Where are we? What day is today?

No Worries, Mate!

2010-04-28T12:04:00.003-04:00

I’m sure most of you know that Scott and I are back in the US now. We arrived on April 7th after getting the chance to experience two April 7th‘s due to the time changes over the Pacific as we flew back. It was definitely an usual experience and the jet lag lasted close to a week. We haven’t forgotten about the Australia blog. As you’ve probably come to realize, we’re just very slow. But to be perfectly honest we’re still in the mind frame of ’Where are we? What day is today?’ because we are still homeless (also to be described as ‘home free’) and unemployed. We’ve still been traveling around even since we’ve gotten back to the US. We arrived in St. Louis from Australia (via LA and Minneapolis) and spent about 4 days with my family. Thanks to all my nieces and nephews for keeping Scott and me busy….we managed to see 5 soccer games, a baseball game, and a wrestling banquet. We also had a family BBQ at my brother Blake and sister-in-law April’s house. Good times getting to catch up with everyone. From there we drove to Charlotte and arrived on Monday, the 12th. We were greeted by Scott’s family and of course had family dinner together. We hung out in Charlotte for the week and then hit the road again on Friday for Charleston, SC. The weekend was a fun-filled celebration for Julie’s birthday. The Strawn’s rented out an awesome house near the beach that could sleep about 20 people and it was a full house of family and friends. I think everyone had a pretty fantastic weekend. It was also our friend Andrew’s birthday so he flew down from Boston to join in the festivities. My best friend, Cass, and her fiance, Shiloh, also drove up from Florida for a short day trip visit. All in all it’s not so bad to be back in the US where you can have good times with your family and friends! And having just left Australia where it seems the national saying is ’No worries, Mate’, we’re trying to go with the attitude of ‘no worries’ even though we lack jobs and an actual home of our own. We’re currently in North Carolina at the mountain house in Boone. We got here last Tuesday after the Charleston weekend. Yes, we still love it here and this is where we’ve settled for now while we try to find employment. Scott is looking for a job in finance (investments and wealth management, etc) so if you know of any job openings, please let us know! It’s all about networking, right? I’m waiting for him to find a job before I start looking. In the meantime, I’ll be working on planning the wedding :). Actually, I’ve already started the research. No dates or locations have been finalized but it will be in the US and likely next summer. Stay tuned for more…

So now for Australia. Our first stop down under was Sydney and we arrived on Friday, the 26th of March and stayed for 4 nights. Though we were sad to leave New Zealand, we were pleased with the much warmer temperatures in Sydney. Sydney is a beautiful city and is quite large with a population of about 4 million (interestingly, that is the entire population for all of New Zealand). Our biggest dilemma once we arrived was finding a reasonably priced accommodation to stay for 4 nights. We couldn’t get anything to work out for 4 consecutive nights and were confused as to why the hotels and hostels were all booked up on the Saturday night of the weekend we were there. Turns out Lady Gaga was in concert and that’s why there were so many places booked up. Ugh…Lady ‘who cares about you‘…if you ask me! We utilized the airport information desk kiosk to find us a semi-reasonably priced place and went on our way to the hotel.

That evening we visited the Sydney Aquarium, which boasts being one of the best aquariums in the world. It actually was a very nice facility in the popular tourist area called Darling Harbor. We saw a duck-billed platypus, crocodiles, coral from the Great Barrier Reef, Dugongs (similar to a manatee), sharks, sting rays, and a ton of other unique fish. Darling Harbour has many restaurants, shops, an IMAX, and numerous museums all right on the water. A very happening place on a Friday night. After the aquarium we stopped for dinner at one of the restaurants overlooking the harbour.

Crocodile!

Sharks!

Duck-billed Platypus

Darling Harbour

On Saturday, we got up and headed to Sydney Harbour, where the famous Sydney Opera House is located as well as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Opera House really is a very unique structure. The architecture is quite amazing. Nearby there are parks and gardens that add to the beauty of the area. We stopped for oysters at a harbourside restaurant then headed to another popular neighborhood, called The Rocks, where they were having an open outdoor market with local vendors displaying various art, crafts, clothing, jewelry, etc. After that, we took a ferry over to a local popular beach, called Manly Beach. Australia is known for its beautiful beaches and surfing and that’s exactly what we saw at Manly Beach. We laid out on the beach for a while and then we picnicked there for a late afternoon lunch. I was thrilled to be at a beach in March and that it was hot enough to sweat outside! We headed back on the ferry later in the afternoon and then stopped back in The Rocks neighborhood before heading back to eat near our hotel. A lazy day on the beach was quite a treat!

View of the Opera House from the water

Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Opera House at night

Manly Beach

Sunday morning we got up early for a day trip tour outside of Sydney to what are called the Blue Mountains, which are about 70 miles west of Sydney. On the way as part of the tour we stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park. The park is set up where you can walk around among many of the animals though birds and potentially dangerous animals were in their own separate cages/pins. It’s home to numerous native Australian critters such as kangaroos, koala bears, wallabies, dingos (wild dogs), crocodiles, cassowary’s, sugar gliders, and tazmanian devils. We had the chance to feed the kangaroos and cuddle with a koala. We really enjoyed getting to explore the park and all the animals.

Cassawary

Koala Cuddles

Kangaroo Feeding

Tazmanian Devil

Dingo

From there we drove on to the Blue Mountains National Park. We first stopped at a scenic lookout point where there our beautiful views of cliffs, valleys, waterfalls, and walking trails. From here there is a nice view a rock formation called ’The Three Sisters’. Legend has it that 3 sisters from an aboriginal tribe (called the Katoomba’s) fell in love with 3 brothers from the another aboriginal tribe, called the Nepean tribe. Apparently they were forbidden to marry since they were from different tribes. The brothers were not happy with this law and decided to take force to get their ladies, which caused a tribal battle. Since there was great danger for the 3 sisters, a witch doctor turned the sister’s into stone to protect them during the battle. Unfortunately, the witch doctor was killed in battle himself and didn’t have a chance to reverse the spell on the sisters to make them human again. So the sister forever remained made of stone. Here are a few pics of the Three Sisters and the Blue Mountains.

After taking in the views, we had lunch at a revolving restaurant that overlooks the mountains and valleys. We also had a chance to ride the scenic railway, which is said to be the world’s steepest railway. It lowers 1,361 feet to the bottom of a valley at a maximum incline of 52 degrees. Pretty neat ride. We walked along some of the trails in the valley. The Blue Mountains are so named because of the constant blue haze that is caused by light striking on eucalyptus oil that evaporates from the leaves of the forest. After all our exploring we headed back to the tour bus and then back to Sydney.

On Monday, we took it easy exploring some more of Sydney and then packed up our stuff to leave for Carnes (pronounced Cans) on the northeast coast on Tuesday. Our flight was in the early afternoon and we arrived around 3:30/4pm. Then we caught a shuttle to take us further north to a small beach and fishing village called Port Douglas. We had planned to stay in Port Douglas for 4 nights and we were able to find an inexpensive hotel/apartment. Port Douglas is where the Great Barrier Reef meets the rain forest so we knew there would be a good variety of things to do. We arrived a little after 5pm and got settled at our place. We had a full kitchen so we headed to the grocery store so we could do our own cooking while we were there. Port Douglas is as I mentioned a small village and much more rural and less crowded than Cairnes. It’s very quaint with a nice main strip we could walk to from our apartment, complete with stylish restaurants and shops, etc, and Four Mile Beach nearby. Port Douglas is also known as being the closest departure point to get to the Great Barrier Reef, which was our main reason for visiting this village. What we hadn’t counted on was the rain. I suppose that is what happens when you arrive during the rainy season! It rained crocodiles all of Wednesday and Thursday and it was heavy rains both days. We mostly relaxed, did laundry, caught up on emails, cooked, etc. on these rainy days. One evening it stopped raining long enough for us to grill some shrimp on the Barbie!

Scott throwing shrimp kebabs on the barbie!

We had booked a snorkeling Barrier Reef adventure for Friday, knowing that the weather wasn’t going to get too much better. We really didn’t care though. Nothing was going to stop us from seeing the Great Barrier Reef! We were concerned with the bad weather potentially causing major waves causing the boat to be choppy. A certain someone I know seems to get seasick from time to time :)! So Friday morning came and we were picked up and taken to the marina to load onto the boat. It was a cloudy, cloudy day but it wasn’t raining and it was at least warm outside. The crew prepped us about the trip and what to expect, water conditions, snorkeling, visibility, etc. They reported that the waters were the best they'd been in the past 2 weeks (much calmer) and the visibility should be outstanding. They also informed us that we'd be going to 3 different snorkeling sites and that the waters would continue to improve as the day went on. Our crew consisted of the skipper, snorkel guide, and a marine biologist. The marine biologist was named Chris and he was thrilled about the days snorkeling conditions. He said that due to the cloudy overcast it causes more infrared light to pass into the water causing the coral to have a unique glowing property and so would also be a great day for taking pictures. As a marine biologist he has taken up photography as a hobby and gets amazing pics of the coral and marine life at all the different reefs he visits.

Once we got going from the marina, it took about 1 ½ hours to get to the first snorkeling site. We were given sun suits to wear over our bathing suits. These suits are basically full body spandex (boy do I love me some tight spandex) and the purpose of them are to protect everyone from the sun without having to put on sunscreen because the chemicals in sunscreen kills the coral. At each site, we snorkeled for about an hour. Chris was taking pictures of everyone in the water and also taking amazing shots of the fish and coral. It was pretty amazing seeing such stunning coral.

The third and final snorkeling spot for the day was at a reef named ’Opal Reef’. Chris informed us that National Geographic had recently been to Opal Reef to shoot footage and take pictures and that Nat Geo would be doing a feature on The Great Barrier Reef in an upcoming edition of the magazine. He actually got to go out with the Nat Geo crew to show the photographers the location of the reef and where to see interesting marine life. All I have to say is that pretty dang cool we got to see such an amazing reef that will be featured in National Geographic! At the end of the day on our way back to the marina, Chris played a slideshow of all the wonderful pictures he had taken from the day. We were also able to purchase a CD to have a copy of the pictures. The pictures below are shots Chris took. Scott and I won’t even try to take any credit for these!

Nemo

Despite the imperfect weather conditions, we managed to have successful snorkeling adventure at the Great Barrier Reef. We advise going to the reef if you ever get to Australia. It is definitely not to be missed. On Saturday we left Port Douglas and went back to Cairns for the night. We flew to Brisbane the following morning. We arrived at our hostel in the afternoon and then explored some of the city. Brisbane is located in the middle part of the east coast and we planned to stay for 3 nights until April 7th (departure day). The attraction for us coming to Brisbane was to go to Moreton Island. This island is about 78 square miles and is the world’s second largest sand mass (after Fraser Island, also in Australia) and also boasts the largest sand hill, Mount Tempest. Scott and I decided to book a one night camping trip with a local tour group that takes tourist out to the island. Not a bad way to camp when you don’t have all the equipment. All we had to do was show up (and pay $$$, of course) and the tents were set up for us and our meals (lunch, dinner, breakfast, and lunch) were all prepared for us.

We left our hostel early on Monday morning and met our tour group at a bus station near where we stayed. Our group consisted of 10 people (2 guys, 8 girls). There were 3 Canadians, 2 Americans (in addition to Scott and I), 1 Austrian, 2 Germans. This turned out to be a great way to get to know people from other places. We also camped with another group that was from the same company, only the other group was to go camping for 2 night instead of 1. Our guide was named Brendan, but he actually went by Eugene because the guide from the other group was named Brendan. Anyway, Eugene looked like the bus driver from the Simpsons (Otto Mann) and he was also a snake handler and played the slide guitar. Quite a character.

Eugene fishing

Goodtime guitar player

Once we met our group, Eugene drove us to the ferry to take over to the island. The thing about Moreton Island that is unique is that it really is all sand with woods/trees/ bushes in the middle of the island. There no paved roads, only sand roads so this requires everyone drive 4 wheel drive vehicles on the island. Another thing that was nice is that there was only 1 resort hotel and one very small town with a convenient store. The rest of the lodging was at campsites. Once we got to the ferry, Eugene drove the old Land Rover onto the ferry to be transported over. The ferry took about 2 hours to get to the island. Upon arriving we passed an old shipwreck (see pic). We found Eugene and hopped in the truck and once the boat docked we drove off the boat and headed north on the island.

We drove around for a while and made a couple of stops before getting to our campsite around 11:30. Eugene was quite knowledgeable about the island and would point out the different flora and fauna, animals, and other info about the island. At the campsite, Eugene and Brendan assigned us our tents and started on lunch for us. The campsite was set up in the woods, a short walk from the beach and also near a lagoon (the Blue Lagoon). While Eugene and Brendan got lunch together we went to the beach and the lagoon for a swim. It was pretty darn hot outside so the quick swim was quite refreshing.

The Blue Lagoon

Our campsite

Our tent

After our lunch of sandwiches, Eugene took us to North Point where there is an absolutely breathtaking beach. Scott and I would rate the beach as one of our top 3 we’ve been to. It was pretty secluded, very peaceful, and the water was a good temperature for swimming. The North Point is also a great place for surfing. Turns out that Eugene and Brendan are surfers, so they got their surfboards out and headed up the coast to an area with some great waves. The rest of us laid out, swam in the water, or walked along the beach. Talk about relaxing! This had to be one of the most easy-going tours we’d been on yet. We were there for a couple of hours before heading back to the campsite. Scott and I came to realize that our guides did this job because they get to take tourists to the beach, while they go and surf! Not a bad gig for them.

North Point Beaches

We went back to the campsite and got washed up for dinner then Scott and I went and watched the sunset on the beach. Dinner was served around 7pm and we had burgers and hot dogs. Then we all sat around the campfire for awhile chatting and telling stories. The highlight of the evening was that as we sat on this small secluded island off the coast of Australia, you could look up at the sky and see the Milky Way. We were even able to see the Southern Cross. Millions of stars filled the sky and we sat for what seemed like hours with our heads tilted back looking straight up.

We got up the next morning and had breakfast around 8am. Then we all loaded into the truck and Eugene drove us to the sand dunes so we could all go sand boarding. Brendan and his group met us there too. It wasn’t quite the same as when we went in Peru, but we still had a fantastic time especially watching others who hadn‘t ever done it before.

At the desert!

Couples Sandboarding!

Away we go!

It was very hot out on the sand dunes so when we made it back to camp for lunch we all high-tailed it to the lagoon for a swim. After lunch everyone packed up their belongings and loaded up the truck. On the way back to the dock to catch the ferry we stopped to do some snorkeling and lay out on the beach. We hung out with the Canadians we’d met on the ferry ride back and Eugene played his slide guitar for us. We made it back to the hostel in Brisbane that evening around 6pm. We definitely felt we’d made the right decision to visit the island on the last couple of days of our trip. If we’d had the time we would have gone camping 2 nights instead of just one. We really enjoyed the trip!

For our last night of the trip we decided we needed to have ’real’ Australian food. We were recommended a fine dining restaurant not too far from the hostel. We decided that since it was our very last night of not only our time in Australia but for our entire travel adventure, we’d go ahead and splurge. We were both excited about the meal and it was fantastic. We tried crocodile, kangaroo, and elk along with various cheeses, nuts and berries, and delicious dessert. Along with each course they provided a sampling of wine that compliments the dish. All in all it was a great meal and the perfect way to end our trip. The kangaroo tasted like steak, but we were warned that it does have to be prepared by someone who knows what they’re doing or it would taste bad. They clearly knew what they were doing. The crocodile was good too. As we sat through dinner we really couldn’t believe it was the end of our trip. We were both sad that our travels were actually coming to an end. It seems as though it all just flew by. How can it already be April? I guess time does fly when you‘re having fun.

Traveling provides the opportunity to teach you many things and can shine a new perspective on your life though you may not realize it right away. We’ve learned many things about ourselves, such as what’s really important in life and what things we take for granted. We've also learned what material things you think you can’t live without but as it turns out, you can. Less IS more. And of course we’ve learned about other places, the people, and the culture and we’ve grown as people because of it. This list could go on and on. It’s been quite fascinating and we‘re glad we’ve had this opportunity to travel and see so much. Scott and I also learned many new things about each other. Some good, some not so good :) but hey, at least we know now! Scott and I have grown together through this unique experience and we look forward to our next adventures in life, wherever they may be.

Thank you for checking in and following our travels. We’ve enjoyed sharing our journey with you and we hope it was entertaining and maybe even provided you with something to read when you were bored at work! If anything though we do hope it was informative reading about new cities and countries and seeing pictures from all over. Please feel free to email or call us if you are thinking about going to any of the places we went. We can provide some good travel guide books, recommendations, tips, etc. Just let us know! We do plan to continue to update the blog periodically. We want to inform you on where we end up settling, our jobs, wedding stuff, etc and like I said before, we do still live in the mind frame of “Where are we? What day is today?!”

We want to be Kiwi's!!! (Part 2)

2010-03-31T00:51:00.008-04:00

Alright, Scott and I are back to talk some more about Queenstown. This really is a great town of about 10,000 people though a million visit each year. It’s an adventure-seekers paradise with plenty of bungy jumping (the first bungy jump took place here), white-water rafting, biking, canyoning, fishing, jet boating (more on this later), hot air ballooning, paragliding, skydiving, tramping and skiing to keep yourself occupied for a long, long time. And the scenery to go with it. There are also great wineries nearby and gold mining. Queenstown is also a place to stay if going to Milford sound though as we had mentioned we stayed in Te Anau. So we arrived on St. Patrick’s Day and checked in to our hostel, which was located a couple of blocks from the bay, which we could see part of from our room on the balcony/deck, along with the mountain range that surround the bay called The Remarkables. They were pretty remarkable!

