From Shell: I think we were both sad to leave Africa but also wondering about a stop over in Singapore, when we were so close to home (relatively). However, when it ended up taking us 20 hours to get from Nairobi to our hotel in Singapore due to delays in Johannesburg, we were more than ready to soak up shower time, bed time and pool side bar time. Fortunately, our hotel in Singapore turned out to be adequately posh and relaxing for our planned R&R. We didn't do alot - particularly when outside was like a sauna and inside was like [View Full Entry]

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From Shell: I have to say the trip to the Serengeti NP and back was one of the best travel experiences I have ever had. It was rough, dirty, tiring, confronting and great fun. I'm still dreaming about it 2 weeks later. Things that stick in my mind are: - how fertile the land was in Western Kenya - answering Marja's call for me to open the window in my campground shower and looking straight in the eyes of a huge bull elephant - the interest and/or excitement from local kids (even the teenages that yelled "piss off" and threw rocks [View Full Entry]

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From Marja: I know it's been about a week since we left Africa but I'm pretty sure that I can remember the highlights and that Shell will add to the posts or correct me if I go wrong. We arrived in Nairobi after a fairly good flight from Rome via Zurich. From the moment of clearing customs in Nairobi I loved the place. Everyone was happy and wanting to help you without having intentions of stealing anything from you. This was a bit hard to come to terms with at first as Rome and Naples taught me to watch my stuff [View Full Entry]

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From Marja: We survived the safari and it was awesome! We had such great luck with seeing so many animals and great weather. We also had a very good rest in Singapore for a few days. At the time of writing this I'm pretty tired after flying back home to Canberra over the last couple of days so I won't give too much details right now but I wanted to let everyone know that both Shell and I are now safely in our respective homes. My photos from the Safari are loading on http://www.flickr.com/photos/violettesaunty/ right now. I'll put comments in there [View Full Entry]

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In Nairobi - more to come..... [View Full Entry]

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From Shell: Last night as a threesome in Rome. Marja booked us a fantastic apartment for the last 4 days - we each have our own bedroom and we all keep marveling at how you need to shout to be heard because there are walls separating us! Rome has been a complete blast for all of us - we did a lot of research and knew exactly which bus to catch from the train station to our apartment. What we didn't count on was a bus strike on the day we arrived! We begrudgingly caught a taxi, expecting that we would [View Full Entry]

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From Marja: In Naples we have strong focus on freedom of feelings and freedom of movement. What you see is chaos and disorder but that really is the result of our expression of we feel for our city..... Or something along those lines. This was the instructions from the audio guide in the hop on hop off bus to explain why the place is such a shambles. But they are kind of right. Despite the rubbish and homeless and drug deals in the piazza there are some good things. We found a good restaurant with great seafood and our B&B is [View Full Entry]

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From Shell: Florence was yet another surprise. Very clean, very easy to walk around the historical centre, not too packed this time of year and some great museums if you time it right. Timing it right requires what you might expect: checking the opening hours and the standard days of closure. But it also requires investigating additional things like: are there alternating closure times and dates depending on the season/alignment of the planets/what the staff have on that week; are the key Caravaggio pieces you came to see currently offline for restoration; are two whole floors of the [View Full Entry]

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From Shell: I can't believe that for all I have read and seen of Venice, it still absolutely and completely got under my skin. How can you not love a place where you get to take a little boat trip almost every time you go somewhere? We are almost certain it was only the service staff and us tourists there but it was still just completely magical. We took a cheapy option for accommodation in Venice but then they upgraded us to their very nice sister hotel. The maze of alleyways and canals was wonderful to just follow at random and [View Full Entry]

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We have arrived in Italy - finally!!!! I think as soon as we got here we both looked at each other and said "yeah, this is what we've been waiting for". Milan is a great cosmopolitan city with good food and an OTT Duomo - check out my photos on http://www.flickr.com/photos/violettesaunty/ soon for what I'm talking about. They say that Milan is up there in the fashion stakes with Paris. People, let me tell you.... Out in the suburbs that's not the way we roll! The Milanese, beautiful as they are, are no fashion match for the Parisian in my books. [View Full Entry]

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