Sex Shops & Clogs

A blog about Holland & Belgium

Very quickly before I jump into it, I have now been home for nearly 5 months….so it’s a good time to finish off the blogs. I’m going to try to get one out a week until I’m done. So here we go.

We arrived at Utrecht station in the evening, we walked through the station looking for our friend Richard.
We walked down the stairs where he told us to meet him and we could see him walking in the same direction as us. We called out to him and jumped in his car on the way back to his and Danielle’s place.
Once at their apartment, we set our stuff down in our room and sat out in the dining area with them. We chatted and laughed and even took pictures of ourselves as Ronald and posted them.
We were taking down to this little restaurant place and given delicious Dutch food, Megan fell in love with satay sauce on fries and still talks about it everytime we have fries.

After a long time travelling on the train we crashed in bed to get up the next morning and see the festivities of Sinterklaas.
Danielle and Richard rifled through their drawers pulling out camera lenses, when I thought that they had pulled every single one out of the drawer, they opened another drawer and started unleashing more.
On the TV there were crazy hosts entertaining hordes of children and adults with festivities about Sinterklaas, who is basically where Santa came from, except this version is much better, with a giant staff, I imagine he would give the naughty kids a beatdown with his staff rather than coal….when I say staff I mean actual staff….not staff in a priestly kind of way.

We hit the streets, there were people with their skin painted black, these guys are known as peits, they are Sinterklaas’ helpers, they are not slaves, their skin is black from the soot from the chimneys.
Kids sat on parents shoulders with Sinterklaas hats on, pointing, waving, cheering.
Megan and I could not wipe the huge grins from our faces as Richard and Danielle guided us through the crowds down near the stage.

The revving of motorcycle engines caught my attention as Sinterklaas himself rolled in on a Harley, he walked on to the stage and started singing while the peits danced and we cheered and enjoyed every second of it.

We piled into the car and headed out to a place called Volendam.
Driving, we looked over the flat, beautiful, vast landscape and saw windmills and not much cattle as it was getting cold.
We arrived in this amazing little town with cobblestone streets and right on the water.
We walked through little streets and went into a photo shop and the four of us got our photo taken with old Dutch clothes on…including the clogs.
A little restaurant on the waterfront is where we ended up, sitting outside under the heater we ate more delicious food and talked and drank beer….well Richard and I did anyway.

The following morning we headed into Amsterdam, he stopped in a café (not a coffee shop) and had actual coffee. We walked around and saw beautiful canals, amazing buildings and Batman, a street busker, but still Batman!
We went to Anne Frank House, which was an incredible thing to see, although the way they had set it up was more like an empty art museum, but the story is still an unbelievable one and such a great story of survival….well, until they found them.
After leaving Anne Frank House, we went to get poffertjes, for those of you who don’t know, poffertjes are little Dutch pancakes cooked on this huge iron, and you douse them usually in butter and sugar. Megan had hers with butter and sugar, Danielle had hers with strawberries and cream and Richard had his soaked in alcohol….my god they were good….oh and Richard and I washed them down with beer as well!

When the poffertje feast had concluded we decided to take on the red light district, being highly amused by the ladies wearing only their underwear and standing in a shop window, we tried to sneak photos, but alas, with the quick flick of their wrist they are covered with a curtain…..I’m sure when they aren’t in the window a quick flick of their wrist could cover them with something else entirely.

We walked past sex shops with huge dildos and butt plugs in the windows, postcards that had vaginas turned into faces on them, porn with fatties and of course, everyones favourite…..animal porn.

Our time with Richard and Danielle was amazing, they really saved us. A place we weren’t even going to, was amazing in every single way, we appreciate everything they did for us so much. We love you, you crazy Dutch.

Danielle dropped us off at the station where we headed to Brussels, Belgium.
We were only there for one day, so we decided to make the most of it.
We checked into our hostel and an annoying from Perth starting talking to Megan while I was in the shower. He was going on and on about how you only go to Melbourne if you want to get stabbed and weird stuff like that….so Megan argued with him for a while, then I got back and we went out on the hunt for food.

The next morning we awoke ready to pack everything into one crazy day, our first plan of attack was to find Mannikin Pis, the fountain of a pissing boy.
On the way, we stopped in little stores and looked at everything we could find, we followed street signs pointing to where to find the Mannikin Pis, we stopped in chocolate shop after chocolate shop, pretending to be looking at what they had, then once we got our free sample, we scurried out and moved on to the next one.
We got Mannikin Pis, a statue about the size of my head and he was just pissing off a ledge into a pond. We took our photos and Megan and I went on the search for Belgian waffles.
When we found a place that seemed suitable, and I got my normal, plain type of waffle and Megan got her crazy waffle covered in cream and strawberries and chocolate, and we stood on the side of the road and had waffle-fest 2008.
Night fell upon us and I really wanted to go to the bar Delirium, so we walked for what seemed like hours to find this fucking place, after a while, we finally did. We walked down a flight of stairs, looked around for a table, after finding one, I perused the menu of beers and was completely overwhelmed, after much deliberating, I decided to get an apple beer, not apple cider, an apple beer, it was delicious.

We packed everything up that night and we headed to the station the following morning.
At the station they have a Tin-Tin mural, I took plenty of photos of it and was super excited….I thought that had made my day until I found the best invention known to man….the vending machine…the size of a supermarket.
I had gone looking to get a drink for Megan, I came back, running across the station, yelling with a huge grin on my face.
Megan got up to see what the hell was wrong with me and I took her over to this crazy vending machine where I bought some good and we headed on our way to London.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

BJ

Das Bier

A blog about Barcelona and Munich

 

 

The train ride was painful, the seats were not that comfortable and as much as we tried to relax and go to sleep, we had major problems doing so.

We arrived in Barcelona and found the hostel quite easily, we were in a 10 bed dorm and for the first night, we were the only two people in there, which was nice and quiet.

 

We awoke the next morning ready to get some stuff done.

Our walk was a fairly long one to Sagrada Familia which was a crazy church, it looks like something out of a horror movie, the outside looks like disembodied limbs and torsos have been sewn together to make a frightening pattern on the church, the four spires of the church reach up really high and in the centre a sculpture of Jesus on the crucifix.

We did not go inside however, as the church, as most churches are, was fairly expensive to go inside. We didn’t feel like being ripped off by religion, so we continued our journey and walked to the metro.

We got off and walked up to Museu D’Art, from there we got a view of Barcelona similar to the one we got from the Pantheon in Greece.

 

Tapas bars lined the streets the next morning on our way to La Boqueria, a market full of all different types of goodies, mainly being food and sweets.

Meat and fruit stands were the main attractions here and we watched in amazement as people grabbed bags upon bags of mushrooms and went on their way.

The seafood section was my favourite. Prawns covered an extremely large table, Megan and I were discussing how fresh they were when a gentleman started pointing at different ones and the lady behind the counter started throwing them all out of the way, they were still alive, their little legs twitched as they tried to escape.

We walked through the rest of the market, huge cuts of tuna and salmon were on ice ready to be purchased by the rich seafood enthusiast.

We walked up La Rambla, which is considered to be one of the main streets in Barcelona.

Street performers lined the streets, from princesses with huge dresses to a giant Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas. Some sat in chairs or stood completely still until some coins were thrown into their cups. Others moved around and performed and just hoped that people would drop a few coins in.

There were market stall lining the sides of this street, we came across a part that were stalls upon stalls of pet stores, selling rabbits, turtles, birds, fish, chipmunks and one even was selling an albino porcupine.

 

The next day was our last in Barcelona, so we made it our mission to make it the Gaudi Park, Parc Güell.

We walked for about 2km from the metro station and then we got to a rather steep hill, we made our way up and entered the park.

This is one of the standout parts of the entire trip for me, the park was beautiful, everything tiled in blue and white tiles with the spires of buildings twisting around in almost a Tim Burton-esque style of building.

Beautiful fountains and plants split the staircase in two.

We reached a room full of columns, the roof was covered in white tiles with blue suns. We walked up the stairs and reached a huge dirt circle the sides of which had a wavy bench that ran the entire length of the circle. It is the largest park bench in the world.

From up here we had another great view of Barcelona.

Then we reached my favourite part, a sheltered walkway that was leaning all the way to the right, it looked as though it had been windblown over time to lean on almost a 90º angle.

We left Parc Güell headed for Torre Agbar, which is the building that looks like a dildo.

We took some photos and headed back to the hostel to grab our things before heading to the airport to spend the night there for our flight early the next morning.

We slept on the hard marble floor of the airport, sprawled out under the departure/arrival sign like a pair of hobos. People gave us strange looks as they walked past and we had about an hour of sleep.

At around 5am we checked our bags and headed to our gate, ready to sly to Munich, Germany.

 

We arrived in Munich at around lunchtime.

We checked into our hostel and went to find a supermarket to grab some food for lunch.

I grabbed a beer and we had an early night in the hostel due to barely any sleep the night before.

 

The following morning we went to have a look at what was around our hostel seeing that we were in the middle of Munich. We went in and out of stores, seeing beer steins everywhere we looked. Pretzels, sausages and beer were everywhere we looked. We found a porn store, so of course we had to go and see what kind of German porn they had in there.

