031 - wed 31/05/2005 - bacharach/freiburg

after a decent night's sleep on our bunk beds, we left the odd school camp castle behind and took the long walk back down into bacharach, a beautiful riverside town. deciding that its never too early for wine in the rhine, we found an empty wine pub with an open door. our wine tasting consisted of six medium glasses of riesling.

back out on the streets of bacharach, we wobbled our way to the train station and then giggled our way to freiburg, arriving in the late afternoon.

we checked ourselves in to a guesthouse and then headed back into town to find dinner. freiburg was a big change to the quaint riverside towns of the rhine, its not as large a city as munich or cologne or berlin, but its big enough to feel relatively urban. but its also a university town, the university in freiburg is bustling and supplies the town with a particularly youthful population. we found ourselves dinner at a place called 'marias' where the german bartender kindly translated almost the entire menu for us. after dinner we wandered around town for a while and then headed back to our guesthouse. this was a bit of a nothing day, spent largely on the train, and the weather was still cold, wet, grey - dismal.

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030 - tue 30/05/2006 - cologne/the rhine

we got up early. the plan for today was to take the ferry down the rhine, stopping at towns along the way. so thats what we did.

we started at koblenz, getting there via train, on which we ate 50c croissants. we were running late, so we had to catch a taxi from the koblenz train station to where the ferry left from. i tell you, this was our amazing race moment. i think we were both hearing the theme music, and when we got to the ferry, i half-expected a german man in lederhausen to say 'welcome to germany!' and for phil to tell me i was the first team to arrive. alas, no. but we did make the ferry.

the steamboat, named goethe, was filled with old people and bad traditional german music, but it was cool to peek in on the insides of the steam engine. and obviously the scenery was great. whenever we passed a castle a voiceover would pipe up to tell us about it, but there was never much time to say much because it needed to be repeated in several different languages. yesterday had been cloudy and so was this morning, but blue sky began to make cracks between in the gray gloom.

we stopped at two towns along the rhine, both old style cobblestone medieval tourist towns. in boppard we tasted wine and saw the ruins of an old roman fort. in st goar, we headed up to burg rhinefeld, the ruins of an old castle. we guided ourselves around with a little self-guided pamphlet. this was my first castle ever. i soon decided both that castles were the most awesome places to play tigi, and that also i wanted one. at one point we found ourselves atop a tower and saw a really weird and cool thing - the clouds had come back, and as we looked down the rhine towards where we had come from, with steep hills flanking the river, we could see the rain coming. our view of the hills gradually obscured, and we could even see the line on the surface of the river where the rain was hitting, and where it wasn't. soon enough it got to us, and it was a really creepy experience to have actually seen the rain coming from so far away. we took shelter with some canadians who entertained us with a story of how they once stayed with an old woman in a town called bacharach in the 70s, and this old woman just could not stop giving wine away.

we were indeed headed for bacharach ourselves. we stood in line to get back on the ferry with an enormous tour group of indians. when we boarded, a similarly enormous group of indians came ashore. the boat was trading indian tour groups. it was weird, but not as weird as this big burly black american dude who was on the boat with us, who was wearing what i can only describe as the kind of lounge suit that george hamilton might wear to his country club (again you may have to google george hamilton, if i'm even remembering the right guy). anyway he stared at the scenery a lot, and said 'thank you lord!' a lot and 'bless you lord' and things like that, but not in a quiet understated way.

bacharach was again a striking town. it was still surrounded by the city walls that originally surrounded it when it was founded. in a way it now feels like the walls have somehow kept the outside world from getting too much of a foothold inside. that said, there were still tourist shops a-plenty, and when we ate dinner we had no problems ordering in english. so the rhine was of course funny like that, like many places on our trip, inauthentic and authentic at the same time. what is authenticity anyway? discuss in 2000 words or less.

we climbed the side of a hill to our hostel, which was actually a castle. the walk was arduous. the castle was pretty on the outside, and was a school camp on the inside. seriously. i was shell-shocked, i hadn't seen that amount of kids all in the one place for a while. and they were all completely off their heads running around. i remember what school camp was like. so that was that. suz and i soon headed back into town to eat dinner. frankfurters with potato salad and more riesling. the walk back up was easier having had a couple of glasses of wine.

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029 - mon 29/05/2006 - bruges/cologne

breakfast in bed again. we checked out from craig's place (note: not actual name of hostel) but still had the morning to explore bruges before leaving belgium. we stored our bags in lockers at the train station, noticing that the carnival was now packing up. bruges' big weekend was coming to an end, as was our weekend in bruges.

we got into the holy blood church and had happened to stumble upon a scheduled 'relic beholding/fondling/touching/kissing' ceremony. there was a priest up the front, a lot of shiny gold things around him, and he had the relic there, and you could go and look at it or touch it our whatever, and leave a donation. mr priest was actually miked up so his murmurings could be heard from all corners of the church, but that also meant that whenever someone deposited a couple of coins in his jar (note: surely wasn't actually a jar), the resulting chinks would resound throughout the hall. it definitely stepped up the pressure to make deposits of your own, and by that i mean a donation of coins, and not the other kind of deposits.

we then went to choco-story, which turned out not be a re-enactment of the life of a phys ed teacher from my high school, but actually to be a museum whose subject was the history of chocolate. it was actually a great visit, a pretty thorough history through cocoa drinks of the mayans and aztecs, through to its european appropriation as a hot drink for the elite, through to its emancipation as a public delight by a figure as unlikely as napoleon (namely, napoleon) and then eventually concluding with someone having the bright idea of making little bars of the stuff, mass producing it and making lots of money. there was a demonstration, but i already knew how chocolate was made. nonetheless, we got a free chocolate at the end of the demonstration, therein making it a very good demonstration.

continuing the theme we went for cocoa drinks of our own at the renowned 'bar choc'. then we went to mariastraat, to one of those aforementioned touristy chocolatiers, and bought some chocolates in a pretty box. come on, it had to be done. we ate sandwiches in the park by the train station before boarding and saying goodbye to belgium... forever.*

we arrived in cologne via brussels. cologne is actually köln, for the record, and i'm pretty sure you are meant to pronounce it as in col'n carpenter from the comedy company. but then again, if you do actually say it like that to anyone, you may get kicked in the balls. immediately upon leaving the train station we were confronted with what will be my lasting memory of köln, the imposing köln dom, or cologne cathedral. it is basically amazing, with dark gothic features, and when you leave the train station you feel a bit like the whole sky has been filled with it. the interior was also wonderful. its my favourite church so far.

at a supermarket we bought cans of soup without being sure exactly what was in them. mine was serbisch, ie serbian, which sounded good. we heated them in our hostel's kitchen and ate them with hot turkish bread from a kebab place, while we chatted with a mild-mannered and thin hybrid german-american student with an understandly unplaceable accent, and a schlock of red hair neatly tied back. before sleep we watched a few more episodes of arrested development on my mp3 player.

