Happy 60th Dad and bringing the blog back to life

Not long now and we'll be heading off to Ireland and a few other countries as part of the Jade Hunt wedding experience!

However, this little entry is to wish our Dad/Father in Law, Jeff Snr a Happy 60th Birthday! Dad has the best wit and sense of humour and loves to BS with the best of them - all traits that his children picked up instead of me of course!! :) Well, ok I got the wit and the humour but not the BS!

We travelled up to Rosemeadow on Sat night to celebrate Dad's birthday with a surprise birthday organised by his number 1 grandchild (out of ten). This was a great party and appropriate that Demi organised it (and the ipad b'day present) as dad loves his grandchildren big time and always has time for them. Of course, he loves Tommy and Phoenix as well - by feeding them lots of treats!

Happy birthday Dad and I look forward to your 70th!


Love Stacey and Jeff (Jnr) and those pesky puppies


Keep an eye out for more posts soon.

Home Sweet Home

Well we can't believe a month has come and gone so quickly...... we made it home following enjoying a last couple of days in Santa Monica before the long flight home. Unfortunately we had no such luck as to be upgraded for that final and most crucial leg, so after enjoying the luxuries of business and premium economy seats you can well imagine our chargrin as we squeezed into our little seats like battery hens and suffered 14 hours (13 in the air plus 1 on the tarmac) of noise, cramps and restless interrupted sleep.....all we can say is thank God for noise cancelling headphones! We have just finished checking out how many frequent flyer points we need to geta premium economy flight to Asia.....we must be getting soft in our old age!

And so now we have finished unpacking, washing, balancing the bank books and bills etc and preparing to slot back into reality when we have to go to work tomorrow, it is time for a few short reflections of the month that was our trip in America.

As always - a review of lost and found:

Lost = Stacey won this category for the first time, Jeff was unusally fastidious in accounting for his belongings, as afar as we can see, lost items included, keys, a pad lock for the luggage and the money belt with travel documents, both of which diasappeared in the same hostel room moments asfter having them in our hand...that room was dubbed 'the Bemuda triangle' as our things seemed to randomly appear and disappear at will. The good news is as they all reappeared they can be counted in the 'found' category as well!
Other lost things - a pair of sunglasses, computer and ipod cables, and some jewellery (earings and necklace) bought as a present for Susan from the Navajo Indians, plus we returned with several partnerless socks. Just how does that happen? Socks seem to be particulary skilled at escaping!

Found = not sure if technically speaking purchases can be included as 'found' items......but given we have just visited the spiritual home of capitalism we felt it only appropriate to partake in consumerist activities. And some of our shopping did involve a bit of searching! We did find a piece of volcanic rock after taking a slight detour off the highway through paddocks (if the car rental company ask, we NEVER took the car off-road), finding our way out of some of the more dubious parts of San Fracisco with our lives intact was also a particular achievement! We found a shop in Vegas where you can hire a gun, and at the time we found that both amusing and strange- but after visiting San Fran we began to think that perhaps the idea had some merits. A bit of orienteering was involved in finding "Fruity Pebbles" (think fruit loops on drugs) to bring home for Mindy, especially as we were searching in hoity toity Santa Monica where all the grocery stores were 'organic Wholefood markets!'

Favourite Sayings:
We always like to pick up a few words or phrases of the local lingo, and America was no different - our number one favourite would have to be about 'rooting in the stands' at the baseball - it brought us many minutes of laughter! as did if we said 'thank you' we were often treated to a response of 'uhhh hu' - first truly experienced from the good folk of Tonapah. We quickly learnt to modify our own speech after we were greeted with a few blank expressions when we asked for 'the bill', or when Jeff mentioned something a bout a 'bloke' to a perplexed fellow in a clothes shop as they both waited for their respective spouses to try on more and more clothes and when Stacey requested 'wholemeal' bread. But we got into the spirit of things and found ourselves asking where the 'restrooms were' ordered 'cawfee', enjoyed a 'soda' and declined some 'cotton candy'.

