Friday, September 30, 2016

Day 223 - Grey day

New York City

Rain was expected today meaning it was a good day for indoor activities, so we decided to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the MET as us New Yorkers call it.

We stepped outside straight into rain and walked through Central Park with our umbrellas to 5th Avenue. We knew we had arrived by the horde of people lining up to get in - surprisingly we are not the only tourists to think that visiting a museum on a rainy day is a good idea. As the day progressed the museum became even busier but the place is huge and set up in a way that there is plenty of space for people to move around the exhibits.


The museum had a very wide range of exhibits, including ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman artifacts, rooms with period furniture, and lots and lots of paintings, it was kind of a mix of art gallery and museum of ancient history. The place was well worth a visit, and the "pay what you want" model means there's less pressure to see everything in one visit.


Eventually we had to brave the rain again which which was now heavier than when we'd arrived, so we joined the throngs in the subway to head back home.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Day 222 - On Broadway

New York City

We had to dress warmer to go out today, we could feel the chill in the air as soon as we stepped outside, we thought it would be cooler in New York, but not as cold as this!

We caught the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across to Brooklyn using the information from a self-guided tour to identify the points of interest along the bridge and the Manhattan skyline. One weird thing we saw was that as well as the usual locks that star-crossed lovers put on bridges, there were hundreds of sets of headphones (apparently there are also condoms and tampons, but we didn't see any of those).


On the other side we walked along the Brooklyn Promenade, then back through the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area.

After that it was back on the subway to visit Grand Central Station, which was busy, clean and quite glamorous looking, but also a bit dark with no natural light. Then to Times Square to pick up some cheap Broadway tickets.

We joined the incredibly long queue for half price tickets, but it moved quite steadily. By the time we'd reached the front of the queue we still hadn't decided what to see, so we flipped a coin, and bought tickets for "Something Rotten".

After a quick visit back to "our" apartment to get organised for the evening, we made it to the St. James Theatre in time for the 7pm show. The theatre was a bit smaller than we expected, we had seats in the fifth row which gave us a great view of the stage. The show was OK, the writing was clever in parts but many of the jokes were a bit lame and obvious, we did enjoy the show but it wasn't as good as we thought a "Broadway" show would be, so not a high recommendation from us..


We walked back up to Time Square and checked out all the night lights before heading home where the shops, supermarkets and restaurants were all still buzzing late at night - it's good to be in the city that never sleeps!

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Day 221 - Balls to the Wall (St.)

New York City

We bought an unlimited weekly ticket for the subway and then caught it to South Ferry station. From there we took the free Staten Island ferry to enjoy a short cruise of the harbour with a good look at the Statue of Liberty as we sailed past. As it wasn't peak hour the only people on the ferry seemed to be tourists, and 99% of them just turned around and got back on again when it pulled into port.

We decided we should at least have a bit of a look at Staten Island so walked up the hill, we were hoping to stop somewhere for a coffee but couldn't find anything interesting, so we walked back and returned on the next ferry - maybe there's a reason everyone just goes back again

We then walked up to Wall St, we saw the Charging Bull at the beginning of the financial district, it wasn't hard to find but very hard to see as there were so many tourists surrounding it and bizarrely lined up to have their photos taken sitting under its testicles. If only we'd had the balls to do it as well!

We then walked across to see the outside of the stock exchange before heading over to the 9/11 reflecting pools. The memorial pools are at the base of what were the north and south towers, and the walls are inscribed with the names of the people who died. However they now expect that the number of people who have and will die from the after effects of the disaster will end up greater than the amount that died on the day.

We visited the museum underground in the basement of the buildings, the exhibition was huge, with displays ranging from twisted metal girders and crushed fire engines, to pieces of paper from the in-flight magazines that had fallen from the planes, and front pages of newspapers from around the world, including the Herald-Sun.


We then visited Time Square, it wasn't as big as we expected but still packed with massive screens on the sides of buildings advertising goodness knows what, and heaps of tourists like us gawking at those screens. Lots of advertising dollars, lots of technology, but I can barely remember what any of them were advertising.....


By this time the weather was also changing with it getting quite chilly, we weren't dressed for it as we thought the beautiful weather from the day before would continue, so we were still in shorts and sandals.


Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Day 220 - Hello New York

Washington DC to New York City

We booked a door to door shared shuttle bus for our trip to the airport for our flight to NYC and we also arranged one at the New York end, they seem to offer a good service and it's all booked and paid for online.

