The United States: Home of the Free and Two Now Morbidly Obese Backpackers

With our European jaunt over and done with, it was time to pack our bags and begin the second leg of our trip through Central and South America. Before we get to the business end of our trip we decided a quick stop over in New York City was required!

We arrived in The Big Apple after a pretty standard 9 hour flight from the world's most boring city (Zurich) and headed straight for a gander of Times Square for a quick look around, grabbed some seedy Japanese from the dodgiest restaurant ever and then headed out to Spanish Harlem to meet our hosts for the next 5 nights - William and Lillie! We naturally kicked off our 1st day in NYC doing what every tourist does when they arrive, we sat in a laundromat and watched Maury Povich with boisterous African American women (before you ask, yes, the phrase, "Oh no you didn't!" was uttered a number of times). After taking care of some admin we cruised around downtown and just took in the city - the weather was total rubbish but we managed to have a pretty good day. The following days were a little more eventful, we got all artsy when our awesome CS host William got us in to the Museum of Modern Art for FREE! We took a leisurely stroll through Central Park where Katherine, after 45 failed attempts, managed to snare a picture of a squirrel. When the weather decided to behave itself we head to the 9/11 Memorial, Statue of Liberty, Wall St, a local Jewish deli where Tom destroyed a Reuben and KG tried her hand at Motzah Ball Soup - delicious!

KG out the front of THE Tiffany Store

KG finally succeeds in getting a photo of a squirrel

Some art by some bloke named Andy

Don't know what this blokes problem is...

Empire State Building

This homeless dude keeps popping up in our photos - here he is in Time Square

It also happened that our good Irish friend, Eddie Fox, had followed us to New York! We caught up and went for a bite to eat in Little Korea (New York has a Little (insert any country you can think of) somewhere in the city). After dinner we venture out to Brooklyn and checked out some basketball game, Brooklyn v Atlanta - where the saying "Everything is bigger in America" was proven true, the large beer was a 1L - epic night all round.

Josh Smith doing his thing (he played like ass)

Enjoying a large domestic draught with Mr. Fox

We took a break from the big city and headed down to Princeton University to catch up with Ryan Edwards, one of our good friends from Adelaide who is studying there at the moment. Eddie gave us the royal tour of the campus, which was incredible - just like something from an American movie! After touring around the campus we headed back to the city, had some dinner and then visited McSorley's Old Ale House - possibly the greatest bar on earth for a few ales and some more than interesting conversation with the huge mix of clientele. McSorely's is a pub that has not changed since it opened in 1854 - they only started allowing women in the bar in the 70s due to a court order from the Goverment!

Tooling around in the Princeton University gym - this place was insane!

McSorely's Old Ale House - a pub that is stuck in the early 1900s!

After our first stint in New York we headed on down to Washington D.C. on what was labelled the "Chinatown Bus" where we managed to grab some amazing seats directly across from the toilets - yummy! Needless to say it was the cheapest option, and lived up to expectations. Our walk to where we were staying took us straight through the Washington Mall, where everything of note in Washington is located, and after a decent stroll we met our host Luke. We spent our first night in Washington checking out the sights, and by checking out the sights I mean sitting on the couch drinking cans of Heineken and watching some NFL, awesome!!

Tom absorbing the local culture, expertly guided by Luke our CS host

The next day was the big one, Barack Obama's second inauguration! We started the day pretty early and headed down to the "mall" where we staked out a good spot - which pretty much means a spot close enough to a big screen because there was 0 chance of us getting within viewing distance of the Capitol Building. KG's not-so-secretive crush on Obama came out to shine and with lot of woo-ing and yay-ing, Obama came out and made an epic speech. We then ventured over to Philadelphia Ave for the parade, and after 4 hours of standing we finally got an amazing opportunity to kind of see Obama - the lazy mongrel decided he couldn't be bothered walking the section of the parade that we were at. After standing for about 9 hours we ventured back to where we were staying, drank some more beer and watched some more American sport! Our bus back to NYC didn't leave until 2pm so we had some time to actually see some sights in Washington. We checked out the Arlington National Cemetery  the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Moment - definitely needed some more time in Washington!

KG getting in the spirit - it was -4 during the day!

At the inauguration - still pretty early in the day

Abe just kickin' back in his chair

The Washington Monument with the Capitol Building in the background

It was time for us to venture back to New York and after a much less odour-affected bus trip we made it back and headed over to meet up with Lucy, whose bed we would be stealing for 3 nights. We met Lucy in our trip through Croatia and she greeted us with nothing less than an epic welcome, complete with a glass of white wine! We spent the next few days just venturing around the city, checking out the absurdly massive Macy's department store, and hanging out with Penny, Lucy's housemate's awesome dog. Tom also had a foodgasm at a specialty doughnut store. We went out with Lucy and some of her friends for a few ales at a local tavern and managed to meet up with Jonas, our Swedish friend we met in Budapest - the walk home was a bit of an adventure as the temperature dropped to -10... filthy!

Having dinner with the legendary Lucy!

Penny in her rain jacket getting ready for a walk

Below, for your viewing pleasure, is a series of photos of Tom eating the greatest doughnut he has ever eaten! Enjoy.

We had an amazing time in North America, stayed with some incredible people, but it's time to get back to some 'serious' travelling as we leave English speaking countries behind and head down to Central and South America for the next 5 months!