Day 19: Arundel Castle (7/30/2010)

Davin shook me awake again today. This is the second time he’s had to physically wake me up! This is because I can’t hear the alarm go off when I’m wearing my earplugs, and I’m wearing my ear plugs because he keeps snoring from having a congested nose!


I rolled out of bed at 8:20am to get down to our 8:30am breakfast. The lady who runs this B&B is much more laid back about things than Marian of Mzima. Marian had your food cooked and ready right at the time you were expected to arrive, and if you were late and it was cold, well, that was just too bad! Here at Harkaway the ball doesn’t even start rolling til you’ve been downstairs for a few minutes. So by the time you get through a bowl of cold cereal, you have about ten more minutes to wait before your hot breakfast is finally served. But Davin and I prefer this kind of slow service! We can use the extra time to wake up, and we aren’t in any kind of hurry to get going anyway.


Today’s fun activity was visiting Arundel Castle, and it was an AMAZING castle. I have seen my fair share of castles, and I don’t think I’ve seen one as beautiful as Arundel. In addition, the sheer size of the castle is astounding, and so is the amount of the castle that your entry ticket enables you to explore!! I’m so used to paying entrance fees to castles and then finding out that the amount of the castle you actually get to see is pathetically small. The inside was just as beautiful as the outside. We marveled at the size of the Great Hall. My entire house could fit inside it two times over and still there would be a little extra room left over! The Victorian chapel was also very beautiful. It had that damp, earthy smell that many chapels and cathedrals have, and that I really like. It kind of smells old in an ancient and majestic way. Anyway, the whole castle, inside and out, had amazing architecture and beautiful furnishings. Definitely a must see, as far as castles go.

























We also timed our visit to Arundel Castle to coincide with a special one-week Medieval Jousting event. So we spent an hour and a half being entertained by Knights who performed hunting games on horseback, jousted one another, and battled on foot with long swords. That was a lot of fun and laughs. During the sword fighting event, I cheered heartily for the French knights as their English opponents, not surprisingly, had far greater support from the audience!


Arundel Castle and the Jousting activities kept us entertained for five hours. When we had finally seen enough, we set out on a quest of our own: The Search for the Holy Internet. First we drove by the Arundel library which we had been told would be open until 5pm. Alas, the Library had closed at 1pm! (It was 4pm when we arrived.) So, we tried asking at the tourist information office. There, a woman advised that we try the Arundel Train Station Hotel because they used to have a Café with WiFi internet. Upon arriving there we found out that it indeed used to have such a place, as it certainly didn’t have one anymore... That is when I suggested we head for the town of Chichester (8 miles away) because I had seen a Little Chef restaurant nearby, and yesterday, some 80+ miles from our current location, I had seen a gas station with a Little Chef that was advertising WiFi internet. We followed this weak lead to Chichester, but missed the Little Chef and ended up at a Retail store area which had a computer store called PC World. So we decided we should ask the computer ‘experts’ where we could find the Great Internet in their small town. We were told that the only internet café in town was across from the Chichester train station. So we headed for the town centre, choosing streets at random, and by the grace of the Internet Gods themselves, we found the train station AND the Internet BAR right next door! Finally after five days without internet we were able to check our email and send our mother a message reassuring her that we WERE in fact STILL ALIVE! Poor Mom didn’t even receive a phone call from us since we disembarked the QM2 because I forgot to get the access code for our calling card before we left the States, and the pay phone price of calling internationally is $4.50/minute, and we didn’t want to pay that... Sorry Mom!

Our internet business completed, we made a routine stop at Sainbury’s to buy cheese for sandwiches, and plan our dinner. Ultimately we decided that we already had enough food to get us through the day, so we paid for our cheese and desserts and headed over to the Sainbury’s gas station. There we filled up the car and purchased a driving map of Britain so that we would actually know where the heck we were when the Google Maps directions ultimately failed us! Before this map purchase, we had been relying blindly on the intelligence of Google Maps, the result of this reliance having been more than half a dozen uncomfortable moments when, upon finding the directions either confusing or entirely questionable, we realized we simply had NO IDEA where we even were should we have gone, or been led, astray. Now we have a really nice, real world guide to fall back on. Thank goodness!

That about sums up the events of today. After shopping, we returned home, ate dinner, showered, and now, at 10:40pm, it’s time for bed! Oh, and we DID see the Little Chef restaurant on the way home and it DID have free WiFi internet! Good to know. :)

Day 18: Journey to Stonehenge (7/29/2010)

We ate breakfast at 8:30, then packed up, paid Marian, and were on the road by 10:00. We drove one hour north to the Eden Project. It was a bit expensive, 17.50P for an adult ticket, but it was interesting to see the Biomes. The Mediterranean biome was neat because it smelled so much like home. In fact, it had an entire California section! The Rain Forest biome was very hot and humid!! At first it wasn’t so bad, but about half way through the heat and humidity was so stifling that you just wanted to make a run for the exit. We only spent about and hour and a half at the Eden Project because we had three hours of driving ahead of us to get to Stonehenge.


Three hours of Tiesto’s Club Life later, we arrived at Stonehenge. There we ate sandwiches in the parking lot, and then proceeded to view the attraction. Davin was very impressed by the monolithic structure. What most impressed him was that the henge was constructed in three different phases, each separated by hundreds of years. The amount of effort required to complete the structure was exceptional, and yet all knowledge of why it was constructed has been lost. The people who were responsible for its creation abandoned the site for some unknown reason, and left no indications of how or why Stonehenge was built. I was more impressed this time than the first time I visited, but I still find it more frustrating than intriguing that nothing is known of the henge’s purpose or builders.



