Leg 2: Final Day

Well it has been a long time since I posted here - which in part is due to the lack of time to sit down since then, and also in part due to my inability to actually write something down.

BUT I will now take the oportunity to post a little bit about what has happened since then.

Well, first after staying the night at that little motel in Kentucky for the night after the concert I proceeded up north again into Ohio to Cincinatti to meet up with a long time friend from EVE (I have alot of these people stashed around the states :P) and spent an afternoon with him, where after a while we went to a bar and I was shouted a few beers while we talked and chatted for the night, not too long before midnight myself and my friend Mina headed up back to her parents place, where we where planning to stay that night, just outside Columbus, Ohio in a place called Mt. Gilead - a really nice place out in what the American's would call the arse-end-of-nowhere but for me it was more akin to just living a few minutes outside of town (windy roads confuse these people)

After staying the night there we got up the next morning to see some of the local sights, which starred the burial place of one of the Presidents of the USA, and this monument is the largest outside of Washington D.C. itself, which was pretty neat - however the best bit about it is the fact that when we turned up there, there where a couple of guys working on cleaning it up and fixing some of the weather damage to it - after pronouncing that I was from Australia the guy on the ground waved us up and opened the gate (which never is open to the public) so we could walk in around it freely - which was pretty amazing.

After spending a little while around there and taking as many pictures as I could with my phone camera (my actual camera suffered a severe bout of dead-battery-itis) we headed on back past a few memorials and a few other little neat places around town.

The following day we headed back to Buffalo, NY so my friend Mina could go to work.
Thus I got a day or so of "rest" which consisted of sleeping almost the entire time, which helped to adjust the body clock substantially.

After this short break which included a quick look around Buffalo itself which included a short jaunt up to see Niagara falls finally, which was incredibly spectacular.

Then it was off to New York City.
Which was spectacularly timed to co-incide with a snowstorm.

After stopping in Syracuse, to meet my hosts daughter who is attending Syracuse University there, the road to NYC was treacherous and icy, that being said Mina has lived in Buffalo, NY for the past few years and is a very very very capable snow/icy weather driver as well so we got through without any incident.

Now, New York itself, what an incredible city.
It really is quite small for what it is, but everything is just so huge!
Towers are prominent EVERYWHERE and even the grand old Empire State Building is EASILY overshadowed by much larger buildings now.

The hotel I stayed in, the Park Central (It was one block from Central Park, which I never noticed untill the afternoon I left!) was a lack lustre hotel, it looked nice but the parking was expensive, the rooms...left alot to desire, the phone's didn't work - the toilet backed up, the room was like a furnace and the beds where shoddy - but it was New York.

The second day after arriving at sometime well after midnight was a day spent walking down around Broadway and the local streets and gazing at all the big buildings and various places, we even stopped at a "Hard Rock Caffe" (Not to eat) and admired everything they had on exhibit - which included some impressive memorabilia from bands like The Beetles to others like Disturbed and 3 Doors Down.

After leaving there and walking back up to the hotel we prepared for a night out and went to see the broadway show "Phantom of the Opera" which is the longest running broadway show, ever.
And may I say, it was incredible. The performances where flawless, the music powerful and clean and the entire feel was spectacular.

However, after that was done myself and Mina did need somewhere to eat quite badly, and I having spotted an interesting place called "The Australian" nearby when browsing google maps decided to hail down a cab and take us there for the night.

And well, after walking in to a quiet pub, the bartender welcoming us in and I was introduced by Mina as the guy from Australia, Tasmania was quickly offered something tottaly unexpected, James Boags Premium Lager.
Now I simply couldn't refuse this, as no cards where required, nothing at all except that I was Australian, and that apparently was enough.
So, after a "few" more beers, a shot of something nice and tasty, and a good old steak meat pie I decided that at about 11:30-12:00 we needed to get back to our rooms as we had to drive down to D.C. latter that next day.

Well, next morning comes around, and this prooved to be simply put, the worst damn day I have had this trip.
1st up, when we tried to call down to the front desk to have a late checkout booked in, the phone was dead and broken, so we decided to simply haul arse and get ready before that.
So, get ready we did, we brought our stuff down by hand and waited out the front, nicely - a man who was one of the drivers for the parking garage shuttled us down in a nice Volvo to the garage so we could dump our bags in there.
That wasn't so bad, so out we go to the main street again and decide to catch the subway down to the bottom of the Island so we could go out and see the Statue of Liberty.

Well guess what, the next quite horrible thing happened just then.
As we where buying the subway tickets, my friend Mina's VISA card got eaten by one of the machines, which then took us a good 30-45 minutes to have someone to even come and look at the machine, who then told us he would get it removed eventually so we should leave the name and head out, and check back when we where done with what we wanted to do, so we said "sure" with blind faith.
Well after jumping on the subway and shooting down to the ferry, getting lost for a while and having a nice police officer point us in the right direction we finally got tickets on the ferry and headed out to the Statue of Liberty.

