Out looking for trouble (29th July)

Another 9am start, but this time we leave the Palace to go on the famous Belfast Black Cab tour. The great thing about these 2 hour trips is that they spend half the time in the Catholic suburbs and half in the Protestant suburbs. The drivers give a very balanced account of the history. We have to ask at the end for him to clarify which religion he is because we can't tell. Seeing the murals and the horrendously tall peace wall makes it all very real - and shows just how close these two communities lived to each other. The gates in the peace wall are still closed every night to keep each community on their side of the fence. We think it's amazing that they even need to do this, but the locals want it to keep happening because it keeps the peace. Most people want to move on and make a new Ireland, where they can co-habitate in peace. After the taxi tour we say goodbye to our friends who are travelling on the 10 day tour. We have all been grouped together, but this afternoon we head back to Dublin with the Belfast day tour driver and guests. It's an interesting concept to join groups together and break them up again, but there is only 7 of us on the 3 day trip it makes good business sense to do this. We check out Belfast Castle on the outskirts of the city. It is a lovely castle and the garden has nine different cat monuments in it as a symbol of good luck. If Shona isn't allowed a pet cat soon, then this might have to be her new project! The journey to Dublin is about 2 hours trouble is trying not to fall asleep! Overall Ireland has been a real let down. We have been fascinated with the history, but feel that the PaddyWagon tour was not worth the money. As Carmen described it - we could have driven the same roads with a guide book and received the same if not more information from it. It is a bus service and not at all about showing off the beauty or history of Ireland. At least on the way back we listened to three songs of U2!

Fiddle dee dee -potato (28th July)

The bus is leaving at 9am, but Shona is up at 6:30am because there is one shower between 12 people and everyone knows just how much she loves/needs her showers. Michael gets one too and we have our breakfast and write up our diaries to pass the time - totally worth the early start. We're on the road to check out the Giant's Causeway. Known because it used to go between Scotland and Ireland and a giant ran across it and smashed it up. It depends whether you are Irish or Scottish as to which giant smashed it up. It's really an amazing formation of rocks, that we wanted to see and hence the reason for the trip around Northern Ireland. Our first stop however is 10 minutes up the road for petrol. We can't believe that we are wasting our time in a petrol station when the driver could have filled up last night. Not a good start to the day. Unfortunately it gets worse. We are dropped off to the causeway and it is totally amazing. We have an hour and a half to look around, but we really needed 2 - 3 hours. Why didn't we leave at 8am we wonder? Lunch is around the corner at a pub. The food is expensive (think 9 pound for a burger) and there are no other options to order from. Two minutes down the road and we are at the the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, there's also an historic lime kiln and quarry... but basically everyone is there for the rope bridge - which generates $70m pounds a year in revenue! Not at all bad for a simple bridge. The views are pretty stunning however and Mike was able to cross the bridge even though heights are not his thing. Interestingly there is a quaint little coffee shop right at the car park over looking the ocean... our suspicion is that we didn't stop there because the profits go to the National Trust -ie the English Irish 'side'. Next we were off to Belfast - we get dropped there at around 5pm and were left to our own devices for the night... more and more this seemed to be a bus service rather than a guided tour, but the random wander around the city was ok even with the rain. High score of 'count the CCTV cameras visible from one spot' = 17!

Ps when Shona spied the classic kiwi "tomato sauce container" she knew something was up. Two NZers have set up a burger joint here so Mike got a Kiwiburger for dinner :o)

To be sure (27th July)

Look out Ireland - here we come! We get on the bright green PaddyWaggon bus, which is taking us up to Derry/LondonDerry today. Why does it have two names? Well it depends on which side you are on as to what name you give it. Catholic - Derry, Protestant - LondonDerry. We drive past the Prime Minister's house and you know she is home because the flags are flying! We make a few stops along the way - Monasterboice: Ireland's highest 10th century Celtic crosses, Omagh - where a car bomb went off in the street killing 27 innocent shoppers (the IRA's biggest hit). We arrive in Derry which is one of the last remaining walled cities in the world. A guide arrives to take us on a walking tour of the walls only it turns out to be a tour telling the Catholic side of the story and how they have been subjected to acts of terrorism by the English government over the years. We visit the the Bloody Sunday memorial and the infamous Free Derry sign. He distinctly remembers being a 9 year old boy who would frequently be woken up at 3am in the morning by the English army having a gun pointed and told him not to move while his room was ransacked and his parents beaten up. It wasn't until 1972 that Catholics were allowed to vote again because there is a 80% majority they are now running the council. We also see the Protestant area, which is so glaringly obvious. They paint the curbs in red, white and blue, (the colours of England) plus due to the orange celebration they are also flying the Union Jack and the Northern Ireland flags everywhere. The day ends at a local cafe which serves us stew and Irish coffee while two guys play traditional Irish music. It's a lot of fun. Trivia Time: Did you know that the difference between Scottish whiskey and Irish whiskey is that Scottish whiskey is distilled twice, while the Irish distill it three times.

