Virginia Beach, Sun, Blue Ridge Pkwy, Sun & Next Steps, oh and more sun!!

As I write this first part of today's blog post we're on our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway - which we've read about and it looks awesome. Haha, we've just passed Tobaccoville!

Virginia Beach
Anyway, we woke up yesterday morning to a really nice, warm morning in the Flying J RV parking lot. After a few cups of coffee (don't forget the free refills!) I planned the route to Virginia Beach, then saved a Google map from Virginia Beach to the next Flying J - which has now pretty-much become our new overnight stop areas as they're safe and mega cheap IF we do buy anything at all.

On the road we went through a three mile tunnel, although it seemed about one mile long, and soon arrived at the ocean front. It's exactly as you see on TV, rollerbladers on the "sidewalks", volleyball on the beach and bars also reaching out on to the beach. I parked a few blocks back from the ocean front, and used - for the first time - a parking meter. I banged in a handful of shrapnel and after putting on what seemed like the 7th application of suncream to Sarah's back and shoulders, we headed for the beach.


Sarah needed the loo, and suprisingly, they didn't have any "nice" public toilets along the front, just dotted port-a-loo's along the beach, so she went in and I guarded the door. We walked along the beach, paddling in the crystal clear sea and found a nice place to stop and sit for a while. We must have been there not three minutes until we had to move and find some shade as you could have stuck a fork in Sarah, as she was figuratively "done". We found some shade and wandered in and out of a few shops (Sarah bought a - very english looking - hat to help defend her from the sun) before we found Roger and I decided to check how long we had left. Four minutes! That was a bit of luck! We decided that Sarah had had enough of the sun for today, so we headed to the next Flying J, about 240 miles away, in North Carolina.

We covered Sarah in more suncream, and she started off driving, but we didn't get too far before tears were shed a little bit (poor thing :( I could see her lip wobbling too) due to a few wrong turns, being a bit too exhausted, and feeling ill from all the sun so we stopped straight away, got Sarah an Oreo McFlurry (I had an M&M one) which are bloody huge - and it put a smile back on Sarah's face, and I took over the driving in the still blazing sun (which I'm loving!). We eventually arrived at the Flying J, NC and "set up camp" :).

Blue Ridge Parkway
This is weird, I'm writing this part a few days after we went to Blue Ridge Parkway - sat in an Economy motel (yep, JUST like in the movies) before we head off for the "Next Steps" which will be explained in a mo.


Anyway we headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway, as explained earlier. It was amazing. If you like breathtaking views and nice quiet places, then this 469 miles of road is definately for you. We arrived and stopped at a table made out of stone, where Sarah made some tuna mayo sarnies and we were greeted by about a thousand flies. After I devoured the food quickly, being accused of not enjoying the food by Sarah (because I ate it too fast) and sitting around swatting flies waiting for Sarah to take her merry time to finish her food - despite me trying to scare her into eating quickly by telling her of how many spiders there are under her feet - we headed a bit further along the parkway.

It took about one mile down the road until we were greeted with an amazing view, which I have some photos of - but the photos sadly don't do it any justice :(. We sat in the blazing sun and had a cuppa tea - made on our little stove - then headed off. We only had chance to see a few miles of this amazing place as I made the mistake of falling asleep in the warm, comfy, cosy nice chair mmmmmmmmmmmmmm whilst Sarah drove us. I woke up to find that we were completely lost (Sarah really has no sense of direction at all!). As soon as I woke, Sarah asked me which way to go. How the hell was I supposed to know?

We pulled into a shopping mall carpark, I grabbed the map and had a quick scour over the area I rember us being roughly in. After looking at the map and having a good look around the area we were in, I found a sign that I guessed said the town name. With our location worked out, we popped into the Dollar General (mega cheap shop) to get an internation phone card so that we could finally give our parents a ring. I rang Mum (hello mum!) but we couldn't ring Sarah's parents as they're on a little holiday at the moment! Hello Peter and Susan!

We drove to a petrol station, where I took over driving and got us to the Flying J we stayed at the night before.

Next Steps
The next morning (yesterday) we decided to not spend any money, except petrol and oil, and get to our next checkpoint, the Flying J in Kenly NC. It's a little further South from the Flying J we were at. We nursed a couple of coffees in this new Flying J for about 2 hours (don't forget the refills!) and checked out some of the WWOOFing opportunities. We sent a few emails to some farms within the same state, only because they offer free accommodation, food and even pay in some of them! With that done, we sat back in Roger, checked the business emails and watched a few episodes of Britian's Got Talent online - seeing as we have the internet here!

