Finger on the Pulse

so we're all married now....

2007-11-27T07:54:00.000+11:00

well its been 2 weeks now since our big day. Lots of photos & video footage has been coming through. Some of the best shots are linked below for all to see:


Before the Ceremony	Our Wedding Ceremony

Bridal Party Photos	Our Wedding Reception

Wedding Arrrrrrgh to be had

2007-06-12T08:06:00.000+10:00

Photos from Tim & Gib's wedding:

Collins' birthday 07

2007-05-07T14:16:00.000+10:00

Good work collins on organising dinner out in Turramurra. For a lot of us, it felt like we were in the middle of no where - not used to the lack of bottle shops not being opened :)

Great to see Lev, and a few other reg's who havent shown their face(s) in a while. Good to see the doctor is spending his money... still waiting for graham to get going with the luxury car purchasing...

a few photos taken anyway from the evening.

From Collins birthday dinner

riads are fun

2007-04-11T10:27:00.000+10:00

Its been some time since the last post, and even longer since the last video production. So without further ado, click on the video and check it out!

Mudgee revisited

2007-02-27T22:29:00.000+11:00

This time round, we took both Lisa and my parents with us to check out Mudgee; we did some scouting of possible ceremony options, possible photo opportunities, possible accommodation, and finally possible drinking options during the weekend in November.

Was a very productive weekend, and we went away with 2 dozen bottles of wine (well thats how many we bought) - a few got drunk over the weekend, so we did end up back at home with a few less.

Click below for photos

Mudgee Feb 2007

Imogen is here!

2007-01-29T07:48:00.000+11:00

It finally happened over the weekend - Georgie gave birth (I believe it was around 9.53am Sat morning) to a beautiful baby girl. We were lucky enough to go and visit them at the hospital on sunday.

How many regulators can you fit into a hospital room?

Happy parents

trip down south

2007-01-20T09:10:00.000+11:00

I was lucky enough to get to go down to melbourne for IBM's summer camp. It turned out to be quite a large event, with around 700 people attending from Aus/NZ IBM. The bonus was that the Australian Open was going to be the following week, so Lisa, my parents, Donna and Jeremy also came down on the sunday to watch the tennis.

It was a great 10 days down in Melbourne, getting to catch up with Lev/Della, and meeting their new baby boy Jett. Also got to see a 2.5 yr old Kai, although not sure if he fully recognised us from when we last met (which was March last year).

Some other people we hadn't seen in some time was Pete, who was our old flat mate from London. Was great catching up with him, and he was an awesome host, driving us around and showing us some of the sights of Melbourne. Sat night, we headed out to dinner with Sarah and Alistair - hadn't seen Sarah in several years, so was great to catch up with them as well; they took us to an awesome thai bar/restaurant cnr of Collins & Swanston. Food was awesome, and they had a massive beer menu - a big plus in my books.

The culinary delights didn't end there though - Lisa booked my family into Movida; a Spanish tapas restaurant off Flinders St. Food there was awesome - in particular, the rabbit meat balls.

And as a final surprise, Donna had tried to book us into 15 (Jamie Olivers restaurant) back in Oct last year, but they were fully booked 6 months in advance. We get a call on monday morning heading to the tennis - they were on the waiting list, and the waiting was over. They had a table for 6 available for monday night. It was a tasting menu; we had A1 seats (see photo below), and the food was off a very high standard. Although doing the food/price value test, I would say it would be average, as the tasting menu was $90. But as Jeremy pointed out, the money does go to a good cause.

Anyway, to the photos -

At Lev/Della's place in Carlton - the new Jett (with Kai's hat)

Della & Kai out at lunch on Bridge Rd, Melbourne

Getting ready for our culinary experience with 15

not sure if this is readable, but the menu from 15

Poppy and the Wolverines

2006-12-31T14:45:00.000+11:00

So with scottie and chico back in the country, we headed off to the opera bar for a few drinks. And then... well... we went to another venue in the city for a bit of fun.. check out the photos -

Night out in Sydney

Where are we for the past 12 months

2006-12-30T11:21:00.000+11:00

I've just uploaded 13 photos onto picasa web. Click the below link to check them all out:

where are We?

Arrrrrgh Xmas 2006

2006-12-17T11:28:00.000+11:00

So the 16th Dec was the designated day for the Arrrrrrgh annual christmas dinner. This time, we decided to go for a lunch rather than dinner - location was the Belgium Beer Cafe in the rocks.

We had a big turnout this year, with (i think) the number hitting 27 attendees. Drinking started shortly after 1pm. A late decision during the week was to take part in the kris kringle - $10 limit, and some rules to do with poaching, which would make the whole affair a bit a more interesting.

Again, a great day had - And it got better after leaving the belgium beer cafe - we headed to Glenmore rooftop pub in the Rocks... and once we were feeling like eating again, it was off to Sea-Bay - for those who have not been to Sea-Bay, it is an experience.

I've been told that you can't go in there and spend more than $20/person. Its just not possible. We ordered a LOT of dishes, there was food left on the table, and we only managed to rack up $16/person (thats about 6 pounds for our UK readers out there!).

Although the night could have gone on from there (from the original 27 there was about 12 that made it to dinner at sea-bay), we decided on going our separate ways and head home - probably a good decision given the amount of drinking that had occured during the day.Anyway, time for a few photos...

Joe "the Butcher" with his sample of beers (and sausages)

Joe was the lucky recipient of the 'pirate' kris-kringle present

The Arrrrrrgh boys on the glenmore rooftop

With Matt's current beard, the resemblence with Adam Savage (Mythbusters) is uncanny

You should see the other guy

2006-12-12T07:35:00.000+11:00

(note: ok so it really isn't that bad. It was really from an elbow to the eye during basketball. Still, I've been playing the bad boy card for the last couple of days)

Regulator Xmas 2006

2006-12-05T21:56:00.000+11:00

well - a late change in date meant that there was little preparation for this years annual regulator Clifton Gardens Xmas party. It was a big weekend on the regulators social calendar - ziggy and jodie had their house cooling down party on friday night; Damian & Bonnie invited us all around to visit their awesome place under Mooney Mooney bridge up the coast sat night; and of course, the annual xmas party on Sunday.

So what happened then -

the weather forecast for the weekend wasn't looking so sweet, and it rained most of saturday; it cleared up sunday, but was still quite overcsat and windy
Lisa and Graham got rammed up the ass on the F3 heading up to Collins' place. Basically, cars in front of them braked - they braked. The car behind them unfortunately did not brake as quickly. We now know that our Magna has an ass of steel as the car behind was quite totalled on its front, with the Magna just having a few scratches
Bonnie & Damian introduced us all to Taboo - did the whole girls vs boys, and of course the boys won convincingly (by 1 point anyway)
Sunday's events were moved to Georgie's parents place - gave us a good plan B as we did not know what the weather would do, and it was good to be back in familar terrority again
Kris Kringle, with its alternate 'present opening strategy' went off smoothly in the end - however, before that, there had been many numerous/wasted discussions about how it should all work

So yeah, it was a pretty fun weekend - Dan took some photos, which are below....

Lisa showing her stuff on the pool table

Collins telling it like it is

Santa & Jon

Big Poppa Arrives

were back

2006-11-27T22:00:00.000+11:00

We finally moved back into our unit in Artarmon 2 weeks ago. A big thanks to those who helped out (especially my mum who helped out on the Friday). Just a couple of photos from our living room with some of the new purchases we had made while overseas...

Moroccan Rug in our Dining Room

Santorini painting on our feature wall

party at the Jude's

2006-11-05T17:29:00.000+11:00

Well, what a great day/night we just had. For our overseas/interstate folk who weren't able to make it to the engagement party, thought we would share a few photos and stories.

Firstly, big thanks to the awesome hosts - Lisa's parents, Brendan and Carol. Tahlia and Britt (Lisa's little sisters) also played a big part in helping to set everything up - I think everyone was in agreeance that Britt did a great job with her mum in putting together the engagement (cup) cakes.

The caterers (grinners, based in Camden) turned up at about 6pm, and set themselves up in a nice little section out of the way. think we went with the right option with platters of food being served out, and everyone seemed to be happy with the selection.

Then came the alcohol - Brendan basically said that he hates to go to a party and the alcohol runs out mid way through the evening. Well, that turned out to not be a problem at all with plenty of excess to last the family well into the future.

We had a little photo slideshow going with our makeshift projector/screen setup, along with the ipod playing DJ for us - and although we did fear having 75 people in the house (as well as the rain coming down pretty much all day), we managed to comfortably fit everyone into the backyard - big thanks to Dave and Georgie's massive tarp that gave us that extra room.

The speeches made by Lis, Stu and Brendan were all different and all well appreciated by everyone. A few jokes, a few well told stories and a few tears always makes for a good occasion.

A big thanks again for all that did make it on sat night - hope you all had as good a time as Lisa and I did.

view photos from the night

Festivus fun

2006-10-03T19:23:00.000+10:00

well, the swans may not have won, but we still managed to have plenty of fun at Graham and Dan's place over the weekend.

Festivus did take its toll on Sergio, who had to retire early at 8pm. The 2nd day of festivus did bring about a successful result for the broncos. Goof way to let Webcke retire.

Cheah admiring the hosts cooking ability

Sergio & Nuggets ensuring festivus goes well

Singing the anthem during the AFL

Naxos, Greece

2006-09-25T19:32:00.000+10:00

Lisa enjoying some quality red wine

Athens

2006-08-31T19:26:00.000+10:00

Some photos taken while in Athens....

Shell, Lisa and Al at a seafood ouzerie

"where are we" - on top of the Acropolis, Athens

Da Amalfi

2006-08-26T03:39:00.000+10:00

Roma Photos

2006-08-26T03:32:00.000+10:00

By the Sweet Sorrento Moon

2006-08-25T03:36:00.000+10:00

18th August – Rome to Sorrento

An earlish start, check out of our very attentive Rom-antique Hotel and get on a 2 hour train to Naples. Once there, we needed to find our way to Circumvesuvia train line and there we would find our train to Sorrento – easy yes? Well sort of, there is very little signage so we were told to just follow two other tourists who had asked the tourist office the same thing we did, how do we get there. We just hoped they heard the directions correctly or didn’t stop to go to the bathroom or we could look odd waiting for them. Found the train line and the letters above our train info DIR seemed we would get there very soon. However, in Italian I guess DIR means every single stop not direct as one might have thought. So it was 40 stops to Sorrento and we were still smiling as we were on the way to the beach! 20 min into the trip and I feel some very old hands on my arm pulling me to the other side of the train and a very angry old Italian yelling. Seems I was in his path to the door and he suffered from a condition which meant he couldn’t go around me. Al did his best to keep me calm but I still got in a “Ciao asshole” as he left the train.

