Days 15 and 16: Travel and Harry Potter World!

Day 15: Travel Day

Yesterday was a pretty nothing day, just travel to Orlando. We checked out of the hostel, went shopping for a bit, then picked up our bags and waited in the hostel lobby for the shuttle to the airport, we came 40 minutes late, not a great start to our travels to the east coast.

Once we finally got the airport, we quickly realised that United Airlines IS STUPID. We only had one reservation between us, so assumed it would find the booking for us all, but no, just for Rachel's ticket. Plus it was a self-serve kiosk so if one of the attendants had been busy with someone else, we would have been in trouble!

When we each had our boarding passes, we went through security, and apparently United is much stricter on  liquids, so we all lost our water bottles, and Sohan lost her brand new shampoo and conditioner. WE WERE NOT HAPPY!

We had to settle on Burger King for lunch, then went the gate for our plane, but then it wasn't on the screen! The plane was delayed, so we really had no idea what was going on. The flight eventually got called for boarding, and it wasn't until then that we all realised we were in completely different seats. 5 hours by ourself! And with no on-flight entertainment or food, it proved to be a very long fight.

At the end of our ordeal we arrived at Orlando Airport at 12am and were at our hotel around 12:30, much quicker than we expected. The hotel is so nice! Comfy beds, and lots of space :)

Day 16: Harry Potter World!

When we woke up this morning, it was HOT and HUMID. We knew we were in for a stinker. We went down to Downtown Disney for brekkie, then got a taxi to Universal Studios.

We made our way through the Island of Adventure theme park until we reached what we came here for, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! We were all sooo excited to be here, and with the snow-covered rooftops of the Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts Castle visible, we felt like we were actual in the Wizarding World.

We rode the Triwizard dragon coaster twice, and visited Honeyduke's and Zonko's for lollies and jokes. There was an amazing simulator ride that took you through a quidditch game with Harry, including dementors and giant spiders. We actually got to go straight to the front of the line the second time all because we gave up our seats for a larger group at lunch! The lady working was overly apologetic about moving us and offered to take us to the front of the (60 minute wait) line as well as letting us sample some free pumpkin juice!! We of course tried the butter beer, which was sooo good! Lunch was at the Three Broomsticks, with traditional pub style food include apple and pear cider.

After a little explore through the rest of the theme park (including the Hulk rollercoaster and the Spiderman simulator) we headed back for more butterbeer. By this time the sun was getting to us and we were all pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel for a rest, then headed out again for dinner, again at Downtown Disney.

Marni and Rachel took a quick dip in the pool, and now we're all just chilling in the room.

We leave for Washington tomorrow!

View of Hogsmeade

The Hogwarts Express!

Sneakoscope!

The Extendable Ear!

Zonko's Joke Shop

Chocolate Frogs!

Sohan in robes!

Rachel and Marni in robes!

The three of us in front of the castle!

Video: Laundry Room Situation

Day 13 and 14: Bikes, comedy and chocolate

Well the past two days have been interesting to say the least.

Let's start with yesterday, day 13.

From the very beginning of planning for this trip we had wanted to hire bikes and ride around somewhere, for a bit of fun and some exercise. We decided to do that yesterday so we could ride through Golden Gate Park and over the Bridge. Our hostel had a few brochures we could look at for bike hiring places, all at a student discounted rate, so we ended up choosing the one closest to our hostel, Blazing Saddles (despite Marni hating the name).

We went, all dressed in tights and t-shirts, got our bikes, then were told we had to ride straight down the street before we got to the designated bike path. This was kinda scary for us, since none of us ride bikes on a road at home, let alone in San Francisco on the opposite side of the road! We decided on walking them down on the footpath, then hopped on once the bike path was very clear. We were fine until we had to start following directions, and ended up stopping several times before we reached the first stop on our self guided tour, Alamo Square Park, where the Painted Ladies houses are situated. They were so cute and picturesque! We each decided we like the blue house second from the right the best.

The Painted Ladies!

