I'm back!

This is a really quick one.....but it's so good to be home!

I can't wait to see everyone and catch up on any/all news I've missed in the last 7 weeks. I do have heaps more photos to add, and I promise I will write about the tour through Germany/Austria etc, but I need a few days to reconnect with the world, and to figure out just what photo goes with what story....

Looking forward to much catching up!

Gruß Gott!

Hello from Salzburg!
Man it's hard to type when the keys aren't in their usual places....add to that the fact that all the titles and links are in German, and it's just trouble!
Well, this may be my last entry until I get home, coz I don't know when I'll have internet access...but I promise once I do I will put up all the other pictures from my travels.
Since I last wrote I haven't done much. Boring, I know. I did meet up with Tammy Davidson for dinner though, which was very exciting for me. She seems to be enjoying life in Basingstoke, but was horrified when I told her that she had developed an English accent on top of her already muddled South African/Australian!
Today I arrived in Salzburg, where I will be for the next 2 days. It's been a really long day for me....I got up at 6.30am (yes, that's right, the night owl in me had to be stifled!) to go to Heathrow, then flew to Munich, and then spent the next 3.5 hours either on a train or a train platform to get here at 4.30pm! I must be mad.
I have to say though, it's a beautiful city, and I look forward to exploring it in the daylight tomorrow.
After Salzburg I'm off to Munich (hooray!) where I have a night to myself before joining my coach tour. Should be good...but I have this weird feeling that it's going to be me and 40 grandparents, which will make the trip to the Hofbrauhaus very interesting! The tour goes for 8 days, and goes round all the Christmas markets in Munich, Nuremburg, Strasbourg, Heidleberg, and a bunch of other smaller places that I can't remember.
Ah! Running out of credit so I must dash! I'll try my best to keep updating!

Now I'm just getting lazy...

I really should be taking advantage of the fact that at the moment I have free internet access, but I just can't be bothered to blog!

So, let me try and remember what I've done in the past week. There will be no photos this time, because I can't find the cable for the camera...(no, Kate, I haven't lost it, it's just hidden in my suitcase somewhere)

I went back and forth to London a few times, didn't get up to much though - you know those days where you intend to shop, but when you actually get to the stores you don't have the energy to look at anything? - well, I've had a few of those.
Thursday night was the lighting of the Oxford Street Christmas lights, and I met up with Alex Dalziell and her crew of Knox boys (they are inescapable I tell you!). We went to back to my funky Turkish restaurant, and because they had no tables free inside, they offered us free shots to keep us warm if we sat outside! Great plan, but it did end up tasting like a cross between cough syrup, Ribena and vodka. We spent the evening reminiscing about Roseville (and Knox) and figuring out friends that I had in common with the boys. The funny part was that they had no idea who Belly was, but they all know AP....I swear, his reputation in spreading worldwide!
On Saturday I went into Leicester Square and got a cheap ticket to see the Blue Man Group, which was amazing! If they come to Sydney I am going to drag a whole bunch of you there, because it was easily one of the best shows I've seen on this trip. I also saw the new Richard Curtis film 'Sixty Six', which was good, but quite different from his other films...a bit too depressing at parts, but worth a go.

Let me see, what next, oh yes, on Sunday I met up with Emily, a school friend from over here, and we wandered around Kings Cross for a while.
Yesterday I went up to Cambridge to have lunch with Rani, which was awesome. She seems to be loving it up there (well, who wouldn't) and has even picked up a very slight pommie accent. We had the world's largest pub lunches, in what turned out to be that DNA was discovered in (well, I'm not sure that 'discovered' is the right word, but you get the idea). According to my sources it was all taken down on the back of a cigarette packet......

Today I went back into London to actually buy Kate's Christmas present (how organised am I). It was the first real rainy day I've had since being here, which is quite impressive really.

I'm sure something else exciting happened, but I'll need to go through the photos to remember.

Hello, I'm back!

