North America

November 23, 2014

Hanging Ten in Hawaii

I’ve always been really lucky that my parents are happy to travel and are often keen to meet me halfway. So when I was due to head to the USA for a work trip, my parents said they would meet me there for a week long holiday. We tossed up a few destinations before settling on Hawaii, more specifically Oahu. It wasn’t really halfway – I had to travel 22 hours from London with a stopover in LA and they had a direct flight from Brisbane, but it was worth the schlep out there for some sunshine and family time. Although we didn’t really do any ‘hanging ten’ being the uncoordinated non-surfers we are.

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April 26, 2014

New York: Day 8

When I think of New York there are many things that come to mind – the skyscrapers, broadway, shopping and delicious food and so far we had checked all these things off the list. The final thing we had yet to do on our trip was a sporting match. Unfortunately for us the New York Knicks season finished a week before we arrived but as softball players we were looking forward to attending a baseball game.

We booked tickets to see the New York Mets out in Queens and I have to say it was the perfect way to spend our last evening in New York – surrounded by New Yorkers. The stadium was like nothing I had ever seen before! Not only was it fairly  new but it had a variety of restaurants open to ticket holders not to mention endless drinks and food options.

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April 24, 2014

New York: Day 7

There is one word the sums up Day 7 in New York for us and that is – shopping! It goes without saying that New York is full of awesome shops not to mention the famous department stores so its obvious we needed a whole day of shopping.

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We started at the bottom of Broadway and walked our way up towards Midtown popping into all the different stores along the way. Thankfully I had had a heads up that the big department stores – Bloomingdales and Macy’s – give a discount to visitors if you show some ID. This meant that we could go a little bit more crazy in these stores!

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April 23, 2014

New York: Day 6

It was hard to imagine that we’d already been in New York six days and in that time it seems we had already done so much and yet barely scratched the surface of what we wanted to fit in.

On our tour of the west village the day previously we didn’t have the chance to visit The High Line so we headed back that way to check it out. Unfortunately for us we decided to go on a crazy windy day and as we wandered along the raised train tracks that now served as a city garden we fought against the wind. The High Line is a new development that runs from Chelsea up to the Meatpacking District with manicured gardens and landscaped footpaths along the way. From the top you can look out onto the streets of New York below and see sculptures and street art along the way.

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April 22, 2014

New York: Day 5

By our fifth day in New York we kind of had the subway system down pat and a few of the main things to do and see ticked off the to do list. So instead of doing too much touristy stuff we decided we would have a bit of a sleep in, grab a coffee at our local shop, Swallow Cafe, and then head into Manhattan to a part we hadn’t yet visited – Chelsea and the West Village.

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April 21, 2014

New York: Day 4

Our next day in New York was one of our busiest and most full of sightseeing but it was also one of my favourite – if you could have a favourite day exploring such an awesome city.

First stop on our tour was Lady Liberty herself. We considered paying for a ferry to the island and doing the tour thing but we thought we’d rather save our time and our money for some thing else and so we opted for the Staten Island Ferry. It is a commuter ferry between Staten Island and Manhattan that does a drive by the Statue of Liberty on both ways. It was a great way to see the iconic monument without having to spend hours in line.

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April 20, 2014

New York: Day 3

After spending our first one and a half days on the island of Manhattan we thought we would check out the borough of Brooklyn. We headed down to the waterfront at Pier 5 for Smorgusburg. A fresh food street market right on the waterfront. It was a stunning day so was the perfect view across to the Manhattan skyline as we wandered the market stalls and stuffed our faces.

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April 19, 2014

New York: Day 1 & 2

Telling you all about my week in NYC would make for an endless blog post so I thought I would break it down into days/experiences at a time so I can do justice to my recommendations and experiences!

Our first day in New York was fairly uneventful as we were jet lagged zombies and we made a bit of a rookie error by heading straight into the centre of tourist central – walking from the Flat Iron building up Broadway to Times Square. While this walk was a crazy full of other tourists it was awesome to see some of the iconic buildings and famous plaza. However it wasn’t long until we hit a wall and ended up back at our accommodation.

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February 10, 2014

Cuban Paradise

Finally it was beach time! After a week and a half of touristing our way around rustic Cuban cities it was time to ditch the backpacks and walking shoes for flip flops and sarongs. Cuba has no shortage of beaches but we decided to steer clear from the super popular resorts and avoid the all inclusive crowd – opting to go to Cayo Guillermo, in the north part of Cuba.

As it turns out, you can’t really avoid the all inclusive crowd if you want to stay in a resort, so we opted for a 2 day stay in the Hotel Iberostar Daiquiri. It was my first all inclusive experience and I have to say I was super excited about it. I got the wristband and pretty much starting jumping up and down – do we got to beach? the pool? the buffet? the bar? Or do we hang out in our only 4 star room of the trip? Ahhh I just wanted to do everything.

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February 8, 2014

Paying Homage to El Che

There is one reason and one reason only people visit Santa Clara and thats if they are a Che Guevara fan. Not only is it home to the triumphant statue of him it is also his final resting place, along with the 27 soldiers who died alongside him in the revolutionary war of Bolivia.  Similar to all the other tourists there, we visited Santa Clara because James (my boyfriend and co-traveler) is a massive admirer of the revolutionary and has read about every single book about him.

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