We then continued down to Golden Gate Park (getting lost again on the way) and by the time we finally got in to the park, we decided it was time for a well deserved rest and snack, which consisted of vegemite sandwhiches on the Boudin sourdough bread Rachel had bought on our day at the wharf.

After our snack, we were feeling a little disparate at our lack of progress. The Bridge we were aiming to cross seemed so far away!! But we did not. We decided to take the easy route to the Golden Gate Bridge, with less hills and shorter in both time and length. Well if we hadn't taken the easy route, we would probably still be out there cycling! We finally made it to the Bridge, took a quick toilet break, before hopping back on, and battling both the wind and pedestrians as we rode across one of the most famous bridges in the world, looking over one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It would have been handy if the bikes had autopilot while we were riding over the bridge so we could keep looking at the stunning view, with the Pacific Ocean to our left. We continued riding all the way to Sausalito, rewarded ourselves with some fish n chips as well as ice cream. 

Our view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the bike track

Once we had returned our bikes and arrived back at the hostel, we needed to do some washing. The story only gets better from here. We put the washing in and decided to spend the 30 mins waiting time by popping into the hostel's comedy night which we thought would be entertaining. Lets just say... it was. The first few comedians were a little awkward (and high) but it was still quite funny. There was a fellow Australian sitting in the same row as us, from Tasmania, who had had a little too much to drink and kept on chiming in to the comedian's stories. We listened to a couple of the comedians and then left to go and check on our washing.

Well. Turns out we had put more than double the amount of dishwashing powder into the machine and our clothes were soaking wet. Not just wet, but dripping wet with all this soap all in it. So we put it into the dryer hoping it would dry up. Nope. It took another 2 cycles of drying (45 minutes per cycle) to finally get our clothes warm and dry, even though some of them have shrunk (especially Sohan's pyjama top!)

While we were loading our washing into the dryer, the host of the comedy night, Luke, pops into the laundry room to give us some company. Luke has had a lot of alcohol during this comedy night which provided free beer and wine, which meant that he wasn't quite in the right state of mind. After a couple of minutes of regular conversation where he informed us that he was in fact a comedian and he performed earlier on in the night when we weren't there, things got a bit out of hand. We told him to tell some jokes, and he said he would be willing to give us our own show, and we were like 'oh cool, yeah, a comedian show while we wait for the laundry – how exciting!' Not quite – he wanted to offer us a “private show” in a “secluded area”... we politely declined.

So in between these 45 minute clothes-drying sessions we popped in and out of the comedy night. Every time Luke went up on stage to announce a new comedian, he winked at us in the front row. Every. Single. Time.

It was funny at first, not so much as it continued.

Once our clothes finally finished drying, we went into the laundry room and who do we see? The Tasmanian who was sitting near us, passed out on the chairs, with wet pants. Yes, ladies and gentleman – he had peed his pants. That's what I'm going to leave this day blog with.

_______________________________________

On to the next day - We had a leisurely start today, left the hostel a bit before 10, and stopped into Zara (who are having a big sale) before heading to the bustop to go to Ghirardelli Square. 

Once on the packed bus, Rachel looked in her bag, and realised her wallet was not there, and had in fact been stolen. This kinda ruined our morning as she called banks to find that her cards had been used and money had been taken out, so they were all cancelled and organised to have new ones sent to New York.

After sorting all this out, we changed our plans and headed straight down to the Boudin Bakery again, to have an awesome sourdough bowl of soup. It was so much windier down there than the past few days, and since we ate outside, it was somewhat tricky!! We then continued on foot to Ghirardelli Square, stopping a few places along the way, until we finally reached the chocolate heaven! It was somewhat overwhelming when we entered, in terms of what to buy for our family and friends, and also what to get for ourselves right then and there! Then of course navigating through the masses of people in the Ghirardelli cafe was a task in itself. We each ended up getting an ice-cream sundae, which was exciting at first, but afterwards we all felt very sick...

Pre-Sundae

Post-Sundae

We purchased some chocolate and nursed our bloated bellies, we headed back to the hostel to recover from our ice-cream comas properly. Somewhat recuperated, we headed out to Lori's Diner, stepping back into the 50's for some diner style food.

