The day I made three cities one blog

The day we built an empire...

I won't lie, the reason I wanted to go to Atlantic City was because of the HBO show 'Boardwalk Empire'. Unfortunately for me the show is set in the late 20s/early 30s and its 2012. A lot has changed since then.
We caught a bus (shiy shit shit) from New York at around 1pm and pulled into Atlantic City at around 3. First thing we noticed was that a lot of the casinos were the same names/themes as the ones on Vegas and they were a lot more tightly packed. We hadn't booked accommodation so we called the Econo Lodge and got some cheap rooms for the night.
I was itching to get out on the Boardwalk so we got our shit stowed and ran out toward the ocean. I had mixed feelings about it. Being overcast, a monday and the off season I tried to take this into account but the landmark has definitely seen better days. I feel like they just slack off ths rules at this time of year and all the cool things are either being rennovated or closed until summer. We wandered down, me hoping to find some of the buildings or buisnesses from the show but alas, a wooden wall covered in pictures of the buildings featured in Boardwalk Empire showed me where some of these buildings used to be. I was disappointed that Babette's Supper Club was now an empty lot. The disappointment dudn't end here.
We saw the worlds smallest menu and ate shitty food.
We walked around a whole bunch. Then a whole bunch more.
We went and gambled a bit. Well, I watched. Rhys and Chris won some money at blackjack then bet 50 on black and won.
I didn't really enjoy Atlantic City.
I don't want to talk about it anymore.

...and saw where an Empire was built.

We caught another bus out of Atlantic to go 4 hours to Wsshington DC. It turns out that bus tickets for long trips are just sold unrestrictedly and they just let on the first people in the line, regardless of how many tickets they have sold. Genius.
After waiting an hour for them to clean up their mess and get us another bus we were on our way through Baltimore and got in at about 5pm. We went and did some washing (in Washington' teeheehee) and tried for about an hour to find a place to stay.
We ended up getting a room with 2 extra beds and had a terrible dinner at red lobster and a terrible sleep. Hurrah. MJ snored that night, louder than a rock concert so the other 3 of us didn't get much sleep. We got up early to transfer to our booked hostel and we discovered the reason we had such a hard time finding a room was due to some sort of childrens convention as there were school kids everywhere. Bummer.
We did the obligiatory Washington things: Gawked at the White House, laughed at the Washington monument, saw the reflecting pool midway through rennovations and old Abe in all his stone glory.
We also visited a few museums, primarily to see the 'Art of Video Gaming' exhibit at the Smithsonian Art Museum. We also stumbled across the 'International Spy museum' which was very cool, one of the exhibirs let you crawl through an air vent. I was totally John McLane.
That night we went and had a nice dinner for Rhys' birthday and I discovered an amazingly delicious cider imported from Ireland. For dessert we had some diabetes unducing cupcakes from a cupcakery and saw 'The Dictator', I won't spoilz but it was very.funny.
The next day we got up early again (uuuuugh) and flew out to Atlanta, Georgia.

No empires here.

Atlanta was definitely a place...

Happy travels friends. Next blog will be my last.
Reece.

The day we Broadwayed

What a city.
Now wonder it's featured in ALL the movies.
People write songs about it, write about it and video games oftem see it destroyed.

