Get your O face on: January 2013

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

The Carolinas

South Carolina Fun Facts
- The state dance of South Carolina is the Shag!
-South Carolina is the nation's leading peach producer and shipper east of the Mississippi River.
- Johnston is known as the Peach Capital of the World.

North Carolina Fun facts
- Krispy Kreme Doughnut was founded in Winston-Salem
- The first miniature golf course was built in Fayetteville.
- Pepsi was invented and first served in New Bern in 1898.
- North Carolina leads the nation in furniture, tobacco, brick, and textile production.

Our time in the Carolinas was pretty chilled but hey it rejuvenated us for the red line that was fast approaching in Washington DC. Our first stop was Charleston, South Carolina we roamed the streets perusing stores and I found a replacement moustache ring. I had bought one at a mall in Florida and was feeling on top of the world only to have left it at a hotel a few days later needless to say I was severely depressed for two days until a fellow contikian alerted me to a bling moustache ring she saw in Charleston and I pretty much ran to the store and purchased that bad boy! I am happy to say he is still with me in OZ!

As this was technically our last stop in the South (cue waterworks!!!!!) we decided to go out with a bang in all out southern feast! What better place to do it than Jestine's Kitchen

Sweet tea famous in the south (really sweet iced tea)

Cornbread with butter and syrup DELICIOUS!

Fried Green Tomatoes, finally I get to try them! they were boss

That is one persons serving of fried chicken! Talk about food envy.. I didnt even bother taking a photo of my pecan chicken because I pretty much just wanted Stacey's meal!

Walking it off

The houses are worth a pretty penny in these parts

Then we hit up North Carolina and went to an all you can eat buffet seriously there was so much food! SERIOUSLY and it was $12.99 #Emerica I miss you already. Then we went disco bowling, I did not win however Stacey came 2nd playing on an all boys team like a boss! In fact I think she even won one of the two games!

~JBomb

Georgia on my mind

Ray Charles says it all

Georgia Fun Facts
- Producer of the three P's - Pecans, peanuts and peaches, millions of peaches
- Coca Cola was invented in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886 by Dr John Pemberton in his backyard with the secret ingredients and a saucepan
- The founder of Girls Scouts Juliette Gordon Low was born in Savannah, Georgia ( 2012 is the 100 year annversary of Girl Scouts)
- Spanish Moss- the famous hanging plant-graces the landscape throughout Savannah, but you do not want to touch it: it contains bugs and mold.
- When General Sherman marched through Savannah during the Civil War, he was so impressed by her beauty that he sent a telegraph to President Lincoln, offering Savannah to him as a Christmas present.
- The opening scene of Forrest Gump sitting on a bench was filmed in Savannah
- Savannah is renowned for cotton which became a dominant product in the economy after the American Revolution

Oh Savannah, Georgia it was a quaint little town reittirated by our tour guide several thousand times but we had ourselves some fun. Steeped in lots of history we went on a historical tram tour of the town and the microphone our guide had sounded like metal nails scratching the inside of a T-rex's throat aka could not understand a damn word he said! the highlight was the minute he spoke I just turned to look at Stacey and she was like"oh no you have got to be f*cking kidding me" or something like that. Bear in mind we were so tired from the lack of sleep in Florida (see previous post) that we were pretty friggin grumpy at this point. I actually found the scratching soothing so much so I passed out much like a few other tram goers. It's a great way to see the place just a pity about the microphone.

Are we in England?

Finding this cup outside our hotel, definitely one of the highlights of my trip #IheartDrake

Recognise this steeple? It's from the opening scene of Forest Gump and yes I realise I have made quite a few references to that movie but hey it pretty much captured alot of American history and was predominantly based in the south so what are you gonna do?

Notice the Spanish moss mentioned in the earlier post New Orleans

Wine Wednesday!

It was like $4 a glass and an extra $2 makes it a double uh yeah I got a double!

This rejuvenated me after the T-rex historical tram ride and no sleep in Flo-rida

Let it be known that the south does not really offer chasian (cheap Asian food) delights such Thai,Vietnamese, Japanese etc so naturally I was jonesing for it pretty bad! seeing as we hadnt seen anything since the Dallas fiasco so when we found a Thai place in Georgia and I almost shed a tear! Jess and Tommy boy joined us for this magical meal.

Platter of awesome

Red beef curry!!!!!!

Then obviously it was time for dessert, this was about the only thing I could make out fromt he tram tour and of course it was food related. Leopold's Ice Cream one of the top 5 Ice cream stores in the world! On a side note I would like to add I have now been to two of the top five in the world, the other was the China Town Ice Cream Factory in NYC

Tutti Frutti created in 1919

I chose to indulge in huckleberry cheesecake...

I'm not gonna lie I think I will always love Baskin and Robbins Strawberry Cheesecake the most

Stacey chose to indulge in a hot fudge sundae and seeing as everything is bigger in #Emerica the cream was equal to the ice cream ratio

Cloud 9 right there

Then it was time to do what they do best in this quaint little town, karaoke at a gay bar of course!

~JBomb

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Ramoulda

I must have blocked it out but I need to tell you of our experiences in accommodation throughout Florida.

The "Ramada" where we stayed in Orlando was infested with mould I literally could not plug in the hair dryer because the power point had mould in the socket and then we had to have air con on because of the humidity and well lets just say we pretty much pumped mould through our lungs! It was so bad in one room a contikian complained as she found mould behind her headboard and apparantly the staff were all "and what's your question..." needless to say I re-dubbed the place the Ramoulda which brought some giggles followed by a hearty chesty cough.

Then as we moved on to Cocoa Beach to another hotel we found our room stunk of smoke even though they were all non smoking rooms. Bear in mind I'm asthmatic and if there is one thing Stacey hates in this world it's smoking but more importantly the smell of smoke in a pillow is nothing short of torture. As I awoke in the morning I discovered why the room was smokey...the hotel staff smoke right outside our door! so at this moment in time I would like to say thank you Western Australia for making some of the strictest smoking laws in the world. Needless to say I dubbed this place smokey-joe's.

Then in St Augustine we had yet another Smokey-joe room followed by hearty coughs, lack of sleep and pure crankiness. We were telling some of the lads about it and they then told us their blankets stunk of urine so the question was what would you prefer urine or smoke?

I just remembered this whole saga as I was trying to figure why we looked so shattered in Georgia and then it all came flooding back to me!

~JBomb

Party in the city where the heat is on

There is only one way to correctly describe Miami and this guy is the one who did it

Miami - Will Smith

Miami Fun Facts
- Art deco it's kind of a big deal here!
- Delicious weather, I could retire here
- The first suntan lotion was invented here in 1944
- It is the only major city in the US to be founded by a woman
- It has the largest cruise ship port in the world
- It was a popular place for pirates to bury their treasure!
- It was named after a Native American tribe called Mayaimis who lived there in the early 18th century
- It had the most expensive drinks I have ever had in an American club

Whilst some went off on a speedboat tour Stacey and I decided to cure our craving for mojitos on the boardwalk...I choose my choice

and enjoy a feast fit for a king or two..

Stacey picked up some lovely gifts #Drakerepresent

The sunset from our hotel, lets get this party started!

Peachy keen!

We started off on a pub crawl and met another contiki group going in the opposite direction!

The best way to recover from an epic night out...

A bicycle ride up South Beach with 50 other people!

This was hands down one of my favourite activities on tour I just loved being outside in the sun getting some exercise and taking in the delicious scenery!