Lisbon, Portugal

30 June - 2 July Once again, I am writing this while sitting in an airport waiting for a delayed flight. Stupid terrorists! Anyway, we are completely zonked after 3 full days in Lisbon, so we'd probably just be heading home to crash no matter what time our flight leaves. Saturday morning we got up nice and early and headed to Heathrow, where we boarded the 2 1/2 hour flight to Lisbon. After taking out some Euros (we left ours at home in the jar - yes, we keep our money in a jar) we caught the bus to the centre of the city. Being only €3 and including bus and tram travel for the rest of the day, it is one of the cheapest airport -> city transfers ever. From the big square at the waterfront, we thought about catching a ferry out into the harbour, but couldn't find the one we wanted (we found out today [Monday] that the map we had was wrong/misleading) so we walked along one of the pedestrian streets to another square (Rossi), then to the starting point of the 28 tram, which is the best one for getting up the big hill to the old town. We didn't make it as far as the old town before we decided we could no longer stand the hot, crammed tram and got off. We were near a lookout and had a great view over the city before heading down the hill on foot, through the little streets and past lots of churches. We thought about getting some lunch but couldn't find anywhere appealing, so we headed to one of Lisbon's famous shopping centre (well, famous in so much as lots of people told us the shopping was good in Lisbon) and ate in the food court. Other than one skirt and a Portuguese copy of Chamber of Secrets, it was a pretty uneventful trip. We decided it was time to head further out of the city, so we caught the bus back to the city centre and walked to the station (one of many in the city, which all head out in different directions) where we caught a train to Belém (pronounced Bleh by the recorded voice on the train). The place is a major tourist attraction with a tower and monastery and stuff, but to be honest, we were primarily there for the Portuguese custard tarts which were originally baked in the Monastery and are now sold in a shop that literally gets lines out the door. The popularity of the things means that they are fresh and warm when you get them. They were so good I have a whole bunch of photos of them and we went back today to get some more. After downing 3 each of the tarts (they come in 6 packs, so what else were we to do?), we walked through the park ad down to the waterfront to see the Monument to the Discoveries, which was very big, very cool and very crowded with people. We went back to the station and headed to Estoril, our base for the weekend. After checking in and our mandatory half-hour spent crashed out in the hotel room, we went for a walk to check out the town and find some dinner. We walked past the casino, considered going to the arts and crafts fair, strolled along the beach and ended up eating pizza in our hotel room - oh well. We had already decided that on Sunday we would go to Sintra, so Graeme had done the research and worked out where to catch the bus from. Unfortunately, he couldn't find a timetable online and then there wasn't one at the bus stop, so we ended up walking to the station and waiting for the bus there, managing to just miss actually getting one in our moving around bus stops. After a half hour or so bus trip, in which we passed by a Grand Prix track and went through some tiny little streets that seemed too small for a bus, we arrived in Sintra. Sintra is a really ancient village, a World Heritage Site, tucked away in the hills and littered with more palaces, castles and museums than most big cities. There's a bus that does a circular route that you can hop on and off and we were grateful that we waited for it because the hills are killer. We got off the bus in the main village and went over to the Sintra National Palace because we knew it was free on Sunday morning (yeah, we're cheap). The best parts of it were the crazy tiles they used to decorate, especially the room with walls covered in blue & white painted tiles and a ceiling of gilt and timber, and the kitchen, which has giant cones to funnel the smoke off the massive roasting spits. Almost everything else just looked like a bunch of other European palaces - we're totally over seeing Bed Chambers! We got back on the bus and caught it to Castelo dos Mouros, the Castle of the Moors, originally built in the 9th or 10th century, partially rebuilt in the 19th Century and mostly now ruins, but you can still climb up to its 2 highest points (though, after the first, we'd climbed too many ancient, slightly scary steps, so we skipped the other) and get amazing views over the village, other fancy buildings and out to the water. From here, most people go to the Pena Palace, but like I said, we're over the palaces and we'd gotten a good view of it from the top of the Castle, so we decided to skip it and go back to the village for lunch, before heading back to Estoril. The arts and crafts fair, which I found out about weeks ago and was keen to go to, was unusual in that it was an evening thing - it didn't even open until 5pm. So instead of going Monday like we had planned (again, it was tricky to find details like opening times online) we went Sunday evening. The idea of the fair is that they showcase traditional arts and crafts and that you can actually see people making stuff, not just selling it. There were also restaurants and a stage where we witnessed some 'Portuguese Pop'. We saw glass work, weaving, woodwork and cute bunnies and a baby hedgehog (the animals were in the kids area :D). We ate the most traditional Portuguese meal we had and didn't really like it that much, but at least we tried it out. I only ended up buying one thing, but it was fun nonetheless. This morning [Monday], after a big breakfast in the hotel, we checked out and headed back to Belém, for more tarts and a better look around. It was MUCH less crowded, probably because Monday is the day they close most of their tourist attractions, so it was nice and quiet. Graeme decided to go to the top of the Monument to the Discoveries while I stayed at the bottom and read. We headed back to Lisbon via tram, considered a ferry trip again but decided not to wait 55 minutes for the next one, and headed to McDonalds for some lunch (what can I say? We were tired, it was easy and it was the only casual eating establishment we could find). We went for a long walk up a tree-lined avenue, climbed a hill to see an old pavilion and caught the bus to the airport. Still waiting. The flight is now expected to be 2 hours late. The TV in the departure lounge is playing a documentary on Australian sea life, narrated by an Australian and everything - kinda weird. Later update: We JUST made the last tube from Heathrow. We were very glad that we didn't have to collect any bags, because the baggage collection was insane.

