Washington DC, Washington

We spent 2 days in DC and I found it a really nice place to understand a bit of America and American history.
Highlights:

• White House
• Capitol Hill – we got to watch a session in congress!
• Vietnam and Korean war memorial
• Lincoln memorial – my favourite momument. We spent quite a bit of time heres sitting at the steps where Martin Luther King Jr made history. It was a tranquil spot that people spent sitting and reflecting.
• International Spy museum
• museum of natural history
• Air/space museum
• Chilli dog’s (“Ben’s”) owned by Bill Cosby. We were intially going to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant but it was pissing down raining and we couldn’t eat outside in the rain. So we had a beer and ran across the road for some amazing chilli dogs. (Half smoked was awesome)
• Adam’s Morgan – pretty cool party place with a lot of bars and clubs

Things I didn’t see but wanted:

• Holocaust
• Black history

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

We had originally planned on 1 night in Philly, but we ended up staying two. We got in at night and went straight to Geno’s for the “world famous” Philly Cheese Steaks. This has got to be on of the most unhealthy things I’ve EVER eaten. It’s essentially shreaded beef and cheese thats from the bottle in a bun. I had 1, Christian and Limo had 2. Watching them eat it almost made me sick!
Highlights:

• Liberty Bell – quite uneventful.
• Rocky stairs – the stairs that rocky ran up is at the museum. We laughed at everyone taking the photo with two hands up in the air
• All you can eat mussels for $25 – I had 3Kgs of mussels. Eating it took me back home to the Belgium Beer Cafe (The heritage) in Sydney.

New York City, New York

Before hitting New York we drove to the New England area – Cape Cod, really scenic drive with amazing houses.

A massive, massive city with heaps to do and not enough time. If I was to come back to the US and work it would be here. There’s a vibrant subculture life and lots of interesting things to do and see (although Limo and I spent most of our time shopping). We stayed in a place in lower Manhattan. Picked up a funky little studio apartment from Craigs list for about $40 a night – perfect location and a dirt cheap price. Joanne, the owner, lives there too but rents it out when she can to tourists like ourselves. Located between China town and little Italy, it was a great place to call base.
Highlights:

• Greenwich village – a dive bar area with a lot of people to keep the place interesting. Beer pong was being played with Miller lite in hand.
• Shopping – we spent a good 3 days shopping. Soho and 5th Avenue were ridiculous with a mix of boutique stores and large chain retailers. Soho was a huge version of Surry Hills.
• There was a store for Pharrell’s brand “Ice cream” – cool concept store/
• Wall street – who could go past the street where a lot of history has been made. Pictures of the bull had to be taken.
• Battery park, where you can see the statue of liberty, is a must do. We walked down and hung out in the park for a while – the was really hot and we needed the time to chill out.
• Big Black Pussy Cat – an awesome bar with a live band. Mix of percussion and electric instruments doing RnB, soft rock and electro covers.
• Time Square was amazing. I first got out of the subway and my senses just went on overdrive. Neon signs, burnt bagels, the weather and people scurrying around made me feel really weird!
• Roof bar on top of the Mariott was surprisingly really nice – indoor/outdoor bar with RnB beoing played and great drinks.
• Plan B – a hole in the wall club. It didn’t look too flash at first, but when we got in we had a blast (thanks Kristen and Cindy).

The general atmosphere in NYC is electric. There’s a buzz that I can’t explain but it’s in the people. Yes some people can come across as snobby, but they are generally okay. We sat watching a guy shooting hoops on the street courts and he made a basket. Random guy walks past and yells “Money! Like them Celtics” – that would have never happened in Australia.

Garreth has left us to go back to work….

Boston, MA

We got caught up in Houston as Continental airways delayed our flights. We had scheduled 3 days in Boston, which ended being 2. However, we did get a free nights accomodation, food vouchers and a free return flight to anywhere in the US =).

Boston was a very different city, but was the closest to Sydney. A modern city with historic reminents scattered throughout the city.

Highlights:

• “Industry night”, Monday night clubbing for people in the bar/nightclub industry! We had a blast and they played my top 10 songs – in a row!
• Clam Chowder, Boston is known for Clam Chowder and I had it for brunch AND dinner! It’s thick soup with bits of clam
• “The Departed” golden roof – remember that Golden Rooftop that Matt Damon can see from his apartment? It’s in Boston.

Lack of posting and photos

Updates have been lacking because of a lack of Internet access and the fact that we’ve covered 1,024 miles in a few days.

No photos  because limo lost his camera and I can’t seem to get photos off mine!

Anyways, I’ve been writing notes offline….

