Our last night in New York & its caining it down with....

Snow!!! 4-6 Inches expected tonight :) should be interesting getting to the airport tmw morning... Plus its arriving here from Washington! our next stop.... =)

Its a first...

A statue of a women ;) Only jesting, another freezing day and were off to see the statue of liberty.

The View across the water...

Under several T-shirts, a jumper, a Coat, Gloves, Scarf, Beany hat & hoody - Its lyns =)

Half way up the old lady, I Found Snooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose your future....

We aint Trainspotting, were off to see the State of Liberty... For those that are baffled by the title, its a movie quote from a film - Trainspotting. Thought i better explain before you thought id gone mad...

This place is as with everything in america, huge! When we came back through the station today, there was some planned "thing" going on.. with about 40 poeple all frozen standing still like statues, but in different poses, typical to what would be going on in the station. Looked quite trippy until we grasped what was going on =)

The Rockefella centre....

Complete with weather matching ice-skating rink!

As we picked such a moody day for the empire states building, we went up the rockefella building the next day =) I give you central park... Dont know why, but i imagined it to be a huge sweeping grassed area, not quite as many tree's. The park has its very own reservoir, "The great lawn" - doesnt look that great from the picture, hardly green at all, but we'll put that down to the time of year i suppose. And for Triff, the "Sheep Meadow" ;) Anyway i hope you all appreciate the picture, cause i absolutely froze my tits off taking that! =)

69 and a half security checks later, were in...

The Empire states building...

Its a another crazy tall american building... Probably was one of the most famous ones, before dot dot dot
The day we picked to go up to the top, was a bit moody, hence the overcast pics! Great view of the city tho. If you squint or locate a magnifying glass, the statue of liberty can be seen to the right of the city, first blog =)

The grates are a steaming, Were in New York!

Weve seen it on all the movies, but here it is. The Steaming grates of NY. If any of the grates are steaming in a big way, they give them there very own funnels =) presumably to stop cars getting lost in the smoke.. Amusing nonetheless...

From what weve seen so far, im loving new york, its a cracking place! As its so bloody cold, we went shopping to get me a hoody. Found a decent one, and it only cost me 12 quid!!! The clothes prices in america are unreal. Picked up some Oakley jeans for just under 25 quid, would of cost at least 80 back home! But with our rucksacks we cant realy carry anything else so im having to be strong!

Free Beer & Free Beads, It must be....

Mardi Gras !!! Yup, we certainly timed it right to come to New Orleans =)

Carnage everywhere.... But by the next morning, its all cleared up & looking somewhat like normallity.

From our hotel (The Loews) you can see the mississippi river, which caused so much carnage for new orleans, not so long ago. When we got a taxi to the hotel from the airport, we passed the superdome, reminding us of what we saw on the news =(

We have only seen the french quarter which was mainly untouched by the devastation, so we cannot comment on how the rebuilding is going. Its an ok place, cant say its the nicest place in america weve visited. But with mardi gras on, everyone seems well happy no matter what time of day it is. The people seem friendly enough, but then again the majority have been drinking since 8am each morning, sooo :)

Personally, sorry to be crude, but its a bit of a shit hole, even the french quarter. Its like walking around "the hood" to coin an american term. I aint being racist or owt, it just looks like the bad parts of LA were described to us (by a bus driver we talked to). Ive never felt unsafe & to be honest it could be because mardi gras is on, but i just dont get the right vibe from here. Sure the music around is funky, the street processions are cool, people are having fun everywhere, but, something just aint right about this place. Maybe its just me, dunno. Im glad we came, allbeit just to see mardi gras, but im pretty sure we wont come back. Cracking hotel tho ;)

Didnt make a post from Dallas, cause Dallas was..... Dallas... =)

Ah i remember something about Dallas, It was Effin Freezin !!! -1 when we arrived, then 0 most days...

Centre of San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

Sunset from Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz Island

Us at the Grand Canyon...

