Home sweet home

Another rather exhausting day... Our pockets are a bit lighter after doing the equivalent of a walmart shopping spree to get all the little things we need for our apartment. The day started off beautifully, and Claire and I decided that we do in fact still like the place we've rented. Here's a bunch of pictures: Our villa - we have the top floor and don't miss our palm tree!, Reception with fire place and piano, master bedroom with Chaise Lounge (definitely planning a george castanza pic on that one see http://farm1.static.flickr.com/19/116450033_4266fb5229_o.jpg), kitchen, back sitting room/hallway with old stove, and view out of our small spare bedroom.

The view from the front of our apartment overlooks the tops of a combination of houses and industrial buildings, but I was excited to discover that from our bedroom we actually can see a bit of water in the harbor and watch boats go by.

We also have a fantastic back porch off of the kitchen that overlooks a nature reserve. And our only bathroom is very large - possibly bigger than our spare bedroom - and has heated floors and was nicely redone with a separate shower and a era appropriate claw foot bathtub.

Well, it's time for us to go get some dinner. Ironically, we're going to pop down to an irish pub for their sunday special - complete with a jug of ale.

Welcome to Auckland

So, here we are. Right now sitting in our temporary weekly rental on the 18th floor of the metropolis, looking out over Auckland and on to the bay (Claire in front of our window pictured). It's nice here, unseasonably cold so the locals tell us, but still, nice.

Claire and I are now nearly experts with New Zealand's version of ebay, called trademe, which has everything that's advertised anywhere on their site. It's amazing just how much we have to do to get 'settled'.

So far, we have been nothing but impressed at the kindness and welcome we've received by the New Zealanders.

Tomorrow we move into a 19th century villa we loved at first sight in Parnell, a nice neighborhood in Auckland with loads of cafes and restaurants, which will be our new home. Unfortunately, finding a fully furnished place proved a bit difficult, so we're hunting for deals on line and in the stores. This weekend is Queensday, and the shops are celebrating with big discounts. Johannah and Fergus are lending us their car tomorrow so we can move in, and stock up on all the little household things we need.

I already feel like we've had more than our fair share of good fortune here. On Monday, less than a week after we arrived, I was invited to join the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. They arranged for a bass for me to borrow, and one of the bass players has contacts within Auckland's food and beverage industry, and I already have one interview as a result and may be invited for another (and with a winery!). How cool would that be? I'll be playing with the orchestra now indefinitely it seems, and our first concert is June 20th (I only hope my tuxedo makes it to NZ by then!)

Where it seems that just shopping for flats, setting up bank accounts, getting tax numbers, and all of the other things we've had to do has taken up all our time, we have managed to do a bit of sightseeing. We popped over to Devonport (an easy ten minute ferry ride across the bay) for an afternoon and took a few pictures to share with you. (Claire's pictures: the harbor from Devonport, park near Devonport, Auckland at dusk from the ferry, the Auckland harbor bridge from the harbor)

We're excited to share all of this with visitors - can't wait to have you!

Oh the sunshine

Our first night in Colorado we went to dinner near Wash Park with Mike & Kelly and Scott (who we knew from Oxford) and Emily, Brad, and Julie (Grant's sisters and Emily's husband). After a nice evening of drinking fat tire ale and living vicariously through Julie's dating life stories, we stopped in at a nice local bar - maybe dive is the more appropriate word - (the campus lounge) with $6 coors light pitchers and watched the Denver Nugget's basketball team barely lose in the playoffs.

Emily gave us a tour of Denver the next day, and in the evening we went to our second baseball game of the trip (pictured - and Cambell's first ever) and saw the Colorado Rockies send out home run after home run.

On Wednesday, we drove up to Estes Park near Rocky Mountain National Park and spent the next couple days hiking, checking out the local wildlife (elk pictured), and enjoying the beautiful scenery (Bear Lake pictured - over 10000 feet).

Friday night found us back in Denver and out with our friends, a jaunt to Boulder with the McFaddens on Saturday, and over to Scott and Lyndee's for breakfast on Sunday (pictured), with a bbq in the evening back at Mike and Kelly's.

Monday morning we packed our things and flew on back to San Diego to spend one more night with Dan and Alisha. We had a fun night out playing pool in Ocean Beach, and Claire was treated to a morning at Alisha's spa the day we left, a relaxing beginning to a long day traveling.

Mother's Day in Ohio

We're falling a bit behind the last couple weeks on our traveling, so I'm going to try to catch us up with a few photos...

For our last weekend in Dayton, we met with my surrogate cousin, Sarah, for breakfast on Friday and had a look around the Wright Bros bicycle shop (their business before airplanes - actually used to fund their research into heavier than air flight). (pictured)

Grant and John drove to Centerville Friday night and we introduced Claire to poker, and then on Saturday everyone came over at different times. We did manage to get our traditional backyard hill photograph after dad grilled us some tasty burgers. Pictured with us is Grant, Megan, her husband Derek and their baby girl Charis. Claire also somehow managed to meet all of Grant's family - and I'm told won their approval (ha! - nice work CJ!). Later that evening we got to see Jen and John, and while we were having some wine Claire was busy baking some birthday cookies as a surprise (pictured).

