Lions, Tigers and Bears - in Melbourne!

Hi!

Well. Sunday evening. It's been absolutely perfect weather lately. The sun was bright and shining all day, the birds were happy and chatty, in fact the weather was so nice that the lorikeets came back and had a good catch-up with each other. They crack me up how excited they get about, well, whatever lorikeets get excited about. Now the sun has set, the groovy jazz tunes radio show is going, got the cool glass of standby white wine...life is good! Missed last week because I was visiting "family" in Melbourne, so photos to come......! Onwards!

So work. Yep. Is good. I actually had one little important thing to edit (only worth $1.5 million, so small change according to the guys in the know). That was pretty exciting to have something real to do that took up a good part of the day. Man I miss having editing to do, like what I did at Qld Health, man I was always busy there...... I caught up informally with my Boss the other day and he knows I don't have much on and that it's ok, it's just the way it is and if I can think of stuff to do by all means do it - stuff like updating style guides...... Hmmmmmm. So at least I'm not in trouble or that they're going to let me go - he said they need an editor and just because there's not a lot happening right now doesn't mean they can let me go. So that's good! I hope!

And then there was the weekend. Last weekend that is. So headed to Melbourne very first thing Friday morning. Went down to visit Jeff and Emily and his new wife Tami. It was a fantastic visit, as always. Let's see, Friday what did we do.... I helped Jeff fill out some of his tax I.D. paperwork (because he works at Monash University now) and then he and Tami went off to the University to hand it all in while Emily and I walked around town. We managed to stumble across Hoosier Lane - a famous lane-way (alleyway) because of all the really good/artistic graffiti - it's been written up in travel guides and magazines. It's really pretty cool and there's so much of it that you really do have to stand in one spot and just look. In fact, when we showed up there was a big group of Japanese tourists being led around. Cute. So while I got tons of photos it's hard to show what it's really like. It's pretty impressive. And then that evening we went to dinner at Scusami, the same place we'd had dinner one evening last visit. It was really good then, this time it was good, but eh, ok. Not sure if we'll hit that one again because really, it's Melbourne and there're sooooo many good places to eat that to eat at the same one almost seems like a crime!

Saturday we all headed out to the hip and way groovy suburb of Fitzroy where they have a really cool artists market called Rose Street Artists Markets, it was reeeeeeallly cool! Very hip n' groovy. I kept a few artists in top ramen for a couple of days that's for sure. And then Jeff and Tami went off to explore suburbs worth buying a house in while Emily and I wandered aimlessly around Fitzroy and then headed into the city (we're getting pretty good at the public transport system now!). But I have to say that is one hip suburb. It's dirty and run down, but a way cool place to visit and shop for cool, funky stuff. I'll definitely head back. And then that evening we went to see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the Melbourne Museum, which was really big and seemed really interesting but we had booked tickets for a specific time and could only do that. So next time am down there will check out the rest of the museum like a normal person. The King Tut exhibit, while totally awesome, was really regimented and organized, they lined us up like cattle and left us standing for ages before we were allowed in in groups (crowd control I guess). And under no circumstance were you allowed to take pictures - you shoulda seen the size of some of those roving security dudes! Far be it for me to toe rules when they had multiple Hulks guarding their goods. So I had to settle for the book (sponsored by National Geographic, so of course it's good), the CD of the music they played while you looked at everything and an alabaster cat statue. I guess I went a little crazy but now I can die without ever having to buy another King Tut thing ever again.

