A hell of a season man

31st Aug:

Our last day of August, we have already taken in a number of world famous locations in just a matter of a week, and we are loving every moment of it!
Today was quite a chilled out day, we woke up early as Jessica had to go to class at 8:30am, so we left American U and headed out in our car today instead of using the Metro.
We were on the search for Jessie’s Crab shack (or as I call it ‘Jessie got crabs!’) it was featured on Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Food Porn’ TV show. It was just south of the Franklin D Roosevelt memorial, right on the river. The time was around 10am and it was a bit quite, it turns out that in the morning it is a fish market and only after lunch does the food really get going, Paolo decided that it was a bit early to get messy with crab and I agreed it was a good point so we decided to give it a miss. I called my friend Nancy (who I won the Lottery with in Hong Kong) and arranged to meet up.
Nancy and her boyfriend Alex (who Im also friends with from Hong Kong, he almost killed me by driving on the wrong side of the road last time we met) both attend Georgetown Univeristy, its slightly west of the Capitol Mall. We met up with them at their Uni and we got the full tour, its an old university steeped in history, if anything happens to congress then it is the location for emergency congress which I think is quite a cool fact. Georgetown is big on their basketball but have only won one American football game in the past 2 years.

We then asked them if they wanted to join us for dinner, we wanted to visit a place that was featured on Anthony Bordain’s TV show and also on Man vs Food, its called Ben’s Chilli Bowl. Everybody we talked to in Washington D.C. told us we should check it out. Its in an old part of town, and its one the flashiest coloured buildings, we walked in and it looked very much like an old time diner, on the wall was a sign saying the only people allowed to eat for free there was Bill Cosby and the Obama family, this a place that Obama came to eat just after taking office. We ordered ‘Ben’s Half Smoked’ their famous dish, we didn’t realise that it was a hotdog covered in chilli and also a bowl of chips covered in cheese and chilli, these were our first hotdogs in America! Check them out.

We dropped Nancy and Alex back at Georgetown, it was brilliant to see them again. We then headed over to the Pentagon City mall, over near the Pentagon, I semi remembered the route from when I went there 4 years ago. It was quite a disappointment, I’m not sure why people keep raving about malls in America, so far we haven’t seen any real reason to spend much time there, the shops are generic. So after only an hour wandering around we headed back to American U.
We met up with Jessica and caught up about our day but she had to go to an residence assistant meeting for an hour so left us in the common room where we met a group of the freshman who just started from high school. There was a bit of drama at the halls, police cars and an ambulance turned up and there was commotion downstairs and it turned out that somebody on the floor below had attempted suicide. Reminds me of Van Wilder: Party Liason where he talks someone out of jumping off the building.

Jessica came back and we headed off to ‘pre-game’ at her friends house, there we met Bodal and Tomas and we played NBA 2010 on Xbox for drinks (similar to how we play Pro or Fifa for drinks), these lads were hilarious, we did the whole ‘drinking from red solo cups‘ experience before making our way into central D.C.
While there we had more to drink and we taught everybody how to dance.
I met some English lads there and had a cool chat about living in America, they studied at Kings like me and had been living in D.C. for 7 years.
The clubbing still hasn’t been able to measure up to British standards, I think its because they aren’t as used to it as we are in Europe.

Quote of the day: (on our way to Ben;s)
Alex: “Ben’s Chilli Bowl will take a year off your life, buts its totally worth it”

Washington D.C.

Day 8 :
We had a shower in the dorms of American University, it was a communal bathroom, just like in the movies! We adorned cubicles side by side and rocked a chorus of ‘Don’t look back in anger’ by Oasis as loud as we could. Jessica had to go and work (she is a baby sitter) so she left us with a set of keys and her ID card so we could move around freely without her. The plan for the day was to take in the sites of D.C.
After making our way downstairs we got on the shuttle bus to the Metro and headed into central. We got out of the Metro at Metro Central station and walked towards the Whitehouse. On the way there we passed a Five Guys burger joint and I had to go! I had heard about them from the news, Barack Obama made his way there after taking office, they were also voted best burger in America (from a chain) and it was just the best I’ve ever had, Paolo agreed. It ranks one of the best meals we have had on our road trip so far. I wish I could take one home with me for everyone reading this. This was the first burger we have had in the USA so far and in the wise words of Paolo “This is like sex in my mouth”.

