Welcome Anyway

Nile Cruise - final take

2011-07-17T11:47:00.005-06:00

I know, I know, I totally suck. I’m just going to finish our Cruise now, then I’ll do all of Cairo in one entry so I can actually move on to other things that need to be blogged about.

Our final day with Mohammed, we went to the Valley of the Kings. He warned us the previous day that, the Valley of the Kings day was going to be the hottest day so far (yup, we’re talking 115°F) and that, except for when we were in the tombs, there would be no shade. He wasn’t wrong. Our ticket got us in to three tombs, of our choice. Mohammed mentioned a great tomb, but added “but there will be quite a few stairs to reach it… it will be difficult.” I admit it – I am a wimp. It was WAY to hot, and I was WAY to fat to climb several stairs in that heat. But I didn’t want to ruin it for Lisa and Amanda, so I told them if they wanted to go, I would just wait. None of us were really up to the stairs. In any case, the tombs we did see were awesome. Sadly, we had to leave our cameras in the tour bus, so no pictures.

On our way back to the boat, we stopped at the temple of Hatshepsut – a female pharaoh. It was beautiful – but again, so, so hot.

We then stopped at the Colossi of Memnon.

Mohammed had us stop at a place that, I don’t know the word, “harvests?” alabaster. The demonstrated the process of digging it up, cutting it in to shapes, and polishing it. Lots of hard work. We, of course, weren’t obligated to buy anything, but they had a green moonstone carving of Nefertiti that was quite cool, so I did buy that.

That night, a guy who called himself (I think) the Egyptian Don Juan propositioned Amanda. She must have left her fake wedding ring on the boat. Although she didn’t understand him when he asked for a kiss, she had the good sense to say no to anything he did ask. Hilarious!

That was it for our time with Mohammed, although we were in Luxor one more day. The following day, all by ourselves (shocking), we went to the Karnak and Luxor temples. Our flight to Cairo was late at night, and – surprise – it was too hot for us to explore outside, AND since we had to be out of our cabin, we hung out in the lounge where it was cool. We then flew to Cairo.

Karnak

Row of sphinx to Luxor temple

Nile Cruise, Take 2

2011-04-29T20:12:00.009-06:00

So, on the morning of our second day, we finally set sail (and yes, I’m finally updating my blog).

The Nile

We sailed up the Nile – how cool is it that I can say that? – until we reached the Temple of Kom Ombo. Kom Ombo is actually a double temple dedicated to Horus and the crocodile god Sobek. The temple was right on the shore of the Nile (and up some stairs). And it was absolutely beautiful… hot, but beautiful. Our visit to Kom Ombo was over by noon (Mohammed said it would be just too hot after that).

Kom Ombo

It was interesting, there were so many boats docked at each… um, port (?) that sometimes we had to walk through 4-5 boats before we’d get to shore. Some of the boats looked nicer than ours. Others were in an obvious state of disrepair. Since Amanda sees dead people, I’m surprised she didn’t see any ghosts hanging around the scarier boats we passed through.

After Kom Ombo, we set sail again. In our down time (not ashore and not eating meals), we had planned to go up on deck and lounge by the pool. However, even sitting in the shade of an umbrella (or even under an awning) was too darn hot for us (at least for me) to stay up there for too long. So, we spent a lot of time in our cabin. Which was actually quite nice. The heat was tiring, so we read and napped. Oh, and looked at the pictures take that day. Exactly how a vacation should be, busy seeing the sites, but still with time to relax.

Later that afternoon (it was fairly close to sunset), we docked at Edfu. The Temple of Edfu wasn’t as close to the river as Kom Ombo, so the three of us piled into a little horse-drawn carriage (Mohammed sat up with the driver), and we drove to the temple. It was really a nice way to see the town, and except for the kids who kept running after us begging for money, the drive was quite nice.

OK, this isn't the carriage we took in Edfu, but it's pretty much the same

Edfu, apparently, is the second largest temple in all of Egypt (after Karnak). The walk up to the temple was quite impressive, even as we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. Yup, dusk + hot weather = LOTS of mosquitoes. I think I counted upwards of 30 bites on my legs. Since Edfu is on the west bank of the Nile, should I have been worried about West Nile virus? Well, I wasn’t. Oh, and I got propositioned on my way in to the temple. Do people really fall for that stuff? Amanda brought a fake wedding ring that she wore from time to time. She usually got left alone… should have followed her example.

Edfu

Lisa and me with Horus

Welcome to Alaska

2011-03-05T10:30:00.015-07:00

Egypt is hot, even in October, and Aswan was experiencing record heat (like 110° F). So, all of our activities were before noon, or after 4 p.m. Whenever Egyptians greeted us outside in the heat, they all greeted us with “Welcome to Alaska!” Some would take the time to explain why that was funny, but I think I got it right away.

After our first night in Egypt (we pretty much crashed when we got to the hotel), we got up early to meet our guide, Mohamed (of course, right?). After an “Egyptian” breakfast that included hibiscus juice (not my favorite), and after a third failed attempt for me to withdraw money from the ATM (I had miscalculated the exchange rate), we met our guide at 8:30. The boat wasn’t ready for us to check in until afternoon, so we piled into an air-conditioned (THANK GOODNESS) van, and visited our first Egyptian sites.

We started with the unfinished obelisk. I’m not sure about Amanda or Lisa, but I was quite giddy with the fact that we were in Egypt… Egypt, people! OK, the unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk, but it cracked as it was being carved out of bedrock, so it was abandoned. I’m not sure how this worked, but apparently, Egyptians used boats and sailed finished obelisks from Aswan to Cairo up the Nile.

Unfinished Obelisk

After the unfinished obelisk we drove in our van (did I mention that it was air-conditioned?) to the High Dam. I think it was at this point that Mohamed told us that after the Luxor Massacre (in ’97) tourism in Egypt decreased from 25 million a year to about 9 million a year. I can’t remember if that was ALL tourists, or just American tourists. But Mohamed told us not to worry, snipers now protected all tourist attractions. Hmmm… I just chose not to think about that.

High Dam

It’s amazing how much you can visit in one morning.

After the High Dam, we went to the Philae Temple. We had to take a boat to the temple, and you could tell this is a huge tourist attraction by the LARGE number of boats waiting at the dock. I would seriously say there were hundreds of boats. They were more than double-parked, they were stacked at least 4 deep, so maneuvering our boat out to open water was interesting to watch. As it was getting closer to noon, it was getting hotter, so I pulled out my hat… yes, my hat that I bought especially for this trip. I was glad to have it. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking to myself, “was I really in Egypt?” If not for the pictures, I might not believe it. What an amazing experience.

The crowded boats

Philae

After Philae, it still wasn’t time for us to board our cruise ship, so Mohamed took us to a “government” store. A government store is (or was in October, 2010) a store where there were fixed prices (supposedly less expensive than any non-government store), no haggling, and better quality products. We went to a perfume store, got a free soda, Lisa got a neck massage, and Amanda bought some Lotus perfume (I didn’t get any here, but finally broke down later in Cairo and also bought some Lotus perfume). From what we were told, you can only get Lotus fragrance in Egypt, so… why not?

It was finally time to get on the boat. Our room was really cool. It actually had three beds, so there would be no sharing during our cruise! We had lunch, relaxed in our room, and explored the boat until about 4:00, when we left for our last destination – the Aswan Botanic Island. We took a Felucca to the Island, piloted by a couple of Nubians (they were quite nice). About halfway across the Nile (yup, I said the Nile!) we ran out of wind – Feluccas are powered by sails – and we were almost stuck. However, we finally made it. The island was heavily populated with wild cats, so Mohamed warned us (especially Lisa) to NOT TOUCH THE CATS! It was difficult, but Amanda and I kept Lisa in line. Mohamed also warned us about NOT picking any flowers and that the guys with Uzis patrolling the gardens might try and trick us in to doing so. We didn’t see any guys with Uzis until we were almost ready to meet back up with Mohamed. This was the “guns & roses” part of the tour.

Our cabin

Guy with Uzi

Felluca sail

We returned to the boat for the night. The dinner buffet on the boat was quite good. I loved the variety of food. A couple of the cooks asked my name, and remembered me each time we went for a meal. “Did you like what I cooked for you today, Katie?” They were quite cute!

Walk like an Egyptian

2011-02-09T16:54:00.002-07:00

With all that’s going on in Egypt right now, I feel like now is the best time to catch up on my blogging. I can’t believe how quickly the climate over there has changed from October.

Last October, Amanda, Lisa and I set off for a 10-day vacation to Egypt. Amanda found a great 4-day Nile cruise for us to start with, so we had to fly to Aswan almost immediately after arriving in Cairo. Our plan was to arrive in Cairo at 8:45 p.m. on the 14th, spend the night near the airport, then catch an early morning flight to Aswan – our cruise was to start at something like 9:00 a.m. on the 15th. Well, we all know what happens with the best laid plans, right? By the time we confirmed our cruise dates, there were no early morning flights available – none that got us to Aswan by 9:00. So, our only other option was to take a flight from Cairo to Aswan the same night we arrived. Now, I mentioned that we weren’t landing in Cairo until 8:45 p.m., right? The latest flight from Cairo to Aswan was at 10:15. Pretty tight connection for an international flight, but it was all we could do.

So, we flew from SLC to Paris – had a 5-hour layover in Paris, then caught a flight to Cairo. Even though we unsuccessfully tried to be on an earlier flight to Cairo (which would have alleviated the SUPER TIGHT CONNECTION to Aswan), the layover in Paris was very nice because a. I got to speak French, b. we sat in the Crown Room/Lounge with free food and drinks, and c. I ate French cheese.

So, we landed in Cairo pretty much on time, and since we were in Business Class (sweet), we were some of the first people in line for Customs. Unfortunately, we had to get out of line to buy an Egyptian visa, which I knew we had to buy, but assumed we’d buy it in the Customs line. By the time we got back in line, it was quite long. We were behind a large group of students, and Amanda asked them whether or not they had connecting flights. Since they were terminating in Cairo, we then asked if they would mind if we went in front of them. They were very nice and charitable and let us go ahead of them.

We got our bags, and then asked where we needed to go to catch our flight to Aswan. We were in terminal 1 (I think) and we needed to get to terminal 3… by shuttle bus. We asked several people where to catch the shuttle bus, but (of course) got conflicting answers or incomprehensible answers – as well as people wanting tips for helping us out (that got really old really quick, let me tell you). We finally got on the bus (so, it was after 9:30 by now and our flight was leaving at 10:15) and were on our way. It took FOREVER to get to the right terminal.

We finally arrived at terminal 3 at about 10:00-ish. We ran around trying to find the correct check-in counter, and were finally flagged down by a few gentlemen asking if we were going to Aswan. We checked in, then ran to the gate. We were quite blessed because our plane was still at the gate – and the door was still open. We were the last people on the plane, but we made it. Whew!

As we took the taxi to our hotel in Aswan, we noticed that our taxi driver (as well as several other cars on the road) drove without their lights on. Apparently, this is to conserve car battery power. As we saw this in Cairo as well, it must mean that poor car battery power must be country-wide.

We were finally in Egypt – I couldn’t believe it (if it weren’t for the pictures, I’d have a hard time believing it now). And I’m really glad we went when we did.

More to come…

Am I the only one who’s never heard of Sturgis?

2010-09-05T10:39:00.004-06:00

The first (or was it the second?) week in August, my friends Amanda and Jeff were in Aberdeen, SD for work. Amanda has always wanted to see Mount Rushmore, so even though Aberdeen is a six-hour drive from Rapid City, she and Jeff were planning to make the drive over the weekend. They invited me to meet up with them, so I took a Saturday morning flight to Rapid City.

Jeff and Amanda picked me up from the airport and our adventure began. What I didn’t realize is that our vacation coincided with Sturgis – only the nation’s largest motorcycle rally. When my brother, Roger, heard that I was going, he was so jealous:
Roger: “You’re going to Sturgis?”
Me: “Um, no, we’re going to Rapid City.” (thinking “what is he talking about?”)
Roger: “Yeah, but for Sturgis?”
Me: “No, we’re going to Mount Rushmore and stuff.” (thinking “why else would you go to South Dakota?”)
Seriously, I have never seen so many bikers in my life. Pictures can’t even do it justice. Everywhere we went there were bikers – bikes in the parking lot, bikes on the road, and bikers at the tourist attractions. We heard on the radio that they were expecting some ridiculous number of people… like 800,000. Which doubled the population of the entire state. Crazy.

Anyway, we went from the airport to the Badlands, which was an amazing sight.

From there we went to our hotel in Deadwood… a hotel filled with, yup, you guessed it, bikers.

On Sunday, we drove to Mount Rushmore. I especially liked the sign that read, “North by Northwest was filmed here.” I kept thinking – well, duh. If you’ve seen “North by Northwest” that was a given. If you haven’t, then the sign would mean nothing to you. Mount Rushmore was quite impressive – and big! On the airplane to Rapid City, the pilot had announced at one point that you could see Mount Rushmore out of the left-side of the plane. I was, of course, on the right side. Well, the lady sitting in front of me and to the left looked out her window and said, “I expected it to be bigger. It’s pretty small.” Ah, I chuckled, but refrained from comment. The gentleman in front of me didn’t: “Well, you ARE in an airplane. It’s much bigger when you’re on the ground.” Silly lady.

What did we do on Monday? We ate breakfast at Perkin’s (which we did every morning) along with dozens and dozens of bikers. Then we went to the Deadwood cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. I loved it. Then we drove to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. That was also quite impressive. And, yes, each stop was FILLED with bikers. Then Amanda dropped Jeff and I off at the airport – she had to go back to Aberdeen.

Super short weekend, but packed with fun.

Oh Canada, eh?