We Found snowwwww!!! 5 days earlier it snowed at the grand canyon, so there was plenty still around. Its not uncommon for them to get 400 inches a year nr there ski resorts!!!

Another wonder of the world chalked off....

Flying to Grand Canyon..

Yesturday, We took a 10 seater plane, over to the South rim of the Grand canyon. The views of the mountains & lakes from the plane were crazy...

Flying over Hoover dam...

One for the boyz...

Every Hotel in vegas has a casino, some even have casinos within casinos, its just plain crazy. Its easy to get lost, but there are perks... If you are playing on a table or playing on the slot machines you get free drinks. Waitresses just come around & its up to you if you want to pay for it (or tip them)... If im winning they get a tip, if im loosing its free drinks for the night! =)

Now if you go to a cheaper hotel like ours, the circus circus, the casino is good, but the class of waitresses leaves a bit to be desired.. ahem.! When we walked through the MGM and New York New York casino, the standard rises.

Now lads if you come to vegas you need to visit Hooters, this is where the eye candy class rises. Not only are the waitresses at a required standard but they also run the gamling tables aswell, so no dodgy bloke dealers. We like vegas....

Obviously you need a sound wifey to visit hooters in the first place, thx lyns =)

Show time - Its the blue man group!!!

Obviously whilst in vegas one thing you have to do, is go see a show! As penn & Teller were having a week off (Not best pleased!) we went to see the Blue Man Group.

http://www.blueman.com/multimedia/video/index.php

This one ranks along side the show we saw in china, absolutely amazing!!!

Its a combination of Comedy, Rocking music, Visuals, and audience interaction. I would recommend this to anyone...

But if you sit on row 2 like we did, make sure you dont mind getting wet, splattered and dragged up on stage... Expensive but worth every penny!

On the Strip - Part 2...

Whilst walking the stip we went to the Stratosphere Tower, Id seen this place before online and wanted to ride the three "thrill" rides located at the top of its tower.

For more info have a look at the website :

http://www.stratospherehotel.com/las_vegas_stratosphere_ride.html

The official line from the website is : Thrill seekers of all ages can experience the ultimate in excitement at Stratosphere Las Vegas! At over 100 stories above the ground, the Stratosphere boasts the world's three highest thrill rides; the Big Shot, X Scream and Insanity the Ride. Rock on...

My Favourate ride was "The Big Shot". It catapults 16 riders from the 921-foot high platform up the Tower's mast to a height of 1,081 feet. Traveling at 45 miles per hour, you experience 4G's as you reach the very top, and feel negative G's on the way down. Not many people around so i went on this a few times in a row :)

At 866 feet, X Scream is the world's third highest thrill ride. Shaped like a giant teeter-totter, X Scream is an open vehicle that propels you head-first, 27 feet over the edge of the Stratosphere Tower and then dangles you weightlessly above the Strip before pulling it's riders back and over again for more! Might sound funny, but i dont actually like heights that much, so i only went on this one, once!!

Insanity (Featured in the pics above) -The Ride consists of an arm that extends out 64 feet over the edge of the Tower and will spins you at up to three 'G's.' As the ride spins faster and faster, the riders are propelled up to an angle of 70 degrees. Riders experience the thrill of being flung over the edge of the Tower and literally facing downward at the City of Las Vegas below. The ride is programmable with various ride options. An unobstructed view of historic downtown Las Vegas rewards those riders brave enough to experience three 'G's' at a height of more than 900 feet. Cant say much on this one other than the name says it all.... completely surreal being spun over the edge looking straight down!!!!

On the Strip....

Every night the sunset out of our hotel room window looks like this ^ =)

Pictures of the strip just look plain fake! but its real honest!! This pic is from the MGM bridge across to the New York New York casino. The rollorcoaster there was a 360 loop de loop & a reverse loop. Couldnt decide if i liked it or not, so i went on twice...

We are in Vegas Baby!

