Its thursday now so there would be a lot to catch up on if it wasn't for that stupid international date line! Instead there are only a few days of crazy mayhem to catch up on. When we got back from Universal the Canadians were long gone without even a farewell. Henry was particularly heart broken about this....... not. They did however leave us a parting gift of 12 beers, however i wasn't feeling it so Henry started drinking on his own. With no Londoners, Germans or Canadians to drink with it was an anti-climax of a last night if ever there was one. The next day we had to occupy ourselves until the shuttle arrived at 5.30 to tak us to the airport so off we went to the grove to have a look see, and to the shopping centre to buy Henry some razors. That did'nt take much time but we survived until the shuttle came. We still had 7 beers left so we gave them away for free at the hostel. We jumped on the shuttle heading for Fiji looking frwards to our next destination.
The 10hour 45 minute plane journey went by very fast as we slept almost the whole way. Arriving in Fiji this morning at 5.15 local time. We headed straight for the duty free shop where we purchased copious amounts of alcoholall for the low low price of 28 pounds. No id was needed, bulaaaaaaa FIJI. Got to the hostel dumped our luggage in storage and went for a swim to watch the sun rise behind the mountains perfect. While we were swimming we met Johnny the tree climbing, fruit slicing, tooth missing nice guy who let us have some of his fruit which had a lovely juice inside of it and then you could eat the inner layer as well.delicious. Now we've booked our first night on the islands. Our first stop is Nabua Hostel at the northern yipn if the Yasawa islands. I'm pretty sure they don't have tinternet up there so this may be the last you hear from us for three weeks. Rest assured we will be having a phantasmogorical time! So goodbye and vinaka for follwing us faithfully the whole way.




Also who's Gary Glitter...... bit weird.... we think its Jack.

Sunday

Good evening. It's Henry this time so i apologize for any misspellings in advance.

After two days of 'craziness' we woke up too early and felt pretty rubbish. Hopped on a bus to santa monica overdressed for the weather and then trekked the rest of the way to Venice which was even more wonderful and wacky than the last time we were here. It's like the center of counter culture. You've got to wonder about the story behind some of these people. A 70 year old man rode past us on a giant, colourful, tricycle that seemed to have all his wordly posessions balanced on top of it pumping loud music from some oversized speakers on the back.

Billy had ice-cream for lunch and i drank something which contained 500% of my daily allowance of vitamin C (is that bad?) and then we bought skateboards...... really. Best decision we've ever made. Skated home (with a bus in the middle) and then just had a lazy sunday afternoon and evening.

Monday

Universal studios day. The shuttle bus that was supposed to be taking us there didnt happen so we took the bus and the metro with two pleasant Australian fellows who it turned out were in rugby leauge or some such other thing. Cool. Today we managed to underdress, were really getting good at dressing inappropriately. House of horrors first which put us on edge for the rest of the day. Then the animal actors show with some far too chirpy hosts but some interesting animals. Then cancerous (it really was, a sign warned us behind the counter) overpriced lunch. Then Shrek 4D. 4D is 3D is where they blow wind on your feet and the chair in front spits at you. Still, quite fun. The Jurrasic park ride got us soaked, which only exacerbated the underdressing and the mummy ride was exhilerating and disorientating. We saw a special effects show with some bad jokes and a pyrotechnics display which was...... warm.

Now back at the hostel, all previos acquaintances gone waiting for steve the chefs $5 special which for once isn't cheeseburgers, chips and salad.

Just gone 1 o'clock in the morning, tonight was fun, many free beers, stole the free punch holder thingy. That was fun. Danced. A lot. Played a few drinking games. Canada Girl called Emily, is actually amazing! Play waterfall with beer, you end up drinking for about 15 seconds at a time. She was drinking vodka instead of beer. What. A. Trooper. She easily polished off a bottle before she left for the club. I'm gonna have to go Canada some time soon. Canada Girl Sarah, who has three dimples, well isn't she just HIlarious. Henry was talking with German girls, they all tied grass round their fingers and called themselves married. Met Heathrow girl called Jenna i think, she and German girls got beef for some reason. Met a new guy from London whos 23. Said he'll buy us beers for the rest of our time here. Win. Byeeeeee

Yesterday was amazing!