2010-08-24T19:30:00.007-06:00

For my birthday in July, a bunch of girls from work (OK, every female in the training department) went to Vancouver, BC to celebrate. Let me tell you, I LOVE an international flight that is less than two hours long.

Lisa arranged for us to stay in a house, rather than a hotel. As we arrived at the house from the airport (we rented a large SUV… large enough for all five of us), we were all a little nervous. The GPS announced that we had arrived as we pulled in front of a house that, let’s just say wasn’t what we were hoping for. I really wish someone had taken pictures. Fortunately, it wasn’t the house – this was (and it was really cute):

The house had two bedrooms, a pullout couch, and two bathrooms. We didn’t do to badly leaving the house on time with five females sharing two bathrooms.

We arrived on a Thursday evening. We didn’t do much, however, we found the BEST Greek restaurant ever. It was yummy.

Friday… let’s see, what did we do on Friday? Oh yeah. We drove to Granville Island and went to the big market over there. Had doughnuts for breakfast (with chocolate milk, of course). So healthy, I know. Then I think we just spent the day walking around Vancouver. We walked to Chinatown, saw a drug deal going down on Hastings Street, ate yummy dim sum, went up the Vancouver Lookout, then went to see Inception (great movie, by the way). Now, every time we drove from our house to Vancouver, we had to drive down Hastings Street – what a unique experience, let me say. And actually a little sad…

Steam Clock in Gastown

Granville Market

Dim Sum

On Saturday we drove to Lynn Canyon and walked across the suspension bridge. We ended up doing a little hiking, which was really awesome to do in my flip-flops – but it was a gorgeous area. We then drove to the Capilano suspension bridge, but decided that since it cost money (Lynn Canyon was free), we’d skip it. We then took the gondola up Grouse Mountain, where we had lunch and also some awesome views of Vancouver. That night we grilled steak and shrimp for my “birthday” dinner. That was one advantage of staying at a house – we got to cook at least one meal (but really, when I’m on vacation, do I want to be cooking?).

Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge

Grouse Mountain

Sunday was fantastic. We drove up the Sea to Sky highway on our way to Whistler. There were several scenic pullouts (including one fantastic waterfall). But our real goal was Whistler where I had arranged for us to go ziplining. Only Allison had ever been ziplining before, so we were all a little nervous. In fact, Amanda said something along the lines of “you get me in to the craziest crap.” But it was SOOOO much fun. I highly recommend it (and I will be doing it again).

Horseshoe Bay

Sea To Sky Highway

Shannon Falls

Monday morning started really early. We took the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria. Once in Victoria we went to Butchart Gardens (really, one of the most beautiful gardens in the world). While at the Gardens, we had an afternoon tea. Even though four out of the five of us aren’t tea drinkers (three of us had herbal tea), it was REALLY good, and it was just something we really needed to do. After the gardens, we went to visit a couple of other castles (Hatley Castle and Craigdarroch Castle – we didn’t go in to either, though). In addition to all that fun, Allison mistook a seagull for a bald eagle, and Lisa thought a deer was a goat.

Tuesday afternoon was our flight home, so we decided to take it easy. We went back to Granville, had doughnuts for breakfast again, and did some shopping. Then we just went back to the house to relax until we drove to the airport. My silly mistake of the day was that I thought that Brg. was an abbreviation for Brigadier instead of Bridge. Must be all of that Doctor Who.

We didn’t do to badly for five alpha-females. No huge fights, no tears, maybe a little bit of frustration and annoyance, but everyone had a really good time. Whew!

80 is the new 60

2010-08-22T11:50:00.003-06:00

I know, I’m really behind in blogging, but I’ll try to make it up to you (if you care).

In June, my mom celebrated her 80th birthday. So, to honor her, on June 26th we had a huge family reunion/open house. Of course, when you get a family together, there is always drama, right? We didn’t disappoint.

We scheduled a family dinner from 2:00 – 4:00, then an open house from 6:00 – 8:00. My brother the chef was not only in charge of the food for the dinner, but for the open house as well. As it turned out, my nephew had his Salt Lake wedding reception the night before, and my brother catered it, so we were able to use the fruit and veggies for both events. My sister-in-law’s sister-in-law (confusing enough for you?) was awesome enough to provide tablecloths, and my sister-in-law’s sister let us use the left over brownies and mini-cheesecakes. Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned on these goodies, so I had already ordered 4 cakes from Costco (and we all know how large cakes from Costco are) – one for the family dinner, three for the open house. Needless to say, we had almost all of the cakes left over.

My brother got up late on the 26th, so he had to recruit me to come help with the food preparation – thank goodness we were able to use the kitchen where he works in Orem. OK, did I mention that the family dinner was supposed to start at 2:00? Well, my brother and I arrived with the food AT 2:00 – I was still in shorts and a T-shirt, not to mention the fact that I was all sweaty from the food prep. Luckily, my mom hadn’t even arrived yet, so…

Roger and I went home where I took the fastest shower in history, and got ready. Of course we were taking pictures, so, of course, I look gross – but what are you doing to do?

So, I think the dinner finally started at 3-ish. We had the open house at the clubhouse of a housing community where my cousin lives. My sister decided that in the two hours between the dinner and the open house, family could swim at the clubhouse, or come to mom’s house (which lead to hiring cleaners to come clean the house). Since we were running on Blomquist-standard time, we didn’t have two hours between the dinner and the open house; we barely had enough time to clean up from the dinner and get ready for guest by 6:00.

All in all, it was a success! Lots of people came, and I think my mom really enjoyed it.

Just a slight miscalculation

2010-05-12T03:45:00.007-06:00

In all of my research on what to do/see in New Zealand, Milford Sound kept coming up as one of the top places to visit. When I was in New Zealand last year I really wanted to get to Milford Sound, but could never fit it in. So, last Friday I finally bit the bullet and flew from Wellington (North Island) to Queenstown (South Island). To be precise, I flew from Wellington to Christchurch to Queenstown, but that's just semantics. There had been a lot of flooding in Queenstown the previous week, so I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to go, but I emailed the hotel and the tour company (yes, I did another tour) and I was quite pleased to learn that things were still running. I didn't even care that the weather forecast called for rain, I just wanted to be there.

The tour on Saturday was fantastic! It started really early (they picked me up at my hotel at 6:45 a.m.), but was so worth it. As opposed to my Auckland tour where I was the only one, this tour bus was completely full. But I was so happy to be there, I didn't even mind. It was about a 3-4 hour drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound, but we made several stops along the way with some great photo opportunities.

The Chasm

Mirror Lake

The drive reminded me of driving the Seward Highway in Alaska. Our driver kept preparing us for the rainy/cloudy weather we'd have. However, when we came out of the Homer tunnel (linking us to Milford Sound), there was blue sky and sunshine. Woo Hoo! I then took at 2-hour boat tour of Milford Sound, and was just stunned. The 13-hour day was, again, totally worth it.

Bowen Falls

Up close & personal at Stirling Falls

Stirling Falls (508' - FYI Niagara Falls = 176')

Tasman Sea

On a little side note - tour guides are full of information, but do you ever wonder if they just say nonsense sometimes because they think they can? Because tourists wouldn't really know any different? Just something to think about.

Second side note. Look, coughing tourist next to me, I don't care how much money you've spent on a tour, or even on a vacation. If you are hacking up a lung, do NOT get in an enclosed vehicle with 50 other people who can't escape your germs spewing all over the place. Have some consideration for others and stay at the hotel. OK, rant done.

I had to fly back to Wellington on Sunday afternoon, so I had the day very tightly scheduled. I would get up, eat breakfast, take the Skyline Gondola up the mountain to get some great views of the town. Then, hurry back to the hotel, change into a skirt, take a taxi to Sacrament Meeting, taxi back to the hotel in time for a tour on the TSS Earnslaw (a 1912 vintage steamer) across Lake Wakatipu, come back, eat lunch, go to the airport. Well, it almost worked out that way. I miscalculated how long it would take to
a. walk to the gondola
b. ride the gondola up and down (and take pictures, of course)
c. walk back to the hotel
you get the picture.

Anyway, as I was riding the gondola down the mountain I realized that I would not have time to walk back to the hotel, instead I would have to find the nearest taxi I could and go to church in my jeans. But then I had the dilemma of where to find the nearest taxi. I think Heavenly Father was watching out for me because, just as I exited the gondola building, a taxi appeared (dropping off some tourists). Perfect. After they vacated the taxi, I jumped in and gave the driver the address I found on lds.org. He wasn't familiar with the address, so he asked me where I was going... a Mormon church. He still had no idea, so he got on his radio and asked all his taxi driver friends if they knew where the Mormon church was. I heard someone say "the funeral home on Frankton Rd." I was sure they just didn't know what they were talking about. The driver joked around with me about going to church at a funeral home. He thought it was hilarious. Wouldn't you know it, they were right. Funeral home during the week, LDS chapel on Sunday.

So, if I thought the congregation in Sydney was small (what did I say? about 50 people?), then this was just tiny. There were, I kid you not, 16 people in Sacrament meeting. Three were visitors (myself and a couple from Australia) and two were missionaries. So, there went my plan of being inconspicuous (that and the fact I was wearing jeans and sneakers). It was a great meeting, though. The missionaries spoke. One poor missionary (from Utah) was talking about Job, and how Job was swallowed by a whale. The branch president tugged his jacket and explained that is was Jonah who was swallowed by the whale. Poor guy! The other elder was from the North Island. His talk was amazing. But seriously, in a congregation that small, how many times a year does one have to give a talk? Anywho, since it was Mother's Day, all the sisters in the congregation of a certain age (OK, there were two female teenagers, and then five older-than-teenagers) got a jar of jam and some chocolates. The sister from Australia didn't have any children, and I didn't, but hey, we got a delicious jar of jam... and did I mention chocolates?

View of Queenstown from the Skyline Gondola

Sandbags left over from the flooding

Lake Wakatipu

TSS Earnslaw

The boat ride across the lake was beautiful. I mentioned that the weather forecast called for rain, but the weather was gorgeous - it didn't rain one single drop! It was a perfect weekend. Ah, well, back to the real world of work, and work, and work...

Be careful what you wish for

2010-05-03T01:15:00.009-06:00

As I was gathering up my things last Wednesday (prepping to leave Sydney on Friday), I couldn't find my fleece jacket (or "jumper" as it's called down here). I hadn't needed it the whole time I was in Sydney, so I hadn't realized it was missing. Sadly, I couldn't even remember the last time I had it. So, I had to go shopping... again. Woe is me. So on Thursday, Jane (my co-worker) took me to an outlet mall and I bought a nice red fleece. After work that day, Jane took me driving to see Manly Beach (gorgeous).

Later, as I sat on the bus home, I realized that I didn't have my brand new red fleece with me. What's up with that? Luckily, I had only left it in Jane's car. Fast forward to Friday. When I checked in at the airport, I was told my bag was too heavy (I was expecting that, I mean, come on, I packed for five weeks). But I was told that I could have 2 bags, each at 23 kilos. As it so happened, I had an extra bag, so at the counter, I unpacked some of my larger bag to put it in my smaller bag. Later, as I was sitting in the airplane waiting to take off, oblivious to the fact that anything was wrong, one of the flight attendants came up to me, told me I had left something at the check-in counter, and handed me, yup, you guessed it, my brand new red fleece. I love Air New Zealand.

Anywho, I decided to spend the weekend in Auckland before flying to Wellington on Sunday. I'm quite glad that I did. On Saturday I took a bus tour out toward the Bay of Islands. Absolutely GORGEOUS! Remember, though, how in my last post I mentioned that I preferred smaller tour groups? Well, be careful what you wish for. I was the only person on the bus tour. Yup, let me repeat that, I was the ONLY person on the bus tour. I'm kind of surprised they didn't cancel it. Happy they didn't, but surprised. It was nice not having to deal with all the other tourists, but being the only person on the bus, when the bus driver was giving his commentary, it was up to me, and only me, to respond. It was fun, though. The weather couldn't decide what it wanted to do, it alternated between rain and sunshine, but it was a most pleasant day. Did I mention that the Bay of Islands was gorgeous? We drove from Auckland to Paihia (and when I say "we," I mean me and the bus driver).

Before we got to Paihia, we stopped in a little (and I mean little) town. The driver gave me about 30 minutes to walk around. I found these two restaurants a little strange. Who would have thought that Indian food (or Chinese, for that matter) went with Fish & Chips?

While in Paihia we visited The Waitangi Treaty Grounds. Learned loads of fascinating information. For example, there are 21 (maybe 22) Maori tribes in all of New Zealand, and of those 21 (or maybe 22), 20 of them live on the North Island. Evidently the South Island is too cold, and there's snow, so there's only one tribe on the whole South Island. My tour guide was actually the great, great, great, great-granddaughter of one of the British men who helped draft the treaty, so I thought that was pretty cool.

New Zealand flag (top), British flag (right), and the Flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand (left)

I then took a ferry from Paihia to Russell (what used the be the first capital of New Zealand). In Russell, this cute little lady took a little tour bus around the city - ok, let's not exaggerate, around the town (maybe even village). I wasn't the only person on this tour bus, others joined in. Just stunning views of the ocean.

Long Beach

Bay of Islands

Tapeka Point

Giant Sun Dial (with mosaic)

I had a few hours in Auckland on Sunday before I had to catch my flight to Wellington, so I went up to the Domain (something like Central Park in NYC, maybe), and visited the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Auckland, known as the City of Sails (because of all the sail boats) really is a beautiful city.

Auckland Museum

Rainbow (from the bus)

Auckland Sky Tower

Auckland from the bus

G'day

2010-04-27T04:23:00.012-06:00

Wow. It seems I only blog when I travel - maybe I should have just made a travel blog... Nope, I just checked, I've blogged about other things. Whew.

