Day 18 to 20 - Las Vegas: bright lights, bad traffic, great shopping!

After our one night stop over in LA we walked to the Avis car rental place which was only a few minutes from the hotel. We had arranged to get gps, however they ended up having a car with built in gps which was even better. This turned out to be our ride... Not bad! And very comfortable...

Here's a pic of the inbuilt gps (not exciting if you already have one like this but I've never seen anything like it. Nice big screen and easy to use)...

    

So we were off, Troy at the wheel, gps set for Las Vegas and we affectionately named our gps voice 'Nancy the Navigator'.

It's about a 4 hour trip from LA to Las Vegas but the trip out there seemed to go quite fast. Many of you reading this have been there so you know what the landscape looks like. For those who haven't, picture desert and hills. Every now and then, a town will pop up in the middle of the desert. Here are some pics from our road trip...

                          

I'm still trying to work out how to say this road name...

And of course it is very much RV country around this part of the world... this was the biggest one we saw along the way (it wouldn't fit in one photo!)...            
   

 

We stopped about a half hour out of Vegas at a place called Primm where one of the fashion factory outlets is located for a bit of a look around and a shop. There were also a couple of casinos there, including one which has a rollercoaster going around think (a bit similar to the Luna Park rollercoaster).

On the road again and heading into Vegas... Here are a couple of pics of our first impressions...

Billboards everywhere!

And then we arrived at our accommodation...

We found a park easily then headed inside to check in - oh my goodness,  this place was insane! People everywhere, everything over the top (like all of Vegas). We then headed up to our room - we had to walk through the casino to get there. That was interesting trying to get through the crowd with all of our luggage! It was also Friday so a lot seemed to be arriving for the weekend, plus we found out on the way there on the radio that it was spring break too. Great.

Here are a few pics of the hotel and the view walking from the hotel to the strip at night...

 

 

 

 

 
We settled in (we had a really nice room which had been recently renovated), then headed out for dinner before returning to the Bellagio to have a look around the casino at night. Wow, Vegas really attracts all types from all walks of life. Our people watching radar was going off the scale! Our first impression of Vegas was it was as we expected - very bright, busy, full on and over the top.

It seems no one can understand me on the west coast either - I kept having to repeat myself. Am I really that hard to understand? They seemed to understand Troy perfectly. Although, Troy did ask a sales assistant where the jumpers were and she asked what a jumper is! Anyway, we had a pretty early night ahead of a big shopping day the next day.

So our shopping day arrived (yay!) We got to the second factory outlet just after opening time and I won't tell you what time we left! After a big day of shopping we headed back to the strip and decided to drive up and down to have a look. An hour later, we had driven the short distance up
and back! As we started driving up the strip, a lot of the big resorts had their lights off so it didn't look as full on as usual. Half way down I clicked it was earth hour. So by the end of our drive, everything was back on. We drove by Circus Circus (see pic) where my family stayed in 1983! We didn't end up going in though.

We dropped the car and our shopping off at the hotel and ended up at Gordon Ramsey's restaurant called 'Burgr' at the Planet Hollywood hotel/casino. Oh my goodness - we had the best gourmet burger either of us have ever tasted! Very fresh, quality produce, it was great. We decided to have a 'sensible' gamble each after dinner. We didn't spend much at all but we both left 'up' which was good!

Our last day arrived and repacking was a fairly seamless process which was good. We said goodbye to Vegas and headed back down the I15 - along with every man and his dog leaving after the weekend. Oh my goodness - the traffic was horrendous and travelling at a snail's pace. We stopped a short while later to get some petrol, lunch and a couple of last minute items at the shops. Trying to get petrol was a nightmare, plus if you're paying with cash, you have to pre pay, guess how much you need then go back in for change, but we worked it out (eventually).