We then drove a short distance to view another neolithic site, called Woodhenge. It is another henge that is part of the Stonehenge complex. It was built out of wood instead of stone, so the only evidence of its prior existence are postholes that were discovered through excavation. Today the postholes are filled with small concrete pillars to show the size and layout of the henge. It doesn’t look very impressive today, but in it’s original form I think it would have made quite a formidable monument.

Around 6:30pm we finished looking at the henges. We then drove two hours to our B&B. We checked in, so to speak, and set off again to buy ice for our cooler and pizza for our bellies. We decided to try out a British Pizza Hut. It tasted like Pizza Hut, but the Medium pizzas seemed suspiciously small. (We bought two Medium pizzas because the restaurant had run out of Larges!!)

We ate the pizza back at the B&B and finished settling in. Finally we wrote this update, and now I’m going to fall into bed. Yay!

P.S: Davin found a NOT so appetizing snack in the Stonehenge gift shop. You can see his reaction below!

Day 17: A Whirlwind Tour (7/28/2010)

**WORK IN PROGRESS**





8:30 breakfast. Drove to Minark theatre in Porthcurnow. Recommended by Marian. While there we got a brochure for Porthcurnow Telegraph museum. Decided to go because said something about being largest telegraph station in UK. Very historically important. Found we could access internet so we didn’t have to go to St. Just library to get directions to Stonehenge, and the telephone number of Harkaway. Drove to Poldark Mine. Made sandwiches. Found ice had melted and made our pasty leftovers soggy. Finished pasties, ate lunch. Went to Poldark mine. Poldark mine more impressive than Geevor, but Geevor more impressive because of the complete Mill. K mailed two postcards. Left around 5pm. Went to scenic Lizard point because it was nearby. Walked coastal trail and down to the water of the point. D was surprised the water wasn’t colder seeing as we are so far North. Tried to head back to Helsten but the traffic police detoured us, so we had to find another way back. Took some back country road that led us god knows where and was only room for 1 car at a time for half the distance, but luckily connected back to the A394 which could get us home. Stopped by Sainsbury’s Super Store to get dinner and more ice. Were gonna buy 14" pizza for 4P but then got two whole baked chickens for 1P each cause they were trying to get rid of them for the evening (normally 4P each/or 2 for 6P). Got some other things like dish washing soap, scrubber, can opener. Also got tortillas and canned corn to eat with our chicken. Called Harkaway and let them know we would be arriving tomorrow between 7pm and 8pm. Returned to Mzima. Had dinner. Washed all the dishes. Showered. DL and deleted pictures. Bed @ 11.

Day 16: Cornish Pasties and Tin Mining (7/27/2010)

**WORK IN PROGRESS**




Got up in time for 8:30am breakfast. Went to St. Michael’s Mount (11am - 1pm). Drove to St. Just. Bought pasties at McFadden’s, and stamps at post office. Went to Geevor tin mine (3-5). Drove passed Land’s End, but too foggy to warrant a stop. Drove back to Penzance. Tesco’s for gas and ice. Returned to Mzima. Wrote daily logs, Voyager. Shower. Bed.

Day 15: Land Ho! We Land in England (7/26/2010)

**WORK IN PROGRESS**



Got up 8:10am. Out of room by 8:30am. Breakfast on ship. Disembark at 10:00am. Got bags, walked to car rental (could have called for a ride). Drove 4 hours to Exeter. Overpaid for parking. Ate lunch at Italian restaurant, overpriced. Drove to Mzima. Arrived 6:30pm. Settled in. Went to grocery store for sandwich stuff. Ate dinner at Cantonese restaurant, delicious and had leftovers. Returned to Mzima, showered and in bed at 11:30pm.

Day 14: A Final Clear Day at Sea (7/25/2010)

I got up at 11am today. Davin was still in bed. I went downstairs to ConneXions to get tickets for the 2pm Planetarium show.

Next, Davin and I went up to breakfast. We noticed that the weather had finally cleared up! We saw quite a few other passenger ships and cargo ships nearby. Obviously we were in a main shipping lane area. We also saw sea gulls! Yay, land is close by!

Then, we grabbed out camcorder and walked through the ship explaining all the features that were onboard. At 2pm, we went to Planetarium show. It was pretty interesting. It was about the size of the universe and made you feel really small and insignificant as one speck walking around on Planet Earth.

After the show, we returned to our room and played Borderlands for about an hour. Borderlands. At 4pm, we returned to the Planetarium room to hear the a lecture given by the chief navigator on “Navigating at Sea”. It was pretty interesting to see how much navigation has changed over the last hundred years. Also, it was neat to learn that the reason time zones were made necessary was in order to calculate longitude for use in navigation. On our the way back to our room, we were drawn into the theater hall by the sound of string instruments. There we watched a wonderful performance by the ship’s Adagio String Quartet.

After the concert, we went shopping to use up our remaining $100 of onboard credit. I bought a nice hoody which say Transatlantic Cruise 2010 on the back. Davin bought a nice Queen Mary 2 souvenir shirt. Shopping complete we went to lunch (at dinnertime).


After lunch, we decided to go in the jacuzzi one last time. We had to skip lifting because there wasn’t time for both. Then we packed out bags and left them outside our room to get picked up. They disappeared really fast! Then we played Borderlands together. Around 11pm, we went upstairs to have dinner. Finally we showered and went to bed around midnight. I had trouble sleeping because I knew we had to get up early and had an eventful (potentially stressful) day tomorrow.

