Thanksgiving Road Trip

This Thanksgiving, Dor and I made a strategic decision to drive to Cincinnati to visit her family vs. flying to and from.  We have actually never taken a “road trip” as the farthest we’ve ever driven is our New Years Eve houses in the Poconos or Hunter Mountain.  Given my proclivity for speeding, I figured I would tackle the vast majority of the driving and try to beat the 10 hour mark.  (No cliffhangers here: Success!)

Here’s a quick recap of the drive itself, which actually wasn’t too bad at all.  There were only a few rules for the trip.  1. A quota of 2 pit stops going in each direction (and we actually only made 1 per) and 2. We have to leave early.

Therefore, we were up at 4am on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving to get out of NJ and past Philly before the morning rush hour even started.  This wound up being a good idea as the weather was miserable.  Outside of two minor hydroplaning episodes on the NJ Turnpike, we were out of NJ and into PA in no time, passing through Valley Forge by 6:30-7am. 

We were on cruise control until about 8:30am and I have a theory as to why we wound up hitting a bit of traffic for the next hour.  During this time, it is my belief that you have all of the stragglers waiting until the last minute to get to their respective employers.  These people largely pay no attention to the art of driving and are on the phone, eating breakfast, and/or putting on makeup instead of … you know … driving. 

About 5 hours into the trip, we finally made our first pit stop.  Ten minutes eating, two minutes in the bathroom, and ten minutes refilling the gas tank (just as scripted) and we were back on the road.  I very vaguely remember driving through the PA Turnpike and the Mountain Tunnels (Blue Mountain, Kittatinny, and Tuscarora) as a child.  This was actually one of the highlights of the drive and if I wasn’t driving another 4-5 hours, likely would have stopped to take some pictures and enjoyed the scenery a bit more.  Next time … maybe.  (Here’s some additional reading for the history buffs: http://www.pahighways.com/toll/PATurnpike.html  )

In looking up the route, it never dawned on me that we would be driving through a small section of West Virginia.  Any time you mention West Virginia to me, I immediately think of two things: 1. The terrible movie “Wrong Turn” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/) and how they portray the locals in this movie and 2. John Denver.  It never fails and now that song is in your head, isn’t it?  Admit it.  “Country Roads … Take me home … To the place, I belong!! …”

A few hours into Ohio and we finally hit a patch of traffic around Columbus.  This is/was the final leg of the trip, another 90 minutes or so to go and we were in no mood for traffic.  Driving in Ohio is infuriating because they don’t have a “keep right except to pass” law or, if they do, no one in the state follows it.  You have trucks, the elderly, and any other profiling demographic that you would put under the “bad driver” umbrella in the left lane.  You have no idea how incredibly annoying this is until you experience it yourself. 

We arrived at Dor’s parents house shortly after 2:30pm, after stopping at Chick-fil-A (of course).  So with one stop, we would have been door to door in 9.5 hours.  Not bad at all.  You may notice that there are virtually no comments about things discussed while driving 9.5 hours with someone, games that we played, arguing over driving or directions, etc.  Why?  Out of those 9.5 hours, Dorothy slept about 7 of them.  Yep, the co-pilot was fast asleep for 73.7% of the drive.

The trip back east was done in a vastly similar timeframe, also included only one pit stop, and Dor managed to sleep the majority of the drive as well.  Good times! 

In case we ever decide to drive again, any recommendations for good stopping grounds?  Where can we stop around the mountains for good pictures?  Good pit stops off the highway?  

Finally going to Iceland!

I have been talking about vacationing in Iceland since approximately 2002.  There were less than a handful of times where it looked like there was a legitimate opportunity that I managed to convince someone else to make the trip as well.  However, this all recently changed.  Dorothy asked me to pick and block out a weekend and that she wanted the rest to remain a surprise for my birthday.  I didn’t think too much about it / where she was planning to go.  After getting me a Nook Color for my birthday, I figured we would do something local (NYC, Delaware, similar) to just get away for a few days.  Then, an hour before the cab was coming, she hit me with the Iceland Frommers.  Nice!!  The winner for wife of the year goes to … you betcha!

Dorothy can’t keep a secret, so I know how much thought and effort went into this.  She said that she only booked the flights, hotel, and a trip to the Blue Lagoon / Northern Lights and left the rest open.  I had talked about Iceland so much over the past few years that she knew exactly what to book.  We had talked about going for our one year anniversary next April, but going in the Fall/Winter allowed us the opportunity to chase the Northern Lights.  As an added bonus, the weekend we were heading to Iceland was their annual Iceland Airwaves festival, where a ton of bands from around the world (apparently) play in various bars, clubs, and other miscellaneous venues.  Well played Dorothy, well played. 

Given that she told me where we were going and we had about an hour to burn, I rummaged through the suitcase that she packed for me – she couldn’t hold out the surprise any further, plus, I was really starting to bother her about the trip and not knowing what was going on.  I threw out a few things and we were on our way to JFK.  One of “our” traditions is to get to an airport hours earlier than necessary and sit at the bar for a bit.  After about an hour, Dorothy keeps looking at her phone and around the airport.  Then she says, “Wait, what are they doing here?”  The final surprise of the trip, we’re going to Iceland with the Schlenks!

Our flight was on Icelandair and departed/landed on time, so we arrived in Keflavik around 7am local time.  The flight itself is only 4.5 hours from JFK, i.e. nothing.  Icelandair itself was perfectly fine; nothing to write home about, nothing to complain about.  The wives booked a package through Icelandair and correctly chose to ‘upgrade’ the hotel to the Hilton in Reykjavik.  We took a bus/shuttle from Keflavik to Reykjavik (just to spell all of that out again) that took about 45 minutes.  Our first stop was the other hotel that was available in the package, and let’s just say that it was a great move to book at the Hilton.  One middle aged woman on the bus looked mortified that she was going to spend the next few nights in this hotel.  It looked like a rundown high school.

When we got to the Hilton we checked in and decided that A. we needed a quick nap and B. needed something to eat.  My biggest pet peeve about traveling abroad is when you land in the AM locally, can check in at your hotel, but they don’t let you have the complementary breakfast and charge you for it.  If you are offering the free breakfast with a reservation, just give the extra day’s breakfast to the people that booked a stay with you.  How much are they really saving, $3, $4 tops?  The VP of Common Sense just checked into this blog entry; satisfy your customers! 