*not positive about this part

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028 - sun 28/05/2006 - bruges

sunday morning in bruges and we enjoyed breakfast in bed. god bless bed & breakfasts, god bless breakfast in bed, god bless craig, craig bless us, et cetera.

town was still crazy busy, and yes, still crazy pretty. in markt square, the main square in bruges, there is a tall belltower named the belfry where you can climb to the top and see wonderful 360 degree views of the city. unsurprisingly the queue was very long. we passed some time by visiting the quaint accordian exhibition that was adjacent to the tower. the word exhibition perhaps overstated what was basically around 10 accordians in glass cases, while a hastily thrown together television and video recorder played the same 5 minutes of an accordian tune over and over. the woman in the corner sitting on a plastic chair, disinterested in the accordians and reading a book, was perhaps an accordian expert, but who knew. if we had been allowed to take photos, some of the old accordians looked really cool. but too bad.

the belfry line still very long, we walked to the adjacent burg square, bruges other main square (although not as main as the markt). at the weirdo 'vial of christs blood' church there seemed to be a service in progress (logical for a sunday) so we decided to come back later. we found the internet and did internet for a bit. after doing internet, we made our way to de halve maan brewery, named after the crescent moon and not after a belgian with erectile dysfunction. this was the brewery tour in town, and it was fun. our short belgian lady guide had a dry dry sense of humour. atop the brewery we got some great views so decided to take a few photos and shove the belfry with its stupid lines.

the free beer at the end of the tour (why else do the tour?) made us hungry. we made for the astridspark, which craig had called "lover's lake" and recommended as a nice spot to go to. when later i found out that he had meant for me to go there with suz, and not with him on some romantic interlude, i was disappointed, but its these kind of rejections that can only make a person stronger. before astridspark we wandered through a complex of buildings, an old monastery known as the begijnhof. the story behind it was a little hazy, a case of reading a few too many descriptive paragraphs in different tourist pamphlets, all contradicting each other. but basically it was a place where widows fled to, to be safe from religious persecution. i think.

we bought some delicious picnic supplies from a nearby deli and settled down at astridspark for an hour of sitting on our butts. we then found another church that contained michelangelo's sculpture of the madonna and child, one of his only works that left italy during his time. we then, on the recommendation of a particularly savvy tourist pamphlet, went to the supermarket to buy a big block of authentic belgian chocolate, without paying the touristy chocolatier price.

after a copy we wandered some of the main shopping streets. on the way home we detoured to the oldest bar in bruges, established in 1515. we had some duvel beer, which is now a favourite beer of mine. not sure where you can and can't get it. 90% sure its belgian. the beer garden out the back of this old bar was like a backyard. in truth there were only certain things about the place that hinted at its old age, in opposition to many of the other buildings in town which seemed at great pains to preserve their old-ness. it was almost refreshing.

we ate dinner around the corner from our b&b at a place recommended by craig, the bistro du phare. it had a great cosy atmosphere - he had recommended it by saying that it was a place that people from bruges go to to have dinner, not just tourists, which is probably the highest praise of all for something in bruges. at times central bruges feels more like some kind of lively theme park than an actual living and breathing city. it was so clean, so geared for tourists, well oiled, and obviously it was so busy when we were there. but its so beautiful and scenic that it doesn't really matter if there is a chocolatier on every corner, all of them selling the best authentic belgian chocolate (of course in english).

as we left, freddy starks and his cosy band were settling in for a night of smooth everyman jazz - three big black dudes, a guitar, bass and drums. it was great to hear some live music. at home we ate chocolate.

click here for photos

027 - sat 27/05/2006 - rotterdam/bruges

we checked out of the grand hotel philadelphia after indulging ourselves with the breakfast buffet. we jumped on board the train and at some point in our journey we crossed the border between the netherlands and belgium, although we couldn't really tell where. after a transfer in antwerp, we arrived in bruges in the eraly afternoon.

we wandered out of the central train station (in truth about fifteen minutes walk from the city centre) and made for the tourist information centre. on the way we crossed a big carnival that had spread itself out across a park, filled with rides, carnival games, the usual. there was one ride filled with kids spinning around while euro techno pop pumped through loud speakers; a man in another language yelled out what we could only assume were the usual semi-excited things that carnival-type guys yell out to try and make an admittedly not hair-raising ride more exciting for the kids. suz turned to me and said 'carnies sound the same in any language.'

we were beginning to realise we'd come to bruges during a particularly busy weekend. with ascension day having come a couple of days earlier, this was undoubtedly a long weekend for many europeans, and bruges is surely a popular weekend getaway destination (or just anytime getaway destination). at the tourist office, after some searching, they found a b&b for us to stay at, 15 minutes walk out of town.

our host actually came and picked us up in his car which was both unexpected and really cool. he was a generous 40-ish bruges native with good english but we never actually got his name so we eventually started referring to him as craig. but not to his face, only behind his back. you have to understand that it was a term of affection, even though i'm not sure what images the name 'craig' conjures for me besides craig mclachlan and of course, dumb street. but craig was great. in the car he gave us a mini tour, suggested restaurants and pubs. he lent us an umbrella. we liked craig.

bruges was packed. there's a great old church right in the middle of town that claims to hold a vial that contains christ's blood. every now and then they get it out and parade it up and down the streets, and catholics with nothing better to do (and presumably some amounts of expendable money) travel from across europe and further away to see it. this had apparently happened a few days ago. the streets were full full full, mostly of dazed tourists, either in the initial throes of awe with such a picturesque old town, or exhausted from many consecutive days of aforementioned awe. and awe can be exhausting.

bruges was so pretty even from craig's car. it would soon come to be described as "crazy pretty" and not by me.

after arriving at the b&b we walked along a canal back into the centre of town. there was a time in the history of europe where canals were the thing. on craig's recommendation we did a canal tour, which again resulted in the taking of lots of photos, many clicks being accompanied with the words "some of these will probably have to be deleted." suz was beginning to feel that there wasn't anywhere you could point the camera and not end up with a good-looking photo. she was right, but gladly we exercised some restraint. the tour guide on the boat rolled his rs like i had never heard before. the rolling became longer and longer throughout the trip, and when he finally asked us to 'enjoy the Rest of our day', it took him fifteen minutes to finish the sentence.

by now it was raining. we were not surprised. craig's umbrella proved to be as useless as the one we had bought in amsterdam. (but we still love you craig.) we found a cafe, partly for shelter and partly because suz was determined to find good waffles in bruges - how could you not find good waffles in belgium? this was not the first time she would be disappointed.

back out into the rain, we stumbled around looking for an internet cafe, but eventually the rain beat us down and we found solace in a bar. the overpriced red wine, whilst shitty, cheered us up. we walked home via the markt square which was beautiful (and still crowded) at dusk.

click here to see photos from this day

026 - fri 26/05/2006 - rotterdam/kinderdijk

today it rained a lot and we saw windmills. the weather was so miserable we treated ourselves to a one night stay at a nice hotel. the end

(suz might expand on this day a little later..)

click here to see photos from this day

025 - thu 25/05/2006 - den haag/rotterdam

the plan for today was to make our way to rotterdam, making a couple of stops along the way. but when we woke in the morning, we chatted with the hotel owner over breakfast and he informed us that today was a public holiday - ascension day - and that many things would be closed. at the train station we found out that the first stop on our itinerary for the day - the keukenhoff gardens - were closed.

so we headed straight for den haag, or the hague, the capital of the netherlands. we spent a few hours wandering through town, although the shops were mostly closed and the streets were vacant. actually i thought it was kind of funny that the streets were so empty on a public holiday, given that everyone had the day off, but i guess they had better places to be. luckily the escher museum was not closed, so we spent an hour or so wandering around marvelling at his weird and crazily impressive (and impossible) sketches.

