Dent Family Six Month Travel Blog 2018 – Australia NZ USA Canada

Today was our last trip out…so were sent into space.

 

We were keen to test out the might of NASA against the Carnarvon Space Center that we visited in Australia (who you will remember had a cat and lots of equipment from Look Around You – see sometime in Jan/Feb)….

It was suprisingly quiet and we managed to get around alot of the exhibits….

Space Shuttle Atlanta….where Barnaby had a go at flying the shuttle, found out how to take a “Space dump” and we spotted a Sonic Screwdriver(?)….we also went on a Shuttle launch simulator..which didn’t quite live up to the hype and seemed to be a very wobbly seat and reminded us of driving long a farm track to the A-frame in Flagstaff.

 

We then took a bus ride out to the launch pads, which without rockets on them are not very exciting….but this led us to the Saturn V/Apollo missions exhibits….

 

Along the way there were numerous film presentations to “enhance” your visit and understanding. There was a mocked up Apollo 11 landing…or was it a mock up….or the real thing…..????

Hope you are enjoying the good weather in the UK!

Simon

Here in Orlando we went to Universal Studios Florida and not Disney.

Now I know what your thinking, ‘WhY DiDn’T yOu gO To dIsNeY LaNd???!!!’ well basically, we have no interest in Disney really. To be honest, I have watched the Broadway Lion King show more than i have watched the movie (never) and the only Disney thing we really enjoyed was Toy Story and we just don’t really want to go to Toy Story Land.

Right, now we’ve got rid of all of the no-good Disney lovers we can talk about the good stuff, Universal Studios!

Now, thanks to my friend Alfie scouting out Orlando for us, we knew what to do, and what not to do.

So we didn’t go to Islands Of Adventure.

When we got in it was really busy so we decided to go on the ride furthest away from the entrance, Men In Black, Alien Attack, where you go round on this cart thing and shoot loads of aliens that pop out anywhere, from the front of cars to bins, to the ones sat next to you called Alice and Simon Dent.

Then we went on the Simpsons ride, where you are sat in this rollercoaster and you are brought up so you can see a massive cinema screen, and then its kinda like a simulator as you go up and down the rollercoaster, trying to escape Sideshow Bob, but you’re really just moving around in this seat.

Then we went on the Revenge Of The Mummy ride, thanks to popular request by once again, the Alfmeister (thanks m8) and it was the bestride ever! it was really fun and for me, really scary as well! What you basically did was go along this track, and then you went down a bit and then stopped really suddenly. Then you go backwards down a bit, and then you see this ramp ahead of you, and what goes up must always come back down!!!!!! So as I was swearing loads and basically hyperventilating, we suddenly shot up the ramp, and went round this rollercoaster bit. Then, you go up this ramp and slow down, only to be tricked and sent down (quite suddenly and quite fast) this quite big ramp. Oh, and did i forget to mention that halfway through the ride you practically get burn to a crisp by these flames!?

Bascally, to sum up that massive paragraph you just spent about 7 years reading, it was rather scary.

Then we went on the Race Through New York ride with Jimmy Fallon, who hosts one of the various Tonight Shows.

It was really good, as it was like the Simpsons Ride but in real life. The 3D and feeling of motion was amazing.

Then we went on the Shrek 4D ride which was terrible. It was really bad quality, a Shrek short-episode-thing that you could just find on Netflix, and we waited an hour for it!!!!! Total waste of time….

Then we explored the Harry Potter side of Universal Studios, where there was an upgraded version of the Diagon Alley Set, and waited equally as long as we waited for the Shrek ride (mabye even longer!) to go on a Harry Potter ride that was alright, but still not as good as the Revenge Of The Mummy ride.

And that was it folks! Sorry for the absolute gargantuan of a blog post, but you can tell I enjoyed it! NB Mum closed her eyes on all the rides..

