(click the photo for more pictures)

Also, our stuff finally arrived today, YEAH! This morning at around 8.30 a truck pulled up to our house, delivering the goods we shipped to ourselves in September. Basically this means that we now can wash our clothes and sit on a couch to watch some television. To get an overall impression of our house at the moment, see the pictures on Flickr.

Did you know that you can reply to this post using your Facebook login? Easy, huh?

Did I mention the weather yet? This weekend temperatures are expected to be as high as 38 degrees, which is somewhat unimaginable if you’re used to being in The Netherlands around New Years Eve (3 degrees and a slight drizzle). Also, did you know that this is a dry heat? Jealous yet? Yes? Well, please come over, we have plenty of sun to go around, a spare bedroom and we’re happy to supply you with all the vegemite you can eat (it’s a by-product of beer manufacturing, so it’s must be good)!

This morning we also received information about our consignment, it’ll be delivered tomorrow. TOMORROW?! (I’ve you’ve ever seen MuppetVision-3D the voice inside your head just instantly changed to Gonzo, otherwise: Visit Disney!). Yup, it’s on short notice, but since we’re working from home it won’t be a problem. This New Years Eve will be spent on the couch watching television (also, we bought a television) and enjoying the Sydney fireworks at 11.30 (Sydney is 30 minutes ahead of time).

Before I leave you, I do have a little spider-report. As the weather warms up, the spiders are getting bigger. I’ve already electrocuted three of these half-the-size-of-an-iPhone monsters and where the first two were sitting in the laundry room, the third one was on a wall in the spare bedroom (don’t worry, we promise to eradicate all spiders in this room when you visit). Also the second spider spawned within five minutes of the first one, which leads us to believe that the spare-bedroom-spider might also have a doppelgänger which we haven’t found yet. Also, spiders are scary, it’s okay to be afraid of them (click this link if you need a laugh ).

We’ve been away from The Netherlands for about two months, and neither of us really misses it. Don’t get me wrong: We do miss our family and friends -wait, I have to close the blinds, even though it’s nearing 7pm, the sun is still really hot-, but that’s about all we miss. The only thing wrong with being here is listening to Christmas music while the weather is predicted to hit 30 degrees by the end of the week… oh well We’re still having a great time here and even picked up gardening to give us something to do besides work (lack of television does seem to change us a little bit).

Edit: I told you so

Our little spider adventure in the car left us longing for more wildlife encounters, so we decided to visit the Adelaide zoo. This zoo is known for its two pandas, which are the only two pandas on the southern hemisphere. Pandas, known for their desire to become extinct (take a look at their diet if you don’t believe me), somehow made it into the 21st century and let me assure you that they look very cuddly. There’s really not a lot I can tell you about these creatures, but if you can cope with the many, many appeals made by Jimmy Wales and friends, there is a great site I can redirect you to that has all the information you may need.

After the panda exhibit we walked around and took pictures until we were tired and needed a break. We bought ourselves some drinks and sat down on a bench, conveniently located in the shade. So far the day had been great and that would be all I would have to say about it, if it weren’t for the little house of horrors that came wandering by as we were enjoying our drinks. Do you know that feeling, that something very disturbing is happening in the corner of your eye, but that you just are unwilling to recognise it, just to shield yourself from mental scarring? That is exactly what happened to us. We were, of course, forced to act upon the situation after a few nanoseconds, to avoid the pending doom. After we jumped away from the bench, we turned around to see what we had just escaped. Keep in mind that at this point, we didn’t know the first thing about Australian spiders, so we weren’t able to properly assess the situation at that time. We just saw a hairy spider, almost the size of an iPhone, but way fatter, in fight with a huge red wasp-like creature. The fight wasn’t really a fight, as we discovered moments later, but in reality the wasp was dragging the spider along. Ah! I can hear you think: “Shouldn’t that be the other way around, aren’t spiders supposed to catch insects?”, well, apparently, all bets are off in this country. As we watched the little show the wasp and the spider were performing, a little cute birdie landed next to us to keep us company, or actually, to snatch the spider from the wasp, as happened only seconds later. The wasp looked seriously pissed after this, so we decided not to stay and watch what would happen next.

The whole situation left us terrified, but curious, so we went onto the Google to try and find out what we had seen. Australia, as it appears, is home to the spider wasp (which, coincidentally, is a great word to replace ‘spider man’ in the Spider Man tune -or the Spider Pig tune, if you’ve seen the Simpsons movie: ‘Spider Wasp, Spider Wasp, does whatever a Spider Wasp does…’). Our particular spider wasp managed to catch a huntsman spider. The spider wasn’t dead, it was just paralysed and destined to become a brand new incubator for the wasp’s offspring. The bird, in hindsight, probably did it a favour by killing and eating it, as a quick dead is, as far as I’m concerned, preferable to slowly being eaten alive by a wasp larvae for months only to see your abdomen burst open (and then dying) as a new spider wasp emerges from it. Just today I bought myself an electric insect zapper, so I should be safe.

I’m probably leaving out a few important details, but as of Tuesday 29 November we’ve leased a beautiful house in Mount Barker, SA! It took quite some time to find something the both of us felt comfortable with living in for the coming 12 months, but this house meets all requirements besides having a pool. Though the pool will be missed, the parrots in the garden do make up for it a little bit. Our first order of business was getting the power reconnected to the house, as the prospect of going through the house at night by the lights of our telephones wasn’t really appealing. Next was getting the phone line and then internet connected, which, as it turns out, takes quite some time here. Tuesday saw Yvo waiting for the electricity guy (which would visit us between 7am and 7pm) and me driving to IKEA Adelaide to buy beds and get them delivered to our home. Wednesday we went shopping for a fridge and now we’re just waiting for our stuff to arrive (this saturday), to clear customs and quarantine inspection (3 weeks minimum) and, of course, delivery. Thank god we’re in the Adelaide Metropolitan Area (which is only slightly smaller than Holland’s Randstad), so delivery will be free of charge.

