First day in NYC

We were out the door by 8:15am, first stop: Central Park on the way to the Metropolitan Museum! Central Park was beautiful, and massive...lots of joggers and bikers. Saw some squirrels (squirrels are kind of a big deal for me, since i've only seen about 2 in my lifetime...). We were definitely still tired from last night, lugging around our bags and frantically trying to catch taxis and find the correct subway...our first adventure in NYC! haha. Anyway so we made it to the Met at around 10ish. We checked out their great Egyptian section, Medieval art section, Sculptures, Musical Instruments...theres TONS to look at. It was great, some beautiful pieces of artwork, I especially loved Monet's work (the French impressionist). We left there after about 4-5 hours and had lunch somewhere. It is an interesting experience here in NYC; people dont really want to be helpful at all. The main focus is to get the customer in and out as fast as possible, without a smile or a greeting. Definitely different. Also, its so multicultural. At the Met we barely heard anyone speaking English! mainly european languages, since of course there are a lot of tourists. But even just going around town among locals, there is a lot of people speaking spanish, and a lot of middle eastern and indian people. Definitely an interesting thing to observe. Anyway! So after we ate we meandered down 5th Avenue...I went into a 5 story Forever 21 which was ridiculous...so anyway we looked at a few more shops and made it to Times Square, which was totally full of people (tourists). That was pretty fantastic :) Hung around there, went to some more stores, (starbucks gave us a much needed energy boost, there's literally one on every corner). Then it was getting late so we went back to Penn station to pick up our bags, caught the subway home, and just hung out. Need less to say we a tuckered out, and have a full day tomorrow....just wanna sleep....but first, pictures :-)

 First view of the city coming out of Penn Station around 7:30pm

 

Central park

More Chicago pics

Michigan ave!

Illinois - The Land of Lincoln

Sears Tower

4th of July

Wow! So we made it to NYC last night, the 4th of July! My trusty little iPhone told me where to go and watch the fireworks :) Macy's sponsors a fireworks thing every year at the Hudson river. It's televised nationwide. Anway so we managed to figure out how to store bags at the train station (that place is huge and complicated)..after much wandering around and getting lost, we ended up at the right place and the guy let us store our bags for 24 hours. We then followed the directions on foot to the fireworks, about a mile and a half away. Unforunately we werent able to store all of our bags, so we still had a fairly heavy load, but who cares cuz  THE SHOW WAS AWESOME!! It was a huge wide stretch of fireworks and thousands of people. We should have left early though - the amount of people...wow....it was crazy. We tried to hail a taxi to where we are staying but no luck, had to ask a local where the subway station was. We finally make it and a cop strikes up a conversation with us. We then asked if we were at the right stop - and he was like, no, this train is going downtown to Brooklyn! He's like u gotta go across the street. Tell them my name so u won't have to pay again. So we walked across the street, tell the security guy the cops name, and he let's us through. We walk down the stairs...and come face to face with the same guy! He's like what are u guys doing here again!!! you drunk too much kool-aid! LOL so confusing. We crossed the wrong street apparently. So we get to the right place - MASS CHAOS.  We literally had to swim through a massive crowd to get to the front so we could get on when it arrived. Felt like we were in a can of sardines. Just gotta push your way in! Haha. The subway itself was packed, hot...but awesome. 

 They shut off the road. Theres way more people on our other side, and further down in this direction also

 Amazing sunset

NYC bound!

On the train once again, destination: New York City!!! Had a great day in Chicago yesterday, went up the sears tower (now renamed the Willis tower, wtf??) so that was quite the ordeal! Endless lines before you actually get to the top, it's insane. I think it took 2 hours at least! But the view was stupendous! Chicago definitely has some beautiful architecture. Afterwards we had true, authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. WOW it truly is a pizza PIE! so yummy. I dont know if i can go back to regular pizza!!

There are a lot of interesting people that we ran into on the street. One well dressed man in a spiffy suit was a street preacher, who ended every sentence "you're going to hell" but sounded more like hay-ell haha. If you don't stop smokin dem druuugz den you goin to hay-ell :D he made some good points, too bad he was crazy. We gave a yogi bar to a young guy sitting on the corner, singing his heart out, obviously just making up verses on the spot, with a sign that said "stranded". He was singing something about getting all his shit in the car...he was very passionate too lol. And of course my favorite, the obnoxious saxophone player on the corner...he only knows one song and he plays it all day extremely loudly!!!

We don't like this new train as much as the old one. I take back all the bad things i said about it! There's less leg room, only one floor (which means we can't take over the unused cafe downstairs with the long benches like we did last time) and the lounge is way smaller. AND we left 25 mins late and everyone says that trains never leave Chicago late if they can help it! Although we left 6 hours late in Sacramento and 2 hours late in Salt Lake City...much improved.

We had an eventful night nevertheless. Shani slept in the overheard luggage compartment! It was empty so I said it would be a great place to sleep since you can stretch out. So that's where she went haha and I got both seats :) the conducters seem more strict on this train then the others but they didn't notice her up there. Anyway we arrive in about 7 hours and will hopefully see a great fireworks show in NYC!

Chicago Picture Post

Saw Lake Michigan today, downtown Chicago (Michigan ave), and ended the day with pizza! haha. we were going to go up the Sears Tower but we were going to have to wait an hour and a half! we are going to go back tomorrow morning and hopefully it will be less of a wait :P

was an EXTREMELY hot day - super muggy, i think it was around 90 degrees. we so wanted to jump in the lake but didnt bring our bathings suits with us, so we waded for about 15 mins. then we caught the bus downtown.

Click for pics!