For those who still don't know what I'm talking about, it's New york, New York.
The adventure began rather bumpily as we pulled in from Boston and went to drop off our car at LaGuardia Airport which, the gps told us, was in southern brooklyn. After driving for half an hour in New York traffic (I finally get that now) we pulled up to a set of apartments which were apparently the car rental drop off at the airport. Literally the last time we needed the gps on the whole trip and it let us down for the first time. Turns out that the island had 2 addresses that were exactly the same. One north and one south. After cursing the gps we drove another half hour we dredged out the car and caught a cab to our hotel which it turns out was literally in the middle of times square (which is a lot bigger than I thought it was). Our rooms were great with a great view of the square and all the giant billboards. Nick Jonas' stupid face was staring in our window though and I had to look at his stupid, smug grin every morning.
Our first stop was the Nintendo world store in Rockerfeller Plaza. The short walk showed me just how ssturated New York is with people. Most streets were covered with people and you'd regularly have to dodge and weave throught the crowd if you were to have any hope of getting anywhere quickly. The nintendo store was full of merchandise and memorabilia, the first store was completely dedicated to Pokemon (since it used to be the Pokemon store I suppose) and the second floor was the typical nintendo stuff plus heaps of interesting nintendo historical items like a gameboy which was blown up in the gulf war and still works. I picked up a few things and we carried on to a few other shops in The plaza. Luckily Times Square is essentially the centre of everything interesting so we could rotate around the hotel for most events.
Our first event was my first ever Broadway show, 'Rock of Ages'. What a show. Our seats were literally st the back of the theatre but the view was perfect, we could see everything and hear all the awexosme 80s music that the show was comprised of. The cast was great, except for a few cast members who were clearly understudies the show was amazing. It was nice to see some theatre after having not been for so long. We retired after that and slept in some super comfy beds.

The next day we woke up and took a long walk all the way downtown to visit a few places. It was a long, long ways but it was worth it. Chris and I got to see the Friends building and took a few photos. We walked to the world trade center site but chose not to visit the memorial as you needed to prebook tickets (trust them to commercialize it) and walked all the way down to battery park to catch the ferry to Liberty island. Unfortunstely the Statue of Libertyh is currently undergoing rennovations so we couldn't actually go up inside it but we got to walk around on the island and take some sweet photos. There were some great views of the surrounding suburbs and cities as well. We discovered a discount ticket booth right near our hotel and picked up some tickets for the Broadway show 'Spiderman: Turn off the Dark' for about 40% off and we got awesome floor seats as well. We weren't expecting much due to all the problems the show had during pre-production (Actors falling of high wires etc.), but the show was actually marvelous. It was the origin story we all know with a few twists. For the most part it followed the movie plot but it added and subtracted a few things like no Harry Osborn, Osborn created the sinister 6 by mutating them with his machine (pretty sure Kraven the Hunter isn't mutated). The fellow playing Norman Osborn was hilarious and provided some of the best moments in the show like his finale song on a piano. Probably the best parts were all the high flying numbers where Spiderman flew over the crowd on wires (web fluid for those with imaginations) and the final battle fighting a flying Green Goblin. That night we also went to a pub called 'The Australian' to watch the GWS vs GCS game to determine who would be the ultimate loser. MJ ended up losing our bet and is now a proud GWS supporter as a result. It was nice to have proper cider on tap for the first time in a long time.

Our next day was a little hectic, we walked to a comic shop and realised that it was saturday so we tried to catch a taxi to the show Chris and I were going to see, Rent, but the traffic was so bad we jumped out after a few blocks and hoofed it the rest of the way. The theatre for Rent was underground and the set was awesome. It split into heaps of different formations with rails and wheels, pretty much creating every scene they needed very easily. It really weirded me out since the actor who played Angel in the Rent movie (a cross dresser) was playing Roger in the play and I kept seeing him in drag evn though he wasn't meant to be. The actor playing Mark and the actress playing Maureen were probably the 2 best in the show. I love the play so I really enjoyed it, I was glad Chris csme with me as well since going alone would have been kinda lame. We walked down to the Times Square markets which were pretty lame as it was just the same stalls every block, so we walked back to the hotel, had dinner and took a walk to the Empire State Building. What a line. Turns out going there on a Saturday night isn't the most time effective choice, never the less we lined up and travelled to the 86th floor observatory where the view was sweet, you could see for miles and miles. We then ascended to the smaller but higher 102nd floor and looked from an even higer vantage point. I'm really glad we went at night, the lights of the city were quite a sight and I think in the daytime the magic just wouldn't have been there at all.