We settled in and then went to check out the town as well as the St. Patty’s day shenanigans. We decided to stop in a restaurant for a snack and ended up getting the green lipped mussels, which were by far the BEST we’ve had yet and still make that claim now. Much better than the one’s we had before. We then walked around some and saw many pub crawls, the shopping areas, more bars and restaurants. We stopped in a few places for some beers and then grabbed dinner. We ended up going back to the place we had had the mussels. Its actually more of a pizza joint and it smelled really good when we were there before so we stopped in again. Turns out this place was North Carolina territory! We ended up meeting about 5-6 people from NC and also from Kansas, South Dakota, and Texas. Most of them were in there late 20’s/early 30’s and had decided to live there for a while (we understand why). Anyway, we had an enjoyable time talking about familiar places back in the states with our new American friends.

On Thursday, we got up and decided to go up to the Queenstown gondola (similar to the one in Christchurch) to take in the views. It was kinda a cloudy day in the morning, but it was starting to clear up by the time we got there. The attraction to taking another gondola ride here was that they also had a luge ride you could go on down part of the mountain. Apparently there are only 2 other places in the world where you can luge like this. A side note I'd like to share is that I developed a weird rash on my earlobes and cheeks a few days earlier. It was itchy and looked like a big red party on my face!

Views from the top

We made it to the top of the gondola, took in the views and then headed to our luge ride. We picked up our helmets and them on, then took a chairlift to go higher on the mountain to where the luge starts. They took pictures of us riding up to the luge and also as we were luging. When we got to the top we were greeted by the guys who work there to help us get our luges in place. One of them informed me that I had my helmet on backwards. Naturally I took off the helmet, kinda feeling like and idiot for wearing my helmet all the way up to the luge on the lift with it on backwards. Oh well. They said it happens all the time or maybe they were just trying to make me feel like less of an idiot. Regardless I quickly took of my helmet, turned it around properly amongst the laughs from Scott, only to snap part of my neck into the chin strap. Not wanting to make an even bigger idiot out of myself I refrained from screaming a loud ’AHHHHH’ even though it hurt and it took what seemed like forever to get the dang latch undone. So we luged down the mountain. It was actually quite fun and Scott of course tried to go as fast as he could. I was just trying to keep a low profile and get down the mountain safe. At the bottom I told Scott about snapping my neck into the strap. More laughter. At the bottom there were also pictures from our luging and that’s where you get to see me wearing my ’special helmet’ on the way up and I have a really weird look on my face and almost do look like I may have a mental problem. Scott decided that was one picture we would definitely have to purchase.

Please note helmet is on correctly

Both of us sporting backwards helmets!

So we went back and had lunch at the café there and then took in some more of the views before heading back into town. On the way, we stopped to inquire about going on the jet boats and we actually found one we could go on that afternoon. Jet boating is something that started in New Zealand and is offered in many cities in New Zealand. These boats are different in that they don’t have external parts and water is drawn through the intakes in the bottom of the jet boat and internal propellers. This forces the waters out through the rear at great force. These boats will do 360 degree turns and it’s a full on thrill! We went out on the Shotover Jet (Big Red) on the Shotover River outside of Queenstown. The boats hold about 20 people though when we went there were only 6 plus the driver and we rode in the front. It had turned out to be a nice afternoon and the canyons we went through and the all around scenery was totally worth the ride. We had an overall awesome day.

In the evening, we grabbed sushi for dinner and then happened upon a wine store that was quite unique. The store had wine dispensers on the walls so you can do a wine tasting of all the different wines in the area. We didn’t have the opportunity to visit any of the wineries so we thought this would be a good way to try out some of the local wines. In the area we were, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc were very popular so we had a nice tasting before heading back to our hotel to pack up. In the morning I got up to go to the bathroom and ended up smashing my nose on a shelf bar that was directly over the sink. So here I am with an ugly rash on my face and ears, a red gash on the bridge of my nose, and a red pinch mark on my neck from the helmet strap. What a mess I was! By the way, all have cleared up by now, except the rash on my face, but its much better now.

Though sad to leave we had only planned to stay in Queenstown for 2 nights. We thought about staying longer, but there was just too much more of New Zealand we needed to see. We got up on Friday and it was a beautiful morning. We checked out of our hostel and picked up a rental car.

Our plan was to drive North to the glaciers. Before we left town we stopped at the Queenstown Gardens that are on a little peninsula near the water and then walked back along the edge of the water. Very nice morning stroll before a long car ride. So we headed through some beautiful country on our ride. Scott, being the experienced 'drive on the left side of the road, right side of the car' driver he is (from Ireland), took off in full force! And boy did he. Taking most corners on two wheels! The roads are very windy, but the scenery was just amazing.

On the way we passed through more scenic towns such as Wanaka, which is sits on Lake Wanaka. We took a pit stop here to enjoy the scenery and then headed on the Lake Hawea, up through to a village called Haast, before getting to Fox Glacier Village, which is where we stayed for the night. Our drive was about 6 hours and we stopped at other scenic points along the way.

Lake Wanaka

Roadside antics

Lake Hawea

Waterfall stop

Haast Valley

There are 2 glaciers in New Zealand and they happen to be located in the midst of a rainforest! Very unusual, but leave it to New Zealand to have such a landscape. Fox Glacier is one of them and the other is Franz Josef (the more well known one). We planned to go to Fox Glacier the following day so we walked into town to inquire about doing a tour. There are actually a variety of tours you can do from ½ day tours to full day tours that get you more exposure to the glacier where you can walk on it. You can also go ice climbing, which involves climbing the glacier walls using using ice picks and crampons. Unfortunately, the weather forecast wasn’t going to cooperate for these excursions. It was to be rainy and cloudy the whole day and these excursions aren’t cheap so we decided against going to Fox Glacier. Plus we had just seen a glacier in Patagonia so it wasn’t the end of the world. We value our time and want to see as much as possible so we decided to move on and headed north again.

On Saturday, we headed north from Fox Glacier Village the next morning and it was dreary and rainy but not quite as bad as we thought it would be. Franz Josef is north of Fox Glacier so we ended up stopping there so we could view the glacier and then tramped in to get a close up view of the glacier. We got to see the rain forest that surrounded this glacier. It really was very peculiar. The glacier was huge and quite blue at the opening.

From there we kept driving, taking in the scenery. It truly is a beautiful country with mountains, the coast, and greenery everywhere. We stopped along the way in a town called Hokitika. This town is home to the National Kiwi Centre. Since we hadn’t had the opportunity to see a kiwi yet, we decided to stop. The kiwi centre also houses long-finned eels. Tuatara’s, tree frogs, fish, birds, etc. Though it is the National Kiwi Centre, there are only 2 kiwis at this location. We did get to see one, but you aren’t allowed to take pictures because they are nocturnal and they keep the kiwi house dark. The kiwi we saw was about 3 years old. She was trying to eat. We did get to take pictures of the eels and they lived in a huge aquarium because they are some enormous eels! These types of eels can actually live to be 150 years old and the ones here were between 85-100 years old and female (males die after they spawn). Check out these pics. Monsters!

Long-Finned Eels

Another Tuatara

From Hokitika we went north through a town called Greymouth and about 30 miles north of that is Paparoa National Park, which is home to the world famous Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. These rock formations are a mystery to geologists. The rocks are on the edge of the coast and have been eroded by the seas but geologists can’t figure out why they eroded into a bunch of buttermilk pancakes. There are blowholes where water spews through but it wasn’t the right time of day to see them when we were there.

Luckily as we headed north along the coast, the weather was starting to clear so we didn’t have rain and clouds the entire day. From the pancake rocks we went northeast towards Nelson. We stopped at more scenic points and waterfalls along the way. It was about a 7-8 hour driving day for Scott. Yes, a long day driving but again trying to get in as much as possible.

Sunset over the mountains on our drive to Nelson

We made it to Nelson about 8pm and didn’t have a place to stay because we didn’t actually plan on getting there til the next day. Anyway, the places we knew about were booked but we found a hotel near the city center. We basically grabbed some dinner, decided our plans for the next day and went to bed. On Sunday, we’d decide our plan was to head northwest up from Nelson. We’d read about the beautiful landscapes and beaches that way and hit the road. There is also a very popular park, called Abel Tasman National Park and the Golden Bay that we wanted to visit. That morning we made reservations to stay near Pohara Beach outside of a quaint little town called Takaka, right outside of Abel Tasman. This national park is the smallest in New Zealand but also one of the most popular to visit. As we headed north from Nelson, we drove through many apple orchards and other fresh produce stands. There are also tons of wineries along the way. This lasted for about 45 minutes to an hour. Then we climbed Takaka Hill (mountain) that was quite windy, but again very scenic. We drove on until we got to Takaka and had lunch. This is a small little town of about 1,100 that has nice shops , cafes, and restaurants.

We’d read about some springs, called Te Waikoropupu or the ‘Pupu Springs’ located right outside of Takaka so we drove there after lunch. These spings boast being the worlds clearest fresh water. We tramped to the springs and were surprised because they actually are very clear. A very tranquil place with ducks swimming around and other birds in the area. They have lookout point where you can look into mirrors that reflect the water that have been set up to show just how clear it really is.

Pupu Springs

Reflective Mirrors

Very clear springs

Don't mind the food stuck in my teeth, just snacks!

Another point of interest in this area is north of the springs called Farewell Spit. We drove another 30-45 minutes to get to this location, which is the most northern point of the south island. It is a unique sand spit (sandbar) that is about 22 miles long and nearly half a mile wide. All along the spit there are sand dunes that are said to be about as high as 7-8 story buildings. To go out to the end of the spit it requires you take a tour. We weren’t touring that day, so we went out to a lookout point where you can see it in the distance and walked part of the beach that takes you near it.

Farewell Spit

After that, we headed back towards Takaka to where we were staying near Pohara Beach. We’d been blessed with another beautiful day and the temperature on this part of the island was much warmer since we were in the north. We had arranged to stay in a more unique place called the Sans Souci Inn. Normally we don’t give too much detail about the places we stay unless it is something special. This place was definitely a unique place and very peaceful. It felt like being at a retreat or spa, but it wasn’t. It was a very simple place and had an organic, yet Asian feel to it with futon type low beds. There were only about 7 individual units at this place and it was grass-roofed with compost toilets. The bathroom was communal to encourage communication amongst the guests, but the way it was decorated with plants and greenery everywhere was like being in a rainforest with a shower and toilet. The compost toilets were similar to an outhouse but you place sawdust/woodchips over your #1 or #2. The property owners were from Sweden and very much into sustainable living. They use solar energy and recycle all waste. Outside of our room was an orchard and a block or 2 away was the beach so you could hear the ocean waves while relaxing on our patio. A little slice of paradise. We had dinner down the street at a local favorite called the Penguin Café and enjoyed a nice dinner near the water.

Pohara Beach

The Sans Souci Inn

Apple trees

The following day, I think Monday, was a bad rainy weather day. Our hopes of tramping, fishing, or kayaking were out the door. Of course it rained all day until about 5pm. We ended up going to Takaka for lunch, visiting some of the shops, making trip plans and driving into Abel Tasman park just to check it out. Along the way we drove along the coast and got to stop at one of the beaches (it was finally nice by then). We also went grocery shopping because the place we were staying also opened up its kitchen for their guests to use and we were very much ready to have a home cooked meal. We got some salmon, vegetables, and bread and had a nice feast. Since the weather had cleared in the afternoon, we also checked in with a sea kayaking company to take kayaks out the next morning.

We got up on Tuesday morning and checked out of our wonderful little slice of paradise. We went kayaking right outside of Abel Tasman park, starting at Tata Beach. It was a beautiful morning and surprising not too cold. The sun was out so that helped make it much more pleasant. We rented a double kayak for a couple of hours. We kayaked around some islands off the coast, saw more seals, birds, etc and really enjoyed getting a chance to be out on the water.

Don't mind the top of my head

We headed out around 11 am to head back south, back towards Nelson on to Kaikura. This was about a 4 hour drive. Along the way we stopped for at Canaan Downs Scenic Reserve, which is where scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. Next we stopped for lunch in a town called Mapua,where we’d read about a restaurant called the Smokehouse. At this place they are all about smoking some fish. We shared a nice variety platter of salmon, mussels, Hake, whitefish, and a few other types. All very fresh and with great smoky flavoring. The drive from Nelson to Kaikoura is also very beautiful. The landscape turns from coastal waters to golden rolling hills and wineries and then back to the coast.

We arrived in Kaikoura around 6-7 pm. As we drove in along the coast, we went for miles and miles along beautiful beaches and none of the land was developed. No towns had formed around these waters or beaches. It was such an amazing coast to drive through. We figured it had to be owned by the government in order for it to be so untouched and pristine and we found out later that it was. It made for a really enjoyable ride. We stayed in a hostel in Kaikoura right in the heart of the town. It’s on the coast and known for its whale watching, fishing, tramping, and other outdoor activities. We got settled and decided to grab a bite to eat down the street overlooking the water. Not the best food, but the views were great. There are mountains surrounding the town along a beautiful coastline.

View from balcony at the hostel

A seal out of water

I must say, we are truly impressed with the overall beauty of New Zealand. We hadn’t experienced any place that had anything bad to look at. No eye sores. All very well preserved beautiful land. EVERYWHERE! I just had to get that out. I feel better. The only thing that is a let down is that when there is bad weather, that really can limit your options for what you do because there is so much to do outdoors here. Wednesday was another bad weather day. It was cloudy and rainy in the morning. We decided to do some laundry, email, trip plan, etc. We heard about the Kaikoura winery nearby that sits up on a hill will nice views of the ocean. It had cleared up a bit by lunchtime, so we headed over to check it out. We tasted various wines including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Pinot Noir. Scott and I had also packed up a picnic lunch to have outside at the winery. We bought a bottle of wine from the winery then sat outside enjoy the views, our wine, and our lunch. Towards the end of our lunch the clouds and rain started to move back in so we packed up and left and went back to the hostel to finish our laundry, trip planning,, etc.

Kaikoura Vineyard

View from the winery

Then it cleared up again in late afternoon/early evening. We went and had dinner across the street, then came back to pack up our stuff. The plan for Thursday was to check out of the hostel and try to go fishing in the morning or early afternoon and then to drive on the Hanmer Springs and then on to Christchurch. We were to be flying out of Christchurch to Sydney at 6am on Friday morning. The weather forecast was showing clearer skies so we were hoping that would be the case. We really wanted to go fishing. Luckily, it was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. We arranged for a fishing trip at 1:30 that afternoon to go for 2 hours. We grabbed lunch and then shopped around a little, then drove to a nice lookout point where you can see seals, the bay, and nice ocean views. After this we headed to the meeting place for our fishing boat and guides, Nick and Jerry. Nick showed up in a truck and Jerry was right behind him on a tractor that pulled the boat.

The boat

These guys were funny characters and true fisherman. It was a small boat, nothing fancy but equipped with fishing poles, bins for placing our catch, and knives for cleaning the fish. There were also 2 other guys on the boat fishing with and they were from Holland. We left the sandy beach and went out on the waters. Shortly into our trip we spotted several dolphins swimming right by our boat. We hung around to watch them for a while then moved on to a seal colony.

Seal colony

We moved on a finally got to our fishing spot. As soon as we stopped a huge albatross came in from the distance and darted straight at our boat and landed right by us. The albatross knew it was feeding time and soon others came and joined to get in on some lunch. Albatross coming in for lunch

Nick handed me a rod he’d baited and I got busy fishing. The line was to be let out about 77 meters, all the way to the bottom. Jerry got Scott’s pole ready and he started fishing and then the Holland boys. By the time Scott cast I had already caught 2 fish! Sea Perch.

I casted again and caught another sea perch, then 2 more. I think Scott finally got a couple sea perch by the time I had 5. Most of them weighed about 2-3 lbs. Then I caught 2 blue cod, about 4-5 lbs each. The blue cod is said to be hard to catch so I guess my superb fishing skills really showed through to be able to catch these guys. Nick kept joking to Scott and the other guys about how I was catching all the fish. By this point the Holland boys hadn’t caught any. Nick told Scott that as long as he was with me, he wouldn’t be a hungry man! Scott caught a couple more and we all kept fishing for a while longer.

Brooke's Blue Cod

In the end I think the Holland boys caught 3 sea perch between them, Scott caught 8 sea perch and I caught 10 sea perch and 2 blue cod. As we were catching the fish and pulling them in, Nick would take them and start cleaning them. He only had about 2 fingers and one thumb and some nubs for fingers so it was really interesting to watch him scaling the fish. He would throw the scraps out for the albatross and boy were they fed well! We really had a fantastic time though I think the boys were jealous I caught the most fish!

But that wasn’t all we got to do. After fishing, Nick and Jerry said we could put the crayfish (lobster) crate/cage in to see what we could get. The first batch we checked there were 6 crayfish and 2 small carpetsharks. Yes, they are real sharks. Nick pulled one out and threw it back in the ocean and the other one he held up and passed around to let us take turns holding it. I passed on holding the shark but Scott jumped on the chance to. I took some great pics. At the end of the trip, Nick divided up our catch. Everyone got their own crayfish to take and a bunch of sea perch and some blue cod. What a great day with beautiful weather and great fishing! We had so much fun!

Crayfish and carpetsharks

Scott and the carpetshark!

Dinner

Our next item on the agenda was to figure out how we were going to cook the fish. We had no kitchen to go to because we’d checked out of our hostel and we weren’t planning to stay anywhere that night because we were going to the airport early in the morning. We were determined to have this fish, even if it meant pulling over at a grill in a park to cook it or stop in a restaurant in Hanmer Springs to see if someone would be willing to cook it (plus we had plenty we could share with the chef). We felt really fortunate to have gotten some crayfish. They serve it everywhere in New Zealand but we hadn’t had any because to order it in most restaurants cost about $75-100 for one crayfish. We had a cooler bag already so we tossed the crayfish and fish in, bought some ice and hit the road to Hanmer Springs. It was about 3:30 by the time we left and we got to Hanmer around 5:15. The attraction in Hanmer Springs are springs. There is complex that has several open air thermal pools as well as 3 sulphur pools. Its in a beautiful setting with mountains around. We enjoyed the pools for awhile, then stopped in the restaurant on the premises.