[SIDE NOTE: Joe I will sort out that paging issue for Kingfisher soon, the FTP protocol doesn't seem to be working here though]

When we woke, we had a few responses, and have accepted one for the short term (just a week!). We'll be helping with planting, weeding, packaging, construction (which I'm looking forward to the most, apparently a windmill or something!) etc... on a farm just North of where we are. In return we'll have a roof over our head, three meals a day and best of all - a shower. With it being bloody hot (32 degrees today) we can't keep going for 6 days without a shower, which is why we're in a real cheap motel today, before we start working tomorrow!

The whole idea behind the WWOOFing is just temporary and allows us to chase up some invoices and meet some more "real americans" which we really enjoyed in Buffalo with Garry and co.

So that's our next steps, but one other thing to point out at this moment in time is the "Economy" in our "Economy Motel". It's basic. Really basic, we even have grafitti on the walls (only written on in pen, nothing artistic sadly). But we love it, we really wanted to stay in a "proper" motel, and now we have!

That's it for now, we hope everyone is well! Starting to miss home a little bit, but it's only at certain times (like last thing at night). I just asked Sarah if she wants to add anything to my closing paragraph, but she just shrugged her shoulders and continued to watch the "reality" poop on TV! haha.

Speak soon!

Love to everyone!

Ed & Sarah xxx

Fake Plymouth, Philadelphia, Washington DC and Flying J!

Ok so from where I left off last time, we were going through Massachusetts - namely around the Cape Cod area which is where we found Plymouth, or Fake Plymouth as we like to call it.

Fake Plymouth
Well, I am beginning to disagree with those that say that America has no history - but Plymouth here takes the biscuit. The book that Sam gave us before we left has become something of a bible to us - and even warned us of Fake Plymouth. Nevertheless, we arrived at one of their many tourist information buildings and ventured inside to see what they had to offer. The old guy sat behind the desk sprang up from his statue-like seated position and unfolded a map of Plymouth. Fifteen minutes passed, by which point he had circled and marked pretty much every building in the town suggesting that we go to all of them as Plymouth had soooooo much history. The main thing he wanted us to see was this "Plymouth Stone".


We left the office and headed along the seafront. We were first greeted by the presence of "The Mayflower II" - our first piece of re-built history. The original boat brought loads of people over from England to settle there, but this boat was just re-built and even looks new. We didn't pay to go on board. Further along we found this stupid stone. The whole town seems to revolve around this protected stone. What is this stone? Well it's a stone they fished out of the water and they think - yes think - that some of the first settlers may have stood on it when they hit land. Hahaha, ok.

There's lots more 'possibly this happened' and 'we think that happened' within Plymouth but we didn't stick around too much longer to see it all. The town itself is really nice looking and clean. The only resemblance to Plymouth in England is that the beaches were a bit scabby :).

Philadelphia Wal*Mart
We left Plymouth and headed for Philadelphia. Along the way we decided we'd stop at a Wal*Mart for the evening. Not all Wal*Marts offer free overnight RV parking, so we had to just pick one and hope for the best. We arrived at downtown Philadelphia and found a Wal*Mart opposite some run-down looking buildings and a stip club - not that great but we were tired and the shop closed at 22:00, we were there at 21:58 and you need to ask before you park (so we didn't have time to think about it too much!).

We park up and rush to the doors where loads of people are trying to get in, but they'd locked the doors. Luckily, we asked some guy (who didn't look at all like he worked there) if we could stay overnight and he mumbled "ya have ta ask der manager " before we could say "Ok can we see the manager?" he said "jus park in the corner, yea the corner... over there ". Quite content with that, we parked over in the corner where there were a few trucks and an RV. It didn't take long before we both fell asleep.

12:15am and Ed is awoken by some guy shouting down the phone at someone telling them he's gonna blast them up the wall and to come meet him now and they'll sort it out. This guy was right outside the front of Roger, I could just see through the gaps in our homemade curtains. Continuing to shout and, more worryingly, getting more and more aggressive I began to weigh up the idea of getting in the drivers seat and moving somewhere else. I decided against this for now as Roger is getting on a bit and does take a few minutes to warm up, so I decided to lay low and just watch what's going on. Sarah's totally oblivious and snoring haha. I didn't want to wake her and worry her unless I had to.

