Nawlins'

Sunday

An early morning and quick breakfast meant that it seemed that in no time we were saying goodbye to the most wonderful hosts and trying not to get too emotional. Thank you to Kathy and Doug for the card as well :)

We arrived in New Orleans in the late afternoon and had an interesting start to our stay in the big easy. On the shuttle from the airport our driver was regaling us with mildly amusing commentary, when he almost hit a skateboarder, prompting him to postulate about how skateboarders are the new 'organ donors' of the city, replacing motorcyclists (according to him). The group of four kids continued to skate next to the bus and at one point one of the kids bent over, exposing a colt .45 shoved in the back of his pants (a texan on board was quite certain of the type of gun). There was absolutely no threat or anything, but it was a somewhat unsettling reminder of where we were.

We checked in to our hotel and decided to explore. By this stage we needed some food, so we ended up wandering along Decatuer street and decided on getting some food at Emmaline's, a little pub with local beer. We had catfish jambalya, deep fried okra and dirty rice. Soooooo yummy. This kind of set the tone for the rest of our stay, meaning this bit of our trip was going to be all about the food. We explored some more and looked through some shops and just generally enjoyed the lovely atmosphere before heading back to our room, as we discovered that everything shuts very early on Sunday. There was quite the hiccough back in our room. Andrew was in the shower when we lost all hot water. It was after 11pm so we rang the front desk and they sent up an engineer. He came up about 5 minutes later and spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out the problem (while I'm in pj's and Andrew still has shampoo in his hair). It turned out that one of the boilers had gone out and it would take hours to fix, so we ended up packing up and moving to a new room at 11.30pm. This was very annoying, but on the plus side we were given a $50 credit on our account to make up for the inconvenience. An odd but good first day.

Monday

A beautiful day meant we had lots of time to wander the streets. We began by exploring Chartres and Bourbon streets, stopping on Ursulines at Croissant d'Or for croissants and coffee for breakfast. I wanted to see Elysian Fields so we walked the length of the French quarter and then some, past Frenchman street, and found it, took a photo of the sign, and made our way back to the quarter. We couldn't quite believe how quickly the and sharply the feel of the place changes immediately after Frenchman, so much so it would be comical if it weren't a real place where actual people live.

We walked back along the length of Frenchman street and turned down Royal to head back into the centre of the quarter. There are so many antique stores, clothing stores, galleries and interesting little shops to explore, and soon we were in need of lunch. We had a detour for a recommended record store, which was brilliant, and bought Conditions of My Parole before continuing. We stopped for a drink at the New Orleans Musical Legends park for mojito and mint julep (ugh, had no idea it was whiskey) before stopping at a little cafe for coffee and a scone. We continued our exploring, wandering past Jackson square and up and down almost every street in the quarter. There were quite a few street performers and it was lovely to see such amazing talent on display.

It became quite dark and again, shops were closing, so we went to the Jax brewery for some dinner. Wow, it was amazing. Andrew had a tasting plate of four local beers, and I had another mojito, and we decided to share a meal special they had as we've discovered that the portions here are beyond ridiculous. We had blackened red fish, gumbo and bread pudding for dessert. It was some of the best food we've ever tasted. The fish was incredible, the gumbo was delicious and I'm fairly sure I could eat bread pudding for a week and still want more. By this stage it was a bit late, so we decided that an early night was probably a good plan as tomorrow was New Years Eve. We finished up and then went back to our hotel, stopping by some more record stores on the way. A lovely day in a beautiful city.

New Years

We slept in to ensure we'd be up and about tonight, and decided to try a New Orleans speciality of beignets for breakfast and, after looking for a considerable time, we lined up for Cafe du Monde, a place that has been serving them sine 1862. They were excellent (though the coffee was ordinary) and they're a bit like hot cinnamon doughnuts except covered in icing sugar and a bit crispier. Delicious. The markets were next on our agenda, so we headed there and looked through the stands and decided to grab lunch there. Gator sausage on a stick and fried crawfish (yabbies) were delicious, and we had apple beignets for a dessert, before continuing our wander through the streets. We had no idea just how much a real chandelier costs (think $90000 and up).