We arrived in Sorrento safely and without being man handled again. When we got out of the train station though we must have suckers written on our forehead cause we were quoted 20 euros for a 10 min taxi ride to our hotel and we took it! Still can’t believe we said yes.

We stepped into Mami Camillas and the day was looking up. A little family owned hotel just on the edge of Sorrento. First stop was the beach which was a bit of a walk ... down. Sorrento in perched on cliff tops and to get to a beach (no sand really just water but who’s counting chickens) we had to walk through a cool path they had through the cliff face. After a quick swim I had a date with a cucina (Italian for kitchen). I had signed up for the evenings cooking class. Our teacher (Massimo), two other girls and I were going to cook dinner for the staff and Mami’s guests. On the menu was Arancini balls, homemade pasta with tomato and eggplant, pollo with cream and mushroom sauce and lastly Neopolitan chocolate sponge cake. I didn’t stop smiling the whole time I was in that kitchen, it was the most fun I had had all holiday.

That night Al and I ate with the rest of the hotel and enjoyed the meal I had helped cook with some local vino.

Roma

2006-08-18T04:04:00.000+10:00

Last night in Rome tonight. Then off to the Amalfi. When we first arrived into Rome, it was quite a difference to the other cities we had visited thus far in Italy.

The number of people trying to scam you (or at least sell things on the streets) seemed to multiply some what. But, all that aside, it was still great to visit all the famous landmarks that it is known for.

A quick rundown of our 3 days here:
Aug 15th - we left Florence at around 11am, with a fairly easy 2 hour train ride. Got into Rome, to feel the humidity sap all the energy straight out of us. The hotel that Lis had found (RomAntica) turned out to be a nice little place, just a short 5 min walk from the main train station; good work hon. We were only 2 metro stations away from the Colosseum, so thats were we headed.
Saw the large lines, then some tour company approached us and asked if we wanted to join. Normally €12 to get in, and they were asking €20 so we thought - deal! After the colosseum, checked out the Forum.

Aug 16th - Headed into the centre of town to visit a few of the other key sights; Pantheon, the Trevi fountain, and numerous piazzas (they love their piazzas over here). Lisa mentioned that its becoming very clear why wogs back home love to put concrete all over their backyards!

Aug 17th - From our tour of the Colloseum, we decided to try the same tour company with their tour of the Vatican City. Met at the metro station closest to St Peters at 8.15am. Nice and early start. Downside was the past two days the Vatican had been closed to the public, so every tourist and their proverbial dog were there that morning.

We queued up for 2.5 hours! Suprisingly went quite quickly, although fitty people inside made it quite stuffy and claustrophobic.

Sistine Chapel, and the St Peters Basicalla were as expected, the highlights. And our guide turned out to be quite informative, which always makes the time go quicker.

Anyway, pizza is calling.

Milan to Rome

2006-08-14T18:11:00.000+10:00

10th August - Milan
We arrive in Milan MXP airport (50 km out of Milan!) and make our way to our hotel. Al is very frustrated as this is the first city we have come across where maps are not free and he is forced to pay 3 euros for one. After that our hotel is located and we head staight for the Duomo and to do a bit of shopping for Donna's birthday.

11h August - Lake Como/Venice
Up at 6:30 to get to (insert name of church here) to see The Last Supper and head off to Lake Como. Then get the 4 o'clock train to Venice! Again Al is frustrated that he is asked to pay for a map ("I remember a time when maps used to be free!") so refuses and asks the information girl to direct him to the hotel. She musn't of liked him because her directions couldn't have been more vague. After wandering the streets and finding a very nice local who phoned the hotel on her mobile to get the right directions we off to a great start in Venice. The saying, bad dress rehersal, good show must be right because Venice turned out to be my favourite city in Europe. Each corner we turned we were amazed at how beautiful everything was.

12th August - Venice
Happy Birthday Donna! I am going to need Al's help to remember what we did this morning because it is alraedy a blur! Earlier that day we had passed an Opera Hall and decided to get some tickets for the Venitian Opera. It turned out to be a great night.

13th August
Checked out of the hotel at 9:30 and head straight for the train station to book our tickets to Florence, lucky we did because the earliest train we could get was at 1.30pm.

Barca

2006-08-13T02:25:00.000+10:00

So much to say here, but only 1 min on our internet... will have to edit this later!

7th August - Barcelona

8th August - Barcelona

9th August - Barcelona

Birthday celebrations were at hand, and Lisa did a great job at making the day go so well. Started off with a quick stop at the food markets just off Las Ramblas. Dman, they were good! plenty of fresh fruit to be had, and we managed to even get a fry up.It was then off to one of the city beaches. No waves, but plenty of sun, and the water was remarkebly refreshing, so made several hours of the afternoon go very quickly.Back to the hotel for a quick change before heading off to Park Mojito (to be fixed later), were we enjoyed a nice walk around and some great views of Barca as the sun came down.We did make reservations for Los Caracoles (thanks chico for the recommendation), and this is were we found ourselves at around 9pm. The restaurant was buzzing, and had a good atmosphere to it. Definitely was a great way to finish the day off.

next stop - Milano

San Sebastian

2006-08-12T02:40:00.000+10:00

Lisa with the beautiful San Sebatian beaches in the background

2nd August - San Sebastian
As soon as we arrived in San Sebastian, we new that we would have a great time. The old town was great with a different Tapas bar at every 2nd store. Lisa and Dan were loving all the clothing labels around - I knew this was a good thing, as it meant beach time for me :)

The hostel that we stayed at was Pension Amariur, which was a recommendation from our old flat mate Josie. And it was tops. Apart from being in a porn location, the friendliness of the staff and the cleanliness of the rooms meant our stay was extremely enjoyable.

We hit the tapas bars that night - not really knowing what to expect. Think we got ripped off in 1 or 2 places. Mainly because we decided not to pay straight away and trust that the bar man had a good memory. The other times we gave tapas a go, it turned out a whole lot more successfully.

3rd August - San Sebastian
No breakfast included in the Pension, so we headed out. We tried to rip off a not very smart waiter. But he was faster then us, and we couldnt get away. Hit the beach... well, I did, while Lisa and Dan hit the shops. They soon worked out that Siesta time was in full effect, so their shopping turned to be more wondering around, but still a worthwhile cause.

Not wanting Tapas, we thought Paella was the go. With a recommendation from our hotel staff, we headed out to a place on the other side of the river. Turned out they dont do Paella any more but we still took some awesome sunset photos (see below) and then headed back to the old town for Paella.

Al & Lisa on bridge at sunset

4th August - Biarittz
It was time to head out of town and check out some more of Basque country. Decision was made to head towards Biarittz, and all 3 of us were very happy with the decision, with me getting some much needed beach time, Lisa finding a bikini top, and Dan buying a new t-shirt. Not to mention, having a great lunch (although we weren´t too happy with having to fork out €7.50 for a coke each!), and admiring a bit of Southern France at the same time.

[photo here]

"where are we" in Biartittz

5th August - San Sebastian
The KLB would be reunited today, and Dan and me headed to Bilbao airport to go pick the little filo (Chico) up. He was very excited to see us, and plenty of stories to swing both ways happened throughout the weekend.

We headed up to some place with a good view (wheres chico when you need him to remember the name!) and had a few KLB reunion shots.

It was then back down to check into the hostel - one issue with being in the old town was the lack of parking, so €18/night was the order of play for carparking. We all headed to the beach (even Dan this time), and all enjoyed the sand, water and waves. Oh, and there may have been a few tops missing from some ladies on the beach as well, but I wouldnt know about that.

Finally, the day was topped off with a fine dining experience at Arzak, Spains number one restaurant. Lisa will bring her thoughts to the table at a later time - hopefully with pictures...

Lisa and Dan at a resturant not serving Paella

6th August - Barcelona
With a big night last night, it was time for a bit of a sleep in, and then a plan was decided that we would drive Dan and Chico to Heneye, which is just across the border in France. Mind you, no border police at all to be found... Heneye really didnt seem to have much going for it, so we settled for a little cafeteria and some cheap food.

Really not much to write about, especially with our meal, as I think some of us were still full from last nights meal (think Lisa counted 17 courses in total). We loaded Chico and Dan up (thanks guys once again) with all our Marrakech purchases and said our goodbyes.

It was then a bit of a drive back to Bilbao airport. Only sour note was to be hit by the Eurocar folk for a new scratch on the side of the car. Probably was us that did it, as we did touch a few curbs in 1 or 2 car parks... but what can you do.

We arrived in a fairly humid Barcelona and the info desk at the airport provided all the info we required to get ourselves to our hotel.

on the way to San Seb

2006-08-06T02:22:00.000+10:00

31st July - time to depart Morocco
Even though it was 1st class on the overnight train from Marrakech to Tangier, it still proved difficult to find a way to sleep comfortably throughout the night. It didn´t help that there was several stops with people getting on/off the train every few hours; we managed to arrive 1 hour past the scheduled arrival into Tangier (arriving at 8.30am). Then it was straight off to the ferry port where we saw a ferry about to leave in 30 min.

Cost €40 for the ride, and with 30 min you would have thought no probs to get past passport control. We thought we were cutting it fine, but the ferry was running on Spain time, so it all worked out in the end (Al did manage to get into quite a fuss in the passport queue though).

That night, we stayed in Malaga in a really nice hostel (Picassos corner). Malagas vibe was very cool and it was a shame we only spent one night there. Managed to visit the Castello in the middle of town and get some great photos from there. Somehow managed to find a taxi at 5am to take us to the airport.

1st August - Costa Verde
The flight from Malaga went smoothly and we found our selves in Santiago De Compestella. Picked up the car and drove into town. Checked out a few sights (big ass church that had plasmas within - a sign of the times perhaps). With having no hotel to stay this evening, once at Santiago, this was one of our first priorities. We managed to pick a hotel near Gijon, which should have been about 4 hours drive away from Santiago.

On the open road, some very beautiful scenery, and we did decide to go for a few scenic roads, which meant that our 4 hours, became a bit more like 6. Our main problem was entering into a city, then having no idea how to get out of it! guess it may pay to have (better) maps next time we embark on a driving expedition.

2nd August - Costa Verde
We left Alvires and headed on the road towards Basque country. The drive continued along some very beautfiul seas side and green hills - plenty of bridges, hills, valleys, beaches were passed, and all looked like they would provide a great relaxing getaway. We made it to San Sebastian in the afternoon... we learnt very quickly that fitty one way roads can make navigating the streets there a bit hectic.

a hot city!

