The Best Birthday Ever - Disneyland!!

One morning while we were relaxing in a Mendoza Hostel Alex announced that he had my birthday present sorted - we would be going to Disneyland when we finally hit America (He's pretty bad at keeping presents a secret for long).

From LA we took the train down to Anaheim - possibly one of the strangest cities I've stayed it. It felt a little like if Disneyland was a city and full of chain restaurants. This was also the first time we had stayed in a hotel (it was a Motel 6 if that means anything to you) since maybe Scotland! (Turns out there was a lot more of this to come.) One of the things I was most excited to try about the American Motel Experience was the ice bucket. I have always seen people in movies fill up ice buckets in the corridor of motels, maybe there's even a dead body hiding in there. (Our ice machines were dead body free but still great for cooling drinks).

Of course the first time I eat Maccas in the States it's going to be a salad

We spent a lot of time researching and planning out our time at Disney to try and make the most of the two days.

Day 1

Obviously the first port of call was IHOP for a huge pancake breakfast. I was hoping this would keep me full for most of the day so I could avoid buying expensive park food but no such luck.

It was pretty damn delicious

After pancakes we fast walked it to the park entrance and got in one of the many queues for Disneyland Park. After waiting for maybe only 10 minutes the hoard of people were let loose on the Happiest Place on Earth. We fast walked to the main square where we waited impatiently for the rope to drop before running off to secure a good place at that night's big show.

On the way stopped to enjoy the sight of a mother and her ducklings in an empty park. 

After feeling pretty chuffed that we were the first one to get tickets we were able to walk straight onto Splash Mountain! When we got the end there still wasn't anyone in line so we got to ride it again, making for the best start to a day ever!

We proceeded to have a pretty productive first 3 hours, managing to fit in all top rides before the queues became insane. Like literally 2 hour queues for rides. No ride is worth that much of your time. Later in the day we just wandered around enjoying the sights. Popped over into California Adventure land and then back over into Disneyland for the show which included characters on boats, Mickey fighting a dragon and of course "Let it Go" from Frozen.

We missed out on the fireworks that night but watched a pretty good band playing all the classic rock songs (apparently this is really popular at family parks now). In the end we staying in the park until about midnight and then had to drag ourselves home, ready for another early morning start.

The amount of strollers in this place was ridiculous

Lego at Downtown Disney

Day 2

Couldn't resit another awesome breakfast at IHOP.

We started in California Adventure land this time, rushed to get our place for that night's spectacular and then hit the rides hard again. My one regret was going on the rocking carriage on the Mickey Mouse Wheel. It was more sickly than fun.

Enjoying a good old American Pickle 

This ride ended up being the scariest thing I went on. My nerves just can't handle the not knowing of  when you're gonna fall. It set me on edge for the rest of the day and make the Mickey Mouse wheel scarier that it needed to be. 

As hard as I tried I just couldn't finish this giant turkey leg. 

Yes, that is Neil Patrick Harris who co-hosted the extravaganza with Mickey. And of course there was more Frozen!

After the show we were able to go outside the park, sit on the ground and enjoy the fireworks. 

By the end of the two days I had totally bought into the magic of Disney and was kind of sad to leave and go back into the real world.

'Murica! and LA

Our flight from Rio to Houston (and then LA) was the first flight we had taken in about 9 months. Standing on the side of the road in Rio, waiting for the bus that was going to take us to the airport, I was getting that excited nervous feeling that I hadn't felt as much as I maybe thought I would travelling around the world. The bus picked us up and all was going smoothly until we hit crazy traffic and moved about 300 m in an hour (that is not an exaggeration). The guy sitting next to me said he'd never seen anything like it and he was from Sao Paulo! After much stress we made it to the airport with time to spare.