Our last day in New York was primarily dedicated to a visit to Central Park. We walked down around lunch time and went to the central park zoo which was awhole lot smaller then I had anticipated but it was clean, spacious and well laid out. I feel like the animals had a good place to live in thed zoo and that made the small zoo size ok. We then got lost in the weaving paths above the lake and took a while to escape but when we did we got tickets to the American Natural History Museum which gave us access to the planetarium show, an exhibit called 'Creatures of Light' (animals which have the ability to become luminescent), a butterfly enclosure and the rest of the museum. The highlight of the tour was the dinosaur bones which are something I've scarcely seen back home. They even had a triceratops! (my favourite).

Then we caught a bus to Atlantic City.
Happy travels friends.
Love Reece.

The day we got all Celtic

Boston, Massachusetts. Or however you spell it. We pulled into the city at about 1ish and set up shop in our hostel called 40 Berkeley street.
This hostel was strange because it's nicety belied it's failures. It was a huge nice looking building with an awesome interior, a great spacious courtyard, a fully decked out movie room, ample laundry facilities and to top it all off, free popcorn! However, this was all very well but there were cons to outweigh these (to be honest, cool but useless) features. The rooms seemed liie they'd been packed by a sardine company. Rhys and Chris kept playing footsies while they were asleep since the beds were jammed together so close. Rhys' head was often dangerously close to MJ's feet as well. I got off with only an uncomfortable bed. The hallway outside us echoed like crazy so much so you could hear people talking normally at the other end and thia resulted in us being yelled at a few times by the old lady who, I suppose, ran the floor. The rooms also only had 1 key between 4 which, if you ask me, is the stupidest idea ever and we had to constantly juggle it around depending on who was out at the time. At one point we left the key at the front desk so the others could pick it up and let themselves in but I ended up needing it so I went all the way down only to have the woman tell me I wasn't staying in the room and that some guy called Law Howarth was (My last and middle name). After much pain I managed to get the key back after being lectured as if it were somehow my fault.
It quickly became apparent that this was not a hostel for young people. If you want to stay somewhere cool in Boston my friends, don't stay there.
Anyways enough complaining.
Boston, very clean city. We went for a walk not long after we got in and saw the pub that Cheers was modelled off of. Dinner was average and after a pub or two we went and saw 'The Avengers' for the second time. There was a guy in the theatre who kept clapping for EVERYTHING. Even trailers. And every time something happened in the movie he'd loudly react. Some examples: 'Man, she's so hot', 'Oh snap look out!' and my personal favourite 'Oh shit! Skrulls!'.

Our first proper day we ended up shopping there, gitting up a few comic shops where I successfully got Chris addicted to Deadpool. He's since bought every since TP he can get his hands on. I also got a badass hulk belt.
Our next day was quite eventful. We went to the 'Mapparium' which was a giant stained glass model of earth which you could walk through. We took a 'Duck tour' which was basically an old WW2 amphibious bus thingy refitted to be a tour bus. The tour guide was quite a character (He was dressed like a pirate) and taught us a whole bunch about the history of Boston (turns out it was a penninsula that that filled in with soil over the length of 40+ years).
On the tour we saw the 'Warren Tavern' where Geroge Washington used to frequent so we decided to get a taxi there later that night and have dinner there.
Our last day we went over the river to visit the markets which for some reason had another comic shop in them so we spent more money there. That night I realised I hadn't had a Boston Creme pie so we went to the birthplace of the pie, the Omni Parker Hotel, to give them a try.
It was quite delicious.

The next day, we set out to New York.
Happy travels readers.
Love Reece.

The day we went over the falls.

With Chicagi at our backs and Cleveland in our sights we set out at about lunchtime to tackle the 4 hour drive. The scenery on the way was repetitive so we occupied ourselves with books, comics (I've been reading the all-time classic 'Akira') and movies (Rhys constructed a viewing apperatus out of a computer and a t-shirt which prevented screen glare). Cleveland was not so mentionable since we only drove through it to stay overnight in a suburb call Willoughby.
The only thing worth mentioning about our stay there is that we all went to see 'The Avengers' and holy shit. So amazingly good. I could rant on for a few pages about it but I'll simply say that it has kicked Kung-Fu Hustle out of my top three favourite movies of all time (I've now seen it twice).
The drive from Cleveland to Buffalo was also fairly bland.

