The rest of my time with Gail and Dan was spent moseying around the capital, visiting museums and art galleries and checking out the huge expanse that is National Mall. The Mall is where all the Famous Things are, all joined up by prepostorously large lawns and tree avenues which aren't particularly attractive up close. It probably looks pretty cool by helicopter and therefore TV though, just not so good by flipflops.

There, I saw such landmarks as the White House (what's that?), the Washington Monument, the Lincoln and WWII Memorials, and got a cool tour of the US Capitol. The tour guide had some neat anecdotes and demonstrated the bizarre acoustics of the National Statuary Hall, and both chambers were in session, although the House of Representatives all wanted to give their two cents about some politician who had died, so I didn't see much.

The rest of my stay in DC was mostly centred around visiting family and friends. I went with Gail and Dan to visit the family of another ex-neighbor, Kai, who lives in a similar setting to my mum's friend in Sydney. Back in DC, I met up with a huge gathering of family, including my cousins from New Zealand and from Hawaii, for my second cousin Michael's Bar Mitzvah. This entailed two very lavish dinner receptions as well as the main synagogue service, which were some of the most festive occasions I've been to.

The rest was mostly talking to, hanging out with, and exploring the city with various family members, all with the common relation of my great aunt, Gaby, whose apartment block I stayed in. It doesn't make a very exciting story to end with, but was a really memorable part of the trip, as you rarely get to see so many family members in one place, most of whom you haven't seen for years if at all.

BA and Qantas (my RTW ticket providers) didn't have any convenient flights to Washington DC from San Francisco, the reason for my stopover in New York, so on Friday I took an Amtrak train down to DC. Top marks to Amtrak for knowing the meaning of a comfortable train (think: proper legroom and wide seats - I know, Brits, hard to imagine).

No sooner had I arrived at the house of Gail and Dan, my dad's old DC neighbours, we were whisked off to Baltimore, Maryland, which is round the corner from Washington. Here, Dan keeps his 32-foot sailing yacht (yippee!) on Chesapeake Bay, where we stayed and sailed for the following three days.

After our first full day we moored up at a popular crabhouse on the waterfront and had a classic Old Bay crab dinner. If you've been anywhere near Maryland but not had Old Bay crabs, better luck next time. The crabhouse format is simple. A fresh roll of brown paper table covering; a mallet, a knife and a heap of napkins; and a tray of steamed crabs covered in Old Bay spice. It must be the carnivorous savagery of breaking apart the crabs with your fingers and smashing open claws which makes this style of eating one of my all-time favourites. I'm trying to imagine opening a crabhouse like this in France, and think I should probably do it myself, just for the reaction.

The next day, we discovered the boat engine was repeatedly overheating (probably thanks to barnacles on the cooling water intake) so had to hurry down to Annapolis, the state capital, which we spent the rest of the time exploring by land, and moored up in a boatyard (with showers! It feels like Easter already!) and thus ended our time on the boat at sea, a little prematurely. Even when immobile on it, the Bay is indefinitely picturesque though, so no hard feelings about that.

So here I am, back in Washington and more or less up to date with the blog again. Still a week and a half to go; I'll try to be good.

Well, I arrived in New York JFK and suddenly everyone started talking like a prohibition-era gangster, so I must have got on the right plane. I just stopped in New York for a couple of days, staying with Courtney, a friend of my mum's, and her family.

I spent most of the time exploring the city by foot, admiring shiny skyscrapers, squirrel-filled parks, basketball-dribbling breakdancers and the like, and enjoying the benefits of the current Kingdom/States exchange rate.

On Thursday I trekked through Central Park and managed to walk in a great big circle, à la hunting-of-the-Heffalump, but did find a busking singer-guitarist-harmonicist who would probably rival Bob Dylan in talent. In the evening I saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway, which you probably have to see to appreciate how funny and well done I thought it was. Another great city which never gets old.

My next stop was Palo Alto, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Marcia, my cousin-twice-removed, lives. The first thing we did after I arrived was to go into the city where Marcia gave me a personalised driving-and-exploring tour of the city and landmarks like Coit Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge (which, though pretty, I have no hard evidence is actually orange thanks to fog every time I saw it). We learned together that not one of the streets in Chinatown has street parking, but earned a yummy dim sum meal for our troubles, throughout which we couldn't understand a word our waitress was saying.

The following day we took the scenic drive through redwood forests to Santa Cruz, where I hoped I might find surf lessons, only to discover that the only spot that had any real surf combined with not risking being dashed on the rocks by each wave was cleared for the day for another surf contest. Nonetheless we enjoyed the bustling Santa Cruz boardwalk (a little like Blackpool but with suitable weather), the world's first surf museum, some basking sealions, a classic surf diner and the sight of people who can surf properly risking being dashed on the rocks by each wave.

