Last stop before home...

I've been home over three months now and well it's been a while since I last posted. My last post was when I was in Arizona. Lots happened in America before I left so i'll start with that first.

Vegas...

My time in Arizona was coming to an end. I had to pack my backs again and I move on. So it was Chelsea's friend, Madison's 21st Birthday... We, being, Chelsea, Stephanie, Megan, Clinton, Derek, Madison and I ... went to Vegas for a few days... we got drunk had fun and spent alottttttttt of money. The first night we decided to go get something to eat. We went to a cool little restaurant I forget it's name now but we had to wait 30-45 mins...for a table so we go up to the bar on the 3rd floor and have a drink while we wait. Right as the pager goes off...one of the barmaids comes up and says 'We need someone to dance for this Bachelorette party downstairs can one of you boys do it?' ... WELL... all the heads turn... to me... DO IT DO IT SCOTT PLEASE DO IT... i refused at first but when there were to Frozen Margarita's offered i could barely turn it down... so there's me giving a lady to wed... oh yeh she was a stranger... a wee dance in the middle of some dance floor around a bunch of drunken crazy screaming ladies... so yeah there's a few pictures to have a laugh at but I'm not gonna put em online so if anyone actually reads this i'll show ya the pics... I got my 2 drinks... and a dollar bill too... anyway after an amazing meal we headed to 50 Cent's night club in the Bellagio... 'The Bank' ... of course from experience in Vegas... it's expennnnnsive... so we get drunk in the hotel room before :)...expensive cover for the guys...girls go free... that's how Vegas is. The following day we had a pool day...chillin' out catchin' some rays... its all gravy.... our plans that night... dinner with the birthday girl then out to Prive... a club in our hotel... again... boys gotta pay cover... girls go free... My flight is early the next mornin' so I don't get crazy drunk but enough to have a better time sober... :) I had a flight to catch the next day. I said goodbyes to Chelsea... in the morning and Megan and Derek where driving back to Az so they gave me a ride to the airport that morning. I had one more stop... and that was Miami Beach, Florida.

Buenvenidos a Miami...

My last stop before home was Miami Beach. Wow was I excited. I couldn't wait but I must say I was nervous... now of course its to be expected...I was living in a hostel with a bunch of people on my own. I'd never travelled anywhere without knowing who I was staying with... I got to Miami airport, managed to figure out where to get a shuttle that would take me to the hostel. I met a girl on the shuttle, forget her name. In fact I don't think I asked her. She was British. Anyway, I arrived at the South Beach Hostel around half 8? I was a little tired. There where a lot of people outside having fun and what not. There was a bar in the hostel along with a pool table and some computers in the lobby. I checked in, the girl was a bit rude and abrupt but then again I couldn't blame her... Some people are just born arseholes and well I think she was. I was in room 123. I shared this room with 5 guys. One Spaniard, Xavi, One Italian, Andrea, One Slovenian, Peter and Two French, Yann and Nico. They made my trip to Miami. They offered beer and where extremely welcome as soon as I arrived and we had a party before going to a bar.

The next day I went to the beach. I normally hate the beach. Not this one. The sand, the sun and well the water was warm like bath water. I got sun burnt. I met with the guys again and played some football while the sunset. I wrecked my foot. It's still sore til this day, thanks Andrea. HAHA.

I went to Millionaires' Row where I saw celebrity's houses. Gloria Estifan, P. Diddy's and the house from Scarface too. Fun. I went out to a few clubs and made a few more friends at the beach who where from Montreal, Canada. My time in the states was drawing to an end :(

Next stop .. Home..

After Miami it was time to go home. It was sad. :( My last few days in America were a little bit overwhelming if I thought about it too much. S0 I tried not to. However there was excitement there. A few hours and I'd be seeing my family again :)

Chelsea's Power Hour

Made alive to Phoenix. Currently in Tucson for a night... goin' out wit da lads down here. Went and watched District 9 in the cinema. Its pretty messed up. Good all the same though. The passed few days have been exhausting. I arrived into Phoenix Saturday evening at around 7/8pm I can't really remember... was collected at the airport by Chelsea and her friends then headed back to her house to prepare for her Power Hour. We went to dinner first then headed back to hers then everybody went out to Big Bang. An underground piano bar on Mill Ave. in Tempe. Was pretty cool ... expensive drinks though :/ after that we headed back to Chelsea's where the drinking games and the crazy dancing began. Oh Lordy... the pictures are below it was crazy fun loved every minute. It lasted til 5 when everyone started to fade.