Day 13: Are We There Yet?? (7/24/2010)

We got up at 1:30pm again. We didn’t get to bed until 3am. Davin is feeling a bit better, though he had trouble sleeping with his stuffed up nose. We had lunch for breakfast again.

Voyager, GTA4, and Borderlands were on the agenda for today. I beat GTA4. At least I beat one of the two possible endings. I’m still working on the second ending. It’s almost just like the first ending so I’m getting bored and that’s making me reckless. Being reckless just gets you killed and so I have to keep trying over, and over, and over again. Eventually I ran out of ammo from repeating too many times, so I decided to put it off til tomorrow. Despite this frustration, GTA4 is my favorite GTA to date. I think the end of GTA3 was better though. The GTA4 ending isn’t as difficult, and it’s a really depressing story overall.

We are still stuck in a thick F O G. The day proceeds just like the last three. Only one more day to go.

We didn’t get to Borderlands. We did our laundry though. Once we finished that and ate dinner it was time for bed at the new 1am.

Day 12: Entering the Twilight Zone (7/23/2010)

We got up at 1:30pm. Yes, I know, it’s getting later... but Davin wasn’t feeling well, and I’m, well, lazy. Davin isn’t too sick though, he just caught a cold. We went upstairs and grabbed some lunch for breakfast, as usual.

Then we returned to the room and watched Voyager. I also made good progress on GTA4. I only have 2 more missions to go! Then I can start a new game. :)

At 7pm we went to lift. I did all my exercises while Davin only did a couple because he didn’t want to stress his body too much.

We had dinner for lunch, and the late night snack for dinner. Weather-wise we have been stuck in a thick F O G for the past two days. So there is even less to see outside than endless water. At most it’s 100 feet of visible water and then a solid white wall enshrouding the ship. Davin and I discussed how it’s very ‘Twilight Zone’-esque. The ship is sailing through an endless white void, and every day you get up and do the same things over, and over, and over again. It’s kind of like Groundhog Day or the episode The Royale from ST:TNG. If we were stuck like this forever, we’d definitely go insane, sooner or later.

Day 11: A Routine Sets In (7/22/2010)

We got up at noon today. Davin and I watched some Voyager before going up to eat. Finally, we wandered upstairs and had a cheeseburger each for breakfast. Davin wants to get up in time to have breakfast at least 1 day of our cruise, but so far it’s not looking good.

We returned to our room and I looked into setting up the internet. I used $89 of my onboard credit for 4 hours of internet access. Ridiculous prices! Anyway, I was able to DL the 88 emails which had built up over the past 4 days. Davin had 51. I was also very, very happy to say ‘Hi’ to Scott via AIM, and he was super happy to hear from me as well. After I went through my email, Davin convinced me to play GTA4 instead of watching more Voyager. Meanwhile, he watched Voyager, and went through his email on his computer. Around 6:30pm I was hungry again and we decided to go eat dinner. But then Davin said something about going in the jacuzzi and I pointed out that there wouldn’t be time for that if we ate first. So, we just grabbed a snack on the way up to the pool. There we relaxed in the jacuzzi/pool for about 40 minutes. Then we went back downstairs to eat lunch (dinner).

We decided not to lift today because we are both extremely sore from lifting two days in a row. So we will take today off.

Back in our room we decided to play a Coop computer game called Borderlands. Davin has played it before, but I haven’t. We didn’t get too far into it yet. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s pretty fun. I love the graphics.

Around midnight we went up to have dinner. When we returned to our room there was just enough time to watch a Voyager before going to bed at 2am. Today the time didn’t change, but tomorrow it will change again.

Day 10: Staying Active at Sea (7/21/2010)

We got up at 11:30am. We wandered down to Cunard ConneXions and found that all the tickets for that day’s Planetarium show had already been given out. Oh well. There is another chance to go on Saturday, if we care to.

We had a leisurely lunch for breakfast and then at 2pm went to our immigration appointment. That took about 3 minutes. The immigration official just asked our plans, checked our passports, stamped them, and sent us on our way. On the way back to our room we stopped by the Purser’s office to turn off the automatic daily dining and tipping fee. We also asked about the cards we received at our room that said Onboard Credit, but otherwise left no explanation as to how much onboard credit we had, or why. I guess my booking agent was able to get us $100 of onboard credit each when she booked our tickets. So maybe we will get internet after all.

We then returned to our room to watch Voyager and movies. Several hours later we headed to the gym to lift weights. We did all of our exercises, BP, OP, Squats, and Pull downs, just like yesterday. Then we decided to run a mile around the ship. Three laps around is 1.1 miles. We got one lap around in 3 minutes, and decided that was enough of that! It was now 8pm, and we decided to go relax in the jacuzzi. I was able to do that for about 5 minutes before the jacuzzis were closed for the day. Davin was indisposed at the time, so missed out entirely. At least now we know the hours that the jacuzzis are open.

Back at the room we watched more Voyagers/movies and then got dinner during the late night snack hours (11pm-4am). And went to bed around the NEW 2am.

Day 9: At Sea (7/20/2010)

Woke up around 11:30am. The NEW 11:30am. Every day the hour advances one hour forward, so it’s not really as late as the time would make it seem. We got ready for the day at a leisurely pace and then headed down to deck two to get complimentary tickets to the day’s Planetarium film. We chose to take tickets for the 2:00pm film. Then we went back up to deck 7 to find something to eat. Since I was in a breakfast mood I decided to have a crepe with hot strawberries on top. I’d never had a crepe before, and it was quite good. Davin decided to have one as well, though he was not really hungry yet.

