Viva Las Vegas

Barely made it out of the room during the day yesterday as it was pushing 100 degrees outside and Dave forgot to pack swimming shorts so we couldn't lie by the pool. (I know I could've bought shorts but it would've taken a 45 minute round trip walk in the heat, air conditionings a wonderful thing) Anyways we went out last night and did Vegas as it's meant to be done. Well we drank some drink and gambled a whopping one dollar. It was good craic. Ate at a great buffet for dinner, Main Street Station in Downtown. Highly recommended if anyone comes here. Dave ate clams and lobster for the first time and wasn't overly impressed with either. Made the mistake of getting drinks in one of the classier joints on The Strip - The Venetian. Two beers and 2 whiskeys and 7up (don't ask for white lemonade) cost us $35 including tip. Crapped ourselves, drank up quick and got out of there. There are cheap places to drink on The Strip that are nice enough. Older casinos like Drais, O'Sheas and another crappier looking place had $1 and $2 beers that you can walk out onto The Strip with and into other casinos too.


Here's photos from our night out in Vegas


The Fremont Street Experience - big and bright but kind of underwhelming. We waited for 45 minutes for it to begin and left after 5.

Las Vegas and Grand Canyon

We've been in Vegas for 2 day now. Spent a whole day on a Grand Canyon tour. Vegas is definitely a place like no other. The casinos especially on The Strip are definitely impressive places. Absolutely huge and tacky as hell but they're good fun. Unless you've come to Vegas to gamble, drink and eat there isn't an awful lot else to do. We made the mistake of booking a hostel without checking up of the price of hotel rooms. We could have easily afforded one of the older places on The Strip where we could have laid about the pool and taken a walk in and out of the big casinos. Instead we're out of the way so we need to take a taxi ride to the strip or a 15 minute walk in the 90 degree heat to the old downtown places which aren't that nice. Our first big mistake on this holiday and it hasn't tunred out that bad. We got to the strip on Wednesday a spent a few hours there and yesterday we made the trip to Grand Canyon which was great easily worth the 7 hour travel time to get there. The driver was really nice, funny and knew plenty about Las Vegas and the canyon (he told us where the best slots are) so the way to the canyon went by easily enough. The bus breaking down didn't even cause too much trouble. We were 10 miles away from our lunch stop when a radiatior hose detached. Bus driver managed to get us to lunch at a crawl and a mechanic had the bus fixed in an hour. Can't say much about the canyon. It was stunning (but not as nice as Yosemite!) You can check out the photos. There's plenty of comments on there too.

Sorry the recent posts haven't been up to scratch the early mornings and the heat are taking a toll. Hope you enjoy the photos anyway!


Our first set of Vegas photos including the plane ride from Merced


Photos from our trip to the Grand Canyon


Here's a couple of videos Chris shot at The Grand Canyon. The first is taken from Mather Point with a commentary from some southern young fella talking crap about buzzards.


Second is taken from Bright Angel Point where they have a nice big lodge where you can stay.

Yosemite Gallerys

Our photos of our time visiting the Yosemite National Park are up on Picasa Web Albums now. We've just arrived in Las Vegas and we're wrecked. Hostel is fine, a little out of the action but we're only a short walk from The Fremont Street Experience and The Golden Nugget casino where we're going for a buffet dinner later (best in town, or second best depending who you ask!)

Here's the links to the Yosemite Photays. We're gonna write about our experience there later, just too tired right now.

Thanks to everybody for their kind comments!


Gallery 1: Travelling to Yosemite Valley from SF




Gallery 2: Our hostel - The Yosemite Bug




Gallery 3: Yosemite National Park

Last day in San Francisco

Our last day in San Francisco came round faster than we could believe. We could’ve stayed longer, said that about everywhere we’ve been (except Niagara Falls!) hopefully we’ll be back to see more of the beautiful bay area.

We’d planned the previous evening to get up really early to watch the Man United Chelsea match. We tracked down a bar run by Irish people that were going to show it. Problems were they were charging $20 a head on the door and it was a bus ride away from our hostel. Luckily (especially given the game and the result) we decided to take it easy and have a bit of a lie in. Headed over to our place’s sister hostel across the street round 9 for some free breakfast and they were showing the match on their big screen in the dining room! Would’ve been raging if we’d got up at 6 and spent all that money, the ones working the desk in our hostel weren’t really in the loop with what was going on over the road. Spent the rest of the morning updating our photos and that. Got a bit behind cause wireless in our hostel just wasn’t working.