Anywho, I am now finishing day 12 in Sydney (I had to open my calendar app to figure that out). Where in the world does the time go? Unbelievable.

OK, highlights... I went to see Wicked last week. It was just as fantastic the second time. I liked the London production better (oh dear, does that make me sound pretentious?), but I'm not complaining.

Saturday
I booked a bus tour to Port Stephens:
Reptile Park
Dolphin Watching
Sandboarding
It was a lot of fun, not quite what I expected, but fun.
The reptile park was kind of a let down. Here I go again, I'm going to sound pretentious... First item on the agenda: pet a koala bear (yup, at a REPTILE park). Now, koala's are adorable, and who wouldn't want to pet one? But, this wasn't my first time petting a koala. Second item on the agenda: hand feed kangaroos. Again, so adorable, etc. but also again, not my first time. And don't even get me started on the enclosed alligators. I've canoed in alligator-infested waters. Not that my friend and I knew that when we started canoeing. The park ranger who helped us put our canoe in the water casually mentioned "oh yeah, watch for alligators, oh, and don't grab any overhanging branches as there might be Water Moccasins." NICE - but I digress.
The dolphin watching was neat. I thought there was supposed to be swimming with the dolphins - I even bought a swim suit (since I forgot to pack mine), but what it turned out to be was "OK, now we've seen the dolphins, you can go ride on the boom net for 5 minutes." Well, I wasn't going to change clothes for 5-10 minutes in/on a boom net when it wasn't even while we were dolphin watching.
After the dolphin watching, we drove to the sand dunes near by and went sandboarding. It was AWESOME!! I'll admit, I was a little nervous at first - not that I'd get hurt, but that I'd look stupid - but it was so much fun. This was, really, the highlight of my day. I learned, though, that I prefer smaller tour groups - this tour was an entire bus load, and it seemed less personal and a little rushed.

Just because I've fed kangaroos before doesn't mean I'm not going to do it again...

Entrance to Port Stephens

Dolphins

Sand dunes (from the bottom)

Sand dunes (from the top)

My sandboard and me

Sunday
Sunday was ANZAC Day.

Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, and is commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all those who died and served in military operations for their countries.

Even though it was raining in the morning, I went out and watched the parade near my hotel. I got all choked up (yup, I spelled that chocked up at first) seeing the older men march by. It was really touching.
After the rain cleared up, I took the ferry across Sydney Harbour to the Taronga Zoo. Great views of the city!! I highly recommend it. Oh yeah, and there were animals (including a brand new baby elephant). He was so cute!! As I was leaving the zoo, the weather started acting up again (good timing), so I called it a day.

Baby elephant (so cute!)

Sydney Harbour from the zoo

ANZAC parade

Giraffe with the city view

Monday
Because Sunday was ANZAC Day, Monday was a public holiday, which meant that no one would be working at the Sydney office, so I got the day off, too. I took a bus tour to Canberra (pronounced Can' bur uh NOT Can bear' a - oh yeah, make fun of the silly American), the national capital. It was quite fitting, I thought, for the ANZAC Day holiday, right? One of the guys in my office here described Canberra as an interesting "non-place."

The site of Canberra was selected for the location of the nation's capital in 1908 as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two largest cities. It is unusual among Australian cities, being an entirely planned city. Following an international contest for the city's design, a design by the Chicago architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin was selected and construction commenced in 1913.

We visited the National Museum, Parliament, and the War Memorial. I must have been having an emotional weekend, because I got all choked up... again (and yup, spelled that chocked up... again). I learned that, sometimes, I really don't like the constraints of being on a guided tour. There was a street of war monuments (kind of like the U.S. National Mall) that I would have liked to walk up at my leisure, but, oh no, we had to stay on the bus as we quickly drove past them with the driver saying "On the left is the Vietnam Memorial," "Oh, on the right is the..." I couldn't even focus my camera before it was out of my view. Very frustrating.

Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial

Parliament House

Lake Burley Griffin

Wow, I hope this entry doesn't make me sound too negative. I really did have a great weekend. I know that I'm quite blessed to have this kind of experience!

Livin' in a land down under

2010-04-20T16:25:00.001-06:00

Last Wednesday evening, I flew, for the second time ever, to Sydney. Having done it once before, I had prepared myself for 15 ½ hours in coach. I hadn't even bothered to ask Delta to upgrade my seat because I knew that it was impossible because my ticket wasn’t purchased in the right “class.” As I was waiting in the Delta Crown Room in Los Angeles I head the most beautiful words ever: “Will Sydney passenger *me* please check in at the front desk?” My heart started beating a little bit faster… I had dared hope that something like this would happen, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to get them dashed. So, I checked in at the front desk. Joy of all joy, the lady handed me another boarding pass telling me that coach was overbooked and so the folks at the gate upgraded my seat. Business Class, baby – for 15 ½ hours! I couldn’t believe it. We even had the cool seats that reclined flat – like a bed. Granted, the flight was still 15 ½ hours, but it was SOOOO much nicer. Have I mentioned how much I love Delta right now?

Business class seats

So, I arrived in Sydney Friday morning, met up with my colleague to get some work done later in the day, and generally just lazed about.

My hotel is right on the edge of Chinatown, so there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of Asian restaurants near me. The only difficulty is figuring out which restaurants are good and which restaurants should be avoided. And, of course, there are the restaurants where the menus aren't in English, so I wouldn't even know what to order. On Friday night, down one of the streets in Chinatown, there were several street vendors out selling food, so I bought some dinner from a little Dim Sum place. So yummy! However, since I can’t eat Asian food every night, I’ll have to expand my wanderings.

On Saturday I spent the morning trying to find a swimsuit. I have a weekend activity planned, and it requires a bathing suit – I thought I had packed mine, but alas… I went to a Target and a Kmart (yup, they have Target and Kmart here), however, I couldn’t find one. My colleague is going to help me look later this week. I’m hoping for the best.

Water Fountain near Darling Harbour

A guy playing drums and bottles on a street corner

Also on Saturday, I visited the Chinese Friendship Gardens near Darling Harbour. It’s quite a beautiful little place in the middle of a bustling city.

Found a church on Sunday – there were all of 50 people in Sacrament Meeting (if that), and four of the 50 were missionaries, and one of the 50 was me. After church I had to hike a mile or so to catch the train back to Sydney – good thing I took a cab TO church or I would have been all sweaty for church – icky! I didn’t realize how hilly the Sydney area would be. The walk was beautiful, though.

More to come…

1st Birthday

2010-04-03T17:18:00.006-06:00

So, the Saturday before I left for Boston, I went to my great-nephew's first birthday. He is just too, too cute. Thanks, Amber, for letting me come join you!

Watching him eat his cake was so cute (and yet, I had to watch my gag reflex). I guess the only baby cake Amber could find was red velvet... makes an amazing looking mess.

Chocolate Coma

2010-04-03T16:45:00.008-06:00

So, while searching for things to do in Boston, Amanda found a chocolate tour - only available from January through April. We both decided that it was so unique, we had to do it (not to mention… chocolate). It was a lot of fun, but after it was over, the thought of chocolate (or even anything sweet) made me want to puke. Even the little chocolates placed on our pillows that night were just too much.

We started the day off by having a chocolate cannoli and hot chocolate at a local bakery in the North End (Mike’s Pastry – it came HIGHLY recommended, and now I can highly recommend it). It was so yummy, but, looking back on the events of the day, it probably wasn’t the best idea to start the day of our chocolate tour with… chocolate. We should have had some protein or something. Oh, well, what’s done is done. (and, it really was good).

So, our chocolate tour started at 12:15. We started off by going to the Top of the Hub restaurant (52 stories up – great views). Our tour guide mentioned that we would probably get something light and airy at this restaurant, and we were in no way to ask for more (holy crap, what a thought). However, we didn’t get something light and airy… we got a dense chocolate torte-like thing, and a small tart on the side. Here we were guided by Chef Amour (a guy dressed as a chef with a fake French accent - I was tempted to speak to him in French just to see what he'd do).

After Top of the Hub, we went to the Omni Parker House Hotel (home of the Parker House Roll, and America's longest continuously operating luxury hotel). Beautiful décor, and a delicious slice of Boston Cream Pie (OK, I keep spelling cream in French – crème – so if that shows up… sorry).

For the final act, we went to a chocolate bar at The Langham. Holy cow – chocolate and more chocolate. There was a chocolate fountain, chocolate crepes, chocolate pasta, chocolate mousses, specialty cakes, fresh made donuts, fresh baked cookies, tortes, a signature chocolate bread pudding and more. I know why this is the last stop on the tour – by this time, we were very limited with the amount of sweets we could eat. At least I was.

From all that was available, this is what I had (the mango pudding and fruit tart were just to mix it up a bit)

I’m really glad Amanda found this – it was a very “out-of-the-ordinary” thing to do.

A week in the Hub

2010-04-03T16:29:00.006-06:00

I learned something last week (while I was working in Boston) – weird, I know. Anyway, did you know that Boston is called “The Hub?” I didn’t. Why is it called the Hub, you ask? Evidently, in 1858, Oliver Wendall Holmes referred to the Boston State House as the “Hub of the Solar System.” With a few modifications, the nickname stuck.

It happened to be Restaurant Week in Boston – meaning that participating restaurants offered 3-course dinners for a fixed price. So, of course, at least one night, my co-workers and I had to take advantage. The restaurant we originally intended to go to didn’t have any reservations until late, so we decided to just walk down Newbury Street (recommended by the hotel and the folks at the Herald) and find something. We found 29 Newbury Restaurant, and it was delicious! I think my co-workers were a little embarrassed that I was taking pictures of my food, but who cares, right?

Lobster Roll at Legal's

Seared scallops with oranges

Peach chicken with beets and a risotto cake

Anywho, my friend, Amanda, has been working in New York for the past several weeks, so we decided that she should fly to Boston Friday night and we’d be tourists over the weekend. In addition to the basic tourist-y stuff (you know, like the Freedom Trail), Amanda found a 3-hour chocolate tour – I’ll talk about this in a separate entry.

When I had packed to leave for Boston, weather.com said that temperatures were supposed to be upper-40’s/lower 50’s (which they were until Friday), so I packed accordingly. However, the weather on Saturday was in the 30’s. Since I wasn’t prepared for cold, I had to go shopping for a scarf on Friday. I know, poor me, yeah? Amanda and I started early on Saturday (since the only flight from Boston to Salt Lake on Sunday was at 6:30 a.m., we only had Saturday to play), and since it was soooo cold, I ended up buying some gloves, too. I hadn’t packed any sweaters, so I had to layer my shirts. All of this resulted in a color disaster.

Color fashionista - flashing my html symbols

Amanda and I walked the Freedom Trail, took our chocolate tour, froze, shopped, and ate at an Italian restaurant in the North End for dinner. The food at the restaurant came highly recommended, but the reviews we found online said the service was severely lacking. Maybe the reviews planted thoughts in our heads, but we found the service to be severely lacking. However, the food was delicious (I had the Pasta Bolognese)! When our waiter tried to give us the dessert menu, Amanda practically shouted “No dessert menu!” Our chocolate tour had satisfied our sweet tooth (and then some), and I really couldn’t contemplate even looking at a dessert. Boston is an amazing place – so much history.

Pasta Bolognese

Paul Revere's grave

Walking the Freedom Trail (yes, the bricks mark the trail)

Here lived Paul Revere

Old State House (near the site of the Boston Massacre)

One if by land... the Old North Church

Faneuil Hall (don't even ask Amanda to pronounce this...)

Bunker Hill (I was told by the folks at the Boston Herald that no self-respecting Bostonian would go here... good thing I'm not a Bostonian)

Philadelphia Freedom

2010-01-24T18:07:00.004-07:00

What can you find in Philadelphia? The Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Rocky – and me. My friend Amanda was in Philadelphia this week for a sales demo. Since she’d never been to Philadelphia before, she wanted to stay a couple of extra days and she asked me to join her. It was great taking a couple of days to just be tourists. I really appreciated the fact that there weren’t that many other tourists around – nobody should be allowed to be a tourist except me, right?

We went to Reading Terminal Market on Friday morning for breakfast. There was so much to choose from, but we finally stopped at a creperie. Here is my Caramel, Strawberry, Peach crepe. It was delicious!

The Thinker outside the Rodin Museum

We ran up the Rocky Stairs in front of the Art Museum. I bought the Rocky Theme on my iPhone to play while we ran up the stairs (see my iPhone still in my hand?). It was quite inspirational - and we ran all the way up. I was impressed that I wasn't very winded. Go me!!

Philadelphia from the top of the Rocky stairs

Independence Hall

This is the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was signed. I can't imagine how hot and smelly this room would have been in July (filled with dozens and dozens of men).

The Chinese Friendship Gate. I was surprised to learn that Philadelphia has the third largest Chinatown in the country (third to New York and San Francisco). Weird!

This is what winter tourists look like

2010-01-23T09:56:00.005-07:00

Last week I had the opportunity of going to New York City…again. This time I was with a couple of friends/co-workers. Amanda and I even stayed an extra day to sightsee. I’ll say one thing, New York in the winter BEFORE Christmas is a totally different looking experience than New York in the winter AFTER Christmas.

Huge Reuben from Carnegie deli

Washington Square Arch

We had huge sandwiches on Monday (or Tuesday), and weren't hungry for dessert, so we decided to come back later in the week and ONLY order dessert. YUMMY!

Scandalous billboard near Times Square

Start spreading the news

2009-12-19T11:49:00.003-07:00

So, on Monday a client finally decided that my boss and I were needed in NYC on Wednesday. Of course, this was after weeks of on-again off-again plans. But, hey, it was a trip to New York, so I wasn’t too upset. My boss had never been to New York, so we did some sightseeing Tuesday night. We went up the Empire State Building – something I haven’t done since I was just out of high school, so 5 years ago? :-) Then we walked through Times Square and on up to Rockefeller Center. I love New York at Christmas time.

