Our journey begins

I won’t bore you with with our plane ride to Vancouver only to mention that it was the smoothest flight I have even taken. 1 minute of turbulence in the entire 9 hours. Brilliant.

We arrived in Vancouver airport at 6.30 local time tired and a little hungover. The Gin fairy had been good to us on the flight. There wasn’t much we wanted to do on the first evening, so we checked into our hotel, showered, went to the bar for a drink and a late night snack before retiring to bed where I enjoyed half of “Secret Of My Success”.

The RV rental people picked us up the next day at 11.30 to take us to their rental depot. This was huge and had over 400 RV’s parked there, most of which looked massive. This was the part that we were both a tad worried about – the size of the vehicle we were going to be driving for the next 2 months. Upon arrival we were shown into reception where we we told that we had been upgraded to a better RV. Normally I love hearing the word upgrade but this time my only question was “is it going to be any bigger?”, to which we were told it was 4 foot longer, but with more stuff. Yes, that’s right, we were going to have to drive around in a 30 foot long, 12 foot high and 8.5 foot wide monster truck!

Anyway, once we had gotten over our fear of driving this thing, one of that chaps showed us how everything worked from turning the lounge lights on to emptying the toilet tank. All pretty straight forward stuff. After about an hour we were off on route to Whistler. We stopped on the way to collect 2 bikes and stock up on food at Wal-Mart (which by the way is surprisingly crap compared to Tesco).

The drive to Whistler took a couple of hours and we were getting very excited to spend the first ever night in our RV at our first ever RV park! After a night’s rest in a very comfy bed, we were up at about 6.30 (still jetlagged), and headed towards Whistler village for a wander. It was great to see it in summer time with stunning greenery and snowy topped mountains.

The main purpose of the visit here was to drop off our snowboards and luggage and get our discounted season passes. We will be back here in 2 months, and I will no doubt have a lot more to tell you!!

We left to head towards Vancouver Island and this is where I am writing this blog from now. I see this as the proper start to the trip as it’s all new and unplanned!

Stuoobs

xxx

20 more sleeps

We both woke up today and realised that we only have 3 weeks until we leave for Canada and the USA. I think it's beginning to hit us that we will be away for the best part of 7 months. It's exciting but scary at the same time.

As you probably have guessed, we have been researching what we are going to do and where. All of the RV parks that we will be staying at have information on what there is to do in the area, so we won't really know what we will be doing before we get there, but sure there will be plenty to do once we are.

Our first two RV parks are booked. The one in Whistler and the one on Vancouver Island and the plan is to book our next park one in advance. We have also booked our whale watching tour while we are there and we hope the Orca's are in a playful mood. We have decided to miss out Vancouver on this part of our trip as we can pretty much visit here anytime we want during our 5 months in Whistler. This does give us the opportunity to visit more places or spend longer at places we like. Jamie Oliver did his latest Road Trip program from a place called Cody in Wyoming, a proper cowboy town where they cook steak by putting them on the end of pitchforks and putting them in a big vat of boiling fat - a huge fondue if you like - which is now potentially on this list!

So, between now and then there is plenty to do. Packing for one. We have to squeeze 7 months worth of stuff into 2 suitcases each and a board bag. Not going to be easy as we have to pack for both winter and summer conditions as the weather in Southern California will be shorts and t-shirts.

Short and sweet this time!

Stuoobs

x

p.s. We will have to stock up on lots of supplies just after we collect the van and we plan to do it at Wal-Mart - where we hope to see a lot of people like this!!

Stuoobs' kitchen delights

I always thought I was an OK cook. From an early age I've needed to be able to use a cooker, a pan, a knife and a microwave. The first attempts were not so great and included the Iceland microwavable kebab (thanks Mum!), making egg toasties by cracking an egg into the bread and closing the toastie maker and not forgetting the disastrous deep fat frying bacon incident. All part of the learning curve I suppose and all took place while at school or university.

Up until recently I did think that I was getting better at cooking, but all it really amounted to was cutting meat up, albeit with a knife now and not cutting it with a pair of scissors, and putting it in an Uncle Ben's sauce - not really cooking, but a lot better than some people I know. And that did me for about 8 years.

You're probably wondering where I am going with all of this.