I’ll try to go into more detail regarding the past two weeks later on, but for now, this is basically what happened to us.

Yes! We’re indeed still alive! Currently we are distributing our time between looking for rental properties, working on our project and not getting murdered by spiders and/or snakes. We’ve found several properties we’re interested in and we’re expecting email responses from real estate agents in the coming hours/days. The project will probably keep us busy for quite some time and the spider problem is obviously very much under control.

Internet in the hotels in apartments around Adelaide is expensive (27.50 a day with a 350MB data limit), so we’re not really able to upload photo’s or post stories. At the moment we’re in the hotel lobby where the internet is slow, but free.

Yesterday we drove to Strathalbyn, Echunga, Mount Barker and Hahndorf to get a decent impression of the region we’re interested in. The weather here is not to bad, though we had some rain yesterday evening (it only lasted for 10 minutes, but it still counts). The day time temperature is about 27 degrees and at the moment the skies are blue

After our visit to the Space Needle, we returned to the city center to find the first Starbucks ever. EVER! There’s actually not much I can tell you about this store, except for the fact that it’s ridiculously busy and not very big. Starbucks and Space Needle, yup, I think that sums up Seattle pretty well. We managed to see Puss in Boots 3D later that day and went to sleep early, so we could get up the next morning early to pick up our rental car for our visit to the Boeing factory in Everett/Mukilteo.

The drive to Boeing takes you through the excellent landscape that lies between Seattle and Vancouver (Canada). If Boeing weren’t there, I’d still recommend you drive north, because the nature there is totally worth it. Unfortunately there was no time to stop, since we booked an early tour of the plant. We arrived on time and, after a short security briefing and video, boarded a bus to the immense production hall of the 747, the 777 and the 787. At this time I would love to show you some of the awesome things we’ve seen there, but you’re not allowed to bring any camera’s with you on the tour, so that’s out of the picture ;) Don’t worry though, the tour is cheap, so don’t skip this the next time you’re in Seattle! By the way, did you know that every Boeing 747, 777 and 787 ever constructed, came out of the Boeing factory in Everett? Also, the current iteration of the 777 features engines that have the same diameter as the hull of a 737. Interesting to know, if I do say so myself.

We saw how the three different types of Boeing wide bodies are constructed and were really excited about all the Dreamliner (787) details. Did you know that, according to the tour guide, a 787 is assembled in three days? Awesome, right? All parts for this aircraft are flown in using the four custom build Dreamlifters (heavily modified 747s), which we were allowed to make a picture of after the tour.

After we bought some Boeing merchandise at the gift shop, it was time to drive to 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond. Because it was a sunday, Microsoft was closed, so we weren’t able to spot any famous nerds, but we managed to take some snapshots of the Microsoft headquarters. Just when we drove away from Microsoft, it started to rain and we decided that we had seen enough of Seattle for one holiday.

The next day we flew back south, to San Francisco. The weather was great, so we decided to enjoy the sun and not do too much. Wednesday we took a tour of the city on one of those open-upper-deck busses and, after a few hours, we ended up at Pier 39 where people were busy putting lights in a big Christmas tree. We took a picture as evidence

Which brings us to today. I realize that today is actually November 5th (happy birthday Stefan!), but to us it still feels a bit like November 3rd, as we’ve been travelling since that day and only just arrived at our hotel in Melbourne, Australia. The flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles was short, but because of the local heavy rain during take-off, we were able to see horizontal rain through the window, which was cool. We arrived at LAX according to schedule and had some time to kill before our Qantas flight would leave.

The past 6 or so years, Yvo and I have seen many different airports. From local dirt strips in the bush, to huge modern international airports in cities around the world. Some airports are great, such as the Beijing airport in China and some airports are not so great, such as the Victoria Falls airport in Zimbabwe. But the worst airport, by far, is LAX. Los Angeles, in my opinion, is a filthy, boring city, but that is really no excuse for having such a bad airport. Everything there is old (especially if you’re flying American Airlines), inefficient and dirty. For instance, if you happen to arrive from San Francisco and have a connecting flight to Melbourne, you will have to walk to a bus. That bus will leave every half an hour on the hour and will take approximately 20 minutes to bring you to the American Eagle hall, whatever that may be. From where you enter that hall, it is a good 25 minute walk to gate 101, where your Melbourne-bound flight departs from. Really LAX, 45 minutes (best case scenario) to transfer between gates?

In hindsight our little quest for the gate wasn’t even the worst part of today’s visit to LAX. After we’d got our push back from the gate, we taxied and waited. And taxied and waited. And taxied and waited some more until finally, some 50 minutes after our push back, we took off from this godforsaken airport. The flight, which was scheduled to take 15,5 hours, was turbulent, so falling asleep proved somewhat difficult. Once over Australia, the pilot announced that our little driving around at LAX had left us short on fuel, so we had to detour through Sydney Airport to take in some additional kerosine. So instead of arriving in Melbourne at 09.05, we arrived at 11.45.

But let’s not focus on the negatives. Passport control only took 10 minutes and our suitcases were already on the carrousel when we arrived at baggage claim. Outside it’s a soothing 29 degrees and we’re about to go out for some lunch/dinner.

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.

‘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.

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.