To start off we went to Venice Beach yesterday. Got a lift off some guys from the hostel who were also going there. We went with Dane and Brian again, this time we started at the other end of the board walk near the venice pier. There went to the Arbor shop, and muscle beach. We fitted right in. The best part though was the skate park, that place was sooooo cool. Saw these little kids all padded up doing tricks in the bowl, they couldn't have been older than 11. There were also the freaks along the board walk such as 'The worlds greatest wineo"! And the medical kush shops, that was such a farce, they were advertising on the pavements all you did was go in, complain about something and they'd give you a certificate which made it legal for you to buy marijuana off them!! Got lunch again then got the bus back, we missed it by 2 seconds at the stop so had to wait at least a half hour for the next one. On the way back we stopped at the off-licence and Dane and Brian went in and purchased us some bieres. 24 cans between 4 of us should be alright, right? wrong. It did'nt take us long to go through them, the only thing slowing us down were the cards and the challenge to me that i couldn't fit the whole burger in my mouth. I won that one. A series of funny events ensued including my attempt to formulate the word five with a mouth full of beer, came out more as a gargle. We managed to convince some German girls who were drinking with us that we were Jamie T by the plain fact that we sang every word to "If You've Got The Money". Genius. We then managed to swindle some more beers from a group of Canadian girls who were going on a liquor run. This night is only sinking lower into oblivion. We then took the party downstairs to the 'Party Room'. Played lots of music memorable moments being me on top of a table singing to Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' and the native Novoscocia music being played by the Canadians. Got to sleep around 3.30 due to a variety of reasons. Woke up at 6, splitting headache, dry mouth. I am an unhappy person. Eventually after downing a few cokes I'm back to my usual bubbly self, and Henry's woken up. We may have annoyed a few people in our room that night. Today we made a few trips to the post office, there should be a parcel arriving at the Williams house in a week or so. Tonight theres free beer and punch at a hostel just down the road from us so crash that party, the good thing is if you just say you're 21 they believe you straight away, hello underage drinking. More posts soon hopefully! Byeeeee

Yesterday we did the Hollywood walk of fame thing, got a bus to Hollywood boulevard and walked up and down there for a while. Got lunch at a Old American Diner, quite nice, ate too much felt pretty sick after.standard meal really. We went to a hostel event at night, twas a Karaoke at the other Banana Bungalow Hostel in Hollywood, that thing was rubbish, however there was free food and drink, hot dogs were good but I didn't drnk anything. There was some appalling singing none from us luckily. We met up with a girl from our hostel we called Brazil (she's from Brazil) Henry an the two other guys were drinking champagne after the free keg ran out. They were pretty lairy, we got taxi back around 12. Woke up this morning due to some stupid person in my dorm not turning her alarm off for five minutes, so annoying! Today we went down to Venice Beach/Santa Monica. Exactly as I remembered with the incredible swinging bars thing still up and running. Went to Hooters for lunch the food there wasn't particularly good, nawt special. After that we got bus back to hostel where I'm now writing this. Henry's gonna try and sweet talk Brazil into lending us her laptop so I can start putting some photos up soon, byeeeeee.

