Around the World with Charlie,Leon&Woods

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.