After we finished eating it was about time to go see the 23 minute Planetarium film. The film was about Cosmic Collisions and was pretty interesting though the computer graphics seemed a bit out of date.

When the film was finished, Davin was finally ready to eat, so we went back to the deck 7 buffet to have lunch. We had some turkey and cheese sandwiches made for us at the Chef’s Galley.

Next we went back to our room to get my camera and then went up the to the top of the ship, deck 12, to play shuffleboard outside. Davin said playing shuffleboard is one of the quintessential activities of being on a cruise ship. We took pictures of each other, and used the timer function of the camera to get a picture of us together while we played. This was for our daily picture. While playing we learned that we completely, and utterly SUCK at shuffleboard. After about a half hour of play, I had only scored twice. Davin had tied up with me, and would have actually scored two more times, but the only thing I seem to have a talent for in shuffleboard is for knocking my opponent’s scoring pucks out of the scoring boxes. So, we ended up tying for 14 points when we decided we’d had enough of the game.

We returned to our room to put my camera away and grabbed our swim suits. We then returned to deck 12 to go in the jacuzzi. The jacuzzi was disappointingly luke warm, no where near a suitable temperature for a jacuzzi. Still it was relaxing to sit in the water chatting about mindless things, and watching the endless blue sea scroll by.

After our soak, we returned to our room to watch Star Trek: Voyager. Or Davin watched Voyager while I wrote the updates for the 18th and 19th of July. Then around 7pm we made our way over to the gym to do our weightlifting. It had been a week since Davin last lifted, and more for me. We were able to do our bench press and over head press using dumbells, and we used machines to simulate squats and pull ups. We then walked 3 laps around the ship on the outdoor track which is the equivalent of a mile.

Then we returned to our room to watch more Voyager. At 9:30 we went to the buffet dinner, and at 10:30 we made our way to the Illuminations/Planetarium theater to watch the movie Invictus on their big screen. It was an excellent movie, but a horrible theater. The screen was in 4:3 instead of 16:9 and they must have had the contrast set at 200% because anything white looked washed out and blinding. We still enjoyed the movie however, despite these technical problems.

When the movie finished we returned to our room and went to bed at the NEW 1:45am.

Day 8: Queen Mary 2 (7/19/2010)

Today we got up early (for us anyway) at 9am! We didn’t get enough sleep but thought we should get an early start for our cruise ship should anything go wrong on the way. Nothing did though. We had written down directions to the cruise ship from our hotel, from the cruise ship to the rental car return, and from the rental car return back to the cruise ship via public transportation, all the night before. With these written instructions in hand, we set out.

Davin drove while I navigated and we made it to the cruise terminal around 11am. On the way we passed through Holland Tunnel where we paid an $8 toll. We are also pretty sure that the Holland Tunnel is one of the tunnels represented in GTA4, and I think it’s where there is a mission to break a guy out of a prison convoy, only to subsequently murder the poor guy for the person your working for. I felt pretty bad about doing him in. Anyway, we made it through the tunnel, through Manhatten, and over the Manhatten bridge to the cruise terminal with no problems. We were also able to see the Brooklyn bridge from the Manhatten bridge, and that bridge also figures prominently in GTA4. But I digress yet again.

Once we made it to the cruise ship terminal, we were able to leave all our luggage to be checked. They even very kindly kept my laptop briefcase behind the welcome desk so that I could get it on my return and not have to risk it through checking. So with only my backpack containing all our important documents, Davin and I set off again this time to return our rental car. The closest rental car return I found online was in Manhatten, apparently there used to be a Brooklyn branch, but it must have been closed at some point. So we headed back into the city. Again we made our way to the rental car place with no problems. We arrived an hour early, dropping the car off at noon instead of 1pm.

Next we had to return to the ship on foot. We headed south on 1st Ave til we found the L subway station. We bought some lunch across the street from there as well. I got a chicken sandwich, Davin bought a hamburger, drink, and fries. We just took the food to-go, and went to the subway. We took the L train to 8th Ave, where we then switched to the C train headed to Brooklyn. Once we made it to Brooklyn we got off the subway and tried to find Bus 61 which would take us to the cruise terminal. This was the only point at which we had any trouble. My written directions weren’t helpful in telling us which of 4 directions to walk. It said west, but with the sun at its peak, and no ocean water to be seen, we had no idea which way was west. But after asking the bus drivers of different numbered buses we were able to find our way to a B61 stop. In fact, we found it just as the bus arrived. It was at this point we discovered that this particular bus only took coins, so we had to trade our dollar bills with other passengers to get exactly what we needed. Then it was only a short 15 minute ride to our bus stop. From there it was about a 10 minute walk and we were back at the cruise terminal around 2pm. My brother and I joked about how we were probably the only passengers aboard the Queen Mary 2 cruise that WALKED to the ship from the BUS! Lol.

Checking in was simple enough. I got my laptop back beforehand of course, and tipped the man who helped me stow it behind the counter. We were actually pretty surprised at how nice all the security people were. Totally unlike airport security. They even let us bring our purchased food and drink into the terminal with us, though we told them we would happily eat it outside first if it was a problem.

After we made it through security, I went to the restroom. There I overheard a couple workers saying that ONLY 2,000 passengers were booked on this cruise. They seemed very surprised at the small number when it concerned the QM2. I think it’s kind of nice to be on what is considered an under-booked cruise.

