A place of our own

... for seven whole days!

We have an apartment in London for seven days! With a fridge and an oven and a cook top, which meant for the first time in over 50 days we went grocery shopping so we can make lunch and cook dinner. We did the shop earlier today and piled on cheese and bread and vegetables and I thought, oh dear this is so much food it's going to be like 70 pounds. It was 27. Bargain. I felt like we were stealing food.

It's our fifth anniversary tomorrow! That's pretty exciting.





Since the last time I put up a blog we've had a day in Bath and a day in Oxford.

Our day in Bath was a dream, we woke up early to get our Full English Breakfast (they are very pro-vegetarian here as everywhere has vegie options, including vegetarian sausages!). Bath had me disorientated, I'm in... England today?

From our five star guest house we strolled to the Roman Baths and spent an hour or so admiring the hot spring and trying to take in as much history as we could from our audio tour. This audio tour (you must have gathered by now that I'm a fan) had three options. One was normal audio tour, two was audio tour for children and the third was audio tour by Bill Bryson. I enjoyed his audio tour so much that I bought his book Notes from a small island. I started reading it and was laughing away for the first 50 pages or so, until he mentioned Princess Di and I realised that this book was written 17 years ago! Oh well, not a lot had changed.

On our Bath day, at around 5pm we made our way to the thermal spa, we purchased a two hour pass, which gave us access to a roof top pool, heated down stairs pool and four scented steam rooms. The whole experience was just delicious.

Ri and I darted from pool to pool to steam room to pool again. While other tourists lay in the water looking like they were concentrating on soaking up the thermal goodness, we collected pool noodles and splashed and laughed as we tried to stand on them under water.
The view from the roof top pool was amazing.

I'll blog about Oxford next time!

Ri's NYC

This is written 100% by Ri. As much as I want to I won't change a thing.

We arrived in New York on the 21st of May and got to our hotel at around midnight and once again got upgraded to a suite which was awesome. We had booked a secret hotel on the upper east side just next to the Queens borough Bridge about 5 blocks from the bottom of central Park. Due to our late arrival we slept in on the Saturday and headed for central park. One thing that we noticed straight away is that there seemed to be construction everywhere with at least one building in most blocks shrouded in scaffolding.

We made it to the edge of the park alive and thanks to my great navigating skills, we went down a road entrance assuming that we would be able to get into the park a little way in.... I was wrong. We ended up walking that full width of the park on a small footpath through under bridges with noisy traffic. Once on the other side we walked through the park looking for something to snack on and because it was a Saturday there were people everywhere. We made our way down to the lower west corner of the park and out to find something to snack on. After that a little overwhelmed by all the pushy noisy new Yorkers we made our way back to our hotel.



On our second day we made our way down towards time square. We made it to down to 52nd just managing to dodge a Polish parade on Madison avenue and found tiffanies only to be confronted by a massive Israeli Parade on 5th. We took refuge in Tiffany’s for a while and then headed out again. We had to fight our way through hordes of people for about 5 blocks south before we could cross fifth. We finally got down to times square and to the Lion King Box office only to find out that there was no 8pm show that night and the matinee was all sold out. And their were no other showings in the following days. So we stumbled home defeated.


The next day we we wend around the Museums, We got to the Guggenheim just as it opened and after that moved on to the natural history museum which had a much larger fossil collection then I had ever seen before. After that we made our way down to times square again to check out the Tutankhamun exibit. All museumed out we jumped in a cab and went down to the bottom of the island to see the statue of liberty at sunset and took a round trip on the Statin Island ferry