It was getting really cold, so we popped back to the hotel to get our warm jackets, then we decided to walk back along the foreshore and find some dinner. There was one recommendation in the guide about a place called Coop's, so we went there. Yet again, incredible food. Andrew had cajun fried chicken, I had fried shrimp. Way too much food, but so yummy. We finished our drinks then went to the Allstate Sugarbowl Fanfest. This was basically a square that was taken over by football sponsors where there was a free concert and activities like kicking a goal etc. By signing up for emails, we both received free t-shirts, so that was a bonus. We stuck around for the last few songs of the last band, then made our way slowly along Bourbon street to soak up some of the New Years atmosphere, which was clearly in full swing. It turns out that you don't have to do anything to get beads, people just chuck them off balconies, so by the end of the street both Andrew and I were festooned with beads and we decided to kill some time back in our room before heading out for drinks and festivities closer to midnight.

Wow, the difference a couple of hours makes. Where it was fairly crowded and mildly sauced earlier, as we went out at 11pm to make our way to the banks of the Mississippi to see the fireworks, the crows were much bigger, rowdier and altogether more manic. There was a huge police presence and a really pumped atmosphere in spite of the rain. We grabbed a couple of drinks on the way and found a great spot on the river directly in front of the barge that had the fireworks. Unfortunately it began to rain somewhat heavily part way through the fireworks, but they were spectacular! They went for around 15 minutes and it was a brilliant way to ring in the new year. With the fireworks over and the crowds getting a bit much, we went and grabbed some wine and beer from the local supermarket, as well as some snacks, and went back to our room around 12.45am to watch some Parks and Rec and continue drinking in a quieter setting. A fantastic new years in all.

New Years Day

Sleep in! We got up late and decided that for our last day in the big easy we would go on a river cruise on the Natchez, the last original steam boat on the Mississippi. We paid for the lunch and river cruise so we were treated to a huge all you can eat buffet of jambalaya, catfish, okra, quiche, cornbread, sausage and bread pudding. This was our brunch so, with plates piled high with too much food, we spent two hours cruising up and down the Mississippi, enjoying the lovely live jazz band and exploring the boat. This was such a lovely way to spend the early afternoon and we'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone considering coming here.

Following our cruise we went past the Sugarbowl area and won some more free things, including gloves, a blanket, keyring and lip balm. We were fairly tired and, knowing that we'd need to be up at 3 am, plus having $50 on our account to use, we decided to head back to our hotel and type up some stuff and have dinner at the hotel. New Orleans is a brilliant, laid back, beautiful city with incredible food and welcoming people. We loved our time here.

Canada, eh!

Saturday

What a magnificent 6 days :) We were tense on the plane as we had been significantly delayed in Washington, and we had messaged Kathy and Doug on facebook but otherwise we had no way of letting them know that we were going to be late. When we arrived at Buffalo airport we couldn't see them but fortunately we had Kathy's mobile and we were able to call her. Serendipitously, they thought we were arriving tomorrow but they had checked facebook and in the dash to the airport they arrived about 60 seconds after we had collected our bags, meaning that they weren't stuck waiting for us and we weren't waiting for them.

A huge thank you to Kathy and Doug for welcoming us into their beautiful home. We were made to feel like a part of the family and it was a wonderful and magical Christmas that we were able to spend with all of you.

So we arrived the day before Christmas eve where we were introduced to Scamp (their beautiful puppy), Shannon and Steve, who were also staying, and we had a wonderful evening of sharing stories and meeting people, as well as sampling some Canadian fare at the famous Bugsy's. A lovely start to our time in Canada.

Sunday

Kathy made a magnificent breakfast of waffles with maple syrup (of course!) and we then began a day of pre-Christmas fun and relaxation. It was snowing quite heavily, so we were thrilled that we would indeed be having a white Christmas. We spent the day snacking on nuts n' bolts, an amazing mix of nuts, cereal, pretzels and chips baked in the oven, whilst watching the snow and getting to know everyone. We were joined by Kristen and Marty in the evening for dinner and had a lovely time reminiscing about Andrew's time spent here as a child. Due to the wonders of time travel we rang our parents in the evening to wish them Merry Christmas on their Christmas morning. We eventually got to bed in the early hours of the next morning.

Christmas day!