It was a good thing we did some sightseeing on Tuesday because Wednesday night we went to dinner with clients and Thursday night I wasn’t feeling well (came down with a cold, darn it - maybe it was all that walking around).

A whole new me

2009-11-02T21:09:00.002-07:00

So, after months (and months) of thinking about it, I finally just bit the bullet. You never realize how long your hair is until you see it on the floor, right? I like it, though...

Alas, no Hugh Jackman sightings

2009-10-21T18:42:00.005-06:00

So, Sunday was my last day in Australia. In true tourist fashion, I bought an all-day ticket for those red, open-air tour buses. As gorgeous as the weather was on Saturday, it was just that rainy on Sunday. But, since it was my only day left, what can you do? Of course, at the end of the afternoon the sky cleared.

I still can’t believe I was fortunate enough to visit both Australia and New Zealand – two places on my list of “must sees.” Check!

View from Sydney Tower

Town Hall

Hyde Park

Harbour Bridge

Darling Harbour

Bondi Beach

Roof of Opera House

The “non-politically correct” tour

2009-10-18T02:34:00.008-06:00

So, I left New Zealand on Friday – it’s amazing how quickly these last three weeks have gone by. Amazing. Anyway, since I left New Zealand on Friday, that means I arrived in Sydney, Australia on Friday. When I was first planning this trip, I was thinking, you know, that New Zealand and Australia were close to each other – like a 90-minute flight or something. Uh huh, right. Try 4+ hours. I’m not kidding.

Last week, as I was trying to figure out what to do while in Sydney, I found a “Top 10 things to do…” list online. One of the things mentioned was visiting the Blue Mountains. I thought about renting a car and driving out there (it’s about 2+ hours from Sydney), but never did get around to renting one. But then, when I checked into my hotel, right there at the reception desk was a list of things you could book through the hotel – one being a guided tour of the Blue Mountains, leaving directly from the hotel. OK, sign me up. We left at 7:30 Saturday morning and it was FANTASTIC! The guide was hilarious and informative – emphasis on hilarious. Well worth the money. I would recommend it to everyone. But, I digress. About 20 minutes into the tour Rob (aka Oi Boy, or tour guide) asked us (there were 10 of us total – 9 Canadians and me) whether we wanted the politically correct tour, or the non-politically correct tour. Which do you think we chose? I’ll give you a hint – did I mention that Rob was hilarious? We started at a Wildlife reserve where we got to pet Koala bears and Wombats (did you know that Wambats aren't bats?), pet and feed Kangaroos (or were they Wallabies – I can’t be sure), and see other native Australian wildlife. It was really cool. I even saw a dingo, but it did not eat my baby.

You can't really tell, but the kangaroo (wallaby?) is licking my arm - so cute

See the little joey?

We fed the kangaroos food in ice cream cones - those were edible, too

Again, you can't really tell, but the kangaroo is "holding" my hand with its paw - not wanting me to take the food away, I guess

After the Wildlife reserve we drove up into the Blue Mountains (named such because the evaporating oil from the eucalyptus trees gives off a blue hue). Gorgeous!! Of course Rob kept telling us that these mountains were nothing like the Canadian or Utah mountains we were used to, but he admonished us to never laugh about the size of a guys mountains, so I ooh’ed and ah’ed in all the right places. But really, it was gorgeous!

One thing about doing a tour like this by yourself is that, sometimes, other people in the tour take it upon themselves to “adopt” you. There were two couples from Alberta who adopted me. They were really cute. Everyone offered to take my picture for me, hike with me, etc. It was very nice of them.

We saw this kangaroo in the wild - no feeding or petting this one. I guess they can be pretty vicious.

The Three Sisters in the background

The Three Sisters

The tour took about 10.5 hours. After getting back to Sydney, I walked to Darling Harbour and had a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant, Zaffron. Food is really expensive here, by the way. I bought a bottle of water and a snack bar to take on the tour with me for $7+ (I converted it to U.S. dollars, so, yes, that’s $7!).

A couple of random bits of knowledge I learned today from Rob (there were lots of them, but these two are most interesting):

1. It’s totally legal for bicyclists to ride on the freeways – wish that had been the case when I was on my mission in France…
2. The kangaroo and emu, of all the native Australian animals, appear on the Australian coat of arms because they are the only animals that cannot walk backwards, so the coat of arms signifies “always moving forward.”

I thought they were interesting bits, anyway…

And Now for Something Completely Different

2009-10-12T12:22:00.006-06:00

So, last weekend I visited glorious beaches and mountainous coasts. This weekend, not so much. That’s not to say that what I saw wasn’t glorious – I didn’t mean to give that impression. It’s just that what I saw this weekend was, well, something completely different.

I flew to a town on the North Island called Rotorua. Sadly, I couldn’t arrange any flights on Friday that a. left late enough in the afternoon or b. were still relatively inexpensive, so I flew out early Saturday morning and flew back to Wellington Sunday afternoon (which, due to a “crippling computer fault”, turned out to be Sunday evening). Flying out Saturday was actually OK because I got to go to the pub with my co-worker and some blokes from the site here in Wellington (it was Fahad’s last evening in town after a nine week stay). I was quite happy to sit and visit drinking my Diet Coke (which I switched for a lime and soda later on in the evening) while everyone around me had their beer (and other drinks). I was asked a few times if I was offended hanging out with people who were drinking. First of all, I wouldn’t have been there if I was offended or uncomfortable. Secondly, should I be offended? I mean, just because they drink doesn’t mean I have to drink, and just because I choose not to drink doesn’t mean I think they shouldn’t be drinking either, right? I’ll admit, though, as the conversation became more and more slurred (and sometimes incoherent what with drunk people AND the accents), it was quite amusing for me to be the sober person. BTW, the weather on Friday and Saturday was horrific – rain, cold wind, brrr… I thought it was supposed to be summertime around here.

Anywho, after arriving in Rotorua, I was picked up by a shuttle bus to take me to Wai-O-Tapu (a geothermal wonderland). I took a nice walk. Yes, there was hiking involved. There was even a part of the walk that said it was "very active", but I chose to do it, and at least this time I went in eyes open. It was absolutely amazing – totally different to what I saw last weekend, but nonetheless amazing. Everyone at NZPA kept warning me about the smell of Rotorua (sulphur). Yes, there was a smell, but it wasn’t as bad as everyone (except Fahad) led me to believe.

That night, after a quick nap in my hotel room (I was up late on Friday being the designated “walker” back to the hotel, and had an early flight on Saturday), I was picked up by another shuttle and taken to a Maori Village for a performance and dinner. Kind of reminded me of the PCC in Hawaii. It was really cool, but by the end of the evening, however, I was so cool (LOL) that I was ready to be taken back to the hotel. Met a nice couple from Sydney (nope, didn’t meet up with the folks from last weekend) and we had a nice visit.

Food for our Hangi

Just a little side note, next time I’m in NZ, I’m just going to bite the bullet and rent a car – my friends from the UK drive in the States without a problem, most of the time, so why shouldn’t I be OK driving on the other side of the road? I’m just going to do it.

Turns out, my hotel in Rotorua was next to the Polynesian Spa, so I figured… why not? I soaked in the hot springs and then had a massage (and mud) treatment. Ah, so relaxing (except for the “disposable g-string” they gave me – ARGH).

Lake Rotorua

Walk - Addendum

2009-10-06T00:43:00.003-06:00

I was reprimanded for not having any pictures of myself from Abel Tasman. Since I was by myself, they were all self-portraits (and thus, way too close up), but I'll post some anyway. YIKES!

Walk doesn't always mean walk

2009-10-05T02:28:00.008-06:00

I had a glorious weekend. On Friday I flew from Wellington to Nelson - a whole 25 minute flight. At the airport I didn’t even have to show ID or go through security. Weird. I had booked a day cruise/walk online for the Abel Tasman National Park, which is about a 90-minute bus ride from Nelson. My bus (or coach, as they said here) was going to pick me up at my hotel at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday. However, as I was getting ready (say, at about 6:45) my phone rang and the front desk said that my coach to Abel Tasman was there to pick me up. Ummm… my email said 7:30. Anyway, there was a coach at 7:30, so I was ready for that one. Whew – didn’t really want to rush to get ready.

The scenery just driving to the National Park was gorgeous. I had been worried about the weather – it’s been rainy and cloudy here in NZ, but I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. The boat ride along the coastline was gorgeous – windy, but gorgeous. I kept singing How Great Thou Art in my head as I was watching the landscape go by.

The package that I booked was the Seals & Beach walk and cruise – walk was a little misleading. The description online states: Enjoy a 2hr 15min (5 kms, 3 miles) walk over a forested saddle and around the golden sands of Bark Bay Estuary with its cascading waterfalls through lush native forest. However, walk was not the right word – it was a fairly strenuous hike. At least I didn’t wear flip-flops, but I did wear my traction-lacking Converse shoes, so the wet and muddy (and steep) paths were a little difficult to manage. I only slipped a few times. So for future reference, walk = hike. On the boat ride back to our originating point, I had a great conversation with a woman from Minnesota and her traveling buddy from the UK, as well as another guy from Sydney. The woman from Minnesota (I think her name is Kat) and the guy from the UK (crap, can’t remember his name) want to meet up next weekend in another city on the North Island, so I’m working on the scheduling for that.

On Sunday, prior to my flight back to Wellington, I just walked around Nelson. They have a huge cathedral right next to the hotel where I stayed. As I walked around the cathedral grounds, I noticed several people in the parking lot with dogs, and I also saw some rabbits and guinea pigs. I thought to myself, wouldn’t that be funny if this were like that Vicar of Dibley episode where the Vicar holds a service for everyone’s pets? Well, a woman stopped to talk to me while I was walking around and asked if I had been to the service. She said it was a great service because it was a pet service (pronounced peet). Hilarious!

Gorgeous weekend, so much fun!!

kia ora

2009-09-28T23:48:00.002-06:00

Which means “hello” in Maori. Ready for a quick (maybe not so quick) update?

Last Thursday I took the l o n g e s t plane ride of my life to Wellington, New Zealand. When I checked in at the airport, the Delta employee asked if I had my Australian visa. Um, what? Oh yeah, evidently, to get into Australia you need a visa – who knew? OK, when I looked at my printed itinerary from Delta, there was – in small lettering – a statement that passport and/or visa requirements may have changed for this itinerary, but if a visa is required to get into Australia, it really should have been more specific, shouldn’t it? Luckily, it could be done all online, and the visa is electronic, not paper, so the nice Delta personnel helped me take care of it. Good thing I was early. Funny part of the story – since I was just connecting in Sydney (on this end of my trip), I didn’t need the visa. But since I’ll be staying in Sydney for a weekend at the end of my trip, I guess it’s better that I have it now, right?

Here’s a little traveling tip. Don’t let the ticket agents stick your baggage claim receipt on the back of your boarding pass. OK, so I’ve never had a problem with this before, but this time I did. The Delta folks checked my bag all the way to Wellington, which was nice because I changed airlines in Sydney. So, nothing to worry about, right? They stuck my receipt on the back of my LAX to Sydney boarding pass. However, in Los Angeles, for some reason they had to issue me a new boarding pass (no, didn’t get upgraded, darn it). I really didn’t even think anything about it at the time. However, once in Sydney, when I checked in with Quantas, they asked to see my luggage receipt. But my bags were checked all the way to Wellington already? Well, that didn’t matter, Quantas still needed to find my luggage (using the code on my receipt) in order to get it on my flight to Wellington. So, I pulled out my Sydney boarding pass… and then realized what had actually happened in L.A. Double drat. The Quantas agent was quite helpful, though. She had me wait off to the side while she called someone to find my bag (in ALL the luggage that came from Los Angeles). The stars were aligned because it was found rather quickly, and it actually arrived in Wellington.

Now, for the flight itself. Fifteen hours in an airplane is a LONG, LONG time. I had an aisle seat so that it would be easy for me to get up and walk around. I had my own personal movie/TV screen, which was veddy nice, so I could watch whatever I wanted (well, from the available options). Since the flight left Los Angeles at 10:30 p.m., I was hoping to fall asleep – it kind of worked. I’d start a movie or show on my personal screen, and then fall asleep while watching it. Wake up after it was over and start another one. I watched Ghost three times (well, I actually watched it all the way through only once, but had it playing three times). I do love that Patrick Swayze. I watched a couple of other movies, several episodes of different TV shows, and read a book. Before I knew it, we were landing in Sydney (not really before I knew it, it still felt like a LONG time).

So, I left SLC Thursday evening and arrived in Wellington on Saturday afternoon (you have to take the 18-hour time difference into consideration). I walked around Wellington a little bit on Saturday, but I was quite exhausted. My internet quit working on Sunday, so I had difficulty finding a church to attend, but, stars aligned again and I was finally able to get a meetinghouse address to attend 11:00 a.m. church (after I realized that New Zealand experienced a time change Sunday morning – there’s now a 19-hour time difference), even though I had been awake and ready for a 9:00 a.m. meeting. The members of the Wellington ward were extremely nice. Several people stopped to talk to me to find out if I was new or visiting. There was one sister in particular who sat behind me who was just so nice, I was quite touched.

Not much touristing during the week… it’s too bad work gets in the way of all my fun. I will have the weekends, though, so I will take some pictures, but I may not be able to post them because I didn’t bring the cable to get the pictures off my camera. Ah, the humanity – I knew I’d forget something.

haere ra (good-bye)

Big hair, tight pants and tattoos

2009-08-27T10:21:00.006-06:00

A couple of days ago, my friend Michelle and I went to the Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick concert. I totally loved it. (As a matter of fact, I’m listening to Poison right now – I love Pandora radio – I created my own Def Leppard “station”)

To avoid traffic, we left early and spent some time wandering around the Usana “village.” We were going to buy T-shirts, but they were $40 to $50, I mean, seriously?

