For the Benefit of Mr Kite

So we've finally hit December which means it's time to start the lead up to Christmas. The Christmas tree went up on Saturday much to the cat's delight (she thinks we've built her a custom fort) so the next step is make the Christmas lists. So without further ado, see below!

Aj

• Bike Basket - I picked up my bike on Saturday and I bought the basket. Though I'd still like this basket. It is hideously expensive though but very pretty.


• Bike lights



• Games - I'd like some games for my DS and the Wii.
  
  
  
  • DS:
    
    
    
    • Either Brain Training or More Brain Training
    
    
    • Elite Beat Agents
    
    
    • Picross
    
    
    • Sim City
    
    
    • My Spanish Coach
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • Wii:
    
    
    
    • Guitar Hero - although there is the Guitar Hero ban enforced by Tomas.
    
    
    • Super Mario Galaxy.
    
    
    • Lego Star Wars (I wouldn't mind this for the DS but on the Wii you get to use the Wiimote as a lightsabre and that is just too cool).
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  
• Other:
  
  
  
  • Spanish Scrabble. One of the things we meant to buy overseas was a Spanish Scrabble set but we never got around to it.
  
  
  • Bezique. I'd like a Bezique set like Mum and Dad have. I like Bezique but it's a difficult game to score - you go through a lot of paper
  
  
  
  



• Almost anything from Etsy.com. I am completely in love with this site. It's all hand made stuff. I'd like jewellery, bags, prints etc. Anything cool.


• Wok. We don't have a wok right now, so I'd like one.


• Tablespoon/Teaspoon measures. Mine have just broken so I could do with some more. Probably multiple sets would be good as I'm always using the tablespoon with the wet ingredients before the dry ingredients


• Hand Beaters - the cheap pair I've got are not holding up all that well.


• Sun lounge for the balcony - best consult with Tom here.


• Jewellery Storage. Like this or this.


• Laptop Case. Like this or this.

Tom

• Games:
  
  
  
  • Super Paper Mario.
  
  
  • FIFA 08
  
  
  • Smarty Pants
  
  
  
  


• BBQ Tools


• Trivial Pursuit - our old set is quite worn and I'm conviced that Tom has memorised half of the questions.


• iphone case - here's an idea but you can't really use the phone while it's in the case.


• Furi Bread Knife

Fenella

Apart from the Christmas tree, Fenella's favourite toys right now are: mouseys, ping pong balls, and milk bottle tops. She'd probably also like something like this but she wouldn't know what do if she had a whole bird.

Because I was feeling a little down today, I thought I'd post something that makes me smile. It's also my first foray into YouTube publishing.

On Thursday I was shopping for our dinner at the fruit shop when I spied the largest eggplant I have ever seen. With no hesitation, it came home with me. Some people would assume that I have a particular fondness for eggplant; they would be wrong. In true Amanda form, I bought the eggplant because it was the largest one I'd ever seen.

I named him Igor and here are some pictures of Igor at home on Friday night before I cooked him into a delicous gratin. I tried to include Fenella for comparison but she wasn't too interested in posing.

Firstly, I am writing this using an iphone in an Apple store. How cool am i?

Boston-nice city. Spent an extra night there thanks to us airways stupidity.

Vegas-fun. Saw a show, lost money to the slot machines and went shopping.

LA-great weather and apple stores.

One more night before we fly home. Can't wait to see everyone

I haven't been able to hit the internet for long enough in the past
week to be able to send an email. So here's the rest of our Spain trip
(we're in Boston now).

Toledo: Very nice old city. Has a good cathedral (better than Seville)
which had some cool features. We pretty much just wandered around the
city. We had lunch in a jungle themed bar which was strange (we chose
it because of our desperate need for a toilet rather than its decor).
Stayed in a 4 star hotel for 39 euro at night which was fantastic. We
weren't expecting too much from our room but it was a fantastic room.
View of the city. HUGE bed. Tomas could lie sideways on the bed. Had
tapas and watched football in the local bar for dinner.

Segovia: Another nice old city. Has a disappointing castle which costs
6 euros to get in and not see much except for some suits of armour.
The main attraction here is a Roman aqueduct that was constructed
without mortar that is very big and impressive. We had the local
speciality for lunch - cochinillo (roast suckling pig). I also had a
soup that I suspected contained a lot of bread (my suspicions were
confirmed about 36 hours later). Tomas had to make a frustrating phone
call to the Peugeot place to return our car. The guy on the other end
of the line only spoke french (no english or spain) and we had both
forgotten the little french we knew. It got really windy that night.

Pamploma: Only a quick stop but it looks like a nice town. Good
shopping but it was lunchtime so the shops were closed. Walked where
they run the bulls. We had lunch in a Hemingway bar and the bartender
bore a striking resembelence to Hemingway which was strange.

