Monthly Archives: October 2011

Boo to you, and you!

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Candy, trick or treat candy, scrumdillyicious good to eat; Yummy yummy oh so sweet, my tummy’s happy when they meet.

You know what I’m talking about, right? No? Well, this is just part of the lyrics for Mickey’s not-so-scary Halloween party! Happiness ensues:

Now that you all have a faint idea as to what you have missed by not being in Orlando during the most spooktacular time of the year, you can probably understand why there have been no new blog entries the past two weeks. Not to worry, I’m here to bring you up to speed on our current situation.

Our flight from Boston to Miami was okay, not great, certainly not what you’d expect from first class, but it could have been worse (we could have flown economy). The weather in Miami was great and the one day we spent there was just about enough. Don’t get me wrong, the art deco buildings in Miami Beach were totally awesome and the palm trees gave a really exotic feeling to the city, but the ‘Bienvenido a Miami’ part is what makes you want to leave after a day or so. I really don’t mind Spanish people as such and I’m a big fan of Mexican food, heck, I’ll take a breakfast burrito over a plate of scrambled eggs any day of the week, but it’s the constant feeling of getting ripped off that gets to you.

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‘Hi, can I have two tickets for the hop-on-hop-off tour please?’
-’Si man, is like, no problem. Is like 76 dollar, man. You pay 20 dollar now, you know?’
‘Ahm, okay, so how does that work then?’
-’You know, you pay 20 now and 56 at the first stop, it’s really no problem man.’
‘Quite.’

So why do I have to pay the concierge 20 bucks now? I’m happy to walk the ten minutes to the first stop without leaving money at the concierge’s desk. If I have to pay the guy at the counter on the first stop anyway, why not give him the full sum? See, nothing major, it just leaves me with a funny feeling. It’s probably just me. And we’re… moving on.

From Miami we drove to Naples through the Everglades, which was nice and gave us (that is: me, Yvo did all the driving in Florida) the opportunity to relax a little bit. Our suite at the Double Tree Inn & Suites was great and the Peking Duck, carved at table side, we had for dinner, was nothing short of spectacular.

The drive up to Kissimmee the next day was, again, very relaxing for me. And the 8 or so days after that, were spent in Universal Studios, Universal’s Islands of Adventure, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Disney’s EPCOT Center, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Our flight from Miami to Los Angeles was really awesome, that is, the flight itself was boring as always, but the service was really something. Now, American Airlines is not really known for it’s excellent service, but this flight was a real exception to the rule.

The 45 minute drive from LAX to Anaheim took about 45 minutes. Looks obvious? Well, as anyone that has ever driven in LA can tell you, there is a high chance of getting stuck in traffic, no matter what time of day. The Disney parks were really enjoyable, even though we were there a few months ago. We didn’t manage to secure tickets for the Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom, which didn’t really matter, as Disney Anaheim doesn’t host any parades during its Halloween party. We basically only missed trick-or-treating and the fireworks. So we used our extra time to see the World of Color twice. The second night we somehow managed to get to the absolute centre of the World of Color display, right in front of everybody else. I imagine that some people might have had some difficulties seeing the show with these two giants in front of them, but then I also imagine that they were from Latin America, so no harm would have been done. Happy thoughts :)

Thankfully the Haunted Mansion in the Magic Kingdom was converted into a large ‘the Nightmare before Christmas’ house and let me tell you: This alone makes it worth it to visit the Californian Magic Kingdom during the Halloween months. Totally freaking awesome.

You weren't there, were you?

This pretty much takes you to where we are now. We had our flight from LA to SF yesterday and today we’ve arrived in Seattle. Outside it’s a lovely 11 degrees and raining, so we can now totally relate to our poor family and friends back in the Netherlands. We do expect some photo opportunities the coming days, so hopefully we’ll have some cool photo’s attached to the next post.