Favourite TV Programs = Well America is the home of over 500 cable tv channels---- did you expect that we wouldn't watch any tv?? We limited ourselves to only quality programs - a documentary on Schappelle Corby, episodes of Jerry Springer and the spin off show hosted by his bodyguard Steve, Judge Joe Brown, and for most creative fiction our favourite show award goes to Fox News.

Oh well, it's not going to be as interesting as trying to understand the japanese and their crazy tv shows on our next trip!!

Hope you enjoyed the blog - apprently it is too boring and will be receiving a makeover so watch this space!

Cheers

Stacey and Jeff - happy to be home to the sleepy dog...7pm, must be bed time!

The Mets of New York and other tales

Hello to you all...this blog is coming to you from the beginning of the end of our trip at JFK Airport NYC on our way back to LA for a couple of nights and a few days swimming and shopping with the bodies beautiful.



NYC is a magic place and way too big to cover in 4 days, we need another week to even touch on the things we wanted to do. The title of the blog is inspired by the themes of NYC...the subway (metro), the Met Museum and the NY Mets baseball team...not to forget the Met theatre off broadway.



Broadway was our introduction to NYC as we stepped off the train with heavy suitcases and it was the middle of the lunch hour...the place was busy and we never thought we would get to our hostel...the task of pushing 2 25 kilo bags through a crowd of pushy people at every corner was a difficult on. Our hostel was in a handy location just off Times Square and the last minute decision to switch to a private room was worth the few extra dollars.



The first Met that we experienced was the Subway....difficult to understand and navigate the first few times, b ut convenient a nd quick nonetheless. We headed to Little Italy for a bite to eat and thought we were about to see a few Carlton Blues jumpers around as it's very similar to Lygon Street. We passed up the opportunity of reflexology in nearby Chinatow n and walked up to the Brooklyn Bridge. Tip from Jeff is to watch out for cyclists in this part of town as you may - as he almost did, get knocked over if you don't pay attention. We wandered down to Wall Street and ran into a girl that had a puppy that was a sheltie cross and got talking to her and picked up a few tips on Manhattan (who knows if people in Manhattan get off the island to Jersey or the other boroughs? One gets the impression they may not!). We ended up on the river across from the Statue (you know the one with the girl in a big dress with a lit cigarette in her hand) and watched the sunset before walking back to the subway via the WTC. On the ride home we were ëntertained"by a group of breakdancers hustling for cash and also a few beggars...they're quite common on the trains from what we've seen.



As has been the theme of this trip we got up late the next day and as a result we only hit a few attractions like the continuous line at the Empire State Building...waste of time...lining up all day and not the best view anyway. More interesting in the afternoon was the visit to the Bodies exhibition where they had real cadavas on display and body parts in glass cases...it was an amazing experience, educational and thought provoking and didn't even feel weird to be so close to dead bodies in interesting poses, though you were n't allot to touch!! I think Stacey got a grope in somewhere..



We picked up tickets to a play - Mary Stuart - on thbe way home and hit broadway that night. The play was great and we were three rows back. Recommended, as are the shish kebabs that we had on the way home from there, bought from a street corner stand. According to the egyptian who sold them to us all the women in NYC are "b@tch@s because of the way they dress...hmmm tolerance is a wonderful thing!



Stace promised a trip to the Met the next day and I got all dressed up for the baseball. We walked through Central Park and she pronounced that we were there...no baseball in sight, just lots of artsy fartsy paintings and sculptures...lucky me. It was time for crisis talks. Sure her birthday was coming up but there was no need to play such games. As we walked through harlem we hired a few negotiators and ended up agreeing to hit the baseball that night. That and we better get outta there before dark hit.



And so on saturday night we went out to near the US Open stadium to Citi Field - the home of the NY mets, We had seats on the top of Pepsi Porch and enjoyed a great game...won by the Mets as a result of a "Grand Slam"by Angel Pagan (he had god and the devil on his side - how could he go wrong?)...The team song was going on about how we should root in the stand...but as it was our first time we decided not to, modesty! We filled up on hot dogs, soda and kettle korn. What a night.



