At once I knew, I was not magnificent

Unimpressed - Niagara Falls, US side

There's something about traveling to places you've seen on TV or in films, or that you know hugely important historical events happened at, or famous figures have been to that I find can be oddly underwhelming. Like you know you should be sucking in the whole atmosphere molecule for molecule, but you can't. It just doesn't quite feel how you expected it to feel. Because at the end of the day it's just a space- even if it is a beautiful or astounding one, and it will never be as amazing as it was at the point when you first became aware of it for whatever special reason it is famous for.

http://www.cntraveller.com/guides/north-america/canada/niagara-falls/where-to-stay

I hate to say it, but I did not think Niagra Falls was beautiful. It was relatively astounding, extremely intriguing- but not beautiful. That's not to say it couldn't be: it was dark when we arrived, with hard spitting rain doubled by the spray off the falls and we were hit by a steely chill the closer we got, and even in the light the mist really engulfed any detail of the landscape which would, perhaps, normally have been incredible.

It just needed photoshop, that's all.

But anyway, after an initial introduction that first night, it was getting late and we'd travelled from Bufallo all day, so we all slumped off to the hotel. In the morning we set off to cross the Freedom Bridge to the Canadian side, ready to engage in all the luminous jazzy tourist fun.
And luminous it was. Although happy to wander round with our digital cameras and foldy-up maps with the best of them, Emily, Amy and I were definitely agitated by the exploitation of Niagara Falls. It was just too much. With enough tacky souvenir stalls to put Disneyworld out of business, and restaurants with entirely glass walls boasting "The Best View of Niagara's Greatest Wonder" lining the streets, it was hard not to becomce overwhelmed by how underwhelming it all really was.

However, unwilling to put to waste the day of driving we'd gone through to get there, I bit the bullet and went along with the rest of the tour to see the falls up close on the Maid of the Mist. Amy and Emily hummed and haahed and eventually decided they couldn't face the cold and getting wet again and came to the conclusion that a nap at the back of the bus would be far more beneficial at this point, so i went it alone. Well not alone, there were several school trips and band camps and all our Chinese buddies from the bus. I must say it was a good experience with some pretty decent views and a lot of interesting facts and stories of people who had been carried to the falls and even gone over but survived. 

But by the time the end of our day in Niagara rolled around, cold and tired, clutching $8 waterfall snow globes and "did you know..?" fact sheets, I think it's safe to say we all breathed a sigh of relief.


Onwards and upwards to Toronto!

Emily and Amy enjoying the Canadian springtime

Listening to: "Holocene" by Bon Iver. From the stunning new album.

Have a listen and fall in love here.

Buy it here.

I didn't come to disturb

So the sun was setting on my day in New York. One awkward hostel shuttle journey later, which by the way, I spent with a lairy and borderline-racist driver who turned up in a suit and chauffeur cap as if in the expectation that I might be someone famous rather than a tired-looking British girl with half her luggage stuffed into plastic bags which took up the entire back seat, I arrived at the Newark hotel to Emily and Amy, a hot bath and a Chinese takeaway.

We had booked this tour which started in New York and went to Buffalo, Niagra Falls (both the US and Canadian sides), Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and ending in Boston about a month previously because it was 3 tickets for the price of 2 and you got to stay in a Hilton. Later we were informed by "TOURS 4 FUN" (yes it's actually called that) that the tour guide had to speak in both English and Chinese because of the large Asian interest. What we had not anticipated was that we would not only be the only ones other than one parent-aged couple from Adelaide who spoke English as a first language, but also that were not excited by many of the mundane sights of North America. As discovered in our first stop: the Corning Glass Museum.

So we had crazy times there for an hour or so, watching glass things get made by a very butch lady in dungarees and sitting in the cafe drinking coffee and complaining. This would become a common procedure throughout the week.
Having watched 'Coach Trip' religiously as wasteofspace humanities students back in Manchester, we had high expectations for our Brendan equivalent. For those reading who have better things to do than watch sub-par daytime TV, Brendan is the jolly and very camp tour guide of a coach in which couples get to go to various European countries, do activities, develop a slow and steady hatred for each other and vote each other off the show every week before determining a winner. Amy, Emily and I needless to say envisioned ourselves as those two boys on it when last we watched who everyone loved because they were young and cheeky and lovable, much like ourselves. Emily had actually met the two boys (i forget their names) once in Bristol so it was naturally assumed this was a done deal.
We slotted into this role with moderate success, making friends with numerous Asian clans including two Filipino couples whom we came to know and love as Mum 1, Dad 1, and Mum 2 and Dad 2. Mums 1 and 2 were sassy midwives in California who had worked and played together for 30 years, Dad 1 was a golf enthusiast and Dad 2 enjoyed our company because we would always laugh at his crap jokes and swoon over pictures of his grandson. The Brendan of the group was, to our surprise, not a bumbling overweight man with a friendly northern accent but in fact a young Chinese fellow named Frank who wore the same outfit for 3 days straight and didn't warm to us because we thought his activities were rubbish and were arguably more popular amongst the group than him. It was in fact his own fault for scheduling 3 separate boat trips on various lakes and rivers at $30 a pop into one week in which it rained the entire time. Stupid Frank.

