Quebec City, Canada

We have reached the Candian part of our tour and we started it off at Quebec City, mostly french speaking city.  We left Boston on Sunday at the normal time of 7:45am and got to the Candian border about 2:30pm and finally got to our hotel about 4pm, so it was a long day on the road.  Once we got settled in our hotel we all got dressed up to hit the town.  We got dropped off in the centre of town so we have dinner and meet up at a club afterwards.  I can't remember the name of the club cos it was in French but it was interesting and had a very cool dance floor.  We left pretty early that night as we were all pretty tired.  We were lucky as the cab we got into spoke english.  It was an easy ride back to the hotel.  The next morning we did a city tour with 2 guides and they explained all about the city while we were on the coach.  The second part of the tour was a walking part and we walked all around the old gated part of Quebec city.  It is a very pretty place set on a hill beside a river.  We just can't read anything much because it's all in French.  Once the tours were over we had lunch at a cafe, bought some souviners and went back to the hotel for a rest.  Now dinner that night was an included dinner and we went to a place called the sugar shack.  The food was very odd, most of it had maple syrup in the dish somewhere so it was all very sweet.  We didn't eat much it was to weird for us.  After we finished dinner they took us outside and we tried maple syrup on ice.  It sounds very weird and it was weird to see but it tasted exactly like golden syrup.  It was pretty cool to try something so different. After our 2 nights in Quebec City, we move on to Montreal.  I can't wait!!! 

Boston

We have offically started our Grand Northern tour and our first stop is Boston we were there for 2 nights.  Our first afternoon we went on a city tour around the city which was fairly boring, but afterwards we had dinner at a place called dick's last resort.  The restaurant was very different, the job of the wait staff was to be as rude as possible and you could throw napkins and straws around.  It was very weird.  After dinner we came back to the hotel as we had a massive day the next day and we needed some rest.  Our first stop for our day in Boston was Harvard University, we got a guided tour through the campus, so that was awesome and the tour guide was a student of harvard.  The grounds were beautiful. After the tour we pretty much had the day to ourselves, we did get a ticket for a hop on hop off trolley tour.  It was the best way to see the sites of the city. I have to say though there wasn't to much to see in the city.  We did get to see Fenway Park (baseball field) and we did do a bit of shopping on an upmarket street.  I didn't buy anything but Katrina bought from Victoria Secret and Guess.  We took the trolley tour the whole way around the city and there were some really nice churches and the orginal cheers bar which was pretty cool.  But there wasn't to many interesting places.  We got picked up on the bus late afternoon and headed back to the hotel.  For the evening we just hung around the hotel and had a really nice dinner, I had lobster and it was amazing and Katrina had steak which she said was really good as well.  We have decided to have an early night tonight as we head into Canada tomorrow and tomorrow night is a big clubbing night so we want to make sure we're not to tired for that.  We can't wait!!!

Also I have put some photos up on facebook of our travels up until New York.

New York Day 2 & 3

Our 2nd day in the Big Apple was a very early start. Trina didn't get back to the hotel till 5:00am from being out all night drinking she was supposed to get up at 6:00am to watch the State of Origin with Bec.  But Bec was kind enough to let her sleep till 7am. We headed to the Statue of Liberty early to beat the crowds. We caught the ferry over and got great views of the city skyline. We didn't get to go up to the top as there were massive queues but the views from the bottom were amazing anyway. After that we walked down wall street and got to see the famous raging bull. We then headed to a half price ticket booth for Broadway shows, we were lucky enough to get tickets to The Phantom of the Opera for that night. On our way to our Sex and The City tour we went to a shop called Century 21 which had really cheap designer everything. We didn't have enough time to go through everything, Bec got a really nice Guess bag for half  price. The Sex and The City tour wasn't very good at all. There were lots of things we didn't get to see, like where Carrie lived and we didn't go to any of the bars they went to in the show. We were more excited about going to Broadway. The show and costumes were amazing. We had really good seats down in the bottom section. It was great to see a broadway show in New York.

