Category: Holidays

The day three phenomenon

Well I’ve been back at work for three days after our holiday to the Red Centre (more about that later, hopefully with pictures, if I get organised) and I’ve been reminded of how my brain deals with this.

On day 1 the thought process is “Oh no, I am back at work”.

On day 2 it more like “Actually, it’s quite nice to be back at work”

And on day 3 it’s “I wonder how I can arrage it so that I can get paid all the time, but only go to work if I feel like it…”

(Unfortunately flexible work hours don’t work too well with health care…).

X-mas

Just a brief something to wish everyone out there a merry Christmas, wherever you may be. We are having a family Christmas at home, with Simone’s parents up as well.

Charlotte has (perhaps predictably) ended up with a rather enormous pile of presents and initially at least was also predictably more interested in the wrapping paper that the contents. Later on however she started getting into playing with things. Her favorite thing seems to be the ride on train toy she got from Mummy, although the shiny green ball that she pulled off the Christmas tree is running a very close second.

Anyway, something I found last night, for your amusement, is the story of Christmas in 30 seconds:

Background explanatory story here.

Veni, vedi, vino

We came, we saw, we drank a lot of wine.

We have now been in Italy for almost a week and I’m getting into the holiday swing of things.

We spent two and a bit days in Rome seeing the major attractions and adding to our list of things we will go back and see when we return in a weeks time. We have now been in Tuscany for two days and everyone loves the atmosphere and the food (although the weather is a bit variable (raining when we arrived wednesday, sunny and warm yesterday, sunny and cold today)). Day trips to Pisa, Sienna, and Florence are all on the cards, although we’re pretty much operating on a no alarm clocks and figure out what we want to do today over the breakfast table type itinery.

Enough for now. More in a week or so when I next make time to find an internet connection (a concept that makes me realise how in holiday mode I am, given that usually I would be politely described as being umbilically attached to my computer and the internet).

Ciao

Konnichiwa

Japan, it’s this whole other country, dontcha know.

So greetings from a whole other country.

We have an overnight stopover here before continuing on to Rome tomorrow. Since we landed pretty much everything has been amusing me and confusing Simone. I’ve been chuckling and grinning as though I’m quite derranged. There was a truck when we were leaving the airport that had an emblem that appeared to be a stylised cat carrying a kitten. For the life of me I couldn’t what airport related industry that could represent (pet relocations maybe?).

At the hotel the toilet had an instruction manual and the ironing board had a power cord (and we have been debating whether it is in fact some kind of clothes press).

We watched a bit of Japanese TV, including a bit of manga (and yes, it is as confusing in Japanese as it is in English), a show that appeared to revolve around food associated with trains and trams, and a channel that appeared to be mostly ads (which are as bizarre and funny as they are always reported to be, even with the language barrier). we watched Sesame Street in Japanese, and a bit of some apparent real life pokemon spin-off, which in true Japanese style involved a lot of physical challenge type tasks.

Other than that we had dinner, I had some sake (when in Rome… wait, that’s tomorrow) which I have always enjoyed since I first had it many years ago in a restaurant in Dunedin, and passed out.

More big flying tomorrow.

Golf day

Over easter Simone and I went down to Canberra to visit our best people (my best man and best friend James and his cool wife Chantelle, and Simone’s matron of honour Tash (best woman would be a perfectly accurate term, but sounds a little odd somehow), and her great husband Dave (bloody Dave’s. Far to many of ’em. Bloody everywhere they are)).

It was superbly good to get away, and even better to spend the time with such great friends.

And on the monday we had a golf day.

Now apart from Simone, I don’t think that any of us have done much more than watch golf on TV, but I must explain that we had a really good time none the less.

In the morning we had a lazy sleep in and went for a bit of a walk around the neighborhood after coffee at a local bar. Then we went and played a quick 18 at the local minigolf course, after which we had take-away-lunch-of-your-choice, topped off with easter eggs, and spent the remainder of the afternoon playing 4 player “Mario Golf: Toadstool tour” on James and Chantelle’s Nintendo gamecube.

It was so much fun that since arriving home I have been forced to go out and buy a gamecube and Mario Golf, so that Simone and I can continue the fun.

As if we didn’t have enough to do with our time as it was…. 🙂

Christmas salutations

I hope you are all having a merry christmas out there.

This year hasn’t really felt much like christmas until today, what with packing, moving, graduating, and working, but my little nephew and niece running around and getting all excited about their presents shoe-horned the christmas spirit back into place for me.

For those of you who for whatever reason (oversight, email failure, unknow address, etc) didn’t recieve our christmas letter, I have uploaded it onto the site so you can download it and read it (again) if you so wish. It’s about 800kb (thanks to all the exciting picture it contains), so may take a few minutes to download (just so you’re forewarned).

Christmas salutations

I hope you are all having a merry christmas out there.

This year hasn’t really felt much like christmas until today, what with packing, moving, graduating, and working, but my little nephew and niece running around and getting all excited about their presents shoe-horned the christmas spirit back into place for me.

For those of you who for whatever reason (oversight, email failure, unknow address, etc) didn’t recieve our christmas letter, I have uploaded it onto the site so you can download it and read it (again) if you so wish. It’s about 800kb (thanks to all the exciting picture it contains), so may take a few minutes to download (just so you’re forewarned).

Fluffy

As we approached Johannesburg we descended through what I think were the fluffiest clouds I’ve ever seen from the air. It was a terrible pity I couldn’t get to my camera, as they would have made a great photo.