Tabitha and Phil

I poo video

2010-01-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

Fremantle Jan 2010

2010-01-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

Hello world

Day 1 of the Outdoor Education National Conference at Norte Dame University in Fremantle WA.

I am currently taking part in the very interactive Technolgy in the Outdoors lecture, by Dr Ian Boyle. We are now uplaoding pictures and creating our own blogs.

Lucky for me my wife introduced me to this activitiy a few years back so i am finally ahead inclass!!. Now if I can just stay on task for longer than the time it takes to type with my two index fingers good things should happen.

The attached photo is not a shot from the conference but an example picture that we had to add.

Monday 13 July

2009-07-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

We left New York this morning, and a very early morning it was! We were on a 7am flight, which sounded very reasonable when I booked it because it gave us almost a whole day in San Francisco. However, who was to know it was nearly a 2 hour trip from Harlem to JFK, which meant leaving at 4am!! And we all know that Phil and I aren't big fans of early mornings.

Sad but true, after a 6 hour flight, we arrived in San Francisco, booked into the hotel and spent the rest of the day sleeping and enjoying the comfort of the hotel room that was missed in our lovely but rather bare apartment in New York.

So nothing to report today!

Sunday 12 July

2009-07-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

We did have every intention to make it to a gospel church service, but just didn't get to it. Today was our last day in New York and there were still a whole list of things we wanted to do.

Our first priority was to find Trent's jumper (no, we hadn't got that yet), which we accomplished quite quickly. We also went on an extensive hunt for a smart pen but to no avail (sorry Mum). Then we hit the souvenir stores.

Our second point of business was to make our way down to Coney Island. There were thousands upon thousands of people there, but we really didn't see the appeal. Many of the attractions have closed, presumably hit by the financial crisis, and much of the area was run down and dirty. It probably wasn't worth the long train trip, but at least we can say we did it.

We then made our way back to Brooklyn, with 3 walks in hand of course. We found a lovely litte cafe for lunch and spent a little while watching the world go by. We decided that Brooklyn Heights was the most appealing area we found and that would be our choice if we ever lived in New York. Our walks finished up at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, which we walked accross to take us back to Manhattan.

We made our way back to Maddison Square Gardens where we found a nice little cafe called The Stage Door, which had an extensive and very reasonably priced menu. We stopped here for dinner before making our way home to pack and have an early (or not so early) night.

Saturday 11 July

2009-07-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

No photos today, too busy shopping!

I read about an outlet shopping mall called Woodly Commons which has about 200 shops. They are name brand stores including Coach, Nike, Armani, etc but they are the old stock etc that are sold at discounted price. Unfortunately a $600 handbag marked down to $250 is still out of my price range!!

Because it is heavily marketed to tourists there are a number of options to catch a coach there and back; given that that was $42 each we decided to take the train for half the price.

The train took us an hour and a bit out of New York, through some lovely areas with lots of hills and forests. We arrived in Herriman with the knowledge that we could catch a cab. Low and behold there were some taxis waiting for the tourists but it was an interesting scene as the train station is a small platform in a large carpark surrounded by thickly forested hills. There was not a house or business in sight! We had also missed the opportunity to get cash out and found out that we had spent our last bit on chips on the train last night. So we were in the middle of no where, with no cash, taxis that didn't take credit card and no idea which way we were heading.

We declined an offer of squishing into the boot of a hatch back that already had 6 other people in it and waited for another offer. We finally got ourselves a lovely young taxi driver who was willing to stop at an ATM on the way and had enough room for us to have our own seat.

The shopping was good, but with so many stores I needed double the time and ten times the money. We did manage to get some bargains though. I found a handbag and 3 pairs of shoes and Phil got the best deal of the day with new footy boots for $20, needles to say he bought 2!

Friday 10 July

2009-07-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

We spent today in Washington DC. Washington is an easy 3 hour train journey from New York, which made for a long but enjoyable day. We had to be on the train by 6:05am, luckily we made it in time, but it was very close!

Given our lack of time in the Nation's Capital, we decided to do the 'hop on hop off' option that is most popular with tourists everywhere we go. We got to see all of the main sites, however briefly, including The White House, The Capital Building and a multitude of memorials. Our tour even took us out to Arlington to see the largest military cemetary in the country and also the resting place of JFK.

Walking the memorials was nice, reminiscent of a Simpson's episode too but none of the Presidents found the time to speak to us. We particularly like the World War II memorial which was spectacularly done. It is lucky they have some spare space because a number of the memorials are real estate hungry.

We ended the day with another National Treasure photo moment, namely the replica of the liberty bell outside the train station. Following a recommendation from our View friends, Joe and Allan, we had dinner at the Thunder Grill, which was very nice.

Thursday 9 July

2009-07-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today we were determined to be at ABC even earlier to get good standby tickets for The View. Despite being there the earliest time yet (7:45am) we were still 27 and 28 in line. The saving grace was that there are 2 tapings today. So we went back out for breakfast (Strawberry and banana crepes were awesome), some shopping at Barnes and Noble and rejoined the queue at about 9:30.

Again they didn't let anyone in from the standby line and things weren't looking good. We decided to stay in line this time, where we had a pleasant 2 hours with fellow standby people, Joe and Allan from Arizona and Beverly from Canada. We had a great time chatting and just passing the time.

For the second taping they eventually let in a few people from the standby line. When they got to us only 3 could go in, Allan and Joe were ahead of us so they went first, at this point I said goodby to Phil (with only a brief second thought) and headed in. Some batting of eye lids - from Joe, Allan and myself, saw Phil and Beverly join us fairly promptly.

The taping of the show was fantastic. It was a lot more relaxed than Letterman but we still had to give a huge effort to clapping, laughing and cheering, we were even allowed to woo hoo here! The ladies were really great and chatted to the audience during the ad breaks. Phil even got to ask Elizabeth for some recommendations for good gluten free restaurants.

It was 2:30pm before we got away from the studios. We headed off to try and find the elusive grey 25 Yankees jersey for Trent. No luck, but we did find a great little sports bar for a very late (4pm) lunch before heading home for a quiet evening.

Wednesday 8 July

2009-07-13T20:58:00.001-07:00

Another good day today. We lined up for The View again today, and even though we managed numbers 12 and 13 in the stand by queue we were not in luck as they didn't let any extra people in.

From there we headed into Tkts, which is where you can get cheap tickets for Broadway. We decided on tickets for Chicago as we couldn't get tickets to our first choice of Wicked. After that we headed up to Central Park to the Delacourte Theatre to try and get tickets to Shakepeare in the Park, Twelfth Night. This is an all star cast including Ann Hathaway. The show starts at 8pm, but even by 11am the line was a mile and a half long, so that was the end of that experiment.

We settled instead for a ride on the caroselle. The lesson here, I might think I would like to go horse riding by I should get over my irrational fear of the somewhat stationary, much smaller, plastic kind first.

We saw the matinee performance of Chicago and it was fantastic. I loved the dancing, Phil loved the costumes, so a good afternoon was had by all.

After that we thought we would try our luck with the lottery for cheap seats at Wicked, but no joy so we had an early night instead with the promise of yet another early morning tomorrow.

Tuesday 7 July

2009-07-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day we had to use our New York passes so it was a big day we had lined up. This morning we headed out early to see Ms Liberty herself. We got tickets for the ferry and then joined the queue of course. Security everywhere is amazingly tight, and this was no different.

It never fails to amaze me how many people Americans are willing to shove into one small space. The ferry ride is only quite short and we got our first good look at the statue. Would you believe that we ended up on the same ferry as twin boys who finished Year 12 at PAC last year? They got all shocked and coy when we went to say hello.

The island itself wasn't particularly exciting. We were not prepared to line up for half the morning to climb up inside so we did the tour around the island, took a few pictures and got back on the ferry.

The next stop was Ellis Island. This is where the immigrants were processed upon arrival to the United stated back in the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries. The museum in what was the main buliding and it is quite extensive. It takes you through the stories of many immigrants and their experiences of arriving in America. Not all stories had the happiest of endings either.