What a brilliant Christmas. The day began with crust-less quiche, home-made cinnamon scrolls and fresh fruit. This was followed by opening presents, during which we were extremely spoiled and received gifts of Canadian themed mittens, towels, clothing, cups and some very special syrup, as well as some lovely speciality beers! Feeling spoiled and very full we went for a walk in the snow with Scamp, accompanied by Shannon, Steve, Breanne, Kristen and Marty. We encountered some Canadian geese and saw Lake Ontario in its semi-frozen state. It was freezing but very beautiful.

We made our way back home for our Christmas dinner. We spent some time getting everything ready, elongating the table, making everything perfect, and then dinner began after our already large group was joined by Kathy's parents, Jan and Al, and their friends Kevin and Pat. With thirteen people ready for dinner we sat down to the magnificent feast that Kathy put together. Turkey, vegetables, mashed potato, squash, gravy, cranberry sauce and rolls comprised our dinner, followed by pumpkin and apple pies with cream for dessert, then some lovely home made truffles from Breanne for afters, as well as slices and biscuits as well. We were so stuffed full of the amazing food and wiled away the last of Christmas with some port and drinks until the early hours. A truly wonderful white Christmas.

Boxing day

A huge thank you to Shannon, Steve, Kristen and Marty for enabling us to have a brilliant day in Toronto. Steve and Shannon offered to give us a lift into Toronto to visit with Kristen and Marty who kindly offered to show us around the city. We piled into the truck and headed North to Toronto where we were shown around this beautiful city. We had a drink at Kristen and Marty's lovely apartment in a beautiful part of the city before heading to the Kensington markets, a very bohemian/hipster part of the city with some excellent shops and great street art. We all stopped for Jamaican meat patties (think a meat pasty) and then we headed to Rotate this, a record store where Andrew, Marty and Steve were left to their own devices as Kristen, Shannon and I explored some of the other boutique stores. After returning to the store and assessing the damage (Rush, Queens of the Stone Age and MC5) we decided to get poutin, a Canadian delicacy.

The first place we went to was closed so we went to another lovely fish and chip shop (not like the ones at home) where we had local beer and meals and we were able to sample the poutin. This chip, cheese curd and gravy combo was pretty amazing (though I only had a bite as I don't like gravy) and I can see why it's popular in this place of ridiculous cold! We then headed back to the apartment and said goodbye to Shannon and Steve, who were on their way to visit other relatives, and then we continued to explore the local area. We wandered down to the local castle and marvelled at the amazing architecture, as well as the astonishing icicles that had formed on the trees and railings as the temperature dropped. Fairy lights and icicle adorned trees and homes now make perfect sense. We went back to Kristen and Marty's to warm up before heading towards Union Station to catch the train back to Burlington where we would be picked up. Again, thank you to Kristen and Marty for being excellent guides for our brilliant day in Toronto. We found Kathy and Doug at the station (after some time as we'd gone to the wrong exit) and went back home to thaw out after our excellent day.

Friday

Today was about Butterflies. Breanne joined Kathy, Doug and us on an excursion to the botanic gardens to visit the Butterfly house, so we drove up into the snow covered mountains, stopping at he monument to Brock (a Canadian hero) before making our way to the exhibit. On the way we saw some of the very picturesque homes and buildings in Niagra, as well as the lovely place where Kathy and Doug were married. We made our way into the butterfly house after leaving our coats and spent just over an hour taking many photos of the beautiful butterflies and flowers in the garden. One of the huge blue morpha's took a liking to Andrew and sat on his shoulder for most of our time in the garden. It was quite surreal looking outside of the glasshouse to snow covered and dormant gardens whilst being in a tropical and humid climate.

After leaving the butterflies we then drove to see the whirlpool, a 90 degree point of the Niagra river where the water plunges over one mile down beneath the surface of the water in a powerful whirlpool at the corner bend before continuing over the falls further downstream. Amazing. We drove back past the phenomenal falls themselves and up through the town before dropping Breanne at work and heading home for a lovely roast for tea. The pot roast was yet another tribute to Kathy's exceptional culinary skills, and afterwards we made our way to Bill and Sharon's lovely new house in Niagra wine country for drinks and a catch up. We enjoyed some delicious ice wine and admired their huge tree and lovely dog Maya, as well as being treated to a look at Bill's most prized possession, a metallic cherry red 1980's Corvette. We didn't stay too late and headed home for a last cup of tea and another excellent day in Canada was ended with drinks and conversation into the late evening.

