Last stop.....Iowa

The final leg of this trip was a visit to my family in Carroll, Iowa, located about 2 hrs drive west of the Iowa State capital, Des Moines (for the Aussie's, Iowa's the next state to the west of the state that Chicago is in). I was all ready for a relaxing weekend of eating, gossiping and card playing (in that order) but my family had other plans.....

It all began well as I woke up to the smell of freshly baked carmel rolls, followed by pepperoni pizza and root beer for lunch and to top it off German Chocolate cake. A nice relaxing day out on the deck catching up on the news and a few family pics.

Dr Dopey with Grandpa Dopey......

Grandma Dopey........

Dopey cousin Andy.....

and Dopey Aunts Linda and Lois

In the evening my Uncle Dink (on the right below) hosted a BBQ dinner around the bonfire. Perfect, right?

Dopey Uncles

Dopey Aunt Joan with the latest addition to the Dopey family, Olivia

Dopey Grand and Great Grand Kids

Dopey Cow

Last stop....Iowa (Part 2)

So as I was saying, I was expecting a nice relaxing weekend of eating, gossiping and card playing but my family had other plans.....

My visit was timed with an important event in the area - the town my Grandma grew up in, Dedham, was having its 125th birthday. A parade had been organised through the town along with games for adults and kids, including tractor pull, dunk-the-spunk (I made that name up, but its where someone is sitting above a pool of water and you throw a ball at a target to dunk them in), bingo and giant inflatable jumping castles. It was my first experience of this kind of event and I was a little unsure what to expect given that the town's population is around 250.

So my Grandma's side, the Tunning's along with the Dopey's, had put together a float for the parade with the theme "Tunning back into Dedham" and had converted a large flat bed truck into a giant radio. They also had really attractive lime green T-shirts made up for us all to wear. For those of us that decided to walk the mile long route (had to work off the carmel rolls somehow!) it was our our job to hand out the beer.

I was really impressed with the turn out as there were about 250 entrants in the parade and the mile long route was lined with people. My favourites were the old fire engines with matching not-so-buff-possibly-too-many-donuts firemen and the old John Deer tractors.

1946 Fire Engine

Dedhem parade - John Deer tractors

Dopey Aunt Joan

Unfortunately a rogue group of Tunnings had decided to make their own float with a very similar theme! Disaster!

Nevertheless, the parade was a success and great experience, made even better by the grilled hamburgers afterwards.

San Francisco

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities in the US, I love going for a ride on the cable cars up and down the steep hills. We were in a great hotel too, on the top of Nob Hill with great views of the city and the cable car riding right past.

San Francisco sunrise from hotel room

Nob Hill is right on top of one of the biggest hills in San Francisco as we found out, the hard way. We walked down the hill to the bay along Fisherman's Wharf from Pier 39 around Fort Mason for views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We ended up at the Ghirardelli chocolate shop to pick up a few things and then round to Boudin for some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, yum. There was a huge queue for the cable car back up the hill to our hotel so we decided to walk instead, great exercise.

View of the walk up Nob Hill to our hotel

We caught up with Terrie and Paul for dinner on their last weekend in the US before they head to Guatamala for the last part of their 3 year stint overseas. They took us to the North Beach region of the city also known as Little Italy, the main street lined with Italian restaurants, which reminded me of Lygon Street back home.

Our second day in San Francisco saw a drastic change in weather from sunny hot temp of 95oF to a much cooler, foggy day with temps in the low 60's. Also our plans to ride the cable car all day long were thrown away when it broke down so had to settle with taking the bus instead. This in combination with bad sushi (you know its not good when the chef walks through the restaurant holding a side of frozen salmon, with the Glad Wrap falling off) put me in a bit of a cranky mood. Oh well, back to work tomorrow.

LA

The flight from Boston to LA was uneventful and not too bad when your in first class, 3 course meal, wine and freshly baked choc chip cookies, yum. Even driving around LA was ok once I got used to staying on the RHS of the road, though would have been completely lost without the GPS. We had a spare afternoon and on advice from Voula, headed to Santa Monica which is by the sea, about 20 min from LA.

It was a nice sunny day with temps in the low 100's and we were looking forward to dipping our feet in the water but when we got to the beach the view was non-existent due to the smog - see below, yes that is the beach taken from the Santa Monica Pier

I've never seen anything like it. Even if you don't believe in the Greenhouse effect and global warming, you've got to look at that and think what are we doing?