after more of a wander, and the obligatory coffee stop, we got back on the train at made it to rotterdam. it was raining again. we found a tourist information centre that was a little bit out of the way, where we found an incredibly helpful and friendly dutch woman who found us some accommodation at another very modest (ie budget) hotel.

for dinner we found a caribbean bar that did lots of cocktails, so we ordered a couple of exotic sounding things and also a handful of dishes from their tapas menu. only it turned out that they were all deep fried, turning what sounded like a varied bunch of different dishes into a pretty bland smorgasbord of deep fried nothing. we spent the remaining daylight hours doing a self-guided tour of rotterdam using a map we'd picked up at the info centre. with suz as my guide, we found such amazing sights as the rotterdam hall of fame - very much like the one in hollywood except for the calibre of stars who were honored. lionel richie. kamahl! golden earring. toto. and these were just the ones that i recognised. bryan adams. the thing that got me about toto was that it wasn't signed "toto, 1984" which might have made sense. rather it was "toto, 2002". "bryan adams, 2005". only stars on the decline allowed on this walk of fame.

it got dark, we went back to the hotel and slept.

click here to see photos from this day

024 - wed 24/05/2006 - amsterdam

when we woke up it was still grey, wet and generally crappy. after breakfast at the hotel we found an internet cafe where we tried to catch up with a few things. we bought an umbrella for five euros.

making use of our umbrella, we joined the queue at the anne frank house. the queue moved pretty quickly and we were inside within fifteen minutes, although we'd still managed to get pretty soaked in that short time, despite the umbrella. i wasn't particularly familiar with the anne frank story but found the whole place very interesting. after that we escaped the still insistent rain by heading down into a nearby cafe for poffertjes and coffee.

the rain cleared a little so we wandered west, through a part of town known as the jordaan. basically its a slightly swanky area of town with lots of clothing stores, gift shops and things like that. canals too. it was definitely the pretty side of town - our hotel was situated right in the middle of town, in the middle of tourist shops, coffeehouses, dodgy kebab stores and fast food chains. we were beginning to get the feeling that amsterdam is definitely two towns in one - the laidback, pretty side with its canals and cafes, compared to the grungy, and very touristy central bits with the red light district, stoner havens and tacky shops.

we did a canal cruise but it was a bit lame. i think we were hoping to have an open roof, but the canal was kind of enclosed in glass, which isn't as cool as it sounds especially when its raining and your view just becomes a foggy, distorted watery mess. some of the pre-recorded commentary was interesting but on the whole it was a little, yeah, lame. but we couldn't find any other way to get on the water.

after that we decided to find some famous dutch fries, the local fast food, only to find that basically it entailed a big mess of pretty ordinary chips (as in fish and chips) completely smothered in smelly mayonnaise. we took it back to our hotel room, away from the rain and cold.

we knew we had to see the red light district before we left, but decided that the best way to approach it would probably be to get really drunk first. i think we knew that with the help of a few drinks we'd be able to giggle our way through it - we might not have lasted long sober. so we made our way through a few bars in the southern part of town, going on recommendations from 'the book'. we with to a pub with brown walls, a very old-fashioned pub, the kind of pub you'd expect to be filled with local blokes who'd knocked off work for the day (it was). we had a great little random conversation with a local guy who was waiting for his mate to arrive.

boozed up we headed for the naked ladies. we saw a lot of boobies, a few vacant stares. guys tried to get us to come into their strip clubs. i actually got a little bit miffed that none of the girls beckoned for me, or tried to lure me into their little rooms, but i guess the fact that i was arm in arm with suz hurt my chances a little. that and the fact that suz growled like a rabid dog at all of them, and occasionally gave them the finger, and often yelled out things like "you lookin at my man, bitch?" she didn't really do any of those things.

click here to see photos from this day

023 - tue 23/05/2006 - amsterdam

we left in the morning for amsterdam. the train trip was a long one, and it was 5pm when we arrived. we checked into our modest hotel room and went for a little walk around town. the grey clouds had followed us from berlin but they cleared in time for us to enjoy a sunny couple of beers at a pub which had spilled out onto a bridge crossing one of the city's many beautiful canals.

after a bit more of a walk we went out for dinner at a vegetarian place. we found it disconcerting that when we finished our meal at 10pm, it was still light outside. it looked more like 5pm. this was something that we never really got accustomed to, particularly in the western most parts of our trip.

click here to see photos from this day

022 - mon 22/05/2006 - berlin

we'd spent most of our time so far in the mitte district of berlin. berlin is not a particularly centralised city; from what we could tell (and from what we'd read and been told) its sights, attractions and various cool things are spread out amongst different parts of town. so we decided this morning to catch a train out to the charlottenberg district to visit schloss charlottenberg, a big impressive palace and gardens. so we did that. the palace itself was closed, but the gardens made for good wandering.

it began to rain. rain and grey clouds were becoming a regular theme in our trip. the rain became so heavy that we decided to leave the gardens and take refuge in the pub across the road. we ordered beers. it was at this pub that we saw something that we would possibly never have expected to see in melbourne - a table of grandmas sitting near us, chatting jovially, each of them polishing of a tall glass of beer and then following it up with ice cream sundaes. i\m not sure if we have grandmas in australia that get together on a monday afternoon to drink beer and eat sundaes, but maybe we should.

we caught a train back to the museum island, but couldn't get into the museum that we were interested in. being closed on mondays is a bit of a european thing. so back on the train - did i mention the trains were clean, efficient, regular? and so many lines that loop around each other, you can get anywhere you want. we went to potsdamerplatz, a bit of a business district with many very impressive skyscrapers with odd architecture.

but still, so cold, windy, more rain. feeling a little defeated we went back to the hostel. later we ate at a traditional german restaurant that a few of the aussie girls from the previous day's tour had recommended. i had a delicious rabbit stew with little fried potato dumplings that resembled gnocchi. suz had roast beef with red cabbage and apple, also with those yummy dumplings. then for dessert we headed to the staatsoper (state opera house), where we'd been told they had a cafe with an impressive cake range. they were luckily still open (it was late by this stage) - we had the place to ourselves to enjoy cake and coffee.

click here to see photos from this day

021 - tue 21/05/2006 - berlin

on this day we took a long full-day walking tour through berlin. we had an amazing guide who filled us with history. today was the day i fell in love with berlin. i'm not going to write up everything we saw, hopefully the photos will do some of the talking.

after the tour we had dinner and went out to drinks with some fellow aussies we met that day. we had drinks at a cool little open air squat bar, on the top floor of an old supermarket that was bombed out during the war. it was awesome.

click here to see photos from this day

020 - sat 20/05/2006 - london/berlin

we were less than rested when we boarded our plane to berlin. and there was no inflight entertainment on ryan air, but that was fine because it was dirt cheap. yes! as cheap as dirt! and i'm not talking any of that fancy expensive dirt. oh no. cheap dirt cheap.

we got into berlin feeling dazed but excited, and caught the train to our hostel, the well renowned circus hostel in the mitte district. we spent the afternoon wandering around the nearby areas, including the nearby museuminsel (museum island). we found a flea market, and a jazz marathon. i was disappointed to find out that the jazz marathon wasn't just the one band playing for 48 hours, or some extended neverending jam. or perhaps jazz performed while running for 40-something kilometres. we ended our walk by getting ice cream.