All in all New York didn’t shine for us as we had hoped it would be. I am writing this last bit on the flight to London after one more night it New York. We started our day in Boston with wonderful weather and a beautiful city For a change we decided to this leg by train and it was a lot cheaper. Probable would have worked out around the same amount of time as a flight if you count security time. For what we saw of the train trip the countryside in Massachusetts and Carolina. Is very nice and there are some awesome little hamlets that you go through as the train track travels pretty close to the coast. We didn’t take much of it in however as we were both stuffed and a bit fluey so we Vicky slept for about 90% and I snoozed almost as much I woke Vic up as we were approaching New york and we could see the empire state building and the city-scape. Unfortunatly the lovely weather in Bostan had shifted to dark and rainy in New york. It was just around this time as I think we were going through queens that the train stopped to wait for the signals and we heard an announcment over the loud speaker that the there was something wrong with the engine and they were unable to pull away and had no estimation of how long it might take to fix. Luckily we were only sitting there for about 20min before they got it moving again. We arrived at Pen station around 2pm and spent about 20min trying to find a lift that worked and could get us to the surface where it was still raining. Luckily we were able to flag down a cab without to much difficulty and get downtown relatively dry. This time we stayed in a place in China town a couple of blocks for little Italy. The guy at the front desk recommended a Chinese place that he ate from every day so I went out to just us some takeaway for lunch. You can tell its authentic when the write the dockets in Cantonese and I didn’t tell Vicky this but the menu had quite a variety including frog, intestines of some sort and other delicacy’s.(eeeeewwwwwww)

The adventurous eaters that we are I decided to go for the vegetarian fried rice. So we had lunch rested for a while and then headed out for dinner before going to see the Lion king on Broadway. We headed up about 10 short blocks from where we were staying to a Ukrainian dinner we had seen on a TV show about peoples favourite locals (it was actually a show on the food network - top 10 diners in the usa). The food was awesome and the soups were just what we needed after getting half soaked on the walk there which probably wasn’t the best for our flu. The reason we hunted it down was because of there Ukrainian dumplings which are apparently famous. I defiantly recommend it if only for dumplings and borsht and it was reasonably cheap as far as new York goes (Veselka). We made our way up to see the lion king with a funny cab driver named Richie who is probably the nicest New Yorker that we met. Wasn’t a fan on French tourists though. The Lion king was a good show and apart for the Crush of everyone trying to get the two toilets during the intermission it was a good experience. Afterwards though we were pretty stuffed and had to get up in about five ours to get the to airport for our flight to LONDON. There was a mad rush as we exited to I took us a block west to try and get a cab. Bad idea. I ended up standing on the side of the road, in the rain for about 20min trying to flag down a cab watching people managing to do it with no difficulty about twenty meters either side of me. So once again summing up our experience of new York. Some Good food (polite way of saying most of it was bad), good show and too many pushy people.

Well I did my best not to change his words or add bits. I just did not see the magic. I had a New Yorker HIT my window in a cab, a middle aged man! Like a toddler chucking a tanty. A city full of toddlers with their bright adds and replica filled museums. A city where you are suppose to be able to get anything anytime, but doesn't "do delivery after 7pm." But alas I must breath and not get started on this city I disliked so much (A man made me CRY in TIFFANY'S - whole other story!). Anyway we've moved on to the cities New York wished it could be. But to be like London, it's got some growing up to do. TODDLERS! (Look at that, you've reduced me to name calling)

Location: Bath

This first part was written on the 19.06.2010. (At around 3pm.)

We’re still recovering from whatever cold/flu thing we brought over from the USA. This, I believe, has completely scrambled Ri’s brain. While I have slowly been getting better, Ri got really ill, recovered in a day, had a couple of good days, and got really sick again.
He will live.
Scrambled brain behaviour has included packing up and heading down to reception to checkout an entire day early from London (the night before hand – night four - he’d said we’re leaving tomorrow, and I said ‘I thought we had five nights here.’ He briefly checked his watch and declared that he was wrong – he later admitted that he didn’t actually take in what was on the watch, or else he would have seen it was the 13th not the 14th). It’s partially my fault I guess. I’ve insisted we keep the lap top on Brisbane time/date so we can look and know right away if it’s a good time to call our families. So Ri convinced himself that it was the 14th when it was the 13th because it had just clicked over to midnight in Oz.
So we dragged all our staff back upstairs and went out to explore London – on bonus day.
I used bonus day to get a haircut. My hair is shorter again and a little blonder. After my impromptu haircut we went for a walk to the palace. It was cold. Rainy. But beautiful.
The next day our first day out in London for that stay (every other time we went out it was at least 3pm). We went to Westminster abbey. I particularly enjoyed seeing Newton’s memorial, which made our auto tour say this: “The man who discovered gravity” and right next door was Darwin “A scientist that strongly supported the theory of evolution.” Oh you. You auto-tour.

