On the home stretch

September 25, 2007


San Francisco
We were pretty excited to leave Houston, and even more excited when we arrived in Dallas and found there was a Ben & Jerry's icecream shop......mmmm choc chip cookie dough icecream (ok its possible I was more excited than Sam)


Another uneventful flight (Sam in first class this time), followed by another beautiful day, a good day at work and another city skyline to add to the album

In the evening we took the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf cause you just can't go to San Francisco and not ride on the cable car

We had dinner at Boudin Sourdough place, this time we had Chilli in the bread bowl (last time I had clam chowder) with a good old sprinkling of American chedder cheese on top

Followed by, yes you guessed it, Ben & Jerry's icecream, this time decided to try another flavour, chocolate icecream with pieces of raw chocolate brownie mixture....mmmmm


Tomorrow we fly to LA and then home....

Home.......eventually

September 28, 2007

Before hoping on the Qantas plane home we made a quick stop to LA for the day. In the airport lounge at San Francisco, Sam and I bumped into Jeanie, a collegue from Melbourne who was also heading to LA. We made use of the time before getting on the plane to catch up on some work

Before we knew it we were back at the airport and boarding our last flight for the trip (or so we thought). We changed into our Qantas PJ's, had a quick bite to eat and settled down for a well deserved sleep.

We woke up to find that our destination had changed and we were flying into Sydney instead of Melbourne.

Sam grabbed a flight attendant as he walked past who confirmed we were in fact landing in Sydney as there was something wrong with the plane but no one was supposed to know yet. An hour later the pilot annouced a bird had flown into one of the plane engines and the Qantas engineers in Australia had decided to land in Sydney and have us board a different plane to Melbourne. Sam and I took the opportunity to brush up on our emergency brace position technique, just in case.

The plane landed safely in Sydney, got off plane, cleared security for the 50 thousandth time (take out laptops, place liquids in clear zip-lock bags, take off shoes, etc, etc, etc) and headed to the Duty Free Store to get an iPod each. We then boarded the real last flight from Sydney to Melbourne.

Spring arrives early in Melbourne

How do you know its Spring in Melbourne.....

1. The Magnolia, Cherry tree and wattles have blossomed

2. Snow drops have sprung up

3. Its day light when I leave work and still light after I ride home (ok it would have looked lighter if I hadn't stopped to take all these photo's)

4. You look at the traffic on the Monash 'carpark' while riding home and realise your not the loser afterall

On a related note, Terrie, Warwick agrees that the white birds are ducks (not geese) but this black one is definately a swan

5. Andrew and Eddie can no longer use the weather as an excuse not to ride to work. Some examples are:

• I've pulled a stomach muscle


• My wife is sick and I need to take care of her (a likely story)


• I took my laptop home and its too heavy to carry into work

(feel free to make suggestions on other excuses Andrew and Eddie can use, I'll pass them on)

6. The winter jumper I've been working on is finished just in time for summer, well almost finished......

Opps sorry Voula, how did that photo get there?

Zoe Vom's 1st Birthday

Zoe had her first birthday party this weekend. She was wearing the outfit Dad had bought her in the US (with Voula and my help) and Mum had made her a great cake.

Mum, Dad and Zoe had a great time........

....and so did Stuart's and Matthew's kids......

... and I was spaced out from a sugar overload ...

...but Voula was mad because she didn't get a frog-in-the-pond jelly cup

Dr Dopey visits Heidelburg

Spent the first day in Heidelburg with Simon and Sam wandering around the city trying to stay awake to get over jeg lag. We ended up at Heidelburg castle, wandered around the grounds and stopped to enjoy our first german beer

Then we had to go to work.... but it wasn't all work as our German collegues had organised visits to a winery, brewery and few castle's (there's one on every hill). We also had a day trip by train to Wuppertal, about 3 hrs north of Heidelburg. Wuppertal is home to a suspension monorail system which of course the engineers loved (they were pretty cool)

On the way back to Heidelburg we stopped in Cologne and visited the famous cathedral nearby. We climbed up to the top and then back down via the medieval bell, which just happened to chime while Simon and Sam were posing for a photo, giving us all a heart attack

The following weekend we drove south to the Black Forest on a mission to buy a "real" cuckoo clock. We ended up stopping at the first town at the edge of the Black Forest called Baden-Baden and after walking around the main shopping area finally found one shop selling cuckoo clocks, but the owners had closed up for the day and were not interested in opening up for us. A few minutes later Sam spotted the owners walking down the street so he ran after them and managed to get them to go back and open up the shop for us so that Sam and I could buy our cuckoo clocks.

The next day Sam and I had a few hours to spare before heading up to Frankfurt airport so we went for a drive along the Nekar river and found some old castle ruins in some of the surrounding hills.

The drive from Heidelburg to Frankfurt airport gave Sam the opportunity to try and beat Simon's top speed on the autobahn

I was looking forward to getting home. Managed to get the cuckoo clock through customs with no problems. Even the box had its uses....

Dr Dopey visits family in Iowa

After a long wait at JFK airport, a flight through an electrical storm and a 2 hr drive I finally arrived in Carroll, Iowa at 3 am. During the drive I saw my first wild deer, skunks and racoon along the side of the highway (they were alive). The next morning I woke up to the smell of grandma's freshly baked carmel rolls.....

In addition to making a large dint in my list of foods to eat while in the US (pepperoni pizza, root beer, rice crispy squares), I also caught up on my card playing and family gossip