Upon arriving back on Manhattan we walked through Battery Park and up to Ground Zero. The space is large and the gap in the skyline is significant. Building on the two main towers is progressing with the holes almost filled to ground level. A couple of other buildings that came down during 911 have already been rebuilt.

We then continued though to find the Wall Street bull (which isn't on Wall Street) but couldn't get a good picture for all the people that were all over it constantly. We were hoping for a down fall of rain just so we could get a good shot.

We then headed up the island to the Intrepid, Air, Sea and Space museum. This museum was built around the war ship the Intrepid. It also has a large collection of war planes and helicopters, a Concord that you can walk through and a submarine (although we didn't get to this before the museum closed).

Continuing on with our nautical theme for the day we went on a 2 hour sunset cruise around the bottom half of Manhattan. This was great, with an excellent tour guide who had lots of really good information and described things so well even I could find them on the skyline! It was a great way to finish up the day.

Monday 6 July

2009-07-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

So today began our trials of trying to get on tv. Phil would like to see David Letterman after missing out when he was here with Rick in 2006 and I would like to see a taping of The View.

Standby tickets for The View are released between 8 and 10am each day of taping, so we headed there first. We got there at about 8:15 and were given the numbers 31 and 32 and told to come back in an hour and a half. We headed off to find some breakfast and do another 2 walks (or course). Unfortunately only about 12 people from the stadby line got in so the lesson learned was to be here earlier next time.

Next we headed to Times Square to find out about Letterman. There was some issue with the fact that we didn't have a US contact number, but we got around that, had an interview and left with instructions to call later in the day to find out if we could get in.

We decided to head over to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as it was fairly close and thought we should do something cultural. There were lots of interesting things to see including a display of all the wordly possessions of an elderly Chinese lady, collected by her son, a living art work where a guy was marking the height and name of visitors with black marker around the four walls of a white room. There were also some famous pieces by artists including Picasso, Matisse and Van Gough.

A phone call to the Letterman people confirmed we had tickets for the afternoon taping which would be Friday's show, so we had a few more hours to burn.

Our next stop was to the Radio City concert hall. We got to do a backstage tour, and this was awesome. People will mostly know of Radio City for the Christmas season concerts that are held there each year featuring the Rockettes. The features of this theatre are amazing, from the multi platform stage to the sunset lighting, the interior apartment for the guy that originally built the place and especially the restrooms. We even got to have our photo taken with a Rockette.

After a quick trip home to get change we headed back to the Ed Sullivan Theatre for the taping of Letterman. This involved a lot of standing in line again and lots of practice cheering (with no woohooing aloud). It was really strange to be seeing a show taped, especially what goes on behind the scenes. The band were fantastic and play through every ad break.

Phil was in his element! You could not wipe the smile off his face. The guests for the show were Rainn Wilson from The Office and Transformers a comedian and also the band Maxwell. It was a really good show and we really enjoyed the experience.

Sunday 5 July

2009-07-12T06:29:00.001-07:00

Today was a massive day of walking, by far the biggest yet! I swear we must have walked at least 20kms all up.

It was a beautiful day, quite warm, but not overbearing and we started quite early whilst it was still nice.

We ticked off 9 of our walks today accross the Lower East Side, the East Village, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy and the edge of China Town.

We stopped for lunch at Risotteria, a Gluten free restaurant on Bleeker Street; it was fantastic! We had glutten free anchovy pizz and glutten free chicken panini, with gluten free bread sticks that Phil fell in love with. We had gluten free cheesecake for desert and bought bread sticks, oreo cakes and a black and white cookie to take away.

Mid afternoon we found a lovely little community garden where we sat to catch our breath for a few minutes. It was cool and quiet and had a lovely feel about it.

Late afternoon we ended up at Madison Square Gardens (the garden, not the stadium). This was the original site of Madison Square Gardens, before the stadium was built. Like many of the parks around it had many people, a lot of them female and sunbaking in bikinis, but also a fenced off dog area with lots of dogs running around. There are dogs everywhere in New York, it seems that everyone has one (and many are big dogs) and they go everywhere whith their owners. When they are not in the park, they are in shops, at restaurants and on the subway. Ruby and Maggie would love it here!

Our next stop was Madame Tousades where we saw lots of stars. Used our New York Pass to get in, which was good because I could not have justified paying the $35 entry fee otherwise. We had a sudden realisation this afternoon that we only have another 2 days to use our New York Pass and so we have to get in and see a few more places.

We stopped at Planet Hollywood for dinner, Phil wanted a meal that would fill him up, so that was an obvious choice. From there we headed to the Empire State Building. It was after 10pm when we arrived yet the queues were still ridiculously long. It must have taken about an hour and a half to get up there. Having said that, the view was fantastic. We got to see the view from the top of the rock in the day and the view at the empire at night, the best of both worlds. At 102 floors up, the view was worth the wait!

Saturday 4 July

2009-07-11T06:48:00.001-07:00

Well today was the 4th of July, and to be honest I was a little disappointed; it wasn't as big as I thought it would be. I had images of it being quite over the top; people dressed in red white and blue, 4th of July stuff being sold everywhere etc, but it was really quite sedate!

We started off the morning quite slowly with a trip to the laundromat accross the road - it is a busy place!

We decided that today would be a good day to see a baseball game. I think we made a good choice to go with Yankees (as opposed to Mets) for a number of reasons. Firstly the Mets are playing terribly and loosing most of their games. Secondly, being in Harlem, we are only 2 stops on the train (about 7 mins) from Yankee Stadium, which is just accross the river in The Bronx.

Yankee stadium is huge, but a great design, as Trent told us, there is no bad seat. We had to queue for about 25 minutes to get tickets, but there were plenty available. This meant that we missed both anthems (They were playing the Blue Jays from Toronto, so the Canadian anthem was played also) but there were screens up in the ticket booth anyway. In the end I think we only missed about 5 mins of play, and nothing much happened.

Our first stop of course was to get a hot dog, as you do at the baseball. Apparantly New York hotdogs are the smallest in the world, they measured about 20 cm and are roughly half the size of the hotdog you would get at say Wendy's in Australia. They did of course cost US$5.50 each though. We soon discovered that the $30 we brought for food for the afternoon was not going to last very long at all!

We were sitting at the back of the third tier (in the disabled section as it happens, which had really comfy chairs). As the levels are virtually on top of each other, although you are high, you are still close to the ground, unlike a football field in Australia where you would be quite a distance from the ground. The view was great and the threat of balls and bats flying toward us much less - a good thing if you know how much I day dream, let alone how uncoordinated I am. :o)

The game was really good, it took a while to get into it and work out what was happening but once we did it was good fun. There were about 46 000 people there, which is a good effort since it was about the 4th day in a row that they had played. Can you imagine Crows fans filling a stadium 4 days running? Port can't even manage it for one game!

Normally a game finishes in about 9 innnings; however, the game was tied at this point so they had to play out to the 12th before the Yankees finally pulled ahead to grab a 6-5 win. This meant the game was quite long and people started to leave after the 9th innings. By the end only about half were left to see the win (So they really are a lot like Crows fans).

We headed home for a bit of a rest after being out in the fresh air and sunshine for so long. It wore Phil out so much that it was only the smell of pasta cooking in the kitchen that woke him up. At about 7:30pm we headed in to central Manhattan to find a spot to watch the Macy's 4th of July fireworks.

There were so many people it was incredible! You could barely move as the crowds were so thick. We got off the subway at one end of the stretch that they said was good for viewing. Unfortunately they had already shut off entry to the river side area so we couldn't get down there. Instead we walked with a few hundred thousand others about 20 blocks until we found a good spot along the road, with no buildings in fron of us. At least this meant that we only had to wait about 25 minutes before the show started at 9:20pm.

The show went for about half an hour and it was spectacular. There were 6 sets of firework displays all along the Hudson River, each exactly the same as the other, so it meant that everyone got to see a good view of th same thing. we could see all 6 sets from where we were standing, so that looked amazing. The sound was incredible also.