Shona shops and Mike drops (26th July)

We say goodbye to Scotland, catching the 6:40am bus to the airport. A quick flight across the Irish Sea brings us to the land of leprechauns, troubles, Guinness, sexy accents and U2. Mike isn't feeling too well and the idea of a 2 hour walking history lesson does not appeal. So he arranges the hostel check in, while Shona catches up on history learning about Ireland's past. There is the ongoing religious and political fight between England, Protestants and Irish, Catholics. Given that the country is 80% catholic it is interesting to learn the Protestants have had the most power since the 1600's. We've arrived at an interesting time. Firstly we are in town on the wrong day because U2 played a concert the night before and are playing again on Monday (the night we are in Derry). Damn it because there were still GA tix available! Secondly because July is the time that the Protestants march in Northern Island to celebrate the battle where King William of Orange (Protestant) won the battle against King James (catholic) and from then on Ireland was under Protestant and English rule. The afternoon is spent shopping for a new pair of jeans for Shona. Mike puts up with me as first I find two charms for my pandora bracelet - a Scottie dog and four leaf clover, second a Christmas decoration for our tree (the keepsakes that I want from our trip). After wandering around 5 different shops and trying on 10 or more pairs I find some jeans at GAP, at an outrageous price that wasn't in the budget, but I'm happy (says Shona). Mike was very patient with me and he still loves me (just!)

A whole load of tartan! (25th July)

The day is stunning, but we are not fooled and pack our jackets just in case liquid sunshine appears. First stop is Holyrood Park and the reason for our extra day in Edinburgh - The Gathering 2009. A highland games event and the biggest clan meeting ever! Because there wasn't a lot going on in the morning session -we decided to walk up Arthur's seat, right beside the park. Arthur's Seat is actually the bigger mountain behind where we ended up -but the views were apparently better from where we went -and we weren't arguing! Back at the Gathering we watch a couple of Highland games events (this is world championship) and cheer for Hellier, the one New Zealand athlete of the eight competing. Next up is a pipe band, but not just any pipe band the biggest pipe band we'd ever seen! They play two songs and then stop. About 5 minutes pass and we are wondering what is happening and why are we waiting (again). Next thing HRH Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla Parker Bowles appear walking along the field. We find out that they are the official patrons of the event and Charles gives a speech which officially opens the games. Overall we thought the games were very disorganised. The MC was telling us who was up next and then no one was ready to go. So the wait between some of these highlights was up to 40 minutes. Due to this and that the cable throwing would be ages away, we decided to call it a day and head up the Royal Mile to explore Edinburgh castle.

We didn't think we'd have enough time to do the audio tour and instead bought the guide book, which will be a keepsake forever too! They offer free tours which was interesting to hear about the different buildings in the castle and when they were built and why. After the tour we were able to wander through and explore ourselves. The crown jewels are located in the castle so we checked out the crown, scepter and sword which were all used in the coronation of Mary, Queen of Scots. We check out the oldest building in the castle and in fact Edinburgh - St Maragaret's chapel. We explored until 6pm when the castle closed and managed to see everything we wanted to making it a good decision to leave the games! At 8pm, it's back up the road to check out the parade of clans to the Castle. There is some event on tonight in which they've all bought tickets. But it also means that the clans get to walk up the royal mile behind their clan name. It is like the Olympic opening ceremony in Santa Parade style as we are so close. Lots of people are wearing their tartans and there are bag pipe bands spread throughout. It is really fun! We stay for about 30 minutes and decide that it will go on for hours, is not too exciting and so we head back to the hostel to chill. We need an early night because we are up at 5:45am tomorrow to head to Dublin.

Btw -a good snack is a Twisted bar (chocolate with creme egg filling) washed down with Irn Bru!