We arrive in Houston early in the morning with only an hour to catch our flight to LA. Much to my surprise we were able to pretty much just walking into The States, I get more questioning when I go to the UK. Houston was a crazy airport full of stressed out people about to miss their flights because they are stuck in security queues and unsympathetic security workers. In the end there was nothing for us to stress about here either as our flight was delayed by 40 minutes. We touched down safely in LA, ready to start the constant struggle of when to tip and how much (this never got easier).

Our first views of the Land of the Free

With only two nights in LA we decided to stay amongst the action in Hollywood.

Our Hostel was a converted motel, which made for an interesting stay. Each dorm room got it's own kitchen, a first.

After I had posed for this photo with Chuck Norris we read an article saying that you should never ever sit on the Hollywood walk of fame - it's one of the grossest streets you can have the pleasure of walking on.

I was tempted to go in as a test of my will power but the stakes were too high

Our first night in LA as part of a hostel activity we went to this club - complete with expensive drinks and girl dancing on a stage

What better day to go on one of those cheesy and slightly creepy tours where you stare at celebrity's front gates than when you are hung over? Our tour guide was full of dad jokes which the lack of sleep made even funnier.

This is LA. LA is huge. Seriously. 

This is about as close as we got to the Hollywood sign. It's up the back there to the right. 

I have not included any photos of celebrity houses in this post, partly because I didn't really care and partly because they are all just photos of front gates and I can't remember who they belong to. However, this awesome house that looks like a whale was designed by Salvador Dali and was my favourite thing from the tour. 

Saw some pretty cool cars on the tour as well. 

We spent the rest of our limited time in Hollywood just wandering around enjoying the weird. To he honest, two nights really was enough.

I feel that this restaurant is trying to discriminate against a specific type of person

Two Johnny Depps, One Wolverine and that dude from Halo just hanging out

Marilyn Monroe hand and high heel prints

Johnny Romone chilling in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery

For a cemetery there sure were a lot of peacocks

We spent our last morning exploring a local farmers market - our first of many farmers markets to come in the US. Breakfast was this awesome burrito and the start of some amazing food over the next 5 weeks.

Rio!

After a 26 hour bus we arrived in Rio feeling disgusting but excited to start exploring. We hadn't booked ahead for a hostel so this was our first challenge. Our hostel of choice wasn't available but luckily after hitting the pavement we found another hostel on our first try (although we did have to change rooms 3 times).  Our last minute hostel was just one block away from the famous Ipanema  Beach and a 15 minute walk from Copacabana Beach. Being this close we vowed to make the most of it and worked a lounge at the beach in the morning into our routine.

Ipanema Beach - Remember, this was what it looked like in Winter

A view of the two brothers from Ipanema Beach at night

Caipirinhas on Copacabana - the local drink that really packs a punch

Sometimes it was hard to believe it was actually winter. Sometimes it was a bit cloudy and overcast but mostly it was still shorts and t-shirt weather. I maybe wore a jumper once. I can't imagine how hot and sticky it must be in the summer. 

We set about trying to see those Classic Rio sights and try a few local foods. 

Favelas

Favelas are informal neighbourhoods that residents built themselves because they had no where else to go. Some of the best views in Rio are from Favelas. They have a bad reputation as being slums and full of crime but the government has worked at cleaning them up for the 2014 World Cup and continues to work on it for the upcoming Olympics. We went on a favela tour that drove us around a few different neighbourhoods and walked us through two favelas. One seemed similar to many neighbourhoods we had seen throughout our travels in Latin America but the other was crazy maze  of winding narrow pathways full of houses, churches, barbers and bars.

Buildings on Top of Buildings 

Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf Mountain)

It's as big of a player as Cristo on Rio's skyline, pretty much a big rock sticking up out above the landscape. To get there you take a cable car to Morro da Urca (Urca's Mountain) which offers you some nice views and has a restaurant. Then you take another cable car up to Sugar Loaf to get great views of the city. We went up to watch the sun set over Rio. I was picturing a tranquil evening, sitting down, having a drink and enjoying the view. But of course it is rammed with people up there so you have to hope you get a good view of sunset.

