That time we missed New Orleans…

We stayed for two days in New Orleans, specifically in the French Quarter, which is beautiful and funnily enough, quite French looking. With streets called Toulouse Avenue and such, you really do feel like you’re in a completely different place. This is made all the more surreal when you round a corner to see a beautiful building with ornate wrought-iron railings, with a skyscraper sticking out of the top… Like this:

That’s a funny thing about America (there are a lot of funny things about America – so many in fact I think that ‘funny things about America’ might have to be a completely separate post), every American City looks the same – just a mass of skyscrapers, some have more skyscrapers, some have less, but they’ve all got at least one token tall building – if you get lost head for that and you’re all good.

New Orleans has another interesting quirk. We tried to take a drive from the French Quarter to the Garden District to have a look around. A fairly simple looking route quickly became hugely complex when we got on the street where we needed to turn left… Apparently you can’t turn left in New Orleans. No, seriously. All the blocks are really close together, and each one has a set of traffic lights and signs mounted above your head. You can imagine the scene therefore when I am doing my thing with the map saying ‘turn left turn left,’ Becky says ‘no seriously I can’t,’ and I look up to see a row of no-left-turn signs as far as the eye can see, stretching off into the distance.. We still to this moment don’t know why you’re not allowed to turn left, if you approached that road from any other direction you were allowed to drive on it, but apparently turning left is a no go. Anyway, we carried on up the road hoping for a left turn (it never appeared) until we decided we really had better turn right, then turn around and approach the ‘no left turn’ from a different angle. The reason for this was that The Book told us not to go too far North in New Orleans as it not as safe for tourists to be wandering about in. It even gave us the name of the street that we weren’t meant to go North of. I don’t know where we were in relation to that street but I’m pretty sure we were close if not above it, so for the second time in almost as many days we quickly turned around and went back to the safety of the touristy bit.

On the first morning we had one of the best breakfasts we’ve had this holiday. We went to ‘The Grill’ which was again recommended by The Book. I read the tripadvisor reviews on it before we went and it said ‘don’t be alarmed by the crazy waiters..’ Becky did not read them and I didn’t say anything.. So we arrived and went through the door and on our way in were greeted by Joey. Here is the man himself:

This was a very covertly taken picture as if he’d seen what we were up too it would have been all too exciting. So anyway, we walk in and Joey says to Becky “heyyy baby sit yourself down over here my darling, what can I get you today” (or something very similar) then after giving her the chance to look at the menu… “Alright baby lets get it on” – we assumed that meant ‘what would you like to eat’ so proceeded to order an omelette. Becky by this point is several shades redder than usual, surprised that I was finding it so funny, I thought it might be time to tell her what I’d heard about him before! The omelette was the best omelette I’ve ever had by a long way (it had chilli on the top!) and our breakfast entertainment was out on by our dear Joey singing and dancing and generally being excitable. They were all really nice people though and talked to us (you all sit on the bar with Joey in the middle) giving us tips on where to go and one lady even gave us this fudge/praline thing which was fantastic. In fact the only grumpy person in that place was the man at the till, although maybe that’s because he had to work with Joey every day! All the food in New Orleans was delicious, I reckon you could have a pretty good foodie holiday there if you were so inclined.

Our hotel was in the French Quarter too, and I think has been one of the best we’ve had, small but romantic.

Perhaps it was a little too cozy, especially given one of our other favourite habits (besides being late). New Orleans is really hot and humid in the middle of the day, so we decided that we’d retreat to the comfort of our air conditioned room for an hour or so. So there we are, watching TV and Becky says “shall we have a quick nap?”
“Yes, but it can’t be too long”
“Ok, set the alarm on for 15 mins time”

3 hours later, we wake up. We missed most of the afternoon and feeling a little sorry for ourselves we went for dinner and saw what we could. Over-napping – it’s a curse. Never trust us with an alarm clock, it’s not a good plan.