Anyways…when we finally got out and about we had a brilliant day. Caught the cable-car a few streets away from our hostel. We got an excellent spot on it, hanging on right at the front! Not for the faint-hearted but a highly recommended way to see some of the city. There’s plenty of photos and a couple of videos showing the amazing views from up high on the hills of San Francisco.

At the end of the line we got off and walked towards the Golden Gate bridge. The area was mostly parkland, really busy with cyclists, joggers, kite-flyers, soccer-kids and doggies (including a cute wee sausage dog.) You’ll notice plenty of photos of The Palace of Fine Arts which we learned of from watching an action movie, couldn’t find the spot where Sean Connery stood though. There’s loads of shots of the bay and the beaches and even a pirate thrown in there too.

Had a nice meal that evening in a Mediterranean place, tried and failed to get some laundry done. Really should get onto that soon, Chris thinks she has fleas. Watched more 24 and Rain Man before hitting the hay cause we were up round dawn again.

We’re writing this up on the way to Yosemite Valley (on Microsoft Word, we’ll copy and paste when we’ve an internet connection.) Took Amtrak which was actually pretty cheap on this particular line. On the best train ever, slow but really comfortable. The views haven’t been much to write home about…but we will anyway. We were hoping for the rolling hills of the wine country but up until now it’s been chemical plants, wrecking yards and lots of farmlands. Ah well Yosemite will make up for all of that.

Pictures from San Fran day two


Update: A stomach churning video of our ride on the San Francisco cablecar. Check out where we were. Hanging out the side right at the front. It's a wonder we didn't lose a limb.

Our first proper taste of San Francisco

1st of 4 new posts.

We spent a thoroughly enjoyable morning on The Rock - Alcatraz. Had no difficulties making it up to Pier 33 where the ferry was departing cause we're so damn good at catching public transport here. It was a pleasant streetcar ride. We also learned the difference between streetcars and cablecars which was fascinating.

Alcatraz was really interesting. Most of the tour obviously centred around it's time as federal jail but it was also cool to learn about the Indian occupation and the civil war era (which Chris was pretty knowledgable of anyways) The island was freezing, must've been an additional horrible hardship for the prisoners especially in winter, poor lads. There was bird shit everywhere. Nature's definitely taking the place back, if it ever lost it. The gardens are really nice, tended by National Park volunteers. We watched The Rock with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage on the plane to San Fran to prepare us for the visit. Didn't see any terrorists or green poison rockets though.

Had some lunch at the big pier next door which is a dead nice development the pinnacle of which was the big seal enclosure out the back. Dead funny watching them carry on, push each other around off the little wooden islands. The noise would have done your head in if you were eating nearby though.


Photos on Alcatraz and Piers


Seals at Pier 39. Arrr Arrr Arrr!

Are you going to San Francisco? Yip!

Another major bit of travelling passed off without a hitch. We got up 3am for our flight out of Logan airport to San Fran. The view from the plane was cool, we stopped in Atlanta briefly and caught a sight of the Yosemite National Park where we're off to tomorrow. There's a few photos of our amazing room in San Francisco and Bradley's penknife that got us out of another alcohol realted dilemma! Check out the cool night shots from our window that we discovered how to do by accident.

Just came back to this post to add that while we managed to get the BART train from the airport without a problem we had a bit of difficulty finding our hostel cause of the vague directions from them. We ended up at the wrong end of Taylor Street which was quite a terrifying experience. It was the middle of the day so we were fine but the people there were all a bit crazy to say the least. We were so relieved to get into the hostel and pleasantly surprised by how nice it was.



Photos from our trans-american journey

Visiting Christines cousin Siobhan O'Hea

Took a wee bus ride down to Hartford to visit Chris' cousin Siobhan who emigrated to America from Belfast around 13 years back. Siobhan lives in nearby Wethersfield which is much nicer than Hartford. There's a link below to some photos of Siobhan, her beautiful new house and loads of her lovely dog Indiana! We had a really nice day, met Siobhans brother Francis and their granny. It poured as wer were leaving Hartford, learned a few days later that there was a massive storm in New England.