Wow......
Last night was incredible.
It all started when we met some guys from London. Both 21 on their last stop after their round-the-world trip. Both nice guys, so last night they bought us all some beers from the shop down the road...... and thats how the night started. We began with just drinking the beer watching TV at our own hostel but swiftly got bored and moved on to the next hostel down the road called Orbit Hostel. Here we really started drinking . Playing some Southern game i'd never played before and a bit of ring of fire. Games i'd never expected to play while in the USA! We left the hostel at around 11 and caught a cab down to the Sunset Strip.......I think, not entirely sure. Went to a place called Roxy, didn't get id'd at all just paid 10$ to get in. It was actually really good, they had some 'hip hop' bands playing live called 'Gift of The Gab' and 'Clipse'....http://clipseonline.com/. Safe to say we were far out of our comfort zone but it was still a lot of fun. When we were leaving just the three of us now, we'd lost Brian somewhere along the way we met some girls from USC outside the club. Basically the gist of it was we pretended we were a band called Leighton Rivals!?!?! And that we were a big band in the UK touring the US. I don't think they believed us but they went along with it for a while. By about 2.30 we got back to the hostel, I went to bed however Henry and Dale went looking for Brian at the other hostel. So overall a pretty interesting night. And I'm sorry Maude but i don't think you're party can compare o our night out in LA. Byeeeee x

Well We're both in LA now! After a rather sketchy time at the airports we made it here with all our luggage intact and no major problems. We got to Laguardia airport yesterday with plenty of time to spare. WE got to the desk whereupon we were told we had to pay an extra 25$ dollars each for our bag and that there might not be a seat for us on the flight from Philly to LA.not good. However we got to philly and went to the gate to find out that they had got our tickets for us so that was fine. Domestic flights across the US are suprisingly stress free with only a small amount of security involved at the airports. The transfer was easy well. During the transfer we passed through UCLA which was soooooo nice, and Bel Air. So we went from West Philadelphia, to Bel Air. Anybody notice anything about that?......... You guessed it....... we are basically Will Smith. In West Philadelphia born and raised in the airport.............and so on and so forth. On with the story......We arrived at the hostel in West Hollywood excited for our time here mainly because for once the temperatures may be not just over freezing but well in to the 20s. This morning we woke up refreshed after our longest lie in of the holiday ready to hit the town. That was until we realised that we had to do the washing up and that the public transport system in LA is appalling.fullstop. So we instead just took a walk down Melrose Avenue which is a nice Shopping road. To the left of our hostel are the nice boutiqey shops such as Paul Smith, Paul Frank (crazy monkey make) and Channel Islands Surf Shop. To the right of our hostel were the food places and the slightly less uptown shops and the vintage shops, where henry bought a t-shirt and a tie. Now we're back in the hostel using the free internet and enjoying the summer breeze. Byeeee.

We did valentines day with style today. Got up late did nothing till 12. All good so far. Went for a walk in Central Park with the sole intention of crashing a pro-gay marriage protest thing. All very gay. Lots of stuff happenend we got married etc. A normal day in New York. Didn't actually get married but all the same. We then went for a long stroll round the upper east side and went to the cinema. Saw 'Up In The Air'. I liked that film. A lot. Altho that girl he meets does the opposite of grow on me which i don't know the name for! All the same, then we got dominos and walked back through central park at night, very scary. Then through the American equivalent of a housing estate, where some scrawny guy did some weird hand movement at me. Very weird. We were not scared at all. Not even when we heard the screams and the police sirens. Now we're back at the hostel, writing our last post in New York. I think i'm gonna miss this place. Byeeeeee

Today was a lazyyyyy day, and as such i'm going to keep this short and sweet.
swwet like chocolate, english chocolate is so much nicer than american chocolate. It physically annoys me how bad the snickers here taste.
So today we stayed in the hostel till 1 just chillinnnnnn, we felt obliged to leave though so we did. We spent a while searching for a subway which are quite hard to find when you're searching for a specific one! Eventually we found one and jumped on it to the bottom of Manhattan. From there we walked through battery park to the ferry stop. Jumped on and off we went. To be honest......the statue of liberty is very small and quite disappointing...... there i said it. Shoot me. We were very cold, very hungry which seems to be almost a permanent state of mind. And we were annoyed that we missed the laste ferry to Ellis Island. Anyway now thats over with.... we got the subway back with a bunch of englishmen and ladies on a school trip. It was nice to hear an english accent again almost sounds like music. Then we walked back to the hostel and i got a slice of pizza on the way back I luuuuurrrrvvvvv the pizza, henry complains how he hasn't got any nuts yet. He loves the nuts! Anyway gotta go. Nothing left to say etc. the usual, so I hope you're all missing us byeeeeeee.

