downtown, they even invited us to their brother's birthday dinner! - Thanks Gordana and Jason!
This is a photo of woods and the Canadians outside a bar called woody's which is in the Gay district of Toronto and was featured in Queer as Folk - exciting stuff.

Canada remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Chicago

2007-05-09T00:01:34Z

After 40 degree heat in Mexico we arrived in Chicago freezing our buts off in summer skirts and thongs. The windy city certainly lived up to its name - cold foggy and raining (though Woods informs me, its actually called the windy city due to its long winded politicians - we're so educational), we didn't actually see the tops of the buildings for at least 3 days.

Chicago itself is actually a really beautifull city and reminded us alot of good old Melbourne. The people were nice, we saw some of its famous blues and jazz clubs and the city's art and culture scene were pretty good too.

Charlie had her birthday here and we went on an adventure to some of the posh-o suburbs of Chicago like Lincoln Park and Oak Park (where Frank Lloyd Wright lived and designed many of the houses whilst having affairs with the female owners).

We also headed down to the pier for some ice-cream and a ferris wheel ride which leon suffered through poor soul.

Chicago remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Mexico

2007-04-26T18:10:35Z

So its been a while since we updated our blog, yes we've heard the complaints so here goes a massive entry all in one go, all about wonderfull Mexico - hmmm i think that almost rhymed...
So after a 6 hour delay in Vegas (spent lying on the airport floor with all our luggage because we couldn't check it in till 3 hours before the flight) we finally arrived in Mexico city in the middle of the night.
Waking up in hour kookie hotel right in the heart of downtown mexico was a slight culture shock after the massive glitzy hotels of the Vegas strip and we were immediately swallowed up by people - Mexico city is we've been told by several tour guides the most populated city in the world or something. I vaguely remember 20 million people - basically australia in a city.

We had 5 days there - saw some cathedrals, went out and made friends with some mexican cover bands, found almost every diego riviera museum we could find and made the pilgrimmage to Frida and Diego's house in one of the most beautifull suburbs of Mexico city.
We also went to Teoti.... some ruins just outside of mexico city which we were dissapointed to find out were only 15% real but proceeded to climb all 3 pyramids nonetheless.

at the end of staying in Mexico city we met up with the Gap group that we were doing the tour with who all turned out to be a great bunch, we were definately sad to see them go at the end.

So with the group we started to make our way into central Mexico staying at some awesome little towns and villages along the way, travelling mostly by bus.
From Oaxaca we went to a Zapoteca (Indian) reservation, swam in salt water springs in the mountains overlooking a valley and petrified waterfall, and walked up a mountain along a very hot and windy road to some ruins at Monte Alban.

We also visited a rather interesting town called San Christobal which is best described as a mini european village in the middle of Mexico populated by French hippie tourists that decided never to leave - or brush their hair.
We went to some traditional mayan villages - in San Juan we actaully saw a chicken being sacrificed in their church by chance which was fairly amazing and a little confrontational, pretty sure we all looked away before the neck was broken.
We also spent a few nights in the Jungle in Palenque and went to i think the best ruins we saw in all of Mexico - right in the middle of the jungle it looked like something out of Jurassic park and sounded like it too with Howler monkeys making dinosaur noises in the background. You could climb all the pyramids and even see some of the original reliefs and stucco at the tops - pretty wow.
From there we went to Merida, and visited the local ceynotes which are like sink holes underground, basically you catch a horse drawn cart whcih runs along rail tracks into the middle of nowhere and climb down a ladder into an underground caves with crystal clear water you can swim in and bats and stallectites up above.
very special.
I (Charlie) even jumped from above the ground into one of them and after stepping off and realising just how far it was till i hit the water could be heard screaming 'fuck' the whole way down.
On the way to i think it was Merida we stopped at Chichen Itza - now up for one of the wonders of the world, although i have to say not the most impressive ruins we had seen by far, but probably one of the most famous in Mexico - its the one where on the equinox you can see the shadow of the snake climb around the pyramid.

From Merida we finally made it to the beach! which was a blessing as it was damn hot and humid the whole way along. We ended the tour in Playa del Carmen, where the tourists and prices tripled. We had a birthday celebration night there for a couple of the people from our tour and got pinyatas (spelling?) and tequilla and had an awesome last night, which we all regretted the next day.
After we said goodbye to our fellow travellers me leon and woods headed off to Cancun on our lonesome where we stayed downtown for a few nights before heading to Isla Mujeres for a night which was a small island about 45 minutes by ferry from Cancun. I think we all wished we could have spent a few more nights there, the whole place had a really good atmosphere - despite having no doors on the bathroom to Woody's horror.

And thats it. From the island we are now in Chicago - the windy and bloody cold city. but i'll save those stories for another entry.
Love to you all from all of us xoxo

Mexico remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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LA, San Diego and Las Vegas fun!!

2007-04-02T00:06:38Z

Sorry about the delay guys, but we've finally found a computer to update our blog on. A lots happened since our last entry, our first stop was in LA. We stayed in two hostels there, one on hollywood blvd and the other on melrose. Both were really great. We went out heaps to all the famous bars like the viper room (owned by jonny depp and river pheonix died out the front). all the cool looking night clubs wouldn't let us in, we obviously didn't look rich and beautiful enough! We went on a tour and saw all the movie stars homes (tom cruise, lucille ball, madonna etc)
So we did all the theme parks aswell, had a ball at disney land and universal studios. We did EVERY ride at both places to get out moneys worth!