The flight was pretty short and we were the first ones in our shuttle to be dropped off at our Airbnb apartment in the Upper West Side (UWS). The apartment is in a good location, close to Broadway Ave, and also to Central Park and the subway. It has one bedroom and a combined kitchen/living area, so a cute place for us to stay.

We spent the lovely autumn afternoon exploring the streets in the local area, which didn't seem touristy at all, everyone that was out and about in the UWS appeared to be locals. We then took a very pleasant walk through the northern part of Central Park, before returning to check out the local supermarkets in order to stock up on supplies, the big thing we noticed here is that there are a lot of pre-cooked and pre-prepared food options, many of them sized for single people.




Monday, September 26, 2016

Day 219 - Hi Obama!

Washington DC

Back into DC today to visit the superb Natural History museum which took up a good part of the day. It has some really impressive sights including the Hope Diamond, an African Bull Elephant and a lonely looking Easter Island statue- so a very varied range of exhibits.


We then walked up to Capitol Hill, and back down the Mall to the White House. We weren't too far away from there when we saw quite a few people hanging around the street corner and a lot of police around. K asked some locals what was going on, who told her that the roads had only just been closed and they only do that when the President is coming. Sure enough about a minute later there was a cavalcade of police motor bikes and cars followed by a black car with flags. The crowd went crazy with cheering, which we were not expecting as we couldn't imagine a crowd going wild in Australia if our Prime Minister drove past. The people behind us in the crowd were so excited they were sure that Obama had been looking at them, we could only see a silhouette through the dark windows and he was probably reading paperwork or on the phone, not looking out the window at the two people behind us! We managed to take a video of it, see below, it can also be seen by clicking here..



Yesterday our first look at the White House was from across the huge expanse of lawn between it and the Washington Monument, this time we went around to the other side. On the way we were stopped again at a road block, but this time it was a couple of large black cars with no presidential flags so it couldn't have been Barack (yes, we are on first name terms now). Once we reached the front of the White House we had a much better view, we could also see what we think was a sniper on the roof.


After a couple of photos there we visited the White House Shop which we found very amusing, all sorts of things there like paper doll books with paper dresses for the First Lady, golf balls, and all manner of clothing. Once again, we can't imagine buying a plate to hang on the wall with Malcolm Turnbull's face on it!



Sunday, September 25, 2016

Day 218 - Canberra on steroids

Washington DC

We had booked a free walking tour of the major sights in DC for the afternoon, so we caught the Metro to the massive Arlington Cemetery.


Once there we walked up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and arrived in time to watch the changing of the guard. One of the soldiers addressed the crowd and told them to be silent and upstanding, then the changing ceremony commenced. It continued to a point where the guards had swapped and everyone thought it was over, so the crowd started murmuring and chatting amongst themselves. All of a sudden the lone soldier starts yelling and tells everyone off in quite an aggressive manner, it was quite a surprise and actually quite funny, lucky we didn't laugh out loud as he sounded like he was liable to shoot someone. The ceremony continued a bit longer with the laying of a wreath.

Be quiet or I'll shoot!
From there we headed to the JFK memorial and we could clearly see the Pentagon in the distance and planes flying over head as we contemplated how scary it would have been for the people who were standing here and saw the plane crashing on September 11.

We caught the train to the start of our walking tour near the Washington Monument. We had signed up for the four hour tour, and our first stop was between the White House and the Washington Monument before moving on to visit the World War II, Korean and Vietnam War Memorials.


The composition of the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial is thought provoking and a bit different to the others. The Lincoln Memorial is a massive statue, as is the Jefferson Memorial, but the Roosevelt Memorial is different again as it covers quite a large area and consists of multiple outdoor rooms, and as a result is a much more effective tribute (in our opinion anyway).





Saturday, September 24, 2016

Day 217 - To the capital

Orlando to Washington DC

We drove to Orlando airport and dropped our rental car off, then caught our flight to Washington DC after making it through the ridiculous security queues.

We used Lyft (a service like Uber) to get to our Airbnb in the suburb of Takoma Park, which is just across the border from DC in Maryland. The difference in the weather was immediately noticeable, it was cool but sunny and quite pleasant, with the sort of feel you get in autumn back home.


