Minneapolis and Pittsburgh are the friends and family portion of the trip… 
Thank God for that–we were questioning your sanity! Enjoy the hoagies in Pittsburgh and the Scandinavian “flair” of M/SP.
Go to an American football game–either pro or college (or even high school) to enjoy some roaring crowds etc. We’re not sports insane like Oz, but we come close…
This isn’t a bad idea acutally. Go on a Tuesday if you can. It is typically the slowest day. Give it a whole day, and do not attempt without a car unless you plan to stay at Disneyland. The public transportation in that area of the city might as well be nonexistant.
If you want to do theme parks, well that is sort of another vacation. But Universal Studio’s Hollywood, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Magic Mountain are all good ones too.
Ok, food in LA.
As has been said you must eat at In-N-Out, while in California. It’s a fast food burger joint, so don’t get your hopes too high. But it is the BEST fast food burger in the world. If you don’t visit people will ask you why not and you will feel like you missed out. Order a #1 Animal style, trust me.
LA is something of a Hamburger Mecca. If you like burgers also try Fatburger and Tommys. Go to the original shack if you can. Their food is better, which is not to say that the other’s food is bad.
While talking of burgers, the single best hamburger in the world is served at The Apple Pan. They make everything fresh themselves. They grind their own mean, cure their own ham, make their own buns. It is a great place, and it is closed on Monday’s and cash only. Finish your meal with some Apple Pie.
You should probably go to Pinks and get a hotdog too. I don’t like Pinks much, but it is one of those places. Go early, like 11am, if you don’t want to stand in line for an hour. Better hotdogs can be found at Skoobys (in Hollywood near the Chinese theater) and Carney’s. Get your dog split and grilled if you go to Carney’s. Again, trust me.
I am told by people who know that the best Gumbo outside of New Orlean’s can be found here at the Farmers Market on Third Street. The Farmers Market is worth seeing all on it’s own. The Gumbo Pot has great food.
Do you like cake? Who doesn’t? Go to Sweet Lady Janes and get your sweet tooth filled. A better slice of cake you will not find, and their coffee is great.
You will probably want to eat at a good Breakfast place at some point. Check out Du-Par’s, Jinkey’s, and Jumpin Java.
I was wondering about Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, too, but I think, that - even if you didn’t have friends and family there, you’d find things to see and do that would be unique. If you have friends and family, that’ll just make it more fun.
I agree on making the trip from NY to DC. I’ve never been to DC (although I might get to go there next year!), but I think it’s one of those places that you really ought to go to if you’ve come this far.
And yes, it wouldn’t be the U.S. unless you had to drive yourself. Sad, but true. There are very few cities where you can easily get around without a car: NY, Chicago, San Francisco?, Boston?, DC? (I’m sure I’ve missed some; I haven’t been to all that many big cities in the States) - and for all of those it’s easy in the city proper, but the farther you get from the city, the harder it gets to move around with public transportation.
GT
When will you be in Minneapolis? We are major outdoorsy folks (Fetchund was a naturalist) and may be able to help you out with the “critters” side of things. I won’t laugh at you about squirerels - we went all over Australia just to see some of the critters there - kangaroos and wallabies were a huge draw for us.
Lots of stuff to see in Washington DC and most of it is highly accessible by mass transit. Lots of Dopers hereabouts also. And if you’re flying into/out of New York, trains run between NY and DC every hour (roughly).
In Colorado, visit the Royal Gorge, then follow the highway through to Pike’s Peak.
Love, Phil
They do this weird tipping thing… I think it may have been mentioned once or twice on the Dope before… there’s probably a thread about it around somewhere…
Thanks everyone for the great suggestions… There are so many places I want to go, but the reality is, I can’t get everywhere…
I have sorted out the first bit of my itinerary now:
Arrive LA 2/9 and spend 3 nights in Santa Monica, then 4 nights in Anaheim, including Disneyland and San Diego thingies. Then 4 nights in Las Vegas, then 2 nights in San Francisco, then a 2 night toury thing to Yosemite, and then back to San Francisco for just an overnight before moving on to Vancouver 18/9…
No clue what to do in Vancouver yet (or where to stay).