back at our hostel we had a nap. then we headed out to a vietnamese place a couple of streets down that was recommended by 'the book' (our lonely planet europe guidebook). after dinner the sun had come mostly down, and the bar at the circus hostel was beginning to fill up. we watched the eurovision song contest on a big screen during happy hour.

click here to see photos from this day

019 - fri 19/05/2005 - london

we stayed up late the previous night watching bad english television - big brother mostly. we slept in and spent most of the day chilling out on the couch, looking up things on the internet, getting our bags in order. we left a note and a small gift for tim and sarah, who had been exceedingly generous in letting us stay with them for the whole week. we wandered out to a nearby pub for dinner, and we ate british pub fare while listening to diana ross's greatest hits.

bags packed, we headed for stansted airport. our flight left at 6am on saturday morning, and the tube doesn't run that early, so our plan was to catch the last train to stansted on friday night and spend the night occupying ourselves and/or sleeping at the airport terminal. when we got to the terminal we were surprised by how many other people had had the same idea as us. i guess we were expecting the terminal to be kind of empty, but basically every uncomfortable chair and every awkward bench was occupied by sleeping familie, travellers, businessmen. the amount of people who had sleeping bags, rubber mats - people had come prepared. we found a patch of the floor that wasn't taken, spread out some clothes and attempted unsuccessfully to doze for a few hours.

click here for one photo from this day of suz next to a sign that says 'shoulder of mutton alley'

018 - thu 18/05/2006 - london

today we saw a couple of london department stores - harvey nichols, and of course, harrods. on the ground floor of harrods there was like a little memorial shrine to diana and dodi. there were also some really amazing food halls. hungry, we grabbed some sandwiches from a nearby cafe and headed into hyde park. what should have been a pleasant walk in the park became kind of shitty - the wind picked up. its springtime in london, so all of this crap was in the air, getting in our eyes, up our noses. we were irritated. we became irritable.

after a brief walk around notting hill, and a quick look around kensington gardens, we took the tube to westminster abbey to try and get in again. the wind was still blowing heavily. the abbey was closed again - our lonely planet book had suggested getting there at 5pm to hear the choir sing but the sign said the abbey had shut at quarter to four. by the time we got home we were completely exhausted from the wind. sarah agreed that it was crazy out-of-the-ordinary wind, which was good because i had visions of every second day in london being gale force.

after dinner, i spent so long sitting on the couch using sarah's laptop, writing up posts for this blog, that suz became worried that i would burn my scrotum (she'd seen it on a tv show once).

click here for photos

017 - wed 17/05/2006 - london

we slept in, again. we were slowing the pace down in london after a pretty hectic week in new york.

our first task in the morning was to head to leicester square to find cheap tickets for a west end show. that completed, we headed in the direction of covent garden where we found a lot of boutique and designer clothing stores. it started to drizzle a little; we found covent garden market. stalls, shops, food. there was this great string ensemble playing that we stopped and watched for a while, they looked like they were probably students but they were entertaining a large crowd of people with energetic popular string things. from covent garden we did a large circle that took in oxford street and regent street. all this time it had continued to drizzle, and we were starting to get pretty tired of it, so we ducked down a side street and into a pub for two glasses of wine, four expensive battered chicken pieces, and five expensive potato wedges. we were learning quickly that its best not to do too much currency conversion in your head - this meagre plate of snacks, whilst yummy, was costing us close to A$20. its interesting actually how food, drinks and rent are so inflated, but if you duck into a bookstore or a cd store, the prices are really very comparable to at home. its not like everything is way more expensive, its just some things. anyway.

we were a few streets away from our theatre, and we still had an hour or so to kill so we scouted out places to eat in soho. yeah we were in soho again, but this time in london. and then we saw our show - mary poppins. as soon as we'd arrived in london we'd started to see posters for it, and suz had gotten pretty excited, so it was the obvious choice. it was a great show, we had seats in the third row, right up in their faces. suz is a huge fan of the movie so i think it took her a little bit of time to warm to the show, because they had taken some liberties with the plot, removed a few scenes, added a few new songs. but in the end, it was a very impressive show with cool giant moving sets that interlocked and floated in and out.

after the show we had dinner at a curry house where the only other diners was a table of three english guys. we spent most of our meal eavesdropping on their truly jaw-dropping conversation, these three really wicked misogynists just carried on and on about their sexual escapades, those of their friends, wild nights out at strip clubs and brothels in prague. but they weren't like excitedly bragging or anything, it was just quite a casual chat over dinner. what we loved was the fact that it was just us, them, and the indian waiters in the restaurant. and we weren't talking, and neither were the waiters - we were all just fairly obviously listening in on this really weird convo between these assholes.

after dinner we found a haagen-daas ice cream shop and grabbed some ice cream for the tube ride home to limehouse.

click here for photos

016 - tue 16/05/2006 - london

today we were determined to head into central london, but we decided to catch a ferry from canary wharf rather than take the tube. it definitely helped us to get our bearings a little, and i think i realised that a lot of the sights in london are actually much closer together than i expected.

we did the british airways london eye, which is basically a giant ferris wheel where you get excellent views of the entire city. i think the structure itself was as interesting as the view, it kind of seems so alien to have this monstrous modern ferris wheel sitting opposite the houses of parliament and big ben. when we descended we crossed the thames to have a look at the houses of parliament, which are some incredible looking buildings. at the moment there is a protester who has set up camp outside the front of parliament to protest against the war. people give him signs and placards to add to his collection so that now with all of his anti-this-and-that signage he is kind of a tourist attraction in his own right. sarah was telling us that they are currently trying to rush a new bill through parliament specifically to force him out of his little spot.

just behind parliament is westminster abbey, which is an imposing sight. unfortunately it was closed for some rehearsal, the queen was coming the following day so it was not open to the public. we moved on through nearby st james park, ate some sandwiches and fed some ducks. at the other end of st james park we found buckingham palace.

everything is squares and circuses. before long we'd walked through trafalgar square and leicester square. we started wandering around trying to decide what west end show we might see, when the rain came. we ducked into a little italian cafe for coffee.

back at sarah's place in limehouse, she cooked us pasta for dinner. we then headed out, sarah took us via the tube to a part of north london where she knew of a few good bars. we ended up drinking cocktails at a pretty laidback converted warehouse called cantaloupe, before coming home to finish off the rest of the chocolate pudding that suz cooked the previous night.

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015 - mon 15/05/2006 - london

tim (the other tim) got up before any of the rest of us did, and promptly caught a plane to - new york. he was heading over there on business for the rest of the week. sarah got up and went to work - i think we'd almost forgotten that people in the real world do that.

we slept in until like 1 pm. we were ready to take a break from our holiday, and have a day of rest and recovery. actually suz woke up feeling a bit sick, with a bit of a cold. after slowly getting ourselves together we went down to nearby canary wharf. tim had explained canary wharf to me the day before - its kind of the new (or relatively new) financial center of london, about 10 minutes east of central london. a lot of the banks and big business moved over there because of the restrictions about building skyscrapers in the city, and i guess also because of cheaper rent and land prices. it has a strange feel to it, as such a new development, populated almost exclusively by bankers, traders, professionals. walking along the thames towards canary wharf, we didn't see many families, young people, but a lot of suits, ipod-wearing joggers.

we grabbed a coffee. i embarrassed myself trying to pay for them. we found a supermarket and then went home to cook dinner for sarah. we drank some wine and chatted some more. another early night.