2006-08-01T18:49:00.000+10:00

After almost a year, we finally got to catch up with Dan again. He is currently midway through his 4 weeks around the world. He arrived in London wednesday morning, and Lisa played the host as I was still working that day.

Thursday 27th July
A nice early flight leaving from Gatwick meant we caught our taxi to the airport at 5am. A pretty uneventful flight, with a slight delay meant we got to the heat of Marrakech at about 11.30am. Our host for the Riad that we were staying at was there to greet us at the airport and take us straight to our home for the next 3 nights. We basically drove to the edge of the medina, where a boy then with a wheelbarrow-like-trolley took our suitcases as we swerved amongst the many people in the markets (souks), dodging donkeys, horses, motorbikes, bicycles and plenty of people. Its always a great experience to be greeted with a large glass of orange juice at your hotel. The riads are definitely something special, with each room having its own theme. At the centre of the riad was a table and also a little wading pool that we made heavy use of every day at around 2-4pm (when the day was hottest). And then it was off to do some sightseeing

Friday 28th July
A bit of sponantiety hit me when I dragged Lisa and Dan into a carpet store. He looked like he had a wide selection to choose from. The price that I originally had in my mind turned out to be a far way from what we ended up paying - in the end though, I think Lisa and me were very happy with our purchase (hey, if the store is good enough for Mariah Carey and Hillary Clinton to shop at, then its good enough for us).

Saturday 29th July
It was time to check out a little out of Marrakech - we visited the tourist office and they recommended a tour company that could lend a hand. We paid 900 dirham for the 3 of us to be driven 2 hours to the cascades. Morroco as you would expect is extremely hot and dry - to find these cascades where there are beautiful water falls and lots of greenery was just fantastic. It made for an extremely relaxing day (albeit a bit of walking to/from the cascades), and we were all very glad to have made the journey out there.

Sunday 30th July
Our final day in Marrakech - last minute shopping was the main priority. Having to check out of the riad also meant that we wanted to not make it a big day with no shower in sight for another 36 hours.

Marrakech airport...

Our rug man who has brought us plenty of good luck on our trip

checking out the merchandise

goodbye stuart rd

2006-07-27T18:42:00.000+10:00

Photos taken from our final night at Stuart Rd... we headed to the Grand Union for one last meal together....

Lisa, Jess and Mateo at the Grand Union

Blake, Lisa, Jess (top row); Mateo, Renee, Al and Dan (bottom row)

windsor.

2006-07-13T08:17:00.000+10:00

With only a few weekends left in London, it was time for some much needed sightseeing. Still managed to get to basketball on saturday, however it was a jam packed day, ending with having dinner with Matt and Di, who had one night in London before flying out to Malta.
Saturday 8th July: we checked out westminister abbey and St Pauls
Sunday 9th July: a visit to Windsor castle. For 14 pounds, probably a lot better things to spend your money on within London.

"where are we" at Windsor Castle

next stop... Lisbon. forecast is for mid 30's - can't wait!

wimby - 2006

2006-07-02T23:29:00.000+10:00

Sat 1st July - a very early start for Lisa and me. Wake up at 4.30am for a taxi pickup at 5am, to arrive at Wimbledon at 5.30am. Why so early you ask? to join the queue of course!

We were Number 1387 and 1388 in the queue. There were a lot of people that had camped over and with the sun coming up, people were just getting out of their tents and heading to the many food stalls that were offering breakfast and coffee.

The queue card given to us on arrival

The queuing has been going on for some time, so when we first arrived, along with our queue number, we were also given a guide to queuing - you can't save spots; you can leave the queue for small periods (eg to go to bathroom, get food, etc); no queue number, no entrance into the grounds.

We sat on the oval in our line probably for an hour and a half - then we started to move. Plenty of old friendly stewards (who all seemed very British) to help direct us, and certainly add to the wimbledon vibe.

in the queue waiting for tickets... will we get onto the show courts?

Just after 9.30, we managed to go through the security check, and so I guess we officially queued for 4.5 hours - but it really did fly by. There was plenty always going on around us. The bad news was that even though we got there so early, we still ended up with ground pass tickets only. The man behind us queued about the same time 2 years ago, and was able to get court 2 tickets (the order of valuable tickets was: centre court, court 1, court 2, ground pass) so we had hoped.... You could see the people who had managed to get the show court tickets - they were the ones with the coloured wrist bands. Crazily enough, there were 6 people at the front of the queue who were actually queuing for monday's tickets!

With the newspaper that we had bought in the queue, the order of play was the next thing we had to tackle. Being the 3rd round, there was always going to be plenty of matches on, and quite a few aussies on show. This also meant that there were a LOT of aussie supporters around - and this made seeing any of the aussies play particularly difficult.

We started the day checking out Myskina play - for those who don't know, she is the one who's face looks quite similar to Lisa's. Match was pretty uneventful - Myskina cruised through after a slow start; we did get introduced to the 'wimbledon wave' - its a wave through the crowd that goes around 3 times with a 'celebration wave', a 'hissing wave', and finally a 'slow motion wave' - with the 3rd providing quite a humourous spectacle.

After the match, we raced off to check out Lleyton on court 2 - turned out to be a 2 hour wait to get into the standing area, so our last chance was possibly standing on the back row of court 3 (court 2 and 3 are back to back) - alas, they were completely taken as well.

The order of play - lots of big names on show today!

With no chance of seeing his match, there was another big match on at the same time - Agassi/Nadal. So we headed to Henman Hill (aka Murray Mount), and found a nice relaxing position to watch the rest of that match. Agassi was just not his same self, and the winners and running around that I was so used to seeing from him, was being done by Nadal, who made some impossible shots look easy.

With that match over, they did show the remainder of the Lleyton match on the big screen. The one thing they didn't show at the grounds was the football - They kept flashing up on the big screen "the world cup England game will not be shown here. we will occasionally show score updates".

As was to be expected, a mass exodus just before 4pm occured as people headed off to watch the football. We decided it was time to get some food (strawberries and cream rock!) and work out what else to check out.

The remaining 2 hours we spent there, we checked out a few different matches - saw the end of Samantha Stosur/Lisa Raymond playing doubles, which they won. Alicia Molik and Wayne Arthurs were playing last match one of the courts - at 6pm, they were still 2 matches away from playing, so we decided to call it quits.

The football, which had reached extra time by this stage, was still going on, so we managed to find a little food stall on the side streets of wimbledon that had a small crowd gathering to watch the game through a little tv. the penalty shootout would have been so cruel if you were English.

So on the whole, a great day out to the tennis - just being there, and soaking up all the atmosphere was a lot of fun.

A (almost) perfect Birthday weekend

2006-06-20T19:27:00.001+10:00

Photos at: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/v/lisa_and_al/ourtrip/munich

June 16th, and it was an early 5am start as we headed off to Munich - this weekend trip was one that we had been looking forward to for some time. What better way to celebrate Lisa's birthday then to spend 4 days in Munich with several thousand other aussies celebrating the world cup and a possible win on sunday against Brazil.

Team Munchen in the beer garden of the Hofbrauhaus (Matty, Di, Lisa, Chico and me)

Although a great fighting display from the aussies, it wasn't to be, and a 2-0 result to Brazil meant that we will still need to play extremely well and get a draw or a win against Croatia to get through to the next round. It's always heartbreaking when your team gets scored against - and then have a whole heap of opposing fans (and Brazilian supporters are not shy to show their joy) celebrate right next to you.

As soon as we arrived in Munich at about 10.30am, you could sense the vibe even at the airport. Plenty of green and gold everywhere you look, and of course, the Brazilians were out in force as well.

We checked into our hotel, which turned out to be a decent location, only 10 min on tram from the main central station, and also a 15 min walk to the olympic park. From there, it was off to the Viktualienmarkt, which is a large outdoor food market to get us some much needed lunch and quench our thirst with some German beer (even Lisa had some!).
It was a gorgeous day, so we thought it best to do some outdoor walking rather then check out any indoor museums - so caught the U-Bahn a few stations north to Leopoldstrasse, and then spent a few hours walking through the Englisch gardens. The gardens were full of people - some sunbaking, some riding their bikes, while others enjoying a beer in one of the many beer gardens within the park. The lure of enjoying a litre stein out in the open, while watching the football (Argentina was playing Serbia at the time) was to great, and I got stuck into my pretzel and beer.

One of several beer gardens to watch the football within the Englisch Gardens

We spent the remaining hours before dinner hanging out at Marienplatz (the main town square), just being entertained by the drums and singing that was going on by the fans. Matt and Di, who have just started their 1 month European holiday, met us for dinner to celebrate Lisa's birthday. With saturday planned to be a big sightseeing day, we all called it quits at a reasonable hour (it had been a long day for us being up since 5am anyway).

Saturday, we managed to walk around a fair amount and see a lot of the key sights of Munich - started running into other aussies and the discussions always entailed around whether they had tickets to the game, and if not, did they know what the current market price was from scalpers. Chico arrived around lunchtime - just in time to head to Hofbräuhaus for another beer (and a pretzel). It was quite loud inside with a load of football fans all in their team colours celebrating, singing and drinking.

Making use of the munich welcome card (Lisa and me managed to pay 48 euros, while Matt & Di managed to pay 20 euros, and Chico 24 euros - with all of them supposedly doing the same thing???) we got a small discount to get into the Residenz, which was the old home of the Bavarian royalty.

We got our first taste of olympic park on saturday night - we basically decided we wanted somewhere to watch the game, and what better place than the designated fan fest arena at olympic park. This place was great with it fairly packed, and plenty of food stalls to choose from.

Token "where are we" shot outside Alienz Stadium

But, this was all a pre-cursor for the big game on sunday with the Brazilians taking on the aussies. Chico, Lisa and me decided to head to Allianz stadium to see what the possibility of getting tickets off scalpers. I had a mate who had managed to pay 50 euros more then face value for the Aus/Jap game so it was worth a try. We arrived at just after midday (the actual game was scheduled to start at 6pm) and there were already plenty of fans starting to hang outside the stadium. Along with that, plenty of ticketless fans with cardboard signs walking around with "buy 1 ticket", or the more humourous "will sell sister/mother for ticket". Cheapest ticket (and it was only 1, were we would have needed 5 tickets) was going for 500 euros!!! The dream to enter the stadium was then put to rest - and we decided it was time to head back to olympic park.