Hanmer Springs hot pools

At the restaurant, we explained to the guy at the counter that we’d been fishing that day and wanted to have our crayfish and fish that we caught cooked. We asked the guy at the counter if he knew of a place that might be willing to cook our fish and that we would pay to have it cooked. He said he didn’t know of anywhere in town that would do that. We contemplated just going to a hostel and seeing if we could use their kitchen. Before too long the guy came over to our table and said the chef at the restaurant would cook it. The restaurant wasn’t busy so it worked out perfectly. Yay! We were thrilled! Scott went out to the car and brought in our fish. The chef was quite intrigued by the blue cod and reconfirmed it was hard to catch. My head swelled a bit J. He asked how we wanted it prepared and said he’d getting to cooking it for us. The crayfish were still alive and we watched him stab them. A little while later our feast was prepared and he really did a nice job with all of it and even prepared a potato dish and salad to go with it. He fried the sea perch and baked the blue cod and a light sauce. The crayfish were also prepared in a light sauce and oh so good! It was definitely one of our favorite meals of the trip. What a day! We left a little while later and headed on to Christchurch, which was about 1 ½ hours away. We stopped in town to waste some time before going to the airport and flying to Sydney at 6am.

The prep work

Our feast!

New Zealand has to be one of our best trips so far. It really is an amazingly beautiful country. Everywhere we went throughout the south island was gorgeous and all the towns very quaint, clean, safe, laid back, and all around nice. The people also made it even better. New Zealanders are very friendly and have a great sense of humor. Most enjoy talking to anyone and we love their accent! We met some very nice people everywhere we went. It really is a neat place that we’d live if only it were closer to home. That’s why we want to be Kiwi’s!

We are currently still in Australia. We were in Sydney for 4 days and have moved on now. Yesterday we flew north to Cairns, then took a shuttle bus and hour away to a town called Port Douglas. It’s a beach town near the Great Barrier Reef. We got here just in time for the rain. We are to be here for 3 more nights and the forecast is rain. Booo! We’ll see how it goes. The weather is always changing so we are hopeful for blue skies so we can get out to the reef. Wish us luck! We’ll have more from down under later. Thanks for checking in!

We want to be Kiwi's!!! (Part 1)

2010-03-23T01:45:00.005-04:00

We’ve been in New Zealand now for over a week and words really can’t describe what we’ve seen so far. It’s truly an amazing and special place. We’re having such a brilliant time we haven’t had time to post a blog update. We arrived in Christchurch, which is located on the south island on Thursday, the 11th and have been on the go since we got here. Christchurch is the 3rd largest city in New Zealand and very pretty and clean city with excellent restaurants and shops. It sits on the east coast We stayed 2 nights in the main city centre area. On Friday we took a bus over to a port town called Lyttelton and had lunch. We ordered mussels and they were probably the biggest we’ve ever seen and very fresh. Lyttelton is only about 15-20 minutes from Christchurch and on the way back stopped off to take a gondola ride up to the top of the Port Hills for for 360° views of the area. It was raining earlier in the day, but luckily it cleared up over and the water so we were able to enjoy the views of Christchurch and Lyttelton Harbor. When we got back to Christchurch we visited the Christchurch Cathedral and then had dinner at a sushi restaurant.

On Saturday we got up and visited the Botanic Gardens and then headed to the airport. See pics below of the gardens.

Rose Garden at the Botanic Gardens

Monkey in at tree

Tree Hugger

We’d decided we wanted to head south to the bottom of the island to a town called Invercargill. From Invercargill you can take an hour long ferry to another island south of the south island, called Stewart Island. On this island there are many outdoor activities such as hiking (called tramping), fishing, and boat cruises. There is another key activity on this island, which is what really attracted us to Stewart Island. At night you can go out in search of Kiwi’s - the national bird, not the people or fruit. These birds are flightless and nocturnal so that’s why you go try to find them at night. There are only a few places you can see Kiwi out in their natural habitat and you can go with a group to do this. We flew to Invercargill, grabbed some lunch then took the ferry over to the island. Unfortunately, bad weather had come in, so it was rainy and very windy when we got to Invercargill and it was worse by the time we actually got on the ferry. The ferry crosses the Strait of Foveaux. It’s known as being on of the most unpredictable passages in the world meaning you never know how rough or calm it will be. On the day we went, it was rainy, cold and the waters were extremely rough. Scott and I have been on a lot of boat rides together and this is by far beyond anything we’ve ever experienced. It was so bad that about 10-15 minutes into the ride the waves were so huge and the boat was rocking so much that Scott started vomiting! And he kept vomiting for a while. Aside from the captain, there were 2 other crew members. I think they were solely there to help people who get seasick. One of the crew came over to check on Scott before he even started vomiting because he saw that Scott’s skin had turned very pale and he was sweating profusely. The boat continued rocking and waves crashing all around. Scott started vomiting and I had the weirdest rush of emotions all at once. Part of me wanted to cry because I felt bad for Scott and the ride was scary and wasn’t getting any smoother. Another part of me wanted to laugh hysterically because it was amazing we were even allowed to go out on the boat in such conditions. So I sat there trying to help Scott by getting puke bags ready in hand so there was a smooth transition between bags. The crew member eventually took Scott out on the back deck to sit and get fresh air for the rest of the ride. In the end I think Scott filled about 8 puke bags. Pretty impressive! Since Scott was such a trooper the crew guy gave me some stickers to give to Scott. They normally give them to children, but he thought Scott did such a good job he deserved some stickers, too. Those Kiwi’s sure are nice fellas!

We arrived on the island at the only town called Oban. Our hotel was right near the dock and is apparently the local social hub of the town because it has a restaurant and bar. We ate at the restaurant that evening and then visited the bar. They had live music by the ’Thieving Gypsy Bastards’. All the locals were there in full drunken fashion! We enjoyed getting to see the night life in Oban. On Sunday, we got up to try and do some of the island activities but the weather was crummy again and no boats were going out for tours, fishing, etc. They weren’t kiwi hunting either. The ferries weren’t even operating to go back to Invercargill. Given we only have so much time in New Zealand and we basically would have nothing to do in Oban since the weather was bad (and forecast not getting better), we decided it was time to go. Taking the boat back to Invercargill was already out of the question given the events of the previous day so we inquired about flying to Invercargill. Even though boats weren’t going out, they were still flying and there was a flight available at 1:30 that day so we booked it. The flight was only 20 minutes and though we sort of flew sideways because of the strong winds we made it and without any motion sickness. Yay! Once we got to Invercargill we hopped on a 3:30 bus headed to Te Anau. The bus stop was at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery. Inside the museum was a Tuatariom, which is home to a unique creature called the Tuatara. These creatures are prickly and reptile looking but they are actually descendants of dinosaurs. They are only found in New Zealand and are very rare. Henry is one of the Tuatara’s and he is over 100 years old.

Henry, the Tuatara or Dinosaur of New Zealand

The bus ride was about 3 hours and the weather started to clear and turn sunny as we headed north. Te Anau (pronounced Tea Ahnow) is NW of Invercargill and sits on the edge of Fiordland National Park and is between Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound. It is a quaint, small town (population 4,000) on Lake Te Anau, the second largest lake in New Zealand and is surrounded by mountains. This village is a popular spot to stay especially if you are headed to Doubtful and Milford Sounds. It’s filled with souvenir shops, great restaurants, shops, and the scenery breathtaking. We stayed in Te Anau for 3 nights. The night we arrived we found a place to stay a few blocks from the lake and main city centre. We booked a boat tour to take us to Doubtful Sound the next morning. A bus picked us up around 10:30 am to take us to the dock where we start the tour in a town called Manapouri. It was a beautiful morning and we were both excited to finally have some sunshine. Doubtful Sound is actually a fiord, as is Milford because they were both formed from glaciers. Doubtful Sound is 10 times as big as Milford Sound and much more remote and there is no way to get there on your own. We started out the trip by going through Lake Manapouri.

Lake Manapouri

Of course beautiful scenery was surrounding us and crystal clear waters. Everything so lush and green. We went for about 45 minutes on the boat then got off close to the local power plant called Manpouri Power Station. This isn’t just any Power Station. It is the largest power station in New Zealand and it is underground. In fact, rock was excavated from 200meters below the surface of Lake Manapouri. We got on a bus to drive down the 2km spiraling tunnel to the power plant to view the huge turbines.

Walkway to power station

Inside the Power Station

After that we got back on the bus and made our way to Doubtful Sound by crossing over Wilmot Pass. We stopped at various lookout points along the way. By this time though, the clouds had rolled in and it started to sprinkle. Bummer. We continued on the bus and eventually got to another dock where we boarded a larger boat to go into Doubtful Sound. Unfortunately, because of the clouds and rain we were disappointed with limited visibility. The good part about the rain was that there were more waterfalls than usual so we saw tons of waterfalls. We also saw some sea lions and dolphins. After about 2 hours on the boat we headed back to the bus, then rode to the smaller boat to go back to the dock and return to Te Anau.

Doubtful Sound

We got back around 8pm and since we had a kitchenette we cooked dinner back at the hotel. Originally our plan was going to be to visit Milford Sound the following day, but the weather was to be the same as the previous day and we really didn’t want the disappointment we’d already experienced at Doubtful Sound. We booked Milford Sound for Wednesday instead.

Tuesday was rainy and cold so we decided to take it easy in the morning. We did some trip planning/researching, laundry, ate lunch, etc. In the afternoon we went to the Te Anau Glowworm Caves. We went at 2pm and by then the rain had stopped and the sky was starting to clear. This is a very popular day trip in Te Anau. These Glowworms caves are actually very young by geological standards, 12,000 years old. The cavern of glowworms was discovered in 1948 though according to local legend they were originally discovered by the Maori people hundreds of years ago. In order to get to the cave you take a 30 minute scenic boat ride across Lake Te Anau, hop off, then go to the cave. On our way there, something went wrong with the boat and we had to only use one of the engines. It was fine, just slower to get there. They were able to fix it for our return. We arrived at the cave and they gave us an introduction about getting down in the cave, the glowworms, and history of the area. They put us in groups of 12-14 and everyone followed the guide inside the cave. They had created a walkway for tourists so it wasn’t very rustic or treacherous. It was dark and there was water flowing through. Pictures weren’t allowed. By the end I think I was about to have a panic attack because I had to go about 35 minutes without taking a picture. The walkway leads you further into the cave and in spots you can look up and see glowworms. These are unique little creatures that don’t like noise or light. They form a sort of web and so are from the arachnid family. We kept walking until we got to a platform where we got onto a small boat that was non-motorized. We were instructed to be quiet and board the boat. The guide moved us along into the cave with a pulley connected to a rope. It was completely pitch black and the glowworms we all over the cave walls, glowing brightly. Like stars. It was a very neat experience and since everyone was quiet and it was pitch black it was almost like we were there by ourselves and didn’t feel as touristy. We both really enjoyed our glowworm boat ride. Scott kept trying to make out with me. So embarrassing.

We got back to Te Anau around 4:30. We ate dinner in town that evening and got packed up for our Milford Sound trip. The trip to Milford Sound started at 9:00 the next morning. We had arranged to start the trip in Te Anau and then be dropped off in Queenstown afterwards. We got picked up, then went to get other tourists and took off at 9:30. In Te Anau, it was a gorgeous, sunny day. Milford Sound is 2 hours away from Te Anau so we were still worried that the conditions there weren’t as desirable. As soon as the tour started, our tour guide informed us that the weather in Milford Sound was just as good, if not better there! We were thrilled and so glad we’d decided to wait a day to visit. He actually said it was a ‘brochure day’ which means it’s the type of day that tour companies will send out photographers to take pictures of the amazing scenery. And it is beyond amazing. It took a little over 2 hours to get to Milford Sound by bus. Along the way we stopped at Eglington Valley for beautiful pictures, the Mirror Lakes, Knobs Flat, and the Homer Tunnel. We were also near some of the places where Lord of the Rings was filmed.

Eglington Valley

Mirror Lakes

We arrived at Milford Sound a little after noon and headed out about 12:15. What a sight! It was absolutely breathtaking scenery. I think stunning was the word I used. Not a cloud in the sky. Mitre Peak just stands out and has a bold presence amongst the other mountains (see pic to the right). There were several waterfalls that were huge that we got to get very close to. The tour boat is the smallest of the boats that goes out on Milford Sound and it allows the boat to get closer to the waterfalls and go out in the Tasman Ocean further and pass a lighthouse. We were on the boat for about 2 hours and spent most of it outside on the front taking in all the scenery. I took 576 pictures! It was chilly outside, but we couldn’t stay away from the outside beauty. Scott even stayed on the deck when they backed up the boat to go through waterfall. He got soaked! Oveall, a spectacular visit to Milford Sound. We really couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. Enjoy pics below!

The guide from the bus had informed us about plane and helicopter rides that are available to take from Milford Sound back to Queenstown. Scott inquired about it and we decided that since we were given the most beautiful and clear day at Milford Sound that we may as well see the views from a plane. We’d actually read about these plane rides and knew they were to be something special. The bus took us to the airport and we boarded the plane along with 2 other tourists going back to Queenstown. One lady was from Millington, TN (that explained her haircut…the 80’s called and said they wanted their hairstyle back) and another lady that I didn’t get a chance to ask where she was from…because she was SLEEPING for the entire plane ride. Millington and I were appalled! How could anyone sleep when surrounded by such awe-inspiring landscapes???!!! What??? The plane ride lived up to what we’d heard and was about 40 minutes long.

Views from the plane...

Then we found the city of all cities….drum roll please….Queenstown!!! It basically took us all of 5 seconds to realize that this little town was amazing and that we want to move here asap!!! It’s why we want to be Kiwi’s! Seriously, this probably is the #1 city out of all the cities we’ve been to and we arrived on St. Patrick’s Day! Shenanigans! There were tons of pub crawls and everyone was decked out in ridiculous green attire. Though it is a bit of a touristy town there is a reason for it…its soooo cool and the scenery gorgeous. But enough about Queenstown for now. We have more to update you on, but it‘ll have to wait. From Queenstown we went up the west coast to the north. We are currently in Pohara, which is a beach town in the very north of the South Island. It’s quite a bit warmer up here and the beaches are beautiful. We leave New Zealand on Friday and fly to Sydney for some fun with the Aussie’s. We hope you enjoy the pics, especially the ones from Milford Sound. Ahhh….New Zealand is simply fantastic!

Also, big birthday wishes go out to my niece Holland, who turned 4 today! Happy, Happy Birthday Holland. Love you!

Sunset from the bay in Queenstown

26 hours in Charlotte

2010-03-09T02:17:00.001-05:00

We are back in the US....but not for long! We got back to Charlotte on Sunday around noon after spending a couple of days in Buenos Aires. What a fantastic city! Though it was very unplanned, Argentina worked out just fine and we got to visit another country. We wish we could have gotten there sooner! Buenos Aires is the Paris of the south and definitely has a European feel to it. It's a very clean city, with parks galore and great food and shopping. There seems to be quite a bit to do in the area, though we didn't get to do too much. We arrived from Rio Gallegos around 5:45am on Friday and went to our hostel and eventually were able to check in. Unfortunately, we were so tired we had to have a late morning/afternon siesta.

When we got up we headed to the main plaza, The Plaza del Mayo, to walk around and see some of the city. We stopped by the Presidential Palace (where the Evita - "Don't Cry for me Argentina' took place) and walked down by the port and stopped in a restaurant on the water. Tango is the national dance, so a popular touristy thing that's highly recommended to do is attend a Tango dinner theatre. Our hostel had made the arrangements for us, so after our walk around the plaza and port we went to dinner theatre, La Ventana. Dinner was served first, then the performance followed. Wow! We both really enjoyed the show with all the dancing, costumes, and music. The dancers were very talented and most could sing. They also had a set of traditional Argentinean folk music which was upbeat and fun.

On Saturday afternoon we decided to do a tour of Buenos Aires and Tigre, which is a small town north of the city. We started out in Buenos Aires in a van for the first part of the tour. Then we drove to Tigre and everyone got out of the van and boarded a boat to take a ride down the Tigre River. This little town seems to be very laid back and its very clean and quaint. From what we could tell this is where people come from Buenos Aires for vacation in summer. There we nice homes, private clubhouses, beaches, and restaurants all up and down the river. We relaxed in the sun and took in all the scenery. After the river, we got on a train that took us 5 stops to a neat shopping area in another town. Then we got picked up by the van and we went back to Buenos Aires. Our flight was at 10:30pm, so we grabbed our backpacks from the hostel and went to the airport. Overall, our South America trip was amazing despite getting stuck there a little longer than planned. It's hard to say where our favorite place was. All 3 countries were amazing and full of beautiful scenery.

Scott and I are now in LA. We got here earlier tonight. Though our time in Charlotte was very short, we were very glad we got back...if only for 26 hours! We got to visit with Scott's family and have Sunday dinner, do some laundry, and repack everything. We also researched more about Australia and New Zealand. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we leave from LA around 8:00pm and fly to Sydney. It's about a 15 hour flight. I think that's the longest flight both of us have ever been on. From Sydney we fly to Christchurch, New Zealand (its on the south island). We get there on Thursday around 3pm. It's late summer/early fall there so we should have some beautiful days ahead of us. We're also looking forward to being amongst the English speaking and hearing their accents! Thanks for checking in again. We'll update again in New Zealand. Let's hope for no natural disasters there...

From Santiago to the End of the World

2010-03-04T09:01:00.004-05:00

Hey everyone! Finally, here is the update to what we were doing before the earthquake. We left off over 2 weeks ago, so this may get a little winded though I’m not going to get quite as detailed as Scott’s book, I mean blog entry, he wrote last time :). We left off when we were in Lima, headed to Santiago, Chile to meet our friends Vicho, Lora, and Andrew for the following week. We all met up at the airport in Santiago and it was a great reunion of friends. February in Santiago means vacation time since it is the summer. Vicho’s family decided to rent a house 1 ½ hours west of Santiago near a beach town called San Antonio for a couple of weeks. The area where we stayed was a resort neighborhood on a golf course called Las Prisas. We headed straight there from the airport for a family BBQ complete with a roasted lamb over the grille upon arrival. What a feast!

