New York, New York!

Waking up in New York knowing this is our last stop in the USA before heading home is a pretty lovely feeling.

This morning Lauren, Sparks and I went in search of a cheap breakfast in Queens. We stumbled upon a gem of a place that got us set for the day with juice, home fries, omelettes and a breakfast buritto. Perfect!

We had no idea what we were going to do so just grabbed a 7day unlimited pass and hopped on the next train to Times Square. Within minutes we were bang in the centre, New York is hawt! So with the mass of people, traffic and sunlight we were soon heading into shops for some air con. The first shop being Sephora... Obviously! We also found a Hello Kitty shop that sold wigs #awkward (photo included).

After roaming the streets we went to grab a drink before heading down to Central Park to laze in the sun with some popcorn and chips - standard.

Central park is as lovely as it looks in the movies but still feels like as much of a maze as it was to me when I first saw it when I was younger. After walking around in circles we found a nice spot and sat in the sun catching up and reminiscing on stories from our time in Chicago with Clare - we miss you!!!

Time flew by and before long it was late afternoon - this lazing in the park thing is becoming part of our daily routine!!

We are all running out of funds so headed to grab some food for dinner, breakfast and afew cheeky packed lunches. Whole Foods has an epic gluten free section so I was loving life! I've bought enough bread and cookies to last me 'til Christmas!

With our hands full of shopping we made our way down to the subway, this had turned into a sauna and was packed full of sweaty commuters and crays. I got uncomfortably cosy with a creepily smiley old woman on the train which was slightly unnerving. New Yorkers don't do personal space.

By the time we got back we were cream crackered and in need of food and a Yorkshire tea (thank you Mary ! The tea bags you gave us our life savers!)

A vegetable stir fry and a cuppa later we are sat chilling on the sofa planning our day for tomorrow. Our aim so far is to spend less than 5 hours laying in the park - fingers crossed!

Man (not) in the Mirror.

After a night of attempting to sleep in our room with its lack of air-con, we got up and were ready to check out by 11am. We stored our bags in the hostel lockers and decided to use the rest of the morning to have a blog party i.e. write the week's worth of blogs that we hadn't got around to doing!!

We felt very positive once this was achieved, and set off to find some lunch. Now, we all know America is full of crays, but in Boston we found our ultimate favourite. We shall call him MJ. Basically, one of the first nights we were in Boston, he appeared out of nowhere (literally) walking past us the opposite way on the pavement. He had crazy dark hair, was wearing a black polo neck jumper, dark sunglasses and hot pants. Yep hot pants. Not only this, but he was pushing a replica doll version of himself along in a trolley. The name MJ derived from his more than slight resemblance to Michael Jackson.

The first time we witnessed this amazing image we weren't sure it really happened, as no-one else around us seemed to notice. It all happened so quickly and we were so in shock that neither of us had a chance to take a photo. The next day, we were walking along a different part of the same block and he appeared out of nowhere again! And once again we were too slow to capture this wonderful image. So the rest of the week, whenever we walked around the same block, we had our phones at the ready for when he appeared. Of course he never appeared. We willed him to magically be there with his replica of himself in his trolley, but alas it was not to be. I hope this description has done justice to his insane genius.

After lunch, we didn't have much time to kill before we had to leave to catch our megabus to New York! We were even some of the first people in the queue (for a change). This was the penultimate journey of our trip, a very strange feeling, with only our flight home left! For a four hour coach ride it went very quickly and soon enough we were entering the 'Empire State' and reaching our final stop!! We came into New York City through Harlem which was quite the entrance as you can imagine...

By the time we got into Manhattan it was dark, and everything was illuminated. We were very excited! My personal highlight was driving past the New York City Ballet building, which was instantly recognisable from all these years of watching Center Stage.

The bus dropped us off on a random street and we gave in and got a taxi for the first time in agessss to save faffing about and getting lost with our bags. Our hostel is a converted bank building in Queens and is brand new, it only opened in July. Unsurprisingly then, the decoration is really cool inside, we're in a 6 bed girls dorm with an en suite. The hostel itself is lacking in character, but this isn't the end of the world, we're here to see New York!

Another reason we were exited to get to New York was that waiting for us in the hostel was our Australian buddy Lauren who we had spent he week with in Chicago. We were all very exited to see each other and spent a good few hours in the communal lounge room exchanging stories from our travels since we'd last seen each other.