014 - sun 14/05/2006 - london

sarah cooked the four of us breakfast - eggs, bacon, sausage, wonderful. sarah and tim actually had a sunday planned for us, a gentle walking tour of nearby greenwich which took in a restored tea-clipper (its a type of boat - i didn't know either), a bustling sunday market, a former naval college with marvellous rolling lawns and old buildings, and of course, the greenwich observatory. you know, where they have greenwich mean time or whatever. it was great to see long, rolling grass lawns off into the distance after the comparably claustrophobic (although not truly so) new york. friends kicking footballs, people walking their dogs. even new york's giant park, central park, had a strange quality to it with so many hills, twists and turns, trees bending down and arching over. it was a large park but designed to feel like a small space, perhaps. mmm long, green english fields.

the market was great, like all the best markets, so much great food. we went to a local pie shop and bought some pies, then took them down to the cutty sark, the aforementioned toe-clipper (i mean tea clipper) and ate them. i had a sausage roll though. we headed back to the flat.

i got my first look at real actual london when we caught the train 15 minutes into town towards our dinner reservation. getting off the train at london bridge station (!) we walked along the thames (!) towards shakespeare's globe theatre, or at least a rebuilt restoration of it, apparently close to or on the original site of the globe. attached to the new globe is a restaurant, and thats where we ate. talking to the waiter, the place was actually only open because of an accidental reservation that was made (not ours) so the ambience was kind of lacking even though the food was great. it was just us and that other accidental reservation actually, and they left early. so we had the place to ourselves.

we left the globe after dark and hit a couple of english pubs (obviously) on the way home.

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013 - sat 13/05/2006 - new york/london

our flight was crazy early. we tumbled out of the carlton arms at 5:15am. the subway runs 24 hours, and we were on it with a variety of shift workers, and other travellers lugging luggage.#

on the flight to london i watched "x-men 2" and "tristram shandy: a cock and bull story."

we flew into heathrow airport as it was getting dark - actually, it was kind of twilight up there until we swept under the clouds. by the time we got on the tube it was night. we navigated our way around the tube to get to limehouse, in east london. our friends sarah and tim met us at the station and walked us back to their place. it was great to see some people that we knew, it was weird how even just 10 days or so without talking to friends or family had us craving some interaction with people we knew. somehow the clock had crept past midnight - we lost some hours in there - we got the tour of their place, spent a bit of time catching up, and then to bed.

012 - fri 12/05/2006 - new york

our last day in new york. the itinerary was simple, yet classic - statue of liberty in the morning, empire state building at night. we headed back down to castle clinton, this time with reservations, and boarded the ferry to liberty island. we, and a few hundred other tourists, got some great snaps of the statue. on liberty island we grabbed an audio tour and learnt some more of those pesky fun facts. eiffel designed the statue's interior. the book she's holding is two stories high. that sort of thing. actually it was interesting to hear just how strong relations were between france and the states - frenchmen fought in the american war for independence, and the statue was a symbol for liberty and freedom that the french gave to america kind of because they were envious, and wished maybe that france was more like america. things are different now obviously.

going up into the statue required a lot of security checks, another post 9-11 thing. also, you can only go up as far as the pedestal now, where you used to go into the statue, up to the crown. the statue was actually closed for a few years after 9-11. after the statue we headed over to ellis island on the ferry, to the immigration museum. ellis island used to process immigrants to the states at the turn of the century, when there was such a huge influx (great word that). i didn't take heaps in because i was pretty tired, but it was interesting - people were just asked like 'do you have $25' and as long as they didn't show too many signs of being completely insane, voila, they were americans. different now.

back on the island we had lunch at a french place and then headed up to the museum of modern art for the afternoon. like many museums in the states, moma has free admission on friday afternoons, thanks to, of all companies, target. i don't know how the connection between target and public art came about, but we weren't complaining. moma was pretty amazing, and i could have spent a couple of days there i reckon. a lot of contemporary stuff, which i often get into a bit more than looking at old saucers and busts and stuff. upstairs they had some picasso and monet. it would have been great to spend more time there. it got added to a long list we were making of things to do 'next time', if we're ever lucky enough to come back.

after the museum we headed for the empire state building, the top of which was lost in fog as we approached. it was completely freaky and weird actually, the scene looked like it belonged in ghostbusters. it was a ghostbusters moment - ghostbusters was set in new york, right? it came to mind a few times when we were in new york. we queued up to get to the top of the empire state, but just before we were to buy our tickets they started yelling out that it was zero visibility. we didn't figure there was much point, so we were disappointed. add it to the next time list.

we wandered down to times square so that we could take some photos of the square at night, which is pretty bewildering. and then we thought it felt right to head back to east village for dinner, because it was the part of town we'd kind of liked the most. so we went down to st marks place, a strip of bars and restaurants. we ate at a place called paprika. at home we packed our bags for a crazy early flight out of new york.

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011 - thu 11/05/2006 - new york

tonight we were going to broadway. we went to times square early in the morning - ok, maybe 11 - and got our tickets.

there were still uncharted districts of manhattan, god damn it. soho. it has a reputation for being a shopping district, but our sex and the city guide yesterday had quite strongly steered us away from there. our book - which was now our new york bible - agreed, saying that the big chains had come into soho and muscled out the smaller, interesting shops. the sex and the city designer used to have a store in soho, even she's moved out now. but we went there anyway. we had breakfast. i found a vintage-style clothes store called 'what goes around comes around' that was selling supposedly authentic 70s rock t-shirts - obviously i have no reason to think they weren't authentic, but you couldn't really tell them apart from something you might iron on with a transfer. guns n roses, the who, motley crue, the ramones, the usual suspects of course. except that there wasn't a t-shirt under $200. us dollars. the who was $450. the most expensive thing in the store was a cruddy black 'the who' t-shirt. pretty funny.

we wandered from soho to tribeca, but couldn't tell them apart much. we'd had enough, so we went in search of the wonderfully named 'meat packing district' which we worked out to be the north most corner of west village. it was an area where they used to pack meat. from what we could tell, an invasion of trendy, cashed-up young professionals is turning this former industrial area into a chic little neighbourhood. we found some cool stores and had great rich shakes at an upmarket diner called, rather obviously, "the diner".

we went back to the hotel and got dressed up for the broadway show. (for me this involved wearing a shirt and jeans rather than a t-shirt and jeans... i packed light.) so then we went to a broadway show. the show? spamalot of course. it was cool, i giggled. we had box seats, right on the side, so we had some shoddy visibility but it was interesting to be so close to the action, and yet strangely removed from it because they never actually looked in our direction. there were a lot of laughs in the show, all of the classic scenes and lines, and a lot of great new scenes. very faithfully pythonesque.

after the show we wanted to hit the town again so we headed to the meat packing district, in the direction of some of the bars our tour guide had mentioned. but once we got there, everyone was so dressy and the bars were so 'money' that we headed back towards our hotel, tail between legs. actually we were buggered, so we grabbed more pizza from mikes pizza and had an early night.