The Tour Ends (24th July)

Leaving Loch Ness and the magic of the highlands behind, our bus winds it's way back to Edinburgh. We meet Hamish the highland cow - he is one horny sexy highlander!, check out the ruins of a castle and learn about a bloody battle. It was Friday 13th when the Campbell Clan brutally murdered the Donald Clan after accepting 12 days of highland hospitality. 38 members were killed and many others died as they fled from the glen up into the hills (known as the 3 sisters) during the middle of winter. To this day there are some stores in the region that will not serve anyone from anywhere in the world with the surname Campbell. We visit the Sir William Wallace monument in Stirling - the largest monument to a single non religious figure in the world. At the end of the tour we say goodbye to new friends and head to our hostel to find we are in the same room and Shona is in the same bed as last time. It has been a great tour and we would recommend the Haggis 3day Skye to anyone. Dan and Chris our guides were an absolute highlight (esp the way Dan says the word "sexy").

Skye High -Aye (23rd July)

Dan and Chris start the day promising to show us everything Skye has to offer and by the end of the day we will be experiencing DSL - Deep Scottish Love (say it with a Scottish accent too!) Before reaching Skye we stopped off at Eileen Donan Castle which is famous for Highlander and also some other movies as well. The cool part is that the family who own it still use it as a summer house and have private rooms there. But they realise that it costs a small fortune to maintain and as such visitors are allowed in most days of the year to finance it. Apparently otters live in the waters around here so Shona wants to see one, however they are elusive little creatures. Heading into skye we are told about Saucy Mary who used to live on the island. To make money she would string boats across the lochs and fishermen would have to pay a toll. After letting them through she would lift up her shirt and flash her boobs, hence the name Saucy Mary! A wanker of a bus driver was driving with his wheels on the middle line. Now the roads aren't wide by any means, but basically he was on our side of the road. We were going too fast to stop and pull over so Chris took evasive action and pulled over to the left as far as he could. This meant the the hedge (the only one we passed on the whole island) took out our right wing mirror. A bit of team work meant that we moved one of the right wing mirrors over to the left and at last the bus was legal again. Dan and Chris were awesome as rather than cutting things out, we just spent longer on the road. Skye is magical containing fairies, wonderful tales of history and also some of the oldest mountains in the world. Geology was born here as was the bed and breakfast. We loved it. Back at the hostel the dinner option included haggis. We both managed two mouthfuls, but it doesn't make our liked foods list. A pricey (10 quid) tour on Loch Ness finished our evening. It was great to be out on the loch trying to get the photo of Nessie (and then get paid our 1 million pounds from the local cafe) but not really worth the cost. Never the less we only live once and it is unlikely that we will be back here for a while.

Tour Time (22nd July)

Both of our travel alarm clocks are rubbish and are now in the rubbish - but luckily we still fell out of bed(s) in time to make the start of our Scottish tour at 8:15am. The Haggis tour company is ultimately owned by Contiki, so you'd expect the majority of people to be 18-35 and typically English, American or Australian. This prediction was pretty spot on except that the Kiwis outnumbered all comers and the Americans were strangely absent (perhaps they were disguised as the Canadians??)... in our observation it was the people that didn't fall into these general majorities that tended to be the tools on the trip - but perhaps some of our grumbles about this will need to be sensored in subsequent blogs. Anyway - the scenery on the start of the tour is pretty unspectacular as we leave the city, although the making or breaking of any tour are the drivers/guides and Chris and Dan turn out to be totally awesome. Although some of their stories definitely stretch and sometimes break the truth - their enthusiasm and energy is brilliant. As we pass the Fourth Bridge (which crosses the Fourth Firth) early on, we are told the story of the young worker who fell down one of the support columns and broke both legs. They couldn't get anyone down to pull him out and it was too expensive to cut the column to free him from the bottom - so the solution was to send him down some dinner laced with poison to solve the problem. His skeleton is still inside the column today. The stories told by the Haggis crew are varied and numerous... maybe one day we should google their authenticity! A brief stop near the Dunkeld Cathedral was nice, although I'm sure it won't be the most impressive cathedral we see on our trip. The rumour is that if a woman touches the tomb of the promiscuous "Wolf of Badeooch" she'll fall instantly pregnant. Sorry Dave - but you'll be gutted to see just how close she came! Shona DID touch the key stone at Balnuaran of Clava, although she didn't feel as drawn into the ground within this prehistoric cemetery as the rumour told her she may do. Our first visit to Loch Ness was brief and mostly involved Scotland's tackiest gift shop... but more would come from Loch Ness in following days. Urquhart Castle has a ridiculous admission price - so the Haggis policy is to not pay - but to take sneaky photos from the wall of the carpark at the top of the hill! Seems like a good plan - and would have been if Shona hadn't torn her jeans getting up on the wall, which would have made the show R18 if she didn't have her top to tie around her waist! Luckily the next stop had a gift shop where new pants could be bought. That night we had an authentic kilt and weapon demonstration, dinner at the hostel and a concert by a local musician to digest... not a bad wee evening in Fort Augusta really!