And Sunday we just ran a lot of errands around town. So now we're pretty savvy with the main part of the downtown area. I dropped my ailing ear-bud headphones into the Bose shop for repair (turns out they don't bother repairing them, they just charge you $78.50 for a brand-new pair - which is sweeeeeeeeeet because they retail around $150!). Oh yeah, and we hit the Queen Victoria Market. It's HUGE. In a HUGE set of warehouses with some of it spilling to stalls outside. It was a little like an indoor swap meet, only this was filled with basically cheap crap from China. The same sort of market stuff you'd find in any city on the planet. Well, most cities. At least in Western cities...... Ehhhh, while it had a really good fruit and veggie market (almost 50% of the whole of the market, according to the website), the rest of it I could probably live without seeing again. Y'know, it's good for stuff like cheap cheese graters, wooden lighthouses, cheap leather jackets, hats, scarves, toys, that kinda thing. Ehhhh. We liked the Rose St. Market much better. Now, if we were in the need for fresh produce, definitely hit the Queen Vic Market. Otherwise....... And then that evening we ate a fanceeee pants steakhouse called Rockpool (inside the Crown Casino on the fancy pants end, with all the fancy pants shops and restaurants. Far from the gambling peasants). It was niiiice. But the food took ages and ages to come. But when it finally came, oh la la, the steaks were SO good. And we wanted to order a bottle of wine to go with dinner but there was absolutely nothing on the wine list under $100. They were charging $250 for a bottle of wine that we knew for a fact sold for $30 in the real world. I don't know who designed and priced their wine list, but it was clearly someone with no concept of reality. Aliens maybe. Aliens that like steak. And wine. And big framed pictures of cows. Everywhere. Lucky the steaks were so good........

And then Monday we went to Melbourne Zoo! It was really good! It's never fair for us to compare any zoo to the San Diego Zoo, so you have to remember to take it on its own. And it was pretty good. Big, with not as much as the size warrants, but what they had was fine. Lions and tigers and even a bear! They even had a really neat butterfly house (nice and warm). Even got to see the lions being fed (bits of meat, can't say if it was bits of Christians - harhrhar), which while neat, was a little unnerving to hear the crunchcrunchcrunch of bones. So it was a pretty full 3 or so hours. And then it was off to the airport to get me on a plane back to Brissy!

Whew! It was a fun and busy trip. And always sooooo happy to catch up with Emily and Jeff and now Tami. We always cram a lot into a few days even if we have no real plan to begin with. We just have such a good time and a good laugh. I'll be happy when they're here for longer stretches at a time. Be nice to have "family" so close!

And that brings us to this weekend. Quiet. Dull. Chores. Went out to dinner with Kim at Kookaburra Cafe (I can't tell you how much I love that place), dinner of which was awesome, as always. Otherwise it was the usual quiet weekend as I lay low to let the bank account recover until the next Adventure. And the next one is the plane ride out to Lake Eyre and back on the 10th of July. That'll be so cooooool. I need to read up on it a bit more before we go, just so I know what all I'm looking at!

And so there you have it! All's well down here. Happy that we've passed the winter solstice mark and that the days will start getting longer again. Am sick of waking up in the dark and only being home from work for about half an hour before it's dark. But hey, I know, it could well be worse - it could be NYC in the wintertime! Gahhhh! Otherwise, all's well here, the weather seems to have stabilized so it's a perfect time to come for a visit...... hinthinthint......... Qantas has tickets to Brisbane on sale.... am just sayin'...... So I hope you're all well up there! Drop a line and tell me what's happening all the way up there!

BYE!
J!

Fighting Land Sharks with Chores

Hi!

Well. Here we are at last. Am late, yes, and even later because it's Monday evening here, so yeah, like, late. But am here now. The afternoon/early evening is beautiful after a cold and damp and dreary weekend. Magically the weather cleared and warmed up to be a perfect day - typical for a Monday - the weather is crap all weekend and then turning warm and perfect first thing Monday. Well, what the weather wasn't told about today was that it wasn't a work day, it was a holiday here in Queensland, if not all of Australia - Hooray for the Queen having a Birthday! Hooray for Commonwealth countries for celebrating it, thus giving us commoners a day off from work - wooooot! So yes, the day has been perfect, the birds are out there minus the thousands of lorikeets (I only hear a few), there're lots of crows squawking away... Got no cool jazz tunes but do have hip n' groovy tunes from the community radio station 4ZZZ, got the cool glass of standby white wine, so yes, life is definitely good!

So work. Yep. Is good. Is so quiet. I've now been with them 7 months and I have yet to be really busy like I was at Fire or at Health... I know a gal needs to be careful about what she wishes for tho...... Otherwise it's good. Am always and forever eternally grateful to have work, I just wish I had more of it! And before you suggest I hit up other people and departments for extra work, yep, have done that. And the 2 or 3 Editors before me were quite good at creating busy-work for themselves, yet none of it ever resulted in anything constructive, it was all stuff to fill a day. And if that's what I'm up against, I'd rather not re-invent the wheel, I'll just be content with the crumbs I get, surf the 'net and wait for real work to fill my day. Hmm....