The guy walked down a bit and to his car where his girlfriend (I imagine) is there looking upset and crying a bit. The guy was playing around in his boot, and occasionally going to the rear side door and what looked like a guy laying in there that this guy was punching a few times. Weird. Ever more weird, a limo pulled up near him and the guy in the limo just stared at this guy for about 10 - 15 mins. Eventually, another car came and parked about 2 spaces from where the original dodgy guy was. I'm under the assumption that this new car was just a weary traveller looking to get some sleep. This car seemed to scare off both the limo and the shouty guy. With them gone, I fell back asleep.

Philadelphia - The "Rocky" Steps
The next morning I told Sarah that I don't think we should make a habit of sleeping in downtown Wal*Marts unless we really have to, and she agreed. We parked in a parking lot in the city centre and walked in a random direction hoping to find some things to see. We arrived at this big tent next to a museum (which had lots of steps which we didn't go up yet). In this tent they were giving our free muffins, bananas and tissues. The old muffin master - Sarah - went straight in for a blueberry one, whilst I opted for a banana. We headed up town to look for a few things to see. It was a nice walk - but not alot of interest for us up there. We eventually headed back down to the tent area and it clicked. Those steps are the ones that Rocky ran up in the film! That's why there's this big statue of a guy next to the steps of Rocky himself - DUH!


Naturally we ran up the steps - I won :). Had a look around at the top which gave a nice view of the city, then we headed back to the car. Like some carparks, you have to pay before you get back to your car so we put the ticket in the slot - BOOM $26 please. WTF I actually said out loud as we'd only been there a few hours, and with that a guy appeared from nowhere, kinda like a genie really.

He asked if we were members of the art museum, to which I replied "no.". With that, he pulled out this card, put it in the same slot where our ticket went and doodledoo, the price dropped by $16, so we only had to pay $10. Ecstatic, I put in ten bucks and turned round to say thanks, but the guy had disappeared. Strange... We then left Philadelphia. Oh yeah - Roger ONLY JUST cleared the 7ft clearance in there - that was pretty funny.

Maryland
We headed directly for Maryland as Washington DC is just south of this state. It got late and we found a rest area just inside the state line. We drove in and decided to stop for the maximum alotted time, three hours. The reason I decided we wouldn't stay longer was because the rest area is actually patrolled and you'll get thrown out. I set the alarm for 2:30am and fall asleep in an instant. Beep Beep Beep goes the alarm, and for the second time in less than 24 hours another WTF comes out. I quickly turn the alarm off and go back to sleep :D. 8:30am and we wake up, not moved on or ticketed or anything. Nice.


Following the advice of Steve, I found LOADS of vouchers for motels and places to stay in one of those free newspaper stands (found one at the rest area). We pick a motel (Super 8) and decide to head there for the night. I did some work and then we headed out to a pub round the corner for the evening. Man, there were a few characters there, namely Mary. She's kind of a cross between a typical American and a crazy cat lady (she had no cats, but plenty of the craziness!).

After having more free drinks bought for us, and being asked about 54 times if "Scallywag" is an offensive saying in England (to which we said nope, but kept getting told that we're wrong because their "english friend said it's really bad to call someone a scallywag in the UK") we went back to the motel.

Not having drank much since we've been here, I woke up today with a nightmare hangover and the infamous phrase "I'm never drinking again" which will probably be voided in less than a week.


Washington DC
I actually liked it in Washington DC (which isn't in any state by the way - it's just a federal district). It wasn't as boring as political as I said it would be. It was really hot today too which was nice but Sarah is pretty sunburnt :(. There's not alot to point out here, as it's the same as you've probably all seen on TV - but the distance between that big pointy statue thing and the White House is further than you think.


They did have some really lame quotes engraved in stone around the place and it's really not suprising that the majority of the people here all love God because it's drummed into them from day zero left right and centre. There's no question at all to them, its just the truth and thats the way it is.


I did find it funny that they were having a dinosaur exhibition thing in Buffalo. I even asked Adam (one of Garry's sons) about it and he doesn't believe in dinosaurs (as the Earth is only about 6000 years old), so I left it at that.