Scotland (21st July)

We were pretty run down from the travel and lack of sleep from the last few nights - so a nice lie in on the river was well received... pretty awesome to have a room with ensuite to ourselves for the first time on the trip too. Seemed pretty bizarre to be using Wifi on a boat - but this is 2009 after all and we were able to use the time to book a couple of very exciting events for when we come back to London in a week or so (stay turned for what these are). We went for a quick wander around this small private island and some of the locals were more than willing to give us some stories about the people that have lived here, Charlie Chaplan for a period of time and Pink Floyd had a floating recording studio that we saw just down the river. Our whistle stop visit to London concluded with another one eleven bus back to Heathrow for an uneventful BMI flight to Edinburgh. In fact the most interesting moment was when we found that they had managed to attach our security photos around the wrong way when checking in... much to the amusement of the security staff (who see this happen all the time). We once again took a double decker bus from the airport, this time we had the added amusement of being able to point out all the street signs with the same names as those streets back in Dunedin on the way into the middle of Edinburgh. We dropped our gear off at the hostel, made the obligatory introductions to the others in our 8 bed dorm and then set out to explore some of the cool areas of this very cool city. We managed to wander past the acclaimed Mary King Close tour company - but because this was all booked up we went with one of the slightly less acclaimed but numerous other underground city tours. The super summarised version is that the city used to be enclosed within a defensive wall, then when the population exploded the vaults in the bridges to the outside became enclosed by large buildings up to 16 stories high. Our tour went into the newly 'opened' vaults of the south bridge and (presumably to boost ticket sales) the guide makes it into a ghost story by talking about murders, crimes and the south bridge entity the whole 1 1/4 hours. Maybe not worth the 8 pound each - but the bits of history and the inside views of the bridge were pretty cool really. Interestingly, they didn't allow for toilets. So every night at 10pm they'd open their windows yell "guard a leu" which means look out and throw it out the window - where it stayed and built up over the years.

Tagg on Taggs (20th July)

So the overnight British Airways flight to Heathrow would have been better had the inflight entertainment worked, had we managed some extra seats or if either of us had got some sleep... but luckily this is our last longhaul flight for quite some time. Having had such a wait at LAX, it was interesting to walk through the Heathrow biosecurity without being checked - at this point Mike with a hole in his toe having split it open on one of the MANY escalators in the very very flash Terminal 5. The 111 bus to Hampton was our first go on the top of a double decker bus - which seemed a very appropriate way to travel around London. On the river Thames is a small island called Taggs Island, which is a brilliant name for what turned out to be a quaint little island. The cool thing about it is that not many people actually live on the island - they all have small plots of land with houseboats attached. Our accommodation for the night was on the only bed and breakfast houseboat called Feed the Ducks. For the afternoon we had the choice between going to Wimbledon or going through Hampton Court Palace - easy decision really, so off to the palace we went :o) The history of the ownership and the legacies left by the royals was interesting, especially of course that of King Henry XIII... I'm guessing this isn't the first time that we're going to be amazed by the depth of history in UK/Europe. Dinner at the Kings Arms was pretty authentic English tucker - can you believe that Shona actually ordered a meal that included pureed peas (fish & chips)? Even more amazingly she actually ate some of them!

Shona's New York Impressions

It was my first time to The Big Apple and in this new and much heard about city I noticed a number of interesting facts or oddities. 1. Dogs An amazing amount of people have a dog or dogs. And they take them everywhere. On the subway, sunbathing in the park, to the restaurant, everywhere. Jason says that a lot of people live on their own and so they like to have a dog as their companion. Makes sense. But in this crazy city full of high rise buildings it doesn't seem right to have an animal. But despite the dogs, I did not see one dog dropping on the pavement or road. At least they are clean! 2. Taxis ...are everywhere. A guestimation would say that 60 - 70% of cars on Manhattan island are yellow taxis. 3. Subway Awesome! This really is public transport at it's best. Coming every 8 minutes and often there are multiple trains that you can catch to your destination. Plus they know when events are on, e.g. Yankees match and therefore boost up the schedules to get the some 40K+ fans to and from the game! Additionally the subway runs 24/7. You can always get somewhere using the subway. The trains may be less frequent than 8 minutes apart, but they do come and take you to your destination or home again in a less than normal state. 4. It really never sleeps They say that New York is the city that never sleeps and it really is true. Sometimes we were up till 3am just sitting on a bench talking about the world. The garbage truck came past, a man out walking his dog, various taxi's, cars and walkers. All along West 10th Street which is a side street and not so busy. 5. Diversity of people There are people from all walks of life in NYC and everyone gets on. I was fascinated with Jewish people, their strange dress code (weird curls for guys, wigs for ladies) and they amount of other languages spoken. 6. Jobs With the NY Stock Exchange being the centre of American commerce are a number of business people work normal hours. For Jason who works in the Financial District his hours are 11am - 7pm. But a large number of people work random hours on any number of days. Whether it be at the 24/7 diner down the street, or even the garbage collectors. This means that there are always people about and doing crazy things at any time of day. 7. Shops Don't generally open until 11am. Some open at 10am, but you can guarantee 11am. Rather late by NZ standards, but then they are open later than 5pm.