Toronto I’m not so sure what to do whilst I’m there either (but I do know where I’m staying). A day trip to Niagara Falls is on the list.
Then Minneapolis (2/10 - 7/10), then Pittsburgh and my friend from Pittsburgh is going to drive with me to New York, and I’ll be there for a few days before I have to fly home 
I will add all these other places to the list for my next trip. DC very nearly made the list, until my boss said I had to be in the office on 20/10 or else.
I am terrified of the tipping.
Seriously.
I really don’t want to be rude or cause offense, but I don’t know who, and I don’t know how much.
I really do want to see some kind of sports: football, hockey or baseball - I’ve never seen any of them… How do I go about finding fixtures and getting tickets and stuff?
Quickest way is to contact those family and friends and tell them you want to see a football game (I have no idea when hockey season starts–I’m pretty sure it’s going in Nov.)
HS games are dirt cheap; college games aren’t, but usually not too hard to get tickets to, pro games–og knows. Best let the natives cope. Games (at least for football) occur on weekends only.
Oh god, I hope this doesn’t hijack the thread, but I would say tip your cab driver (a few bucks, more if it’s a really long trip), and tip your waiter at a restaurant 15-20% if you actually use their service. If you get a cup of coffee to go at a cafe, there’s no need for a tip. You should also tip the person who helps you with your bags a couple bucks, if you use that service. The only other service person I can think of who usually gets a tip is a hair stylist. On the off chance you get your hair cut on holiday (who does that?), it should be about 15-20% again.
If the service is dreadful, feel free to show it in your tipping. But it usually isn’t, especially in restaurants. (The post office, on the other hand… Hey, maybe we should start tipping postal workers!)
ETA: I doubt you’re going to find any baseball games in November, sorry! Baseball is a summertime sport.
Sounds like a good start. Just FYI, there is no real way to get from Anaheim to San Diego without a car. But San Diego is well worth it. Go to see the Wild Animal park while you are there. The San Diego zoo in general is world class, but the Wild Animal Park is amazing.
Don’t worry too much about tipping.
At restaurants tip between 15 and 20% of the total bill. If you pay with a credit card you can just put the tip on the signature recipt or if you are paying cash, you can leave the cash on the table. DON’T leave change (coins) as part of the tip.
At hotels tip about $1 per bag to the person who helps get your bag to your room. Cash is best for this.
I can’t really help you with anything else, but those are the big ones.
As for football, you will have missed football season if you aren’t arriving until February, but you can see a basketball game. They are lots of fun. The Lakers play in Los Angeles, but tickets are expensive these days. I would recommend waiting till you get to a family/friends area to see a game. Hockey season will also be going on at about that time (I think). Canadians are into that a lot. You can check something out while you are up there.
ETA: You will find a lot of disagreement about tipping. I would tip more than Kayla recommends personally, but that is me. You will get cut a lot of slack in that respect because you are an Aussie. Many waitpeople in LA will expect you to be a bad tipper. There is a small chance that you will get worse service because of it, but probably not noticably.
Also, you only tip at places where they serve you. Not at walk up stands or drive thrus. If people aren’t bringing your food to a table don’t worry about a tip.
Psst…the OP is Australian. When she writes “2/9” as a date, she means the second of September, not February 9th.
Since you’ll have a friend taking you around in Pittsburgh, I recommend a trip to Fallingwater a famous house built by Frank Lloyd Wright. The grounds are lovely, and I’m told the guided tour is very interesting. ($12 admission includes the tour. If you miss the last tour, you can walk the grounds (but not go in the building) for $6.
It’s fun to ride on the Monongahea Incline - a sort of extremely steep trolley.