As we walked in, the place looked incredibly seedy, they had glass dildos shaped like eggplants in the display cases in the entrance hallway.

What I wanted to find was the German porn of people shitting on each other, just to see if it was actually sold in porn stores.

We found a section and there was a guy standing next to us excitedly browsing through the ‘Brutality’ porn and down on the right hand bottom shelf I saw a DVD titled ‘Shit Eating Incest Grannies’. I picked it up and couldn’t stop laughing, on the cover was a grandma having her face shit on. It wasn’t long after that, we decided to leave.

That night we went down to the restaurant and I ordered up a litre of beer for a fairly decent price, the litre came out in one giant glass and I put it away.

 

The free tour started at about 11am the next morning, it was raining and it was freezing outside. But there were enough people for the tour to start.

Our tour guide, Iain, showed us through Munich, we saw the Devils Footprint inside the church, the beer hall where Hitler started his rise to power, the famous Hofbräuhaus, the place where Hitler was almost killed and many other amazing places that are part of Munichs history.

Making our way back to the hostel, frozen to the bone, we stopped and picked up some beer for later that night.

Our last day in Munich, Megan and I went into the Hofbräuhaus so I could drink some of their beautiful beer.

I ordered up a litre of their darkest ale and put away the delicious beverage.

We headed back out into the frosty German weather and walked to the old town square where Hitler gave many speeches. Two poles stood about halfway down the square on the left and right side, on top of them, was a gold circle, one with a monk inside the circle, the other with a dragon, in the 1940s these circles contain swastikas.

The Glockenspiel was the next stop on the walk back to the hostel.

We waited until it started and somehow managed to survive the 15 horrific minutes of the bells playing and the mechanical show creaking along with it.

 

We boarded a train early the next morning headed for Utrecht to meet up with our friends Richard and Danielle.

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

 

BJ

 

 

What The Fuck Is Chinotto? And Litres And Litres Of Red Wine

A blog about Italy (Naples, Rome, Florence, Pisa & Venice)

 

 

We slept on the floor of the ferry, the seats so uncomfortable to sit in, let alone sleep in. We piled up jackets, jumpers, hoodies, pretty much anything we had that was soft for pillows and went to sleep.

 

We arrived in Bari, Italy. A small town on the coast of Italy where most of the ferries arrive from Greece. We had our first problems here as no one would speak English to us and some yelled at us because we didn’t speak Italian.

We caught the train out of Bari to Naples.

Arriving just before it got dark, we decided to walk to our hostel, we slipped in and out of crowds all the way down, turning what should have been a twenty minute walk into a forty-five minute walk.

Once arriving at the hostel, we asked where some good cheap pizza was, and with Naples supposedly having the best pizza in the world, we were not disappointed.

 

We woke the next morning and headed towards the part of Naples which is the original area, the streets are narrows but the Vespas will knock pedestrians out of the way if they need to.

A student protest of a few thousand people went down the streets close to us, all chanting, singing and shouting.

We explored these tiny little streets of Naples, found some Gelati and had an ice-cream feast.

 

The next morning we jumped back on the train, destination Rome.

 

We arrived in Rome, not only did we notice how dirty of a city it was, but we had to catch the local train line about 45 minutes out of the city. We arrived at our little station and went down to wait for the shuttle bus which was supposed to come every half hour. Waiting there already were two other Australians, Sam & Verelle, who had been waiting about 40 minutes already, Sam called the accommodation and she got some satisfaction when the bus driver said he would make the special trip out to get us.

The accommodation was a caravan, or half a caravan, two single beds and a shelf, the beds were tiny but it was comfortable and cheap enough for us.

Back in Naples, I had purchased a can of Fanta, at the time we couldn’t see the label but it was brown and we could see the letter “C” under the word Fanta, so once it was out we saw it was Fanta Chinotto.

Neither of us had any idea what chinotto was, so once sitting in our room in Rome I got the can out, examined it, opened it and had a sip. Holy shit….this stuff tasted like poison, it was so bitter that it was stupid, I thought I might have a seizure from how bitter it was.

It started raining pretty heavily and lightening and thunder we closing in on the campsite, we needed to eat, so megan armed herself with the umbrella and we walked up the road to the restaurant.

While we were leaving we ran into Sam & Verelle again who had just sat down to eat their dinner, they invited us to sit and have a chat with them…the chat led to a few drinks, which then led to happy hour which was a half litre of red wine for just a couple of bucks. So there I sat, on a balcony in Rome, half litre of red wine infront of me, a storm brewing and the rain coming down really hard.

That evening we organized to head to the Coliseum with Sam & Verelle the next morning.

 

The next morning we found out that because it was the last Sunday of the month, the pope would be speaking at the Vatican, we caught the train out to the Vatican City and we saw the line, which was a three hour wait to get in. We didn’t speak Italian, so the popes message would have been probably quite boring to us anyway, we jumped back on the train and headed for the Coliseum.

Once there we got a tour guide and bought tickets for the Coliseum and the Palatino, having the guide was good as we got to skip the two hour line to get in.

We walked past everyone inside the great structure, I was shocked at the sheer size of the inside of the Coliseum, it was much taller than I had imagined on the inside, we saw underneath where the floor would have been and it looked like a maze of jagged stones, grass lined the floor like a thick green carpet and where the walls and rock had eroded away light shone through creating streaks of bright colour along the floor.

 

The walk over to the Palatino entrance was a short easy walk, however, the walk up the hill to the Palatino itself was not.

The tour guide we had for the Palatino, Richard, was excellent, he gave us perfect examples of how massive the place was when it was first built. Most of the Palatino was just ruins now, but it was still so massive with underground staircases and rooms everywhere.

 

Back where we were staying, we ate some food, then put away about another litre of red wine.

 

Megan, Sam, Verelle and I went out the next morning to The Spanish Steps, which were much smaller than I thought they would be, then we walked to the amazing Trevi Fountain. Hundreds of people were gathered around the fountain, all taking in the beauty of it, statues having water spilled all over them into the pool below.

We were back on the train, headed to the Vatican City to have a look around before we went back to the accommodation for some more red wine.

 

The next morning all our things were packed and we were headed for Florence.

 

We arrived at our hostel and were greeted with such enthusiasm and excitement, the hostel was an apartment, with a few rooms. We unloaded our stuff and went to sit in the kitchen, the girl working, Alice, was from Brisbane and we chatted for a while before the owner of the hostel, Lorenzo, made his way into the kitchen, as soon as he walked in, we were having vodka with him.

We sat in the kitchen the rest of the night, listening to music and drinking.

 

The next morning was looking pretty miserable outside, we started walking towards the leather market when the rain hit, it came down pretty hard. We waited about 20 minutes, the rain passed and we continued our journey down through Florence to the leather market.

To say the leather market was massive is an understatement, this thing was fucking huge, it stretched down the street, splitting off and taking turns down other streets.

We tried on funny hats, Megan bought some ear-muffs and we may have stopped along the way to have a gelati feast.

We had walked all the way down to Ill Duomo or ‘The Dom’ as it is known. A church that looked so grand from the outside I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t fenced off or protected in any way. Inside wasn’t as grand as the outside, but the high pitched ceilings, the marble floor and the painting on the roof were nothing to be scoffed at.

 

We made our way back to the hostel, and had a giant feast made by Lorenzo for dinner, we made some friends with two girls from Canberra, Rujia and Adelaide. I drank about a litre of red wine that night.

 

The next day we walked down to the bridge that is covered with gold shops, the windows filled with gold jewellery, hurting my eyes as the sun bounced off it.

We made our way to a square that had statues of turtles in it, so of course I had to get on top of them and pretend I was riding them as people walked past and gave Megan and I some odd looks.

We went back to The Dom and once inside I really wanted to light a candle because it looked like fun. I lit the candle and made our way back to the hostel.

When we got there, Lorenzo, Alice and Jenny (an American girl who worked there), were preparing dinner, we sat down and helped them out, Rujia and Adelaide helped out as well.

The four of us organized to head to Pisa the next day as a day trip.

 

In the morning we headed to the train station and got on the train bound for Pisa.

When we saw the Leaning Tower there was an collective disappointment as the tower was so tiny, although very cool to see, I had always expected it to be huge and leaning, not eight stories tall and pretty skinny.

We took the obligatory photos of us holding the tower, pushing the tower over and we walked around the streets of Pisa for a little bit before we headed back to the station.

We headed back to the hostel for our last night there, ate amazing pasta and salad for dinner that was made by Lorenzo.

We awoke the next morning, sadly said goodbye to all our new friends and jumped on the train once again, this time headed for our last Italian destination, Venice.

 

Stepping out of the station, we looked down some stairs onto a canal with police boats and gondolas going up and down, people scurried about everywhere we looked.

We checked into the hostel and then started to walk around Venice. It was such a strange thing to see, peoples back doors opening up onto canals and them just having a boat at their back stairs.

The greenish colour of the water was beautiful and dodgy looking men tried to sell us gondola rides.

We walked through tiny little streets, not having the risk of being run over by a car or Vespa was awesome as we could then walk at our own pace.