Finally back on the road - it was one of the most nerve wracking car rides of my life. People say the NYC taxi drivers are bad, but the west coast drivers are worse! Constantly breaking on the freeway, swerving in and out (and not leaving much room for error!) We passed a five car pile up about half way through our trip. We made it back in one piece though - it's a four hour trip, it took us eight hours! Once we dropped the car off it was a very seamless process getting from there to the airport via the shuttle, checked in in plenty of time etc.

Troy had the same seat on the flight home as he had on the flight over which he was happy about and we both managed to get some sleep.   

We had a wonderful trip - three weeks was the perfect amount of time for us.

  

There have been so many highlights, we can't pick one. Every city was so different and offered something very unique. We'll definitely be back though and we've already talked about where we'd go next time. Whenever I've been away, it always makes me appreciate Australia and home that bit more. We look forward to catching up with you all soon and filling in the blanks (although we've documented nearly everything in this blog). We hope you've enjoyed reading our blog and following us as much as we've enjoyed writing it and updating you on our adventures. Thanks for tuning in!

Day 17: New York to LA: time to pack away our winter woolies

Where did those two weeks go? Today started with repacking (again). At least with the extra suitcases, it is easier to pack everything (for now). We ended up at Pastis in the Meatpacking District – it is the sister restaurant of the French Bistro, Balthazar, that we visited last week. It was also recommended to us by a couple of different people. It was good to see yet another area of New York that we hadn’t seen – here are a couple of pics of the area and Pastis…

And look whose offices are in the Meatpacking District (or it could actual be classed as Chelsea)…

I would have really liked to have looked inside their offices – apparently the fit out is amazing!

So we were left with a couple of hours left in New York before leaving for the airport… what should we do? Shop of course! This time flew and before we knew it, we were back at the hotel collecting our bags. We asked the doorman for a taxi and he said he had a car outside for the same cost as a taxi… here’s our ride…

Yes, it’s a white stretch limousine. Complete with crystal glassware, tinted windows, green sparkly lights on the roof and neon lights around the bar area. Needless to say, we had a bit of a chuckle – although from a practical perspective, I think we actually needed the extra boot space in the end.
When we asked the front desk person at our hotel this morning how long we should allow to get out to the airport, he said one hour should be plenty. One hour and forty minutes later we arrived at Terminal 7. Our limo ride was eventful, including unbelievably congested traffic and a car accident (yes, our limo driver ran up the back of someone). He seemed to be very conscious of getting us there asap – I had no idea limos could get up to those speeds (we seemed to be going a lot faster than everyone else!) Anyway, we got there in one piece.

Our flight wasn’t too busy and the delightful lady checking us in gave us a row of three to ourselves, so we could spread out a little. We flew over Las Vegas - wow, does the strip stand out! We couldn't believe just how bright it was. We arrived in LA about 9.30pm - it was all very well organised with Qantas staff directing us to the baggage claim so we found our bags easily and then we waited for the hotel shuttle for about 15 minutes to take us about 1km (we didn't fancy trying to walk out of LAX though - it's crazy as many of you will know!)

We checked into our hotel without any issue and have a very comfortable room for one night. We forgot until we got into bed how close we are to the airport - those planes are loud! Anyway, a good night's rest before an early start to drive to Las Vegas to win back what we've spent on this trip! (Joke).

Day 16 - New York: first Tom, now Scarlett

Yesterday was our last full day in New York, it was a lovely sunny day but of course, still freezing. We had been to all of the tourist spots last week, so thought we’d have an easier day and explore a bit more and just play the day by ear.

I took this from the window next to lifts on our hotel room floor (unfortunately our room looked out onto the other side and nowhere near a view like this!)

We started with breakfast near the hotel – I’ve given up on cappuccinos so have opted for regular (filtered) coffee. Loving the free refills!
We passed a couple of school buses on the way, I love the old school style buses…

We decided to then head to Central Park for a wander – we had only seen it in dreary weather and snow. All of the guys with bicycle and carriages (i.e. a bike with a carriage for 2 or 4 people on the back) were out in force, there were so many of them trying to sell rides through Central Park to people passing by.