Shopping adventures of Will

Zara

• Dress shirt and leather jacket

Banana republic:

• Dress shirt
• Trousers (for the wedding)
• 2x basic T’s

• Onitsuka’s
• Zoo York T

Jeans:

• True Religions (Great value!)
• AG’s

Urban outfitters:

• Haviana’s
• Hooded Cardi

College stuff:

• T-shirts from Berkley, USC, University of Texas (UT), Harvard
• UT sweat pants

• Samonite Duffel (the best buy!)
• Abercrombie & Fitch sweater
• GAP College boy shorts

Wish list:

• Work, dress (black and brown) and running shoes
• Matching belts forshoes
• More college shirts (Harvard?)
• Boston championship T-shirt
• Dress Jacket
• Apple Mac Mini

Things I love and things I loathe about the US (so far..)

Love:

• Free wireless internet, almost ANYWHERE – yes, I am a nerd.
• Touchless toilets and toilet seat covers – the taps, hand towel dispensers and the flush system is completely touch free (all run on sensors)
• Texan hospitality – we met a lot of people in Austin and Houston, and they took time out of their lives to take us out. Thanks to Patricia, Thuanly, Vivien, Grace, Chris, Jamie, Nancy, Cameron and Ashley – it was the people that made Texas one of the best places I’ve been to so far
• Satellite radio – almost 100 channels of music by genre on Satellite frequency. It shat all over my ipod
• The tipping system – you either hate it or love it. Personally, I think it’s a great system that makes great customer service
• Factory outlets – more on my shoppin adventures later.
• Whole foods – awesome food outlets that are stocked with healthy organic food
• How everyone loves our Aussie accent

Loathe:

• Frat boy / Sorority girl attitude – they really do think their sh1t dont stink
• Regular retail price does NOT include taxes
• Food – the difficolty in getting healthy food is ridiculous
• Watching parents feed their kids with jumbo sized cokes at 8/9am

Houston, Texas

After a long drive to Dallas and then to Houston (yes, in the Hummer) we rocked up to a really really nice bed and breakfast. We quickly made our way to the rehearsal dinner for Cameron and Ashley’s wedding. It was bbq again, and I was STUFFED. We met Limo’s old Uni friend Grace who took us out to an 80’s night. Another debaucherous night ensued!

Houston highlights:

• Cricket in 40 degree heat – Limo went to Uni with Ashley, her husband – Cameron, is Australian (from Perth). The groomsmen were all Australian and they had brought a backyard cricket set. Who would of thought that I’d be playijng cricket in America!
• Cameron and Ashley’s wedding – I had a BLAST at this wedding, especially because I was the wedding crasher! The church ceremony was nice and simple, the reception was great! I learnt how to line dance and do the souljah boy dance in one night hehe.
• Riding in the back of a pick up truck – in Texas it is legal for people to ride in the back of a pick up truck – so I HAD to do it. It was myself, Jamie and Chris riding on the back from the church to the reception, then from the reception to the post-wedding party spot (Zaza bar?)
• Bun bo hue and Goi Cuon – Bun bo hue tastes different, but the goi cuon is the same

Thoughts on Houston:

• Can’t really say, we did a lot of wedding stuff and didn’t get time to explore the city. I had a fantastic time nonetheless.

Many Days: LA, Vegas and Austin

I’ve been too busy to be catching up on the blogging since we’re moving quite quickly and doing a lot of things.

We picked up a hire car (Dodge Nitro) and drove from San Fran to LA. Pretty nice drive, but it was still awkward driving on the right hand side of the road.

It was a 6 hour drive with a stop-off at “In and Out”, a fast food chain with 5 burgers on the menu – Limo had put all these expectations around it, for me to be disappointed.

Los Angeles
LA is a huge city, tonnes of people and lots of things to see and do. We arrived and drove into Bel Air – I HAD to take a pic of myself and the Bel Air gate hehe.

Things we did in 4 days in LA:

• Spent a few hours walking around UCLA – it’s an awesome school with a great campus. I’d send my kids there!
• O’hara’s – went through the real college experience, we went to a real college bar attached to UCLA.
• Magic Mountain – We went on the worlds fastest and tallest roller coasters – AND WE HAVE VIDEO!! It was an awesome day.
• Washed our clothes and Whole Foods – We spent a day on washing our clothes at laundry matt and finally found an organic place to eat some quality food – HEALTHY food. All that junk we’d been feeding ourselves was taking it’s toll.
• Parties – there were heaps of parties around in LA, we had some massive nights at places like Circle Bar (great R&B/Hip-Hop)
• Santa Barbra – Limo and I picked up a Dodge convertible and drove to Santa Barbra for a business meeting. Driving on Route 101 along the coast of the US with the top down has given me an idea of what kind of job I really want!
• Sunset Boulevard & Rodeo Drive – the shops were crazy. It’s easy to see how there’s so much money being made around there.