Saturday

Today was all about the falls. Kristen and Marty once again offered to be our unofficial tour guides and came and took us out for our day of touring the spectacular Niagra falls. Kathy sent us off after an excellent breakfast of french toast, eggs and maple syrup and we drove back into Niagra falls to see them close up. They are truly breathtaking and it was an awesome experience to stand a metre away from the edge and watch the millions of tonnes of water hurtling over the precipice to plunging depths below. As we walked along the path every few steps offered a stunning new vista that no picture will be able to capture fully. We took our time admiring both the horseshoe and American falls from many angles, marvelling at the beauty and roar of these incredible natural monument to the power of nature. We then decided to take the journey behind the falls, so we went down into the tunnels carved into the rock behind the falls where there were various portals and lookouts from which you could see the rushing wall of water and hear the thunderous roar even through the thousands of tonnes of rock. It was phenomenal.

Following our up close look at the falls we thought it would be fun to go on the skywheel and see what the views were like. We sampled some Tim Horton's (a Canadian coffee and doughnut place) and then went on the huge Ferris wheel, which had air-conditioned glass gondolas which offered the best views yet of both the American and Horseshoe falls. We went around 5 times and once we got off the light was fading and we decided it was the perfect end to a day in Niagra. On our walk back to the car we were able to admire some of the light displays in the park and a friendly black squirrel came over to say hello (which I was very excited about). We made a short stop at the Levi's outlet, though we figured we'd wait until Vegas, before Kristen and Marty dropped us back home. Again, a huge thank you to both of you for the magnificent day out!

In celebration of Kathy and Doug's 28 year anniversary and our last night we went out to dinner at a really delicious Thai restaurant where we feasted on Pud Thai, cashew nut chicken, green curry chicken and basil beef, plus a selection of entree's and drinks. It was a delightful evening and a really wonderful final night in Canada. Both of us went to bed that night knowing that we would miss Kathy, Doug, their wonderful home and fabulous family for quite some time. As ever, if any of you find yourselves down under, just say the word and you'll be set up in Adelaide any time. Thank you for making our Canadian experience so magnificent.

Washington airport

Damn flight is delayed 40 mins so far. Curse you Ronald Reagan Airport.
Additional: all the liquid hand soap in D.C.smells like cherry.

Washington D.C.

Washington DC Day 1 21^st December

A super early start of 5am today to ensure that we made our 7am train from Penn Station. We arrived at our beautiful hotel, the Washington Plaza at around 10am and checked in. We were given a suite with two bathrooms, a bed as big as our bedroom at home and a lounge. They also gave us champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries as I had said it was our honeymoon when booking. It was a bit nuts, but at least it meant that we could look forward to three nights of proper sleep.

We decided to go exploring and after some directions we began walking towards the 'mall' – a very long stretch of parkland, monuments and museums. We first came upon the White House from the rear of the building where the giant lantern hangs above the entrance. It's a beautiful place and we were lucky to get perfect weather. There were a couple of small protests and a local Fox news person asked us for our assessment of Obama's year. We said he'd done as well as he could and he seemed mildly surprised. We walked the whole way around to the front of the house and took some photos. You're actually really quite far away from the front of the building in comparison to the rear, but it's still very surreal seeing the actual White House in the flesh. Both of us were almost waiting to see it explode really, as that's how it's often pictured on screen. We continued our walk and spied the Washington monument (it's hard to miss) and continued to the left towards the reflecting pool and the Lincoln memorial. It's a bit of a hike but we did make it to the Lincoln memorial and wow, it's spectacular. The statue is huge and every bit as imposing as you imagine, and to either side carved into the walls are two of his famous speeches, which lend a bitter irony to the city as he was a champion of peace and diplomacy. We stopped at a little refreshment stand where we met some of the very bold bird life and then we decided to hire bikes to get around during our time in the city.