And finally, I want to take a minute to talk about trains. At home, everyone who lives in our area is getting concerned about a new high speed rail link they want to build between London and Birmingham called HS2. My message to them is, it’s not the high speed trains you wanna worry about, it the low speed ones. At the end of the day, when a high speed train goes past at least it’s over and done with. Here, not so much. There are plenty of crossings over railways, particularly in towns, and the first time we saw a train we were really excited, for the first minute…

For the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th minutes our emotions ranged from puzzlement to confusion to disbelief to despair and even the sort of dread I can only liken to when you were a kid playing hide and seek and realise, whilst in a particularly good hiding place, that you really need to pee. I don’t know how a train can be 10 minutes long but we counted one the other day and it was 125 carriages.. 125! And it’s one of those giant rumbly freight trains too – the front can easily be a km away from the back if my maths serves me correctly, which it rarely does. I guess that they have to be that big because of the distances they’re travelling, but I don’t understand how it’s scientifically possible. I’m basing this on the fact that when I was little I had a toy brio train set, and I can categorically tell you that it’s not possible to have a train with more than about 8 carriages, because if you do it falls over in the middle round corners. A kilometer long train? It just doesn’t seem right to me.. Maybe that’s why it has to go so slow. Also, when they go through the towns they spend the entire time honking their giant and very loud horns, which keep Becky awake at night.

Anyway, enough about trains now it’s time to follow the Mississippi River up to Texas!

Chris

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Musical Memphis

We only had a short time in Memphis, but we filled it with all things musical. First up was a visit to see Elvis’ mansion in Graceland. It’s a pretty interesting place, for more than one reason. It’s genuinely cool to see where he lived, how he lived and it does give you a unique insight into the personal life of an icon. Whether the fact you can do that is a good thing or not I guess depends on your point of view. Elvis’ house is pretty darn swanky, as you’d expect really, we didn’t take any pictures inside but here’s one of the front.

Inside is perhaps not as big as you’d expect, but finished in a typically extravagant style with the entertainment of guests as a priority. The TV room and the Jungle Room are probably the highlights (yes, it’s decorated like a jungle, there’s even a waterfall in it). The grounds are also amazing, the fact that the stables still house horses is a nice touch, and looking inside his private jet was also cool.

There are a couple of weird things about Graceland however. Firstly, people really aren’t over his death. We happened to be there during ‘Elvis Week’ so that may have contributed, but even so. Basically, the 14 year old girls that swooned over the King of Rock and Roll are now in their 60’s, (don’t quote me on the maths there) but the passion has not died down, people still weep at his grave. The whole place seems to be tailored to fit this clientele, with more importance placed on things such as “this is Elvis’ graduation certificate and driving license” than “this is how fame affected him”, or even his story outside of the music. A particularly good demonstration of this, and the second weird thing about Graceland, is that there is absolutely no mention of the fact that he and his EX-WIFE Priscilla ever got divorced. Priscilla is referred to by the staff at Graceland as Elvis’ beautiful wife, there is nothing that would indicate they were divorced in any part of the site. Interesting, particularly when you learn who is in charge of the Graceland Memorial Museum… Yep, you guessed it. Someone is earning a monumental amount of money out of this – tickets were 47 dollars each. Since this we have done a bit of research (mostly via Wikipedia) and it seems that the truth is hard to find and both camps provide a different story, so I guess we’ll never know what truly happened between them.

Next stop on our magical musical tour was the Chris heaven – otherwise known as the Gibson guitar factory. Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy. Becky loved it, so you can imagine how I felt. We were taken on a tour explaining every process of making a Gibson guitar from the block of wood to the finished article (no photos were allowed, sorry). I mean, it doesn’t get much cooler than that. I just walked around with my chin on the floor gazing longingly at guitars I can’t hope to afford for quite a while, particularly after this trip. The highlight of It all was that we were going to come out at the end in the shop where you could test out all the guitars you’d seen being made.. Unfortunately as we were on the last tour of the day they had shut the shop by the time we’d finished, which was awfully disappointing, particularly as I am experiencing fairly major guitar – withdrawal symptoms. The other disappointing thing was that because it was a Sunday the luthiers weren’t actually actively making guitars when we were there – normally the tour is whilst they are at work so you can see it all happening. Even so, it was an amazing experience and I spent the entire time grinning and generally looking awestruck.

