WHAT were we thinking??

Often there are moments in life that at the time seem so naturally innocent and hold no potential for problems or misunderstandings, but when looking back on those moments (usually with the benefit not only of hindsight but additional or alternative perspectives) we can see just how crazy we were and how close we actually came to being in some sort of trouble.

While revisiting some of our USA holiday pictures, I came across a couple that immediately upon first glance made me think of something a little deviant from the original "momentary context" of the pictures. 

When you look at these pictures, keep in mind our momentary context - it was freezing cold (like below zero), we were tired and excited tourists, and we were in the USA's capitol. What we forgot at the time was that fewer than two weeks earlier an attempted Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist tried to destroy a commercial passenger aircraft and subsequently the nation's DHS was on high alert. 

I'm quite surprised that we didn't land up in any trouble at the time, or at the very least, get some strange enquiries from the security forces around the capitol, but the pictures below reveal how suspicious we must have looked at the time...

Infiltrating Washington DC with our "gear".

Bryan-balah and Kat-zbalah in front of one of their targets, the Washington Monument.

(note the backpack with "gear" strapped over my right shoulder)

Final posts of holiday are up

The final posts (with more photo's than text) from our holiday blog are up:

Day 18 is up: http://bratandkat.blogspot.com/2010/01/day-18-san-francisco-penultimate-day-of.html
Day 19 is up: http://bratandkat.blogspot.com/2010/01/day-19-final-day-san-francisco-new-york.html

Final Day

Goodbye USA!

We are presently sitting at JFK awaiting the boarding call for SA flight 204 to JHB. The time here is 7 hours before the time on this post (US Eastern time). We took off from San Francisco around 10:20pm Western Time (is it Pacific Western time?), and landed here 6am'ish in JFK. It was about 6 hours of flying, but it was actually very comfortable - the Boeing 757-3 cabin flight we were on had ample leg room (even for under-seat storage AND legs), and the arm rests folded all the way back. It was very pleasant! Best flight I've ever had. Congratulations to United Airlines!

Day 19 (Final Day) - San Francisco - New York

Well everyone, it is with great sadness that I type this final post and bring an end (almost) to our USA 2009/2010 holiday. It's been a wonderful experience and made even moreso by my trusty travel companion, my sweet BlackBerry Katherine. Since this is going to be a long "day" (wake up 10am on Thursday morning, land in Durban 11:30am Saturday), we will do our best to keep the post as close to a picture-story (with captions) as possible, for your reading pleasure. For those that have endured my lengthy accounts of our holiday, thank you for taking the time - it was a joy feeling like people that we value were sharing in our day-to-day adventures. Thanks too for your comments!

Day 18 - San Francisco (Penultimate day of our holiday)

Stayed up late last night to get ideas about camcorders, but got up 8:50am to escort Kat to work. I have to say, it's quite a romantic experience for me to know that we don't have to rely on our own transport to/from work, and that it's actually safe enough for Kat to go to/from work on her own too. Nonetheless, it's awesome to just get up, go with her on the bus, and then come home, and know she's going to be fine. The proximity to the bus stop from our hotel also helps immensely.

San Francisco has all sorts of funky people.

Check this girl with her devil's ears and tank goggles...

TRAVEL TIP: it's a good idea to book hotels near to metro stations (if you intend to use the metro a lot) and to buy a muni-pass; it saves you a lot of time! Prime reason to discriminate about choice of hotels!

Day 17 - San Francisco (Kat's first day of work)

Woke up 8am to get Kat ready on time for her first official day of work (and the wonderful reason why we have had this holiday at all).

We missed the bus by half a block so we had to take the next one, but made it to her work in CHINA BASIN about ten or fifteen minutes late (ie. 9:45am'ish). Work seems to start at around 9am or 9:30am in SFO.

Day 16 - San Francisco

Woke up 8:45am and was ready and out by 9:15am to pick up and return car. The hotel doesn't offer breakfast but does do complimentary cookies all day, as well as tea / coffee in the reception hall. I suppose there's pro's and con's to this method.

Not dressed properly for the weather in SFO though, because it was still rather chilly and we were in T-shirts (no jackets), so we hot-footed it back to the hotel.

Kat needed a nap because she was still exhausted from the long and stressful drive, so I put her to bed and then hit the wifi internet (freaking fast ... Must be 20mbps again but I haven't tested it here) to plan our day and also update the blogs. Kat managed about forty minutes before she was woken up.

Days 8 and 9 posted (and now 10)

Hello from brisk San Francisco!

We've updated posts for Day 8 and Day 9 (and now Day 10) - check them out - more to come as we find time!

Time to explore San Francisco!