Well today we woke up to the sounds of yet another snoring person! It also turns out that during the night the person sleeping under henry changed beds and a new person arrived... very mysterious... we decided to have the equivalent of a lazy day so we stayed in the hostel until around 12. we did eventually leave and followed Phoebe's advice and went out in search of the elusive central park zoo. We've already walked through central park many times and it astounded us that we hadbn't stumbled across it yet! What was also astounding was us having not known about or seen the massive reservoir in the middle. It took us about half an hour to walk round it. We eventually found the zoo right at the bottom of the park in the South-East end of it, it wasn't that big but the animals were pretty impressive ranging from the polar bears and the penguins to the sea lions and the sloths. After the zoo henry insisted on going to the Museum of Modern Art, I wanted to put it off till tomorrow but he wouldn't budge. So on we went, it was nice in the museum with the Tim Burton exhibit being particularly interesting although overcrowded. It might seem to the outside observer that all we do is go between museums and attractions however it does take an awful lot of walking to get between places. For example the empire state building which we've visited twice is on 34th street and our hostel is on 103rd street. Approximately 20 blocks is a mile so Just to get there and back is 7 miles! Anyway on with the story, Henry also wanted against mybetter judgement one of those dirty kebab things they sell at the street vendors. So we went in search of one but couldnt find any so we had to settle for a hot dog, which were admittedly very nice. Then we strolled the 2 miles back to our hostel. Anyway we have to go now as we're running out of minutes on the internet, byeeee.

New Hostel!

Today we changed hostel.
We went from the grubby little one where we had our own room to a big one where we are sharing our room with not one, not two but six other people! The new hostel is definitely a step up though, we played pool this morning on the free pool table and theres a movie room which is showing Zombieland in about 30 minutes. So about our day, we decided to go visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island today, so we caught the subway down to the bottom of Manhattan and walked through Battery park until we reached the place where you get on the boat only to find out it was closed. Massive disappointment. So instead we walked into the finacial district of Manhattan chancing firstly upon the Museum of the Native American. Which was free (always good) and had an interesting exhibit about native americans and skateboarding. We then went to the site of the World Trade Centre. We had a look round and visited the Memorial which was suprisingly emotional for the both of us. Henry was blubbing the entire time!
After that we followed our feet and ended on the Brooklyn Bridge took a stroll down there until we reached what we think was the middle. Here we took some epic picturesof the skyline and suchlike. Then we decided to start back upwards taking in the Empire State Building and Times Square again but this time in the dark. When we got to the Empire State Building we went up to the 86th floor and had a look out at the amazing views the height afforded us. Luckily for us the sun was just setting so the city looked perfect. When all had gone dark and the city had all light up we were in awe of the size of the city. unly truly appreciable from this height! But the 100 mph winds eventually turned us to ice so we had to go back inside and down to ground level. From there we walked up to times square, which although it admittedly looks quite grotty in the light, when tghe sun goes down the place really comes into its own. Rather than walking the rest of the way up to our hostel we decided to take subway. And thus i end up here telling you about our day before i go down to the cinema room to watch Zombieland. So once again goodbye from both of us.