Finally we went for dinner. The original plan was to go to a restaurant that our book recommended. ‘The Book’ as you will hear me refer to it, is a Lonely Planet guide to the USA. Basically it is a guide book to almost every major city or place in the USA, it’s thick and important looking and gives recommendations of sights to see, places to go, places to eat and more (Becky bought it before we left, clever Becky). The general road trip plan is that when we get to a place we open the book and get google up on our phones and work out what we want to do in that place. On this occasion The Book highly recommended a restaurant a little out of town. Trip-advisor on our phones backed up this recommendation with 4 and a half stars or whatever and some good reviews, despite saying it didn’t look like much from the outside, so we thought we’d go and check it out. On our way to the restaurant the road was blocked by road works, but we weren’t too worried about that as American towns are all grid systems so we just planned to go left and then right and then right again to go around the blockage. We duly did, and found ourselves in the worst looking neighbourhood we have come across in the entire trip. There were derelict houses everywhere and cars that looked abandoned on the side of the road with flat tires etc. Becky and I in our dazzling white Ravi must have stuck out from a mile off, we took one look at each other and said ‘no thank you,’ and then proceeded to run as fast as Ravi would carry us with our tails between our legs back to the town centre. So eventually we ended up having our dinner at the Memphis BBQ Company, which was amazing. It’s a small chain I think, based mainly in Memphis, and we had a great waiter called Kari who chatted to us and all in all it was a very pleasant experience. And the food was great too, so successful day all round really 🙂

Chris

Nashville

After our trip down the skyline drive we headed west (that will be a common theme throughout this road trip) to Nashville, the Mecca of Country Music. Becky was particularly excited about this as she loves country music. Nashville is the place to go if you’re a budding musician, and regularly in my sound engineer work I come across those who have spent time there, as if it in some way makes them a better musician. Maybe it does, as many of the musicians we saw there were sensational, however I did not feel the tingling of inspiration in my fingers as we walked down the street, so I’m gunna say its a myth!

We had two evenings but one full day in Nashville. On the first evening we went to a great and very unassuming looking bar called 3rd and Lindsley to eat and watch some live music. Across the two acts of the night we saw some of the best musicians technically that I’ve ever seen. The lead guy from the first band was around our age and sounded and played exactly like John Mayer, if you closed your eyes you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. The second band was less enjoyable but the saxophonist, trombone player and lead guitarist were unbelievably good, with the trombone player making noises I never knew were possible to generate on a trombone.

The next morning we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. This is basically a shrine to all the famous country musicians, there are a lot of guitars in there which kept me interested, including Les Paul’s famous creation – one of the very first electric guitars. Other than that we laughed about the ageing process of Dolly Parton, which appears to be going backwards, and Becky threw an entire bottle of water down herself. This resulted in some interesting looks as we hunted for the bathroom! Becky likes to throw things down herself, there are few meals during which something doesn’t end up down her front, hence the makeshift bib you may have seen a while back on my twitter.

In the afternoon we patrolled Broadway, which is the street where everything happens in Nashville. I didn’t know that Nashville had such a bustling night-life – let alone ‘day’-life as. Music and the sound of drunkenness emanates from every bar and restaurant, as stag and hen do’s cruise the streets on mobile bars – each person sitting at the bar has to pedal to make it move, I’ve not seen if before but it’s a cool idea. There are also countless places where you can buy Stetson’s and Cowboy boots. Becky tried a pair and said they were the most uncomfortable things she’d put on her feet in a long time, so that and the price tag ($300) meant we left that shop pretty sharpish.