Right before Cheap Trick came onstage, this geriatric looking fella walked on stage, and Michelle jokingly said “hey, it’s Cheap Trick.” We laughed until the guy sat down at the drums. It WAS Cheap Trick. I only knew one Cheap Trick song, so their part was OK. Isn’t it amazing how much difference it makes when you know the songs being performed?

When Poison finally came out, I was so excited (I say “finally” because the intermission between Cheap Trick and Poison was quite long). Bret Michaels told us that their bass player (actually a Utah resident) was really sick and was unable to play, but as luck would have it, the bass player for Bon Jovi had been backstage and rather than Poison not playing the concert, Hugh McDonald volunteered to play for them and took 20 minutes to look over all the music.

Def Leppard was amazing. I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve seen them in concert. I’ll definitely be going again! As they started, I told Michelle that there were three songs I wanted them to sing for sure, and they didn’t disappoint – but EVERY song they sang was fantastic and one that I really wanted them to sing.

Almost as fun as the concert was the people-watching. There was a girl a few rows in front of us who kept dancing around with a full cup of beer in her hands (a cup which she kept replenishing) – I kept waiting for it to spill on the people in front of her, but she evidently had mad drunk-dancing skills and only spilled on herself.

People always had the strangest reaction when I said I was going to Def Leppard. I’m not sure what kind of image I’m portraying (and I’m not complaining), but these reactions bring two stories to mind.

a. When I was 19, I spent a week babysitting three of my nephews. One night I was driving my (then) 11-year-old and 13-year-old nephews to get ice cream. One of the few AC/DC songs that I liked came on the radio, so I started singing along. After a little while I noticed that there were no longer any noises coming from the back seat. I looked in the rear view mirror and my two nephews were looking at me like they had no idea who I was. “Katie, you know this song?” “Yup, I love this song.” “Wow! You’re cool!” It’s the little things, isn’t it?

b. A few years ago, I was in Tennessee working with a couple of male co-workers. We were driving from Nashville back to Jackson – Mark was driving so was in control of the radio. He had a heavy metal station playing and it just so happened that they played something like 5 or 6 songs in a row that I knew and liked, so I sang along. Mark looked at me, aghast, and said that he would now have to change his whole opinion of me. Not quite sure what that means, but…

Long live rock and roll!!

FYI

2009-08-20T21:40:00.002-06:00

If anyone is interested, I have started a new blog. This blog will chronicle my journey to becoming fabulous and fit by 40 (fabandfitby40.blogspot.com). I'm not sure what it's really going to be - right now it's just a hodge-podge of different stuff. We'll have to see what develops.

Michael and me

2009-06-27T13:11:00.005-06:00

Michael Jackson died on Thursday, June 25, 2009. I had just heard on the radio that he was in a coma when my friend texted me and said that he had died. My first reaction was “huh… that’s weird.” It really wasn’t until Friday evening that I really thought about it. No matter what Michael’s life deteriorated into, back in the 80’s and early 90’s he was untouchable. Not only did he impact the music and music video industries, but he impacted my life as well. So many memories, but just to list a few…

1. Michael Jackson was the first man I ever loved – as much as a young teenager can, anyway.

2. I had to have sleep tests done at the local hospital one Saturday, and I was not allowed to sleep the night prior to the tests. My parents said I could rent some movies to help me stay awake. I rented Lili (GREAT old movie) and The Making of Thriller. It’s amazing how long “all night” is to a young teenager. I must have watched Thriller 5 or 6 times that night (of course, trying to do all the dance moves along with the video).

3. My friend Kristen slept over one Friday night so we could stay up late and watch Friday Night Videos to see the music video of Beat It (yes, this was WAY back in the olden days when a. MTV played videos but b. MTV was not a free channel). Of course, since that’s the video we cared about, it was the very last one they played that night (I think Friday Night Videos started at midnight and lasted until 1:30 or something). We loved it!!

4. 1984 is the only year I’ve ever watched the Grammy Awards (and I watched the ENTIRE show).

5. I used to buy every magazine possible that contained pictures of Michael Jackson – my room was plastered in posters, pictures, etc. I might have been a little obsessive, but heck, I was a teenager.

6. When I learned that Michael Jackson was a vegetarian, I thought I’d try it out – much to my mom’s dismay, as she prepared the meals. I don’t know how long it lasted, because I really do like meat. ☺

7. In 1984, my father was in a car accident that left him a partial quadriplegic for the rest of his life. He was in intensive care for quite awhile, and for awhile we weren’t sure whether he’d make it or not. Even after he left intensive care, he was in the hospital for almost a year. Being a Michael Jackson fan provided me with something stable that I needed at a time when my life was anything but.

You can laugh, mock, whatever you want, but I am a Michael Jackson fan. And, as I mourn Michael Jackson, I mourn, at the same time, a time gone by. Actually, better said, as I celebrate Michael Jackson I celebrate, at the same time, a time gone by. Thank you, Michael, for all you gave me. I hope you are finally at peace.

Freedom is not free

2009-05-31T22:01:00.008-06:00

As you know, last weekend was Memorial Day. My friend Amanda was going to Washington D.C. for a friend’s wedding, so I went along as the travel buddy (she really just wanted someone to take pictures of her ☺).

On Friday, May 22nd, we drove to the Antietam National Battlefield and Cemetery in Sharpsburg, MD. This visit, which included a movie describing the events surrounding battle, cemented Abraham Lincoln as my favorite U.S. president. It was quite sobering to think of how many Americans died in that battle – fighting other Americans.

Antietam National Cemetery

After Antietam, Amanda made a quick stop at the wedding (and I mean like 5-minutes quick), and then we were off to Mount Vernon. We had opted to get a GPS for the weekend since we were going to be driving quite a bit, and for the most part, it was great. However, after Amanda’s five minutes at the wedding, we seriously spent another 30 minutes in the parking lot of the hotel trying to get the GPS to find Mount Vernon as a Point of Interest. I finally ended up calling Mount Vernon. They had to give me their latitude/longitude coordinates. After all of that, the GPS did get us there in pretty good time, even with traffic.

On Saturday, we went to The National Mall. We started at the Washington Monument, walked to the National WWII Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, then around the Tidal Pool to the Jefferson Memorial.

National WWII Memorial

There were hundreds of bikers at the Memorials doing a Run for the Wall. This is one of my favorite pictures. I was crying at the drop of a hat all day (started at the WWII Memorial), and this was quite moving.

Korean War Veterans Memorial

After the monuments and memorials, we met another friend/co-worker (Allison) at the Smithsonian (she was in town for work). It was awesome to be back in an air-conditioned building after walking outside for hours – I think Allison’s comment when she saw me was “Katie looks dead.” I LOVED the Lincoln exhibition most of all. However, I was quite annoyed with this one family in particular whose children (we’re not talking young children here, but children old enough to know better) showed no respect for the exhibits (hanging ALL over them) nor for the other patrons who wanted to see the exhibits.

Lincoln's top hat he wore to Ford's theater the night he was assassinated

Sunday was another hot and muggy day. Amanda and I met Allison at Arlington National Cemetery where we took the tour-mobile around the cemetery. We were all dripping with sweat just standing in line for the freakin’ tour-mobile. After seeing the changing of the guard (an amazing honor, but how do those guys not sweat?), we decided this was all we could handle, so after lunch at an Asian restaurant near Allison’s hotel, Amanda and I headed back to Gaithersburg.

Since our flight home on Monday wasn’t until 5:00 p.m., we decided we had time to drive to Gettysburg. As we walked in Gettysburg National Cemetery, I realized how much I want to meet Abraham Lincoln! What an inspired man! It was a great way to spend Memorial Day – remembering all of those people who have sacrificed so much so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today.

Peace & Light Monument

Gettysburg Soldiers National Monument - it was here that Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address at the dedication of the Cemetery

Family Time

2009-05-13T19:22:00.006-06:00

After returning to the States after two weeks abroad, I was able to spend some quality time en famille as the French say (with the family). Monday was my sister-in-law's birthday. Since I didn't get home until Monday, we went out to dinner on Tuesday.

My brother, Roger

My adorable Mom

My sister-in-law Michelle and her daughter, Kambray. For some reason, we were all trying to pick up ice cubes with our chopsticks. Bray had a really hard time.

Finally, success!

My brother Charles, and his wife Mariah

Wednesday, my nephew (Eric) and his wife (Carolyn) took my mom out for Mother's Day. Another nephew (Kris - evidently he now goes by Kristian, but I missed the memo) was able to come, and I finally got to meet his girlfriend - she's adorable! I got to hang with two of my grand-nieces (great-nieces?) - also so adorable.

Sunday, of course, was Mother's Day. My brother (the chef) and sister-in-law arranged a great party with delicious food. PLUS, two of my nephews were there with their families (one nephew all the way from Seattle). I am quite blessed to have such a great family! I really do love them all!

My nephew Matt, his wife Heather, their four amazing boys and my mom

Henry with his red mustache

Heather and Matthew

Eric and his daughter, Caty

Caty on the swing (I know, I know - you can't see the swing, but trust me)

Cute Carolyn, trying to NOT get her picture taken

Cannon and Luke

Swinging Abi

I love Paris in the springtime

2009-05-10T16:46:00.007-06:00

I know it’s been almost a week since I’ve been home (crazy how quickly time passes), but I did want to document my two days in Paris. When our travel coordinator made our travel arrangements to Austria, our return flight was through Paris. I asked her to check how much more it would cost if I stayed the weekend in Paris and continued my flight home on Monday. YIPPEE for me – it was only $30 more. So, I used some of my hotel points and hung out for a couple of days. It was SO refreshing to be in a foreign country where I didn’t have to start every conversation with “do you speak English?” (or else just NOT have a conversation) Whew. We landed at Charles de Gaulle on Saturday at about 8:30 a.m., and I got to my hotel at around 11:00. I made arrangements to have dinner with friends (see below) at 7:00, so I spent the day walking around Paris – I took a book and sat in a few parks and read. I love it. I, of course, had a list of things to eat – foods that I’ve missed: pain au chocolat, paris-brest, a religieuse, crepes, etc.

After having dinner with Nadia and Malika on Saturday, I spent Sunday with the whole family of sisters I had met on my mission – I love those girls. And it just so happened that all five of them were in Paris this particular weekend (one lives in Southern France and another one lives about 2 hours outside of Paris). It was Malika’s youngest daughter’s birthday, so we had a birthday party (after church) at Nadia’s.

Church was so much fun – and I was quite happy with the fact that I still understood most of what was being said. I had forgotten how international the church is in Paris.
The bishop is American
The Relief Society President is Ukrainian
They have missionaries called to France to teach the large Chinese population – so they have to learn French to get around France and Chinese to teach the people they’re called to teach. Crazy!

I really do love France – when I visit, I feel like I’m coming home.

Perle

Malika and Soleya

Malika and Nadia

Fatiha and Adam

Farida and Perle

The hills really are alive

2009-05-10T08:40:00.004-06:00

On our last morning in Innsbruck, Bill and I took the funicular up the mountain. Why did we wait until the last day? Well, we didn’t. We tried to take the funicular our first Friday in Innsbruck, but the automatic ticket machine across the street from our hotel wasn’t working – so we decided we could wait for the second week. Unfortunately, to our dismay (since the first week was gorgeous), it was overcast every single day of our second week…except Friday – and even then, Friday morning started out cloudy. But the clouds must have listened to my command, because they lifted in time for us to go up the mountain (we still had to find another station because the automatic ticket machine by our hotel STILL wasn’t working) just before we had to catch our train back to Munich. I'll admit it, a couple of songs from the Sound of Music escaped my lips (much to Bill's dismay) Enjoy!

Picture taken from the tram

Innsbruck from above

Innsbruck from even higher above

Innapropriate footwear, anyone?

Czech me out

2009-05-05T20:51:00.008-06:00

As I said, Bill and I drove to Prague two weekends ago (I can’t believe how quickly time flies). Prague was absolutely fabulous – we had really good weather. The drive was fun – Bill drove to Prague, and was so excited to be going super fast on the autobahn (I hated to disappoint him, but 170 kph turned out to only be 105 mph). I drove back from Prague (because Bill wanted to visit a brewery in Plzen so I was the “designated” driver). Just because I could, and yes, maybe I am a little competitive, I drove 200 kph on the autobahn (124 mph) – poor Bill.

Now, even though I don’t speak German, I can pretend to pronounce it, and can actually come close to pronouncing a few words correctly (i.e. Thank You, Train Station, etc.). However, there’s no way that I can look at a word in Czech and begin to figure out how to say it.

We spent all day Saturday walking around Prague – exhausting. What’s even more amazing is that with all the walking we did, we still only saw a very small part of the city. I really need to come back again when I can spend more time.

As we were eating dinner on Saturday, there was a table of very drunk gentlemen sitting near us trying to sing songs in English. My back was to them (to start) so I made a few faces at Bill. Then, one of the guys came over and started talking to us. He said that he and his friends were from Norway, and then he just kept talking and talking. It’s probably a good thing he assumed Bill was my husband, because even then he asked Bill if it was OK to kiss me on the cheek. He was crazy.

Václavské Námestí

St. Vitus Cathedral

St. Nicolas Church

Powder Tower

Prague Castle

Astrological Clock

National Museum

Charles Bridge

Jewish Cemetery - we wanted to visit the cemetery, but unfortunately we went on a Saturday.

Church of Our Lady

Where can one go in 30 minutes?

