windsor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.