We left Winston- Salem pretty late, after lots of talking and breakfasting and headed to the infamous Chapel Hill, home of none other than James Taylor!
We were warned that the college town was fairly fond of the colour, sky blue, but we didn't quite realise how much!
EVERYTHING in Chapel Hill is sky blue! The road signs, the firetrucks, the umbrellas, the jumpers, the Krispy Kreme workers uniforms....etc...etc..etc.. (I felt pretty out of place with my lime green umbrella!).
Every store sold UNC (University of North Carolina) t-shirts and books and sweaters and not much else! We didn't really understand this place that everybody told us to visit! It was full of cafes and blue!
We ventured a little out of town and found a few gems. The greatest second hand book store in the world, and a couple of shops selling nice arty things. Generally we weren't too impressed by our Chapel Hill shopping experience. I mean; it was nice and all, but was this really the place people had raved about?!
We headed to our couchsurf for the night and wondered what was in store. What we found was an amazing family who lived in an amazing location and did amazing things!
After driving down the gravel track, through the forest and foliage we came to a wonderful house! Our hosts, Kathy and Mike and their kids Carly and Skyler were waiting for us!
They are an amazing family of jugglers who have a 23 ft JUGGLING ROOM in their house!!
Both parents work for the government's environmental agency and were really interesting. Their house is full of wood burning stoves, interesting things, and juggling balls!
We'd been on the road for so long that we couldn't tell you what month we were in, nevermind the day or date, but our hosts informed us that we'd arrived on Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) and as they were Jewish, would we like to celebrate it with them?!
Well, what are the chances!? We settled down for some challah, apples and honey, and spaghetti (not an essential new year item) after eating some of Skyler's fried green tomatoes!
We spent the evening talking, comparing British and American words and phrasing, and chilling out with this pretty awesome family!
Monday 13 September 2010
Winston-Salem
We left Asheville with our wallets a fair bit lighter and headed off on the next part of our adventure. At this point we knew where we were headed, but we also knew we had a fair amount of time to reach our destination. We decided to venture away from the highway and take the low road.
We took a peek at our ridiculously oversized map of the U.S and looked for somewhere 'nice' between Asheville and Chapel Hill. Sunshine looked like the place to go!
We popped it into the GPS and we were on our way!
Sunshine, here we come....10 miles to go.....3 miles to go...200 yards to go...SUNSHINE!?!?! Where did you go?!?!?!?!
Sunshine turned out to be a stupidly small village with about 3 houses and 67 churches (such is the way on the 'bible belt').
So much for that.
We got back on the map and located somewhere a little bigger, with a far less exciting name. Shelby.
Shelby was findable, had a bank, and we even purchased some fish and chips! (it would have come with 'potato chips' (crisps) if we hadn't requested 'WE WANT OUR FISH WITH REAL CHIPS, NOT THOSE STUPID CRISP THINGS'. She got the idea! Tea was ordered, and our lovely perplexed waitress brought out a real teapot stuffed with ONE teabag (At least she had the right idea!).
We headed into an Art Co-operative before we left, had a quick look around, made too many purchases and got back on the road!
We arrived in Winston-Salem in the early evening, and after some bad navigating and staring at a lot of letterboxes, we finally found our couchsurf for the night, Courtney!
We spent the night in her lovely, chaotic house. Her family were awesome and we had great chats with all of them!
We got into bed pretty late after all the talking and spent the night on the squeakiest bed in the world!
We took a peek at our ridiculously oversized map of the U.S and looked for somewhere 'nice' between Asheville and Chapel Hill. Sunshine looked like the place to go!
We popped it into the GPS and we were on our way!
Sunshine, here we come....10 miles to go.....3 miles to go...200 yards to go...SUNSHINE!?!?! Where did you go?!?!?!?!
Sunshine turned out to be a stupidly small village with about 3 houses and 67 churches (such is the way on the 'bible belt').
So much for that.
We got back on the map and located somewhere a little bigger, with a far less exciting name. Shelby.
Shelby was findable, had a bank, and we even purchased some fish and chips! (it would have come with 'potato chips' (crisps) if we hadn't requested 'WE WANT OUR FISH WITH REAL CHIPS, NOT THOSE STUPID CRISP THINGS'. She got the idea! Tea was ordered, and our lovely perplexed waitress brought out a real teapot stuffed with ONE teabag (At least she had the right idea!).
We headed into an Art Co-operative before we left, had a quick look around, made too many purchases and got back on the road!
We arrived in Winston-Salem in the early evening, and after some bad navigating and staring at a lot of letterboxes, we finally found our couchsurf for the night, Courtney!
We spent the night in her lovely, chaotic house. Her family were awesome and we had great chats with all of them!
We got into bed pretty late after all the talking and spent the night on the squeakiest bed in the world!
Sunday 12 September 2010
From Nashville to Asheville
Aheville was only a short car journey away from our hotel, so we had a lie in (it seemed like a good idea, as it was Labour Day and we weren't really sure what would be open) and headed into town. We'd been told by multiple people that it was an unmissable stop on our journey and we were eager to see what Asheville had to offer us!
It's a lovely town that once had a big hippy scene. The scene nowadays is more middle-class new age, and the prices in the stores reflect that. The town hosted a fair amount of art galleries and stores, as well as some ridiculously overpriced stores selling 'glastonbury-ware' and other such things.
Getting lunch proved to be ridiculously difficult, the prices were high and the queues were long. We eventually settled for some groovy sandwiches and some REAL orange juice at an (once again overpriced) artisan bakery.
We hit a few more stores and headed back to the hotel for a sleep!
It's a lovely town that once had a big hippy scene. The scene nowadays is more middle-class new age, and the prices in the stores reflect that. The town hosted a fair amount of art galleries and stores, as well as some ridiculously overpriced stores selling 'glastonbury-ware' and other such things.
Getting lunch proved to be ridiculously difficult, the prices were high and the queues were long. We eventually settled for some groovy sandwiches and some REAL orange juice at an (once again overpriced) artisan bakery.
We hit a few more stores and headed back to the hotel for a sleep!
Yeehaa!
We checked out of our hotel room and got back on the road, scouting around for a good place to get breakfast! We ended up at Cracker Barrel, a strange shop/restaurant that sells all sorts of things! The menu was packed with interesting(!?) dishes, so we settled for a roast beef sandwich (we thought we knew where we were with that) and some shrimp (king prawns) with hushpuppies?!.