To much dismay we discovered that the hostel we were booked to stay at was a 14 bed dorm which, fod me, meant security was an issue. Luckily I had my tsa locks to stow all my valuable shit away in or I would have worried. The place was also quite possibly an old hospital, which added quite significantly to the creepy factor it already exuded. The basement ('Social area') was tricked out with a wonky pool table, an old dart board (Where I practiced playing like The Blue Raja) and the finest collection of VHS tapes I had ever seen [/sarcasm].
Seriously, we were worried that we'd somehow driven through a distortion in space time and ended up somewhere in the 90s.

That night, after some heavy drinking (MJ and I had left at about 12, this story takes place at about 3) Rhys blustered into the room after, we assume, he guessed the door code since in his state he probably couldn't have accurately punched a large turtle. He was angry about something and pulled down my cave (I take the bottom bunk and drape blankets all around it) and spun in the blankets while grumbling. Containing my sleepy anger, responsibilty took precedence and I half pushed, half carried him to the bathroom to check if his 'head was bleeding'. His head was fine but he'd definitely hit something. He cleaned himself up and stumbled back into the hall, trying to open the door. I told him he could be stupid in the morning, but now he had to be quiet. He complied. As he was on the top bunk he jumped at the bed and desperately tried to pull himself up but no amount of leg swinging could complete his goal so he gave up. Resorting to plan b he picked up his pillow, placed it on the top of his head and basically headbutted the ground. Trying my hardest to contain my laughter I checked if he was ok. At first he didn't respond but my second attempt yielded a weak but relieving 'Ouuuuch' and with that I covered him with a blanket and went back to bed.
Good times.

The next day, after a significant recovery period for the two drinkers, we set of toward the famous Niagara Falls. It was only about 30 minutes by car so we took in the sights on the way and pulled into the American side at around 1pm. We crossed the way from the parking lot and walked into a Niagara merchandise shop where a guy asked if we wanted to join the last tour of the day. We all decided it would be a good idea to gave a guide so we psid the 80 dollars and jumped on the bus. We were greeted by an eccentric toud guide named Ricky who, it turns out, was an ex-dj who ten years earlier overdosed on a drug cocktail and died in a pool from a brain anyerism (pretty sure I spelled that wrong) and when he awoke he 'found jesus', deciding to become a tour guide. Eccentric indeed.
Our first stop was the 'Whirlpool Gorge' where science tells us is where the actual falls were 12,000 years ago. Turns out yhe falls rapidly destroy themselves and, until recent conservation measures had been implimented, they moved back over 3 feet a year. Thd gorge was, as the name suggested, a giant whirlpool with rapids feeding into it which produced waves nearly 20 feet high. This is also where the spanish cable car dealy is situated. We headed from there onto 'Goat island', the land seperating the American falls from the Canadian Horseshoe falls and we ventured down to my favourite part of the tour the 'Cave of the Winds'. Interestingly enough it's not actually a cave but more like a walkway actoss the front of the American falls. They decked us out with a shoddy rain poncho and some sandals then we took the elevator down to brave the water. It was a relatively hot day but the water was very cold. As soon as we got into the mist my hands and toes stared going numb but I didn't care, I wad too busy running around with my arms outstretched screaming 'Wooooo, this is awesoooooome'. We climbed up to 'The Hurricane Deck' where you could literally reach out and touch the falls. With the right amount of luck we were splashed with a huge slosh of water which drenched most of our panta and seeped in the front of Rhys' coat, soaking his chest.
We left the cave a few pounds heavier and continued on to view the American Falls from the top as well as the 'Three Sisters' islands. After we'd braved the islands we jumped back onto the bus and drove all the way around to get our ticketw for the famous 'Maid of the Mist' boat ride which, for those playing at home, is a boat which drives you right into the middle of the Canadian Horseshoe falls. It was ok but we didn't go as close as we thought it would.
After the ride we drove up to see the Horseshoe falls from the top side and it was magnificent, seeing a 24 hour mist cloud was definitely weird.