It's officially been a over a week since my last blog...I'm now in Knebworth (Robbie Williams fans should know where that is).
For those of you who aren't Robbie Wiiliams fans, it's about 30mins train ride out of London, and about the same from Cambridge. I'm staying with my godparents, using there place as a base from which I can visit everyone else!

So, since last time....hmm, not a lot happened. Well, plenty happened, but compared to the pace we were going in NYC it's been pretty slow!

OK, so last Wednesday we drove up to Glasgow, stopping to have lunch with my Dad's older brother on the way. We spent the next day wandering around Glasgow, not doing a lot...dropped in to see my Gran and her twin sister that evening to say Happy Birthday! Friday we went on a bit of a road trip, we drove over to see our old house and village (not much has changed in 15 years!), then we drove over to the other side of Glasgow to visit Aberfoyle, which is where my Dad lived when he was a teenager. We passed by Stirling on the way and saw the castle and the Wallace Monument....was a good day, if not very nostalgic!

Saturday was the party.....crazy times. So weird to see cousins that I haven't seen in up to 7 years! It was a great night though, amazing to see two 80 year olds party through till midnight (they seriously didn't stop once....we practically had to hold them down for photos!)

Sunday was time to see some of Dad's side, so we had a big roast lunch with some of his cousins and second cousins in Ardrossan, which is a little coastal town on the West of Scotland.

Monday - another 6.5 hour drive back to London, and then Kate and I went out for dinner with one of our friends while Mum and Dad went out with her dad and stepmum. It was seriously the biggest meal I've had this whole trip! We found this awesome little Turkish restaurant behind Selfridges and stuffed ourselves with lamb, bread and all the trimmings for like 90 minutes - then we got a cab to Leicester Square and proceeded to have massive crepes at the Haagen Daaz bar! Needless to say we had to unbutton our jeans when we got home!

Last night Mum, Dad and Kate flew home, so I decided to go to the movies rather than sit in the hotel all night (I know, sad isn't it?). I walked over to Piccadilly, found a cinema (not that it's hard) and decided that I'd give 'Marie Antoinette' a go. To start off with, the ticket cost £12.50. Yes that's right, that's about $32! Then, I thought I'd go buy some popcorn and a drink. These I thought were in comparison quite well priced, £6.30 for both. However, when said items were handed to me, I realised that they were probably better value than I'd though. The popcorn was average sized, only slightly bigger than a regular at Greater Union. But the drink was huge. There was easily 1.25, possibly even 1.5L of Coke in there. The cup was almost the same size as the popcorn!

For the record, I don't recommend the movie much....I don't know why I keep telling myself that I like Sofia Coppola's films! It dragged on a bit, but the overall idea wasn't bad.....and Jason Schwarzman was good. (Plus, any film featuring Steve Coogan is worth a look!)

Anyway, it's now Thursday (very early morning/late night!) and I have a million people still to see!
Oh and I know there aren't a lot of photos in this post, but I have added them all in my Flickr!

Photos galore!

Ok, so I lied, there are no photos today, because Kate has run off with the camera, but expect a double dose next time!

Right, now where were we? Ah yes, still in NYC. Well, the last day/days consisted of yet more shopping, a trip up the Empre State Building (which Kate lost a fight with - you should see the bruise!), and guess what.....another show! Actually, it was two shows.

I'll let you read about the 'Tarzan' dramas from Kate's blog, needless to say she was not happy! In the evening we saw 'The Wedding Singer' which is pretty close to the movie as far as remakes go....the two Adam Sandler songs are included, which is what you want, and only a few minor plot changes (eg. Robbie lives in his Grandma's basement, not his brother's, and they don't quite meet Billy Idol on a plane....but I won't ruin the rest) All in all it was good - Mum spent most of the time crying with laughter, and Dad slept.....

The highlight though was not the musicals that day, but the restaurant that Kate and I had dinner in. 'Ellen's Stardust Diner' is your typical 50's themed restaurant - rock'n'roll decor, neon lights, jukebox etc - but with a twist....every waiter/waitress sings. My guess is that they're all waiting for their big break on Broadway, but in the meantime, they get to sing and serve food at the same time! It's very loud, so hard to hold a conversation, but good food, great atmosphere, and lots of nostalgia!