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant and were served by the second craziest waiter I’ve ever met (more on that later) but it did make the meal am experience in itself, which was a good thing. After that we decided (because we’re pretty rubbish at partying), that ‘Nash-Vegas’ (they actually call it that) was a bit too crazy for us, so we headed home for an early night in preparation for our 6hr drive to Memphis in the morning.

Best. Breakfast. Ever.

The Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway

On Wednesday we drove the Skyline Drive followed by the Blue Ridge Parkway from Washington DC to Roanoke. Our first real day of driving happened to be one of the longest of the entire trip – nothing like being thrown in at the deep end! In reality this drive isn’t actually very many miles, it’s just that these roads are quite twisty, not exactly direct and have crazily low speed limits (35mph for the skyline drive). Now, for those not in my family, there is a road in France between the coast and my Aunt’s house in the hills that Becky and I are rather too familiar with. This road is about 1 and a half lanes wide, and if you look at it on the map it’s just a bunch of squiggles. There are hairpin bends and sheer drops everywhere, cars and cyclists come flying round the corners at crazy speeds and on an average journey your life flashes before your eyes around 3-5 times. Dad loves it, but he’s driving (I think it’s better for the driver), the rest of us spend our time concentrating very hard on not being violently ill.

Happily however, the Skyline Drive is nothing like this road. Don’t get me wrong, as American roads go this is some serious rally-grade stuff, but for the average European you probably would experience more sharp corners on your way to the supermarket. It’s also deserted. Because this road is so much slower than the highway no-one with any sense of urgency is going to bother going on it. What you’re left with is a wide open road with some great corners and beautiful views… A road you can’t enjoy from a driving perspective because you’re going soooo slowly.

It was a long, long day. It was made longer by the fact that I kept stopping to look at all the views and take pictures – by the end Becky was saying we had to stop stopping otherwise we’d never get there. We left the Blue Ridge Parkway a bit early because there was a film we really wanted to watch and it was showing in Roanoke that evening. We had to take the highway in order to make it in time though so we did. I’m glad we did as the drive had become really boring and neither of us were having fun any more. It was also a hilarious film.

The film was called Lets Be Cops. I don’t know if it’s out in the UK yet but let me tell you it’s possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s about two men who are fed up with their lives, so decide to pretend to be cops. They get themselves into all sorts of situations, it’s brilliant. If you fancy some light hearted slightly stupid in places comedy I’d highly recommend it.

The next day we headed off to Nashville, another long days driving. A post about Nashville will be on it’s way, keep your eyes peeled.

Chris

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Wainy, washed-out Washington!

On Tuesday we visited America’s capital city Washington DC. America in general has been having a lovely summer, warm but not too humid. It has been lovely the whole time we have been here. Apart from last Tuesday. Last Tuesday it rained. A lot. My darling godmother warned me to wear sensible shoes but by that time we were already waiting for the shuttle. I was wearing my toms eek.

The hotel we were at provided a free shuttle to the metro station which would take us into DC proper. Having seen the drizzle outside and having no coats or umbrellas (again sorry mum) we jumped at the opportunity. We were told the shuttle would be downstairs on the hour so after breakfast we rushed to get ready and be down on time (you already know how much we struggle with that). When we got downstairs, with two minutes to spare, there were a handful of people waiting for the shuttle which promptly came screeching round the corner. We joined the back of the queue like the good Brits we are, as people boarded. Oops. There was one seat left next to the driver and two of us. We looked at each other in dismay… We didn’t want to walk to the metro in the rain. But the driver simply said hop in!! Err what?!? We managed to squeeze ourselves into the front seat, we tried me sitting on Chris’ lap to much hilarity (remember my laughing muscle weakness see here for a reminder) but both of our legs didn’t physically fit under the dashboard. We resorted to side by side and after several attempts Chris managed to get the car door shut. I had one bum cheek on the seat and one off so Chris had to physically hold me in place. All the other people in the vehicle were perfectly comfortable. Woo for them!

