Our last blog guys!!! 
The last 3 weeks of our trip in USA has been brilliant; we landed in Los Angeles and made our way over to New York to fly home with plenty going on in between! 
We had been really looking forward to getting to America from Auckland as it is their summer and it had been a while since we had seen any sun!! It was a very long 13 hour flight from Auckland to LA and we arrived at our hostel 5 hours before check-in. Fortunately though, the person staying in our pod the night before hadn't turned up so they let us check in early and get a shower so we could get straight out and sightsee!! We were staying on Hollywood Boulevard, which isn't a very glamorous spot but was very close to part of the 'Walk of Fame'. As we walked down the boulevard, I noticed that most of the stars were in disrepair or grubby looking and we hadn't heard of the vast majority of the people on them!! Although, the closer you came to the main sights, the bigger the names and the better shape they were in.
We bought 1 day tickets for the hop-on, hop-off bus and we wish we had got the 2 day tickets because there was so much to see and LA has crazy traffic so it took a very long time getting from one point to another! First off, we hit the Chinese theatre where the handprints and footprints of the big stars are, it was very busy there and definitely wasn't what we were expecting. It was quite a small space, which we assumed meant that some stars get their space taken off them for more current stars and the spaces themselves and the writing on them was a little unimaginative but they had some top names on there, which you can see from the photos! The exact origin of the idea isn't clear but it seems that either an old actress or the guy who owned the theatre stepped in wet cement outside the theatre by accident and they got the idea from the footprint left behind.
From here, we could also see the infamous 'Hollywood' sign, although it was quite far away! Hollywood actually used to be called Hollywoodland and that is what the sign read until a small landslide took the 'LAND' (no pun intended) away. By the time they got around to fixing it, the locals decided they liked Hollywood better! This part of the tour was really overcrowded though so we hopped on the bus and headed towards Beverly Hills!!!
It is crazy the amount of effort and money went into making Beverly Hills what it is. For one thing, you can't really see any houses in the streets as all you can see from the road is rows of neatly manicured hedging, which doesn't just serve as privacy from the road or making the place look neater by having the houses secreted from view but another more extravagant reason. The row of hedging you see from the front is the front row of an alley; so behind this row of hedging is another row of hedging providing a make shift alley for.......bin lorries!!
They actually designed these hedges so that on collection days, bin lorries could clear the rubbish of the rich without creating an eyesore for the public or the residents! They have also painted all the fire hydrants in Beverly Hills silver as yellow is not in keeping with the tone of Beverly Hills(!). These are only to name a few of the outlandish things they do in this neighbourhood to keep it as beautiful as possible. For another, no tour buses are allowed to stop anywhere near Rodeo Drive; you have to walk 10 minutes to get to it so as the rich and famous don't have to look at you while spending their millions!! Although, you really did feel special walking down Rodeo Drive looking at (the windows of) all the shops; Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and there was one shop that was appointment only with an average spend of $100,000!! It was hard not to have sour grapes about the people carrying shopping bags while you were getting a picture of yourself standing outside it!!
We ate on Rodeo Drive that afternoon and done some (unsuccessful) celeb spotting. I was so convinced I was going to see someone famous that day and was very disappointed I didn't! We left LA the next day, very pleased with what America had shown us so far and made our way to LAS VEGAS!!!
There is nothing I could say that could explain Las Vegas in any sort of way you could understand without seeing it yourself!! It is some city, absolutely screeching money and seediness next to pure extravagance. It was out of this world!! We stayed in Circus Circus at the end of strip, about 15 minute walk to the main strip and we got it for a song; cheaper than a hostel! We asked about an upgrade to a better room and they gave us it for free as it was quiet season so we were very happy about that! Apparently August is their low season because it is so hot and it was roasting!! It actually wasn't as hot as I thought it would be but 37°C was still very hot! It was like walking round in a fan oven; I know Las Vegas is built in the desert but with heat like that we were glad of the air-con in every building! Speaking of buildings; between the huge hotels and the flashy casinos, we didn't know where to start. During the day we walked around some of the big hotels, which had shopping malls and casinos built into them. We visited the Venetian first and our jaws almost hit the floor when we were walking around and came across 'Little Venice'. The whole ceiling was painted like (a very realistic) sky and there was a river just outside the shops through the whole hotel with bridges over them and men in gondolas shipping people up and down singing in Italian!! Very, very surreal but just a little taste of what Las Vegas had to offer! On our first night, we passed the 'volcano' of Treasure Island erupting with fire and fireworks, visited the Chandelier bar and caught a fountain show at the Bellagio. The Chandelier bar in the Cosmopolitan hotel is a 3 story bar built inside a giant, sparkling chandelier!!