Last Sunday we decided to have Cazzie's parents over for a Sunday roast. I have done roast beef dinners in the past I'm pretty good at it. My chili and garlic roast potatoes are something I pride myself on. But this Sunday lunch was different. We decided that we would cook everything from start to finish and the menu was......

French Onion Soup

Roast Topside of Beef
Jamie Oliver Carrots
Peas, shallots and ham
Roast Potatoes
Yorkshire Puddings
Cauliflower Cheese

Apple Crumble
Dead Good Custard

I'll be honest - we were both a tad nervous. Our main concern was getting everything to be ready at the same time but with good planning and preparation we hope all would be ok.

Cazzie's parents turned up and all the food was ready exactly when we wanted them to be - it couldn't have worked out any better!

It may seem as if I am blowing my own trumpet and you'd be right. It was a great success and very tasty. My favourite was the apple crumble and custard (which Cazzie took care of). This was the first dessert I'd ever made and I was well chuffed.

I guess the whole point of this blog is to tell those people that are the ready make sauce and microwavable rice generation, that cooking good food is easy - even I can do it. It's all about taking the time and putting in the preparation and anyone can cook a really tasty, excellent meal. Also, all the recipes came from the BBC food website, which are tried and tested methods and are not too difficult to follow.

I have linked in the recipes to each of the ones we used, but I want to include one more that we tried 2 weeks ago when the Forbes' came along.

Roast Rack of Lamb

I hope you find this useful!

Love

Stuoobs
xxx

p.s. If you want my chili and garlic roast potato recipe - just ask!!

Mountains, Bears, Deserts and Vineyards.

As most of you will know, Cazzie and I have been planning a 7 month trip to Canada and America and it’s my pleasure to tell you all that it’s now sorted.

We leave for Vancouver on Monday 5th October, flying with BA from Heathrow. As we will no doubt be arriving in Canada very drunk, we have decided that it’s probably best to pick the RV up the next day.

Here’s our RV and internal view. It comes equipped with hot shower, flushing toilet, full kitchen and double bed!

We then have a rough plan to follow the blue flags on this map.

I couldn’t get names on this map, but you get the idea!!

We start in Vancouver and the highlights are Banff,Jasper, Calgary, Yellowstone, Las Vegas, Death Valley, Phoenix and right back up through California taking in San Diego, Los Angeles, Yosemite and San Fran (not forgetting the Napa Valley for some wine tasting) before driving back to Canada through Portland and Seattle. If we were just to visit all these blue dots we would cover over 6,500 miles, but we have our Lonely Planet guide to take us off the beaten track if we so desire!! We do have to be careful of bears who have such a keen sense of smell that we need to lock our food up in bear-proof containers in the RV parks!!

We have the RV for 56 nights so we should be able to cover all these places. I have taken Andy’s lead and splashed out on an SLR camera to capture all the stunning views I am reading about.

After the 56 nights are up, we arrive in Whistler on the 1st December until 29th April for the 2009 / 2010 ski season, which includes the 2010 Winter Olympics. I don’t think we could have picked a better in time to be there. We have used the same company that my two friends, Foe and Easty, for our accommodation – SeasonIT.

A view of our house and our outside hot tub.

This place is fab. 300 metres from the Blackcomb slope and 10 mins walk from Longhorns. Perfect!

So that’s the plan. I fully intend to post blogs from where we have been as most of these RV parks have wifi as well as supermarkets, spas and laundromats. I also fully intend to perfect skiing this year as well as snowboarding!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

The best steak restaurant in the world........perhaps

I promised when I wrote my Boston Blog that I would tell you all about Abe & Louie's steakhouse - so here we go.

The benchmark for the best steak has always been at Keens Olde English Chophouse located in New York, discovered by Paulie and Andy on our first trip to the Big Apple. I ordered a Kings Prime cut which looked like this.















It was terrific. Melt in your mouth delicious. We ordered a couple of side dishes to accompany the steak, but these remained largely untouched because the steak was that large and that good. If you ever find yourself in New York, this is a place you must visit.

The hunt for the best steak continued when we found ourselves in Chicago last November. My parents had eaten at Smith & Wollensky's here and made a very bold statement that the steak was better than the one they had in Keens. This is something we could not ignore so we booked in to see for ourselves. I decided to order the prime rib.