San Sebastain: Nice sea-side town. Was feeling very sick thanks to my
bread soup but we walked around for a while and walked up the big hill
to the Jesus statue. The views were good but not spectacular.
Thankfully the park was nice. Saw some more wild cats including a
siamese one. We also saw some Basque Separatists. They were armed with
paint guns and drove big vans with funny number plates but all they
did while we were there was stand around. Some of the government
buildings around town had paint splats on them. The guy at the hotel
we stayed at didn't speak any english and my spanish wasn't too much
help thanks to his accent and my stomach ache. Our flight was good
despite being on a small plane. We even left on time which I wasn't
expecting.

Madrid: I loved Madrid. We were staying in a really cool area with
really funky shops so that helped. The city itself isn't that
monumental but I think that'd why I liked it. It wasn't geared towards
tourism. It also had good shopping. Both Tom and I bought new shoes, I
bought some new clothes and we finally managed to get some presents
for people. We went to the Prado museum which was filled with
tourists. Saw some very famous paintings though. We also went to the
Renia Sofia museum which is a more modern museum. It has a lot of
Picasso and Dali stuff. Picasso's Guernica is there and it is a really
good painting but there were heaps of people around it so I looked
mainly at the other Picasso works which I found really moving.

On our last night in Madrid we stayed in a five star hotel. It was
fantastic and was worth all the money we spent on it. It's a "design"
hotel and every floor was designed by a different
architect/designer/artist. The floor Tomas had selected wasn't
available when we got there so he choose floor 8 by Katherine someone.
The porter (cute little spanish man) described it as the Star Wars
floor and he was right. It was really cool. Everything was white, the
beds were designed to look like they were extended out of the wall,
the bath was huge and the toilet was in its own little cabiny thing.
We requested a double room but ended up with a twin but that was okay
because the single beds were almost as big as a double and we slept
quite comfortably. We had expensive breakfast in the morning (20 euro
plus taxes each) but I'm glad we did. I had two courses, the hot
course (eggs, tortilla, ham, bacon and a potato) and the fruit course
(yoghurt, strawberries, watermelon, grapes and a strange cheesecake
thing).

Andalucia is a really great place. Although we´re at the complete
opposite end of the country by now, I think that I will always think
of Andalucia when I think of Spain. Olive trees for as far as you can
see, beatufiul weather, fantastic food, amazing history.

After Ronda, our next stop on the Andalucia road trip was Granada to
see the Alhambra. I was a bit excited when we arrived to find out that
you could download Alhambra information onto your phone at the front
gates and after a bit of waiting, I got the applet onto my phone. It
was quite disappointing. I was at least expecting a map, maybe some
pictures. All you got was about a paragraph or two about the main
things in the complex.

We walked around the gardens and the buildings that you are free to
enter all morning. It was very pretty and quite relazing despite all
of the tourists. There were a number of wild cats in the complex but
unlike wild cats in Australia, they all looked quite healthy and
happy. There was even one that had decided that hunting food was too
much for him, so he sat on tourists instead, hoping they would feed
him. I assume it worked because he was the biggest of the cats we saw
that day.

At 1:30 we entered the palace. They control visitor numbers to the
Alhambra by only selling a certain number of tickets per day and by
also only allowing a certain number of people to see the very special
palace at a time. The palace was amazing. I can see why it is so
special. Vanessa and I left the boys behind to take pictures and
wandered through the palace together. Pictures are best to describe
the palace - wiki it if you are interested.

The town of Granada wasn´t that great. We missed out on lunch as it
was 4 before we reached the town so we had ice-cream instead and then
drove home for our usual nap.

Sevilla was a disappointment. I don´t think that we saw the right bits
of it. We saw the cathedral - which was big - and we saw some streets
but that was about it. The cathedral does have Christopher Columbus´
tomb in it though which was cool. Tom managed to miss it though. No
idea how as it was pretty big.

Lunch was Sevilla´s saving grace. We went to a cool little tapas bar
where Vanessa and Tom had sandwiches and Cam and I had random stuff. I
managed to order something with tuna in it which believe it or not, I
actually ate some of.

On Friday, we picked up Ben. I´d like to say that this went smoothly,
but it didn´t. We dispatched Tom to get Ben on his own as Cam and I
were interneting. After about an hour, I got a text message from Ben
saying that he was at the other Antequera station. None of us knew
there was another station so this was a problem especially seeing as
how I had no way to get in contact with Tom. So in typcial spanish
fashion, we had tapas.

Eventually Tom arrived, sans Ben, and I told him the good news. It was
decided that I would go with Tom to the original Antequera station and
ask for directions to the other Antequera station. Which I did in
Spanish and received the answer in Spanish. Luckily, I interpretted
what the station master told me correctly and directed us straight
there (not that I´m bragging or anything....). We picked up Ben about
an hour and half after we were meant to, but at least we got there.