Now we're packing our suitcases (a little more difficult after our purchases), ready for a chill day of travel tomorrow.

That is all!

Marni, Rachel and Sohan

Day Eleven and Twelve: Shopping, Fisherman's Wharf Baseball Game, Muir Woods, Sausalito, Alcatraz!

In a nutshell Day Eleven: shopping, Fisherman's Wharf and the BASEBALL GAME!!

So shiny...

Fisherman's Wharf!

Marni's freebie cap and stickers at In N Out Burger.

Lolly shoppin'

San Fran City Scene

BASEBALL!

Come on LA!

!
Day Twelve: Muir Woods, Sausalito and Alcatraz tour, + the Cheesecake Factory for dinner!

Muir Woods = so pretty.

We saw real live deer!!

Sausalito

An amazing lunch on the water

Tourist snaps - the Golden Gate Bridge

Scary!

An inmate's cell

Day 9 and 10: La Jolla, Sleepover and San Francisco

EVENTFUL COUPLE OF DAYS. AND BY EVENTFUL WE MEAN INCREDIBLY FUN.

You remember Kirsten, yes? If not, go to our older post and read about her and her family. They are super duper cool locals from San Diego. Kirsten drives around everywhere, unlike Sohan, and at dinner kindly offered to drive us to this beach called La Jolla (pronounced La-hoy-ah - I know, actually?!) because it was meant to be a lot nicer than the beach we had been to. So we started the day with Sea World where we went on the MAAAANNNNNNTTTTAAAAA (the lady kept saying it in this annoying voice and expected us to repeat it 3 times) which is a rollercoaster. You know how we love rollercoasters. We then went to watch the Shamu show which was super cool. The whales did NOT look real, but they were, which made the tricks they did that much more exciting to watch. Flips, jumps, splashes... the lot. We also had a look at animals like the dolphins, otters, sea lions and sharks.

We then met Kirsten outside Sea World and we begun our journey to the beach. On the way we picked up Jordan, one of Kirsten's friends, who was keen for a hangout and with whom we got along with instantly. Once at La Jolla beach, we literally thought we were in a movie/music video. The American accents, bon fires, people dancing around to music, the beach houses... IT WAS ALL FROM HOLLYWOOD! After we settled ourselves at a nice spot on the sand, chatted away and dipped our feet into the ocean a couple of times, we simultaneously tried to convince Marni to pretend to drown so the good-looking life guard and/or surfers would come to save her. She did not. We weren't happy. Kirsten and Sohan went for a walk down the beach while Jordan, Rachel and Marni stayed to talk, read and nap. The walk down the beach was amazing - literally RIGHT out of a movie. We climbed over some rocks and sat down, watching the sun nearly set as we discussed TV shows and travel. On our way back, a surfer informed us he was in pain as he was stung by a sting ray, so we ran to the life guard to get help. Gosh, we wish Marni had come with us (to chat to the life guard)... Meanwhile, the other girls were wondering where on earth Kirsten and Sohan had gotten to!

We left the beach and walked up to the shops and got a milkshake, though it was more like a thickshake, since we had to eat it with a spoon! We all wanted to hang into the night though, and on our way back to the hostel, Kirsten convinced us to sleep over at her place instead, insisting it would be easier for everyone (though she wasn't too keen on dropping us home, fair enough!). With record-time packing skills, we were out of the hostel within 15 minutes. Once we had settled ourselves at Kirsten's home, we all freshened up, we went out to a cafe called 'The Living Room'. They had milky-way flavoured coffee, toffee mochas, cinnamon mochas and BAGELS! So we were prettttyyyy content. We talked about college in the US, uni in AUS, strange crazy room-mates and the like. It was a wonderful evening. By the time we dropped Jordan off we were pretty much ready to crash.

The next morning, (we are now onto day 10) we had a lovely little sleep in before getting make-up tutorials from Kirsten and hyping over how cheap Mac make up is (Sohan can't wait to re-stock  her collection!). We had brunch at a local cafe called 'La Mesa Bistro and Bakery' where portions were once again, absolutely massive. Lets just say we weren't hungry for a while, especially since we didn't have 'breakfast' until about noon.