We arrived into Vegas yesturday, greeted with blue skies & much warmer weather than LA had provided. It's actually a lot bigger than i thought it would be, based on what ive read online & what people have previously said. First of all Circus Circus (our hotel) is maaaaaasive, never ever seen a hotel so big. Never seen a hotel with a theme park inside it for that matter! Fully equiped with 360 loop de loop rollorcoaster and several other "interesting" rides. After wandering around the hotel we found the casino section. Its an "Andy Kilmister dream land, before karen tightened the rains" ;)

My only bug bear is there are no "UK style" gamblers, just nutty american "things"... But we are not here for that, mainly BlackJack & Texas Holden poker is our games :)) The first night we hit the blackjack tables.

We both started with $40 each, about 20 quid. After 2 hours we were still playing !!! surprised me, to be honest. After about 2.5hrs lynsey bowed out, this is where i stopped $14 up =) Well happy. The other guys at the table & the various different dealers, made it very good fun. Not to mention free drinks as you play - Waitress ill have , erm, Corona, Corona, Corona...

So onto today.... The picture above depicts our biggest coup so far, Yup Lady luck has showed her head - for my little wifey ! =))) Lynsey put $5 into one of these crazy gamblers and promptly won $50 !!!! she then immediately pressed "cash out". Job done. Lynsey then proceded to move seats and put $4 into a different gambler. Within 2 minutes shes only gone and won another $30..... jesus christ, we both didnt have a clue on what was going on, how to play it, or where we were, but we didnt care ;) Cash out button located and pressed once again!

Tomorrow we register for our first Texas Hold'em Poker tournament, which starts at 11.30am, this is where the fun starts. You pay a small entry fee, then get given about $600 worth of chips to play with. Probably approx 50 players, First four places pay out with 1st place paying $280. See how we get on..... Vegas rocks....

Other than the gambling side, were off up "the strip" tmw, to see the sparkly lights... Show wise, the "Blue man Group" are here, and "Penn & Teller" which will be a must.... Amusingly "The Hoff" is also around....

Consistency...

The boys are still going strong, Consistent performances being put in by all. Bar the Arse game, a minor blip, we are still 6 points clear. Nice to see Henrik scoring a few aswell :)

After stating we had money for Xfers, it seems we havent done anything in the Jan window. Would of been nice to get a bit of backup in midfield. Was it B,Munich not budging or Mr Glazer who knows. Im sure we'll have Owen H soon enough, albeit in the summer.

Coming Soon to a town near you mr Glazer... LUHG....

www.Fight-for-united.com

Universal Studio's & Disney...

We hit the Universal Studio's park a couple of days ago, on a overcast, showery day. Probably one of the coldest days weve had since travelling (bar the great wall of china!) But we didnt care, it was still alot warmer than Manchester at this time of year :)

As we are off peak season, it was dead easy moving around the park, rides had no Queues what so ever :) On some rides like the mummy one, we could simply stay on and ride again, without even Q'in up again. I think we went on that ride 6 times in total, as lynsey loved it :))

After a long long full day caining the rides, 3D & 4D movies we moved on back home. Home being defined as hotel rooms for now ;)

The Next day we went to Disneyland & Disney land adventure parks. Our favourate ride by far being the Screamer rollarcoaster. But after our exploits in New Zealand, it all seems quite tame now. Im sure Vegas will raise the notch once again, ive already checked out the multiple 360 loop coasters there (nicely situated ontop of the casinos!!) To get our fill we had to go on the screamer 7 times :) In total we went on 23 rides i think, during another LONG day. Another fave was the Mailbomber. Which basically shoots you 100m into the air, much like the reverse bungy we did in auckland, just not as quick. Again to fulfil my new needs, it had to be rode 5 times.

LA disney & Universal are good, but it aint anywhere near as good as orlando is !!! 16 days of Loop de Loops to look forward to :))

Tmw we are off into hollywood, venice beach etc, to do the "tourist sites".. Then its onto Vegas Baby Yeah!!!