View of Sugar Loaf from Below

The Police enjoying the same view

The View of Sugar Loaf from Morro da Urca. The cable cars here were some of the first in the world (they have been updated since they first opened though!)

We also found these crazy little monkeys up there that we would end up seeing all over Rio. These guys were having a fight in a tree trunk.

Even though there's signs everywhere saying not to feed the animals people can't help themselves. 

Despite the people Alex still managed to get this time lapse of the sunset.

Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer)

When you think of Rio you probably think of this guy gazing over the city with arms stretched wide. Christo is the largest art deco statue in the world at 30 m tall and 28 m wide. He stands a top Corcovado Mountain which offers amazing views of the city. You can climb up here but I'm pretty sure you are just walking along the road - there are no walking tracks. I would suggest taking the bus all the way up to the top like we did. 

On our way to Cristo we took the underground system where we discovered on weekdays they have specific carriages just for Women. This didn't make me feel overly safe. 

This is the picture you always see

But this is what it's really like - fighting the crowds to get a photo and see the view

View from Corcovado. We enjoyed being able to recognise different parts of the city

Maracana Stadium (Fluminense v Vasco da Gama)

Alex here. Shockingly it was my idea to go to the football. The Maracana is possibly the most famous stadium in the world and the stage for two World Cup finals. We went along to a kind-of derby (there's almost one a fortnight).

Through the hostel there was a group you could call to take you to and from the game with other travellers. Our mini bus had about 12 people and took us through the city to the stadium. We were dropped off at a petrol station nearby, where we found another 50ish travellers ready for the game. I went inside for a beer as the group waited to depart when there was a sudden commotion...

Water bottles were flying across the forecourt and there was a mad rush of gringos to get inside. Locals started bawling outside, advancing and retreating. A group of riot police (with shields for protection) crossed the court until a couple of concrete blocks went whizzing by! The police backed out, it was too much to handle.

After that died down (with no more flying concrete) we crossed to the stadium. Apparently Ronaldinho was presented to the crowd as he had just signed for Fluminense the week prior. Wished we got to see him but y'know, flying concrete and everything.

The crowd was wild but died down as Fluminense fell behind. One defender in particular was abused as he would batter the ball away anytime he was near it. Brazilians have high football standards!

The game ended 1-2 with Vasco winning. I didn't really care as the goals were great, as was the atmosphere. We were able to get back to Ipanema with no real problems. There were a lot more people than the game we went to in Colombia but it felt a lot safer than that madness.

Centro and Lapa

We had a day out seeing the sights in some of the other neighbourhoods of Rio.

You wouldn't know it if there wasn't a huge cross next to it but this is a Cathedral. 

It's a bit more obvious on the inside

Arches of Lapa

Escalaria Selaron - these famous steps are an art project of a local artist who continuously adds more tiles that people from all over the world send them. They're featured in  this Snoop Dog video clip along with many other Rio landmarks. 

When you think Rio you don't usually think of buildings like this

Acai Smoothies 

These are in pretty much every juice bar which are on nearly every corner. They're made from those super food berries are thick and delicious.

Feijoada

This is Brazil's national dish, which we didn't realise until someone in our hostel mentioned it to us towards the end of the stay. This meant this ended up being our last meal in Brazil. It was a tasty but heavy meal.

There were also orange slices on the side. We weren't really sure how they fit into the meal or when we were supposed to eat them.  

Brazil was our last destination in Latin America. I couldn't believe that was over even when we were waiting for the bus to the airport (which turned out to be a stressfully stuck-in-traffic bus). We had about 9 months in Latin America in the end, a lot more than we originally planned,  but I'm glad we did it. It felt like we really got to know another part of the world, although we could have learnt more Spanish. I really hope to visit this part of the world again. It always feels like there's more to see.

Last moments in Brazil and Latin America