We walked to Basilica San Marco, where we got out some bread to feed the pigeons and constantly pigeons jumped up on us, on our arms, shoulders and hands, each fighting it out to get the bread.

We walked around for a while taking photos of canals and gondolas and just admiring the beauty of this strange little city.

We made our way to the station only to find that we had to wait a few hours for our train, so we sat on the stairs overlooking Venice. We were sitting in the warm sun, Megan lay down on our bags and had a nap in the sunlight while I recorded people walking past me and listened to Lupe Fiasco.

We boarded the train, ready for our overnight journey to Barcelona.

 

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

 

BJ

 

 

 

 

“Like Crooked Teeth, In The Mouth Of A Man Who Was Devouring Us Both”

A blog about Switzerland (part one) and Greece

 

As the place was taking off from Chicago, Megan and I had both passed out from eating so much meat only a few hours earlier, we slipped into a full blown meat-coma. We did awake a few hours later feeling rather groggy.

 

We landed in Switzerland and were greeted by my auntie, Suzy, who was taking us in for the time we were in Switzerland.

The drive from the airport was beautiful, green rolling hills on our left and to our right the massive Lake Geneva.

Once we reached the house, the view from the balcony was amazing, you looked over houses and trees, onto Lake Geneva with Montreux to the left. Over the back is the mountain referred to as ‘the teeth of Switzerland’ because the top of the mountain looks like jagged bottom teeth.

 

The next day was Suzy’s birthday, we had a few drinks and she opened up all her gifts, once Oliver and Georgia were home, they were ready to play a few games of table tennis against me, which I am always excited about playing. But being overly cocky and not realizing how good Oliver actually was, I got my arse kicked and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t score any points let alone win a game.

Inside, Suzy and Sean were getting the fondue ready for dinner that evening. The cheese was melting away nicely and the alcohol and cheese scent was wafting through the house. Meats, breads, olives, pickles, peppers, potatoes and pears were chopped up ready to be dropped into the boiling hot cheese.

Stabbing pickles with a fork and dunking them in boiling cheese mixed with alcohol sounded amazing, and it tasted even better than it sounds.

 

The following morning we walked to the market in Vevey, the walk along the edge of Lake Geneva was beautiful, water splashing ever so lightly on the rocks, big green trees sporting their first spots of orange and yellow leaves sheltered the walkways.

There was a statue of Charlie Chaplin and several more statues that appeared during the short walk.

Once we had reached the market, there were people moving quickly up and down all the aisles, the scent of waffles drifted through the air.

Then I saw the cheese, my god, the cheese. Stacks upon stacks of rolls, wedges, wheels, blocks, mounds, anything you could think of they had it. I tried a cheese pie type thing that I cannot remember the name of, but damn it was good.

Piles of spices ready to be scooped up were on display, they were an array of what looked like mustard coloured anthills, but the colours varying ever so slightly to be an incredible sight.

For dinner the six of us, Suzy, Sean, Oliver, Georgia, Megan and I walked down to Montreux to have a beautiful Thai dinner. However, in Switzerland, smoking has not been banned in restaurants, so of course the group of four that sat next to us smoked like there was no tomorrow, which made eating a bit difficult with smoke being blown into our faces and meals every so often.

So many plates came out, and we ate and ate and ate, until we were so full for our walk back up the hill.

 

Suzy took us for a walk down into Montreux to see the unbelievable Freddy Mercury statue. As many people know, I think that Freddy Mercury had the greatest voice the world will ever hear and I was so excited to see this statue. He faces Lake Geneva, so if you are standing anywhere but the footpath on the edge of the lake, his back is facing you. He is doing the classic one arm in the air pose and people have put roses and photos and poems by him as tributes.

 

We saw swans hiss at Moby (the family dog) as soon as he went anywhere near them, and looked at some expensive shops, whilst walking past a hotel where the lowest class of car was a Mercedes.

 

A few days later Suzy and her friend Alix took us to Gruyere where the famous Gruyere cheese is made. We learnt all about the process of how the cheese is made, as well as see them do this process whilst we were in there.

A hall of cheese wheels stretched on forever, yellow wax semi-circles peeked out of shelves, aging for the appropriate time.

We drove up the road a little bit until we got to the Callier chocolate factory.

The chocolate factory wasn’t much of a visitor attraction apart from the cheap chocolate at the end……and the free chocolate tasting inside, rows upon rows of different flavours, strengths, colours of chocolate all available for tasting.

 

Our last full day in Switzerland came and Suzy and Sean took us up a mountain and we had Rosti, which is a traditional Swiss food as far as I am aware, the only way that I can explain Rosti is that it is quite similar to a hash brown, except massive and the one I had included bacon, egg and capsicum. Although I can’t explain it, damn was it delicious, and it went down very nicely with a nice cold beer.

 

The drive back down the mountain was amazing, the steep, extremely narrow roads wound around the mountain, autumn had truly hit up here, leaves covered the ground like a red, orange and yellow carpet. Rivers flowed through the middle of the leaves breaking up the colours and creating some of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen.

 

We said our goodbyes to Sean and the kids and Suzy drove us out to the airport to catch our flight to Greece, we told her that we would see her in a month.

 

 

Before the riots and long after the original Olympics, we arrived in Greece.

 

We checked into our hostel, feeling pretty crappy we went to bed.

 

The next morning we had awoken feeling pretty good so we decided to go to where the flea market was and have a look around there.

We found that most of these places sold the same things and weren’t very good prices at all. The shops that lined the streets sold better things, but the tourist targeted souvenir shops were so overpriced it was outrageous.

We found a really old church, undergoing major reconstructions, but we went in and EVERYTHING was made of marble, I have never seen anything like it, it was cool inside the church as outside was fairly warm. I dipped my hand into the holy water and flicked it into Megans face, yelling out ‘BE HEALED!’ which she wasn’t impressed with at all.

We finally found a supermarket and purchased a few strange Greek things to try.

 

The next morning we were on our way to the Pantheon.

We found a tiny little shop down a side street selling really cheap Gyros, so we sat down and ordered, thinking it was going to be a tiny little Gyro for the price of it. What came out was packed so full of meat that I had problems finishing it, this Gyro was one of the most delicious things I have eaten in my entire life and it sustained me for the next part of our journey.

Finding the Pantheon was harder than originally expected. There is one sign for it on the main road and its pretty damn visible being a HUGE structure on top of a mountain. So we started our walk up the mountain, thinking how simple it was going to be to get to the top. We walked and walked and walked, no signs could be seen anywhere, so we winged it, we could see the Pantheon from where we were, however we could still not figure out how to get to it.

We found a little set of stairs, the sides of which housed restaurants with waiters out the front trying to get you to sit down and have a massive feast, some going as far as following you up the stairs and stepping in front of you.

We walked for about another 25 minutes with a few breaks for water on the way, we turned a corner and had finally found the entrance!

Once inside, the view from the top of the mountain, sitting on the marble overlooking Greece from 360° was amazing, white and cream coloured roofs as far as the eye could see, a mountain directly in front of us split the white in half with its lush green.

 

The next morning we awoke, packed all our things and caught a train to the edge of Greece where we got on a ferry and made our way to Italy.

 

 

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro 

 

BJ

 

 

 

 

That’s For Eatin’ My Donut, You Son Of A Bitch

A blog about Wisconsin

 

We entered the tiny bar, it smelled like whiskey and was dimly lit.

At the other end of the bar sat a blue haired lady and a tall bearded man, the blue haired lady was wielding a vodka/water while the tall bearded man cradled a beer and possibly a Jameson.

 

Paul Blann and Dawn Miceli greeted us, and we chatted for a little while before Drew showed up. Rin ordered up some shots and after a few shots I moved onto beer.

We said our goodbyes to Rin and Vealchart, and jumped in the car with Drew to head to the local watering hole, Jugs Hitching Post.

 

Many more beers were consumed, Dawn & I faced off in darts, a game which I won by the tiniest of margins and Drew and Paul got themselves involved in some arm wrestling, which I stayed out of because my tiny arms would have snapped under the pressure.

 

The next morning we met Dawn’s pet squirrel ‘Pauly Jr’, and contrary to the name, it’s a female. She ran all over us, on the couch, ate candy, pooped on the table, posed for photos, tried to drink Megans coke. Then finally decided she was tired and wanted to go and have a little nap.

 

We were given the task of painting the beer pong table, so we got dressed up in ridiculous painting gear and headed to the barn, armed to the teeth with paintbrushes, tins of paint and artistic talent.

The initial white coat had been painted on and it began to rain, so the project moved inside the barn. I began to draw a donkey, Megan was drawing a duck on her end of the table, what started as a donkey quickly changed to be a loaf of bread, which finally turned into a cheeseburger.

This would create the team names for the beer pong games that were to follow in the coming weekend.

 

As the table began to dry, Drew entered the barn with a full size electronic dart-board.

Now when we were first told that they were being given one for the party, we thought it would be a little round dart board that automatically added up the score.

That however, is not what was wheeled in. What was wheeled in looked like a standup arcade machine from the seventies, but in place of the screen there was a dartboard. Eight different game options were available to play and a little TV screen kept score and everything lit up.