We would have loved to have seen the park with some trees in bloom, but at least it was a sunny day when we went – I’ve included some pics below. The ice skating rink was in full swing, again, I couldn’t quite persuade Troy to go skating, however, it was very cold so getting wet and even colder didn’t really appeal. We saw a couple of impressive stacks from skaters, so that kept us entertained for a little while! (So much easier to comment from the sidelines!)

 

Squirrels seem to be everywhere!

And just because I haven't posted enough selfie photos (in case anyone has forgotten what we look like)...

Then it was shopping time! We still can’t get over how good the shopping is (and we haven’t even got to the outlets in Las Vegas yet!) We went to a couple of department stores and then ended up at a discount Levi’s store across the road from our hotel. Kudos to my ever patient husband who stood there for about an hour while I had a couple of salespeople fuss over me giving me many different styles of jeans to try on. It was actually excellent service and it worked because I ended up with a couple of pairs.

We thought we might see a play or musical on our last night in New York – for those that don’t know, there is a last minute ticket booth called “tkts” located in the heart of Times Square. They open at 3pm every day and sell last minute tickets to Broadway and Off Broadway shows for that night. It’s a series of ticket booths lined up (my attempt at a pic is below).

We had seen the play ‘Cat on a hot tin roof’ starring Scarlett Johansson advertised before we left Australia so thought we’d try our luck at getting tickets. The tkts outlet only had one option for tickets, so we ended up going to the theatre and they had more ticket options. So we purchased them from there in the end.

Now there was one last thing I wanted to do and that was try a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery (the bakery which is in the Sex and the City TV show). Due to time, we didn’t think we’d have time to go to the original bakery in Greenwich Village, so I had seen one near Times Square that I thought I was leading Troy towards. Turns out, I navigated us to Grand Central station – now it’s a lovely old station but the food court in the basement isn’t. That’s where Magnolia Bakery ended up being. Not the romantic Sex and the City moment I was after! But we still tried a cupcake (pic below). Sorry to anyone that loves Magnolia, we weren’t very impressed in the end.

We headed back to the hotel for a little while to freshen up, had a quick, casual dinner and then it was show time. Our tickets ended up being three rows from the front – I took this sneaky photo before the play started…

They were fantastic seats! The play was fabulous, nearly three hours long. It was a very intense story with complex characters. Scarlett Johansson was excellent (and beautiful in person). It was very much an ensemble effort though and all of the actors were amazing. Troy really enjoyed it too (I may get him to a couple of plays in Melbourne now). A great way to spend our last night in New York.

Day 15 - Boston to New York: back to the craziness

So we left Boston on another freezing cold day and it was still snowing... this was taken from our hotel window...

We got our hotel bill under our door the morning we checked and couldn't get over the taxes! There was a Massachusetts State Tax, Boston City Tax and a Convention Centre Finance Tax. I know other cities charge a tax, but not three!

Anyway, the train station is a two minute taxi ride from our hotel, so what do we choose to do on a snowy day? Walk. However, from the Sheraton over the road from our hotel to the train station, it's all under cover due to joined shopping malls! So we were undercover for the most part.

Our luggage has now doubled! We started with two suitcases and now have four... we haven't even bought that much yet! (Maybe I'm in denial!)

 

It was sad to say goodbye to Boston - we both loved it so much! It had such a fabulous feel to it and we loved the areas we visited. Coming back into New York on the train was great - we had an awesome panoramic view of the city and it reminded me just how unique this city is and how different it is to anywhere either of us have been before. It almost felt like coming home arriving back in NYC - ok, maybe not quite home! But it certainly felt familiar.

 

We are staying in the mid town area, close to Times Square but still a little away thank goodness. It's a completely different experience to staying on the Upper West Side as we did last week (good position for shopping though!)