I don't have a pre-dinner picture, but I'm not sure that this steak was better than Keens. We decided that we would need to eat one night in Keens and the next at S&W's to be able to be sure. Next trip maybe!!

So, me, Cazzie, Paulie and Karen then found ourselves in Boston 7 months later and there was a Smith & Wollensky's right next to our hotel with the general consensus being that we should eat there. After a quick chat to the hotel concierge, he informed us that a place called Abe & Louie was "much better than Smith & Wollensky's).". I'll be honest with you - I didn't believe him, but I have always been a fan of local knowledge, so reservations were made. If we didn't like it, we could always go to S&W the next night.

When we walked in, you could tell that place was going to be something special. Nice low lighting, bustling atmosphere and it was full. What was great about this place was even though the place was full, you didn't feel over crowded. We were shown to our table, which was more like a booth. Our waiter for the evening was called Matt - who as it happens was from Chicago. This was pretty much the only guy we saw for the rest of our meal. What I don't like about some places is when you see 6 different people during your meal. One to show you to the table, one to ask what drinks you want, one to bring the drinks, one to bring the bread, one to take your order and one who brings your order. It's not a personal service. But Abe&Louie was totally different and it was so refreshing. Paulie ordered the wine with Matt who tottered off to go get it. About 2 mins later he came back with a small glass of different wine for Paulie to taste. The wine was better, would accompany the meal better and was actually cheaper. Too many places try and offer you a different bottle of wine that's actually more expensive and try to screw you over.

I had ordered another prime rib - double cut this time - while Cazzie and Karen went for the fillet on the bone. Paulie had the sirloin (I think).













This was the best steak I have ever had. It was stunning. Tasty, juicy, tender, succulent. I could go on. Cazzie, Karen and Paulie agreed. There was no meat left on any one's plate by the end of the meal. The 2 bottles of wine was a perfect accompaniment to the meal. Matt kept dropping by and asking if the meal was OK. He even stopped for a chat about Chicago, Smith & Wollensky's and a gave us a few "must do"'s if we are ever back in the Windy City.

Even the deserts were excellent. We didn't want a huge portion each, so Matt arranged for us to have a selection of all of the best deserts.















Each one was so tasty. Rich and sweet.

The meal was finished off with a very healthy Irish coffee.

This was, without a doubt, the best steak experience I have ever had and if you are ever in Boston, you must go here....and ask for Matt!!

The hunt still continues, but the benchmark is now Abe&Louie.


xxx

I want one of those.

As a surprise for Cazzie's birthday, I organised for both of us to spend 4 days on the South Coast of France in Nice. My parents have been there and so have Andy and Karen and the reviews were excellent.

The first thing Cazzie knew about our trip was when I told her on the Sunday evening. This gave her 2 days to do her hair, pack and re-pack. I hadn't paid for us to take suitcases on the EasyJet flight from Liverpool, so we needed to fit 4 days worth of stuff in hand luggage.

Our flight was due to leave at 7.15am from Liverpool which meant a 4.30am start. After another seamless check in and security check, we had a few minutes to grab a breakfast before we were due to board. It's only 2 hours to Nice and once there, it was only a 15 min taxi ride to our hotel. We arrived at the hotel at about 11am, but we were unable to check in, so we dumped out stuff with reception and headed out to see what Nice had to offer.

We walked along the sea front, known as the Promenade Des Anglais. The beaches here are pebble ones so they are not great to walk on. It was funny to see the sun worshippers hobbling back from swimming in the sea and back to their towels. It looked very painful! We had our "beach" day planned on Thursday and it was something we were not relishing!

Anyway, we kept walking and decided to divert off the main hike and into the back streets. These were typically Mediterranean. Long narrow streets with little shops, cafes and boutiques dotted all along, with apartments above them. It was lovely. We wound our way through these streets, often stumbling across a little square or plaza with a statue, monument or fountain in it. The only hazard was the cars and crazy people on mopeds that tried their best to knock everyone over. After about 2 hours of wandering, we came across a large area called Rue De France that had restaurants all around the outside and a market selling everything in the middle. Throw in a whole load of bars and a sprinkling of street entertainers and you have a hive of activity! We decided that this was a great place to grab a spot of lunch before heading back to our hotel. We checked in and took full advantage of the roof top pool area that our hotel had. After an afternoon of snoozing and sunning, it was time to shower and head out for something to eat.

