New York NEW YORK

I arrived in NY last night.

I fell asleep on the plane before we'd even left the terminal - little wonder after re-reading my last blog post. After a few hours sleep on the plane, and another 12 hours sleep last night, I'm feeling much better today.

This morning started off with a stroll down to Central Park. This was the perfect way to clear the fog in my head and adjust to being in NEW YORK. And wow... what a park!

Ice-skating in Central Park. Unfortunately I didn't give this a try - though it looked just beautiful.


Hans Christian Anderson, reading The Ugly Duckling.

The Pond - filled with duck, and a few children feeding the 'duckies'.


Strawberry Fields - John Lennon Memorial. I visited this especially for Molly.

Just one of the huge Lakes in Central Park... I'm sure this would be so much prettier in the summertime.

Alice in Wonderland - Central Park's Un-birthday.

A Central Park Squirrel! They're so cute! And fast! (hard to get a photo of too)

Grand Central Station - A very 'grand' terminal indeed. Its hard to properly convey how huge it is. One thing about New York... Huge parks. Huge buildings. Huge train stations. And huge hands as you'll see shortly.

And it just happens to be Fashion Week in NY!!! I haven't had a proper chance to really check out Madison Ave yet... I'll be doing that on the weekend.


I couldn't figure out what all these people were doing today, walking around with some ashy smudge on thier forhead. I assumed it must be something religious... perhaps Jewish? Hours later, with Nanna turning in her grave I'm sure, I realised it was Ash Wednesday! Anyways, here is a cool church.

This is where I will be tomorrow. The Rockefeller Building. Another icon that also has ice-skating. I guess I'll know more about it tomorrow!

And a couple of Times Square photos.

See Times Square for yourself here at this Web Cam.

Sydney to LA

Here I am in the city of Angels, Los Angeles… well… at the airport at the very least. I don’t really care too much what the airport is like… I’ve just flown from Sydney to LA which is about 13hours – so its now after 3am on Wednesday for me. I don’t know why – but I didn’t sleep very well on the trip over. I just couldn’t get to sleep, even with sleeping tablets.

Other than that the flight was okay though. It must have been Seniors Tuesday or something like that because half the people on the plane were seniors. Which is fine, they were quiet.

I had lunch and breakfast and the countless snacks that Qantas bring around. I watched a couple of movies… Jane Austin Bookclub and Elizabeth. Read my book. Watched several episodes of Two and a Half Men, Summer Heights High (which I had never seen before), Trinnity and Suzannah, and a travel show on my next destination, New York.

Boarding should start in about 20mins for NY and I really hope that I manage to get some sleep on this flight. Its 11.12am in NY now… and I arrive at 4 or 4.30pm… with enough luck I’ll get 3 hours sleep or so.

Or perhaps I should just catch that flight to Miami that they just called? Laze around on the beach all day…. Oh right…. Its winter time. (I haven’t been outside here – but it’s a beautiful blue clear day here in LA).

I just want sleep!!! Hopefully the hotel is okay – at the very least I hope the bed is comfortable. Although a strip of carpet where I could lay out full length would be comfortable right now compared to 13 hours on a plane.

Observations of LA:
- Strange hairstyles: I’ve seen several women with rather unusual hairstyles… I don’t know if it’s a wig or they spend hours doing it each morning, or get it done professionally.
- Some of the Airport staff have been wearing these very large brightly coloured beeds… I just hope its for a reason… they are terrible!! And the men are wearing them too!

God I hope my luggage arrives there with me – we sort of had to recheck it after going through customs here – it was very strange.

5 mins til boarding.

A police woman just walked past with her massive gun on her hip, and a massive baton on her other hip. She just looked scary!

C’mon – let me on so I can go to sleep!

Mixed Tape of Summer 08

Too much fun to write about in complete detail - so consider this the Mixed Tape of Summer 08.
Shortly after New Years we had Aimee and Dangas come and stay with us - Aimee and I discovered just how easy it was to make Daquaries - and we absolutely perfected the Mango Daquarie!

Aimee is a top class burger maker (too bad they may have caused Dangas to spend the rest of the trip in the bathroom).

We headed down to check out the harbour on a beautiful Sydney day anyways...

And we took Tony with us for an excersion.

The following weekend Molly came and stayed with us for her first trip to Sydney.

We took her out on the town and we went to the Minus 5 Ice Bar.

We also went up Sydney Tower and walked through Hyde Park up to do some shopping on Oxford St.

I visited the family and new puppy in Lethy... her name is Chips... but I think that Imelda would be a far better name as she has a thing for shoes.

Also caught up with the crew for Thommo's birthday.

Went down to the Geelong foreshore on Australia Day where we saw some Swing Dancing...

And where Allyson swung with a Dinosaur...

If you thought the Oarsome Foursome were good... you ain't seen nothin' until you've seen the Grewsome 2Some.

New Year's Eve

A weekend so massive it has its own blog! http://echuca-nye.blogspot.com/

Happy New Year to everyone - maybe 2008 bring you everything that you work hard for!

My 25th Birthday

Just a few special photos from my special day!

Thanks Jess for the beautiful flowers!

And to Emma and Clint for the lovely candle holder - that I got to KEEP - despite Murray! Mwahahaha! I win!

A very yummy birthday cake!

A lovely lunch out at the Longueville Hotel in Lane Cove.




It was a great weekend - especially as my Mummy came to visit!!! And Laura who came up from Canberra! I was super spoilt!

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Well... not quite (that belongs to Murray of course!)... but I really did like San Francisco, especially after Evelyn took me around on my final day there to show me some sights that I never would have seen on foot.

On Sunday I caugh the ferry over to Sausalito - the ferry ride itself was well worth doing. (But before I caught the ferry I bought the yummiest dried cranberries from the Farmers Market at the Ferry Terminal!)






Sausalito... a Nucular Free city.... I should hope so!!!

Evelyn too me to some amazing vantage points to view the Golden Gate Bridge. From every angle it just stands out and looks amazing.

This is looking south across the 'heads' of SF Bay.

And looking North...

For one final memory we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset... a little hard to capture the moment by camera... but it was beautiful.

After a final Starbucks I said goodbye (for now) to San Francisco and headed off to the airport. It was a great trip - but even better to be heading home. The flight home couldn't have been easier - with three whole seats to myself! Upon arriving in Sydney I knew I was home as I heard glass bottles smashing, followed by "awwwe shit", followed by the strong smell of Bundy Rum - there goes someones duty free bottles.