So, I'm in Breckenridge, Colorado, and it's cold. It's really ncie and fun though. It's like 3 km in the sky, so the air is mighty thin, helps me get "fit" though!
It snowed the other day and it was like a foot deep, and it was pretty fun, it's 0 humidity, so while it's cold, it's never really miserable. I missed all the -20 weather and these days it's around 2 degrees so that's pretty managable. Also, Americans HATE to be uncomfortable, so it's always warm inside.
And the food. I tried to take some photos but I can't upload them here but the food is amazing in it's extremities. It's also ridiculous what Americans have to be reminded about too. I saw an ad for a car, and the guy drove off a jetty into the water and at the bottom of the screen "do not attempt" but I guess it's because they love to sue over here.
I had a terrible plane trip, because I hate flying, maybe I need to drink more water, I'm not sure really. In America I got pulled over into a seperate customs office to get interrogated, because they thought it was dodgy I was travelling without my wife. Typical American hardass enforcers though. They took me through and I asked why I was in there and they'd say "just wait there" and they wouldn't help me out at all until they actually talked to me, they love to intimidate with their black uniforms and bolbous abdominal regions.
LA airport was crazy, instantly someone gave me a hardcover hari krishna book, and then I got a quarter pounder at the airport (how could I not?) and was served by a sassy mexican girl that sounded like rosi perez (? from white men can't jump) and then found the way to my other terminal, and managed to not buy burger king from the two burger kings on the walk from the start of terminal 4 to gate whatever-it-was.
I got picked up by Tim and his girlfriend Christine (thanks!!!!) and driven to Breckenridge, about an hour away.
I'm going to go to Denver on Thursday I think, get into a backpackers and explore the city, and then on Saturday at 6 am I've got a flight back to LA to meet Alice, and I honestly can't wait! I've missed her so much in the last week, well, half week, but it seems like so long!
We're going out for $2 wings tonight in a different city I think, it should be fun. And tasty. Oh, and the microwave pizzas here are the very best, they also contain approximately 120% of your daily recommended dosage of fat so I share them.....
Oh and did I mention I hate tax? Think that $0.99 burger is actually going to cost $0.99? You'd better think again buddy. And it means I end up with the worst change in my pocket because everything ends up costing $x.43 or something and it's a pain in the ass, but then again, if you're being served, you just round up to the next dollar or so as a tip, they're actually pretty trusting here, you really do just leave the money on the table and leave and they grab it later. Pretty cool really.
Americans are pretty friendly, but I will admit, not very smart.. Not really arrogant though, although I am in Colorado and not LA so maybe I'll experience something different.
Anyway, time to go buy some toilet paper and some lunch for tomorrow from the city-mart supermarket.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Goodbyes
The fun thing about going away is all the nice goodbye do's you have before you go. So far we've had a great time
Having Indian with Douglas and Raewyn
Having Pizza with Kris, Sam, Paula, Cam and Jane
Having beers with the boys from Cutting Edge (Andrew's work)
Having lazy afternoon drinks with Rach
Having prayers and mud cake with the bible study crew
Signing papers and saying goodbyes to our awesome lawyers
Late night coffee with Sarah and her boys
Cheese with Tina and baby Adelin
We look forward to
An Indian extravaganza with the Browns
Teppanyaki with the Birses
Book club yummies with the nursing girls
Cornish pasties after work with Sue
Hanging out with Mike, Katrina and all the many Sampson children
Perhaps we could delay the trip and just keep having goodbye do's..................
Having Indian with Douglas and Raewyn
Having Pizza with Kris, Sam, Paula, Cam and Jane
Having beers with the boys from Cutting Edge (Andrew's work)
Having lazy afternoon drinks with Rach
Having prayers and mud cake with the bible study crew
Signing papers and saying goodbyes to our awesome lawyers
Late night coffee with Sarah and her boys
Cheese with Tina and baby Adelin
We look forward to
An Indian extravaganza with the Browns
Teppanyaki with the Birses
Book club yummies with the nursing girls
Cornish pasties after work with Sue
Hanging out with Mike, Katrina and all the many Sampson children
Perhaps we could delay the trip and just keep having goodbye do's..................
Friday, March 9, 2007
not long
I'm off on the 22nd, today is the 10th.
I think the only thing left to finalise is the insurance. We decided to pre-book a place in Amsterdam, as it's expensive and popular (why?)
1 week of work left. 6 1/2 years at my job, I can't believe I'm finally finishing, wow it's amazing!
I think the only thing left to finalise is the insurance. We decided to pre-book a place in Amsterdam, as it's expensive and popular (why?)
1 week of work left. 6 1/2 years at my job, I can't believe I'm finally finishing, wow it's amazing!
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Aspects of research
It's probably quite obvious, but you want to have an idea about where your going, about the things in the cities that you're going to. I mean, imagine coming to Christchurch and not going to the square and seeing that massive cup/chalice thing made of leaves! You might as well have not even come!