Comments(1) | Posted By Kate on

Amsterdam 21-22 April 2007

Our weekend away started well, we pulled out of the gate at Heathrow only 10 minutes late and as a consequence arrived in Amsterdam 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Out first point of call and the reason for the trip (or more the timing of the trip) was the Keukenhof. To get to the there we had to catch a special express bus from the airport directly to the grounds. It was a good thing we landed ahead of time as we had to wait an age to get tickets for the bus (though the bonus was it included park entry and we didn't have to wait at the park to get in). After getting tickets we had another, not so long, wait to get on a bus (got to love Europeans and their queues). All the waiting was well worth it, the Kuekenhof is amazing. It is basically a botanical gardens, however they are only open for a short time in Spring (late March till mid May) when the flowers are in bloom. The downside to this short window of opportunity was that anyone who wished to see only had a short window of opportunity to do so and consequently the park was overflowing with people, not just 1000's of people but 10 of thousands of people. Still this overwhelming amount of people couldn't dampen the experience too much. The gardens are astonishing, the variety of types and colours of flowers overwhelming and the size of the grounds are enormous. There was a festival feel in the air with zany grease renditions on a paper fed organ, bell ringing, farmyard animals, strawberries + cream plus loads of chance to picnic in the sun. There were also competitions and prizes being awarded like the Easter show back home. After spending a good five or six hours in the gardens we decided to leave the 100's of coaches, 1000's of bikes and campers behind and head into Amsterdam itself. Our first task was to find our hotel and check-in, and in getting their decided a scenic walk was in order. Walking in Amsterdam is interesting. Not only like most European cities do you have to dodge cars, buses and trams, you have to watch out for the cyclists. The cyclists have their own lanes basically leaving actually walking somewhere as the bottom of the pile and often just an afterthought. A lot of time the only way to walk somewhere was in the bike lane! Much to the annoyance of the bike riders! Anyway on the way to the hotel we went past a fair with rides and a giant Ferris wheel in Dam, a square in front of the old royal palace. The walk to the hotel turned out to be a little longer than planned but not too far really. After getting to the hotel, we had a bit of a breather before going out in search of dinner and to explore some more. Kate had heard people talking about and then seen people eating cones of hot chips and decided we had to have some. The chips were very nice and we ate them will wandering around for a while, also collecting a 24 hour ticket for the trams. After wandering around for a while we were buggered and set of back to the hotel where Kate gave the impressively deep bath a decent run out for over an hour! Before we crashed for the night to get up early the next morning. Waking early the next morning, we gave the generous hotel breakfast a go before checking out to seek out the Anne Frank House. After a few wrong turns (the maps and street signs weren't super) we found the queue for entry. You enter the house through a modern building adjoining the original house they hid in (still as it was left when the Nazi's raided it in 1945, just minus the furniture). It was an eerie yet poignant reminder of some of the worst things that happened in the second world war. Also it was a sad reminder of a tragic story. The diary and some of the manuscripts were on display, as well as an arrangement of other items from the time even including the official death cards of the girls! By the time we finished hear it was time for lunch, followed by the must do trip on a canal boat. The boat trip went through the main sites of Amsterdam for an hour or so, including a trip out into the harbour. The boat ride was interesting but it was made more so by the excellent commentary (in 3 languages too I might add) from the boat driver. He more than earned his tip at the end. Amsterdam is remarkable in that unlike most of the other major European cities there is a distinct lack of renowned landmarks and as we aren't the red light district or 'coffee' house going types, found the only thing left to do in the afternoon was to explore the shopping areas, museums and parks around the Lederstrat in the south of the city. They had some lovely park areas but like a lot of Europe (especially when the sun is out) they were grossly overcrowded with people straining to soak up every last ray of sun humanly possible, preferably while getting blind drunk in the process. After finishing in the parks we had a wander down some of the glorious canals before heading back to the airport to grab some dinner and hop on the flight home. Overall Amsterdam is an interesting, and in the most beautiful city (especially in the grand old canals). The people are generally happy and friendly and we didn't find any of them that didn't speak English at all!

Comments(2) | Posted By Graeme on

Easter Trip 6-9 April, 2007

Day One - Monkey World We left earlyish in the morning to make the just over two-hour journey from our place south-west to Monkey World (of Animal Planet Fame) near Poole/Bournemouth on the English South Coast. Monkey World is not so much a zoo as an animal refuge where they collect apes and monkeys in poor living situations from around the world and add them to their groups that are living as close to their normal in the wild life as possible. This means there is plenty of opportunity to see large numbers of chimps or orang-utans interacting with each other (plus the odd baby that they have had born at the park). As the enclosures have been built for the animals best interest and not for people to look at animals, it was hard to get a decent view at times. Altogether though we had an exciting and worthwhile day, it was good to see the animals that you have seen lots before on the television. From Monkey World we drove on to Barnstaple on the West Coast of England in Devon (just a bit south of Bristol). We did a bit of exploring and went out to the headland to get a bit of a view before heading back to our motel after the sun set. Day Two - Barnstaple, Bude, Tintagel and Newquay In the morning we went into Barnstaple to have a bit of a look around, checking out the markets in the City Centre. Kate also found some pretty decent sized charity shops to have a browse through. After our morning in Barnstaple we set off south towards Bideford where we found a huge outlet shopping centre which we perused. The shops weren't super exciting but there was a big pirate ship to play on (if you paid enough money) and it was probably pretty impressive for the sort of country area that we were in. From here we continued driving south down the coast stopping for lunch in the seaside town of Bude in Cornwall. We had a terrific lunch at the surf club on the edge of the beach (about 500 yards away from the water as it was low tide!). After lunch we went exploring the beach area, all the while wondering how people could be swimming and sunbathing as it was probably just under 20 degrees! Way to cold for us as we were both in jeans and jackets! The best activity going on the beach was the kite flying. Some people had some good ones going and the generous sea breeze made for pretty easy flying conditions. Our afternoon stop was in Tintagel a bit further down the coast, where there is a castle out on the point that was supposedly built over the top of where King Arthur (of the round table fame) had a castle in 500AD. The location of the castle was impressive and getting there was a good workout but the castle itself didn't seem to justify the price of admission and we contented ourself with exploring what we could and heading back. After our Scotland trip it would have to be pretty impressive for us to consider entering a castle, we seen way too many :) Last stop on our days travels, was in Newquay. Newquay would have to be considered the surf capital of England. Basically it's a title by default, as it's the only place in the country that has a sandy beach which also has breaking waves big enough to surf. We spent dusk on the beach watching the sun set (and for Kate to get some great sunset photos!), with a cavalcade of surfers out getting in the last few waves before their light went away. Day Three - Newquay, St. Ives, Lands End, St. Michaels Mount, National Seal Sanctuary, St. Austell. We left Newquay fairly early, driving around the coast to St. Ives. We arrived at the top of the bay having to park all the way up the top of the hill. St. Ives is an impressive looking place, set into a bay, bordered by hills all around it feels secluded and is very picturesque. It's also a hang out of artists and has a history of being home to some of the best English ones. We spent a good amount of time wandering around absorbing the sights, getting some morning tea and if your Kate collecting some cool glass shards washed out of the sea in all sorts of colours! After this we made our way (through some very exciting but probably not in the good way country roads - think 60 miles an hour and only enough space for one car in either direction) to Lands End. This meant we had now been to the two extremities of mainland Britain (John O'Groats in Scotland is the other). Lands End had some picturesque scenery but the facilities were pretty tacky giving the place a surreal feel. We had lunch here before moving on to the south coast to St. Michaels Mount in Marizion. St. Michaels Mount is unique because it's a castle/defensive monastery built on to an island just off of the beach. During high tide the only way across is via a boat but in low tide you can walk across the tidal bank the 100 metres or so on a dry path. It's very imposing in the bay and offers a spectacular reference point from the hills around the bay. Next stop was on to Gweek were we managed to squeeze in a trip to the National Seal Sanctuary. This is where sick seals come to recover and re-build their strength after getting ill, or when there is an oil spill or similar disaster. The wild seals are only returned to health before they are returned to the wild. There are a few permanent resident seals from other parts of the world that they have taken of parks and the like to let them retire away and potentially mate. We arrived just in time to catch the afternoon feeding session and got a fun glimpse into how they get their food and how massive some of the male seals are. We were originally meant to stay the night in Truro but after a stuff up by the motel we were going to stay in (of which I won't go into here), we hastily re-arranged to stay in one the next town up the coast St. Austell. Day Four - St. Austell, Wincanton, Home Our final day was predominately spent in the car travelling the 300 or so miles to home. We did stop off on the way in Wincanton (a little country town just of the A303) to have lunch, but we didn't really get up to much exciting and were happy just to get home and crash out. --Graeme