Getting home again was another nightmare of course as once all those people got in, they also wanted to get out. And whilst we all arrived over a matter of hours, we all left at the same time - crazy. We picked the largest, closest street as our escape route. It would have been 4 lanes wide with large footpaths either side and it was still shoulder to shoulder. Then we had to try and get on a train!

Friday 3 July

2009-07-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

After a late night at the Comedy Strip last night it was a slow morning today. After stumbling out of bed we decided on trying out a gluten free American pancakes mix. Cooking these in a casserole dish rather than a fry pan was challenging and they really didn't look pretty, but they didn't taste too bad by the time they were smothered in maple syrup.

We decided to check out the Natural History Museum for the afternoon. We got there just after midday and decided to start from the bottom an head up towards the top floors. We saw some great exibits, especially in the areas of Earth sciences, lots of great rocks! I even found a great mineral sample that looks just like snot and is named after my brother. ;o)

We enjoyed the first level so much (we spent 4 hours there) that we had to rush through the other 3 floors. I took a toilet break and got disoriented while Phil went to find the T-Rex, by the time I found him (only about 5 minutes) they were kicking us out of the museum as it was closing. Unfortunately that meant Phil didn't get his photo taken with the T-Rex, but at least he got to see it.

After a walk through Central Park to find the Delacorte Theatre and find that Shakespeare tickets were sold out, we headed home for an early night.

Thursday 2 July

2009-07-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of much walking, rain, memorials and churches.

We started the morning in the Tribeca area which is apparantly one of the most exclusive areas in which to reside. The Tribeca grill is one restaurant in the area and is owned by Robert De Nero.

As our walk took us into the Financial District we came to our first memorial for the day. This is a memorial to the African American people as an extensive burial area is now covered by the financial district. The memorial is only a few years old and was a peaceful adn reflective spot amidst a very busy area. One interesting fact was that the world map created on the floor of the memorial did not have Australia on it - so not really a 'world' map. The second memorial came later in the day and was the Vietnam memorial also in the Financial District toward South Port.

During the morning we also visited the Bodies exhibition. This is an exhibition of all real bodies and body parts where you can examine every part of the human body. It was amazing and we really enjoyed it.

It rained a lot today. New York had 10 inches of rain in June, amazing; I am sure that must be close to what we got in all of 2008 at home. Amidst the rain we still managed to see much of the Financial District, including City Hall, the court houses and the Stock Exchange. Sadly, the stock exchange is no longer open to the public, and like many areas is closely guarded by a strong contingent of security.

So churches... we saw two today, another feature from the movie National Treasure, Trinity church and also St Paul's, which is just down the road from the World Trade Centre and was a hub of support for the community following 9.11. The entire church is now a memorial to the rescue workers in particular, with photographs, displays, messages and more located throughout the interior and exterior of the building. This is also one of the oldest buildings in manhattan and has a charming cemetary attached.

Following this we ended up at the Staten Island Ferry port and so we decided to catch the ferry accross. This gave us a good view of the Statue of Liberty, despite the dreary conditions. Given the rain and the fact that it was late in the day, we didn't stay to look at any of the attractions on the island, but returned to Manhattan.

With the rain setting in we decided it was a good chance to head home to get changed and have a night out a the Comedy Strip. This was over on the East Side and was not a bad show. There were about 5 professional comedians who have had spots on various shows such as Saturday Night Live. The evening was hoted by comedian Ray Ellin. Unfortunately no one mentioned that the amateurs were about to start; however this happened at about 10:30, last call for drinks was at about 10:00 and it didn't finally finish up until after midnight. Most of the audience left by this time, but being compulisve attenders and sitting right up the front, we did not feel that we could leave.

All in all a good, but very long day and we did not get to bed until after 2am.

Wednesday 1 July

2009-07-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

Well no sign of any jet lag left today, we stumbled out of bed around half past seven. Another big day of walking today though, knocking off another 7 of our walking cards. We started with a relaxing walk through Bryant Park, where a big screen is set up to show movies through the summer, we walked around the corner and found the State Library. This is another beautiful building, ably protected by her big cement lions, Fortitude and Patience. Of course there was a display of the Declaration of Independence in honor of Independence Day this coming Saturday. The Declaration was first published as a broadsheet for distribution amongst the population, the other copy (as seen in National Treasure) was not created until afterwards.

After the library we headed for Grand Central Station, where we admired the ceiling and took a walk through the market place. From there we checked out the Chrysler Building, another with an ornate ceiling. The foyer was as far as we got so we kept moving up Lexington Avenue to the United Nations. Lunch was in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, named for the second UN Secretary General, my panini was really good, but Phil's mini hamburgers left somthing to be desired.

The UN builidng was good. We did not get on a tour as it was a bit pricey and a long wait. Instead we checked out the public access floors where there was a display of women in the UN on active duty, tributes to UN officers killed on duty, an awesome photographic collection of animals from Africa and the Arctic, various shops and the reflection room.

From the UN, we had a change of pace, heading for Rockerfeller Center. Our tickets got us up to the 'top of the rock' and the view was incredible. This gave a great perspective of Manhattan, the sheer number of buildings and the size of Central Park. We also took a tour of NBC, sitting in the studios of Saturday Night Live and the Jimmy Fallon Show. There are actually a number of our favourite shows produced by NBC and we never knew it!

From here we took a walk up 5th Ave. I must admit I did buy, but restrained myself to a Disney pin and tea towel from the Disney store (all though I was tempted by the US$1300 Pooh print). We also took a look in FAO schwarz where Phil found himself another smurf for the collection. By this time it was getting late and we kept being ejected from places as they were closing so he headed back down to Columbus Circle. We managed 2 for 1 here, doing some shopping and catching the subway all in one building - awesome.

A late dinner of Nachos back at home was great before falling into bed late again.

Tuesday 30 June

2009-07-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today we did A LOT of walking. A trip to Borders in April saw us purchase a box of 50 cards, each with a walk somewhere in New York. Today we thought we would start with 3 walks that would give us a chance to see abit of the city. Walk number one for the day was through part of Harlem. We were able to start just a short way from our apartment, so made our way there by foot; this gave us the first good insight into the neighbourhood in which we are staying. As we were awake at 5:30am (I know, me, up beofre 6am!) we were on our way by 7am. As nothing much seems to happen in the US until 10am, the first few hours were quiet and relaxed.

Our walk around Harlem took us through Strivers Row where the first wealthy African Americans built their homes. These are still lovely areas and the architecture is beautiful. There are lovely little churches dotted all over the place as well. We also walked past the Apollo theatre. This is where the Jackson 5 had great success and so with the passing of Michael last week it has been a popular place for people to congregate this week. There are plenty of street vendors around selling t-shirts, posters , dvds etc with Michael Jackson on it. It is amazing how quickly all this stuff can be produced. There was a special Michael Jackson event at the Apollo this afternoon and so the street was already barricaded by police, fans were lining up and the street was full of tv trucks. Someone was filming as we walked past, so it is very likely we were on tv somewhere in the world today.

Our second walk took us through Central Park. My biggest suprise was that there are roads (with lots of traffic) through Central Park. We walked thrugh strawberry fields and saw the John Lennon memorial as well as the place he was killed. We also so the Bethesda Fountain and the Boat House, which we recognised from a number of films. We saw Poets Walk, the music stage, the sheep paddock and even had a swing in the playground (the rules dictate adults without a child present can not enter - does Phil count?). By this time it was about 9:30am and places were still not open so we stopped for some morning tea in a little cafe that made awesome smoothies - even with soy milk for Phil!

Our third walk took us through Times Square. I must say I didn't 'get it' at first, what was the big deal? However, by the time mid-afternoon rolled around and the tourists made their way out, the place was buzzing. There are people soliciting for business on every corner, selling everything from bus rides to food and even hair cuts. It didn't take long to get the hang of walking by and not taking a brouchure. We were sold to by one guy offering cheap tickets to a comedy club as well as some drink deals at a nearby Irish pub. We will use the tickets one night later in the week, but we did enjoy some drinks at the pub over lunch. It was a big meal, and not particularly cheap, but with left over stir fry in the fridge for dinner we didn't mind too much.

