Canada 2014 - Day 17 - Agents

We'd planned for a bit of a lie in this morning, most days over the last few weeks have been hectic or we've had to check out by a certain time or something. So today, we looked to have an easy day and had decided a lie in was in order. However, it appears we have the worlds noisiest hotel room. There are roadworks outside the window, and they work through the night here, then come rush hour the traffic just sits there blasting the horn because, well,'merica!

At breakfast Martin made himself a waffle using the machine in the kitchen, this was a disaster as he'd overfilled it plus then it fell apart, unfortunately Mark was too slow with the pic and it looked ok at this point. There was also some random dead guy lieing across one of the tables at breakfast, either he'd had a heavy night last night or the waffle mix was off...we'd find out soon enough.

We left the hotel on a 40 min walk to the park next to Brooklyn Bridge, on the way we saw some guy get knocked off his bike by an SUV at the roadworks, ge was ok, but the worker who was stood doing nothing 2 foot away continued to be helpful and do nothing as the guy attempted to drag himself and the bike out of the road. We crossed to help but he was ok by then so we left before we got sued for bring helpful.

At the park we had a great view of the Manhattan skyline and the bridge, there were lots of choppers swooping around taking people on trips. Unfortunately the jet ski tour we wanted to do wasn't running, so we carried on our walk instead.

We walked over the bridge which is just over a mile long. It's a nice bridge and really busy with hundreds of people walking over, we didn't think anyone walked in America, must be tourists :)

The bridge joined the financial district so we took in the 11/9 monument where the two towers were, it's still being worked on but they've made these two big water features where the footprint of the towers were which are a fitting tribute.

After a stroll to Wall St to try and spot some wolves we caught the subway to Time Square where it all began just over two weeks ago. Here we visited the Marvel Avengers a Museum which was pretty cool. It was interactive and we got to join S.H.I.E.L.D, play with a life size hulk hologram, fly a virtual eye tracking Iron Man suit and test our fitness against Captain America amongst other things.

On the way back to Brooklyn, Mark spotted an American sized mini which was pretty cool:

We'd decided that for our last evening meal we'd have a big steak so we found a place with an array of steaks on order, the smallest of which was a 20oz sirloin so this is what we ordered. 

It comes with a bunch of bread rolls, a large salad, veg, chips or mash and onion rings. 

How does anyone finish this? Even after cutting the fat off the steak it was bigger than my hand and an inch thick. 

Needless to say we ate what we could and felt like proper fat bastards. 

We stopped by a bar after and watched the ball game over a few beers. After an attricious  game, Seattle claimed victory over the Redskins. 

Last day tomorrow :(

Canada 2014 - Day 16 - Hello Brooklyn

Today's the last day with the car so we'd strategically chosen New a Haven as an overnight stop so that we were in reach of New York City by midday.

After a rubbish but free breakfast made up of stale bread toasted to within an inch of its life we packed up and left.

We did mess about for about an hour filming some scenes for our upcoming movie, but more about that in about a weeks time once we've had chance to edit back home. Any way some people came over to enquire what we were doing and one may have gone off to report us to the hotel manager.

So, we hit the road, and after yesterday's rainy day, today was back to lovely sunshine. The journey was quick but the traffic in Manhattan was brutal with it taking about 20 mins to move three blocks. Martin polished off the tub of cheesy crisps that were so greasy that they could have been used as a WD40 replacement:

We ditched the car back at the Hertz garage, I don't know how we made it, it sounded awful by now with something major vibrating at the back, one of the tyres had a slow puncture and if you used the aircon then there was a loud hissing noise and water leaked onto the floor. Here are the stats of our journey, just over 2000 miles and 47 hours on the road!:

We left Hertz as quickly as possible and hailed a cab to avoid taking our luggage on the subway. During the cab journey we realised that we'd left the spicy beef jerky in the car, so as well as it being about to blow up, it would stink pretty badly too.

We were stopping in Brooklyn this time rather than Manhattan as we'd pretty much done that earlier in the holiday and its hella expensive there. We arrived at the hotel but was three hours too early for checkin so we ditched the bags and left.

On the way out Mark asked the receptionist which way to go, she asked where we were going and Mark replied "I don't know". Genius. So we git directions to nowhere and headed out on foot.

We stopped at a nice cafe for lunch, and although it was American sized it was healthy for us. Marks Turkey club sandwich however had about two kilos of Turkey in it.

There was a mall down the road so we looked around there to kill some time and ended up in Best Buy drooling over 65" 4k curved TVs. 

We headed back and were allowed into four room, and as we were tired we decided to watch the F1 race. Thus wasn't easy as America doesn't do F1 so we had to download a torrent to Marks server, upload this to Dropbox and then sync it to the laptop we had with us. This took about 30 mins and we were ready to go. If you haven't seen the race then I'm about to spoil it as Hamilton gloriously beat Rosberg again in a fair fight. Just hope Bianchi survives his crash, looked nasty!

Out on the evening we went to a sports bar which had approx 400 TVs. We sat at the bar before realising that if a game is on then there is a $25 minimum order at the bar. We just ordered two drinks then ran off before anyone caught us.

We ate at a pork themed bar and Mark had the best steak sandwich ever and Martin had a pulled pork burger. Om nom nom.

After a couple more beers we had some cocktails but told the barmaid we didn't want girly ones so we ended up with whiskey based manly cocktails which blew our heads off.

Canada 2014 - Day 15 - Need a bigger boat

I'll warn you up front, not a lot happened today, it's a recovery and driving day mainly.

Saying that we started with the hotel breakfast, it wasn't free, but it was discounted. However, the pleb serving took just under an hour to get it to us. During this time we heard someone complain that it was the worst breakfast they'd had, someone else send back their food, a third table mention they'd got the wrong order and another got bored of waiting so left. Ours was good though, so, har-har.