From the memorial we went back towards the Washington monument and over to the strip of Smithsonian's. During the walk we saw the president's helicopter fly over, though we weren't in a position to take a photo. The mall is a simply huge boulevard with ten museums/galleries lining either side and ending with the superb Capitol building. We visited the Smithsonian castle which is also the information centre, learned that all of the galleries and museums are free and decided to try and see a couple of things that afternoon. Since we missed out on MoMA in NY we went to the Hirshhorn Museum which is dedicated to modern and contemporary art. It's a lovely museum, and we saw some original Warhol prints and paintings, as well as a number of installations on the theme of 'destruction' which were quite interesting. It didn't take us that long to see everything so we then made our way over to the Natural History Museum to see the Butterly house and Insect Exhibit at the end of the day. The Butterfly house was just brilliant – the museum hatches their butterflies every day and has a temperature controlled, purpose built garden inside for them. This is connected to the insect exhibit where tarantulas, beetles, spiders, centipedes, grasshoppers and so on are kept. It was a fun and engaging end to our day of sightseeing.

We decided to check out the pub just down from our hotel for tea, where Andrew had a bison burger and I had some lovely salmon. Unlike NY where everything is open until quite late, DC is really very, very quiet, with most stores and even cafes being shut by 7pm. After our dinner we went back to our luxurious hotel and promptly passed out from exhaustion.

Washingon day 2

Today was all about museums. We began with the American History Museum, which is dedicated to the preservation of American culture. It was brilliant. We saw Dorothy's ruby slippers, Kermit the frog, Kelly Slater's surfboard and (possibly one of the most exciting things) Pretty Hate Machine on tape as part of the audio exhibit – it could have been any tape in the world, and it was that one. This museum was excellent generally, though the war section had a few glaring omissions, such as no reference at all to the internment of Japanese and German citizens during the war, and some of the language choices were quite interesting, such as the write up about the making of the American flag being undertaken by a number of women and an 'indentured black servant' who worked for the family. It was a brilliant place to visit and we were there for around four and a half hours.

We then headed back to the Natural History museum to explore the rest of it. So many dinosaurs! We spent the rest of the day weaving through thousands of exhibits on ocean life, mammals, dinosaurs, geology and so on. One of our favourites was the skeleton of the Mastodon, a huge mammoth like creature that also had teeth. This also took a number of hours and we were there until closing, though we did see everything. The city was even quieter than the night before as everything must shut at 5.30pm on a Saturday, so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for very cheap cocktails and huge servings of food, before finding a little Christmas market which we had a quick look through and then we head back to our hotel. Another very busy day.

Day 3 – National Air and Space Museum!

Breakfast was at a delightful crepe kitchen that we found on our way to the museums, and they were delicious! I had Nutella and strawberries and Andrew had egg and ham. Delicious! Then we made our way to the National Air and Space Museum.

The title really says it all – this place was incredible! We walked into the museum and were greeted by the Apollo module, Chuck Jager's jet plane, the Spirit of St Louis and a piece of the moon all in the first section! We decided to go on the tour, which went for three hours, and covered some great details about the early days of flight, changes in aviation over time, famous pilots and astronauts, technological developments and, of course, space exploration. After the tour we had some lunch then went and did the full circuit of the museum on our own. It took all day but we left with a great sense of wonder at how far we have come in just 66 years from the first flight to landing on the moon (a bit of which we actually touched!). We took soooo many photos, so they will really show what we saw in detail.

The museums were now closed and so was pretty much everything else, so we decided to grab some cheap Mexican food for dinner and then we ended up back at our hotel by about 7pm. We finished off season 10 of Stargate and watched The Ark of Truth and went to bed.

Day 4 Morning

We only really had time to get some breakfast at a lovely little bakery and then head to the airport, ready to meet Kathy in Buffalo to begin our Christmas week in Canada. We are now waiting in the Ronald Reagan airport eating Five Guys burgers and they are amazing.

New York part two

Tuesday

We decided to begin our day at the Natural History Museum and we ended up spending virtually the whole day there! An astonishing place, we spent our time visiting the many dinosaur, animal and space exhibits, including he full size model of a blue whale suspended over two storeys of the marine life exhibit. The Hayden planetarium was incredible and the manner in which the animals were displayed was just beautiful, with each species positioned in its own mini exhibit made to mimic its natural environment. A truly magnificent museum, however, it did mean we never quite made it to the MET.

