Hiya!
Remember how we left off last Sunday (i.e. more than a week ago)? Well here’s what been going on… Monday morning I caught a bus North, out towards Bothell. Here I met up with Spencer, a friend I met in London just before leaving, who is friends with my English cousin’s American girlfriend… We hung out some and caught up and then drove to the Snoqualmie Falls, this epic waterfall right in the middle of the pines. So beautiful and so much mist! It’s about the height or taller than the Niagara Falls only not the width. We took some time to wander the gift shop and marvel at the ability of such places to sell completely unrelated objects including a very suggestive deer/lollipop combination. That night I was introduced to a Dairy Queen blizzard, the pre-cursor to the McFlurry and sooo much better!
Tuesday was slow during the day but in the evening I met a bunch of Spencer’s friend who were all amazing at the Pike Place Brewery right inside the market. I’d walked past it but didn’t realise down a flight of stairs there was a whole restaurant/bar and down another an entire brewery! The beer and food were great and from there we drove to Fremont to a bar called Tost (said ‘toast’) and we watched a girl sing and then this amazing guitarist who sang into his guitar and did al kinds of trippy stuff. Wednesday I moved out of the City Hostel and checked into a private room about a block away. So nice to have a whole room and bathroom! Needless to say I spent the afternoon/evening in watching numerous episodes of NCIS (that’s why Wednesday doesn’t get a whole paragraph).
Well rested I managed to do some washing on Thursday morning, this may seem insignificant to you but it was kind of vital at the time. In the afternoon I headed out to the Redhook Brewery in Woodinville, just North of Seattle, where Spencer gives tours. I met up with one of Spencer’s friends, David, who was also taking the tour. One of the other Redhook employees thought it would be nice to offer us some free beer before the tour and it was very much appreciated. The tour was really interesting and very entertaining and also every segment was punctuated with a new beer! We left the tour very happy. That night at the brewery was the first night of moonlight cinema so we were staying around to watch the movie. This meant having a number of hours to kill. Having enjoyed the tour so much we decided seeing as it was free (for us anyway) that we might as well take it again. This time we had a different tour guide with a more brutal approach to crowd control then Spencer. We enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Also the movie was really fun, it was Step Brothers and I don’t remember much of the movie except that I was really excited it had Mary Steinberg in it.
The next morning I had to pack up my private my room and Spencer and I headed out to Whidbey Island. We caught a ferry, which reminded me a lot of the movie The Ring. Apparently that was because they were the same ferries used in the movie, hehe. Whidbey Island is where Kate (Dorian, Spencer’s friend’s mother, right?) lives and I was going to stay with her for a few nights.
The coolest thing about this however was that her guestroom is actually a teepee!!! With a fire in the middle and everything! Kate cooked an amazing bbq lunch and told us she had a friend who needed help with an errand. I assumed she needed heavy things lifted because what else would you need two young men for? When we get to this ladies house there are two cages with a total of six kittens in them. The
kittens were found under a house and were feral and needed socialising. This meant our ‘errand’ was holding kittens!!! A number of them! So cute! From the kittens we headed to Double Bluff, an awesome beach covered in drift wood and dead tree trunks. I should also note here that everything onWhidbey Island has the coolest name, like Forgotten Lane and others. We found an epic seesaw (or teeter-totter) that someone had made out of logs and a plank and we had super fun on it!
On Saturday and Sunday I explored the Island (Sunday I was accompanied by Kate and her grandson Gabriel who is a wizard and really sweet. Coupeville is a small town on the water and very old-worldy quaint. Langville is another town on the island and is a little artier and a little less touristy. The also have the koolest shop where they sell masks and magic wands and swords and leather bound books with eyes, oh my! Gabe really like lighthouses, so we visited one that was at the top of an old army barracks. I took Gabe up to the top and enjoyed counting the stairs on the way down, apparently 6 comes after 13… ? We finished up the day in the park and I spent my last night in the tepee. Oh I didn’t mention the amazing waterfront view from Kate’s house, spectacular!
Monday I headed back to the mainland and Spencer and I drove to this awesome tall bridge called Deception Pass. It’s actually two bridges built over these amazing rock/cliff structures.