This was the greatest sunbed ever - all sunbeds should have a pull down face shade.

We were now ready to eat and couldn't think of anywhere better to go than the place with all the bars and restaurants. estopped off for a bottle of wine on the way and after an hour arrived at the Rue des France again where we found that all the market traders has packed up for the night and all their stalls had been taken over by the restaurants and the whole area was an outside eating area. It was great - but so amazingly busy for a Tuesday and we couldn't work out why. We waited a bit for a table and once sat, tucked into another bottle of wine before ordering pizza.

Towards the end our our meal, we kept hearing loud bangs which turned out to be fireworks, so we quickly settled up the bill and went to see them. There were 1000's of people watching this very impressive firework display, so we figured out that this must be some sort of celebration / anniversary. It turned out that it was Bastille Day, which the French seem to take seriously. The best part about this was on our walk home, we came across a beautiful fountain that we had seen earlier on the in the day and someone had poured a bottle of washing up liquid in it with terrific results.

I don't think I could ever tire of seeing this happen. One more bottle of wine on the way home and it was time for bed. The next day was soon upon us, and after clearing the hangover we hopped upon the Nice tourist trolley which took you around the city in about 45 mins. We discovered that we had been to about 75% of the places on our walk the day before, but enjoyed it nevertheless. Back to the hotel in the afternoon for more sunbathing before heading back out to the Rue Des France for more food. Muscles were on the agenda tonight and were excellent. A couple more bottles of wine and bed again as we had to be up early tomorrow to catch the ferry to Monaco.

Thursday morning – Cazzie’s birthday- came around very quickly and neither of us embraced it with open arms! We grabbed some breakfast on the run from the local boulangerie and headed to the port to catch our ferry to Monaco. Cazzie did not enjoy the ferry ride too much and spent most of it below deck running between the comfy ferry seats and the not so comfy toilet seats! The ferry got us into Monaco at 10am and we were given 7 hours to explore and our first point of call was the changing of the guard at the palace. After a coffee we made the steep climb up the steps to the palace where all took place at 11.55 sharp!! Again, like Nice there were 100's of little side streets with cafes, souvenir shops and boutiques. After witnessing the changeover, we headed to Monte Carlo. Our route took us past the port and this is where I fell in love. I want a boat. Nothing too fancy, but I still want one. These things were amazing and there were loads of them, so they can’t be that expensive can they??? The most expensive one we saw was £7m and I'm convinced it was worth it. These beauties have at least 4 levels, bars, leather sofas, sun decks, hot tubs, huge bedrooms, lcd tvs, satellite TV, lounges, dining rooms, kitchens...the list goes on. I decided that I couldn't afford one but how about hiring one for 2 weeks and port hopping around the Med??? All I would need is 6 other people and surely it would be affordable......anyone got a spare £50,000 for 2 weeks rent??? Oh well - dream over, but here's one to drool over.



So, we arrived in Monte Carlo and under recommendation for Andy, Pezza, Mum and Dad, we plonked ourselves down at the Cafe D'Paris in Casino Square for a drink and to people watch. This place ooooooozes wealth. Not the flash cash you see in the trendy bars in Manchester or London with people poncing around in their Mercedes and BMW's, but the kind of people that have much more money than they know what to do with. Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Ferraris are the norm here. People are minted and they like to show it. Tourists come here just to see these people and how much money there is. After our drink, we wandered around to see the Prada. Gucci, Cartier and Christian Dior shops before it was time to walk back to our ferry.

After another couple bottle of wines with dinner we were done.

Thursday was our last day in Nice and after we took advantage of the hotel buffet we checked out and headed to the beach to top up the tan. As luck would have it, this was the only cloudy day of our holiday, but the clouds soon dispersed and we enjoyed a lovely afternoon on the private hotel beach.

Overall, Nice is great. Only 2 hours away, cheap to get to, great weather, lots to do and I was surprised how reasonably priced everything was in there as well. If you are looking for a quick 3 - 4 days away, Nice is the place for you.

Finally - if you want to get regular updates whenever I update my blog, just fill in your email address on the top right of this page and follow the instructions - just make sure the email doesn’t end up in your "spam" folder!!