We checked out the neighbourhood, it appeared to be a very middle-class kind of suburb, with an expensive natural foods co-op grocery, coffee shops and a few restaurants and bars.

Does anyone know if these are edible?
We decided to go a little further afield to see if we could find a cheaper grocery store, and walked about 20 minutes to the next suburb. As soon as we crossed a major highway we could see the difference in the houses, they weren't as "grand" as the nice ones we'd been walking past, and as we walked across the car park to the supermarket a beggar approached us asking for spare change. In the supermarket the range of food was very different - it now had Mexican, Asian and Carribean sections, and of course much more reasonable prices.



Friday, September 23, 2016

Day 216 - Georgia on my mind

Charleston to Orlando

We had a lot of ground to cover today so we made an early start with a self guided walking tour of the French Quarter of Charleston. The tour took in the market, and also the waterfront, and now that we've seen a couple of French Quarters in the space of a week or so, and also having visited France previously, we are fast becoming experts in the "Quartiers Français", as those in the know (like us) would call them.

From Charleston we drove on to Savannah, which has a similar feel to Charleston, at least as far as the historic centres of the cities go, with the grand, beautiful old American style of weatherboard homes with shutters. Savannah also has a waterfront, which was a bit more touristy than the one in Charleston, but it also meant that it was better developed for things like al-fresco dining.

We stopped for lunch at a cafe that had good reviews for coffee but we really should learn our lesson and not take any notice of coffee reviews written by Americans, we are from Melbourne after all (as well as French Quarter experts, have I mentioned that?). Even asking for a strong coffee didn't help, the coffee was still weak and tepid. They did have an interesting credit card payment system using an iPad though, too bad they didn't put the money they spent on that towards some barista training for their staff.

We walked around some of the old city and were amused to see an Australian Aboriginal Art Gallery - what a strange place for something like that. We read online later that day that the Australian owner was shot and killed in the street two nights earlier while walking home from dinner.

We pushed on towards Orlando, stopping at St. Augustine, the oldest European settled city in America, to walk around the Castillo de San Marcos which is an old fort built by the Spanish, complete with a moat, drawbridge and plenty of cannons.

We made it to Orlando (staying near the airport where we need to return our car tomorrow) after dark, we have covered over 5500km in our two week road trip of the Deep South, but it was great to have some freedom.



Thursday, September 22, 2016

Day 215 - MLK day

Montgomery to Charleston

Our tour of the Dexter Parsonage Museum was at 10am. Martin Luther King was the pastor here and also lived in the house nearby. There was only the two of us on the tour which was taken by Dr. Shirly Cherry, who had experienced segregation and now was the tour director. She was a real character who did a fantastic job. She also took us to visit Vera Harris who lived a few houses down and was actively involved during the period, and her daughter who used to babysit MLK's children.

We were handed the keys and allowed to open the door to Martin Luther King's home. Once we entered we heard many interesting stories about the house, MLK, and his family. Dr. Cherry really made the period become alive, she has a special ability and passion and also likes to weave some life lessons into her stories, which she does in a stern but very engaging way. The hour long tour ended up taking two hours as Dr. Cherry couldn't resist giving us just one more bit of information, but the time just flew.


After finishing a little later than we had planned we pressed on to Charleston, stopping for lunch on the outskirts of Atlanta along the way before we reached our destination quite late.

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Day 214 - Civil rights road trip

Nashville to Montgomery

16th Street Baptist Church
Today we drove to Montgomery, stopping along the way in Birmingham for lunch.

Both cities are historic locations for the civil rights movement, and the events that took place there were prominent in the displays we'd seen in the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

While in Birmingham we stopped at the 16th Street Baptist Church, where four black girls were killed in a bombing back in 1963.

We arrived in Montgomery late in the day, so we booked in for a tour of the Dexter Parsonage museum the next morning, and headed out to a local Indian restaurant for dinner.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Day 213 - Are you ready for the country?

Memphis to Nashville

Next stop Nashville and the drive from Memphis isn't that long, so we managed to be checked in and ready to start sightseeing that afternoon.

It was a beautiful day so we drove into town and parked near the river, then walked up Broadway, you could say it's Nashville's equivalent of Bourbon St. and Beale St. At 5pm on a Tuesday there was plenty of live music already going on at numerous venues, and lots of places for eating and drinking.
We want up to the roof top of one of the more famous bars in town, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, and before long we were joined by a family from Alabama that were in town for a nursery/gardening convention. They were able to give us some good advice in many areas, and were able to enlighten us as to why everyone speeds - it's because they generally don't get pulled over unless they're more that 5mph over the speed limit.