The roast beef sandwich turned out to be boiled beef on toast covered in gravy. Yuk! Mum seemed to enjoy it. The shrimp were covered in batter and tasted of nothing, and the hushpuppies were potato wrapped in cornbread (or something like that). A crunchy but tasteless treat!
The raspberry lemonade was really good, we took some for the road.
Our day took us across Tennessee, to Pigeon Forge and Sevierville, Dolly Parton's hometown!
Now, Pigeon Forge is possibly the most horrific place I've ever visited! Tacky doesn't even come into it! Dollywood, The Titanic Experience, magic shows, sky diving simulators, excessive amounts of crazy gold...Pigeon Forge has the lot.
The perfect place for parents to take their hyperactive 10 year olds for an expensive holiday!
The place was so ridiculous that it became entertaining, which was lucky really as we were stuck in the holiday traffic for a good couple of hours.
The one redeeming factor of the Forge was a boot shop. Tucked in among the racecourses and comedy barn we spotted a sign:
BUY 1 PAIR GET 2 FREE!!!
Could it be true? We merely had to purchase one pair of boots and we'd get two free??
This we had to see!
We entered the store, taking note of all the Harley's parked alongside us. (A good sign we thought! We'd heard that bikers only buy the best!). What we saw on our arrival was a cowboy's dream! Row upon row of the most gorgeous cowboy boots you can imagine. Each embroidered with beautiful coloured threads. We spent an age trying on styles, toying with lengths and choosing colours, but we finally ended up with three pairs of boots between us! A bargain at $220 for all three, and ever so comfy! It was almost worth the trip!
We slowly made our way out of the Pigeon Trap and ventured to Asheville, a Rodeway Inn and Applebees for dinner!
Sleep!
The roast beef sandwich turned out to be boiled beef on toast covered in gravy. Yuk! Mum seemed to enjoy it. The shrimp were covered in batter and tasted of nothing, and the hushpuppies were potato wrapped in cornbread (or something like that). A crunchy but tasteless treat!
The raspberry lemonade was really good, we took some for the road.
Our day took us across Tennessee, to Pigeon Forge and Sevierville, Dolly Parton's hometown!
Now, Pigeon Forge is possibly the most horrific place I've ever visited! Tacky doesn't even come into it! Dollywood, The Titanic Experience, magic shows, sky diving simulators, excessive amounts of crazy gold...Pigeon Forge has the lot.
The perfect place for parents to take their hyperactive 10 year olds for an expensive holiday!
The place was so ridiculous that it became entertaining, which was lucky really as we were stuck in the holiday traffic for a good couple of hours.
The one redeeming factor of the Forge was a boot shop. Tucked in among the racecourses and comedy barn we spotted a sign:
BUY 1 PAIR GET 2 FREE!!!
Could it be true? We merely had to purchase one pair of boots and we'd get two free??
This we had to see!
We entered the store, taking note of all the Harley's parked alongside us. (A good sign we thought! We'd heard that bikers only buy the best!). What we saw on our arrival was a cowboy's dream! Row upon row of the most gorgeous cowboy boots you can imagine. Each embroidered with beautiful coloured threads. We spent an age trying on styles, toying with lengths and choosing colours, but we finally ended up with three pairs of boots between us! A bargain at $220 for all three, and ever so comfy! It was almost worth the trip!
We slowly made our way out of the Pigeon Trap and ventured to Asheville, a Rodeway Inn and Applebees for dinner!
Sleep!
Chattanooga Choo Choo, Cowboy Style!
We woke up vaguely early and Beth and Tom were having a yard sale, something we steered clear of, as getting involved would just mean buying more things we couldn't bring back to England!
The car was packed up, we said our farewells and we headed off to the Jack Daniels Distillery, in Lynchburg, Tennessee.
The wierd thing about Lynchburg is that it's a dry county.
You can't buy or drink alcohol there.
What a place to put a whiskey distillery!!!
We took the (free!) tour, which was actually really good! We had an awesome tour guide called Billy, who shared all his stories of English folk with us, and was pretty knowledgeable about the whiskey. He had a great beard too!
The tour lasted about an hour, there was just time for an ice cold lemonade before visiting the official store where you could buy bottles of whiskey for souvenir purposes only (because this made sense......).
We purchased a bottle of single barrel that was only sold in the distillery, no other place in the world(!).
From the distillery we headed into Lynchburg town, a place that at first glance looked pretty cool, but on further investigation turned out to be a bit of a tourist trap. It had the feel of what you imagine a southern town to have. Dusty, old, lots of bikers and accents. But full of overpriced items branded with the Jack Daniels logo. EVERYTHING you could possibly imagine branded with the Jack Daniels logo, and priced far too high.
We'd had enough of the town, so we set off for our second destination of the day, The Unclaimed Baggage Centre in Alabama. A place we'd been told a lot about, and we wanted to see what it could offer us!
http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/
Check this place out! There's only one in the world, and it's where all the..well...unclaimed baggage ends up, where it's sold for cheap prices in a sort of warehouse!
A lot of what's on sale is clothes, but there really are some crazy things you can buy. Tiffany jewellery, expensive perfume, designer clothes, video cameras, you name it, they sell it!
I walked away with a couple of Ipods, a 30gb for $45 (£29 ) and an old school 3gb Ipod for only $10! (£6.50). We made a few other purchases and headed out to Chattanooga, a place we only knew by song, who knew what we'd find there!?!?!
Well, we didn't find much. Chattanooga was full to the brim! A combination of it being Labour Day and a ball game, every hotel was packed out and the streets were wierdly empty.. we couldn't really afford the $170 for an awful outskirt hotel room, so we headed out of the silly city and went to seek our fortune elsewhere!
Cleveland was our next port of call, luckily there was room at the inn! We settled down for the evening and got us some sleep.
The car was packed up, we said our farewells and we headed off to the Jack Daniels Distillery, in Lynchburg, Tennessee.
The wierd thing about Lynchburg is that it's a dry county.
You can't buy or drink alcohol there.
What a place to put a whiskey distillery!!!
We took the (free!) tour, which was actually really good! We had an awesome tour guide called Billy, who shared all his stories of English folk with us, and was pretty knowledgeable about the whiskey. He had a great beard too!
The tour lasted about an hour, there was just time for an ice cold lemonade before visiting the official store where you could buy bottles of whiskey for souvenir purposes only (because this made sense......).
We purchased a bottle of single barrel that was only sold in the distillery, no other place in the world(!).