That ferry itself wasn't a bad trip, after clearing airport like security with relative ease (Once again Mina got picked on, but nothing was out of order) we went out and back without a problem.

However after finally getting back to the subway station a new person was on duty and he knew nothing about the card, so after a bit of a meltdown, I calmed her down and we got the card cancelled and the new one ready.

So, that being done we got the car and headed off down to washington.

Which is where I am now.

Just.

BECAUSE as the grand finale to that day, when we went to check-in our reservation had been taken, and after a bit of argueing, convincing and prooving that it IS us who has the reservation not some joe-blow who had it.

Finally, after a while we got ourselves a nice room (REALLY nice) and crashed into the beds.

Come next morning it turns out, that we where right (the bad day had ended and things where good now \o/) and the person who had our reservation just had used the automatic checkin and had the same initials...

But anyway, with our room confirmed and the parking finally sorted we got to spend a day just lazing about Washington and heading up to join our friends the Ashton family for one final night of gaming together.

And last night we visited the Lincoln memorial and a couple of other things.
And now.
Time to fly.

I look forward to retelling this all in person, this is my last entry for now.

Thank you all in America.
Thanks to all at home as well.

It's time to go back to some sort of normality, much to my dissapointment ;)

Leg 2: Concerts

Well last night I went to a concert that starred Breaking Benjamin and 3 Days Grace - both where quite impressive, Breaking Benjamin's performance was energizing and great fun while 3 Days Grace was spectacular for their lights and fireworks (including towers of flame!) and yes I have Photo's and yes they will be uploaded soon™.

All in all it was a great night, even with the half hour drive back to the motel, which ended up being a nice enough place, with a free breakfast and free Wi-Fi which is a nice change from the more expensive hotels that charge you for both!

Well, now on my way to Cincinnati Ohio, to see the Newport Aquarium (which while part of Cincinnati is actually in Kentucky... go figure eh?) and hopefully to catch up with another of my EVE-online friends, that is if I can get him to check his phone the usless turd! :P Yes if your reading this you know who you are!

Well after that we head back on up to just past Columbus and into Marion, OH again before heading back into NY and stopping off to see Niagra falls, so that should be fun!

Will blog again soon, maybe latter tomorrow or close to that.

Leg 2: Ohio

Well I have been in Ohio for a couple of days now, I have seen a bit of Columbus city, the Ohio state University down there and its large areas that it takes up, as well as taken down some of the places that my friends over here have stayed and lived after watching Avatar in 3D for a second time, this time with a couple of others which was a little funny - the reactions to the 3D was amusing!

Today I got shown around Marian town, a little place that is essentially in the middle of nowhere but it has some interesting things in it.

One of these is the largest memorial to a president outside of Washington D.C. - and its for the ex.president who died in office, Warren Harding. [Photo's HAVE been uploaded so you can see nice pictures of it] and courtesy of some luck myself and my friends where allowed INSIDE the monument - usually it is blocked off to visitors, but some workers there let us in and we talked and had a nice look around *quickly looks left and right* I even managed to score a piece of the marble that was loose from that place.

Tomorrow looks like being the last semi-full day in this household as after that we head on over to watch a concert that is a few hours drive out, AGAIN - everything here is a *few* hours (ala 4-5) so leaving early is always handy....

Hopefully I can snap some more pictures now my Camera's batterys have been recharged - unfortunately the combo of my USA->AUS powerpoint adaptor doesn't work with the charger for my camera batteries so I borrowed one from around here after luckily spotting it.

All still going well and I am liking the lightly warmer weather here, its still snowy and icy but at least it wont bite you when you step outside for more than a second.

It's kinda amazing to think how long I have here.... and how short a time I have left, although everyone seems to love to pile the international crap on the USA I am kind of liking it over here - that being said the people I am staying with and meeting are wonderful people, kind, intelligent and friendly.

Hmmm... that being said they still arn't the most well informed people I have met, today I got asked by one of the elder children (about 15 odd) i am staying with, after passing an American Civil War Memorial and a WWII Memorial whether Australia had fought in World War II... I was, a little dissapointed at having to point out his mistake - and informed him as to what area's we had fought in, which ended up in a long conversation about Americans and their foreign involvment policy.

So as nice as these people are, the government has them all hoodwinked, they may be intelligent and smart but the propoganda here is so thick you can almost swim in it.

Ah well, things are the way they are and I can't change them all, just a couple here and there for now ;)

However being nearly 3am here, this will do and sleep becons, untill next time!