Contiki – Page 3 – ThePassportPrincess

Day 30 – Raleigh

September 14, 2015June 13, 2016SarahLeave a comment

On Thursday it was off to Raleigh!
It’s the capital and the second most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is known as the “City of Oaks” for its many oak trees, which line the streets in the heart of the city.

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As I’m writing this blog 3 days after being in Raleigh my memory is pretty shit. We arrived late in the afternoon at our hotel and all got our room key. For some reason a few of us had our own rooms so I was one of the lucky ones who got my own king sized bed for the night 🙂

When I got to my room I had a shower and quickly put my washing in the washing machine.
After my last attempt at washing them with no powder they weren’t smelling the greatest.

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We had an included dinner at a buffet restaurant called ‘Golden Corral’ just before 7pm so after getting ready we all met on the bus and headed off there. I thought since it was a buffet it’d be pretty average but I was surprised at how good it was. There was just so much to choose from.
They had a hot buffet set up with all your Beef and Chicken dishes. They had Enchiladas, Fish dishes, Macaroni & Cheese, Meat loaf, Onion Rings, Pork Chops, Pork Steaks, Ribs, Potatoes either fried or mashed or made into fries. They even had rice dishes and Sandwiches, some Turkey and Hot Vegetables you could load your plate up with. They had a Salad Buffet set up too with vegetables and fruits.

My favorite part was the Dessert though. Cheesecake, Soft-serve Ice-cream, Scoop Ice-cream, Candy to put on top of it, Cookies, Chocolate Pies and Tarts. Yum!!

one-big-buffet — Took this picture off Google to give you an idea of what it looked like

After dinner, we headed out to go bowling. I’m not the best bowler, but after a few drinks I was doing pretty well. Still ended up loosing though!

Bowling finished about 10pm. Me, Jonathan and Robert thought it was too early to go back to the hotel so headed across the road to a bar and had a couple of drinks after the bowling.
Nothing was really happening so we headed back to the hotel after wards.

Raleigh was a pretty quiet time for me. Hence why this blog is so short and my memory is shit.
I do however remember my key card not working for like the 100th time on this trip. I always put it near my phone and it deactivates it which makes it impossible to get into my room until I re-activate it at the Reception area. Grr.

Day 29 – Savannah (Georgia)

September 10, 2015June 13, 2016SarahLeave a comment

I want to live here!
Savannah, Georgia is just the nicest little town.
When we arrived on Wednesday we had a walking tour organised but as we were early we had to wait around in Forsyth Park for a bit.
The park was just beautiful. The sun was out and even though it was probably a bit too humid for me, I defiantly appreciated the beauty of Savannah.
We took a big group picture under these tree’s but I unfortunately don’t have the picture to show ya!

Savannah is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia with people here being know for their Southern charm and hospitality. The city’s former promotional name was actually “Hostess City of the South”
When we started our tour, our local tour guide took us on a walk and showed our Contiki group lots of statues and monuments while explaining the history behind them all. Scenes from the movie ‘Forest Gump’ were actually filmed in Savannah. If you’ve ever seen the movie, you’ll remember Forest sat on a bench saying the famous quote “Life is like a box of chocolates”. Well that bench was on the north side of Chippewa Square in Savannah but now resides in a Museum here.

Chipewa-Square

Savannah’s historic district has 22 squares surrounded by beautiful homes, churches and huge live Oak trees. Our tour guide only took us to a few of them otherwise we’d be there all day.
Calhoun Square is just two blocks from Forsyth Park and was once a place for schoolchildren and a bit of a backyard for those in the heart of Downtown Savannah.
Crawford Square is the only square with a fence surrounding it. It also has it’s own basketball court for anyone to play in and it’s very own gazebo
Greene Square is great for having a picnic whereas Lafayette Square is home to the ornate Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which has the highest twin steeples in all of downtown.

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When our tour was over, we had over 2 hours until we were allowed to check in to our hotel so a few of us went and got food from this restaurant called Wild Wings.
They had 1/2 price flat breads on Wednesdays so that’s what I got haha.
Our meals weren’t the nicest but I think we’re starting to realize that lately with cheap burger and pizza joints.

We still had lots of time after lunch so we went for a walk and I bought a magnet to add to my collection. We also came across a candy store! (My dream)

I bought some candy and the boys bought iced drinks as it was so hot.