We managed to land ourselves in a dorm with yet another cray. This ones called Bonnie and she introduced herself to us by leaping out of the shower wearing just a very short towel. She's travelling with her mother who is equally as cray and apparently teaching English in China... Poor China!

We headed to bed eagerly anticipating all the things we can get up to in New York!

'Gurl get yo' hair did'

Today was good day.
It started of with us going back to the cupcake place in Beacon Hill and stocking up on cake and iced coffee before heading to Boston common to have the ultimate breakfast.
Best. Gluten-free. Cupcake. Ever!!!!

The night before we'd booked to get our hair cut as my fringe has disappeared and Amy was beginning to resemble the girl from gothica. Our appointments were in the afternoon so we just sat on the sun eating cake and sandwiches until then.

After almost 3 months of Amy whining about how her hair doesn't 'do anything' I dragged her to the hairdressers with me and after an hour or two we emerged with happy hair - me looking like Jessie J again and Amy like Zoey Deschanel #win

It was our last full day in Boston so we headed out for a meal in the evening which was delish! In the states the sides you can order are cray so we went all out! We even ordered cocktails - albeit hesitantly - 'Sex on the beach' is the cocktail that has ruined us both on many occasions so we slowly sipped it trying not to have flashbacks to Lincoln circa 2008 #memories

Once back to our room we found it had turned into some sort of sauna as the air con had broken. Fantastic. So we both stripped down to tiny shorts and tops and attempted to pack without flashing our new Chinese neighbours #awkward

#witchesbecrazy

Today was a momentous one; it was the day we ventured to Salem, to investigate what we could about the whole witch trial party, and, let's not lie, to pretend we were in Hocus Pocus (one of our all time favourite childhood films!)

To get there, we had to catch a real train, our first real train in nearly three months. This one was quite techno, it had leather seats, three seats on one side of the aisle and even free wifi. Win! The journey only took about half an hour, and then there we were in Salem!

The station itself was a bit odd, but we weren't too concerned. We walked down into town and headed straight to the visitor's centre. Along the way we passed lots of different people dressed up as witches and the like all standing about handing out leaflets.

Once we had spoken to the nice lady at the visitor's centre and got ourselves a map, we headed off to the Salem Witch Museum. Salem has a Heritage Trail in the form of a red line painted on the ground, like the Freedom Trail in Boston, which would make the whole experience much easier for us!

The first part of the Salem Witch Museum consisted of an "audio visual" presentation in the round. We all sat on benches in a darkened room where there were scenes set up all around us. Each scene lit up appropriately as the story was being told, accompanied by music and sound effects. There were scenes inside households, a courtroom scene, suspects imprisoned, a man being crushed to death with stones on his chest and a scene at the gallows. There was also an excellent devil lurking in the corner whose eyes lit up red in the dark. In the middle of the floor was a circle also illuminated in red around which were the twenty names of the people killed during the Salem Witch Trials.

When this was over, we were split into two groups to be taken on a guided tour of the second part of the museum. Our group was to go second, so we got to hang about in the museum shop for seven minutes where we purchased a couple of postcards and a chocolate witch face!

The second part of the museum was a very simple exhibition of how the perception of witches has developed through time, i.e. how they started off as celtic midwives who were good with herbs and worshipped the earth, then became feared by men of the church who didn't understand their beliefs or medicine, and thus branded as devil worshippers. Apparently "witches" still exist today, male and female, in the form of people who still worship nature and the earth.

After leaving the museum, we had our lunch on the common, and were very excited to eat our chocolate witches! We followed the trail down to the water front and went to look at the House of the Seven Gables where good old Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the 1851 novel of the same name.

By this point it was getting crazy hot again. We walked along the waterfront, where all the houses were very pretty and very old. After milling about briefly by the water, we walked back into town following the trail, finding an old burial ground and the Witch Trials Memorial, built for the three hundredth anniversary of the trials. Sadly, the actual cemetery in Hocus Pocus is in Marblehead, a nearby town. Damn.

As we were melting in the heat, we sat and had a cold drink outside a bar before walking to the Witch House, the only house remaining in Salem from the time of the witch trials, where the overseeing judge lived. We went inside and looked around, it was surprisingly small, but interesting nonetheless.

We mooched about the centre of town for awhile and then went to get the train back at about half four. Salem is a weird train station, there's only one line and trains from both directions stop on it? Confusing.com.