And then there were the weekends. Last Saturday was good, if not challenging. I went looking at dealerships to buy a used car. I have my eye on a Rav4 so I got a loan from the bank and pounded the pavement looking for one. Well. After the third dealer it was late afternoon and I'd had enough. But seeing as I'd ended up in the 'hood where my Xmas foster family live, Paul and Margaret, I thought I'd call in. Well, we had lunch and a good long walk, taking in Newstead and Teneriffe where we stopped for tapas and interesting beers at a cool little restaurant along the main drag there in Teneriffe (unfortunately I've since forgotten the name, but it was nice and we only picked that particular place because the manager said hello to us in the most friendly way while we gazed at their sidewalk menu. Then, happily lightly fed and watered, we headed back to their place where they most kindly gave me a ride home. So what went from a challenging day of fighting with land sharks, ended just perfectly. And then Sunday, seeing as the weather was lovely and warm, I threw the chores to the wind and headed up to Kim's where we had a wander around Margate and the surrounding beach, and stopped for lunch (which was quite good as we tried a new place, who's name I've since forgotten, but we'll certainly go there again). And by the time I got home from hers, it was way late - due to train faults, delays, changing trains, waiting for buses, etc etc etc. Hence my desire for my own four wheels so I can be the master of my weekends! Again!

And then there was this nice, long weekend. Well, I didn't get up to much. Stretched the chores out over the 3 days. It sounds dull and kind of torturous, but it was actually good and productive. And today the weather was just glorious and I managed to finish off the laundry and the rest of the chores. And besides, am off to Melbourne to meet Jeff and Emily (and Jeff's new wife Tami) this coming Friday for four days so I thought it best if I didn't leave the house for fear of spending money I shouldn't. But speaking of spending money and Adventures, I've booked a day-trip from Brisbane to go with Kim to fly out to Lake Eyre. I'd explain it in much better detail but seeing as I've never been there, it's best if you have a look at the link.... All I do know is it's far away, down towards Adelaide (I think) and to drive yourself it would take days and a real 4-wheel drive, with tools. Lake Eyre is pretty neat in that usually it's a dry lake bed most of the time and only floods every 50 or so years, and the amount of water in it at the moment happens only every hundred years or so. And the benefit of that is it attracts all kinds of critters from all over. So there is a little tour company that Kim heard about that takes folks from Brisbane out there for the day to have a look, so off we go! That's booked for the 10th of July. So will keep you posted with facts as I read up on them!

And there it is. Sorry for the lags in checking in sometimes. I get to thinking that the stuff I get up to sometimes really isn't worth boring you with (seeing as I don't hear from the peanut gallery one way or another). But I will try to be better at it. Somehow.....?! Otherwise, I hope you're all well up there. I wish some of you would come down here for a visit.......! I mentioned a few check-ins ago that I won't be up there for a visit for a while as I have no vacation time this year and next year am off to England with Mommy! So that makes it the year after.... so that puts it at....... 2013 (whew, math), which is kind of good in a way (???) in that that year is our -gulp- 25 year high school reunion and Katie and I have decided we'd finally go. I think. At least I'm pretty sure..... Either way I hope to be up there for a visit around then! Fingers crossed!

Oh, and real quick before I sign off, I just want to give my friend Gloria a standing ovation as she's recently thrown in her well-paid, 9-5 job with its visions of cubicle farms filled with accountants, bought a Winnebago, set up a PO box in Tempe and is currently touring the country with her pup Bentley looking for..... well, what we all think about going to look for at one time or another..... I think that's awesome and takes real guts (although I can't help but think of the film "Lost in America" with Albert Brooks........). So hats off to you Gloria! Good luck, stay safe and hope you have many fantastic and interesting Adventures!!!!!

BYE!
J!

Sand Gate to Chore-land

Hi!