The idea here, is I'm going to research some places, and then write about it. You think that's boring? Well I've got news for you buddy, it's my blog and I'll write what I damn well want to write. Also, if you hate history, well, you're (not) in luck, because this blog isn't just fun, it's edufuncational!
Anyway, Rotterdam. We leave Amsterdam on a boat to Rotterdam despite the fact that it's like an hour on the train, in fact, I just learned, only 80kms. We're taking an easycruise which is a cruise ship, but don't let yourselves think that it's a luxury cruise liner, it's a ship with cabins, and it's about as cheap as normal accomodation, only you're moving. So, we get to Rotterdam at 1pm and then have to leave by 4am the next morning. So we get the afternoon to do what we can in the city, have dinner, wander/drink and then get back.
Here is what Rotterdam looks like:
Holy moly! I didn't know we'd be catching up with Christopher Columbus! Also, did you know that blogger has terrible html when you use it to add images. I had to edit the html because it looked ugly? html should look somewhat sexy but always decent and in control.
Rotterdam has the biggest port in Europe. They do a lot of shipping there I assume. Rotterdam also has a Tax Museum. The population is about 600,000. Apparently there is a reasonable amount of northern African inhabitants that live in or around streets, which also apparently isn't really an issue, despite the fact that there has been recent tension between the native Dutch and Muslims.
The natural centre of the city was bombed away in WWII, so there's a lot of new architecture (sweet) but the city lacks a centralised "feel", or so they say.
Since Rotterdam has like 14 million museums, no doubt we'll have to check a couple out, which ones though I don't know. I'm not personally all that interested in art history, but they have an architecture museum and this one with a really weird website. They also have a zoo with an aquarium, and Alice loves aquariums, so we should probably go there! They also have a massive tall thing, one of those things cities do so they can be better than others. This one is called the Euromast Space Tower, and has been extended a number of times to retain records.
There doesn't actually appear to be a whole lot else in the city, I mean, I'm sure there is, but Rotterdam isn't a massive tourist destination, so a lot of the experiencing we're going to have to do is just that, experiencing the city, which is fine by me, even though as I mentioned the city doesn't really have a centre, so it might not be easy.
Antwerp is no longer the Netherlands, it's Belguim. It's one last stop before Brussels. "Antwerp, the second biggest city in Belgium and also one of the biggest ports in Europe, is the capital of the province of the same name. As well as being at the forefront of the diamond industry, it’s also well known as one of the most up-and-coming fashion design centres in Europe."
This handy guide informs me.. It too has more museums than McDonalds, so maybe we could drop by some of them. We really are going to be spoilt for choice with Museums in Europe, but in these two places, we're only going to have a few hours of day-time, so mabye we might have to skip them just to do some other things, although, in these relatively old cities that aren't real touristy, maybe there won't be all that much else to do, tourist wise. There will always be lots to see, as in, look at but not all that much to do. We might have to find a "trendy" bar and sit and drink the day away, as Antwerp is meant to be quite a fashionable city, although, I'm sure that means that I just won't fit in.
I guess there's not a lot of point trying to work out too much about these cities any more than I've done. I guess when we get there these cities hopefully will be a bit more obvious, and I'm sure that we'll see the bunches of drunks that are on the cruise with us, which will make it interesting too.
The idea here, is I'm going to research some places, and then write about it. You think that's boring? Well I've got news for you buddy, it's my blog and I'll write what I damn well want to write. Also, if you hate history, well, you're (not) in luck, because this blog isn't just fun, it's edufuncational!
Anyway, Rotterdam. We leave Amsterdam on a boat to Rotterdam despite the fact that it's like an hour on the train, in fact, I just learned, only 80kms. We're taking an easycruise which is a cruise ship, but don't let yourselves think that it's a luxury cruise liner, it's a ship with cabins, and it's about as cheap as normal accomodation, only you're moving. So, we get to Rotterdam at 1pm and then have to leave by 4am the next morning. So we get the afternoon to do what we can in the city, have dinner, wander/drink and then get back.
Here is what Rotterdam looks like:
Holy moly! I didn't know we'd be catching up with Christopher Columbus! Also, did you know that blogger has terrible html when you use it to add images. I had to edit the html because it looked ugly? html should look somewhat sexy but always decent and in control.
Rotterdam has the biggest port in Europe. They do a lot of shipping there I assume. Rotterdam also has a Tax Museum. The population is about 600,000. Apparently there is a reasonable amount of northern African inhabitants that live in or around streets, which also apparently isn't really an issue, despite the fact that there has been recent tension between the native Dutch and Muslims.
The natural centre of the city was bombed away in WWII, so there's a lot of new architecture (sweet) but the city lacks a centralised "feel", or so they say.
Since Rotterdam has like 14 million museums, no doubt we'll have to check a couple out, which ones though I don't know. I'm not personally all that interested in art history, but they have an architecture museum and this one with a really weird website. They also have a zoo with an aquarium, and Alice loves aquariums, so we should probably go there! They also have a massive tall thing, one of those things cities do so they can be better than others. This one is called the Euromast Space Tower, and has been extended a number of times to retain records.
