NEW YORK - GREENWICH VILLAGE

I caught the Bolt Bus back to New York and luckily for me they let me take two big bags on.
Actually it was more a matter of, I don’t think they noticed, rather than they let me. But anyway.
As you may have remembered by reading the posts of my trip with Nicola, I accumulated a lot of things on this road trip. I may have only been able to fly out of Australia with one bag weighing 20kg but I can fly home with two, each weighing 23kg.
Thank goodness. Because boy will I need it.
Sybil had a duffel type bag that she didn’t want which has saved me buying one and this is now sitting in Fiona and Bob’s living room filled with summer clothes, my sleeping bag and all the presents I have bought.
So what did I do for the week I spent in New York this time?
Well as some of you may know I was going to a pot luck dinner at Hugh Jackman and Debbora-lee Furness’s house. But then Fiona found out it was just for the parents on the committee at school for adopted children (Kiki goes to the same one as their daughter), so I couldn’t go. But I made some Anzacs for them to take. I have to say I’m a bit embarrassed about them as the first batch didn’t turn out so great but I didn’t have time to make any more before the dinner so those ones had to do. I have since made more which turned out perfectly. I needed to use up the golden syrup. I mean what is Fiona going to do with it? It’s not a common ingredient there and she had to order it in for me. Actually she ended up with two tins as the first one didn’t turn up in time so she went to the English shop and got some.
Even though I didn’t get to go to the dinner I did get to meet Debborah-lee and have a chat one day when we picked up Kiki from school. Her Mum lives in Mt. Eliza (small world and all that). It would be great to talk more to her about her foundation called Orphan Angels. She wants to get changes made in Australia when it comes to international adoption (plus other areas of children in need) which we are badly in need of. In 2008 there were only 270 children adopted internationally. That’s appalling considering there is approximately 143 million orphans worldwide. The 16th - 22nd November is National Adoption Awareness Week in Australia. Debborah-lee started it last year and it’s a fantastic way to have a voice about adoption. Have a look at this site. You may not be interested in adopting but you can still be informed and educated about it. Some of the statistics are mind blowing if not completely horrifying.
www.adoptionawarenessweek.com.au

What else did I do? Well it was a week of sleeping in. Naturally. I also convinced Fiona to buy a microwave (I tried last visit but she wasn’t up for it but it was great for popcorn the night I babysat Kiki) and while we were at the shop suggested a new phone as the old one has seen better days. Ended up being a good thing as the new one doesn’t make the internet drop out when you use it. Plus it has two handsets, so when the phone rings they have a much better chance of actually being able to answer it because surely both won’t be missing. Then again……………….. if she put it back in the cradle instead of leaving it lying on the table (where it gets buried under stuff) then it wouldn’t be a problem. Plus it would always be charged.
Fiona’s response? “Why would I put it back in the cradle? It’s much better on the table. That way I don’t have to walk to the other side of the room if I want to use it.”
Right.
Who would want to walk all that way? I mean a whole six steps. That’s just absurd..
I also went out to lunch a few times. On the last day, as well as Fiona and Bob, I met with Carol and Alla from Half The Sky. That’s the organization I went to China with in 2007. Carol was organizing the volunteer’s back then and it was great to catch up with her again and Alla I had never met before. But a great thing that I found out was that Half The Sky is getting registered in Australia!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!
So the week went really quickly as always and before I knew it I was back on the Bolt Bus to New Jersey to spend the night with Sybil again before driving to Vermont the next day.

NEW JERSEY - CHERRY HILL

Nicola and I finished our road trip with 6600 miles on the clock. Pretty darn good huh?
Well we thought so.
Mike (Sybil’s husband) drove with me to the airport to drop Nic off for her flight to L.A. and on the way back we stopped by the high school he used to teach at (he’s retired), to show me around. It was very American. Naturally. They’re so different to our schools, the main thing being that all the rooms are essentially in one big building or are at the very least, connected by walkways. I guess the main reason is the weather. Can you imagine walking outside each time you went to a different class, like we usually do, and having to trudge through piles of snow in winter?
No. Me either.
They also had the cafeteria, gym and individual seats with a desk attached to them. Just like they do on tv. See, not everything you watch on tv is made up.
The other thing that is really different is the actual school system. They basically study everything (with a few electives) all the way through high school whereas we choose subjects based on what we want to study at university. I’m in two minds about this system. The teenager in me is horrified to imagine having to do geography and history (not to mention P.E - or gym as they call it) through to Year 12. But the grown up in me thinks it’s a great idea as it keeps your options open and you don’t feel forced to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life in Year 9 like we do.
Their college/university is set up differently also. Your first two years are spent trying all different types of subjects and then you decide what you want to major in. It’s great as it allows you to get a taste of a variety of different subjects and then decide what you want to get a degree in. Apparently one of the major universities in Melbourne are changing over to the U.S. system. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
So while I think there are many areas that the U.S. are behind in (let’s move to the metric system people, for crying out loud) I think their university system sounds a lot better than ours.
Apart from the cost of course. No HECS system here.