The following morning... with a thumpin' headache and a tongue like that of sandpaper. It was planned that we shall go to Boston's for Bloody Mary's and wings... before we headed to Chelsea's parents house with her family and stuff. So we had a few shots :/ 1pm shots at 1pm who does that? lol... apparently we do now... anyway yeh so we're hammered before we even get to Chelsea's Parents house. Anyway we left Chelsea's and then back home before going for a few beers and pool and Doc & Eddy's. So tired at this point.

On Monday pretty much did nothing. Went for lunch with Chelsea and booked my bus ticket to Tucson. Then had Dinner with B and Stephen. It was niceeeeeeee. Went back to Chelsea's and watched 'Push' i thought it was pretty good. Better than my expectations anyway.

I then woke up at 6am and Chelsea dropped me at the bus station for my trip to Tucson. Here i am now. So we'll see how tonight goes ... going to a few bars later :)


PHOTOS WILL GO HERE FOLKS > Internet is wayyyyy to slow... sorry... also please be patient for the Vegas and Miami blog entry... i've just been soakin' in the sun and having way too much fun!

O'Hare's Cold Floor

Well right now as I write this ... I'm sitting on the (cold) floor at Chicago O'Hare airport there are seats but its crowded right now. I traipsed around terminal 2 trying to find an outlet where I could give my laptop some juice and well the only place I could find one was in the corridor between the E and F gates ... where I sit right now so there's no Internet, wait, no FREE Internet. I could have some but I ain't paying'. So I'm writing this into a word document and I'll paste it into my blog when I get some connection.

I'm on route to Phoenix I had a 2 hour connecting flight from PHL airport to ORD Chicago Airport then I have a 2 hour lay over here in Chicago before a 3 hour flight to PHX Phoenix.

I had so much fun in Philly as always. I want to thank Tim for the entire week It was great and I really enjoyed my time there although I was only there for a week it felt like a month and Tim's company is always superb. It went by way to fast. I got 2 weeks before I begin my journey home. First like I said, Phoenix. Chelsea's birthday. 21. Her birthday's tomorrow. Get ready for the Power Hour of the century tonight. She's gonna get 'shwasted' her word not mine. I'll have my camera and maybe some blackmail photos will be on the cards? Watch this space.

Come on babe, why don't we paint the town...

Well I went to New York City yesterday in the hope of catching a Broadway show. There's a booth in Times Square called 'Tkts Booth' which gives discount tickets to the shows. Only catch is you have to wait until the day of the performance. We didn't care. So Tim drove to Trenton, New Jersey and we caught the train from there to NYC. We arrived in NYC around 12/1PM and made our way to the booth. We're walking through Times Square (which is choc-a-block with people), and there was lots of people advertising for all the performances on Broadway, handing out flyer's and what not. I originally wanted to see Avenue Q however it woulda cost a hundred bucks with the Tkts Booth, second choice was Chicago. In terms of cost of tickets, Chicago had a the better deal. However with Tkts Booth it would have cost 100 bucks too. One of the flyer's i had was for Chicago where you could get orchestra seats for 70. So we got those seats. And where set for Chicago at 8pm.

I had been to New York before and have done all the sight seeing before so, after lunch, Tim and I just went to a few bars had a few beers. It was fun. Before we new it, it was 6:30pm so we made our way back to Times Square for the show. It was amazing. A great performance. The show finished at around 10:30, and we wandered around times square for about thirty minutes, got an Ice Cream before heading back for the train. The train was wayyyyyyyy slow, we ended up getting to Philly at around 2:30AM... passed out. Anyway it was an excellent day and the photo's are below :)

Fourscore and seven years...

Washinton DC - Day 1

I hit the road with Tim headed for Washington DC on Monday morning. It wasn't that early of a start to the day as we had planned on getting a room and spending the night there instead of cramming everything into one day. We drove along I95 and I'd never been in 4 states in such a short amount of time. It takes about 2-3 hours to get to Washington DC from Pennsylvania driving through Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We stopped in Maryland for a restroom break but then we headed off and finally reached our destination. We checked in to the hotel and headed Downtown to see 'The National Mall' which is where everything is. I saw the Washington Monument ... that's the obelisk in the pictures ... so we headed in that direction and then we saw The White House so we walked over to that and then back to the monument then along the mall towards the Lincoln Memorial ... few pictures ... you know that big old statue with Abraham Lincoln sitting on the seat? Yeah that's the Lincoln memorial... its cool. There were a few more memorials in the area. One of which was the Vietnam Memorial. My first impression (to Tim) "what is that a hole in the ground?" We got closer and wow it was so touching. Basically, there's a bunch of panels with a list of names on each and the names are of all those lost during the Vietnam war. You can see it in the pictures below. Pretty incredible and very very sad :(