Ben´s trip to Spain was a very culinary one. We took him out to savour
the best that Antequera had to offer. Delicious tapas lunch, followed
by churros and chocolate, followed by an expensive dinner of meat. I
think he enjoyed his Spain time. I will miss him in England, but at
the same time envy him a bit.

On Saturday, we left for Baeza in the north of Andalucia. Drove past
lots of olive trees. Lots and lots of olive trees. The place we were
staying at is a converted olive mill so we saw more olive trees on our
drive to hotel. We chose Baeza because a nearby town, Ubeda, was
having a feria - a carnival - while we were there. So after some
relaxing we drove to Ubeda. Unfortunately, everyone else did exactly
the same thing and we couldn´t find anywhere to park. We eventually
gave up and drove back to the hotel. Tom was quite disappointed as he
had wanted to see a bullfight while we were in Spain and this was his
only chance. As luck would have it, there was bullfighting on the tv
when we got back so we got to see some.

I was suprised about how enjoyable it was to watch. We were watching
novice bullfighters in the their first fights. It was pretty gory
especially when the matador drove the sword into the bull´s chest
cavity but I can see the specticle and culture in it. On our next trip
to Spain, we will make sure we go to a real bull fight.

Our last night in Andalucia was spent having a delicious meal in the
hotel restaurant and for me, falling asleep in the bath.

Antequera is a really pretty city. After almost four days here, it is
still nice to look around the city. Driving around the city is a bit
of a problem for Tomas as cobblestones don´t have the best grip but
he´s doing well.

On our first day here, we decided to take in the sights of the city.
Although it´s a really pretty place, there isn´t that much to actually
see and do. There are lots of churches and nice looking houses but no
museums in the actual town. The town has a bullring but you can´t walk
around it like you can do in Ronda. So we walked down to the bullring
and Vanessa and Tom has churros which apparently are delicious. I
tasted one and didn´t like it. After churros, we walked about the
town, looked at some buildings and walked up the hill to the fortress.
You can´t actually get into the fortress so we walked around it and
managed to come out right at our house. Of course this was a sign that
a siesta was reqiured.

The next day, we set out for Cordoba. Purely because it had the most
things open on a Monday that we wanted to see. Vanessa and Cameron got
to experience an hour long car trip with Tom and I. They are not
coming on a driving holiday with us again.

We had a bit of trouble finding a car park in Cordoba and after
driving around the city (small medieval streets and cobblestones as
usual) we gave up and parked at the shopping centre across the river.

Corboda isn´t a pretty city. It´s quite ordinary. However it does have
a huge cathedral. It used to the mosque when the town was occupied by
the Moors but then the Catholics recaptured the city build their
cathedral inside the mosque which was apparently very tolerant of
them.

We ate meat for lunch. Big plates of meat. It was a quite expensive
lunch but very tasty and the service was the best we have had in
Spain. Probably a good thing seeing as how the meal was over 100
euros.

After lunch we split up, Cameron was going to get his Internet fix and
Vanessa, her shopping fix. Tom and I had already made plans to visit
the Arab baths. We are so glad we went there. It was definitely one of
the highlights of the trip. We had a bath and a massage. The baths
were the traditional arab/turkish/roman affair of starting in the warm
bath. Getting in the hot bath for five minutes and then plunging
yourself into the cold bath for as long as you can stand before
repeating the process. The water must have had a very high salt
content as I could float around in the warm bath quite easily. Even
Tom who normally can´t float was floating a bit. After a few rounds on
warm/hot/cold we were called for our massage which was good and
followed by more bathing and dreaming about having a house that we
could have arab baths in. Eventually we got out of the baths and
headed up to the terrace for some delicious tea (I tried to buy some
Farenn but they didn´t sell it).

On the way home we stopped at the 'supermarket' for supplies. I bought
what we have affectionately called 'Melon Baby'. A giant melon. I´m
not sure what kind of melon it is, but I hope it is the delicious
melon I have been having all over Spain. I put it in the boot of the
car for the trip home but we had to rescue it after a few minutes as
it was rolling around int he boot a bit too much for my liking.
Needless to say, we haven´t massacred melon baby yet.

Decided not to eat dinner due to the large amounts of meat eaten
earlier in the day and had ice-creams for dinner instead which Cameron
very kindly went out and got for us.

Today we went to Ronda. Ronda is a pretty city. It is literally
perched on top of cliffs inbetween a gorge. We set of later than
normal and got there just before lunch so we had enough time to see
the bullring and museum before lunch. The bullring was very
impressive. You get to walk out into the ring and can climb through
the stands as well as see (and smell) the pens where the bulls are
kept. The museum was small but interesting.