On the road we were heading for somewhere pretty close to NYC as we had to give the car back tomorrow, so we needed somewhere within about two hours drive. We chose New Haven, never heard of it, but it was about three hours away.

As there's nothing in New Haven, we chose to detour to Martha's Vinyard which is the island where Jaws was filmed. We parked up and got the ferry over... We didn't have long so we did a quick scuba dive. Holy schmoley, check out the video from Marks action cam:

Ok, so maybe that video was taken from the aquarium yesterday, nearly had you fooled though, right? Oh ok then.

We'd heard that bigger boats were in order, so we came in this...

We didn't have long on the island as the ferries don't run that often so we had a quick look around then headed back and hit the road again.

Martin took to the wheel for a nice easy scenic coastal drive to New Haven, however, after we saw how longs hat was going to take we opted for interstate instead. This meant stressful heavy traffic, then it started to rain a lot, then it rained more. The car is properly knackered now, anything over about 40 sounds horrendous, so we kept it to a steady 70 to be safe. Oh we also had the low tyre pressure warning too, so had to refill that again too.

Once at New Haven we chilled out for half an hour before going for dinner at Five Guys, man those guys do some good burgers. Feeling suitably stuffed we went back to the hotel to research tomorrows activities back in New York.

See, told you it was a boring day!

Canada 2014 - Day 14 - Cheers

We were staying outside of Boston so today we had to commute in using trains and subways but we were fairly confident we could make this work. We had breakfast at the hotel which took a little while, so we missed the train we wanted but it was ok, we could still make the next one.

One of our original plans was to go whale watching but the sea was too rough, so we knocked that on the head and lined up a series of attractions instead.

After a mile long dash to the station we were thwarted by the fact that there wasn't a ticket booth, so we attempted to get the free train but there was a ticket guy who was happy sell us a ticket.

The train was huge, not in length but it was extra wide and two stories tall. A short 20 min journey later and we were in Boston navigating the subway.

Our first stop was Harvard where we'd lined up a tour of the campus. Our guide was a very proud sophomore student who showed us around. She knew everything there was about the place and easily batted back all of the questions the group was firing at her. Having worked at a university for twenty odd years Mark had to think of a good question so he spent half of the tour thinking of the best question possible. Then when the tour was over, he struck ruthlessly with his masterpiece, worded simply and timed perfectly "where are the good bars at?".

After being escorted off campus we went to the coast to check out the USsss Constitution.

We visited the museum and learned all about how old ironsides took down the entire British Navy, we have some problems with some of the facts and of the three boats it did sink, one was going for repairs and the other two were half its size, so we think it was a bit of a bully boat really. Our other 597 boats were busy beating up the French at the time. 

Anyway after learning some history we had a look at the boat and it's been restored to pretty good nick so kudos for that.

Anyone who has used the tube will be familiar with the eccentric types that are somehow drawn to it, like moths to a flame. In this regard the Boston underground is a true rival as we had the pleasure of seeing whether the preacher lady ( bible in one hand, baby in the other ) could defeat the irate man who was busy shouting at his phone..  It was still ongoing when we got to our station and was able to rejoin the saner world.

We had a few hours to kill so we headed to the aquarium the has recently had an $18 million refit. The entrance prices reflected this and we feel we've single handedly put them back into profit. 

It is an impressive fish tank though with lots of species, including penguins, giant turtles, sharks and sealions to name a few. Not all in the same tank though, that would end badly. 

It was time for food, so we walked across downtown to Cheers bar. It's actually two bars, the one downstairs via the famous entrance and the upstairs one which was the actual set. 

The downstairs was just closing for a private party so they wouldn't let us in, so we snuck around the back and went in via the staff entrance just in time for last orders. 

We then went upstairs for some food which were probably the best burgers of the trip so far. Plus the onion rings were amazing. 

Fully stuffed we walked to the bar area that is 'full of bars' and struggled to find one. Mind you it was still early and we settled on a quality and busy bar to have some drinks. 

Our last train home was about midnight so we started back to the station around 11:30. Along the way people chatted to us, it really is a friendly place. 

We made the Subway in time only to find that it only went one way, the wrong way, so we dashed to the next station and hastily boarded that Subway, it was going to be close. 

With two stations to go the driver stopped and told us he was terminating the train because of reasons. So we nervously waited for the next Subway train and jumped on when it finally came. 

We made it to the train station, checked the board and we'd missed the last train by 4 minutes. Oops. 

One expensive cab later and we were safely home.

Canada 2014 - Day 13 - Heading south

We were leaving the cabin today heading back into civilisation with the Boston suburbs being our destination. You see, apparently Boston us the most expensive place to stay in the US, shading NYC and LA. Prices for el cheapo rooms start at over £200 plus parking of £30 a day. No thanks. So we booked a place outside of Boston to use as a base camp and will commute in with the locals, that can't go wrong.

We checked out of the cabin and sat in the car abusing the free wifi when the maid came to clean up our place, so we thought we'd better get out of there before a Benny Hill style chase happened.

It was quite a few miles today, so we took shifts behind the wheel and munched through the miles. Around lunchtime we made it into Maine, the home of every Stephen King horror. We checked constantly for killer clowns but they were hiding particularly well.

We found a place to have lunch, there was a flag outside saying 'open', and neon light in the window saying open and a sign on the door saying open. It was closed.mso we went across the road to a bistro place and had the closest thing to a healthy lunch since we've been here. Martin was particularly impressed with the wavy toast so Mark took a pic before Martin woofed it all done.

