New York

Hello again everyone, since we last wrote we have been to Philidelphia and New York and now we´re in South America. Our first weekend in the US was spent in Philly with our family friends, David and Theresa. They picked us up from the airport and we spent a great weekend catching up, seeing the sights of Philly and going out for drinks. On Sunday night we caught the train to New York and to our accomodation in Times Square (thanks to Theresa)!Times Square

On our first day in New York we went up the Empire State building to take in the amazing views of NYC. We then wandered past St. Pat´s Cathedral, an amazing architectual structure in which you can go in during church service and take photos! Bazaar! We then walked through central park on our way to the Museum of Natural History. Central park was beautiful, covered in snow with frozen lakes and little furry creatures scampering about. The museum was incredible and huge; we needed at least a week to take it all in, only managing to see a few sections within the four storey building.

St. Patrick´s Cathedral

Central Park

Alice in Wonderland
Museum of Natural History
Strawberry Fields - John Lennon memorial

The next day we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which again was spectacular, showing works by Van Gough, Picasso, Pollock, Manet, Monet, Dali, Warhol and many more. Amazingly you were allowed to take photos of the art as long we didn´t use a flash. So as wrong as it felt, we managed to get some great pictures!

Artwork from the Met

That night we booked cheap tickets to a show called, The Garden of Earthly Desires. The show was experimental physical theatre and it was great. Afterwards we decided to seek out some jazz and followed the crowd to a place called, Fat Cat´s. Not only did we find jazz here but a huge games hall with table tennis, pool, chess and checkers. You could choose to play til your heart was content or sit in the cosy lounge area and listen to the relaxed tunes.

The next day we checked out of our accomodation in Times Square and met Theresa for lunch at Ruby Fooz, a lovely Japanese restaurant. Then we headed for a quick fun fix at the giant Toys ´R´Us store.... amazing! The T-Rex from Jurassic Park resides here, donated by Steven Spielberg and there are many amazing leggo structures, not to mention the ferris wheel inside the building.

Toys ´R´Us

That afternoon we headed to our accomodation in Soho, also organisd by Theresa (thankyou!). James and I then walked around trying to find op-shops to replenish our clothes supply. We did find a few but it took us hours of walking. In the meantime Stuart walked around to several theatres trying to find himself some volunteer ushering positions. Unfortunately you have to register for this in advance but he did find $5 tickets to a show called Surrender for that night.
The next day after an epic walk around Wall St, the financial district and past ground zero we made our way onto a ferry to Statten Island.We cruised past the Statue of Liberty and from a distance witnessed the commotion on the Hudson River. A man informed us that a plane had crash landed in there 45 minutes prior after hitting a flock of birds.

Brooklyn Bridge
On our last night in New York we sampled a couple of the local bars (Mercury Lounge and Pianos), caught a bit of live music and some 70´s - 80´s classics. Before heading Back to Philly the next day we squeezed in a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, a slice of pizza from Grimaldi´s and a hot chocolate from Jaques Torres. A quick taxi up to Williamsburg for some scrummaging through classic vintage attire and some not so classic op shops. After our expensive vintage shopping we decided to save on a taxi and leg it back to Soho via the chilly Williamsburg Bridge. We collected our luggage and made a bee---line for the train back to Philly at 5pm.

Safely back in Dave and Theresa´s nest, the five of us went out for a few drinks and came back drunk in the wee hours of the morning. Saturday consisted of water, greasy food and movies. The last day in Philly we spent packing and organising the next leg of our journey. The only exception was an interval of football at Tir Na Nog´s, the local Irish pub for the big Philly versus Arizona game. Philly lost but we weren´t to talk about it in the house! Our last night was spent drinking at the renound in-house bar and saying good bye to everyone.

Supporting the Phillidelphia Eagles - Sav Rocker

Now we´re on our way to Ecuador - thankyou to Dave, Theresa, George and Patsy for making us so comfortable in their home, waiting on us hand and foot. We will be back soon!

Goodbye Canada

This is a quick blog post as we're at an internet cafe in Vancouver, killing time before we catch our flight to New York. We just wanted to say that we had a great last week in Canada and we're very sad to say goodbye. Our New Year's was really nice as we spent it with our family at a house party. One of the highlights was bubble blowing in the snow to figure out whether the bubbles freeze in the air or not... and they do! When we arrived home late that night James and Stuart decided an appropriate way to kick off 2009 was by doing nude snow angels in the minus 30 degree snow (Pauline encouraged this). They screamed like hairy little girls, disturbing all the neighbours, but made it back inside everything intact and only slightly hypothermic.Bubbles Frozen in 2008
We did some more shovelling at the house and uncovered a relic from the past,

Ted's evil twin brother.

And we had enough time to get down to Pauline and Ted's cabin at Lake Tagish again, despite temperatures around minus 35. Most of the time was spent indoors, but we did manage to nip out and create snow chairs on the lake.
Other last week adventures have included more sledding, in which Stuart came close to paralysing. He decided it was a good idea to sled headfirst on his back on a thin slip mat down a steep descent. He went plummeting past us and we could only watch as he met a snow jump at the bottom and made air before landing a couple of meters away on his neck. We all heard the 'thwup' as he hit the hill and were pretty sure he would never walk again. But he did.

We also managed to hit the town with friends we've met along the way. After a great gig at 'Flippers Bar' we continued the evening at a friends basement apartment downtown. Unfortunately someone left a tin of brown paint at the top of white stairs and of course this was soon kicked over, only to go cascading down the stairs. The group soon decided it was easier to paint the stairs brown than clean up the mess... disaster, but a great night.

Hoarfrost tree by the river in Whitehorse

So, goodbye Canada, it's been fun. Thanks Pauline and Ted for everything you've done for us. We'll see you again sometime soon.