010 - wed 10/05/2006 - new york

our legs were tired. the subway had been very kind to us, but we had seen a lot of new york on foot. long days of walking were adding up. we grabbed our books and headed for central park, which was much quieter than on the sunny weekend. since the weekend, it had generally been overcast with more or less no rain. i got through a big chunk of my book, which i'd picked especially because it was set in new york. the more i read of it, the less i like it, but i really liked the first book i read by this author so i'm going to see it through. its about a precocious child genius dealing with the loss of his father in the 9-11 attacks. if it sounds bad, well... its not handled with a light touch. basically it has the subtlety of sam newman. its called extremely loud and incredibly close. read his other book, its way better.

we wondered through a fair bit of central park. we kept the literary theme going by eating lunch - at borders. you know, the bookstore. we had been burnt so many times by bad coffee, we were beginning to understand the appeal of places like starbucks. in melbourne perhaps i take for granted that most places where you order coffee, you're gonna get a decent coffee. perhaps the appeal of starbucks is that at least its reliable, even if its average. that probably is exactly its appeal, which is pretty obvious i guess.

so then we went on a sex and the city bus tour. as mentioned earlier, suz has recently become a sex and the city nut so this tour was always going to happen, just like the letterman thing. the bus was, of course, mostly girls, so within 30 seconds of the bus pulling away from the curb the guide started with inevitable 'so how did she drag you along today' jokes and the 'so fellas, have you even seen the show' gags. she seemed to get it out of her system. the bus took us past a lot of sex and the city sights, most of which i recognised too, whilst playing scenes on screens in the bus. we sat on carrie bradshaw's front stoop. we drank cosmos in aidan and steve's bar. we ate cupcakes from magnolia bakery. we learnt a lot of fun facts. it was a good tour.

the bus dropped us off outside the plaza hotel. we walked down and took a photo of trump tower. money money money money.... money. some people gotta have it, some people really need it. we went in and had a look around. the man has his own fragrance now. god knows what it smells like - like him? we were tired. we grabbed something to eat, went home, read books more, fell asleep.

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009 - tue 09/05/2006 - new york

we slept in. i think we needed it. we left the hotel in search of the statue of liberty. we mistakenly headed to battery park city, a very business-like pocket of downtown manhattan thats on the hudson on the west side of the island. it was very quiet, lots of clean open esplanades, empty, people in business suits. we saw a volvo made out of lego, and some yachts.

we walked all the way to the tip of the island to castle clinton where we attempted, and failed, to buy statue of liberty tickets. they need to be bought in advance, so keep that in mind next time you are at castle clinton, lest you dare cop the (non-)wrath of the disinterested unhelpful ticket clerk. since we were in the area, we took the opportunity to walk north into what i guess is truly downtown new york, which they call the financial district. wall street, stock exchange, and all that. there were some amazingly pretty old banks down there and some great curving avenues - a lot of manhattan is straight east-west, north-south roads, which makes for great views of streets lined with tall buildings off onto the horizon. but to see the high-rises lining the road as it curves was pretty great, a really foreign thing to see (for me anyway). we weren't allowed to actually see the floor of the stock exchange because its been closed to the public since 9-11.

which reminds me, we actually walked past ground zero on our erroneous trip through eerie battery park city. we didn't really realise it, because there wasn't a great fanfare. i don't know if i expected dan rather to be there, or for everyone to be walking in slo-mo, but it was just a construction site. presumably there is some kind of memorial but we didn't seek it out.

i decided i wanted to see williamsburg, which i understood to be a pretty cool part of brooklyn, ie hipster central. we thought it would be a good excuse to make a token trip outside of manhattan, so we walked up and down williamsburg's bedford avenue for the afternoon. many cool vintage clothes shops, restaurants, people wearing thick rimmed glasses, boys in tight pants, girls with fringes, that kind of thing. it was cool though we felt like we hadn't quite hit the nerve of the place. our feet were tired.

another train, a few stops later, another district, little italy. almost as many italian flags as american flags, which meant you couldn't see much bar the flags. street vendors selling sketches of al pacino. cafes blaring sinatra out onto the sidewalk. we knew we were guaranteed good coffee in little italy so we found a little cafe and indulged.

it was heading towards dusk. we'd missed the statue of liberty today, but figured we'd head back to the tip of the island to catch the ferry out to staten island ferry. our swiss friend we'd met in los angeles, marko, had suggested heading out on the ferry before dark, and then coming back as the sun was setting to see all the lights come on across the manhattan skyline. sounded damn good. so we did it and it was damn good. between ferry trips, we were forced to find a pub on staten island and drink wine.

because we hadn't seen enough bloody districts, we headed to chinatown for dinner. that area of manhattan seems a little wacky, because chinatown is right next to little italy and has been expanding so steadily over time that there are a few blocks where they kind of overlap, so you see these italian stores and restaurants jutted up against chinese newsagents and whatever. there was a tree in our restaurant, although it wasn't real. we went home with big bellies.

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008 - mon 08/05/2006 - new york

we had by this stage assembled a fair number of pamphlets, maps and guides. we had even borrowed a book from the front desk, a rough guide guidebook from 2002, which we were becoming pretty reliant on. in there it mentioned a farmers market at nearby union square. we grabbed some fresh fruit for breakfast, picked up a pizzette thing for lunch. i was desperate for coffee, and we'd had such poor luck so far finding a decent coffee in either los angeles or new york, that i actually went to starbucks. actually, in new york i think its hard not to go to starbucks, because basically every second store is starbucks so you will inevitably accidentally order a coffee from there, like when you are trying to get a ticket for the subway, or perhaps find a public toilet, and then oops, somehow i've ordered a decaf double espresso macchiato, on ice, with cream, or something, from starbucks. unsurprisingly, the coffee wasn't great, and we didn't go back to starbucks. this galvanised my desire to find good coffee in new york.

we caught the subway to the east village. the book described the east village as "one of New York's most vibrant neighbourhoods, with boutiques, thrift stores, bars and restaurants" - which seemed to be the description (and accurately so) for many of the neighbourhoods in Manhattan. we really liked east village, although it took us a bit of walking to find what we were looking for. we did end up walking down some great side streets, with some really great looking clothes shops and antique stores. the only problem was that they were mostly shut. at first we thought this could be because it was monday, but on closer inspection most of the stores had opening hours that began at around 1 or 2pm, and it was only noon at this stage. it was a bummer for us, but it made a lot of sense - even on more major streets it seemed that a lot of the stores didn't open until 11 or later, and most would stay open some time past dark. we decided that east village was perhaps best enjoyed after dark.

we headed for times square. we had to be at the ed sullivan theatre by 2pm to pick up our tickets. oh did i forget? we had gotten tickets for letterman the day before, courtesy of a message left at our hotel. so we had woken up monday morning pretty excited, and we only got more excited when we found out (via myspace no less) that andrew had popped the question to robyn and that she had said yes (two of our mates). so yeah today was a good day. after picking up our tickets we went back to central park to quickly gobble down the pizza we'd got at the farmers market that morning, and then it was time to line up for letterman.

letterman was ace fun. it was pretty intense. i won't do a blow-by-blow now, but i'll try and remember the finer details if anyone is interested when i get back. the show itself was a bit workman-like, if you are a regular letterman watcher you'll know that there are great shows and then there are shows that everyone is kind of on autopilot for. the lead guest was a baseballer which made it a little more uninteresting for us. derek jeter. and no rupert, and no crazy alan kalter antics. but still fun, and possibly even more surreal than disneyland.

after the show we had to get hot dogs from the nearby hot dog stand. awesome. then it was time to head back to the east village and celebrate our afternoon with dave. we leafed through to the bars section of our trusty book, picked out any that sounded good that were kind of between the east village and where we were staying, and then jotted them all onto our map. so we then had a route with which we could bar-hop back to our hotel. on the way we had a lot of drinks, met a lot of cool bartenders (all of them foreign seemingly), and even had new york's best dumplings.