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

More Photos Added

We haven't done any travelling worth noting on the blog recently, but we have a busy April coming up and hopefully a hectic summer following. For an idea of what stuff we are going to be busy with here is an extract from Kate's blog entry from a few weeks ago: "We went back to the Tower of London on Saturday, then to a place near Graeme's work for Dutch Pancakes and then to the British Museum. We decided to make a more conscious effort to do something at least every other weekend. So, over the next couple of months we plan to go to the Tate Modern to ride the giant slides; visit Thorpe Park one last time before our passes run out; go to Monkey World (featured on Animal Planet show Monkey Business), explore south-west England while we're there; see the baby elephant at Whipsnade (like Western Plains is to Taronga, Whipsnade is to London Zoo); go to Amsterdam and see lots of tulips; and try to book a longer holiday in continental Europe. " So back to the title, Kate has added the Photos from our trip in January to Oxford with my Mum and John. Check back soon for some reports of our busy April! --Graeme

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

Photos in Gallery

It seems some of you have noticed some of the extra photos added to our gallery. Over the last few weeks we have added a lot of new photos to the gallery. Not all, not really even many, will have titles or comments because frankly the system I've got for adding them is especially tedious for the number of photos to go through, even more so after playing with things like Flickr. The photos added go back to our Scotland trip in July, and the collection is by no means complete there are still the rest of the US trip, Sweden and some other odd trips to be added in between the albums that are up. We will probably get through adding them all in the next few weeks so keep checking back but don't be surprised when they are not titled.

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

USA (part two)

sorry it took so long, but here it is Wednesday 14 Feb We spent a big chunk of the day participating in the capitalist, consumerist aspect of the US - ie, shopping in a big mall - which wasn't like anything I would label as a mall. We actually didn't buy that much - I think Roland and Laura got more - but it definitely highlighted once again how expensive things are in Europe. We enjoyed a massive lunch at TGI Fridays' (one of Graeme's personal favourites no matter where we are in the world) that made the meals we get at the one in London look totally posh (as in much less food for much more money). For the evening, we left Laura and Roland to enjoy some time alone (it was Valentines, after all) and we went to the ice hockey. That's right, on the most romantic night of the year, my hopeless husband took me to see an NHL game. But anyone who thinks I'd actually have a problem with that doesn't know me very well - Valentines Day is lame. This game was definitely a highlight for Graeme, being the sports-crazy boy he is, because Pittsburgh Penguins, the local team, were playing Chicago Blackhawks, the team Graeme decided he was going to support when he was a teenager. Of course we bought the tickets through ticketmaster and were surrounded by "Pens" fans (because, obviously, you would nickname a team called the Penguins the Pens - it doesn't sound like stationery at all) but we had a good time anyway. Graeme was pretty happy with the score, even though the Blackhawks lost, because it was tied and so we got to see extra time and a shoot-out. Here's my list of things I learnt at the ice hockey: - A red light comes on to indicate that the TV coverage has gone to an ad break and the game just stops for that time - talk about TV controlling sport. - The goalie bangs his stick on the ice to let his team know when a powerplay is over (when the guy who is sitting in a box for a penalty has done his time) - The referees are crazy - they get slammed around and jump on the barriers to escape getting totally crushed and yet they don’t wear any of the padding that the players wear. - There really is a guy in there playing the organ - very cool - Graeme finds cheap ($25) sports jerseys tempting, even when they're for a team he doesn't support. - The Pittsburgh equivalent of Y'all is Yins. I "learned" this from an increasingly drunk Penguins fan sitting next to me, so it could be completely incorrect, but he was quite amusing. Thursday 15 Feb The day started with a familiar early morning rush to get ready, leave and get to the airport. Following the excellent directions from Roland (thanks -- and thanks again for having us), we made it to the airport in plenty of time. Turns out, we could've taken another 3 hours, because that's how long we sat in the terminal and waited. There was a snow storm the day before that had created chaos and JetBlue had some real issues dealing with it (you may have heard about this on the news, even in other countries, it was that bad). Although, I have to admit, we were better off than some people. We finally arrived in New York and caught the AirTrain and then the subway into Manhattan. The NYC subway is not as confusing as some people/tourist books would have you believe, but then, we are now seasoned Underground travellers, which also meant we noted that the trains were really big. One thing we really liked about America is the way they number their streets - it makes it really easy to get around and find your way. So we found the right street quickly and checked into the biggest hotel we've ever stayed at - 26 floors and we're on level 25. We had a very quick stop before heading out the door and straight to Times Square, which was only a 10 minute (if that) walk south. Our first stop was the tkts booth - in an attempt to make the day feel like less of a waste, we decided to try and see a show and the tkts booth, like the one in London's Leicester Square, sells discounted tickets to that day's performances. We got half-price tickets to see Rent and our evening consisted of taking the obligatory photos of Times Square, finding the theatre, getting some dinner and seeing the show (which I will review elsewhere). On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the giant m&ms shop - 3 levels of m&ms and related merchandise. You'll notice we did this AFTER seeing an evening performance. It is open 9am-midnight seven days a week. Then we went back to the hotel and slept. Friday 16 Feb Breakfast: very yummy bacon and egg roll with fresh OJ from a very busy nearby café. We got a one day metro card and caught the subway to the World Trade Centre/Ground Zero. The place is covered in sad photos and stories, but they are doing some cool construction work. We walked around and then down to Battery Park, where the wind coming off the water was freezing cold. Nevertheless, we bought tickets to go out on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Then we had to go through security for the first time in the day. I've not mentioned yet how many times we had to have our things x-rayed and our bodies metal-detected - lets just say, between all the flights and visiting a bunch of high security attractions, it was a lot. We caught the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and it was frickin' cold, both on the ferry (because, of course, we had to stand outside and look at the scenery) and on the island. The tickets to go inside the actual statue were timed and limited, but since it was a winter day, we had no trouble getting them - in fact the guy just gave them to us without asking (when we bought our tickets - its important to know that you can't get them once you're on the island). We had to leave our bags in lockers, but could still take the camera through, meaning I carried my spare lens in my jacket pocket. Then, we went through more security. Rather than waiting for and taking the lift, we climbed the 156 stairs to the highest point we could go - which actually was not too exciting. The views were better from around the base, but that was still actually inside the restricted section, so we were glad we had gone through. Back to ferry and on to Ellis Island. We did a quick self-guided tour of the Baggage Hall, Registry Room and a display on the Immigration Process people faced at Ellis Island. Then we headed back to the ferry and back to Battery Park, where we found the nearest station and caught the subway to Union Square. Once at Union Square, we had lunch in a cool 'deli' where there was a ridiculous amount of food to choose from and you just piled it up and then paid for it at the cashier. I had sushi and Graeme got a make-your-own salad, which involved picking a bowl of lettuce, telling the guy behind the counter what else you wanted and watching him turn it all into a massive custom salad. We visited Barnes & Noble, primarily to find my Harry Potter book for the collection. I was going to buy a regular old copy of the first book (since it’s the one that they decided to change the title for) but then I found a HP bargain I could not refuse - the specially bound, hardcover, boxed version of Half-Blood Prince for $15 (reduced from 60) - that’s less than I paid for any of my other books, I think. The produce market, the reason I'd actually wanted to visit Union Square, was pretty quiet, but with the cold and snow, I guess that should've been expected. We headed back underground and caught the subway to Grand Central Station, which was just a quick stop to have a look and take some photos. Then back onto the subway to our hotel where we added extra layers of clothes in preparation for the cold we expected at the top of the Empire State Building. It didn't do much good and our faces still felt so cold they started to go numb. But we managed to be at the top in time to see the sunset and the night-time lights. We didn't stay til it was completely dark though, because we decided to head back to Broadway and try to see another show. Unfortunately, everything we thought was worth seeing we couldn't get decent tickets to - only single seats or ones with obstructed view. We probably should have known, being Friday night and all. Instead we went to Toys R Us which is massive and has an actual Ferris Wheel inside. And then, since we had taken out the cash for potential tickets, we decided to spend it on a bigger/fancier dinner than we'd been having and headed to Planet Hollywood. This wasn't like that lame Planet Hollywood they had in Sydney - this one has a very cool collection of things that are actually quite impressive to see - costumes from Grease, Darth Vader and Chewbacca costumes, model spaceships, etc. Two and a half hours and three (big) courses later, we left a bigger tip than the night before's entire meal had cost us. We stopped back into the m&ms shop to actually get something - just some pressed coins and some "candy" (pick your own m&ms - 2 shades of purple, white and silver) - and then at a souvenir shop to get some New York patches. Back at the hotel, we watched Men In Black (because it was on) while our food settled and then slept. Saturday 17 Feb We got up, packed (read: jammed everything in as best we could), checked out and checked our bags into the massive storeroom the hotel has for left luggage. Our breakfast consisted of 2 huge muffins and an oj which we decided to eat in Central Park (2 blocks from our hotel). There was one little bird that came to check us out, so Graeme threw it a crumb. Obviously word got around and soon we were surrounded by lots of little birds which were happy to eat the tiniest of crumbs. They were so game that one even came up and took one off my shoe (ok, I admit I made it a bigger crumb than the others to make it more tempting). Then we wandered Central Park and saw playgrounds, the chess house, the info centre and Wollman rink (although we didn't skate due to the cost and a fear of injury). We wandered towards Strawberry Fields, ate hot dogs, sat by the Imagine mosaic, wandered around a fountain covered in snow, sat on the Alice in Wonderland statue and did a LOT of squirrel watching. They were everywhere, foraging, eating, collecting leaves for their nests. I wished I had some peanuts to feed them. When we'd had enough of the park, we caught the subway back downtown so we could walk up 5th avenue, although we didn't really actively shop. Well, except in the Disney store where we could've spent tonnes, but only spent a little. We went into FAO Schwarz - the very fancy and somewhat old-fashioned toy store. Next door, the Apple store was packed with people so we didn't stay long. Well and truly buggered, we went to the Starbucks in the bottom corner of the hotel for a sit and a drink, before we collected our bags and headed back to JFK. Our rotten luck with planes continued and we left over an hour late - a lot of that AFTER the plane was boarded. On Sunday morning, having caught the red-eye without actually getting much sleep and our body clocks now completely out of whack, we headed home (loving the fact that the airport is so accessible from our house) and crashed for the day… and several days following :)