From the distillery we headed into Lynchburg town, a place that at first glance looked pretty cool, but on further investigation turned out to be a bit of a tourist trap. It had the feel of what you imagine a southern town to have. Dusty, old, lots of bikers and accents. But full of overpriced items branded with the Jack Daniels logo. EVERYTHING you could possibly imagine branded with the Jack Daniels logo, and priced far too high.
We'd had enough of the town, so we set off for our second destination of the day, The Unclaimed Baggage Centre in Alabama. A place we'd been told a lot about, and we wanted to see what it could offer us!
http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/
Check this place out! There's only one in the world, and it's where all the..well...unclaimed baggage ends up, where it's sold for cheap prices in a sort of warehouse!
A lot of what's on sale is clothes, but there really are some crazy things you can buy. Tiffany jewellery, expensive perfume, designer clothes, video cameras, you name it, they sell it!
I walked away with a couple of Ipods, a 30gb for $45 (£29 ) and an old school 3gb Ipod for only $10! (£6.50). We made a few other purchases and headed out to Chattanooga, a place we only knew by song, who knew what we'd find there!?!?!
Well, we didn't find much. Chattanooga was full to the brim! A combination of it being Labour Day and a ball game, every hotel was packed out and the streets were wierdly empty.. we couldn't really afford the $170 for an awful outskirt hotel room, so we headed out of the silly city and went to seek our fortune elsewhere!
Cleveland was our next port of call, luckily there was room at the inn! We settled down for the evening and got us some sleep.
Thursday 9 September 2010
Getting our country onn.
We woke up late-ish and headed into Nashville, where we visited the Farmer's Market to collect ingredients for dinner. We had decided to make our hosts spaghetti bolognese, a general crowd pleaser and something we're pretty good at, plus, we knew we were visiting the market, so it seemed like a good time to cram in some local veg.
We had a look around the market, were given a free bulb of garlic as a present for being English, visited an Indian food shop and decided to grab some lunch.
I had some strange chicken which tasted like it'd been boiled for far too long and was covered in lots of pepper and spices. It came with a roll.
Mum was more successful and chow'd down to some falafal, salad and flatbread.
Satisfied (to a degree), we scouted out the free Nashville bus and took a trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The tour was pretty awesome, we paid Elvis' gold car a visit, saw some old school country music videos and saw Dolly Parton's original lyric sheet for 'Jolene!
It was a great place to spend the day, although the hall of fame had strange metal plaques which didn't really fit the musicians! The gift shop was full of things we definitely needed to buy, so we stocked up on our country gifts and headed back to Antioch.
On the way back we stopped at a discount liquor store where we (once again) remarked on the ridiculously cheap prices, and amazing selections of spirits and purchased a bottle or two...or three..or four.
We cooked up quite a fantastic dinner with a nice, fresh salad (something we'd both been craving!) and spent the evening drinking wine, chatting more and generally having a lovely time!
We had a look around the market, were given a free bulb of garlic as a present for being English, visited an Indian food shop and decided to grab some lunch.
I had some strange chicken which tasted like it'd been boiled for far too long and was covered in lots of pepper and spices. It came with a roll.
Mum was more successful and chow'd down to some falafal, salad and flatbread.
Satisfied (to a degree), we scouted out the free Nashville bus and took a trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The tour was pretty awesome, we paid Elvis' gold car a visit, saw some old school country music videos and saw Dolly Parton's original lyric sheet for 'Jolene!
It was a great place to spend the day, although the hall of fame had strange metal plaques which didn't really fit the musicians! The gift shop was full of things we definitely needed to buy, so we stocked up on our country gifts and headed back to Antioch.
On the way back we stopped at a discount liquor store where we (once again) remarked on the ridiculously cheap prices, and amazing selections of spirits and purchased a bottle or two...or three..or four.
We cooked up quite a fantastic dinner with a nice, fresh salad (something we'd both been craving!) and spent the evening drinking wine, chatting more and generally having a lovely time!
Headin' down South
We left Gabi's house and headed south to Tennessee, passing through Kentucky on the way. In true nature of 'when in Rome..', we headed to a KFC to sample from the source.
We were pretty disappointed by the KFC BUFFET!! Which was a horrific combination of overcooked 'vegetables', badly fried chicken and entertaining customers.
We headed onwards to Nashville to try out our second couchsurf.
Driving through the streets of Antioch (the town we were staying in) we wondered about all the piles of rubble and half houses that we kept seeing. We later found out from our hosts that there had been a terrible flood in Nashville, and what we'd seen was the aftermath.
We arrived in Antioch in the early evening and met our couchsurfing hosts for the next two night, Beth and Tom, and their crazy cat Polly (who likes to jump at walls)!
Tom is an artist, and Beth, a photographer. They gave us a tour of their amazingly artistic home and showed us our SEPERATE bedrooms (a luxury that's rare on the road!). We then settled down for a lovely home cooked dinner, which was so refreshing after all the fried food at the rest stops. We shared some English shortbread and some Gin and Tonic's and settled down for a lovely evening of chats and drinks.
We were pretty disappointed by the KFC BUFFET!! Which was a horrific combination of overcooked 'vegetables', badly fried chicken and entertaining customers.
We headed onwards to Nashville to try out our second couchsurf.
Driving through the streets of Antioch (the town we were staying in) we wondered about all the piles of rubble and half houses that we kept seeing. We later found out from our hosts that there had been a terrible flood in Nashville, and what we'd seen was the aftermath.
We arrived in Antioch in the early evening and met our couchsurfing hosts for the next two night, Beth and Tom, and their crazy cat Polly (who likes to jump at walls)!
Tom is an artist, and Beth, a photographer. They gave us a tour of their amazingly artistic home and showed us our SEPERATE bedrooms (a luxury that's rare on the road!). We then settled down for a lovely home cooked dinner, which was so refreshing after all the fried food at the rest stops. We shared some English shortbread and some Gin and Tonic's and settled down for a lovely evening of chats and drinks.
Monday 6 September 2010
BARBIE and Dinosaurs!
We decided to head to Denny's for breakfast.
Mum got her favourite cup of tea of the trip (so far)*
*Tea is a ridiculous theme of this trip, the Americans just don't seem to drink it. She's had many an arguement with Mcdonalds workers over milk, creamer, teabags, cups..you name it..she's argued it!
We ordered pancakes and breakfast things..and then grits.
Grits were on the menu, we'd heard of them but never tried them, and we didn't really have a clue what they were.