There doesn't actually appear to be a whole lot else in the city, I mean, I'm sure there is, but Rotterdam isn't a massive tourist destination, so a lot of the experiencing we're going to have to do is just that, experiencing the city, which is fine by me, even though as I mentioned the city doesn't really have a centre, so it might not be easy.
Antwerp is no longer the Netherlands, it's Belguim. It's one last stop before Brussels. "Antwerp, the second biggest city in Belgium and also one of the biggest ports in Europe, is the capital of the province of the same name. As well as being at the forefront of the diamond industry, it’s also well known as one of the most up-and-coming fashion design centres in Europe."
This handy guide informs me.. It too has more museums than McDonalds, so maybe we could drop by some of them. We really are going to be spoilt for choice with Museums in Europe, but in these two places, we're only going to have a few hours of day-time, so mabye we might have to skip them just to do some other things, although, in these relatively old cities that aren't real touristy, maybe there won't be all that much else to do, tourist wise. There will always be lots to see, as in, look at but not all that much to do. We might have to find a "trendy" bar and sit and drink the day away, as Antwerp is meant to be quite a fashionable city, although, I'm sure that means that I just won't fit in.
I guess there's not a lot of point trying to work out too much about these cities any more than I've done. I guess when we get there these cities hopefully will be a bit more obvious, and I'm sure that we'll see the bunches of drunks that are on the cruise with us, which will make it interesting too.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Destinations
We're going to be visiting a lot of places on this trip. I'm going to try to list the main stops we've planned, to see if I can remember:
LA
Colorado
Las Vegas
Tijuana
San Francisco
Miami
Carribbean Islands
New York
London
Amsterdam
Antwerp
Rotterdam
Brussels
Paris?
Madrid
Marakech
Barcelona
Egypt
Whole bunch of European cities on the way from Barcelona to Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece
Hong Kong
Thailand
It's late and I can't think. This list doubles for me so I can keep a track of my preperations too.
LA
Colorado
Las Vegas
Tijuana
San Francisco
Miami
Carribbean Islands
New York
London
Amsterdam
Antwerp
Rotterdam
Brussels
Paris?
Madrid
Marakech
Barcelona
Egypt
Whole bunch of European cities on the way from Barcelona to Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece
Hong Kong
Thailand
It's late and I can't think. This list doubles for me so I can keep a track of my preperations too.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
plans so far
So we've had a bit of a hard decision to make. In order to go to Egypt we'd either have to move some flights so we don't cut into our Europe time, or cut into our Europe time. We don't want to cut into our Europe time, so we had to see if we could move the flight from the UK to Bangkok back 2 weeks. Well, it was only possible to move it back 6 weeks, which would mean we'd be spending about an extra 6-8 weeks travelling longer than we had expected. So instead of either of those two, now we're re-issuing our tickets so that instead of going from the UK -> Bangkok, we now go to Hong Kong in between, for two weeks (we hope) so now we get to experience China too! Bonus! Then fly directly into Koh Samui, not the 'kok.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Ejipt
Guess what. I've been abused that I haven't been updating this thing. Don't get mad at me it's just as much Alice's job too!
Anyway, We've decided to add Egypt to our trip. We still don't know how we're going to get there, well, we have options, but they're all expensive. Thankfully Egypt itself isn't, with accommodation costing less than $6 some places.. We're planning to go there for 2 weeks. Did I also mention we're going to Morocco? That's 2 African countries we'll be going to!
It's only 4 weeks and 3-4 days until I go and then another week until Alice leaves. Wow it's close. There's still a few things to do. We have to choose travel insurance. One option is a cheaper medical only one (probably the potentially most expensive thing that could happen), and then another is a comprehensive one, which is considerably more expensive. Don't know what to choose, but then again, it's insurance, you never know do you?
Also, we're hitting Thailand for 4 weeks, what are we going to do there? Are we going to cruise to Cambodia for a while? I hear the landmines are nice this time of year.. Or will we just relax. Or maybe something else. We really wanted to go to India or China, but the effort and cost might not be worth it, and the time involved to get visa. Stupid countries without easy visa entries! Why do you hate freedom?????
Anyway, We've decided to add Egypt to our trip. We still don't know how we're going to get there, well, we have options, but they're all expensive. Thankfully Egypt itself isn't, with accommodation costing less than $6 some places.. We're planning to go there for 2 weeks. Did I also mention we're going to Morocco? That's 2 African countries we'll be going to!
It's only 4 weeks and 3-4 days until I go and then another week until Alice leaves. Wow it's close. There's still a few things to do. We have to choose travel insurance. One option is a cheaper medical only one (probably the potentially most expensive thing that could happen), and then another is a comprehensive one, which is considerably more expensive. Don't know what to choose, but then again, it's insurance, you never know do you?
Also, we're hitting Thailand for 4 weeks, what are we going to do there? Are we going to cruise to Cambodia for a while? I hear the landmines are nice this time of year.. Or will we just relax. Or maybe something else. We really wanted to go to India or China, but the effort and cost might not be worth it, and the time involved to get visa. Stupid countries without easy visa entries! Why do you hate freedom?????
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