Kirsten then took us to her uncle and aunt's place so we could use their printer to check in online for our flight to San Francisco, AND LET ME TELL YOU, THIS IS NO JOKE. THEIR HOUSE WAS PRETTY MUCH FROM A MOVIE. THE NICEST HOUSE EVER. PLUS, THEY HAVE A DOLCE & GABBANA MODEL FOR A NEPHEW WHO IS PRETTY MUCH FAMOUS WHO  LINDSAY LOHAN WAS AFTER. PLUS THEY WERE THE NICEST PEOPLE EVERL WHAT. IS. LIFE.  Marni was basically just swooning over Kirsten's uncle's job, he works as a camera man on basically all her favourite shows, The OC, Pretty Little Liars, Chuck and Hart of Dixie! ONCE AGAIN, THIS NEVER HAPPENSSSSS IN AUSTRALIA!

We made our way to Balboa park next, which was HUGE and really pretty. The weather was perfect and we soaked up the sun as much as we could. We held some cockatoos and did some sight-seeing of all the pretty buildings and gardens. We also went to a little cafe for gelato closer to Downtown which was delicious. It was a lovely afternoon, chilling with a local instead of being tourists.

It was sad to say goodbye to Kirsten after we had spent a great couple of days with her and we were extremely grateful for her kindness. We boarded the plane to San Francisco and we are now sitting in an AWESOME hostel, and are looking forward to our free brekkie in the morning, hoping it's up to our previous hostels' standards.

Photos to come soon.

Marni, Rachel and Sohan.

Day 7: San Diego Pacific Beach AND Day 8: San Diego Zoo and Italian Catchup Dinner

So last night we just didn't bother with the blog. It was our first night at the Lucky D's hostel, and frankly, we were just pooped. So here' an extra long blog post (while we're still on a high) about our past two days in San Diego.

Yesterday morning we left our motel in Anaheim around 9am, we had the coach pick us up, and we said goodbye to Disneyland :( the bus trip took much shorter than the estimated 3 hours, so we were in San Diego around 11am. We were dropped at the Handerley Hotel, which was the closest the bus could drop us to our hostel Lucky D's in the Gaslamp District. Rachel went inside to ask for the number of a cab company, and instead the guy there offered to call someone for us, he dialled a number and said: “Where are you? Ok cool, I've got some people for you.” He then came out and told us that a very tall man would be arriving in a black town car and we wouldn't miss him. This made us think that it was a bit odd, with our first thoughts being of Gossip Girl and their town cars. It turned out to be a semi-fancy car with an African driver, very random, but we got where we needed to be and it was the same price as what the hotel guy had told us it would be, so while it wasn't the drab cab we were after, it still got us from A to B, and in much more style!

The hostel looks pretty dingy from the outside (in Rachel's opinion anyway), with only a door and a sign indicating that there was any sort of accommodation. We entered the hostel with our super heavy bags in tow, and without a lift here, that proved veeerrry difficult, as this meant the only way up to reception was stairs! Immediately when we stepped inside there was a whole bunch of posters and photos all over the walls as well as writing and all these bright colours. When we went up the stairs and onto the first floor where the reception is, it was all the same, with cds and records covers and posters covering the walls, which could sound tacky, but actually looks really funky and cool. We got given our room, which is a four person room, and initially it was just the three of us, until an hour or so later, when another girl was assigned to our room. Luckily she's really cool and easy to share a room with!

We then asked for a good place to out for lunch, and the people at reception recommended a place called 'Neighborhood' to eat, which is a bar/bistro type place right across the road from the hostel. It was so nice, and there was sweet potato fries!! So we got a plate to share, Sohan and Rachel both got chicken sandwiches and Marni got macaroni and cheese gourmet style. It reminded us of all the cafe food in Sydney! We also considered ordering some drinks since we were given a drinks menu, but decided against it since it's illegal here for us to drink! (sad face)

After lunch we got all our stuff together to spend some time at the beach. We were recommended to go to Pacific Beach, so that's where we headed on bus. It was pretty easy to get there, with google maps helping us along the way. We managed to get there, had a little walk around then settled on the beach for a little while and fell asleep for over an hour!! Rachel thought she would be fine in her bikini without wearing sunscreen, however she proved very wrong, as later that night the red started to emerge on her back and legs.

