The final one, hope you all like it!

And onto Boston…

The main notable part of Boston was our trip to the Harvard Campus, which was complete with its own Wagamamas (it had been 4 months since we’d had one!) Harvard was very Harry Potter-esque having being modelled very closely on the Christchurch College in Cambridge. At the time they were setting up for their graduation ceremony which 21,000 people would be in attendance including the 4,000 graduates. The house flags decorated the grand buildings in between the massive TV screens set up to ensure everyone could see. We were shown around by students who gave us a good insight into the life there and a few good stories. We saw where Matt Damon and Bill gates lived when they studied there (both did not graduate but still did pretty well in life!) What pranks had been pulled by the nearest competing university; MIT, who once turned around the 21,000 chairs on the evening before the ceremony.

Interestingly the main gate is only passed through twice in a students career, when they first enter and when they are fully graduated. They have lots of traditions such as ‘Primal Scream’ which takes place before finals. Harvard in the winter gets to minus temperatures and to let off a little steam the students all get together in the main quad and run around and scream…naked. It’s a age old tradition which can be viewed on youtube if you don’t believe me.

The left foot of the statue of Mr Harvard, the founder of the university is now a shiny gold compared to the rest of his body. The students used to rub the foot for good luck and now it is mainly tourists who tap, rub and even hoist babies onto it in a lion king type tradition. This statue is the 3rd most photographed in the entire USA, after the statue of liberty and the Lincoln memorial, which we both saw earlier in this trip!

Also in Boston we did a tour of Fenway Park, home of the baseball team the Red Sox. The colour Fenway green apparently copyrighted by the club and costs thousands to reproduce, although I don’t think they’ve been to B&Q where you take a swatch and Dulux can make any colour!

The wooden bleacher seats are the oldest in the game, they are still in situ due to tradition and also because the ground would loose 300 seats (and money) if they re-did them all. Because of up-to-date health and safety laws there would need to be more isles, larger gaps in the rows etc. At the moment if you are over 5’6 and 12 stone you have real problems fitting into the seats (which is basically the whole baseball fan base!) They claim to have invented the Mexican wave (that was the Mexicans right…?!) As anyone trying to leave their seat midgame for a hot dog or beer would disrupt everyone on their row, they would have to stand up, then the people behind the would have to stand up, creating a wave. Which is why now everyone is such a fan of the walk-around vendors…‘butt-scratcher anyone…butt-scratcher..!’

At Fenway Park they have the only manually operated scoreboard still in action in the league. The job is so highly sort after as the scorers get paid to watch all the games, also every player of the Red Sox has been into that room and signed their name. There is currently a 50 year waiting list for this job which has no running water, no heating or air conditioning – it shows what people do for their sport!

Our return leg from the US was scheduled from LA so even though in Boston we were on the eat coast and closer to home we still had to fly the extra five hours and add another five hours time difference to get back to LA. We had booked our east to west coast flight in Hawaii but somehow wires got crossed and we managed to miss our flight, BY A DAY! We’d arranged to stay in Long Island an extra day and that probably was our downfall. We’d managed nine months of not missing flights, loosing passports or each other; it seemed so idiotic that we both just laughed. We frantically checking every airline and finding to replace the flight it would cost us about $400 dollars…eeek! Just by chance I checked our original itinery on Delta and found our flight had been delayed and they had given us the option to change it-too good to be true. We rebooked ourselves on a flight for the next day and assigned ourselves to the fact that we could be spending next night in the airport waiting on standby. We couldn’t believe it when we were handed tickets and still had to pinch ourselves even when we were sat on the flight – jammy dodgers I know!

In San Diego our luck continued and we came across amazing Abe on Couch Surfing; again great US hospitality was shown, he gave up his bed and gave us a whirlwind tour of San Diego in the three days we were there. His previous guest had come for three days and stayed for two weeks, which shows how much of a great host he was. If we could’ve extended our time there we would’ve, damn Amy and the wedding *shakes fist* !!

San Diego is a large navy base, with friendly people, good weather and great food especially cooked by Abe, who’s parents had come from Mexico and he’d kept the cooking gene. Potatoes for breakfast? – Yes please! He knew the way to my heart. Abe took us to our first baseball game, although the San Diego padres lost it was very enjoyable day out in the sun with a few beers.

As we were lucky enough to have a host who spoke Spanish and only lived 20 minutes drive away from Mexico we went for an international road trip! For that day we were Mexi-cans not Mexi-can’ts and sampled tequilas, sangria and margaritas. Ordinarily the Mexican border doesn’t stamp passports but after jumping through hoops and running around like headless chickens looking for the stamper we got a beautiful green one to add to our collection!

The picture of the Mexican flag, hopefully shows the astronomical size of it. Abe claimed it was bigger than the floor plan of his flat – 7m x 3m! After giggling at the strange signs and trying our luck at Spanish previously learnt in Florida via Dora the Explorer; largo - long, corto- short, !Lo hicimos! – We did it!

We stopped at a locals restaurant for dinner and were handed what looked like large avocados, these actually turned out to be large rocks which after some pointing, laughing and demonstrating by our waiter/chef/owner he showed us they were for breaking open the giant crabs he served to us as an starter.