We met Vicho’s mom, dad, siblings, in-laws, nieces and nephews, cousins, friends, etc. and though some spoke English many only spoke Spanish which we tried to communicate as best we could. Scott and I had been able to practice in Peru, but Chilean Spanish is much different. They speak very, very fast and also a lot of slang making it much more difficult to follow. Lora and Vicho could translate for us if necessary and usually it was necessary! We stayed in Las Prisas from Saturday until Tuesday. We spent much time relaxing at the house, visited the beach, explored San Antonio’s fish market, hit golf balls at the driving range, had cerveza’s and vino J, and ate very delicious Chilean foods. There were maids at the house who would prepare the meals. At the fish market we picked up Chilean Sea Bass, which was probably one of our favorite meals.

Vicho and Lora

Scott, Andrew, and Vicho

Seal and Pelicans near the San Antonio fish market

From Las Prisas we went back to Santiago, where Lora and Vicente live. Vicho had to work the rest of the week so Lora planned to take us around the city. Wednesday we rented bikes and Lora showed us many of the different neighborhoods. Santiago is a progressive city that pretty much has everything you could find in the US. The downtown has some beautiful skyscrapers and buildings, fine dining, good shopping, nice parks, etc. The residences and business/offices are all kinda mixed together in the city. We really liked the architecture and styles of the homes and buildings Throughout the day we sort of felt like celebrities because we were stared at by the Chileans all day. Here we are, 4 gringos riding around Chile together, definitely not the norm around Santiago! The 4 Gringos! (pic above). That evening we had a fantastic dinner at a seafood restaurant known for their oysters. Not only did we have oysters but also octopus, crawfish, shrimp, crab, eel, razor clams, mussels, and ceviche - all fresh and oh so good!

On Thursday we drove to Casablanca Valley, which is Chile’s wine country. Vicho actually works for a vineyard called Santa Carolina as a sales rep and sells it in the US so look for it at the wine store. We visited 3 vineyards: Veramonte, Emiliana, and Vina Mar. We enjoyed getting to know more about Chilean wines and they really do have some good (and inexpensive) wines. Lora had taken a wine class when she first moved to Santiago so she really knows her stuff when it comes to Chilean wine.

Us at the Vina Mar winery

On Friday Lora took us to the mountains around Santiago to check out some of the beautiful scenery. In the evening we headed to the Monticello, which is a brand new casino south of Santiago. It was a very nice casino. We all played blackjack and were pretty lucky! I think Scott and I came out ahead $250! On Saturday we went back to Las Prisas to visit with Vicho’s family and on Sunday we said our farewells. We really had a fantastic time getting to hang out with Vicho, Lora and Andrew and meeting all of Vicho’s family and friends. I think it gave us a good look into the Chilean culture and way of life. Vicho and Lora, we appreciate all your hospitality and hope to see you all soon. Andrew, there's always a certain amount of ridiculousness that happens when we hang out with you. Thank you for keeping up the good work! Andrew went back to Boston and Scott and I headed south to a town called Punta Arenas. This town is in very, very southern Chile in Patagonia also considered to be ‘the end of the world‘. We left Sunday evening around 8:30 and arrived around 1:30 am Monday and went straight to our hostel. Punta Arenas is a town of about 100,000 and sits near the water though isn’t an especially nice or pretty city. It’s known for its penguin colonies nearby.

On Monday, we went into town to figure out plans for Patagonia. The place we had heard is a ’must go’ is a national park called Torres del Paine, which translates to 'Towers of Blue'. Torres del Paine is located near another town called Puerto Natales about 3 hours north from Punta Arenas so we booked a bus ticket to Puerto Natales for the following day. In case you are wondering why we didn’t just fly into Puerto Natales from Santiago, it’s very simple - there are no flights from Santiago to Puerto Natales. Our understanding is that there is one flight per day that goes there from a small town in Argentina and it is so windy that they practically have to land the plane sideways. Not ideal so that was totally out of the question. In Patagonia, even though it is summer it doesn’t really get above 60-65 degrees and lows are in the 30’s and 40’s. It’s the wind that makes it feel much colder. It is brutal and nonstop. Scott ended up having to buy a warmer jacket and some gloves to block the wind. On Tuesday we took the 3 hour bus ride from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales. We had made arrangements to stay at a lodge that sits on a hill overlooking a fjord called Seno de Ultima Esperanza or Last Hope Sound. In the distance you can see snow capped mountains. Simply beautiful.

That afternoon we went and had lunch and walked around the little town of about 16,000. It is a simple, yet quaint little town with coffee shops, outdoors/sports shops, numerous tour agencies, restaurants, and artisan stores. The main area stretches over a few blocks so it is a very walkable town and only a 10-15 minute walk from our lodge. In the evening we had dinner at the lodge. King Crab is very popular in southern Chile so we tried a baked crab dish that was very good. Our lodge was able to book different excursions for us and booked a bus tour to Torres del Paine for the following day. Originally they quoted one price and then once they booked told us it was about $40 more because they had to book with a different company.

We got picked up around 7:45 am and headed towards the National Park. Our guide, nicknamed Frenchie, because he is French first took us to a cave called Milodon Cave. The significance of this cave is that in 1895, a German named Hermann Eberhard discovered the remnants of a giant sloth. This was helpful to us because it explained why there was a giant sloth statue upon entering Puerto Natales The remnants they found were some skin and then bones, but they never actually assembled an entire replica of a sloth from what they found . We hiked to the cave and Frenchie explained about how the cave formed from lakes that were created from glaciers. There was also a giant statue of a sloth inside the cave.

Frenchie

Brooke and the Giant Sloth (kinda sounds like the name of a band)

After spending about an hour there, we moved on to enter Torres del Paine. The drive to the park was gorgeous and once we entered we were surrounded by the amazing beauty of mountains, lakes, fjords, glaciers, and the greenery of the flora and fauna. We made stops throughout the day to different scenic lookouts. One of our favorite stops was an hour long hike to Grey Lake and Grey Glacier. In the lake were bright blue icebergs and sitting in between mountains was the glacier that seemed it went off forever back in the distance. We got some fantastic pictures though they don’t ever seem to do the scenery justice.

Grey Lake and Glacier

Holy Wind!

Views from Lake Pehoe

We had lunch at a restaurant in the park. It was a $25 buffet of fish, corn, and potatoes. Luckily we said no and opted for an $8 sandwich instead. We found that since we are at the bottom of the world among some amazing scenery that they will charge you for it! After lunch, we stopped at a neat lookout point where there was a waterfall with a rainbow over it and also a view of the towers.

Tres Cuernos

We also got to see some wildlife. In southern Chile they have guanacos, which are in the camelid family. Sort of like a cross between a deer and a llama. There were also nandus, which South American Ostriches and a baby fox. The park is also home to puma, condors, and black necked swans though they weren‘t around for us to see. Overall, we enjoyed that day getting to see the wonderful and beautiful scenery of Patagonia. In the evening we had dinner at our lodge again. We also booked an excursion for the following day to go out on a boat and go through Ultima Esperanza Fjord, which borders Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, and then visit the Balmaceda and Serrano Glaciers. Bernardo O’Higgins National Park is the largest in Chile at 13,600 sq miles and was created in 1969.

We got up for breakfast at the lodge then took a taxi to the port to catch our boat. The lodge had sort of messed up and failed to book our boat excursion as we had asked them to 2 days before. We had come back from our Torres del Paine tour and inquired about it to make sure we had a ticket. They had to book it for us right then and turned out that the cheaper boat excursion we had requested was full so that meant we had to take the more expensive boat. The more expensive boat also had a VIP/First Class section with roomier, reclining seats and was only a little more expensive so we opted to get those seats since we’d already been forced to get a more expensive boat. Also because this was a 10 hour day on the boat. We boarded the boat and were directed to our seats in the front row. It turns out the designer of the boat failed to leave ample foot space between the seat and the wall. Then late someone decided to cut out some of the wall to make space, but it wasn’t much space. So much for our precious VIP seats! Haha!

We left the dock and headed through Ultimna Esperanza Fjord and passed beautiful scenery along the way. We passed waterfalls, glaciers, and an island of cormorants (see pic). This bird is a cross between a penquin and a duck. It took about 2 ½ - 3 hours to get to the sight of the Balmaceda Glacier that we stopped near for pictures.

Balmaceda Glacier

Then it was about another hour to get to Serrano Glacier. We got off the boat at Puerto Toro to go get closer views of this impressive glacier. Everyone hiked about 5 -10 minutes to a lookout point to see the glacier. Then they gave everyone 2 options for further viewing of the glacier. You could hike about 20 minutes longer and get to another lookout point about 500 meters from the glacier or you could get on a small boat that takes you to the lake in front of the glacier where you get about 50 meters from the glacier. Of course, the latter options costs more money and of course we are suckers and paid to get closer to the glacier. But hey, it isn’t very often you get to see a glacier up close and it actually ended up being well worth the money. We really enjoyed the ride and in all honestly some of the best pictures from our trip are from out visit to this glacier. In the lake in front of the glacier there were icebergs and the guide of the boat broke off some of the ice to take with us. We spent about 45 minutes on the little boat then headed back to the big boat.

Once we all got seated, the guides came around with cocktails. The ice in the cocktail was from the iceberg the guide had broken off. You could pick between Whiskey or a Pisco Sour. Scott had Whiskey, I had the Pisco Sour and the ice was delicious! Very nice touch getting to have millennial ice of the glacier in our drinks! By this time it was about 1pm. They gave us snacks to go with our drinks and then we headed towards our lunch destination. It took about 2 ½ hours to get there.

Scott and his whiskey drink

We arrived at a ranch that was founded around 1892 by the German, Hermann Eberhard (same guy who found the sloth skin). There was a beautiful catamaran sitting in the bay when we arrived. Our lunch was being cooked when we arrived - roasted lamb. Everyone was seated in the house and we enjoyed our lunch of lamb, potatoes, avocado and tomato salad, and Chilean wine. We sat next to a couple from Chicago and had enjoyable conversation amongst the beautiful scenery. On the ranch there were chickens, sheep, and cattle.

More lamb

View from the ranch

After lunch we boarded the boat and went back to Puerto Natales. We decided to hang out in town and try to make plans to go horseback riding the next day. We opted to try to book it through a tour company because our lodge hadn’t provided the best service when we booked the boat excursion. We asked one of the guides on the boat and she recommended a place near the square. When we got there were couldn’t find it. We asked a man in the street if he knew where the horseback riding company was. He said that he worked at the horseback riding company and could book us a reservation. We were obviously a little skiddish about meeting a random man in the street that from what we understand of his Spanish says he is our horseback riding guy. As we continued talking to him, I looked up only to see our tour guide from the previous day. I stopped Frenchie and told him we were trying to book a horseback riding trip with this guy. Frenchie spoke with him and told us he was legit and the price was appropriate. Awesome! We gave him our name and information, but didn’t pay him. He said we would pay the next day and we’d be picked up around 2:30 to go riding from 3-6pm. Perfect. We were looking forward to sleeping in and relaxing a bit before the ride. We walked around town a bit then found a brewery that the Chicago couple on the boat had recommended we try for both cerveza and dinner. We had a very enjoyable time there then went back to the lodge. When we arrived we were greeted by the guy at the front desk. He was a different guy than the previous nights. He didn’t speak much English, but we were able to understand that the horseback riding people had called and said there was a problem with the horses. Apparently the horses were sick in the afternoon but not sick in the morning because they told us we could go at 10am for the same price. Scott about lost it and was convinced the lodge was trying to sabotage our horseback riding so that we’d have to pay for one more expensive or something. Poor guy at the counter. Sick horses. Hmmm….my theory was that since we were going riding on Friday afternoon, it wasn’t the horses who were sick, it was the workers who were ’sick’ of working and probably needed a siesta that time! Who knows! We decided to skip the horseback riding and took the day to relax and grabbed some lunch in town and also went to an internet café so we could get on-line. The wireless internet had barely been working at the lodge and we needed to make some room reservations in Punta Arenas and Lima. We also wanted to research New Zealand and Australia since they are our upcoming trips. We grabbed some dinner later on at a great seafood restaurant. We went back to the lodge, relaxed, and packed up our belongings because we were leaving the next morning to go back to Punta Arenas.

On Saturday morning, we got up for breakfast and then called a taxi to come pick us up to take us to the bus station. Before we left, Scott got on the computer in the lobby of the lodge and saw the news of the 8.8 earthquake that hit 200 miles south of Santiago. Uh-Oh. We wondered about Lora and Vicho and his family. We also wondered how we would get back to the US. Our itinerary was to fly from Punta Arenas to Santiago on Sunday morning. Then to fly from Santiago to Lima at 6pm the same day. Then on Tuesday we were supposed to go from Lima to Miami, then Miami back to Charlotte. We are still in South America.

We made it to Punta Arenas on Saturday afternoon and have been there until today. Punta Arenas is more or less a stopping point to get to better places in Patagonia so there really isn’t much to do. We had made plans to do the main tourist attraction on Saturday afternoon, which was to visit Isla Magdalena. This island is home to 150,000 penquins! We hopped on another boat that went through the Strait of Magellan to get to the island and see this grand colony of penquins…and it was grand! They were everywhere. If I had to guess I probably saw about 81,244 penquins! The boat ride took 2 hours to get there, then we got to go out on the island for 1 hour and then 2 hours back to Punta Arenas. We had so much fun walking around and taking pictures of the penguins. It had to be one of the windiest experiences. I don’t know that I’ve ever been around such constant wind gusts that nearly knock you over. Despite the wind, we really enjoyed observing the little tuxedo guys. We got some good footage of them waddling around and also coming in out of the water. Very cool experience.

Video Clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSkaitAwjy8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHOPpoWxnzg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA8sXk14koQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ZbMqgt8y0

So that was Saturday. Since then, we’ve basically hung out at our hostel, eaten, and gone to the airline offices to figure out how to get back to the states. Luckily our hostel has TV and English stations. We were able to get CNN and see coverage of the earthquake. The tricky part about our airline reservations is that we fly one airline, Sky Airline, from Punta Arenas to Santiago. From Santiago to Lima and Lima to Miami we fly another airline, called LAN. We visited the airport on Sunday because the ticket offices in town were closed. Sky Airlines took our name and number and said they’d call when they had an update. Yeah right. LAN said they didn’t know anything and couldn’t help or even check a computer for information. On Monday we went to the offices in town. Sky Airlines didn’t know when they would start flying to Santiago again and took our email address to email us when there was an update. Yeah right! They thought it would be 2-3 more days before they knew anything. The LAN office was a disaster (see pic of line outside the office above). The first time we went, there were no lines formed. People were just all scrunched in trying to get in the front to speak to someone. Many of the employees don’t speak English, which makes it difficult to understand our situation dealing with 2 airlines. We came back after lunch only the office was closed. Naturally it closes from 1-3pm every day (siesta time). We came back at 3pm and there was a line wrapped around the corner down the street. We decided it would probably be a waste of time since we didn’t know when we’d be able to get to Santiago since Sky airlines didn’t know anything.

On Tuesday, we found out that there were about 3,000 people stranded in Punta Arenas. Funny, we’d seen them all yesterday at the LAN office. We finally had a good wi-fi connection so decided to use Skype to call LAN. Scott tried calling the numbers in Chile but of course they were busy. He got through to the LAN office in the UK and they told him the earliest LAN could fly us from Santiago to Lima was March 9th. He inquired about having us routed anywhere else besides Santiago, specifically Buenos Aires since we are very close to Argentina. The LAN lady checked and the earliest flight we can get back is Saturday night at 10:30 pm. It goes from Buenos Aires to Miami and arrives around 5:45 am. Then we fly from Miami at 9am to Charlotte and arrive around 11am. Yay! We’re going to make it. So now we are in Argentina in a town called Rio Gallegos. We arrived last night around 6:30 pm and then we leave early Friday morning and fly to Buenos Aires. We will have 2 full days there to check out the city! Should be an adventure on top of our already big adventure! Being delayed and stranded for a few days is not the end of the world by any means. As long as we’re safe that’s what is most important. Our big worry in all of this is that we would get back in time for our next trip. Getting back on Sunday is just in time for our next trip, which starts on Monday! We leave in the afternoon and fly to Los Angeles to stay overnight and then takeoff for Christchurch, New Zealand on Tuesday evening. We‘ll have just enough time to wash clothes, make some phone calls, repack, maybe file our taxes. Oh well…it‘s all part of the fun of the adventure!

Earthquake in Chile

2010-02-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

Hola Everyone! We´ve had very limited access to internet so that´s why we haven´t been able to update the blog. Scott and I are still in Chile and wanted to just let everyone know we are safe. We´ve been in the very south of Chile in Patagonia since last Sunday so we didn´t feel any of the earthquake yesterday morning. We were in Santiago the previous week with Vicho and Lora and have confirmed that they are safe as well! We´re so relieved. Scott and I were scheduled to fly to Lima via Santiago today. Then our plan was to fly from Lima to the US on Tuesday. Obviously, the flights today aren´t happening and we´ve heard the Santiago airport will be closed for the next 2-3 days. Now we´re unsure of when we´ll actually get to leave but we´ll keep you posted of our whereabouts when we can. Another ´real´ blog to follow and we´ll be sure fill you in on our time in Santiago and Patagonia. Ciao!

Who needs Macchu Picchu???

2010-02-12T21:30:00.011-05:00

After spending the day in Arequipa on last Wednesday we got up early on Thursday to catch a tour of Colca Canyon. The van picked us up at the hotel at around 7:45 am. We picked up a couple of other people in town and then headed northeast toward the canyon. Our guide’s name was Mary Jane and the driver’s name was Miguel. Mary Jane went by just “Maria” because she was told by some Americans that her name is slang for marijuana. Her English, though heavily accented, was very good, as has been the case with most of the guides that we have had so far in Peru. The drive took about 4 1/2 hours. We stopped along the way to take pictures of the Vicunas in the national park north of El Misti, the conical volcano that towers over Arequipa. Vicunas look kind of like a cross between a deer and a llama and apparently they’re relatively rare. According to our guide their wool goes for about $1000 per kilo raw and a poncho made of the stuff goes for about $3000. In Peru that is a lot of money. I have know idea if it’s true. I’m pretty sure these tour guides just make stuff up sometimes but that’s ok. Sometimes you have to improve the truth to make a good story.