 

That evening we were treated to Faux-giving, which is just like normal Thanksgiving just not held on the correct date….WHAT!? EATING A TURKEY ON A DATE OTHER THAN THANKSGIVING….THATS JUST ABSURD…..not absurd….delicious.

The five of us ate and ate and ate, feeling full of turkey and all the trimmings, Drew, Paul & I headed out to the barn to test out the new dartboard.

 

The rules were basic, every time anyone hit a bullseye, the other two players had to have a shot of whiskey. We thought these were excellent rules, until about ten minutes into the game, we had taken about ten shots of whiskey each.

Not to mention, I have never had whiskey or rum before this day, and I was of course, chasing my shots of whiskey with a strong rum and Coke.

The rules were slightly changed, but after a fairly short amount of time, we had taken down about 15 shots each. The three of us made our way back to the house, Drew and I stumbling and slurring our words, Paul following us still with drink in hand.

There isn’t very much I remember of this evening, but awaking the next morning feeling pretty seedy all day until Domkus made some mean scrambled eggs that fixed me.

 

As we were finishing setting up, as the first partygoers were arriving that evening, for a weekend of birthday celebrations, we plugged the dartboard back in, to find that something inside it had blown the evening before and even with fuses replaced, it wasn’t going anywhere.

 

Soon everyone started to arrive, internet friends from all over the country exchanged hugs and stories with us.

Dan, Jenna, Yvonne, Kammy, Manda, The Wang, Ellen, Rin, Vealchart, Rob, Dax, Spracky, Amy & Jeff “The Midget” had come to party, and that’s exactly what happened, drinks were flowing, Dawn kept pouring me shots of tequila than I kept downing, chasing with a Spotted Cow or Blue Moon.

 

We made our way up a ladder onto the loft of the barn about 10 minutes before midnight ticked over and Megans birthday began.

Dawn and Yvonne began wrestling and slamming each other into the ground as the minutes counted down.

Dust started to be become unsettled and floated around the air, falling like grey snow over everything.

11:59:59 – Megans birthday had begun, she was hugged, kissed, jumped on, high-fived and wished happy birthdays from everyone.

 

The night started to wind up at around 4am, I gave Megan her birthday present which she was completely surprised by and fell asleep, alcohol flowing through me.

 

The next morning we had awoken gone down to say good morning to everyone, Megan broke out her unbelievably strong margarita bucket, which started off her day and outside we went to bathe in the morning sunlight. We sat around an unlit campfire, everyone enjoying each others company, then down the driveway came a huge trailer it pulled up next to us, and out the back a miniature horse made his way out. Now this wasn’t a pony, it was actually a miniature horse, he was about knee-height and his name was Dash.

 

After trying to talk Manda into either jerking the horse off, or at least touching its wiener for minimal amounts of money, which she did infact refuse, I cracked open my first beer of the day and headed for the beer pong table.

First up to face the unbeatable team of myself and The Wang were Manda and Kammy.

We decided for a short break and took it inside to get dressed in our costumes for the evening.

Once we had emerged, Megan and I were filthy 80s rockers, Manda was ButterflyBlue, The Wang had transformed into Granny and Dax and Spracky had become ravers.

Out we went back into the barn, Krissy and Joe were dressed as PurpleFrogTerp and Toyotaboy, Steve-o was wearing lederhosen, Mikal dressed as the best looking Robin Hood I have ever seen and Oblivion was in hunting gear.

 

The drinks started really flowing as Dawn carried around a jug of tequila, demanding that whoever was close to her at the time must have a shot with her, otherwise her feelings would be hurt.

A few more beer pong games had completed when it was time for the entertainment.

Jeff ‘The Midget’ was first to hit the stage, he played three songs, finishing up with ‘Down Under’ by Men At Work, as a tribute to Megan and I, which we were touched by immensely.

Then came Smitten Bayou, Dawn and Paul took the stage, Paul dressed in a squirrel costume wearing a Dawn & Drew Show tshirt.

Dawn was wearing her brand new handmade tutu, stripy underwear clearly visable.

They started into their set, which had everyone dancing and singing along if they knew the words.

Dawn got Megan up on stage in the middle of the set to play washboard, Megan, wearing Oblivions hat, sat on the stool on the stage playing the washboard and after she had been wished a happy birthday, she picked up the jug of tequila and started drinking out of it before jumping off the stage.

 

The Smitten Bayou set had finished up and the most amazing cake I have ever seen was literally wheeled out of the house by Drew.

We had to wait until midnight to cut the cake as Megan had to pass the birthday baton onto Paul, as he was itching to celebrate his birthday and put some drinks away.

We drank through all hours of the morning, Granny had stolen a cap gun and was shooting people in the gut when they were least expecting it.

Granny and I lost our first beer pong games at the hands of Domkus & Jenna, a team which deservedly kicked the living crap out of us.

I stole Mikals hat and wore it for the rest of the night.

Paul got out the guitar and played many songs for all of us and I somehow found my way back to bed.

 

The next morning most people had left early, there were a group of us left to head down to Jugs Hitching Post for a feast.

Dax, Spracky, Manda, The Wang, Jeff, Amy, Megan, Drew and I all piled into Drews VW Bus and drove down the road eat, whilst Yvonne and Jenna followed in a car behind us.

Paul was already at the bar, enjoying a Bloody Mary and putting away a steak.

We ate cheese curds all tried to recover from the brutal evening of drinking the night before.

We were sad to say our goodbyes to all our new friends but knowing we will see them again was nice to know.

Jeff and Amy stayed another night and we piled on the couches and watched a movie before we headed to bed.

 

The next night Paul was playing at Games, a local bar in West Bend. So the four of us went to see him play.

When we entered the door we were greeted by an annoying douchebag who tried to do his ‘Australian’ impression for us. Needless to say, we were not very amused with him.

We ordered up a few drinks and watched Paul play his set.

As we were playing shuffleboard, Drew and I started to realize that both Megan and Dawn seemed to be much drunker than we were, it seemed as though they were having a secret drinking competition against each other.

We carried both of them out of the bar and poured them into the car, which got about three quarters of the way back to the farm before Dawn had to get Drew to pull over so she could have her vomit out of the door. This had me in hysterics, I could not stop laughing, which in course was making Dawn laugh as well and made Megan feel as if she needed to vomit.

I put Megan into bed and went downstairs to get her a bucket for the evening, as I entered the kitchen, Drew was doing the same thing for Dawn.

At first Megan refused the bucket and pushed it off the bed twice before I convinced her that she might need it during the night. She agreed and was asleep within seconds.

Drew and I drank a few Red Stripes before heading to bed roughly around 6am.

 

Our last day in the U.S.A, Dawn, Drew took us to Sabor, a Brazillian BBQ.

Paul was with us to attend the worlds greatest meat-fest.

You have a cardboard circle by your plate and one side is red, the other green, when the circle is on the red side, it means ‘please bring no more meat’, if on green ‘BRING IT ON!’. The variety of meat, being bought around on swords and carved onto your place with other swords was amazing.

 

We were sad to leave Dawn, Drew and Paul. They dropped us at the bus station and we caught the bus to Chicago airport to fly to Switzerland…….

 

 

Without Dawn and Drew this trip wouldn’t have been half the trip it has been. Through them we have met so many amazing friends.
They were such kind generous hosts and I cannot thank them enough or show them enough gratitude for what they have done for us over the last five months.

 

Please check in and support them at:

www.thedawnanddrewshow.com

and make sure you check out Paul at:

www.paulblann.com

 

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

 

 

BJ

 

 

House On The WHAT!?

A blog about Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin

 

The 20 hour bus ride to Chicago from New York was a killer, although Megan got to see Amish people, so at 3am when we had to change buses, her excitement levels were through the roof because she got to see an Amish family.

 

We arrived at the Chicago bus station at around 9am and had to wait a few hours before our host, the magnificent OBLIVION (Mark), could pick us up.

After we were in the car we met his beautiful wife Amy and awesome daughter Emily.

Mark and Amy treated us to lunch at a Greek restaurant that was unbelievably good, while Em made pyramids out of the little butter packets for the bread rolls.

 

We drove through Chicago, with Mark and Amy pointing out landmarks and we drove past Wrigley Field, where there was a baseball game on, so people littered the streets, buying peanuts from vendors.

 

We drove out into the suburbs which were beautiful until we got to Mark and Amys house, we settled down, had some Chinese food and went to sleep pretty early, we were exhausted.

 

The next morning we awoke and neither of us were feeling the best, I had a headache, and we just decided to stay in for the day.

That night we had a Chicago deep-dish pizza, it was crazy, it was a two story pizza with pepperoni in the first layer, then a multitude of toppings on the top. It was delicious.

 

The next say, we again stayed in and played with Em for a little bit and just chilled out again.

 

It came time to leave Mark, Amy & Em and we said our goodbyes to Em, as we would be seeing Mark & Amy in a week or so.

Mark drove us to meet up with our next stop, our friends Krissy & Joe.

We met at a restaurant, and had a few beers and laughs and some good food.

Mark traded us off and we were back on the road on the way to Krissy and Joes.

 

Once there were greeted by a very excited miniature sausage dog by the name of Dusty, he jumped all over the couches and was licking anyone he could.