Siobhan is getting married to Joe on her 25th birthday in a week. Unfortunately we couldn't meet Joe cause it was a flying visit. We know they'll both get on great on their big day and have a class time at Disney World on the honeymoon.


Meeting Siobhan and her Granny

As a little bonus. Guy dancing along to an acoridan player on Boston underground. Didn't capture his best moves (including an audacious handstand) but you get the idea. Best thing was this guy was just a randomer, not part of the acordian players act. He arrived with a bike in tow so he must've been a commuter.

Late updates again - Boston (but we're in San Francisco)

Taken us days to get round to this again. Not for lack of trying either. Finally got a chance to put these up as we were eating breakfast watching extra time of the FA cup final. Enough said about that.

Here's our Boston photos. Our initial impressions of Boston were a bit mixed. The people were really nice (everyone in America's dead pleasant, alright well nearly all). Just as we got off our worst bus journey ever at South Station Boston a lady approached us and gave us her and her husbands metro passes which sorted us out for the whole 3 days we were there. So generous. We felt like crap but we were dead touched by that. An exaggeration to say worst bus journey ever cause at Buffalo bus station we met a guy who'd been on buses for 3 days straight travelling home from Nebraska to Boston. We thought it was bad having to go back to New York to make it up to Boston.

We only spent a couple of hours at the main tourist spot around Fanueil Market the first evening. It was nice but the city looked like one big building site, or a series of many little ones anyway. They're finishing up The Big Dig, a massive 15 year road building project that Chris and I were well up on cause we accidentally caught a documentary on it on a Sunday morning. Next day we saw much more of the real Boston, well the nice real Boston anyways. Natasha's advice about the city was extremely helpful cause we didn't really have a clue. Managed to take in prominent sights from the films: Good Will Hunting and The Departed. Dave's Boston accent came on greatly. Fenway Paaark for example.

Our Hostel was lovely, really nice area and we got a free breakfast, although the coffee was horrible (we've both been drinking a lot of the stuff over here). Had a couple of beers in the Cheers bar, unfortunately only a replica of the Hollywood set and shamefully not a very good one. We saw the bar that inspired the show but we weren't quick enough to take a snap of it as we were on a tour bus.



Snappin' in Boston

Niagara Falls

Writing this at one of Niagara Falls nicer establishments and it's a Starbucks! Couldn't really get our heads around the place, actually don't think we have even yet. A lot of the town is pretty damn rough. You can see in some of our photos the run down shops and houses only a few hundred yards from the centre of the town. They must've been struggling for a while here cause them most prominent building is a big horrible looking casino run by native americans. It always seemed to be full (based on the carpark, we didn't really feel like going in despite it being one of the few places we could identify at the beginning that we could get food at.

Our hostel was fine, the area wasn't particularly nice (it being in Niagara Falls, NY). We'd read some bad things about it on the internet the previous day. The only real annoyance was the old chinese lady who ran the place who knew best about absolutely everything. She did sort us out with a nice map and seemed to genuinely care but she was really bossy and she knew the value of a dollar. Her assistant was terrifying, a youngish non-asian girl who looked like courtney love on a particularly bad day. Anyway the room was fine and we could walk safely to the falls.

The falls were spectacular, breath-taking, wet etc. There's loads of photos and a few videos which will hopefully convey how beautiful Niagara Falls is. We liked how the US side of the falls was preserved as a National Park. We didn't make it over to Canada because Dave forgot his passport but it looked really built up with casions, fares and other stuff. If anyone visits we'd recommend a short stay on the US side, maybe, probably there's more to do on the Canadian side but you can really see everything you'd want to on the american side in a day.

The power of the Falls is astounding, so much water going over there - 675,000 gallons per second according to a sign post. Chris was wondering if you poured milk into the falls at the top would it turn into butter at the bottom. We didn't get to test this out but we reckon it probably would.

Photos below!


Click here for pictures Niagara Falls

and videos!


Horsing around near the Horse-shoe Falls (at the American Falls actually)






Maid of the Mist

Last day in NYC

Our last day came so quickly. We had such a ball it flew in. Today we went out for lunch at Cafe 28 as recommended by Jen and Dermy. Class place. We headed uptown a little and stopped off at Tiffanys for a few snaps. We kind of happened across FAO Schwartz, the toystore from the classic Tom Hanks film Big. Lucky accident. It was incredible. We've plenty of photos of us carrying on and eating icecream in the stores diner and even a couple videos of two employees playing the giant floor piano! Hope you enjoy daddy! (Chris). We picked up a couple of balloons and strolled up through Central Park again for photos at Bow Bridge (now known as Spiderman bridge!). Had a last drink with Cahir at the boat club, said our goodbyes and had to dash off to pick up our laundry. And here we are pretty much up to date.

