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.