Comments(4) | Posted By Kate on

USA (part one)

Saturday 10 February, 2007 A bit of deja vu this morning as we once again arrived at Heathrow before 6am. Having already checked in online (which, I have to say, is quite great) we dropped off our bags and went through security. Every time we depart from Terminal 4 (primarily intercontinental) we give ourselves the recommended hour to get through security but for some reason it has never taken that long and we always end up sitting around in the airport for ages. And that's what we're doing now, too. Its 2.05pm EST (so 7pm in London). So far today, we've sat in Heathrow, sat on a packed plane for 7 hours and are now sitting in JFK. We're flying on to Washington DC. When we booked our tickets, we didn't go for the 12.20 flight because everything we read suggested we wouldn't get through immigration and customs fast enough. But we would have. So now we're sitting and waiting for the 3pm flight that apparently is going to be delayed 45 minutes. Not the best way to start our holiday, but in reality, we don't have the energy to do much more than sit and wait right now anyway… Sunday 11 February, 2007 Eventually we got on our plane yesterday, with exactly 33 other people, including the pilot, co-pilot and flight attendant. And it finally left JFK airport at 4.30pm - crazy, no? Magically though, we arrived only an hour after our flight was due - I like to call it the giant airport fudge factor, where they say the flight will take longer than it does because they know there'll be airport delays - Heathrow has it too. With all our flying over the last year (I know, we're killing the environment or something), this is the first time we've gone domestic and it was nice to not have to go through customs/immigration. Anyway, enough about airports and planes - we are in Washington, DC! We caught the Metrorail and walked to our hotel, checked in, dumped our bags and went for a walk. There wasn't much to see on a Saturday evening - I guess it’s the part of town we're staying in. We saw the Whitehouse from the boring front side (ie, the side that you don't instantly recognise from all the times you've seen Independence Day and other films/shows with Whitehouse plotlines) but decided it was too cold to explore any further and headed back to our hotel via some dinner at Subway. ***** This morning we woke up later than planned because Graeme didn't set the alarm on the clock radio right… By the time we showered and dressed (in LOTS of layers) and finally got out, it was almost 10am. We shouldn't have worried about it though, because we quickly discovered that nothing was open on a Sunday morning either. I ate my cookies left over from dinner last night and Graeme got a muffin at Starbucks along with some hot chocolate - we're really doing this whole America trip right, eating at all the massive chains ;) We attempted to walk along the more famous side of the Whitehouse, but something was going on (we didn't stick around to see what) and we weren't allowed. Instead, we wandered towards the Washington Monument, or, as Graeme kept referring to it, the giant penis. We got (free, but timed) tickets to enter and went to the top. The view was pretty good, but the best thing really was the elevator ride back down when the lights in the lift go off and you can look out at the stones as the lift slows down. Lots of the stones have been decorated and donated by the states and various organisations and are very impressive. Next we headed to the Smithsonian Castle - a building that looks quite out of place and is supposed to be the best place to start exploring the Smithsonian. Because the Smithsonian is not just one museum - it is a collection of a bunch of FREE museums, galleries (indoor and out) and even a zoo. We just used the castle bathrooms and watched some of the orientation film, but we'd pretty much decided that since the American History Museum was closed for renovations, the only one we'd be visiting was the National Air and Space Museum, which I'm going to make Graeme write about: Graeme writes: The National Air and Space Museum is the most visited of all the Smithsonian Museum's, and it is not hard to see why. It has a huge collection of very cool planes, rockets + space ships from an Apollo Moon Lander through to the 'Wright Flyer'. The museum also aims to be interactive and interesting. With many exhibits encouraging you to play with them in the aim of working out how it all works. The museum is huge, covering 3-4 blocks and is split in half - one side for space and space travel, the other for aeroplanes. The first thing we did after walking through the door was touch a piece of moon rock - how awesome is that! It was right in the entrance with a sign encouraging you to go and play with it. Next, as we were attempting to find maps at the information desk, a nice man from the information service gave us a great run down of what the museum contained and entailed, suggesting that we take the 1 o'clock tour. We had 25 minutes or so to spare before the tour started so we opted to go and get something to eat. The only food in the museum was a gigantic McDonald's - one of, if not, the biggest I have ever seen. In getting to the food court, eating lunch and getting back to the foyer we managed to take slightly too long and missed the tour. We decided this wasn't so bad as we could do things at our own pace and do our own tour of the museum. We started at one of the best exhibits - "How Thing's Fly". This had some of the best interactive displays I've seen in a museum and really reminded me of the best bits of Questacon in Canberra, with the things to turn, pull, push, spin, suck and blow - all with the aim of teaching you something about the physics of flight or jet engines. Following this we went through a few exhibitions on the earth, weather and satellites which weren't as interesting. Followed by a couple of cool exhibits about space travel, the moon missions and with examples of everything to do with space travel from space food to space suits to lunar buggies. After the space exhibits we went into a giant room of space and inter-continental ballistic rockets which were huge and awesome. They also had the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander from the moon missions before man walked on the moon. The American History Museum was closed for major refurbishment (till mid 2008) and so they had a temporary exhibit in the space section of the museum of all of the best articles. Kate really liked this collection, as the items were very unique and historical, and we would have probably gone to the AHM if it were open. The collection contained items such as the hat Abraham Lincoln was wearing at the time he was assassinated, George Washington's general uniform, a Babe Ruth signed baseball, original Kermit puppet and the red slippers Dorothy (Judy Garland) wore in the movie of the Wizard of Oz. The second half of the museum was all about planes. The highlight