They specialised in cocktails but they were $14 so we had one and went to the bar that did Michelob for $1!!lol
The fountain show at the Bellagio was amazing; so much work must have went into it and there were 3 differently choreographed shows with 3 different songs shown every 15 minutes. We caught 2 different shows but our favourite was the show with Frank Sinatra's Let Luck be a Lady. The water was shooting about 50m skyward and swirling around to the tune. It was so well done and on a really grand scale; we took a video of it so you can see as it is really hard to describe unless you are there!!
We didn't really get too wild in Vegas as we were up early the next day for the Grand Canyon tour and it was just so expensive to do it right!! The Grand Canyon is something else very hard to describe. It felt like you had been dropped off in the middle of an abyss but it was magnificent!! They had shuttle buses taking you round 3 different viewing points so you could see everything. We also did the Skywalk; the glass-floored walkway that takes you 44ft over the edge of the canyon! It wasn't for the faint hearted but we were definitely up for doing it!! Some people were walking along clinging to the rail as if the floor was going to fall through; it was daunting but it was 4 layers of bullet proof glass so we jumped about on it and lay down on it. The only bad thing was that you weren't allowed to bring your camera onto it!!
I'm sure it was probably a 'safety regulation' but that didn't stop them from having guys on the walk taking your picture ($30 per photo or $100 a set!!). We were never handing over that kind of money so we just took our own pictures when we got off the sky walk and we got some pretty good ones too!! They actually didn't have any barriers up at the edge of the canyon, so all that stood between you and an 8800 foot drop was their advice to stay a body length away from the edge!! Despite about 3 people a year falling off the edge of the canyon, they have no plans to put railings up saying it is up to the person how much risk they want to take and a fence would ruin the aesthetics and environment. I can see their point about preserving the sight but 3 people a year!!
The whole day was a great experience and we even passed the Hoover dam on the way there and back and got some pictures of that too!
Then came the moment we were dreading, the 37 hour bus to Chicago!! I had done a 34 hour bus last time I was in America and it hadn't been as bad as I thought it would but I had 2 seats to myself to sleep on then. This bus was packed so we had to sit beside eachother and it just wasn't enough room to sleep, we were like zombies coming off the bus and because the journey was so long and we were in the sitting position for all of it, my legs had swollen and Matt's ankles were huge!!
We were armed to the teeth with inside info on what to see and do in Chicago as we worked with a guy in Melbourne from there. We didn't get around it all but we seen most things. There is a very strange monument style sight called 'The Bean'. Obviously it looks like a bean but it had a completely mirrored surface so depending what angle you were at, you would have the skyscrapers in the background or the park. I'm not sure if there was any symbolism of what it meant or it was just one of those weird things you see in cities but it was worth seeing. In the same park was Buckingham fountain; a huge, intricate and old looking fountain. It was just beside Lake Michigan so we seen a little of that too!
Back in the city, we walked to the Sears tower, the fourth tallest building in the world, which now means I've seen 6 (I think) of the world's 10 tallest buildings! We didn't actually go up it, but it still counts! Our friend Matt had told us to go a pizzeria called Giordano's and try the stuffed pizza and it was huge!!! It looked like a pie with no top on it and I could only manage 2 slices! We got garlic on ours which was the biggest mistake of the day; it was overloaded and so strong and we walked around like 2 stinkers until we got back to the hostel and looked up how to get rid of garlic breath!! Green tea apparently, so we spent our evening washing our mouths out with green tea!!
I would still recommend going there to anyone, this restaurant chain is supposedly where the Chicago deep pan pizza came from and it was good pizza, despite our near death experience by garlic overdose!
Matt had also told us to visit the local baseball field, Wrigley Field, and catch a game but we ended up not making it. Apparently, the team are crap but the atmosphere's good! We only really had 2 days in Chicago so I think we crammed a good bit in!! We were catching a bus to Boston next to stay with Melissa for a few days and this was only a 22 hour bus (!), so we thought it would be easy.......not so much. It actually turned to be about 25 hours and it was full of numpty's!! We got zero sleep and by time we got to Melissa's, we were actually starting to get jetlag!!! One of Melissa's housemates were away for the weekend so we ended up having a bed again, which we definitely appreciated! I had seen Boston before so I didn't mind about sightseeing but Matt hadn't and wanted to see Fenway Park. Between the sleep deprivation and the hangovers, we didn't make it but we had a good night out in Boston! We went out on the Saturday night to a place called Samba, a Japanese restaurant/nightclub. I ordered a vodka at the bar and they freepoured it and seemingly forgot to stop pouring!! It was massive, at least a triple!! So while Chicago tried to poison us with garlic, it appeared Boston was going for alcohol poisoning! We went back to a house party after that then it's all a blank! Between the beer, wine and vodka we mixed, a hangover was definitely on the cards!! Matt didn't leave bed until Monday and I almost passed out while out shopping the next day! We haven't been drinking much since we left Australia, so we really paid for it the next day!lol
We also went to Six Flags theme park in Boston for the day, kind of like Alton Towers but there are loads of them in America. It had the biggest rollercoasters I've ever seen and some seriously pukey rides too!! We got on all the big rollercoasters and 2 of them were brilliant!! The only problem was the queues. For the 2 really good ones, we queued about 2 hours each!! So you got off a ride all pumped up for the next one and excited but by the time you actually got on the next ride you were fed up of waiting! Although it was a bank holiday weekend so it was to be expected! The really good rides made up for the waiting anyway!!