Whilst in Maine we thought we'd check out a nearby lighthouse. We got there and immediately felt at home; we were in a place called New England, it was cold, there was some rain, we were on the Atlantic and it was a bit shit.

Mark was innocently taking pictures of the worlds dimmest lighthouse when he was attacked by killer birds (probably from some Steven King book), here's the evidence:

Back on the road we were heading down the freeway when signs came for a toll road ahead. We opted for avoiding tolls, but the new route probably cost us more in fuel than the toll would have cost, but it was a more scenic route anyway.

At the hotel we attempted to check in but the computers were broken so we had to wait a while as the staff panicked and ran around in OMG mode. We opted not to tell them what we did for a living and just made funny quips which I'm sure they appreciated. 

After checking in we nipped back to the car to get the bags and heard a fairly loud hissing noise with water pissing from somewhere near the back. We figured this may be important, worried about it for a bit, then it stopped so we figured it was maybe the aircon? Oh well, just a few hundred miles to go!

We went for something a bit different on the evening, instead of going for burgers we opted for Italian. For Mark this meant a healthy pizza, for Martin it was a bottomless pit of clam stuff. So that means for the second time this holiday we'd done a day without chips, how unimaginable.

Back at the hotel it was open mic night and most of the bands on went down the route of comedic songs that they'd written so we just had a quick drink of whatever would get us out of there quickest and called it a night.

Today is national poem day so we thought we would write a poem. 

We adlibbed this in the car and it was the greatest poem in the world, ever. However when we came to write it down, we couldn't remember the greatest poem in the world so this is just a tribute.

The rain in Maine is such a pain, it didn't fall mainly on the plain, how lame, it drove me insane, such a shame. 

Canada 2014 - Day 12 - High Life

We woke up today and hadn't been murdered despite being in a log cabin, nor had bears eaten us. We're also pleased that we didn't have food poisoning from our BBQ last night, so overall we started the day on a positive.

First up this morning was a hike up a waterfall, so we skipped breakfast and headed to Flume Gorge. Being in America there are warning signs everywhere such as 'wet rocks can be slippery', 'steps ahead' and 'don't climb over the barrier' when there is a sheer cliff the other side of the barrier. We were surprised they hadn't gone the whole hog and fitted an escalator to the top, but there was a bus that would take you half way if you wanted.

Along the way we met Mr and Mrs selfish who had the ability to walk in front of every photo you were about to take so we rushed ahead and took down the 'do not swim down the waterfall' sign. Ha, that'll show them.

We extended the walk to include a dramatic pool which was very scenic before trapsing back to the car with our calf muscles burning in pain.

Back on the road we stopped for some lunch and shortly after ordering we saw through the window that the waitress had run away. We're not sure what we said but we got our food regardless so we didn't put too much thought into it. Martin did make the school boy error of not specifying 'no cheese' on his food, so it was all cheesed up when it arrived. Even if just ordering a roll of bread or a milkshake it seems you have to specifically mention that you want it cheese less.

After lunch we went to Mount Washington which was a drive thru tour. You buy a CD and it tells you some stuff as you ascend the very steep hill. We had to keep the car in first gear the whole way to save the transmission as advised by the literature and it did indeed get pretty steep.

Occasionally we'd come by another car that was going really slowly and they'd generally pull over to let you through. After stopping part way up for some photos though Mark didn't want to risk getting stuck behind some tortoises so blocked the exit to the car park until we could escape in the lead.

During the ascent we went through the clouds which meant we couldn't see anything, and there was a cliff edge to one side, oncoming traffic and hairpin turns. Above the clouds though the views were amazing with the other mountain tops peaking through and the clouds swirling below.

At the summit we stopped off for another terabyte of photos before a steady descent back down below the clouds to tree level.

It was a fair drive back to the ranch but we were both pumped up as it was the second Intergalactic Ping Ping championship of Earth. It was a close fought final which was tied 21-21 at one point, but Martin just edged it with a jammy shot that just caught the edge of the table in true Hollywood drama.

As recommended by the woman at reception we went to the Smokehouse for dinner. Martin drove us there and missed the entrance twice but third time lucky and all that. The car park was rammed, it seems the entire population of New England was dining there.

After a short wait we were seated and it was a tough choice of what to have. Martin chose the pork medallions so Mark had a combo meal. When they arrived they were mega sized, Mark's was basically three meals in one and for the first time ever, he failed to finish. However, for the first time ever, Martin did finish, how things have changed.

After dinner we returned to the cabin to drink beers on the porch and throw empty cans at passers by whilst shouting at them to get off our land.

Canada 2014 - Day 4 - Niagra

Today is restless leg awareness day (and also September Equinox)

We woke up early again, in fact technically Mark woke himself up with excessive snoring, Martin confirmed this, we put it down to the aircon.

We're in the town with no name, which is still as dead and empty as it was at night. We left during rush hour heading the nearest IHOP and promptly doubled the amount of traffic on the roads, seriously there is no one here.

Tom at IHOP wished us a happy day many many annoying times, he was super polite and does that 'you're welcome' thing after every 'thank you'. Sticking with the theme of the holiday, IHOP didn't have any wifi, so we planned the route using the sun and trigonometry which determined that the i90 would take us all the way to Niagra Falls.

It turns out that 'freeway' in a blatant marketing lie as it was everything other than free. Toll road would have been a more accurate description. However £5 to drive 4 hours worth wasn't bad value.

During a standard rest break we discovered an information booth about Niagra, here we purchased what we hope were discounted tickets for an evening tour of those little water falls that they have in Niagra.

With no further delays we descended upon the American side of the falls hoping to locate the Cave of the Winds, and we're now going to avoid all flatulence jokes about the Cave of the Winds.