From the museum we headed into Times Square to get some food before seeing Book of Mormon at 7pm on Broadway. We decided to try some cheap options and went with pizza for $4 a slice. Thanks to Starbucks the internet suggested a little place just off the square where we had some of the very best pizza I've ever eaten. (It was the best - Andrew) (additional: It was called Patzeria Perfect Pizza)

Finally we arrived at the theatre and took our seats for Book of Mormon. It was phenomenal! Not only were the production values sky high but I've not laughed that much in one sitting for quite some time. The performances were incredible and the story, true to form, was utterly hilarious but also very controversial and I wouldn't be surprised if some people walked out. If it ever comes to Australia, we would see it again in a heartbeat. We decided to grab some snacks afterwards so we went back to Rockefeller centre and finished the day with tasty pastries and coffee.  A brilliant day.

Wednesday

Well, this was an interesting but complicated day. We had tickets to stand in line for the Daily Show and we knew we needed to get there early, so we decided to try and get cronuts back in SoHo and then head to the theatre in the lower west side. We found the Amstelle bakery again however they were sold out of  cronuts already so rather than waste the trip we decided to have a very fancy breakfast at Balthazar's. This restaurant is a very well known eatery and luckily they were able to seat us, though if it had been any other time I don't think we'd have had a chance. We had a very decadent brekkie of juice, coffee, sticky buns, crossiants, Christmas bread, cranberry loaf and rye. Really magnificent food but it's a once in a trip kind of thing as it was quite pricey. By this stage it was getting to around 12.45pm and we knew we needed to get there early, around 1.30ish for the 2.30pm handout, according to people who had been before. We did a little window shopping in SoHo and Tribeca and then began to make our way to the studio.

We underestimated the distance to the studio but still arrived at around 1.45pm when we were met with a line that doubled back and went around the block. This did not bode well. In conversations with others in the line, some were confident we would still get in whilst others decided not to bother waiting. After an excruciating wait we ended up missing out on tickets by about ten people. This was really disappointing and we were told to email the producers and explain our situation (only one more day in NY etc) and see if they could get us tickets for tomorrow. We were devastated BUT a man by the name of Ben took us aside an said that he had 4 tickets for tomorrow if we wanted them and if we gave him our email he could send them through. We gave him our details, thanked him profusely and just hoped he'd do as he promised.

At this point it was around 3pm, too late to try and get to the Statue of Liberty (which was the plan for tomorrow) and too late for the MET as well. We found a Starbucks as soon as we could to email the producers, thinking that Ben might not come through, and waited for a bit to see if anyone replied. More on that later...

We then decided to go down to the World Trade Centre 9/11 Memorial. It was an amazing sight to see how big the towers were and to see the new tower almost completed. It was a pretty emotional place and the memorial was a very fitting tribute.

As it was nearing dinner time by this stage we thought we'd try and go to Otto's, the Italian place Jo suggested, since we now had time and could look up the location. We headed back to the east end of 5th avenue and eventually found Otto's! There was a 45 minute wait, but figuring we might as well, we ordered some cheese and drinks to tide us over in the front bar. The cheeses (goats cheese, pecorino and another hard one) were lovely and each was served with its own accompaniment of truffle honey, spiced apricots and brandy cherries. A table eventually came up and we ordered peperoni pizza and the spaghetti and meatballs, which, I'm sorry to say, weren't that great. The pizza base was a little soggy and the peperoni tasted weird and the meatballs were just meh. The atmosphere was lovely, the music was great and there was good service but it felt like a slightly anti-climactic end to a somewhat disappointing day. We did some general window shopping for an hour or so and went back to our hotel.

Thursday - Last day in NY

Good news! Ben came through for us and he sent us his Daily Show tickets for our last day so we were able to get our hotel to print the information and we began our day early. Andrew had been given a list of places that apparently had good coffee, so we went on a mission to find one of them near 30 Rock called the Bluebottle. We tracked it down and also bought some pastries for breakfast and did have the best coffee so far in NY at the cafe.