Well. Here we are, Sunday afternoon. A week late but I'm pretty sure no one noticed. The weather is kind of schizophrenic out there - lovely and sunny all day with a few clouds, then it absolutely bucketed down while the sun was shining (got the laundry in just in time). That always messes me up when it rains and it's perfectly sunny with only a few puffy happy white clouds. Now it's cool and not raining with a few puffy happy white clouds, yet there's the odd crack of thunder. Huh. Wierd. Still though, it's nice enough to enjoy a cool glass of the standby Rosemount Semillon Sav Blanc. The reliably strange show tunes radio show is going - this week it sounds like British
theatre songs (I think the DJ said Gilbert & Sullivan. Hmm.) from maybe the 50's (maybe earlier) - all chattering far too fast to understand (imagine "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" spoken/sung super fast by British theatre actors. Yeah. My head hurts too). Just waiting for the groovy cool jazz show...... And the birds are out there, tho not too many chittering lorikeets that I've heard lately, they must've moved to another patch of Gum Trees..... Having stripped all the ones near my place bare of anything I guess. Otherwise the afternoon is pretty nice - always happy when it's not stinking hot and humid! Life is good!

So work. Yep. Actually had stuff to do last week (and the week before) which was awesome because it made the days absolutely fly past (no Boeing pun intended - p.s. that's the website I've been toiling over.... sigh)! How novel having work to do! I wish it would happen more often. But that was it for this past week. I was temporarily helping another department quickly edit a massive technical manual for their customer. Whew. Technical manuals make my eyes cross. And it didn't get finished in time either. That should be ok - all the content was fine, it was just a few things to clean up. The customer should still be able to read it..... Here's hoping! Otherwise all's well. We lost our last pregnant gal to the hospital to wait out her delivery time. I think she has another 3 weeks to go. Man. 3 weeks just sitting around in a hospital and not being sick or hurt. Bummer dude. So that should make the place pretty quiet. No more pregnancy or baby talk - hooray! What a relief actually. It all sounds so uncomfortable. And to think modern Western women have it sooooooo easy compared to how they had to deal in say the 1700's or even 1800's or even earlier (cave man days - eeeessshhh)! Gah! And if you work in fields or live on a savannah?! Western women don't know how lucky they have things! So yes, all's well at work!

And then the weekends. They were fine. Last Saturday I took my friend Kim out for the day and to dinner in honor of my forgetting her birthday earlier in the month. Went to eat at Tiramisu - my favorite Italian restaurant and hopefully one of her new favorites! And this weekend was nice too - started off most excellently Friday evening with pizza and games at Jason and Clare's along with the usual suspects. Always such a really good night. I wish we could do it more often, but with them having 3 small children, I understand. And yesterday was nice (along with the weather), I took the train up to Sandgate to meet my friend Dom and his friend Josh for lunch at the Full Moon Hotel. Y'know, we go there all the time and every time the service just sucks. So I think we made the executive decision to never go there again. Primarily based on the fact that their two meals were cold and the staff were just plain cranky. So yeah. We'll have to find another spot up around that area with the same lovely view of the sea...... Which we think we might've found when we stopped in Margate at the place on the left (forgot the name tho I've been there a few times before) for a glass of wine... So far the staff were very nice and happy to take our money, which was more than we could say for the Full Moon Hotel! Hooray! And today the chores were done as I hadn't really made an effort over the last few weeks. It seemed time to bust out the bleach and mop. Always feel better when the little place smells of bleach with clean sheets and clothes! Happiness in a very dull houseldy chorey kinda way!

And so there you are. Oh, the reason why I neglected to check in last week was I just couldn't bring myself to chatter about, well, nothing. It was a week and a weekend much like most weeks so I thought I'd spare all two of you the pain of having to read about my dullness. Hey, I'm trying to save for the next Adventure - Melbourne in June for 4 days to catch up with Jeff and Emily and a new family member, Jeff's new wife, Tami. This should be fun and interesting as they'll be shopping for a new place to live when he starts working at Monash University next March. Cooool! But hopefully they'll be here over Thanksgiving.....!? And then the next Adventure on the books is Cairns for the weekend of mah birthday (note to self - must book plane tickets....). So yes, keep that in mind when I have dull weekends - am usually trying to save for an Adventure! And it's also come to that time of year again - lease renewal time for my little place. I've been looking at new places to move to but in the end, just like every 6 months, I decide that where I am is still the absolute cheapest going in this part of town and that if I stay here Kona is happy to have a yard to run around in and I can afford to have Adventures and buy stuff. So I think this time, since I've decided I'm staying, I might buy a car. Yeah. Get out so I don't have to stare at my apartment all the time. I can go on mini-Adventures! So once I sign the renewal we'll see what I do...... will keep you posted. Cool!