At check-in we received our personalized key cards/on-board credit cards. Then we made our way on board to our room. All our bags had arrived except my sleeping bag, but it showed up eventually. We found out that WiFi internet on the ship is ridiculously expensive, $48 for 2 hours!!, so we decided to go to the top of the ship to find cell service so we could call our mom to let her know we would be out of touch for a week. I called Scott and let him know too. After that, we set about exploring the ship. We had to figure out where we would eat dinner. This cruise is specifically designed for snobby rich people, and their mimickers, to be able to pretend to be royalty. Therefore, every night the main dining area has mandatory dress codes requiring, jackets, ties or dresses etc. I don’t like dressing up just to eat, and hate rich people in general, and Davin didn’t bring a jacket at all, so we didn’t even have the option of dining in the regular restaurant. But we found a place for us unrefined folk to fit in at the 24 hour informal buffet. The buffet is in the King’s Court restaurant which at night becomes 3 different themed eating areas, and 1 buffet. The restaurants require a reservation, while the buffet does not. I called and asked if the themed restaurants require a jacket and the woman laughed and assured me that that was not necessary. So I reserved our dinner at the Lotus Asian food restaurant.

We then relaxed in our room until dinner. At 8pm we headed over to the Lotus, and were met by a dour looking young woman who proceeded to chastise us for not wearing long sleeves/a jacket but then graciously allowed us to still eat our dinner there though she took great pains to hide us from the view of her measly 4 other guests. Clearly I had received bad information, but I didn’t bother to tell her about it since that might get someone else into trouble. So we were served like royalty. The woman placed a napkin on my lap for me. Cause I couldn’t be bothered to do it myself, of course. And then our two little waiter servants came and introduced themselves. The sole purpose of one of them was to continuously fill our itsy bitsy 2 swallow sized tea cups with green tea. The other served our food and explained to us EXACTLY what it was. We were having a tasting menu, so there was very little of very many things. It was a 5 course meal. First we had one piece of Maki sushi, 2 grilled tuna slices, a scallop with fish eggs, a piece of seaweed and a semi-sour cucumber slice. It was all artistically arranged. I hate artistic looking food. It almost always tastes terrible. The Maki was the only good thing on the plate. The scallop almost made me throw up, but I swallowed it whole with water just in time. I almost always throw up when I try to eat something at a fancy restaurant. This is the fourth time where I almost threw up that I can remember. Davin impressively cleared his entire plate, and didn’t think it was as unpalatable as I did.

The second course was a crab soup. That was actually pretty decent, but I don’t like crab that much. So I had about 1/3 of mine, and Davin finished his off completely. The third course was the ‘warm appetizer’ which consisted of two different kinds of spring rolls. Not impressive, but edible when dipped in something with flavor. At this point, poor Davin had to have his silver wear replaced by our servant because they had been used prematurely. Apparently even if you use your silver wear improperly by choice, you can’t continue to use them with the proper dish, but must have a clean set with which to begin again. But with a brand new set of silver wear delivered unto him, we were finally ready to begin our fourth course: the main entree. This consisted of samples of four dishes. The duck spring roll was not that great, the shrimp on noodles was bland, the teriyaki chicken and bell peppers was good, and the baby back ribs were, well, baby back ribs. Last came dessert. Finally we got to something delicious, coconut ice cream on mangos. The ice cream was awesome, it even had some whole strings of coconut in it. Yum, yum, yum. There was also a sweet rice thing, which wasn’t that great, and wasabi creme brule which was actually pretty tasty. So, all-in-all, dinner was completely unimpressive but the ice cream was absolutely delicious.

My brother and I headed back to our room agreeing that if this were the last fine dining experience we ever had we would be happy. We find the whole routine of excessive deference to the guests to be awkward and ridiculous. In addition, almost everything we were served this evening we have had before but it was better and cheaper from one of our favorite Asian restaurants back home. I was just pleased that at least this time I didn’t fling a piece of orange duck across the dinner table while trying to get the fat off of it, like at that one French restaurant in Mexico, where I also almost threw up after my Dad coerced me into eating a hard boiled dove egg, which I told him was a really bad idea in the first place. Ah well.

Later we went to the buffet to get more food, which we actually thought was better than our fancy dinner. We stayed up late watching movies, and relaxing in our room.

Day 7: MOMA and Central Park (7/18/2010)

We got up late as usual. First thing we had to do was take care of some errands. Michael needed to leave in the early afternoon to drive back to Boston, and we wanted to take advantage of his car. Davin and I decided that to get to our cruise ship across town we would rent a car from the Newark Intl. Airport. We made an online reservation to pick up a car at 1pm. After dropping us off, Michael set off to scrounge up some breakfast. We planned to meet back at the hotel once we finished the car rental business.

We got the car no problems. It cost us $62 to rent it for one day. We dropped off our car at the hotel. Then we took Michael’s car and used his GPS to find us a Walmart. We went there to buy a duffle bag, and possibly look for a jacket for Davin, though we all thought that was a lost cause. We were right, but Davin was happy to find a pair of bright yellow basketball shorts instead! We found some small duffle bags and picked up two of them, just in case. I also picked up a metal water bottle, since I forgot to bring one with me. And we got some zip lock bags, a recommendation from Claudia, to use for storing our leftovers from the cruise ship. She also recommended bringing bottled water, which was a good recommendation, but we were too frugal to do so. We will just drink from the tap.