GUTTED!! The dream for tickets is over so it's back to Fan Fest at Olympiapark

And lucky that we did, as we arrived an hour and a half before the 1st game, and it was already filling up very quickly. We laid down our blanket and soaked in the awesome weather and entertainment that was put in front of us. 10 min before the CRO/JAP game finished, I made the unfortunate mistake of trying to leave the hill area (which is fenced off) to go and get some food for Lisa and me. big mistake! The security guards had started to implement a ticket system - ie 1 person out, 1 person in. Cool, i thought - no worries, I've got my ticket as I head out. Spend about 30 min out amongst the food vendors working out what to get and dealing with the lengthy queues. I then try to head back in, and get stopped by a reasonably large german security guard. He spoke a little english, but based on his body language, he wasn't letting anyone through. For about 10-15 min I stood there right in front of him - so frustrated as I was being given the line "no more room on the hill", yet I knew that there was a space saved for me on our blanket - make matters worse, I didn't have my phone so no way to get in touch with Lis or Chico! Using my ever evasive skills, I waited for a distraction - a loud drunk who was starting to cause a ruckus to the right of me - and i was off! didn't look back (you always get a bit nervous when their are security guards and police with guns - and german at that. so you never know with the language barrier what might happen). But after ducking amongst a few people, I knew I was home free and so relieved to see Lis and Chico again!

A packed Fanfest at the Olympic Park in Munich

We also got a bit of a water show just before the match started, and it was much needed - as the heat had made it a little bit uncomfortable just sitting down all afternoon - esp with no option to go and get drinks with the whole 'full' saga. A giant water hose appeared and sprayed down the crowd. and with that, the game shortly followed. I won't bother with the details, as there are plenty of news articles that have already analysed every last minute of the match.

With Matt and Di spending the morning in Dachau, they arrived too late to enter the hill area, but still had a good view of the big screen from behind the gate - it was probably just as lively there, as there were plenty of Brazilians with drums out amongst the food stands. We finished off the day heading to the Augustiner Biergarten, which is near the central station. Apparently it holds 5000 people, and I'd believe it as it was massive - an awesome way to spend a summer evening, as you are seated underneath all these massive trees. As we hoped, there was a massive screen there, and so got to watch a bit of the France/S.Korea match.

Lisa and Chico outside Feldeherrnhalle - the Bavarain army's hall of fame and site of Hitler's failed putsch attempt in 1923

Monday, the plan had always been to head to the Neuschwanstein castle - the one that the Disney castle is based on. Alas, with Chico and us having flights leaving at around 6pm, a 2 hour train ride each way to get there would have cut things quite fine. We made use of the day to check out the Deutsches Museum and just do some more walking around the streets of Munich.

Then... the hassles at the airport. First, just need to have a bit of a shout out to the footy show - saw Eddie McGuire, Matty Johns and a few other entourage walking around the airport.. they headed to the business class lounge as you'd expect. Things got a bit nervous for us waiting for our flight - it ended up being delayed by about 40-50 min. The problem being we only had a 1 hour stop over in Amsterdam to catch our connecting flight.

Luckily, BMI/Lufthansa had things (reasonably) organised, and we had airport staff waiting for us to take us via airport buggy from one end of the airport to the other. There was no way we would have made it by walking, and was kind of cool to be driven straight through passport control - the downside being our luggage was not so fortunate, and we eventually got that delivered to our house the following day.

It turns out getting out of Munich was difficult for all of us, with Matt and Di having a delayed flight of several hours; and Chico, probably the worst affected - he had a flight set for Amalfi coast early the following morning, only to find himself stuck in Germany as he also missed a connecting flight! Haven't heard the latest, but sounds like he made it into London the following morning, and will catch a flight to Italy in the afternoon.

I guess we do take for advantage the ease of flying these days - but everynow and again, a little reminder that things can, and will go wrong, and there ain't much you can do about it.

and thats a wrap. Go the socceroos on thursday!

Pest and Buda

2006-06-02T20:46:00.000+10:00

Photos can be found at: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/v/lisa_and_al/ourtrip/Budapest2006

Another UK bank holiday. Another chance to get out of London and check out more of Europe. Destination: Budapest. We flew out of Heathrow with the Hungarian airline Malev. Our first experience with them wasn't the greatest with their computers down so we had to be checked in manually. This also then meant that fuel calculations, etc caused the flight to be delayed about 45 min. We were already in the plane, so wasn't too bad, as it just meant a little extra rest time.

Photo taken from Buda side of the Danube, with the Parliament building in the background

We arrived at around 4pm, with the sun out - we knew we would want to get to the hostel/apartment and head out as soon as we could. After a little bit of discussion as to how to get to the hostel with Lisa, we eventually went for the airport mini-bus. It was a airport-to-door service, so worked out quite well - the drive into town was kind of interesting.

First thoughts of the city and its surroundings was that we really couldn't tell which country we were in.Maybe it was because Hungary/Budapest aren't on the world map too much - and maybe because it really has its own vibe and feel, and can't really be compared to other cities in Europe (although the Paris of Eastern Europe does fit the bill fairly closely).

We had tried to learn a few (key) phrases during the week up to when we arrived, however, both Lisa and my attention span was a bit lacking. So we settled for hoping that people we would speak to would know some english. That, and being able to point at things seemed to work pretty much everywhere we went. Lisa got asked by locals several times during our stay there for directions/etc - she was convinced that she looked like a local, and I guess the fact that they asked her and not me would prove her at least a bit right.

Al in the front of Heroes Square

We quickly got accustomed to the very easy to use public transport. A 3 day unlimited travel pass got us to pretty much everywhere we wanted to - the train/buses would often be colour co-ordinated or have nice large numbers making it quite easy to work out which one to get on.

Getting into a quick list of highlights then:

1. the baths - I think I enjoyed these more than Lisa did. I was hoping to go and visit them more than once, but time was the enemy - We ended up visiting the Szechenyi Baths in the City Park. On a monday morning, it seems it is a bit of an old persons hangout. Nevertheless, extremely relaxing and a 2 hour visit there went extremely quickly.

2. the Danube - having this beautiful river go straight through the middle of Budapest makes for some great photos. We spent a fair bit of time walking along the water and admiring the views.

3. the food - with my chief restuarant guide by my side, we did quite well in the restaurant department. Unfortunately, it seems Budapest is hit with being a prime tourist destination, so there were a lot of 'tourist friendly' restaurants on offer (we fell for one on our last day there). It seems they are not authentic unless they have a gypsy band and dancers to accompany.

They certainly love their meat in Hungary!

4. Varhegy Palace - up on the Buda hills, plenty of things to see and do. Not to mention, an amazing view of Pest and the Danube. We did manage to get a bit lost jumping on a tram, which turned out to be heading in the wrong direction. When you only have those tourist maps, and you suddenly find yourself on a street that isn't on your map, it can make it a bit hard to find your way. A quick chat with a local got us back on our way, so it was all good!

On a side note, the return flight home went very smoothly, and Malev airlines turned out to be half decent. Arriving at 8pm with plenty of daylight around, our pilot seemed to decide on doing a bit of a tour of the london skyline. It was very cool (and I guess a bit google earth like) to fly over all the landmarks. Especially cool to actually see the Picadilly circus lights blazing out through our little window.

The countdown to Lisa's birthday and football fun in Munich is on its way - 14 days to go!

Regulators in the USA

2006-05-15T18:29:00.000+10:00

Work has finally been completed on my latest production - this clip covers the whirlwind trip that occured across the US during March. Hope you enjoy!

European Regulators Victorious

2006-05-08T01:46:00.000+10:00

With the Australian contingent of the regulators disbanding, the Northern hemisphere sister team have decided to enter the arena of competitive basketball, and have come up triumphant.

6 teams entered the inaugural All-Souls basketball tournament, and the format of the event was going to be a round robin running from 10am to 1pm.

The regulators had a tough opening match, and the team mates had to get accustomed to playing with each other for the first time. On the team were Hamish, Greg, Chico, Miffy and me. The rules stipulated that there had to be a girl on at all times, so Miffy had to play all games, with the rest of us rotating.

5 games later, we finished up on top of the table with 5-0 record. 2 close games, so the competition did have a bit of heat, with a few injuries by the end of the day.

We then moved into the semi finals with a bit of a curve ball with the line up - the guy organising the event decided that the team with the most points scored would be 1st. We scored 85 points, compared to their 86, so we ended up finishing 2nd, even though undefeated.

It also meant we had a tough game for our semi's - but the rules were slightly changed, with a 10 minute game, along with the restriction of the female player having to stay on at all times being removed. This was a very close game, with us winning by 2, but being down during the first few minutes definitely made us a bit nervous.

The final turned out to be a blow out - it was the team that we played last in the round robin rounds, and we beat them with not too much effort; they managed to beat the team that finished 1st, and so deservedly made the final. Unfortunately they lost one of their (better) players to cramps so the final came and went very quickly.

and that's that.

a day in Oxford

2006-05-03T01:27:00.000+10:00

Photos: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/v/lisa_and_al/ourtrip/oxford2006

Just a quick post for a quick day trip that we did during the first bank holiday weekend in May. Orignally had planned to head to Cambridge for the day with Greg and Kath, but for various reasons, that fell through. So Lisa and me decided to spend the afternoon out in Oxford.

Jumped on the overland trains from Paddington to Oxford, which took about an hour to get there. I felt right at home, considering the majority of the trip is what I normally do every day when heading to work out at Theale.

Once we arrived at Oxford, didn't really have any set plans or things that we 'had' to see. So instead, just walked around and looked at a few shops. While walking around, we stumbled across a walking tour that was just about to start. We looked at each other and thought - yep, this will be a great way to fill 2 hours in the afternoon. So off we went - the tour guide was fairly informative (as you'd hope), and was a tour of quite a few of the oldest colleges in the centre of London.

It is a beautiful town, and had a great vibe to it (maybe due to the high number of pubs/food joints that were geared towards accommodating students).

We had hoped to stay into the evening there, but the weather did start to take a bit of a turn, and we had only worn clothes appropriate to warm weather, so at about 5pm, we came home.

So yes, only a quick little visit, but it was a good way to spend a day out on a sunday.

Damian and Bonnie Music Clip

2006-04-28T23:47:00.000+10:00

A visit to Edi's

2006-04-21T00:35:00.000+10:00

Photos at: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/v/lisa_and_al/ourtrip/llangollen

We weren't going to let Easter come by and not do some travelling. With the US trip taking a fair dent out of our funds, it was decided a few weeks ago that we would look to do something low cost/low key.