Oh yeah, we saw lots of Seg Way goons, look:


Flying J
Well well well (three holes in the ground - Sam!). Flying J is a truck stop (we're in the Virginia one) which has a designated area for RV's to also park overnight for free. They have a restaurant, shop, toilets and a games room which is all open 24/7. It's much safer here than Wal*Mart as we're miles out of town, there's loads of people round and they have their own security. They even have the Internet which is what I'm connected to, sat in Roger typing away. We had an all-you-can-eat buffet earlier here which is about $9 - really good value and the food's good too! We're definately going to find more Flying J's as we travel around and attempt to stay at as many as possible.

Next stop? We have no idea, slowly working our way South though. It's getting hotter :).

More blog soon! Love to everyone, and by the way can someone give me an Ollie update? I did ask on Facebook!

Ed & Sarah xxx

Pennslyvania, Vermont and Massachusetts!

So we've been doing loads of driving lately. We're currently at a motel in Cape Cod (Massachusetts) and it's bloody raining! I haven't posted a blog for ages, and I've only got an hour before we have to check out here so I'll summarise most of what we've been upto to date.

Leaving Buffalo
We left Buffalo last week (after getting the van inspection - same as MOT) and headed for Pennsylvania - namely the Pymatuning State Park which was nice, and looked a bit like Dartmoor, but with a huge lake in the middle of it. We camped there for one night which is when we decided that we're going to need to travel through the night in order to keep costs down. We heard that they have this "Spillway" not too far from where we were, so we decided to head up there the next day.


The Spillway
What's the "Spillway" I hear you ask. Well, it's a bit like the Brook in Dawlish, where the water flows down a little wall of rocks (about 2ft high) where a massive amount of fish (not sure what type) are there. If you throw bread in, the fish try to eat it - but the best bit is that the ducks surrounding the area run into the water and on the fishes heads to get the food first!


First Breakdown
After the Spillway, we decided to leave and start roughly heading for Vermont, stopping at various places along the way. We got in the van, Sarah turned the key and nothing. ...... nothing at all. No electrics worked, the engine made no noise - just nothing!

After trying to turn the key about 58 times, Ed decided to jump out and look around the engine. He didn't find anything broken, so just wiggled some wires (which fixed nothing). He then looked in the fuse box, which uses really old fuses of weird and wonderful sizes, and found two blown fuses. Great.

Luckily, we had some spare fuses - but none of the right size or amperes - so Ed selected one similar to the blown amperes, and wired them up dangerously using some old speaker wire and electrical tape. Sarah turned the key once more and voila, the engine started. Joyful, we stopped the engine, put the tools away and hopped back in to head to the nearest town to get some proper fuses. The engine didn't start, again!

Frustrated, we were told there is a town about 2-3 miles up the road, so we decided to walk - it was a nice day after all! We got to Linesville and found a petrol station, where we found no fuses that we needed so we asked for anyone that might have them, where we were told that the hardware store may have them (just down the road). We went to this store and finally got the fuses we needed (plus some ductape - not sure why we got it, but we did - and it has come in handy!).

We arrived back at the van, Ed changed the fuses and guess what - the engine didn't start. After ringing Justin (Garry's son), he suggested changing the regulator (we have some spare parts we bought before we left) so Ed changed the regulator and that fixed nothing. Rang Justin back, and he said to wiggle some wires under the drivers side dash - so we did and w00t! the engine started!

A little worried that we have a dodgy connection somewhere, we headed off for Vermont about 4 hours later than planned. When it got dark, Ed put the headlights on and the engine and everything just turned off for about 3 seconds then came back to life - even more worrying, but nevertheless we just continued on. Sarah decided to get some sleep around midnight whilst Ed motored on down the freeway. Around 1:45am Ed pulled into a rest area to go for a Jimmy Riddle. After jumping back in the van wouldn't start again!

After having some random truck drivers peering in through the window, Ed decided to wiggle the wires and put the radio on for a moment. Wiggled the wires, and the radio came on. Good. 20 seconds later and it all cut out. So Ed wiggled the wires again and it came back. Cool. 20 seconds later - all cut out.

Ed decided that we can't go on with a dodgy engine like this, nor can we sit here for too much longer with random weirdos looking in, so he got right under the dashboard - upsidedown - and played with the wires (mobile phone torch in his mouth) once again. Getting frustrated, he called for Sarah to wake up and give him a hand, and when he did that he found THE wire causing all the problems. It was a positive going into the battery condition dial - which was really loose. After tightening it all up, he even fixed the interior lights (which didn't work before!). We hit the road and stopped a few hours later for a sleep in a rest area.