Catch you soon

Stuoobs

xxx

The final leg....

Hands up who knew that Philadelphia was America's first Capital City? My hands are not up. It served as the Capital during the first Revolution. This is where Betty Ross sewed the first American Flag and where the Liberty Bell is. The Liberty Bell is one of the most prominent symbols of the American Revolutionary War and has been described as an icon of liberty and justice. It was the Capital for 10 years while they built Washington DC. The place is full of many different cultures - there is a China Town, a Little Italy and numerous communities.

Cazzie and I arrived here in Philly on Thursday 25th June for our final 3 days in the States. We did not know what to expect here either. We manage to find the hotel with no problem at all as we had hired a car to take us from Washington and had TomTom to guide us. After a very easy check in where the hotel offered us a suite for $20 a night, we had to return the hire car to the Avis centre. The TomTom new exactly where this is but we needed to get gas. I plugged in "gas stations" in the sat nav and it brought up quite a few in the area. I picked the one en route and followed the instructions. I do not know why the TomTom would lie to me but after 15 minutes of dashing about to find fuel (due to the fact that we needed to get the car back to the Avis garage in 20 mins), we decided that it would be cheaper to return the car half full of gas that risk getting charged another days hire. Upon our arrival at the Avis garage, we were told that they shut in 2 hours so we had time to fill up. We were informed that there is only 1 gas station within the Philadelphia city limits. Again, why would my TomTom lie???

All got sorted and we took the short walk to the hotel. I have stayed in a few hotels in my time, but the Sofitel in Philly has the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. I'm not sure it's worth the visit alone, but it's a good tip. I would like to mention at this point that we learnt that Michael Jackson had died. It was quite good (if that's the right expression) that we were in the US and especially Philly. There was a huge African American community here and there seemed to be a really positive reaction to his death. Every 10 minutes we heard a car with it's window's down blasting out Jackson songs, all the TV channels had 24 hour coverage and it was the talk of the town.

As it was late on we walked to China Town, grabbed a quick bite to eat and then we hit the comfy bed.

Friday we were up and about early and headed to the Art Museum. The steps up here are the ones made famous by Rocky - the ones he ran up during his training session!
















There was a queue to get your picture taken with the Rocky statue and the obligatory "local" wearing a Rocky T-Shirt trying to screw a dollar out of you for the privilege.

After a long walk in the park that is larger that Central Park in NYC, we headed to the more historical part of town and this is where I decided that the Americans love their water features. It seems around every corner there is another one. This time it was in JFK Plaza. This concluded our stalking of JFK for this trip. In the Plaza there was a free music concert going on and the reason for it was free was that is was performed by kids. They were OK but not good enough for anyone to pay for! The Liberty Bell was next on our list to do followed by a visit to Betty Ross's house. The Liberty Bell was smaller than I imagined and has a huge crack in it. It was only used for a few years before it was silenced. Repairs were carried out a few years later, but cracked again after the first use.
















We had worked up a thirst, so after a quick shower back at the hotel we headed out for food and drink. We had a lovely meal washed down with 2 bottles of wine and asked for direction to a good selection of bars. We tried one or two and ended up in a student bar which was great fun!

The next day involved a lot of walking. Philadelphia, along with many other US cities, has a terrific market called the Reading Market. This place is brilliant serving up dishes from every corner of the world. It was that good we returned the next day for lunch!

It was time to head out and get ourselves a famous Philly Cheese Steak and we had 2 options. We could either eat at Pats-Kings of Steaks or Gino's-The best steak in the world. So did we go for the Kings or the Best. We flipped a coin and it was Pats that got the nod. I don't think it mattered as there were 50 queueing outside each place anyway, so either would have been OK. I ordered a "steak wit American cheese wit mushrooms and fries wit cheese whizz". It was a bit of a panic order but it was worth the 30 mins walk, the 60 mins queue and the worry about finding a toilet for Cazzie. This was the biggest surprise as there was no mad dash and the moment passed.


























Later that evening, Cazzie wanted to go to a wine bar on 13th street - rated in the lonely planet! The barman was a friendly chap who proceeded to inform us that if we waited around for long enough we would see some prostitutes. Not your normal type of prostitute, but midgets or gay transsexuals. After a long discussion, Cazzie decided she didn't want to get one so we headed to our hotel!

