My Holiday

So a few days ago was our results day, something we'd been waiting for since the beginning of June. I think it's safe to say we all did well and we all got in to where we're going next year. In fact a few of us went out that evening to celebrate! For me though, this day was very tiring as I had only just arrived back from America the day before and when we collected our results was 5am American time making me very sleepy.

My trip to America started 3 weeks before when we flew into JFK airport, in New York. We got a taxi to the hotel, which took a long time considering we had only a few miles to travel because of all the traffic. Our hotel was only 100 yards or so from Time Square which was full of lights, moving adverts and cars, reminding me of Vegas. Luckily the rest of New York wasn't like this and we managed to walk around the streets without too much problem. Much to my disappointment, my English accent was hardly noticed by the Americans and certainly wasn't exciting for them but we did have a few people pick up on it. One of which knew where Sheffield was and about it's steal industry. Whilst in New York we visited Central Park and its zoo (the one in Madagascar); China Town and Little Italy; Staten Island and the Brooklyn bridge. We also saw Wicked on Broadway which was amazing!

After four days in Manhattan we left our little hotel and returned to the airport to pick up a hired car, in this we drove to Long Island. Now you're probably thinking that my parents are spoiling me a little on this holiday but unfortunately this is where the expense ends. My Dad believes in something called "TQP" which basically means spend as little as you can wherever you go. So my family thought it'd be fun to go camping, yes camping in America in the middle of no where. Our campsite on Long Island was pretty amazing though, we were not far from the beach and fireflies flew around at night. The only thing that ruined the campsite was a group of 10 year old Americans who thought it's be fun to come onto our raised platform (where the picnic table's meant to be), despite the fact there was plenty of free platforms near by and sing High School Musical.
Whilst on Long Island we visited the house of a Vanderbilt, basically this was a man who had inherited millions of pounds from his ancestors and spent it on yachting and shooting animals. Unfortunately for me, this kind man had decided to stuff these animals, meaning his house was filled to the brim with dead birds, fish and wild cats, even a polar bear! He had also created a memorial room for his dead son which was filled with African dead animals. The woman that worked there (officially named Barbara or Jodie by us) tried to tell me it was ok that he'd killed all these animals because "the herds were over running back then" yes it's a well known fact that polar bear herds are out of control in the North Pole.

After two days on Long Island we got a ferry across the sea to New London and drove up to near Plymouth. This is where the Mayflower (a ship of Puritans from England) apparently landed in 1620 even though they actually landed in Cape Cod. This apparent landing was basically the theme of the town and they'd even fenced off a rock, calling it "Plymouth Rock" where they supposedly first walked on American soil thus starting a series of rubbish made up by people to attract tourists.
Whilst near Plymouth we took a walk to Cape Cod, it was lovely scenery, a woodland by a swamp where we saw a red squirrel, a mole... and several blood sucking flies. Yes, unfortunately for the barelegged sister and I the flies were hungry and covered in bites, my sister particularly reacted to them and spent the next week covered in massive red splodges. We walked back through a town which was a well known gay friendly town. It was quite nice but a little pretentious, as we walked through we spotted two wedding carriages, there had been a double wedding. I will never understand why anyone would want a double wedding! The camp site we were staying on at this point was one of the worst of the holiday, we had to trek to the toilets and when we got there we often discovered several children throwing frogs at each other and once a woman shouting at her son, telling him that if he didn't stop crying she'd phone the police.

Next we moved to a campsite near Boston. From here we visited a town called Salem which was a place where witch hunting and killing took place in the 1600s. It was slightly distasteful with all the witch merchandise considering a lot of innocent people were killed but a nice town all the same. Later we went to a National park called "the minute man National Park" which is basically where the American freedom from the English began, as this was the place of the first battle. It felt slightly strange being there as an English person, but I could understand why the American's wanted freedom from us. The next day we went into Boston on the tube, the tube had a very enthusiastic speaker or particularly liked the final destination, every now and again we'd here an announcement of "Braintree train!" In Boston we saw more evidence of the American independence from Britain, including the sight of the Boston massacre and the Boston tea party. This was where, because the British were charging tax on the tea imported, the Bostonian's tipped all the tea delivered out into the dock. I believe I may have come back from America knowing too much about American Independence. The next day we visited Harvard and saw the second fake thing of the holiday, the statue of John Harvard, the supposed founder of the university. This is actually incorrect as there wasn't actually an individual founder, it was mostly British people and it was originally called Cambridge. The statue is actually of the sculptors friend, a little awkward when everyone poses by the statue and strokes his foot for good luck.

Next we briefly visited Sheffield in New England (briefly as it was tiny) and then traveled to the Catskills. This is a mountain range and national park and is suitably in the middle of nowhere. The campsite we stayed on here was officially the worst one of the holiday, it will now forever be known as "the mosquito campsite." There was no yield to these mosquitoes as they buzzed around us all day and night, I did become an expert murderer of them however. It is true that we could have probably prevented ourselves from being savaged by these insects but my family, being the TQP people they are, thought that a 1.49 bracelet that they didn't believe would work would be a better option then mosquito repellant but there you go. Whilst in the Catskills we climbed a mountain and saw a snake and a chipmunk.

The final two nights we spent in America were in a hostel. This was a rather hippyish hostel and looked to me like the sort of place you were going to be murdered in in the night. Luckily we weren't. My sister and I found some entertaining books, the first was an illustrated version of Frankenstein, the second was a book written in the 70s called "Open ended Stories". This was a series of stories that didn't end and your class at school had to write the end and answer some questions on them. There were a few entertaining ones, one where a girl finds out she's dating a Nazi and one where a guy smokes some drugs and sees, and I quote a "pink spotty bird in a striped candy cane tree." I'd really like to know what drug this was. The best story was one about a boy called Bill who realized his friend Stan was ignoring him and wearing sunglasses, his skin was also cold, he's turned into a vampire I thought! Unfortunately he also had pinpricks in his arms which means he was addicted to "dope" now I'm not sure what that is in America but in England I'm pretty sure it's cannabis and I don't think you can get addicted to it or inject it either. To make things worse for Bill, his cousin Fred had died robbing a petrol station in order to get money to buy this drug. Bill's Mum had said that someone should have called the Police on Fred so he could have had help before it was too late. Stan said that what had happened to Fred wasn't going to happen to him and the story ended on Bill wondering whether to call the Police on Stan.
After 3 weeks in America we arrived home 12 hours early as our flight was put forward in Ireland. This is a holiday I will never forget and was certainly an experience. For the record, last time I camped in America it was worse as we had to stay in places where there was a danger of bears, no running water and the toilets were just holes in the ground. In fact when we were in Yellow Stone, somebody on the campsite next to us was killed by a bear which didn't worry me as much as it should have. Below is a picture of the New York and the New Jersey skyline from Staten Island, my sister and Dad washing their legs in the sea after the blood sucking fly incident and finally a picture of Stan showing you why you shouldn't get addicted to drugs.