Paranoid as a result of yesterday's failure to secure tickets, we went to join the line at 1pm and were very pleased to only find around 20 people there. We settled in for a long wait spent the time chatting and watching as the line grew and grew. By 2pm it was already doubled back and almost around the block again. Needless to say that when they started handing out tickets at 2.30pm we were very, very relieved to be in the first 35. With our tickets secured and sure of our instructions we had around an hour and a half before we needed to be back at the studio. It was a little warmer than previous days so we went for a stroll along the water before going to a pub opposite the studio to wait in the warm. Andrew finally got around to ordering a chilli dog, which he quite liked, and soon it was time to line up again NB: If you're ever going to go to a taping of anything in the US, be prepared for lots of queuing and airport style security, including metal detectors, bag searches and sniffer dogs - this happened both at Lettterman and Daily Show.

Finally, after more waiting we were in the studio of the Daily Show! We were both very excited and even more so when the warm up comedian explained that it was the last show of the year. This show would also turn out to be John Oliver's last show as well, so the taping was a little longer than we expected. John Stewart was funny, amicable and brilliant as always and he came and actually took questions from the audience prior to the taping. As it was John Oliver's last show there were a few moments where both men were clearly trying not to cry and it was really lovely to be there for that.

Following the taping we decided to go and do Top of the Rock which involves taking an elevator to the top (70th Floor) of the NBC building (30 Rock) and taking many, many, many photos. It was superb! The weather wasn't quite as cold as it had been, there was virtually no wind and being able to look over the city at night, straight at the Empire State Building and other famous landmarks was incredible. Both of us commented that it didn't feel real, and we were blown away by how magnificent the city looks from above. We spent around an hour and half up there, taking some video and photos, then we decided we needed some food.

I (Jess) thought that a fitting end would be icecream for tea, so I had a Ben and Jerry's 'Ron Burgundy - Scotchy Scotch Scotch' and 'Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream' hot fudge sundae. It was amazeballs. Andrew wanted some street vendor (yuk) food so a hotdog and pretzel in Times Square ended our last day in NY. We never found time for the Statue of Liberty, the MET or MoMA but that just leaves us things to do for next time. NY is a phenomenal city and one I could most definitely live in very happily.

Photo dump

Here's a link to all the photos so far:
http://s93.photobucket.com/user/tired_faith/library/North%20America%202013%20-%202014

NEW YORK CITY!

New York, New York!

Friday the 13^th

Wow, only just now have time to think, let alone write. So after the utterly ridiculous 39 hour day (which was not helped by the final flight being a 'budget' one, meaning five hours at the end of a 33 hour non-stop day without a TV screen or food) we finally arrived at our hotel on Central Park at 10.44 pm local time, having left home at 7.50am that morning. I haven't ever felt that exhausted before, to the extent that we got into our room and crashed almost immediately. We're still getting small bouts of vertigo as a result of the jet lag, but otherwise we're fine now. Friday didn't really count as a night in NY.

Saturday

Woke up and decided to head outside where, it turned out, it was snowing heavily. And it kept snowing all day – the forecasters here called it a 'storm' but really it was just constant snow with some wind. We weren't particularly fussed about what to do, so we headed towards Soho and managed to serendipitously find the Dominique Ansell bakery (home of the cronut) so we stopped for breakfast there and had some lovely coffee, madeleines, caramelised apple tart and double chocolate eclair. Amazing. Somewhat revived we began to explore Soho and discovered some delightful, quirky and horrendously expensive shops full of amazing clothes, nick nacks and shoes. We were going to go into Balthazar's but it was packed so we continued to wander when we then found the rice pudding store unique to NY so stopped for some pudding before finding a Uniqlo where we stocked up on pretty much everything from socks to tops. By this stage we had wandered around in the snow for quite some time, so our shoes were utterly soaked, meaning we had to get new ones, so I (Jess) bought some cheap Merrel's from a huge outdoor store and the exploring continued.

We traipsed through the city getting lost regularly, but that was the blinding snow's fault more than our own incompetence (that's the story and we're sticking with it) before stopping at Century 21 for more shopping and ended our first day in Chinatown with some sesame chicken, noodles and dumplings. It was still snowing and by now we were exhausted so we made our way back to the hotel by about 10pm.

