Los Angeles

So, here we are at the end of our trip! Phew - it has been insane!! We couldn't leave America without dropping in to LA to see the Hollywood sign, could we!? There it is, in all its glory. It used to say "Hollywood Land", but they pulled the "land" part down. We couldn't get TOO close, but it was still amazing just standing there staring at it; like something out of a movie! 

We were pretty tired after our 3AM flight from Vegas, but we still managed to drag ourselves out to see some sights! The Hollywood Walk of Fame was a must - we saw so many stars and took a lot of photos, but the best one was.....

JUDY GARLAND!!!!! ...of course! Hehe. After wandering the walk for a while we stumbled across the Chinese Theatre, where many campuses celebrities have placed their hands and feet imprints into the cement! Michael's feet fit perfectly with Robin Williams, and my hands fit perfectly with Marilyn Monroe!

After that we went to the "Snow White Cafe" where we had a yummy lunch and then planned our bus trip back to the hotel. Before making our way back we visited a couple of shops along Hollywood Boulevard. (Please notice my new heart shaped rainbow glasses - cool stuff like this is EVERYWHERE in Hollywood, particularly in West Hollywood where we were staying, as it has a HUGE gay population). 

We were staying at the Ramada Plaza,(right on Route 66, Santa Monoca Boulevard) which we were scared was going to be a huge downgrade after the NewYork NewYork in Vegas, but we were pleasantly surprised, as it was a beautiful hotel, and our room was spacious and very comfortable (thank goodness!)

The next day we set off into HOLLYWOOD and had a brunch which consisted of giant pizza slices.

We knew we only had one FULL day in LA so we decided to go on a tour...

...of Warner Brothers Studio! It was so awesome! We saw the set of Mike & Molly, went past the Bing Bang Theory stage, saw some of the original Bat Mobiles, heard a bunch of cool stories from our guide... We went past the places where movies like Annie, Jurasic Park, Free Willy, Casablanca, and SO many more were filmed, and even more TV shows. It was such a trip!!!! 

Up there is a picture of Michael being Dumbledore while I am being a hobbit hahaha. Weird forced perspective photo. We got to sit on the ACTUAL Friends couch in "Central Perk" cafe and have a photo, and I tried on the Harry Potter sorting hat, which put me in Huffle Puff.... but I found out afterwards that the sorting hat NEVER actually says "ravenclaw" in the movie, so therefor the hat in WB isn't allowed to sort anyone into it. I know I'm ravenclaw at heart. 

After that awesome tour we went back to our hotel, had some dinner, and hit the sack pretty early. It was our last night in America, awwwwwww. We got up the next morning and had to pack our bags and check out for the very last time. I can't say I will miss the hotels... I will be very happy to have my own bed back, and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm actually looking forward to doing WASHING!!!! Once we had checked out we left our bags with the concierge and caught a bus down to Santa Monica pier! 

It was such perfect weather down at the beach. We saw the "end of the trail" for Route 66 which was cool... had some burgers (I think I've had enough burgers to last my entire life!) and then walked along the jetty and foreshore for a while. 

LA was a blast, and it was fun to see all the Hollywood movie sites and attractions before I legally become a Csongei! This trip has been sensational. We have met a lot of amazing people, travelled to places we never thought we would ever visit, and experienced things that were absolutely out of our wildest dreams. What a fantastic way to start a marriage!!!!! And so, with that, we are signing off from the CsongeiTravels, and flyin home to much missed Adelaide. Thank you, everyone (you know who you are) who made this trip possible, who made it entertaining, and who made us enjoy it as much as we did. WOOOOOO HOOOOO..... onto other adventures.  ;-) 

Bon & Mike. xo

Las Vegas

(24/7/15 - 26/7/15) Welcome to the land of fake celebrities, "free" drinks, delicious food in giant portions, amazingly hot weather, bright lights, money stealing slot machines, and Black Jack, Black Jack, Black Jack!!! 

Let me start by bragging about our hotel - and I will seriously tell this story to anyone who will listen - the New York New York hotel is A-MAZE-BALLZ. YES, that Z was required. Our room was huge, the bed was like a giant marshmallow cloud covered in deliciously fresh, high quality linen, and the view was right over the strip: check it out!