After the tour we bid Ricky adieu and decided to go to Canada for the night. Canadian customs was fairly straight forward and we were in the great white north within minutes. Realising that we needed canadian money half way through dinner was pretty funny but we paid with card so we averted a crisis. The Canadian side was definitely a whole lot more interesting for a young person. Where the Americans had preserved the wilderness and only had dinky little merchandise stands, the canadian side had hyge casinos, pubs, clubs, funhouses, midways and DINISAUR MINIGOLF. After some pre-historic putting we took a walk along the Canadian falls side to see the water all lit up at night. It was an even better view from there. I'll never forget it and I'd reccomend any readers make the effort to get over here and see them.

We left Canada at around 12am after trying for 25 minutes to find the way out. The American customs dude was far less relaxed than the Canadian one and asked us a whole bunch of questions before he let us through. We drove back to Buffali and took a much needed rest so we could wake up to the 8 hour drive to Boston.

As always, hug yourselves from me.
Happy Travels.
Reece.

The days we Chicagi'd

Can someone please tell me where the term 'Chicagi' is from?
When we first started seeing the Chicago signs MJ said: 'Hey look, Chicagi!' and it clicked in my brain that I'd heard it be called that before, I just could't figure out where. As usual, I tried google but my effort was for nought as my search showed up no results remotely helpful tomy quest. My confusion was compounded when I told mum where I was and the first thing she said was: 'Oh, Chicagi!?', I asked her what it was from but she couldn't remember either. If anyone knows, please, tell me where. I feel like it's from an animated film.

Anyway, Chicago. The so called 'Windy City' was very cold when we first popped in and we checked into our hostel after much confusion about where the actual place was (turns out it was in a different building). This room was terrible as it had absoultely no ventilation and it was right in the middle of the floor. It was too hot inside and too cold outside...
On the bright side, we finally got to see Sam Homan after 1-2 years which was awesome. He's picked up a bunch of canadian slang and he slips in and out of his australian accent when he says certain words, but he's still classic Sam. He took us to a pub where we all got horrendously drunk but that's a story for another time which should not be shared on the internet.
The next morning we ventured into the downtown area and walked down onto the Navy Pier, which was quite a sight to see. It was fairly long and was covered in retail gift shops and attractions which included a rather large ferris wheel, a mini golf course, a 'funhouse' maze which was very strange and a whole host of lake tour boat companies. Sam joined us for some rounds of golf and then departed as we took oir fateful journey to the famous 'Giordano's' pizzeria which served 'the best deep dish pizza in chicago'. It did not disappoint. I was bold and thought I could take on an entire pizza solo so I just got a small which had 6 pieces. The guys played it safe and got a medium to share. After a long wait as the place was packed (we were about to learn why) we sat down and got our pizzas. Gigantic was an understatement as my pizza was pribably bigger than my head and about as deep as my hands clapped together. They were also big on deliciousness. I managed to eat 2 3/4 pieces and ended up sharing the rest of mine around.
It was sp delicious Rhys overate and threw up.

The next day we did the tourist thang, venturing up the Willis Tower (the sears tower for those playing at home) and getting mega ear popping from an amazing 103 floors straight up. As the tallest building in the western hemisphere it completely topped (literally) stuff like the space needle in Seattle. We walked all the way down to the 'Fields Museum' to see the worlds most complete T Rex skeleton and browse the ancient relics from Egypt, Africa and Ghengis Khan (to our delight we found out that he invented pants). Our last day there was fairly uneventful as we made some poor visiting decisions. We saw a fair few malls and saw how shit chinatown was. We ended up in a bar with a very, very drunk bartender lady who kept overfilling the guys drinks with alcohol and she only ended up charging us 10 dollars for at least 120 dollars worth of drinks while putting her finger to her lips and 'shhhh'ing all the time. We gave her a hefty tip and headed off.