We asked the waitress to explained, but the best she could come up with was 'well, they're kinda gritty in your mouth'.
We had to try these things!!
Grits turned out to be a cross between oatmeal and rice pudding. They can be savoury or sweet, depending what you put in them. We poured in a jug of pancake syrup, but we still weren't sure.
Gabi took us to the Children's Museum for the day, which was great, as there were only about 10 children in the whole place! Definitely outnumbered by adults!!
It's a great museum, with fun exhibits on barbie, dinosaurs, rock 'n roll..etc.
It also had a lovely (?!?) section on 'Children who saved the world', which rolled in a couple of cases of casual racism (Nazi's and segregation)*
*With some very authentic shouts of 'go away, we don't want you here', and a ridiculous book entitled 'Crafty like a fox' (google it for pictures)
mixed in with a less-than-child-friendly true story about the first boy to die from AID's.
Lovely.
We took many pictures (which will be shown on facebook sometime soon, as the blog seems to have a problem with me uploading pictures onto it....probably has something to do with the poor internet connection in the hotels!) of us frolicing about, dressed as dinosaurs/rockstars/barbies.
We had quite a wonderful experience, but then it was time for 'The end of day parade!!!', where they ushered us out of the building with flags, a song, and an oversized dinosaur!!
Yippee!!
We felt it was time for some shopping, so we visited the local mall for a bit of retail therapy.
We grabbed some amazing Japanese chicken on the way (chicken, chicken, chicken!!) and took a stroll around the stores.
I had my first Icee (yuk), and mum finally got herself a cup of coffee (which we made her leave outside when we visited yet another T J Maxx!).
After a busy day of reliving our youth we were ready for a night in, so we stocked up on Walmart (theme...) goodies and headed back to watch some awful old movies (which we fell asleep during).
Mum got her favourite cup of tea of the trip (so far)*
*Tea is a ridiculous theme of this trip, the Americans just don't seem to drink it. She's had many an arguement with Mcdonalds workers over milk, creamer, teabags, cups..you name it..she's argued it!
We ordered pancakes and breakfast things..and then grits.
Grits were on the menu, we'd heard of them but never tried them, and we didn't really have a clue what they were.
We asked the waitress to explained, but the best she could come up with was 'well, they're kinda gritty in your mouth'.
We had to try these things!!
Grits turned out to be a cross between oatmeal and rice pudding. They can be savoury or sweet, depending what you put in them. We poured in a jug of pancake syrup, but we still weren't sure.
Gabi took us to the Children's Museum for the day, which was great, as there were only about 10 children in the whole place! Definitely outnumbered by adults!!
It's a great museum, with fun exhibits on barbie, dinosaurs, rock 'n roll..etc.
It also had a lovely (?!?) section on 'Children who saved the world', which rolled in a couple of cases of casual racism (Nazi's and segregation)*
*With some very authentic shouts of 'go away, we don't want you here', and a ridiculous book entitled 'Crafty like a fox' (google it for pictures)
mixed in with a less-than-child-friendly true story about the first boy to die from AID's.
Lovely.
We took many pictures (which will be shown on facebook sometime soon, as the blog seems to have a problem with me uploading pictures onto it....probably has something to do with the poor internet connection in the hotels!) of us frolicing about, dressed as dinosaurs/rockstars/barbies.
We had quite a wonderful experience, but then it was time for 'The end of day parade!!!', where they ushered us out of the building with flags, a song, and an oversized dinosaur!!
Yippee!!
We felt it was time for some shopping, so we visited the local mall for a bit of retail therapy.
We grabbed some amazing Japanese chicken on the way (chicken, chicken, chicken!!) and took a stroll around the stores.
I had my first Icee (yuk), and mum finally got herself a cup of coffee (which we made her leave outside when we visited yet another T J Maxx!).
After a busy day of reliving our youth we were ready for a night in, so we stocked up on Walmart (theme...) goodies and headed back to watch some awful old movies (which we fell asleep during).
'I've never seen one of those before'
We woke up bright and early and hit the I90 once more..to backtrack along our steps.
We'd heard of an Amish cluster of villages that were sort of on the way to Indianapolis and we wanted to check them out.
A few hours (and an easy GPS fueled ride) later we arrived in Shipshewana and headed for the flea market. This turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as it sold mostly horrific things that wouldn't be too out of place in the back end of Wimborne Market.
We did play a game or two of 'spot the Amish', which wasn't too difficult as they were wearing bonnets, dresses, and were riding 'buggies' (horse and carts). There were even buggy parking spaces!
Shipshewana also had some shops, a couple of which were interesting...many of which, weren't.
A bit of a disappointment really, but we'd have kicked ourselves if we hadn't gone, as it looked pretty amazing in the leaflets!
We bought some sausage and olive bread and were on our way!
We arrived in Indianapolis a little early and decided to pay Taco Bell a visit. We asked a local for some advice, as we'd never ventured into such a place before.
Her little boy (aged about 7) turned around with shock at our voices, and remarked 'I've never seen one of those before, only on the TV!' -talking about English people- US!
He continued to be amazed when we explained that we'd never eaten at Taco Bell and we wanted to know what was best!!
We ordered something off of the menu, not sure what. It was edible but nothing to write home about (oops). Then we headed off to Gabi's house (which we found easily with the help of our GPS!).
We were met by Gabi, her mum, and their very enthusiastic dog, Panda (who decided the best greeting would be to cover us in as much slobber as possible!). The mum's settled in for the night and Gabi and I hit downton Indianapolis.
We ventured into a bar for $1 well drinks ($1 = 65p!!!) and I discovered a definite new beverage of choice! Amaretto and Sours!! Yum! Gabi was chatted up by a boy with a watch on his head, we made friends with a man who enjoyed Vodka +Tonic, spent at least $5 (£3) on drinks, and then headed out for a tour of the bars/clubs/pubs/shisha bars and backstreet alleys.
Indianapolis seemed like a great place to spend a night on the town, but we were feeling a yearning for double cheeseburgers and Walmart. We paid the shops a latenight visit and headed back for a sleepover!
We'd heard of an Amish cluster of villages that were sort of on the way to Indianapolis and we wanted to check them out.
A few hours (and an easy GPS fueled ride) later we arrived in Shipshewana and headed for the flea market. This turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as it sold mostly horrific things that wouldn't be too out of place in the back end of Wimborne Market.
We did play a game or two of 'spot the Amish', which wasn't too difficult as they were wearing bonnets, dresses, and were riding 'buggies' (horse and carts). There were even buggy parking spaces!