After lunch, we headed to La Mina - the mine - which is a set of
Moorish steps cut into the side of the gorge. Apparently you walk down
60 metres to the bottom of the gorge. It didn´t really feel that far
on the way down, but on the way up I am sure there were more steps.
Tom thinks there were about 200 steps in all. It was very cool though
as you are literally walking down inside the rock. Only slipped once.

Saw some more arabian baths today except these ones were not actually
being used anymore.

Unlike Cordoba, there are plenty of places to park in Ronda and we
chose one of the first. It didn´t turn out to be the best choice
though as we had a little trouble getting out. Our car is a Peugeot
207 diesel so it´s a pretty grunty car - so grunty that I have
nicknamed it 'The Beast' or Beastie for short. Despite this power,
Beastie struggled to get up the ramp out of the car park. We gradually
slowed on our way up the ramp until about halfway when Beastie gave up
and stalled. In Beastie´s defense, the ramp must have been slippery so
I´m sure she had some trouble getting traction. Tom valiantly tried to
restart Beastie but she wasn´t having any of it. Eventually, everyone
but Tom had to abandon the car just so Tom could get us out. I blame
the meat from yesterday.

Depsite the carpark incident, Tomas and Vanessa are having churros
right now while Cameron and I are getting our Internet fix.

After at least three days without Internet, I have finally managed to
find an internet cafe. Thank goodness.

Barcelona: The rest of Barcelona wasn´t that exciting. We tried to
have dinner at two restaurants recommended by Lonely Planet, but one
was closed and we couldn´t find the other one. In general, food in
Barcelona was quite disappointing.

We also tried to go shopping in Barcelona. It has a lot shops but not
a lot to buy.

After Barcelona, we headed to Valencia. We spent about 20 euros in
tolls getting to Valencia but it was worth it. We enjoyed Valencia
much more than Barcelona. Again, we stayed in a really nice hostel.
This one had themed rooms. Ours was the country theme which doesn´t
sound very nice but was actually quite tasteful. Tom took a lot of
pictures but my favourite touch was the spoon towel hooks and the fork
toilet roll holder. Valencia had free internet and breakfast too which
was also very pleasing.

The big thing in Valencia is the Cuidad de las Artes y las Ciencias.
It is a big museum complex which happened to be just across the road
from we were staying. It was designed by a famous architect, Santiago
Calatrava and is quite impressive. We both loved the design of the
science museum - like the bones of a whale - but we weren´t so sure
about the art musuem - sort of like a flower. Tom of course took lots
of pictures.

We spent a whole day at the complex, the morning in the science museum
which was quite fun but half the exhibitions were being set-up,
dismantled or refurbuished. At lunch time (which in Spain is at 2pm
minimum) we thought we would head over to the Oceanographic (the
aquarium) for lunch in their restaurant surrounded by fishes but it
was all booked out for lunch and dinner so we didn´t get to eat there.
Had an ordinary lunch in the other restaurant instead.

The aquarium was also fun. Lots of fishes to look at. They had some
seals, walrus and two belugas too. We watched the dolphin show but it
wasn´t that great.

Our restaurant luck improved in Valencia - despite the aquarium
restaurant being closed) and we had two great and very spanish meals.
In Spain, lunch is at 2 as in generally quite a big meal and dinner is
much later around 9-10pm and a smaller meal. The way the ordering
works is that you order your salad or vegetables first as an entree
and then your meat at your segundo or main course. If you have room
after your gigantic plate of meat then you get some calcium but having
dessert afterwards. It took a while to get used to the timing and the
lack of vegetables but now we are experts at it.

We had better luck with the shops in Valencia too. We managed to
stumble across the shoe part of town and spent a while looking at very
nice shoes.

We decided to spend the first of our two nights between Valencia and
Antequera in Denia. A seaside town about an hour south of Valencia.
Again, stayed in a nice place but this one only had free breakfast, no
internet though...Had dinner at a restaurant run by a German women. It
was a very Australian meal - there were vegetables with our meals. Had
the most delicious pumpkin soup that I have tasted ever.

The night day we had a big drive (about 5 hours which is a long time
in Spain) to Lorca our next destination. We arrived with nowhere to
stay and thought it wouldn´t be too hard to find somewhere. The first
place we tried was full so I used my spanish skills to ask the spanish
man to recommend another hotel. He booked us into a place out of town
and gave us directions in spanish and scrawled the address
incomprehisbily on a business card. I suggested that we walk to the
place first to see if we could find it. Not such a good idea. We
walked for about 20 minutes and gave up and had to walk about 30
minutes back to the car. We got in the car around 5:30 and set off.
Unfortunately, the directions were not very helpful and without the
address I could not use my phone to guide us there. We drove around
town for about an hour before we stopped and I asked for directions.
Turns out it was amazingly simple to get there but we just never took
the turn. We were very exhausted by now so it was baths and then bed.