After a quick bite to eat and short nap, we hitched a cab ride to downtown Reykjavik.  We found the place to get our wristbands for the Iceland Airwaves shows – which basically gave us free admission into each and every venue.  The most confusing thing about Iceland is that every street name has about 15 letters in it and is virtually impossible to pronounce.  Can we buy a vowel please?  Downtown Reykjavik was a quaint little city with a lot of places to pop in and out of.  While some buildings look a little run down from the outside, especially bars, the inside of just about every single building is modern, very clean, and accommodating.  According to the driver that took us downtown, one of the biggest attractions downtown is this little hot dog stand.  Apparently, there is a long tradition here and the hot dogs are phenomenal; they contain lamb and lord knows what else.  (Chris can comment here as he dove into one the following evening.  And by evening, I mean around 4am.) 

After about an hour or so of walking up and down the roads that I can’t pronounce, we finally found City Hall and a few other buildings for site seeing.  It took some time to find the Parliament building, and to be honest, we’re not sure if we actually ever did.  Let’s just assume that one of the buildings we took a picture of is the Parliament building.  Guess what time it is now in our trip?  One glass pint of personality please.  Thank you.  We stopped to eat / have a drink in a place called “Gamla Posthusid”.  Good luck with pronouncing that.  Our first and second Viking Stouts were tested and stamped with approval.  Unfortunately, I never saw Viking Stout again, as the venues at night had Viking Light and a slew of other beers I couldn’t stand. 

After closing the tab we wound up walking around the streets and taking pictures for another few hours.  We may have also popped into the casino.  As a few drinks were consumed, we reached the conclusion that given the rain and weather, we weren’t going to head back and forth from the hotel, we would just stay downtown.  We had also postponed the Blue Lagoon / Northern Lights tour due to the weather, as they told us that we wouldn’t be able to see the Lights due to the clouds. 

The music festival started popping up at various venues throughout the early stages of the evening, including the local hostel that we popped into.  Good times!  As we’re walking down the street a sign from heaven appeared; a local tavern that served Guinness.  The name of this palace is “Olsmidjan”.  Again, good luck.  For the first 30 minutes or so, we were the only souls in there.  However, a few locals popped in, including a middle aged local.  About 30 minutes later, somehow, we were learning about the history of Iceland, their expertise in trout fishing, and then broke into political affairs 101.  I’ll leave it at this.  He did manage to call Americans something to the effect of “Gum chewing, Cigarette smoking, Chocolatiers” and I couldn’t have been happier.  Really, it was hysterical. 

Our next stop was dinner at “Islenski Barinn” (???) where we tried a few local trays.  I will never again eat whale.  It was prepared two different ways and I didn’t like either of them.  However, our lamb burger was phenomenal.  I really do not like lamb at all here in the states, but this was actually really good.  After dinner we popped into a few different venues for the music festival.  While we largely had no idea what the artists were saying, the music itself was pretty good.  We found ourselves at the Icelandair Lounge which basically was another bar/club that Icelandair took over for the festival and hung a banner over the name of the bar.  Notice I’m starting to get more and more vague as this night progresses?  Eventually, we head back to the Hilton where we stop by the hotel bar to look through flyers of tours.  Around 2am or so, we found a cheap, condensed tour of the Golden Circle and immediately after breakfast the next day, booked the tour for that afternoon. 

The Golden Circle tour takes you to a few of the core sightseeing areas of Eastern Iceland and the condensed tour does all of this in approximately 5 hours.  Win.  We drove for a little over an hour East and once you get out of Reykjavik there really isn’t any civilization or cities whatsoever.  The tour guide on this bus was not very good, but the scenery held its own and made it easier to overlook his ineptitude.  I actually feel bad for saying this because he was a really nice guy, but I don’t think he is in the right profession. 

The scenery itself in Iceland is amazing.  The US would have built a playground and other unnecessary buildings on this if it had the chance.  It is nice to see that Iceland has let its natural beauty remain, even as the country boomed before the financial crisis.  Our first stop was Gullfoss Falls, where the wind whipped around and the hail/snow hitting your face felt like you were getting pelted with paintballs.  Our second stop was at the geysers, aptly named Geysir.  It’s pretty amazing to see this come out of the earth.  We may have dared each other to put our fingers/hands in the water coming out of one of the springs.  It was hot.  The name of the spring that we put our hands into was “Konungshver”.  Really? 

Our next stop on the bus tour was at a location where the North American and European plates meet and separate.  This is the cause of many small earthquakes in the country.  Our last stop on the tour was a place called “Pingvellir”.  Sure.  This was a historic place but we’ll ignore that part and call out the views of the volcanoes and the lake – which was the largest body of water within Iceland.  Icelanders are waiting for one of the volcanoes to erupt in the near future as it has erupted on a relatively regular schedule over time.  Imagine knowing something like this was coming where you live?  No thanks.

Upon returning to Reykjavik, we made dinner reservations at the Fish Market restaurant.  Unfortunately, it was a Saturday night and our reservation wasn’t until 10:30pm.  Here’s another local dish that I probably won’t ever order again; monkfish.  It was OK.  Luckily, the other food (salmon, lobster bisque soup) that Dorothy ordered was good.  Given our late start, we exited the restaurant and began hopping around to different bars with very little alcohol in our systems.  Meanwhile, the rest of downtown Reykjavik seemed to be falling down on their faces.  My patience for this when sober is always incredibly low.  We wound up at a bar/venue that looked like a place that belonged on the side of a ski mountain here in the states.  The band here was good but was wrapping up.  Afterwards, music came on and a freak show ensued.  Essentially, we saw what I believe to be the beginning stages of an Icelandic “pants off dance off” among a handful of guys and quickly bolted for the doors. 

After a few stops and walking in and out of places, we returned to the Icelandair Lounge where we had to, unfortunately wait on line to get in.  By unfortunate, I mean that the people behind us were terribly annoying and had absolutely no comprehension of personal space, continuously bumping into me, stepping on my shoes/pants, all while yapping/yelling into their cell phones.  Enter Grumpy Old Man.  We finally got into the bar and the lack of personal space continued for a few minutes.  As I’m ordering drinks Dorothy comes behind me and says she just got jacked in the face by another girl who was air swinging at a separate girl.  Awesome.  After slugging a drink, we both tapped out of the lounge.  We told Jen and Chris we would go outside, but after 15 minutes or so, we decided it just made more sense to walk around a bit more before heading back to the hotel.