On sunday we went out to Liberty island. It was a short trip - not too much exciting about a french gift to the US made of copper and holding a fag in her hand. That and it was puring down rain and jeff was angry at the deprivation of his liberties by security as they confiscated his grand canyon swiss army knife. Apparently it's a prohibited item....maybe he was going to stab the statue....only problem was the knife was no goood anyway...could never get it out!



Miss Maimse and her spoonbread delights in Harlem soon lifted the spirits! This place is a gem and thanks to Patrick for the tip. Jeff dined on Southern Meatloaf and Stacey the fried Chicken. Bill Clinton is a fan and we are now as well. Mind you the food was served in good size portions requiring a meander through and around central park to wear it off. Not to be put off, we still managed to go out for dinner to a cool brazilian place in Alpabet City (lower east side manhatten) where we indulged in cocktails as we enjoyed the entertainment.

We spent this morning exploring SOHO, with the plan to hit the shops for stacey's birthday. Unfortunately we didnt get to stay for long, as we needed to run the gauntlet back to the trains in ordr to get out to the airport.

We have been upgraded again (premium econonmy, but in business class seats- Qantas being nic e as it is stacey's birthday today) cant wait for the flight! hopefully we will get to post another blog entry before we head home where we are under no illusions that we will get another upgrade....we are sure the 13 hours in economy on the final flight will bring us back down to reality, but until then we will enjoy lliving the high life!

To Mars and Beyond…… Or perhaps just Washington DC

Well we are currently en-route to New York via a very packed Amtrak train, enjoying the sights of Maryland and Philadelphia (oh we’re in Jersey now) as they fly by our window. Thus ends our time in DC, which after a hairy start, turned out really well. I have christened the hostel we stayed in as “Fawlty Towers” following our dramas with checking in, the eccentric rules around thou shalt take thy shoes off to enter, and not to mention the window curtain rod collapsing in the middle of the night (with a little bit of help from a rather odd fellow roommate), the mysterious case of the room lights ceasing to work and several cold showers, which although a little off-putting was strangely refreshing given the high humidity and temperamental air-conditioning system.


Outside the hostel confines was a great city, very easy to navigate by foot, lovely parks and architecture, friendly people, an impressive National Mall, good vibe and excellent (end even better - free) museums. Unfortunately 2 days wasn’t enough to explore everything we hoped to see, so we will have it note it as a place to return to in future travels. This was compounded by us still being on west coast time, a lack of quality sleep and late starts to the day despite our best intentions of hitting the town early.


Day 1 consisted of visiting the front (and back…..for some reason they wouldn’t let us go inside) of the White House. We were just in time to witness a protest against the treatment of Uhghers by the Chinese Government (but why they were protesting outside the White House and not the Chinese Embassy we couldn’t quite understand), along with the more typical anti-nuclear, pro-peace, anti- Israel, pro Palestinian agitators. We were pleased to hear that conspiracy theories are still in vogue….. Apparently it was a conspiracy by an unlikely coalition of Jewish bankers, the Freemasons and Catholic radicals that brought Obama to power…..those of the far right are claiming that Obama shouldn’t be President because he wasn’t born in the US…. That the validated birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii was a fraud….they even tried to get their ridiculous claims heard by the Supreme Court! We love American politics, much more lively than our dull Kev…..although it appears a restaurant in DC has been named in his honour FuddRuckers!!! Kevin from Queensland has made it to the bigtime!
While checking out the back of the White House we watched a cavalcade of police cars, secret service and what looked to be Obama going past….Jeff swears he got a wave……or perhaps just a finger??
We checked out Capitol Hill, the National Monument, plus monuments to Jefferson and Lincoln (all very Greco- Romanesque) and the Franklin Roosevelt monument which was my personal favourite. The Korean War Memorial was good too….lots of sculptures arranged as though the soldiers are advancing though a field. They are planning to build a monument to Martin Luther King Jnr which will be good to visit, but so far it is just a plaque on the ground. We also visited the Natural History Museum and enjoyed an exhibit on the peoples of Africa and lost track of time in the Air and Space Museum whilst marvelling at the mysteries of the universe, checking out the lunar landing module, astronauts suits, a test version of the Hubble telescope, plus some disturbing nuclear rockets, ballistic missiles and the Wright Brothers Original aeroplane. Jeff was fascinated by the logistics of Air traffic Control while Stacey checked out the little robot dude deployed on Mars. We had planned to visit a few other museums but didn’t quite make it…..I guess it just means we will have to come back.