Sunday

We were up and about by 10am and, as a result of the snow the day before, we decided to walk virtually the entire length of Central Park and then visit Time Square. Central Park is opposite our hotel and, as we're basically in Harlem, we were able to see most of it as we wound around the lagoons, small woods, lawns, baseball fields and up and down the terrain (which is surprisingly hilly) that was covered in around half a foot of snow. It was spectacular. There were kids tobogganing, squirrels frolicking, park rangers on horse back and there's even a castle in the middle of the park! It's 894 acres, so it was a long walk, but we stopped for tea and pastries at the little organic cafe in the park, then culminated with Christmas markets at the downtown end where we had hot cider and bratwurst.

Then we walked down to Time Square, passing the Ed Sullivan theatre (Letterman) on the way and spying a number of famous landmarks. We were naturally wary of the smiling gentleman who stopped us but he explained that he worked for the Late Show and if we could answer a trivia question we could get free tickets to the taping tomorrow. The question was 'What instrument does Paul Shaffer play?' and of course we both answered piano, earning us free tickets to the taping! Very lucky to be picked randomly so we'll be seeing two tapings in NY! We also went for a look see on Broadway and bought tickets to The Book of Mormon for Tuesday night, so we've got the next three nights booked up.

We then headed to 30 Rock and saw the famous Christmas tree, took some photos, and then went on to 5^th avenue where we visited Saks department store – there's no equivalent in Australia, think DJ's on steroids but fill it with clothing and shoes that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars per item. We continued wandering down 5^th avenue, popping in and out of shops, and we stopped for McDonald's before continuing our long walk. We took some photos of the Empire State Building, though we didn't go up it, and continued our walk. We were actually looking for Tiffany's but we didn't realise how far down in was, so we eventually decided to get some dinner. We tried to find an Italian place that was recommended but by this stage it was nearing 10pm, we'd hunted through Greenwich village and up from 1^st street, and decided to get some food in a local pub. The music was good, the food was good (why oh why don't we have sweet potato fries here!?) but the drinks weren't cheap. Exhausted again we went back to our hotel, having covered over 100 city blocks over the course of our day.

Monday

A beautiful, bright but stupidly cold day – we decided to walk the high line (a 30 block section of abandoned rail line converted into a garden/walking path) towards Chelsea. It was a lovely walk three storeys up, giving an excellent view of the west side of the city and even some long distance views of the Statue of Liberty. We then went to the Chelsea markets for food and exploring. They are awesome, very trendy hipster territory, but awesome food (local organic of course) and some delightful little stores with beautiful hand-crafted wares. We weren't prepared to spend $45 on mugs or $80 on beanies, but it was great to see everything. My favourite store so far is Anthropologie – I'd buy everything if I could. We had the best strawberry milkshake, bought some bread and pastries from Amy's Bakery and then we made our way to The Strand. The Strand is a NY institution – three floors and over 8 miles of books, both second hand and new, with one floor devoted entirely to rare and old books. Freakin' awesome.

Then we had to get to Time Square for Letterman which entailed waiting in queues a bunch. We got the tickets then had sandwiches from Hello Deli (the famous deli just around the corner) before queueing again for the taping. We were given many 'pep talks' that basically amounted to 'always laugh, always clap, be as excited as humanely possible and if you stuff around you'll be thrown out'. The taping beings with an introductory video by Alec Baldwin which has the tag line of 'laugh now, think about it later' which was pretty funny, and there was a fun warm up comedian before the CBS orchestra (who were brilliant) came on. It was an awesome experience. Letterman came out before the beginning of the show and had a mini q&a and he was personable and funny. The band is truly amazing live, world class musicians and of course they play for the duration of the ads. Will Ferrell was funny and surprisingly sincere and Chris Cornell was great. We should make it onto TV for .3 seconds as the camera panned around the audience. We were four rows from the back of the bottom stalls on the right hand side if you're watching. It was brilliant!

After Letterman we headed back to 30 Rock to see if it would be less crowded as a result of the extreme cold, and it was marginally easier to move around. We went and had a wander under Rockefeller centre and ate some very average food before enquiring about the ice skating. It was $39 pp or $105 pp to skip the queue so we decided to give our very sore feet a rest and come back to our room and try and get some of our experiences written up or when we can actually put this on the blog. Tomorrow will be the Natural History Museum, MET and Book of Mormon. We could live here happily.