So there you have it. I hope you're all well up there. And like I've said before, the weather's fantastic so there's no better time to come on down and check the place out! C'mon, it'll be fun! Cos you do realize I'm not going to get up there for another couple of years, right? So if you want to catch up you'll have to haul yer butt down here! C'mon people, I've been here over five years now and I can count on one hand the folks that have come for a visit..... So get moving!

BYE!
J!

Amadeus with a Million Paws...

Hi!

Well. Here we are. Monday evening........ Sorry am late. I was reallyreally tired last night and the powers of writing anything that would've made sense or been remotely interesting was too far beyond me. But here we are - the evening is lovely and cool, the birds are feeling the chill of Autumn and aren't as chatty as they usually are. Although there is no strange show tunes radio show, I do happen to have groovy jazz tunes courtesy of my fancee pants HDTV - ABC Radio has a streaming Jazz channel that goes 24/7 - sweeeet! But I do have the lovely cool glass of white wine, tonight it's Wolf Blass Semillon Sav Blanc, eh, it's not bad, kinda sweetish..... still looking for the perfect white wine....... 'Course now that it's cooled off a bit, could be time to dust off the reds again...!

So. Work. Yep, is good. Still without a whole heck of a lot to be doing. The folks that give me bids to do have threatened to give me something by the end of the month but that's as much detail as they've given so far. Hmmm. And the response that I helped another group of folks do a couple weeks ago had much success with their presentation to the customer - which is a good start! Fingers crossed we can make it to the next stage.....! And the guy in charge said he's got me penciled in to help with anything else that comes through for it. Coooooool! Otherwise, all's well, just wish I had a bit more real editing to do. Must say am kinda bored with updating the website....... The other day I thought I killed it as the whole thing wouldn't load properly. But it worked today and that's all that matters! Whew!

And then the weekend, it was pretty good for a change! Friday was pretty quiet, watched a movie (because TV these days really just sucks) and stayed up way too late for some reason...... And Saturday just did the laundry..... couldn't be bothered doing much else really. Went to the theatre in the evening with my friend Jan to see Amadeus, it was actually pretty good. I was terrified that it was going to be some crappy student production, tho am not sure why I thought that....... It started out a bit artsy and wacky, and I have a really low tolerance for artsy wacky in major theatre productions…. But it came right and turned out to be really good. Then afterwards we had a small dinner at the Lyrebird Restaurant (it's adjacent to all of the theatres) like civilized folk and was home by 12.30am - it was a really nice night out. Hooray for culture!

And then Sunday I met up with Jan again and her pup Milo (soooooooooo cute - he's a cross of two small cream colored dogs, like a Maltese and a Shih Tzu soooo cute) and her brother's Labrador Lacey and took them for the RSPCA's Million Paws Walk - it was fun. I love being around all those happy pups - makes me want one! I went with Jan and her family a couple of years ago and it was such a good day out and for a really good cause. So by the time I got home from that I was absolutely beat for some reason. I think staying up too late and getting up too early all weekend that by Sunday it caught up with me. Gettin' ooooooold!

So that was why I was unable to check in on time. But I did manage to watch a few good movies - Paperback Hero - a very Australian film from the late 90's with Hugh Jackman who plays a truck driver (or rather road train - they're huuuuuge) who's written a romance novel and, embarrassed, uses his friend's name as the author and it goes from there..... it was very cute and I wish they'd make more like it. Also watched Away We Go a really good film by Sam Mendes about a couple getting ready to have their first kid and they decide to move to a new city to start their new life but can't figure out which city to pick.... They visit Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal....... I quite liked it. And started to watch True Grit last night but fell asleep half an hour into it, which was a shame because I love Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and the young lead gal, I was really liking it so far! Will finish it tonight........