Shipshewana also had some shops, a couple of which were interesting...many of which, weren't.
A bit of a disappointment really, but we'd have kicked ourselves if we hadn't gone, as it looked pretty amazing in the leaflets!
We bought some sausage and olive bread and were on our way!
We arrived in Indianapolis a little early and decided to pay Taco Bell a visit. We asked a local for some advice, as we'd never ventured into such a place before.
Her little boy (aged about 7) turned around with shock at our voices, and remarked 'I've never seen one of those before, only on the TV!' -talking about English people- US!
He continued to be amazed when we explained that we'd never eaten at Taco Bell and we wanted to know what was best!!
We ordered something off of the menu, not sure what. It was edible but nothing to write home about (oops). Then we headed off to Gabi's house (which we found easily with the help of our GPS!).
We were met by Gabi, her mum, and their very enthusiastic dog, Panda (who decided the best greeting would be to cover us in as much slobber as possible!). The mum's settled in for the night and Gabi and I hit downton Indianapolis.
We ventured into a bar for $1 well drinks ($1 = 65p!!!) and I discovered a definite new beverage of choice! Amaretto and Sours!! Yum! Gabi was chatted up by a boy with a watch on his head, we made friends with a man who enjoyed Vodka +Tonic, spent at least $5 (£3) on drinks, and then headed out for a tour of the bars/clubs/pubs/shisha bars and backstreet alleys.
Indianapolis seemed like a great place to spend a night on the town, but we were feeling a yearning for double cheeseburgers and Walmart. We paid the shops a latenight visit and headed back for a sleepover!
Chicago, day 2.
Our second day in Chicago was one of relaxation!!
We had a bit of a lie in, got ourselves together, and then headed off to the shops ( you can see a theme occuring here, can't you?).
We paid T J Maxx a visit.
Name sound familiar?
That's right, it's JUST LIKE T K Maxx, and you all know how much we love that store!! *
*we've been in America so long that we've started to say store instead of shop. We also now have to use GPS instead of Satnav, and restroom instead of loo. That driving on the right side of the road thing is tending to be a little inconvenient too!
We stocked up on some things we didn't really need, but wanted to buy anyway, just because they were such bargains (or so we told ourselves at the time!), hit a few more stores, then headed back to Jasmine's, as she had to go to work!
Jasmine directed us to a lovely hotel, and we were on our way! The hotel receptionists obviously hadn't seen many English folk before, and were very excited at our arrival. We paid a Chinese takeaway a visit (we were getting pretty sick of fried chicken by this point), snuck it into our hotel room, and nom'd down on some ridiculous portions of first class foods (we both somehow managed to order chicken....again)!
We had a bit of a lie in, got ourselves together, and then headed off to the shops ( you can see a theme occuring here, can't you?).
We paid T J Maxx a visit.
Name sound familiar?
That's right, it's JUST LIKE T K Maxx, and you all know how much we love that store!! *
*we've been in America so long that we've started to say store instead of shop. We also now have to use GPS instead of Satnav, and restroom instead of loo. That driving on the right side of the road thing is tending to be a little inconvenient too!
We stocked up on some things we didn't really need, but wanted to buy anyway, just because they were such bargains (or so we told ourselves at the time!), hit a few more stores, then headed back to Jasmine's, as she had to go to work!
Jasmine directed us to a lovely hotel, and we were on our way! The hotel receptionists obviously hadn't seen many English folk before, and were very excited at our arrival. We paid a Chinese takeaway a visit (we were getting pretty sick of fried chicken by this point), snuck it into our hotel room, and nom'd down on some ridiculous portions of first class foods (we both somehow managed to order chicken....again)!
Sunday 5 September 2010
Chicago!
So, we've decided to add a new post for every day, as it breaks the reading down into bitesize chunks and makes it easier for us to know where we're going!
Sunday.
After leaving Toledo we headed West towards Chicago. We made good time until we got closer to the city and tried to locate Jasmine's house.
Unfortunately, Chicago is a city full of toll charges, high bridges, crazy drivers and police; and we managed to hit rush hour.
We ended up paying a ridiculous amount in toll charges, and drove across the skyway at least four times. After two run in's with Chicago police, and a lot of beeping and shouting, we decided to call Jasmine. We needed rescuing!
10 phone calls, and a lot of directions later, we met the lovely lady at a Walgreens (where we spent some time fawning over beautiful nail-varnishes).
Jasmine escorted us back to her house, we settled for a while, made some tea, talked to her lovely mother, and then we were off again for a night on the town!
This time we headed off in Jasmine's car, she took us on a tour of downtown, Buckingham fountain, and the general area, before taking us to Navy Pier.
We paid $25 for parking!! before taking a stroll along the pier. The views of the skyline from across Lake Michigan were spectacular, and we enjoyed a very sugary funnel cake while watching the crowds go by.
We headed off from Navy Pier, this time taking in the lit up views of night-time Chicago, to The Cheesecake Factory, where we, yet again, paid extortionate rates for car parking!
Let me tell you know that The Cheesecake Factory isn't actually a factory. It does, however, make exceptionally good cheesecake in a huge selection of mouthwatering flavours!
The building itself was pretty spectacular, and extremely hard to describe! Needless to say, it was very artistic!
The food was good, the company excellent, and the cheesecake? Not too cheesy, and very cakey!
We headed home via a midnight spree around Walmart, where we finally invested in a GPS!! (A wonderful idea, we highly recommend them!).
Sunday.
After leaving Toledo we headed West towards Chicago. We made good time until we got closer to the city and tried to locate Jasmine's house.
Unfortunately, Chicago is a city full of toll charges, high bridges, crazy drivers and police; and we managed to hit rush hour.
We ended up paying a ridiculous amount in toll charges, and drove across the skyway at least four times. After two run in's with Chicago police, and a lot of beeping and shouting, we decided to call Jasmine. We needed rescuing!
10 phone calls, and a lot of directions later, we met the lovely lady at a Walgreens (where we spent some time fawning over beautiful nail-varnishes).
Jasmine escorted us back to her house, we settled for a while, made some tea, talked to her lovely mother, and then we were off again for a night on the town!
This time we headed off in Jasmine's car, she took us on a tour of downtown, Buckingham fountain, and the general area, before taking us to Navy Pier.
We paid $25 for parking!! before taking a stroll along the pier. The views of the skyline from across Lake Michigan were spectacular, and we enjoyed a very sugary funnel cake while watching the crowds go by.