With the return of Miffy from Australia, we couldn't turn down an invite to head to Llangollen in Wales to hang out with Miffy and her mum, Edi. Getting there was pretty easy - although not so straight forward when buying tickets (it was cheaper to buy all single tickets rather than a simple return ticket). A virgin train from London Euston to Birmingham, and then changing there to get us to Ruabon costing about £40/person for return tickets.

It was great to get some home cooked meals, with friday night being an awesome lamb roast (the lamb came straight from one of their friends farms), with saturday being a massive curry (I even got involved in the kitchen and made some roti).

Although a fairly quiet town, it was pumping with people during the easter break - in the short time we were there, we managed to check out:
a) an abandoned Monk's abbey
b) a scenic high point near Llangollen (the name escapes me right now)
c) Betsy-a-Coed - touristy town about 30 minutes drive from Llangollen
d) a whole heap of pubs, each with their own little quirks.

Of course, majority of the weekend was catching up with Miffy and her mum which was great to do, as I hadn't seen Edi (who is an great friend of my mum) in quite a few years.

Oh Mr President....

2006-03-30T01:24:00.000+11:00

Photos at: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/v/usa/washingtonDC/

We decided that it would be nice to break up our time in NY with a little detour to another city. There was a little discussion as to whether it should be Boston, Philadelphia or Washington DC. I’m glad we went for DC, as there was certainly a lot to see and do there. And no, we didn't get to see any famous politians.

To get there, we got stuck into the china town buses – think it cost something like US$30 for a return ticket from NY->DC. The journey takes about 4 hours and compared to trains or planes, this was a pretty damn good choice for value for money. Cheah also joined us in DC, although only for 1 night. Lisa and me stayed for 2 nights so that we could try and see a bit more.

Highlights

1. We arrived pretty much around 4pm, so made it straight down to the mall in the hope of finding Cheah. Luckily, we had about 30p credit left on our phone so were able to message him, and even better meet up with him at Washington memorial. Seeing the sunset over the reflection lakes was definitely pretty special. We also managed to get some choice shots around the Abraham Lincoln memorial.

2. The evening was spent walking around some of the other tributes, heading past 1600 Pennsylvania avenue (the White House) – tried to peer through the fence, but couldn’t see much :(

3. The next day was going to be a full day of sightseeing. First stop was capitol Hill. An extremely high number of school students meant that Cheah would be in his element. They were extremely strict with security in there, as you would expect.

4. Next stop was museum time. We headed to the space/air museum, which was interesting, but I don’t think any of us were really in the mood. We then went our separate ways, with Lisa and me heading to the American History museum. I wish we had more time there as there was a lot to see – we just aimed on focusing on some of the more interesting exhibitions

5. Cheah at this point was continuing on his "visit as many American Colleges in 3 weeks" tour, so he was off to Georgetown. Lisa and me decided it was time to check out the Spy Musuem. Unlike most of the other museums in DC, this one we did have to pay to get in - but it was definitely worth it. Lots of cool stories about spies who have defected/been caught, and a lot of the tricks of the trade were shown to us.

6.With Cheah on a coach back to NY, Lisa and me headed to Les Halles restaurant (of Anthony Bourdaine fame). We had hoped to go to the one in NY, but a Wednesday night in DC, we were able to get a seat without a problem. Must say, that we both absolutely loved our dishes (the duck was supurb!) . Was kind of cool having read (part of) one of his books.

So that ends the brief visit of the US Capital. We did splurge a bit on a hotel staying at a 4 star hotel – which was really nice to be able to put our feet out once back at the hotel. Used www.hotwire.com to get a decent price for the room – the deal is you pick what sort of hotel you want (eg 3 or 4 star, etc) and the location, and you pay. Only after you’ve paid does it tell you where abouts you will be staying. Apparently they can get cheaper room deals that way???

NYC

2006-03-29T00:58:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/NewYork

New York is one crazy city! It was everything that you think its going to be and a whole lot more. It was pretty cool when we arrived on March 17th to be able to check out the St Patrick Day parade down 5th avenue. Catching the red eye flight from Vegas the night before had its pros & cons. Pros - saved on a nights worth of hotel accommadation Cons - we were fitty tired during the day.... which just meant all of us ended up having a nap at various times during the day.

The hotel that we stayed in was down around SOHO - it was called sohotel, which was quite an original name. Kind of tucked away amongst all the dry cleaners and chinese stores (we were pretty much on the edge of china town). About a 5-10 minute walk to several subway choices, so getting around town was pretty easy. We bought ourselves a weekly subway pass (cost about US$20) and that proved to be the main method of transport for us during our week in New York. There was certainly lots of cool clothes stores, and some nice cafes around, so even though the room itself was pretty minimalistic, we all pretty happy with the choice. So, lets get straight into highlights then:

1. friday night - NBA! The Knicks were playing host to the Pistons. Seeing Cheah like an excited little school kid was pretty cool (Pistons are his favourtie team). Seeing the Pistons have 2 players ejected and then the Knicks winning by 2 made it a pretty entertaining game. I think I saw a few weeks later that the knicks had not won a game since that one.

2. Scottie and Emily flew down from Boston, and joined us for the weekend in NY. This was our first time meeting Emily, and everyone got on really well with her so that was pretty cool. It was good to see Salty again after a week away.

3. Seinfeld Tour - so Kenny Kramer still does these tours every saturday. We did book ahead, and it looks like it was sold out, so lucky we got in. I found it pretty cool - mainly the stories that he was telling about knowing Larry David/Jerry/etc... the actual tour itself didn't have much to it with it being 10 years since Seinfeld last aired, pretty much all the 'tourist stops' have closed down or changed names. That, and the show was actually filmed in LA. But we still got photos taken outside of Tom's restaurant with Kramer, along with trying out some of the soup nazi's famours recipies - I had the jamabalaya, and it was awesome! Lisa and me got stuck into the soup again later on in the week (they basically have started off a chain now of these soup stores).

4. Spamalot – our first sample of Broadway. I think it was a unanimous thumbs up as we walked out of this comedy musical. For any that don’t know, spamalot is loosely based on Monty Pythons search for the holy grail. Had a pretty cool cast in it as well (Hank Azaria, that guy out of Fraser).

5. Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island – was very cool to get so close to the statue. Although not as big as you expect it to be, once up close, it really is quite a stunning statue and becomes clear how it can represent so much to so many people. Ellis Island was also a bit of an eye opener, getting to understand exactly what the people migrating to the USA had to go through.

6. Numerous pizza stops – the food in general in NY was awesome. Typical American meals are just way bigger then anywhere else in the world. But that being said, to be able to rock up at 11pm (or 10am for that matter) and get a slice of pizza was a great feeling.

7. The 2nd Friday night, Cheah, Lisa and me headed to the NY Comedy Club (think that’s what it was called). It was free tickets from Kenny Kramers tour (you just had to pay for 2 drinks while in there). Had an awesome night with some pretty talented comedians (a few of them were writers for various tv shows – eg daily show, comedy channel, etc).

So, as you can tell, lots of things to see and do there (other things that we checked out included the United Nations, central park, Harlem, Grenich Village - there was an amazing place that we had breakfast at, rockefeller center - for amazing views, we headed to the top of the rock to see NY at sunset). And there was still quite a bit that we missed out on that could have been quite interesting if more time had been available. Having said that, we were very content with what we saw in the time, and one of the best things was being able to travel with awesome friends.

Vegas, baby!

2006-03-27T23:21:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery2/LasVegas

1. Lisa got to do her first bit of US driving on our way to vegas. Nice wide roads, meant for a fairly easy drive - pit stop at el pollo loco (translation: the crazy chicken). The number of fast food choices was really incomprehensible. Especially since we've been living in the UK for the last 6 months, who seem to have gone the complete opposite way with a lot more sandwich/healthy options available.

2. The Aladdin was our pitstop for this leg of the race. Driving along the strip, we knew we had arrived when just seeing heaps of people out on the streets just drinking away. Didn't manage to see any Elvis impersonators, although later I think I did see one who was off duty in a shopping mall.

3. With only 1 night in Vegas, it was always going to be difficult to try and see as much as possible. Our main goals was to see as many of the big hotels on the strip - each with their own over the top features. eg the indoor canals with gondolas and blue skies inside the Venetian - it seemed to be an ongoing theme with a lot of the hotels with them painting the roofs sky blue with ready made clouds; the colorful water fountain show produced by the Bellagio; the replica of the Eiffel tower inside/outside the Parisian

4. The following day, our flight out to New York wasn't until 11pm (the red eye), so we made the most of a whole day of sight seeing. Original plan was to go and see the Grand Canyon, but no one really had mentioned that it is a 4 hour drive away, which none of us really felt like. So instead it was Hoover Dam - pretty amazing engineering feat, but group decision was that it wasn't worth spending the $10 US to do the tour. The afternoon was then spent at the gun store and then linner (somewhere between lunch and dinner) at one of the many casino's buffets.

5. Now, back to the gun store - I think I can say that for all 6 of us, it was the 1st time any of us had been inside a store like this. Seeing all the employees carrying their handguns visible made it a little bit off putting. Even more so was the range of guns on the wall on offer to try out. Chrisso and Sam went for a handgun each to try out - 50 bullets and a target off their choice. I decided the semi-automatic Berrata was going to be my choice of weapon. Earmuffed and goggled up, we all headed into the firing range, having just signed our lifes away on a disclaimer - I don't even recall having to show any identification. After a quick tutorial by one of the gun-nuts that worked there, away I went. My 20 bullets from a semi-automatic went extremely quickly. Must have been the laser scope that was in the gun that helped me cause my target didn't stand a chance! next came Sam and Chrisso - Seems a handgun has a few more intricacies, and with each carriage only holding 8 bullets or so, several reloads, later they were done. A crazy old british couple joined us briefly in the firing range - they had a machine gun, and the back of the firing range filled up with clouds of dust from the number of bullets being fired into it. We were glad to see them move into their own firing range!

California Love

2006-03-27T07:50:00.000+11:00

San Diego (photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/sanDiego)

1. Not quite san diego, but on our way there, we had a change of flight at LA. Our plane from London was slightly delayed, which meant that we had approx 40 minutes to leave one plane and get on another. Different terminals. Going through customs again. Needless to say, Lisa was out of breath, and I was running down the corridor with my pants slipping down, my shoes and belt in my hands. We made the plane, but then as always is the case, it ended up just sitting at the gate for another 15-20 minutes.

2. Getting to meet regulators again! awesome having chrisso and cheah pick Lisa and me up from the airport. Getting used to driving on the other side of the road - awesome rental car that he had by the way... it was a station wagon (think it was a dodge caravan), and could fit 7 people comfortably. Later in the night, we got to see Lev/Della and a walking Kai which was very cool.