The hotel has its own pool, with bar, a roller coaster, a huge casino which offers free drinks to its players, a shopping mall, and a village YES a village of restaurants. What I mean is... The restaurants were set up into little streets- it was like being on a miniature movie set!  

Our hotel also had its own Starbucks, an arcade for kids, and a Cirque du Soleil  theatre! Mmmmm hmmmm, so really... We didn't need to leave our hotel at all if we didn't want to! Never the less, we did venture out a couple of times to check out the strip - but it was pretty hot (around the 41 mark most days) so walking the strip took its toll pretty quickly. 

Just so you know, most of this post is going to be about food: we ate SO much good food in Vegas... and the portions were NOT small. We had to try out Te Hard Rock Cafe - Brian would love this place. They had soooooo much Elvis stuff on display! The burgers were great too, and because everyone works for tips everyone is super super friendly and attentive, which makes dining so much more enjoyable. 

We walked down to see the Bellagio hotel, and made a plan to come back in the evening to see the fountain show (for anyone who has seen the Oceans 11 movie!!!) After walking the strip for a while we were pretty hot and tired, so we went back to our hotel and headed to the pool! The pool was great, the perfect temperature, and had its own bar so we could enjoy drinks and swims as much as we liked! 

We decided that this was the perfect opportunity to unwind and relax after such a huge trip, so we did a lot of relaxing by the pool, a bit of drinking, and plenty of dining! One thing we decided to go for was the Zumanity show performed by Cirque du Soleil. What an awesome show - and different to the previous CdS shows I have seen! Seriously sexy and sensational - very glad we went! 

(Zumanity photos from Google) 

We walked down to Planet Hollywood and had a look at the Miracle Mile shops - Urban outfitters was my favourite store; lots of cool stuff in there - and we spent some more time by the pool! We decided against going to the Geand Canyon for a few reasons; it was going to take an entire day to get there and back, it was ridiculously hot, and it was way out of our price range... So, we didn't tick that one off our bucket list, but I'm honestly not too sorry about that. We decided to check out a Gordon Ramsey burger place, which we weren't disappointed by at all, and luckily we didn't have to wait in line for very long because it was only the two of us (many other groups of three or more were told they'd have to wait for up to two hours!) 

Mmmmm Parmesan Truffle Fries......

We headed over to the Bellagio to get a good view of the fountain show! It was very pretty, and much bigger than I expected! After that we walked back to the hotel and had some drinks and played some more Black Jack. 

We spent our final day lounging in the hotel, eating amazing food, and lying by the pool (well, I was by the pool getting a leg burn and Michael was inside playing more Black Jack haha). For our final night we had an early dinner (as we were leaving the hotel at 3AM the next morning - eeeeek!) and OH MAN the Mexican meal we had - I already loved Mexican food, but I now realise that Australia doesn't even know what real Mexican food is!!!!! Uuuggghhhhhhh so good (hey, I told you this post was mostly about food didn't I?!) 

So, after dinner we went to look in a few cute shops and bought a few little souvenirs, had a couple of "final night" drinks, and - you guessed it - played some more Black Jack. Actually, I didn't play Blaxk Jack at all, but I stood next to Michael while he played, and it was actually pretty damn addictive. I can see how people would get sucked in and continue playing until there was nothing left! The only gambling I did was a Titanic Game, which I loved because the seat wou vibrate when you won, and they played little excerpts from the movie. It was a short love affair which gave me enough taste of Vegas gambling to last me a lifetime (and the money I won was quickly lost again haha!) So - thanks Vegas, we had a blast, and it was a bit off sun, fun, and relaxation we definitely needed before heading home in a couple of days! Now, off to Los Angeles!

San Francisco

(16/7/15 - 23/7/15) There was one major reason we wanted to travel to SF on this trip - it wasn't just because it's the land of hippies and clam chowder! Approximately 8 years ago I met a group of people online who quickly found a place in my heart. Though I had never met them, and they live on the other side of the world, we corresponded through Skype, texts, chat, gaming, and care packages for the last 8 years, without ever meeting face to face in real life. On the 16th of July 2015 I finally grabbed ahold of these fantastically amazing people for the first time when we touched down in San Francisco! John (who lives in SF), Bec, Lianne, and Steph (who travelled from Idaho) all spent the last amazing week with us. It was seriously fun filled and heart meltingly awesome, and I'm so completely lost for words on trying to describe my feels for these people. They even had bags of presents waiting for myself and Michael when we got back to the hotel!!!! But, enough of the soppy stuff, onto the adventure!!!