Las Vegas

We took the Dodge 3 hours from LA to Vegas. It was another cruisy drive but we had a quiet night the day before just in case – to keep it simple, we were preparing ourselves for the 3 days and 2 nights of debauchery of Vegas. And how it lived up to it’s reputation: (this is where Ben, Limo’s mate from Sydney joined us)

• We stayed at Bally’s hotel on the strip – across the road from the infamous Bellagio
• Vietnamese food – finally everyone decided to have Vietnamese food with me – it was long awaited! I had my Pho Tai Sach and Com Suon – yes… both!
• Pure nightclub: The first night in Vegas we went to a CRAZYYYY outdoor club on the patio of Ceasars Palace. I won on the Black Jack table and blew it on the first round of drinks – 10 Jager Bombs. We had a blast dancing to fab music and a fantastic crowd.
• Ghost Bar (The Palms) – not worth the travel and the $20 cover charge. we went upstairs and yes it was a spectacular sight (we saw the strip from a bar 55 stories up).
• Playboy – cover charge at Ghost Bar enabled us to get into the Playboy bar, again, crap and not worth the travel. ALTHOUGH, since there were tables inside the club, I saw Mekhi Phifer (from 8 Mile)
• Prive – Okay, this has to be one of the BESTTTT CLUBS IN VEGAS. It was Monday night and we didn’t anticipate much. We asked around and made our way to Planet Hollywood. After seeing a huge line we bribed the bouncers $20 each ($100 for 5 guys to skip a huge line). We got it and it was massive. Heaps of people, gorgeous women and the MC was none other than…. Jermaine Dupri (JD). We loved this place, Garreth has even become a Hip-Hop convert. Met some interesting people – a guy who owns a gentlemen’s club, another guy who was using a travel pack of “Tide” to clean his white shirt.

3 days and 5 hours sleep.. it was time to leave Vegas on a high.

Photos from Vegas:

Austin, Texas

We got home at 5:30am to catch a 7:30 flight… it was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had. We flew South West airlines (otherwise known as the sh1thole of all airlines). We arrived at our Days Inn and fell asleep straight away – nursing our hangovers and catching up on sleep. Day 1 in Austin Texas was really chill:

• Thai Food: The Tom Yum here is really different (Beach, your one is HEAPS better)
• University of Texas: Another huge campus, one of the richest Universities in the world with it’s own oil well. Largely known for it’s football team (the Longhorns) and strong allegiance of fans. We went walkabouts, saw the HUGE stadium and revisited the place of Limo’s famous broken elbow.
• The first night was a chill night of walking up and down 6th (the main strip), playing pool and learning darts!

UPDATE: oh yeah, we hired a Hummer H3 and have been driving around in it like people who dont care about how much fuel is hehe.

The second night of Austin was going out with one of Limo’s old UT friends – Patricia and her friends.  She took us out to checkout the (world-famous) live-music scene. We saw the Spasmatics play some 80’s covers and it ended up being another great debaucherous night.

Other Austin highlights:

• Barton Springs – a man made pool that is fed with water from the lake. It was a hot (almost 40 degress) day that was fun just relaxing and swimming in the cool water. A Sherrin would of been great for the occasion.
• $2 Beers and tequila on 6th – 6th Street is full of bars – literally almost 3 blocks worth. Bouncers stand at the front telling passer-bys of the $2 beers and tequilas.
• University of Texas – home of one of the biggest allegiance of college NFL teams, UT is a cool Uni. Not as “pretty” as UCLA, but the footy stadium left me in awe. This UNIVERSITY football ground has the BIGGEST jumbo-tron in America.
• The first time we’ve heard house music in America.
• Rudy’s BBQ: I now know why American’s are so big. We got drunk on meat, beef brisket, sausage and baby back ribs – all for $16.

Thoughts on Austin:

• Completely different kettle of fish to the West coast. University town with a college feel.

Day 4: Golden Gate Bridge

I got up early and went for a 20KM bike ride around the Golden Gate bridge. It was awesome. I picked up the bike from Fisherman’s Wharf (Pier 39) rode to the bridge, across the bridge and into a town called Saulsalito. Caught a ferry from Saulsalito to Pier 1 and then rode back to Pier 39. I ripped my jeans and had to get a pair of college boy Gap shorts hehe.

Caught the bus around town and then got back to the place to hang out with the other guys (I went on my own because no one wanted to ride).

Had a good night last night as well, we went to a funky Japanese restaurant which was followed by a bar called the Blue Light on Union Street. The night ended at 3am with a burger from IHOP =)