8/26/2015

After the beach we went to Washington DC. We came into town and had Mexican for lunch with Erica and explored Georgetown. Then we went to see Christie and Damien's best friend Connor. We played all afternoon until Doug came home. Then we went out to dinner with Christie, Doug, Salil, Hannah, and Sherri. It was a great place but I made the mistake of ordering the special and found myself with a $65 steak that was only mildly satisfying. We stayed with Salil and Hannah and played a few rounds of ticket to ride before bed. Salil had a busy day at work but Hannah was free to explore with us. We tried to see the international spy museum but didn't have enough time so we quickly went to the national gallery and did the quickest 10 minute tour ever. From there we met Christie and Sherri at the mall where we had lunch and then went on a walk around the lake. It was fantastic Damo and Connor had so much fun. 

From there we went with Sherri to the Baltimore's inner harbour. We walked around but the weather made everything look pretty drab. We did find the McCormick spice factory which was very cool and a delicious tapas restaurant.

After a light dinner we went back to sherri's and talked her into a few games of ticket to ride. 

The next morning we woke up early to climb old rag mountain. It was absolutely spectacular. The first part was a nice trail run the second part was scrambling up rocks. Finished by a jog back down. It was a lovely 3hour hike. Damo has all the pictures maybe he will share them sometime soon. 

From Old Rag we went back to Charlottesville to hang with Abbie,watch Tokyo Ghoul and play with Saji. On our way back we drove skyline drive in Shenandoah national park. I got 2 national park bee stings that have lasted nicely for almost a month. 

Our last day in America we went up to the 3 rivers boat house and took a scenic run through Pittsburgh running down the north shore across the west end bridge and back up through the strip district. 

Then on a plane, on another plane and back to chilly Australia.

8/19/2015

Super Blog Day! Part 2-

After Atlanta we headed to St. Louis to visit my Mom and grandparents. We got into St. Louis and mom very kindly picked us up from the airport and we drove the 1.5 hours to Columbia where she lives. We dropped all of our bags at the house and then went out to dinner at fudruckers with Grammie, Grampie and Mom. I was very excited to have an Oreo shake. After dinner we did a tour of Columbia and the university. Day 2 in Missouri we went to the farmer's market and got a variety of tasty produce which we cooked up for dinner. After dinner I was introduced to ticket to ride Scandinavia which was great fun. Day 3 we were up early to go back into St. Louis and do some tourist activities there. We had late lunch/early dinner at sister cities for some Cajun/creole food. It was delicious but the neighbourhood was a tad questionable. 

After dinner we went to the lantern show at the St. Louis botanical gardens. It was pretty spectacular. 

Our flight out was first thing in the morning so we spent the night in St. Louis. Right next to the Arch! 

8/20/2015

After St. Louis we finally made it to pittsburgh. Dad also picked us up from the airport 2 hours away. Our first stop was Burgatory for some very delicious food. (The milkshakes are s'mores and salted caramel pretzel) 

Next we went rowing on Cheat Lake. I was a bit out of practice and flipped 6 times but it was very fun once I got coordinated. The next day we went back to Pittsburgh for a bit of shopping and a run with some friends. We tried to get perogies for dinner but they wouldn't let Damien in without a U.S. Drivers licence. How stupid. They did let us place a to go order and then sit at the bar for 45 minutes while they cooked our food. 

The next adventure was spelunking with Natasha at Laurel caverns. They have daily spelunking at 10am. (Un)fortunately Damien and I brought the wrong footwear so we weren't allowed on the trip. They did however make a private tour for the 3 of us that went to some very different places in the caves, for no extra cost. We also went to the rain day festival. It didn't rain. It was very hot. Damien tried his very first corn dog. I think he liked it? 

The next day we went to the new river gorge and did a day of rafting before going to Charlottesville for dinner with Abbie. It was great fun! Definitely worth doing again. We stayed at the oakhurst inn which was very nice. I hear that they have excellent breakfast but we opted for paradox pastry with Abbie instead. Damien and I both got strange looks for ordering the lunch special for breakfast but we each had a quiche, cookie, and salad for $10. Who cares what time it is?! Abbie and I did a bit of shopping while Damien went to montechello. He did 4 tours for $25. Pretty good value. The twins arrived just before dinner and we all went out for sushi at Now & Zen. They had the most amazing assortment of vegetarian sushi. Gillie and I were so happy. In the morning we went back to Paradox pastry for more delicious food.  We got on the road to Virginia Beach. On the way, we stopped at a weird visitors centre in Petersville. We got to the beach just before dinner and spent the evening lazing around. 