After 9 days in LA we moved on to sandiego for a week. We went to the san diego zoo, bikeriding along the beaches, and to tijuana (mexico) which was only a 45 min ride from san diego. Woods had her birthday there and we went out for dinner along the beach. We found a pub that claimed to be 'australian' but turned out to only have fosters on tap and a few boomerangs and the rest of the place was filled with american sporting pictures.

Tijuana was not very exciting as it was very touristy, the only good thing we found was $1 caronas and $1 tacos. We went with a guy from england we met called richard, and we bought a bucket of 10 caronas for $10!!!

We flew out from LA into Las vegas at the 5 star hotel called 'the wynn' which was fantastic. Charlies dad spoiled us rotten and looked after us while he was there. We saw david copperfield on the first night, and cirque de soliel 'love' on the second night. They were both fantastic. We also visited the play boy lounge and hung out with some playboy bunnies. We spotted adam sandler having a gamble there. We also did a limo ride down the strip in a stretch hummer which was great fun and visited the coyote ugly bar.

LA, San Diego and Las Vegas fun!! remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Drive down Highway 1 (San Fran to LA)

2007-03-11T06:02:42Z

So we hired a car in San Fran and decided to take three days to drive down highway 1 along the coast to LA. The trip didn't start off on the best note with us driving over Leon's backpack and killing his camera and sunglasses (oops!). We then decided to name our car 'Stampy' in memory of this event. The views along the coast were really beautiful

We stayed in a dodgy motel in Carmel on the first night then the next day we drove to Hearst Castle and did a tour there. The house was unbelievable (the house behind us is only the biggest guest house, not the actual castle which was insanely huge)

We then broke all speed limits to get to Santa Barbara by night. We had a great night out with the youth hostel we stayed in getting us two for one drinks at a local bar. The drink you see below is named 'the party bucket' and it certainly started the party, and also ended the party for leon and charlie who stumbled home later that night.

Drive down Highway 1 (San Fran to LA) remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The windy road

2007-03-08T17:18:57Z

Today Charlie and Leon visited the Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the local museum and toured through the Golden Gate Bridge Park.

Later we all headed out to the windy road, which is a very windy road indeed. The thing that will stick in our mind is the steep hills leading up and down the street, which is prob why they built such a silly road in the first place

We've hired a car to drive down Highway 1 to LA. Leon has bravely volunteered to drive us out of the city onto the highway, where we will be driving right on the edge of cliffs. We'd better make sure we drive on the right side of the road!

The windy road remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Nappa Valley San Fran

2007-03-06T02:54:30Z

Today we were very spoilt and were taken to the Nappa Valley by Lisa (charlies family friend) and her boyfriend John. John is a wine distributor and is very familiar with nappa so he organised a vip tour of one of the Tattinger winery which is a french company.

We then got taken to a very very nice restaurant for lunch and went to a few more wineries before heading home after a long and filling day!

Nappa Valley San Fran remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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castro street, san fran

2007-03-06T02:55:06Z

Today we hit castro street which is the big gay district of San Francisco. Leon went shopping there during the day to check it out for us:

Then we all went out drinking there during the night. it was by far the best night we've had out in San Fran. We had a ball and got lots of attention for being Austrlians. Charlie and Woods were one of the few girls in most of the bars but this resulted in several free drinks for them so it all ended up well. Below is a picture of one of the many people we met that night.

castro street, san fran remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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alcatraz

2007-03-03T01:42:45Z

today we took the ferrie to alcatraz we did a walking tour then saw inside the cells, it was good but long and cold, leon complained so we put him in solitary confinement and turned him on his side

after we got back from alcatraz we took a walk through pier 39, pretty cheesy touristy stuff but we tasted our first american pretzel, it was pretty much like bread but sweet

alcatraz remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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our first night out in san fran

2007-03-03T01:39:25Z

We started our night at a swanky gallery opening in the city (with free wine) then headed downtown to valencia for some food and made an exciting discovery of 2 DOLLAR BEERS at the dodgy cheap italian where we had dinner with massive bowls of pasta. not sure if the cheap beer will continue but we can only hope.

our good beer fun ended quickly with the taste of our first local beer

but the night ended well playing pool and chilling at the local

our first night out in san fran remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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First day in San Fran

2007-03-01T02:14:37Z

Family friend of charlie's - Lisa, picked us up from the airport and took us back to her swanky san fran pad, just 5 mins from city centre with 4 storeys! we are staying with her for 7 nights. After dragging our heavy arse suitcases up the many flights of stairs she took us on a driving tour of San Fran so we could get our barings.

We saw the golden bridge

and even the house used in Mrs Doubtfire

First day in San Fran remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our First Plane Trip

2007-03-01T02:10:06Z

Hullo all from the US of A!
we arrived today after a very uneventfull plane trip involving a 3 hour delay in Sydney...
Woods won most heavy suitcase award of 25kg followed closely by charlie with 22kg, leon, forever stylish had a suitable 19kg. The movies were good, food bad and seats cramped. Sleep was had by none.

Our First Plane Trip remains copyright of the author woods, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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