It turns out the Cave of the Winds is no longer a cave but is indeed an outdoor shower 180 foot below the top of the fall. You get pretty bloody wet here, thank god for the ill fitting ponchos and dodgy sandles we were given.

Tim chose this moment to call Mark to tell him that he'd sold his motorbike which was great news, and as if the deafening noise of the falls didn't make it hard enough to hear, a helicopter went past at that moment too.

Finally we decided to depart the US of A and join Canada, eh.

The hotel was easy to find, eh, and was in a surprisingly good location, eh.

We'd timed this perfectly as the evening tour was about to collect us for our four hour trip. Eh.

The trip involved various locations along the river near to the falls before descending into the tunnels that run behind the falls, eh. Here there were some observation decks that gave you an even more powerful shower, eh. Mark did his Mario Balatelli impression here, and couldn't get his bib/poncho on, so it ended up being ripped and giving about as much protection as wearing a paper hat in the shower.

We then went to see some stupid clock that didn't clock that didn't work as the power stations at night and ending up in the Skylon tower tower some 500 foot in the air overlooking the falls at night which were now illuminating, eh.

Over the course of the tour we were talking to some yankees, the lady was a professional photographer and so had spent most the the tour tutting and then showing Martin how to take photographs. Mark spoke to the bloke who had a Harley dealership, so Mark had to bite his tongue a lot and not take the piss.

At the end of the tour we went back to the hotel and got changed before heading out for a steak. 

We'd chosen a 9th floor restaurant overlooking the falls, but they sat us at the back where we could barely even see a window. 

After sitting for 15 mins, no one had even taken our drinks order when finally someone came to ask why we were sat in the closed part of the restaurant. After explaining the lady embarrassingly moved us to a vertigo inducing  window seat where we had two 12oz killer steaks. 

Following dinner we were knackered so returned to the hotel for a kip as we had a busy day ahead. 

Canada 2014 - Day 3 - Monday

Today is international eat white chocolate day.

Whilst the beds are the most comfortable things ever we still wake up at stupid'o'clock in the morning so we have more time to kill than we planned. Today we pick up the car and start our journey north but that's not until lunchtime so we pack the cases (throw stuff in really) and head out towards Grand Central Terminus to see some more sights. 

We arrive at rush hour, about 8:30 and the station is immediately familiar as it's been in lots of movies be it the police station from Bladerunner or used by a flash mob on YouTube.

We haven't eaten a ton of food for at least four hours so we went for some breakfast. True to form they didn't have wifi, what is it with this place, people either want £20 for it, don't have it or its so slow it's measured in bits per minute.

Anyway, the breakfast was good so we headed back to Time Square as we hadn't done a walk for a while and thought we'd get a milkshake from McDs and abuse their wifi. Unfortunately McDs refused to sell us a shake as it was too early, fries they can serve, beer, maybe, but no shake; company policy. We abused the wifi anyway, caching the maps for the next leg of the trip and booking the hotel for the night.

We packed and left the hotel and trundled our cases around ten blocks to the car hire place. Along the way some shouty nutter bloke walked behind us shouting non-words, a bit like the piss head vicor from Father Ted.

Our car looked pretty good, it's a seven seater Ford Explorer (we think) , that is loaded with tech such as rear view night vision cameras, satnav, media centre, etc. now it was just a case of navigating out of Manhattan. This wasn't too hard although once we came out of the tunnel under the Hudson River the satnav woman had a spaz attack and for all we knew we were now in California.

We also developed an interesting noise in the car, from the rear left tyre there is a banging noise once you're above 40mph that is quite loud and blatantly not right. We tried higher speeds and it didn't go away, so Mark tried swerving the car around and that didn't fix it too. It's. Good job we didn't take out that extra breakdown cover or anything...

A few minutes later just as we're getting onto the correct road the dashboard starts going crazy telling us we have very low tyre pressures, oh good. So we find a nice safe abandoned industrial place to pull over in to investigate. Despite building a car back home Marks mechanical skills are not exactly great, Martin is up on the theory of mechanics so after a good discussion we decided that maybe air is required for the wheel thing.

A garage was close by so we checked the pressures, one was about 5 psi down but other than that everything was good. From working in IT we both have excellent problem solving skills so we switched the car off and on again and drove off hoping the problem would fix itself which amazingly it did. The loud banging noise however is still there (if you corner really hard, you can change the pitch of it). Our final move to fix the banging noise was to use the phone, so we plugged that into the media centre, put some tunes on, turned the volume up, job done.

A couple of hours in to the journey we saw a sign for a Walmart so we left the highway and followed the directions only to find they were lying about a Walmart being there, but we found a Target instead. No idea what target sold so we're pleased to find they did sell crisps (in typically small containers) which was what was required.

We stocked up on various car snacks and went to work modifying the Ford with Union Jack stickers. After that we needed to try out some stunt driving in the car so we practiced doing hand brake turns in the car park which were mildly successful despite leaving the Traction control on, and the handbrake being foot controlled.

Our destination was Cooperstown, a proper little town up north, and the place we were kipping for the night was only about 20mins up the road from that. We had aimed to be in Cooperstown for 5pm and with some spirited driving over the last 15mins of the drive we got there at 5:01, not bad.

It turns out that Cooperstown isn't that great unless you're looking for a town where every shop, bar and restaurant is closed, and all of the shops just sell baseball memorabilia. I kid you not, there must be a dozen baseball shops here just for buying baseball cards. Heaven forbid someone opening an ice cream shop or something. 

We hightailed it out of Cooperstown and went to the place we can't remember the name of where we're staying the night. We found the motel easily in all of its 60s glory but Mark thought the office was closed as the door was all locked up until Martin pointed out that that was the Real Estate place next door.