House hunting in NYC (19th July)

So we decided that all in all Manhattan is a wonderful place, so we started to look for a one bedroom apartment in and around Greenwich Village to move to once we have finished our trip. A fuel up at the Hollywood Diner was good... although maybe Mike is getting complacent from good food, as his standard order of omelet and hash wasn't quite up to the standard he's getting accustomed to. We felt the need to bring Jason along on our house hunting excursion, as in all honesty he's the one that will end up living in it (just in case Brian read the previous comment and is eying up Mike's work desk!) We were actually pleasantly surprised at what Jason's budget could get in this amazing location and hope that Jason finds a place soon that he can call his own (and one that has constant water supply!!) Shona got her ride in a yellow cab and we made it to the airport just in time to meet and farewell Mindy and Tim and to be delayed for 2 hours before take off!

The Speedbump (18th July)

This definitely wasn't the best day of our trip and I think the stresses of travel finally caught up with us. The nutbar customer and crazy owner at the laundromat, the crappy waitress at the French cafe, the afternoon of walking between shops only to find that no where seemed to have shorts long enough to cover Mike's knobbly chicken legs (required for European churches) and the fact that we needed to find a bag to ship home cargo with Mindy and Tim all built up over the day. Sometimes a blowout is needed -and ultimately, you just have to look back on days like this and laugh...

True Blue NYC experience (17th July)

Was an early start for once on the Friday as we wanted to fit in as much as possible with Mindy and Tim during their time in the Big Apple. Tim loved the extra shopping -it's fair to say that Mindy is a pro, which she'd proven the previous day by spotting the elusive "I heart NY" singlet for Shona in a heartbeat! Speaking of shopping, the Century 21 slogan of "NYs best kept secret, fashion worth fighting for" is interesting for 2 reasons (1) if it's a secret, how come half of NY seems to be in the store? (2) the fights really do become physical at times! Staten Island Ferry (which goes right past the statue of liberty), NY pizza in the park, Wall St, ground zero (birdseye view from Jason's work)... could this day be ANY more iconic NYC?? In a word -yes. Because we had tickets to the NY Yankees vs. Detroit Tigers baseball game... oh yes people -be very very jealous :o) To be honest -we were lucky to get there though! A fire in the subway stopped Mindy and Tim's train forcing them to walk uptown and when we arrived at Yankee Stadium with backpacks we were told we wouldn't get admitted without finding a bag check. All worked out for the best and we stayed for the last pitch, thunderstorm delay and all -to see the Yankees in a come from behind 5-3 win. A totally magic event, from the hotdogs to the brand new stadium to singing "take me out to the ball game" at the bottom of the 6th inning. Of the 46,197 people that were there -it was funny that a group of kiwis were among the several thousand that held out through the half hour rain delay.

Mindy and Tim (16th July)

The Spaceshoe house is undergoing some pretty dramatic alterations on the lowest 2 levels, meaning that the Italians periodically turn off the water, mess with the locks etc. So when we awoke after the 10am deadline -we were forced to prepare a colonial bath, however just in time the water came back and dramas were averted.

Shona had a blueberry danish in preparation for next month in Europe -while Mike held off long enough to spy a cafe with wifi where the turkey sandwhich was delightful and the free internet resulted in almost every single customer having a laptop out! We managed to send an email out from via our mailing list... please let us know if you want to be added to this.Shona was totally unable to pass a shop called Shoegasim, which we popped into on the way to the Hotel that Melinda (Shona's sister) and Tim are staying in. We were a little early -so we wandered through the park for a couple of hours and went past the Central Park Zoo (it's so awesome that a small zoo like this can be in walking distance for so so many people). We must have just missed the others at the hotel -because when we went back and met them, they'd been walking in the park for the couple of hours as well!