As we had finished our walks for the day (and thankfully so, I was struggling by this point) we thought we would take a tour. There are tour buses everywhere, but we decided on a duck tour. It was a lot cheaper as it was not a hop-on hop-off tour, which was fine as I just wanted to see a bit more of the city. The exciting part about it was that the bus turns into a boat and so the second half of the tour is on the Hudson where you get a good view of the city from a distance. It was good fun.

We were home early this evening but just in time as the thunder, lightening and torrential rain began literally 2 mins after we walked through the door. They have had 10 inches of rain this month!! As you can imagine, it is much greener than Adelaide. The weather today was quite oppressive with about 29 degrees and incredibly high humidity. The rain was a relief as it helped cool the apartment down a fraction. Any breeze is a god send as there is no air conditioning or even a fan in here, and as the temperature doesn't drop much below 20 over night, it doesn't get much of a chance to cool down.

I had some issues trying to get the internet connection to work, which may have lead to an imprompute nap. By the end of the night though I had it working and we were able to check in on emails and update facebook. We were also able to do some searching for other things we can do this week.

Monday June 29

2009-07-01T19:57:00.001-07:00

Arrived in New York at 7:30 this morning, a half hour ahead of schedule. We were a little worried that we would have to occupy ourselves for a few hours as we wouldn't have access to our apartment until midday; however, we rang and were told we could get in when we arrived. Having done some research we decided that the best and cheapest way to reach our accommodation was via train. Working out the details gave us our first introduction to what we have found to be a bit of a theme; people working at service desks etc are not particularly friendly, animated or informative, but the general public are fantastic and eager to help whenever we so much as look like we might have a question.

With some help we worked out how and where to catch the Airtrain to get us to the subway for the A train and how to use the automatated metro ticket machines. The 14 day pass was not cheap, but we are convinced we will get good value from it.

We are staying in a privately rented apartment between 147th and 148th street on St Nicholas Ave. This is in Sugar Hill in Harlem. We knew going in that this would be a bit of a risk; however, the owner assured us that we would love it. I must say I had my reservations at first, especially given the steep flights of stairs (both in the subway station and the apartment building), and the unattractive appearance from the front. Within a few days though we have become very used to it. The inside is great; it has one bedroom, with walk in closet, a small bathroom with a generously sized shower, a good sized lounge area with cable tv and a kitchen with new (and somewhate oversized) appliances. It is very comfortable and allows us to make ourselves at home much more than in a hotel.

Next door to us in a fish and chip shop, a few doors down in a Chinese restaurant. Across the street is a supermarket, a pharmacy and a laundromat. The subway is literaly 50m from our front door. This is all very convenient and makes for a safe trip home in the evening. The local population is primarily, but not entirely, African American, there are also what appear to be a significant number of students around. Whilst our street is not the prettiest, there are some lovley homes in surrounding streets and a beautiful park up the road. The area is also fairly quiet, espeically in the evening, which is a change from the constant noise further down in Manhattan.

After arriving at our appartment we were particularly excited to shower and I must admit, we did crawl into bed and sleep for a few hours. We got up in time to visit the supermarket accross the street and cook up a stir fry for dinner. The local produce is nothing like we are used to, I think we are spoilt in Australia with such good quality food.

Very little was achieved today, so there are no photos, but we do feel much better for the rest!

Sunday 28 June (2)

2009-07-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

So we landed in San Franncisco bright and early at 10am on Sunday morning, yes this was our second Sunday! Got through border security and customs really quickly, firstly due to flying on an American carrier which meant most people were citizens and so the visitors queue was only short, secondly we had nothing to declare at customs this time given that we wern't trying to get 2kg of Vegemite into the country (glad you are still enjoying it Mark)!

The plane ride had given me some time to finally have a look in the San Francisco guide to find out what might be on offer for the day as we had about 13 hours to kill before flying out again. Low and behold we were flying straight (pardon the pun) into the annual gay pride parade. This started at 11am, which gave us plenty of time to catch the train into town and check it out. It was a great way to see the city as it was absolutely buzzing with people. Mind you, I don't think I have ever seen so many boobs and bums in all my life (and it wasn't just in the parade).

We managed to find ourselves a Westfield to grab some lunch and then headed for the Cartoon Art Gallery. This was an enjoyable way to spend an hour but not the most entertaining of exhibitions. By this time we were feeling a little sleepy so headed up to the park for a bit of a nap. We were in good company with many picnicers around and also plenty of fellow nappers.

We headed back to the airport at about 6ish and spent some time sleeping in the food court - the things you will do when you know that you aren't likely to meet anyone you know (especcially students)! Our flight to New York left at 11:25pm so we were ready for another restless night of flying.

Sunday 28 June (1)

2009-07-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

Today marked the beginning of our latest big trip, we are off to New York. Although we have talked about this trip since our visit to LA in 2008 we only booked tickets 10 weeks ago and have been busy putting plans into action since. The biggest dilema was the dogs (it was a much simpler exercise with only one!) so a huge thanks to Mum (Julie), Bernadine Mum (Teresa) and also Adelaide!

Of course the last minute was a rush (why would today be any different); school finished up on Friday, followed by 2 chiro appointmnets, dinner with friends from work (thanks Kim and Richard) and ballet. Saturday meant footy, catching up with Jess and the kids (in Adelaide for the afternoon) and dropping off the dogs. So when we finally got home at about 8pm we were able to start packing in finish cleaning the house. We finished up just after midnight, so got a good 5 hours sleep!

We flew out of Adelaide at 8:45am heading for Sydney. This was the first of 6 flights on 5 seperate airlines. Of course this meant traipsing ourselves AND our luggage over to the international terminal. It was at this point that Mum and Bernadine let us know that Ruby had numerous vomiting episodes during the night, partly due to the stress of being deserted by her parents and partly due to the packet of wagon wheels, the chilli chocolate and the 2kg of lollies she ate in a fit of hysteria yesterday when she saw the suitcases out and her food for 3 weeks packed in the car! I swear I was only out of the room for 5 minutes.

We flew out of Sydney at 2:45pm on United Airlines, heading for San Francisco. It didn't take long to work out why United has such cheap flights. Despite the ads for their luxurious Business and First class sections, with their 180 degree flat beds and extra leg room; economy was behind the times with only shared tvs. You can imagine Phil's disappointment when he realised there would be no choice of movie, no cartoons, no games, no pause button for toilet breaks. The upside was we managed about 5 hours sleep on account of limited distractions. The food was also disappointing, but probably not as disappointing as a US$6 tariff for alcoholic beverages! Remind me to book QANTAS for my next long haul trip!

15, 16 & 17 February

2008-03-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I know that we are many weeks on from this date, but I promised a post and so here it is!

On a lovely warm (ok very hot) weekend in South Australia I headed down to Goolwa (near Victor Harbor) where Phil was in the midst of 3 weeks of Year 8 camps. Phil was spending the weekend at Goolwa with his favourite colleagues; Bel, Micha, Mem and Chris!

I decided to take the scenic route to Goolwa ;o) but Ruby and I eventually arrived at the pub in order to get dinner before the kitchen closed. When we arrived back at the campsite later in the evening I was suprised with a lovely bunch of flowers for Valentie's day.

Saturday morning we headed out to the local surf shop where I was decked out in a brand new, full length, made for thermal conditions and very trendy wet suit. I was a little worried about Phil spending so much money on something that may only see water from the distance of the beach carpark, but went along with it anyway.

Much to my suprise, the wet suit really did keep me warm and so I did get it wet! With hired board in tow I followed Phil's instructions for my first surfing lesson. Phil began in the traditional way by getting me started on the sand in order to get a feel for the movements and positions etc. When I displayed a distinct lack of balance on dry land he let me hit the water anyway.

There were very minimal waves, but it was a great start and I managed to find some confidence just being in the water.