Day 15 - A picture story of San Francisco

I know I blog a lot. I find my blog posts to be more of a diary account for our benefit than a reading experience for those that actually are brave enough to read this blog. I apologise for being long-winded, so to update on our first day (evening, actually) in San Francisco, I intend only to post pictures with little captions! Perhaps I should have attempted this method a lot earlier? Sorry for the inconvenience!

Day 15 - Pacific Coast to San Francisco!

This Masterpiece motel continues to impress! Fresh orange juice, hot chocolate, and even hard-boiled eggs and cinnamon chelsea bread for breakfast!

When we were packed and done, we left +-9:30am (that's pretty early based on our track record) and topped up on gasoline at the AM/PM. It cost $2.99 a gallon, and it's all self-service. When I asked for help in the station shop the lady almost fell over!

Fuel-drenched and summarily humbled by how much we take for granted in South Africa, I proceeded to use the change from the gas cash deposit (no credit here!) to purchase my next big American delicacy, a corn dog. On special for 79c, I enjoyed a cheesy jalapeno corn dog on a stick. I have to admit it was pleasantly good, but again I fear the oily snack would reduce my lifespan by several decades! As a rare novelty, it's a bargain at 79c!

Day 14 - Driving up the Pacific Coast

We woke up about ten minutes before the complimentary continental breakfast at the Best Western Inn at Oxnard. They had little tubs of peanut butter like we'd have jam at home, as well as sachets of honey! Score! The most interesting thing available was, wait for it, ROOIBOS tea, and it was even labelled ROOIBOS! Apparently the founder of the hotel (or the chain) is South African, so I guess his influence has rubbed off on their facilities!

I took my first stint at driving on the "right" side (not right as in NOT WRONG, but right as in NOT LEFT). My very first absolutest first ever moment on the road was driving out of the motel and into a funky FIVE-WAY intersection with a railway track down the centre. Yeah. Go figure.

Day 13 - LA (Lost Africanos)

EEEEK! Today is Friday the THIRTEENTH of our holiday!!

Enjoyed a continental breakfast sans the majority of Texan / Alabaman folk that were abounding the hotel the day before, and then printed out our wad of prepared google maps directions and checked out.

(TRAVEL TIP: some hotels, such as LA QUINTA LAX, gives free wifi internet as well as providing a complimentary desktop PC at reception. We used the wifi in our room to plan our directions using google maps [remember to include a displayed map when using this method] and then printed them at the front desk for free)

Day 12 - LA (dee dah)

(NOTE: Day 7 has been posted, finally!)

Woke up 7:30, grabbed complimentary breakfast (was okay, but at least it's free, so that automatically qualifies it as good).

The building is loaded with Texans coming for some college championship game called the Rose Bowl (football; it's Alabama vs. Texas but the final is played every year in LA). Since boarding the Milwaukee flight yesterday we could spot them a mile away with their CRIMSON TIDE Alabama outfits, and they were all over the place. It felt like there was a Southern invasion going down (get it? Down?)!

On the way down to breakfast we waited for ages for the elevator, and when we got it, so did everyone else, since it appeared to be the only one working. From floor 9 we went down to almost each floor for someone else to hop on (by floor seven this became "cram" on). By floor five the doors opened and the Texans waiting outside just gave up trying to get on, and said "we hope you get stuck" and left it at that. It was all in good jest - these Texans are a real hoot!

Day 11.5 - Los Angeles

'Allo LA! The Johnstons have landed! It's now 1am here, having woken up at 7:30am on the DC side. I believe we are now 10 hours behind the rest of South Africa so we are really feeling the disconnect and also the tiredness.

We've checked into La Quinta LAX and immediately Kat's missing our old "luxury" line of hotels, even though this one has breakfast included! I'm too tired to post pictures right now, so I'll do it ASAP. The airports along the way all had free wifi internet which was awesome, as did the planes! This hotel is probably the worst of the lot we've had so far, but it's still not BAD for the price!

LA is a lot warmer than we've been used to, and I'm actually quite sad to be seeing the end of the cold weather, because the snow was a novelty for me! Clint's black jacket has been immeasurably valuable to me, and I owe him big time (Clint; let me know what you want from USA). I have to say so far, I'm least impressed with LA, but again that may just have to do with my reluctance to return to warmer climates because it feels less like we're on holiday now and more like we're migrating back to SA (which I have mixed feelings about, since this holiday has been so awesome).

We did a stop off in Wisconsin / Milwaukee (the cow-tipping county) where it was -5C and there were spans of farmer-types. Quite entertaining :) We've been surroudned by Alabama fans - I think there's some NFL game going down... it's made it a little more entertaining!

Chat later - going to sleep now and off on a 1 hour+ metro excursion to Universal Studios tomorrow (today, rather)!

Day 10 - DC

As much as our intentions were good and we wanted to wake up early enough to get to the museums when they opened, we couldn't seem to get ourselves out of bed!