Picture Post!

Sacramento/Utah/Colorado/Nebraska/Iowa/Illinois

 Taking off in Sacramento

Finally arrived and rested!

We're in Chicago!!! Staying with a friend and its so nice. Something about sleeping on a train and waking up...you never ever feel rested. But we got to her place at around 2am and got up at noon and feeling fantastic! Not the nicest day though...cloudy and windy. Who cares, we are finally off the train! haha.

The train last night was crazy...they ran out of food sometime in the afternoon, so they announced over the PA system that they would have "snack packs" for everyone...and promptly ran out before even getting to half of the people (over 300 of us). And then they apologized for the unseen circumstances and hoped they would see us again on future Amtrak trains (that last part was said very quietly and awkwardly hahahha). Anyway, next on our list is Chicago Deep Dish pizza!

Here's some pictures of our California trip:

Chicago...please?

41st hour...ughh....expect a long rant later when I have the luxury of a real keyboard and not just my trusty little iPhone!!!

Soon to be in Chicago (hopefully). Iowa was one big corn field. Stepped off the train in Osceola and the air was so thick and muggy it was awful. Got right back on to the air con :P it was over 100 degrees.

Oh Amtrak
It is just a fact
That, while filled with tact
Your president oughta be sacked!

Ok now I feel better :D a lot of it isn't their fault...the flooding, waiting for trains to pass...but it's getting a little ridiculous.

The 30th hour...

Well...we pretty much slept through Nebraska (sorry Kat!) but I was awake the last hour or so of it. We had to go through the flooded part where we were about 4 inches above the water! Saw lots of submerged trees, cars, and houses. The water went right up to where the train tracks are, which never happens. Unfortunately Shani missed out on this because she was...locked in the bathroom for 40 mins. The doorknob was broken from the inside, she was pressing the attendant button the whole time and no one showed up! I had no idea where she was :P

We just crossed over the Missouri river and made it into Iowa where there are lots an lots of corn fields.

Hello, Goodbye Denver

So instead of hanging out in Denver tonight (after arriving 2 hours late, due to general Amtrak incompetence and a rock landing on the tracks right innfront of the train, narrowly missing us) we decided to stay on and go straight to Chicago. The Denver-Chicago train we were supposed to catch got cancelled which would leave us stranded here for 2 days with nowhere to stay. Sooooo we are going to be on this train a straight 40 or so hours! Crazy flooding in Nebraska will make this train be delayed by who knows how long...our awesome conductor who let us stay on said that it would take 7 hours to go 20 miles in the flooded area. Soooooooo yeah. Amtrak train 6 is our new home!!

The desert of Utah is actually really beautiful but I prefer the beautiful green countryside of Colorado. It was really nice going along the Colorado river pretty much all day. Went by lots of ranches and canyons. Oh yeah, and we watched iron man on my computer with a friendly elderly Amish gentleman! Gotta love it. He thought it was star wars haha and he asked if the laptop was a blackberry. Very friendly and nicr man!

Pictures to come...once we make it off this thing.

Farewell SLC

Farewell salt lake city! Hit with our 3rd delay/ complication of the trip. Amtrak needs to get it's shit together! I guess we'll have to get used to it. Our train supposedly takes off at 3:30am, so we set our alarms for 2...then promptly got up at 3:05! Totally thought we would miss the train (looking back I have no idea why). We didn't realize there is a one hour time difference from Utah and California. Oops! Anyway, surprise surprise, the train isn't even here yet and it's 4:15am. And no, I am not a morning person.

Finally we made it

So, we made it to Salt Lake City this morning, around 8. Today we hung out around Temple Square which was most interesting - the Mormon temple is really beautiful and castle-like. The entire city is basically built around the temple, with that being the center. Its like a grid. The city planners take great care in the maintenance and landscaping of the whole city - literally flowers everywhere! So many roses. It really makes a difference in the ambience of a place! And the sidewalks are so wide, the street lanes are so roomy. Theres literally like 20 feet of grass in between the sidewalk and the road. So beautiful.

So at the temple we had a tour by 2 mormon sisters. The whole Mormon philosophy doesnt make a whole lot of sense to me, but they were both really sweet, and really believe in Jesus and God, which was nice. There were lots of statues of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young all around, and there was even an original log cabin built by some of the first pioneers to the area! I've always wanted to see one of those. Its quite interesting to see pictures of how SLC used to be before it got built up into a city - it was just completely desert. And now its a beautiful, thriving city. The majestic Rocky Mountains make for a beautiful backdrop.

Now for the pictures!

 The Rocky Mountains from the train tracks

 An example of the nice architecture just walking around the streets - this is a Church

 The Mormon Temple from afar

 A native American dude outside the temple ;)

 Beautiful flowers all around, this is within Temple Square, but theres flowers literally everywhere

 The Temple

 Roses!

 Statue of Jesus

Original Pioneer log cabin, just across from the temple

Delays

Hit with our first delay! So Amtrak called us up this morning to inform us that our train was delayed. Helpfully, they didn’t even tell me how long it was delayed, but after being put on hold they finally told me that it was delayed around 4 HOURS. This is actually great news, considering our wet laundry is still in the dryer, not to mention that our arrival time in Salt Lake City was going to be around 3:30 am. Now we are looking to get in around 7am, which is much better.

Pictures, anyone? Here’s a little of our stop in San Francisco.

Salt Lake City!

 Today we set out for Salt Lake City…our train leaves in approximately 4 hours, still have laundry in the machine, our stuff is spread out across the room, and not quite sure how its all going to fit. But we’re SO READY FOR THIS! (really, we are..I think)