When we awoke more and had brushed the sand off our bodies, we took a little stroll down the beach, and stepped into a few of the surfy shops along the way. In one we met a nice and very friendly Irish guy who was working there, who seemed to relate to us since we were also foreigners. We walked along a bit further before heading back to the bus and going to Souplantation! Rachel went here last time she was here a few years ago, and remembered it to be an amazing buffet, so we went there to see if it was as good as the memory. It was. First there was a 5 metre long buffet of just salad, followed by soup, bread and hot dishes and of course a dessert soft serve ice cream and toppings. Definitely worth the $11 we spent for all you can eat!

Once our bellies were more than full, we made a quick stop into CVS Pharmacy (where very cheap alcohol could be bought, at a pharmacy you ask? Yes, weird), and then it was back onto the bus, then onto a trolley that took us back to Downtown near our hostel, where we chilled out and basically fell straight asleep, despite the noise of all the 21+ year olds having a good ole time.

DAY 8

Zoo day! We got up nice and early, enjoyed the free breakfast at the hostel (sugary cereal and waffles we made ourselves) and set of to the zoo by bus, and were there for opening at 9am. We had bought the tickets the night before at the hostel reception, so we were able to walk straight in. There were just so many amazing animals there, but highlights included the meerkats, elephants, the jaguar and her two month old cubs, the giraffes and the baby girl giraffe, the polar bears, a wolf that we got pretty close with in a demonstration, naked mole rats, and a 'Camp Critters' show which featured a sea lion, a seal and a cheetah and the cheetah's best friend, a domestic dog. We did a lot of walking and saw so many animals it's too hard to write it all down! We also went on the skyfari and a bus tour, which gave our feet a break and enable us to see more of the zoo much quicker.

After we well and truly saw most of the zoo, we headed back to the hostel, where we were meeting some of Rachel's friends Kirsten, Kamryn, Angela and Joe (plus Kamryn's friend who tagged along to), who live here in San Diego, whom she had met when they were her host family on a school trip about five years ago. We went to an amazing Italian restaurant, with absolutely gigantic serving sizes, 'family servings' they called it, and with eight of us eating three dishes, we didn't even eat half! It tasted sooo good, we wished we could have eaten it all.

Dessert was a Ghiradelli for ice-cream, where we got a free sample upon entry, and we each ordered some ice cream and chatted away about TV and America and Australia and celebrities and everything else! It was great to catch up.

All in all a very busy couple days.

Good night!

PHOTOS TO COME SOON WHEN NOT SO TIRED :D

Day Six: Disneyland...Again! (Photo Blog)

Day Five: California Adventure Park

This morning we got up nice and early for our complimentary breakfast at our motel in Anaheim, expecting something even better than our hostel breakfast. We excitedly made our way to the breakfast area only to discover that it was a tiny room with some crap cereal, donuts, and cupcake/muffins...oh and butter out of a squeezy bottle! After tasting the yuck muffin and donut (not even Marni's Darjeeling tea made up for it) we agreed that the nearby IHOP would make for a better option!! At IHOP, where we were overwhelmed with choice, we decided on wholemeal pancakes as well as turkey bacon, hash browns and egg "substitute".

Feeling nice and full we headed to California Adventure Park. After learning from what happened yesterday we got our fast passes for California Screamin' and headed to Goofy's Sky School. For California Screamin' Sohan was too scared to be alone but she ended up having a great time anyway, despite looking like she was crying towards the end...

There was lots of waiting around as per usual, especially for the new Cars ride which at one point had a four hour wait!! Even though we went back to the motel for a swim and came back two hours later it was not enough for the line to go down so sadly we missed out.

