Well..It has been a while since I’ve written a proper blog post about my travels. The last one was about my time in Baltimore and Washington DC (if you don’t count my travel pictures post).
So following is a short summary of what else happened on my first trip to the USA.
An American Christmas
This was my first Christmas away from my family ever. My original plan when I first booked my ticket to the USA was to spend Christmas at a homeless shelter feeding homeless people. These plans were put on hold (although I did get to feed lots of homeless people while I was in the USA) when I was invited to spend Christmas with Amy’s family.
I was given the honor of putting the Christmas angel on the top of the tree 
Christmas eve was spent with her mothers side of the family and we had dinner at an all you could eat Chinese restaurant. While we were there I got in trouble for attempting to use the same plate when I went back for seconds. The waitress was quite confused when she went to take my plate (after I’ve finished the first serve) and I said I wasn’t done yet. 
Christmas morning was with the immediate family.
Later on in the afternoon Amy’s fathers side of the family arrived. We had an epic feast.
The next day was the “day after Christmas party” where more extended family and friends arrive. Earlier in the day before the party started I went and saw “Alien vs Predator: 2″ with the “men”. Once the party started more and more people started to arrive.
There were soooo many people there, it was crazy! Lots of food and drink was consumed and fun times had by all, including another White Christmas gift exchange. I picked out an English-German dictionary but it was stolen from me.
Philadelphia – Take Two
Philly take two was done with Tabbatha, Ryan and another one of Amy’s friends. The day was pretty jam packed. We spent a fair amount of the day at the Franklin Institute (which is like an American version of Questacon although not as good). Had coffee, probably at Starbucks. Hrmm, at the time it seemed a lot more hectic!
New York City
I caught a bus from Allentown, PA to New York City. It was a pretty uneventful bus ride by myself and was met by Amy and Bryan later on in the evening.
When I arrived I was met by a friend of Amy’s who was putting us up for the first two nights. I walked through Time Square and even the rain couldn’t dampen the moment.
The next day was New Years Eve, we all had brunch at Organic Harvest (I think that was the name of it, some kind of health food place). Where we also met one of the girls whom we’d stayed with in Baltimore earlier on. After brunch I headed off and walked through Central Park with my friend from Baltimore and her friend from NYC. It was a fantastic day for it, with the sun out it must have been somewhere around 5 degrees C warm.
That night was spent bringing in the New Year in Brooklyn. Eating dinner out and then going on to Barcadia which was a mix between a Bar and Arcade.
The next day was sightseeing around New York City. Sights included:
- Not Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty
- Wall St, before it crashed
- Ground Zero
- Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station
The next two nights were spent staying in…an all girls college dorm. Fortunately (unfortunately?!?) for me college wasn’t in session so we were basically the only people on the floor. We had dinner in the Chinatown district then walked through Little Italy and had desert at some gelato place.
The next day were more sights. Including the crazy glass entrance to the Manhattan Apple Store!
On my final day in NYC I spent about 5 hours walking through the Museum of Modern Art. Which was HUGE!
Baltimore
Too many things to mention! Here are a few highlights:
- Snowboarding at Seven Springs (not in Baltimore, but with people from Baltimore)
- Pittsburgh (once again, not Baltimore but with people from Baltimore)
- I spent a lot of time hanging out at a socialist cafe!
- “Hiking” through the woods of greater Baltimore
- Talking politics with a Texan at an Irish Bar
- Being a 1st grade teachers aid, twice, at in inner city public school
- Teaching the kids how to floss
- Teaching the kids how to floss
- Our excursion to Ellicot City
Montana
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go and visit a friend whom I made while she was studying at my university in Australia! So I made the long haul to Montana, the amount of travel time from when I left Baltimore and arrived into Montana was the same amount of time it took to fly from Sydney to San Francisco!
The biggest highlight of Montana was staying up in “the woods” in a log cabin, which was overlooking a lake that was completely frozen over. But you couldn’t see the actual lake because it was cover with about a foot of snow!
San Francisco
This was my last stop before heading home. I CouchSurfed with my CouchSurfing friend from San Jose whom had moved up to SF around the time I was in Canada. I arrived late in the evening but that didn’t stop us from going to a bar for a couple of drinks.
The last day in the USA involved doing a few last moment things like picking up a laptop from FedEx and feeding some homeless people, before getting the BART to the airport and hanging around waiting to board my flight home.
I arrived back into Australia on January 25th, just in time for Australia Day 
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So that was my first trip to the USA. My master plan is to add more detailed posts about some of the above, however there are now my travels through Central America and the second time through the USA to write about which will take priority!