On our last day, we went on a bike tour around central park. We are so glad we didn't have to walk it as we didn't realise how huge it was. The park was really beautiful, it's hard to imagine something like that exists in New York, there was a massive dam in the middle of it and had baseball fields in it. The pathways were lined with massive trees that arched over the paths. After the bike ride we were walking to the American History Musuem when we walked passed a little church where they were setting up to film Gossip Girl. Was very cool to see the street lined with the actors trailers and all the equipment. We did a very quick walk around the musuem as all we really wanted to see were the exhibits that were shown in the movie Night at the Musuem. We did get to see most of them which was really exciting. We headed back to shop at Century 21 seeing as though we didn't get to see all of it the day before. We got great bargains, with all Trina bought she saved $182, Bec ended up saving $82, can't go wrong with that. That night we headed up the Empire State Building, the views were amazing. It was very pretty to see New York at night from up there. We got some great photos and footage. If you want to see some photos, Bec will put some up on her facebook page. We had some farewell drinks with some people from the Grand Southern tour, then headed back to the hotel to pack for our next tour.

New York Day 1

First thing we have to say is we both love New York.   We got into New York about 4:30pm on the 4th July.  After we checked into our hotel room a few of us decided to go to Carlo's Bakery, he's from the tv show cake boss.  We bought cupcakes and elclairs and they were awesome, we got back to the hotel and we had our pre-tour meeting.  Once we go that done we went and had dinner with a few of our friends and then headed down to the Hudson river to watch the 4th July fireworks.  It was awesome the fireworks went for half hour and they had ones I had never seen before.  We're so glad we were in New York for 4th July, there's no where better.  We didn't head to any bars after the fireworks cos they were all packed out and you coul hardly move so we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep.  The next morning we started our day by having a city tour and it was awesome to see the places you see on tv.  We saw so much it was awesome.  They took us down to the world trade center site and that was very strange, they are still building the new buildings and they are doing a memorial on the exact site of the two towers.  The building we were in was also destroyed and they had to rebuild it.  After the city tour we had the rest of the day to ourselves and we decided to go shopping in the trendy 5th Avenue district.  Let me just say we only made it Tiffney & Co and spent a small fortune in there.  It was well worth it though. I bought a ring with diamonds in it and Katrina bought a ring with a pink sapphire and a necklace.  They are all really beautiful.   We spent an hour in the store and we didn't have enough time to have a look at any other stores.  We had to head back to the hotel and get ready of dinner. 

Washington D.C

What amazing two days we've had in Washington.  We got to the city late afternoon and on the way in we drove past the Pentagon so that was pretty cool.  Once we had dinner we went on a tour around Washington.  We saw the white house, The Lincoln Memorial, The Roosevelt Monument, The Thomas Jefferson memorial, the capitol building,  the washington monument, plus heaps more.  It was a great tour and by the time we finished is was dark and all the monuments were lit up and it was beautiful. Katrina decided to head out drinking with some of the group but I went back to the hotel to sleep.  The next morning (Saturday) was a massive day.  We were getting dropped off at the Smithsonian museums.  Before we got there though we went to Arlington national Cementary where we got to see John F Kennedy's gravesite and also saw the changing of the gaurd for the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It was really good to see.  We then made a quick stop at the marine corps memorial statue which is the famous one where the marines are erecting the American Flag.  We then finally got dropped off at the Smithsonian Museums we decided to go to the Natural History Museum it was awesome. One of the highlights for that museum was we got to see the Hope Diamond. It was beautiful.  We got to see heaps of exhibits, it was hard to keep track of them all.  Once we finished we headed to the National Archive Museum, it took us 45mins to get in the door but it was well worth the wait.  We got to see the original Declaration of Independence, Bill of rights and the Consititution it was amazing, you could hardly read the writing it was that faded.  It was awesome.  Once we got picked up on the bus we got ready and we headed to Georgetown for dinner and clubbing.  We just went to a bar for dinner and we both had steak, it was awesome.  The real party started after dinner we had quite a few drinks at a club and had a great time dancing with everyone.  We got home pretty early as it was another big day on Sunday.  Once again we got dropped off the Smithsonian Museums and we headed to the front of the white house to get photos. it was pretty cool to finally get to see it.  After that we headed to the American History museum.  There was a lot to see there as well and was very interesting.  Some of the things we saw were the Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz, The Fonz's jacket from Happy Days and heaps more.  It was an awesome museum.  We were pretty tired after that and decided to head to the National Zoo.  It was so so hot and we struggled to get through all the animals, but I think the cutest animal would have to be a baby gorilla that was playing with one of the other gorilla's. It was so so cute.  We headed back to the hotel to get ready for our final contiki dinner.  We went to a chili place and I opted for a burger instead.  So tomorrow we finally get to New York and we finish our Grand Southern and start our next tour the New York Explorer.  We can't wait!!!