The weekend continued with much sand and water and great food (particularly from the bakery). By Sunday afternoon I was wrestling some big waves at Boomer Beach. Whilst I never got close to standing, I did work out that the beach wasn't as bad as I had convinced myself (infact I had a ball) and I even managed to get up on my knees (apparantly a bad, bad habbit that I should never admit to infront of anyone who knows anything about surfing).

Hope you enjoy the pictures (notice Ruby did manage to get up on her feet!).

Love to everyone and thanks to all the handsome young men leaving comments on the blog! ;o) I should update more often and in the words of a famous yellow boy "I can't promise to try, but I'll try to try".

Update on wedding plans

2008-02-18T03:32:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

I did promise to keep up the blogging once we got back but have been rather slack on keeping that promise, so I thought it was way past time to write a new post.

We did arrive back safely home in the middle of January and time has certainly flown past since then. We managed to spend some quality time with Phil's mate, Rick, before he set off for some exciting adventures in South America. Apart from that, it has been back into the swing of school life.

Apart from the routines of everyday life we have been making progress on the wedding front. Several people have asked for a photo of the engagement ring, so that accompanies this post. Most importantly though, we have set a date and booked a venue. For those travelling and living afare we hope that if you are planning a trip back home it might happen around this time as we would love to have your company on our special day. Thankyou to all those people who have sent their love and best wishes since we announced our engagement in December.

To fit in with school holidays, we have chosen Sunday the 5th of October as our date. This is the Sunday of the long weekend in October (for most states) and is the middle weekend of the South Australian school holidays.

We have booked the Adelaide Convention Centre for our ceremony and reception venue (See picture).

We are also excited to announce that our bridal party is now confirmed and is made up of Filomena, Lucy, Anna, Matt, Rick and Ben. We are extremely grateful that they are so excited to be a part of our bridal party.

The planning shall continue with the April holidays marked for the exciting parts such as dress and cake shopping. :o)

We were glad to hear from so many of you that you enjoyed following our blog whilst we were overseas. We wish that we could see many of you more often than we do, but with so much distance between many of us we will try to keep you up to date on our happenings via the blog.

I will post a hit later this week on the adventures of our past weekend when Phil brings some photos home to add.

12th January

2008-01-12T23:37:00.001-08:00

Last night Phil and Josh (best man) agreed to meet in the foyer at 10am to go to Nakiska to try snowboarding. So, despite the late night and the desire to stay in bed a little longer, we got up and got organised to go (I was planning to be a chalet bunny). Unfortunately Josh didn't arrive and was nowhere to be found, so we went by ourselves.

We had breakfast at Nakiska, surrounded by all the serious skiing families who had arrived for some weekend skiing. Phil was feeling a little under the weather with a cold coming on, so decided not to go out on the slopes. We watched the little children, the speed skiers and a cute little chipmunk for a while before heading back to Kananaskis for a late morning nap.

We did little today besides watch a few movies (there is always something on tv here) and pack our bags. We have a big day of travel coming up.

On Thursday night I tired a butternut squash ravioli that turned out to be the best ever ravioli and Phil had a sweet potato chowder to die for; so this evening we returned to the same restraunt and both had the soup and the ravioli for dinner. It was incredible. As it turns out, the ravioli reciepe was on a pamphlet in our room and is now safely tucked into the suitcase.

We check out at 8am tomorrow morning to start our trip home. This will take about 40 hours, I think we will be tired when we eventually arrive home in Adelaide. So I am off to bed now for our last sleep of the trip.

Highlight of the day: Dinner at the Fireweed Grill.

11th January

2008-01-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

Wedding day

Well today is the reason that we planned this trip; Peter and Jen's wedding.

We had the morning to ourselves and decided that Phil should give ice skating a go. There is a small pond at Delta Lodge and skates can be hired by the hour. Phil was a little unsure to begin with but soon picked up some technique and speed. Thankfully he was the only person out there and managed to avoid injuring himself or any small children. After about half an hour, Phil had totally exhausted himself and so the skates were returned.

Luckily, we headed back to our room early to have some lunch and shower and dress for the wedding at 2pm. When we got there and tried getting into our room our key jammed in the lock. It took maintenance an hour to drill out the lock and get us back into our room. The guy was lovely though and very apoplogetic. He put a new lock in and even sent up a bottle of wine later in the afternoon.

Just before 2pm we headed over for the wedding ceremony. Jen looked every bit the beautiful, blushing bride and even Pete scrubbed up quite a treat. There were many tears shed with Pete leading the way.

There was 3 hours to kill between the ceremony and the reception, so we headed back to our room to get a head start on the festivities of the evening with some chips and a bottle of wine.

We returned for the reception at 6pm. Dinner was the most awesome beef dish and the speeches, though there were many, were entertaining and made for a very enjoyable evening. I was disappointed to not be able to tear up the dance floor in my usual fashion, but got out there for a little while as wine does a good job at masking the pain.

Phil looked great in his new suit (which complimented my dress with exceptional style) and did the most amazing job to keep it spotless throughout the evening. Unfortuanately tears were nearly shed at the conclusion of the evening with the groom spilling a glass of wine all over Phil. Thankgoodness for dry cleaners!

It was a late night to bed after a long and happy evening.

Highlight of the day: A beautiful bride and a stunning wedding.

10th January

2008-01-10T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today has been a good day. We slept in until about 9 this morning as the mountains out our window mean that morning sunlight is not an issue. Phil went on a mission to find washing detergent, milk and bowls, before he headed off to find the slopes of Nakiska. After having a few cross country skiing experiences, he had never had the chance to give downhill skiing a go, so today was the day! He was able to muck around by himself for a while before having his own private lesson. Apparantly he got up speeds fast enough that even this little hot body felt cold!

On the other hand, I stayed in to 'rest my foot'. I got to watch some crap TV, do some more washing and enjoy my own company. As our bags appeared to have exploded when we opened them last night, I also spent a little time straightening the room up again.

News of the day is that an Air Canada flight (the airline we are using in Canada) had to make an emergency landing at Calagary this morning and 10 people were taken to hospital after a rather rough ride. It was strange to see all the emergency vehicles out the front of the building we were at only yesterday!

Phil is currently having a little nap before we head out for dinner.

Highlight of the day: Downhill skiing.

9th January

2008-01-10T16:09:00.000-08:00

Today we spent the day in Calgary before heading out of town this evening to Kananaskis. After a slow start this morning we headed out with Phil's aunt and uncle and best man, Josh, into town. Our first stop was the Calgary tower where we went to the lookout at the top. The view from the top was magnificant. Calgary is a similar size to Adelaide but there is an incredible amount of consruction happening all over downtown.

Phil and I decided to make our own way after seeing the tower and investigated the +15; this is a business and shopping complex that covers about 5 blocks on 2 sides of the road. Despite all of the shops there were none with toys. There was however the Devonian Gardens on the top floor with some very big goldfish and some dog statues.

After investigating the length of the +15 we thought we would give the train a go and headed to Wal-Mart at Malborough. The mall was large and in a suburban area similar to that around Tea Tree Plaza. Wal-Mart proved good for Cars and we also grabbed some breakfast and lunch items to take to Kananaskis. We then headed home to pack up our things.

The bus to Kananaskis left from downtown just after 5pm. We stopped at the airport where we had a half hour stop so thought we better have a light meal of soup and a bagel at Tim Horton's; unfortunately they were all out of Tim Bits! This proved somewhat more difficult that it should be as the person serving us couldn't speak English and wanted us to order from the French menu because he couldn't understand what we were saying (Alberta is not a French speaking Province) finally someone with slightly better English came to help out.

The bus connected to a shuttle which got us to Delta Lodge at about 8pm. We had a quite night in ordering chiken wings, a cheese platter and a nice bottle of Penfolds to the room (I know all this way and almost every wine we have bought is Australian) along with the movie, Elizabeth: the golden age.

Highlight for the day: The view 320m above Calgary, overlooking the Rockies, especially over the clear balcony floor.

8th January

2008-01-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

Today was a sad day as we had to pack our things and leave Turtle Valley. We certainly wish we had more time to spend there. Mark, Nan, the dogs and the cats have all been great hosts and the fun we had was more than we could have imagined.