We headed over towards the Whitehouse and everybody was pointing us in different locations. Something was going down in the Whitehouse because we weren’t allowed to get anywhere near it! Check out the photo, that’s as close as we were allowed. There most have been some shit hitting the fan.

Today it was HOT! 38 degree’s, and no cover or shade while walking around National Mall, we saw all the memorials. From WW2, Lincoln and Korean war memorials.

We walked to the American Air and Space museum, we didn’t really bother looking at anything, we mainly went in there just for the air conditioning. After spending about an hour in the cool museum not really looking at anything.
We made our way over to the Smithsonian American history Museum and got educated on how bad the English are and how we pillaged America, most of their history is wrong.

We made our way back on the Metro and met up with Jessica for dinner, we went to classical diner called Johnny Rockets, I had a strawberry milkshake and a Smoke-house burger. Check it out!

We did our laundry American college style and just crashed out!

Quote of the day:

Yo, Paolo we did it!

Day 7,

We woke up slightly hung over from the night before, luckily I had managed to make my way into bed the night before, the bed was so comfortable I fell straight to sleep. Paolo tells me he fell asleep before he got to bed at the foot of it, fully clothed and had woke up at about 6 that morning and put himself to bed. It just shows how much we are doing here in America that we are exhausted at the end of everyday. The time was around 11am and we had to check out by 12. We washed and changed, packed and got ready to leave.
Once we had checked out we made our way into central Philadelphia. We drove along some of the best scenery so far in our trip, along the river leading through Fairmount Park. At the end of Fairmount Park was the Philadelphia Museum of Art, also known as the Rocky Steps! We dropped into full tourist mode! We didn’t care what people thought of us running up and down the steps! This was a major stop on our trip! Check out our video’s! I want to write more about it but I think the video show’s our level of excitement.

The weather was hot! No breeze and around 90degree’s farenheit, that’s about 33 degree’s in normal temperature. Yet we still decided to walk all around town. Shade was limited when we walked from the car park and we roasted! It being a Sunday there was few food places open in the financial district that we were walking around. We hadn’t eaten yet and were on the look out for food. I had read about a famous market in the area, but we simply couldn’t find it so we settled for the first deli place we found.

Every portion of food, no matter what or where you get it here is going to fill you up! We were stuffed after this meal! Sod’s law dictated that once we gave up looking for the market we would find it! It was an incredible market and it had a man vs food location in it! But we simply couldn’t fathom eating another bite! We were gutted… Here are some photo’s of the place anyways.

We did manage to squeeze in a bite of ice cream at a famous ice cream parlour called L.D. Bassett’s. I had green tea flavour and Paolo had cookies and cream with vanilla. The heat was exhausting and we had taken in all the sites in Philadelphia that we wanted so we headed back to the car and decided that we should start on our way to Washington D.C.
I drove this portion of the trip. It was a pleasant run, although we did hit the our fair share of traffic along the way, the 2 ½ hour trip took us about 3 ½ hours in the end. We played an epic game of categories, a game where you pick a category and have to name every thing in that category. So for example of some categories we had, Disney animated films (which I won, Fox and the Hound being the winning film), Cereals (which Paolo won, Apple-Jacks being the winning cereal).

We arrived in D.C. around 8pm, this time without a Police escort. People had warned us about Washington D.C. but all the areas we drove through have been incredible. We made our way up Massachusetts avenue, we were looking for American University, we passed by the embassies on our way up (the British one being the most inspiring of course). We were staying at my friend Jessica’s place who is an Resident Assistant in Lett’s hall on campus. She was kind enough to let us stay on her floor. I’ve known Jessica for about 4 years since I first went to America, but we haven’t seen each other since. She was one of my closest friends when I was here last time but we lost touch, she was the last person I saw before I headed home 4 years ago. It was amazing to see her again

For dinner we headed off campus into a neighbourhood called Friendship, it was just as idyllic as you would imagine. Paolo and I ticked off a box on our American Road trip to-do list, we went to the Cheesecake Factory! The portions here were just as big, if not bigger, than the rest of America. I had a portion of meatloaf (another thing ticked off our list) and for dessert we both had Cheesecake (of course).

We got back to American University and got ready for bed, this was the first time we were using our sleeping bags.