To introduce them to the NYC experience we took them to Times Square and to the top of 30 Rockefella (Top of the Rock), where the view is as good as anywhere in Manhattan, even though we had a fair bit of smog to look through. The package we chose included a cocktail at a bar after decent... but we felt a lot out of place amongst the suits and ties of the business people who had just finished up for the day. Whole foods and a picnic in the park was a pretty awesome way to finish the day.

We're going to the zoo, you could come too... (16th July)

Today was our first amateur travellers error. After the free concert in Central Park, we should have known that New Yorkers love free events. So when the Bronx Zoo is free on a Wednesday and it's school holidays it's actually the best day to be anywhere else! We thought it was a good idea to save on the entry fee but the $15pp would have been worth it for our sanity. It was a ZOO!! It was cool seeing all the school kids in their coloured holiday programme shirts, but the swarms got tedious very quickly. Animal highlights include, Margaret the baby giraffe (extra special as Margaret, Mike's Mum's fav animal is the giraffe), the mole rats in the Mouse House, the snowy owl, the puffins and of course the bison and the history that goes with them. Robert 'friend of the zoo' told us that the zoo was set up specifically to save the bison (buffalo). Zoo low lights include the kids banging on the glass while the adults repeatedly used flash photography in the nocturnal exhibits. Dad we didn't go in the House of Birds, but we thought of you and your fear of them!

Back on the subway past Freeman Street station and back to the Spaceshoe house to meet Jason and get into our bests for dinner and a show on Broadway. We had standing 'seats' at the back of the theatre for Hair -because they were cheap and more importantly give room for Kevin to dance (it was his 21st time seeing it!) The legs have definitely had a working over already! It was great to see a Broadway show and the cast of Hair put on a great performance for us. Back through Times Square once more, sadly Shona still hasn't managed to find an I heart NY singlet even though it seems like we have looked in every shop in the midtown area....

World's Biggest Picnic? (15th July)

This was our first real down-time in New York so far... the morning spent catching up on rest after the excitment of the last few days and taking care of laundry (as mentioned in the previous post). Not wanting to rub it in too too much for those back home - but with "real feel" temperatures of around 30 celcius, you tend to use up your shorts and singlets rather quickly! With Jason at work we explored Manhattan on our own, making our way to Grand Central Station (Shona being very impressed before we even got into the main room!), Times Square during the day (which is in the middle of trial traffic restrictions) and scoping out some presents for some very lucky people. An hour wandering through Central Park made the massive scale of it abundantly clear and we thought that there were a lot of people enjoying it at that time. There are heaps of people running and cycling or just lazing about on the grass! Buying picnic supplies with Jason at Whole Food was an eyeopening experience (translation: that place is chaos!) and anywhere that needs to annouce over a loud speaker which isle is free has got to be busy! Back into the park to meet Shannon and his friends we realised just how many people can enjoy the park at any given time as thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people crammed onto the Great Lawn and surrounds for the free concert by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Although we knew about it and Shannon 'got there early' to save a spot - we didn't even make it onto the Great Lawn that the orchestra was playing to. Luckily Jason found a better spot, so we looked out across Turtle Pond to the crowds and the sound quality made it all worth while. Plus we had fireflies dancing to the music too! After the concert we strolled back to Times Square to check it out at night with all the bright lights showing up in the dark. It was still crazy full of people! We had heaps of fun in the MnM's store trying to buy Emma some peanut butter MnM's. Turns out they have 3 floors with every product you can think of branded MnM, but not the bags you buy in the shops with actual MnM's. So Emma we are still looking for you...

Enjoy the ride... Have a six flags day! (13th July)