Monday, September 19, 2016

Day 212 - K&M have left the building

Memphis

Our first visit this morning was for a Sun Studios tour to see the place where so many legends made their first records. The tour was very interesting, we didn't realise that the studio was still in use, they do tours during the day and bands come in at night to record. Everyone had a chance to have their photo taken at the microphone that Elvis used for making his first records.

Then it was off to Graceland, home of Elvis. There were plenty of tour options (for example, you could also visit his private plane), we chose to take just the mansion tour, where you are supplied with an iPad and headphones to listen to the commentary, which worked really well.

The mansion is set on 11 acres with some nice areas including stables and a small swimming pool, the house itself was really interesting, it was well worth the visit, even though neither of us are Elvis fans.
Our final stop was at the National Civil Rights Museum which is based at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot on the veranda outside his room. It is a large museum with a huge amount of information, beginning back with the earliest days of slavery right through to the election of Barack Obama. The path through the museum ends right outside the hotel room that Luther King was standing in front of when he was assassinated, with everything left they way it would have looked at the time.
After all that we had developed quite an appetite of course, so it was back to Beale St for some more BBQ ribs!

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Day 211 - BBQ time

New Orleans to Memphis

The next phase of our road trip was north to Memphis - home of the blues and Elvis. It took us pretty much all day to drive there, and after finding a hotel we headed out to try some of the famous Memphis BBQ.

At Central BBQ we placed our order at the counter and five minutes later our meal arrived - the ribs in particular were great, and better than anything we could get back home - especially at the price we paid.

We then walked down to Beale St, where we sat with a drink and enjoyed a great blues band for a while. The place reminded us a little of Bourbon St, though much smaller and more subdued, the age demographic was also skewed towards an older age group.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Day 209 to 210 - Supermarket overload

New Orleans

Day 209

We signed up for a walking tour of the French Quarter so we could get some appreciation of New Orleans' history. The tour guide was very theatrical as he walked us through the turbulent history of the French, Spanish, English and American occupation of NOLA.

In the afternoon we took the trolley car (or tram as we would call it at home) to the Garden District and took ourselves on a self-guided walking tour of the grand houses of the area. They are massive and beautiful but difficult to admire when you realize that the wealth that built them was all made on the backs of slaves doing all the hard work while the owners reaped the financial rewards. The last house we visited was used in the Benjamin Button film and apparently Brad Pitt ended up buying a home in the area afterwards. It's easy to see why anyone would want to live in the area as it is so stunning but having hordes of tourists walking the streets everyday of the year gawking at your house would surely put a dampener on it.

We spent the evening with the throngs of tourists doing the Bourbon St walk. We stopped off at a few places and enjoyed the music, at one point we transferred our drinks into plastic cups so we could stroll down the street (no glass allowed). Along the street there are second floor verandas where people stand and throw plastic beaded necklaces to the people below, especially to women when they flash their chests.



Day 210

This morning we drive out to visit one of the grand old sugar plantation houses along the Mississippi River, about an hour from town. We chose the Laura plantation as it seems to be one of the more popular ones, when we arrived we were ushered straight onto a tour with a large group. The tour took us through the main house and told the story of the families that lived there, it lasted about an hour and seemed a bit superficial with regard to the historical side of things, the sugar tour we did in Cuba was more informative.

The Laura plantation main house
The entire area along the river was originally all sugar plantations, and we could see many of the old plantation houses as we followed the river road. We visited the Oak Valley plantation for lunch as recommended by the guide at Laura (though K had trouble with the thick American accent here in the Deep South and thought we were headed to "O'Gally"). Oak Valley was much larger than Laura and was self guided, with plenty of information available on the slaves and their lives.

Slave quarters

We headed back to NOLA and stopped at a supermarket, where we suffered from further culture shock. We have spent so long trying to scrape together appetising meals in supermarkets with little range that we have been blown away by what we've seen here in the US. The supermarkets are crammed with so much produce and freshly cooked, ready made options that we have been wandering around struggling with the choices, almost leaving empty handed because we couldn't make a decision on what to eat!