Marcia has season tickets to baseball games with the San Francisco Giants, so it was only fair that we got to see them play a home game against the Milwaukee Brewers and win. Sorry folks, but baseball's more interesting to watch than cricket, period. Of course not only was the game fun to watch and eventually understand, but there was all the American ballgame culture - the big-screen skits during the breaks, the Hammond organ music fillers, the walking food and drink stalls and those "novelty" foam hands - as well as, thanks to the season tickets, a stunning view over the San Francisco Bay. Incidentally, the Giants were already out of the running for the league thanks to a dismal early season but this game did put the Brewers out of contention for the league themselves by beating them.

The following day we went to Alcatraz, for which I echo my friends' recommendations. We took the audio tour which guides you round all the cells and facilities, and lets you check out what solitary confinement was like, with gritty commentary from inmates and other past residents of the island. It was particularly interesting to see how a trio of inmates managed to escape using basically just spoons, through their crafty digging out of their vents.

The same day, I took a ride on the outside of one of the city's famous cable cars - an adventure in itself as there are just inches between you and the ground and parked traffic; their speeding up and braking down San Francisco's steep hills (great views, by the way) relies on the conductor's effectiveness at pulling a great big lever; and the absence of cars on some of the intersections seems to rely on the audacity with which the conductor rings the bells. It's one of these rare oddities which - in my opinion, for shame - would never be approved for construction today thanks to probably breaking every safety regulation in the book.

Over the week we also met Marcia's two daughters and their children (my third cousins) with whom we had lots to talk about their memories of my closer relatives and so on. This tour being in part to get to know more of my extended family, it's been great to meet so many people who already know my immediate family but up until now have barely seen me except occasionally as a child.

I'd already had a brief experience of Honolulu on the way in, having had to make a connection at its airport. In doing so I got a ride on the Wiki Wiki bus to the terminal, the bus service whose name (which means "quickly quickly") was the inspiration for the wiki web concept pioneered by Wikipedia. I also experienced the only airport terminal I've heard of with a tropical landscaped garden adjoining the departure lounge. Take hint, airport designers, these areas make waiting so much more relaxing than those lines of leather chairs.

I couldn't go back through the famous city again without checking it out so on the way back and Californiawards, I stopped off at a backpacker hostel for a night. The scenery was similar but for the dense high rise buildings mauna, but the atmosphere was totally different, everywhere packed with people.

 On the beach, the 2007 Duke's OceanFest, a colourful surf contest and festival, was underway, drawing hundreds of wannabe surfers into the water amid some impressive displays of both regular surfing and tandem surfing, one of the main heats while I was around. The main street along the coast was lined with colourful shops, markets, bars and restaurants, and at night street performers and artists filled the torch-lined sidewalks. All in all it made for a wonderful night out at the end of a visit to a wonderful state.

I spent my last full day on the Big Island experiencing a couple of little-known freebies on the island, like any self-respecting student should. In Hawaii, law dictates that the whole coastline and its beaches must be open for public access, so to start with we went to a beach confined by a gated resort called Kūkiʻo, a favourite destination of Ralph and Arlita's. It sports the same nice scenery, on both sides of the waterline, as elsewhere, but because of the gates, not as many members of the public know to just roll up to the security booth, get handed their public pass and cruise on down to the beach's visitor car park where just a handful of people are sharing the sand.

Not only that, but on the bay we met two guys, Mike and Thibert, who are the most truly Aloha Hawaiian people that I've met. They are basically employed by the resort to sail around in their outrigger sailing canoe, the kind of boats in which the Polynesian settlers originally arrived in Hawaii, and let visitors sail it around with them for free. The boat was built by Mike (who turns out to also be a pretty zingy artist by night) himself and steers with a single loose canoe paddle. It's a pretty nippy sailer too, and definitely ranks high on my Christmas list (hint, people).

From there we went on to the Hilton village resort in Kona, which also unsurprisingly features a stretch of public beach, and consequentially lets you wander around pretty much the whole complex bar the rooms. Being a Hilton, everything is suitably dazzling, grandiose, marble-decked and adorned with very old pieces of art worth lots of money. A boat takes you round an artificial river (well, all the landscaping there is artificial, or it would be an expanse of black volcanic rock) to deliver guests to their rooms, pools, bars, ballrooms and so on; and in case your schedule is too tight for water transport, a train runs most of the same route too. As well as pool upon pool upon waterfall upon waterpark, they have a saltwater pool housing dolphins, who were taking a break from their hectic performance and meet-and-greet schedules when we visited.