We all sat out having a chat for a while before we all went to bed as Krissy and Joe both had to be up early for work.

The next day we decided to continue our relaxing spree and chill out, catch up on some of the internet stuff and play with Dusty and play some video games.

When Krissy and Joe returned home, we went outside and played Cornhole, a game where you try to throw bean bags into the hole on a board. It was excellent fun, until we all started to get eaten by mosquitos.

 

Another relaxing day came before Krissy and Joe got home, we were taken out to dinner and had an amazing meal, the food was excellent as was the company.

Dinner concluded and we drove to the bowling alley, where we hired a lane for an hour….which Megan and I thought was an excellent idea rather than paying per game.

 

We said our goodbyes to Krissy and Joe, although we would be seeing them in a week.

And we jumped on the bus, headed for Madison, Wisconsin.

Although we didn’t get to see any of the city of Chicago, we still had a great time there and got to make awesome friends and we vowed we would do it properly the next time we returned to Chicago.

 

Our bus rolled into Madison at around 9pm, Rin greeted us with open arms and we loaded her car up with our baggage and we drove to her friend James’ house, as he was going to be out of town for the weekend and had offered to let us stay there.

We got to James’ and met him and Rin had some cherry beer and some Spotted Cow, ready for us all to drink.

She also bought us Chips Ahoy and Coke and a whole array of food for us.

James had ordered a pizza for us all to share.

 

James has a ridiculous collection of stuffed animals, and board games and vinyl which we enjoyed looking at.

The next morning, Rin picked us up and took us to Lazy Janes café for breakfast, where the food was amazing, and the coffee was just as good as the food. We sat upstairs and chatted, telling stupid stories and figuring out what we were going to do for the next few days.

After we had breakfast we went to the local Op Shop and got our costumes for the party we would be attending later in the week.

Later that night we went for dinner at a local Madison restaurant, Rin picked a good one, because the food was great and the beer was better.

 

The next morning Rin came by and picked us up as we were going to pick up Vealchart (Chris) from Milwaukee airport. He was coming in to stay with Rin before the party.

Once we had Vealchart in the car, we were off to dinner at a restaurant called County Clare, which is an Irish restaurant, we ordered some delicious Root Soup, then for the main course, the three others had Shepherds Pie and I had a Irish Stew.

We laughed a lot as Vealchart told us stories of him going to see Public Enemy and showing us gang signs.

We left Milwaukee, headed back to Madison.

Once back at Rins place, we looked through Mother Earth magazines from the 70s and 80s, I laughed that night more than I think I have ever laughed, reading ridiculous personal ads from men looking for a woman who was happy being barefoot, to knitting nose warmers that looked like bird beaks for yourself, if you wanted to play ‘Hardcore Harmonica’ you could learn through these magazines.

 

The next day we all piled into the car and we were headed to House On The Rock.

In the middle of nowhere on top of a rock, was a giant house, which is set up as a museum. We walked inside, purchased our tickets and began walking down the ramp into the house, on our right there was a beautiful, amazing Chinese garden with waterfalls and bridges and stone paths.

We got inside, to the original part of the house, which has extremely low ceilings and is made mainly of stone and brick, we saw crazy kitchens and reading rooms, blue light shone through Chinese style doors and window panes.

Then, we reached the Infinity Room, a room that gets narrower and narrower and of course seems to never end. This strange room sits 156 feet above the forest floor and is 218 feet long, but isn’t supported by any beams underneath.

 

The tour continued and the amount of ridiculous collections of everything was unbelievable.

The next part was a sea theme and had a whale sculpture in it, so massive that it was three stories high, it was fighting an octopus. This thing was so ridiculous that it couldn’t even be captured with a camera, no matter where you stood, you could not get a proper photo of this massive beast.

 

As the tour was coming to an end, the most disturbing and frightening part happened.

We went into the room with the world largest carousel in it. There is not one horse head on the entire thing. Naked mannequins stood around demented dolls and weird creatures that would be used for riding on.

 

After we left House On The Rock, we were on the way to Dr. Evermore’s and the time in the car was good to clear our heads from what we had just seen for the last 3 hours.

 

We pulled up, a massive metal scrapyard lay infront of us, Megan and I didn’t know what to expect and judging by the open times on the sign they were closed. However the gate was still open so we decided to go on in.

Vealchart was making me nervous by acting frightened and telling me how crazy the guy was that owned the place. Sparks flew out of a small tent in the middle of this massive metal contraption that looked like it could be a city in a sci-fi movie.

We made our way to the section of the birds which were made with old trumpets and trombones. Sharp, rusted metal made up the birds neck, rollerblade wheels for eyes.

The whole yard was full of these crazy sculptures made from scrap metal.

 

That night we went to a bar and sat out the back around a huge table. We ordered some rum with bark in it. The rum came out…..well one shot of it for us to share came out. The waitress had talked this rum up soooo much that we thought we would all get some, but they only had one shot left, so we shared and it was gifted to us by the waitress.

After much deliberation between Vealchart and Rin we went to a traditional Wisconsin restaurant and ordered up some delicious cheese curds and fish fry.

We played a few games of pool and headed home for the evening.

 

The next morning was Monday, Rin was working and the beautiful Manda was in town, scoping out apartments. She met up with us and Vealchart for lunch, then we headed to Pop Duluxe to have a look at some goodies.

We decided that we would all have dinner that evening and we promptly went to pick up Manda’s husband The Wang from work.

 

That night it was determined that all the males at the table would have to order a ‘Wisconsin Beer Bomb’ which is a MASSIVE glass of Pabst Blue Ribbon with a pickled egg in the bottom…..no, no, you don’t need to go back and read over that again…there was a fucking pickled egg in the bottom of my beer, and The Wang throws down first, taking the beer and egg in one single go. Vealchart follows up by drinking the beer down and munching on the egg to be one of the most hilarious things I have seen in my life.

Then its my turn, not liking eggs to begin with, I am worried, I drink the beer down, take the tiniest bite of the egg and almost vomit.

 

The next day both Rin and Vealchart had to work, so Manda came and we spent the day together.

That was our final night in Madison, we went to dinner with the same group from the night before, with an addition of Mark who is everyone’s friend.

The place we ate was called Ellas Deli, which is like a mini House On The Rock, the food was awesome and the tables all have games built into them.

 

After dinner we said our goodbyes to Manda, The Wang & Mark for now, as we would be seeing them in a few days.

Rin and Vealchart packed us into the car and we were on the road headed for a bar in West Bend, Wisconsin.

 

 

I cant thank Rin enough for all the help she gave us, and the time we spent with her was amazing, we saw so many awesome things.

Rin and I had gotten along so well through emails and chatting that when we met up, it was just like meeting up with an old friend.

I love Rin and I love Vealchart and I cannot wait to see them again.

 

 

 

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

 

BJ

A Cheese Danish & A Black Coffee Please

 

A blog about Washington D.C. & New York City

 

 

The drive from the bus station to where we were staying was an interesting one.

We gave the driver the address and off he went, zooming down the streets, we watched the buildings shrink down, as we did in San Diego, everything became more run down.

The cab pulled into the side street amongst the run down urban sprawl, Megan and I exchanged worried glances, and the cab driver popped the boot (trunk) and told us to get the bags ourselves as he wasn’t getting out of the cab in this area.

The worried glances between Megan and I continued and this eventually became Megan apologising all the way up until we got to the front door of what looked like a townhouse.

A sign about the size of a standard business card sat above the door handle that asked you to ring the bell, once we had pressed the button, a guy in his late 30s/early 40s opened the door…..he looked like he had not showered or slept for days. His name was Bill.

We were shown into the “hostel”, yes I use that term very loosely for this place, and showed us up the staircase that was falling apart, up to our room, which looked like the sheets had been changed on the beds, but that was the only cleaning ever done in this room. The dust on the floor had footprints and wheel marks from bags on it, the windowsill had some frightening growth in it, the window sat about 2cm short of the window frame on the left hand side and there was an old sock next to the bed.

 

We said to each other ‘Okay, so the room is a little dirty, the bed is clean and the place seems alright’.

We had gotten there around 4ish, so by the time we were all settled in, we needed to get something to eat.

We had two options in this neighbourhood, one was a Popeyes Chicken, the other, a tiny little takeaway Chinese food place, the food was good, however the 4-5cm thick glass that protected the workers inside, did not make us feel the least bit safe. The food was placed at the end of a little runway, surrounded by said glass, the lady would then slide it down this little runway, to your little opening of the window and wished you a good evening.

 

The morning came and we were ready to get up and see some of the sights around D.C.

I got up and went to go have a shower…..this was a BIG mistake, I stepped into the bathroom into a puddle, I looked at the shower, it had bath rings in the tub, this was kinda gross, but okay, the plethora of shampoo bottles frightened me, as did the mould growing in the grout between the tiles, but I just figured that I wouldn’t touch the sides of the bath and just have a quick shower and get the hell out of there.

I turned the water on and went to reach for my soap when I saw it…..mould, on the shower curtain…not just on the shower curtain though, all over it, it was about 4mm thick and covered the entire curtain. I quickly washed and got out of there, stepping in the puddle as I left.