After our first morning out in London we hired a car (which we have for 10 days) and we drove South to Brighton. I loved Brighton! The shopping was great – not that Ri lets me buy anything! I tried my very first red velvet cupcake. I had never heard of red velvet before I saw Cake Boss in the states. And may I say Nom nom nom nom! So good. And I’m sure you can get it in Oz but there is something about finding new foods in a different country, that makes it... Nommyer.
Brighton is a seaside town, so we went for a walk down to the ‘beach.’ I couldn’t believe it. It really was just stones. The beach crunched as you walked on it.
We took the advice from a local jeweller and the next day we made our way west to Arundel, and visited Arundel Castle on the same day, as it turns out, as Madonna. No we didn’t see Madonna, but we can say we were in a Castle at the same time as Madonna. Cool. Story.

From Arundel we drove North-Westish to Amesbury/ Salisbury. We spent sometime in the shops. I’m looking for a super cute dress, as we have our fifth (FIFTH- half a decade, one fifth of Ri’s life) dating anniversary coming up next week and his birthday is exactly one week later. I saw the cutest dress in Brighton and am absolutely kicking myself for not buying it. (Um yeah it came with like a massive hoop-type thing to wear under it – so it would have taken up half our luggage space – but it was so cute! Let it be the only thing I wear!).
This morning we got up at quarter to 4am and drove down to Stonehenge to watch the sunrise (two days shy of the summer solstice). You can’t actually ‘get in’ until 9am, so we took a few snaps over the fence and came back at 10am after a morning nap, so we could do the audio tour! And find out ‘no one will ever know why blue stone is warmer than other stone’. Ever seen a grown man argue with an audio-tour?
Hi-larious
We drove to Bath thinking that we had four nights booked at a hotel there. Um wrong. The hotel is not in Bath, just outside of Bristol, it’s in Coventry, east of Birmingham. My female mind guess would be that we are staying about 300kms from where we originally thought. And Bath looked so beautiful too.
Oh well, we have two nights not booked yet before we are due back in London, maybe we’ll go back to Bath instead of to Oxford, which is where we planned to go when we thought we were staying in Bath. Birmingham seems close to Wales, maybe we’ll do a trip to Wales. .
I’m still loving England. They drive REALLY FAST, still have Big Brother (there is an Aussie in the house atm, I pointed out the accent to Ri and his response was ‘he must be a tradie’), they love Peter Andre , they charge you for looking at anything and everything plus you can buy V for 99p. .
Advice for travellers. While my sister in law did an awesome job of making up a book for us that has helped compensate for our poor research prior to leaving (I’m going to be blaming the wedding for that) here is one thing we did not know that I thought I would add.
Washington DC: We were advised to visit the White House. What we didn’t know was that if you want to do the tour of the White House, you need to apply to the embassy at least 30 days – 6 months before hand.