So while we didn't actually see much in Boston, it was really good to catch up with Melissa and recharge our batteries (after thoroughly draining them first!). We were dreading our next overnight bus to Niagara Falls, though it was only a 12 hour bus, wee buns!! We had originally planned to arrive in Niagara Falls in the morning and catch the overnight bus to Washington DC that night, but after the horrific-ness of the last bus, we booked to stay in the falls that night. It meant we only had 1 full day in DC but at least we would make it there sane!!
DC is such a brilliant city to visit because there is so much to see!! We only had the one day to see as much as possible so we were up really early and out all day. Our first stop was the Capitol, where we took a free guided tour around; I've done the tour before but it was just as good second time round. Then we headed down toward the Washington Monument and also in this area was the Abraham Lincoln statue, the Pool of Reflection, the Vietnam War memorial, Korean War memorial and WW2 memorial. My favourite was the Korean War memorial, where they have statues of soldiers during the war walking through a garden and a wall running alongside it with faces etched into the wall.
The White House was next and it was really interesting to it and its surroundings during an election year! There were loads of supporters for both candidates and we heard Clinton's speech for Obama on our first night. I hope Obama wins!!
As well as all this sightseeing, we visited 2 museums too!! First we went the Nazi Propaganda exhibition, which was really interesting and gave a completely different insight into the power of the Nazi Party and how they used propaganda to manipulate the perception of people. Then we visited the National Air and Space Museum; both these museums were free, as are all the National museums here, which was a nice change!!
The Air and Space museum is really big and covers absolutely everything in aviation history from the Wright Brothers to army fleets; it was so big, we had to choose which parts we really wanted to see and skip the rest or we would have been there all day!! It was a complete flying visit to DC but if you haven't seen it before, which Matt hadn't, you can't possibly bypass it!!
New York was our very last stop on our amazing world trip and it was one of the places we were most looking forward to seeing. We had almost a week here and we booked our own room so we had somewhere to relax after walking around the city all day every day!!
New York is a city in its own league, just like Las Vegas; there is nowhere else like it!! We visited everywhere you could possibly imagine and then some!! Fortunately, we only had 1 day of rain and the rest was lovely and sunny!! We visited the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre, Times Square, Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, the 9/11 memorial garden, Central Park, Strawberry Fields, Museum of Natural History, Grand Central Station, Macy's, watched a Broadway show and Matt visited the Met. It was really nice having so much time to see everything as we didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to cram it all in!! The view from the top of the Empire State Building was brilliant and the 9/11 memorial garden was really nice and will be really beautiful when it is finished and all the scaffolding comes down. We decided to catch a Broadway show at the end of our trip and we wanted to see 'Newsies', which I think is a new show but the tickets were quite expensive (even at 40% off!!), so we went to see Mary Poppins. It was a really good show; really well put together and Mary Poppins and Bert were well cast! They had most of the original songs plus a few new ones but we really enjoyed it! I would definitely go to see another show if I was ever back. We caught up with 2 of my friends from university while we were in New York and went out for a drink. It was brilliant seeing them again after about 5 years!!
The only drawback to being in New York was that we had to go home at the end of it, which neither of us were ready to do!! I would have been happy to travel for another year!! So we had to unpack our cases, decipher which clothes were ready for the bin so we could make room for all the lovely clothes we bought in New York and pack up the past year of our lives into 23kg!! As we weren't flying until late evening, we still had the whole of our last day to spend in New York, so Matt visited the Met but I'm not that into art and I skipped it but he really enjoyed it; it looked impressive from the pictures he took!
So after 1 whole year, 6 countries, 3 continents, 5 suitcases, 5 backpacks, 100's of hangovers, 2000 photos, 15 blogs, 100's of new friends and an absolute lifetime worth of memories and experiences, it's time to come home!! We will probably have already met up with most of you before you read this, but for those of you we haven't, we are looking forward to seeing you all again and regaling you with more of our tales!! Hope you have enjoyed our blogs and photos as much as we have enjoyed creating them!!
See you all soon!!
Nicola and Matt x