We went back to the hotel and dropped off our new acquisitions. Michael made sure he had all his things, and then we all set off for New York. It was about 3:00pm at this point. The plan was for him to drop us off at MOMA, Museum of Moderm Art, and then continue on home. We didn’t hit traffic until we came to the Lincoln tunnel. There the cars came to a standstill as they slowly trickled one by one through the toll booths. All-in-all though, the experience of driving into the city wasn’t a bad one. We arrived at the museum around 4:45pm. That gave us 45 minutes to see what we wanted. And art museum is probably the only type of museum where 45 minutes is more than enough time for us to see what we want.


We specifically went to MOMA to see “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali. It is my brother’s favorite painting and Dali is one of my favorite painters. Pretty much the only painter I like actually. We found the painting and to our surprise it’s a little tiny thing, something like 18"x12". We thought that was pretty neat, because we were expecting something a lot bigger. After all, posters and other copies of the painting are enlarged in size. So if we hadn’t gone to see the painting in person we would still be under the impression that the painting is larger than it really is. We perused the rest of the paintings until the museum closed. The only other painting we saw worth mentioning is the famous one of swirly stars by some other really famous painter that I can’t recall now. I’ll have to check my camera.

Our next stop was a stroll through central park. We were really impressed by its size and the number of people walking, sleeping, and playing in every bit of open space. There were a lot more big trees than I had imagined. It basically looked nothing like the representation of it in GTA4. In GTA4 it was mostly grass, but I think they decided to represent it that way because a forested park would slow computers down too much, and would also be harder to drive through like a maniac. We entered the park from the southern most point, and tried to walk all the way to the large lake reservoir in the middle. (The equivalent of walking 20 blocks.) Needless to say, we didn’t make it. We had enough of walking by about the 10 block midway point. So instead we veered out the western side to find a subway that would take us home again.

We traveled south to the WTC PATH station by subway. Then took the PATH to Newark Penn, and the bus to the airport, and the hotel shuttle to the hotel. The same drill as before, and we arrived back at the hotel around 8pm. We then relaxed for a couple hours, I watched a movie, and then we packed up our bags to get ready for our cruise tomorrow, and went to bed.

Missing You (Always, Every Day)

<3 I Miss You Scott <3

I miss you lots, and lots, and lots, and lots!

Super Duper Tons of Love,
Kristin

P.S. Om Nom! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Day 6: Wall Street and Times Square (7/17/2010)

So, we slept in late again. I love sleeping in! Alarm went off at 11am, rolled out of bed around 11:30am. I made sandwiches using the sandwich materials that I brought with us from San Diego. We used up all the meat, which is good. We didn’t get to eat breakfast again. I like this kind of traveling, it has a built in dieting program! Lol. Anyway, by the time we were ready to go it was 12:45pm. Now it was time to use public transportation to get to New York!

First we had to wait for the Days Hotel's airport shuttle to arrive. That took us to Newark airport. From there we had to take the AirTrain to Terminal C to catch Bus 62. The bus was conveniently already there waiting when we arrived and we made it on. A French couple and their two kids were trying to buy tickets for the bus when we arrived but they didn’t have exact change. In fact, all they had were $50 bills! Anyway, they were freaking out and the bus driver wasn’t happy, so Michael stepped in and paid their $5 fare. I thought that was very nice of him. The French couple was very appreciative. Their English wasn’t very good but they seemed to understand that they needed small change in the future, and at least we gave them a good impression of Californians. =P

Bus 62 took us to Newark Penn Station for $1.50 per person, . At Newark Penn Station, we took the PATH trolley to the World Trade Center. That cost us each $1.75. From the WTC we made our way over to Wall St. We wanted to go to the Museum of American Finance since currency and economics is an interest of mine and my brother’s. We arrived at 2:40pm and had until 4pm to see the museum. It was actually quite a small museum, but very informative and interesting. I took pictures of a lot of the signs to create a sort of virtual museum. My brother and I are very slow museum visitors since we have to read absolutely everything, so of course we didn’t get through it all before the museum closed. But I took pictures of several exhibits we didn’t get to so we can read about them later.

Next, we walked past the New York Stock Exchange and took pictures outside of that. We then made our way back to Broadway and, after a long wait, took pictures with the front (and back!) of the Wall Street Bull. Our quote of the day was, “It sure is a lot more convenient to just take pictures with it’s balls than with it’s head!!” Apparently no one wants their picture taken with the ass of a bronze bull. Wonder why... ;p.

We then strolled through Battery Park. We wanted to see that because it was in the game Deus Ex. One of my brother’s and my favorite computer games. We enjoy visiting places in real life that appear in computer games we’ve played. :) We saw Castle Clinton and a Memorial to Soldiers lost in the Atlantic Ocean during WW2. We also ate our sandwiches for lunch and bought hot dogs from a New York hot dog stand. I took pictures of that cause it was our tourist event from GTA4. But I mentioned that already.

Our next stop of the day was Times Square. We took the South Ferry Subway north for $2.75 a person. Times Square was pretty insane. It looks just like you see it on TV but it’s more interesting to be there in person. We walked down the street admiring the lights, advertisements, and gazillions of people. This street really reminded me a lot of the busiest parts of Tokyo that I've seen. Except in Tokyo everything runs much more efficiently, and I don’t remember it smelling as bad (fume-wise). Probably because they have far fewer cars attempting to drive through the city. I was amused to see vendors selling Obama, McCain, and Sarah Palin condoms. A quote from one of these sellers was a close second in our quote of the day contest. In reference to Obama condoms, "Change is coming! Don't let it come in you!" Lol.

