Month: May 2011

What a great weekend! I headed off to New Zealand with Chris for the weekend. Auckland is just a 3 1/2 hour flight from Melbourne. So we got up very early on Saturday morning and arrived in NZ just before lunch in Auckland (with a 2 hour time difference). Auckland is a great city. I really like the harbour area where there are loads of great restaurants. We stayed at the Westin which is located right on the water. Most of the weekend was spent eating and exploring the city. We also stopped to check out the Sky Tower and the attached casino. New Zealanders seem to be a pretty friendly bunch too. But what I also noticed is that there are loads of people from other countries living there. It seemed like everyone we spoke to had an accent that wasn’t from New Zealand. I suspect it must be a country that has easy immigration laws. Next time I go back I’d like to stay a few more days.

I actually called it a mini retirement when I started my two month long vacation from work. I didn’t really have any set plans for when I started the time off. But I quickly had plans going when Jake called me up and told me to go meet him in Malaysia. It started with a road trip to Geelong, then a few days in Queensland with my family, then a week in Malaysia with Jake, and then 3 weeks in the USA. It didn’t take long before the 2 months were gone. I guess I’m kinda glad to be going back to work tomorrow. It’s time to move on and get on with the next chapter of this life. I feel a lot more settled and happy with what I’m doing now. I’m happy to see where things take me.
And I promise I will post more about the trip soon. I have a tonne of photos to post here.

One of the highlights of our stay in Palm Springs had to be the day we took the aerial tramway up the mountain to 12,000 feet and saw the snow up there. We hadn’t planned to go there so we had to buy tops at the tourist store so we wouldn’t freeze up there. It’s funny how you can go from desert heat to snow within an hour. Here are a few pics of our stay in Palm Springs. It was mostly all about swimming and eating. I think I would to try going there in winter next time.

I was a bit worried about getting off a 15 hour flight and driving from LAX to Palm Springs. But it actually turned out okay. We got lost as soon as we drove out of the Avis car lot. But Chris turned on his maps on the iphone and managed to get us out of trouble and on to the right freeways to Palm Springs. It was a bit strange driving on the other side of the road, but I managed to do it fairly competently for 5 days. And I caused no accidents. But I was really glad when we arrived at the hotel in Palm Springs and jumped in the pool. I will definitely go to PS again. We both liked it there a lot.

Okay, I’m a little slow posting on my USA trip here. I just arrived in Chicago today. But let me catch you up on what’s happened. I arrived home from Malaysia on the 21st of April and then left for the US on the 22nd April. So things were a bit hurried. I was thankful that Chris was travelling in First Class so we checked in fast and got to have brekky here in the Qantas First Class Lounge. Now that’s the way to start a long trip! I only wish that I was up in the pointy end too. Instead I was crammed in to economy with everyone else.