This is just a short rant. A rant about getting sick. I hate catching a cold, a good one takes weeks to fully get rid of. I am currently incubating my third of the trip. That’s three colds in seven weeks. I had a cold in London that lasted for almost seven weeks, that was pretty bad. This isn’t so bad but it’s really getting my goat.
I want my goat back.
We're currently in the town of Twentynine Palms, just outside the border of Joshua Tree National Park. At 20:18, there we were, enjoying a dinner at the 29 Palms Inn with a groovy local band entertaining the crowd, when ... zomg... there was a (very tiny, please don't worry mum, we're fine) EARTHQUAKE!!!
It wasn't very strong. We were sitting down at the time, and I thought that it must be a train travelling through (very stealthily and rather close by). Niall thought that it was someone trying to walk behind our chairs and not doing a very good job. Then, the band stopped playing mid-song and announced "hey, it's an earthquake!"
I have to admit, that's not a phrase I expect to hear being yelled out in a jovial manner. They must get them all the time here, because nobody freaked out. People started cheering and clapping, and the band resumed their song. About 5 minutes later one of the other diners had checked it up on the internet and announced that it was an aftershock from an earthquake in 1999 measuring 5.5 on the richter scale.
:-O
So of course, after we got back to the motel we had to read all about it on the internet, and we discovered how organised all these Californians are. If you go to http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/ they have current data on any earthquake that's happened in California and Nevada in the last week. The big blue square in the image below is what I will affectionately call "our quake".
You can also report your experience of the quake online which is collated and added to that earthquake's report.
SO AWESOME. Most definitely a unique and interesting Californian experience!
It's 2:20am in Arizona, and we've specifically woken up to buy tickets to Britney Spears and Porcupine Tree concerts which were being released this morning at 9am... London time. Bloody time zones.
Happily, we've managed to purchase tickets to both events (woohoo!) and I guess we should be thankful that they were released on the same day, so that we didn't have to get up at 2am twice.
I'll let you guess who wanted to go to which concert. :)
Every time I type this into google, it hurts.
If there's only one thing I've learned, it's this: if you're planning to travel during a worldwide financial industry meltdown, buy some traveller's cheques for your target currency a few months before you leave - ideally when the exchange rate is at a 26 year high - before your local market dives like an Italian football player.
“Wrap that up for you?” is a line we’ve heard quite a few times on our trip. Seeing as all the meals are enormous, it’s very common to take half or more of your main course (remember, that’s an entrée) with you when you’re finished. The difference is that you never have to ask for a doggy bag – the waiters assume that you want to take it with you, and so ask the aforementioned question when coming to clear up the table.
Taking food with you isn’t really that easy when you’re travelling through the place, so often we felt quite guilty saying no. The waiter at Peter Luger's in Brooklyn was a little miffed we didn’t take the rest of the steak with us. It was touted as NY’s best steak, and we almost finished the enormous steak for two. With two slices left on the plate, the waiter still asked if we wanted it wrapped up. The steak was pretty good, though we actually had better in the Paris casino in Vegas. I know, I know.
So this brings me to the point of this post, and only two paragraphs in! We’ve been on the west coast for a while now, and we’re getting very close to leaving the US completely, but it feels like I need to give NY a bit more air time, to wrap it up. If I could wrap some parts of NY up and take them with us, it would be these:
Election Plaza – Watching the election coverage here was great. There was so much energy and people were really keen to see Obama come good. In the UK and Australia, elections are generally swapping one con man for another, and maybe the same is true of the US, but at least they really do seem to care about their politics, even if ironically so few of them actually vote. So perhaps with that sentiment and the campaign Obama ran, we’ll see something good come from his time in office.
Central Park – I love Hyde Park in London. Hyde Park in Sydney is a postage stamp compared to its London namesake. In London it’s a place where everyone comes to worship the sun for those three lovely days of summer which can occur anywhere between May and September. Central Park is a much nicer, though with a slightly less “sit on the grass” feel to it. It’s groomed and landscaped, whereas Hyde Park is just open space for all comers. Central Park really is a lovely place, especially in the Fall. There are people happily strolling through it in the middle of the week, tourists and locals alike. It did leave me wondering how I can be one of these rich people who can just stroll through a park in the middle of Manhattan when everyone else is out earning their living. The sky scrapers are a funny sight from the middle of such a large park, but I think it’s great that they have such a large piece of land set aside in such a small, bustling city island.
Wandering through Central Park
The view from Belvedere Castle in Central Park
Uptown Manhattan with a very conspicuous Central Park
Brooklyn Bridge – We didn’t end up eating at Grimaldi's, the famous pizzeria at the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge, but we did make time to cross the bridge on a rather frigid night. It was pack with local joggers and cyclists, and camera armed tourists (including us). It has a great view of Manhattan and is well worth the time for a walk.
Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge
New York was a great experience. I really enjoyed our time there, I think it’s been one of the big highlights of the trip for me. If you like cities, you’ll love this place. It has such a buzz about it, partly to do with the general enthusiasm Americans seem to have, and partly just because there’s so much going on. Definitely go if you can, just take someone to share the food servings with.