Our 7:30am wake-up snoozed until 9:30am, when we slowly rose and geared ourselves up for the day. It would seem that an entire day of walking can be rather tiring!!

Day 9 - DC

Lazy start to the day; I think all this running about is finally catching up with us now! We eventually got up and out of bed and braved the anticipated 11F cold (that's -12C for those that can't make the conversion). Our first stop was a CVS (it's kind of like a chainstore pharmacy / Spar) for some health water and a breakfast muffin to supplement our oats. That cost us a mere $3, thanks to the handy coupons lying around the shop. I've been pondering buying a simcard / cellphone for our stay so we can avoid the excessive phone bills in the hotel, as well as have some way of being reached (which will be especially helpful in SFO when I'm on my own while Kat's working). It's $11 for a cellphone and simcard ... And then airtime will be $20.

From there we took a metro ride into the Smithsonian area. We started at the NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM, but had to detour because they won't allow food into the museum. This next bit is a vital piece of information:

DC TRAVEL TIP: if you're going to be bounced for stuff in your bag, find an isolated bushy area and stuff your goodies into a hedge! We did this rather successfully despite the surveillance cameras around us - without going into detail we managed to shield our suspicious activities and stow our stash. Just remember to find an isolated spot!

Day 8 - Charlottesville to Washington DC

A beautiful morning but alas again no sign of a deer.

We enjoyed another heart Virginian-style continental breakfast, only this time we tried to play our part to be good guests and tried to neaten up our rooms and prepare the breakfast.

When we departed the lovely Locust Lane (if I recall the name), we spotted a woodpecker. Woohoo! The real Woodie Woodpecker in Virginia!

Day 7 - Charlottesville

Charlottesville - a home away from home! We woke up this morning to a beautiful view. We kept an eye out for deer that sometimes graze in the woods outside, but alas, we never saw any. We were treated to a lovely homestyle breakfast of cereal and toast (and rooibos tea for me!). Midday, Jeni took us to Monticello (home of Thomas Jefferson). We tried to do a Priceline for $50 for four star deluxe lodging in DC, but it didn't work out, so we stuck with our original booking. I discovered that Kat thought Thomas Jefferson was the dude sitting on the big throne in the DC monument, so I knew this was certainly going to be an educational experience for Kat!

Day 6 - New York to Charlottesville

Today marks the sad day of departing from New York City. It also marks the exciting moment of grand new adventures in the rest of the USA.

From my perspective, I really loved New York City, and I'm sad to see it go - I know Kat found the masses of people overwhelming, but we both agree that the experience of being in New York City is something we really enjoyed, especially New Year's Eve and the fireworks in Central Park!

Day 5 - New York City

First of all, many apologies for the late posting - it's been quite a rush of late and it's been very difficult to find the time to post any blogs (and I was without internet access for the laptop during our stay immediately following New York). I've decided that rather than posting "all over the place", I should still post chronologically, so here's the next in line... again, sorry for the delays :(

In hindsight, this past week has been the most fitting way to end 2009 and to start 2010 – when we count the days we’ve spent in New York City since Sunday, we’ve had it all! Fittingly, quite a lot of it happened on 31 December 2009.

I woke up around about 8:30am after a much needed and much desired snooze in our new hotel, The Tudor. Actually, that’s not entirely true – I didn’t wake up so much as I was woken up (seems to be a pattern on this trip). I perhaps need to provide a bit of context before I continue: Kat and I had agreed to keep the window open during the night because we didn’t want to run the thermostat / air-con while we slept. Instead, we opted for the icy cold (but relatively “fresh”) Manhattan air over the recycled and dry air from the ventilation system. We were in room 1105 so we were high up enough to not have all the street noise.

So now that I’ve provided you with the context, let me continue. A nice comfortable snooze in a King-sized bed was abruptly interrupted by my wife exclaiming through an abrupt inhalation of air “huh! Bryan! Look!” … naturally, a husband’s (in fact, ANY man’s) first reaction to an abrupt inhalation of air followed by an exclamation is to enter fight mode, and as I was scrambling to commence my ninja defence maneuvers I muttered “What? What?” and she gleefully chimed “it’s snowing!” … and when I comprehended that it was all a false alarm, I rolled over, murmured “that’s cool”, checked out the window and admired the beautiful scene. Manhattan coated in a blanket of snow, and frosty flakes gently drifting over the landscape.

Our last full day here, and despite the beautiful snowfall, I was feeling very sad that it was almost all over so soon. We took a little time getting ready and waking up, enjoyed some instant oats (my cheap solution I brought across from Queens) and got on our way. Originally, this was to be our "free day" to fill in anything we want to lazily do, but owing to our unfortunate and unexpected illness in the party, Monday was lost, and Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday became the NEW YORK PASS days!