The next morning (after being up late packing) Kate and I headed over to Central Park Zoo. It was pretty cool, but expensive considering there are only about a dozen exhibits. We had picked the best time to go though, all the animals were out waiting to be fed. We even got to watch a Snow Monkey fall out of a pumpkin! (I'll explain later...) The downside was that there were about 10 different school groups, so we had to contend with teachers (almost forcibly) removing us from our prime viewing positions. Then we walked back through the park, stopping to buy pretzels on the way....I know, how touristy are we?

One phenomenon that I've never really seen as much of outside of New York is dog-walkers. These people are paid to take numerous dogs for a walk at the same time. I saw one guy with 7! And a variety of sizes too - ranging from a little Highland terrier to a Boxer. You could not pay me enough to get myself tangled in all those leashes!

Anyway, that was New York.

Now we're in London, and we've spent a lot less time together as a family. We all know the city pretty well, so we've been splitting up most days and meeting up in the evening for a meal and a show (we're unstoppable).

It's Tuesday now, and so far since we arrived we've seen 'We Will Rock You' (just as funny the second time), 'Evita' (finally something Mum and I know better than Kate!) and 'Wicked' (second time in as many weeks!).
They were all awesome, but there were a few cast bonuses...sorry if these mean nothing to you...
For those of you who know and love 'Les Mis': Juan Peron in 'Evita' was played by the one and only Philip Quast (Javert in Sydney, London, and the 10th Anniversary concert)
In 'Wicked' there were a few: Miriam Margoyles (the nurse from 'Romeo & Juliet') played a teacher; the role of Glinda the Good was played by Helen Dallimore (remember the chick in the Moccona ad? "Shropshire? How wonderful!"); Elpheba was of course played by Idina Menzel (the original Maureen in the stage and screen versions of 'Rent'); and Fiyero was played by Adam Garcia (Drew Barrymore's son in 'Riding in Cars with Boys', the love interest in 'Coyote Ugly')
The exciting part for me was getting a hug and photo with Adam outside the theatre (good old Aussie stopped for photos when none of the others did!)

Other than shows, we have done some shopping, not nearly to the volume of what we did in New York, although we did buy more luggage....but this time we had a reason, one of our other bags broke on the way to JFK airport. We did spend Sunday visiting people though. On Sunday evening we went to my godparents' house and caught up with them and some family friends. Some of you might of heard me talk about baby Isabella (Mum's goddaughter's daughter). For those who don't know, she was born 16 weeks early, and has been consistently in and out of hospital since. She celebrated her 2nd birthday in August, and while she's still a little small for her age, and her body's development hasn't quite caught up with her mind (to her great frustration) she is an amazing little girl. I'll post some photos of her soon, but they won't do her justice....for such an innocent little thing, she has the world's dirtiest laugh....

We have one more show tonight ('Spamalot' - the musical version of Monty Python's Holy Grail - starring Tim Curry as Arthur!) and then tomorrow we drive up to Glasgow, where we'll be until Monday I think. Not sure if I'll want to post photos from the party on Saturday, but we'll see.....I'm sure some of you would love to see what happens when you shut a large number of Glaswegians in a room with booze!

Something I never knew...

Sorry, forgot to post this earlier.....

Apparently (that is, according to J-Boy)...

Elmo loves Jesus too!

Autumn in New York

So.....since my last entry my entire family has done some serious shopping! Monday is a no show day on Broadway, so instead of killing time till the show, we hit Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, the Gap, Bloomingdales, plus a few boutiques on the way! We all did pretty well too...I got a jacket that is warm enough for the Northern Hemisphere (always a good thing), we got some new luggage (I know, crazy right?), and I found the world's best bargain! Seriously, I challenge anyone to beat this one - I bought a pair of pants in Bloomingdales for $10.....marked down from $253!! That's like 95% off!!! I rule!

But moving away from my delusions of grandeur...