Our final full day in Iceland was the clearest day of the weekend; limited clouds, no rain.  We pushed back the Lagoon / Northern Lights tour until Sunday due to this and then pushed the tour until the evening so we could chase the Lights, as the forecast for seeing them was upgraded to “Moderate”.  During the day, we walked to downtown Reykjavik and hung out at a few watering holes, bought souvenirs and that’s about it. 

Our tour guide picked us up at the hotel in our “super jeep”.  This is an all-terrain vehicle that can basically handle off-roading, sides of mountains, etc.  He drove us to the Blue Lagoon and I have to say that it is absolutely phenomenal.  It is gorgeous to look at and even better to sit in.  As an added bonus, they were smart enough to put in a “swim up bar”.  Brilliant!  I really don’t think I can put into words how much I enjoyed the Blue Lagoon, so I’m not even going to try.  Just go there!

After a few hours at the Lagoon, we were back in the super jeep and hitting the road.  Our driver made a few stops along the way to show some of the nature to us, including the hot springs.  I haven’t the slightest idea what town, city, or area we were in though.  We have pictures of signs that say “Krysuvikurkirkja” and “Seltun”.  Don’t even try to pronounce the first one, just move on.  Back in the jeep and we began our off-roading adventures, going up and down small mountains and hills.  We then put the jeep in park along the side of a mountain as we were at one of the drivers’ suggested areas to see the Northern Lights.  Shortly thereafter, we started to see some of the green and blue highlights in the sky.  Well, I only saw a very small bit of it due to my terrible night vision, but the pictures that were taken do show this pretty clearly.  (Trying to insert a picture here, hopefully this works and if it doesn’t, I blame Blogger) 

After others jumped back in the jeep due to the terribly cold wind, I decided to take a walk up the mountainside of where we were parked.  Let’s just say that if the driver made a bad turn or hit the gas too hard at certain points of this drive, we were bound to slide or fall a good couple hundred of feet down the side of the mountain and this blog entry would have never happened. 

All in all, Iceland met my very high expectations and I would definitely return for another long weekend. I would probably look to stay at the Blue Lagoon for the better part of a full afternoon as part of that trip.  The girls did a great job at surprising us and definitely made some good decisions on the hotel and the jeep tour.  What a great gift!

What do you think?  Are there any other recommendations for while you’re in Iceland?  Did we miss anything? 

Traveling to Los Angeles ...

Several months ago, Dor and I flew into LAX for the first time in my life.  (This was for the honeymoon, not this trip.)  I thought LAX was a dump.  It turns out that this was just the terminal we were in as we switched planes to get to/from Australia.  I had not taken a vacation day since the honeymoon and was really starting to twitch for our trip to LA.  Our trip to LA was booked for one of Dor’s best friend’s wedding.  We decided to stretch it into a longer weekend because we are essentially tapping out of vacations for the rest of the year.  How I’m getting through July – December without any trips … I have no idea.  Let’s not think about that right now.  Let’s move onward to the highs and lows of the trip.

We decided to use the same car service for our trip to JFK as we had for the honeymoon.  Any car service that shows up before the time you ask them to, it has my full support.  As always, the car service was set up hours in advance of our flight.  However, it was way too early and the bars weren’t open at the airport.  Given this, Dor actually went and got a facial massage.  I ate a baguette.  Were we in JFK airport or Paris?  I have no idea.

The airline of “choice” this time around was Virgin America.  I say “choice” because there really wasn’t one.  We tracked flights for a number of months and prices never really dropped.  Not good times.  When we boarded the plane, it felt like you were entering some seedy strip joint.  The aisle is lit via overhead, fluorescent purple lights.  After getting over this, everything else on VA was good.  Each seat has its own TV in front of it.  You order food and drinks on the TV and can keep a tab open with your credit card.  Brilliant!  The security procedures video was pretty funny and the staff was all very friendly.  Kudos to VA!

Upon getting to LA and our rental car, “we” decided to take a trip to Hollywood Park (horse racing site of more recent Breeders Cups) given that it is only a few minutes from the airport.  Hollywood Park is in the middle of Inglewood, so it is interesting to see how you go from Inglewood to palm trees, a pond, and a beautiful distant view that you see when looking out towards the track.  Yes, I’m speaking in code.  We left after two races.  I bet the wrong race and we decided we would try to beat traffic.  Ha …

We booked our first two nights at the Hilton Anaheim and planned for a trip to Disneyland.  Traffic from the track to Anaheim = pretty bad.  Not as bad as I had envisioned, but bad nonetheless.  We got to the hotel around 6pm and our room wasn’t ready.  This wasn’t a problem at all as we A. got breakfast buffet coupons for this inconvenience and B. went straight to the pool bar after checking our bags with the concierge. 

After checking into the room (well done again Hilton Honors!) we made our way to Downtown Disney to meet up with Molly, Jonathan, and Molly’s family.  We ate at Tortilla Joe’s and I quickly found the ‘moderate’ section of the menu.  Check.  After the meal, the soon to be newlyweds and family went on their way and Dor and I went over to the House of Blues.  In case you were wondering what Leann Rimes is doing with her life, aside from stealing husbands, she’s playing in places like Disney’s House of Blues on random Friday’s.  Within ten minutes of us hearing her concert from the outside, she went into the song from Coyote Ugly.  She probably could have ended there too.  There was a scalper on the patio by where we were sitting.  Depending on how big or what the family looked like (clothes, tourist apparel, etc.) he would offer tickets for $3-$5 a pop.  No one obliged and I’m relatively positive this crook lost money for the evening. 

Buzz kill alert: Don’t drink a 12 pack and then think it is a good idea to go shopping in a Disney store.  Kids running amok, parents not paying any attention to them whatsoever, and constant noise in your ears; not good times. 

The next day we went to Disneyland and bought the two park pass; Disneyland + California Adventures.  Disneyland has vastly similar rides to Disneyworld but there is a lot less space, so it felt like we could (and did) get to everything we wanted to.  Here are a few highlights from the day:

1.     DL has a ‘Fast Pass’ where you punch your ticket into a ride and they give you a window of time to come back later in the day.  We got Fast Pass tickets for 3 or 4 rides, and never went back to them to use. 

a.     You should be able to pay extra money to cut in line all day at every theme park in America.  Yes, I’m that stubborn.