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007 - sun 07/05/2006 - new york

i learnt very quickly while we were in new york that there were many things about the city that suz had learned solely by watching the entire series of sex and the city a few months prior to us leaving. suz rather proudly informed me actually that most of what she knew about new york she had learnt via tv and movies, and i guess thats probably true for most people (me included).

one thing suz knew about was 'sunday brunch.' the idea of having a late breakfast out on a sunday morning is not revolutionary, but in new york they do it with cocktails. we made our way to amsterdam avenue, on the upper west side, which was a pretty bustling street for brunch. between us we shared a mimosa and a bloody mary, and a couple of glasses of wine too. good morning!

we then stumbled into nearby central park, which was alive with new yorkers, who like us were taking advantage of a beautiful warm blue-sky day. it was pretty packed for a park, particularly some of the open lawns which were kind of astounding to see filled with so many picnickers, families, dogs. there were jazz buskers, lots of people riding bikes. is that hall & oates in the distance? whats this, a roller disco? yes! playing exclusively late-70s and 80s disco. it was great, but we left the dancing to the true roller disco professionals.

after central park we became determined to find the edge of manhattan, having only seen its insides so far (if you don't count what we saw from the air.) it was a long walk through the upper west side to find the hudson river. we could see new jersey on the opposite bank. we took a long walk along the hudson, and then caught the subway home. we grabbed some pizza from the pizza joint below the hotel - good stuff - and i had a root beer.

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006 - sat 06/05/2006 - new york

when we had arrived at ye olde carlton arms the previous night they'd asked us to choose a room, but they didn't have many to choose from because we had arrived late. all of the rooms in the hotel are painted by local artists who do themed murals, you can see them here. we had picked 12A, not for the artwork but because it had a window - but by saturday morning we had realised that the window opened directly above the pizza joint below. when we woke up, the air was thick with the smell of pizza. it was like inhaling breakfast, greasy cheesy pizza. we moved upstairs to room 1B - putting another floor between us and mike's pizza.

we explored midtown. manhattan is divided up into a number of different districts, which we quickly became familiar with. you might want to google a map of manhattan, if you can find a good one let me know and i'll link it up. we walked from our hotel up to grand central station and the chrysler building, wandered down fifth avenue. we ate lunch opposite old guys playing chess in bryant park, one of many open grassy squares that interrupt the endless rows and columns of high-rise blocks. from there we went to times square, which is a messy sea of people, billboards and bright lights. we saw a toys r us store which had a ferris wheel inside it. we walked up broadway, heading into the theatre district, and decided that we should definitely see a broadway show before the end of the week. we walked past 'the color purple', where some american out-of-towners had stopped to take a photo of the theatre, although not the whole theatre, just the part of the sign that said "oprah winfrey".

right next to 'the color purple' we found the ed sullivan theatre, the home of letterman. we had applied for letterman tickets online when we were still in melbourne but hadn't heard anything, so things weren't looking great. as we walked past we noticed that the box office was open, so we went in and they got us to fill in an application form and tell them what we thought of the show. our names were entered into the ballot and they sent us on our way, but then suz remembered something that she wanted to let them know about. on the show, they have a segment called 'stump the band' where audience members try to stump paul shaffer's band by requesting songs that they never would have heard of, like school songs or team chants, songs they made up when they were kids. thinking that it might increase our chances of making it into the audience, suz went back to the box office and serenaded them with her rendition of 'i'm a koala', a song she invented with zoe some years ago:

i'm a koala, i'm a koala
in the bush you'll find me there
i'm a koala, i'm a koala
and i'm not a bear.

the producer guy seemed impressed, it got a laugh. we were now sure we would get to see letterman. you can't argue with 'i'm a koala'.

after a bit more wandering we ended up at a vietnamese place near our hotel for dinner.

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005 - fri 05/05/2006 - los angeles/new york

so los angeles. i think by the time we left los angeles we had probably found a couple of parts of town that seemed quite liveable, that we probably could spend more time exploring - westwood around ucla (which we basically drove through on a bus) and santa monica were nice spots. we now knew not to judge a place by the first day you spend there, particularly if you spend that first day in a shitty part of town that is generally regarded by the locals as being the arse end of town (and if you are crazy jetlagged doesn't help either). and the people in la were generally friendly, even the freaks, like the weird woman on the bus who kept a doll who reminded her to stay off the booze - "she has the same name as me, except her middle name is jesus, and sometimes i drop her when i'm drunk, so i guess i'm lucky she's not a real baby, hey!.."

we caught a shuttle bus very early that morning to get to lax airport, to catch a plane to jfk airport in new york. on the plane i watched "good night and good luck". the descent into new york was great, with little cloud cover we could see manhattan, the hudson river. we identified a large green rectangle as central park.

within 10 minutes of claiming our luggage we were on the subway. we navigated our way on and off a few trains and then headed above ground. we climbed the stairs up into midtown new york - high rises, taxi cabs, hot dog stands, grates leaking hot wispy clouds of steam. new york. after we found our hotel - the grungy and excellently located carlton arms - it had gotten dark so we went in search of dinner. a bit overwhelmed and slightly dazed from the flight, we found a diner and had burgers. we slept.

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004 - thu 04/05/2006 - los angeles

we packed our bags early in the morning and checked out of the hostel. the plan for today was to head to santa monica, on the beach, and on the way stop at the getty museum. we took a bus that took a scenic route down through westwood and past ucla. the area around there was super green, super-leafy in a californian (?) way, although maybe the fact that we'd been basically surrounded by concrete and freeways for the past couple of days made the greens so much brighter.

getting to the getty involved much more walking than we had planned. the getty itself was a cool place, perhaps more interesting for its architecture and the way it is built into those aforementioned rolling californian hills, than for its actual contents.

when we made it to santa monica, we thankfully dumped our bags at our hostel room, and headed down to the beach - santa monica pier. we walked along venice beach, hoping to see men lifting weights, bikini babes on roller skates, et cetera, et cetera. but we just saw normal people hanging out on the beach, walking their dogs, pushing strollers. it was nice to just see normal people, out doing their thing - on hollywood boulevard, it was just tourists and, well, freaks. though we did see a lot of skates.

after a long walk up and down venice beach, we headed back into town, skipping a couple of streets to get to the 3rd street promenade, which is kind of the go-to zone in santa monica. its a shopping strip with foot traffic only, like bourke street mall but nicer, restaurants, buskers, etc. as we ate dinner at an italian joint, the sun went down and the fairy lights came on. fairy lights always make places look nice. the 'serenity'... after dinner we window shopped (suz bought some sunglasses) and then we went back to the hostel and slept.

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003 - wed 03/05/2006 - los angeles

today we went to disneyland. rather than say much more about it, i'll let the photos tell the story (when we actually get around to posting them up, which should be about a week from now). we were there from about 10am to 6pm, we saw basically everything, although we managed to miss both the parade and also the nightly fireworks, because the tour we were on didn't stay late. suz went on lots of rides - i went on one. i'm not a rides person, for a lot of reasons, but i decided to give it a go. i found out later when talking to some irish chicks, that space mountain was probably THE ride that i shouldn't have gone on, cos after it i decided that was enough for me. suz, however, said it was awesome.