We headed off from Navy Pier, this time taking in the lit up views of night-time Chicago, to The Cheesecake Factory, where we, yet again, paid extortionate rates for car parking!
Let me tell you know that The Cheesecake Factory isn't actually a factory. It does, however, make exceptionally good cheesecake in a huge selection of mouthwatering flavours!
The building itself was pretty spectacular, and extremely hard to describe! Needless to say, it was very artistic!
The food was good, the company excellent, and the cheesecake? Not too cheesy, and very cakey!
We headed home via a midnight spree around Walmart, where we finally invested in a GPS!! (A wonderful idea, we highly recommend them!).
Monday 30 August 2010
The part of the roadtrip where we actually got on the road..
Welcome to the second installment of our American adventure. A lot has happened since we last blogged, but we've been too busy doing it to write it down, sorry!
So, when we finished up our last post we were just setting off to the shops. We spent the day looking around the mall, getting over our jetlag, and doing a lot of 'ohmygod, look at the size of that', 'what is that?' and 'how muc h is that in pounds'ing.
We then ventured to the 'theatre' and watched Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which came out in America before it was released at home! The evening was spent eating and talking. Not a particuarly eventful day, but a nice way to ease into American life.
We spent Wednesday in Montgomery, the town where our host, Dodie and her lovely family live. The town is really cute, lots of little gift shops and cafes. We found an amazing alcohol store and realised what we'd been missing! Apparently it's the norm here to buy spirits in 1.75l bottles!! Everything looked doubly as exciting as the stuff in England, and cost about half of the price! We visited a gorgeous artisian bakery and an amazing antique shop with lots of beautiful handmade brooches, boxes, jewellery and furniture made by a lovely lady called Sandy. She gave us a tour of her work and explained where she got her materials from etc. Everybody over here seems to be super friendly and helpful! We left Montgomery and headed back to house, where a bbq was on the cards. Unfortunately the weather didn't comply, and the rain (combined with extreme gardening) put us off the idea. We decided the best thing to do was to bbq the steaks on the grill outside (having a massive outside grill seems to be the norm here! ) and eat them at the table. The steaks were lovely, the company was great, and the evening, a success.
Us: 1
Weather: 0
Thursday was the first day of the 'road tripping' part of the road trip. We headed off to pick up the rental car and were suprised when we were presented with a gorgeous, new shiny Chrysler somethingorother. We worked out how to turn it on, crammed our not-so-big suitcases in to the supposedly massive boot, and we were off! We hit the I-90 and headed for Medina, stopping at a ridiculous amount of toll booths along the way.
We arrived at Kelly's around late afternoon and after a quick tour of her house, swimming pool AND hot tub we set off for a tour of Medina. We stopped at a lovely ice-cream shop and bought some 'small' cones (2 massive scoops) of flavours that are definitely not available at home. Mine was a lovely blend of raspberry, white chocolate, milk chocolate and vanilla. Mum's was amaretto and marichino cherries. Yum!
We took a stroll down the canal, carefully tiptoed under the canal bridge (the only place along the whole canal that you can walk under....it drips!), posed for stupid photos with a big apple and headed back to town for some dinner.
We ate at an amazing Italian place, the portions were (of course) ridiculously big, we shared one and still struggled, then we ventured to Kelly's new house for a spot of 4 wheeling.
We have a feeling that 4 wheelers are the same as quad bikes, either way it was the best way to spend the evening. We took the trails behind Kelly's house and drove around until nightfall, crashing our way through a fair amount of foliage!
Kelly and I left the mothers chatting and headed off to her friend Michelle's house for a night out in Buffalo. We picked up a couple of people there and headed off to Marcellas, a gay-bar with a late-night drag queen show(www.clubmarcella.com)! The place was great, the people were lovely and everybody seemed interested in the English accent! It's strange that the drinking age is 21. People can go clubbing, watch people dance for money..but can still only order a coke at the bar! Things there started pretty late, with the place starting out as a club/bar before the show. The show was in a catagory of it's own, with some very convincing (and a few not so) drag queens, and even a drag king! We left in the early hours of the morning and headed to the 24 hour Dennys, with a kind, but tired waitress who was very interested in hearing about England! We headed back to Michelle's for a quick 2 hour nap before heading back to Kelly's ready to start the next day (very tired!).
Friday started with waffles before heading out to the mall for a quick shop. We then drove to Niagra and hit the falls! We toyed with the idea of doing the full tour, but after talking to a few sales-people we realised just how much people were being ripped off! The view from the American side of the falls was amazing enough, and we weren't really feeling the 'let's get soaked at the bottom of a waterfall' vibe! The views were spectacular, and we shouted hello at Canada, which looked very casino-y! From Niagra we headed back to Buffalo, nipped in a few more shops, discovered Michael's (an amazing craft store) and the Dollar Tree and ventured to a restaurant for Kelly's work friend's birthday.
The evening consisted of some awful waitressing, a freezing dining room and some ridiculously large portions of pizza and 'no, don't worry, they're not really spicy' (really really spicy) famous buffalo wings!! Some massive fishbowl cocktails were thrown into the equation, and we headed back for a much needed sleep!
Change of writer - Laura now knackered.
Saturday
Kelly's mum cooked the most enormous breakfast consisting of sausages, bacon, scrambled egg, bagels, toast, muffins, yogurts, bananas, fruit juice and tea, and then, there were only us two eating it. We tried to do it justice.
We decided that trying to make it to Chicago in one day was far too ambitious so did a quick couch surf to find a host in Toledo. Whilst continuing our travels down I-90 we got a couple of promising responses to our request for beds for the night.
It took us about 4 hours to reach Toledo, and then another two hours trying to reach our selected host's house. Dusk fell as we finally located Toledo's self elected ambassador for couch surfing, Mike, a well meaning but misguided young man and his friend Dane.
Dinner was suggested, and two options offered. We, of course, chose the wrong one (although it came with high recommendations), Schmuckers, famous(!?) home cooked pies.
Laura was extremely brave and accepted the challenge of the day's special. This consisted of chicken, biscuits and gravy. Not the wisest choice (although, yet again, it came with high recommendations). I opted for a chicken salad, which unfortunately came smothered in mayonaisee with packets of crackers on the side. The idea of this was to leave enough room to sample the famous pie; I needn't have bothered.
Both meals were fairly horrific, the restaurant was full, noisy and garish, surely the pie could redeem it? No.