2009-05-01T00:37:00.002-06:00

Over the weekend, Bill and I rented a car and drove to Prague. Believe it or not, this was the quickest, least expensive way to go. Going by train would have taken almost all day (there wasn’t a direct route) and a plane ticket was over $300. So, a car rental and gas divided by two people wasn’t too bad – AND it only took us about 5 ½ hours to get there. Anyway, that’s all just a little introduction. No, this is not the post about Prague – that’ll come later. Although we would be backtracking, since we had a car and since Innsbruck is only about 30 minutes from Italy and since this was Bill’s first trip to Europe, we decided to take a little side trip. Our GPS didn’t take us to the little Italian village we were looking for, but we did get to an Italian village – where everyone still spoke German first (and Italian, I'm sure). We even had a pizza. After a short stop (just enough to take some pics and, of course, eat the pizza - which was delicious), we were back on our way to Prague. The name of the village, you ask? Colle Isarco.

These are my attempts at taking pictures from the passenger seat in a speeding vehicle.

Where’s my European sugar daddy?

2009-04-26T12:59:00.007-06:00

So, my first week in Innsbruck is over – man, how I would love to live here. Here are some of the highlights (some are more detailed than others… live with it).

1. We arrived in Innsbruck last Sunday around noon. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and then took off to see the city. I should probably have done better research on how to get to a couple of places because after walking for quite some time, we ran out of sidewalk and found that we couldn’t actually walk to where we wanted to go – we had to go by car – at least we stopped ourselves before we started walking on the autobahn.

2. Innsbruck is absolutely GORGEOUS!!

3. I got totally ripped off at dinner one night. I went to dinner with Bill and one of our Norwegian colleagues – delicious dinner, by the way, had brats and sauerkraut, YUMMY!! – anywho, at the end of the meal, our colleague suggested we split the ticket three ways. Sounded good – well, it wasn’t until after we paid that I realized this probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do since I hadn’t had any alcohol with my meal. Let me tell you, alcohol can become really expensive really fast. Oh, well.

4. I’m working with a really cute Austrian guy – Young, but cute! ;-)

5. Did I mention that Innsbruck is gorgeous?

6. Every meal has been delicious! We ate Italian (we're about 30 minutes from Italy, so there are a LOT of Italian restaurants here), Indian, Greek, and, of course, Austrian. YUMMY!

Triumphal Arch (Triumphpforte)

City Tower (Stadtturm) in Old Town

Building in Old Town

There was this really cool parade thing going on while we were walking around town

The Golden Roof - Old Town

This is the view from my hotel room - poor me, right?

The mountains are absolutely amazing

Also from my hotel room

Stift kirche

Inside St. Jakob (Innsbruck Cathedral)

St. Jakob (Innsbruck Cathedral)

So, male pedestrians are allowed in Innsbruck, just not in Munich? ;-) But only if they wear a hat.

It's the small things

2009-04-22T12:38:00.007-06:00

Last Friday I flew to Munich (Salt Lake to Atlanta, Atlanta to Munich). Because of my status with Delta, I received a complimentary upgrade to Atlanta. However, the bigger problem was the flight to Munich. I know I sound like such a whiner, but that is a really long flight (9 hours) to be stuck in coach. So, on Wednesday of last week, I called Delta to see if I could use my SkyMiles to purchase an upgrade. Nope, my ticket wasn’t in the right class, so no upgrade for me. A friend from work was traveling with me and overheard my conversation, so he thought he’d give it a try. He was told that he could use miles, but a better option would be for each of us to purchase an upgrade on the day of travel (if available) for $150. Totally worth it. So, bright and early on Friday morning (we’re talking about 5:30) I walked into the Crown Room at the Salt Lake City airport ready to purchase my upgrade. Sorry, ma’am (I’m not ready to be a ma’am), you were given incorrect information – there is no way, no how you can upgrade your flight. When Bill got to the airport, he tried, too. Same end result. He couldn't even use miles, now. Since each person told us something a little different, I thought I’d try asking again in Atlanta. Still the same end result (NO), but again, different information. After so much rejection, Bill and I were resigned to the fact that we would be in coach. However, when the gate agent scanned our tickets, much to our astonishment, a neat little upgrade ticket printed out - one for each of us. We didn't even ask this time. I was high-fiving Bill – the gate agent was excited for us, he high-fived us. It was quite the moment. I think the surprise made the upgrade that much sweeter.

We arrived in Munich Saturday morning, stayed in Munich Saturday night and then took the train to Innsbruck on Sunday. We arrived in Munich early in the morning, and even though our hotel rooms were ready, it’s my rule to try and stay awake as late as possible and then try to sleep through the night in order to reduce the amount of jet lag. So, Bill and I walked around Munich for a few hours – until both of us were ready to drop. I’ve been to Munich before, so I saw some of the same things (which I still LOVE), but we saw some different things, too. It’s a beautiful city.

Asparagus must be in season - there were asparagus stands EVERYWHERE

Theatine Church

Since neither of us spoke German, we couldn't quite figure out what this statue was for. We assumed it was for the fallen soldiers from Munich during the wars.

Beautiful skyline

One of my favorite sites in Munich - the Glockenspiel. There's quite the show when it strikes 11 a.m., noon, and 4 p.m. (I think it's 4 p.m.)

Frauenkirke (Church of Our Lady). There was scaffolding on the other tower, so the picture isn't quite what it could have been

English Gardens. It was amazing to have this tranquil garden in the middle of the city. My German friend, Rolf, told us that we were lucky it was cold and rainy - evidently nude sunbathing is quite the past time in this park.

Bill's first real German beer

OK, these signs were ALL over the English Gardens. We couldn't quite understand - were only women allowed to walk here? And only then if they were holding on to their daughter's hand? A little chauvinistic, if you ask me. My German resource, Rolf, wasn't sure what these meant, so I went on a quest online. Evidently these signs simply mean "pedestrians allowed." But only women pedestrians, right?

Norrköping

2009-04-13T19:51:00.006-06:00

NOT pronounced Nor-k-uh-ping. Actual pronounciation: [nawr-chœ-ping] (I think nor-shuh-ping is pretty close).

What? You’ve never heard of Norrköping? Well, I don’t blame you. The only reason I’ve heard of it is that my mom’s grandmother and great-grandmother emigrated from there.

My sister visited Sweden a few years ago (her husband served an LDS mission in Sweden) and they went to Norrköping and had a great experience (family-history wise), so I decided I should go, too. However, it wasn’t until the night I arrived in Stockholm that I thought of looking for the location where my great-great-grandfather was buried. Poor planning on my part (or lack of planning) but seriously, how hard could it be to find it? I knew what parish he belonged to (East Eneby, Hedvigs Parish) – surely they had a cemetery where parish members were buried, right? Sadly, no.

Norrköping is about a 90-minute train ride out of Stockholm. Just a few blocks from the train station I found Hedvigs Kyrka (which was pretty good since I had no idea where I was going), but as I said, there was no nearby cemetery. That’s OK, I would just ask where they would have buried people in 1862. I arrived at the door just as they were closing for the day. I stated my case and everyone at the church was extremely nice and tried to help me. They gave me a map of the city, and pointed out a cemetery that would have graves from the 1800’s. So, I set out on my quest. Since it was Sunday, no one was working at the cemetery for me to ask whether or not I was in the right place. Again, I figured it would be OK, I would just walk around and see what I could find – shouldn’t take long. I started with a lot of energy, but after a couple of hours (and a lot of snow), I decided that I was out of luck. That said, I did have a nice time and was able to take some great pictures.

Hedwig's Kyrka

St. Matthew's

river in Norrköping

ABBA, lingonberries, and me

2009-03-25T20:45:00.015-06:00

What do these three things have in common? Yup, all Swedish things.

Since I was all the way over in Finland for work anyway, I decided to stay the weekend and visit Sweden (great-grandparents on both sides of my family came from Sweden). Although, truth be told, my first idea was to fly to St. Petersburg for the weekend – it has been my dream since I was a teenager to visit Russia. However, since that would have cost me around $300 just for a tourist visa (for 2 days?) I decided Sweden would be just as awesome. And it was.

I flew from Helsinki to Stockholm on Friday night. My flight was scheduled for 7:45, so I arrived at the airport the suggested 2 hours in advance – and it was a good thing, too. As soon as I got to the airport, I looked at the Departure screen and saw that my 7:45 flight had been canceled. Oh, crap. The kind lady at the check-in desk, who spoke excellent English, told me that since I was early enough, they could re-book me on an earlier flight. EXCELLENT.

I spent most of the day Saturday walking around Stockholm. Beautiful buildings and churches and people speaking Swedish everywhere (pictures below, but not of people speaking Swedish). People always spoke to me in Swedish, so I guess I don’t wear a big “I’m an American” sign around my neck. There were some cases where I was able to have an entire conversation without asking the person if they spoke English – like making a purchase at a store:
“Hej”
“Hej”
"lots of words I don’t understand"
I look at the cash register to see the price
"more words I don’t understand" I take to mean ‘will there be anything else?’
"Nej"
"Tack"
"Tack"

Other times, I’d have to ask people if they spoke English, which, most of the time they did. Then, if I paid with a credit card (or had to show my passport, like at the airport), they would repeat my last name and then start speaking Swedish again. Nope, still don’t speak Swedish. Yes, with a name like Blomquist, I probably should speak Swedish, but alas, I don’t.

Side note, someone told me that I looked Finnish – because I am blond. Um, aren’t Swedish people blond?

Stockholm Cathedral

Riddarholm Church

Royal Palace

Katarina Kyrka - my dad used to call my Katarina when I was younger. That's the whole reason I went to this church

Gamla Stan - The Old Town

Helsinki in March

2009-03-23T02:46:00.009-06:00

I’m posting this as I’m sitting in the Stockholm airport waiting for my flight to Atlanta. I really can’t believe how quickly these last few days went – and how much I enjoyed them. OK, I arrived Helsinki a day early (late afternoon on Saturday the 14th instead of late afternoon on Sunday the 15th) in order to have some extra time to adjust to the time change prior to being required to actually think clearly and work. I usually adjust quickly to the time change when I travel – London in December was a fluke, I think. Anyway, on Sunday I walked around the city for several hours. It was cold, but I had come prepared (well, mostly). I brought a coat, my pink hat I bought in London (where I wasn’t prepared), and gloves. As you’ll see, my footwear wasn’t actually snow-ready. Anywho, I saw a couple of beautiful churches: Uspenski Cathedral and the Helsinki Cathedral (in Senate Squre).

Statue of Alexander II

Uspenski Cathedral

Helsinki Cathedral

Kim suggested I visit Suomenlinna fortress (an inhabited sea fortress built on six islands just off of Helsinki). It’s a short 15-20 minute ferry ride from Helsinki’s Market Square. Since it was also highly recommended on several travel websites I checked, I made it part of my day. It was amazing to see. Unfortunately, as there was still quite a bit of snow and ice on the ground, my poorly chosen footwear (see below) was soon completely soaked (as were my pants about 6-8 inches from the bottom). Since I had a week of work ahead of me as well as a weekend in Sweden, I really didn’t want to get sick (Kim’s poor family did that enough for all of us), and since I had been out and about for several hours already (something like 7 or 8), after arriving back at Market Square, I called it a day and walked back to the hotel.

Picture of the water from the ferry - yes, that's ice

King's Gate

Picture of Helsinki from Suomenlinna

Can you see the water line on my pants?

I was able to see some other sights during the week, which was nice: the Parliament building and the Rock Church (finally, on Friday). Also on Friday, before my flight to Stockholm, I decided to find the LDS temple – so I hopped a bus (after asking directions from the hotel staff, of course) and found it, after only getting a little lost.

Just some random street - I thought it looked cool

The Parliament building

This is a park I walked past every day on my way to work

Statue of Mannerheim (president of Finland after WWII)

Temppeliaukio Kirkko (Rock Church)

There was some orchestra rehearsing while I was at the Rock Church. The acoustics were amazing.

Helsinki LDS temple

I really did have a great time. The guys I worked with were total smart alecs (how do you spell that?), so we got along fine. I thoroughly enjoyed Helsinki and would like to go back any time.

My Helsinki Culinary Adventure

2009-03-21T08:29:00.003-06:00

On Thursday night I had a traditional Lapland dinner with Jari (a salesman for the company I work for), Anders and Thomas (two gentlemen I worked with while in Helsinki) at a place called Saaga. I’ll admit it, I was a little hesitant at first, but it was really, really good. Jari ordered appetizers: “A selection of nine Lappish delicacies” which included cold smoked salmon, halibut prepared in a traditional manner (read: I don’t know how it was prepared), reindeer sausage, potatoes, and a mushroom salad thingy (kind of like a potato salad) that was really yummy!

For my main course, I had “sautéed reindeer served with mashed potatoes, lingonberries and pickled cucumber.” Although I never really wanted to eat reindeer, I figured “what the heck, when in Rome” (or Helsinki as the case may be). I actually liked it.

At the beginning of the meal, the gents each had a “traditional Lappish liqueur.” When I asked what it was, they were describing the type of berry that the drink was made from. They kept saying “cloudberry” but since I wasn’t familiar with the word, they weren’t sure if they were translating it correctly. We consulted the English menu – sure enough, cloudberry. Am I the only one who has never heard of it? Please tell me it’s not just me. Props to Jari, Anders and Thomas, though, because it’s difficult enough to explain something in your native language to a person who literally doesn’t know what you’re talking about, let alone in foreign language. I felt like Veruca Salt in the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka movie: Cloudberries? Who’s ever heard of a cloudberry? (Of course, I wasn’t snotty about it) Anywho, when we looked at desserts and I saw “Lappish cheese on a cast iron pan served in cinnamon cream with cloudberry jam,” I knew there was no other option (unless, of course, there had been something chocolate).

found a picture of a cloudberry online - I LOVE the internet

Jari was really cute during dinner – even if I had wanted to order an alcoholic drink (which, of course, I didn’t), there’s no way I could have. Jari, who knows I’m a Mormon, made sure the wait staff knew that I needed non-alcoholic drinks. It was very nice that he was taking care of me.