After a good night's sleep and another visit to the Reading Market, it was time to head to the airport.

All the pictures can be found here.

Philadelphia didn't seem to be so great at the time, but having written this blog, looked at the pictures and chat with Cazzie about it again , we decided that Philly is a great city to visit. I think it didn't stand out against our visits to Vegas, Washington, Boston and Houston, but it is well worth a few days.

So that concludes my USA blog. We were away for a total of 21 days, visited 6 cities, travelled over 6,400 miles (just in the US), saw 2 baseball games, had the best steak ever at Abe's & Louie, met a lot of new people (and a puppy) and had an amazing time!

I can highly recommend it.

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Their Nation's Captial

The next stage of our USA trip took us to Washington DC. The flight from Boston was a short one, but Cazzie still managed to get a good hour's sleep in!

We arrived mid afternoon and decided it would be a good idea to take the subway to our hotel. This seemed like a flawless plan until it was time to get off the subway and walk the "very short distance" to our hotel. After about 30 mins of dragging our ever increasing in weight suitcases around in a very large circle while the temperate got warmer and out clothes wetter, we decided it was time to give in and ask directions. It seemed that we have been doing laps of our hotel!

The hotel was lovely and we managed to check in with no problems. After a quick shower we headed out to have a little wander around while trying not to go and see any of the numerous sights that we had planned to do for the next 2 days. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and a coffee before it was time to meet with Don and Glenna, a couple of my parents friends who live near Washington. We had about 30 mins to kill after getting ready so we popped across the road for a quick drink and this is where we saw that there had been a massive crash on the Subway on the line we were on about 4 hours ago with a few dead and 100's injured! I guess it wouldn't be the same if we visited a country without there being some form of disaster!

The meal with Don and Glenna was lovely. They took us to a suburb of Washington called GeorgeTown where we had Italian, share stories about all our various holidays and future plans, and Don picked up the tab - result! They dropped us back at our hotel just before midnight.

The plan for the next day was to take the hopefully open subway to Union Station which is sort of like Grand Central Station but in DC. This is where we would pick up our tickets for the open top bus tour. The ticket we got was valid for 48 hours and we were delighted it was as there was so much to see and do!

I could detail every single sight we saw, but I think that would even bore me, but there were some real highlights which included Capitol Hill, The White House, The Mall, The Monument, The FBI building and The American History Museum, but there were 2 places that stood out for me, The World War II Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The WW2 Memorial was completed in 2004 (in fact, all the historical building we saw looked like they had just been completed in the last 5 years!), and was there to show all the states that took place during the war. At either end of the monument were the two oceans - Pacific and Atlantic with a fountain in the middle. The whole thing was terrific.













Then there was Arlington National Cemetery. I'm going to be honest with you, I didn't really know what this place was all about and the only reason we went there was because it was on the bus route, but I' so glad we did. This is the place where members of the Armed Forces, members of their family and pretty much anyone else connected to a war that the US has been involved in are buried. It receives 4 million visitors a year. I'm not really sure how to describe it. It's 420 acres and I could not even start to guess how may are buried here. It seems as well that any soldier that died while they were actually serving in the forces got one type of headstone and anyone else who used to be a part of the forces got a choice. This is what got me I think.























This was just one view of one area from one direction. And further more, all these headstone and lined up not just horizontally and vertically, but diagonally too. It was stunning, precise, clean and perfectly maintained. There are other nationalities here too including Korean and Japanese.

President JFK is also buried here, and is one of only 2 Presidents to have that honour. We felt like we were stalking him!

Again, I could go on abut what else is here, but if you are interested, follow this link.

That pretty much brings us to our final night in Washington where we headed back to GeorgeTown for dinner and a drink. After an OK meal we found a piano bar - winner. We got right on it despite that fact that the piano dude was awful!! We decided to go for a wander to see if we could find another bar that tickled our fancy, but being America, a lot of that bars are in hotel and restaurants, so we ended up back in the piano bar. In true style, we finished the night sat round the piano, singling very loudly and telling the guy how great he was!

Overall Washington is a great place. You get to visit all the places you see on the telly and there are some lovely areas to shop, eat and drink as well as lots of suburbs, huge parks, endless fountains and monuments. It's well worth spending 3 days here as there is loads to do!