 

We caught a bus into the city and walked around, we went to The Smithsonian and then made our way up to the Washington Monument, which were both amazing.

We could see The Whitehouse and Capitol Building from where we were, so we thought we would walk to The Whitehouse and take some photos before heading to the Capitol Building….then the rain came, and it hit hard.

We were trying to find cover anywhere we could, within two minutes we were soaked from head to toe, hunching over the backpack to protect the SLR from the rain.

Back to the hostel we went, ordered our food through 5cm of glass and went back to the hostel to plan what we are going to do in New York.

Upon entering the hostel we noticed that Bill had been wearing the same clothes he was the day before.

The next day and night were spent planning New York, Bill was still wearing the same clothes.

The following morning came and we needed to get the hell out of there.

We arose at 9am and went downstairs, accidentally woke up Bill as he slept behind his curtain, Wizard of Oz style….except filthy. He was still wearing the same clothes.

 

We jumped on the bus, made it to the city and caught another bus to New York City.

 

Our accommodation in New York was actually located in Harlem, and after hearing everyone tell us how dangerous Harlem is, we were feeling a little worried about staying there.

We got out of the cab and headed into our accommodation, about an hour early, so we threw all our stuff in the storage room and decided to take a walk around Harlem, my god was it a beautiful place. Everyone was so relaxed, old guys playing cards on the sidewalk, groups of people gathered outside Laundromats playing 1950s blues from their cars that they had parked on the street.

We walked around, we ate, we looked at the amazing townhouses in Harlem, and went back and showered in a clean shower, and got a good night of sleep feeling nice and safe.

 

We had graciously accepted an offer from a NYC local and friend of ours, Dave to show us around New York.

He picked us up at 9:30am and we drove through Harlem, through the middle of Central Park into Manhattan.

We walked a few blocks to the Hearst Tower, where a mutual friend of ours, Mike, works, we went up to his office and he has an amazing view of the river looking over into New Jersey.

We were taken around this floor and shown the different views from the four corner offices, the view that overlooked Central Park was unbelievable.

Mike showed us the floor where they do all the testing for Good Housekeeping and after a while we said our goodbyes and continued on our adventure through New York.

We walked down to The Ed Sullivan Theatre and for everyone who doesn’t know, I think David Letterman is the funniest man alive and this is where he films his show, unfortunately he was on a two week break the time we were there, so we didn’t get to see him film any shows.

Around the corner from theatre there is a deli…..this isn’t just any deli though, it’s the Hello Deli, and if you have watched Letterman before, chances are, you have seen this deli and the owner, Rupert Jee.

After the three of us munched down our sandwiches, I got a photo taken with Rupert and purchased a Hello Deli tshirt, as well as a secret gift from Dave.

We then walked down to Times Square, my god was it crazy, it was sensory overload, there was so much happening, from the billboards changing or flashing or moving, to people jumping out trying to give you comedy tickets and Dave jumping back at them shooting down their hopes of selling some tickets.

We began our walk to Grand Central Station, legs beginning to feel heavy only a few hours into the day, but in high spirits.

Inside the station was amazing, it was so much bigger than I ever could have expected, so many people moving around, a giant American flag hanging from the roof.

On the way out Dave explained to us about the Chrysler building and the Empire State building and pointed out to us which was which.

 

We walked past the hotel where Sid Vicious died, tried on sunglasses and hats, went into vintage punk stores, a lady filmed Dave for TV or a film or something, I’m not actually sure what that was all about.

But after Dave had finished filming, we both felt like a beer, so went into a liquor store, and we got one big ass ‘Coney Island Sword Swallower’, had it in a paper bag, and drank it on the street.

Of course the local guy asking for money does his thing……then tries to get in on our beer….the nerve!

 

Feeling refreshed, we walked to Chinatown and Little Italy, with meat being offered to us from every way we looked. It wasn’t meat from the Catholic priests, that was kept in their pants as far as I am aware…..but the big grills, massive slabs of meat being carved off and offered to you as you walked past, taking in the chaos of Little Italy.

 

Out of Little Italy, our trek across the Brooklyn Bridge began and we made sure to stay to the designated walking area, and not to cross into the bike lane. Those cyclists are a vicious bunch, even the older ones….we saw one lady cycling up and because there was someone in front of her she is screaming at them “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE FUCKING DOING!?”

The bridge was awesome to look at, and running underneath it there was a man-made waterfall as part of the Waterfalls of New York art piece.

 

We crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge and went into the park to look over the river and into the city, so many buildings, such a beautiful city to look at.

We walked around and stood and a fence that gave you the view of one of the man-made waterfalls and just had a chat and took some photos.

 

For dinner Dave took us to an excellent restaurant in Brooklyn, the name of which escapes me now…but I loved the food and the artwork the company was wonderful as well.

I’m not usually a whisky drinker, but Dave ordered up two shots of Makers Mark and we drank them down….that evening, I fell in love with whisky.

 

After dinner, we headed back to the park to take a few photos of the city all lit up, then headed to the Apple store, where we checked out the only days old iPod nanos and then Dave drove us back to the hostel in Harlem, we said our goodbyes.

Megan and I got inside exhausted, we got back around midnight, we walked 9.6 miles and our legs were killing us. We wouldn’t change that day for the world.

That day with Dave was easily one of the most memorable days we have had on this trip. Hell, its one of the most memorable days I have ever had. Dave is such a fun guy and we were lucky enough to be able to get the best tour of New York anyone could ever ask for.

 

The next morning, feeling sore from the day before, Megan and I headed back out to Times Square to have a look at a few more things, we went to the M&Ms store and the Hersheys store. Followed by getting a few slices of New York pizza, which was excellent.

Then the big event of the day, we went to the MASSIVE Toys’R’Us!!

Now, Megan and I being the children that we are, spent hours in there, taking photos with things, making noises at everything, pretending to be dinosaurs.

Feeling really tired, back to Harlem we went.

 

The next day we knew was going to be a tough one, so we decided to get some food inside us. I went to Grays Papaya and got two hotdogs with everything on them….only because the guy was yelling at me and they have no menus….so I panicked and ordered them with everything….which I don’t regret at all.

We got on the subway and headed down to the financial district, today we were going to Ground Zero.

I didn’t know what to expect here, I didn’t know how I would feel, I didn’t think it would affect me.

The mesh and fencings surrounding a hole in the ground where the Twin Towers used to reside was frightening to look at, the sheer size these buildings must have been was ridiculous. We walked around the mesh, people with their heads peeking over the top of the fence, cameras poked through holes in the mesh, guys standing around the fence, holding open books of the planes hitting the towers. It was too much, Megan and I decided that it was time to go and we headed in the direction of the Statue Of Liberty, discussing how fucked up those book salesmen were.

Not wanting to waste our money and go over to the Statue Of Liberty, we stood by the fence and looked at it for a long time, before slowly making it back to the subway to head back to Harlem.

 

The following morning, our final day in New York, I was OBSESSED with finding a cheese danish, it was all I talked about the night before.

We had already planned to go to the Seinfeld restaurant and after speaking to Dave, he told us that an excellent cheese danish was to be had at a Hungarian bakery not too far away from the Seinfeld restaurant.

After taking a bunch of pictures….including ‘The Kramer’ hanging up inside the restaurant, we began our walk to my glorious cheese danish.

We found the place, the excitement I had was really quite stupid, I was like a child, ready for my cheese danish.

“A cheese danish and a black coffee please” I exclaimed with joy.

 

“I’m sorry, we only have cherry or apple danishes left”

 

My heart sank, the only thing I had really wanted was gone, I sadly settled for a cherry danish and sat sulking eating it and drinking my coffee.

We decided that a nice walk was to be had, back from the Hungarian bakery to our hostel. It was a fair walk, a couple of miles, so we went for it and walked the Harlem end of Central Park, looking at the beautiful trees and the lake, we walked through Harlem for one last time, and I can honestly say that I think it’s the most beautiful part of New York that I have seen, I loved Harlem, absolutely loved it.

 

 

 

When the going gets weird the weird turn pro.

 

BJ

 

 

Pocket Burgers, Outback-doors & Wonderful Friends

 

A blog about St Augustine, Florida.

 

As the bus ride dragged on, I became more and more worried about staying with Ronald & Lisa as they have a two-year-old. Most people will know that I do not like children at all, their whiney, annoying little voices and faces piss me off to a degree that can only be matched by old people.

 

We arrived in St Augustine in the afternoon and were picked up by Lisa and Lincoln.

Lincoln takes one look at me and bursts into tears, I don’t know if it was me or if he was agitated because our bus was late and he wasn’t allowed to play with the demented kitty that was wandering around the bus station.

We were driven back to Ronald & Lisa’s beautiful home that overlooks a lake, we were greeted there by two little dogs, Stewie & Joe, Ronald was also there waiting for us on arrival. Everything we had was thrown down into our room and settled down and just hung out with our new friends.

 

The following morning with Ronald at work and Lincoln at school, Lisa took Megan and I to our first Wal-Mart, where I found out that a pair of shorts I purchased at home for $90 cost a rather cheap $17.50 at Wal-Mart.