Vicunas

We stopped at a little white shack (see picto the left) at the end of the paved road that splits off to go towards Lake Titicaca. At this point we had climbed up to an elevation around 12,000 feet. I had been up that high before but this time I hadn’t eaten a lot in the preceding few days because I was feeling sick. There was probably some ice in the Pisco Sour that I drank at a restaurant it Huacachina. I was feeling fine that morning but as we got higher I started to really feel the effects of the altitude. I had a bit of a headache (I think Brooke did as well), I was feeling nauseated, and my peripheral vision was closing in on me so I felt like I was about to pass out. We have altitude sickness pills but neither of us wanted to take them because they can make you feel tired. Instead our tour guide recommended the local remedy. This was a combination of tea called the “Triple” which included, among two other unknown herbs, coca leaves, which we had at the little white shack, and chewing coca leaves for about ½ an hour afterward as we continued to climb up one of the worlds worst roads to an altitude of over 16,000 feet. Coca leaves are, as you might guess, the central ingredient found in cocaine (Note for the Moms: coca leaves and cocaine are no more the same thing than flour and cake). They are found throughout Peru. It is not illegal to grow them or sell them. You can find coca tea, which is just coca leaves dropped in hot water, at almost any café, restaurant or hotel. It does not produce any noticeable feeling. What it does do is cure altitude sickness. As soon as I had the tea at the little white shack I started feeling better and after chewing the coca leaves for about ½ and hour I felt normal again, even as we climbed another 4,000 feet.

Along the way we passed through huge fields filled with llamas and alpacas. Just before we passed over the highest point the road became paved again and it began raining. The surrounding mountains were covered with clouds but as we came to the top we could see down the sharply winding road to the village where we were heading below. The name of the town was Chivay. As we entered the city we were greeted by 2 little Peruvian girls who had lambs (see pic). Chivay is home to about 10,000 people and until about 10 years ago existed entirely without electricity or running water. The majority of the roads in town are not paved and most of the buildings are tattered or unfinished. We learned later that a lot of buildings in Peru are left unfinished because you don't pay taxes until construction is complete. We stopped at a restaurant for a buffet lunch which was fine. Nothing special. We got back in the van but then Brooke and I got out at the Plaza de Armas to get some dinero from the only ATM within 100 miles while most of the other occupants of the van were dropped off at their various hotels. We met with the van in the Plaza de Armas and headed towards our hotel about 20 km away. That night we stayed at a place called the Colca Lodge. It had been built just a few years ago around hot springs that were situated about 10 feet from the Colca River.

Colca Lodge

The Colca River

In addition to the springs they have built a spa on the river where Brooke had a massage while I went to the bar and had a pisco sour. It was by drinking this pisco sour that I figured out that the one that I had in Huacachina had probably made me sick, or more specifically the ground ice in the pisco sour. Unfortunately, by the time that I figured this out though I had already finished most of it. Brooke met up with me after her massage and we sat at the bar for a while talking with a retired British couple and their guide. We got to talking about our plans to hike to the top of El Misti on Saturday. Their guide told us that he had hiked it a few years ago and described it as like walking up a 19,000 foot sand dune. Having just walked up a bunch of sand dunes that were only a few hundred feet high, this struck both of us as a bit disconcerting even though we had not planned to hike from the bottom like he did. The two day, one night trek that we had booked started 2/3 of the way up the mountain. But that still left 6,000 vertical feet at a 45% angle through volcanic ash. They wished us luck and we went to dinner and then to the hot springs. The springs are open 24 hours a day so we hung out until around midnight. There were three different pools of varying temperature. It was kind of like the baths in Budapest but in a much nicer and more tranquil setting with no one else around.

We had a 5:30 wake up call the following morning so we could meet up with the van, collect the other people in our group and get to the canyon in time to see the Andean Condors leave there nests. Supposedly, Colca Canyon is the best place in South America to see these giant birds. They look like vultures with shorter and fatter necks and have wing spans that can be more than 12 feet (second largest in the world behind some kind of albatross). We got to the area of the canyon at around 9 am and hiked about 20 minutes to the viewing area situated about 1,600 feet from the canyon floor. The canyon was formed from a combination of volcanic activity pushing the surrounding mountains up and the erosion caused by the Colca River. This combination of geologic forces has created a canyon that, at its deapest point, is more than 4000 feet deep, twice the depth of the Grand Canyon.

The condor nests sat about a thousand feet below the viewing area. As soon as we got there Brooke and I both needed to use the facilities which were located abut 1000 feet way. Naturally, it was while we were in there that the condors decided to make their appearance. Because of their size it takes too much effort to fly up the face of the canyon from their nests below. Instead the condors make use of the thermals that are generated as the sun warms the air on the canyon floor. Unless it’s too cloudy and cold these thermals are generated relatively consistently between 9 and 10 am. So as I was in the bathroom cursing the pisco sour from the day before, the condors glided about 3 feet over the heads of the other hundred or so people at the viewing stand. Brooke was able to get some footage of them as they flew away and I did get a chance to see them but they were a long way away. We went down to the viewing stand as everyone was walking back towards the vans, satisfied with there condor viewing experience. We weren’t leaving until 10:20 and it was only 9:30 at that point so Brooke and I just sat there by ourselves for about ½ an hour. No luck. This was disappointing but at least we did see them, even if it was at a distance. So we headed back towards our van which was perched about 200 yards away up about a hundred foot incline. We got to the top where we could see another part of the canyon. As I was turned away from the canyon Brooke yelled to me to look up where I saw a condor with at least a 10 foot wing span about 10 feet above our heads. It was an incredible site. Unfortunately we were both a little slow on the draw with the cameras so pictures and video that we have are from when it was further away.

Video footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEFULx88MXA

After that we were ready to go so we piled back in the van and began what was to be the most miserable car ride I think I have ever experienced. I once drove the 12 hours from Washington DC with a friend of mine back to Boston on the morning following a bachelor party. At the time I thought no driving experience could be more miserable. I was wrong. We stopped in Chivay on the way back for lunch. Instead of eating I walked to the Plaza de Armas to find a pharmacy and some drugs. I walked into the first one that I saw and asked the 7 year old behind the counter if he had anything for a stomachache. He babbled something that may or may not have been Spanish, but I got the gist that he couldn’t help me. Before I had walked into the pharmacy I had thrown up in the middle of the sidewalk I’m sure the people around me when this happened where thinking “there goes another drunk gringo.” I was disoriented and in a lot of pain but I wasn’t drunk. I was still feeling nauseated and felt like I was going to throw up again. As I walked out the door I ran directly into an oncoming funeral procession from the church next door for what appeared to have been a small child. It took everything I had not to barf all over them. I stumbled down the street in what was the wrong direction. This took about 20 minutes to figure out but I eventually made it back to the plaza where I found a second pharmacy. I bought some pills from a nice old lady inside and made my way back to the restaurant. I found Brooke and sat down at the table. I took the pills and tried to relax. Some of the other people in our group were going to the market near where I had successfully avoided yacking on the funeral attendants. There wasn’t anything Brooke could do to help me so she went with them. I went to the bathroom. Apparently I was in there for a while. During that time the van went to pick up the people that had gone to the market, came back, picked up everyone that had stayed at the restaurant and left again… without me. After some consideration Brooke decided it would be best to let them know that I wasn’t among them and told the guide to go back and get me. That, my friends, is called true love. Brooke found me and we got back in the van.

The Van

We headed back down the world’s worst road. Whatever pills I took didn’t work, at least not for the pain. The unpaved portion of this road was about 40 km long and took about 2 and a half hours. I think I would have rather walked. We eventually made it back to the little white shack where I stumbled, sweaty and shaking, out of the van to have some tea to try and sooth my stomach. I held the rest of the group up while I had my tea. I couldn’t have cared less if they were in a hurry. We made our way back to Arequipa and promptly cancelled the hike up El Misti that the hotel had arranged for us the following day. This was a bummer to say the least. El Misti is an active volcano. In 2001 an earthquake measuring 8.1 rocked Arequipa and the surrounding area. Ever since then there has been smoke coming from it’s peak and Arequipans have been praying for it not to erupt. Once it does, the second largest city in Peru will be wiped of the map. After you climb to the top you can go down into the crater to see the source. I would have loved to have been able to do that. It didn’t happen.

El Misti

Two days later we arrived in Puno. Puno is situated on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. In this case “navigable” means big ships are in the lake. Apparently, back in the 1860’s somebody thought it would be a good idea to build all the pieces to a couple of 150 ton warships in England, ship them to Peru and have a couple thousand mules carry the ship bits up the 12,500 feet to Puno through one of the driest deserts in the world. It took about 7 years. Puno is a pretty shabby town. Not nearly as bad as it’s sister city Juliaca located about 45 minutes away. Because of the surrounding mountains and some corrupt local politicians the only airport located anywhere near Puno is in this gem of a city. The handy guide book we have with us says of the airport in Juliaca “hit the ground running.” We arrived in Puno on Sunday. A week or so earlier one of Peru’s biggest festivals had begun. It was in full swing when we got there. We checked our stuff into the hotel and headed to the plaza de armas (town square) to see what all the kafuffle was about. People were dressed in all sorts of costumes. Quite a few of the guys were dressed as evil gorillas.

See hilarious video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-0DFEFPibI

Apparently this festival has something to do with the Virgin Mary. I don’t have the slightest idea what evil gorillas have to do with Mary. We took it easy the next day. Walked around the city a bit. Watched the parade from the restaurant where we ate dinner. While we were in Arequipa, Brooke and I had discussed staying in the home of a family that lives on one of the Titicaca islands. On the island called Taquile (like the worlds most dangerous drink without the “a” at the end) you can stay in the home of one of the 3,000 or so families that live there. There is no electricity or running water. You eat with the family and they sometimes take you into town to party Titicaca style. Unfortunately, Brooke came down with a case of the grumpy pants so staying there wasn’t a reasonable option.

We did, however, book a one day trip that took us out to Taquile as well as a chain of about 50 floating islands, called Uros. It rained on the way to Taquile. Not the end of the world by any stretch. We are in Peru during their rainy season. It changes from rain to sunshine a couple of times every day. We got to the island around 10:30. We walked up the 300 feet or so to the to main square which consisted of a fairly modern looking municipal building, a restaurant where we had tea and a market place.

The island of Taquile is a functioning communist society. The market place is shared by the island people, five families at a time, for a period of a couple of weeks. During these couple of weeks they have the chance to sell their wears at a fixed cost. Almost everything that they sell is made of wool. The hats, which look like they are made for giant elves, are made by the men, everything else is spun by the women on the island. A red hat means you’re married (see red hat guy in pic). As we left the island our guide told us that on the island where he grew up, which was visible from Taquile, only the women dress traditionally while the men go to the mainland for 2 or 3 years at a time to make some Hamiltons. The men on Taquile dress as they do for the benefit of the tourists.

Little girl making and selling bracelets

By the time that we got to the Uros islands, the rains had cleared. The Uros islands aren‘t real islands. They are made of the reeds that grow in the lake. Back in the day, the Uros people didn’t like the idea of being ruled by the Incas so they came up with the unique idea of being unreachable by building their own islands. Not a bad idea except for the fact that you have to live on an island made of reeds. The last of the Uros people was a woman who died in either 1859 or 1959 depending on whether you believe the book or our guide. Either way the current occupants are native people who are, for the most part, fat. Five or six families live on each island which vary in size but none that we saw could have been than a couple thousand square feet. When you live on islands that are that small you generally don’t have to walk vary far. I would think that the rowing would do a body good but motor boats seemingly don‘t. We jumped off of the boat onto the reeds. The guide gave us a presentation about how the islands were built. The islands are about 2 meters thick. It is a strange place. There is a part of me that feels that it’s a false society maintained for the amusement of gringos. On the other hand people actually live there on beds of reeds and according to the guide they do so to preserve their culture. Their only source of electricity is a solar panel that takes them years to pay for.

Natives Judy and Julia (pic to right), showed us their home. They were either sisters or mother and daughter. Julia was older. Judy was 10 or 11. We paid a couple of soles to have them row us over to the island next door to buy some more stuff. We left Uros at around 4:30 to head back to Puno. Among the reeds the Uros people, and the people that took over the settlement after the Uros died, found a way to plant potatoes which are still growing there along with a variety of other vegetables. One thing that they could not do on these islands, however, is bury their loved ones. This was done on a real island just off the coast of Puno. At some point in the 70’s someone bought this island and built a 5 star hotel on it. For some reason the hotel’s advertisements fail to mention that they built it on an ancient burial ground.

As we left Uros Brooke bought a couple of things. We got on the boat and headed back to Puno. The winds picked up and it began to rain again. As we got closer to our destination the waves were getting progressively higher. In order to position the boat so that it could be docked the captain had to turn the boat so that it was parallel to the waves. This caused the boat to list to such a degree that the water came up to the windows on the boat and it felt like we were going to flip. The captain was able to maneuver us into port but the dock isn’t big enough for each boat to be directly against it. Instead the boats are tied together and you walk across them to get to the dock. This generally works fine except the boat that docked before us had pulled in the wrong way so that our bow was tied to the other boat’s stern. Even in good conditions this would make it difficult to get to shore but with the waves causing both boats to list so hard that at points one was high enough to be on top of the other it was impossible to get off. I really don’t know how they screwed this up. They do it every single day. They could have turned one of the boats around but before they could another boat came in behind us. As it pulled into dock next to us it clearly lost control, passed us and slammed into the boat that we were tied to. The people on shore, the guides and the captains were all screaming at each other and trying to push the 3rd boat away but the wind and the waves were too strong. It took about half an hour for them to pry the boats apart and pull the 3rd boat along side ours to be tied down. As they pulled the boat around we could see the damage. On the port side of the boat toward the front there was a 3 foot hole in one of the windows. Someone would have been sitting directly beneath that hole. After they got the 3rd boat tied to ours, I saw them hurrying a woman off of it. At the time I hadn’t yet seen the hole in the window. I thought she just panicked but it‘s entirely possible that she was injured in the crash. Among the passengers on our boat there was a pretty even mix of shear terror and amusement by all that was going on. I’d put both Brooke and myself in the latter camp. For a period of time it wasn’t at all clear how we were going to get off the boat but worst case scenario we could throw our stuff to one of the guys on the dock and swim to shore. Not ideal but we weren’t going to die. I’m just glad that we were both feeling better after suffering from stomach problems the past few days. The Canadian couple next to us, however, were clearly terrified. We had been talking with them for most of the day. Neither of them said a word while all of this was going on. According to Brooke though, when things go wrong you blame 'the Canadians' and since Canadians were sitting next to us, the boat situation was somehow their fault. I won't pretend that I understand this. Anyway, it took us another hour or so before they were able to find a way to get us off. By then it was dark. People were taking our picture as we got off the boat. The police and the paramedics had arrived and were moving people away from the dock. They tried to stop us from taking any pictures but we got a few. In all the hubbub we briefly entertained thoughts of having our families and friends see us on CNN. Apparently, there are bigger stories than a couple of tour boats crashing on a lake in southern Peru.

The following day we got up early and took a tour bus to Cusco. We could have flown but we’d have to leave from Juliaca, which wasn’t at all appealing, and we weren’t in any hurry to get there, in part at least, because mud slides have made it impossible to get to Machu Picchu and left 35,000 people homeless in the process. I’m glad we took the tour bus. As it turned out, the same Canadian couple that was on the boat with us the previous day were among the 10 or so people on our bus. Francisco was our driver but our guide, Hugo, told us to call him Pancho. Hugo was probably the best tour guide we‘ve had since we‘ve been here. He seemed to not only know a great deal about the places where we stopped but appeared to be sincerely interested in and even proud of the things he was showing us. He was relatively young, in his early to mid twenties, so maybe he just hasn’t become jaded and board of saying the same things over and over again yet.

Hugo

We went to a museum where we discussed pre-Inca civilization and their use of human sacrifice to make Pachamama, or Mother Earth, happy. We stopped at an Incan town. Hugo told us that you were called an Inca if you were part of societies upper crust, and those who were not, which were the majority of the people, were Quechuas. Apparently, the primary device used by the Incas to control the Quechua people was food. So in addition to the temple to Pachamama, there were large “colcas” or silos where they stored the food they would take from the people. About 30% of the site was restored and it is pretty obvious. A portion of most of the ruins we’ve visited here have been restored but whoever they’ve hired to do so had no idea what they are doing. They really did a sloppy job. One thing it does do is display how skilled these ancient people were. Hundreds and even thousands of years later people are unable to replicate the work they did.

Incan Temple

The Colcas

The last place we visited was a church in at town called Raqchi. Brooke and I saw about 10,000 churches when we were in Europe last year. I have to say this church was as, if not more, impressive than any we saw there. Not necessarily because of the beauty of the church itself but because of the contrast between it and its surroundings. Raqchi was once a town reserved for nobility. It isn’t anymore. Its not as run down as Juliaca but most of the roads aren’t paved and there is graffiti on the sides of the buildings advertising the local politicians. The outside of the church itself is as unassuming as the rest of the town (see pic above). Once you go inside, though, it is a different story. I can’t really do it justice by describing it and you aren’t allowed to take pictures so you’ll just have to take my word for it. I think my favorite part was a sculpture of Jesus on the cross. They installed it into the wall of the church just before a massive earthquake hit the town in the late 1500s. The church survived so now they called the statue “Earthquake Jesus.” They moved the original Earthquake Jesus to Cusco but that’s not really the point. I just like the name. Actually it’s not really the name of the sculpture. In Spanish its more like “Lord of the Earthquake” but I like “Earthquake Jesus” better. The other particularly interesting thing was a mural on the back wall. It depicted how through poverty you can reach heaven and the best thing to do with your money is to give it to the church. I just think its interesting how the church used the nobility to sustain itself and build ornate buildings instead of helping people and the nobility used the church to make the common people feel satisfied with their poverty by promising them eternal salvation.