And that's about that. Pretty good weekend and the weather was lovely. Cool in the mornings but warm and bright during the day. See, 8 months or so of the year when it's not summer the place is awesome. And really, the summers here, while hot and humid, they're not that bad I suppose........ At least it's usually sunny most of the year! This summer was especially wet, as you saw from the floods and storms, but it's not usually that bad. So from now until November or so, feel free to c'mon down! The weather's perfect - it'll be fun!

BYE!
J!

NZ - Land of the Long Wet Cold!

Hi!

Well. Here we are, Sunday afternoon.... Checking in way late, missed last week (had a wicked cold) and the week before, but there was a good reason for it - Adventure! But here we are, Sunday afternoon, the day is perfect - lovely and bright and warm with a huge blue sky with just a few clouds to speak of; the birds have been out there all morning chittering happily away; am a bit early even for the strange show tunes show and the jazz show, but that's ok, borrowing some cool blues tunes from another station to go with the glass of the stand-by Semillon-Sav Blanc - life is good!

So. Work. Yep. Had the previous week off for Easter and Labor Day, so that's been a nice long break. But just before that I got to help with the beginnings of what could be a 2 billion dollar bid, so far the customer liked our response enough to get the folks down to Canberra to present more info, which is a god sign, but we won't know until they give us the nod and that could take months and months if not a year or so. But, I got to be involved at the beginning so hopefully if they keep going with it I can help along the way and see what happens. Otherwise all's well, just happy to have a job and any editing to do!

And then there was Adventure to New Zealand to be had! Flew out first thing Friday morning on the 22nd. Pretty quick flight, only 2 hours and 20 minutes. Such a nice change from the standard 15+ hour flights! And because I'm not used to such short flights, I brought way too much entertainment in my carry-on that I barely used! Hooray for the eReader tho, used that a lot during the trip, so that was a good investment. Flew with Emirates, never been with them before. It was fine. Food was ok for airplane food. Lots of movies to watch but by the time they fed us and I figured out how to work the screen, I only had an hour or so left. So I got through the first half of "Red", I quite liked it. Which reminds me I have got to write that script for Bruce Willis....

So Auckland. Not much has really changed in the 6 & 1/2 years since I last set foot on the place. I was there 8 days, it rained for 6. Tho I was told repeatedly that it hasn't rained like that since last winter. Well, seeing as that's all it did for the 4 years I was there, I found that rather hard to believe. But regardless, got out to see the place. Stayed the first few days in Mt. Eden with Catherine and Paul and their two lovely Birman cats Fud and Sam. That was quite nice. They've done a bit of work to their house so it was warmer and drier than it used to be. Those old villas were built with no insulation, double-glazing or protection from the damp, so you have to go in and do it yourself if you can't take it anymore. I hear they're building them now with insulation and double-glazing, guess all those home improvement shows finally sunk in. We drove around a fair bit to have a good look around the place, stopped for some quick shopping at ShellShock (my favorite funky jewelery shop) and a few others in Ponsonby, an old haunt (scene of some good pub crawls back in the day). Ponsonby reminds me a bit of where I'm living now in Paddington... Hmmm. Next day we went out to Clevedon, which is a good 45 minutes or so out of town (south-ish I think) and where all the horse people live on huge properties, so it's pretty Fancy Pants. We had a quick look though the two shops that were open, one shop where I bought a couple things (including a lovely soft and warm wool wrap with a possum fur collar!) was the Clevedon Wool Shed. Eh, otherwise, not much else was open as it was Easter Sunday. And then we had a nice spot of lunch at the Clevedon Cafe, and it was really pretty good. It was actually quite a nice day in that it didn't rain until later. Bonus!