We had both decided we needed haircuts, especially before hitting up NYC (obvs kitty reached this decision quicker than I did). So, when we got back to Boston we went in search of hairdressers to make appointments for the following day. Once this was achieved, we went back to the hostel, watched some Olympics and made some pasta. Standard.

The day we did absolutely nothing.

After a week of fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, today we decided to go all out so headed to Beacon Hill in search of something a little more substantial.

Beacon Hill is a beautiful area full of quaint little shops, cafes, restaurants and the most beautiful houses. I spotted a cupcake store that sold gluten free cupcakes - definitely need to check this out at some point!

We happened to stumble upon a place Amy had read up on so decided to mange there. The breakfast was beaut - a roast vegetable frittata with home fries and some melon ( also known as 'Cantelope' - Americans have weird names for fruit) Yummeh!

After breakfast we went in search of the museum of African American history. We searched high and low before eventually finding it and seeing it was shut #fail

After that disaster we decided to head over to the water to lounge around in the sun. We passed a cute little boat club and as we stood outside enjoying the view in the sunshine Amy spotted a huge downpour of rain heading our way. Terrifying.

We hid in the boat house with other drenched members of the public until it passed - the rain here be cray.

The rain soon passed and the sun came back out again and people were back sunbathing within minutes. We found a nice spot to lay and chill that had a lovely view looking out onto the water.

We didn't achieve much other than staring into space and getting more freckles all day to be fair, but a nice day all the same.

After doing dick all we went to our fave place to grab stuff for dinner - Trader Joes. It's literally the best store in the world!
A standard gluten free pasta and sauce party was had for dinner although we threw in some vegetables for good measure. We are definitely lacking in vitamins from this trip!

Another night of watching the Olympics and going to bed early was had. We are loving being able to relax as this travelling from spot to spot shizz gets a bit exhausting ... Also the beds here are really cosy :)

Harvard Initiation

Summoning all our intellect, today we got the train across the river to Cambridge on a mission to investigate Harvard. When we arrived, we headed straight to the main campus. It really is very pretty, with all the old buildings around grass and trees. We managed to latch onto the end of a tour, so we learnt about the library, and that the guy it was named after died on the Titanic after a trip to England to gain more knowledge. We also learnt that the statue of John Harvard isn't of John Harvard at all, it's just a random student that the sculptor chose as a model.

After our adopted tour ended, we sat on a bench in the middle of the square and chilled out for ages. It was crazy hot, we were in the shade and thoroughly enjoying people watching. When we could be bothered to move, we wandered around and took some tourist photos before wandering down into the town. Along the way we found the Harvard shop, where they sell t-shirts and hoodies and the like, and where we took advantage of their water cooler...

When we got all the way down to the river, we sat in a park to eat lunch. This is where the most eventful part of the day occurred: I got shat on by a bird. For real. I didn't even realise, and just thought a leaf had fallen on me, but alas it was not to be. Kitty was alarmed by my lack of reaction, but after a laughing fit, was kind enough to get as much as possible out of my hair. I was mostly too hot and tired to care. I'm taking it as a sign that I have been singled out for my astounding intelligence. It's also yet more proof that birds are evil! Following this significant event, we mooched back into the town and hit up Starbucks for our new favourite refresher drink: passion fruit tea lemonade. Sounds bizarre but it does the trick!

We got the train back to the hostel where the first thing I did was wash my hair! After eating dinner, we headed to the cinema to see Ruby Sparks, which we had seen advertised earlier on in our trip. It was really a very good film; it's basically about a writer who begins writing about his dream girl, only to find that she appears from nowhere. It's made by the same people as Little Miss Sunshine and is thus equally funny as it is moving. Like LMS it also stars the legend that is Paul Dano. Antonio Banderes also makes an excellent appearance. Believe me, it's not as ridiculous as it sounds. We highly recommend it!

When we got back to the hostel, we had yet more new roommates, this time three guys from Chile who were very friendly and came and talked to us for a good half an hour or so. They told me that I sound like the voice from their listening exercise tapes when they were learning English which highly amused us! They randomly broke into song at one point, apparently it was a Portuguese song?! One of them didn't speak as much English but kept joining in with random comments which were thoroughly entertaining. As we all went to bed, they all started singing 'Call me maybe' which was hilarious! Definitely an improvement on the strange guy in the skirt!!