We arrived at Cusco before dark and took what we thought was going to be a cab into town. It was a van and in the van sat the Canadian couple. This was getting a little weird. We drove into the center of town. The previous night I had reserved a room in what was, according to HostelWorld, the best hostel in town. The driver took us to a different place on the same street. I told him that it was the wrong place. He told me that the place where we had the reservation was closed. I told him that he was lying and that I had just booked the room the night before. He conceded. An Australian kid who was listening to this conversation yelled down to us that the place we were looking for was two doors down. Taxi drivers in Peru get paid by hostels and hotels to bring people to them. This is generally not a big deal. A taxi driver picked the hotel for us when we were in Huacachina. It was fine. The drawback is that they will try to take you to these hotels even if you already have something booked and tell you that the place where you have the reservation is closed or burned down. We checked in and went to the attached bar/restaurant for a beer and some grub. They had fantastic Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. Afterward we booked a tour of the Sacred Valley, the area in between Cusco and Machu Picchu, through the hostel.

The following morning a van picked us up at around 8:30 to go to the Sacred Valley. It was an all day tour. The tour guide looked and, at least in Spanish, sounded like a Peruvian version of Casey Kasem. For the most part he was terrible. Not that he did anything wrong. He just didn’t have anything particularly interesting to say. He was in his early forties and had probably been taking people on the same tour for decades. I think I would rather have had one of the headsets that they give you at museums giving the tour. Despite the boring tour guide the Sacred Valley was an incredible site. We visited a church, as well as the Inca ruins at Pisac and Ollantaytambo. What makes these places so special isn’t just the ruins but where they are set. The ruins at Pisac are set on top of a mountain. Inches from the ruins are thousand plus foot vertical drops on both sides. Those at Ollantaytambo are built into a mountain in the middle of the snow and glacier capped Andes. Pictures won’t do either justice.

Pisac ruins

Pisac

Ollyantaytambo

We woke up this morning a bit later than usual and caught a noon flight from Cusco to Lima. We are currently sitting in the Lima airport waiting for our overnight flight to meet up with Vicente, Lora, Andrew and others in Santiago, Chile. We're heading to the beach in the morning. Lora says they've rented a house and are planning a BBQ with a bunch of Vicho's family and friends. Should be a blast! We'll try to update this again soon so it doesn't get so long.

Happy Birthday to my niece Maggie, who turns 2 on Valentine's Day!

We're in Peru!

2010-02-04T07:11:00.003-05:00

We made it to Peru and so far, so good! We've managed to do quite a bit since arriving in Lima early Sunday morning. First, we left Lima and took a 4 hour bus ride south to a town called Ica. In this part of Peru, there is desert everywhere and located about 3 miles outside of Ica is town called Huacachina, where there is an oasis in the middle of the desert. We arrived and our taxi driver dropped us off at a hotel that we decided looked good and safe enough to stay at. It also had a pool, which was nice since we were in the desert. Surrounding this lagoon is a boardwalk with shops and restaurants and there are also HUGE sand dunes everywhere. Children swim in the lagoon and you can also take out paddle boats. It's definitely a very unique place worth visiting and I haven't even gotten to the really good part! Since there are these huge sand dunes, they have dune buggie and sand boarding trips out in the desert. We had an absolute blast! We hopped in a dune buggie with a couple other tourists and our driver (tourist aren't aloud to drive, just ride) and took to the sand! It was truly like being on a roller coaster. We'd ride aroud and then the driver would stop at the top of a huge sand dune, get out the sand boards, and we'd all take our turns getting on our bellies on the board and then soar down the dune! .

The beautiful Sechura Desert of western Peru - this is where the dune buggies and sandboarding

happened!

In our dune buggie, ready to go!

Video Footage Links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OixzjWThJrU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7h4_wCQgOE

On Monday, we went on a nature excursion about an hour away from Ica, in Paracas. Paracas is a town on the coast and there are uninhabited islands off the coast called the Islas Ballestas, which are considered to be the Peruvian Galapogos. The islands took about 30 minutes to get to by boat and we went with a tour group. Upon reaching the islands, there were birds everywhere and all different types of species. My favorite were the Humboldt penquins and Scott's were the pelicans. There were also hundreds of sea lions hanging out on these island and they are ridiculously noisy! Some of them would even pose for us. We rode around the islands on the boat for a while then headed back to shore and along the way saw many packs of dolphins swimming. After that we went back to where we were staying in Huacachina near the oasis.

The next day we said goodbye to the sand dunes and oasis and caught a bus, again heading south. The bus ride was only 2 hours and took us to a town called Nazca. This town is famous for what are known as the 'Nazca Lines'. These lines are etched in the sand and form drawnings of things such as a monkey, hummingbird, dog, spider, alien looking man, etc. What makes these lines even more peculiar is that no one knows how they got there or why and they apparently arrived more than a millenium ago. There are at least 10,000 lines and 300 different figures and are large sizes ranging from 46-235 meters. The only way to really view the lines is from the sky, so we chartered a plane with 3 other tourists for a 30 minute ride over the desert to take a look! They really are an unusual site and you can clearly see what the objects are in the sand.

Monkey with a curled tail (spans 55 meters)

Hummingbird (spans 50 meters)

After Nasca, we hit the road again and caught another bus. This time the bus ride was about 9 hours and our destination was further south along the coast to the 2nd largest city in Peru, Arequipa. It is known as one of the more beautiful cities in Peru. It has many historic mansions and churches, which are mostly made of volcanic stone, called sillar. Arequipa is surrounded by 3 volcanic peaks, which are all around 20,000 ft high. They also are known for their Alpaca clothing products, which is very, very soft wool (see picture of an Alpaca to right). We arrived around 11 pm and went straight to the hotel. Today (Wednesday) we took time to plan out the next few days and also toured around the city. We went to the main city center, the 'Plaza de Armas', and explored the area for awhile, then we went to the Monasterio de Santa Cantalina. This tour of the convent, founded in 1579, was quite educational and very interesting. It was kind of like its own village within the city and kept quiet from the world until 1972 when the city forced more modern infrastructure and opened the doors to tourists. There are about 30 nuns that currently live there. We ended our day with a delicious dinner at a restaurant called 'ZigZag'. This restaurant is a Swiss/Peru (Alpine/Andean) fusion of foods that specializes in stone cooked meats and boy was there a lot of meat! We had the chance to try out some new meats, alpaca and ostrich. The alpaca was a bit gamey tasting, but we both agree that ostrich was outstanding. Two thumbs up from the both us!

The Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

Our plans for going to Machu Picchu are out due to the recent landslides from the heavy rains towards the end of January. They had to evacuate ~3,900 tourists and both the train and trails are closed that go up
to Machu Picchu. What a bummer! Luckily there are plenty of other things we can do in Peru and we have the flexibility to make some changes in our plans. So long for now. We'll update you again over the weekend or early next week.

A Double Dose of Good News!!!

2010-01-30T22:17:00.003-05:00

Hello! We aren't in South America yet, but we wanted to give a quick update about something else really exciting...we are engaged!!! I flew back to Charlotte on Wednesday afternoon and Scott surprised me that night by proposing at the family mountain house in Boone! We just wanted to share the good news and also post a couple of pics! Julie and Jeremy's English Bulldog, Gus, was with us at the mountain house and came out wearing a cardboard diamond attached to his collar..it was quite hilarious!

We are currently in Miami and have had a lengthy layover due to the nasty winter weather that hit Charlotte. We had to sit on the plane for about 2 1/2 hours before departing, which meant we missed our connecting flight to Lima. We fly out at midnight and will arrive tomorrow about 5:30 am. Peru is in the same time zone as the east coast so we won't have any time change adjustments...we'll just be a little tired.

Our other dose of good news we would like to share is that Scott's sister, Becca, and her husband, Jason, are expecting their first baby in August (also referred to as 'BaWay', short for Baby Waybright)! We (and all the rest of the family) couldn't be happier or more excited for you both! We also look forward to buying really loud and obnoxious toys for BaWay to play with :) !!! haha

Birthday wishes go out to my nephew, Flint, who turned 6 yesterday! Feliz Cumpleanos el sobrino! More updates later once we get to Peru. Thanks for checking in!

Happy New Year (a little late)!!!

2010-01-22T16:58:00.001-05:00

Happy 2010! We hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and hope the new year is treating everyone well so far. Though our holidays were a bit different with spending part of them in Missouri and then going on to Maine, we really enjoyed our time with each of our families and also Jeremy's family, the Hough‘s. This was a difficult holiday season for everyone with the absence of our loved ones; Scott’s brother, Ryan, and my father, Robert. We've managed to make it through though we all still miss them and love them so much.

Since New Year’s Day, we‘ve been back in North Carolina. Given that we are in between our travels abroad, I often get asked about what we do everyday or whether or not we get bored. I can honestly say I don’t really get bored. We have spent a majority of our time researching our upcoming trips, which really is quite time consuming. We also work out, I’ve been cooking more (yummy French Onion Soup!), we watch movies, read, and we’ve also spent time up at the Strawn’s mountain house in Boone. Let me just say, this has to be one of the most peaceful places to go and relax. We love it there! We were up there last week with Julie and Jeremy and friends Casey and JP. We went skiing at Beech Mountain and had the most perfect day for skiing. Scott’s parents came up over the weekend and we had a fun dinner with their neighbors, Dwight and Susan. We also did some shopping and visited one of the local wineries. This week, Scott went back to Charlotte, and I ventured up to Boston for a couple of days to visit friends and also visit our storage unit. I’m not going to lie…I miss my stuff! I packed up some items we would need for our upcoming travels to South America. Then yesterday I flew from Boston to St. Louis to spend some time with my family before I fly back to Charlotte next Wednesday.

So, when are traveling abroad again? Our big departure date is Saturday, January 30th and our destination is Lima, Peru. While in Peru we plan to go to a town called Ica, where there is an oasis, to Arequipa, the Nazca Lines, Lake Titicaca, and Machu Picchu. We will travel around Peru until February 12th and then we fly to Santiago, Chile on the 13th. As we had mentioned before, we will be visiting our good friends Vicente and Lora who live in Santiago. We will also be visited by our good friend, Andrew, who will fly in from Boston on the 13th to spend the following week with us in Santiago. After that, Scott and I will leave Santiago and fly down to the south of Chile to Patagonia. We will return to the states on March 2nd.

I would like to ask everyone to keep Vicente, Lora, and Vicente’s family in your thoughts and prayers. Last week we received the devastating news that Vicente’s older brother, Ricardo, was killed in a plane crash in northern Chile, along with 3 of his close friends. Vicente and Lora, our hearts go out to you during this very difficult time. We are thinking of you and love you and can’t wait to see you in a few weeks. May peace be with you.

Farewell for now, we’ll be checking in again once we get down to South America. Oh and don’t worry, we won’t be getting any haircuts on this trip! There are a lot of mullets in this part of the world and we plan to avoid the chance of getting anything that remotely looks like one! :)

Best of Europe

2009-12-19T17:01:00.004-05:00

Hey All! Scott and I just wanted to check in and let you know what we've been up to since we've been back in the good ole US. Though traveling in Europe was amazing, one thing we both agree upon is that there is no place like home. It's really been great to be back with our family and friends. I spent a few weeks in Missouri and enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree with all 10 of my nieces and nephews at Gram's house (Gram is my mom), watching my nephews wrestle, and also went to a Christmas party at my dad's special lady friend, Shirley's, house. Scott's been in Charlotte with his family but I'm not really sure what he's been doing. Okay, that's not true. He did make a cool video clip from our trip you can check out on you tube at http://www.youtube.com/user/msstrawn.

I'm currently in Charlotte, NC visiting Scott and his family. I got here on Thursday (12/10), just in time for the 'Most Ridiculous Michael Jackson Christmas Party' hosted by Becca and Jason. I think a good time was had by all and for the record it was quite ridiculous! And we have the pictures to prove it!

Tomorrow I fly back to Missouri and on Monday Scott will also come to Missouri to visit my family through Christmas Eve. Then we are off to Portland, Maine on Christmas Day to meet up with Scott's family. Julie's fiancee, Jeremy, is from Maine so we are going to be joining him and his family for what we hope to be a white Christmas.

So now for the fun part. Scott and I have had a chance to reflect on our Europe trip and have come up with a variety of categories of our favorite things which we'd like to share with you...

The Best of Europe by Brooke and Scott:

Favorite Church: St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City (close behind was Il Duomo in Milan)
Favorite Castle: Blarney Castle in Ireland
Favorite Museum: The Louvre in Paris
Favorite Meal: Brooke- 'Munich Meal' of pork with a mushroom cream sauce and spatzel.
Scott- 'Hungarian Meal' of pork gristle (actually it was taken off of Brooke's plate from her meal)

Favorite overall type of food: Italian
Favorite Beer: Guinness
Favorite Wine: Chianti
Favorite Bar: Szimpla Kert in Budapest
Favorite Haircut: Tie between Hungarian Haircut and My Big Fat Greek Haircut (c'mon neither of us plan to ever get those haircuts again..they were both real bad)
Favorite Mode of Transportation: Train (the ferry to Greece was also awesome, but taking the train in Europe is the best way to get around)
Favorite Train Ride: Milan to Munich (through the Alps...simply amazing!)
Favorite Site: Eiffel Tower
Favorite Sunset: Santorini, Greece
Favorite Event: Oktoberfest in Munich
Favorite Day Excursion: Tuscany Tour
Favorite Architecture style of a city: Prague
Favorite Language to hear: German
Favorite 'Discovery' (means a place/site we sort of just found): The Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland (see blog entry from Ireland)
Favorite Hostel/Guesthouse: The boat in Amsterdam (we found it on Hostelworld.com)
Favorite Hotel/Resort: Santorini, Greece (going in the off season = more affordable)

Top 5 Favorite Cities (this was really tough to decide):
- Barcelona
- Salzburg
- Prague
- Amsterdam
- Paris

Top 5 Favorite Scenic Places:
- Santorini, Greece
- Dingle Peninsula/Kerry, Ireland
- Salzburg, Austria (includes the Alps)
- Venice, Italy
- Nice and Monaco, France

We hope you enjoyed our favorites from Europe! There will be more from us once we start traveling again, which will likely be the end of January/beginning of February. Our destination is South America for about 1 month. We will have a chance to visit our good friends Vicente and Lora in Santiago, Chile while we are down there so we are really looking forward to this trip and it also doesn't hurt that it will be summertime :)!

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Safe travels wherever you may be visiting for the holidays. Take care and know that we love you all!

My Big Fat Greek Haircut!!!

2009-11-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

First things first. Greece is an absolutely beautiful place. I'd recommend anyone to go there for sure. We decided that the plan for our visit to Greece was to stay in Athens for a few days and then go to one of the islands. We arrived in Athens after our long ferry ride and made our way to the hotel. We stayed in the main touristy area where there are tons of shops and restaurants. We also had a view of the Acropolis from the street we were staying on. It's such a nice view at night when it is all lit up on the cliff overlooking the city. We spent an afternoon walking up to the Acropolis and taking in the beautiful views. We walked through the flea markets and found cheap DVD's that we think are probably bootleg. Of course we had a few Greek salads, gyros, olives, feta, and kebabs. I did some shopping and also decided it was time to get a haircut. I found a salon around the corner from our hotel and made an appointment. I had no idea what I was in for. The male hairdresser walked up to the chair to begin the haircut. He then strapped on a tool belt of haircut cutlery. Oh man, he meant business. I started to describe the kind of haircut I wanted and he looked at me and said that an explanantion wouldn't be necessary. Then he asked if he could cut bangs and I told him that was okay as long as they weren't too drastic. He laughed and said 'yeah right, not too drastic.' Then I told him I wanted some length taken off and he asked about layering my hair. I told him that was fine too. He seemed to understand English well enough. He started cutting my hair. Then he kept cutting my hair...more specifically the top of my head. He also asked me my zodiac sign and also told me I would miss him when he is gone. Anyway, after all the cutting, styling, and chit chat he was finally done. I had drastic bangs, more layers and he didn't take any length off the back. I let out a snorty laugh when I looked at myself in the mirror. I thought of how Scott might react to this and came to the conclusion he would think I looked like either a lion or Joan Jett. Here's a picture about 4 days after...I think its more Joan Jett. Votes are encouraged...let me know what you think!

"I Love Rock-N-Roll"

So life went on after that traumatic experience. I tried to avoid going out in public but that wasn't possible. That same day we had planned to leave Athens and take the ferry to Santorini Island. The goal of going to the island was simply to relax and enjoy the amazing views of an amazing place...and we did exactly that! Santorini was formerly called Thira. In 1500 B.C. there was a volcano that erupted which is how Santorini was formed. There is an island off the coast of Santorini where the volcano sits (pic to right). We decided to splurge and stay in more of a resort type place since it is the low season now and you can find good deals on the resorts.

We found a villa near the capital city, Fira, that had its own private pool and view of the ocean including the volcano. We arrived at 1:30 am and our villa host picked us up at the port. There was a huge rainstorm that first night and our villa flooded with an inch of water on both the upstairs and downstairs floors. We inquired about getting a different villa and as it turns out the only other villa available was an upgrade to a room with a jacuzzi bathtub, outside hot tub, and private pool as well as the beautiful ocean view. We were thrilled! The temperature wasn't warm enough to swim, but warm enough (in the 70s) for me to lay out one afternoon and soak up some sun. The villa also had a kitchenette so we could cook our meals and relax at our place. We saw the most amazing sunset (see pics below) the second night we were there. One afternoon we rented a car and drove around the island. We went up to the highest point on Santorini and to another town, Oia, where there were more beautiful ocean views. We really enjoyed just hanging out and relaxing and also watching our bootleg DVD's!

Views from our villa

View to the right from our villa

View to the left from our villa

Fira cliffs

Oia Cliffs

Boys afternoon fishing

Sunset in Fira down on the water

We are now back in Amsterdam, making a stop here on our journey back to the states. We leave on Wednesday (11/18) and fly through Dublin on our way to Boston. Scott and I plan to stay through the weekend then head to see our families in Missouri and North Carolina. Thanks for joining us on our European adventure! Stay tuned for a 'Best of' blog and a compilation of the 'Things we've learned'.

