Wales and Dublin

We continued the adventure, escaping the hustle and bustle of London and venturing into the mystical region of Wales. Our trip consisted of a lot of castles, flocks of sheep, and extremely kind people talking our ears off about the royal wedding.

Stop one was Chirk, the border between England and Wales. There´s an aqueduct that runs over valleys and through long tunnels. The views were beyond anything we had ever seen.

We then made our way to Llangollen (prounounced ´thlann-gothlan´) where we hiked up a steep hill to the ruins of Dinas Bran, a very old fortress of sorts. 

We couldn´t help but leave our little mark on the hill.

 

The Welsh language only added to the mysticism of the experience, thank goodness for the english translations.

We ended our castle tour in the Snowdonia where, at the foot of the UK´s tallest peak we spent the rainy afternoon by ourselves in Dolbadarn Castle. Since we were alone we were able to climb around into hidden passages that had been blocked off, after this adventure, this castle was established as our favorite place.

While there, we stayed in Conwy with some Couchsurfers, Laura and Mike. We could not have felt more welcome (or secure seeing as their backyard litterally wall of the castle pictured below).
 

We then flew off to Dublin.  The city didn´t strike us as very exciting.  The old buildings and streets were interesting but after a bit of that we decided to plant ourselves in a park to hang out for the rest of the day. 

 

Izzy found what could very well be her long lost cousins tourist shop in the city center (She still likes to think that the Colemans would do something better than duping tourists into paying too much for souvenirs from ireland).

After the short time we were there we felt ready to move on. The city was fun but we have a lot more to see. So we´re off to Berlin!

Until then,

I&J

London

 We spent one last half day in NYC. We loved the Brooklyn bridge! The president was in town so needless to say it was a security fest all over.

  

 

Then we took an over night flight to London. Izzy almost didn't make it on because we had booked her ticket with the last name of Coleman when her new passport says Harris. We got on only after sweet talking an airline supervisor and waiting an hour. It was all worth the trouble, though, when we arrived to the lovely markets.

 This market had ostrage eggs and kangaroo burngers niether of which we had the gumption to try.

Any city is more enjoyable bikes. 

 

Keep Until Wales

I&J

New York City

Johnny and I arrived in New York yesterday evening. We hopped on the bus, transferred to a subway, and arrived to Eric's place [the couch surfer we're staying with]. He lives in lower Manhattan and has an awesome place. We went to eat pizza & crepes in Washington Square Park and then came back to crash and recharge for today. 

Today we walked all over the city. We went to see ground zero and the construction of the Freedom Buildings. There were news reporters ALL over talking about the recent news regarding Bin Laden. The President will be here tomorrow to speak on the subject of  9/11. 

We then continued to the Financial District and watched all of the important business men as they hurried by, engrossed in their blackberries, clearly without a minute to spare.

We headed up to Time Square and looked around the shops, I even held the world's largest Hersheys bar--it was not easy to leave such a heaven-sent behind.

After attempting to find reasonably priced tickets to a Broadway show, we gave up just in time for an all too stereotypical New York scalper to offer us tickets to Wicked for $40 bucks a piece. Skeptical Johnny told the guy we think he's ripping us off. The man then pulled out a huge wad of 20, 50 and 100 dollar bills. He then shouldered up against us and thumbed through his cash claiming that he has enough money, 'why would he need to rip us off?' Although this little demonstration convinced us less of this guy's validity, the fact remains, Izzy knows every word of Wicked the Musical but had never seen the play. so we couldn't pass this up. We had our new scalper friend come with us to the entrance to make sure we weren't getting ripped off, payed him, and happily walked in to witness the best show we had ever seen. 

After the show we walked for hours around Central Park. There is no way to describe the feeling of escaping the city within a matter of minutes and finding ourselves absolutely surrounded by natural beauty. It was wonderful.

Wish us safe travels to London tomorrow,

I&J

Venice Beach

We spent a total of 9 hours roaming around venice beach and laying out in the sun. We shopped, ate, and gawked at the crazy things people were doing to earn a dollar. 

We made a stop at Muscle Beach, and played for a bit. Here are a few of our tricks:

Jaxon:

Isabel:

Johnny:

Then we [accidentally] fell asleep in the sun for 1 hour & 40 minutes. We woke up scorched by the sun, with all sorts of funky tan lines.

We left the beach in search of Baby Blues BBQ, a restaurant featured on the Food Network. 

We ate our hearts out & returned to LA to take ice cold showers and cover ourselves in Aloe.

Happy day,

I&J

San Diego

Our initial reasoning for going to California was to visit Johnny's grandparents. I had never met them, and it had been quite a while since Johnny had seen them so it was due time for a visit. We had a lovely lunch at a little diner and chatted for hours about the "good old days." They shared their wisdom with us and we soaked it up. These individuals have been a large part of who Johnny is today, so I could not thank them enough for their hand in that.

We later went to visit Johnny's aunt, uncle, and cousins in San Diego.

It was an absolute dream. 

We finished the night off with hot tubbing and delicious fish tacos. 

Yours truly,

I&J