We filled our cart right up and Lisa was kind enough to buy me a whole bunch of new socks, as she found my ones filthy and unwearable.

After we got back home, Linc brought out a plethora of books that he wanted me to read to him. The first I picked up was a book about toilets, which amused me to no end. What amused me even more is when Linc came up and pressed a button on the book that makes a flushing sound. Then I proceeded to shouting POOP all the time and Lincoln shouting out POOP at the top of his lungs couldn’t have made me happier.

Heading to bed that night, Ronald ran down to our room and made us come out into the living room to show us that there was a frog on the glass door…..but the door was covered in something….what is that? Is that……..frog jizz?….OH MY GOD!

The glass door, streaked with frog semen was one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

 

Lisa took us downtown the next morning, and downtown St Augustine is a beautiful place where most of the buildings are original buildings and are just amazing to look at. We walked down streets which were as wide as alleyways tried on stupid hats, ate hot sauce that was far too hot for human consumption and visited The Imaginarium which has a whole bunch of Dr Seuss artwork and sculptures….I mean, 40,000 isn’t bad for a Green Eggs & Ham statue…right?

We went to pick Linc up from school and then went back home and hung out on the couch waiting for Ronald to get home.

Once Ronald got home, he and I went to Hooters to grab a beer and pick up some hot wings and some deep fried pickles……or dickles if you will.

We ordered the wings to be as hot as they make and took them back to the house to enjoy our feast.

We sweated our way through the wings, which were delicious and chilled out on the couch with a couple of beers and watched a movie, then Ronald and I busted out the Gamecube and played video games for a few hours.

 

Saturday night came around and Lincoln had a sitter for the evening and the four of us went to Jacksonville to have a few drinks and enjoy a fine Saturday evening. We went to a bar where there is usually a lot of dancing, but of course I do not dance, so Lisa danced and Ronald, Megan and I sat there doing shots of tequila and drinking.

After the dancing bar had been exhausted we moved to Jacksonville Landing, where there was a bar where Ronald and I got a few huge shots of Jager and smashed down a few more beers.

After we all pretended to fuck each other with a ‘wet floor’ cone, we made it back to the car and started the journey home.

Lisa pulled into the driveway and Ronald and I got out of the car to urinate by the side of the house, as Ronald took the longest piss ever….I was in tears of laughter, I reached into my back pocket and found a cheeseburger.

I was told that we had gone through a drive through at Wendys and I had got a cheeseburger, however it is still a mystery as to how sitting in the back of the car, my burger made it into my back pocket.

 

After a few days of relaxation and playing Guitar Hero with Lincoln and teaching him how to make ‘rock faces’, Lisa took us back down to downtown St Augustine, where we went for a walk around the amazing Fort Matanzas, where we took some photos and looked at a wall which they used to shoot people in front of so there were some nice big holes in the wall.

If you have seen the TV show ‘Ripleys Believe It Or Not’ you will know what the big castle where Dean Cain once introduced clips of people doing strange, sometimes disgusting things, looks like. That castle is actually in St Augustine and it is a big Ripleys museum. Lisa took us there and we got some photos of the castle and its surrounds and played around in the gift shop for a little while.

 

The weekend came around, Lisa stayed home to look after Lincoln and Ronald took Megan and I back to the fort, this time to go inside and explore.

Inside we looked at the original gates of the fort and stone crests.

Outside, although it briefly rained, we used cannons as cocks, toilets and anything else we could think of that amused us.

The fort was truly amazing, the entire thing is made from coquina which is crushed shells and coral formed into an extremely strong and beautiful looking limestone type rock.

 

The following evening Ronald had planned for a cookout, so after all the assorted meats and vegetables and fruits were gathered together, Ronald and I grabbed a Blue Moon each and he started up the grill and grilled up anything in his sight.

Lincoln played on his playset and I just sat watching the lake, smelling the delicious food cooking on the grill and drinking my beer on a beautiful Sunday Florida afternoon.

We filled our stomachs full of everything that had been cooked and drank more and more. Lincoln went to bed and more alcohol was consumed, Ronald and I thought it would be a good idea to do some double tequila shots, followed by more beers.

We played on Lincolns playset, I jumped off Lincolns playset and scratched up my arm….then we created a shot, that was possibly the most awful drink of all time.

It was a triple shot of tequila with the rim of the glass coated in Vegemite, Ronald and I were the only two to try this awful concoction. After slamming down three shots of tequila in one and having it mix with Vegemite on the way down we ran around in the back yard for a bit and then Lisa tried to teach me how to dance before she collapsed on the floor in a heap and Ronald picked up the slack and danced with me.

I don’t remember anything after that, my next memory is waking up in the morning and making my way to the toilet to vomit a few times, then head back to bed in anticipation for coffee a couple of hours later.

 

As Ronald had the week off work, he took us to the park by the church, where there are thousands upon thousands of squirrels running around looking to feed on anything they can get their tiny little paws around.

The park is beautiful, there are rivers and a lake, a church to the side of it and statues, gravestones and fountains all around, squirrels crossing footpaths and scurrying up trees, it was incredible.

Megan had a genius idea, to take the bag of peanuts she had and tie them to a string that was attached to a stick. Ladies and gentlemen….welcome to Squirreling.

Its almost like fishing but the bait is not worms, its unsalted peanuts and there are no fish, only squirrels….however….our problem was that we didn’t have any normal string, we only had elastic, so everytime we would hook a squirrel and they would run off thinking they had the nut, all of a sudden it was gone and flying back towards us, the fishermen, in a rather violent fashion.

After squirreling had concluded we started to just be friendly and feed some of the squirrels by hand. This was all well and good until as I was feeding one of my furry friends, he decided to knock a peanut out of my hands and take a bite out of my finger, this resulted in blood and a fair bit of pain….it also resulting in me having enough of the squirrels for one day.

 

A few days later Lisa took us to her parents condo, where there was a pool and where Lisa had to do a photoshoot for some of her new scarves and jewelry.

As I swam in the pool and cooled off from the hot summer heat, Megan lounged around on the banana lounges and took some photos.

It seemed odd for Megan to be wearing big, thick woolen scarves in the middle of summer on a boiling hot day, but she was the model and she did what was asked of her.

We went and picked Lincoln up from school and we took him to get a haircut, then grab a burger at Five Guys….which were delicious burgers.

We took a quick walk over to the pet store and it was Lincolns first pet store experience and the guys who worked at the store were awesome, they let him pet a ferret and a rabbit.

That evening, Lisa took Megan and I out into St Augustine and we went hunting for ghosts, unfortunately they wanted nothing to do with us, no matter how much Lisa talked to them and tried to get them to have a chat.

 

The next day, we went to a mall so that Megan could visit a pet store that had dogs, in the hope she would be able to hold a Chihuahua. She ended up holding two different little Chihuahuas and was wondering how they would go with traveling.

I fell in love with a Boston Terrier, I think I like their funny bung eyes and Lisa played with an English Bulldog that was fat thing that slid around on the slippery ground.

 

That night we went out for a farewell meal as it was our last night staying in St Augustine, we had a delicious feast and then went for a little walk around St Augustine for one last time.

 

The next day, we packed all our belongings up, Megan even tried to pack Stewie and Joe.

We headed to the bus stop and Ronald, Lisa and Lincoln said their goodbyes, as did we, and we headed to travel to Washington D.C.

 

In the end, we had such an amazing time with this amazing, beautiful family, that I can’t explain in my blog how wonderful they were to us. They are so generous and kind, they are extremely close friends and they will be forever.

As for Lincoln, I had nothing to worry about, that child is pure gold, I sincerely miss him and I do get sad everytime I think about him because I don’t know how long it will be until we see him or Ronald or Lisa again.

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

 

BJ

 

 

 

 

The Truth Is Out There….

A blog about Roswell, Austin & Atlanta

 

The bus from Las Vegas to Roswell was rather eventful, we stopped a few times along the route, we stopped in Albuquerque which was a strange stop, looking out the windows of the bus, everything seemed to be falling apart, there didn’t seem to many people on what looked to have previously been a busy street.

The bus from Albuquerque was a little odd, there were a total of 6 people on a full sized Greyhound bus, the ride went smoothly and we got to Roswell, which had a Greyhound station the size of a small shed. We luckily were within walking distance from where we were staying so it made it a lot easier than having to catch a cab.

 

We were feeling fairly shitty and disgusting after a long bus ride, we decided to just get ourselves settled in our room and order in some pizza.

 

The next morning we awoke and decided to walk down the main street of Roswell to the UFO Museum & Research Center. Which apparently was once free but now they charge for because they are planning to build a multi-million dollar building a little further up the street. The UFO Museum was amazing, we saw so many different things, newspaper articles from the time of the crash in Roswell and a whole bunch of other things.

Roswell is quite an odd town, even the street lamps have alien eyes printed on them and alien ‘footprints’ curl around some street corners.

There are a plethora of alien and UFO souvenir stores in the one area.

Everything is alien or UFO themed, from the McDonalds right down to the Coca-Cola vending machines.

We decided to grab something to eat at the diner that was used in Roswell, the TV series, which has since been bought by INSANE Christians who have propaganda everywhere telling you not to believe in aliens, but believe in Christ. They sold a stack of Jesus tshirts……but the food was pretty damn good, so I can’t complain.