Written on the 22nd: Back in Bath.
Apparently there is a saying that to be ‘sent to Coventry’ is like being sent to the sinbin/naughty corner. I wish I’d known that. Because its dead on. We had 4 prepaid nights, but cut our losses after 2 nights and left Coventry for Cardiff (Wales!). I loved Wales. A bit like New Zealand, except they have ‘come out’ about their love of sheep. We went to Cardiff castle (ooh if you go, you must watch the 7 minute video. There is no audio so I may have misunderstood, but from what I can tell the Roman’s left Wales because they were beaten over the head by a school girl’s sketch book. )
And so we’ve driven back to Bath. Take two. Ri decided that after telling me we were staying in Bath for 4 nights in a three star hotel that turned out to be 300 km’s away, that he would make up for it with 2 nights in a five star hotel. On the most expensive street in Bath.
Ooooh I am a princess!
(I feel I need to add this for mum, this five star place was only $10 more than a Best Western that was about 3 miles away, so that is why we're here!)

Photo's to come later as blogger isn't allowing me to post them without a fight and Ri is about ready to have a tantrum if we don't go out for dinner now.

Boston, Boston Massachusetts.

Boston was awesome. I absolutely loved Boston. It was so green and there is so much history. During our time in Boston we found our way to Harvard (it may be my extreme bias for UQ, but I think it's more beautiful). But Harvard was so GREEN. Everywhere in the USA and UK have been so GREEN. The grass really is greener on the other side.
We'd hired a car and Ri insisted that we drive past MIT.
In Boston we mostly walked around, following the Freedom trial. We know so much more about American history than we do our own! This was proved when we had dinner at a pub in Boston called the Black Rose. On the place mats there was a story, the exact details escape me, about how 9 men in the UK where saved from execution and set to Australia instead and how one of them went on to become prime minister of Australia around 1860. We sat there going... Ummmmm I don't think thats even possible. 1901? But who ruled before then. I have no clue.

How embarrassing.


























The last two photos are us in Washington. We went for a walk at night, and with the lights and the water it is so very beautiful. And thats me looking at the hope diamond.

Location - London

I almost put this in the last blog before we left the US but thought better of it, but as we are starting to feel a bit better after two days of bed rest I can admit that Ri and I have been feeling under the weather for about a week - since we were in Washington (is what I think) Ri thinks we caught something from 'all those kids at Disneyworld.'
So right now I am frustrated and just want to see London! Frustrated is an upgrade from 'just kill me now' which was two days ago.
We had a night tour when we arrived two days ago thanks to our Taxi driver, who really needs to learn to form a political opinion - we made the mistake of asking who the new PM was (we were vaguely aware that there was an election here and last we heard it had been pretty close). Turns out our Taxi driver was extremely conservative. At 11pm at night I don't really want to hear about how labours let in Gypsy's (and crusty jugglers?) into the country. But he also showed us Harrods, Buckingham palace, Hyde Park, Big Ben and all those places that make you go "wow, I'm in London!! cool"

Ri has gone out on a mission and when he gets back (hopefully by 4pm) we'll venture out for a walk down the river and hopefully get in a full day of site seeing tomorrow.

Oh and guess what Ri surprised me with this morning?
V!
He looked it up in the USA to see if he could buy some there and found that it was sold in the UK and found me some this morning while I was asleep. (Best husband ever).

Hopefully next time I'll have a more interesting story. Considering that in 3 nights time we have no hotels booked or exact plans on where we are headedm just a vague idea that we'll hire a car and go south... that can only led to interesting stories. As its how Ri loves to travel. Me? I like knowing where I am going to sleep!

We miss everyone!

Penultimate day in the USA

This is a photo of Henri at Central Park the last time we were in New York. We have to go back today to catch our flight to the UK tomorrow. Here is what the next two days looks like. Return rental car in Boston, catch a train (3hrs) to New York, see the lion king at Broadway tonight at 8pm, be up and ready for a flight tomorrow morning (I think we have to be at the airport by 6am).