Turns out the metro station was just around the corner. But it was chucking it down. I was still desperately trying to save my shoes, hair, face, everything from the rain.

DC’s metro is ultra space age, much nicer that NYC or even London. The ticket machines however are so confusing. We had to ask the station manager for help. We needed two $10 smart card passes for the day. We had $20 in cash, seems fine right? No.
The machine didn’t give change and only sold one pass at a time. Fab. Our new found shuttle friends didn’t have change. Great. Chris’ bank decided that he was being fraudulent and declined his card. Fantastic. We tried the back up credit card. Self serve machines in America including the pay at pump service at gas stations require your zip code if paying on credit card. Clearly we don’t have one. Disaster. So we set back off into the rain in search of an ATM. The good news is on the way we found a man selling umbrellas. He was like a beacon of light in the darkness, a cool drink on a scorching day, a man with umbrellas in a downpour. I bought a very cute clear and yellow umbrella from him much to Chris’ amusement as he had realised on approaching the stall that I would not be leaving without the yellow umbrella.

Anyway our day consisted of wandering around Washington, visiting the American history museum and learning about the civil war and other wars through history from America’s viewpoint. Walking past the White House and spotting the not so concealed cameras and all the battered up vans that may not have been all what they seemed. A brief visit to the Museum of the American Indian and the Air and Space Museum. It was all very educational.

The highlight of our day was seeing my lovely godmother who I haven’t seen in over a decade. Chris was very excited as I marched him to the World Bank to meet her. She had told security on the desk to get us passes (yes security and passes we’re important) and we had to go through airport style checks of bags and metal detectors. The police officers on the desk loved Chris when they printed out his ‘Chris Brown’ ID pass. He’s promised them a signed album… He’s probably now the subject of a nationwide manhunt due to misleading an officer of the law. Oops better not turn on the news. Lunch was very yummy our first salad and fruit in a while!

Our day ended with a lovely burger and chips again with my godmother who put us back on the metro to the hotel. My feet were expelling water into the train’s carpet with every step. Sore and cold we then got stuck. On the train for about 45mins, I was not happy and my feet didn’t not look healthy after 8 hours of wet.

When we got home and turned on the tv we heard that some places in America had had 10 inches of rain today. I maintain at least 5 of them were in my shoes and I was creating the flash floods!

The rain was actually great fun and completely added to the beauty of the city. We had an amazingly fun day all in all.

Love,
B

Take a moment to remember…

I know this blog has been full of light heartedness and jokes but I wanted to take a moment to talk about something a lot more serious.

Chris and I agreed that we couldn’t visit New York without paying a visit to the World Trade Centre Memorial. There won’t be any photos from there I’m this post simply because we didn’t take any. Lots of people were and that’s fine we both just felt it wasn’t the right place and wanted to absorb the atmosphere undistracted.

In my opinion they have done the memorial really nicely. Two huge black square waterfalls sunk into the ground on the footprint of the two towers. Names of all those lost engraved around the edge. They are humbling in magnitude and darkly beautiful.

There is a museum on site so we decided to return the next day to do it.

We were told it took 1-2 hours. It took us four.

We both feel that when the horrors of 9/11 happened we were old enough at 7 and 8 to understand that something terrible had happened but not old enough to have empathy for the situation. For me the realisation only came a couple of years ago at the tenth anniversary ceremony when I watched the footage of the planes with fresh eyes. The museum is really well done and well worth a visit. It is such an powerful experience to be on the spot were such monstrosities took place and see the damage that was caused to physical structures like the steel from the building.

But seeing the faces of the people who were lost was overwhelming. The fill all four walls of a large room and it is difficult to comprehend the number of lives that were extinguished on that day.

Chris and I left that museum physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. It took me a couple of days to even process what we saw and felt enough to find any words. If you are ever in NY I strongly suggest a visit. It seemed wrong to us to visit that city and not spend some time learning about the event that rocked the city to the core.

Nothing I can say can express my emotions from the day. Go yourselves and see.

