Raul's North American tour: Part 1 - New York, Washington DC

I forgot to mention earlier that I got sent a little teddy bear for my birthday from my aunty, and he was soon to be named Raul (with the accent over the u) and become a travel companion. He showed me the sights with the help of Tony (Chelsea's tiger) and Steve (Cait's elephant).

The biggest Maccas in NYC

Waiting to see John Mayer at the Rockerfeller Centre

Brekkie in the diner...Cait looking...special

Times Square
Brooklyn Bridge

Statue of Liberty

Raul in Chelsea's top...driving around NYC
Washington Monument

White House

My cousin June and I in DC's Chinatown

Party in the city where the heat is on...

I'm in Miami. I still can't really believe it...it's just like the movies. Perfect blue skies, bright sun, people walking the streets in bikinis and the such. We awoke at 3am this morning to catch the 6:30am flight from wintery Montreal, arriving to a beautiful cloudless Miami morning. We were greeted at the airport by a local friend of mine whom I met whilst in Hawaii last year, and he drove us around, showed us some cool areas...the most astounding thing was definitely the waterfront properties, one of which has a yacht parked outside it that is longer than the house itself. Some of the wealth here is re-donk-ulous. We had lunch at a Latino themed bar/restaurant where the waitresses dress in skimpy, skin tight leopard print outfits and dance on the bar and a guy walks around with dancing parrots on his shoulders. Crazy.

The next 4 days here are sure to be incredible, but I'm also going to miss Canada so much because the last week there was so much fun. On our first full day in Quebec City, we joined an informal tour of old town organised by the hostel, and met a bunch of really cool people (we would later be known as 7 Aussies + 1 German!). We cruised the city together, visited the Montmorency Falls and (minus the German) successfully disgraced Australia on an all night pub crawl. We outdanced and outsang all the other foreigners til 5am...which Pegs and I payed for the next day by not waking up til 3pm. It was cool...the places ranged from small, typical Quebec pubs, to ones that looked like a cave, to a castle. The party ended with a bag of chips in the hostel's TV room.

The groove train continued on into Montreal, where the original gang plus a Swiss guy met up for a civilised dinner before dancing the night away, the 3am pizza run and walking the streets of Montreal to the bus station. We managed to wake up at a reasonable time the next day, thankfully, and also get some sight seeing done over the next few. Downtown, The Montreal Olympic Statium & Biodome, Botanic Gardens, Old Montreal, Hotel de Ville, Mont Royal, were visited via a lot of walking. We also went to watch an ice hockey match! Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montreal Canadiens...it was so fun and I also managed to finish like a litre of coca-cola. Well done on the skinny campaign, Manda. :P

Well, that's all for now, not sure when I'll be able to write again soon (but I should be able to still check email so keep them coming), because we start the 3-week Central American tour in 4 days time...craft markets here I come! And by the way, I'll be home on October 31. Can't wait!

see you bye.

Bonsoir!

It's very humbling being so far from home and in a completely foreign place...it makes you all the more grateful for the kindhearted and those that speak English.

Yes, that's right, I've entered into the French part of Canada, Quebec City, and literally EVERYTHING is in French. It's quite daunting but also rather cool. Unfortunately I can't tell you much about the place because we just got here and went straight from the train station to the hostel, and we're in desperate need of a shower!

After a fun few days of eating real Asian food, the CN tower (tallest building in the world), Niagara Falls and drinking really, really big cans of beer in Toronto, we moved onto Kingston, the former capital of Canada.

Apparently the weekend we decided to go it was also Queen's University's homecoming which meant every hostel and hotel had been booked out by the 40, 000 visitors into the city. So, we slept on a ship. Literally. A bed and breakfast in an old, old, ship. It was...character building, to say the least.

Thankfully we're now practically staying in luxury here in Quebec and the good times and great classic hits are sure to roll on into our time in Montreal in a few days before we head on down to Miami!! Yes, that's right, we're running away from the cold, Canadian weather in search of bot-bot tanning solutions in Florida and subsequently, Central America. Woot woot!

see you bye.

Photomania

Ok so I have over 400 photos, but here is a small selection of highlights of my time at camp...

Hanging out with Simone in LA before camp

Kenwood Miss Ugly Pageant -session 1


A typical photo shoot with Chelsea and Cait


One of many nights out in New Milford


Me and my tiara on my 22nd birthday


Kent Falls and the ski dock


The best Frosh counselors...and Vanessa (who wished she were Frosh!)

Ridin' the Walmart horse....yyiiieaahhh!

Getting rowdy on the last night ever...

Ok, that's all I can handle right now, I'll upload some post-camp photos soon!

Canadia, eh??

I apologise for the lack of updates, but finding an internet cafe these days is more difficult than you'd think. Anyways, a lot has happened since my last post...I hardly know where to begin. Oh, the beginning, right...

My last few days in DC were spent lazing around, being sick, shopping, and spending time with my cousin. It was really nice, just chilling out after all the craziness that had just happened and would soon occur. I eventually left DC and, after having some run-ins with idiot bus drivers, and a cricket crazy Indian taxi driver offered me cake, I ended up in New York City for the 4th time to meet up with one of my mates from back home, Bec (better known as Pegs).

We spent the next 2 nights there, chilling out in Central Park on Labour Day and then jumping on a bus to Boston the next day. Boston is a really cool place; very old and English...which I've decided is more my cup of tea than the craziness of NYC. We did the touristy things - Harvard, downtown, Freedom Trail, Beacon Hill, as well as go into three different Urban Outfitters stores in search of a top I became obsessed with! We also did some serious damage to our digestive systems by chowing down on really inexpensive but good (but greasy and American) breakfast at a place called Dempseys near the hostel. SFK fans would be so proud!

Three days later, we up and left for Toronto, Canada, where I am right now. It's really nice here, a lot like Melbourne, with trams and a lot more normal people around town. We had to endure a 16 hour overnight bus ride, however, and I must say it was torturous and I officially hate Greyhound! Because the first bus was running so late, we almost missed our transfer and as a result had to sit seperately and next to insane people. The guy next to me was bringing back kilos and kilos of dried fish to his pregnant wife, and seemed really paranoid that someone was going to steal the stinky crap! Pegs had to sit next to a woman that just would not stop talking...really incoherently.

We've had a rocky start to the Toronto leg of our trip; it was raining and miserable when we got here, we were knackered, and our hostel is rather grotty and unorganised...we booked a 6 bed female dorm but have ended up in a 4 bed mixed dorm...but on the upside, one of our roommates is hot! And really nice too :P

So yeah, that's the goss of the minute...I'll try to get my photos onto a CD at some point in Toronto, but I'll see how I go. And I promise I'll try to update more often, but I love your messages and emails, so let love flow babies!

see you bye.