The Best Of post.

I remember saying ages ago that would make a post with all my pics of the best and worst things. I should really have done this when I was still away so I could remember everything. Oh well, I will do my best.

Best food: Always important to me. If the food was bad there was a good chance I hated the whole place! USA was great after Europe because there was a little thing called VARIETY! I loved being able to get whatever I wanted. Following that, Dubai. Mmmm, cheap Lebanese food everywhere. Yum!

Worst food: Turkey. Horrible kebabs and dried out corn was all I found in 3 weeks. I just wanted to leave asap.

Friendliest people: Turkey. We couldn't figure out what was happening with people just coming up for a chat and not trying to con us into buying anything. Greece, Germany, USA and Italy come a close second though.

Most unfriendly people: Russia. I suppose not many people spoke English, but even the hotel staff (at the most expensive hotel of our entire trip) acted like we were scum.

Most fun: Munich was great, Oktoberfest was great, the people were lovely. I loved Munich. Riding around on our bikes everyday was wonderful.

Least fun: Antalya, Turkey. When our airconditioning broke and it was sooo hot and humid and drinking the water gave me diarrhoea for 4 days. Worst part of our trip.

Most amazing place: I thought Athens was amazing coming from Australia to such an old and historic city. St Petersburg was amazing too in the grandeur and size of the place. Cappadocia, Turkey was definately amazing. The Vatican was amazing too, St Peters is huge!

Least amazing place: Los Angeles. I suppose I was amazed that I was such a dump, but really, I expected a lot more from such a famous city.

Most beautiful place: Lauterbrunnen. Like a fairy tale. We'd love to come back for a few weeks and act like hard core Euros and do nordic walking.

Least beautiful place: L.A.

Best experience: There are a few here. Hot air ballooning in Cappadocia was great, riding a mule into the Grand Canyon, cruising down the Canal du Midi in France was lovely, shopping at the tracht shops for our dirndl and lederhosen was exciting, seeing bison in Yellowstone was great too.

Worst experience: Breaking my foot in Mykonos and hobbling around for weeks afterwards. Watch those steps! Sleepless nights in Florence with a plague of mosquitos and no air con was possibly worse though. Mixing booze and medication in Belgium.

What I loved most about travelling: Not being bored ever and seeing so many things that I will having with me for the rest of my life.

What I liked least about travelling: Wandering the streets all the time searching for food was annoying, we have loved being home and being able to go the supermarket and cook things! Also, having to always rummage through my bad to find things.

One thing that suprised me in a good way: Not all Americans are obese.

One thing that surprised me in a bad way: So many Euros have a phobia of cold (icy cold) drinks! WTF! So many times I was so hot and all I wanted was a freezing cold coke, or water or ANYTHING and despite looking everywhere the best I could find was something around 15C. I wanted as close to freezing as a drink can get before it froze. So unhappy and disappointed.

Hottest guys: Greece and Italy.

Foulest guys: Russia. Go back to my post and remember our driver!

Places we'd go back to and spend more time: Crete, 2 days is nowhere near enough time. Lauterbrunnen, Dubai - in a few years when more things have been built and it's cooler, The Netherlands, Belgium.

I'm never going back to: Turkey.

If I could go back today I'd go to: Munich and see it in snow.

That's all for now. If I think of more I'll come back and add them.

ALCATRAZ!

From Yosemite we went back to San Francisco, where we were due to fly out in a few days time. Most of our time in SF we went shopping and just had a look around the city, but on one of the days we went to The Rock - Alcatraz. This is view of the island on the ferry trip over.
With your ticket you get an audioguide that was really good and told you all about the history of Alcatraz. In a nutshell it was a prison for prisoners from other jails who, for some reason or other, were so bad that their original prison could not look after them so they were sent here.
Above is a typical cell. I thought they were ok, better than having to share a cell with some guy that you really hated.
Here is the view back to San Francisco. Apparently a lot of the time there is so much fog that you can't see back to the mainland, but as usual we had hot and sunny weather, and it seemed to me that Alcatraz was a better place for a restaurant than a jail.
The view of the Golden Gate bridge.
Chris and Brody in "The Yard". I won't say anything else about the jail in case you ever go there. But I will say that it didn't seem that bad to me, except if you have to go in "The Hole" and get locked in a cell with no light for days or weeks. That wouldn't be to great....