I didn't have my camera with me to take a photo of the school so here's one of Sybil's dogs. Molly is on the left and she has different coloured eyes. Buddy is on the right and has "issues".

NEW JERSEY - CHERRY HILL

We made it to Cherry Hill (I keep mistyping that and writing Cheery Hill) in time to beautify ourselves. I had called ahead the day before and was told I didn't need an appointment for the hairdresser - just walk on in.

I am intrigued by that way of running a business. How do you know how many staff to have on?

I had also phoned to make an appointment for Nicola to have her legs waxed. This is kind of how the phone call went.

"Herro"

"Hi. Is this the Bees Knees Salon?"

"Who dis?"

"Ummm. Tracey."

"What u want?"

"I was just wondering if I could make an appointment tomorrow for a half leg wax?"

"Ok. But I need to see legs before I tell you how much it cost."

"Ok."

"What else you want?"

"Nothing, thanks. Just the leg wax."

"Ok. But I need to see legs before I tell you how much it cost."

"That's fine. But I can make an appointment for 2 o'clock."

"2 o'clock fine. But I need to see legs before I tell you how much it cost."

"Ummm. Yep that's no problem. See you tomorrow."

Anyhoo..............

I was able to walk into the hairdresser and pretty much get helped straight away. I was sitting there in the chair when Nic came in to say that she wasn't getting her legs done. Apparently it was going to cost $65!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For a half leg wax!

Nic has really fair hair and as far as I'm concerned, not that much of it. So $65 seemed outrageous. It's not like she had really thick, dark hair! At home it is a set price for a leg wax and for a half one it is usually less than $20. I have since checked at a place in New York - expecting it to be more because it's New York - and found it was $35. So how this lady got to $65 blows my mind.

So we went to Target and bought some pre-waxed strips for about $7 and I waxed her legs at about midnight, after we had finished packing.

Luckily my hair was done fairly quickly and I felt v glamorous. A cut, foils and blow dry can do wonders for your self esteem.

We then drove to Sybil's house and stayed the night with them. A lot of which was spent washing and packing.

Not to mention ripping the hair out of Nicola's legs!

OHIO - BERLIN

Our last full day of sightseeing was spent in Ohio. We really wanted to go to an Amish area and so we visited Berlin and Millersburg in Holmes County.

We were looking for a particular restaurant that we had read about in the LPG but couldn't find it. We stopped at a kind of general store (where Nic tried her first corn dog which are hotdogs in corn bread, I love corn bread, corn muffins, corn dogs......) and then went for a bit of a drive looking for the Amish and Mennonite Museum that the LPG had also mentioned. We ended up stumbling across it by accident.

The tour was given to us by a volunteer at the Museum whose named was Krist (not sure how that is spelt so have just gone with the phonetic version) and started with a 15 minute video talking about the Amish and Mennonites and the different orders there are. Like old order Amish, new order Amish etc. which basically differentiated how strict they were. We then went into a round room that had a cyclorama painted in it. It took the artist 16 years to complete and is extremely detailed. It tells the story of the Amish and Mennonite history and Krist walked us through it, explaining as he went.

After the cyclorama we went through a typical Amish school house and a barn. The school house is old and had been relocated to the museum grounds. The barn was new but was built in the traditional Amish way. Completely of wood. There are no nails but it is built in a way similar to how furniture used to be, using dowels where nails, bolts or screws would normally be (they were called something else but a dowel is what they are similar to).

We also got a look at a buggy and the roads in the area even have a buggy lane similar to our bike lanes. Nic and I were the only ones on the tour so we got to talk to Krist about a lot of things. He had as many questions for us as we had for him.

A few interesting facts we learnt -

The language spoken at home is German and most Amish children don't learn English until they go to school.

Amish children finish school at grade 8 - the focus of the Amish way of life being agriculture - whereas Mennonite children often go to University.

Being Amish is a way of life not a religion - the Amish are Christians.

We learnt a lot more but they are the facts that I remember correctly.

Our plan for the rest of the day (well it was 4pm when we left so not much of the day was actually left) was to drive until we were tired and then find somewhere to sleep. In the morning we would drive the last few hours to get back to Sybil's house in New Jersey for our last night together before Nic flew to L.A.

So anyway, early in our trip Nic asked why we didn't just drive at the end of each day and stop when we got tired. I explained that I prefer to have a night or two booked ahead of time. This way we know we have someone to stay, we know what we are paying and it keeps us on track time wise in the scheme of the whole trip. Nic found this a bit stressful but as I tended to do the searching and booking of the places she agreed to do it that way. Anyway on this last night in a motel I agreed that we should just drive until we felt tired and look for somewhere but that she had to be the one to find the place and sort out prices.

She agreed. The pressure was on.

And I think there came a time where she started to feel the pressure. The thing is we normally see heaps of signs on the side of the freeways for places to stay. Absolutely heaps of them. This time when we started to feel like we were ready to stop, there was nothing.

