Monday morning, I recovered a little from the lovely but busy weekend in the Cotswolds and prepared for my trip to Wales. Because of London's large size, I walked to the train, then took a train, two different tubes and another train to meet up with Claire, my old co-counselor from KSA, who was going to drive us both to Lottie (another KSA pal) who comes from Cardiff, the capital of Wales. After a quick stop at her house in Stokes Pogie (just fun to say that town), we were on our way in the beamer, cruising the M4 for 2 [View Full Entry]

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Okay, I know we promised no more London stuff, the day we headed out was so fun that it's necessary to comment on. We spent the morning organizing ourselves and were a bit delayed when I "temporarily" lost my wallet, but hey, I'm always "temporarily" losing stuff, right? The plan was to head into the city, leave our bags at a left luggage drop off and explore until we were supposed to meet up with some camp friends, however, as we reached the top of the Earl's Court Tube station, Frazer Shanks and Alex Ehgartner were waiting at the top. They [View Full Entry]

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So, our first full day in London was fantastic. Carly and Matt took Ben and I on a tour of some of the major London attractions, perfectly planning a few surprises on the side. Despite its reputation, London's weather was sunny and hot. Our first surprise was a festival in Leicester Square, complete with free goodie bags and classical musical show tunes concerts. We passed through and continued down towards Buckingham Palace. Again, Carly and Matt had timed it perfectly so that we were in place for the best views for the flybys, which are basically a series of airplanes that [View Full Entry]

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It was really sad to say goodbye to tropical Port Douglas but we were not disappointed leaving all the damn mosquitos behind. They were quite brutal. We spent our last day or so around town, watching the World Cup (yeah Soccaroos, c'mon USA!) and actually playing a lot of tennis. We both vow to start playing regularly as while we are quite the spectacle to watch, we had a lot of fun in the process. Australians are going crazy over their victory over Japan, acting as if they will not be destroyed in their second game against Brazil. Ben teases them [View Full Entry]

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So, Port Douglas has been treating us well, despite the less than perfect weather conditions. We spent our first day here getting to know the hotel itself and town and were happy to just relax and stay still for a few days. The next day, Thursday, we were picked up at 8:00 am by Tony's Tours in a white SUV for a day of fun in the rainforest. We were only 2 of 6 people in the car, plus Tony our guide, and it was a very interesting and informative day. Our first stop was at the Mossman Gorge, where we [View Full Entry]

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So, see ya Rockhampton, hello Airlie Beach! After another long drive (this time, we did see water briefly on the Bruce Highway though, even though it's called the coastal highway), we stopped for lunch in a funky little town called Mackay, had a wee wander and went again on our way. Funny here that instead of raccoon or squirrel roadkill, here the streets are lined with kangaroo roadkill! We stayed with a friend of my camp friend, named Pete, a lovely guy who offered to put up two traveling Americans for a few nights without even knowing anything about them! Good [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick update as internet time is precious these days. It was absolutely fabulous relaxing on the Sunshine Coast and we definitely spent a few well needed days of doing NOTHING on the beach. The weather for the most part was glorious. It really is hard to think of it being winter when the sun is bearing down on you. We are both officially tanned, yahoo. We took some awesome walks/runs on the beach and the colors were spectacular. We made friends with a wild pelican, what a weird looking bird. We ate freshly caught fish from the wharf. We [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so I've been wanting to say that for so long and now I have the chance (even if people stare at me all funny, haha). Well, after fully recovering from partying Sydney style, we said goodbye to the weekend and got excited for the week (not that it makes a difference for us when we're traveling, since every day is a weekend, :)~~~~~ ) Monday morning, we headed down to Manly again with the intention of taking the ferry to the Taronga Zoo, but opted for the quicker bus instead. The zoo was fantastic. It sits right on the other [View Full Entry]

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Okay, so first off. We are safe and sound in Sydney, no explanation needed for this title. Now a few interesting details about our departure from NZ and arrival in OZ. We had a lovely last night in the Christchurch. We had a very lovely dinner at an awesome restaurant near Cathedral Square. We said goodbye to Sue, the sweet woman who ran the bed and breakfast and was responsible for the plate fulls of scrambled eggs, bacon (shoulder is preferred over streaky), and eggs bennedict. We then stopped by "ginz.com", the travel agency who did such a wonderful job helping [View Full Entry]

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Alright, quick update as the wonderful woman at the bed and breakfast has allowed me to sneak on the internet and of course, keeping our friends and families updated is the most important thing to do :) Title explanation: Very few people in NZ have central heating, therefore as it is winter (or fall, actually, meaning the leaves are gorgeous, as they change colors and falling and it smells fantastic), everyone lights fires to keep their houses warm. That means there is a continuous smell of fireplaces, it is scrumptious...as we're heading to OZ tomorrow, we are very much anticipating HOT [View Full Entry]

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