Things we've learned:

- Greek people seem angry all the time, which doesn't make sense since they live surrounded by such beauty

- There are a lot more street peddlers in Greece than we expected (including selling DVD's, flowers, flashlights, etc.)

- Don't get a haircut in Greece or any place where the hairdresser doesn't understand English very well

- Going to Greece in the off season isn't so bad. You avoid the crowds and can find deals on resorts! The total cost of the villa we stayed in for 5 nights during low season cost about 1/2 as much as one night would have cost us during the high season!

- Greek television programs and movies are awful!

- Brooke in Greek is Brok.

- In Greece, November 8th is the name day for Michael (Scott's first name), the Archangel Churches and towns organize festivals to celebrate. People also go to visit everyone in their town named Michael to celebrate their name.

The Strawn, Waybright, Hough Invasion!!!

2009-11-11T11:03:00.003-05:00

We’re back!!! Okay, it’s really been a while this time. We’ve been getting requests for blog updates so here goes…please beware this one’s gonna be a long one!

Let’s see…we left off on our way to Paris to meet up with Scott’s family. We arrived in Paris a couple of days before they did, so we spent time seeing a few sites though we tried to hold off for most of them for when his family got there. We spent an afternoon in Versailles seeing grand palace of Louis the XIV. He really loved to spend money. The palace and surrounding gardens were quite elaborate. There were also probably about 500 pictures and sculptures of good ole Louis throughout the palace and exhibits. We think Louis really liked himself.

Not bad for a back yard

Mike, Diane, Becca, Jason, Julie, and Jeremy all arrived early on Friday the 23rd of October and we met up with them at the hotel. What an awesome reunion! It’s amazing how nice it feels to see familiar faces when you’ve been in a foreign place for so long! We visited the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre (check out Mona‘s pic), Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, and Sacre Coeur Basilica. I must say that upon first walking up to the Eiffel Tower I got teary-eyed. I was absolutely moved and amazed by how impressive a structure it truly is. Seeing it at night was absolutely gorgeous.

Julie, Jeremy, Scott, and Brooke at the Louvre

We left Paris the following evening and went to Nice in southern France. What a lovely little beach town! We hiked up some cliffs and saw great views of the ocean and mountains surrounding Nice (see pic on the right). We enjoyed brunch at a beach side restaurant, walked through the local farmer’s market and then hopped on a train to Monte Carlo (Monaco - or some people also liked to call it Morocco…haha!).

Once again, another amazing town. And the boats….or actually yachts were out of control. As were the cars. We saw several Ferari’s driving around. You can tell there is a lot of money in that town. We walked around and ventured up a cliff overlooking the city where there was a castle and the royal palace. We visited the church where Princess Grace Kelly was married and buried, had a delicious dinner and after that…we hit the casinos! Unfortunately this didn’t go quite as Scott had envisioned from the movie Casino Royale. The first casino we went into you actually had to pay 10 euros to enter to play the tables. That meant we all turned around and walked back out. Seriously, who really pays to enter a casino to play???!!! We found another casino that you didn’t have to pay to play so went in to do a little gambling. I won 11 euros on the slot machines (Wheel of Fortune)! I think Julie won about 75 euros on Roulette and Jason was the big winner and came out with 180 euros also on Roulette. Scott also played Roulette. That’s all I’m going to say about that. After that, we left ‘Morocco’ and went back to Nice.

All aboard!!! The following afternoon we all went by train to Milan, where we stayed for 3 nights. The purpose of staying in Milan was more or less to have a central location to go back to in the evenings and just do day trip excursions. That way we wouldn’t change hotels every night and have to take our luggage all over the place. Our first night in Milan we took everyone to see Il Duomo (see Milan blog from September) and have dinner. This was the night Scott ordered a horse sandwich, which actually tasted pretty good. On Tuesday morning (the 27th) we got up early and took the train to Lake Como. We found a great deal on a small ferry boat ticket Como that was good for the entire day and would take us to different little towns along the lake. You could hop on and hop off whenever you wanted. We got on the boat and hopped off and walked around a quaint little town called Cernobbio and then grabbed lunch near the water. What’s so nice about meals in general in France, Italy (really anywhere in Europe) is you can just take your time and relax. People really enjoy their meals and there’s no rush about it. We went to a few more towns along the lake and then we took the train back to Milan in the evening. Not bad for a day trip excursion.

Chernobbio on Lake Como

Becca enjoying whipped cream with her hot cocoa!

Sunset over Lake Como

We had dinner back in Milan at a great restaurant not too far from our hotel. We enjoyed some great Italian food and wine. I ended up with a very unique seafood pasta . It came out covered with a crust/dough over a big bowl and inside was the spaghetti and seafood which included mussels, clams, shrimp, and octopus (see picture). Everyone else seemed pretty happy with their meals as well…nobody went hungry!

The next day Julie and Jeremy said their goodbyes to everyone. Jeremy is currently enrolled in the Duke MBA program that includes course studies abroad and he was required to be in Dubai for the beginning of November. That also meant that Jeremy had to study quite a bit on the trip. (See pic of Jeremy at the Arc de Triomphe) Though we were sad to see them go, we were excited about their Dubai adventure and can’t wait to hear about that experience.

Mike, Diane, Becca, Jason, Scott, and I continued on and went on another day trip excursion, this time Venice. Wow! Another charming city. We were all quite impressed with the beauty of this city and it wasn‘t as dirty as we had heard it was. It truly is unique that the main means of transportation is by water taxis, boats, gondolas, etc. that venture throughout the canals. We did take a boat ride in the afternoon…we couldn’t resist. We also walked through the town and it’s small streets and brick roads make it very quaint. It was actually more like walking through a maze of streets. We enjoyed lunch, shopping, and indulging in delicious deserts and treats. We returned to Milan that afternoon and had dinner in the evening.

Our Venice boat!

On Thursday morning, we packed up our stuff for a new destination, Florence. We stayed in a beautiful hotel outside of the city, with great views of vineyards and fall foliage. That first afternoon we walked around the town, visited Il Duomo, and had dinner. Scott and I had found a café with WiFi to get on-line. As we were sitting there, a table was set up with all sorts of appetizer type foods. A really cool thing we discovered about restaurants in Italy is that many of them will offer appetizer type foods for free as long as you buy any type of drink. This place had quite a spread of food and you can go back and fill up as many plates as you want! So that was our dinner that night. On Friday we splurged and went on a Tuscany bus tour. We had the most perfect fall day for the outing. We visited the Tuscan area called Chianti and the tour included a wine and olive oil tasting at a castle, stops in 2 other Tuscan towns (Greve & Castlellano), and dinner at an Italian restaurant. Tuscany is absolutely beautiful with rolling hills and vineyards and the foliage was also amazing.

View of Chianti from the castle

Barrel of wine...glug, glug Diane!

On Saturday, our last day with the fam, Scott and I went with Mike and Diane for another day excursion to Siena. It is another Tuscany town we wanted to visit. We had lunch in the area that is the sight of where they have 2 horse races per year. The race takes place in the middle of town in a plaza (piazza) that is circular (see pic on right). The race consists of the horses doing only one lap and only 10 out 17 Tuscany areas/counties get to enter a horse. Apparently the object is to win any way that you can and there doesn’t have to be a rider on the horse at the end of the race. This can mean throwing rocks/objects at other horses/riders to injure them, pushing another rider off their horse, etc. The rule is that there really are no rules. That evening we had dinner in Florence and said farewells to Mike, Diane, Becca, and Jason. They had an early flight to catch to get to London and then on to Charlotte. We really enjoyed our time spent with everyone and look forward to seeing ya’ll during the holidays. Thank you for an awesome time!

Scott, Brooke, Jason, Becca, Julie, Jeremy, Diane, and Mike at Lake Como

Scott and I checked out of the hotel and decided to stay another 2 nights in Florence to try and plan out some more of our trip. We stayed in a hostel in the city until Tuesday (11/3). We decided we wanted to go to Greece (Becca and Jason may have had some influence on that…thanks ya’ll!) So now we are in Greece and let me say that getting here was quite an adventure. When we left from Florence, we took the train to Rome and stopped for about 4 hours and managed to visit St. Peter's Basilica, ride a tour bus, and have lunch. From Rome we took a train to Bari that took about 4 hours. Bari is the port city where we caught a huge ferry to get us to Greece. The ferry ride was only 15 hours long! We left at 8pm and arrived at 12:30pm the next day in a town called Patras. The ferry was a very cool experience. It had a lounge/cafe, restaurant, casino (slots), sleeping areas, cabins, TV’s. We were able to keep ourselves occupied and even able to get some sleep. In the morning as we were getting closer to Greece we passed by several islands so the scenery was amazing. From Patras we had to take another train to get to Athens. This train left around 3pm and arrived in Athens around 7pm. Nothing like 2 full days of travel to get to paradise! We will post more about Greece later. We aren’t really sure how long we will be here. We do know that at this point we plan to be in Europe until around the 18th/19th of November. We will go back to the US for the holidays and spend time with our family and friends.

Special birthday wishes go out to my nephew, Gavin, who turned 4 today! Happy Birthday buddy!!!

Things we’ve learned:

- Ask the price of a beer before you order one in Paris. Scott walked into a restaurant to use the restroom and was told he needed to order something. We ordered 2 regular sized beers…big mistake. The cost for those 2 beers was 18 Euros or ~$28.
- On Friday nights at the Eiffel Tower they light it up with crazy colored lights and its coordinated with music so the lights change with the beat. Quite the dance party!!!
- At the casinos in Monte Carlo, the men don’t really dress up in tuxedos to gamble like in Casino Royale.
- George Clooney has a house on Lake Como.
- Venice is actually cleaner than we thought it would be and the water is not as dirty as we had expected.
- You can easily walk faster than the tour buses in Rome.
- Extra virgin olive oil is between 0.2 and 0.8 acidity and regular virgin olive oil is 0.8-2.0 in acidity.
- Chianti wines that have a black rooster on the label means it comes from the original Chianti area of Tuscany.
- In Florence you can’t count on the city buses to run on time…boy did we spend some time waiting at the bus stop!
- It’s great to see family no matter where you are in the world! We miss ya'll already!

More pics...

PARIS

Sacre Coeur Basilica

Notre Dame

Julie and Jeremy at the Eiffel Tower

Flat Stanley with Scott and Brooke at the Arc de Triomphe

Flat Stanley at the Eiffel Tower on crazy night light!

NICE & MONTE CARLO

Becca and Jason in Nice with the Alps in the distance

In Nice

On top the castle in Monte Carlo

LAKE COMO & VENICE

Wooden boats on Lake Como

Mike and Diane at Lake Como

Gondola's in Venice

Flat Stanley in Venice

FLORENCE & TUSCANY

Beautiful view of Florence along the river

Il Duomo in Florence

Greve town square in Tuscany

View from hotel room in Florence

I'm on a Boat!!!

2009-10-21T19:31:00.000-04:00

We had much fun in Amsterdam! We arrived around 6pm on Saturday evening and had made arrangements to stay on a houseboat. So yes...we're on a boat! Since Amsterdam is a city on the water with many canals we felt it appropriate to stay on the water. Pretty cool to stay somewhere different like this. We actually ended up having the place to ourselves for a couple of days and enjoyed cooking and having our 'own place'. Anyway, upon arrival we were hungry so decided to go find a fondue restaurant we had read about. Interestingly enough, as we ventured into the city looking for this restaurant we stumbled upon the infamous 'Red Light District' neighborhood first thing. Just like that. (See pic below)

We walked around for a bit after we ate and then headed back to the boat. To get back to the boat, Scott and I took public transportation called the Tram. It's more or less an above the ground subway system. Scott and I came up with a song we'd like to share with you about the Tram in Amsterdam. Actually, who am I kidding?! This is actually my song. Scott had nothing to do with it. Here's how it goes:
''Oh yes the Tram, Oh yes the Tram
In Amsterdam, In Amsterdam
Moves like a Ram, Moves like a Ram"

And by 'moves like a ram', I actually mean that the Tram moves like a roller coaster. I seriously felt like I was on the Screamin' Eagle at Six Flags when we were on the Tram. It would jerk you around and go about 50 mph! One afternoon we decided to just ride the Tram for about an hour, just for roller coaster fun and to see different parts of the city. We did take in some other sites by taking a canal tour and also visited the Anne Frank House. We arrived in Paris today and are spending a couple of days here before Scott's family joins us on Friday. We are really looking forward to seeing them. We will be going to Nice on Saturday, then to Italy on Monday.

Flat Stanley on the Canal Cruise.

Things we've learned:

- It's hip to hang out at the city library in Amsterdam.

- There is more space for bicyclers to bike in Amsterdam than there is for pedestrians to walk. They are some serious bicycling machines in Amsterdam. Everyone REALLY rides a bike here (more so than Salzburg).

- There are 2,500 houseboats in Amsterdam which is also the maximum amount allowed.

- You don't have to be good looking to be working in the Red Light District (I was seriously scared!)

- Trying to find a 'regular' DVD is almost impossible in Amsterdam.

Bicycle garage

Canal pic in the Red Light District

Beautiful architecture and many houseboats.

View of city from the Central Train Station

Someone got a Hungarian Haircut!!!

2009-10-17T14:23:00.000-04:00

It’s been a little while since we’ve updated things. We’ve been pretty busy going first from Salzburg to Budapest, then to Prague, Heidelberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber (in Germany) and now on to Amsterdam for the next few days. Brooke and I ended up staying in Budapest for longer than we originally intended. Partially because there was more to do and partially because we had been moving around so much we felt like we need to chill in one place for a bit and Budapest was a fairly inexpensive place to do it. We had a chance to plan out other things. I got a haircut. There was no way I could tell the guy to take an inch off the top besides gesturing with my hands. When I said “how much” I think he thought I meant “machine”. At least that’s what I thought he said. Anyway, it’s a bit shorter than usual. Other than what have become fairly typical monuments/castles/churches etc. what was distinctive about Budapest were the bars that we went to. The first one we went to was described to us by our host as a bar that doesn’t look like anything special and that it has a couple of guys standing outside. We found the two guys and went inside where we found one of the coolest looking bars I think we’ve ever seen. It had a kind of hippie style to it in that nothing matched and the open air beer garden in the middle of the building was lit up by a couple of tall fires in the middle. Hard to describe I suppose but definitely a positive experience after arriving at the train station earlier that afternoon and seeing many characteristics reminiscent of Milan (garbage/graffiti). We also had a chance to visit one of Budapest’s famous bathhouses. Apparently there are hot springs in and around Budapest. So they’ve built large complexes with different pools which have water of varying temperatures anywhere between around 50 and 110 degrees. We spent the afternoon hanging out in these pools. Brooke got a massage and I had a few beers. It was pretty relaxing.

Bathhouse

Parliament in Budapest

We left Budapest after 5 nights and headed to Prague. There are a couple of ways to get to Prague from Budapest. One is to go through Vienna. The other, more direct way, is to go through Slovakia. When we got on the train we weren’t exactly sure which route we were going but knew it was listed in our trusty Eurail book that has all the train schedules so everything should be fine. Turns out we were on the route that went through Slovakia. It was explained to us while we were on the train by our little old toothless conductor that even though it was in the book because Slovakia is not part of the network of countries that participate in the whole Eurail thing the pass was not valid from when we entered until we left Slovakia. Keep in mind, his English was only slightly better than my Hungarian or whatever it is that he spoke so most of this conversation took place through hand gestures and him punching in numbers on a key pad. Eventually it became clear to me that he was saying that we needed to pay about 70 Euro to go through Slovakia. This is a little more than $100. Not great but not the end of the world. Then he just disappeared. He came back about 10 minutes latter and told me to follow him. So we left that car and went into a more private area where he proceeded to make absolutely no sense for about 5 minutes until he finally said pay 10 Euro each and then said ‘Shhhhh‘. I said ok and then he told me to sit back down. He came back later and we went away again I gave him 20 Euro. Then he gave a big toothless grin and that was it. My first bribe.

When we arrived in Prague that’s when it started to rain. We were originally going to try and see a bit of the town that first night but it was pouring rain so we decided to stay close to our hotel and just get dinner. It cleared up for most of the following day so we had a chance to see most of the city before it started to rain again. Prague really is a beautiful place. Maybe as nice as Salzburg but it is a much larger city. We ended up staying in Prague for an extra night too. When the sun would come out we would spend a fair amount of time at some of the restaurants in the main square in “Old Town”. Apparently there is an “Old Town” in most of the cities that we are visiting. For the most part I guess they were the parts of these cities that either weren’t bombed or were worth rebuilding after the various wars.

Flat Stanley at the Prague Castle

In Prague on the Charles Bridge

From Prague we went to Heidelberg. Another beautiful place. Heidelberg was spared from being bombed during the second World War. I’m not sure why. On the way we passed through Dresden which, if you know your WWII history or have read Slaughterhouse V, was blown to bits by the Americans to scare the bejesus out of the Russians as they crossed into Germany from the east towards the end of the war. I’ve always been curious what it looks like. It looks pretty normal. I was surprised to see that there were some older looking buildings. Anyway ,we got to Heidelberg pretty late in the day so we just made some dinner and crashed. The next day we went into “Old Town” Heidelberg. Again, beautiful. By this time though I’m getting kind of weary of old beautiful buildings. Not that I don’t enjoy it but it starts to feel a little monotonous after a month or so. So that night we went bowling. As I explained to Brooke, I am one of the greatest bowlers of all time. I told her I could break 300. She told me that was impossible. Regardless, I still won.

We headed to Rothenburg ob der Tauber the next day. It was raining and we were only planning on staying one night so we ventured out to explore anyway. Luckily, it is a tiny, little town in the middle of nowhere so it was easy to see in one afternoon. Rothenburg is the stereotypical traditional German town. If you think about old school Germany what you probably envision is a place like this. Very quaint and nice but it’s strange to me that anyone actually lives there. And without tourism, most likely, no one would. Living there would be kind of like living at the German village at the Epcot Center in Disney World. It took us a little more than 4 hours to get there even though it was right down the street from Heidelberg because the bus that used to go there didn’t go there anymore. So we took the train back up through Frankfurt. I’m glad we went, just to see it, even though it was cold and raining. We had seen what we needed to see so we took off this morning.