 

We got to the hotel - nice size room and if you put your cheek to the glass you can see Times Square to the right of us! We drop our washing off (still loving the $1 per pound of washing) and hit the shops. For those interested (probably not many)... I sourced out a gorgeous quilting shop that sells amazing fabrics! Troy was a very patient husband waiting for me while I shopped.

 

I'd come across another little Italian place on Trip Advisor for dinner so we ended up there - we had to wait for a table so we had a drink at the bar. We came across a bit of a tipping dilemma at the restaurant (still getting used to who to tip and when). There was a dedicated lady behind the bar - I asked whether we pay at the bar or can it be added to our bill. She said whatever we prefer. We want it added to our bill - do we still tip her?? We did.

 

Then when we left, the hostess held our shopping bags in the cloakroom - do we tip her for holding shopping bags?? At least we know we haven't offended anyone! (Hopefully).

 

So dinner was lovely - the restaurant is ranked pretty high on Trip Advisor and it's a fairly reasonably priced place and I think it was quite obvious that they are wanting to continue to impress. Not only was the service excellent, but they brought out complimentary appetisers to start. It obviously works as we will be giving them a good review.

Day 14 - Boston: let's go Celtics, let's go!

Yesterday was another sunny, yet freezing cold day in Boston! Apart from the fact it's been around 0 degrees, we have been very lucky that we have had dry and sunny days in both Washington and Boston (especially because we have had limited time in both cities, too).

Our day started with breakfast down Newbury Street (which is the lovely street near our hotel with lots of shopping and cafes) and we ended up at the same café as the day before. We had a quick bite to eat before heading off to meet our group for the Freedom Trail walking tour.

The Trail takes you on a walk around Boston's downtown area and points out landmarks relevant to the 18th and 19th centuries. Our tour guide (in character, she is know as Mrs Dawes I shall explain later) was dressed up in 18th century costume (see pic below) and has a history degree - her knowledge was fantastic and she made the tour both fun and entertaining.

Like a nerd, I was frantically taking notes as she spoke (despite the fact we have Google!) I (and Troy) found the tour so interesting though that I want to remember as much as possible. This blog post will be another history lesson for the most part, so if this doesn't interest you then I suggest you scroll to the bottom and refer to the basketball game section!

So our tour started in the Boston Common (the gardens I spoke about in Day 13's blog post) where we were taken through the history of how "the Common" as it is known, came to be. First of all, I will just mention that the name Boston is named after a town in England (and that town was named after a saint - I learnt this bit from a lovely chap on the train!) Anyway, the second group of settlers (Puritan Colonists from England) in Boston ended up naming this piece of land as the Boston Common in 1634 - i.e. a place for all to come and enjoy.

There used to be an area in the Common called the stocks - this is where people were sent for doing something "bad", i.e. falling asleep in church! And the punishment for such "bad" deeds? The townspeople would throw rotten fruit amongst other things at them (the Common was originally used for cattle grazing, so there was a lot of rotten stuff around to throw, I'll let your imagination guess what else was thrown!) On a more serious note, hangings used to also occur in the Common in front of anyone who wanted to go along (even children were allowed to attend).

We then moved to look at the New State House (which is the below building - I posted a pic of it in the previous day's blog, but had no idea what it was). It was built in 1798 and was originally just the red brick and had a wooden dome, before copper sheeting was added to the dome by a silversmith named Paul Revere (does anyone know who he is? I'll get to him a bit later). Real gold leaf was added to the dome at a later date and that dome still stands today. This building has always been and still is the meeting place for the Boston Government, including the Senate and House of Representatives.

Boston was also the first state to abolish slavery.