Thanks for a class few days Cahir, we'll not forget them easily. I gots them socks!


Click here for pictures of our last day in New York

Day four: top of the rock and more Manhattan

Took a ride to the top of the Rockafeller Centre as recommended by Dave's cousin Laura. The views were spectacular as you'll see from the photos. Visited St Patricks Cathedral and New York Public Library (from Ghostbusters!) and went to the cinema again that evening. Saw Spiderman again. Pics below as always.

Click here for pics of day four

Day Three: History and booze

Day three we took the ferry to Ellis Island, beautiful ride, lovely views of Manhattan and The Statue of Liberty and the museum on the island was fascinating.

That afternoon we watched the United Chelsea match in Greenwich Village, got a little tipsy and mucked around on the subway on the way home. Pictures below:

Click here for photos of day 3

Arcade Fire

Went to see Arcade Fire at the United Palace Theatre. Weird, unique venue, like an old eastern chapel or something. Fantastic show. Photos are below and a couple of videos taken on Chris' camera too!

Click here for pics of our snaps of before and during the gig

Day one in the big apple

We left out hostel in Philly fairly early in the morning, taking a few photos for posterity. Chris had to part with her Maryln Monroe book due to a major clearout we had the previous night to lighten the loads on our backs.

There's a couple of photos of us coming into New York on the [insert bridge name here] bridge from New Jersey. Excitement levels were flying. We landed in Chinatown, cause we got a cheap Chinese run bus and were met in a nearby park by the distinguished Mssr Cahir McDaid. Gentleman he is he gave us a hand with the baggage and the three of us put our heads together and managed to navigate the New York Subway almost without fault. Dropped the bags up at our surprisingly excellent hostel, nice area, clean, friendly staff and decent wee room.

Next few hours we chilled out in Central Park, oops just realised day one and two's photos are kind of lumped into one album. Never mind, check it out here:

Click here for pics of our first two days in the city that never sleeps!


The pictures you may notice of us stuffing our faces are taken at Virgils restaurant on 44th Street recommended by Cahirs sister. We got an obsecene amount of food, all barbecued to perferction American style. Kinda crapped ourselves when we saw the bill but it was fine when you get past the initial shock of seeing it in dollars. Afterwards we went to a comedy show at the Laugh Factory. Bought the tickets off a guy in Time Square. We didn't know what we'd gotten ourselves in for when we saw the place, kinda of empty but it filled up a fair bit. Also the first act was dreadful but it really picked up and it was excellent in the end.

Alright, going on a bit here. We have to get up early tomorrow to catch a bus to Niagara Falls so the pace of the next posts will be brisker...

We're back!

We've been forced to neglect the blog and our photos lately because we couldn't get a decent, free wifi connection. We waited until our last night in NYC and paid the $10 to use our hostels connection. There's gonna be a few posts now and plenty of pictures and a few videos! so we hope you enjoy.

Big Philly Style

Posting these pictures 2 days late cause we didn't have wifi access at our hostel, it was tough! Philly was beautiful, younger and funkier than DC. The weather was nice and the people were friendly. We made it up to the Rocky steps on the 1st day. Transport here is confusing but we cracked it by accident. There were 4 weddings at the museum, no funerals though. Went to a Belgian bar and drank some strong beers then chilled out in the independence park nearby and gurned our faces off. Here's a link to the pictures for these days.

Click here for pics of our leaving DC and our first evening in Philly


Second day in Philadelphia we went into town early, having mastered the subway. Had a Philly steak, a few beers and saw some of the historic buildings. There just happened to be a gay pride and dog parade right beside our hostel. So many doggies it was insane. There were some miserable protesters too up by a local church trying to spoil the fun. Some had black suits and red arm bands on, an odd choice of atire but pretty telling of their outlook on life.