Vermont
Vermont is amazing. It is really picturesque, with huge mountains and green valleys. I'm running out of time rapidly as I write this so I'm going to have to really speed things up! Not much happened in Vermont, but one guy at a petrol station gave me his phone number and address so he can buy our van when we're finished with it (haha, may I also add that he was wrecked!). Route 100 is the best road to drive on through Vermont, with Rochester being the best looking town.

Oh yeah - I forgot to add that we went to the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory which is in Vermont!

Massachusetts
We haven't really seen much of here yet, but will do soon. It doesn't look as good as Vermont at all, but we're currently in Cape Cod on the coast. We'll update you with more new soon!

Oh, by the way - We are members of the triple A (AAA) which is the same as the AA in the UK - so don't panic mums when you hear that we broke down. We couldn't ring them before as you have to wait 10 days for the activation of your membership.

Rednecks, Garry's place, Famous Dave's and more Karaoke!

Redneck Roadtrip
So Justin picked us up at 10am (an hour after we planned for 9am :P) so we threw our rucksacks and other bits and bobs in the boot of his brother's car this time, as - unbeknownst to us - we were going on a road trip, about 360 miles in total.

We didn't really know why or where we were going, but we didn't have anything planned at all, except from get to Garry's house later in the day (as Garry kindly offered us to stay until the insurance has been worked out for those that didn't know!) - so we just went along for the ride. We didn't get very far until we stopped at yet another wood built detatched house. The houses are almost all individually built houses and look really nice, but we're told that these neighbourhoods aren't that great - hard to tell as everyone is so friendly!

Anyway, Justin tells us that we're picking up his cousin (can't remember his name so I'm calling him Dave for now!) from his aunties house as the whole road trip is to collect a "1967 chevy 864 gas blah de blah" steering column for Dave. NOTE: We have no idea what cars they're always talking about, but they always start with the year, state some facts, then stance and wait for (I think) some form of outstanding "WOW That car's amazing! You own a car like that?!" response.

We go into his aunties house to be greeted with massive smiles, three (auntie, uncle and cousin) really nice people and best of all... ENGLISH TEA! The auntie, Beth, has a daughter in the UK, so she get's English tea. After a small chat and a quick cupper, we left for the steering column.

2 hours into our journey and 56 little red barn style sheds (the ones you see in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons) later, Ed's stomach is really asking angrily for some food, so he asks Justin if we can stop quickly at the next shop we see, and with that we pull into a Burger King (by the way Doebert and Luke - they have loads of drive thru BK's here, and I've only seen one KFC). We ordered a burger meal, expecting the burgers to be absolutely massive but once we received them, they were pretty much exactly the same size as back home. The drink, however, was bloody gigantic. We had medium sized drinks which are probably twice the size of the UK large. You put the drink in yourself and have free re-fills too.

After that stop, we continue through progressively more and more rural areas. Lost, we pull up to some really out-of-the-place bar where three rednecks are drinking on the outside balcony. Justin asked them where the scrapyard was and rather than tell directions, their immediate response was "Why are you going there?", "What you going for?" and "They won't have that there, I betcha, I'll ring them now and you'll be sorry". Seemingly passive aggressive off the bat, but eventually one of the other rednecks gave us a vague point in the right direction.

We finally arrive at a nice big, very quiet, scrapyard at the end of a narrow and dusty dirt track and both Justin and Dave go into the abandoned shed uhh.. I mean office, whilst we wait outside in the sunshine. For some reason it felt weird for us both, as we had weird rednecks at the other end of this dirt track, the odd pair of eyes checking us out through various nooks and crannies of the scrapyard, and a huuuuuuuge (but friendly) dog. We waited for about 25 minutes until Justin and Dave reappeared with the steering column.

Not much else happened that day, except we got back to Garry's - unloaded our stuff in his upstairs (vacant) apartment as well as a bed (for us to use) that he managed to get hold of. However, we had a big night planned, as we were told that Adam (Justin's brother) likes to get people drunk, and we were going out with him that night. We started the night by going for a "Fish Fry" (which is fish and chips) with Garry and Edna - lovely fish, but the chips aren't the same at all!. We then got dropped off at a Karaoke bar where Justin was DJ-ing that night.