Our short time in Mexico was a real eye opener, although Tijuana isn’t really representative of the entire country it gave us a taster. The people are friendly and very family orientated, the idea of an old person’s home to them doesn’t exist, the younger generations take in the older ones.

What surprised me, being though Tijuana was so close to USA it reminded me of being back in Vietnam. It was like a third world country, not everyone can have an education (which is free) because parents can’t afford the $120 costs for uniforms, books and stationary etc. Children can earn more than their parents on the street by begging or selling cheap souvenirs which is more advantageous to the parents in the short term than sending them to school.

The next day after a quick game of (American) football on the street we said goodbye to our friend and headed up to LA. Just another quick thank you to Abe, he really treated us like family…teased and made fun of us! He really epitomised our couch surfing experience – someone who wanted to share their little part of the world, spreading the love.

It is a bit illegal in the couch surfing world to advertise the site; we don’t want just anyone joining. But here is the website if you want to have a look, maybe join or even host or couch surf yourself. Their ethos ‘Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch At A Time’ http://www.couchsurfing.org/

For LA we booked our hotel on Hotwire.com, on this website hotels don’t give their names as a way to fill their rooms cheaply and anonymously. We booked a 3.5 star hotel by LAX for $50/night, ( a bargain bearing in mind a hostel is $30 each – a far cry away from our $10 delux suites in Asia with air-con and ensuite!) The address that turned up in our email alter – the Hilton – jackpot! So our last few days were spent by the pool, watching a LA Dodgers baseball game and going to one of the many theme parks there; La was the location for the first ever Disneyland.

We went to Six Flags Magic Mountain. In total it had around 15 giant roller coasters and was only $30 entry fee – great compared to the Disney and Universals extortionate £75/day. We were treated to the first stand up roller coaster, the longest, fastest, flying (laying down) roller coaster. One with a 350ft drop and the first 5th dimensional roller coaster – on every twist and turn, loop and roll like a normal coaster, the X² has specially designed seats which roll an additional 360 degrees on top of that. The whole day equalled puke city.

So now we are back in the UK after a brief jaunt to Ibiza and a weekend away in London, we can safely say we have been brought back to the real world with a crash! We have had an amazing time and that wouldn’t have been possible without our families help.

Looking back on our blog, way back in July 2009 I put up a map of our planned trip, only now can we understand how unrealistic it was and how necessary it was to be flexible. We missed out our Australian leg in favour of a full moon party in Southern Thailand and a trip to Sri Lanka, a great decision. Our bike accident but us back 3 weeks on our ‘schedule’ but it led us to a few mad days in Laos with a river, a few bars, a inflatable tube and a couple of crazy Americas and some Winsor boys. So a basic route is good, but people, the weather, political climates can change very quickly so being adaptable is the best.

I’ve made another map hopefully you can see of our original trip (in blue) compared to our actual one (pink.) Although our trip was 9 months, we were never anywhere long enough to feel like we stayed anywhere too long, so we would

To all those who don’t think they could up sticks and leave for a year need to really consider their options. If you’re tied down with a mortgage and kids then fair enough but anyone else….there is so much more out there!!! Economical Crisis-shmisis, you could fly out and live in Ho Chi Minh like a king for £1500 for 3 months AND help hundreds of children.

The organisation we volunteered for at the start of our trip is CNCF; if you want to have a look at the work they are doing in Mongolia and Vietnam please take a look; https://www.cncf.org/. Me and Sophie are now in the process for sponsoring two little girls with plans to go back to the orphanage as soon as humanly possible.

So after a whirlwind tour of ten countries, eleven American states, two elephants, one too many motorbikes, a pod of dolphins, one dancing bear, a couple of surf boards, 40 hours on Vietnam buses, one missed flight, a few litre bottles of beers, some amazing couch surfing hosts and a lot of new friends (and a realisation of how great our old ones were.)

In summary, we’ve had an amazing trip and it won’t be the last, its only fuelled our desire to travel. Though we’ve been and seen so many cultures we’ve realised there’s probably no where better than England in terms of schooling and healthcare, if only the weather was better! So no matter how long we are away, we’ll always be back!

I’ve made a little chart up of pricing comparisons, hope you like it.

$30 = 20mins on the net in Boston
or 1 nights accomodation in Laos

$9 = 1 beer at Madison Square Garden
or 1 night with a lady of the night in Thailand ($10 boom boom!)

$20 = A whole pizza pie with cold cheese on Huntindon, Long Island
or A custom made dress in Hoi An Vietnam (which Sophie wore to Amy's wedding!)

$100 = A day's car hire in Nevada
or 2000 pineapples sliced on the spot in Ho chi Minh

$5 = A big Mac meal in Hawaii
or Motor bike hire in Mui Ne

$2.25 = A slice of Pizza in NY
or 5 litre bottles of Saigon Green in Ho Chi Minh

$15 = A tour of stars homes in LA
or Pays for school/ food/ clothes etc for a child for a month in CNCF

$50 = Bottle of fizz in NYC
or A days mountain biking and a day canyoning in Vietnam

$3 = A metro journey on the subway
or A quart bottle of gin and two tonics in a bucket in Thailand

$18 = A days parking in Disneyland
or A month's visa in Vietnam

$5 = A footlong sub at Subway
or A custom made pair of boardies in Sri Lanka

$25 = A Ski Pass and gear in Arizona - no that actually was a bargain.