While walking back from the beach up to the shopping strip we came across these squirrel-like animals which were pretty cute and very tame, probably the highlight of our Santa Monica experience, which is kind of sad really

NYC - Connecticut - Boston

On our last day in NYC we got up early to beat the crowds for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. This time it was quiet and we were able to get out there without having to wait. It was still hazy so the views weren't the best but it was worth the trip out there. We then headed up to central park, down 5th Avenue to do some unsuccessful celebrity spotting and finished up at Times Square, where Sarah pointed out one of the Spice Girls, not sure which one but she was tiny and no one seemed to be paying her any attention.

Other interesting sights in NYC:

- An older woman pushing a childs stroller through GAP containing a small dog with a pink bow in its hair

- While sittting eating lunch in a diner, a woman was hit by a taxi while crossing the road, she ended up being ok but the taxi driver was looking very nervous (law suit?)

- Train ride from Connecticut to Boston was great, yes it mean no airports, delayed flights due to thunderstorms, etc but the views along the way were pretty good.

Even the work part has been ok, off to LA tonight

New York City

NYC is in the middle of a heat wave and we experienced part of it today. It was hot and muggy and we started our free weekend by catching the subway downtown to where the Ferry leaves for the Statue of Liberty (in the photo above you can just pick out the Statue to the right of my head and Ellis Island further right). After buying our tickets we realised the queue was way too long so we decided to give it a miss for the time being and catch the free Staten Island Ferry, which also has views of the Statue and the Manhattan skyline. Though it was pretty hazy so not the best view.

After catching the ferry we walked up to Ground Zero to see how the clean up was going. Looks like they've started building on the site now, though there is still a big hole in the ground.

Ended up spending the rest of the day walking up to our hotel near Times Square, doing a bit of shopping along the way. The weather turned on us half way there with severe thunderstorms and torrential rain so I got completely saturated. We managed to get to Macy's along with about half of New York and did a bit more shopping and then found a Ben & Jerry's icecream shop inside so had to indulge on some Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough icecream, mmmm yum. Basically ran the last few blocks to our hotel to try an escape the rain, got changed and dried off, then headed out in search of the elusive pizza place that Andrew and I found on a previous trip to NYC. Managed to find it, yea Pronto Pizza, cnr Broadway and 36th St, and had a slice of my fave, Pepperoni.

Then it started raining again so our plans to see Time Square at night were squashed and I got drenched again. Not many dry clothes left, hoping the weather clears tomorrow.

Zurich, Paris & New York

View from Zurich Hotel

Countries 4 & 5 were pretty uneventful, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Our suitcases were flown into Zurich airport the next day so we only had one day wearing the same clothes and they were waiting for us at the airport ready to come with us to Paris. Late flights into Zurich and Paris along with early starts the next day means no time for exploring, just views from hotels and taxi's. Food highlights, had some great french bread and mini Pain-o-chocolat (not sure of the spelling, I find it hard enough in English let alone French) for breaky in Paris, yum.

I've decided from the last two visits to Paris that Parisian men are very gentlemanly, of course the sample size is quite low (n=2) and both have been work collegues so it may not be representative. On this latest visit, I even managed to let the sales rep open doors for me and lift my bags into the car - yes Andrew it's true I'm letting go of my stubborn ways. They tend to feel very uncomfortable if you don't let them do these things, so its best to let them feel useful.

Sarah was very kind to remind me that today is Friday the 13th, which was great given that we were flying from Paris to New York via London. On the bright side leaving the EU meant we had access again to the Airport lounges and business class seats, which is great for a 6 hr stop over at Heathrow. We also got to experience the new Heathrow Terminal 5 - its big and new and they're still having some teething problems, including not detecting a bottle of water in Sarah's carry on luggage. We also became involved in a game of human domino's after riding on an escaltor spanning 3 floors - when arriving at the top there was no room for us to get off and the people behind us panicked, rushing and pushing through the crowd of people waiting to go through security. Mind you the staff stood there watching and were pretty slow to react. After mechanical problems delayed our flight, we finally took off for New York. Arrived safely with bags, getting into our hotel at 2am. Looking forward to spending the weekend in New York before starting another hectic week of work.