Again, we were surrounded by loads of new faces that really enjoyed speaking to us! We had loads of free drinks bought for us, one guy (that had already bought us a drink each) was leaving and when shaking Ed's hand, gave him two tokens. We'd never seen these tokens before, but it turned out that they're beer tokens! He'd bought us one each for another free drink! Sarah sang some Fleetwood Mac and Dido which went down very well indeed! She even danced with a drunken guy a couple of times as he wouldn't stop asking (I have picture proof!). 11pm, and Adam arrives with his fiancée Jen all excited to get us wasted!

We headed downtown Buffalo where, to be honest, it's the same as Torquay on a Friday or Saturday night. We didn't really drink as much as we were told we would, but we were merry just the same! Hours later, we finished the night by going to a 24 hour diner (it's around 5am at this point). We had lots of food and coffee and headed back to Garry's where we crept in (with the sun starting to rise!). Apparently it's normal to go for a night out starting at 10/11pm and finishing around 4/5am!

Garry's Place
We woke around 10am on Saturday morning (not had much sleep) but neither of us felt too bad. Garry and Edna were out at work, so we had the place to ourselves. We didn't know what to really do, so we just sat in Roger (the camper van remember), put the top up and stuff, Sarah read her book and Ed played on the DS a bit.


The house is lovely, and the whole upstairs apartment is for us to use! We've not done much - just living out of our bags - but we do have a toilet, and kitchen area (as well as about 3 other empty rooms we haven't gone in). Garry and Edna collect alot of items for sale on eBay, and it's not hard to see where they store the items (for the time being until the shed is cleared out for them). But they're absolutely lovely and have helped us out so much the past few days we've been here!

More Karaoke
Eventually Garry arrived home, and rang Justin to arrange for us to have something to do. Justin came round about 8pm and we went to... you'll never guess... another Karaoke bar! We ate dinner there, Sarah sang some Dido, and we went back home for an early night (if 1am is early!).

We went to the flea market with Garry and Edna yesterday morning - which is where they get some of their items for eBay. Garry picked up a cast iron muffin tray for $20 which should make $45 so I'm told. Adam met us there and took us to the shopping mall, then to Famous Dave's!

Famous Dave's
You. Have. Never. Tasted. Better. Spare. Ribs. .....Ever. Famous Dave's is a barbeque style restaurant with amazing food. Sarah had some form of barbequed chicken burger and some really tasty "firecracker beans" (runner beans with chillis), whereas Ed had a platter of food comprising of some amazing spare ribs, half a country-baked chicken, red onion mash, corn on the cob and some kind of savoury muffin (this is the lunch menu by the way). Honestly I cannot describe how good the ribs were. Afterwards, we tried some of their "Real Ale". Sarah had a pint, and I had what looked like a pint-and-a-half glass of the stuff. It tasted ok, but had a slight fizz like that new Kronenberg lager with the small bubbles.

After a hearty lunch, we popped to the supermarket to get some supplies. Everything is bigger there EXCEPT their checkout aisles. I have no idea how the bigger Americans fit down those without knocking off every impulse-buy item on the sides.

We got back to Garry's to find Hewie (I forgot to tell you, he's Adam's stoner friend, who's constantly in the clouds - we met him the night we went out downtown Buffalo). He'd brought us two bottles of red wine that his friend makes. We've yet to try them...

Adam left, then Hewie did - so we sat in Garry's back garden and helped him and Edna sew some seeds. They're going to be growing all sorts this season: tomatoes, cabbages, hot peppers, cold peppers, courgettes (which they call zucchini here), and more stuff.

We didn't do alot that evening, but Ed did find that AIG international will offer car insurance for foriengers visiting the US without having to obtain a state license! Ed couldn't ring them that night as it was a Sunday...

...However, today I have rang them and they did confirm that they offer the insurance, so they emailed me the documents ehich i completed and returned back to them. Their quote - $1604 PLUS a $400 membership fee. I've just replied seeing if they can bring that ridiculous figure down a bit.

Not sure if we're doing anything tonight.

Summary
To sum up, we've had a great last few days - feeling bad that we're relying on Garry and Edna, but they really don't seem to mind! We've had way too much Karaoke, but it's nice visiting different bars and getting loads of free drinks just for "talking English". We're keeping our fingers crossed regarding the insurance (but still have the backup of getting someone else to insure it for us), but hopefully in the next few days we'll have a breakthrough with it all!