of which was the 'Wright Flyer', it was an amazing piece of history and engineering. The other exhibitions in the plane area went through the Red Baron in WWI through WWII aircraft carrier planes to Amelia Earhart's trans-Atlantic machine. Another cool thing in the aero plane section was a huge array of flight simulator's, an IMAX, and a planetarium but they all cost a bit of money and we didn't go to any of them. Overall the NASM was one of the best museum experiences I have ever had and would recommend it to anyone (especially with young boy's!) going to Washington. Monday 12 Feb This morning we got up nice and early so we could fit in a visit to the zoo before checking out of our hotel. Remember, the zoo is operated by the Smithsonian, so it is free to enter. We walked to the nearest Metrorail station, caught it 2 stops, walked another 10 minutes or so and we were in the zoo. There were no gates/people to pass by, you literally can just walk in off the street. The grounds opened at 6am (we weren't there that early though) but the 'buildings' - the shops, internal animal houses, etc - didn't open until 10am. Unfortunately, we had to be checked out of our hotel by midday and since so many of the animals were indoors because of the weather (which, I don't think I have mentioned yet, is very cold), we completely missed seeing some of them. But that didn't really matter because we got to see the zoo's highlight - the Giant Pandas. There's a male, a female and a cub, who is a couple years old and pretty big, but still obviously a cub from the way he was playing with his mum. We were also lucky because the Small Mammal House opened early and not only could we watch all the little monkeys and other animals play, we got to see a baby (2 weeks old) porcupine who had furry brown hair as well as its spikes. We got to see it right up close and not behind glass, because the keeper was just bringing it back from being weighed. It is so young they haven't determined yet whether it’s a boy or girl. We watched seals play/show off, saw the elephants pretty close and just generally had a nice time wandering around in the very quiet, tranquil environment. In summer, you could easily spend a whole day there, if not more. We headed back to our hotel, packed the last of our stuff and checked out at 11.45. Then we headed back to the airport. We are quickly realising that American airports and air travel is crazy. There are so many people and so many flights and super long security lines to go through every time. We had to catch a bus to our plane, which was out on the tarmac with a lone of other, identical planes. Then, when we got to Pittsburgh, we had to walk for ages, catch a little monorail type thing and then walk again beore we could even collect our luggage. We met Roland and Laura in the baggage claim area of Pittsburgh airport, waited way too long for our bags and then caught the bus back to their place. They live in this cool (or should I say warm, since the buildings heating was way up) old apartment on the first floor of a building across the road from a park. We had a fantastic evening of catching up, exploring a grocery store, looking at photos, having dinner, trying to disassemble a computer and being investigated by their cockatiel, Lucky. Tuesday 13 Feb This morning we woke to find Pittsburgh covered in snow and the snow continuing to fall. It wasn't quite the massive storm they had predicted, but there were already a few inches of snow by 9am. Roland and Laura both had things to do, so they sent us off to the botanic gardens and agreed to meet us at 1.30 to have lunch. The heavily falling snow (snowflakes big enough you could actually see the six-point detail) and wind meant the outside gardens were closed - not that you could see much through the layer of snow anyway. Inside though, was a beautiful big conservatory with lots of different rooms showcasing everything from ferns and orchids to bonsai and cactuses. It was nice and warm and quite weird to look at a cactus with snow falling on the other side of the window behind it. The only other people we saw while we were there were people who worked at the place. We took a break half way through to have a (giant) cookie and a drink and met Roland at about 1.30. Laura had had trouble getting a bus, so we walked out and met her walking towards us. The 4 of us then went to an asian place for lunch where we had big servings for small prices (especially for those of us accustomed to eating in Western Europe) and fortune cookies - although the fortunes in mine and Graeme's cookies weren't too exciting. We then considered going int the nearby museum, which has dinosaurs, but decided it wasn't worth the money for the hour or so we had until they closed. Instead, we headed to a nearby park where we attempted to make a snowman but couldn't because the snow wouldn't hold together. The snowballs we had made ended up thrown at each other, along with a few extras, before the boys decided they were going to see just how frozen the lake was and whether they could walk on it, much to Laura's dismay. They didn't really go out onto it, but they did establish that it was pretty well frozen. After I made a snow angel and the boys had given up, we decided to head for Squirrel Hill (cool name) and somewhere to get coffee/hot chocolate. Roland had to leave part way there to get back for a class, so he gave us instructions on which way to go and left. We never made it to Squirrel Hill or the hot chocolate - we hit a big intersection and got confused about Roland's directions and took the wrong road. We ended up at the top of a hill which luckily had a map and decided to just head back, since we had been walking a pretty long time through the snow and it was getting colder and wetter since the snow had turned more to sleet. We went down the hill in the direction we thought we'd find a bus, but couldn't work out where to catch it the direction we wanted to go. Laura asked a guy walking past if he knew and he ended up offering us a lift. So James, our fantastic saviour, took us back to a place where we could catch the bus back to Roland and Laura's. When we got back here, we all changed into dry clothes and greatly appreciated the very warm central heating. Right now, the boys are cooking dinner (Roland's classes got cancelled because of the snow), Laura is using the computer, and I am trying to write this while stopping Lucky from eating my notepad and attacking my pen. Although it is still fairly early, our day is pretty much over. Tomorrow we are going shopping and to the ice hockey and then on Thursday we head to New York so we're happy to have some downtime - it is supposed to be a holiday after all. …and that’s where I stopped keeping my journal up-to-date. I have jotted notes for the rest of the trip, but have to make them into coherent sentences and type them up, so I'm posting this much for now and will update the rest as its ready. And I'll sort out some photos tomorrow.