We did so many cool things in SF I will probably have to leave a lot of it out, but the first thing was that we went to visit a Japanese Garden - very calming and beautiful (stark difference to NY). We saw some huge koi and said hello to our old friend Sid (Buddha) and then went for a walk to find the horse tornado. 

Yay for carousels!!! I really hope these beautiful creations don't "die out" of existence. Us girls had a bit of a "childish" moment and jumped on the merry go round for a bit of a giggle. After that it was back to our hotel, which was situated right on the foreshore!! We walked down to the beach and Steph took us "sand crabbing". These were some seriously weird crabs. They didn't have nippers, and they kind of looked like shrimp! But all you had to do was dig into the sand and you came up with a few of these friendly little critters (no critters were harmed in the creation of this sand crabbing adventure!!!!!)

The next day the six of us caught a boat out to Alcatraz! Wow, what an intense place! The cells were so small, and the stories of some of the inmates and guards are truly thrilling. We were even lucky enough to meet an ex-inmate, who wrote a book about his time in Alcatraz, and was there doing a book signing and answering questions about his life. 

We needed some cheer after that visit, and we lucked out on finding the COOLEST restaurant in the whole world: Rainforest Cafe. Okay, I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that I'm just a big kid at heart... So imagine my happiness and joy to discover someone has made a restaurant into a JUNGLE!!!! Complete with moving animals, sound effects, and themed drinks and food!!!!! You have to SEE this place to believe it. We even had a balloon artist come and make us balloon animals! It's every big kid's dream!!!! 

The next day we took the train down to the wharf and had a look at some market stalls before heading to the EXPLORATORIUM!!! So, this is basically a GIANT building jam packed with every possible awesome science experiment you could imagine!!! Sound, light, magnets (my fave haha), speed, illusions, plants, the body, time, weight.... You name it!!! We only got through half the building and it was like a brain explosion of sciencey goodness! Can't wait to share some of my science with the teachers and kids at school!

We also went to check out the mall (and did some shopping, woohoo!)

We spent the next day driving to Monterey (ROADTRIP! 90s MUSIC! WOO!) where we visited the aquarium! It was so much fun. What were my favourites?? The jelly fish and the otters. Omg otters are so cute! They're almost as cute as squirrels!!! Michael's favourite from the Monterey Aquarium was clown fish (NEMO!!!)

We told the crew that we had always wanted to ezperience some "traditional American food" - they were the best people to ask!!! - we tried all the typical American foods that we don't really see in Adelaide: hot pockets, Taco Bell, bagels, s'mores.... some was good, some was not so great. We even found GIANT candy (I was not going to attempt to bring it back in my already over stuffed suitcase, but at least we have pictures that it exists!!!) 

Our next day saw us off on a bay cruise, travelling under the Golden Gate Bridge! It was a little bit foggy (as it tends to be on cold days in SF) but we had been lucky enough to have gorgeous warm weather every other day of our visit. We spent some more time at the pier after the cruise - delicious Mexican food for lunch, a yummy ice cream with a freshly made waffle cone for Michael, and a fancy pair of earrings and some over priced but overly awesome magnets for myself - and then it was back to the hotel. 

I should mention that we also ordered Chinese, which maybe doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is when you've never done it before!!! .....and the orange peel tofu was probably one of the best foods I've ever eaten in my life. Mmmmmmm........

The next day we walked down to our local cafe for brunch. Michael found an interesting "chicken and waffle" selection from the menu, which was basically a chicken schnitzel on top of a waffle. Haha. What the!?? 

From there we made our way to the California Academy of Sciences, which was a super mega awesome place filled with aquariums, history, and even a butterfly garden!!! We saw loads of cool and cute animals and creatures, and then walked back to get some lunch. We went to a place called Underdog which had the most delicious vegan hotdog! We found out that the very next day was International Hotdog Day, so it was a perfect way to end the day! 

We spent that night hanging out together  enjoying each other's company (much as we had done every other night). It's great when you are close enough with people that just sitting around doing "nothing" is really more than anything else you could ever want. 

It was a very sad goodbye the next morning, but a promise was made to save up and have them all over to Australia - hopefully not TOO far into the future. Goodbye my beautiful friends, and goodbye San Fran, you've done superbly.