After checking in we looked around nameless town (no sign of Bono or the edge) and this place too was also closed up so we went back the way we came and stopped at a lakeside restaurant to grab an evening meal. It was all home cooked stuff and was bloody gorgeous, definitely the best meal so far. In American tradition it was also ridiculously large so we were both stuffed again.

We were tired now so opted for an early night (not that there were any bars open in namelessville). So we went back to the motel to make good on it being International eat white chocolate day.

Canada - Day 1 - Here we go again...

It's holiday time again, and this time Martin and Mark are heading back to the US of A.  We're flying into New York, staying there for a few days before picking up some wheels and heading into Canadia before looping back down the east coast and returning to the Big Apple.

Mark lost the coin toss so he had the joy of driving to Heathrow. The trip there was uneventful, but we made it within two minutes of the scheduled time, our ability to plan is getting better, it won't last.

Security was tight, we think maybe the fact that we're flying with Kuwait Air is going to make the yanks a little suspicious of us. Mark was pulled up at security and given a thorough search, it wasn't quite rubber glove time but he was glad he was wearing clean pants!

The plane was delayed over an hour as the connecting flight was late in, probably had to detour from the AAA fire on the way out of Kuwait.

We got talking to an American girl who had just finished a masters in classical acting or some shit and had to learn the complete works of Shakespeare by the time the flight landed. Good luck with that love, personally I'd rather swim there than that.

Once on the plane we realised that it was actually 30 years late as it was a little on the old side with crackling CRT screens, ashtrays and a safety video in black and white accompanied by a piano soundtrack. There was lots of legroom though so we were happy. Martin had the aisle seat, Mark in the middle and a crazy Kuwaity gypo woman had the window seat.

The in flight meal was interesting, Mark's salad had an interesting extra on top of it that looked a little bit like someone had taken a massive poo on it, best give that a miss. Mark offered it to the gypo but even she looked disgusted by it.

After food we went hunting for better seats as Mark's seat was designed to give lumber support to Steven Hawking. We found a spare long leg room seat so took that over and tried to get some shut eye.

That didn't happen so we whiled away the hours until we finally started our approach to JFK airport. Instead of coming straight in, the pilot tried to write his name on the TV screens by flying the plane a stupid route, good work Captain Nsuplll.

Today is national eat an apple day.  Since we had already promised customs we were not bringing any fruit into the big Apple we fulfilled our obligation and ate a small apple before passport control.

We now just had the dreaded customs people to get past, the face of America, yet the most miserable people on earth. For once however there was next to no queue and we flew through, so now we're safe to publish the blog without the NSA kicking us out.  NO YOU ARE NOT - NSA.

We headed for the taxi rank and found the obligatory yellow cab to take us to Times Square, it was now 9pm local time and traffic was a bitch. Our driver was a little on the impatient side and Mark missed the ability to filter through traffic as it took about 90 mins to get there.

Once in we checked in and went to our 37th story room, wow, what a view. We over look Times Square in all it's glory from way up high. It was quite mesmerising but we soon had the urge to have beer as per the first night on holiday rules.

It was busy out with the hustle bustle of the city and wondered around in awe of the crazy large buildings and we went to a few bars to toast our arrival.

At midnight some places started to close but the bar man told us some cool places to try as we'd been mainly sticking to the tourist bars.

We found this little pokey bar stuffed with boxing memorabilia and had a few more beers whist discussing who was the best boxer, although as the bar was about the size of a matchbox, it wasn't the most comfortable place.

We then moved on to a bar down the road where we had a little more room and found that the kitchen was still open at 1:30 am. Result. We switched to spirits and ordered some wings and burgers whist trying the vast array of vodkas and Jack Daniels they had on offer. There's no weights and measures act here so the more you tip, the stronger your next drink.
At about 3 am we stumbled back to the hotel room and worked out that it was 8am back home, it had been a long day!

Photos to come later as New York doesn't want us to have wifi.

Canada 2014 - Day 5 - Speed IV

There's a lot to do in Niagra so we opted to stay another night. This should be easy with the hotel just saying ok and taking our money but instead they wanted to charge us a fortune so whilst arguing with them we got the iPad out at reception and booked online for half the price. Ridiculous. One bonus however was that the receptionist liked Mark's "bad mother fucker" wallet and gave us free parking.

It was then waffle time so we went to IHOP again, which wasn't hard as every 3rd building is an IHOP here. We put fruit syrup on our waffles in an attempt to make them healthy and then didn't feel guilty about consuming the fried bacon, eggs and giant waffles.

Following breakie we went back to Skylon tower as we had free tickets for a return day time visit. The views are still impressive, Mark thinks Tommo would be proud of the number of pano's he's taken.

We then walked around the edge of the falls and got rained on by the spray as the wind changed direction to follow us wherever we went. There is a shipwreck at the top of the falls which has been there nearly 100 years which makes it just about the oldest thing in North America apart from Joan Rivers (too soon?).

We were attacked by chipmunks.

We had a special event lined up for the afternoon, jet boating. 1500 up of goodness which would take us up the Rapids and into a whirlpool.

We got there early and were soon joined by a million Japanese tourists who seemed to have a waterproof outfit fascination as some wore four layers.

We boarded the boat and managed to get a front seat, the tour guide told us we were a little suicidal, but how often do you get to go on a jet boat, right? We set out and after a few minutes we were flying up the river at ridiculous speeds before doing the boat equivalent of hand brake turns.

After that we negotiated some class 5 Rapids which were pretty fierce. The Rapids were called Devils Hole and after going through we'd have been drier if we'd jumped in the river. Martin was told off by the tour guide for trying to ride them one handed like he was riding a bull and then also told off by the lady behind him for not blocking enough of the water that got thrown into her face.