Also down one of the bridge are these beaches covered in pebbles so we had a walk and looked at the pebbles and by the time we headed back the tide had risen and we had to walk in the really cold water to get back. It was a long drive out there but it was so amazing! That evening one of Spencer’s friend was having a birthday party so we attended and brought wine and… side story: Spencer’s mum (mom) went looking for vegemite for me and found it and then liked it when I made her try it, win for Australian culture! …vegemite. It was a really fun night made especially so by a balloon that if you tap it it sings ‘Happy Birthday’ in Mexican, which is feliz something.
Wow this is a big one… I’m exhausted.
Thursday was my last day in Seattle :(. It started well with an excellent breakfast with everyone who stayed at the party venue and then Inception on the Imax screen at the Seattle Centre(omg!) and then to the brewery again for more free beer, which flowed even more freely because we took a private tour because there were birthdays involved. I’m really glad I got to see the Space Needle and a bit of the city again before leaving but I also really enjoyed having some time away from cities on the island. I really enjoyed my time in the North West, so pretty and the people i met/caught up with were amazing! Spencer dropped me off at the airport on Tuesday night and I caught a flight to Boston… which is where I am now! Sleeping on a boat…
To Be Continued…
Josh…
Hello!
specialises in comfort food and we shared a burger and drank a bit more. We were invited to a house party complete with hotdogs which was fun but it started getting cold, as it does here, so we headed home to rug up and headed back to Dolores park and camped out to watch the fireworks. Unfortunately just in the afternoon a huge fog rolled in and we could see anything of the big city fireworks that happen out on the bay but there were plenty happening all over the city and some in the park, that were pretty spectacular. It was a nice way to finish my time in San Fran.
Heya!
Hi!
Hiya,
of our bedroom and the epic, pillow-laden bed we get to sleep in. Geo is really friendly and full of information about the city and how to get to places and some good things to do and see. Also his house is socked with amazing fresh fruit and baked goods which apparently we're welcome to and are enjoying immensely. He even went so far as to buy Fosters beer to make us feel at home and was a little disappointed to find out that Fosters isn't even stocked on Australian shelves. I should also add that his apartment is located literally in the heart of the Castro district, on Castro Street, about a block down from the Castro theatre, which is the centre of the district.
Yo!
It’s been a few days since my last post and some stuff happened in that time. We did make I to Venice beach in our rental car. After some heavy traffic. Which was made bearable by our new favourite radio station 92.3, a great mix of classic r&b and I dunno soul? The beach was really nice and pretty colourful. We strolled down along the waterfront past heaps of shops and stalls. Most of which were covered in art and graffiti and merchandise. The street was covered in people on bikes and rollerblades and tourists. We stopped in at this place and got really nice burgers. The Americans have real mayonnaise which is great and so of course I smothered my fries in it.
After lunch we lay on the beach for a while in the sun. It was pretty windy when so we didn’t go in the water for fear of being cold after. The beaches have lifeguard stations scattered along them and the one at Venice are all painted really coolly in technicolour. Also there’s a long line of bins all down the beach. Bins on the beach! What a great/logical idea. We walked down and watched some skaters in this epic skate park and took photos of these ‘artist walls’ that were there specifically so you could paint on them. I think I managed to find the building Romy and Michelle live in, which was a plus for me. We walked down this jetty and then headed back to the car.
We drove on down the Santa Monica, where there’s a pier with a rollercoaster and large Ferris wheel which is pretty neat. Before this though we ran into Spider-man and having noticed my excited expression (I guess) he asked if I wanted a photo with him and we posed together. Then he mentioned he took photos with people for tips and I gave him a dollar because I’m pretty cheap and also I was under the impression that actionwas Spider-man’s only reward.
We looked around Santa Monica and headed home.
The next couple of days we spent in the confines of the hostel lying by the pools and reading and eating free cookies. I finished Tarzan, which I would highly recommend and sat on my wayfarers, which is a total bum! Also we bought sim cards and after some hassle getting my phone unlocked Justin and I both have functioning cellular telephones. (Please refer to facebook for our respective numbers.)
Saturday we caught a bus downtown, it’s really kool! Lots of high-rises and old theatres most of which I think have been turned into churches, which I found kind of depressing. From there we caught a train from Union Station onto Sunset Blvd and we walked for a couple of hours passing some studios, making our way through Hollywood again and ending up in Beverly Hills. I managed to find (and take a photo of) the Belisarius studios (the company that produces NCIS) so i can only assume that's where they film NCIS and that McGee was somewhere inside, sigh. I was looking out for Rodeo Drive but couldn’t find it in the end. From there we caught a bus home to play some pool.