Thursday, September 15, 2016

Day 208 - Looks a bit dodgy around here

Panama City to New Orleans

We pushed on for New Orleans and decided to take the scenic route along the coast through Biloxi, which was a nice change from the featureless landscape we drove through yesterday.

As we entered New Orleans and approached the place where we were staying we started wondering what kind of place we'd booked, the intersections all had people sitting with signs asking for money. Just a few blocks from there and at our Airbnb though it was a different story, it looked like a reasonable neighbourhood. The house we are staying in lost its roof in Hurricane Katrina and is still in the process of being renovated, the area is a mix of different styles of old, mainly weatherboard houses.

Our house is called a "shotgun", there is no hallway, each room leads onto the next so you go from the front room, to each bedroom, and then the kitchen out the back. The name apparently arose because you can fire a gun through the front door and it will travel unimpeded out the back.

We left the car and walked into the French Quarter which is the main tourist area, and strolled down the famed Bourbon St. It was only 5pm but already there were plenty of people looking a little the worse for wear with drinks in hand. That's the done thing in Bourbon St - take your drink and walk down the street. There were already some strange sights to be seen, an old man wearing nothing but a tutu, and topless girl with a sign saying "pics for tips".


Napoleon House was recommended to us as a good place to go so we tried a Pimms Cup - not too bad, but not that great either. While we had our drinks we checked out the menu with New Orleans speicialties. Po Boys are a big deal (they're a big deal in some parts of Melbourne too) - but at the end of they day they are just another type of sandwich to us.

We walked across the road to a cajun and creole restaurant and had a great meal with blackened fish, jambalaya and gumbo. We had been told there is no such thing as a vegetarian in New Orleans, as the food is all heavily based on meat - no complaints from us!



Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Day 207 - Back in Panama City

Orlando to Panama City

Our road trip continued as we left Orlando to head to New Orleans. NOLA as they call it is a long way from Orlando so we planed to stop overnight in Panama City.

The road trip was uneventful, just some stops for fuel and food, and we arrived in Panama City before it got dark.


The nearby Panama City Beach has a lovely beach with soft white sand, we sat at a local bar there that was recommended by our hotel where we watched the sunset. Just as the sun disappeared from view we witnessed the daily ritual of firing a rifle as the sun set .... trust the Americans to introduce guns into something as beautiful as the sun setting over the ocean!


Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Day 205 to 206 - Every kid's dream is to stand in line for two hours

Orlando

Day 205

Disneyland was on today's agenda, we arrived around 11.30am and took the boat option to get to the Magic Kingdom. Once inside we entered the first section we came across which was Tomorrow Land. The first "ride" was something to do with Lilo and Stitch whoever they are, it was pretty old, tired and corny, the best part was when a little kid got scared and started screaming in the dark - we feel sorry for the kid but it was still the funniest bit of the whole thing.

We decided to be a bit more selective in our ride choices, the Seven Dwarfs mine ride had been closed for "maintenance issues", but as it had just opened we thought this would be a good time as the queues should be short ....  90 minutes later we were going nowhere, it turned out they had been letting all the "fast pass" people in. We finally had our turn on the five minute ride around the two hour mark - Disneyland was fast losing its allure, we didn't pay all that money to stand in a queue all day!

We then figured out that we could also use the fast pass system for three rides, from there the afternoon went much more smoothly, funny how you like fast pass when it's you that's doing the passing.

Magic Kingdom is incredibly clean, everything is shiny and spotless, probably helped by their system of not selling much food (apart from popcorn and ice cream) outside sit down venues.  We waited until the end of the night to watch the fireworks and electrical light show before making a dash along with thousands of others to tackle the exit. It was handled very quickly and efficiently, the queues for rides might have spoiled things earlier in the day but Disney sure are efficient at moving a lot of people seamlessly out the exits to their cars.

Day 206

Today we drove in bucketing rain to the Kennedy Space Centre, September is known to be a bad month for the weather in Florida, but luckily at the space centre we were was pretty much indoors or on a bus for most of the time we were there - lucky we didn't plan Disneyland for today.

The space centre is huge and the bus tour of the area to see the various buildings and launching pads included swamp areas, complete with alligators right on the river bank as the bus passed.


The exhibitions, films and interactive displays were brilliant, the sheer size of the rockets and shuttles was jaw dropping. We saw a Saturn V rocket and the Atlantis space shuttle, and were also able to take a ride on a space shuttle launch simulator, The Kennedy Space Centre is probably one of the best museum/exhibitions we have seen, the five hours we spent there felt like only a couple - we had a great time here and enjoyed the  day much more than the one we spent at Disneyland yesterday.