2.     I felt like Space Mountain in DL was better than the one in DW.  I also came to the realization that it is probably just due to the fact that I’m older and turning into a ninny. 

3.     DL brought back Captain EO after Michael Jackson’s death.  Is this what Michael Moore had in mind for “Capitalism: A Love Story”?  At the end of this film/ride, I realized that I think I owned a few of the action toys from the movie when I was a baby.  Let’s just move on …

4.     I really enjoy the “It’s a Small World” ride.  I really don’t enjoy having the song in my head for those 20 minutes on the ride and the next 60 minutes afterward. 

5.     Was pleasantly surprised to see “New Orleans Square” on the DL map and that is where we wound up eating (of course).

6.     Dorothy wanted to go on the canoes where you paddle with a group of others around the lake in the middle of the park.  Within minutes, she complained of getting wet.  I’m not sure how you can want to go on canoes but not want to get wet. 

a.     You’ll quickly see our threshold of pain for people deteriorate from this point forward …

b.    In actuality, there was definitely some blame for the people paddling in front of her.  They weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. 

7.     On the Indiana Jones ride, I wound up in the ‘driver’s seat’ of the car.  The ride broke down towards the end and we were bounced around in idle for about 5-7 minutes in the pitch black.  You can always blame a Jersey driver for something …

8.     Our last ride (for the afternoon) in DL was a kid’s ride; Finding Nemo.  The two kids in front of us, probably somewhere in the range of 2.5 – 4 years old, couldn’t have misbehaved more.  Running around in circles and stepping all over us, playing in the garbage cans, getting in and out of the line.  Naturally, the two mothers on line with them did close to nothing for the first 45 minutes.  Then, one of them handed the kid her IPhone to play with.  Parenting 101 in the US these days.  Awesome.

a.     When we finally (and thankfully) got to the end of the wait, said family was at the front of the line and the attendant pointed all of us to the same boat.  I gracefully asked him if it was OK if we went to the complete opposite side of the line and on another boat “to get away from this train wreck”.  They may have heard this and I couldn’t care less.

Afterwards we walked over to California Adventures, with the goal of getting on a few rides.  We walked immediately to the Twilight Zone’s Tower of Terror, which is essentially a Free Fall (Great Adventure, NJ) but done multiple times rather than just one drop.  Good stuff. 

As we walked to the rollercoaster California Screamin’, we realized that there was a lot of construction going on in the park and it felt like they may have been better off just closing the park and getting that done vs. the limited options and overall nuisance of having to walk around all of it.  In any case, as we got to the roller coaster they shut down the ride due to the forthcoming light show in the park.  Fail.  After debating our options (beer, wine, leave) we decided to head back to DL. 

On the way out, two things occurred:

1.     Dor, “I feel like there are a lot of bugs around” … we were walking through the “A Bug’s Life” section of the park and they pump fake bug noises all around you.  Draw your own conclusions for my reaction …

2.     We walked smack into a rave on the other end of the park.  There was a rave / dance party with kids, teenagers, moms … just disturbing.  We couldn’t get out of California Adventures fast enough.

We walked back to DL to ride Splash Mountain and caught the tail end of the character’s show on the water.  Afterwards, we desperately made our way to Downtown Disney and eventually the hotel bar for drinks as I/we were at our quota for tolerating people. The highlight of the hotel bar was watching a 50 year old female escort/prostitute parade around the entire area looking for employment.  After about 30 minutes, I watched a man walk out the front of the hotel and bang … a hard right.  Seconds later, she walked out and took a left.  There is no doubt in my mind that they met in the middle.

Net/net, DL is a lot of fun – despite the lack of Disney characters we saw as we paraded the park.  It is however, much smaller (or at least feels this way) vs. Disney World.  I wouldn’t recommend California Adventures at all, but I have no idea what the construction plans entail and maybe that includes serious upgrades.  For their sake, hopefully it does. 

It was off to LA the next morning.  Again, traffic was pretty bad but nothing like I envisioned.  I really thought the traffic throughout the weekend was going to be awful, but it wasn’t any worse than rush hour here in NJ.  We checked into the Hilton Checkers and made a mad dash to Hollywood.  The GPS took us to the wrong address and we wound up losing a good 45 minutes to an hour.  After getting there, we quickly realized we had to make it back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. 

We couldn’t have flown through the highlights of Hollywood any faster.  We took a few pictures of certain stars on the sidewalk, walked to the house where all of the lunatics stand in costumes, took a picture with the Hollywood sign on the mountains in the background, and basically shuffled back to downtown LA.  It didn’t help that we were doing this right after a 16 hour day in Disney.  Our (… my? …) tolerance for crowds and people couldn’t have been any lower, so I was a-ok with getting out of there.  (This was one of my big takeaways from the weekend; don’t do Disney/Hollywood back to back, give a day in between to sit by a pool or something similar.)

Congratulations are in order to Molly and Jonathan for a great ceremony and reception!  Purposefully, here’s a quick summary of the wedding events from the next two days.  I don’t want to look like I’m writing about a wedding.  I could go on and on about how much fun we had but simply put, I just don’t think it is appropriate to write much of anything about someone else’s wedding, have it read the wrong way, etc.:

1.     The rehearsal dinner was at the ESPN Zone in downtown LA (#winning).  Beverages were cold and a good time was had by all.  Surprisingly, ESPN Zone doesn’t order/get UFC PPV’s.  I guess if they don’t have a vested interest in the sport, it gets downplayed.  (I haven’t mentioned how much hate ESPN and what they have done to sports over the past handful of years in a while …)  After the rehearsal dinner we wound up staying at the Zone for a few more hours.  Sadly, before midnight they kicked us out as we were the last people there.  Midnight?!  Really?!

2.     The wedding reception was the following day at the Marvimon House in LA.  It was a beautiful day for a wedding with the ceremony being held outside.  LA weather is amazing.  A prolonged workout of 12 ounce curls was on the menu for the evening and sufficiently met. 

Sadly, that brought us to the end of our last vacation in 2011 and it was time for our flight home.  The open tab couldn’t have been punched into the monitor in front of me fast enough on the plane.  Glenfiddich shooters were cheaper than a beer, so that was the direction I headed.  There was a flight attendant on our plane from Australia.  (Virgin just launched Virgin Australia – or something similar to that – and this was clearly a pre-planned plug for this and many other flights in the near future I’m sure.)  We talked to her for a few minutes and she bought us a round of drinks; once again proving that Australians are awesome and Americans have some work to do.  Unfortunately, while we were speaking to her, the guy sitting next to Dor huffed and puffed the entire time like this was some tragedy of epic proportions. Of course, 30 minutes later, this same guy grabbed a Hasidic Jewish man from 10 rows behind us and had him perform prayers with a Tefillin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefillin) in the middle of the flight. 