Barnaby😁😁👍🙃🌎

Today we got up early (ughhhhh) and drove to volcano bay, which is part of the three universal parks. When we got there it wasn’t too busy, so me, dad and Barnaby went on the ‘aqua coaster’ which was very fun!! At volcano bay they have little wrist bands that everyone is given and you go and scan them and it saves you a place in the virtual queue so you don’t have to queue up!! You can also use them to buy stuff which is cool. We went on quite a few rides, but my favourite one was the ‘honu’ which was a very big slide that me and dad went on that had a very big drop! The park was also Polynesian themed, so they had Hawaiian and Maori music and names on the rides which was fun cause it felt like we were back there! At about 2 the daily Floridian storm hit so we sadly had to go home, we had a very good day though!

Sorry there aren’t many pictures, it’s difficult to not get your phone wet!!

As per the Lighthouse Family – “One day we’ll live on Ocean Drive”….and thats exactly what we did do for 3 nights…..the “Sun (didn’t) shine on everything we do (did)” as it rained quite heavily for about half a day! So I will be lodging a complaint against the Lighthouse Family, thank goodness they don’t work for the Met Office.

Thanks for that Dad… even though it was probably the hottest place we’ve been, at a low of 29 degrees celsius, and that was in the shade!

Mum and Dad seemed very excited about the whole ‘Ocean Drive’ thingymajiggy, but to me they just looked like a couple of buildings in an old stylee.

We also enjoyed the beach loads, and spent rather alot of time on it. The water was nice, but was an odd brown colour. Can anyone guess why?Thats right! It was because of all the seaweed in there, you weirdos! One person (my Dad) loved the seaweed so much he decided to put it down his shorts, and only realised he still had some left down there when he went to have a shower, so decided to leave it in the toilet!!!

Our trip to Miami was great, but I wouldn’t go there again.

Barnaby :0 🙂

Our last few days in Washington were quite quiet….

We ticked a few “major sites” boxes…..Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and The White House. We watched “Oceans 8” which was OK….and reminded us of our own major heist that we carried out at The Met, when in New York.

A 2hr 30m plane ride to Miami was delayed by an “over full” fuel tank, which needed to be emptied and then a cargo door, that was reported as “open” just as we blasted off down the runway…anyway we got here…..pictures tomorrow….

For those of you who know Simon, you’ll understand his excitement at arriving in Washington. His fascination with US politics, you may ask? His obsession with Night At The Museum and Spiderman? No!!! Everything is FREE to visit in Washington, which is hopefully doing wonders for his spreadsheet as we are nearing the end of our trip!

This has to be one of the best cities in the US that we have visited. No skyscrapers (you can actually see the sky!), big open spaces and great places to eat, plus a pretty luxurious AirBnb (dishwasher, aircon & an icemaker in the fridge!) What more could a girl ask for?

The Smithsonians are all free to visit (did I mention that?!!) thanks to a British man who left all of his money to his nephew, as long as the nephew had kids. His nephew, however, was busy off doing other things (?!) and so his legacy went to build some pretty impressive museums and a fantastic zoo! Probably the one and only time that we will get to see Giant Pandas, Simon & I were more than excited! Plus we got to see a 6 week old baby gorilla (but the photo was rubbish!) And Barnaby found out that he isn’t as tall as a Narwhal’s tusk!!

We also spent a day at the capitol building, where we got a guided tour of the Rotunda (fancy dome thing) and even got to sit in the House of Representatives (no photos allowed), although the visitors outnumbered the politicians – I think they were all off practising for the annual Republicans v Democrats baseball game that they had last night! We visited the Library of Congress (with the beautiful ceilings and mosaics) and I managed to drag them all around the Botanic Gardens, with the stunning orchids (& welcome aircon!)

Finally we went to the International Spy Museum (we had to pay to get in there!). Alice bravely did a bit of acting, they both had a go at deciphering messages with the Enigma machine and we learnt about ingenious ways to hide transmittors in various kinds of logs! There were some interesting things in the gift shop too!

We’ve got 2 more days here, so we’re off for tea with Trump tomorrow…………..

After the excitment of the Bobby Moore incident, we were all less than impressed with Philadelphia.