We set of for Antequera at 8:30 the next morning at which time, Spain
is still asleep - partially because the sun hasn´t come up properly
yet. With spain still asleep the trip was fast and I got to listen to
my favourite spanish radio station - Kiss fm - which plays a bizzare
mix of songs but there is not spanish talking. Stopped in a village
about 40 minutes away from Antequera and had a plate of ham for lunch
which was delicious and also the first real tapas that we had on the
trip.

Got to Antequera about 30 minutes after Cam and Ness but didn´t pick
them up for a while (sorry) as we were sorting out the house that we
are renting for the week. It´s a really nice place one top of the
hill. The hill is a little bit of a problem after a big meal like we
had yesterday but it´s nice to be able to have a little seista after
climbing the hill.

Hope everyone is having back home. Must go and join the others who are
all having cafes next door.

Barcelona is much like Paris except without the trees and the
atmosphere. It´s a big city but there´s not really a lot going on.

On the drive to Barcelona, we decided to stop in Girona for lunch.
Girona (the old part at least) is a pretty city. We got to Girona
aronud 3pm and it appeared that the whole town was on siesta. All of
the shops were closed and the all of the restaurants were very
tourist-y. After wandering around for a while looking at the two big
churches they have, we stopped for lunch in a forgettable pub. After
we had finished lunch, the town was beginning to wake up. On the walk
back down to where we had parked the car we passed quite a few
fishermen trying their luck in the river.

Once in the car we decided to switch the GPS on to navigate to
Barcelona. I punched in the address and Agnetha directed us to the
highway and along we drove. About 20 kilometres from Barcelona,
Agnetha told us to exit the main highway for the bypass around
Barcelona´s north and then promptly died. She had run out of battery.
Bit of a disaster as we had no other map of the city. We exited the
bypass drove around aimlessly for a bit and then decided we really
needed a map to get where we were going.

We parked somewhere in the north of Barcelona and thought that we
would walk to a newsagent or somthing similar to get a map. We ended
up walking all the way into the main city before we found something
that was open. Bought a map, discovered that the place we were staying
was only just on the map and a lot of the streets near there were cut
off. Soldiered on regardless, walked back up the hill to the car
(about 2kms away) and drove in the general direction of the hostel.

I give you all one piece of advice about Barcelona - never, ever drive
in Barcelona. It is impossible to get where you need to be. I had
managed to navigate us to either the left or the right of where we
needed to be, but I could not figure out how to get to the middle bit.
Eventually, after about an hour, we figured it out and got the car
somewhere close to where we needed to be. We then walked to the hostel
and discovered that we had driven right past it at one stage.

Luckily, the hostel was great. Really good staff and the room was
excellent and breakfast was included. It was a little way out of town
but the Metro was just as efficient as it was in Paris. After an
exhausting day of driving, we had a beer (tomas) and a bottle of water
(amanda) and fell asleep.

The next day we did the touristy things in Barcelona. Started off with
the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s great unfinished masterpiece. We got to
the church on the non-Gaudi side and I was confused as it didn´t look
anything like I had expected. It was much nicer. The facade was
covered in amazing sculptures but a Spanish artist that represented
the Passion of Christ. Inside was just as impressive. Loved the
staircases though you couldn´t go up them. There was a lot of
construction stuff but no construction being done. It was a Sunday,
but you´d think that if they wanted to finish the thing, they might
have to work on Sundays.

The church also has a good museum which really helped illustrate
Gaudi´s vision. He was clearly a man who loved materials (there was a
whole exhibition on the reasons behind the choice of stones),
engineering, and fanciful things.

Headed to Montjuic after Sagrada. This is where the Olympic stadium is
plus some of the museums. Walked around the stadium and peeking inside
at the nice green football pitch and the headed to the Calatrava
mobile phone tower. Had a drink, listened to the music from the
dancing festival that was happening somewhere below us and looked over
at the European Baseball championships that were in the stadium below
us.

More Barcelona adventures to come....

¡Buenas dias!

So, as I mentioned yesterday our border crossing into Spain was an
uneventful affair. As soon as we passed over the border (at the top of
a mountain) the condition of the road deteriorated and suddenly we
were coming down a mountain on bumpy roads with the mountain very
close to my side of the car and cars coming in the other direction.
Let me just say that I was gripping the seat quite firmly. Tom though
is a good driver and we made down the mountain, only to go up another
mountain.

After the border crossing I got my phone out to try GPS in Spain. I
had already used it in Paris a few times, but now we were going to
rely on it for navigating within towns. So, I punched in the address
for our next stop and we awaited further directions from Agnetha.

