canada - part ii

onwards to toronto!

it honestly has such a cute sounding name, hey? haha, anyway, Siobhan & JoJo (a different Jo to the one i share my tent with) and I spent our afternoon in Toronto wandering around marketplaces whilst the rest of the group went up the CN tower.

We found a very cute 'market' street near chinatown, which was lined with retro clothing stores and nepalise goods shops and hippies. exactly my kinda thing. it was fun wandering through it... very street-scene photographic.

Next day: On to Algonquin National Park.

Yes. today it was forecast to be a nice, rainy, 1 degrees C. ah. And our tents still hadn't dried. And we basically set them up in mud. and! we were now in bear country (lucky us!).

It was actually remarkable fun setting everything up in the rain, and then going for a nice light 3.5km hike beside a beautiful canadian river, and a good photo opportunity for some winning group photos.

canada - part i

i think the past two weeks have almost rivalled my entire summer.

it. was. so. much. fun.

i was basically on a trek with Trek America, 13 of us plus our brilliant tour leader, Ann.

i'll sum the trip up for you, but if you really want to know what happened you'll have to talk to me, because it was just SO good.

basically i was sharing a tent with the ridiculously funny english copper, Jo, and the brilliantly fast olympic athlete-in-training, Amy. we started in the dregs of New Jersey and motored north through Pennsylvania and New York State through some of the most beautiful country-side i have ever seen. Mountains, wooded forests.

First stop of Niagara Falls and a Maid of the Mist ferry ride underneath the falls.

Niagara Falls was very beautiful, however, what you don't see in the photos is that just to the right and directly behind me is the town of Niagara Falls, which is casino after casino after run-down street after dirty high-rises. I honestly couldn't believe that. However it was just slightly mind-blowing trying to imagine how it would have been before a city was there...

That night! Niagara by night-light, camping on Lake Ontario and woken at 6am by a massive thunderstorm rolling over the lake across from Canada. Needless to say, we all woke up in puddles (tents are not waterproof).

moreeeee coming.

capitol city

yussssss. i am now in the city of... um, lost symbols? Yes and truly it is quite beautiful (i am saying that about every place here aren't i? it doesn't make it less true, if that helps).

Basically i am staying in a err rather cramped but friendly hostel in Adams Morgan, a pretty happening part of town (atleast as far as awesome streetscene, restaurants, bars and nightlife go) and it is alsoa very photogenic area, i believe.

Today included a trip to the Smithsonian museums of natural history and of air and space. Highly entertaining (me and emma had some good laughs i feel at the expense of our dear homo-neanderthalis brothers) and very interesting. Would you believe they actually have a McDonalds in the smithsonian museum though? it made me lose a bit of respect for them, to be honest.

(will continue writing later, lights out now... haha)

a word for each city: Philadelphia

giant avenues of green,
and hallways of graffiti.

streets stained with history.

the past seeps out from the buildings around
whilst salty smog screens the sun.

a word for each city: New York

so i decided i would quite like to start a thing, where i write a poem or just something mildly inspirational (?) about each city i visit... starting with New York:

this place reminds me-
reminds me of the computer games you play
with neverending borders
with no boundaries
with blackspace going on forever

it's a big city.
when you're down in it
the streets are neverending hallways.

phillies

G'day all!

So we are now down to three. The two Aussies (Kristen and I) and the Pom (Emma, hahaha). Today we had bagels in central park for breakfast and managed to catch our bus to Philadelphia. We arrived next to Chinatown, in a slightly sketchy looking area, but had so many really friendly people come up to us and ask us if we needed directions getting anywhere or if we were lost.

We more-or-less were, considering we had booked a hostel which it turns out was an hour bus trip from the city. So we cancelled that and lost our $$ for that night, but we managed to find a very very helpful lady at the visitor centre who got us a special deal, double queen suite at a really gorgeous hotel near the water. It's in Old Town, which is like the really historic area, absolutely beautiful buildings and lovely little restaurants lining paved streets and little alleys and old brick buildings. Reminds me kind of Melbourne or even some Tasmanian places, so i feel A LOT more relaxed here.

We also get free breakfast, free snacks and cheese and wine in the afternoons, and the receptionists are so helpful to us.

So we basically spend two nights at this place, which is excellent and i am looking forward to, and then Emma and myself head on down to North Carolina to stay with Katie at her college. It's an 8 hour train ride but it's okay cos i will see a lot of the countryside and everything else. Get to finally catch up on sleep maybe?

And i forgot to update you on New York:
We left camp on monday at 2pm but only got to NY at 8pm due to trains, etc. Our accomodation basically fell through because we were relying on a friend's hostel (but of course it wasn't going to work anyway, we realise retrospectively) but we headed straight out to a chinese restaurant and toasted with Pina Coladas and Long Island Iced Teas.

Fortunately we eventually found a place at the Royal Park Hostel/Hotel which was actually really comfortable, so we all squished in there (there were maybe 8 of us?).

Times square is... well, pretty surreal. It was ultra touristy but that was kinda cool cos you know what? When it comes down to it, we are tourists. We visited the M&M and Hershey's shops too. Emma and Kristen watched a show on Broadway, whilst Sinead and I headed to Chinatown.

Chinatown was MASSIVE. It was a little sketchy again, but i had an awesome almond pastry from a taiwanese bakery which was cool. We also went into Little Italy, which is right next door to Chinatown. Hawkers kind of made Chinatown restless and we were hailed by many restauranteurs in little italy but it was such a gorgeous setting.

Anyway, more to come, more to see, more to do. Lots of love

new york, new york

it's a big city.
when you're down in it
the streets are neverending hallways.