After stupidly asking for the waiter (who had a fair few teeth missing and a slightly too casual approach to his job) for his recommendation, I thought I ordered Chocolate Suprise. The surpise revealed itself to be the lack of chocolate. I misheard the 'tropical' part and the dessert was ruined. No amount of awful artifical whipped cream could make up for the chocolate dreams I'd conjured in my head while trying to digest the mayonaise nightmare.
We ventured back to our host's for a locally brewed beer, where I excused myself and went to bed. Laura was invited to a gig the guys wanted to attend. The host was generally unhostlike, the gig was good (outside with a volleyball net!) and they arrived back at 3am to an uncomfortable cot bed and a blanket. The accomodation left something to be desired, adequate but not luxurious. We were both awake by 8am and decided to leave our awkward and not too helpful host sleeping while we tiptoed to the car and make a quick getaway.
(Pictures so far to follow shortly, we need to catch up on our beauty sleep)
So, when we finished up our last post we were just setting off to the shops. We spent the day looking around the mall, getting over our jetlag, and doing a lot of 'ohmygod, look at the size of that', 'what is that?' and 'how muc h is that in pounds'ing.
We then ventured to the 'theatre' and watched Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which came out in America before it was released at home! The evening was spent eating and talking. Not a particuarly eventful day, but a nice way to ease into American life.
We spent Wednesday in Montgomery, the town where our host, Dodie and her lovely family live. The town is really cute, lots of little gift shops and cafes. We found an amazing alcohol store and realised what we'd been missing! Apparently it's the norm here to buy spirits in 1.75l bottles!! Everything looked doubly as exciting as the stuff in England, and cost about half of the price! We visited a gorgeous artisian bakery and an amazing antique shop with lots of beautiful handmade brooches, boxes, jewellery and furniture made by a lovely lady called Sandy. She gave us a tour of her work and explained where she got her materials from etc. Everybody over here seems to be super friendly and helpful! We left Montgomery and headed back to house, where a bbq was on the cards. Unfortunately the weather didn't comply, and the rain (combined with extreme gardening) put us off the idea. We decided the best thing to do was to bbq the steaks on the grill outside (having a massive outside grill seems to be the norm here! ) and eat them at the table. The steaks were lovely, the company was great, and the evening, a success.
Us: 1
Weather: 0
Thursday was the first day of the 'road tripping' part of the road trip. We headed off to pick up the rental car and were suprised when we were presented with a gorgeous, new shiny Chrysler somethingorother. We worked out how to turn it on, crammed our not-so-big suitcases in to the supposedly massive boot, and we were off! We hit the I-90 and headed for Medina, stopping at a ridiculous amount of toll booths along the way.
We arrived at Kelly's around late afternoon and after a quick tour of her house, swimming pool AND hot tub we set off for a tour of Medina. We stopped at a lovely ice-cream shop and bought some 'small' cones (2 massive scoops) of flavours that are definitely not available at home. Mine was a lovely blend of raspberry, white chocolate, milk chocolate and vanilla. Mum's was amaretto and marichino cherries. Yum!
We took a stroll down the canal, carefully tiptoed under the canal bridge (the only place along the whole canal that you can walk under....it drips!), posed for stupid photos with a big apple and headed back to town for some dinner.
We ate at an amazing Italian place, the portions were (of course) ridiculously big, we shared one and still struggled, then we ventured to Kelly's new house for a spot of 4 wheeling.
We have a feeling that 4 wheelers are the same as quad bikes, either way it was the best way to spend the evening. We took the trails behind Kelly's house and drove around until nightfall, crashing our way through a fair amount of foliage!
Kelly and I left the mothers chatting and headed off to her friend Michelle's house for a night out in Buffalo. We picked up a couple of people there and headed off to Marcellas, a gay-bar with a late-night drag queen show(www.clubmarcella.com)! The place was great, the people were lovely and everybody seemed interested in the English accent! It's strange that the drinking age is 21. People can go clubbing, watch people dance for money..but can still only order a coke at the bar! Things there started pretty late, with the place starting out as a club/bar before the show. The show was in a catagory of it's own, with some very convincing (and a few not so) drag queens, and even a drag king! We left in the early hours of the morning and headed to the 24 hour Dennys, with a kind, but tired waitress who was very interested in hearing about England! We headed back to Michelle's for a quick 2 hour nap before heading back to Kelly's ready to start the next day (very tired!).
Friday started with waffles before heading out to the mall for a quick shop. We then drove to Niagra and hit the falls! We toyed with the idea of doing the full tour, but after talking to a few sales-people we realised just how much people were being ripped off! The view from the American side of the falls was amazing enough, and we weren't really feeling the 'let's get soaked at the bottom of a waterfall' vibe! The views were spectacular, and we shouted hello at Canada, which looked very casino-y! From Niagra we headed back to Buffalo, nipped in a few more shops, discovered Michael's (an amazing craft store) and the Dollar Tree and ventured to a restaurant for Kelly's work friend's birthday.
The evening consisted of some awful waitressing, a freezing dining room and some ridiculously large portions of pizza and 'no, don't worry, they're not really spicy' (really really spicy) famous buffalo wings!! Some massive fishbowl cocktails were thrown into the equation, and we headed back for a much needed sleep!
Change of writer - Laura now knackered.
Saturday
Kelly's mum cooked the most enormous breakfast consisting of sausages, bacon, scrambled egg, bagels, toast, muffins, yogurts, bananas, fruit juice and tea, and then, there were only us two eating it. We tried to do it justice.
We decided that trying to make it to Chicago in one day was far too ambitious so did a quick couch surf to find a host in Toledo. Whilst continuing our travels down I-90 we got a couple of promising responses to our request for beds for the night.
It took us about 4 hours to reach Toledo, and then another two hours trying to reach our selected host's house. Dusk fell as we finally located Toledo's self elected ambassador for couch surfing, Mike, a well meaning but misguided young man and his friend Dane.
Dinner was suggested, and two options offered. We, of course, chose the wrong one (although it came with high recommendations), Schmuckers, famous(!?) home cooked pies.
Laura was extremely brave and accepted the challenge of the day's special. This consisted of chicken, biscuits and gravy. Not the wisest choice (although, yet again, it came with high recommendations). I opted for a chicken salad, which unfortunately came smothered in mayonaisee with packets of crackers on the side. The idea of this was to leave enough room to sample the famous pie; I needn't have bothered.
Both meals were fairly horrific, the restaurant was full, noisy and garish, surely the pie could redeem it? No.