One thing that stands out in places like this is just how many filthy-rich people you can find in one place. Either that or lots of inconspicuous students out on the free lunch hunt…

This place deserves a blog post of its own because going there gives the impression you have been transported to another country - nay, planet - which is just as captivating as the other. We spent a day circumnavigating the island by car in order to get to this National Park which protects the active volcanic areas of the island, and has a visitors' centre at the brim of the caldera of Kīlauea, the newest and second highest volcano.

The crater is just huge, and in fact has a smaller crater within it, Halemaʻumaʻu, which itself is the size of a large quarry. The landscape is so barren it's almost lunar, and is scattered with steam vents. A road takes you down into the crater to the edge of Halemaʻumaʻu, with sulphur fumes rising ominously, which until recently used to be accompanied by lava. Further down the mountain, we were able to walk through an old lava tube which used to have lava gushing through it for years.

Round the island we made more historic stops, and visited Ralph and Arlita's daughter, Renée, my second-cousin-twice-removed, for dinner at a supposedly haunted steakhouse furnished with Old Western memorabilia - and some of the most generous portions of food I've ever seen.

Well it's been a pretty busy two weeks, so I'm now over three states behind so it's catch up time… (please note that I even first started this sentence a week ago - there's just too much to do!)

The first thing you (or I) notice when arriving in Hawaii from Sydney is that the weather is just as beautiful but it's five degrees hotter (also that there are no Tardises). The second thing you notice is the trees. I spent most of my time in Hawaii with my cousin-three-times-removed Ralph and his wife Arlita, who live an absolutely picturesque neighbourhood in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island called Hawaii. Absolutely everywhere you go is surrounded by palms and other exotic trees, which transform the roofline into this lush green tropical paradise. In fact, I've found that the trees that cover an area pretty much define what it's like. My perception that being a US state might have tamed the renowned utopian beauty of Hawaii was quickly and gratefully dispelled.

We spent a few half-days doing what Ralph and Arlita usually do nearly every morning: snorkelling from some of the beaches down the road. I'd been snorkelling once before, on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where to get to the wildlife you have to take a boat way out to sea, so it was remarkable to see just as many fish coming right up to the water's edge, even on the busier beaches. Just like the last time, I could happily swim and watch it all for hours. A particular treat in Hawaii are the sea turtles which thrive there and made an appearance at least once every time I visited the water. Everything seems to slow down when one suddenly glides into sight right under your nose (but don't touch - at the peril of a $5000 maximum fine), which makes spotting one feel like a minor triumph.

Alternating with swimming with the fishies, we visited various sites of interest which detailed Hawaii's colourful tribal history, explored downtown Kailua-Kona and went to the first church on the islands.

In the evenings we ate dinner on the terrace, which looks out over the sea and the setting sun, which for some reason in this part of the world regularly displays the phenomenon of the green flash.

I've just spent the last 8 days staying with my aunt, uncle and cousins in Sydney. This leg of my trip has coincided with friends Dan, Dan and Chris who have been travelling all over Asia and New Zealand for the last three and a half months or so. A few years ago, my aunt and uncle decided to upsize from the house that they had, which is situated next door to a house on the block corner, to the house on the other side of that corner house, so they kept the old one as a guest house and joined up the properties, which meant there was room for us all to stay with them, in our own separate house.

We've spent the week mostly relaxing and looking around the city. Inevitably, we went around the harbour area in the centre to see the Bridge and the Opera House, and also went into Marrickville, the local area. We went up Sydney Tower, who have panoramic windows to rival the Wellington-Auckland train and cake with the highest altitude-yumminess product I've encountered, and into Newtown to a club where my cousin Jom was playing in a battle of the bands event (her band went through to the next round too!).

After the weekend, we picked up a campervan from these guys, which the other guys plan to take right down the east coast. It's just about the most clapped out rustbucket that you could ever hire out commercially, but that's what makes it so brilliant, and I'm regretting having to miss out on that open road experience.

At the end of my stay we drove up north out of Sydney to an visit an old school friend of my mum's and family, who live in the semi-rural suburb of Maraylya. We stayed there overnight and ventured into the country both days; first into the Blue Mountains, which were great for what we could see of them on what was a thoroughly grey day, and then to Wiseman's Ferry. In the evening in between, we also went to Cattai National Park, where hoards of wild roos came out at twilight for us to watch from the camper. I hope photos won't be long.

I've made it to Honolulu and it's hot! This post makes the most prompt update yet by far, clocking in at minus 7 hours 24 minutes since the previous one. More soon!