And while Catherine and Paul were at work, I spent the next couple of days wandering around Mt. Eden and surrounds. Stopped by one of my favorite shell shops, Crystal Cave, and picked up a bag of lovely loose Paua shells to use in jewelery or art. It's a good but baaaad shop - my marine biologist friend says a lot of the shells they sell are basically illegal to take off the beaches where they used to live. So either the guy knows the right people or he has masses in stock. And they're expensive, as I suppose they should be. Beautiful shells, like Nautilus and big starfish, but I'd feel so guilty...... Kind of makes me want to buy all of them and thrown them back into the sea for new fishies to move in to! Also stopped in to a couple pubs I used to frequent - Galbraith's Alehouse, where they brew their own really good beer (Bellringer's Bitter was always my favorite), and the Horse and Trap. And now since I've been back I can not for the life of me find a pub like those two. I've asked the locals and basically the response is that Brisbane just doesn't have the rotten climate to necessitate warm and cozy British-style pubs with blazing fireplaces and little nooks to sit in. They just do loud cavernous bars, or 'hotels' as the locals call them. Harumph.

So after those few days I moved over to the Hilton hotel at the Viaduct. I must say it was niiiiiiiiice and all the staff were really friendly and helpful. The room was good sized and comfortable. I got my deal from Lastminute.com - I can't recommend them highly enough, because my deal included a free room upgrade and full breakfast every morning for just AU$166 a night (compared with the $400+ for their standard room!). And it's only one of a whole two 5 star hotels in the city! It was totally awesome, duuude!!!!

So basically, I just had a good wander around the place because most of the things on my "To Do" list involved being outside for hours at a stretch. Needless to say I didn't get to do half of the things I wanted to, but on the 2 days that were sunny I managed to sail on an America's Cup yacht NZL41 around the harbor (photo on the left isn't the boat I sailed on, but sort of similar, sort of) - couldn't take pictures as they told me not to bring anything as it'll either get soaked or fall off! Of course when I get there folks not only have cameras but multiple lenses! Even still, it was really pretty cool. Would totally do it again. Went up the Sky Tower, had a good look and took lots of photos on the wrong setting, so they've all come out with a blue twinge (and I can't be bothered tidying them up in Photoshop, yet). Hmm. And I tried to go on a ghost tour, but when I had the Concierge call the number on the brochure, he was told that all tours are off because "all the ghosts have left town." Concierge thanked them, hung up and told me that company gets terrible reviews anyways. I had to laugh and thank the guy for saving me $50 bucks! So instead of going on a lousy tour to see ghosts that couldn't even be bothered staying town, I stayed in, had an awesome bath with local bath salts and mud (note to self: when choosing next apartment, must come with bath tub) and watched the royal wedding. Thankfully the hotel had BBC so I could know what all was going on (as if it wasn't entirely obvious given the bride, groom and church.....). It was nice. Good for them! Hope it works out better than Charles and Diana did!!!

And, basically, sadly, that pretty much sums up the trip. Instead of going for 8 whole days I probably should've just gone for maybe 4 days, and then gone back in another 6 months or a year. But never mind, it was so good to get out and go and see Catherine and Paul (and their cats) and to check the place out. I tell ya, it's a fine enough place to visit for a short time but get out and see the rest of the country! And no, in case you were wondering, it did not in any way, shape or form inspire or motivate me to move back. Not ever. So there you are! Now, if any of you want to come down here for a visit and hop across the Tasman Sea to have a look, I'd be more than happy to be your tour guide! And I promise we'll have a much better time than I did - because I think I'd've had more fun if I had someone to run around with. Am just sayin'!

And then upon my return, well actually before my return, I came down with a really nasty cold (thank you NZ), of which I'm just now kicking. Wow, I haven't been sick in ages. I tried really hard to check in last week but by the time I got a couple paragraphs in, I think I was hallucinating and had to lie down. But thanks to a climate-controlled week at work, I managed to kick it. Whew! Oh, and I have to say, am sooo proud, Kona is a Big Cat now - he caught a juvenile rat! And he was so good at it that there wasn't a drop of blood, just a small-ish dead rat in the middle of my kitchen floor! Such a good boy. That only took him 5 years! Here's hoping he'll catch more (god forbid there actually be many around here, sigh). So there you have it. An Adventure was had, a rat was caught and a cold was kicked. All in all it was a success! So like I said, if you find yourself with a few extra days during your visit down thisaway, I'd be more than happy to show you around the Land of the Long Wet Cloud (ok, technically it's Land of the Long White Cloud, but seeing as it rained for 4+ years straight, my friend and I dubbed it Wet.....)! So c'mon down!

BYE!
J!