Milano

So we arrived by plane to Milano from Stockholm at around 11 pm and then caught a cab to our hotel, which had been arranged by the local sales rep. Along the way we came to a stop at some lights and there were 2 "ladies" having a chat on the street corner. Their chat was getting a bit heated and the one wearing short red shorts and stiletto heels went stomping back over to the other side of the street. The other one then turned around and we caught sight of her butt cheeks hanging out of the bottom of her black and white striped skirt (belt?) - obviously showing off her wears. Sarah and I had a bit of a chuckle to ourselves until we realised our hotel was just around the corner - we were obviously staying in a classy part of town.

The view from my hotel room was spectacular (not)

A good work day, a Milanoese speciality for lunch, which looked and tasted a lot like veal schnitzel and french fries, topped off with a gelato at the airport - what could be better? Now it's been mentioned before that all I do is talk about food on the blog, so to shut those people up I thought I'd give you an idea of what the rest of a work trip can be like.........

Catching up on a bit of work at Milano Airport

Our plane from Milano to Zurich was cancelled due to a broken part, ok no problem, I'd rather find that out before taking off. Lovely lady at the counter annouces this and that we need to proceed back to the check in counters to get a seat on another plane, result? Mass panic as people try to get ahead of everyone, however to get to the check in counters we need to clear Passport Control. No worries for Sarah who has an EU passport, not quite so easy for me. So I tell Sarah to go ahead to get a good place in the queue and I'll join her when I get through. When I finally get through I noticed a few people from our cancelled flight standing at one of the luggage carosels, which is extremely fortunate as our suitcases pass in front of me. So I grab the bags and head back up to the check in counter where Sarah has been waiting for me at the front of the queue. Get a boarding pass for the next flight (which actually was the same flight number and boarding time as the cancelled flight), go back through security and passport control and head back to our gate where we are faced with an extremely rude Swiss Air attendant that would only say "Wait". Is there a plane? "Wait". Are we going to get to Zurich tonight? "Wait". Eventually she points at the doors and says "Bus" and we all get on the bus, bound for the plane. All this for a 35 min flight, we should have caught the train. And the icing on the cake - our luggage didn't turn up in Zurich . . . . . so much for my new, never-get-lost, lucky suitcase. The guy at the Swiss Air "Lost and Found" did give us a survival pack consisting of a one-size-fits-all T-shirt and undies, which fit perfectly of course, toothbrush and some basic toiletries. He also mentioned that our hotel was in a great part of town, right in the middle where all the shops are, and yes it did turn out to be as he said, however all the shops were shut as it was late and the Euro 2008 Swiss game had just finished as I hoped into bed so was kept awake by screaming fans (not sure if they won?).

So in tomorrow's blog post I'll be talking about how great the food is in Zurich, and hopefully that my suitcase arrived.......

Stockholm

The flight from Copenhagen to Stockholm was short (~1 hr) and had great views of the Danish and Swedish coastlines which are dotted with flat green islands that look as though the've been cut out of paper and placed, floating on the water. Stockholm itself is an impressive city, particularly the old part of town. Sarah and I had a couple of hours to wander around and was guided by our noses to a courtyard full of small cafes selling hot chocolate and cakes, which we couldn't resist.......

While the hot chocolate was so-so, the chocolate cake was fantastic, though it was so rich, even I had trouble finishing it.

Next stop, Milano

Melbourne - Sydney - Bangkok - London - Copenhagen

Another work trip, this time, round the world in 21 flights - that could be a record. This was my first visit to Northern Europe and I was looking forward to seeing what it had to offer.

Interesting facts about Copenhagen:

• Sweden is extremely flat, mainly farmland and lots of wind mills - the tall, white, power generating kind
• Instead of getting peanuts with your drink on Skandinavian Airlines you get Flavoured Broadbeans; they're not bad actually, think flattened broad beans, fried and tossed in BBQ flavouring
• The city is dead on Sundays, there doesn't appear to be any locals around (just tourists) and all the shops are closed except icecream and hotdog stands
• Copenhagen has canals
• The majority of tourist Copenhagen can be seen on foot, unfortunately there isn't really a lot to see. My top 2 sites were this canal and The Little Mermaid statue

Overall, not really impressed with Copenhagen, tomorrow off to Stockholm so we'll see how that goes, though there may not be time for exploring.