Phil had his first waffle experience this morning, but I think he will stick to toast with Vegemite. We left home early in order to stop off at Wal-Mart on the way, where we found the last car we needed for series one.

The airport was an ordeal. All luggage and travellers go through one security check point. There is one conveyerbelt with one xray machine and they are STRICT. I had my carry on bag searched and our laptop case was swabbed for drugs! We did manage to get through without a strip search and make our plane with plenty of time.

Pete, the upcoming groom, picked us up from the airport and we are spending the night at Jen's mum's house in Calgary before heading to Kananaskis tomorrow. Hopefully we will start getting some photos up on the blog again tomorrow. We can not believe that we are on the final leg of our trip and will soon be home.

Highlight of the day: Promises to trade Cherry Ripes and Chicken Chips with Peanutbutter chocolates across the pacific.

7th January

2008-01-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

Phil and I wanted to make the most of the limited hours of sunlight today so we got up early and took the snow shoes up the hill for a walk before breakfast. We headed up behind the house and a little way up the hill where we found a nice clearing. From this vantage we were surrounded by the mountains and were able to watch the sun rising above the ridge of the mountain. It was a majestic sight, but cold as it was about -10 degrees. By the time I had made it to our lookout I was hot enough to be stripping layers off at a drastic rate!

After breakfast we headed into Chase as Mark had a physio appointment and so Nan took us on the full guided tour, including the lake. This area gets to around 40 degrees in the Summer and is a busy holiday place during those months. Today the beach was covered in snow and there was ice floating in the water. We walked to the end of the jetty and enjoyed the scenery though. The water looked far too cold to be appealing!

My left foot has been getting increasingly sore (no, I don't know what I did to it) as we have walked our way through the west coast of North America. Mark arranged to have his physio have a look at it, which was very nice of them both. Phil was not suprised to hear the physio agree with his suspicians of a stress fracture. I am now following orders to have it strapped and keep up the ibuprofen. If I am lucky this may get me out of skiing in Kaninaskis. :o)

Back at home in the afternoon, Phil climbed up on the roof to put up the wires that help melt the snow and then the boys bulit a nice camp fire. Dinner was a fantastic Asian spread; Nan has really looked after us well! This was followed by home made Smores made at the fire (biscuit, toasted marshmellow, chocolate).

Highlight of the day: Nan's home made spring roles! I need the reciepe.

6th January

2008-01-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

We decided that today was a good day to stay home and enjoy the comforts of Turtle Valley. We started the day quite slowly and enjoyed the colder weather (about -7 in the morning), still no snow, but the snow has stopped melting. We had some jobs/play to do, beginning with plowing the snow out of the driveway. Phil and Mark got the ride-on mower with snow plow on the front working and Phil had a quick lesson on how to use it. He was soon zipping up and down the driveway with a few yahoos for good measure. There was some general excitement before the plowing really began. Nan, Bogey, Annie, Mickey and I were happy enough to enjoy without partaking too much (I did get on for a brief ride).

Once the drive had been plowed we were able to stop for lunch; yummy toasted sandwhiches with egg, onion, bacon, ham and more. I think we called this a 'Belch', but regardless of the name, it was good. I felt pretty sleepy after supervising the plowing, so went for a short nap. Phil on the other hand still hand energy to burn and toys to play with, so he went out and cut up a tree with the chainsaw and then chopped it up in smaller pieces for the fire. The new snow pants proved not to be not just highly attractive, but useful as well as Phil stayed warm well into the evening.

Dinner was chicken on the BBQ, cooked in the snow, and it was delicious. This was followed by Bomb Alaska, with chocolate icecream and Mango gelati on the inside, which was awesome!

We were planning to have a camp fire with some of the hard earned firewood, but after a big day we decided to save it for our last evening. Instead we spent some time playing on the Internet and mucking around with our photos.

Highlight of the day: Phil would love to have his own snow plow and driveway full of snow.

5th January

2008-01-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

Today was our first full day with Mark and Nan and the dogs. We got to sleep in this morning and with an early night we ended up with about 10 hours sleep, which was fantastic! We had a slow morning and mostly enjoyed the views of outside from inside where it was warm. Upon venturing out though we discovered that it really wasn't that cold (that and the thermals were worth it). Today got to about 4 degrees and so much of the snow actually melted. There is still a lot on the ground but it has turned quite icy and there is none left on the trees.

Late in the morning we headed off for a drive and as Mark and Nan have been keeping up with our blog they know that we enjoy our shopping and thought they would take us on a shopping tour of Vernon (about an hour away). We did stop in Salmon Arm though to experience Tim Horton's. We had coffee/hot chocolates and a box of Tim Bits. Tim Bits are the holes from the middle of the donuts and come in a variety of flavours in a style much the same as Krispy Kremes. We all enjoyed them, including the dogs who came to help with the shopping.

We went to a variety of stores; Wal-Mart, Zellers, Sportscheck and more. My highlight was finding a clothing store called 'Tabi'. We may have bought a few things. In his rapture over the delights Mountain Equipment Co-op offered in Vancouver, Phil forgot that he needed thermals and gloves. His one long sleeved thermal was not going to make it through 8 days in the cold! Today he did remember to get these items so we will be able to let him back in the house.

It was totally dark by 4:30pm, which really played with our heads as it felt so late. Despite being a Saturday, the shops were open until 6pm, so we shopped all day finding lots of cool things that we don't get back home and being amazed at how cheap things are compared to back home.

We picked up a pizza for dinner on the way home and had a great evening with a great game of Dogopoly. I was excited to land on and buy the Labrador and dominated in the game for quite some time. My lucky streak did run out though towards the end, and although I lasted longer than Nan and Phil, I just couldn't take on the power and might that was the mogul Mark! He won in the end with a lot of money and property!

We are hoping for some snow in the morning, but it is at least supposed to be colder, so hopefully no more melting snow.

Highlight of the day: Tim Bits: when will they come to Australia?

4th January

2008-01-06T10:07:00.000-08:00

Had a busy morning this morning as we wanted to get to Stanley Park and have a look around. The weather was very grey and wet so we donned our rainjackets and headed out. We thought we had worked out where to get off the bus but it turns out we were one stop too late; this doesn't sound like a big deal except that the next stop was over the bridge and far away (probably 10kms). So we hopped off and had to go in search of a bus to get us back over the water again. By the time we got to Stanley Park the rain was coming down quite hard and when the map told us that the totem poles were all the way over the other side, we decided we would have to live without seeing them this time and headed back to the hotel.

We had pretty well packed up all our stuff so decided to head off to the airport early. Lucky we did as Vancouver airport was buzzing and there were people everywhere. We decided to leave two of our bags in Vancouver so that we weren't hauling all our worldly goods all over Canada. Besides which, the tiny plane we had to fly on may not have got off the ground if we took them with us! By the time we got through all the lines of people (baggage drop, security etc) we had no time for lunch and had to board almost immediately.

Our plane was late to leave, again, we are getting used to sitting on tarmac. The flight was quite bumpy as there were strong winds and our little plane got thrown around a little. We only flew at about 19000 feet and with little cloud cover the views were magnificent! There was a lot of snow and we got very excited to see it all.

Mark (the one armed, one legged bandit) picked us up at the airport, and whilst his commentary of the drive home really was interesting, the past week had got to both of us and we fell asleep on the drive home. Nan cooked a beautiful meal of cannelloni for dinner; it was so great to have something home cooked and also not deep fried! We got to know all the dogs (Bogey, Annie and Mickey) who are very excited at the prospect of extra tidbits with two extra people around, but the cats remain elusive. Our room is in the basement and the window is at ground level so we look out to a mass of snow, which has got to be the best view for the trip!

The weather has warmed up here and so whilst there is still a good covering of snow, there is no new snowfall, but we keep our fingers crossed!

Highlight for the day: The views of the snow and the mountains.