And so start spreading the news….I’m leaving today…..its up to you New York New York!!!!

Utah Pics....and no mormon wore a suit - it was way too hot

The day starts with Stacey posing at the border after a short drive from Kayenta..the town in the middle of the Navajo reservation. Stace thought the sign said Don Juan not san Juan..hence the smile.

Jeff gets reacquainted with his 3 sisters...or maybe he's just missing echo point? Finally Australia has something bigger than the American equivalent!! Which one is which? Careful now...one's short but skinny...one looks like a beer bottle and the other one I cannot describe. Talking about the ones in the photo of course.

This is how we wanted to tour the valley....but we decided that 5 horsepower of the sewing machine was better than one horse. However, as far as our rental company is concerned we never went off road!

Can you see the scorpion? Look harder...you will find it! When you do let us know where it is...the first correct answer will be rewarded with a Hershey's Bar delivered to you personally on our return!

After a 2 hourphotography course at the Grand Canyon, jeff started to think he was a good photographer. Well, he may need just a few more (intensive) courses yet, but this photo isn't too bad.

Look...it's a pair of buttes!!

Stacey got artsy fartsy on the road...here is a canyon at canyonlands National Park, taken at 80mph in sepia...not bad....it's like a window to the blue sky...without the blue!

Different arch - this one is available in colour.

And as for this photo...it's just to prove to Mr Taxman that I did a bit of research to see what Gerringong may look like (perhaps).....

A short note...LA to DC

We are now in DC and have just finished attending to laundromat tasks. DC feels like Vietnam in the middle of the wet season...hot and sticky...and we decide to spend half a day in a laundromat (whoch of course adds to the humidity)...we came out 5 kilos lighter!

We arrived here at Midnight last night after starting the day at 7am..a whole day of travelling. We arrived at check in at LAX to be told we didn't have seats together and the flight was full! Great times travelling in a packed cabin coming our way and not even sitting together. The check in agent worked something out and we finally got seats together and we then headed off to the close to strip search security line...you have to take off shoes, belts and all that jazz...and of course empty them pockets.

We quicklhy ran up to Qantas Club to have breakfast and check emails...a short stop but one that came in handy for the food at least and the retreat from the terminal which is a construction zone. Upon lining up for boarding and as we handed over our boarding passes they were scanned and then the computer made a buzz like there was an error...we thought there must've been something wrong...maybe we were bumped off the flight?

The lady who took our tickets worked hard at the computer trying to work out what the story was...and then her supervisor looked over and eenquired...Ïs that Whitë?"He then announced we had been bumped.........to Premium Economy and handed over our new boarding passes! So we not only got to sit together and only with each other (2 seat groups), we had larger seats, greater recline, touchscreen tvs, no seats in front...we also got a champagne before takeoff and ate lunch with real cutlery and glasses. Not to mention the nice cup of plunger leaf tea, which is a change to the cardboard they push as tea elsewhere in the states. We only wish we could have those seats for the longhaul as we'd be able to sleep no problem at all. In any case we certainly enjoyed the 5 hour flight and the benefits of the upgrade, our thanks be to Qantas...

Upon arrival at JFK we waited almost an hour for our bags and then changed terminals...we had a flight with American to catch to DC...that airline is so disorganised and seems to want to charge you for everything. If they're Qantas equivelant for the US I wouldn't like to fly the low cost carriers, We had to go through about 5 different bag drop agents who were generally rude to us before we got checked in and bags loaded on.

We headed up to the lounge for a drink and got our boarding passes just before scheduled departure. Headed to the gate and then waited...and waited...and threw in a bit more of waiting just for the fun of it...the plane was delayed for over 2 hours. Even after boarding we were stuck in a queue getting out to the runway that took an hour...all in a pokey little plane...2 seats one side, single seats the other and Jeff could not stand up in them with low roof.