Boston, MA

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Our flight from London to Boston was uneventful, very uneventful actually: the entertainment system didn’t work, but thankfully the hotel was great. The next morning, after a small hunt for cold & flu medicine, we started walking towards Quincy market. When we were almost there, at the corner opposite the Old State House, we ran into a movie set. Apparently there is a film coming up called R.I.P.D. and it is, at least partially, being shot in Boston.

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A slight detour took us to Quincy market where it seemed as every tourist in Boston had decided to go there for lunch. Since we didn’t have anything specific we wanted to do in Boston, we changed our plans and headed towards the Christopher Columbus Park. I have to be honost here, the both of us didn’t even know that this park existed, but we just headed to the water front and accidentally stumbled onto this park. To our surprise, it was quite busy at the park, especially with military personnel, which had us puzzled for a while. It took us 15 minutes to learn that Americans celebrate something called ‘Columbus Day’, which happens to occur on the second monday in October. Each year, on the day before, the city of Boston hosts a parade to honor the late Mr. Columbus and to celebrate its Italian cultural heritage. Who knew?

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Since we were both feeling under the weather (the Dutch weather that is, no complaints here about the 28 degree sunny weather in Boston), we didn’t want to do too much that sunday, so we walked an additional 10 or so kilometers and then headed towards the hotel again. Monday pretty much revolved around eating Asian food and seeing the movie Real Iron at the Loews cinema. Did I already mention that we had to detour to get to the cinema? No? Well, October is ‘fight against breast cancer’-month here in the US, and this monday there was some sort of ‘fight against breast cancer’-run. We of course cheered for the runners, especially since it’s always good to see people being active for a good cause.

Tuesday, our last full day in Boston, we decided to walk the Freedom trail. It took us quite some time to do this, but the weather was great so it was quite pleasant. For lunch we walked to the docks in south Boston for some proper seafood and ended up at the No Name restaurant, where we had some chowder and lobster. Wednesday the weather had deteriorated and the forecast promised rain, wind and low temperatures. Good thing that this was the day we flew to Miami.

Wait! Before you go and leave a comment, I’d like to point you to our photo stream, which will contain the photo’s of this holiday. Go to Flickr to see the things we’ve seen!

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

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Dear Holland,

Thank you for a great time. Sorry to hear about your problems with politics, crime and the economy, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out eventually. I could suggest you to stop spending money on silly things and start investing it in education and research, but you’ve never really listened to me before, so why start now? I’m drifting off, sorry for that.

The last 28 years have been a blast and if I could do it all again in any other country, you would certainly still be in my top 3. The last few years we’ve grown apart and I’m afraid that the time has come where we each much go our own way.

Take care.

Warm regards,
Bernd

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Well, this is it then, our last day in the Netherlands. I’d say we’ve had a good run, but all good things must come to an end, or, in this case, must be replaced by other good things. In the last few weeks we’ve eaten a lot of typical Dutch food (raw herring, smoked eel, kibbeling, osseworst, Friese nagelkaas, roggebrood, grillworst, Hema rookworst and kroket) and participated in a lot of typical Dutch activities (such as complaining about the weather, getting stuck in traffic (a lot) because of bad weather, complaining about the weather, getting drowned while walking the dogs (due to heavy weather), complaining about the weather and getting sick, which is definitely related to the weather we’ve been having, but I’m not one to complain).

Last sunday Kim (my sister) and Iris (a friend of ours) threw us a farewell party. It’s amazing how many people turned up, you somehow don’t realize how many people you know until they’re all there in front of you. The party was fantastic and we had ample opportunity to talk and say goodbye to our friends and family.

Our personal possessions will leave the port of Rotterdam tomorrow and will arrive in Adelaide in November. The apartment is empty and we’ve turned over the keys and all that’s left now is to pack our suitcases and leave. Which is exactly what we’ll do tomorrow. Depending on internet availability, we promise to post some travel blogs during the next four weeks.