By the time we walked through Times Square our feet were getting tired and we decided we had seen enough for the day. We walked nine blocks back to the PATH station at 33rd Street West. That took us back to Newark Penn Station, and Bus 62 took us back to the airport, and the Hotel shuttle brought us back to where we had started. We got back to the hotel room at around 9:00pm.

After we got some water to drink, we set off again in search of food. We found a pizza place and brought a pizza back to our room. After I ate, I took a nice relaxing bath and now I’m all ready for bed. Good night!

Day 5: Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty (7/16/2010)

My alarm went off at 10:30am today but I reset it for 11am. I hate not getting enough sleep. Our tickets for the statue of liberty were for noon. We got up and dressed and ready to go in time to make our reservation, but not in time to eat anything. We would just have to eat later.

Thankfully Michael drove down from Boston so we have the convenience of his car. We were leaving from the Jersey side of the National Park, so we didn’t have to pay any really expensive tolls. The tolls to cross the NY bridges are insane. We paid $8 one way to cross last night to get to the 24 hour diner, luckily we found a way back that avoided the bridge. That was more luck than brains though, since Michael’s GPS is our guide.

We found the National Park and took the ferry across to Ellis Island. On Ellis Island we toured the building and museum for three hours. It was really interesting to see where 12 million immigrants passed through into our country, and the process they had to go through. It pretty much would have sucked. A two week sea voyage, followed by being stuck on ferries for hours without food or water until there was finally room for you on Ellis island. Then waiting in lines for hours on end to get examined by doctors and interrogated by customs officials. Unlucky people had to undergo additional medical exams, potential quarantine/hospitalization, and could ultimately end up being deported. Or if the customs officials didn’t like your answers to their questions, you had to wait around for a special inquiry which would also determine your fate. We didn’t get to read absolutely every sign in the museum, because it was time to move on to the statue of liberty, but I really enjoyed the visit.


Liberty island was much less interesting than Ellis Island. There were plenty of photo opportunities but not as much interesting history. Of course, we didn’t get to even go into the Pedestal cause we got there too late. Oops, hehehe. Guess we enjoyed Ellis a little bit too much. Oh well. We were too late in buying tickets to be able to visit the crown of the statue anyway (purchased them 2 months in advance instead of 3) which would be kinda neat, so I guess we’ll just have to come back another time. Statue of Liberty: to be continued, some day...

We made it back to the car around 6pm and set off to take care of some errands. I needed to get a card reader for my camera’s memory card since I forgot mine, and Davin needed a screw driver to install his slim CD-ROM into his computer, and he also needed wire to attempt to fix his sunglasses. Long story...

Errands complete we found a delicious Thai/Chinese Restaurant which was reasonably priced and had a super delicious dinner. I had a thai iced tea. I looove my thai iced tea. :) After that we went back to the hotel and that’s where I am now writing about today. Now that I’m done, we are gonna plan what we’re going to do tomorrow and then get some sleep. Til tomorrow!

Day 4: Next Stop, The Big Apple (7/15/2010)

We got up late as usual. We reserved a late 2pm lunch. In this bigger Roomette with my own window I am able to sit up on my bunk and use my computer while also watching the scenery go by. This enabled me to watch several hours of Star Trek Voyager while also getting some great photos of rivers, rusted bridges, and tumble down shacks.


At lunch I had some more mediocre food. This time pork stew on rice. The food on the train is OK, but that’s about all you can say about it. It’s 1000 times better than plane food though. I can’t even eat plane food... these Amtrak meals are at least edible and mildly pleasant tasting. The desserts are great though. I’ve had a chocolate cheesecake which was delicious, and I don’t even really like cheesecake. The tira misu was pretty good too, but now I’ve settled into a routine of eating Haagen Daaz chocolate ice cream after every meal. This was my last Amtrak meal for this leg of the trip though.

The train became three hours behind schedule today. Since Amtrak only leases the railways from freight companies it is subject to delays when freight trains take priority. I guess that is what happened with my train. It didn’t matter to me though, I was quite comfortable watching my Star Trek Voyagers. Three more hours is three more episodes to watch with nice scenery outside. It’s nice not being in any kind of hurry.

We finally arrived at New York Penn Station at 8:30pm. Now we had to haul our ridiculously heavy baggage to our hotel in New Jersey. I had a reservation for a hotel in Jersey mainly cause I’m frugal. And being frugal I had two options: a) stay in New York at a cheap, seedy, loud, conveniently located hotel, or b) stay in Jersey in a cheap, nice, quiet, inconveniently located hotel. I don’t like seedy or loud so I went with the New Jersey option. In retrospect I should have found a hotel in Brooklyn near where our cruise ship leaves, considering our heavy bags... but that’s a problem and an ordeal for Monday! Hehehe.

So we began our trek with our 67lb bag, and other heavy bag down 2 blocks of NY city to find the PATH station. We found it with no problems, and took the PATH to New Jersey Penn Station. At this point our arms were very tired and so we decided to taxi the rest of the way to the hotel, the luxurious ;p Days Hotel Newark Airport! Anyway, we were very happy to finally get to the hotel around 10:30pm. I took a long, well deserved shower and was happy to get online once again!

Our long time friend Michael finally made it to the hotel as well. He grew up with us in San Diego but now lives outside Boston, MA. Since none of us had yet eaten dinner we went to a 24 hour diner at midnight to get something to eat. The diner was called Mike’s Unicorn Diner, and it had Greek-American food. The three of us enjoyed catching up on things, and made it back to the hotel and in bed around 2am. Sadly, too late for us to get enough sleep for the next day. Oh well. I'm sure we can sleep in on Saturday.