It was a great evening – the company and the conversation was as good as the food – even better, actually. The service was a little slow so we ended up being at the restaurant for 3 ½ hours, but it worked out.

Just a side note in reference to “Do you speak English?” I ordered a water. The waiter – whose native language is NOT English – asked if I wanted it fizzy or still. Hmmm…

Yummy?

2009-03-18T07:13:00.003-06:00

Lunch yesterday was delicious. Kim, Thomas, Miika, and Thomas - that's not a typo, 2 Thomas' - took me to a restaurant near work that serves meals like mamma makes. I ordered a Swedish dish made with ham and potatoes called skinkfrestelse (nope, I can't pronounce it either - Kim helped me). As we were talking about the different foods they eat here in Finland - foods that include bear (they swear it's really good), reindeer, moose (the poor man's reindeer), etc., they raved about a traditional Russian starter dish: Pickles (from the info I've found on-line, I think they're referring to Sweet and Sour pickles or Russian pickles), sour cream and honey. Take your pickle spear, dip it in the honey, then dip it in the sour cream. They were so emphatic about how yummy this is, I might just have to try it.

Things to know about Helsinki/Finland

2009-03-17T03:26:00.005-06:00

1. Finland has 2 official languages: Finnish and Swedish (since Finland used to belong to Sweden). From what I’ve been told, if a town has a Swedish-speaking minority over 6%, then all public signs and services must be offered in both Finnish and Swedish. Since I don’t speak either, it doesn’t help me at all, but it’s cool. The pictures below are street names - the top name in Finnish and the bottom name in Swedish.

2. When I walked into the hotel on Saturday afternoon, the front-desk clerk greeted me with a “hey.” I thought this was a little informal, but hey, what do I know. Then, when I went to dinner on Sunday night (dinner Saturday night didn’t count since it was a Thai restaurant and they spoke English with everyone), the hostess greeted me with a “hey” as well. As it turns out, Finns use the greeting “hei” (hello or hi) which sounds like “hey.”

3. As much as I hate to eavesdrop, I’ve been hearing the same word over and over again in conversations. I somewhat figured out its meaning by the context (yes, you can determine context even if you don’t understand anything that is being spoken). So, yesterday I asked Kim M., a guy I’m working with AND a Swedish speaking Finn, what it means. I was right – the word is “joo” pronounced “yo” like “yo, Adrian!” (Kim says it’s not pronounced “yo,” but I can only detect a minor difference when he says both words). Anywho, it means “yeah,” or “uh-huh.” Yo!

Finlandia - Day 1 (well, day 1/2 actually)

2009-03-14T12:49:00.011-06:00

Last Friday, I left Salt Lake City for a week long work assignment in Helsinki, Finland. I’ve never been to Finland, so I've been quite excited. I flew from SLC to Paris, and then Paris to Helsinki. Evidently the 2+ hour layover in Paris wasn’t long enough, because on arrival at baggage claim at the Helsinki airport I heard over the intercom: “Will passenger Blomquist please come to Arrival Assistance?” or something similar. Uh, oh. Not a good sign. HOWEVER, I must point out that they did pronounce my last name correctly. WooHoo! Anyway, my luggage didn’t make the connection. Even though I had come prepared with extra undies, a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant in my carry-on, by bag arrived at 9:45 p.m. - the only problem was staying up that late to get my bag.

Helsinki is really quite quaint. My taxi driver made a point of telling my how safe Helsinki is – “you can walk around in the dead of night without fear of violence.”

My hotel room is really cool. MUCH larger than my hotel room in London. It also has a nice flat-screen TV hanging on the wall.

You have to put your room key in this slot in order for the lights to turn on. I guess that stops you from wasting energy by keeping the lights on when you’re not in your room.

When I asked the hotel hostess for some restaurant suggestions, the first two she suggested were a Thai place and an Indian place (the hotel restaurant is an Italian restaurant, and is supposed to be really good). So, I hit the Thai place. Really YUMMY!!

I walked down the street from my hotel to a little grocery store for some bottled water and saw these cool buildings. The pink building (according to my taxi driver) is the old Helsinki Opera House.

More to come...

Do you speak English?

2009-03-11T10:03:00.002-06:00

Blogging two days in a row? Crazy, I know. Anywho, last night I went to Tucano's (Brazilian Grill) with a couple of friends visiting from England. John and I ordered the delicious Brazilian Lemonade to drink. Ellen wasn't sure what to drink, so the waiter started describing his favorite drink - fruits blended with vanilla ice cream, etc. Sounded YUMMY! Anyway, Ellen asked if the drink was fizzy. The waiter gave her a very confused look, so she repeated herself - just in case he hadn't heard her over the cacophony that surrounded us. Still looking confused, he looked to me for a translation. So, being bilingual (speaking both English and American - actually I'm trilingual since I also speak French) I said "you know, carbonated?" Ah, yes, that cleared up everything. After that everything the waiter described was "fizzy."
"Can I interest you in a fizzy dessert?" "Do you want to fill out a fizzy survey?"

I know it's March, but...

2009-03-10T15:29:00.004-06:00

I know I’m about a month late blogging about it, but I had a GREAT Valentine’s Day this year. My youngest nephew is going on an LDS mission to Zurich, Switzerland (yes, you read that right, my youngest nephew is 19). So, on Valentine’s Day, we had a big family day at the Salt Lake City temple as Kyle went through the temple for the first time. My sister even flew in to town for the event.

Kyle - I mean Elder Blomquist

If that wasn’t cool enough, my newest niece Madison (formerly known as Lupita – see Look ma, no hands & Will someone explain this to me, please?) was sealed to my brother and sister-in-law. It really was a privilege to be a part of this day.

Then we all went to dinner – there were probably around 30-40 of us. Being the quiet, subdued family that we are, no one even knew we were there.

Madison and her "twin" McKenzi

Harold, Kathy, McKenzi and Madison

Harold and Mom

Funny story of the day

2009-02-22T21:06:00.002-07:00

I teach the 6-7 year olds at church. I have a great bunch of kids. Today our lesson was on Prophets. This is how our lesson went.

Who was the first prophet? Adam.
Who was the first prophet of the latter-days? Joseph Smith.
Who is the president and prophet today? Obama.

I think we cleared it up. What I found interesting is that out of the mouths of babes come the opinions of their parents.

Things that make me go "huh"

2009-02-01T16:03:00.002-07:00

We had a baby blessing today at church. The child's name? Alpha Son . What will #2 son be called? Beta Son? Huh...

Baby, it’s cold outside

2009-01-17T22:09:00.004-07:00

The past several days in Pittsburgh have been very cold, like below-freezing cold. It was 12 degrees one morning, 7 degrees another morning, and 2 degrees another morning. However, as I was driving to the airport this morning, this is what my car registered as the outside temperature (OK, this isn’t MY car – my phone wouldn’t take a good picture, but my co-worker’s phone did). I haven't been this cold since I was last in Alaska.

When I arrived back to Utah, it was 34 degrees – only 2 degrees above freezing, and yet, 47 degrees higher than Pittsburgh. I didn’t even wear my coat…

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... in January

2009-01-14T17:35:00.002-07:00

As you may know, I’m still in Pittsburgh this week. Today, Amanda and I decided we needed a break away from the office, so, in spite of the 15-degree temperature, icy sidewalks, and falling snow, we walked to the Oyster House for lunch. The Oyster House is a local restaurant that serves fish sandwiches the size of your face. Check out the picture! Yes, that's TWO fish fillets.

Pittsburgh still has the big Christmas tree up downtown (yes, I know it’s the 14th of January, what's your point?), so on the way back to the newspaper I thought I should take a picture of it. What’s funny is that as I was thinking about taking a picture of the tree, Amanda asked me to take her picture in front of it. What’s that they say about great minds?

I'm famous

2009-01-07T11:34:00.002-07:00

Well, not really. I’m back in Pittsburgh, PA this week and next, upgrading the Post-Gazette to a new version of software. I’ve been to Pittsburgh several times over the past, oh, I’d say 7 years – crikey, has it really been that long? – and I’m pretty good friends with most of the people here. Anyway, my friends Ced and Tim record a podcast once a week called Tech Talk, and yesterday they asked me to join them. It was fun – we just sat around a table talking about different technology-related news articles. I’m not sure why, but Ced assigned the article about on-line dating to me… What does that mean?

You know how when you listen to your voice on a recording (video or audio) and it doesn’t sound at all like your voice sounds in your head? I know it’s me on the recording, but it doesn’t sound like what I think I sound like. OK, I’m rambling now…

So, I’m really not famous (they jokingly say they only have a 3-person listenership – is that a word? Spell check offers "listener ship" and "listeners hip" as alternatives) – but if you want to listen (it’s a little long, so you can fast forward as needed), click here: Tech Talk 01/06/09

Sister look-a-likes - part II

2008-12-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

In my very first blog, I recounted a story where my (brown-eyed brunette) friend and I were thought to be sisters. Well, it happened again – with a different brunette friend – blue-eyed, this time, though. Yesterday I went to lunch with a friend of mine – we haven’t seen each other in over 10 years (shocking, I know). We went to a yummy little Thai restaurant. It was great seeing her again, and we had a nice time catching up. Anyway, as we were paying, the cute Thai (I’m assuming Thai) waitress asked if we were sisters, because, she said, we looked exactly alike. I’m tempted to take my sister in with me next time she’s in town to see what happens.

Christmas (mis)Adventures

2008-12-28T08:00:00.004-07:00

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (Happy Holiday, etc.). I had a very nice Christmas week. Over a three-day span, I was able to spend time with three of my brothers and their families (well, partial families, in some cases).

On Christmas Eve, my mom and I were preparing our traditional Christmas treats – peanut clusters, Rice Krispies Treats®, and Chex® Party Mix. We ran into some problems, which ended up providing us with much humor.

Due to my last minute, two-week trip to London, I wasn’t quite prepared for Christmas, so I was shopping on Christmas Eve – the lines in the stores were crazy, by the way. My mom called and said she had run into a problem with the peanut clusters, and needed some help. So, after a fruitless shopping experience (I ended up buying stuff on-line and printing out a picture of the item to be unwrapped. Lame, I know, but what are you going to do?), I returned home to see what she needed. My mom has been using the same recipe for peanut clusters for, oh, about as long as we’ve had a microwave, so what, 20-some-odd years (maybe 30)? For some reason, this time, as she melted the butterscotch and chocolate chips, the butterscotch chips caramelized instead of melted. I really think she had a bad batch of butterscotch chips – because the next batch came out OK. However, my mom kept the messed up batch because, in her words, it was sweet so someone might eat it. OK…

Rice Krispies Treats® are my FAVORITE holiday treat. My mom has doctored up the usual recipe a little bit (including adding more marshmallows AND a tsp. of vanilla). Anyway, I got out a bag of marshmallows – they felt a little old, but they weren’t TOO hard, and since we were melting them anyway, I figured we’d be OK. Well, we weren’t OK. As the marshmallows started “melting” (and I use the term loosely), I quickly realized that this batch just wasn’t going to work. This mishap following so closely after the Peanut Cluster debacle, caused my mom and me to double over with laughter – we were laughing so hard we were crying. My mom had the genius idea to mix the caramelized chocolate/butterscotch mixture in with the clumping marshmallows– again, using the reasoning “they’re both sweet.” Needless to say, it was a mess and ended up in the garbage. Luckily we had some newer marshmallows on hand, so Rice Krispies Treats® were to be had.

All in all, we had a very nice, white Christmas (the snow has been crazy) – we were able to spend time with family, eat good food, watch Christmas shows (we watched A Christmas Story, finally), and celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Happy New Year, everyone!

On the last day in London...

2008-12-22T08:13:00.004-07:00

I wasn’t able to leave the office as early as I had hoped on Friday night (my last night in London), so I just made a quick stop at Trafalgar Square, took a few pictures (see below), then went back to my hotel room to pack. I enjoyed my time in London – the people at ReCharge (the publication I was working for) were nice, fun, thoughtful and generous. At the Christmas luncheon on Friday, they presented me with a gift – a nice big bottle of champagne – to thank me for my time and effort (and patience). I graciously (I hope I was gracious) accepted the gift and, later that evening, gave it to Howard, the Norwegian IT guy working with me on the project.

2 things that surprised me about this visit to the UK:

1. The inordinate number of Starbucks. I’m telling you, they were everywhere.
2. Krispy Kremes in London. I was shocked. If I see them next time I’m in Paris, though, it’s all over.

Fun in London

2008-12-18T13:43:00.003-07:00

Last night I went to dinner with some friends from work – one guy from the Utah office, two guys from the UK office. We had a lovely time. We found a fantastic little dim sum, Asian mix restaurant (called dim t, in case you’re ever in London and are looking for a good place to eat). The menu described the dim sum as “three items per basket.” So Gavin ordered the three different varieties of dim sum that he wanted in his one 3-piece basket. Ken then ordered the three kinds he wanted in his single basket of three. I had an inkling that this wasn’t correct, as I’ve ordered dim sum before, but I was the foreigner here – maybe things are done differently in London. So I ordered the three kinds that I wanted. This is what arrived at our table (and these were just our appetizers – our main courses were still to come):

In case you failed to count, that’s NINE baskets of dim sum, each containing three dumplings. Ah, we laughed hard and long…

Shouldn’t the waiter have noticed the oddity of our order and thus explained how the dim sum worked? Or should we have just known? It makes a great story, though. ☺ And I am quite impressed with how much we actually ate. Ken and Gavin even finished their main courses as well. Jon was the odd one out and ordered 3 skewers of chicken satay as his appetizer… and guess what? He only got three skewers. When the table next to us ordered a measly 3 baskets of dim sum, Jon and Gavin looked at each other and whispered “wimps!”