The next day was the memorial for my grandparents. It was lovely. Our beach activities included swimming in the ocean, swimming in the pool, biking, and watching anime. On Saturday we went to the boardwalk and ran 14km

After the run we played a round of 3D BLACK LiGHT MiNiGolf!

The effects were cool the actual MiNiGolf was a bit basic. 

8/12/2015

Alright super blog day! Part 1-I'm going to do this in a couple instalments to keep it manageable. We just got back from the U.S. So here's what happened over the past 3.5 weeks.

I have taken so many flights recently that I had enough points to buy 2 first class tickets so we flew over in style for $75 each. 

Los Angeles-We landed in LA at 7:00am and our flight to Boston wasn't till 8:00pm so we made the most of the layover. We rented a car with Advantage(huge mistake, $11 until they hit you with all the fees and you find yourself paying $50 for a smelly car). We headed down to Santa Monica for breakfast, it was very hip but not quite the sandwich I was looking for. Since there was plenty of eating left to do, we went for a run on the beach.

Not too far just down to Santa Monica peir, where I introduced Damien to skee ball. We continued the eating by going to Pink's hot dogs for lunch. 

Then we did a scenic drive around Hollywood before going up to Griffith observatory. The observatory is closed on Monday but the view was still spectacular.

From the observatory we went as close as we could to the Hollywood sign without setting off alarms. 

We made a quick stop at in-n-out burger and headed back to the airport. We took an over night flight and landed in Boston at 7:15 on 7/21.

Boston-Damien's birthday is July 22nd band since he is Australian we celebrated both his Aussie and U.S. Birthday so that it was a party the whole trip. My silly sisters start too early in the morning so that both Rachel and Gillie were at work by the time we arrived. We met Rachel at work where we dropped our bags before heading out for the day. We started with breakfast at trident a bookstore/cafe on Newbury street. It was delicious. Both Damien and I had a bit of work to do so we sat around Rachel's lab trying to complete projects for a few hours. When sleep got the better of us we went out to explore some of Boston. We walked a bit of the freedom trail and climbed bunker hill tower 297steps! We would have seen more but we had a dinner date. We met Rachel when she finished work and went to Gillie's area for dinner at Bertucchi's and home made Boston Cream pie.

the dessert beautify constructed by Gillie and Rachel was absolutely delicious. Day two in Boston started with Damien finishing up the work from yesterday and me playing Dragon age III. Once we got going, we met Rachel for a tour of Beacon hill the African American history museum.

Then we picked gillie up from work and went out to dinner on Newbury street where we had delicious pasta and then Fozen Yogurt.

Our flight out of Boston left at 5:30am the next day and gillie very kindly took us to the airport.

Next stop Atlanta-our car was not ready when we arrived so we got upgraded to a Dodge Charger. It was great except that it smelled like smoke. We rolled down the windows and it aired out quickly. Our first adventure was trying to find the coke bottling plant. Despite what the Internet told us the origional bottling plant is now a Baptist Church and all the fun is now at coca cola world. So we wandered around for a bit trying to find it, realised our mistake and headed for the Martin Luther King Memorial.

It was beautiful and inspiring. We ran into trouble when I tried to use the edge of the memorial fountain as a footstool.

I maintain that it was fine but apologised for my error none the less. From the MLK memorial we went to the dog park/bar/cafe for lunch and a board game. (It was very bright and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open)

Both Damien and I were terrible at the African American history game. From there we went to the CNN head quarters and took the tour. From there we went to see M'eera and went out to dinner with her at a southern BBQ restraunt. Damien got to try grits and collard greens for the first time. (I was happy to give them away). The next day we got up early to climb stone mountain.

It was only about a mile but was a good change from all the eating.

And the views were fabulous.