Sunday, we headed up to the NCR Country Club for a gourmet brunch and a look around this PGA golf course (pictured). A very nice mother's day for mom and birthday for me. Sweet sweet 33.
We even decided to give dad a little credit for both in our toast at brunch (we had some New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc).

Monday saw us off to Colorado... where the sun is always shining... (300 days per year).

Hello Ohio

After arriving in Ohio accompanied by the signature tune of Tim’s favourite band, Over the Rhine, we spent our first day learning about American flying history at the Wright Patterson Airforce base. The Wright Brothers (inventors of the first airplane) came from Dayton, Ohio, and many of the town’s sights are named after the famous pair, including Wright State University, where Barbara works. It is a massive site, and we could have spent all week looking at the exhibits, but we limited ourselves to a few hours and managed to see 4 Airforce One planes, some weird looking fighter jets (early predecessor of B2 pictured), and see an IMAX movie about fighter jet training in the Nevada desert. Later on that evening Carl treated us to a wonderful dinner cooked on his shiny new bbq, including the specialty acorn squash, which looked fabulous and tasted delicious.

The next day we headed south to Cincinnati, via a very important stopover in Indiana as a dedication to our good friend Joe back in London, who is very passionate about his home state. We started off our ‘Cincy’ visit with a trip to the aquarium. After negotiating our way around the various exhibits and the many mums with pushchairs, we came to my favourite section – the viewing tunnel, where there were massive sting rays and 5ft sharks swimming over us (pictured). Tim managed to drag me away from this section only because there was a shark petting area, where we got to stroke many different shark varieties and feel how different their skin textures felt. I loved it! Next stop was the Underground Railroad Exhibition. When Tim first mentioned this, I thought he had been secretly collaborating with Dad, and was going to drag me round an American railway exhibition – yawn yawn. Luckily, there were no trains involved. It turned out to be a fascinating exhibition about the slave trade and the treacherous journeys to freedom. Many people from Ohio assisted escaped slaves in their journey from the south of the US to freedom in Canada. Tim’s friend, Grant, was leading a group of German pastors around the exhibition as part of their visit to Ohio, so we joined them, and then spent the evening with Grant. He took us to Mount Adams, a beautiful area overlooking Cincinnati (pictured), where we had dinner and a few drinks. Then we drove out to Loveland and saw Grant’s church before I was treated to one of the ultimate Ohio experiences – Graeters icecream. We had 3 servings of mint choc chip (the best flavour) and devoured them in seconds - delicious!

Day 3 was spent in Columbus, where Tim went to university. Ohio State University turned out to be a little bigger than Birmingham (surprise surprise), but had a somewhat similar feel to it, with a central quad and many red brick buildings. I embarrassed Tim by insisting I had a photo of him standing on the steps of the chemical engineering building (pictured - I’ll be a great embarrassing parent one day). We went inside and saw his old lecture theatres and classrooms, and left a note for one of his professors. We also saw where Tim used to play the double bass, and visited one of his favourite old lunch spots. He also gave me a tour of the various places he used to live – they seemed very nice compared to Selly Oak! I was treated to a view of the ‘Buckeyes’ stadium (the university football team), and yes, the university has its own stadium, which seats over 100,000 people! (pictured - Tim took this one a few years ago) Quite remarkable when you think that the refurbishments to Twickenham, the home of English Rubgy, only increases the capacity to 82,000, and the new, improved, ‘hallowed ground’ that is Wembley, only reaches 90,000! I am now the proud owner of a Buckeyes t-shirt, so that I can be appropriately dressed in New Zealand at 6am when Tim is watching his team play (perfect). Later on Tim took me to ‘Easton’, a fabulous American size shopping mall on the outskirts of Columbus. Luckily for Tim, we didn’t have much room to spare in our luggage allowance; otherwise I could have easily spent all day there. We finished the day by meeting Konrad for dinner, another friend of Tim’s that he grew up with, who filled me in on a few more stories from their childhood!

Sunny South Carolina

After Bette Ann treated us to dinner by the lake when we arrived, we had a relaxed day in charming Anderson on Friday. Claire enjoyed listening to the southern accents and seeing breakfast signs for 'grits' (pictured - although she still doesn't know what they are). My parents got in on Friday evening, we visited Grandpa and spent Saturday visiting the botanical gardens in Clemson, and preparing to play paparazzi for Connor and Brittney's senior prom. Claire and I, sadly no longer considered the kids, saw the kids off in their tuxedos and gowns, and drove up to Greenville for a walk along the river and dinner at a 'Pour House'. Bette Ann made a great choice because they had 4 Portland beers on draught - I had the 'Dead Guy' and the 'Hop Devil'. On Sunday we all went out on Bette Ann and Connor's boat, and Claire got to add another state to her fast-growing collection as half the lake is in Georgia. "What does the fish say when it hits a concrete wall?" "Dam!" (extract from Connor's comedic entertainment). On the way back we stopped in at Grandpas and enjoyed hearing all about his travels round the world, particularly his visit to Japan. Later on Dad cooked up a great BBQ and we made the famous family coffee cake (no, there's no coffee in the cake, but it's served with coffee).