We then walked to one of the oldest burial grounds I've ever seen (see pic below). It was originally created by the Puritans - they named it a burial ground and as they were not into any kind of pomp, they didn't believe in cemeteries, large tomb stones etc. Then when the Victorians came along, they removed all of the tomb stones and placed them in a more orderly fashion (however they didn't remove the bodies along with them! So no one really knows who is under each stone). They also added the paths and trees. As the burial grounds were getting more and more full, they started stacking bodies on top of one another (some have as many as 4 coffins stacked on each other, so some people are buried only a foot underground. Our tour guide said that this is very rare, but she has seen a foot or edge of a coffin sticking out of the ground because of this!

Our guide (Mrs Dawes), continued to tell us about a few people buried in the burial ground, who have been key individuals in Boston's history, including James Otis Junior - he was a very gifted speaker, but considered outspoken in his day. He coined phrases such as "No taxation without representation" and "A man's home is his castle".

John Hancock has two tomb stones in the burial ground - he was one of the gentlemen who signed the Declaration of Independence and apparently is well known for signing it with a huge signature! He was one of the richest men in Boston at the time and loved himself! He was referred to as 'the purse of the American Revolution'. He didn't get along very well with George Washington and fancied himself as the first President before Washington was appointed. He didn't get along with his wife either - their first born child was a son and she named him John George Washington Hancock!

Paul Revere is also buried in this burial ground - he is probably the most popular name in Boston associated with the American Revolution. He was involved in the 'Midnight Ride' in 1775 - the purpose of this ride was to travel to Lexington to tell John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were coming for them. There was a curfew in Boston at the time and it was a secret mission, hence the time of day it occurred. It wasn't until 1860 when a famous poem was written about the Midnight Ride and the author selected Paul Revere as the hero of this event, however in actual fact, it was a group effort (including the effort of William Dawes, our tour guide's "husband"). It's become a bit of a joke (in an affectionate way) that Paul Revere is all through Boston's history - he pops up everywhere!

The final person we're "introduced" to is Samuel Adams - he was also one of the gentlemen who signed the Declaration of Independence. He was apparently great at manipulating public opinion. He coined the phrase "the Boston Massacre", however only 5 people died. When you ask people around Boston today who Samuel Adams is, most people will say that he's a beer brand! There is a photo of Samuel Adams on the beer bottle, however the joke is that the picture looks more like Paul Revere than Adams.

We then made our way to the Old South Meeting House which is where the last meeting of the Boston Tea Party was held. The Boston Tea Party refers to the decision to raise taxes on tea to help the largest supplier of tea at the time (whose business was struggling) - an East India tea company. There was an outcry about this and a riot lead by a group known as the 'Sons of Liberty' occurred after the last meeting. Why was tea so important? Because it made water safe and tea had medicinal properties (no one obviously thought that once you boil water it's safe anyway!)

The last place on our tour was the Old State House built in 1713. That was the political centre before the New State Building was built later that century. In the pic below, you can see a balcony on the front of the building - this where the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time. A riot followed this reading where the original gold statues at the top of this building were pulled down and burnt (as they were a sign of British authority). The famous Boston Massacre also occurred in the streets surrounding this building.

So that's today's history lesson! After the tour we headed to Marshall's which is a shopping centre - not sure how to describe it, it has a mixture of known brands and no name brands at reasonable prices. We went in to buy leggings for me (so cold), but turns out they didn't have any leggings, but Troy did pretty well out of this shopping trip and we ended up buying two more suitcases - our current cases were almost bursting at the seams (and we haven't even hit the discount malls in Las Vegas yet!) We picked up two Samsonite cases very cheap which was good. If anyone ever needs a lend of a suitcase, we will have about eight at the end of this trip I think!

So the afternoon flew by and before we knew it, we were back at the hotel for a quick change before heading out to an early dinner and then onto the basketball game Troy has been anticipating this whole trip - Boston Celtics versus Miami Heat.

I researched for a restaurant for dinner and came across a place in Newbury Street which has a good rating on Trip Advisor. It was this very cute little Italian Restaurant - see a couple of pics below. It was such a nice, intimate restaurant and the food was fantastic! All of their pasta is homemade -
I had the shrimp linguini with white wine, olive oil and tomato. Simple flavours but wow! I'm still thinking about it! The service was great too and overall a very nice experience.