3rd January

2008-01-03T23:51:00.000-08:00

Had our one full day in Vancouver today and tried to make the most of it, but just not enough time to see this beautiful city so we will just have to come back! We began this morning by going shopping (a lot of shopping) we began at the Pacific Centre mall where we found breakfast and some thermals for me. We then found our way back to Mountain Equipment Co-op (where we had been last night) and finished getting just a few other things. Should Australia have the next ice age, we should be set. We then happened to come across a Toys R Us and found a great hall of Cars cars for Shane (I am sure you are all thrilled to hear). We finished our shopping spree with the purchase of a new suitcase to hold said purchases.

This afternoon we wanted to do Stanley Park and Grouse Mountain; however with the sun setting not long after 4:30pm we skipped straight to Grouse Mountain and hope to pop over to Stanley Park in the morning. We may have got a little side tracked on the way though and found ourselves in Staples (think US version of Officeworks) where I picked up a bargain external hard drive to start putting the photos on as the laptop seems to be getting a tad full. We did eventually get to Grouse Mountain though...

Upon arriving we heard all the young, hip looking skiers and snowboarders being told there were 90km winds and minimal vision on the slopes and they were advised not to go up. We were warned upon purchasing our tickets for the gondola that there was at least a 2 hour wait to get back down as there were so many people up there and that with the high winds there was a slight chance that they would shut the gondola and we would have to remain on the mountain for the evening; we decided to take our chances. We loaded onto the gondola and were then hearded off again to be told that no one was allowed up to go skiing or boarding and so most people were told to go home. We were allowed to stay as we were just visiting the chalet. The ride up was reminiscent of the Disneyland attractions with the wind throwing us around quite significantly at times, but we got there in one piece.

The objective of the trip was to see the beautiful view of Vancouver in the early evening but the visibility status meant we lost Vancouver half way up the hill. We enjoyed a film on the history of Grouse Mountain (well... Phil may have been testing his eye lids for light leaks) a viewing of the gift shop and some time in the cafe until the line for the return gondola trip went from 2 hours to 20 mins. By the time we returned the winds had slowed and people were heading up the hill again for a night ski. We did have to share our gondola with an injured skier on a stretcher, which did add to some of the excitement of the trip. Visibility had also improved and so we were able to enjoy the lights of Vancouver the whole way down.

We actually managed to get in by 9:30pm this evening, but alas, after having dinner, sorting through and repacking our stuff and updating the blog it is now after midnight again. We are looking forward to getting to Mark's tomorrow and hopefully having a rest.

Highlight of the day: not having to sleep on the floor of the chalet at Grouse Mountain with several hundred others!

2nd January

2008-01-03T00:17:00.000-08:00

A big day of travel today so not much news. We were on the suttle at 8:10am to be at the airport early (just in case) and lucky too as it was very busy. Had to fly Alaska Airlines. Our flight was due out at 12:21 but we were still on the tarmac at 1:00. We were also expecting lunch but didn't find out until mid way that you had to pay for it, and of course we spent all but a few dollars in the shop on jerky, chocolate and magazines before we got on the plane. Oh well we managed to share a snack box with cheese and biscuits etc (we could only afford 1). The bonus was that we arrived early enough to get an exit seat, which had awesome leg room and we even got to sit same row but opposite sides of the plane and so we both had a window!

Getting out of the US proved harder than getting in as we practically had to remove all but our underwear to get though the security gates to the boarding lounge (we only used 4 boxes to hold everything). This seems to be in line with the news story this morning where illegal Mexican immigrants have been recognised for their contributions to America.

Got to our hotel about 5ish and already dark. The next challenge was to find the outdoor shop we wanted to go to and find out if we could get there in time. It ended up being the fastest shopping experience ever before closing, but at least we got down jackets and even down slippers: mmm toasty feet!

We were home by half past nine, but after a phone call to Uncle Mark for some hot tips for Vancouver and mucking around on the blog, email and msn (I don't think there are too many other ways to communicate across the globe!) it happens to be after 12:30 AGAIN!!!

Highlight of the day: Clothes purchased for Tabitha in under 20 minutes with minmal tears and screaming!

PS the bear in the photo is for auction in our hotel if anyone is interested :o)

1st January

2008-01-02T23:47:00.000-08:00

Well I began the year absolutely exhausted and decided to have a quiet morning at the hotel. I washed some clothes, booked the shuttle bus to the airport, downloaded the photos, updated the blog and watched a little of the Rose Bowl Parade (which is apparantly quite big here in LA). Phil, on the other hand, battled his heavy eyelids and pounded the pavement in search for thrills and adventure! He arrived at the park and managed to do all the rides he had in mind at Disneyland that we had missed out on yesterday. We met up late in the morning and took a bus out to a local shopping mall. This was a Westfield and turned out to be much like the sort of shopping experience we had been looking for (ie, there were 6 toy stores and a food court). It was only half way down the road that I considered that January 1st in Australia is a public holiday and the shops are closed; have no fear, nothing shuts in LA (as long as you don't arrive before 10am)!

I should explain the story of the toy shops: Before Christmas we visited Phil's sister and discovered that her husband, Shane, is collecting the cars from the movie Cars. Phil got excited and decided to help out as Shane was having trouble searching for some of the collection in Tumby and Lincoln. We did manage to find 10 in Adelaide and have been on a hunt to find any others here in the States. We have so far had minimal luck.

By the middle of the afternoon we were still to make our way to California Adventure Park. Phil got there by 3pm and I wasn't far behind. We confirmed that California is much smaller than Disneyland, with about a third of the rides and about a third of the crowd! We managed to get through everything we wanted to do by the time the park was shutting down at half past 8. We then wandered back to Disneyland to do the Nemo submarine ride. This ride is the newest, and consequently the busiest; until this point, we hadn't seen it with less than a 90 minute wait. In the end we only had to wait about 45 minutes and it was worth it. From there, instead of going home, we found a few more rides. :o)

So it turned out to be another long and exhausting day, Phil walked for about 16 hours, but it was good and we were glad that we got through as much as we did considering the New Year's Eve crowds. Unfortunately another night to bed around 1am with an early start to pack up and be on the bus by 8am in the morning. We are looking forward to a quiet day tomorrow.

Highlight of the day: Phil's day of rides! #1 was definately the Californian Screamer! 22 rides today!!!

31st December

2008-01-01T10:24:00.000-08:00

Disneyland: "The happiest place on Earth" Well almost, if it weren't for all the people!!

We had our first day at Disneyland today. We have the 2 day hopper pass so that we can access both parks, but decided to start with the big one. We had to get here first though, which was a 2 hour bus drive from Downtown LA. We decided to skip the shuttles that run for anywhere between $20 and $4o pp and use the buses and trains as we were quite confident and it only cost $3.70 each. By the time we did the bus, the train and the half hour walk we got into the hotel about 11am. I stayed in and had a rest for an hour and Phil went adventuring down the road at Walmart.

Whilst Phil was out adventuring he discovered that Disneyland tickets were sold out. Luckily we had purchased ours ahead of time! Looking at our paperwork though we discovered that flight centre had issued the tickets to begin on the 1st of Jan, not the 31st of December. Luckily, the ticket office issued them anyway and we did get in. Other people who had driven into the park for the day were unable to purchase day passes and had to buy an annual pass if they wanted to enter as the numbers in the park were at capacity.

Once we got in there were people everywhere! You could not join a line that had less than a 75 min wait, most were longer, to get on any ride or attraction. As the night wore on, the lines got shorter, especially during meal times, parades and whilst people were waiting for fireworks. The fireworks show for 9:45 was cancelled due to wind conditions, but we managed still to have some at midnight. The fireworks spectacular was disappointing though with only one big bang. Although the park was open til 2am, we had had enough by midnight and Phil wanted to be up early to get on the rides before they got busy in the morning. Took another detour on the way home, Phil must stop listening to my opinion on direction; I might sound confident but anyone can see I really have no idea.

The rides and attractions in Disneyland are very well done, they look spectacular and there is a good variety. Most are fairly tame, although the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was certainly scary enough for me. I think Phil is looking forward to the rides with bigger thrills in the adventure park tomorrow. We did most rides including Dumbo, Winnie-the-pooh, Toad Hall, the Storybook Canal and Pinnochio's Daring Journey

There is much still to do, including the whole of the California Adventure Park, some parts we missed in Disneyland and a better look at the shops, including the large Lego store.