We went to sleep at midnight but we stayed up chatting for about 3 hours! That’s how much fun we were having hanging out with Jess, people were banging on the walls because we were laughing so much (which is ironic considering she is the RA and supposed to make sure other students are quiet)
It was a really good catch up, and a great end to another top notch day in the USA

Quote of the Day: (while heading in Washington D.C.)
Paolo: “The white house really put’s downing street to shame”
Me: “Ye it does”
Paolo: “But I bet the Council Tax is a bitch”

Cue mass mirth and merriment!

Mile’s travelled so far: 760

Goodbye New York, hello Philadelphia!

The day we leave New York. Its day 6 of our trip and its the day we took in 3 Man vs Food places in 1 day!

We woke up around 11 from having been out clubbing the night before, we had to check out by 12 so we begrudgingly started packing our stuff up. We were unsure as to exactly we had parked our car, so we wandered up about 3 or 4 streets until we found it, we weren't worried I swear!

The weather was amazing, hot, sunny and a cool gentle breeze. We headed over to Brooklyn to have lunch with my friends Steven and Johnny, we went and had a dipped sandwhich at Brennan and Carr's, this was a Man vs Food location, on that show he normally takes in meals that are massive, but I wasn't prepared for simply how good this sandwich was. It is a dipped beef sandwich, where they cook the thinly sliced beef in a secret blend of beef broth, then dip the entire sandwich back into the broth! It was incredible, and this was our lunch.

However we also knew there was another Brooklyn Man vs Food location near by and Steve said we definately had to try it out. It was Spumoni's pizza place, it's where they take a pizza and put the cheese under the sauce, so the cheese bubbles up through the sauce. This once again was just incredible, I have never had pizza like it, the base was soft and delicious and not overly cheesy and the sauce was just undescribable, both these meals were our lunch, and both of these meals were up in the top thing's I've ever eaten.

We departed from Steve and Johnny, they escorted us to the highway and we made our way to Philadelphia. This trip would have been rather uneventful if not for the fact that when we go into Phili we were pulled over by the police.
The police had followed us off the slip way and onto the 611 into Philadelphia. They followed us for about a mile before turning on their sirens and asking us to pull over. They came up along side once we had stopped and asked us for our licenses. Once they realised that we were English they lightened their tone and began asking us questions like about whether or not we had any narcotics, guns or knives on us. Then they asked me to get out of the car and (Paolo was in the drivers seat) and he wanted to see where on the rental contract it said that Paolo was allowed to drive, so I had to find it for him. He asked me if I had a body in the boot (he wasn’t kidding) and I told him no and then I asked if I minded if he looked through the car for any guns, which I didn’t mind.

It was a brilliant experience and actually ended up being a good thing because once they had finished doing their usual cop stuff, we just stood around and chatted about Philadelphia and England, one of them had a brother who worked in England and they both gave us advice on where not to go in Philadelphia. They pointed us on our way and gave us directions to our hotel. We then asked to take a photo before we left, they wouldn’t let us take a photo of them but they let us take on of their car, so here is the picture of us pulled over on the side of the road with 2 police cars on our tail!

We followed the cop’s directions to our hotel, which was the Crowne Plaza; we were staying in quite a level of comfort. Compared with the New York room this was amazing, we went to the gym and then had a good shower and clean, watched some TV then headed out to Philly for a night out. We firstly made our way to a Man vs. Food place for dinner, Jims Philly Cheese-steak. I wasn’t really hungry, but the queue was out of the building and round the corner so we joined in case I felt hungry later. I did. The smell was incredible! Unlike other fatty grease fast food joint in America this one was clean and there wasn’t that greasy feel you get from the air. The steak was fresh high quality beef that they cooked on a hot plate grill; it sat there stewing in broth that they kept pouring over it to keep it moist. I ordered a Philly cheese-steak with American cheese and cooked onions; Paolo got a Philly cheese-steak with Whiz cheese (this was the recommended combo). We shared a half each and ordered Dr.Peppers each, very American of us. It was incredible, such juicy steak and it truly hit the spot, satisfaction has never had a more fulfilling conclusion as it did after we finished our cheese-steaks, they were surprisingly light and we managed to eat them in about 4 minutes, considering we spent over an hour waiting for them. Totally worth it!