In the middle of the day when the wait times were longer we decided to watch Aladdin - A Musical Spectacular which was so fantastic, except there were a few too many pop culture jokes for Rachel and Marni's liking (they should just stick to the original script - don't throw in jokes about the Kardashians and Twilight...) but Sohan loved them! The show made us even more excited to see The Lion King on Broadway in a few weeks.

At the end of the day we had some Mexican (Marni remembered eating there when she was younger) but it was ruined when Rachel's burrito came with beans even though she asked for none (she can't eat them after a bad vom experience...). We walked down the beautiful tree lined, lit up street and bought some cereal for tomorrow's breakfast, so we don't need to buy a massive breakky in the morn again.

Now we're settled in to watch some evening TV and off to bed to prepare for our last day of Disneyland, if our extremely sore feet can handle it that is (we might need to get one of those fat-mobiles/motorized scooters we keep seeing people riding)!

Lots of love Marni, Rachel and Sohan

Day 4: DISNEYLAND!

Day four – Disneyland!

Today we enjoyed our last free breakfast at Hostelling International Santa Monica. We managed to get up and ready pretty early compared to our usual standard, though the call of Disneyland was most likely the main drive behind our speediness! After evacuating our awesome private room, we checked out, left our bags with reception, then went on the prowl for some dollar notes and change, as the numerous bus trips from yesterday had left us with only larger currency. Along the way, we found this really cute store, Kitson, which we all might have fallen in love with a bit. Definitely a stop to be made at the New York Store!

We picked up our bags and rolled our way to the taxi rank, our huge suitcases in tow, ready to get to the Sheraton Hotel where our bus to Anaheim would pick us up. The first taxi driver in the rank seemed more than happy to help us until we told him our destination, at which he proceeded to tell us that it was within walking distance. He was not impressed when we insisted, and then offered to take us all the way to Anaheim, even when we informed him that we had already paid for the bus service. We politely declined.

Once we arrived at the Sheraton, we realised we were several minutes early, so spent some time chillaxing, about forty minutes of chillaxing in fact! It was a lovely sight when the bus came into view to pick us up. It was nice to see that the other two passengers in the mini-bus were fellow-Aussies, from Brisbane, also very excited to reach the world of Disney.

The bus trip took around an hour and dropped us right at our motel, so we checked in around 12:30, dropped our bags and headed straight for Disneyland, enjoying the glorious sunshine and heat!

Our plan was to grab fast passes for each ride, then go back to the beginning and then get to the straight of the ride for each line. However after grabbing one fast pass, a Space Mountain ride and a hotdog, we went to get another and discovered we could only hold one fast pass at a time. It was kinda dumb. So we waited in line for the and the Indiana Jones Ride (with a visit to Aladdin in between) before heading back to the Star Tours simultor ride, which Sohan immensely enjoyed, primarily because CP30 was a featuring character in the ride. We wanted to go to Splash Mountain, but the line was 90 minutes long! We decided to wait until Wednesday when we would be back in Disneyland again, so we waited in the Haunted House line for 25 minutes, which was cool but not as scary as we thought it would be. We then wandered back to the main street to wait for the parade at 6:30pm, and also found an ice-cream sandwhich each. 

The parade was so much fun! Starting with Mickey and Minnie (during which Rachel had an interesting fall off the railing she was perched on), we then saw Aladdin again with Genie and his crew, Ariel with her fish friends, Donald Duck, The Disney Princesses Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Rapunzel from Tangled, The Frog Princess, The Lion King (Marni's favourite), Peter Pan and Hook, of course Tinkerbell and Mary Poppins and Bert to finish. We were left wanting more!

On our way out, Rachel experienced a magical moment with Ariel, who was doing a meet and greet by the exit. Let's just say she was very excited!!

We headed back to the motel along the way, picking up a pepporoni pizza and some garlic bread to eat in our room, and once we had collected our bags and dumped the down, we sat on our beds watching TV, each with a slice of pepporoni in our hands! A classic American dinner, which was extremely yummy (and greasy).

Calafornia Adventure Land tomorrow!

MORE PHOTOS TO COME!