3rd Day In New York

Welllll the day started well, we both awake to fine a chinese guy sleeping on the other side of the room. We've decided that this place doesn't exactly fit our ideas of what a hostel should be like. As opposed to it being populated by hip young people much like ourselves, the main clientele so far appears to be middle aged men! We looked out our window and suprise suprise its snowing, but this isn't the kind of snow you can enjoy, it was too cold and windy, so we walked around looking for breakfast. So for breakfast we went to a deli (very New York) in the Upper East Side where we both payed around 1o$ for a bowl of fruit and a drink. Eating healthy so isn't worth it! We then braved the snow and set out for Central Park, well that place looks even better in the snow, loads of people sledging and having snowball fights. After half an hour of trudging round we find ourselves outside of the Metropolitan Art Museum. The museum was quite good however we rapidly became disenchanted due to our aching thighs, constant hunger and the sheer monotony of the exhibits! We did like the american landscape art exhibit which was easily some of the most amazing pieces of art i'd ever seen. All of them at least 6 feet wide and with the artists paying amazing attention to detail. Anyway we left there starving and ready for lunch which came in the little cafe called the Central Park Boat Cafe, situated suprisingly in the centre of the park next to a lake. After that we went to the Natural History Museum which was good for the most part a highligh being the Journey To The Stars narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. We couldnt find the big whale or the little models featured in The Night At The Museum. Big Disappointment. We did find the big head and the dinosaur though. We left around 5 and walked back to the hostel. As im writing this now Henry is searching the internet for a new hostel for us to sleep in tomorrow night so this may be the last you hear from us for a while as the next place might not have internet. Sianara folks.

First 2 Days!

After an emotionalish goodbye at the airport we started off on our trip round the world with our heads held high and our backs bowed low. We arrived at JFK airport 10 minutes earlier than expected even though the pilots had to deice the wings at Heathrow. We heard the fateful 'we have some good news and some bad news' ploy from the pilots twice during our flight. Last time we heard that our flight was delayed by eight hours so we were'nt too optimistic of the outcome. However our fears were short-lived and we arrived all in one piece. However we were slightly scarred by the image of the American flight attendants who checked us onto the flight pulling a rubber glove tight over his hand while grinning. This was the man who had to give us a full body search. Thankfully a body search does not include a full cavity search also (you have to pay extra for that). We arrived at the hostel at around 11 o'clock local time after an enjoyable transfer with a nice man from Brooklyn. One of the other prospective passengers refused to get on the bus as she said she didn't like air freshener. Good luck finding a cab without air freshener. After walking up the stairs to our dorm we opened the door to find an asian guy asleep on the bed only a metre away from me! We tried our hardest to be quiet but we ended up waking him. We climbed into bed and fell into a blissful sleep. However this would only last a few hours until we were woken by the combination of stifling heat and the sporadic snoring of a man with more sinus problems than we have money problems. Little sleep ensued after this. We were both awake by 4 o'clock however in an attempt to maintain civility with our roommate neither of us moved until seven when we both got up and got ready for a hard day in New York. We went downstairs to the reception and booked another night in a different room in an attempt to get a good nights sleep. we left the hostel around 8 to venture for the first time into New York. First we took a stroll round Central Park, here Henry befriended a squirrel. We bought our breakfast from a street vendor for me a blueberry muffin for henry an egg and sausage sandwich. Whilst wandering the upper East Side we chanced upon the Beautiful Guggenheim Museum. In the museum we were intercepted by a young girl who insisted on giving us a small tour of the first level and asked us as we were going 'what do you think progress is' this stumped us and thankfully she passed us on to the next person. I think they were trying to give us an idea of progress in action as each tour guide was older than the next. There was also an interesting feature on the groundfloor of s couple making out. They kept at this for at least the next hour. We left the Guggenheim enlightened and a little poorer. From there we ventured back into central park winding our ways along the paths looking at the different exhibits. One that particularly caught our idea was a sculpture of Alice in Wonderland. From Central Park we ventured into downtown Manhattan. We winded our way down 'The Avenue Of The Americas' until we decided to embrace our tourist nature and go find Times Square. Here we featured on a worldwide webcam so our parents could see we were alive (pictures on facebook). We slowly walked further downtown until we reached New York University. One of my favourite buildings along the way was the Flat Iron building in Madison Square Park. We then walked back to the hostel and arrived footsore and weary after walking at least ten miles. This is the end of our first post so we must say goodbye and don't be a stranger!