Highlight of the day: Getting Phil in Happy New Year Mickey Ears with his name on the back. ;o)

30th December

2007-12-30T23:19:00.001-08:00

We spent our last day in Hollywood today as we head to Anaheim tomorrow, and it was a BIG day! We bought a Hollwood tour book on Friday and still had 3 of the 4 attractions to do from it. We started this morning with a tour of the stars' homes, Rodeo Drive and Beverlly Hills. This was quite fun, but mostly it was on a bus so our feet got a rest. We took lots of photos of the homes lived in by our favourite stars. We then grabbed pizza for lunch and ate it whilst uploading our photos to the computer as we had a half hour to spare before our next tour and were just by the hotel. The aim was to get some of the names to the correct photos before we forgot them. :o)

After lunch we took a tour of the Kodak theatre. We have walked through this building everyday to get to Hollywood Blvd from our hotel, so it was good to see inside. The Kodak thetre is only about 7 years old and is the new home to the Oscars. We got to see the VIP areas, backstage, stand on the stage and sit in the same seats as the likes of Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman on Oscar night.

We had decided to take a trip out to see UCLA in the afternoon, after hearing that it was worth the trip. It was huge and we only saw part of it. The buildings are lovely and mostly quite new; many of the facilities were also used for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. There were lots of people around considering it is the middle of the break; some were locals, others were tourists. Found a great gift shop on the way back down the hill, but Phil is still disappointed that he hasn't managed to find a decent toy shop.

Somehow I managed to misplace our bus/train guide at some point in the afternoon so we were flying blind for the rest of the day. We had passed (unexpectantly) the Tar Pitts on our way to UCLA and so decided to make a stop there on the way back. This was definately worth it and we got some great pictures and avoided being eaten by any sabertooth tigers!

Our next plan was to get ourselves out to Griffith Park. Luckily Phil had commited the bus route to memory and so we headed off. Upon arriving at the bus stop for bus 96 to take us up the hill, we were informed that the bus wasn't running this week, so back on the bus we just got off to go back down the road a few kms. At attempt number 2 we knew we had a 10 minute walk up the hill; of course it is closer to 20 if you follow my advice and take the road past the pretty houses. Upon arriving at the gates to Griffith Park and heading in a bit further we concluded the Observatory was even further up the hill. Lets just say I am a little out of condition and was finding the walk rather difficult. We decided to wait at a shuttle bus stop to get to the top, but after the bus drove straight past us and we had had a 20 minute rest I agreed to finish the walk. It was worth it with great views of the city (coincidently, it was dark by this point, but the view was pretty) and a lovely new observatory, built of course by the Governator - Arnie. The shuttle bus did get us down the hill and infact all the way to the train station, avoiding a whole other bus ride!

We finished the evening with BBQ ribs, coleslaw and maccoroni cheese, a bottle of Merlot and a piece of Pecan pie. This did make up for the big walk!

Highlight for the day: Getting to the top of the hill!

29th December

2007-12-29T23:39:00.000-08:00

Went to Universal Studios today. This was so much fun and we are really looking forward to Disneyland now. We are really glad that we went and it is well worth the money. The food is unreal, it is easy to see how so many Americans are overweight. Discovered chilli cheese fries (fries covered with chilli mince and cheese), these could be addictive! Plent of Dippin Dots carts around. All one size and all prepacked, so the bored looking sales people had virtually nothing to do, didn't see more than 1 person at any cart!

Phil managed to get me on almost everything, the scariest being the Jurassic Park ride with the 84ft waterfall at the end of it, I may have screamed just a little. The Shrek 4D experience was cool, especially when Donkey sneezed all over us and we got sprinkled with snot! The tour was cool, even got to visit Wisteria Lane.

We finally found the shopping experience at City Walk alongside Universal studios! I got 2 pairs of shoes, amongst other things; there may not be much room for gifts.... :o)

Highlight of the day: Front of the line pass for Universal studios. This is the best invention ever! We did not have to wait for anything, walked straight past all the massive lines of people who paid $25 less than we did. Saved hours as some places had a 60 minute wait, we walked straight in. A close second is the all you can eat pass for $25 each which lets you have a meal, side and dessert every time you line up. We had lunch and dinner, so certainly got our $$ worth.

28th December

2007-12-28T23:51:00.000-08:00

Today was all about walking and shopping! We decided to see some of the shopping areas of LA today, and must admit we are a little disappointed. There is no main street in downtown LA to find shops, so we had a little hunting to do. We started with Macy's in the centre of town, or should I say infront of Macy's as LA does not awaken until 10am, so being there at 9am was a tad premature. After finding a semi reasonable toy/gift shop and nothing in Macy's we headed straight for Santee Alley with high expectations after recommendations from Adam. In turns out that Santee Alley is LA's version of the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne, with plenty of crap and a few gems. Phil took a fancy to a shirt and tie combination and plenty of caps, whilst I found a great new handbag. By mid afternoon we had done Santee Alley, the fashion, flower and toy district with minimal success.

After narrowly avoiding heading to the dodgy areas of town, we were directed to the Beverly Centre in our search for a shopping mall. This turned out to be an upmarket version of Westfield with a Macey's and a Bloomingdales. After hunting many stores, Tabitha finally found two pairs of jeans that she liked and covered all things that should be covered - Cuban's (Santee Alley) don't wear highcut jeans apparantly!

This evening we had dinner at the oldest resteraunt in Hollywood. The meal was delicious and filling, especially with the complimentary half loaf of sourdough bread on the table. We finished off the evening by going to the Hollywood wax museum and the Guiness World Records museum.

Today's highlight: LA locals who are extremely friendly and more than ready to offer assistance to anyone who stands still with a map for longer than 25 seconds.

27th December

2007-12-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

Well we have now done the 27 of December twice (almost) and are feeling every minute. We left home at 5:40am on Thursday morning to catch our flight to LA. After a short stop over in Melbourne and a delay on the tarmac while a woman and her family were unloaded due to illness, we were finally on our way. There were plenty of good movies to keep us enertained and drown out the noise of the children that were surrounding us (2 directly beside use and 3 directly infron). Neither of us slept much and the flight was absolutley packed (minus one sick person and her family). It was humerous to see one obnoxious woman and her mother, sitting across the aisle from us, try to upgrade to business class after boarding and doing a headcount of passengers under 12 in their direct vicinity.

We made it through customs and immigration with no hastles but got ripped of by our taxi driver who didn't even know how to get to Hollywood Boulevard! A lesson learned no doubt.

We were unable to check into the hotel until 2pm, so we dropped off the bags and went in search of a hot chocolate, which we found, along with a humerous young magician who was up for a chat. We headed off for a walk along the boulevard, discovered that public toilets are not common in town at all, but did find some bargins with Phil managing to purchase 3 suits for an awesome price!!

Finally got back to the hotel for a nap and a shower before checking out the night life. By 4pm, the Boulevard was much more alive and the lights were very cool. Have walked the main strip a couple of times today and so will try further afield tomorrow.

Highlight of the day: Dinner was the most delicious and humongous slice of American Cheese Pizza, eaten whilst wondering the streets. Best flavour and price!

Why blog?

2007-12-25T21:30:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

I have had thoughts of creating a personal blog for a while now, especially since I have 2 going at school! So many of our friends and families are not in Adelaide and, or even in the same hemisphere, and with such an exciting year ahead, what better time to start.

For anyone not yet up to date, Phil and I got engaged on the 9th of December at Scotts Creek. We are thinking October 3rd 2008 for the wedding, but will look into that more closely in the new year.

Tomorrow (27th of December) we head off on our trip overseas. We start in LA before heading to Canada to see the sights, my uncle and lastly, Phil's cousin's wedding. We shall endevor to post updates and some photos to the blog and keep you up to date with our travels.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas day and have great plans for New Year's Eve (we will be at Disneyland).

Must go finish packing!

Tabitha