3. Although only spending one night here, could definitely see why the hippy has rated the place quite highly. The city had a very cool vibe about it, although perhaps a few too many "awesomes" and "dude" comments made by pretty much everyone we spoke to. I also loved seeing plasmas everywhere showing sports in bars - something that I have missed while being in the UK...

4. The next morning, did the drive along the coast, and had breakfast at a pretty cool restaurant near seal cove. Then visited a few shopping centres - majority had underdressed for what was predicted to be a fairly cold weekend, so we hit fashion valley amongst other joints. Never have I seen such big buildings that are simply just shops. Everything in California just seemed so OTT.

Los Angeles (photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/LosAngeles)

1. The drive to LA from San Diego probably took a bit longer than it should have. But we still had fun. Well at least Cheah and me did, as it was our turn to play navigator/driver, while Chrisso/Lis sat in the back. We also had the good fortune of having veteran LA people with us in Claire (Damian's sister) and ????. Cheah and me managed to make the OC interesting by doing quick stops at several beaches for a few photo ops.

2. So we had no hotel driving into LA, but plenty of choices to choose from. Location was a bit of a debate, but the veterans helped to steer us into the right direction - we ended up staying at Days Inn on sunset blvd. Free wireless, and a room that could hold 6 people meant that we were all pretty happy with the final choice. The boys made the first visit to Hooters at around 11pm. Obligatory photo is present.

3. 2 days in LA didn't seem like long, so we all tried to make the best use of time. We headed to Santa Monica pier which is a pretty cool sight. For a themed restaurant that seems to be doing quite well, definitely go and check out Bubba Gump Shrimp. We were all very happy with the food on offer, and makes such a difference when the staff there are so friendly. with loads of forrest gump quotes plastered around the place how can you go wrong?

4. As we walked towards Venice Beach, there was quite a gathering by the water with several helicoptors swarming above the water. At one stage, I thought someone from the crowd would come running to ask "are any of you marine biologists?". In actual fact, it was a small 3 seater airplane that had crashed - turns out it was an ex tv-host, and they were just recovering the plane as we arrived. To see that amount of rescue personal there was pretty big, and you could tell it was quite a big operation. Venice beach did have a good feel to it, but think it would have attacted a lot more freaks (which I think it is known for) during the warmer months.

5. One night, we headed to the Dresden, which is the bar that Swingers was shot at. Actually was a pretty cool place with a little jazz band playing when we arrived (I think we were there on a monday night, so it was busy but not packed). A late night chilli dog was then the preferred snack to complete the night - we swung past pinkys, which is a apparently a hot spot for celebs getting their late night snack in.

6. walking along Hollywood Blvd, and checking out all the names on offer there (photo ops taken of the stars of David Hasselhof, Hugh Hefner, the Olsen twins and Michael Bolton). Also went and checked out the Kodak theatre, which one week earlier had been the stage for the oscars.

White Wedding

2006-03-12T23:45:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at: http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery/campstevenswedding

Firstly, so glad to see such an amazingly loving and happy couple get together - Damian and Bonnie certainly seem made for each other, and the weekend at the camp was the perfect destination for a beautiful event like this to occur.

So, lets get straight into the highlights from the wedding weekend in San Diego:

1. Chrisso and Scottie singing during open mic night on the Friday night at the camp – pure gold performance (file is aout 3.5mb, and can be downloaded at http://www.globalregulators.com/campstevens.mp3)

2. Ben and James arriving at midnight Friday night to surprise Collins (they flew in from London).

3. Many snow fights to be had on the Saturday and Sunday. Collins had some body boards, and some others had sleds, etc so we were also able to do a whole heap of tobogganing. Having races down the snow, going head first – there was even a drunken late night session on the Saturday night at around 2am.

4. Speeches – Firstly, Judie, and Chrisso/Cheah represented the regulators with some awesome heart felt speeches. Collins dad, and Bonnies Dad going tag team with some funny and very cool speeches.

5. Bonnie and Collins looking absolutely awesome for their ceremony (who ever thought a Hippy could scrub up so good!). Bonnie’s dress was very bohemian (I think that’s the right word??) and the ceremony had a lot of love and closeness to it. Although, seeing Ben with a beer at the back of the crowd also added the reminder that we were at the hippys wedding!

6. Hate to admit it, but the food was pretty damn good all weekend (Collins/bonnie – hats off once again to the awesome cooking staff at camp stevens).

7. All the regulators (those without kids) sleeping in the one camp room. Had a bit of the cruise feel to it, with us all in bunk beds. Scotties already mentioned the little snow incident, so no need to cover that one again. Chris did describe Cheahs reaction as comparable to an egg in a blender.

8. The road trip up to camp stevens. Highlighted with the stop 30 minutes out, with no sign off snow, pulling into an auto store to buy snow chains. A debate then raged as to whether we would need chains or not. We were in a bit of disbelief that there would even be any snow. Who believes what locals have to say, right? In the end, we made it to/from camp stevens without chains, although we did end up buying them.

9. Cheah lighting it up on the dance floor while simultaneously being appalled at the lack of dance ability of the girls he was trying to pickup (Poppa Bear: "If you want to know how to blow a sure thing, just ask me.")

10. The inauguration of the Bear Council (http://bearcouncil.blogspot.com). A system by where every regulator had a name of the format "some adjective" - Bear. For examplePoppa Bear (Cheah), Pooh Bear (A-Mac), Judgment Bear (Judie) and ML Bear(Chrisso).

11. Judgment Bear (Lis') making social commentary on the sexual orientation of hippy camp councilors.

12. Us ditching Chrisso at the reception with 'the Smurf' (a petite younglassie in a very blue dress) who then went on to make her amorous intentions clear, forcing Chrisso to literally run away when she went to change a CD.

Dining with the Danes

2006-02-14T09:42:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery/copenhagen

So it was time for us to visit a Scandinavian country, and what better place to choose then the one which has recently adopted an Aussie as their Princess. I suppose more recently, Denmark has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, with this whole cartoon controversy going on. The weather report before we left had told us that we might get maybe one day of sunshine - we were extremely grateful to get a weekend full of sun. It certainly helped with us taking picture perfect photos, and it probably helped the locals be just that extra bit friendly with us - everyone there was so polite and so ready to help us with directions and suggestions on where to go.

With the weeks leading up to this trip, discussions were surrounding whether we would have enough things to see and do during the weekend there, and in the end, we didn't have to worry, as there was plenty of activities both indoors and outdoors to keep us busy.

Very glad to get the early flight on the friday, leaving London at around 4pm for arrival at around 7pm. Once we had checked into our hotel (btw, it was supposed to be a 3 star hotel, but it seemed to have the complete lack of a shower - there was a shower head above the sink, with a big drain below the sink and then a shower curtain that supposedly stopped water from hitting the toilet. we weren't convinced), we headed straight off to the Latin quarter for some food and some entertainment.

Getting your bearings in Copenhagen isn't too difficult - it seems like a fairly well laid out city, and everything is fairly close. Being the 'active' young folk that we were, pretty much walked everywhere during the whole weekend. I was a fan of the latin quarter - mainly containing a bunch of restaurants, and then bars/coffee shops. I really liked how a lot of the bars were inset underground, so you really had to bend down to look through the window to work out what kind of place it was.

Saturday, we knew that first on the list was going to be the little mermaid. The park that we went through to get to the little mermaid certainly made it all worthwhile. After the mermaid, it was a hurried walk over to the royal palace to check out the changing of the guard (think it occurs everyday at midday) which was quite interesting. The Nyhavn Canal is one of those 'postcard' locations with all its brightly coloured buildings playing host to a series of restaurants and bars. It would certainly be a bustling area come summer time. We ended up having lunch and dinner along this strip - sampling the traditional Danish "smorrebrod" (an open-faced sandwich) for lunch.

During the afternoon, we headed over to Christianshavn, to check out the free town. Free town is a self contained town, which mainly consists of the junkies and other sorts of suspect characters. It does mean that they basically hang out there and don't need to venture into the other parts of Copenhagen, which for the rest of the city, probably keeps the crime levels down.

Sunday morning came - I was certainly feeling the effects of the drinks from the night before. For some reason though, Lisa and Chico left it to me to decide what we should do for the day. Executive decision was made, and we went to visit a palace out of town. The lonely planet described it as 'straight out of a fairytale' , and we were certainly not disppointed once there. It was basically a 40 min train ride out of Copenhagen to Helirod, which is up further north. The train ride turned out to be pretty cool in itself (The Danes know how to make a nice big commuter train comfortable), with plenty of snow along the countryside - we even getting to see guys on a lake playing ice hockey. The palace, which is actually a museum, is surrounded by a lake - and with this time of year, it was frozen over. As we were approaching it, the lonely planet was spot on and there were plenty of photos taken as we took it all in (Oh, and Chico and me competing for who could get the best 'artistic' shot).

Two thumbs up from me - only downside was that we did miss out on a few things that weren't open during winter (Tivoli gardens and climbing a church in Christianhaven which provides a perfect view of the entire city).

Australia Day

2006-02-05T21:25:00.000+11:00

So australia day turned out to be a pretty fun night out in London. The day pretty much was a usual day at the office for me, although I did manage to head down to the pub for lunch and have a pint or two of fosters.

Chico's mates were planning on heading to the walkabout at West Hamstead. Lisa and me got there around 6.30ish and walking in, it certainly felt pretty oz - on all the tv screens they had the AFL/NRL grand final replays playing, fitty flags, and it looked like it was a fosters sponsored event with loads of people with straw fosters hats. don't worry - we managed to get two of them later in the evening (although my one blew off my head when we got outside, and it was one of those slow motion scenes, where you see the hat just get hit by car after car after car. oh, and i think a big ass truck as well. I managed to get it back - it still looks 'sort of' wearable).

I guess the best thing was being able to get stuck into a VB or two. At £2, it was reasonably priced for London. The other thing that made the night quite enjoyable was the music. A mix of OZ and then all the old 90's classics (eg bit of the chilli peppers, house of pain, blister in the sun, etc). Live cover band came on at around 8.30ish, and i'm pretty sure the lead singer was australian - they nailed out a few cool tunes - they had to throw walzing matilda and the anthem in there as well.

Oh, and the big K Lo was there. thats right - action man. Kevin Low. It turns out, he's friends with chico's mates - although i had no idea who he was until I was introduced! guess i'm pretty bad with faces.