We then went for the first bar we saw, sat down inside and ordered a local beer. We sat for a bit talking about this and that. After a while we noticed that there were a lot more females in this bar than average, mostly with short hair and baseball caps… not in a good way… we looked around us and noticed that there were a lot of girls making out! It turns out that we had managed to make our way to a lesbian bar! We decided to finish our drinks and move on, once the cross dressers walked in we downed them and left!

We found our way to the other bar district and moved from bar to bar, we sat in one student bar and played word association for about an hour! By ourselves! We had to prove to about 4 people that we were really English as well, which was annoying. We eventually ended up meeting a guy called Dom who showed us around and told us were was good to go. So we went and had a brilliant time, it was full of Latino’s who were buying us drinks and were really nice. When we left this place we met Dom again by chance outside, he said that he knew were there was a good after party type bar so we got in a cab with him and went on our way. When we got there it turned out to be some kind of ping-pong club/bar where people were playing ping-pong and drinking. It was very obscure. We figured that we were too tired to continue so we made our way back to the hotel and went and had a good sleep, our beds were amazing so we had to take advantage of it because we would be spending the next week or more sleeping on floors.

Me and Paolo with Dom

Mileage count: 10,880

States travelled so far: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

Missing Quote of the Day

The missing Quote of the day for our 5th day,
it was when Paolo was buying a beer at a supermarket, and the lady looked his ID and said (as if she was catching out Paolo)
Cashier: "Erm, so what month is the 22nd?"
Paolo: "The 22nd isnt a month, its an English drivers license"
Cashier: "Oh you do it the wrong way roung"
Paolo: "No, the RIGHT way round"

Que mass hysteria from me, Paolo and 2 people behind us in the line.

Empire State of mind!

Day 5:

Early doors, we headed out of the hotel around 8am again and made our way up towards Times Square, the heart of New York, had a few photo opportunities. The senses are overwhelmed in Times Square. The flashing lights of the advertising billboards, the sounds of the people and traffic and the smell of chocolate wafting down from the Hershey’s store.

We didn’t stick around in Times Square, we headed over to find Magnolia’s Bakery, (from the Lonely Island lyric “Hit up magnolia’s and mac on some cupcakes!”) The cupcake was amazing, im not really a cupcake fan, but I wouldn’t turn down these bad boys!

One thing we hadn’t had yet was pizza in New York, so we stopped at a Paul’s pizza near central park and had a slice each, generic pizza slice, it was good but nothing to shout about. We headed into Central Park and wondered around for a while until we settled down on a patch of grass in the sun. Central Park is amazing, the weather was amazing, it all combined for a brilliantly chilled out afternoon, we spent about 3 hours just listening to some tunes on my laptop and laying about in the sun. We spent the afternoon in shot of the filming of Curb Your Enthusiasm which was being filmed right infront of us, we didn’t recognise anybody.

We made our way down 5^th avenue and all the stores, its just a bigger version of regents street. Paolo and I got to Union square and met up with friends of mine Mary and Eungee and we went to Max Brenner’s the chocolate man, it’s a dessert restaurant. The smell of chocolate was overwhelming, but not a bad kind. The menu was like pornography for chocolate lovers, we simply couldn’t decide, so we just got something which we couldn’t get back home, we had an American delicacy called Smores, where you get a marshmellow and melt it over a flame, squeeze it between two gram crackers, then pour chocolate all over it, with you choice of adding bananas or peanut butter. We made a mess…

Friday night in New York! And a big group of my Yonsei friends to spend it with! Hamidah, Marina, Zena, Esther, Clara, Steve, John, Jen and Johnny! They had come from as far as Texas, Canada, Seattle and New Jersey! I used this opportunity to introduce Paolo to Korean drinking and Soju, it was an intense drinking session, as it always is with Korean’s. We had Soju and a variety of Soju cocktails in Koreatown.

We headed clubbing, the music was great! Much better than music in clubs at home in my opinion, however the actual experience wasn’t nearly as fun as it is back home, clubbing in New York is much more pretentious than home, I think its because they simply don’t do it as much. We go clubbing from the age of 18, so clubs are much crazier. When you fill a club with a whole bunch of people over 21, its just not as wild. That being said, we had an incredible night! Seeing all my Yonsei friends was amazing! Wish I could stay with them forever.