After my trip to Cap's place, it was time to sort out the clothes, pack the bags, have a farewell dinner with Mark and Warren and off to LA. I spent two days just relaxing in LA, went on a trolley ride to the beach and shops and nothing much else. Home was via the A380, a big plane which took off and landed with ease. Although it was a good plane, I had wanted to upgrade to have one comfortable trip, but alas, the plane was full and no chance of an upgrade. Back home, the grass was 'as high [View Full Entry]

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Here is the last part of the journey. Arrived in Seattle on the 22nd and was picked up by Kimberley on a warm autumnal day. That night we went to yoga class (I managed most of it) and were warned to be careful on the way home as there had been bear and cougar around. Dammn! didn't see a one, only a squirrel! Kimberley said that there are often elk in the yard, but as yet I have only heard them, (sound like a wolf cry) not seen any. the next day Kimberley had to work in the city so I [View Full Entry]

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To all on my list, don't worry about all the old stuff that is coming up. Apparently I have needed to publish, not save files, so I had to go through to clean up the blog pages. Good to look at the old travel blog for me anyway. [View Full Entry]

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Off to a good start, got the only row of 4 empty on the plane, and BA tracked my baggage so that I knew it arrived in London, then when I was boarding the plane, they checked and found it was on the plane, yahooo, I like this system. As plane trips go, it was great until we landed in Chicago, we were then informed that we could not disembark as there had been an ‘incident’ (apparently someone had vandalized something!) and that we would be boarded by the police. It took about 20 minutes then we were allowed to leave. [View Full Entry]

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Calpe, to Alicante via Madrid to Bilbao is the next part of the journey. What a trip! We set off early in the morning, which was a journey that only good friends would make. Nader and Brigitte took me to a café on the way for breakfast only to find out the cook was having a day off. We were bemoaning the fact of trying to give your guest the best possible experience, only to be thwarted in your attempts. I reminded me of the time I took JD and Kimberley to Kangaroo Island. It was a rough crossing and kids [View Full Entry]

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here are some photos from my spanish journey from Figueres and the Dali Museum to Alicante and Calpe. including a couple of photos for Phillip and Kirsty (the snow globe queen) [View Full Entry]

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Having a great time with Nader and Brigitte, celebrating her birthday with 6 of her friends, although my multilingual skills are being put to the test. I am learning German and Spanish at the same time, very difficult. We drove Brigitte´s friends to Alicante to fly home to Germany and we went on to the museum where they had a special exhibition of greek and roman sculpture. Then we climbed, climbed, climbed the castle walls in Alicante - the views were spectacular. Yesterday we traversed the markets of Calpe, fresh fruit, food and all sorts of clothes and shoes etc. Reminded [View Full Entry]

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Well, some good news. I was sick of waiting and getting no response, so on day 9 I took myself out to the airport, waited an hour to be served and then they tried to fob me off until I said I was not leaving without my luggage - they just HAPPENED to find it in the lost and found office where it had been for 5 days - not happy, but now I have it, I am verrrrry happy. Now I have been able to have a little fun. Phillip and I went to spend the afternoon at the beach [View Full Entry]

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On our arrival at Amsterdam, we were shuttled off for a canal tour - what a busy waterway system! This is only rivaled by the bicycle riding, parking, and avoiding of said bikes. Even in Vietnam, although there were so many bicycles, they stuck to the road and parking happened somewhere else. Here, they ride on everything, roads, bikepaths, footpaths, bridges, and if they could ride on water they would ride the canals. The bikes are mostly fairly basic, big handlebars and seats, with various attachments such as two children’s seats, something like a wheelbarrow, or a little cabin on [View Full Entry]

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So many places in Germany suggest they have the oldest everything, the oldest pharmacy, cathedral etc, well Regensburg had the oldest restaurant called the ‘old sausage kitchen’, apparently from the 12th century ‘wurstkuche’. There was also a demonstration on how cuckoo clocks came into being and why they have one, two or three weights - one - is the cuckoo (sound made by paper bellows), two is for moving figures and the third is for the music (you can turn off the cuckoo sounds for the night time). The next days sees us in Nuremberg, many of the tour went off [View Full Entry]

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