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!

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.

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.

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!

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.