So to summarize, talking to a stewardess is frowned upon, but performing religious rituals in the middle of a flight should be considered completely normal.  Have I mentioned how scared I get thinking about bringing a baby into this ass-backwards world that we live in?  (By the way, that isn’t a hint and there isn’t really a plan for this.  So no follow up questions on it please.  Thanks)

No amount of scotch could help and thankfully we landed EARLY.  Flying from LAX to JFK and landing early; we must have done something right to someone in the days or weeks prior to the trip. 

Hope you enjoyed the recap!  Let me know if you have any questions or comments on what we did or what we did/did not accomplish. 

Honeymoon 1.0

Preface

Truth be told, I always wanted to start a blog.   Unfortunately, I’m really not that interesting of a person.  Recently, I officially left bachelorhood behind and tied the knot to the love of my life.  While Dorothy handled much of the wedding planning, I was tasked with the honeymoon (even as we strolled through Australia and New Zealand, she had little care for the actual itinerary).  So around 5am on 4/3/11, after the wedding reception and late night gymnastics show, I went full throttle on honeymoon thoughts and micro-managing.  (It was in Cairns that I decided to write/blog about this trip … eventually you will understand why.)

Flight to Australia

Due to the fact that I am painfully committed to getting to an airport as early as possible, we had a limo come at 1pm to take us to JFK for a 7pm flight.  This allowed for plenty of room for error … and drinking.  We were so early that we weren’t even allowed to check in at Qantas and had to wait an hour to see if we could get an upgrade and eventually check in.  Rather than paying almost $20,000 for upgrades throughout the trip, we figured we were perfectly content with Economy seating.  The flight to LAX was slightly delayed (if you know me, you know this isn’t surprising).  This is/was my first time in LAX … and I have to say, it sucks.  Isn’t LA the second biggest city in the US?  Was it the terminal that we were in?  There was one “bar” in the terminal and it was the size of my kitchen, only with less walking space and more pricks.  Thankfully, we boarded on time for Sydney.

(Insert anything witty here, as I slept the next six hours and woke up as the plane flew over Hawaii)

Upon waking up, I watched “The Tourist” on the seat TV.  Similar to LAX, this movie sucks.  I really just don’t get Johnny Depp at all.  Shallow?  Perhaps.  Anyway, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give kudos at this point to Qantas and their international flights.  We had tremendous service, good food, and free wine.  Yes, free wine.  The flight to Sydney, Australia is not nearly as bad as people make it seem.  I assume these same people don’t like free wine. 

Sydney: “Big City, Bright Lights”

We arrived in Sydney at 8am on Wednesday, 4/6 (local time).  The loss of ‘the day’ is completely bewildering, but not nearly as much as driving on the left hand side of the road and having your cab driver on the right hand side of the car.  Quickly, we realized how good of a decision it was to not have any car rentals during our trip.  I would have driven into a head-on collision within .5 miles coming out of the airport.  One other note about driving in Australia; NJ drivers would dominate the roads down there, as Australia has a ton of circles on its highways.  I find this phenomenal; Dorothy, not so much. 

We checked into the Sydney Hilton and were told that we couldn’t get the free Hilton Honors breakfast that morning and would have to wait until the next three nights, based on our reservation.  Knowing now what I didn’t know at check-in, I would have made a huge stink/production about this.  The breakfast at the Sydney Hilton is otherworldly.  I really can’t overstate how nice it is.  Eggs to order, 8-12 other hot dishes, fruits, those juice shots that muscle-heads take at the gym to look trendy, and a ton of pastries, including what has become known simply as, “It’s a sugar twist with chocolate in the middle!!”

Sydney, in its simplest description/form, is a cleaner version of a city that falls somewhere between San Francisco and NYC in size and décor – but more appealing than both.  There were more skyscrapers than I had expected.  Unlike SF, where the wharf gives you a non-city feeling, Sydney’s Circular Quay still feels “city”.  (That probably doesn’t make much sense to most, but I’m not going to bother to explain it any further.  You either get it or you don’t.)  In any case, Sydney is a gorgeous city, but it is also very clearly, a big city, which only has so much appeal in my semi-deranged brain.  Here’s a quick summary of our highlights over the next 4 days and three nights:

·         Sydney Opera House – gorgeous to look at on the water and pier.  Very appealing and nothing like it. 

·         Sydney Harbour Bridge – also very appealing.  I strangely have some type of proclivity for bridges and bridge tours (Tower Bridge in London being at the top of the list).  If they gave tours for the Outerbridge Crossing, I’d be first in line to take it.  Maybe not.  Anyway, I would highly recommend doing the ‘bridge climb’, where you essentially scale the bridge and stand on the top of it while the minions below you drive past in their cars or ride through on the ferries and boats. 

·         Sydney Tower – don’t do the Tower after doing the bridge climb as it is very underwhelming relative to the other.  Also, don’t plan to eat at the tower’s restaurant, as they cap your time up in the restaurant at 90 minutes – incredibly tacky in my opinion.  Net/net, go to the top of the tower, walk around, take pictures of all the sites, and come down and enjoy the rest of Sydney.  (See: Eiffel Tower)

·         Restaurants and bar tabs – good to great food options throughout the city, high prices.  Repeat.  Repeat again.  We did really like the Darling Harbour area. 

·         Parks and botanical gardens – We really liked Hyde Park (another one – London, Cincinnati…) and the Governors House.

·         Bondi Beach – there seems to be some internal strife and competition among the locals between Bondi and Manly Beach.  We chose Bondi.  We overheard someone say “we have no ozone” and that freaked the hell out of me and I immediately reapplied lotion.  The beach and streets made for great scenery but there are a lot of tattoos and long hair flowing at Bondi and it seemed a bit trendy.

·         Randwick race course – I love horse racing and this was my big failure of the honeymoon planning.  This course only races on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s at this time of year and I completely missed this as we went on Thursday and wound up having to take pictures from the outside.  We left Saturday AM for our next stop, which just so happened to be Australian Darby Day at the track.  Unlike Charlie Sheen, I wasn’t “winning” here whatsoever. 