Comments(1) | Posted By Kate on

Australia 1 - Denmark 3 Loftus Road, London

While it was a disappointing result, it was a great match. Australia could have scored more goals and made it a closer match but it wasn't to be. It would have been nice if the Australian defence wasn't abysmal and the goalkeeper more then a statue but you can't win them all. Denmark played well and deserved to win. Some of the crowd behind the Australian end. The atmosphere was great. There was 12,500 people which is terrific considering only 1000 or so were Danish and the match was in a foreign city on the far side of the world. Hopefully there will be another match in London while we are over hear because it was so easy to get to and such a great atmosphere to be involved in.

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

Stockholm, Sweden

Written on the go - typed up and posted later (obviously) Saturday 27 January 2007 This is our first pure weekend excursion to continental Europe. We decided on Stockholm because we knew it would be cold and snowy, its not too far away and the tickets were cheap, especially since we opted to fly (very) early Saturday morning rather than Friday night, which also meant we only had to book (and pay for) one night's accommodation. So now you all know how cheap we are… We set our alarm for 4am [which was mildly insane since we didn't actually go to bed until about midnight] and managed to drag ourselves out of bed, get dressed, pack and leave just after 5am. We walked to the bus stop, caught the bus and tube and hiked to terminal 1 at Heathrow (it’s a long way from the station) - we were there before 6am… what a way to start Saturday morning :) From Stockholm airport, we went for the not-so-cheap but super speedy express train that travelled in excess of 200km/h and took under 20 minutes to cover the 40km between Arlanda airport and Stockholm central. We took out 1000 bucks, I mean SEK (about AU$180), bought ourselves a Stockholm card which covers public transport and entry to most of the tourist attractions, and set about exploring Stockholm. We headed first for Gamla Stan, the Old Town, where we witnessed the Changing of the Guard, but were unable to enter the palace :( Changing of the Guard We went into the Nobel Museum which had this cool contraption/conveyor belt that cycled all the winners' faces and mini-bios around the museum. There was also an exhibition of paintings by Winston Churchill and Alfred Nobel's will which left the trust that awards the Nobel Prizes. We tried to first find the entry for and then go into the oldest cathedral but it was closed for a concert. By this stage we were hungry and headed towards the city proper, buying a hot dog and stopping to watch some ice-skating along the way. Exposing as little skin as possible We went searching for my Harry Potter book and some potential food and, like in Paris, ended up buying the book from the posh department store. Having been unsuccessful in finding food that appealed, we resorted to the old faithful McDonalds. After basking in the warmth of the restaurant, we went back out into the biting cold (below 0°C plus some wicked cold wind - the coldest either of us had ever been) and headed back to the cathedral, hoping to get in before it closed. Unsuccessful at that, we checked our book and confirmed the National Museum was open for another hour, so we headed there instead. They very nicely tried to talk us out of going in because we had so little time, but we're not going near it tomorrow and it was free (on our aforementioned card) so we didn't care. We did the museum in 45 minutes flat and felt like we got a good feel of it. There was lots of cool Swedish design stuff and a bunch of paintings. We decided it was time to check into our hotel so we went and caught the metro, with its decorated stations, and got there easily. We checked in, went up to our room to sit and vege for a bit before heading out again for the evening. Our first destination was the Kaknastornet, a big radio/tv tower with an observation deck on the 30th floor. That one is enclosed, but like idiots, we decided to go up to the next level to the one that goes outside. We couldn't stay out there for long, for fear the blasting wind would make our faces freeze off. We considered having dinner at the restaurant up the tower, but it looked too posh for what we felt like. We caught the bus back to the cbd and walked up a street that we knew would have somewhere to eat and would also (eventually) get us to our hotel. We ended up eating in this cool little 1930s style café for a lot cheaper than the surrounding places with very good food. We actually shared 3 desserts because Graeme couldn't decide what to get. It is now 10.15pm local time and we are back in our hotel room, exhausted from being up since (the equivalent of) 5am and aching from our bodies being unused to the cold. A big sleep is in order so we can do all the things we want to tomorrow. Sunday 28 January 2007 After a restless night's sleep in which my sore throat returned, we found it hard to wake up. But we dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready. Breakfast in the hotel was great, much better than Athens, and got us going for the day. After checking out of the hotel, we headed for the bus stop and our major destination of the day - Djurgården, an island that makes up part of Stockholm and seems to be covered with museums. We first went to Skansen, the world's first open-air museum, which basically means it consists of a whole bunch of buildings from various times and places around Sweden set up as they would have appeared at the time, complete with the people who lived/worked in them. An outdoor museum, while cool, is not exactly the prime winter attraction - most of the buildings and workshops were closed and there were very few people around. There are also a bunch of Nordic animals (though the bears were in hibernation) some of which, like the wolverine, were really cute and incredibly active considering the temperature and snow cover. Skansen We managed to spend a very pleasant 4 or so hours there, looking at the buildings, playing with the snow, watching the animals, drinking hot chocolate by a big open campfire, eating lunch in a nice warm café and visiting the Skansen-Akvariet, which is actually inside Skansen, but considered a different attraction. Akvariet apparently translates Aquarium, but there was much more than fish, including reptiles, monkeys, spiders, a family of the coldest meerkats we'd ever seen and even a place for a koala. While we were there, our (especially Graeme's) weekend was made complete by the snow starting to fall. Warmth Next stop was the Vasamuseet - a very big, open building that houses the Vasa - a big ship which sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. We watched the short film about it and how they pulled it up and restored it then we spent a bit of time wandering around to look at it and some of the displays they had. The place has this eerie ghost ship feeling, because they have to keep it dim, warm and humid to best preserve the timber. The Vasa We spent the final hour before everything closed at the Nordiska Museet, right next door, whose collection reminded us of the Powerhouse without all the power stuff, if that makes sense. Our favourite thing there was one of the temporary exhibits which showcased various collections of people from around Sweden - everything from PEZ dispensers and Abba paraphernalia to 80s style scented erasers and Porsche models. My personal favourite was the collection of fashion labels taken out of clothing. Other exhibits included dolls houses, shoes, Swedish traditions and toys - including an ancient gameboy, some lego and the same colourful wooden dog Josh [my brother] has owned since he was little, although his has a habit of losing its head :) By 5pm, when the museum closed, we were pretty well exhausted and happy to (slowly) make our way back to the airport, via a park, some food and the fast train. And that's where we are now. Our plane must've left Heathrow late (no surprise there) because it is already delayed. But for right now, we're pretty happy to sit here doing nothing. Postscript: The plane left Stockholm VERY late and, considering it was a Sunday night, we were worried we would miss the last tube home. Luckily, we had the best entry into Heathrow ever - no circling, flew straight in, waited less than 10 minutes on the tarmac, quick through immigration, didn't have to collect bags because we only took carry on… we made it onto the station about 8 minutes before the last train to central London. Turns out there are two later trains we could've got that don't go as far into the city but would still meet up with a suitable bus, but it had us worried for awhile.