 

We visited nearly every shop that was open in the area, including a couple of antique stores that we spent quite a bit of time in and had a lot of fun in, looking at everything we couldn’t ship home L

 

We walked back towards the hotel, looking around at Roswell and all the failed business’ are now decrepit, in some cases they have poured a concrete slab to make the stairs to the store disappear.

 

Being a HUGE X-Files/Roswell fan, Roswell was such an amazing place to visit, a small town with such an odd history.

 

The bus ride to Austin, Texas was a little bit of an odd one. At first, Megan and I weren’t sitting together for a couple of hours of the trip. I was sitting next to a gentleman in his 50s or 60s, I apologize if this next part sounds disgusting, but I want you to get an idea of how this was……Imagine if you took a shit, then ate it, then shit it out again, then brushed your teeth with that…..okay, that’s what this guy had obviously done and proceeded to breathe on me the entire bus ride.

Luckily he got off and Megan and I snapped up the seat and were comfortable for the rest of the ride.

 

We arrived in Austin at around 9am and got to the hotel fairly quickly and we lay down to have a rest as we didn’t get much sleep at all on the bus ride. We ended up sleeping for most of the day.

 

The next afternoon we had organized to meet up with our friend and local Austin-ite Roger, who came and picked us up, we were shown some neighbourhoods of Austin, as well as the city and the university.

We got some authentic Texas chili, which I thought was amazing, and it was much more filling than I thought it would be.

We then went to the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge, which is where the largest urban population of freetail bats live. They live in these tiny grooves under the bridge and the all come out at night to feast on insects along the river.

Even though it was fairly dark the sight of around 1.5 million bats shooting out from under a bridge is such an amazing sight.

 

Roger, Megan and I met up with two other girls while we were watching the bats. Jessica & Kelly, we all decided to walk down to the bar and have a few drinks before heading home for the evening. We had a few laughs and enjoyed each others company. We organized with Jessica & Kelly to meet up with them the next day and go to The Barton Springs Pool, which is a man-made pool which is filled from the Barton Springs.

 

The next day Jessica & Kelly came and picked us up, we got an awesome Mexican meal before heading out to the springs. It was amazing there, the water was about 20° and it was so damn refreshing. There was a diving board and the pool was just so much bigger than I had imagined that it would be.

After saying goodbye to Jessica & Kelly, we stayed in for the night and we got ready for our bus trip the next day to Atlanta.

 

We arrived at the bus station about a few hours early as we had to check out from our hotel and as the bus station was directly across the road, we got there pretty early.

Our bus was supposed to leave at 130pm, however, that bus was running extremely late and we ended up switching our tickets over for a bus that got to Atlanta 20 minutes later than our original bus, but left at 530pm.

 

We checked into our hotel, completely exhausted we ordered some pasta up to the room and lazed around whilst watching some TV. At one point I decided to go out for some ice to fill the sink to keep our drinks cool, the roof above the ice machine looked as if it had exploded and there was dust and dirt and water everywhere, which of course means that the ice machine is out of order.

 

The following day Megan woke up with such excitement and joy, we were going to Coca-Cola World.

We walked from our hotel, about 1km until we hit Coca-Cola World.

Once inside we sat down to watch a strange little animated film about the factory and what it is like to live inside a Coke machine……yes, it was rather strange.

 

Coke memorabilia covered the walls like a red moss. There were badges, flags, bottles, cans & anything you could think of…..they had it.

Right at the end of the tour there is a ‘tasting’ room, where there are over 60 different sodas from all around the world, and the ‘stations’ are all set up by continent.

They were all pretty good and varied quite a bit from country to country.

That is until I came to Beverly from Italy……I have never tasted such a vile thing, think of the shit-eating man earlier…….and capture his breath in liquid form….BINGO!

 

We got to take a freshly bottled Coke as we finished our tour of the factory and both feeling sickly from all the sodas we had consumed, we worked out way through the gift shop and onto the outside of Coke World.

After a few minutes of fresh air, waiting for the sodas to settle, Megan didn’t feel too good and vomited on a bench and in the drain…..not to worry, it was about 70/30, in favour of the drain.

 

We got back to the hotel, got a decent sleep and headed to St Augustine, Florida to see our friends Ballroombaby & Tomit.

 

 

 

When the going gets weird…..the weird turn pro

 

BJ

 

We Can’t Stop Here….This Is Bat Country

A blog about Las Vegas, Arizona & Las Vegas again

 

 

First of all, I have been a lazy bitch, I actually started writing this blog almost 3 weeks ago and have just come back to it now, I will try to get a few more done in the next few days to completely get everyone up to speed with our adventures.

Also if you haven’t already signed this petition, please do, its extremely important:

http://gopetition.com/online/21658.html

 

 

The road from Barstow was not much to look at other than rock, mountains & dirt. Long, straight stretches of road seemed to last for ages.

As we arrived in Las Vegas, the huge hotels had our attention, our faces pushed against the window of the bus like small children excited by something they have seen outside the car. We seemed to go farther and farther through Vegas, all the way to downtown Vegas at the dodgy Greyhound bus station. In comparison, it probably wasn’t the dodgiest we have been to, but then again, I don’t think any of them are safe or hygienic.

 

We were staying at the Riviera which is one of the original hotels in Vegas, it was a great room with a view over the pool and some of the Vegas strip.

We got all of our stuff settled and decided to have a look around the casino of our hotel and of course go on the search for some food.

Once we had eaten and had a look around, we went outside and took some photos of Circus Circus, which has the creepiest sign of all time.

 

5am was early…..really damn early. But for us to be able to get up in time to get down to the bus it was necessary. We loaded ourselves with cameras and without coffee I managed to make it downstairs to wait for the shuttle bus.

We arrived at the main depot, first thing that was purchased were some snacks and my coffee…….which as soon as we got on the bus I managed to spill on my lap. No need to worry, my junk didn’t receive third degree burns, that would have been awful.

Our driver was hilarious, making jokes all the way to Hoover Dam, which was amazing, the water levels were much lower than I thought they would be.

We continued onto the Grand Canyon, both Megan and I being extremely excited about seeing a hole in the ground, which had a strange premise about it…..come see the Grand Canyon….get up at 5am for a 16hour return bus trip….to see a giant fucking hole in the ground.

But oh my god, once we got there and saw it, it was so incredible, I was amazed, the ground just dropped away and I was so shocked at the sheer size of the canyon.

A massive bus trip back to Vegas followed and back to the Riviera we went.

 

After another shocking night of sleep, we woke and walked down the strip in daylight, in scorching heat and finding refuge only in casinos and a mall that we checked out and spent most of the day in. We made it about halfway down the strip before we felt like we would be boiled inside our own skin, we went back to the hotel to hang out until that evening, we caught up on some emails and chatted to some friends online while we lazed around and did pretty much nothing.

We walked down to the Mirage and met up with Sal, Nat, Jenae & Chris who had just seen LOVE, which they all said was excellent.

Megan and I also noticed the huge frozen alcoholic drink in Sals hand…..that was almost empty.

That night was filled with martini’s and Sal ending up fairly drunk indeed which was hilarious, then I managed to find myself….well fairly drunk indeed…..come to think of it, everyone was pretty damn drunk.

We caught taxis back to the hotel and Megan and I managed to have another terrible night of sleep.

 

The next morning we were to meet Sal & Nat for lunch at Johnny Rockets, for a feast after drinks the night before.

10am and Megan and I decided to start drinking, so we got a HUGE frozen margarita for the walk to lunch, I also armed myself with a beer. I really do like a city where I am able to walk down the street drinking alcohol, it makes me happy.

By the time we got to where lunch was to be eaten, the margarita, much stronger than we thought it would be, was finished, needless to say….we were shitfaced.

We made it through lunch with no problems.

Jenae and Chris met us for a day looking around Vegas. We stopped at the MGM Grand to look at the lions and then moved on the M&M world, yes that’s right….3 floors of M&Ms and M&M merchandise. I couldn’t think of a stranger idea, but it was a lot of fun in there.

We went outside so that Megan could take some photos of the giant Coke bottle, as she had read online that the Coke store had closed down….but infact it had not, there was an array of Coca-Cola merchandise for purchasing, Megan was in Coke heaven….or so I thought….

That night was our last with Sal, Nat, Jenae and Chris, so we went to a bar and drank quite a lot, I was getting tequila bought out to me in test tubes and my drinks were already rather strong. Jenae was drinking more and more, and the more she drank, the more she danced.

We said our goodbyes to our new friends, managed to hold back tears.

Hugs and best wishes were exchanged.

 

The last day we spent in Vegas we were sheltering ourselves from the heat hiding in a casino most of the day.

We did go down to Fremont street, which is the old strip, it was completely different than I expected, it was run down, the casinos that had people in them seemed to be inhabited with the scumbags of the earth.

 

As we sat waiting for our bus, I thought about how lucky we were to not only make four such great friends in the matter of a few weeks, but we were able to share a great trip to the strangest city in the world with them.

 

Our bus came and we headed to Roswell, New Mexico.

 

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro

 

BJ