Streets in Rothenburg

Right now we are on the train to Amsterdam. Brooke just got some wet naps from the train attendant. She can bareley contain herself. By the time I post this we’ll be there. After Amsterdam we’ll be going to Paris to meet up with my family. We are traveling together with them from Paris to Nice and then to Italy for the following week or so. I learned a couple of hours ago that getting on the train from Paris to Nice with them could be a problem. I was told that we need to wait until we are in Paris to book the tickets but I was told by someone else that all of the trains were booked. Hopefully by the time she reads this we will have figured all of this out but otherwise I think my Mom might have a heart attack. Chill mom!! We’ll get there.

Things we’ve learned:

- 1st floor means 2nd floor, 2nd floor means 3rd, etc, etc.

- Grocery shopping is more difficult when you can’t read what you’re buying

- Beef and pork are not in short supply in Germany and Eastern Europe

- The bars in Budapest are some of the coolest around

- Bribery can save you a couple of bucks and get you where you need to go

- Don’t trust the stupid Eurail train schedule book. It’s been wrong a couple of times. We’ve done some running with 30 pound packs on our backs.

- If you don’t do laundry for a couple of weeks, everything you own starts to smell real funky. I feel kind of sorry for the people sitting next to us on the trains.

- If there are beautiful Hungarians, they don’t go to the bathhouses in Budapest.

- As we go forward we should mix up the trip more so that we are doing different things in different places.

- There isn’t a big difference between 1st and 2nd class on the trains.

This is what Brooke looks like with her backpack = not easy running

Budapest Update

2009-10-08T20:07:00.001-04:00

Hey All! Just wanted to give a quick update. We are still in Budapest and plan to stay for 1 more night. After that we are going to Prague for about 3 nights. Having a blast!

Birthday wishes go out to Brooke's niece, Piper, who turned 8 years old today! Kool-Aid Man and I hope you are enjoying your special day.

Doe, a Deer, a Female Deer. Ray, a drop of Golden Sun...

2009-10-06T09:59:00.003-04:00

Scott and I left Salzburg yesterday morning after spending 5 wonderful days there! We really liked this city as it truly is a beautiful place. Very slow paced and relaxing. We spent Friday and Sunday hiking on a mountain that overlooks the city and saw fantastic views of both the city and the Alps. On Saturday we went across the river to see some areas of the city we hadn't explored yet. We visited Mirabell Gardens, which is where scenes from the movie 'Sound of Music' were filmed. No explanation is necessary as to why they chose this location to film some of the movie. The gardens were amazing! The flowers and greenery were absolutely gorgeous. It was just a nice, peaceful place to visit. We also saw the residence of where Mozart once lived.

After that we decided to rent bikes and ride along the river. The river trails took us out past Salzburg where we found beautiful parks and more mountain views. In the evening on Saturday we decided to try out a brewery and another place for live music.

Today we arrived in Budapest, Hungary. The train ride was about 6 hours and again, it didn't feel like it was that long. We really enjoy the train. We plan to be in Budapest for about 3-4 days and then will head on to Prague.

Things we've learned:

- Everyone rides bikes in Salzburg and there are bikes lanes everywhere. Awesome!

- There are a lot of bald men in Salzburg.

- Both Salzburg and Munich shut down on Sunday - no shops, grocery stores, businesses, etc are really open. We've found that eateries/restaurants are really the only places open for business.

- CNN gets old when its the only TV channel you get in English!

- Pizza + pepperoncini = crazy delicious

*Note* Once again our descriptions of 'beautiful and amazing' aren't really cutting it so we have posted several pictures for your enjoyment!

Views from our bike ride.

Beautiful Salzburg!

Flat Stanley hiding in a bush at the gardens!

Prost Oktoberfest!

2009-10-02T05:40:00.004-04:00

So after spending a couple of nights in Milan we were ready to get out of there and head to Munich for Oktoberfest. Milan is kind of a dump. As far as Brooke and I could tell there is one area that’s very nice (where we saw the models). Other than that, the city is more/less covered in trash and graffiti. Anyway, at least part of the rational for coming to Milan in the first place was so that we could ride the train through the Alps on our way to Munich. So, we spent the better part of the day on Sunday doing exactly that. The train ride was 7 hours long but it didn’t seem long at all. The train went north, through Austria. Much of what we saw was exactly what you imagine when you think of the Alps and Bavaria.

We took it easy that night once we got to the hotel so we could get up at a reasonable time to get to the beer tents at Oktoberfest. When I was here two years ago I got to the beer tents too late and couldn’t get in. Not that it would be the end of the world. Outside of the beer tents most places have beer gardens. So even if we couldn’t have gotten inside it would have been fine. We ended up getting to Oktoberfest around noon on Monday. We had no problem getting in (we even brought Flat Stanley)! We went to several of the tents before sitting down at the Paulaner tent. Beers were about 9 euros which is close to 13 dollars. They come in 1 liter glasses. It was reasonably low key. The music started playing around 12:30 or so. With the exception of a few guys that had clearly been there for a while most people kept their seats. We were there for a few hours. I think we took off after round 3. We headed back to the hotel and went to bed very early.

We got up the next day and spent some time on the web trying to figure out where to stay in Salzburg. Originally, we weren’t going to go back to Oktoberfest. But we just couldn’t stay away. I’m glad that we did end up going back. We didn’t get there until around 9:30 that night so we went to the first tent that we came to. Everyone in the house (probably a couple thousand people) was standing on benches and tables singing along with the band. We met some entertaining German folks (see pics) who were sitting at our table. The one on the far right calls himself 'King Kong'. We got a big kick out of that! The tent closed at 11pm so we were only there for about an hour and a half. We stopped at a bar on the way home and spent an hour or so discussing politics with the bartender there before heading home. Fun times!

We caught the train to Salzburg the next day at around noon. I probably could have stayed for another day or two but Munich is an expensive city to stay in during Oktoberfest and we have a lot of other places that we’d like to see. It took about 2 hours to get to Salzburg. It is an amazingly beautiful city. Originally we were going to stay here for 3 nights but I think we’ll probably extend that for a couple more days before we head to Vienna.

Things we’ve learned:

- Milan is gross
- You can get into the beer tents at Oktoberfest for free as long as you go during the week
- Germany and Austria sell a lot of bottled water that is the fizzy, bubbly kind we don't like
- The food in Germany is very good! We had one of our best meals yet in Munich.
-The Alps are as beautiful and you would imagine.

Ciao Milano!

2009-09-26T16:49:00.041-04:00

We made it to Milan on Friday afternoon. Sunny and about 70 degrees! As soon as we landed at the airport Scott realized he needed a cool fidore and gold rimmed sunglasses at all times to feel Italian. We found our hostel and then went out to see the city. A place we had read about was Il Duomo, the oldest gothic cathedral in Milan, so we set out to find it. On the way we walked through a park called Giardini Indro Montanelli, saw La Scala (supposed to be the most famous opera house in the world), and walked through the high-end shopping area called Quadrilatero D'oro since Milan is best known for its fashion. We finally made it to this amazing cathedral (see pic) and forgot that you had to wear long pants so we could not go inside (we did go back on Saturday waering long pants and it was quite beautiful - see other pic).

After all that we were heading out to another neighborhood but when we walked past a mob of people at a Dolce and Gabbana store we decided to stop. There were security personnel lined up around the store directing people to keep walking by and they would not allow people in the store. We decided to stand across from the store on the sidewalk and wait for whatever it was that was supposed to happen. Brooke wanted to leave, but Scott could not possibly miss an opportunity to see a model! Haha. After seeing 2 weirdos try to run into the store (see pic) and a mob of animal protesters show up, the music started which let us know something was about to happen. To George Michael's 'Freedom' we watched a stream of limos and fancy cars pull up. I could not believe it when Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Eva Herzigova all stepped out and also male models Noah Mills and Tyson. Actually, we could not really tell which models they were so we looked it up online today. Anyway, after pictures were taken of the models they opened the doors for spectators to enter the store so we joined. Everyone was running around the store trying to find a place to stand where they could view the models ... it was quite entertaining for us to watch. On Saturday we explored more of the neighborhoods and sites. Tomorrow we are leaving early on a train for Munich ... we're very excited about Oktoberfest! Should be a blast. Ciao for now!

Weirdos trying to get in the store got dragged out by security.

Naomi, Claudia, and Eva getting out of the limo (not a great picture of the backs of their heads, but its them!)

Farewell to the Emerald Isle...Hola Espana!!!

2009-09-23T16:47:00.002-04:00

We're back! Scott and I didn't intend to go over a week without an update, but sometimes internet access in the hostels and hotels we've been staying at just hasn't worked out. We are now in Spain, actually off the coast on an island called Ibiza. We left Ireland on Friday (9/18) after going from Dingle to Galway and back to Dublin to fly to Barcelona. On our way to Galway, we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher, which is one of the biggest tourist attactions in Ireland. Once again, very beautiful views! I would now like to introduce a special guest we have along with us, Flat Stanley. (See picture of Flat Stanley at the Cliffs of Moher). My niece, Lily, asked if we would take along Flat Stanley as part of her school project - very nice coloring job by the way! Flat Stanley really enjoyed his time spent at the cliffs. The day before we left Ireland, we went north and drove through the Connemara Mountains. In the evening we caught a futbol game at the King's Head pub...don't worry, Flat Stanley didn't have any beer! We very much enjoyed Ireland and were fortunate to only have 2 days of rain/clouds, every other day was sunny and beautiful.

We arrived in Barcelona around 11:30 pm and found our way to our hostel...not exactly easy but we managed. Wow! This city is alive! Scott has already been here before and wanted to show me just how awesome it is. We walked through the streets on our way to the hostel and came across concerts in the park, street performers, more concerts, and heard people speaking in all different languages. It took us an hour to find the hostel, but the walk around town was well worth it. After we dropped off our bags, we wanted to grab a bite to eat (tapas) and see more of the city since we were only going to be here for 2 days. We found ourselves in a restaurant owned by a Peruvian man, Omar, and sat and chatted with him and the other workers one who was also Peruvian and another Colombian. There was another patron, Jose, who lives in Los Angeles and he helped translate for us. What a time we had sharing stories and they even fixed us Sushi rolls and dessert all on the house! By the end of our time there, Omar had declared to us that mi casa es su casa! On Saturday we went out to explore the city more and see some sites. Scott wanted to show me a church that he had previously visited called the Cathedral de la Sacrada Familia. This church is huge and one of the biggest tourist attractions in Barcelona. What is also unique about this church is that construction was started in 1882 and the church is still being worked on. It is expected to be completed in 2025!

We walked around Barcelona for most of the day. One thing we're really impressed with is all the great architecture and how ornate all the buildings are. We walked through parks and little neighborhoods having festivals and concerts. We even found a friend for Julie and Jeremy's English Bulldog, Gus! (see picture below)

We left Barcelona on Sunday and arrived in Ibiza on Monday. We are staying in a town called Es Canar. We arrived hoping for some time lounging in the sun on the beach, but unfortunately it has rained since we got here. :( We are here until Friday, so we are crossing our fingers that tomorrow will be sunny. The good thing is that the rain has allowed us to plan out some more of our trip. We think the next few weeks will look something like this, though it is very subject to change:

- Leave Ibiza on Friday (9/25) and fly to Milan

- Milan 9/25 - 9/27 (just in time for the kick-off of fashion week, yay)

- Munich 9/27 - 9/30 (Oktoberfest)

- Salzburg 9/30 - 10/4

- Budapest 10/4 - 10/7

- Prague 10/7 - 10/11

Things we've learned:

- So far, at the restaurants we've eaten at have served salad with all the meals as a side

- Most public bathrooms don't have paper towels for drying your hands, only hand dryers

- Planning out our travel too far in advance is not worth it so now we're going to try and be more flexible

- There are a lot more 'old people' in Ibiza than expected (its known to be a party island)

- Skype is a wonderful way to communicate with people back home (set up an account and we'll call!)

American Wedding Crashers in Ireland!

2009-09-14T19:03:00.004-04:00

Amazing scenery! That's the best way to describe the past 3 days. Scott and I will try to summarize as best we can without every little detail. Saturday morning we drove from Waterford to our next destination, Cork, and had lunch in a park in the middle of the city. Outside of Cork is Blarney so we went to the Blarney Castle and yes, we kissed the Blarney Stone! It is supposed to mean we have eloquence now but we don't really like that. Instead we prefer to have good luck, so in our minds we now have good luck! The area surrounding the castle was absolutely beautiful and walking around was very tranquil.

That evening we went to dinner and when we came back to our hotel bar, we started talking to 2 Irish guys. We found out that one of the guys, Jason, has a brother that lives in Quincy, MA (outside of Boston) so we instantaneously became friends! Jason also happened to be at the hotel because his cousin had gotten married that day and he was there for the reception. This is when we became American wedding crashers in Ireland! Indeed we went to the reception, dressed in our finest North Face clothing nonetheless! We met our new friend Jason's parents, had some Guinness, and came very close to getting out on the dance but realized how blatantly out of place we looked, so we didn't. Before too long, Jason wondered off and Scott and I were sitting by ourselves. Scott felt compelled to tell a stranger why we were there. I started thinking this was all a big scheme somehow and was convinced they were robbing our hotel room (yes, I'm paranoid about getting robbed!) We left after an hour or so and found our belongings perfectly safe in the room. One thing we did learn from all this was that Irish wedding-goers also like to 'Do the Twist' as much as we do!

On Sunday we went on a drive south to Kinsale, which is near the coast. We had lunch by the marina, walked around the little town, and visited Dresmond Castle (thanks for the rec Aunt Debbie). Then we decided to drive toward the coast. We had no idea what was there but when we arrived at an area called the Old Head of Kinsale we were shocked to find one of the most amazing golf couses that we've ever heard of, let alone seen. Surrounding this golf couse were 300 ft. shear cliffs on every side as well as the narrow strip leading up to the course which jutted out into the Atlantic. Brooke was amazed at how green it was!

Today we headed towards our next town, Dingle, on the Dingle Peninsula. On the way, we stopped in Killarney for lunch and then went to Killarney National Park. We hiked a small mountain and took in the great views. Now we are in Dingle, which also rests on the coast. We drove out to watch the sunset at the end of the peninsula where there are islands off the coast. Wow! I must say this area is absolutely breathtaking. I can't wait to explore more tomorrow!

Things that we've learned:

- They say that kissing the Blarney stone makes you eloquent. (We politely informed them that they are incorrect. It gives you good luck)

- Bjork is "crazier than a box of frogs"

- Kinsale is host to more ice cream cone eaters in one place than we've ever seen in our entire lives. (My oh my there were a ton of people eating ice cream cones - including Scott!)

- Restaurants close by 9:30 here (note - bars stay open much later)

- Irish wedding receptions include all the same boogying music as ours do.

Sidenote: As we've been writing this thing it has come to our attention that beautiful, breathtaking and like adjectives are almost too easy to use. So easy that it almost takes away from how amazing some of the beautiful and breathtaking things are. So if you're reading this you'll just have to keep this in mind.

Sunset off the coast of the Dingle Peninsula

Dublin to Waterford

2009-09-11T17:04:00.001-04:00

Brooke and I arrived in Dublin at 7am on Thursday. We picked up our rental car and drove into the city to the Temple Bar neighborhood where our hostel was. This all took about 4 1/2 hours! We probably could have walked from the airport faster than driving. This merited a beer...or 12. Naturally, Guinness was our beer of choice. They were so happy to see us that they gave them to us for free. Next, we grabbed lunch and headed over to the Guinness brewery. The top of the brewery overlooked Dublin so we got to see great views of the city. In the evening we went to the bar that was connected to our hostel to listen to traditional irish music. It was fantastic!

Today we headed south from Dublin to Kilkenny. We stopped to see the Kilkenny Castle and walk around the town. I think Brooke commented on how beautiful and green Ireland is at least 15 times. Now we are in Waterford for the night. Our agenda for the rest of our time in Dublin is as follows:

9/12-9/14 - Cork/Kinsale

9/14-9/16 - Killarney/Kerry/Dingle

9/16-9/18- Galway

9/18 - Back to Dublin and fly to Barcelona

Things we've learned so far:

- Guinness is 250 years old

- Driving on the opposite side of the road isn't as difficult as I thought it would be

- Ireland is very green

- The lease on the Guinness brewery only costs 45 pounds and it is good for the next 8,750 years

- Irish folks like Elvis and Johnny Cash

Brooke would like to send out birthday wishes to her niece, Ivy, who turned 7 years old today. (Kool Aid Man sends birthday wishes, too.)

How It All Began...

2009-09-09T16:37:00.000-04:00

Welcome to our travel blog! It's been a long time coming, but its finally here...yes, we're finally leaving the good ole USA today!!! It's kinda crazy to think back to how this whole traveling around the world thing started. Scott thought that he was going to be laid off from his job and with the finance market being so grim decided that traveling for a while would be the better option. Somehow he got me on board with this lavish idea, so I quit my job and we started planning our trip. We were supposed to leave 2 months ago but life dealt us some tough losses. My father passed away at the beginning of August after battling lung cancer. I was so fortunate to have been able to spend his last few weeks with him and to have been there with my family. I know he's in a better place now which has helped comfort me during this difficult time. We started planning our trip again shortly after and were set to leave on August 30th. Then we received the news that Scott's brother, Ryan, died tragically while vacationing in Hawaii. Obviously, this loss is devastating for the Strawn family. The services were held 2 weeks ago to celebrate Ryan's life. It was amazing to see how many lives he touched. Ryan was very excited for our trip and would have wanted us to continue on our journey abroad. So that's we're doing. We are begining our travele in Europe as the starting point for our trip around the world. We plan to return to the US in mid-November for the holidays and will stay until sometime in January. Our next continent will then be South America, then Australia and New Zealand, Asia, and Africa. Our journey should end by June/July...or whenever the money runs out! Let us know if you would like to join us along the way. Company is welcome!

Right now we are sitting at Logan International Airport waiting for our flight to Dublin. Will post again once we arrive in Ireland. Wooohooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!