Paul rang to say hi to her and she asked him to call back in half an hour because - although we thought we would have been at a hotel by that time - we hadn't found anywhere.

So Paul called back later.

We were still driving. Still looking.

Eventually, much to Nicola's relief, not to mention mine, we saw a sign for an exit that had accommodation. It wasn't until later we found out that the reason there wasn't sign after sign of motels and the fact that it was pitch dark outside with no lights to be seen, was because we had been driving through a huge mountain range. And when I say huge, I mean one big enough that it runs all the way up into Canada.

Nic's plan was that she would go to the first one we found and be happy with whatever it was. (One of the reasons I didn't want to travel so randomly was because I didn't want to have to drive to a bunch of motels each night before we found something suitable). The first one was called Motel 6. Not a very promising name but we had stayed at one called Super 8 which had turned out to be fine, so we couldn't base it on a name. She waited in reception and then waited some more but no-one came. So she decided to go next door to the Best Western and if that didn't work out we were coming back to the Motel 6.

No going from motel to motel for us - thank goodness.

Luckily for Nicola the person on the desk not only gave us a discount for having AAA (kind of like RAVC), she also found a coupon for us. She told her she would rather give us a cheaper price than have us go back to the other one as there were often police and drug dealers up there.

Apparently.

Needless to say Nic was pretty happy with herself.

Me? I was just happy we hadn't done it this way every night.

MICHIGAN - ANN ARBOR

Ann Arbor is a lovely town in Michigan and we were lucky to stay with Carmel who is the sister of Alyson that Nicola and I went to High School with.

We drove up just as Carmel and a friend were getting back from a walk which was perfect timing. We then drove to one of the beautiful local parks - Carmels favorite - and went for a walk. Rather a brisk one actually which was fine although later I realised that maybe I would have been better to change out of my knee high boots. They are not really that hard to walk in but later on the whole front of my lower legs were hurting so I guess I used completely different legs muscles than in my other shoes.

Carmel works at the University of Michigan and she took us there and we drove or walked around part of the campus. There are some beautiful old buildings as well as a new one for the School of Business which cost something like 150 million dollars.

We came back and checked a few emails and made a few Skype calls before we headed out to a local restaurant that is a favorite of Carmels. It was great to go out and eat in a proper restaurant for dinner - something we haven't done much of. We then spent the rest of the night relaxing and sitting in Carmels cosy basement with a fire going.

MICHIGAN - DETROIT

Our next stop in Michigan was Ann Arbor to stay the night with a fellow Aussie, Carmel (who is the sister of Alyson that Nic and I went to High School with).

We did take a little detour via Detroit though (an out of the way detour really) as we had read in the LPG about a street that was all decorated in polka dots. It was the idea of a resident to try and brighten the neighbourhood and it seems to have become a well visited street because of this. As well as the polka dots there is lot of......................stuff.

The photos explain everything really.

MICHIGAN - HAMILTON

When I was volunteering in China earlier this year I met the son of one of the other volunteers. He was in China for work and decided to visit his Mum at the same time. Not long after he went back home to the U.S. I received a lovely email from his wife inviting me to stay with them if I happened to be in Michigan at some stage.

So that's where Nic I and I went next - to Hamilton, Michigan to stay with David and Amy, their four wonderful children - Austin, Hailey, Andrew and Hannah and their exchange student Minnie. Add three dogs, two cats, a rooster and a bunch of chickens (not to mention Nicola and I) and it was one busy household.

But how enormously welcoming they were. Nicola was a complete stranger to them and I had only met David but they took us in (sounds a bit like we were strays doesn't it) and made us feel completely at home. Hannah gave us her bedroom, Amy fed us so much wonderful food (including a cooked breakfast both mornings), you get the picture.........basically we were spoilt.

The first night we relaxed and watched a movie with the younger kids (Dave and Amy had a meeting and Austin and Hailey had to play in the band at a football match) and it was just what we needed after so many busy days.

We slept in the next morning and after pancakes (with a choice of plain, chocolate chip, peanut butter or cinnamon) we drove to the nearby town of Douglas. There were lots of lovely shops there (didn't do too much damage to the credit card) and we had lunch at The Wild Boar - which included Bison soup!!!!!

After Douglas we went to Saugatuk (which is where we were originally going but didn't quite find it straight away) which was just as lovely and had even more shops. There was also a Halloween parade for the kids which was fun to see.

When we got back we went for a run before dinner. It was so cold and I don't think I warmed up until near the end. But still, I was impressed we did it.

We then had a pizza and movie night (which included chocolate/candy of course) and afterwards had fun taking silly photos and videos and singing.

The next morning was Sunday and although we didn't have time to stay for the whole thing we went along to church for the first hour. David had asked us if we would sing a couple of songs for the senior and junior Sunday school class. After the welcome they had given us, it was the least we could do.

Although I have to say, I know who got the better deal!