Comments(3) | Posted By Kate on

What have we been up to...

..since we got back to London after going back to Australia for Christmas. Well on the first day back we met up with Mum and John, having lunch with them in the Rainforest Cafe. We also tried to see St. Paul's but by the time we got there it was closing up to tourists and the minimal time it was left open wouldn't have justified the cost to get in. Mum and John then disappeared off to Italy for a few weeks. In those few weeks Kate and I didn't get up to too much. Except if you count getting really sick with a virus/flu thing and barely getting out of the house for a week. We did however manage to make a trip to Madam Tussauds in this time and use our yearly Tussauds passes (bought for Alton Towers) to see it for free. This was a good thing as it's not worth the small fortune you have to pay from off the street to see it but it was good for us treating it as a freebie. The wax works were cool but the celebrities weren't interesting after a while, more interesting were the historical figures and the themed areas 'The Chamber' and 'London Through Time'. The chamber was a horror area showing of the many historical ways to kill people, it also had a 'Live' section which we could walk through on our ticket, which contained a mix of wax works and live actors hidden in the pitch dark with the express aim of scaring the life out of the you and they nearly did to Kate :) Who got the worst of the actors harassments! Once Mum and John returned from Italy we met up to see Evita on the west end. The show was great and we had a good time. The next night Kate and I made the trip out to East London to John's brother's house to a party to celebrate the impending wedding for those not able to make the trip to Australia later in the year. For us it meant meeting a lot of John's extended family, who were terrific, very welcoming and great cooks (what can I say I like profiteroles!). While there I organised with Mum to go out to Oxford on Sunday as she had nothing planned and I had to go to work the rest of the time she's over. So of course that means yesterday we went out to Oxford. It was a beautiful sunny day (while a little chilly) and the drive didn't take long (50 minutes from our place). Oxford is a great town with loads of great old buildings, immaculately presented in squares, quadrangles showing off heaps of prestige and pomp (I lost count of the number of guys in bowler hats). Seeing as it got a bit chilly and it was a Sunday we couldn't help but settle into a pub for a Sunday Roast Lunch - which didn't disappoint. After lunch we checked out the Christ Church which has a food hall which the Hogwarts in the movies uses as a reference, it was amazing. By the time the sun started getting too low in the sky we started to head off, the sun setting before we got home. You can check out some of the photos from Oxford here. Coming up we will meet up for one last dinner with Mum and John before they head off, and also we will soon go to Stockholm and the USA, so expect to see some updates about those in the coming month.

Comments(1) | Posted By Graeme on

4,2,4,2,3,3...

...No it's not an over of Gilly blasting Panesar around the WACA, it's the maximum temperatures in London for the week. There was also a crazy fog today (bad enough to cancel the Liverpool vs Arsenal League Cup match) and looks likely to be like that most mornings/nights this week. Yes that's right the weather has finally decided it's proper winter and this is the sort of temperature we can expect here for the next 2-3 months . Maybe it will decide to snow properly.

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

W.O.R.K.

That's what it seems like we have mostly been doing since we last posted about our trip to Athens. We have both been very busy at work so the energy and effort to do much outside of that has been not very forthcoming and as such we haven't been up to much of note in the last 6 weeks. So I will try to recap as much as I can remember... My brother Stephen was over for 10 days or so in early November, he managed to see the sights of London, but at the same time regroup after his hectic trip across Europe while also slipping in 2 days in Dublin. One thing we were able to do with Step was head out to Windsor and check out the home of the Royal Family. Windsor Castle is a very large and impressive Castle situated on a large hill overlooking the surrounding countryside just on the outskirts of West London (it's just outside the M25 therefore counts as outside of London). It's the official residence of the Queen, and the oldest inhabited castle in the world. We arrived just in time to see the Changing of the Guards in which you get much closer to the action then at Buckingham Palace, but is more or less the same thing with a different backdrop. The gardens and the grounds of the castle were still looking splendid for the time of year and some of the state rooms (especially the throne room) are some of the best we have seen in all of the Palaces and Castles we have visited in Europe so far. The castle also currently has Queen Mary's Doll House on exhibition and it is a site to see. It's the size of a room and it details all of the rooms of a palace, including working lights and replicas of everything of the time (including the crown jewels). It was a truly amazing thing to see, and even more unbelievable that it was a toy!. There was also an interesting exhibition of photos commemorating the Queen being 80, a lot of which were taken by various members of the royal family. After Stephen left we really haven't done a whole lot at all, except hang out at home (DVD's, TV, Xbox 360 :) ). The weather has been getting progressively colder (this week there was a Tornado). In general it's the wind at the moment that's making it feel very cold. It's mostly around 10 degrees as a maximum but the cold wind from the north blowing at up to 100 mph is just something else. So this sort of weather just doesn't help you want to go out much at the moment anyway. The other thing that is unbelievable (for an Aussie anyway) is the time the sun gets up, it's one thing for it to be up at 4am till 10:30pm in summer but at the moment it's rising at nearly 8am and well set by 4pm. It's just not very motivating at all. Last weekend we went to Oxford Street because it was closed to traffic to do a little shopping but we left before it got too busy. In a way this is the lull before the storm, so to speak, we have a lot of travelling lined up for the new year and that will only increase as the warmer months come.