Sunday, September 11, 2016

Day 204 - Taking a toll

Key West to Orlando

In the morning we went for a walk around Key West, including a visit to the southernmost point in the US. There were lots of people lined up to get their photo at the "90 miles to Cuba" sign, we went and had a coffee before our 7+ hour drive to Orlando, at which point it started pouring rain.

The many bridges that link the keys are huge in length, at one point we had to stop at a draw bridge to let a yacht pass through. We were relying on Google Maps for our navigation, which was working very well for us, but we also discovered the Waze app was able to warn us that there were police up ahead, though it seemed that we were the only ones that kept to the speed limit.

We stopped at Miami South Beach on the way through for a late lunch, and took a walk on the very wide and clean beach, though the sand was a bit gritty and the water not quite the beautiful inviting colours we'd seen in the Caribbean.


After that it was back on the road to brave the chaotic traffic, with people speeding and changing lanes all over the place, and the numerous toll points which took us a while (and a couple of missed tolls) to work out - hopefully we won't get fined! Thanks to our trusty GPS we managed to negotiate the system of turnpikes, freeways and exits to make it to our Airbnb apartment in Orlando.

Halloween must be coming up
Our final task for the day was to get some dinner, so we went to a local supermarket where we marveled at the sheer size and variety of food on offer - makes our local Woolies look like a milk bar!.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Day 203 - What do you mean we need a visa?

Nassau (Bahamas) to Key West (USA)

An extremely early start today, whose idea was it to book an international flight for 6:45 am? We had booked a taxi for 4am and for once we were collected on time, but at the airport we found that the staff hadn't started work, though at least this time we could sit inside the airport while we waited for the check-in counters to open.

It was interesting to see how different cultures greet each other, whenever someone new entered the airport and sat down they greeted everyone already there with "Good Morning", that sort of thing also happened all through South and Central America, quite different to back home.

The counters opened up around 4:45am and luckily we were very close to the head of the queue, because from there it all started falling apart! Stupid us had been travelling so long without doing much advance planning that we had completely neglected the fact that we needed to arrange a visa to enter the US. We were informed that we could do it online and it shouldn't take too long, and least the airport had decent free wifi, so after spending quite some time submitting data into web pages we returned to the check-in desk.

By the time we were seen again M's visa had come through but K's hadn't appeared in the system, so we were stalled at that point. The girl at the counter was very patient and helpful and periodically looked for K's visa while she continued to check in other passengers. We were seriously considering whether M should go ahead on his own when just a few minutes before check in closed K's visa came through  - crisis averted! The check-in girl said she had been so worried for us so you can imagine how stressed we were, we may not have done our research very well but luckily we always make a point of getting to the airports early!

At Miami airport we picked up a rental car at the largest car hire terminal we have ever seen, they say everything's bigger in the US, there must have been over a hundred people collecting cars.

Our first stop was Coopertown to take an airboat ride on the Everglades, the boat glides smoothly over the grass and water with barely any movement, a lot of fun. We managed to see a few alligators, one incredibly close, right next to the side of the boat - they wouldn't let you get that close to a croc in Australia. Further on we saw more than twenty baby alligators, less than two weeks old, guarded by their much larger mum.

We then drove south from there to the Florida Keys, stopping for lunch at a Waffle House at Key Largo, where we had some very yummy hash browns - there's something they should have back home!

We arrived into Key West at the southernmost point of the US late that afternoon, after driving for hours over the bridges between the islands that form the Florida Keys. We found a cute fish and chip bar for dinner, we had been hanging out for some normal fish and chips - no potato cakes, dimmies or chiko rolls unfortunately. It's quite a culture shock to have left 7 months of pretty basic "service" to the over the top American style of service, always checking we are happy or need anything else. You could also say we are easing into it gently as Spanish is widely spoken in Miami and South Florida, people working in shops and restaurants appear to be fluent in both English and Spanish, though Key West seems to be a very "white" place.

After walking around the harbour we wandered along Duval St, where there was a mass of people, and we could observe people getting tattooed through the street windows. It was also unusual to see people walking down the street with their drinks in their hands, this was a very happening place, and as it was Saturday night the place had a very festive atmosphere.