Tonight I left work early – the other company on the same floor as the one I’m working for (same parent company) was having their Christmas party – there was music, food and alcohol to be had by all (starting at 1:00 p.m.) – they kindly invited those of us from my office to join in. An example of the different work culture: I had to train a couple of gents at 2:00 p.m. As I was starting class, Chris, the Editor-In-Chief, brought all three of us a glass of champagne “to help the training along.” I graciously thanked him, and then gave my glass to Julian (after Chris had left the room, of course). But I digress - at 5 p.m the other company wanted to turn out the lights so they could dance. Since working in the dark can be difficult, we were excused. Since I left earlier than the usual 6:30 or so, I decided to go by Big Ben and the London Eye and try to take some nice night photos – this is what I came up with. Not quite as nice as I’d like, but…

Weekend in (Old) England

2008-12-14T12:35:00.007-07:00

Even though I didn’t make it to Bath as planned, I still had a great weekend.

I left the hotel yesterday afternoon intent on seeing a movie. However, after exiting the tube station, I looked around to get my bearings and find the movie theater (yeah, right, like looking around would help – I was just going to pick a direction and hope for the best), I was standing right next to a theater showing Twelfth Night (one of my favorite Shakespearean comedies) AND the cast included Derek Jacobi (who I found especially creepy in Dead Again). It looked like they were just seating for the Saturday matinee, and as I asked an employee if there were still tickets available, a gentleman said he would sell me one of his for less than face value. SCORE for me! So, I watched Twelfth Night and loved it. After Twelfth Night, since it was now darker, still raining and only 6:00, I still went to a movie – Inkheart (which doesn’t come out in the States until January). Prior to the movie, thank goodness, since I was a little peckish, I had time for fish and chips (I took a bite before I thought to take a picture – sorry).

Sunday wasn’t raining, but it was still freezing. I played tourist in the morning and walked around for a few hours – had to buy a hat because it was so cold. I ended up walking with some girls from Holland, and we helped take each other's pictures (it’s very hard to take close-up self-portraits that I like when my face is so chubby). Worked out nicely. Then I met up with my friends John and Ellen to do some shopping, although I didn't buy anything.

Saint Paul's Cathedral

The Globe Theater

Holiday Decor

Tower Bridge

Like my pink hat?

Tower of London in the background

While John, Ellen and I were shopping, we stopped at a little chocolate shop, and they had little shoes made of chocolate – yes, this is a shoe made of chocolate. But at £17, I opted against buying one... today, anyway.

Best laid plans

2008-12-13T06:16:00.004-07:00

Isn’t it frustrating when plans don’t work out?

Plan A
As I’ve mentioned, I am a big Doctor Who fan – and I love, Love, LOVE David Tennant – he’s brilliant. Anywho, I had heard that he was playing a limited engagement of Hamlet in London from December to January. Fabulous – I could go see him while here for work. Of course, all shows were sold out, but the theater’s website said to call each day to see if any tickets were returned. OK, I could do that. Monday, no dice. Tuesday, no dice. Then came Wednesday. I called the theatre from the office, expecting the usual response, “sorry, no returns,” spoken in a polite English accent. Much to my utter glee, I was told that they did have tickets available for that evening. I seriously almost clapped my hands with joy and jumped up and down. However, the woman on the phone immediately followed “yes, we have tickets available” with “but David Tennant won’t be performing again until after Christmas.” Well, that idea went out the window. Evidently the poor guy hurt his back and has had to have surgery. I wish him well, but darn it, I would have LOVED to have seen him live.

Plan B
I also mentioned my plan to visit Bath over the weekend (today, in fact). I woke up to rain. So, I’d get a little wet, I didn’t care – there was no way rain was going to stop me from visiting Bath. Oh, how wrong I was. After finally figuring out how to get to the correct train station, I noticed that several trains were cancelled due to flooding. Not my train, certainly. But, sadly, yes, all trains (at least until 4 p.m.) from London to Bath had been cancelled. There’s always tomorrow, right? Well, no. I’ve already made plans for tomorrow – a friend of mine along with his wife are taking the train into London to see me and hang out for the day. So, no visiting Bath. And with the rain, since I don’t want to get soaking wet (which I did just getting to the train station this morning), there’s not much sight seeing I want to do even in London. I think I’ll go see a movie or something. I’ve checked the weather, and tomorrow should be a good sightseeing day.

There is a bright side, though. I have wanted to see Wicked (the musical) for years now. I purchased the soundtrack in ’05. How do I know that, you ask? I can see the purchase date in iTunes. I digress. Each time I’ve been to New York, I’ve tried to get tickets – but it’s been sold out. When they announced it was coming to Utah, some girls from work and I tried to get tickets – sold out. So, when Hamlet didn’t work out, there really wasn’t another choice for what show I wanted to see. I just hoped I could get tickets. And, I did. FINALLY. So, last night (after barely making it to the theater in time), I saw Wicked. It was absolutely fabulous! I am still just stunned. I enjoyed it much more than the book… the book was a chore to get through. But the musical was, as I’ve said, fabulous.

Mind the gap

2008-12-10T13:47:00.006-07:00

Things to remember while in England:

1. Look the opposite way that instinct tells me to look when crossing the street
2. Keep to the left - when walking up stairs, entering buildings, etc.
3. One wears trousers, not pants (well, you wear pants, too, but don’t mention that in polite company)
4. The first floor isn't always the ground floor

I am on day… what day am I on? Day 4 in London. I haven’t been able to do much sightseeing since I’ve been working until late. I can't wait for the weekend! I plan on visiting Bath on Saturday, and doing some shopping and sightseeing on Sunday with friends. However, what I have been able to do so far is have dinner at fabulous restaurants – a great Indian restaurant on Sunday, a delicious Italian restaurant with my friend Jon and his daughter on Monday, a hummus restaurant on Tuesday (you heard me, a restaurant dedicated to hummus!), and a little Oriental/Thai place tonight.

I’m staying at a dingy hotel with the most uncomfortable bed in the world. The room is really small, but hey, it has a wall-mounted television (there wouldn’t be anywhere else to put it). Yup, I’m watching Doctor Who right now. Welcome to the UK.

I'm taking the picture from the doorway, believe it or not. Don't mind my grocery bags on the bed. When I mentioned the uncomfortable bed to the hotel staff, they said they had a different room with a smaller bed - right, smaller?

Attitude of Gratitude Challenge - the end? or just the beginning?

2008-11-30T22:40:00.002-07:00

I am truly amazed that I made it through the month.

Today, the final day of November 2008, I am grateful for:

1. This Attitude of Gratitude Challenge. Some days were easier than others, but each day has been a blessing. I echo my good friend's wish – that I will continue to look for the blessings that surround me, even though I’m not recording them here on my blog.
2. Text messaging. I know it’s not a face-to-face conversation, but I love that I was able to have a very nice conversation with my nephew throughout the day today – a conversation in which I didn’t offend him with my playful teasing (I forget that he can be sensitive sometimes).
3. Experiences – good and bad, we are a sum of not only our experiences but also how we react to said experiences. As much as I hate trials and hardships when I’m going through them, they have made me who I am today (whether that’s good or bad is open to debate ☺). I hope that I can continue to grow from whatever life throws at me and that I can keep a positive outlook on life.

In September 2005, The Profound Power of Gratitude, President Thomas S. Monson quoted this newspaper story from several years ago:

The District of Columbia police auctioned off about 100 unclaimed bicycles Friday. “One dollar,” said an 11-year-old boy as the bidding opened on the first bike. The bidding, however, went much higher. “One dollar,” the boy repeated hopefully each time another bike came up.
The auctioneer, who had been auctioning stolen or lost bikes for 43 years, noticed that the boy’s hopes seemed to soar higher whenever a racer-type bicycle was put up.
Then there was just one racer left. The bidding went to eight dollars. “Sold to that boy over there for nine dollars!” said the auctioneer. He took eight dollars from his own pocket and asked the boy for his dollar. The youngster turned it over in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters—took his bike, and started to leave. But he went only a few feet. Carefully parking his new possession, he went back, gratefully threw his arms around the auctioneer’s neck, and cried.
When was the last time we felt gratitude as deeply as did this boy? The deeds others perform in our behalf might not be as poignant, but certainly there are kind acts that warrant our expressions of gratitude.

Only 2 days left

2008-11-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today I am grateful for:

1. A friend that I haven’t seen since high school who took time out of her day to help me move.
2. A friend of my brother’s who took time out of his day to help me move.
3. My two brothers who took time out of their day to help me move.

It’s so easy in life for us to receive blessings, many of them almost uncounted, and have things happen in our lives that can help change our lives, improve our lives, and bring the Spirit into our lives. But we sometimes take them for granted. How grateful we should be for the blessings that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into our hearts and souls. I would remind all of you that if we’re ever going to show gratitude properly to our Heavenly Father, we should do it with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—because it was He who gave us life and breath.
--David B. Haight, Were There Not Ten Cleansed?

Let the thanksgiving continue

2008-11-29T00:01:00.001-07:00

1. Playing games with the family – Tonight my brother and his family met at my mom’s for Thanksgiving, part II. After dinner – if you read my blog yesterday you’ll know it wasn’t made up of leftovers – several of us played Phase 10. We had the normal cheating, competitiveness, and gloating – that is normal, right?
2. Time to relax – haven’t had much of that lately, but it’s so nice to have a few minutes to sit, think, breath and just try to recuperate.
3. My Savior, Jesus Christ. I love Him. I am so grateful for His perfect example, for His love, and for His atonement.

Let us give thanks for what we are and for the circumstances God has given us for our personal journey through mortality.
--Dallin H. Oakes, Give Thanks in All Things

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night

2008-11-27T21:41:00.002-07:00

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday.
There are so many things to be grateful for, and today should be the mother lode, but I’m going to keep it short (and thanks to Miss L for the comic).

Today I am grateful for:

1. Unconditional Love
2. Marriott’s Thanksgiving buffet – this was a first for us, this year. I must say, today was probably the most relaxing Thanksgiving we’ve had. It was nice to be able to calmly eat and converse without the worry of prep work or clean up.
3. Central Air – heating in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. No matter what the weather is outside, I can maintain an even temperature inside. Perfect!

[Gratitude] is a quality I have found in every happy person I know. It is a quality that instantly makes a person more likable and more at peace. Where there is an abundance of [gratitude], there is happiness. Where there is an absence of [gratitude], there is often sadness, resentment, and futility… Those who live in thanksgiving daily, however, are usually among the world’s happiest people. And they make others happy as well.
--Joseph B. Wirthlin, Live in Thanksgiving Daily

Short and Sweet

2008-11-26T21:13:00.002-07:00

1. I'm grateful that I was able to fill my car with gas for less than $20.
2. I'm grateful for Flour Girls & Dough Boys Artisan Bakery & Cafe. This new discovery is how I can survive not having a Panera nearby. Their Asiago Bread and Mint Brownies are to die for.
3. I am grateful for snugly blankets.

This is a wonderful time to be living here on earth. Our opportunities are limitless. While there are some things wrong in the world today, there are many things right, such as teachers who teach, ministers who minister, marriages that make it, parents who sacrifice, and friends who help.
We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues.
--Thomas S. Monson, An Attitude of Gratitude

On the 25th day of Gratitude

2008-11-25T21:01:00.001-07:00

My online subscription to LDS Living came today with an interesting story on “The Power of Thank You.” ‘tis the season, I guess.

1. Holiday Weekends – I know I’ve already expressed my gratitude for weekends, but Holiday Weekends are a horse of a different color. Since my company gives us Thanksgiving off as well as the day after Thanksgiving, that’s four (count them 4) whole days off, hopefully giving me time to rejuvenate for the following week. Of course, that isn’t going to happen, right?
2. Web sites that facilitate searching and travel – Again, I know I’ve already expressed gratitude for the Internet (thanks Al Gore, right?), but this is more specific. I’ve just been given a spur-of-the-moment international assignment for the weeks of December 8th and 15th. However, the hotel where co-workers have stayed is unavailable for the time period I’m going to be there. I know the general area in which I want to stay, so I was able to use Google, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, you name it, to try and find an inexpensive yet acceptable hotel for two weeks. I guess I’ll find out when I get there if it truly is acceptable.
3. Leftovers – I made a really yummy hamburger and macaroni dinner the other night. Since I’m cooking for one, of course I had leftovers. So, I get home tonight after another crazy busy day, and I’m not in the mood to cook, and I’m trying to be frugal so I don’t want to get take-out, and voila! Leftover yummy hamburger and macaroni! Love it.

“Gratitude works because, as a way of perceiving and interpreting life, it recruits other positive emotions—like joy, contentment, and hope—that have direct physical benefits... We have also found that when people experience gratitude, they feel more loving, more forgiving, and closer to God.”
--Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis

How did it get to be the 24th already?

2008-11-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

1. I am grateful to be able to volunteer for Make-A-Wish. What a great organization! Each time I read the volunteer newsletter, or read an email about a child’s wish being fulfilled, I am overwhelmed by the generosity of all those who make it happen.
2. Smiles – it’s amazing how much an attitude can change when someone smiles.
3. Sunshine – two definitions: the shining of the sun; direct light of the sun, or brightness or radiance; cheerfulness or happiness.

"In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich."
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Many thanks

2008-11-23T21:26:00.001-07:00

1. Hymns of Praise – I love the calm feeling listening to such music provides.
2. Gold Bond Foot Cream – quite the salvation for dry, cracked heels. I’ve tried several products, but this has worked the best for me.
3. I am grateful for my knowledge that I am a daughter of God – a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves me and who wants my happiness and joy.

Psalms 100
1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.