All the pics can be found here.

One funny stories from DC. We knew that Barak Obama was in the White House when we visited it and he was conducting an interview with Good Morning America. Everytime Cazzie saw a black man she asked me "Is that him???"

Now it's off to Philadelphia!!

Lots of love

Stuoobs

xxx

Cheers Boston!

After a very early flight from Vegas, we arrived in Boston mid afternoon. I knew from previous Vegas trips that we would need something to do on our first night in Boston, otherwise we would all pass out very quickly. With this in mind, we decided to take in a Red Soxs baseball game on Friday night. A quick check-in at the hotel, where we were offered a half price upgrade to a better room that included access to a bar on our floor which served free snacks between 5 and 7 and a free breakfast. The cakes here were amazing!! We enjoyed a few beers here before we headed to Fenway Park.

The plan was to get foot long hotdogs, beer and foam fingers. This was followed with military precision.

After another baseball game where I really didn’t know what was going on and my 3^rd successive game where the home team lost, we all headed to a local bar to grab some fried food and a few more beers. The evening was a great success and stopped us all from pulling the rip cord very early on.

The next day we had booked ourselves on the trolley bus tour of Boston – you know the type – the tours round a city where you get a guide at the front telling you all about the stuff you are passing and you can hop off and hop on where ever you want to, to walk around. It is very touristy but the only way of seeing all the best parts of a city. We took a walk to the first stop and grabbed breakfast on the way. The street we walked down was lovely. Full of boutiques and antique shops. Really English. Really quaint. After a great breakfast, we hopped on the trolley and began our tour. Our guide was excellent and we learnt all about the history of Boston, the English invasion, the famous Tea Party, MIT and Harvard and more importantly, the Cheers bar. There is the replica bar, where we stopped and had a beer, and about 1 mile away is the actual place where all the outside shots were taken.

The replica bar was in a place called Quincy Market. This place was full of shops, bars, restaurants, street entertainers and a large market. It was a great place and really bustling.

We hopped back on the bus and continued our tour. Then we got told something that is truly genius. We had all noticed that there wasn’t much traffic about and wondered why. A few years ago, traffic was so bad in Boston that the powers that be decided to build a network of roads underground. This is a great idea. Anyone that wants to get from one side of Boston to the other now uses these tunnels meaning they don’t have to clog up the city centre. Screw the congestion charge, we could do with this in our major cities. It’s a great idea. The only trouble with this plan was that it is very expensive. Original budget for these tunnels were $3 billion, but it cost nearly four times that much.

A few more stops on the trolley and we were back where we started. It was a great tour and I can highly recommend it.

It was time to head back for a shower, so we took a walk through the park that was by our hotel. There were lots of wedding parties having picturesque photos, boats on the river and lots of little ducklings.

For dinner, we headed to Little Italy and after a few glasses of wine in a few bars, we were ready to eat. We dined in a lovely little Italian restaurant and were given a great table. A few more glasses of wine and lots of lovely food, we were all ready to hits the bars of Boston, so we headed a place that had a live band on and proceeded to get smashed. The band was great and the drinks flowed. A great night had by all and we were chucked out at 2am. Cazzie’s feet were hurting, so we taxied it back to the hotel, where she decided to do cartwheels in the corridor of the hotel at 2.30am which we were amazed that it woke no one up! Videos will appear later on YouTube!

The expected hangover greeted us the next day, so a fry-up was next on the agenda. After a walk around the shops and a trip to a couple more places such as the Boston Library, it was again tea time. There is a bar at the top of the Prudential tower that we wanted to go to which gives great views of Boston. As the weather was rubbish, the views were not so great, but the cocktails were! I think I won with my Tropical Splash.

Hunger was very much upon us, so after a great recommendation from our Concierge, it was time to go to Abe and Louie’s. We were told that this place is much better than Smith and Wollanskies. I was somewhat sceptical but as I always say, there’s nothing like local knowledge. I will be doing a separate post about our dining experience here. Enough said.

After our meal, we were all pretty much spent, so we retired to bed as Cazzie and I had to leave to 9am to catch our flight to Washington DC.

Boston is a terrific city. Full of culture and history with plenty to keep you occupied for 3 days.

See you in DC!

Love

Stuoobs

xxx