Click here for pictures of our antics on our second day in Philaledphia


And a final note to celebrate Uniteds triumph in the league cause of Chelsea failing to win against Arsenal. Great season especially cause I was so pessimistic at the start. Best team in England again, cup competitions aren't proof of that kind of class.

Washington day two

Dead tired so we can't be arsed to write much on here tonight. Another fine day. Washington was packed with school kids today which made the museums a nightmare. Enjoyed the Air and Space Museum (the most visited museum in the world apparently) except the horrible food-court run by McDonalds. The Capitol building was probably the most impressive in DC and there's plenty of photos of that as proof. Got tired late in the afternoon, especially Dave's foot although you would never have heard him complain, so we went to see Spiderman 3. Really enjoyed it and the American audience participation really added to it especially the woman who shouted jeeeasus-ahh! throughout. Links to new photos below as ususal.

Click here to see the latest Washington gallery

Day one - Washington DC

First proper day in the USA. Managed to get some sleep last night. Straight to bed ignoring the asian-americans having a laptop convention and the group of lads drinking out the back decking area. We both haven’t the energy for socialising and with this bunch even if we did I doubt we’d bother, too young, too American and we’re here on business. Tourist business. The hostel is fine, basic and could do with a lick of paint here and there but it’s clean. Up bright and early and had a decent breakfast round the corner and then onto the Metro. Struggled with the ticket machine in the station until a guy in full US military uniform rescued us. He may have been the most compassionate soldier ever given that Chris had spotted him helping a little girl across the road just minutes before. Once on board the metro took us into the centre of DC, as it’s called round here, in a few minutes. We disembarked at Union Station. Very impressive place, massive, big and huge in equal quantities. Loads of shops and cheap places to eat. Hopped onto a tour bus that deposited us at all the big tourist sites round the city. Made it to the presidential memorials, the Korean and Vietnam war memorials and round Arlington cemetery. We caught brief glimpses of the Capitol and the White House which we’ll probably go and see properly tomorrow. Before midday we were the youngest people on any of the tours by about half a century. After that a load of local school kids surfaced, on outings to ‘our (sic) nation’s capital.’ As far as we could see they spent their time making chalk rubbings of the Vietnam memorial and playing American football by the Lincoln memorial. It was an excellent days sight-seeing but well tiring. Tomorrow we’re off to have a browse of the museums, mostly of the Smithsonian institute – Natural History, Air and Space and American Indian. Promises to be a day of dinosaur bones, early aircraft and buffalo burgers (a native American staple which apparently they serve at the food court of the American Indian Museum). A nerds dream.

We’ve uploaded our photos to picasa web albums again. They’re a bit mixed up because the time on our camera’s wasn’t set correctly. The link to the latest photos is below. If you’d like to leave a comment on a particular picture I believe you can do it with the Add Comment link on the photo’s page.

Seeing the things to see in Washington DC

Heathrow and beyond (on the plane)

Here we are leavin on a jet plane, don’t know when we’ll be back again…well next year of course! Lovely clear day so you can see the coast of Ireland really clearly, well the east coast anyway, we got too high or it got too cloudy get a good picture of the west coast. Dougal, the madman, was causing all sorts of ruckus on the plane but we fed him some whiskey and he went off to sleep. Last photo is of us watchin’ latest episode of Heroes on the laptop, the in-flight entertainment was good but amazingly we’d seen all the films already. You can click these photos for higher resolution versions!

First day travelling with a new companion

Few photos of the first day of the adventure. After setting off from sunny Derry at 6:30am made it to Belfast City, now George Best Airport and then onwards to Heathrow. We picked up a stray passenger on the way. A young fellow calling himself Dougall Fitzgerald.

Something to remember Chris by..

...as if he'd forget. We spent a bit of time on our last afternoon putting together a massive, possibly life-size, possibly even bigger!! poster of wee Ciaran and his auntie Christ. Here's a few pcitures of the magic.

Cacks and Ratzy's house on the last night

The five of us Derry wans landed up to Cahir and Ronan's bachelor pad for a couple of beers. Cahir had obviously poured all his creative energies into this masterpiece.

Photos from the last weekend

Here's a link to loads of photos that Chris took on our last nights out in Derry. Some gems in there and plenty of drunken heads. Was gonna put some favourites on here but by 'eck there all so emotive it was just too hard. Instead here's a link to the whole lotta them:

Gallery of photos from last weekend on Picasa Web Albums