Emily, Amy and I with Yuli and Agnes - AKA Mums 1 and 2

Anyway, we were off to a great start with the glass museum. Exactly what we had come to America to see. Next stop - Niagra Falls!

Listening to: "Collie Man" by Slightly Stoopid

Groove along here.

You're the centre and you're always free

New York, NY

Times Square - Megan, Amy L and Nicola

And what better place to start!

The Big Apple never ever fails to astound. I'd been a couple of years ago on a shopping and familly-seeing trip with my Mum, a proud NY native and geograpical expert of Manhattan, so wasn't overly excited to see the city again so soon. I realise now how stupid that sounds- this trip rekindled my love for New York bigtime. 
Unfortunately I didn't have ages to spend in the city before heading off to Newark to meet Amy P and Emily, who had been chilling at a hotel all day to relax before our tour to Canada started. Still got some time to breathe in the city smog after a nightmareish 9-hour bus from Raleigh though. Which was made oh-so comfortable by the fact that we'd all had a pretty heavy previous night, celebrating, or rather drowning our sorrows for the end of the semester and our last night with everyone in Alexander Hall. 
Headaches aside, we did manage to cover a fair bit of ground, getting from our bus stop in Chinatown to a hostel in Columbus Circle, to Times Square, to Fifth Ave, Central Park, all the way down to Wall Street and a few streets over to see my cousin's very own amazing coffee shop - Blue Spoon Coffee Co. - but as luck would have it, they were just closing up as we arrived. 
I'm told by reliable sources, however, that it is without question the best coffee in the city. 

http://www.bluespooncoffee.com/

- Needless to say, the "S" word is strictly banned in the homes of our extended family.

Another highlight of my day had to be Megan's and my little relaxation period in Central Park. We split off from the others after realising that neither our bodies nor our bank accounts could cope with shopping all day. It's such a cliche, but the feeling of tranquility in Central Park when you've been trudging through the city all day is just incomparable.

Canberra's finest- Megan


Another high point which I must mention was the hour or so spent waiting to see Vice President Joe Biden outside Saks. When he finally emerged from Louis Vuitton he was, annoyingly, ushered straight into a car before we could really get a glimpse let alone a photo. But it was worth the wait just to see all the crazy intense-looking Presidential security guys in their suits and ear-pieces. Super.


All in all, a definitively positive start to the month-long road of traveling ahead. Despite one or two sad goodbyes, I sat in the taxi to our Newark hotel to meet Emily and Amy with a huge smile across my face. I can't wait to get back to New York for a longer holiday. And who knows, maybe the big city will even be graced with a wide-eyed CV or two next year...

Listening to: "In Every Direction" by Junip.

Have a little listen here.

Dirt is all the same

Dire levels of commitment to this blog over the past month!

We students all finished the semester and our time at NC State at the beginning of May, so said our emotional goodbyes ready to disperse across the country (and, come to think of it, the world) to travel and make the most of the start of summer.

It's been the absolute best experience ever, but tomorrow I'm returning to Raleigh one last time to catch my flight home via Atlanta, GA and Manchester. It is such surreal feeling to know that this time next week i'll be back to the Tyne Bridge, cups of tea, wrapping up even in summer, parents, my best friends and legal drinking again but i am pretty excited for it all. With the exception of being an unemployed bum for a while and discovering the new phenomenon that is Geordie Shore...

While i'd love to have posted updates on my traveling experiences while they were actually taking place, it just wasn't possible what with the constant moving around / lack of wifi / the desire to actually live life rather than spend my time on a laptop recording it. So instead i guess i'm just going to start working my way through the different cities on each post- I have so many photos to whack on here and stories to remember which will only go to waste in the dusty recesses of my brain.

One of the last nights in Raleigh

So watch this here space for bits of my retrospective journals and to anyone reading back in the good ol' Toon - see you very soon! 

Listening to: '81 by Joanna Newsom

Have a listen here.