Love,
B

Ladies and Gentlemen… Meet Ravi!

The road trip officially began with the collection of our car! It’s a Toyota RAV4 , so we have affectionately named him (yes him, it worked better with the name) Ravi… And here he is!

‘What a magnificent automobile you have there!’ I hear you say. Yes, we were lucky as when we arrived at the rental our car had not yet returned so after some debate about smaller cars they offered us a free upgrade, so that’s how we ended up with such a monster. It does a few less mpg but is nicer on the highways when you’re dealing with giant pickups and lorries travelling at 75mph in the fast lane (ok so that only happened once, but it still happened).

Further drama in the rental occurred when Becky’s Credit Card, acquired almost exclusively for the purpose of allowing us to get the car kept being declined. Judith (Becky’s mum for those who don’t know) had even gone to the trouble of phoning the company to inform them we were going to America, and tell them exactly how much money was expected to come out for the car on exactly what date – useless. In fact I think every single one of our cards has been declined at some point or other, but we’ve managed to work it out somehow!

After some considerable stress and trying to get hold of a credit card company on the other side of the world whose office hours were closed, the man from Hertz decided that actually seeing as he’d already printed the contract and the majority of the money had gone through, we could take the car and the outstanding charges would be taken off the account when it was back in action again. Thanks for telling us that before we’d made several international phone calls!

So we set off on our merry way! We have already had a few adventures in Ravi, and you’ll hear about them very soon.

Chris

The Big Apple

^^^ The Big Apple – get it 😉 Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days, we have been busy soaking up the sights of New York. I don’t even want to think about the miles and miles we walked on foot – we were so tired by the end of yesterday that Becky couldn’t even face shopping!

On the first day we went exploring. We walked into Central Park and had some lunch then took the tube downtown to the financial district and looked across the water.. (Don’t remember whether it’s the sea or the Hudson River) to the Statue of Liberty. We weren’t planning to go across to the island upon which she is situated but we actually did on the third day.

We then headed back up to Central Park where we’d arranged to hire a tandem to cycle round the perimeter (6.5 miles ish). We were extremely excited about this, but also thought it might end up in disaster given that neither of us had ever ‘tandemmed’ before. It actually went surprisingly well, all things considered. I assumed the role of ‘El Capitano’ – otherwise known as the front seat. My duties were, first and foremost, to not crash. I was also in charge of the only brake on the whole bike, and apparently (according to google) I had to also communicate (shout) things to Becky behind me like ‘bump!’ And ‘Lean!’ This I’m sure caused great hilarity to passers by as we careered past at great speed, leant down in true racing style with me yelling ‘Lean! Lean! BUMP!! Lean!’ The yelling was absolutely necessary, as Becky couldn’t hear me, and it’s virtually impossible to turn around on a tandem and not fall off. Tandems are also, I discovered, extremely fast downhill (I think the weight helps), which was great because most of Central Park is downhill – so we had great fun racing serious looking people on road bikes – until we got to the uphill parts – at which point a tandem becomes particularly laboursome. We had another issue, in that when I entered serious pedalling mode Becky’s knees hit her handlebars. Dont ask me how this happened, I don’t know how its physically possible for her to bash her knees sometimes and not others if she has her feet on the pedals at all times, all I know is that it did.. Apparently 😉

That night we visited Times Square, it was crazy. The lights and billboards and everything were amazing, like nothing I’ve ever seen before, there were so many of them and they gave off so much light that it could have been daylight – in fact we went into a shop and upon looking out of the window got confused because we thought it had somehow become the day again. The crowds were also mental. There were soooo many people! The crowd ended up spilling onto the road because there just physically wasn’t enough room on the pavement (or sidewalk) making a 4 lane street into 2, at best – chaos. The police in New York seem to always be guiding traffic places, every time there’s roadworks or a particularly busy crossroads they’re there herding traffic – sometimes in the case of one policewoman causing more chaos than if she just hadn’t been there at all. We don’t know why this is, maybe the ones that turn up late for work get the rubbish jobs for the day, who knows, but it looks like a pretty boring job.