Also I should mention our hostel’s free hot food buffet. They offer four items: rice, potato gems, corn chips and fries! Once again kind of cheap. But we bought some tuna and made a real dinner out of it.
That was our last full day in LA! The next day we rented a car and started our drive to San Francisco, stopping at Six Flags Magic Mountain along the way. They have soo many roller coasters. Our favourites were the Tatsu where you're harnessed in facing the ground and fly around like that, awesome scary and the Goliath which is the tallest and fasted coaster in the world, i think. The Goliath is 255 feet tall going down an almost vertical slope reaching like 100 miles an hour at some point; not sure but it's freaking kool. I should also mention the X2 their newest attraction. On this one the seats are on either side of the train and spin independently, it's massive and actually scary! I recommend everyone looks it up to get a better idea of what it's like. Alright?
Today we drove for about six hours watching lots of hills and farms and some really nice scenery. We stopped at some truck stops and looked around Oakland; a city just across the bay from San Fran, really pretty. Then we drove on into San Fran and had a cruise around, including across the Golden Gate Bridge. It's soo nice we're both really excited for the next three weeks. Tomorrow we drop off the car and get picked up by Geo. He's the nice man whose house we're staying in for the next three weeks. I'll probably write more about him in the future. That about wraps it up.
Love and peace
Josh and Justin...
Hi... So it's been three days since the last post and a lot seems to have happened. Firstly our hostel offers free breakfast and coffee which actually means you sit in the restaurant and they give you a blueberry muffin for free and black coffee (which i've taken a liking too) and a menu from which you can purchase actual breakfast items, which is pretty sneaky of them. Anyway a muffin and coffee has become my morning sustenance and we have big lunches out and about.
On our second day here we chilled out by the pool in the morning. It was super sunny and when it is sunny it's really hot. Funny weather patterns here. It's overcast every morning and evening and then it's kind of touch and go whether it clears up and gets really hot or stays kind of cool and the nights are uniformly cold, like Brisbane winter cold. So after sitting by the pool and having a swim in the heated pool (nice!) we headed out. A chatty lady t the bus stop redirected us from catching a bus into the dodgy downtown area and toward Hollywood Blvd. The bus took about an hour and was full of colourful characters.
We got off in Hollywood pretty much across the street from the Chinese theatre and Kodak theatre, home of the Oscars. The street is really kool and such a contrast to the ghetto area we're staying in. We had a big walk up past Ripley's Odditorium and the Rosevelt Hotel. We popped in this little Mexican place and had burritos, excellent. I also bought my first souvenir; a rockin' Spidey cap to add to my cap collection. We spent a while walking along the boulevard looking at the stars on the sidewalk. Found Mickey and Gypsy Rose Lee and took an inappropriate photo of someone else kneeling next to MIchael Jacksons star turned shrine. Looked at some stars hand prints and wondered who this 'Sid' guy is they all mention. Headed home and chilled in the room with these massive 'flamin' hot' Cheetos, that were delicious!
Our second day at the parks was a little tamer, we slept in late and then rented out a car. This made getting to and from the park soo much easier. The guy we rented it from told us a guy got shot in our neighbourhood last night. Scary. So we drove down the interstate and arrived at Downtown Disney. Which is this huge shopping complex suppose to cater for the hundreds of hotels in the area. It super clean and everything is massive and flashy and sometimes Disney themed. We hit up California Adventure, went on a bunch of rides, watched a Pixar parade. There was this Toy Story float with woody and Jesse and the pig, dinosaur and Slinky. The impressive part of this was a guy and a girl doing giants around a bar on either side of the float. Giants being a technical term for swinging in circles all the way round the bar; and they were doing these constantly for like the whole parade, amazing! We at
I think the most exciting part of the last two days was buying a pair of big, white, four fingered, cartoon character gloves. I've wanted these since i went when i was 6 so it was kind of a big deal!
After that we drove home and had a reasonably early night. The hostel is pretty cosy and we've had some good chats with some peeps. We even went for a walk with a guy called Kyle, our South African friend, for late night fast food. But it turns out even in America they won't serve you if you try to walk through the drive through, no fair. That's all for now. I think we're hitting up Venice Beach in the car tomorrow!
Peace and Love
Josh and Justin...