So we've been away from home for over a month! I've asked Ri some questions (something different to put on the blog):
-Some of the answers are mine-
What do you miss most about home (excluding Friends/family):
- V
- our bed
- our pets Baylee and Ky
- Variety in clothing
- our car Suzi

Some 'awards' for North American cities that we've visited:

Best Architecture: Boston

Nicest smelling city: Vancouver

Dining awards -
Best Lunch: Soundwave - San diego
Best Dinner: Fairmont - Lake Louise
Besting dining experience: Japan, Epcot, Disneyworld

Best museums: Washington DC

Nicest parks: Montreal

Well I better be off, looks like we're off to Breakfast! Next time we post will be from London!!

Location - Boston

The photo is of Henri at the Jefferson memorial- Washington DC.


We spent 4 days at Washington DC and I think it has to be my favourite US city. We spent two days in the Smithsonian museums. I have a photo of me looking at the hope diamond that I'll have to put up, my whole face is just lit up. Ri said he'll buy it for me when it comes on sale.
I bought a book at the American history museum on ... American history called "The lies my teacher told me." I like it because it balanced out all the really over the top patriotic propagander that is everywhere. The American's have done alot of impressive things, but it's exhausting to read all the exhibits that say they did it on their own.

But I digress, on the whole Washington is a beautiful city. This morning we got up early (our flight was to be at 12:30) to visit the Library of Congress at 8:30, which was pretty amazing. We saw a 550 year old bible. That had been printed using a printing press. It was quite awe inspiring. Well for me. I'm partial to the written word.

We got to the Ronald Reagan Internation Airport just after 10am. So plenty of time!

If we had been at the right airport. Turns out we needed to be at an airport that was over 45 minutes away, so we missed our flight!

We had to pay an extra $150 for tickets on a 5pm flight.

Luckily Ri tried to get us into the gold standard (or whatever) lounge, and instead of letting us in they got us on a 2:30pm flight, which ended up getting to Boston at around the same time as our original flight, which had a lay over in Newark.

Our bag ended up on the 5pm flight, and it's yet to be delivered to our hotel.

Henari in Montreal

The Henari shots are not going to be in any sort of order. Here he is in French Canadian city Montreal.

This shot was taken on May 31 2010

Location - Washington DC

Hi all. Tori here. We are currently in Washington DC. And-It-Is-Hot. And sunny. (The cloudy photo was taken yesterday when we walked to Capital Hill - that shot was taken just before it poured down raining) Today we spent the day walking around with the goal to see the monuments today. I love Washington! I think it's my favourite US city so far (we really only have Boston left, before heading back to New York - bluh - and then we are off to the UK!). I love the lay out of Washington, it's all so open, with water everywhere.
Since I last blogged, we have spent four full days at Disneyworld parks, and two days in Montreal. After my time in New York I thought that I was in for a disaster of a trip - the city I was looking forward to the most was completely average and did not move me at all - but that's another blog/rant, which Ri should be writing (I can't blame his lack of motivation considering the subject).
Disneyworld was awesome. We spent 12 hours a day easy at one of four parks (Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Disney and The Magic Kingdom) or at Downtown Disney. And I loved everything about it! We stayed at the cheapest of the resorts, but it still came with all the perks of staying at a resort (like extra Disney hours). I cannot wait to go back. It was my fourth Disney theme park, if I go to the Disneyland in Hong Kong I'll have been to all the Disney parks in the world!

From Disneyworld we flew up to Montreal. Which I loved. It was charming! Nice weather just to walk around. We made our way down town, to the river, found that we were walking down a really... how should I put this?... Rainbow St. Lots of Rainbow flags, certain kinds of nightclubs, I couldn't help but laugh as Ri had spent the day trying to walk that little bit slower, but as we walked down this street he had started to speed up a little bit... it was the posters on the sides of the nightclubs, they were... they left nothing to the imagination.
We walked across a bridge to an island where there was a 'biosphere' - which was closed, but the abundance of ground squirrels made up for that! So Fat. So Cute!!

I need to add more of the pics we've taken of Henri!

Please Excuse my spelling! Or phrasing! I usually post at midnight!

:) T