Yosemite

I have been home for almost 2 months now and I have been meaning to get this blog finished.... but everyday something is on and now that I'm home again it just doesn't seem that important. My memories of everything are fading and it is really interesting to me to read back through what I have written and see what I have thought at the time. I look at my photos now and think "Gee, that looks nice" and it's only when I read back do I remember that at the time I was hot and bothered and just wanted to be somewhere air conditioned with a freezing cold Coke and a nice meal.

Anyway, in the next 2 posts I will write what I remember.

Yosemite (Yo-sem-it-ee; I kept calling it Yo-sem-ite) Valley was where we finally got to at about 2am after driving all day from Las Vegas. We had booking into the old lodge above that was hundreds of years old. It was freezing though, but comfortable.
The next day we went to have a look at the old forest of Redwoods. This tree, below, had fallen over years and year ago, but redwood timber doesn't rot easily so as you can see it is still laying where it fell.
Here is one of the biggest trees in the forest, the Grizzly Giant. Roneal is walking towards it in the bottom of the picture.
The day after we drove to Yosemite Valley, and wow! What a view. I don't think it was as pretty as Lauterbrunnen, but it was still amazing. The cliffs were huge!
Finally we saw a bear! This is a brown bear and it was coming after a deer that had been hit and killed by a car. The park ranger came and took the deer away, but the bear just stood there anyway.
We hired some bikes in the valley and rode around the bike paths. In some places it was really hot and in others it was freezing.

Below the cliffs were lots of bolders that I suppose have fallen from the cliffs over time. Brody and Chris had a good time climbing them. I, still only wearing my flat shoes that I have worn all over Europe, can't really do any climbing. I think some real walking shoes might have been a good idea, but then again we were only here for 3 days.

Las Vegas

From the Grand Canyon we came here for 2 nights, for Brody's birthday. It is so much better than Star City or the Crown Casino. We stayed in the MGM Grand although New York, New York (right next door) was better. The drinks were cheaper and there was a delicious Italian restaurant in there too that we loved. The casinos are just like mini cities with shops and bars and rides and theatres all over the place. We didn't really do much except learn to play craps which I like, and have drinks. We also saw Mamma Mia at the Mandalay which was good fun. Brody didn't know all the songs though so I've decided he will have to be taught them when he gets home in Feb.
The view of the stip from the bridge between NY, NY and MGM.
Too many drinks....
The Luxor and the Empire State Building Vegas style. We saw The Venetian as we were leaving Vegas the next day and it has been built to copy Venice complete with bridges and realistic turquoise water. We really could have spent a week here, there is lots to do, but we kept going....
We drove to Yosemite National Park via Death Valley which is a hell of a long drive. Here is the car we have rented and since this is MY blog and now Chris's I can say that the Corvette is a crappy little car that is bumpy and uncomfortable. C loves it, but it is not my cup of tea.
Death Valley.

The Grand Canyon

We only had one full day in the Grand Canyon and on that day we had to get up at 5.30am to get organised for our mule ride down into the canyon. We read in our Rough Guides book that going into the canyon is so much better than just looking down into it from the rim and now after having done just that I fully agree.
I thought our mules would be small like donkeys, but they were actually bigger than the horses we rode in Palm Springs the day before. It was a pretty scary ride at times because the mules (in groups of 7) go down a really steep path in single file and they walk at the edge of the path so it looks like you are about to tip over the edge into the canyon. My mule seemed to be a rush the whole time and like to jump down the steps on the path and over rocks and stuff. It was really hard on my going down into the canyon like that. And it took over 2 hours to get all the way down to where we are in the photo above.
It was spectacular once we were down there though. We could appreciate much more just how big the canyon is. It is gigantic!