Amsterdam

2006-01-10T09:32:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery/amsterdamJan2006
We arrived on the Fri night. After checking out the hotel room we headed off for a quick drink. As we walked through the streets and passed the coffeeshops we could see and smell clouds of marijuana (not that I would know what that smells like Mum, Al told me that is what it was).

Saturday morning we were up early-ish to head to the Anne Frank museum. They have converted the house her and her family hid in to a museum. It was really interesting. I did not realise she was only 16 when she was killed in one of the Nazi camps. Her stories certainly portray her to be a much older person. If you have time, an interesting website is http://www.annefranktree.com/

Al and I then walked to the Rijksmuseum to see works by Rembrandt and other artists. His most well known piece of work, The Night Watchmen is here.

Amsterdam is a pretty city with all of its canals and lack of inhibitions. Any government that thinks chaos will explode if they legalise prostitution and low grade drugs should visit Amsterdam. I felt it was a very calm city and did not feel in danger at any time.

On the Saturday night we found a funky restaurant in the middle of town. I had been told that the Dutch are not known for their food so don't expect too much but we chose well and the food was very modern European and very nice. The wine menu was in Dutch so I had to just choose one within our price range and happened to choose one of the only Australian bottles of wine on the list.

After dinner we walked through the red light district to see the women in the windows. I'm not sure what I expected but it was actually a bit sad. I felt sorry for the ladies because they weren't classy (how could you be if you were selling yourself in a shop window I guess).

The next day we jumped on a train out of town to visit Zaanse Schans. This is where we were told we would see windmills and they were right. In this region alone there were once hundreds of windmills but today there onlt 16 left standing. Between the windmills was a little village and most houses had been converted to shop fronts selling cheese, souvenirs, chocolates, clogs and more souvenirs.

We finished off our weekend with a visit to the Van Gogh museum. I must say that although his work has to be some of the most recognisable pieces in the world I do not understand the fuss about most of it.

We had a great time in Amsterdam but I think we were lacking energy after being away for 4 weekends in a row.

Bonne Année

2006-01-04T08:15:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery/parisNYE

Al and I set off on Thursday night straight from work on a train to Dover to be picked up by our coach the next day and be taken to France by ferry.

Over the Christmas period the south of England had had a lot of snow. The worst hit was Kent. Unfortunately Dover is in Kent and the coach was coming from Southampton, which is also in the south of England so we weren’t sure what was going to happen.

We arrived in Dover just fine even though there was snow almost all the way out. Dover itself had at least 3 inches of snow from the previous day. It was very beautiful but very cold being so close to the water.

The next morning we woke up to find the white stuff falling from the sky. The wind had also picked up and some taxi companies had closed for the day because they said it was too dangerous. We finally got a taxi which had to drive very cautiously to the docks which were 10 minutes away.

When we arrived at the docks, our coach was already there waiting for us and just as we had feared we had booked ourselves onto a granny bus. We were the youngest by about 25 years (aside from the Asian mail order bride).

Because of the weather the sea was extremely choppy and Sea France had decided that it would be a good idea for them to give us their worst boat and try to fit double the amount of people there were to seats on the ferry. It was like a scene from one of the ships on the first fleet. There were people lying on the ground everywhere. A lot of them were either very green looking or trying to sleep it off. You could also hear the faint noises of people being sick in all the bathrooms. Thank goodness I had remembered by seasickness tablets otherwise it would have been much much worse.

We arrived in Paris at the hotel about 8:30pm and had a quick dinner. Al and I headed out to find a bar near by while the Granny’s and Grampa’s got their rest. We found a bar, I think it was called Le Auto Passion. A bar evidently owned by some racing nut. Inside there were TV’s everywhere showing footage of car racing and the seats were made from (what else?) racing car seats. The toilets were exceptional, the toilet paper dispenser was a Momo mag wheel, there was a small screen with the race car footage up in the corner of the lavatory, there were racing seat belts behind the toilet and 30 sec after you stood up the toilet seat spun 180 degrees (I’m still not completely sure why).

The next day we had a leisure day to ourselves (no old people til dinner, YAY!). The weather was perfect, still cold but very clear. Firstly we went to the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t think I would be that fussed about it but from the moment I caught a glimpse of it I fell in love. We lined up to catch the lift up and waited for about an hour. We got tickets to go up to the 2^nd level. Al wanted me to go up to the top but there was no way in hell that was going to happen. With the tower being packed on a sat morning, they stopped selling tickets to the 3rd level, so our decision was made for us. Needless to say, the view was amazing and very surreal. Paris really is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Every building, temple, museum, cathedral and structure have been placed perfectly in relation to the other and they are all just magnificent.

From the Eiffel Tower we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. It sits in the middle of Europe’s most dangerous roundabout. No car that has an accident on this roundabout is insured. There are 12 roads off the Arc de Triomphe. Cars are to give way to all cars coming onto the round a bout and there are no designated lanes.

Last stop for the day was the Louvre. The museum is so big you could spend days wondering around and not see everything. We didn’t have much time so we made a beeline for Da Vinci’s most famous work - The Mona Lisa.

That night we went with the granny coach to dinner at a restaurant in the centre of town. We were put on a table with the two least popular of the group. For those of you who know Little Britain these two ladies were the female versions of Andy and Lou. After a couple of wines Al and I didn’t care and had a good time with the female Lou (pictured right).

After dinner we all got back on the coach and Phil, our driver (best Dad jokes I have heard since I lived with my Pop) drove us around Paris until it was time to drop us off to watch the “spectacular” in Concorde Square. Al and I chose our vantage point and waited for the countdown. The Eiffel Tower was gorgeous, it was all lit up and it sparkled on the hour. There was no Richard Wilkens or Dick Clarke to help us countdown but we managed just fine. To tell you the truth there were a disappointing amount of fireworks but the fact that we were is Paris to bring in the New Year was more than enough for us.

At 10:30 the next day we got back on the coach with our hangovers and Phil once again drove us around town telling really bad Dad jokes so Al and I took the opportunity to sleep. By the time we woke, we were let off the bus for a couple of hours to do our own thing. After a quick pizza, we were both feeling much better so we took the Metro to Notre-Dame Cathedral … and I am so glad we did. I have not been to Italy yet so I am sure this will change but Notre-Dame is the most beautiful cathedral I have seen. Sadly we didn’t get to go in because we ran out of time but it is on top of my list to do if we go back to Paris.

Al was very happy because we had a couple of minutes to check out the outside of the Sacre, something he had missed out on when he was here last. We also saw Moulin Rouge and Napoleon's tomb.

That night we were taken to a boat for a dinner cruise along the river Siene. We weren’t expecting very much after the dodgy experience we had in Thailand but we were very pleasantly surprised. We stepped onto a very swish restaurant on the water and shown to our section. This time we chose the seats and made sure we picked three groovy grandmas and a groovy gramps to sit with. Everything about this night was fabulous. As you go down the river all the monuments and buildings are lit up beautifully. Clasical music plays in the background while you sip champagne, then a singer comes on when the food starts to arrive. Before we knew it, the 3 hours was over.

We drove back to London on Monday and I am happy to say we had calm weather and a lovely ferry for the trip back. Now back to work but I am still floating from my wonderful weekend in Paris. My highlights were the Eiffel Tower and the dinner cruise, I have ranked it fourth on my best dining out experiences ever (three being Fins in Byron Bay, two being Mecca in Melbourne and one being Tetsuya’s in Sydney).

Bonne Année everyone!
(Happy New Year in french)

So much to eat, so little time

2005-12-19T08:50:00.000+11:00

Photos can be found at http://www.globalregulators.com/gallery/hamburg2005

Al, Chico and I arrived in Hamburg, Germany at 10:30am on Saturday morning. We were all tired after having to get up at 5am to get to the airport.

After checking in to our hotels and meeting up with Chico's friend Steph we hit the Christmas markets straight away.

Hamburg was something special. There were Christmas decorations everywhere you looked and the markets were like something out of Santa's village.

Most of the stalls were selling German cuisine and others were selling anything from Chrstmas decorations to wood carvings. The smells were wonderful and more often than not the food tasted even better.

Sunday morning we decided to give our stomachs a rest and walk off the copious amount of food we had consumed the previous day. First stop was St Nikolai (photo below), a cathedral built at the end of the 12th century in the centre of town, which had been the main target for the British when they bombed Hamburg in 1943.

Second stop was St. Michaelis, built 1751 - 1762, is northern Germany's most important Baroque church and Hamburg's landmark. The spire, popularly known as the Michel, is 132 m high; take in the breathtaking view of the city and harbour from the visitors' platform (where the above photo was taken).

We had such a great time in Hamburg this weekend. It was the most fun I have had doing something Christmasy since I was a little kid.

Journey South

2005-12-05T08:32:00.000+11:00

Chico, Lisa and me decided to make the trip down to Hampton Court Palace. On the website it said it was only a 40 minute train ride from Waterloo station. No worries we thought....

2 and a half hours later, we finally arrived there. Guess the website forgot to mention what happens when there is track work and the trains don't go all the way.
We finally reach Hampton Court, and its a short 5 minute walk to the actual Palace. 12 pounds to get in (once again, we forgot to bring along the 2-for-1 coupons that appear everywhere when you're catching the tube).

Once inside, it was out to the gardens to check out as much as possible before the weather turned sour. Kind of similar to Sydney weather, it can go from blue skies to gray clouds in no time at all. Luckily for us, it remained a great blue skied day for the whole time we were there.

During our time, we had to take our obligatory "where are we" photo.

Chico won the maze race - apparently the maze here is the oldest in England. Did feel like we were in a scene from Labryinth or Harry Potter....

The day went quite quickly and there was definitely enough things here to see and do to take up the whole afternoon. Another funny moment included Lisa doing a Harry Potter impersonation with a broomstick.

The most famous owner Hampton Court Palace had was King Henry VIII. A lot of the Palaces interior has been restored to look like it was in his day, though the tapestries and paintings are originals. Lisa also gets the award formost likely to be a hidden camera journalist for a current affairs, with her vintage footage taken inside the Palace rooms. With security patrolling at every corner (there was no photography or video footage allowed), she made good use of the cameras 'discrete filming' capabilities.

stones, baths and 2 smoking barrels

2005-11-21T09:03:00.000+11:00

Today's journey west consisted of:

Stonehenge
Salisbury Catherdral
Bath

Stonehenge
The day started out leaving at 8.30am from Paddington Station and heading to Stonehenge. Although the day was quite clear, there was also a very high level of fog around. It is a 5000 year old stone circle, construction started around 3000BC. Each of the larger stones weighs 4 tones, and were hauled 250 miles.

We had 40 minutes to check out Stonehenge, and take as many (funny) photos as we could before moving on.