Anyway we headed off again back around to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) memorial... pretty cool all about his life and stuff. Then round more to the Thomas Jefferson memorial. We then kept walking reached the Holocaust Museum, but it was about to close, I got a pamphlet though. Then further back to the mall then started in the opposite direction of the Lincoln memorial, towards the Capitol Building... walked around the outside and we planned on going inside if possible the next day. We then marched over to the library of congress which was closed too (it was around 5/6pm). We planned on going there the next day too. Passed the Supreme Court, back down towards downtown DC to get some dinner in this really cool yummy restaurant which matched my budget perfectly. It was a restaurant/brewery... couldn't beat it really. Decided it was time to call it a day, we walked about 6 miles ... lol ... I was tired plus we had to get up early to make it for the tour of the capitol and to see the library of congress.

Washington - Day 2

We checked out of the hotel and made our way out to the Capitol building for our tour... it was pretty cool I'm not gonna lie ... learned a lot of American history. It was kind of like Stormont? Except much bigger? I think? I dunno ... lol ... Anyway from there we where able to 'Tunnel' to the library of congress where they have EVERYTHING. Ton's of archives of footage, books, anything. Pretty cool. Then we headed towards the 'Newseum' basically a museum of news. It was incredible. Best museum I've ever been too i couldn't believe all the information they had. front pages of news papers dating back to the 1500's. Crazy. With various screenings of news history, sports history and a 4-D movie experience, which was awesome. They had an exhibition about crime and mobsters and gangsters. It was really cool. My favourite exhibit was the Pulitzer Prize Gallery. You could see all the Pulitzer Prize winners for the past 40 years. There was also interactive videos of the photographers talking about each photo and the article which matched it. It was something else. They had an exhibit for 9/11 which was heartbreaking. They had the antenna which stood on the North Tower on display along with a step by step time line of what happened as well as a few screenings of different experiences. With a wall of front page's of newspapers from all over THE WORLD. Anyway we kept on going around... it was approaching 4:30 and we had one last thing to see which was the Terrace on the 6th floor. Its like a balcony of the newseum, with a great view of the Capitol Building. We decided it was time to leave so we started heading out then i notice the 'Fotobama' gallery which is a series of photographs of America's latest president, Barrack Obama. I'm reading the captions with my finger. 5 minutes later, I hear a voice, (which at first i thought was hades) in my ear, saying 'Please..DO NOT TOUCH'. I jump, turn around and there is this adorable old lady. I didn't think it was that big of a deal I mean it wasn't like i was touching the queens crown or anything(there were no 'Do not Touch' signs.

Anyway we're done and try to find the exit...
lets call her 'Mouthy Maggie', walks away. We head in the direction of the elevator, when all of a sudden...

Mouthy Maggie: The stairs are over there.
(At this point Scott is very tired. He doesn't want to walk. He points at the elevator and is about to speak... when..)
Mouthy Maggie: That elevator doesn't bring people DOWN. It's to bring people up to the 6th floor.
(It then goes through Scott's head as to how people get down. Maggie points out her pass... Scott clearly a little bit agitated and starts to lighten the mood and start to play along and tease Mouth Maggie... )
Scott:Oh so why can't we go down that elevator?
Holds a key card in the air which is currently wrapped around her neck.
Scott: OOH... can you buy those in the gift store?
Mouthy Maggie: I work here...
Scott: Ohh OK. I see. So there is no elevator down?
Mouthy Maggie: There is one over there but its broken.
Scott: OK, I think we'll take these stairs.

FIN.

So that is the Mouthy Maggie story. I'm can't help but chuckle a little as I type this. She was a very sweet lady and she did a great job directing us. :) Thanks 'Mouthy Maggie'

We left the Newseum and headed out of Washington and figured it would be best to just grab something to eat for dinner on the journey home.

We got back to Philly around 9:30PM. Watched 'The Hangover' before falling asleep.

I'm spending today in Philly, before heading off to New York for the day tomorrow. We're gonna try and catch a show on Broadway. I'm super excited :) Until then folks! Enjoy the pictures!

Walking the National Mall ...

Library of Congress and Capitol Building

The Newseum ... forgot to mention the pieces of the Berlin wall :)