We then arrived at the whirlpool which wasn't so impressive to look at but it had quite a current and could hold you underwater for about a week so we opted not to swim there.

We headed back then, going faster this time as we were going down river and changed into some dry clothes.

On the route back to the hotel, the satnav took us the oddest route via every roadworks in Canadia and we were told off once again for speeding through the off-road section of these.

After a quick break, we heading to the karting place, it was a long circuit but we only had nine laps no were given 9 tickets, the guy only took one ticket off us so we were a bit confused, anyway.

Back home when you go karting you have a 15 min safety briefing, a full face helmet and strict marshals. Here thre was no briefing, a tin foil open faced helmet and the marshals went for a pint. The cars were actual formula one cars, we know this as they had Formula 1 written on the side, and there's no way Bernie would allow this if it wasn't true. We were on track with 7 Americans and promptly opened a six pack of whoop ass on them. By the end of5 the he first lap we'd overtaken about five when the race came to a halt. It turns out that you have to stop each lap to hand over one if your tickets. Odd.

Anyway, we carried on and decimated the rest of the field as I don't think they knew how to turn right before today. Mark was sure to use the full bumpers on the car and rammed one guy so hard that fuel came flying out.

Patter karting we went out for dinner, we had a voucher for TGI Fridays so went there and had some awesome chicken followed by a burger. Om nom nom. Mark then forgot to use the voucher so we had to do some tricks which involved tip fraud and lots of running.

The waiter had given us directions to where the good bars were and we completely failed to find them. So we found a bar which had a live singer covering the Eagles worst hits. We would have said something but we wasn't sure if the singer was male or female.

We may have accidently offended the barmaid is this place by politely asking where the good bars were but she was a good egg and put us right.

We still failed to find the good bars but instead found a street full of Alton towers style fun things like ghost rides and arcades.

We had a couple more drinks in a place overlooking this street and had a very hyper waitress serve us who must have spent most of the night snorting speed prior to our arrival.

Tomorrow is the 100th blog entry, we're not sure how to celebrate this yet, maybe we'll buy ourselves a jet boat.

Canada 2014 - Day 6 - Thursday

Today is International Ataxia awareness day, we didn't know what Ataxia was so we looked it up and now know what it is. Job done.

We started the day with an all you can eat buffet breakfast and promptly doubled our waistline, let's just say that it wasn't the most healthy breakfast. At one point Mark made a bacon sandwich by substituting the bread out for more bacon.

With breakie out of the way we started heading north to Toronto which is just the other side of a lake, however that lake is larger than the English Channel. We stopped off at a town called Hamilton, the self proclaimed "waterfall capital of the world". Now I don't want to be picky, but with Niagra 30mins down the road, that's quite a bold statement.

There's a place in Hamilton called Devils Punchbowl, it houses the third highest waterfall in the town, but is meant to be the best. We rocked up there to find that the waterfall had dried up for the summer, not looking so good for your claim now is it Hamilton.

Some Americans stopped us while we were there to ask us for directions to a trail, being the only Americans to leave their country we took pity on them and sent them in a random direction then promptly found the trail they were looking for which didn't look that good so we didn't feel too guilty.

We pushed on to Toronto via a 50 lane motorway and got there in just under an hour. The car still sounds like the rear axle is about to fall off but we're over that now.

Due to cost reasons we're staying a little outside Toronto centre so to get to downtown we had to get a taxi, a train and two subway trains. Amazingly this was really easy , you just buy one £2 ticket and you're good. Back home I couldn't get a bus to the end of the road for that, and it would be late, and shit, and you'd have to sit in someone's piss.

Given the general theme of the trip so far has been getting soaked and visiting high viewing platforms it seemed rude not to visit the CN Tower. This place is pretty tall, being the heighest observation deck in the Western Hemisphere at approx half again the height of the Eiffel Tower.

The elevator up had a glass floor which was a little spooky and vertigo enduring but it took less than a minute to reach the top so it wasn't too bad.

The viewing gallery was fairly empty and we had a good 20mins until sunset. Looking down there was a small air port to watch and directly below was a baseball game you could watch. This was particularly good on the glass floor section of the tower which gave a really unique view of the game.

We then upgraded and went another 100 meters up to the sky pod, a much smaller but awesome viewing deck.

From here we watched the sunset and the lights come on across Toronto. Martin took approx 2 terabytes of photos before we decided it was time to leave.

Back down at ground level we found a block of restaurants and indecisively picked one with a nice outdoor dining area as it was still warm. The waitress was about as miserable as it gets and was really only interested in talking to her friends. We sampled a few local beers here before making the journey back to our digs.

After the various trains and subways we opted to walk the few miles back to the hotel. It took about 40 mins and it was a warm night so it wasn't too bad despite having to play frogged across a 10 lane road, a section without pavements and a trip down a grass bank to cut across a car park. All in all we're pretty sure we're the only people to ever make that particular journey!

Canada 2014 - Day 11 - Cabin in the Woods

We're due to leave Montreal today so it was our last day in the hotel that doesn't let us use the front door. We had breakfast in our room again, and when the guy arrived with our food Mark opened the door to take it off him and the guy just burst out laughing and walked off. How rude!

We hit the road and to spite the hoteliers we burst out of the front door, we'll show them. On the road it was boring roads while we fought our way out of Montreal but soon opened up into vast countryside.

The scenery is amazing here with trees showing off a plethora of colours and hills breaching the cloud layer. We ate up the miles over a couple of hours until we approached the US border.

We were intending to cross the border this time so we had our passports ready. They gave us a bit of a grilling asking many questions, so we're pretty sure they have enough info to access our online banking now, but they let us back in so that's ok.