(The palm trees and beach balls refer to the shop above!)

We then navigated our way to the train station - the trains look more like a series of trams joined together, here's my attempt at a photo...

Now quite a few Americans seem to have trouble understanding me but they understand Troy perfectly. We ended up meeting a couple of really nice Boston guys on the train and had a bit of a chat. One of them picked me straight away as an Aussie but they couldn't pick Troy's accent (probably because I was talking more which I know will shock you all!) He proceeded to ask me if I was from Northern Australia because my accent is so strong... this amused Troy quite a bit.

And then we arrived at TD Garden, home of the Boston Celtics - I wore my green top to feel part of it and we both bought Celtics hats. There was a huge line to get in, but it moved pretty quickly. And then we got to our seats... WOW! Troy being the American sports fan that he is, decided to get almost court side tickets (after a little encouraging from me too). We were 5 rows back from the court and had amazing seats at one end of the court. We originally thought the tickets were going to be more to one side, however we were right behind the basket. We were a little worried before the game started that we'd miss out on quite a bit but most of the play at our end was on our side which was great.

It was such a fantastic experience to be that close - I've got even more of an appreciation for their ability and athleticism (and of course their height!)

Anyway, I'm sure everyone would prefer Troy's thoughts on this topic! Here's his take on the game:

Hi, welcome to my blog...well the one small footnote I get.
What a game we got to watch, the build up to the game was intense with the Miami Heat looking to extend their winning streak to 23 games and have the second longest winning streak in NBA history.

From the Celtics perspective they just hate the Heat and being a veteran team wanted to teach the arrogant Heat a thing or two from the old school.

The Celtics' main power forward was out with a groin injury so they had to start Jeff Green in his place and he is a player that has great potential but has never been able to deliver.

So after the regular introductions and Goosebumps that come with the national anthem it was game on. The Celtics came out hard and by early in the 2nd quarter Celtics had built a lead of around 18 points and the crowd was completely insane. After half time the Heat had got it all the way back to even and the crowd had gone fairly quiet. The big surprise was Jeff Green who half way through the 3rd quarter had already had a career night with 33 points on his way to a game high 43 points. The crowd was in shock with his efforts and they were chanting his name when he was going for free throws.

However as great a game he was having the Celtics could not stop Lebron James who is just at another level and we will be comparing him to Jordan at some stage. He is just a complete player and with his size and speed you can't stop him single handed.

So the game was tied with 30 seconds to play and Lebron made a big shot and put the Heat up, Celtics had a couple of chances to tie again however after a couple of reviews and missed shots they came up just short.

It was the perfect game to attend as it had everything you want from a basketball game and from my perspective I was just in awe of their size, speed and skill and still can't believe I got to attend a game that will be remembered in history as the game the Heat won to have the second longest winning streak in history.

So that is all from the sports desk, we have March Madness on in college basketball at the moment so sport everywhere here which is awesome. Back to Soph.

Here are some pics from the basketball...

Miami Heat # 3, Dwayne Wade and # 6, Lebron James...

 

 

 

So they not only had cheerleaders but a team of guys and girls who made up the cheer squad (shown in photos below) and their mascot 'Lucky' who does all sorts of acrobatic stuff...

 

 

Here are the cheerleaders (mid twirl I think)...

 

 

A special mention has to go to this security guard... such a great game and he had to watch all of us and saw nothing of the game!!

 

 

All of the crowds at the other sporting events we've been to had nothing on the Boston Celtics crowd - the noise was unbelievable! And I got whacked on the head by the passionate supporter behind me. It was such a fantastic atmosphere to be part of and we will both remember it forever.

We left the stadium and it was snowing! But we navigated our way back to the hotel safely, feeling a little sad to be leaving Boston.