Our first stop in Spain was Castello d'Empuries a little town near
Figueres that was once the medieval capital of the region. After a few
hiccups with the GPS (I had it set to pedestrian mode, not car mode so
it was telling us to make funny turns) we navigated to the town via
the backroads. However, once we were in the town it was a different
story. Medieval towns has medieval streets. Tiny little streets that a
single horse and carriage can traverse. Driving though these streets
is not a pleasant experience, especially when they are a maze of one
way streets. Eventually though we found somewhere to park the car and
walked to the hotel.

The hotel in Castello d´Empuries was really nice, with the rooms
looking out over the town square to the very medieval ayuntamiento
(town hall). We ate at the hotel´s restaurant, which serves
predominantly traditional Catalan fare; we had gazpaxo soup, duck
casserole and would have had ´creme catalan´ if we could have fitted
it in.

Despite our Spanish classes, we really couldn´t really understand a
lot of what was on the menu or what people were saying, as Catalan is
really quite different to Castillian. Along with an abundance of X´s,
the language seems to substitute words randomly for French, or for
completely different words altogether.

The town itself wasn´t all that big. They did have two big churches
though and an abundance of street cats. I made the mistake of talking
to one of the these cats in the morning and he followed me around for
most of our walk around town. We eventually lost him when he was
distracted by some birds. I´m not allowed to talk to any more cats.

From Castello d´Empuries, we followed yet another windy road over the
mountains to the seaside town of Cadaques. Quite a few people, as well
as the Lonely Planet, said how great this village is, though on first
impression it seemed to be little more than shirtless middle-aged
English men on scooters. Admittedly it was overcast, and still early
in the morning (11am) so we decided to try to walk around the headland
to Port Lligat, Salvidor Dali´s home for many years. Unfortunately the
track only went three-quarters of the way around, so we had to turn
around and walk back. By this stage, the sun had come out and I could
see what people see in Cadaques; the white houses cascading down the
hill to the sea is definitely picturesque. The coastline is quite
spectacular as well. Big slabs of granite and slate that have been
uplifted by seismic activity.

After our hike, we were very hot and abit sunburnt so we got a drink
and jumped back in the car for the drive to Barcelona.

Hola,

We are currently in Spain where they have somewhat proper keyboards.
They have fullstops but I can´t figure out how to get the @ symbol. I
can see it on the keyboard but I can´t make it appear on the screen.

We left Paris on Thursday aboard the TGV to Marseille. The TGV was
really good. Very fast and the seats were actually quite accomodating.
No 'in-flight' entertainment but you really don´t need it on a trip
that is only three hours long. The people across from us brought their
cat on the train. I had heard that people take their dogs on the Metro
(although I didn´t see any dogs) but your cat on the TGV? Silly French
people.

Marseille is a very industrial city. There´s a lot of construction
going on in the city centre which I assume is a good sign. We didn´t
see a lot of Marseille as our hotel was out of town a bit. The hotel
is a famous modernist building. I won´t go too much into details, Tom
can do that later if he feels like it. However, we really liked it.

We picked the car the Marseille and promptly got lost trying to drive
to the hotel. It seems that sign placement is very different here in
Europe. They put the signs on the turn rather than before, especially
on roundabouts. Tom was initially very nervous about the driving but
he´s settled in. He even did some crazy french merging on the first
day.

Left Marseille the next morning and decided to stop in a town called
Arles. Interesting town with lots of Roman and Medieval stuff. This
was also the place that Van Gogh decided to cut his ear off so there
was also a lot of art stuff.

If you have ever been to a medieval town you will know that there are
a lot of little tiny streets that it is amazing that cars can drive
on. It was in one of these that I took my first major fall of the
trip. I managed to walk into a bollard. Most people when walking into
a bollard would stub their toe or bang their knee however, I went
flying though the air. Thankfully, I landed on my tummy and chest
which are both well padded and injuries were minimal. It was a little
hard to explain that to the French shopkeeper who came running out of
his shop to assist though.

Left Arles and headed for the French-Spanish border via a windy road.
Good views, but such roads make me nervous. The border was
interesting. A man with a tiny machine, lady checking our passports
and another policeman smoking next to the checkpoint. And so, we
entered Spain.

Bonjour!

(all fullstops in this email will be replaced with a colon because I
can't find the full stop key on the french keyboard and the colon is
where the full stop should be: The full stop isn't the only key to not
be where it should be so please excuse any letters that aren't right)

We arrived in Paris very tired. It was close to midnight when our
flight got to Charles de Gaulle: Luckly our bags arrived with us (they
had also been on three different planes) and we some of the first off
the plane: Amazing we navigated the metro and got the hotel in one
piece:

Hotel is nice: Very Parisian: To get to our room at the top of the
building, it takes 105 steps: I counted: I am always ready for a lie
down after that climb:

We have toured most of the sights of Paris - the Arc de Triomphe,
Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, La Dèfence - as well as most of
the suburbs: Our first day here was a Monday when most of the museums
are closed: Luckily the Musèe des ègouts de paris was open: The sewer
museum is actually quite interesting though you don't get to see very
much of the sewer system:

I hqve discoved why French women don't get fat: They wouldn't fit
through the metro gates if they were too large: The metro is
fantastic: It puts any other transport system I hqve seen to shame: We
have never had to wait more than 2 minutes for a train and it is very
fast: Apart from one hiccup with my ticket at rush hour, the metro has
been fantastic:

We have had cheese for lunch the past two days: Tom is in heaven: The
cheese is great, but the french clearly don't believe in savoury
biscuits or rice crackers: I haven't had too much trouble with food,
breakfast is my biggest problem: The french don't eat breakfast which
is fine by Tom but I get very grumpy around 10 if I haven't had
breakfast:

Right now, Tom is probably at a museum while I am getting my
technology fix. Will write more later, but I need to answer some
emails before my time runs out

Today is the day. Tonight Tomas and I fly out for France to start our 6 week holiday in Europe and the US. I'm very excited, not looking forward to immense amount of air travel required but excited.

We dropped Fenella off for her holiday this afternoon. We both felt extremely guilty about leaving her for six weeks, but I'm confident that she will be well looked after. She will probably have some cat friends to talk to and will enojy playing in the outside area.

We're almost all packed, just need to pack the toiletries. So once that is done, all we have to do is have dinner, wash-up and make our way to the airport.

Stay tuned for blogging from the other side of the world.

I think that it's official that Tomas and I are trivia addicts. Tomorrow is a public holiday so there is no trivia on our normal night so in order to cope, we went to trivia tonight at the Morningside Services Club.

I was very happy with our performance. We got 15 on three rounds, including the music round (yes, that's right, 15/16 on the music round). I won us a bottle of wine for knowing Aldous Huxley. Unfortunately, we bombed out on the bonus questions.

So I am currently developing a flash-based website. It will be using the Model-View-Controller methodology because that is how I make stuff. Today, I completed the setting up of all the classes and began actually doing something with them but I hit a snag when I realised that my model class is never instantiating. Everything else is playing nice, just not my model.

My model is a singleton class and first time around when I created it with a private constructor, I got a slew of errors, so I changed to a public constructor but it never gets instantiated. No matter how many times I call Model.getInstance, Model.getInstance never fires!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Sometimes it feels good to complain.

Yes that's right. It's a new mini clubman. I want. Though mine will not be blue.

Firstly, I am not knocked up. Nor is anyone I know.

Secondly, this is the funniest movie that I have seen for a while. On
Friday night, I went out with a group of my friends (including an 8.5
months pregnant lady) to see this movie and although I didn't pay full
price to see it, I would have gladly forked over the $13-14 dollars to
see it.

It's been roughly two years since I got a new phone and although I loved my old phone, the fact that it would sometimes turn the screen off and make me restart it before I could see anything was getting a bit annoying. So on Wednesday after heading home from work early, I decided it was time to get a new phone. Called 3 Customer Care and organised for my plan to be upgraded and a new phone to be shipped to on Friday.

I chose the Nokia 6110 Navigator - just like Cam. I love it. I went with this phone over the others purely because it has GPS. So exciting.

Today, I gave my new phone, whom I have called Agnetha, her first navigating challenge. Navigate from my house to Lutwyche where Tom's parents had invited us to breakfast. I was mighty impressed by Agnetha's directing. Especially because the route she chose was not the one that we normally take, so we ignored her but she was stubborn - recalculating our route faster than it took to drive to the next street. Needless to say there was a lot of "Turn left, then right", "Turn left at the second street" and "Turn left then immediately turn left" as she tried to get us back onto her course. Eventually, she gave it and let us go our way.

However love, in this case, is not blind. I can see her flaws. Like how I am always accidentally pressing the navigator button when I in the menu and how I have not yet figured if there is a way to relock the phone when you unlock it from the slide closed position. But I am overlooking these for now for there is a bigger problem, the software supplied (the nokia and GPS software) is not Mac compatible. You can download iSync but for it to work with Agnetha I need an additional plug-in. Le sigh.

It might seem a little shallow, but the reason for my lack of posting
is that I wasn't happy with my template. I wanted an update but have
been too busy to work on a template so tonight I dug around on the
internet for a new template.

As for other changes, I can't say there have been too many of those in
the past couple of months. Still living in the same place, still
working at the same place, still doing the same stuff. Hopefully with
the new template I will make more of an effort to keep the world
updated

Hooray!

Last year for lent, I gave up junk food. I really enjoyed it and it drastically reduced the amount of bad food that ate for longer than just lent. So this year, I decided to do it again. After the first week, it was pretty easy going. I even managed to have a few meals out that included dessert without breaking my fast. However, that is all behind me for lent is over.

