As I mentioned in my previous post, I was lucky enough to fulfill a lifelong dream of watching the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway! We watched it in the Majestic theater, which I thought was rather apt :) and as the famous chords of the theme song rang out around me and the chandelier swung towards the ceiling to shed a little illumination on the Phantom's past, my skin was covered in goosebumps and my eyes may have been slightly misty :) what an awesome night! I will never tire of that story :)
My hosts Donna, Stephen and Holly were kind enough to invite me out to Fire Island with them for a weekend. It is such a cute place! It is a part of Long Island and acquired its name from a story. Legend has it that pirates used to set fires to trick ships into thinking they had found the New York City shore, and then plunder the ships as soon as they had docked. Pretty neat story methinks :) the island is about 800m wide in total, and none of the residents have cars there. It is a thirty minute ferry ride across from the main land and once on the island, everyone bikes around on the proper old fashioned bicycles (bells, baskets and the works!). Too cool :) Donna and I spent an afternoon on the beach where we saw whales! I spotted them :) I saw a splash on the horizon and (not wanting to look foolish for crying "whale!" if in fact they had none there) I innocently asked Donna if they had whales at Fire Island. She laughed. Of course they did. We spent a blissful few minutes watching the playful fella breaching to his heart's content until, unfortunately, Shamu tired of the game before we did and went off in search of better things to do, leaving us scanning the horizon fruitlessly for more activity. It was awesome though! :)
After a lovely week spent in the New York area with my wonderful hosts, and a horde of new and exciting experiences behind me, I headed up to Niagara Falls in search of a border crossing at which I could switch visas so that I can legally travel the States a little longer than my work visa would allow. I climbed on the Amtrak train at 7:39am and endured a rather exhausting ten hour train trip across the state of New York to Niagara Falls. I arrived at my hostel quite proudly lugging my newly acquired hiking backpack behind me (it's blue! Yay!) and checked in before being given the grand tour. I think the best way to describe it is quaint. It was basically just an old house with rooms stuffed full of bunk beds. Not unpleasant though :) they made us breakfast every morning and there was a lounge/tv room downstairs for us to relax in.
The following day I ventured out to explore the tiny town and switch my visas. I met a few Brits, Lithuanians, Chinese and Hong Kong(ese?) people at the hostel, but unfortunately as I was the ONLY one who could not get into Canada, I flew solo for the day. I also failed to switch visas as I could not get INTO Canada (not even walk through the door and back) and thus apparently did not leave US soil, even though I walked ALL the way over the bridge into the Canadian customs building and got an important looking stamped piece of paper to prove I had been there. Grrrrr. Stoopid rules. I decided not to let this ruin my day, however, and had a wonderful time wandering through the Niagara Falls park and thoroughly enjoying my amazing new camera! :)
The guy at the Niagara customs office told me to switch visas at an immigrations office (thus making my entire trip to the falls a rather pointless affair) so I took a bus down to Buffalo the following day to the immigrations office there. Of course, once I got there, they said they could not help me. Wonderfully organised people these government officials. They told me to fill in an online form, pay an obscene amount of money (more than the cost of both visas put together!), and my visa status would be changed for six months. No thank you. I will try Mexico first :) (I would make a deadpan joke here about making a run for the border if I weren't concerned about the 0.0000000000000001% chance that some humourless government lackey reads this and might not see the funny side).
On Friday, I returned to New York City on another ten hour train trip, arriving at 10pm in the middle of the bustling metropolis. A hop, skip, subway, train and cab ride later, I finally got back to my hosts' house outside the city at exactly midnight. Feeling slightly exhausted I headed straight for bed, although not before I got the very exciting news that my cousin got engaged! Congratulations Steve! :) #specialshoutout! Lolsies.
The last two days were spent getting organised. I have found a place to stay in Nashville from Tuesday until the weekend with a very exciting looking host. I also had my first door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses encounter today. I almost turned them away, but could NOT resist being able to put it in the blog! Hehe :) they gave me brochures on the evils of Halloween and I assured them (read this in a deep Southern accent!) I would pray real hard and read my Bible extra careful to prepare for the second coming. For the record, if that didn't sound like Mater the tow truck in your head, you read it wrong :)
I am slowly catching up with putting pictures on my blog! It is slightly hard because they are uploaded all higgledy-piggledy and out of order in my picture folder of thousands of photos, so I'm having to put them up as and when I find them! Be patient :) Anyway, tomorrow evening I am hopping on a bus to Tennessee and saying a fond farewell to the city of blinding lights and a very excited hello to the South! Eeeeekkkk! You could bottle my excitement and sell it on eBay :) Apparently it's an entirely different world down there... Let's see what I can find to share with y'all :-P
Stay classy! c",)
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