·         Sydney Hilton – did I mention the breakfast and the sugar twist with chocolate in the middle?! 

The one surprise from the first few days in Australia, I really couldn’t find many beers that I liked.  My favorites … and actually the only ones I liked, were Jack Squire’s Porter and Jack Squire’s Golden Ale.  Essentially, Jack has a great brewing system and everyone else focuses on wine. 

Cairns: “The Triple Lutz”

Travel snob alert!  There was no free wine or TV’s on the flight from Sydney to Cairns.  However, I would take a Qantas domestic flight every day of the week over anything we have here in the US.  It amazes me how much US airlines screw consumers over.  Yet, with no clear alternative, we have no other choice.  Why don’t we have high speed railroads again?  (Political rant over)

In Cairns, we continued to use up Hilton points and were treated to a very good hotel that was just off the main strip … and conveniently located right outside the casino.  Remember who drew up the outline for this trip, right?  While it doesn’t compare to the Sydney Hilton’s breakfast, we were able to access the Executive Lounge for breakfasts and snacks and drinks in the evenings.  We quickly turned ‘snacks and drinks’ into ‘dinner’ and gorged the food/bar.  Our room had a balcony out the back which provided a great view of the main street and mountains.  (Thank you Hilton Honors!)

Cairns is a beautiful city with a great skyline … of green, mountains, and water.  This finally felt like a real vacation.  The bats come out around dusk and chirp along, which made to be a perfect setting from our balcony with some wine and cigars. 

On our second day in Cairns we scheduled a snorkeling trip out on the Great Barrier Reef.  In summary, I have never, ever been so seasick in my life.  Here’s an equation for you: ((Todd Bonser’s BP deep sea fishing trip * 2.5) + Cold sweats through a t-shirt) / Wine + Cigar Hangover = Black plague has come back to earth and landed in Cairns.  The high/lowlight of the trip was pulling off what I’ll call “the triple lutz”.  To keep the disgusting barometer low here, I’ll describe “the triple lutz” as bodily fluids leaving 60% of my body’s orifices (luckily, my two ears weren’t bleeding).  When I finally resurrected from that now desecrated bathroom, it was just about time to get in the water.  I couldn’t bring myself to the tutorial and figured someone would just show me what I needed to do before I drown.  (They did)  We snorkeled the first two of three stops on the trip.  What we did see was absolutely amazing.  The fish that are in the water are ridiculous.  The coral and the sheer size of it all is breathtaking.  Not many people can say they swam in the Great Barrier Reef … and not many people can pull off “the triple lutz” either.  Upon returning to land I kissed the pavement and we went on with the rest of our trip. 

For our final day in Cairns we booked a trip up to the town of Kuranda via Skyrail/gondola and back home via historic train.  While the city itself was small and underwhelming, the trip itself was well worth it due to the modes of transportation to/from.  The Skyrail provided a ride over the rainforest with a few quick stops along the way.  The train ride home was great, largely due to one of Dorothy’s greatest contributions/finds for the trip – the Gold Pass.  We happily upgraded to the Gold Pass and sat in a private train cabin with only two other couples, all the while consuming wine and appetizers.  Highly recommended upgrade.  In both directions, you wind up passing/stopping at the Barron Falls which also made for tremendous scenery. 

All in all, Cairns is a must see/stop for those visiting Australia given the Barrier Reef and beautiful views within the city itself and other cities up and down the coast.  Many others that we spoke with were taking day trips up to Cooktown and Port Douglas, so those are on our radar if we are to ever return to Australia.

Alice Springs / Uluru: “Australian Fly Trap”

Apparently, nothing worthwhile happened on our travel from Cairns to Alice Springs as I have nothing in my notes from this except the fact that the airport in Alice Springs makes Dayton Ohio’s airport look like Newark Airport in terms of size and importance. 

There are no Hilton’s in Alice Springs so Dorothy and I had to go searching for a hotel.  We found what we thought would be a good place to stay as it was listed in the Frommers and available through Dor’s travel company from her office.  The Desert Palm Resort should replace “resort” with “motel” and if there is something a step down from motel, please use that.  The photographer that took the pictures for their web site should be given some type of award/reward for what they make this place look like.  There were four TV stations available in your “villa” … also, very loosely defined here.  Add to this the beyond poor customer service from the front desk.  Example 1: General disgust and facial expressions when asked the simplest of questions for assistance.  Example 2: JF: “Can we get a wakeup call?” Response, “There’s an alarm clock next to your bed”.  Example 3: The front desk closes around 8pm and they lock up all the vending machines that they positioned as “a market”.  The best thing I can say about this hotel is that we were able to do laundry here while we sat by the pool for an hour.  Again, I implore someone to demand they take out the word “resort” from their name.

In any case, Alice Springs was certainly an interesting stop on our trip and is in the “Red Center” of the country, or the Outback.  On our first walk into town, an aboriginal man was laying on the ground, picked up his head as we got close, and started yelling/moaning in our direction.  I’ve since translated this conversation to “Go home white devil!!”  Once in the central business district – something else that is loosely defined in this area of the country – we realized that this wasn’t going to take long and we would look for the highlights, grab a drink or two, and head back to the hotel before we lost daylight.  The one additional note I have on the city/town is that everything is named “Todd”.  There is a street, river, mall, bar, etc. all named Todd.  I don’t know who Todd is or was, but clearly he left an everlasting impression in Alice Springs. 

Upon getting back to the hotel we readied ourselves for a trip to the “Juicy Rump” bar/restaurant that was down the road from our “resort” and the one thing that we had on our must do list for Alice Springs.  Whoever created the name for this place is pure genius.  The location of the Juicy Rump (just to type that again) is right next to the “casino” (again, loose definition of the word by our or anyone’s standards).  There were approximately five tables in the casino and maybe a couple hundred slots.  We did a lap and went right back to the Juicy Rump. 

Here we met a couple that told us a story of how the man was on a return visit and on one of his prior trips to Alice Springs, he was ‘jumped’ by aboriginals while walking down the streets with plastic bags in his hands from a department store.  Rewind about 4 hours and this could have been us as we stopped at the local Kmart (yep, they exist in Alice Springs) and walked home with a few necessities.  Thankfully, we didn’t hear this story beforehand and thankfully, we weren’t going to be spending much more time after this night in Alice Springs.