Also don’t forget to tip in bars. That is also another very important place to tip. General rule is, if paying for each beer/drink at once, a dollar is usually fine. If you’re buying rounds / leaving a tab open, then you can save money by only tipping 15 percent at the end. Yeah, I don’t know what it’s like in oz, but Americans open tabs a lot in bars. Almost everyone allows you to do this.
Really the most important place to tip is in a restaurant from 15 to 20 percent. This is if you sit down and have someone bring you food. If you’re in a McDonalds or any other kind of place where you order and they hand you your food, then there’s no need to tip. If you slip up somewhere else then it’s not such a huge faux pas. You are supposed to tip cabbies, but it’s not as universally frowned upon as not tipping in a restaurant.
Also don’t be fooled by the various “tip jars” you’ll see floating around. There’s one at my local convenience store. I have no idea why I’m supposed to tip there. But there’s a lot of people going around with Tip Jars that really don’t need them. If you have people handling bags then tip them too. But that’s usually more likely with your upscale type hotels.
Also, i’m guessing you’re going to be going to a diner at some point. You definitely should to get a good American breakfast. We, like the English (and probably you aussies too) take our breakfast very seriously in this country, and have many breakfast options. The ideal (in my opinion) is pancakes or waffles and two eggs and bacon or sausage. That’s a lot of food.
Heard something here the other day about some woman who didn’t know how to order breakfast. We have terminology for ordering eggs here.
scrambled = scrambled.
over easy = lightly cooked on top (yoke barely cooked)
over medium = slightly more cooked yolk
over hard = completely cooked yolk.
sunny-side up = i think this means that the egg is never even flipped, thus completely uncooked yolk. When you bust out these terms and people are going to be impressed!
I used to order “steak and eggs” at waffle house so you have to tell how you want the steak and eggs done with different terminology. Lastly, at every diner-type place I’ve been, they serve you with a waitress, and then when the check arrives, you have to walk to the register to pay. It’s weird, but it’s like this everywhere as far as I know. If you see a cash register displayed prominently by the bar then that’s what is up. You still need to leave a normal tip though.
Anyway, the good thing is you have friends in various places to help you figure things out. I know very little about LA, so I would offer more. There’s loads of stuff to do in NYC though. The best thing to do is buy a book and personally research the things you’re interested in because you could probably spend your entire time just doing a small subset of things. There’s the obvious things but I would add that the Statue of Liberty isn’t really worth it. Ground Zero is literally a giant construction site now (I think the monument is gone now), so it’s not much worth seeing. There’s typical NY style pizza you can get everywhere and then you have the more Italian like pizza at places like Grimaldis which are freaking amazing. I guess that’s about it really.
:smack: :smack:
I knew that too. That post was first thing in the morning for me. Football it is! Do the family and friends thing and have them take you to a Vikings (Minneapolis) game or a Steelers (Pittsburg) game.
ETA:
This isn’t true in Los Angeles. In fact most places will not have a place for you to pay upfront unless it is a cheep diner. Regional variance I suppose.
Possibly good advice for the US (though it’s the first time I’ve seen this particular bit o’ wisdom), but please don’t follow this rule while in Canada.
Our currency uses coins $1 and $2 denominations (commonly known as the “loonie” and the “toonie”, respectively). It would be unreasonable to expect a $5 tip on all meals just to avoid leaving coins, to say the least - that would be appropriate for a $30-$40 meal, but certainly not for a $5 breakfast. It’s pretty much expected around here that you will leave change/coins for the tip.
The no coins bit is from friends who have been waitstaff. The waiters/waitresses will have to carry those coins around with them all shift and they aren’t usually worth much. We don’t have $1 $2 coins. Tipping in denominations of less than round dollars is annoying. This would be different in Canada where they do not have paper dollars.
Oh yeah! This reminds me, the countries you are visiting are HUGE and customs will vary. Don’t take anything I say as applying to anywhere other than Los Angeles/ Southern California unless I mention otherwise. The differences between here and Canada and the Mid West and the East Coast can be quite large.