What a Bloody Adventure!

Well, this weekend was an adventure to say the least, more so for Ian and Brian. Its hard to know where to begin the story.

Tuesday morning Ian and Brian left Erie for Canada and were scheduled to return to Erie at 3pm Thursday afternoon to return the hire car and come with us to Washington DC. Ryan rang them at 8am to make sure they were on their way to meet us (as they had an 8hr drive ahead of them). Turns out Ryan had actually woken them up and were no where near ready to leave. So we changed the plans to meet them in Washington (and leave the rental car there), however this didn't work out either as the rental company wouldn't allow this. Turns out they had to hire the car for the entire weekend.

So we got that little debacle sorted and we headed to Washington. We rang Ian and Brian when we got there at about 10pm. We googled their location and worked out they were 3 hours away. So we headed off to a bar. We got back and went to bed at about 1am, just before Ian and Brian were due to arrive. At 4am we woke up panicking because they hadn't arrived as of yet, and we couldn't call them as their phone was flat. At 715am Ryan had to get ready for work (yes wasn't purely a vacation - there was work involved) when the phone rang. Ian and Brian had (finally) arrived at our hotel 16 hours later!! They got lost for 8 hours, driving around about a 2 hour radius of where we were - funny thing is they had a map in the car the entire time!

The plan was for Kristy to take Ian and Brian to Washington while Ryan was at work and meet up with Ryan after lunch to head to New York City. Instead, Ian and Brian slept, Ryan worked, and Kristy read the newspaper. When the 2 stooges (as Ryan has appropriately nick named them) awoke, we searched for a laundry, got some lunch and met up with Ryan.

We then distinctly told Ian and Brian to follow closely behind us as we drove to Washington for some sight seeing. They were doing well for a while and kept up with us through the traffic. Until we hit the city. They took some random turn (god knows why??) and were lost. So, we went to the pub waiting for them to call us, however the phone didn't ring. Instead, they got more lost, we rang them and found them. Finally we got to do some sight seeing in Washington DC!

Ryan, Brian and Ian with the Washington Monument in the background

Finally - there was water in the reflecting pool this time!

The boys in front of the White House

We didn't leave DC until 7pm and had a 5 hour drive ahead of us into NYC. And so the next adventure begun. After a shit dinner at a chain restaurant, we made it to our conveniently located, but basic hotel at about 115am. Check-in took over 20 minutes due to a whole stack of Vietnamese people checking in at the same time (they had a parade on in the city). Finally Kristy got served and handed her room key. The four of us made our way up to the 16Th floor and Kristy opened the door to the room. There was a young boy in there brushing his teeth and his mum was in the room somewhere. We all just stood there staring, not expecting or believing what had just happened, until Ryan suggested we shut the door. We all went back downstairs, Ryan explained the situation and received another key (with no apologies) to another room. We all go back up to the 14Th floor and this time it was Ryan's job to open the door. He stood there trying for about 30 seconds, when a lady came up and said 'excuse me - this is my room'! They had given us a key to someone else's room again! So back down we go again (still with no apology) and got another key to another room - 3rd time lucky! This time, the room was empty. HOWEVER... The light bulb in the bathroom had blown, which meant another trip downstairs, the room was dusty and dirty, there were stains on the linen and the shower curtain was mouldy and the drain still had a chunk of soap in it. If you closed you eyes while showering, it felt like you were in a Stephen King movie and you were just waiting to see something gruesome come out of the drain. Lucky we didn't spend much time in our room at all. To top it all off, 2 of the 3 elevators servicing 24 floors were out of service because the Vietnamese people were squashing up to 25 people in an elevator at a time. We all got to bed after 3am.

Ian in the shonky room