Well this is a totally cliche blog today, I'm writing this while watching our clothes spin around in the closest laundromat to the Spaceshoe house, having just come from the diner (for breakfast at noon) and thinking about going to central park for a stroll later in the day. Yesterday was outstanding - made so once again by the insight Jason and his friends have been able to provide. First we met Freddy who was carrying a well laden chiller bag, which for some reason we stopped and added 2 cans of coke to... worked out fine as it meant we could pick up breakfast of bacon, egg and cheese rolls. Regular coffees to go (which Shona desperately needed) were had in the subway while the boys navigated the rabbit warren of stations with ease. They wouldn't tell us where we were going and so we found ourselves sitting on a bus... the mystery unfolding as Shona spied Six Flags on the destination list. An hour to the park zipped by with a trip through the Lincoln tunnel under the Hudson and into New Jersey the garden state, lots of green countryside to spectate. When we got there the purpose behind the coke cans became apparent as they each had a 2 for 1 park entry on the side, not bad to save about fifty bucks for the cost of a can of coke! An absolute must of any busy Six Flags fun park (even on a Monday) is the Flash Pass. I promise it'll be the best $13pp you spend - as we managed around 18 rides in the day... not possible without bypassing the up to 2 hour queues. The world's highest roller coaster was sadly not available (which Mike joked was a saviour when he saw where it went and heard you have views back to Manhattan) but El Toro has been consistently rated in the top 2 in the world and is always Jason's favourite -totally understandable because it never lets up a screaming ride the whole way around! Shona's favourite was Superman - maybe because we sang the theme the whole way round with flying arms outstretched, Freddy must have been inspired by Batman as he later bought the cape (although squirting people on the log flume seemed to give him the most delight) and Mike loved the surprise ending on Nitro enough to be surprised both times we rode it! Shona's least favourite was the Teacups - mainly because Mike exacted revenge from the log flume by making it spin at an almost uncontrollable pace. Fiona -the tiger display was great and we thought of you when the white tiger came out. Bonus highlight of the day had to be the FULL ON picnic that Freddy had packed... mental note: never turn down a picnic in the park when Freddy is involved. Near miss of the day: missing the last NYC bus and only JUST catching the bus that got there via Newark. So Fiona - hopefully your concerns about Mike never being to Disneyland have been somewhatabbated - his fear of heights has been adequately fed over the last 3 or 4 days!

Viva La France? (Sun 12th July)

Real coffee (think Latte) two doors down at Jack's is a good way to start any morning in NYC, especially when it's followed by New York's best falafels, picnic style in the Hudson River Park (a massively long and skinny waterfront park that looks over the Hudson River, towards New Jersey). It was a great opportunity to people watch as heaps of people were sun bathing on the grass looking at the river, as if they were at a beach. It was also ironic to start at the Meat Packing District end as parts of the park were a bit of a meat market. The parks all flow on to each other and are filled with lots of different activities, from free tennis courts to a basketball court and sculptures like the bizarre penny people. As we walked past Ground Zero Jason explained that we would have a better view in a minute. He wasn't wrong. Jason works on the 29th floor of the first building to be rebuilt after 911. The footprints of the two original towers are to become monumental waterfalls in park like surroundings and a couple more World Trade Centre office blocks are to be built. One as tall as the original towers. The view from all directions was amazing, especially looking right up Manhattan. This whole day was formulated around attending Bastille Day celebrations in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. As we waited for the water taxi to take us across the East River to Brooklyn we were fascinated by a few families of Jews. Man do they have a lot of kids! It was kinda fun to try and work out which kids belonged to which family. We think the kids in the blue shirts were one family and the kids in the black and white striped tops were another. But we're sure they are actually all cousins! Anyway we make it to Bastille Day where they are serving Sangria to drink and playing Latin music. So not as French as we first thought... at least the food was French and we had a wonderful waitress who provided service to the stoop as there wasn't enough tables to sit at! We finally found Shannon's friends, Holly, Chris and Joe. They all live in Brooklyn so took us to a great restaurant where Shona had blackberry cosmo's while Mike drank beer. YUM YUM!

A day in Brooklyn (Sat 11th July)

I guess this was the first 'full day' our trip... even though the half day before was over 25 hours long! Kicking it off with brunch at an authentic American diner ticked off one of our 'must dos' and introduced us both to Nova Scotica lox... otherwise simply known as salmon. Having Jason as our tour guide was totally invaluable as he then lead us to Washington square park, past the street vendors and trendy shops of Soho, through the craziness that is Chinatown, to city hall and it's pleasant garden, over the iconic Brooklyn Bridge then by subway to Coney Island. In fact having Jason there, we may almost have passed by as locals... except that NYC locals apparently don't stop to photograph squirrels or look up in amazement at the Woolworths and Municipal Buildings. Coney Island is an totally amazing place, not just for the long, pleasant, Atlantic facing beach and it's thousands of people (who's numbers can apparently swell to a million during a heat wave) but also the historic and totally iconic amusement area. Historic is a good word for the Wonderwheel in Astroland, the history of it well and truly showing and not at all helped with the salt from that ever present Atlantic. Shona and Jason colluded to select one of the swinging capsules... Shona's defense being that Michael's fear of heights might handle being flung towards a 130 foot drop better than a gentle ride to 150 feet. Jason struggled to convince us both that the cyclone (this is the world original) is reliably rated in the 10 ten roller coaster in the world -even after all of these years. At the end of the ride there could be no argument however and the literally white knuckles and in ride photograph provided the best tribute to it's reputation. Nathan's 4th July hot dog eating contest may have just been -but we simply had to try their Original Frankfurter, complete with mustard and ketchup (Dee Anne -there was no tomato sauce so the ketchup had to do!) Jason also introduced us to "cheese"... which may not actually contain any cheese products! Ted (half of legendary New York ukelele band Sonic Uke) and Dolan kindly invited us out to their Brooklyn apartment for bbq burgers on the deck -to which we gladly accepted. Again the subway is the best form of transport and view from the balcony proved to be well worth the trip. In one direction they can see Lady Liberty, while directly across the road is the Green Wood cemetery, where the spirits of the fallen rise up from the ground during dusk on a fine summers evening. No seriously -the hundreds upon hundreds of fireflies made for an absolutely surreal experience... which wasn't even topped by the amazing lightning show that started when the heavens opened around midnight. Even a loan raccoon ran into the cemetery for shelter as Ted found other ways to calm his nerves. With the warm apple pie finished we made a dash for the subway, inadequate umbrellas deteriorating on route, as we made it home and into bed by 3am.