So that's Chicago in the books. As always, send me your love if you feelin' the love

Happy travels,
Love Reece

The day we went to the bad place

'Were they sent to Hell?'
'Worse. Wisconsin.'

I finally understand that joke.
We flew feom rainy Seattle into cloudy Minneapolis for a breif 45 minutes before jumping on another plane to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Now, I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to do there as I'd never heard that there was anything interesting to do in the city. Turns out thrre's a reason for that. Apart vfrom getting a far better car in the ford edge this tme around, Wisconsin was horrible. Milwaukee was boring and full of cold, cold nothingness. There was little to do there amd even after admittng defeat and trying to find a movie theatre it was about ten miles away so we gave up and planned a day trip to Green Bay to find something to do the next day. Green Bay was similarly uninspiring. While it looked nice and well kept, we ended up losing all reception as we got too close and while we found a nice mini golf course and driving range we ended up leaving disappointed. So dear readers, if you take anything from this short blog. Please, never. Ever, ever. Never ever go to Wisconsin. Happy Travels, Reece

The Day we were had, Part 2

So we decided that Sweden would join us and sit in the middle seat of the worst car known to man.
Our destination, Portland Oregon. Our knowledge of Portland Oregon, minimal. Our mistake, large.
It took us about 5 or 6 hours drive from the magnificent San Francisco and we drove into Oregon refreshed as the scenery of said state was quite stunning. We passed through a whole bunch of mountainous areas covered with trees and moss carved through by large lakes an long rivers. This marvelous scenery gave us false hope about Portland. While the layout and look of the city were fairly nice, the people and the place were rather bland. Not particularly bad, just forgettable. We picked up a 5 person room which had a bunk with a double bed underneath it, which Chris and Rhys shared in order to make sweet, sweet love. I'm pretty surre I heard them deep in the night. I was particularly chuffed with the top bunk as it allowed me to create a tent like situation by using the pipes above me and a large blanket we found in the closet. That night MJ stayed in due to his sickness and Sweden, Chris, Rhts and I braved the cold to go to the pub. The food was ok, but again, forgettable. We wandered for a while then gave up and returned to sleep. Chris and I got bagels to use the vegimite with that we'd bought in San Francisco at the Australian Store. It was awesome and made me a little homesick. I'm craving a Cherry Ripe so badly. On our way out of Oregon we stopped at Powell's books which was literally as big as a city book. The place was divided into 8-9 sections ranging from comuics to romance to biographies, anything. I picked up 4 mangas and had to resist getting more cause my wallet was not safe. We then took a drive up a faily steep hill to visit the japanese garden which was, according to the japanese ambassador the 'Most authentic garden outside of Japan''. I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates that kind of thing, it was amazingly peaceful. The drive from Portland to Seattle was covered with heavy rain. So heavy that Chris considered pulling over at one point. We drove past Mt St Helen, the active volcano which exploded in 1980 killing 50+ people and generally screwing shit up. We wanted to see it but the rain would have made a satisfying viewing nearly impossible. Seattle was very cold, to the point that we were afraid that MJ was going to keel over and die. The best thing was that our beds were already caves and double, some of the best sleeps on the trip. We tried to do as much as we could in the short time we were there so we zipped down the markets and I picked up some goodies from the various gift shops and the well stockef comic shop. We got coffee from the worlds first Starbucks which still sported the original brown mermaid logo. It was good that they'd pretty much kept it in it's original look with creaky wooden floors and old style menus. That night we went and had Terminator Stout at a pub up the road then went to play pool and go bowling.. After I schooled the boys at pool I realised they had cider and needless to say I was a little too drunk to bowl properly. We didn't do much the next day apart from going up the Seattle Space Needle. The view was amazing from all the way up there but freaking freezing and you could only stay outside for so long before getting too cold. I also tried 'space chocolate' from the gift shop and realised I should't have done so. I'll leave you all there dear readers. Give my love to all the d-bags who don't read my blog and give youselves hugs from me. Happy Travels, Reece