Today we again went shopping...this time to Macy's, the largest department store in the world. Which is no joke, it covers an entire city block, and is about 10 storeys high! After an hour or two I left my family though to race downtown for some time with the J-man! After my first Starbucks since we arrived (trust me, that's showing a lot of restraint when there's one on every corner!) we took the subway across to Katz's Deli - made famous by a certain 'orgasmic' scene from 'When Harry Met Sally'.

It's a complete dive, nothing to look at, but apparently has good food (and good prices), and the celebrities sure love it. The walls are plastered with photos of various actors, sportsmen, politicians and the like. The interesting thing though was the system at the door: as you walk in you are handed a ticket. This ticket is punched at various places depending on what you order, and then you take the tcket to the cashier on your way out. Great system, which I think should be instigated into some places in Sydney, it'd save a lot of time and bother waiting for the waitstaff to bring the check. The catch is however, if you lose your ticket, they charge you $50! That's a lot from a place where you can buy 1lb of sliced meat for $22....

Anyway...after that we walked over to Justin and Laurel's apartment, where I got to hang out with Laurel and the munchkins, which was an experience in itself....possibly the cutest duo on the island! A true sign of good parenting - when a child is asked what are the two things he must do in life and he responds "Love Jesus and take care of my sister"!
I tagged along to the playground, in an attempt to wear out the Boy for the evening.


Kids just don't look this cute in an Australian autumn/winter....

After leaving the Moffatts to head off to dinner/bath/bedtime, I headed back uptown to quickly change before going out to Broadway for yet another show....this time 'The Drowsy Chaperone'. Now, none of knew anything about this one, except that it had won a lot of Tony's, and that one of Kate's favourite actresses was in it...so we were a bit dubious. But it was fantastic! It actually managed not to alienate any of the audience members, all whilst being highly stereotypical in regards to gender and race, and paid out musical theatre at the same time! Quite an achievement...but literally had everyone in hysterics. I had to tell Kate to restrain herself at one stage! (Those of you who have ever watched a funny movie or sitcom with her will be familiar with the exceedingly loud cackle that is propelled out of her at times...)

She has now gone out with one of her old RADA buddies, and I have the whole hotel room to myself - which isn't as exciting as it sounds....I have to do laundry in the bathtub.....

Only a day and a half left in NYC! And so much still to do! If anyone wants postcards tell me now (or make do with European ones!)

Let the fun begin!

So, there are many ways I could do this, but rather than random selections of information, I shall attempt a chronology of events and sights.....hmm, jet lag makes me articulate apparently.

Ok, well, all I remember about Wednesday was being in airports....and a very amusing 5-point summary of the musical 'Cats'.
For those of you who don't know the storyline of 'Cats', I apologise, you won't get the full humour.
This was overheard by an aquaintance of Kate's whilst standing in a ticket queue. One woman was describing the show to her friend. Imagine all this being said by a typical Queens woman (you know, big hair, animal prints, big accent - kind of like Sylvia in 'The Nanny').

"So there's these cats, and they're throwing a party. And there's this real sick cat, and they put her in a giant tyre, and they blow her through the roof!"
*phonetically:
"So dere's dese cats, and dey're trowin' a pawrty. An' dere's dis real sick cat, an' dey pu'dda in a giyant tyar, an' dey blow 'er troo da roof!"




Moving on! Thursday was a big day.....started off here: Ground Zero


It's kind of eerie to stand at the fence and look at this massive whole in the ground that when I was here last held two huge towers. In fact, the last time I was here I had my picture taken on top of one! Scary.



From there we walked around up by Wall St, did some shopping - man, Kate can spend money fast! - then kept walking up Broadway to Union Square to see the Flatiron Building:

At Union Square we switched onto the mighty Fifth Avenue and started the walk back to our hotel. I hadn't told Kate, but at that particular point, we were 62 blocks away. I know, I'm evil.....but walking is good exercise!