We had a healthy lunch comprising of crisps and sweets which kept us going until we hit the White Mountain National Forest, our destination for the day. The satnav had a spaz attack so we had to find the address manually which was surprisingly easy. 

We're stopping at a cottage in the woods which sounds more remote than it is. There are about a dozen cottages in the resort but we've yet to see anyone else so they're either waiting to murder us or they've been eaten by bears.

We thought we'd get a quick activity in before dinner so drove to the 1100 meter zip line that lets you get up to speeds of 65mph. Unfortunately this place was closed which was mildly annoying, so we went back to the cabin.

We opted for a BBQ tonight so went to the store and stocked up on stuff to mafke a fire and some noms to eat. It was only when we got back to the cottage that we found we didn't actually have a BBQ so we stole one from our neighbours.

Martin hasn't lit a BBQ for about 15 years so it was up to Mark to get the thing going. Now normally when Mark has a BBQ either Tim or Spenno are around so it involves petrol and fuses and stuff. This time however we had briquettes and fire lighters designed for wood, so not ideal. Eventually we got it going though and smoked out the other cabins.

While we were waiting for the flames to die down we made use of our neighbours ping pong table to host the first international world ping table pong tennis tournament of the globe. Martin won both finals, Mark suspected him if cheating as he had thus ability to be able to hit the ball and it could land on the table.

Once the fire died down we put the food on and it promptly nuked it impressively well. The burgers were cooked to perfection, the chicken a little burned but good, and the bacon cooked in seconds.

We followed up the main course by cooking some popcorn which had the strict instructions of "do not cook over a BBQ". Of course we ignored this and did it any way and it all turned out ok, no children were harmed or anything.

We then sat on the porch like a pair of hillbillies listening out for the sound of duelling banjos.

The strange thing is that we have free wifi in the cabin and it's the fastest we've experienced so far despite being in the middle of a forest about 2 hours from a major city.

Ninja edit: whilst typing this Martin was importing today's photos to the laptop and Mark was typing on the iPad when a spider landed about 3 inches from Mark ("it was fucking massive"-Mark) who then lept backwards and kicked it which knocked the laptop flying but Martin managed to catch it. So it was a happy ending for all, except the spider.

Canada 2014 - Day 10 - Formula 1

We had free breakfast at the hotel with no front door, so we went downstairs and they shouted at us to go back up and they'd bring it to us. Breakfast consisted on a piece of toast and a croissant each and Martin's tea was basically hot water. The shower is about as effective as the wifi, both of which can be described by the word 'dribble'.

Despite Mark wearing new trainers and Martin's ankle still broken from when he jumped down some stairs a few says should we decided to walk the 27 minutes to the Planterium. After about 25 mins walking we checked the map to find we'd gone in completely the wrong direction, so we turned around and somehow took an even longer route back to the hotel. At least we knew where we were now so we took the 27 min route. Eventually we found the place, so all in all, it took about 90 mins of walking and  our feet were now ruined.

It was closed. It had been closed since 2011 so Mark went off to find something to kick while Martin translated the French which said it had moved to another part of the city. In fact it had been moved to hear where we'd gone earlier in the day when we took the wrong route. Back to the hotel!

Some googling showed that even the new place was closed on Mondays anyway so we looked for something else to do. The Giles Villeneurve museum was always on the cards so we opted to go there instead, this time in the car. So we left the hotel via the fire escape and headed over to the nearby island that it was on.

We couldn't find the museum, but we were on the island that the F1 circuit was on so we looked to find that. Embarrassingly it turns out that we were on it already! The circuit is completely open o you can drive around it at will. It's decided up for cyclists and cars but other than the 30kph speed limit, there were no restrictions.

We spent a fair bit of time driving around and seeing the wall of champions, the corner where Kubica had his big crash. The bit where Rosberg forced Lewis wide and so on. I. The pits we climbed onto the podium and even on to the gantry above the start finish line where the chequered flag is waved. We were amazed it was this accessible, but the most amazing thing was that there were only about three other cars doing the same.

We found some Boris bikes for hire, there were only two left which was perfect, but one was broken, so we hired the working one and took it in turns cycling around the circuit wi the other person driving alongside mocking them.

Eventually it was time to leave and I will admit that we may have accidentally broken the 30kph speed limit while taking a lot of kerb through Corn Senna.

Back at the hotel we had a rest to get ready for an evening out. Although we'd already walked further than the Proclaimers we decided to walk downtown, a route we now knew well from our trek to the planetarium.

We found a proper American finer so stopped there for food and a milkshake even thicker than Rooney. Martin ordered a burger and Mark went for chicken and ribs. When the food turned up, the burger was so large that Scooby Doo would have had trouble eating it and Marks combo was basically two meals! We couldn't even get them both in shot for a photo.

Following that we rolled next door to a real American bar with a Cheers style bar in the middle, lots of TVs for sportage and plenty of beer. After the large meal, we opted for just the one pint as you can see in the picture below.

It turns out that we're not good for the local teams. Last night the Canadians lost at hockey and tonight the Patriots got thrashed at hand egg. The barmaid also told us off for scaring off all her customers so we did one...

Canada 2014 - Day 9 - Borders

Sunday morning and we're in the middle of nowhere. Today we're due to finish up in Montreal which is about three hours away.

We had free breakfast where there was a waffle making machine. We both had a go on this and despite the staff looking on nervously they both came out ok. We drowned them in maple syrup just to be sure. A wasp landed in Marks OJ so he trapped in in there with a napkin and went and got another. This trap was explained to Martin who didn't believe it, so Mark emptied out the OJ and the wasp had indeed escaped using some Houdini magic.