Getting There

Yay - so after so many months of planning we are finally well and truly on our way! Some last minute shopping by Shona and a spanner in the works by mortgage refixing wasn't enough to stress us out on our last day in Auckland - as even Michael finally allowed himself to get excited. At the airport in plenty of time we both hoped for a pleasant, relaxing and stress free trip to our first proper destination -NYC. Naivety is a wonderful thing sometimes -especially when you're about to go through LAX, but we both managed to get some rest on the first leg while watching movies -'He's just not that into you' and 'Confessions of a shoppoholic' by one of us 'Watchmen' and 'Twelve Rounds' by the other. If you can't work out who watched which -you've obviously stumbled across this web page by accident hope you enjoy it in any event. The flight was made infinitely better by the fact that Mike pulled off a masterstroke of manoeuvring to take us from a full row of four, to a row of four for the two of us. This came about when one of the four went up the plane two rows and Mike 'went to have a look out the window' from a vacant row of 3.. a beautiful bargaining chip for the remaining passenger -David the flaming ginger from Te Aroha. With the plane arriving early in LAX, we had just on 2 hours to make our connecting flight easy right? Wrong. When we got to the immigration line and were told that the computers were down, we knew we were going to have some fun on our hands. Boarding time arrived and were still well back in the line, pretty much resolved to the fact that we'd be on a later flight. The announcement that our connecting flight was being held was a huge relief -and made the rest of the two hour wait in line much more pleasant. So after all the talk about the fancy procedures no fingerprints were taken and they have no photo of our new haircuts. The rest of the airport felt like running the New York marathon -complete with race marshals holding Qantas signs as we went zipping past. An uneventful second leg of our race got us to the detour at JFK where we took the 'Rail it' option and went by Air Train and subway to Manhatten Island. Shona was awesome and even gave directions to other people on the network! We jumped off at Chambers Street to see if Jason was still on the platform -then did a puddle jump three more stops to West 4th Station, where Mike was amazed to instantly recognise Jason's neighbourhood buildings from his visit in 2003, before momentarily heading off in completely the wrong direction! Not much time was lost and it gave us a first real glimpse of the activity on New York streets. Was wonderful to see Jason's head pop out of the spaceshoe house window -and a welcome gin and tonic and gin (!) calmed our nerves, before heading out for real New York pizza. The loft bed is super comfy and seems to hold us fine -we're up here at the moment lamenting the fact that Jason missed getting tickets to Shakepeare in the park, even though he joined the queue at 4am! Remember -the city never sleeps.

Cashed up

So we figured it'd be a good idea to take some of the currency for our trip over with us. Good idea -as it means we wouldn't have to muck around with withdrawing cash... especially because the first places we visit generally don't use Euro (plus Shona gets a better rate for currency through her work). So this photo is us with our colourful collection of US dollars, British Pounds, Danish Kronars, Swedish Kronars, Swis Francs and some Euros... what's the amount that you have to declare when you pass through customs?

"Final" itinerary

With only 7 sleeps to go before our 13 week trip throughout Europe, things are starting to get well and truly exciting (helped by the fact that Shona's dad Dave keeps asks most days "are you excited yet?") It's fair to say that we have been organised -and most of you will not be surprised to know that Shona (and I) have prepared a very nicely colour coded itinerary of our anticipated destinations. Although this is all subject to some change -you'll be more than likely to know where we are on any given day by referring to it.