We did see an ex-olympic diver, dive from 80ft into a small swimming pool, as part of the Arts festival.

We did make some paper boats and float them down a temporary river, as part of the Arts festival.

We did see some Camels, goasts, sheep and a baby Wallaby, as part of the Arts festival.

We did visit the “Big Gay Ice Cream” shop.

We did see the Liberty Bell.

We did play Mini Golf for the first time since New Zealand (no change in winner, though).

We (well me and Barnaby) did go to the cinema to see a special showing of Genesis of the Daleks from 1975. (Top trip highlight, obviously)

We did enjoy a lovely day with Cat, James and Lily Morgan-Locke. (but forgot to take any photos!)

In some areas…We did feel like someone might “Pop a cap in our arses” if we didn’t watch out….

OK. We’ll get to the click-bait later.

On our last day in New York, we scaled the Empire State Building….especially proud of Jude, who doesn’t like heights….

Next we headed for the highlight of our trip (so far) The Museum of Mathematics…..well it’s not really a museum, more interactive sciencey/puzzley type exhibits…all part of our extensive home schooling routine.

On to the Brooklyn Bridge….and then somehow we got hoodwinked into visiting another dodgy ice cream parlour!!! However….this one came up trumps (100’s for Taste, Price, Physical Strength and Filling Factor)….Taiyaki Japanese Ice cream, with custard flavour fish cones….

Hat news…..all the staff at the Empire State Build had hats on (I didn’t get a photo)…apart from that, here is a picture of a hat shop.

Today we “ride the Amtrak from New York city to Philadelphia”. (And if you can tell me which song from one of my favourite artists the lyric comes from, well done, for using google)…….now we get to death of Bobby Moore.

We took an Uber from 30th Street Station to our AirBnb. Our driver, Omar, was originally from Gambia, and we were talking about football – “Why does everyone support Man Utd”? (who knows).

“I followed West Ham Utd, listened to Bobby Moore at the World Cup in ’66 on a small radio in the Gambia, he is an amazing defender, is he still involved in Football?”.

“No, I don’t think he is, well not since he died ages ago”

“Eh? What?”

“1993 he died”.

“You’re joking, I cannot believe this, I will tell my friends”

I didn’t get around to telling him about The Beatles splitting up, or that Keith Harris/Rod Hull/Su Pollard had died. However he did get a reasonable tip to console himself.

We celebrated with some beer (see his and hers size measures) and a portion of Fried Sprouts.

Good day.

Tuesday we started off the day at Ground Zero.

Even before we got inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum, I had started blubbing! Watching the film which showed interviews with Condalisa Rice, George Bush and Guiliani and footage of how the situation had unfolded for them set me off even more!

The museum was brilliant (if I can say that?) It was really important for us that Alice & Barnaby visited it and learnt about what happened. There were parts from the original towers on display and lots of photos and footage. I really hope that they remember it.

We were too chicken to go up the new, One World Trade Center (well, I was!) so we set off for a free ride on the Staten Island ferry, to get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. It didn’t dissapoint!

Then Alice treated us to a trip to a pop-up make up shop called Glossier, where you went up in a lift to a tiny showroom and all of the employees were dressed in pink boiler suits! Simon & Barnaby felt a little awkward until they found out that the ladies thought they were very cool to be there!!

By the time we got back to our apartment, it was dark but this was the view across to Manhatten so we weren’t too upset!!

Whilst in New York me and Dad went and watched The Lion King on Broadway! The theatre was really big compared to the size of the actual building, and it was nearly as big as the Hippodrome! There was some food we could have, but at $5 for a bottle of water, we were kinda getting ripped off… When we went into the main bit, our seats weren’t as far back as we thought, but I still had to get a cushion to sit on.

The start was really great as nearly all the animals came onto the stage, including a big elephant and a few long-necked giraffes. It was also kinda cool as the young Simbaa (one of the main characters) was only ten! (same age as me.). My favourite character was probably the bird as he was the stereotypical ‘funny’ one.

Barnaby😁😎💩🎭