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002 - tue 02/05/2006 - los angeles

we woke up early determined to get away from hollywood boulevard, and prove to ourselves what we knew must be true, that there are better parts of los angeles to spend the day. we jumped on a bus which took us south to a place on the map which was called the farmers market, i guess we didn't know what to expect. farmers market turned out to be a shopping centre, relatively upmarket, and relatively small, but it was still fun to walk around briefly. an israeli saleswoman tried to sell us this magic nail buffer thing, she was great and had one of the weirdest most roundabout accents i'd heard. she blurred sentences a little too. she was like vicki pollard as a kind israeli saleswoman.

we headed further south to a part on the map where there was a concentration of museums. we skipped the ones that weren't free and ended up at the la brea tar pits. basically, in the middle of los angeles there is a pond, covered in kind of oil and tar, where they've unearthed thousands and thousands of fossils. there's a museum there (kind of boring but free on tuesdays) to commemmorate all the fallen animals of past eras. basically, the tar pits was a death-trap for thousands of years, where animals would try to drink water, get stuck in the tar, and then get slaughtered by other, meaner animals. at least thats what the dodgy introductory film taught us.

from the stinky pits we caught the bus down to rodeo drive, and the surrounding areas, streets lined with designer and boutique stores. expensive area. we stopped for lunch at a place called brightons, i had an awesome burger, and a good coffee. we then decided to head up to sunset strip, which turned out to be uphill. we walked for a while down the strip, marvelling at the amount of billboards. before catching the bus back to the hostel, we stopped at a supermarket for supplies. we were procrastinating about what kind of cheese to get, when this guy behind us got a little frustrated that we were walking slowly down the aisle, and kind of comically yelled out 'woooah!' he had a pink t-shirt on, spiky hair and sunglasses on (inside). if i was writing a sitcom about a pushy, burnt-out mid-thirties tv producer from LA, it would be this guy.

at the hostel there were some instructions on how to walk to a place where we could get a good view of the hollywood sign. it looked like we'd have to climb a couple of hills, but we were up for it, and it was late afternoon so we figured it was now or never. what we didn't realise was that the instructions led us basically directly up the side of a hill - you know those great rolling californian los angeles hills - basically we walked out onto the freeway, and then directly up the side of a couple of really tall, steep hills, on a barely there dirt track that was falling out underneath us. coming down was harder than going up. and it wasn't worth it - it was smoggy at the top, and we ended up seeing a better view of the sign a few days later, from ground level, driving around in a shuttle bus. when we got down from the hill, a haggard local offered to walk us home. he told us some cute local facts - did you know mel gibson lives over that hill, and that he built his own chapel there? - and thankfully left us alone just as we were both starting to think 'what exactly does this guy want?'.

we got back to the hostel as the sun was coming down. the hostel's bar was open, it was open mic night. we grabbed some cheap beers from the bar, went out on to the front courtyard for more chatting with marco the swiss guy.

click here to view photos from this day

001 - mon 01/05/2006 - melbourne/los angeles

so we got up at 6am, our bags mostly packed, outside it was still dark. we got ourselves together and then jenny and betty (suz's aunty and nan) drove us to the airport. it turned out our plane was delayed for two hours, which gave us more time to wander aimlessly through airport shops - probably not the last time we'll be doing this in the next nine months - and also eat breakfast from the airport food court - definitely not the last time we'll be doing this.

we said goodbye to jenny and betty and then went through customs. we still had time to kill in the terminal, so suz and i started trying to guess which of our fellow passengers from melbourne to los angeles were american and which were australian. our game, perhaps unfairly, was based largely on the size of the people in question. and then we saw pauly shore. he was in melbourne for the international comedy festival and was obviously returning home. he looked pretty under the weather. fifteen minutes after pauly shore and his entourage (and the rest of the first/business class passengers) boarded the plane, we got on too.

on the 13 hour flight to LA, i watched 'walk the line' and 'match point' and parts of 'king kong.'

when we left melbourne it was about 1pm, when we arrived in LA it was about 10am (the same morning). getting through immigration and customs was way more painless than we expected, and before we knew it we were in a shuttle bus on our way to our hostel. our bus ride was less than scenic, probably to do with our growing sense of disorientation (having been awake for 17 hours and it still being morning) and also the grey smog that obscured the horizon. i think in melbourne you get pretty used to being able to see the horizon.

we checked into the hostel, which turned out to be just off hollywood boulevard. we found ourselves a room, set our bags down and assessed the surroundings. grungy but cool, a laidback, social vibe. we were feeling pretty good until we realised that we'd misplaced something - namely, a small bag that contained both our digital camera and mp3 player, brand new shiny (relatively expensive) electronic devices that we'd bought basically just for the trip. 19 hours into day one, things were beginning to feel desperate.

we left a message with the front desk to check to see if the bag was still on the shuttle bus, and then headed out onto hollywood blvd, figuring that hitting some sights might distract us from the fact that something very bad might have just happened. we wandered down the boulevard, lined with palm trees, reading the names of the stars under our feet. the walk of fame! this was it, hollywood, land of dreams! our spirits were up, so we pressed forward. we passed a tattoo shop, and then a souvenir shop, and then 2 more tattoo shops, and then a few souvenir shops, a wig store, a tattoo shop, a store selling trashy lingerie, and then 7 tattoo shops. jetlagged and now feeling bewildered, i demanded that we have beer. we found a pub, and had beer. we felt better.

we hit the road again, determine to find 'actual hollywood sights.' a couple of hundred metres down the road, the street traffic started to get busier, and then all of a sudden - kodak theatre, home of the oscars. and then the chinese theatre. grown men dressed in spiderman costumes. hey look, there's a dodgy guy dressed up as jack sparrow! there's some middle-aged japanese tourists wearing nirvana t-shirts and baseball caps that say 'i love la'! we'd found hollywood.

we took it all in for a couple of hours but then decided that we felt so terrible (22 hours or so into day one) that we'd go home for a nap. so we did. when we got back to the hostel, they informed us that the shuttle bus had returned our camera and mp3 player. we slept the sleep of the tremendously relieved (which turns out to be a sleep of short duration) then woke up to partake in the hostel's cheap in-house barbeque. waiting in line for a char-grilled burger, suz befriended a tall swiss man named marko. he joined us for dinner in the courtyard out the front of the hostel. after that we took a walk with marko down they boulevard, checked out the chinese theatre at night (jack sparrow was still there, and so were the tourists). we headed back to the hostel for much-needed sleep, having successfully stayed awake through not one but two monday may the firsts.

000 - welcome note and itinerary

may 1-5: los angeles
may 6-13: new york
may 14-20: london
may 21-june 6: germany/amsterdam/bruges/germany
june 7-21: eastern europe tour
june 22-24: budapest
june 25-august: london (working - going to wimbledon on june 29!)
aug/sept: hiring a car, seeing england/scotland/ireland, then france and spain
oct/nov: london again (working)
december: italy and switzerland
dec 24-30: christmas in south of france
dec 31: london (maybe?)
jan 3-26: japan
jan 27: home

this is subject to change, like all good itineraries. we'll fix it up as we go.