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

Athens, Greece - October 23-27

It was half-term this last week (there are only 3 school terms here and there is a single week off in the middle of each one) so of course we had to go away. Graeme was pretty desperate to go to one of the ancient cities, particularly Rome or Athens. We decided on Athens because we figured, other than the islands, there wasn't a whole lot more we wanted to do in Greece, whereas we could probably spend a couple of weeks in Italy. I was much more slack this holiday, and didn't keep a daily diary as we were there. Add that to the fact that we have to go back to work tomorrow and this probably won't be a very long post. We flew out on Monday morning from Heathrow terminal 1. This was an experience in itself for 2 reasons - firstly, because we'd only ever been to terminal 4, secondly because it was the first time we'd been to an airport since the security measures got tighter. We had to queue for quite awhile to go through security and we had to take our shoes off to do so - of course I was wearing my long doc marten boots which I had to both remove and put back on in the airport security area? We arrived in Athens in the late afternoon and by the time we got out of the metro near our hotel the sun had set. Other than the airport and the distant views we had for the first part of the metro trip, our first real sight in Athens was the Acropolis, from which we were staying a couple hundred metres down the road. It looks very cool at night - all lit up and eerie looking. We checked into our hotel then went for a walk to find some dinner and promptly got lost. See the thing about Greek is that it?s a whole different alphabet and while a lot of things are written in both the greek and hindu-arabic letters, its not always the case. And since our maps only used one and most of the public maps used the other, it took us a few days to get our bearings and to get used to translating P to R and X to H and things like that. We finally found Syntagma - one of the main squares in the city and got some dinner before heading back to crash. The following three and a half days were pretty relaxed - we slept in as late as we could without missing breakfast in the hotel, spent the days doing things around Athens, had very laid back afternoons and had a different dining experience every night. We saw the Acropolis and all that that entails - the Pantheon, temples, ancient theatres. On the same ticket (which carried over the days) we saw ancient ruins, gardens and forums in Ancient Agora as well as the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is very much just a bunch of columns now - but they are massive. We also visited the National Archaeological Museum (where we kind of got sick of looking at marble statues), went to the seaside, wandered through little market streets, explored gardens and finally got a hang on their public transportation. On Thursday afternoon, we climbed halfway up a big hill and caught a funicular the rest of the way and watched the sunset. That's where I took my "money shot" of Athens? We flew home Friday evening and have not done much since. Even though it was a pretty slow-paced holiday compared to what we usually do, we were pretty drained. Or maybe we've just finally started to get in the holiday mood. Anyway, we've been catching up on laundry and trying to get the house a bit more sorted because we're finally going to get another visitor - Graeme's brother Stephen arrives on Tuesday.

Comments(0) | Posted By Kate on

Our trip to see Liverpool play...

Our weekend started as soon we got home from work. After quickly packing we hopped in the car and proceeded to get stuck in a mad traffic jam due to an accident on the North Circular in London. After taking nearly 2 hours to get 10 miles to the M1 motorway we took the first service stop to get some dinner, not as far as we had wanted but Kate was stuffed from driving in the traffic. After dinner we made good progress taking around another 3 hours or so to get to Liverpool, arriving at our motel just before midnight. We woke the next morning in time to get breakfast from the restaurant attached to the motel. After filling ourselves on the breakfast buffet we made our way to the nearby train station, where we got a metro train into the center of Liverpool. We had a bit of a wander around the center of Liverpool and happened to find LFC's second superstore in the middle of a square not far from the center of the city. Here I got a jersey and Kate a jacket as we queued for around an hour to get to the checkout, next time we need to remember to organise these things before the day of the game. We still had a few hours to kill before we needed to get to the game, so we had a wander to the Cavern quarter to see The Cavern club and the Beatles memorials around there. After grabbing some lunch we hopped on a bus heading to Anfield full to the brim with Liverpool supporters. Upon arriving at Anfield, about an hour before kick-off, we headed around to the back of the stadium to the Anfield Road end where our seats were located. Most people were still loitering outside the stadium at this point, or in the bars behind the stands, as alchohol isn't served after 15 minutes before kick-off. We weren't certain how good our seats were going to be, we knew they were behind the goals but we didn't know we were going to get such a good height to watch the match from also. As we sat down there wasn't many people in the stadium, which didn't change till just before kick-off where there was a rush of people in just in time to sing You'll Never Walk Alone as the players came out. The singing of You'll Never Walk Alone is accompanied by a lot of scarves in the air. The atmosphere during the match was amazing, when the whole crowd picks up on the same song it is an awesome wall of sound. Now if Liverpool had of played a bit better in the first half the wall of sound may have stayed up, but after Blackburn scored there goal everything went a bit flat as Liverpool were playing hopelessly, which unfortunately for us was when they were coming towards us. So in the second half the inevitable come back was all towards the other end. When they scored though the roof just about raised off the stadium, and the noise level went up to a new level as the crowd pushed Liverpool towards a winner that sadly never quite came. One comment on the football, it is amazing how fast the play actually is, you really notice it being so close to the match. Much faster then it looks on Television (the field also looks much smaller then it does on TV as well). After the match we walked back to the city center (about an hour or so), where we caught a train back to the motel and had dinner at the attached restaurant before going to bed. We had a pretty ordinary nights sleep due to an excessive amount of noise made by people in corridors and surrounding areas but we managed to get going enough to get to Anfield again to do our stadium tour. The tour was excellent, we got to see all the media area, dressing rooms, sit in the managers area and wander around the stadium all the while being informed about the reasons for things, hearing funny stories about incidents and many a joke about Harry Kewell being injured. Kate managed to get a bit of the anfield turf as well which has been contacted together as a souvenier for later. We left Liverpool about lunchtime, after a quick trip through the superstore at the stadium and we got home pretty tired later on Sunday afternoon, where i'll be looking forward to going to see another match at Anfield later in the season and hopefully next time Liverpool will win! :) All in all we had a great weekend, and another experience marked off my list of things to do in my life :)

Comments(0) | Posted By Graeme on

Finally, we have got tickets to a Liverpool Match :)

Yes, thats right after many attempts at getting tickets I have finally succeeded. The difference was getting Fancards which allowed us to use the internet booking system and not the phone system to get tickets. So the important bit, we are going to see Liverpool vs Blackburn Rovers in two weeks time, the match is a sell-out (as they all are) and that should make for a great atmosphere! Hopefully they are still playing well by that match! Anyway we will update you with what happens on our trip up to Liverpool and most likely have a bunch of pictures from the match in a couple of weeks. In other news there is not much to add, with Kate going back to school and myself being fairly busy at work we have been pretty quiet and mostly just relaxing on weekends. Tonight though we are going to see Footloose at the theatre (from cheap tickets of course) which should be a good show! --Graeme

Comments(1) | Posted By Graeme on