After stupidly asking for the waiter (who had a fair few teeth missing and a slightly too casual approach to his job) for his recommendation, I thought I ordered Chocolate Suprise. The surpise revealed itself to be the lack of chocolate. I misheard the 'tropical' part and the dessert was ruined. No amount of awful artifical whipped cream could make up for the chocolate dreams I'd conjured in my head while trying to digest the mayonaise nightmare.
We ventured back to our host's for a locally brewed beer, where I excused myself and went to bed. Laura was invited to a gig the guys wanted to attend. The host was generally unhostlike, the gig was good (outside with a volleyball net!) and they arrived back at 3am to an uncomfortable cot bed and a blanket. The accomodation left something to be desired, adequate but not luxurious. We were both awake by 8am and decided to leave our awkward and not too helpful host sleeping while we tiptoed to the car and make a quick getaway.
(Pictures so far to follow shortly, we need to catch up on our beauty sleep)
Tuesday 24 August 2010
Hi, and welcome to New York!
So, we finally made it..but not without some hiccups along the way!
After some traumatic coach-travel, a mediocre 4 star hotel and an early(ish) morning we realised mum's first mistake.
BAD SUITCASE.
When travelling do not take an awful suitcase that's older than the ages of your children combined, doesn't have a proper handle and falls over lots. It is not a good idea!
So, trotting around Heathrow, navigating escalators and generally being bashed about by all the other holiday makers with a ridiculous bag was the first faux-pas.
Mistake two.
So, apparently to get into America you have to have the address of where you're staying. Who'd have thought it. Of course this is what any normal and sensible human being would have done, but not my mother! When asked where we're staying the unhelpful airport woman was told Montgomery. Apparently that's not enough. We didn't have a number for where we're staying, or an address or anybody who could help us with it. We were pretty stuck.
Luckily Miss Las Vegas, the girl standing next to us had an Iphone, so with some nifty fingerwork and a cunning mind we googled 'cheap hotels in New York', and there we had it. Our first 'port of call in America', The Marriott.
The plane was delayed for an hour and a half and we generally did a lot of waiting around, then we boarded, only to find that the film selection was appalling and there wasn't much to do for a very long time.
The highlight of the trip was the kosher meals we'd somehow managed to put ourselves down for. While the rest of the common travellers were eating bags of own brand crisps, we were chowwing down on smoked salmon bagels and apple pie!
We arrived in New York a while later and set off to find our bags, only to fall upon:
Mistake three.
While stood waiting for our luggage a sniffer dog comes up to us, he seems very interested in mum's bag.
'Excuse me ma'am, do you have any food products in your bag at all?'
Well, we just so happened to have brought a banana with us, all the way from the little Co-Op in Columbia Road.
Damn.
So the man writes 'BANANA' all over our little sheet and sends us off to the 'Agricultural Goods Scanning Department', or whatever it's called.
After some scanning and some lecturing on how we could have got a $200 fine we were finally let loose to find Dodie and leave!
We took a few detours on the way back from the Airport, arrived pretty late, did some sleeping and here we are! Relaxing in a lovely house in Montgomery.
Now it's time to hit the shops!
Catch you later :)
Laura x
Right. Now for the real version!!! No thats pretty much what happened and I wont bore you with the justifications!!
My good friend Dodie (with whom we are staying) just kept emailing me saying it is hot, hot, hot in US so I just brought hot clothes and told Laura to do likewise. Of course it is now cold and wet!!! But we shall manage. Must go now as everyone is looking over my shoulder (more later). x Stephanie
After some traumatic coach-travel, a mediocre 4 star hotel and an early(ish) morning we realised mum's first mistake.
BAD SUITCASE.
When travelling do not take an awful suitcase that's older than the ages of your children combined, doesn't have a proper handle and falls over lots. It is not a good idea!
So, trotting around Heathrow, navigating escalators and generally being bashed about by all the other holiday makers with a ridiculous bag was the first faux-pas.
Mistake two.
So, apparently to get into America you have to have the address of where you're staying. Who'd have thought it. Of course this is what any normal and sensible human being would have done, but not my mother! When asked where we're staying the unhelpful airport woman was told Montgomery. Apparently that's not enough. We didn't have a number for where we're staying, or an address or anybody who could help us with it. We were pretty stuck.
Luckily Miss Las Vegas, the girl standing next to us had an Iphone, so with some nifty fingerwork and a cunning mind we googled 'cheap hotels in New York', and there we had it. Our first 'port of call in America', The Marriott.
The plane was delayed for an hour and a half and we generally did a lot of waiting around, then we boarded, only to find that the film selection was appalling and there wasn't much to do for a very long time.
The highlight of the trip was the kosher meals we'd somehow managed to put ourselves down for. While the rest of the common travellers were eating bags of own brand crisps, we were chowwing down on smoked salmon bagels and apple pie!
We arrived in New York a while later and set off to find our bags, only to fall upon:
Mistake three.
While stood waiting for our luggage a sniffer dog comes up to us, he seems very interested in mum's bag.
'Excuse me ma'am, do you have any food products in your bag at all?'
Well, we just so happened to have brought a banana with us, all the way from the little Co-Op in Columbia Road.
Damn.
So the man writes 'BANANA' all over our little sheet and sends us off to the 'Agricultural Goods Scanning Department', or whatever it's called.
After some scanning and some lecturing on how we could have got a $200 fine we were finally let loose to find Dodie and leave!
We took a few detours on the way back from the Airport, arrived pretty late, did some sleeping and here we are! Relaxing in a lovely house in Montgomery.
Now it's time to hit the shops!
Catch you later :)
Laura x
Right. Now for the real version!!! No thats pretty much what happened and I wont bore you with the justifications!!
My good friend Dodie (with whom we are staying) just kept emailing me saying it is hot, hot, hot in US so I just brought hot clothes and told Laura to do likewise. Of course it is now cold and wet!!! But we shall manage. Must go now as everyone is looking over my shoulder (more later). x Stephanie
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Monday 16 August 2010
16/8/10
Hello you!
We haven't quite started our adventure yet..but we'll be heading off on Sunday.
If you want to see our beautiful faces before we leave, then hurry!!
Here's where we'll be starting-
Exciting exciting =]
Laura
We haven't quite started our adventure yet..but we'll be heading off on Sunday.
If you want to see our beautiful faces before we leave, then hurry!!
Here's where we'll be starting-
Exciting exciting =]
Laura
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