The next day we had booked an 18 hour (?!?!) tour to/from Uluru/Ayers Rock.  On the tour we saw Connor Mountain, Ayers Rock, and Kantju Gorge, all of which were incredible.  In its easiest explanation, this is essentially the inverse of the Grand Canyon.  I would highly recommend going to see this if you are only going to visit Australia once, as the Red Center is certainly different than the coastal cities that most frequent. 

Along the drive, we stopped at a camel farm. Yes, a camel farm.  I had no idea that camels were so abundant in Australia.  We were told, and I haven’t confirmed this, that when the Middle East is looking to import camels, they go to Australia as their camels have the appropriate bloodlines to deal with the weather in the Middle East.  Feel free to confirm that little nugget yourselves.  At the camel farm, Dorothy wanted to go on a camel ride.  I quickly remembered that she is actually allergic to camel hair.  You try to make sense of having a desire to ride a camel when you know you are allergic to it.  I don’t even like going outside my front door when the pollen is starting to come out in the Spring, let alone sit on an animal that I know I’m allergic to. 

The one thing I must mention is that you have to have a high level patience for flies if you are to visit the Red Center.  They are EVERYWHERE.  I can’t overstate this as I reached my breaking point at least three times during the day.  If I have one regret from this portion of the trip, it is definitely not buying a fishnet hat from the souvenir store at our first stop.  Buy the hat and accept looking ridiculous for a few hours! 

This brings us to the sole hiccup of our honeymoon.  The day was long and the champagne flowed during the sunset viewing of Ayers Rock, so we were dead tired on the 4 hour drive back to Alice Springs and fell asleep on the bus.  Upon arrival to the hotel drop-off, I asked Dorothy if she had everything, including her purse.  What I failed to specify was, “do you have the camera with 2,000 honeymoon pictures on it?”  Upon going to charge the battery in the camera around 2am, we realized what had happened and what we needed to do over the next few hours – pray.  We called anyone we could think of from the companies we had been in touch with.  The next morning, we woke up at 5:45am (via alarm clock next to the bed …) to get to the office of AAT Tours to see if they had found/located the camera.  After about an hour of no luck, we finally found the person that had the camera and breathed a sigh of huge relief.  From this point forward, guess who had responsibility for holding onto the camera. 

(Quick aside: thank you to AAT Tours for their service and honesty - another recommendation from the trip.)

Melbourne: “You Had Me At Hello”

After the flies and camera debacle, we were ready to get the hell out of Alice Springs.  Our next stop was the one city that we were not taking off the list as we planned the trip from my perspective.  I had heard a few things consistently about Melbourne: 1. It has a modern feel to it, 2. There is a hint of Europe within the city and 3. There is a huge passion for sports.  Melbourne lived up to its expectations. 

We arrived in Melbourne on one of the later flights that we had in the trip so only had a few hours of sunlight on our first day.  We checked into the hotel (Hilton on the Park) and found out that we had similar access to Breakfast and Drinks/Snacks in the Executive Lounge.  With this information, we decided to do a walk around the immediate area of the hotel and did a few of the parks and gardens in the area.  Upon heading back to the hotel for the Drinks/Snacks, I made a comment similar to, “Well, now that the gardens are out of the way, we can enjoy the drinking, sports, and gambling portion of our honeymoon.”  I’m not sure that was well received or not.  The truth occasionally hurts. 

After the Hilton cocktail hour we walked to Federation Square to see what the nightlife would be like.  This area of the city seemed to always be busy with people socializing and such.  After a few drinks we decided to call it an evening as we were dead tired from the night before (lost camera worries) and traveling. 

The next day began our tour of sports duty.  We strolled through Yarra & Melbourne Parks, which includes Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), Rod Laver Arena and the rest of the Australian Open courts, and the Olympic Park.  The blue tennis courts are pretty interesting to see … but you probably don’t care about this at all.  We noticed a sign that said there were a few Aussie Rules Football (footy) games at MCG the weekend we were there and my mind started wandering. 

Afterwards, we made our way across the Yarra River and to the Eureka Skydeck, the tallest building in the city.  The views from the center of the city were pretty amazing as you could see the entire business district on one side, but then on the other you saw the water / Port Phillip Bay.  I would recommend this over the Sydney Tower … plus they had a bar on the top level where you could enjoy the scenery with a beer, unlike in Sydney.

After the Eureka Skydeck, we planned to grab a bite to eat at the Noodle House in the Crown Casino based on a friend’s recommendation.  However, it took us at least an hour to find the entrance to the casino, which for all intents and purposes was located on the map exactly where we were standing.  I’m not sure how it is possible to hide a huge casino and its entrance so well, but Melbourne has certainly managed to pull this off.  Before eating, I decided to gamble.  MISTAKE, MISTAKE!  That was a quick waste of monopoly money …

(Actually, Australians made it a point to us the few times that it came up on how long it has been since the AUD has been equal to or greater than the USD.  For the record, it was 1983.  So approximately 30 years in the making: my wedding/honeymoon and the surging AUD / plummeting USD.  Of course, thanks Bernanke!  Political rant #2, complete)

We decided to skip the Noodle House as A. it was expensive (thanks Blackjack) and B. the thought of ordering a $30 meal that covered one-tenth of a plate when it came out was in the back of our minds.  We wound up eating at one of the riverside restaurants that was also over-priced.  However, we came to an agreement that we’d buy tickets to a footy game.  On the walk back to the hotel, Dor went up to the lounge to look at wedding pictures on Facebook (surprisingly, I had yet to mention this daily occurrence) and I went to buy the tickets for the game.  By the time I got the tickets and back to the lounge, Dorothy was in conversation with an older gentleman who gave us two free tickets that were much better situated in the stadium.  We handed our tickets to someone else in the lounge and pre-gamed away.

Thankfully, the people in Melbourne – and all of Australia – are generally courteous.  When we arrived at our seats in MCG, there were a number of people sitting around us that were more than willing to help explain the game itself and the rules.  Did we look that touristy?  I guess.  In case you are interested, here’s a link to the rules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football

By the middle of the second quarter, I felt like I had a strong grasp of the rules and the game itself.  It was thoroughly enjoyable and I’ve since tried to convince the great minds at Roku to show live footy games and not replays a week later.  In any case, Collingwood won the game as was expected.  They are the defending champs of the league playing against Richmond, who is a rebuilding team (much like my favorite sports teams here in the US, I knew this wasn’t going to be close – although I had no luck in finding an Aussie bookie … if I were into things like that I mean). 