The next day we went to the Ground Zero Museum, more on that later..

On the final full day in New York we realised we’d left things quite late, so set off on a mission to do everything we had wanted to do before time ran out. In the morning we took a boat trip out to The Statue of Liberty. Not only is she quite spectacular in her own right, but we got views of the whole of Manhattan from the river which was stunning. We then set off across Brooklyn Bridge, which links Manhattan to Brooklyn, and is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the US. We actually never got across it. You have to get on a long walkway to access it on foot as the ‘footpath’ is above the traffic travelling on the bridge below. It was around the middle of the day and the walkway was so hot that by the time we reached the shade under the first pillar we just sat there and summoned up the courage to go back down the walkway again. We didn’t miss too much view-wise luckily as we’d seen a similar view from the boat, and the bus tour that we took in the evening also crossed the bridge.

The bus tour left from Times Square and took us around mid and lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. It was one of those open top ones like in London, but with less peril in terms of unexpected rainfall, and considerably warmer. It was great to see New York at night, and the tour bus took us some places that we hadn’t yet seen so that was also good. The tour guide was terrible however, and managed to tell us more about his life story than about New York (apparently he’s also a lecturer at the city’s university of technology, a job that clearly doesn’t pay that well if he’s resorting to tour buses…).

And finally we went up the Empire State Building. We queued, and we queued and we queued. Bear in mind this is now about 11pm, I can’t imagine what it would have been like earlier, although I did think it might be busy at night too. They were clever in that they kept putting queues in different rooms and around corners and all sorts, so we got our hopes up only to get around a corner to discover a queue even bigger than the one we’d just come from. Finally we made it to the elevator, and set off up 80 floors in about 30 seconds, maybe less. We then were faced with a further queue for the elevator taking you up the last 6 floors, or we were told we could take the stairs for the last 6. We chose the stairs, and minor asthma attacks (they’re big floors and we took the first 3 too quick) aside made our way to the top. The view from up there is worth every second of that queue and every individual step of those 6 floors, it’s incredible, I could have stayed up there for hours, watching the ant – size cars and absorbing the scale of New York all laid out before us.

And that was that for the Big Apple. It’s a place like no other I’ve ever experienced, London doesn’t even come close for me in terms of how small it makes you feel and how vast it is. Next stop – to pick up the car, and the road trip well and truly begins..

Chris

Bickering, Bikes and the Big Apple

Sorry for the radio silence we have been having too much fun!

We arrived at our hotel on the Upper West Side, two blocks from Central Park, and set off exploring. We had a wander through the park which was absolutely beautiful, people rowing boats on the lakes and sunbathing on the grass. Chris had the great idea to hire bikes and cycle around the perimeter of the park so that’s what we did. We booked them for 1800 as we felt it would be a little cooler and went off to explore the rest of the city.

We came back at six (mm make that a little after six, those that know us we’ll know we are physically incapable of being on time for anything. Sorry housemates) and picked up our bike. Yes singular. A tandem. We figured it would either be fun or an absolute disaster. A quick google of the technique to tandem biking told us the roles of the front (pilot) and the back (stoker) and I swiftly realised I didn’t fit the skill set of either of them. Uh oh. Chris took charge, he would the pilot and steer our vessel (he later divulged this was because he didn’t trust me around corners and other bikes). The bike man left us with a shout of ‘try not to argue now’.

We hopped on.

Oh the hilarity. Does anyone else get that thing where you laugh so hard your muscles go all weak and you can’t move? Chris thinks I’m weird but I’m sure it’s a thing. The first time the going got tough I dissolved into laughter and left Chris hauling us up the hill he was crying at me to help him and I was a pile of jelly! When I has pulled myself together and actually participated it was surprisingly easy. Then we got cocky. Chris upped the speed and my knees were slammed repeatedly into the underside of my handlebars. The bike man’s prophecy came into being.
“Chris your going too fast”
“I can’t help it”
“Ow you have to stop”
“Why??”
“My knees stop stop stop!”
“I’m pedalling as slowly as I can!”
“Well you clearly aren’t!”