Salisbury Cathedral
A short trip away from Stonehenge, and we found ourselves at Salisbury, which was the home of our next pit stop and mandatory rest break. Lunch for the 3 of us consisted of old fashioned bangers and mash at a pub right near the cathedral.

This is supposed to be one of the oldest gothic type cathedrals in England (if not the oldest?). The cathedral was constructed during 1220-1258. The spire was erected some 15 years later, at 123 meters, it is the highest spire in Britain.

Half the regulators wouldn't be who they are without the thing we saw today - the Magna Carta. This is one of 4 copies that still exist (Chico was very happy to say the least). The Magna Carta agreement was made between King John and his Barons in 1215.

Bath
With only 1.5 hours to spend here, we really were a bit rushed, and definitely would love to come back here (maybe when its a wee bit warmer). All the streets and buildings were very beautiful and definitely had a nice vibe to the place. The main part of our short stay here was to check out the Roman Bath spas, which were interesting, however we certainly rushed through it, and probably didn't get to take it all in as best we could. At the end of the tour, we got to sample some of the bath water (see the photo below) which I didn't mind, but Lisa and Chico couldn't handle it.

We had a quick stop at the fudge factory, packed a few blocks into our bags, and then headed off to do a quick run around the town to check out as much as we could before the bus left.

we were able to sample the Bath spa water

From Bath, it was full steam ahead back to London - the days are getting incredibly short here, with it getting dark by around 4.30pm. And thats about all we've got, so until next time.

a visit to Harrods....

2005-11-16T03:58:00.000+11:00

So Lisa and me decided to continue our sightseeing of London this week, and on Monday we decided to check out Harrods at Knightsbridge.

So were walking through and see a familar face (Mohammed Al Fayed - the owner) and he's hurrying off in the opposite direction. We then see a whole bunch of people in suits and sunglasses and this obviously gets our attention so we decide to follow them to see what the story is.

Low and behold, its Annie Lennox and the other guy doing a quick photo shoot. We guess its for their new album that has just come out.

Comic Tour in Brussels

2005-11-08T10:41:00.000+11:00

Below in this blog is a sample of the photos taken in Brussels of some of the street art around:

- - -

I would normally provide commentary on where they were and who's piece of work they all are, but it was straight out of a tour written up in lonely planet...

Mussels in Brussels

2005-11-08T03:32:00.000+11:00

So maybe not the most original title for a blog but it certainly covers their national dish (mussels and chips), which we managed to have at 3 times during our weekend there. So, anyway a quick run down of the weekends highlights:

Fri 04/11/2005 (7pm)
So we leave Waterloo London via the Eurostar. It was Lisa and my first time, and as far as getting you somewhere, I was pretty content. Unlike airports, train stations are pretty much in the central part of town, which was the case for Brussels with only a short 5 min taxi ride to our hotel.

The train ride was 2.5 hours which meant we got in at around 10pm - we were feeling peckish, so headed straight to the grand place to check it out. Certainly looked very impressive when all lit up, and then headed to one of the many numerous restaurants littered around the place.

Finally, the night finished off with a bit more walking around and getting our bearings, and sampling some of Brussels many beers on offer.

Sat 05/11/2005
With breakfast out of the way at the hotel, we headed back off to the Grand Place to get some more photos, this time with daylight to help us out. It was then off to the large shopping galleries, which is home of NeuHaus, one of the oldest chocolate shops (1857) in Belgium.

Next came the Cathedral Des St Michel and then the Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art. There were some cool things here, but i'm sure we could have appreciated it a bit more if our french/flemish was a bit better.

It was then time for lunch, we tried to avoid the expensively priced 'tourist' restaurants near the grand place, but i don't think we made it far enough, or maybe arrived at a slow time of day, as the service was incredibly slow.

So next, we decided it was time to check out the Musee Bruxellois de la Gueze, which is a traditional working brewery. This was certainly one of my highlights for the weekend, getting a good feel and flavour for a beer brewery. There was a definitive smell as soon as you walked in, and the whole place had a bit of character to it. They actually do brew beer there, and it is done between November to April (the cooler months).

Sun 06/11/2005
Sunday, was filled with a visit to the markets, followed by Belgium waffles. A short tram (it was weird to see trams underground) and a train ride, and we arrived at the EU headquarters and the Parc Du Cinquantenaire.

After lunch (which was more Mussels for Lisa and me), we embarked on the street comic tour. It took just over an hour, and although we seemed to be going through fairly deserted streets, the actual art that we found splattered around the streets was definitely worth checking out (check the next posting which will have some of the sample photos).

Scotties in Town!

2005-10-13T11:23:00.000+10:00

So this weekend, we had the lucky chance to spend the weekend with scottie....

Friday, Lisa and me headed to Chicos pad to hang out and wait for the boston-ite to arrive...

Friday night we went to an indian restaurant on Elgin Avenue. Considering we were the only ones in the restauratnt the entire time we were there, the food was surprisingly good. Followed this up with Chico taking us to a pub near by. Never thought i'd be going to Chico for advice on pubs to go out to.

Sat started out with baskie for me and Chico. Again, I was pretty buggered by the end of it - 2 hours inside a pretty hot gym. Feet were wrecked, but glad that I got to run around. Gave lisa a call and we met up with her at Nandos for lunch. The afternoon, we decided to go see Serenity - wanted to compare it to the 90% version we saw back home. It was just as good the 2nd time round, if not better! and i'm glad that Chico loved it too. Will try and copy the episodes I have on DIVX to DVD for him.

Sat night, we met up with Ev & Al - it was Al's farewell, which is a shame that he was heading back home... fitty expensive bar in SOHO. Round of drinks (for 3 people) cost 18 pounds!! guess we were paying for the atmosphere. got relatively drunk, and when the place was closing, the boys knew of a club called egg which was near kings cross station - so we all jumped into a fairly amusing mini cab.

Sunday, scottie headed back to Boston, and Lisa, Chico and me decided to do a bit of sight seeing, and check out the london eye.

Madam Tussauds

2005-10-07T02:42:00.000+10:00

it wouldn't be a trip to the famous wax musuem without some funny photos taken.

Al & Jamie Alfred Hitchcock gives Lisa a fright

Who wouldn't resist an evening with big George...

Travel Diary for Scotland (Sept 19th-21st)

2005-10-01T02:04:00.000+10:00

Tuesday Sept 20th
5am arrive in Heathrow Airport
7am Leave Heathrow for Glasgow Airport
8.30am arrive in Glasgow Airport
12pm head out to Hansel tea house for tea and scones with Edith & George then off to Ayr to view the sea town down south.

Karen & Phil come over at night, but Al is well and truely asleep by this stage

Wednesday Sept 21st
Off to Stirling via Falkirk Wheel
The falkirk wheel is based in Falkirk (no surprises there), and moves boats from one waterway to another.

We then visited the Wallace Monument in Stirling (statue to the right which appears at the bottom of the Wallace Monument), followed by a tour through Stirling Castle.

More of Lisa's family arrived on wednesday night to Edith & George's. We had David, Kim and their baby (they are based in Milton Keyne's), Paul & Monica (from South Africa), as well as Sandra (Edith and Mary's sister), along with Phil & Karen who we had met the previous night.

David & Kim Monica & Paul

Phil & Karen

Bangkok and Pattaya

2005-09-20T22:53:00.000+10:00

We’re about to fly out of fitty humid Bangkok tonight and land in oh so cold Glasgow tomorrow morning. First night we stayed in Bangkok. Did what seems everyone does in Bangkok, we shopped. We some how bargained a taxi driver to take us around town for 20 baht (65c AUS) for a couple of hours. Al did the norm, had some business pants and two shirts made. We went to some markets and stumbled on what I can only describe as Al’s heaven. Three floors of electronics! There wasn’t enough time in the day to see it all.

Day two through to day five we spent in a town called Pattaya. We were just looking for a place to relax but we knew we were in for more when we saw a man wearing a t-shirt that said “Good Boys Go To Heaven, Bad Boys Go To Pattaya”. As we walked through the streets of Pattaya we noticed a lot of older white men either by them selves or with very young Thai women if you know what I mean.

the entrance to our hotel in Pattaya

It wasn’t all sleazy though. Our resort was amazing - lovely people, beautiful rooms, a welcome drink when we arrived, and happy hour between 5 and 7 every night in the open air lobby and a great restaurant. We have hade the best Thai food ever (rightly so I guess).

Lisa and me in our bathrobes relaxing

I think I have taken my tolerance of spice up a level but I am still an amateur compared to Al. Every morning he comes out of the bathroom saying he will not order anything spicy ever again but by lunch time he has forgotten about the morning’s events.

I had a Thai massage one of the days. As good as it was I kept thinking if only I actually had muscles because I bet I would have enjoyed this even more had I been my friend Dave or Chrisso. My masseuse said it would have been better if I’d been in my bikini instead of board shorts but the way she was separating and massaging I think I was wearing the right thing.

On our last day we went to “The Island”. We would walk along the beach and every ten metres there was guy with a laminated sheet showing us a picture of people parachuting, a tropical island, a boat and rifles. No one could tell us what the name of the island, they just kept saying the island, the island (in a newsletter we found in Bangkok today, it appears the islands name was Koh Larn). When I put it all like this it sounds like no sane man would get on a boat with any of these people but we did. It was just another beach but with nicer water (wouldn’t recommend swimming the water of Pattaya) and we managed to rip off the 16 year old boat driver because we spent our money on beer before we paid him. The best thing about the island, and the main beach is the banana chairs that you can relax in with an umbrella above you. People bring you beer (or food), and it all only costs a fraction of what it does in OZ. What a great day.

We’ve now been in Bangkok for 3 days and know why Bangkok is so good for shopping … because other than your hotel room, that is the only place you are going to be in air conditioning. It is bloody hot! Never seen so many shopping centers. After a few days, certainly is a fairly easy city to get around (esp if you have a map and your taxi driver can’t speak English, you just point and shoot).
Well, we did try and see some of the famous landmarks around Bangkok. Highlights were certainly a boat ride along the rivers/canals and getting to see quite a bit of the way the Thai’s live in that area. Unfortunately the one day we decided to see the Grand Palace, it was closed for a ‘one Sunday each month’ for Buddhist monks to pray.

Koi, who is the sister of one of our good friends lives in Bangkok and she was able to play tour guide for us on one day, which was awesome, as you feel all that more confident walking around and into shops with a local.

Koi (Gib's sister) with her two children

She also took us to a great restaurant by the water which again served cheap but awesome food… On to Galsgow. What a culture and temperature change that will be!