Savannah to Raleigh

After our night in St Augustine we headed to Savannah which is said to be the most haunted town in America.  Once we got there we had a group photo taken at one of the squares it was a really pretty it had a fountain in the middle.  We walked back from our hotel, walking through the streets was really pretty with all the old houses some of which looked really creepy.  It's a really pretty little place. We got back to the hotel and we had some lunch, I had a burger which wasn't to bad and katrina had nachos which were pretty crappy.  We were doing a trolley tour of the city after lunch which I thought was going to be really interesting.  Instead there was no air conditioning on the trolley and it was super hot.  The tour driver also was talking and driving past all the points of interest really fast that no one had the chance to get any decent photos, therefore it got boring pretty quickly.  Once we got back to the hotel we checked into our room and headed straight for the pool to cool down.  That night we were all heading out to a Karokoe bar for a 21st birthday party for one of the girls on our tour.  Things got pretty crazy for a lot of people, it was very funny though.  The bar had the frozen cocktails which were super cheap and we were all having a great time.  I left pretty early and got back to the hotel about 12am and Katrina rolled in at about 4am.  It was a good night overall.   We had another early morning on the bus and we headed to Raleigh.  It was a really long drive and we didn't get to our hotel till about 6pm.  We made a stop in charleston and we had 3 hours to wander around the town.  Most people were hungover again so we headed straight for a cafe for something to eat.  By the time we finished lunch we only had an hour to got so Katrina and I walked around and had a look at some shops.  It was a really pretty town,  and it wasn't to hot so we could wander around.  It was really good.  So when we checked into our room we had to get ready straight away to go to dinner which was a buffet.  It was really good, they had so much different food to choose from and even better was they had vegetables and salads you could make up yourself.  It was a really good feed.  After dinner there wasn't much to do in Raleigh so a few of us headed to a bowling alley for some bowling, it was good to do something different and not just drinking at a bar.  We headed back to the hotel about 11:30pm.

Cocoa Beach to St Augustine

So Luckily for us Cocoa Beach was only a short bus ride away.  Everybody was hungover and it was very quiet on the bus.  We got to Cocoa Beach in the early afternoon and we had the rest of the day to ourselves.  We went for a walk to look at the beach and a few of the shops, and had an early dinner in a bar on the pier.  It was a pretty good meal.  I had my first seafood basket and it definitely wasn't the same as we get in Australia.  Katrina had a chicken dish which she said was good.  After dinner we went back to the hotel as Katrina and a few others were going to club next door called cheaters, I decided to stay at the room and have an early night.  We had another early morning as we were going to the Kennedy space Centre.  A lot of people including Katrina were very hungover during the visit to the space centre so it was quite funny watching them walk around aimlessly.  We had a massive 5 hours at the centre which we all thought was way to long.  I will say it was pretty cool to see the place and the old rockets and spaceships.  When the 5 hours were finally up we hoped back on the bus and headed to our next destination which was St Augustine.  The city is the oldest city in America so there was a lot of old buildings and history to the place.  Once we checked into our room we had to pay for all the optional extra activities we did.  We had an included dinner that night which was pizza and pasta.  It was pretty ordinary but it was food.  After dinner we went for a walk into the old part of town to have a look around.  It was a nice little place and everything was close by.  They have an old fort on the riverside it was a pretty sight.  Once we got back to the hotel a few of us hung out at under a massive tree they had in the hotel grounds and have a few drinks.