We must have put on a right show for the many many bikes streaming past us.

If I’m honest the adjustment period only lasted about ten minute then we were flying! I mean really flying, we were overtaking road bikes left right and centre. We made friends with two athletic looking guys as we flew by them we were so good. Oh no a hill! The tandem didn’t do so well on the hills. Our friends laughed at us as they cruised past and we were put back in our place.

Central Park’s bike route is over 6 miles round, we booked the bike for two hours. After half an hour we were already three quarters of the way round. We were so speedy. We felt like we had to go round again to really get our money’s worth.

Twelve miles of cycling… Not bad. Hopefully it will counteract some of the American food we are eating.

Love,
B

Birch Beer

Today (well, yesterday now) we visited the Amish settlement in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (Yes, Lancaster, cool eh?). I have been told I must inform you of what the Amish are/do before I get to the actual entertaining parts of this blogpost, so here goes!

The Amish originate from Holland. They live traditional livelihoods, working the land to create their own produce. They are not allowed any form of mechanical or electrical equipment not made by themselves, and have no electricity. They are strictly Christian, and are allowed a period of time in their teens out of the community to experience life in the ‘real world.’ At the end of this period they make their own choice about whether they want to return to the community, a rule that Becky and I really liked the idea of. Apparently 90% of them come back – I’m not sure I blame them.

Brilliant. Now let’s talk about where they live.. The Amish. Live. In Intercourse. Yes you heard me correctly, this strictly no-sex-before-marriage bunch live in the kinkiest town name since Middlesex. Becky and I have justified this in our heads and we believe it may be the ‘intersection’ between several roads or something, we’re letting them off, this time.

And now for this ‘no mechanical’ stuff. We went to an Amish farm shop and they had a pretty neat looking fan in there as well as a till to take our money and even informed us that they get some of the fruit shipped in. We saw Amish using strimmers, Amish using drills and Amish using hedgecutters. I mean, everyone deserves a secret TV session once in a while but come on guys, let’s be a bit more discreet about it here!

In all serious however, the Amish are allowed to use mechanical equipment to run their businesses such as the farm shop etc. I have a lot of respect for them and the way they live and work, and think it would be a very rewarding lifestyle to live – it was a great experience to see it.

We then visited The Red Caboose. Becky’s Aunt Jennifer took us there but it took us all a while to establish what a ‘Caboose’ actually was! It’s a train carriage. Basically this place is a hotel of sorts, you stay in your own personal train carriage! It’s not like one long train, it’s lots of different carriages all parked up – it’s really really cool. They even have a restaurant in a carriage! Having absorbed the delights of the gift shop we set off back towards Intercourse (gets me every time) for lunch.

Lunch was eaten at the Bird in the Hand restaurant. It was an all-you-can-eat of traditional American home cooking (they call it a smorgasbord, sounds scary). We were most excited when the waitress offered us a small glass of Birch Beer – which she told us was a local Lancaster County drink. So our Birch Beer duly arrived, it’s sort of a redish-purple colour. I has a sip and it tasted awfully familiar – and then I placed it.

Listerine. The power of clean comes to your mouth in all its cheek popping, throat gurgling, plague busting glory. Needless to say we didn’t finish it. For those that would like to experience how birch beer tastes, mix orange Listerine (apparently it tastes most like the orange, I thought they all tasted the same) with soda water, and voila, you’ve got birch beer. (We take no responsibility for loss of life, involuntary retching or damage to taste buds – we’re in a suing culture here you know)

Anyway that was basically our day, we also saw a lot of corn, then we went home and studied our route for the road trip which officially starts tomorrow. Today it’s off to NYC – blog posts about that to follow I’m sure.

Chris