The next day our plan was to go to Flemington Racecourse.  Stop reading here and jump to the next paragraph if you don’t care about horse racing.  As we got dressed in the AM, I think we hit the point of the honeymoon where we knew we should have gotten dressed up for the day, but didn’t bother to do so.  On the train ride to the track, there were a few couples dressed up in full suits, dresses + hats, etc.  We knew we were in trouble.  Our attire aside, Flemington was a gorgeous racetrack, even Dorothy agreed; “If Monmouth Park looked like this, I’d be more interested in going”.  (I have some doubts here; this is/was our honeymoon after all.) 

After a few races, we returned to the city and spent the rest of our time in Melbourne around the bars and restaurants.  We did a quick stop at the Docklands, thinking that this was going to be a nice, waterfront area to sit for at least an hour.  Maybe it was the day, maybe it wasn’t, but this area was completely dead. 

To quickly summarize Melbourne, any time you can get me in a 25 minute radius of sports arenas, a casino, and a horse track, you have my undivided attention but also love and gratitude. 

Auckland, New Zealand: "Dor and John Go Green"

In flying to Auckland and near arrival, we quickly realized how beautiful this area of the world is.  The amount of water and green that we could see from our plane was phenomenal.  Rather than booking a hotel and conveniently making it a suggestion (see: Australia), we just went ahead and booked rooms at the SkyCity Grand Hotel … which doubled as the casino in Auckland. 

Our first day in Auckland was really just a night, so we walked towards the water to grab dinner and drinks.  Nothing to report here outside of the fact it was nice to be in a place where the USD has some value and over-indexes.  For what it’s worth, I did find a really good local beer in Auckland called Mac’s Black in the casino.  Similar to Jack Squire’s, my second favorite local beer in Auckland was Mac’s Golden Ale.We booked a quad tour for the following day and went to the western side of the island/country for the ride itself.  This was a great time and highly recommended!  The ride took us through the woods, but also up/down the beaches of the island.  Naturally, there are a few high/low-lights:

1.     I’ve never driven a stick shift car in my life, so the gears and going up/down hills was an adventure.  A stalled adventure.  At least a handful of times before I finally got the hang of what to do and when.

2.     I’m glad I didn’t see this, but Dorothy flipped off her quad on a dirt path.  I was in front of her and was waiting for her and the others to come with one instructor that was in front of us.  I figured something happened at the five minute mark of waiting.  The bruise on her arm from the spill lasted a good week and a half but thankfully, this wasn’t a bigger issue. 

3.     Along the trail there were a number of puddles from recent rainfall.  As the lead instructor turned off a road, onto a path, and through a small pond / big puddle, I thought I would be slick and take a larger turn, do some off-roading, and over grass.  What I failed to see was the wire fence that prevented this from happening and wound up driving into it and getting tangled for 10 minutes. 

The instructors were not impressed with any of this.  Did I forget to mention they were half my age?  Oh well.  The quads were fun to ride and we saw a different/unique part of the country. 

Upon returning to downtown Auckland we went up to the top of the Auckland Sky Tower (right next to hotel/casino).  This was our third tower of the trip and the best.  They have glass floors in the walkway that you can see to the bottom.  They also have ‘bungee jumping’ off of the tower (didn’t partake).  Finally, they have a bar at the top for your/our convenience.  Afterwards, we walked back down to the Wharf and took some pictures, stopped by the Hilton Auckland (very nice) and decided to walk back to the hotel. 

In mid-sentence, Dorothy, “I wonder where that Ice Bar is.  We are never going to find it, are we…” and there it was, the Ice Bar.  Naturally, we stopped in for drinks.  Dorothy is a sucker for paying for pictures as souvenirs.  I have no idea how much we paid and I’m not sure she does either for admission, drinks, and the pictures that they take, as they don’t allow pictures in the bar itself for some reason. 

For the final full day of the honeymoon, we booked a day tour that included a few different stops: Waitomo Glow Worm Caves, a petting zoo/farm, Rotorua, and Te Puia (a Maori village).  The glow worm cave was certainly interesting, as these creatures consistently procreate and then die once reaching full maturity.  That doesn’t sound very fun.  At the petting zoo we found a number of local animals to feed, watch, etc.  We saw a sheep get shaved and I must say, I was rather uncomfortable watching it the entire time.  (Dorothy is also allergic to wool, so why we stood in that room for so long to watch this, I have no idea.) 

Rotorua looks like a shore town along the East Coast of the States and our tour guide pointed out that tourism is key for the city.  Shore house anyone?  The scenery and views in New Zealand are quite breathtaking and you go from one amazing view to another quickly.  Within the Maori village we were able to see geysers going off and a boiling mud pool.  We didn’t see any “No diving” signs though. 

After the day tour, we checked to make sure we had our camera and made our way to our final dinner; a seafood buffet at the top of the Sky Tower.  Nice way to close out the trip.  How do you make it nicer?  By closing out the trip by winning at the casino – taking back any and all lost donations to the casinos of Australia + covering the hotel balance, room service breakfasts, + bar tabs at the hotel.  Woohoo!

Flight Home

During the 11 hour trip from Auckland to Los Angeles, I wound up sleeping 0 minutes.  I have no idea how that is/was possible, but it happened.  You know what that means, bring on the free wine!  Aside from the wine and good food on the flight, I watched “Due Date”.  Whose 15 minutes end first: Robert Downey Jr. or Zac Galifianakis?  We’re closing in on both.  Upon arriving to LAX, we quickly realized we were in the same terminal and that the one ‘bar’ that was in it wasn’t open yet.  That said, it was 6am local time and our bodies were completely reversed. 

I have nothing to report on the flight from LAX to JFK as I slept the entire flight and with that sleep, my body was miraculously adjusted back to US EST timing.  It just took a few days after this to train my body to sleep for more than 4-5 hours a night. 

All in all, it was a great trip and I would recommend taking the time to travel to the other side of the world to experience it if you can.  It was funny to hear Australians and New Zealanders constantly make fun of the other, and even more interesting to hear one state of Australia bash the others.  It was like New York and Boston, only this doesn’t revolve around sports and there is real dislike across the Australian states.

Hope you enjoyed the write-up.  If you are thinking about traveling to this area of the world, please feel free to ask any questions as we talked to a good amount of people from and/or visiting various cities in both countries.