Here's us on our mules looking like odd sort of cowboys.

The next few photos I took on the way back up out of the canyon.

A fat little squirrel in a tree.
If you click on this photo (above) you can see the trail in the middle of the photo that we took to the end that allows you to look down the river.
If you enlarge this photo you can see people on the lookout. They are teeny.
From the Grand Canyon we went to Las Vegas and on the way we went past Hoover Dam. Sunset at the dam.
It is really big.

L.A.

From Santa Cruz we drove down to Los Angeles where we spent 4 days. As we arrived we had to drive on the freeways and man, are they crazy! I now know that there is something scarier than going 220km/h in Germany, it is going at 80m/h on a 6 lane highway with cars criss-crossing infront and behind you, while most of the drivers chat on their mobile phones. There are heaps of crashes too. The day we arrived there was a 6 car pileup on the freeway going the opposite direction to up, and one car was on it's roof. Luckily we avoided that giant traffic jam. The next day a crane somehow flipped over the barrier and crashed onto the other side of the road stopping traffic for most of the day.
In LA there is not really any other way to get around. There are a few buses, but LA is such a big sprawling place that if you want to do a lot of things in a short amount of time driving is the only way to go. It seems that most people are of the same opinion. There are cars everywhere, and as such there is also smog everywhere.
I have to say that when we arrived in LA I thought it was a complete dump. I found New York much better and easier to get around. I could not see any attractions to the place at all.
It was only when sunset came that I saw how gorgeous LA can be. The smog leads to extra nice sunsets!
We were staying on Venice Beach where we got a great view of the sunset. The beach itself is not that great. It stinks and the water is full of rubbish. The top picture is of Venice from the pier.

Although we never really started liking LA (the minute we did we drove somewhere and hated it again after being stuck in traffic) we did have fun. We didn't go to Universal Studios or Disneyland - I'm not interested in any of that, we did go shopping (things are so much cheaper here) and we went to the Walk of Stars. I just couldn't figure out why advertising guru Singo had a star....
I felt like the movie 'Speed' was an acurate portrayal of LA and I spent a good deal of time looking for a cop as hot as Keanu.
We tracked down the Hollywood sign in Beverly Hills. It was surprisingly hard to find.
We also saw Rydel High, from Grease, it is Venice High School and we drove past it every day. I thought it looked familiar so I googled it, forgot to get a pic, but then I think everyone remembers what that looks like. It is painted blue now.
On our last day we went to a LA Kings NHL (hockey) game and it was fun. I would really like to play hockey - if you didn't get slammed and tripped and beaten with sticks regularly throughout the game. The Kings lost.
After the hockey we drove to Palm Springs which is about 2 hours away and met up with Brody and Ron again. We were only there for one day to have a look at Joshua Tree National Park, on our way to the Grand Canyon. It was nice to get out of LA again and back onto the relaxed roads.
We went on a horse ride through the park. It is a strange place. Desert, but with funny yucca-like trees. I saw a taratula and was creepy.
We bought these hats from Walmart for $2 each! Cool!

Brody being a lone Cowboy.
Joshua Tree. Click on this pic to enlarge and see the trees.
A yucca at twilight.

Craters of the Moon and Red Woods

After Yellowstone we had to drive back down through Idaho to Salt Lake City to the airport. On our way we stopped at Craters of The Moon national monument. It is a sort of national park where there have been volcanos and it is a really weird place. Everything is volcanic rock and there are all sorts of strange rock formations around, as you can see behind me.

Here is Chris walking up an old volcano. It was way bigger than it looked, as we found out once we started walking. It was made of/covered with black sparkly rocks.
From Salt Lake City we flew to San Francisco to pick up our next car. Then we drove straight down to Santa Cruz (we are going back to San Francisco later this week to fly out to Sydney and we will have a look around then. Near Santa Cruz there is a forest of Red Wood trees that we went to see the next morning. The trees are massive and about 1500 years old. There is teeny little Chris inside one.

And me infront of another.