After chilling in the hotel for a little while (and having a mini fashion show of what we bought), we headed back to Broadway for our first of many shows this trip - 'Avenue Q' - advertised by many as Sesame Street for adults.
Well, they weren't wrong, but more accurately I would say that it's Sesame Street on crack and locked in a brothel!
Song titles were such as "It Sucks to be Me", "What Do You Do With a BA in English", "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist", and my personal favourite "The Internet is for Porn".
It sounds dodgy I know, but it was actually really good - although if I never see two naked puppets 'procreating' onstage, it will be too soon!
Although, there were two characters that I swear are in my life - the Bad Idea Bears:



They basically pop up and give the main characters, well, bad ideas. I swear, they are real and they haunt me!



On to Friday!
After almost breaking my thumb before we even left the hotel, we went on a tour of various Movie and TV locations across Manhattan (I know - was this tour made for Kate and I or what?!)
Let me list a few of the things we saw:
*The real Soup Nazi's soup kitchen
*Lois Lane's apartment from the first movie
*Chandler Bing's office building
*A whole bunch of places from 'Taxi Driver'
*The Chelsea Hotel (where Sid killed Nancy - also home to many celebrities in the 70s)
*The real Coyote Ugly bar - which is actually called Hogs & Heifers
*The Huxtable's Townhouse (from "the Cosby Show")(see photo)

*Monica Geller's Apartment Building
*The restaurant door on which Adam Sandler and kid pee in 'Big Daddy'
*The Ghostbuster's Station
*The Moondance Diner (where MJ works in 'Spiderman', and Monica in 'Friends')
*Grace Adler's design studio building
*The bar from 'Sleepers'
*Serpico's house
*Plus several celebrity homes (Bruce Willis, Al Pacino, James Gandolfini, Sarah Jessica Parker, Janet Jackson.....)
We also got to eat lots of goodies - Black and White cookies, lots of free lollipops for answering trivia questions, and Rocky Road flavour rice pudding at the Rice to Riches store!

After all that excitement we went back to hotel and slept until we had to go out to Braodway again to see 'Rent'. And I have to say, I was hyped up to see that in it's hometown, but I was sadly disappointed - in all truth the Sydney show was better! Oh well, it's still a Broadway show!

On Saturday morning, Kate realised that she had made a scheduling error, and that the one thing she HAD to see while we were in town was only on a 10am on Saturdays. So we raced, and I mean raced, to the Subway, and then ran 3 blocks to make it to 'Behind the Emerald Curtain' which is a behind the scenes tour for the musical 'Wicked'. I have to admit it was really good, but she owes me big for making me run across town on a brisk New York morning - and with no Ventolin!
We then went to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, where I confused about 5 waitstaff by ordering a Bud with my meal. I have never felt so young! I swear the girl who checked my ID thought it was a fake.

That reminds me.....I know Kate and I look alike, but in one day we had 4 strangers ask if we were twins, and 2 of them were just randoms on the street calling out to us - one of which told us it was really sexy! How can we be twins?!?! She is 4.5 years younger than me!!!!

Back to the Hard Rock though....got to see some very cool artifacts - a Cheap Trick bass drum skin, guitars from Malcolm Young and Tony Iommi, and handwritten lyrics from Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison - I was in paradise!!!! Plus, a wall of Gibson guitars!













This morning (Sunday) we headed downtown to Christ Church NYC, which was awesome, because not only did we get to see Justin, Laurel and the kids, but we got to hear from John Mason. It seems to be a great little community, and we met some awesome people. Hopefully we'll be spending some more one-on-one time with the Moffatts on Tuesday though.

We saw 'Wicked' this afternoon with Mum and Dad (who arrived ladt night) and it definitely lived up to the hype - it was amazing!! Ana Gasteyer (of Saturday Night LIve fame) was playing the lead - which she only started this weekend - and she was unreal!! Quite a difference to her singing skits with Will Ferrell! Got an autographed photo which was pretty exciting...and also got a proper Emerald City monkey! (Although for those of you who understand, he doesn't have wings, but I'm sure I can make some!)

Now we're chilling out in the hotel again......


We have many more exciting things lined up for the next few days, and I will try to spread out the entries a little.....this one was a mammoth!!!!