We got to DC at Midnight after some "fun"flying and then caught a cab to the hostel. Of course, the hostel was closed despite knowing we'd be late. We were lucky to have a taxi driver that waited with us, offered to find other hotels and was generally helpful. We were also lucky to meet 2 swedish guys coming back from a few drinks out who let us into the hostel.

We were just about to fall asleep on the loungeroom when 2 drubk guys and a girl came back, turned the tv on loud and ate takeout,,,we found out 30 mins later they were the staff!! He then tries it on and was quite rude to us and if it wasn't 2.30am we wouldve found somewhere else. After some arguments he settles down, takes our cash and helps us with our bags up to the room...where we are now laying on the bed typing this...We hear there's more to DC than a Hostel dorm and we haven't eaten in close to 24 hours so we better get out there.

See you soon

Stace and Jeff

PS. Keep those comments coming in.....so we know someone's reading it at least!! :)

Californication

Hi everyone!
Apologies again for the delay between blogs, time has got away from us and we have had a bit of trouble accessing the net for decent periods of time.
Well last entry took us up to our interesting encounters in a dodgy San fran laundromat (you will be pleaed to know that I behaved myself today in a DC laundromat with no serious grief befalling us, but more of DC later). We survived dodgy dirty cold San Francisco, and walked away with a sharpening of our street smarts, educated on the workings of street dealers, hookers and the ways in which the copious homeless people survive life on the streets. One homeless guy had a pretty cool sense of humour, wandering around town with a cardboard sign saying "happy friday". It was certainly an eye opener, somewhat disturbing to see the daily block long lines of the homeless seeking food and clothing from a local church mission, however that was juxtaposed against some of the more beautiful sights of the city. Not to mention lovers fornicating in a park next to Universal studios filming scenes for a new TV series called Trauma, while a homeless dude gatecrashed the filming to serenade the cast and crew with a rendition of "my girl"! We saw him later singing the same song in a lolly shop seeking change from customers, After being told to move on by the owner of the store, he called her a racist and then told her she need to change cause the president is a blackass now!

We enjoyed a trip across to the island of Alcatraz and took a self guided tour through the prison, and despite Jeff's threats and posturing, he did not dare to lock Stacey up and leave her in a cell! We actually met an ex-inmate named Darwin Coon of all things....lucky he didn't grow up in Australia! Upon our return to the mainland we carried out the obligatory tourist tasks of walking through North Beach and Chinatown to union square, where there was a pretty cool art display...good enough to make sure stacey didn't runoff into the adjacent Macys or Tiffanys. This was followed by a crowded cable car ride to Fishermans Wharf...where we retreated to Starbucks to warm up with a Hot Chocolate or 2. The line was so long for the return cable car we decided to walk up the steep hills back into town...they are on an incline of close to 40 degrees and went on for 500m or so...luckily our legs were steel springs and they helped us run like leopards!

We also walked about 15km around the city in a day spent exploring the Golden gate Park in search of Bison which we eventually managed to find, enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park and then set off to walk the golden gate bridge. The sun actually made a brief appearance which was great to see the harbour and the bridge, not unlike another harbour city we can think of, except we have never suffered frostbite crossing the Syd harbour bridge and the top of it doesn't get lost in fog or rolling cloud!

After leaving San Fran we left with high hopes of rediscovering that californian summer we had heard so much about. we spent 2 days heading down highway1 along the coast to LA, past santa cruz, santa barbara, monterey and the Big Sur. It was pretty foggy and cool so we didnt get to appreciate the beauty of the coastline in full, but it was still very pretty, and we would be keen to revisit for a few days camping if we could...probably on the same beach with the elphant seals, as they looked pretty comfy there laying on the sand (if they weren't fighting with each other that is).

Our road trip ended in typical style with a stop at a Pancake House (not part of a chain which is hard to find on the road), where we scoffed down a few pancakes and iced tea and coke...and stacey was too scared to try the root beer! This was followed with a traffic jam that lasted about 5 miles and took 2 hours to get through and we then sailed through on a couple of interstates back to the Airport and retired to the Crowne Plaza for the night...topped off with a feast of buffalo wings, calamari, salads and sandwiches ala room service style...all in readiness for the haul across the continent the next day..