To be honest I think I just bought candy as I was in a Candy store and felt like I should. I’m usually such a snack person and I’d rather have little meals throughout the day, but ever since I’ve been here I barely eat snacks. I just have lunch and dinner and sometimes breakfast if I feel like it.
Even yesterday on our coach stop I bought Twix bars and some pringles but struggled to eat them. Maybe I just don’t really like American snacks (everything is just way too big for one person)

After our Candy stop we went to the hotel and was finally able to check in.
As I still hadn’t slept properly, I had a bit of a nap until my room mate woke me up at 6.30pm to get ready for the night out.
She’s so good to me haha. Honestly, she’s like the perfect room mate. She knew I’d need over an hour to get ready so made sure I was up before 8pm 😀

When I was ready, everyone on Contiki headed off to this Karoke/gay bar for some cheap drinks.
I was there for just over an hour and was a bit bored so me, Marisa, my room mate Amy and Paige went down the road to get some super late dinner.
I got some nachos which wernt too bad!

Amy and Paige headed off home after that but me and Marisa stayed out and met up with everyone else at this club called Treehouses. It’s in the center of Downtown Savannah and has two large balconies over-looking City Market.

treehouse1-1 We danced there for a bit and had some more drinks then eventually stumbled home around 1am.
There wasn’t really much else happening and I was sooo tired so it was probably probably a good thing I went home early.

Day 28 – St Augustine

September 10, 2015June 10, 2016SarahLeave a comment

We headed off to St Augustine on Tuesday morning.
We had a pretty big day as we stopped off for 5 hours at the NASA space centre in Florida.

There’s actually quite a lot to do at the Space Center that I didn’t even end up seeing everything. I went with Marisa and a few others and did the bus tour.

To be honest the bus tour was so boring. I would not recommend it.
We went around to where they launch the space rockets which was all good to see but the guy on the bus had the type of voice that just made you want to go to sleep. And I think a few people from our tour actually did. Maybe I just associate buses with sleeping now because that’s all I seem to do on them.

The bus tour took nearly 2 hours but we stopped at this place where you could eat and they had all the info about the launches etc…

The above picture is the actual control room where they re-inacted on TV screens what was happening when they launched the space shuttle that went to the moon.

I also got to touch a piece of the moon!
It just felt like rock though so don’t get too excited haha.

After we’d explored lots, we went on a space shuttle simulator. You basically get strapped in and it gives you the feeling of actually being in the space shuttle as it launches.
It’s not the nicest experience when you’re ‘in space’. It’s like you loose gravity but makes you feel sick a little bit haha.
It was still cool to experience though.

By 3pm we had to be back at the bus to head to St Augustine.
It seemed like the shitty weather was following us because when we got to St Augustine it was pouring down with rain.
They must get used to their flooding, because back home it’d make front page news whereas here it was literally just water everywhere we went and no one seemed to care.

St Augustine is located in the northeast part of Florida so they have a very tropical climate as well. We were visiting in their wet season (May – October) so it was pretty much a given that it’d rain.
The Bermuda High pumps in hot and unstable tropical air from the Bahamas and Gulf of Mexico, which helps create the daily thundershowers that they get all the time in the summer months. Apparently intense but very brief downpours are common in mid-summer in the city.

St. Augustine was actually the first city in America in 1565. Therefore making it the oldest city in the United States.

When we got to our hotel we had a few hours to get ready until we all set off to an optional dinner our tour Manager recommended.

It was at this place called BBQ ‘something’ (Man I should have really found out the name for this blog) and it was so good!
Our food took ages to come out as there was quite a few of us, but when it did it was really yummy.
I’m loving the crispy type chicken they have here with this creamy gravy they put on top. I had something very similar back in Dallas so it reminded me of that. (The Dallas one was still better though)
They had this random jalapeño bread with it as well which wasn’t that great. And I wasn’t a big fan of their Kumara here haha. But the rest was still good!

After dinner we all went to this bar down the road and had $3 drinks all night. Safe to say I probably had too much to drink and didn’t end up getting home until 6am. The Contiki life aye!
I didn’t even bother going to sleep, I just packed my bag, got changed and went and had breakfast before boarding the bus at 8am haha.

St Augustine, even though I felt there wasn’t tooooo much to do still seemed like a nice little town to visit.
I can’t really judge half of these places I’ve been going to lately because we’re there for such a short period of time and with the weather being shit I’ve been really slack at exploring anything past eating out and the nightlife.