Day 3: The Windy City (7/14/2010)

Today, we woke up in Missouri. Davin slept better last night, but I slept worse. The upper bed rocked like crazy!! We skipped breakfast again. Who wants to eat at 6-8am anyway?? We made a reservation for a twelve o’ clock lunch. Davin finished watching a movie in the Roomette that he had started last night. Meanwhile, I went to the observation deck to watch the scenery go by for an hour before lunch. The scenery today is very green. Obviously it’s a lot wetter here up north. The coolest thing I saw was when we crossed over the Mississippi river. I took some pictures of that.

We arrived in Chicago at around 3pm, and had a layover until 9:30pm. So, Davin and I left our bags with the Redcap in the Metropolitan lounge (free when you book a Sleeper room), and set off to explore downtown Chicago. I was really impressed with the architecture of the city. Davin and I liked it a lot. We compared our impressions of Chicago to our impressions of San Francisco. We were not particularly impressed with that other famous city. I especially loved all the fire escapes that were like black lattices propped against all the old buildings. It sure would be terrifying to have to use one of those! Though, I suppose it would be preferable to burning up in a building...

Davin and I made our way to the shores of Lake Michigan. From there, we went south ‘til we came to the Museum area of town. At this point, we were both concerned about getting sunburned. The sun was beating down, and the humidity was quite high. The temperature wasn’t too bad because a constant wind cooled us off. I guess they don’t call Chicago ‘the windy city’ for nothing! The sun was still a threat however, so we chose to go to the Shedd Aquarium. We lucked out, because it turned out there was a ‘Wednesday Only Special Event’ of live Jazz music in the aquarium, after hours, and all for a reduced admission price ($18 instead of $30 per person)! The aquarium was really impressive, and had some really interesting displays. We didn’t have time to read everything though, so we mostly just enjoyed looking at all the different fish and animals.


Around 7 pm, we headed back to the train station. On the way back, we purchased a hot dog from a hot dog stand. Our first ever hot dog stand purchase! I liked it, because the umbrellas at the stand were the same colors as the umbrellas at the hot dog stands in Grand Theft Auto 4. Though, of course, that game takes place in New York (Liberty City), not in Chicago. So, we will have to find another hot dog stand to eat at once we get to New York.

Back at the train station’s Metropolitan lounge, I was able to check my email with the free wireless internet. Then, we boarded the train around 9 pm. This train, unlike the last one, didn’t have a luggage rack on each car for oversized baggage. This caused some problems, as we had too many bags to fit in our little Roomette. Thankfully, many other people were having the same problem, so our aide generously stored some of our baggage elsewhere in the train. First though, he hinted strongly at us that this was not something he was supposed to do, and that we owed him a large tip tomorrow as a result.

In the process of trying to frantically drag our huge, heavy bags onto the train through the narrow corridors, I somehow misplaced our tickets. So, then I had to frantically find them again before the conductor forced us to pay for our room all over again!! I did find them at the last second, though! God, what a company, to charge you AGAIN for a room you rightly paid for, if you simply lose a paper ticket. You know they must have your name on record, and be able to verify your identity by ID instead. Amtrak lost points with me there.

The Roomette on this train is a little bigger than the last one we were in, especially my upper berth bed. I can at least sit up on the bed and use my computer. The clearance was too small for that, on the other train.

Anyway, it’s late now that we passed into Eastern time, so I’m going to go to bed. Today was a lot of fun. Tomorrow we finally get to the other side of the country and reach New York!

Day 2: Aboard the Southwest Chief (7/13/2010)

Davin and I slept in until 11 am. I felt pretty rested by then. Davin got up as well, because we had reached Albuquerque, New Mexico. There, we were allowed to get off the train for an hour and a half, because the train was ahead of schedule. When we stepped off the train, we were hit by a burst of hot air. Gah! I’d never want to move to New Mexico. It felt about as hot as one of the hottest days in San Diego. We walked around and found a pizza place where we bought a calzone to share. I took a couple pictures of some murals, and then we wandered back to the nice air conditioned train.


Davin wasn’t really feeling well so he didn’t go to lunch on the train. I went, even though I had eaten the calzone, because the meals are all included in the sleeper room price, so I wanted to at least get dessert. I had chocolate ice cream, and watched the scenery change from scrubland to more mountainous/pine-covered. After lunch, Davin and I met up again and went to check out coach class. We wanted to see what we were missing out on. A friend of mine had told us how it was perfectly comfortable to sleep in coach. Not by what I saw. If you can sleep vertically, sure, but I can’t sleep unless I’m fully reclined. So, although our Roomette is tiny, it’s at least better than coach! Lol.

Showering aboard a moving train was an interesting experience. It was a lesson in the art of balance. My brother and I were amused to see that the shower water just drains from the shower onto the tracks below!

We were able to get off the train again in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Where it was even HOTTER than Albuquerque! Yikes.

The train got moving again, and the tree covered lowlands gave way to completely flat, green prairie, as far as the eye could see. Grazing cattle could be seen frequently. All in all, I’m enjoying the experience of seeing the landscape change. The room, while cramped, is at least adequate for me. However, it’s hard for my brother, so we will look into getting a bigger room if possible on the return trip, but that won’t be until the end of October.

The train air is too dry, so I’m constantly drinking the tiny, complimentary, bottled waters that Amtrak provides us. Still, my throat feels dry, and, ultimately, all that drinking makes me have to pee ALL the time!! Lol!