We’ve been so busy that we have barely had a chance to write this blog, but here we are. Our last 10 days in America involved a road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway, some relaxation at the beaches in LA and 5 very special days in NYC.
We departed San Francisco and started our adventure back down to LA with a few night stops along the way. The scenery was just beautiful with incredible coastlines, blue ocean and wildlife. The Santa Cruz boardwalk was a highlight, along with the elephant seals at San Simeon and a few hours relaxing on Pismo Beach. Matt drove very well for being on the opposite side of the road, however his love for taking photos meant we pulled into every photo stopping opportunity which made for long days in the car. One thing we don’t get in NZ is the famous American taffy. We stopped in at a huge store in Monterey where they had over 50 different flavours, including very weird flavours like chicken waffles maple and bacon! You name it, they had it.
We then made it back to LA where we received the best air bnb service ever. Our host was so cool that we spent a fair amount of time hanging out with her, her cats and swimming in the pool. We were a short drive from Matts favourite LA Beach, Huntington. We wandered down and soaked up the sun, atmosphere and markets. Before booking tickets to Six Flags for the next day, our host encouraged us to consider Knotts Berry Farm, her favourite and only 20 minutes down the road. We ended up deciding to go there and had an absolute blast! We think its very underrated and would highly recommend to anyone visiting LA. Before we left the West Coast we attended Hillsong Orange County which we both loved (Brooke Frasers home church, we were just a couple rows behind her during the service).
New York was up next, we were both so excited we didn’t get any sleep on the plane. The site and smell of coffee and bagels hit us as soon as we hopped off the train at Columbus Circle. We had a 3 hour power nap once we made it to our apartment and hit the streets down to Central Park for the afternoon. It’s incredible that there is such a massive park in a densely populated city. We were happy to tick off a bucket list run around the park, although there are more hills in it than you would think. We then walked around the city looking for the famous 99 cent pizza joint, after both taking a few bites we realised we had walked right into Times Square completely by mistake!
Our next day was a special one, Independence Day! We walked a lot of the city, visited the famous Macy’s store on 5th avenue, went to Dominique Ansel to try the pastries down in Soho and enjoyed a martini before watching the fireworks off Brooklyn Bridge. We were impressed with NYPD security, as to get onto the closed off highways to view the fireworks every person was bag and bomb checked! There were over 4 million people watching the display from all around the city, with a fabulous 25 minute show. The not so enjoyable part was catching the subway home. The stations were impossible to get into, and once on the subway there was barely enough room to breathe. We had a good laugh and were forced to make some new friends.
Other highlights included going to the Top of the Rock to get a sunset view over the city (although you’ll notice we got a particularly moody evening, which made for cool photos), walking the old highline with views of the Hudson River, attending King Kong on Broadway, the Statue of Liberty and the food, it was amazing. We decided to spend our last night in NYC at one of the local bars in Harlem. Two columbians greeted Matt and wondered where in Columbia he was from (not an uncommon thing to happen to Matt). We loved New York, it is truly unique and will definitely plan to make it back one day!
America has been a dream, but we are so excited to be moving onto England, where they actually serve cups of tea not just filter coffee. So we say goodbye to the land of the free to meet up with family in the south of London.