We hit the road and again programmed the satnav to avoid freeways, this took us over an impressive bridge and we were so busy looking at the views we didn't realise we were heading for the US border crossing. Not wanting to return to the US just yet we turned the car around just before the border which in no way ever would arouse suspicion.

Back over the other side of the bridge we realised that we now had to face Canadian customs, ven though we'd not come from the US. This would take some explaining. We stopped just short of the guard post so that Martin could get his passport out of his suitcase but as he got out the the car we heard shouts like "sir, get back in your car" as the armed security lady hastily headed towards us with her hand nearing her gun. Mark was tempted to lock the doors at this stage but thought it best to let Martin back in. 

We were then summoned to the guard post and interrogated and they found the whole thing quite amusing, I'm sure when we left they had a good chuckle about us stupid Limeys. The satnav wasn't having it though and for the next 10 minutes it kept telling us to turn around and go back over the border, stupid thing!

We had a quick food stop at a subway to refuel and then gunned it to Montreal. We couldn't check in until later in the day so we found an indoor karting track to while away some hours. In the car park was a Ferrari Scuderia, a GT40 and an F-Type convertible, so we were in for some competition.

After a short wait, we were let onto the track, again with no safety briefing. The guy running the circuit looked a bit like Valentini Rossi so we gave him some stick. The first session was traffic heavy with kids on track at the same time, so getting clean laps was tough. Martin got the overall best time and made Mark post the pic below as evidence.

The second session was adults only and was much faster with us both improving our times a lot. This was until Rossi joined us on track in his own kart and destroyed us by about 2 secs per lap. Well played that man. His overtake on Martin was particularly impressive as he slid his kart sideways through the hairpin knocking Martin out of the way before disappearing into to horizon.

We found the hotel quite easily via a giant ridiculously busy park. We checked in with the Chinese family who run it and then had to take the car around back to park it. Instead of letting us take our luggage in through the front, we had to somehow carry it up the tire escape at the back. In fact it turns out they don't like us using the front door at all and keep pushing us out of the fire escape from the second floor. Weirdest hotel ever. Oh and ou bathroom stinks a lot and this is before we've even had a go in it!

Following our lack of success in Toronto of finding the right bar areas we'd done our research about Montreal. It was about a fifteen minute walk before we found life in a vibrant Chinatown area. We passed on this and tried to find somewhere to eat but our research had lied to us, although we did find the porn district which had sex shops, lap dancing clubs and even a topless theatre. We moved on.

Eventually we found a place and sat down to eat while watching the hockey game, the food was good and the free wifi told us of another bar area about a 30 min walk away. So after the food we went there. It turns out that bar areas in North America consist of 2 bars that have people in them and another 2 empty bars.

One of these bars was heaving with trendy 22 year olds dressed up to the nines, while walking past the word 'like' was heard 57 times. I was like really like annoying like. So we like headed to like at other bar that like had some people in like like.

It was an Irish bar, joy! We had a few drinks anyway whilst sat on the most uncomfortable bar stools ever that had been polished so much that NASA must have been involved in the designs. It got better though when the live acoustic guitarist came on and sang some Bryan Adams classics.

Today is International Drink Beer day though, so we successfully achieved that.

Canada 2014 - Day 8 - Long drive

We're way behind in writing this blog, it's currently Monday and we're just writing up Saturday from our notes. The reasons for this is firstly lack of time, secondly because wifi in North America is about as fast as Steven Hawking taking the stairs to the top of the Empire State and thirdly because Mark doesn't have Tim saying "have you done the blog yet?" Every 10 mins.

Anyway, we carried on our theme of free breakfasts today which serves two purposes of saving us lots of cash but also our waistline. Although saying that, Mark managed to still make a killer sausage sandwich much to the dismay of everyone else in the restaurant as he used up all the sausages.

Following breakie we left for Montreal which is quite a drive. We stopped at the mall on the way (Canada's 3rd largest), both humming 'lets go to the mall' by Robin Scherbatski from How I Met Your Mother (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TP1xlmpNgIo).

Whilst taking advantage of cheap trainers available in Canadia one of the guys there admitted he was a Man Utd fan, so we did the honourable thing and gave him some shit. Mark however had to admit to being a Birmingham fan and it turns out the guy who works in Footlocker was part of the team that played blues in their pre-season matches. That's how good BCFC are, we warm up for the Championship by playing random sales people from a country that can't even get the name of the sport right.

During the long drive we discussed deep important topics such as which female action hero would win a fight (turns out it was Buffy, but The Bride, Hit Girl and Selene were pretty close too).

We stopped at the beach for a break, on the entrance there was a checkpoint where they search your car, but Martin was driving and didn't realise this so he just drove through and waved at them. We stretched our legs for a bit. On the path there was a huge caterpillar and Martin conducted an experiment to see how big of a mound can climb before it struggles. With his cruel streak over we carried on. On our way out the security gate was in chaos with a massive tailback of cars queuing to get through, it seems we must have woken them up.

We opted to stay off the freeways, partly to make the journey more interesting and partly so that it would be harder for the security forces to locate us. One more brief stop was necessary to make use of McDs free wifi before we arrived in Brockville, part of the gorgeous 1000 island area.

We were stopping at a cheap Super 8 motel which was actually the biggest room yet with a great shower and another free breakfast. Win.

Brockville is a small town but we found a nice homely restaurant for dinner. The waitress gave us our drinks then accidentally spilled Mark's everywhere and as the place was so busy she didn't have time to clean it up properly. She came back 5 mins later with two drinks and slipped on the wet floor throwing those everywhere too. Of course we didn't laugh or say anything. 

After a very nice meal we headed back to the motel to plan the next few days of the trip. Montreal next, skip Quebec, then the middle of nowhere before Boston and back to New York!