To celebrate the end of lent, I suggested to Tomas that we go out for breakfast today and I could have pancakes (GF ricotta pancakes from Cream Patisserie at Coorparoo...). Tom forgot this morning and I couldn't be much bothered getting off the couch so we decided not to go out. Instead, I have made Pastel de Angel - Angel Cake - using a recipe from my a cookbook that my Spanish teacher has. It is very simple - all you need is some eggs, sugar, almond meal and amaranth (south american grain). We will be having it with ice-cream when Tomas gets off the phone.

In Fenella news, she got a new collar today. She managed to remove her old one this morning which was getting too small for her. We bought her one almost the same as the other one. Same punk stylings and glow-in-the-dark coolness different colour. She's now a green collared kitty. Tom think she looks very irish.

Anyway, must go and prepare our lent breaking feast.

This afternoon I have a hair appointment. Very exciting. But I have to leave work in about half an hour to get there and everything on my todo list will take me longer than half an hour so I am choosing not to do them. So instead I will break the blogging drought by talking about some of the stuff I do at work that I'm pretty pleased with.

1. ColdFusion Validation script.
I wrote some code a little while ago that I thought was quite impressive. This code allows me and anyone else here who chooses to use it, the ability to scrap the cludginess that is JavaScript form validation in favour of Server-Side form validation and it does so in quite a streamlined manner. I won't go too far into the specifics of how it works but basically, for every form field that you have, you set up a matching pair of parameters. One parameter holds the form value and the other holds the validation information as a list. So, when you submit the form, it first goes through all of your form fields and checks to see if there is another parameter for its validation. If there is, the validation information is passed to a component which does funky stuff with it. If you want me to explain more, just ask.

2. Footlocker Animations
I have several projects at work that I consider "my" projects because I am the person who works on them most of the time. My favourite "my" project is definitely Footlocker ( http://www.footlocker.com.au). The site itself is not very good but I have a lot of fun doing the home page and locker animations. The ones live at the moment aren't anything I have done, but if you check back in a couple of weeks, I'm sure at least on of the new animations will be mine.

3. SQL
I'm not proud of all of the SQL I have written here but I am pretty proud about how much my SQL has improved. Before I started all I knew where the basics, select, insert, update and delete. Now, I know all sorts of extra stuff. I know what joins are and how to use them and the difference between an inner join and outer join. I can also write tricky stuff using variables.

4. Actionscript
I've written a couple of very tricky flash applications. Unfortunately, none of them are live right now, so I can't show you. I have started using Objects in ActionScript which is good because you can actually implement a model/view methodology.

5. The Social Club
Last year, I took over the running of the Social Club and I'm proud of what it has become. Since I've been at the helm, we have switched a "subscription" service, which pretty much means the Social Club has a constant source of income which it can spend on feeding the Emus.

Anyway, I must run now...I have successfully filled my half an hour with nothing.

Last night was a night of ups and downs for trivia. Things didn't start well with only three of us able to make it but we took high spirits into the 1st round and came out with 13/16 - bad. Morale was flagging after the music round which I am ashamed to say only earned us 8 points - the minimum amount possible. It was a really hard round and there were quite a few other teams on 8 too. We nailed the puzzle page thanks to Ben and round three wasn't a bad one. But now things get interesting...

Every trivia night there are three 'Oi' questions which are a who/what/where/when am I type of question where the first person to get it right by raising their hand and yelling out 'Oi!' wins a bottle of win. The first two of the night were about people so we were never really in the running but the last one....

The last one was a when am I question and as soon as Harry said this, I said '1969' which is my standard response. Harry then said it was a year of the 20th century and Tom started nudging me to 'Oi'. The next clue was: John Farnham was named king of pop....more nudging followed by: "You say it" "No you say it". The next question sealed it though - John Gorton was PM of Australia - I shot my hand up and oied and won us a bottle of wine. Yay! However it would have been more exciting if I had of just answered with 1969 right at the start....oh well.

Last round was okay - nailed the bonus round which helped us to a score of 85 all up and put us amazingly in 6th place...only 3 points behind 2nd place...but the night was not over yet. The lucky draw bar tab went to us. So much excitement.

Sometime yesterday Fishee died. He'd been sick with Pop-Eye (a condition where one or both of a fish's eye "pops" due to a build up of fluid) but we weren't expecting him to die on us. There was a little bit of sadness and a guilt at his passing. We gave Fishee a fitting farewell by pouring him into an empty milk bottle and putting him in the bin. We are still undecided whether or not we will get another Fishee.

Of course, it was my birthday on Sunday. I had a great day. Tomas woke me up with a phone call and a treasure hunt for my presents. He got me lots of good stuff. I got some travel books, a Filofax, gluten-free beer and a money box from Tomas. My family got me a Nintendo DS which I love and play all the time and an Ice Tea set which has a jug and two glasses. My family and I went out for dinner that night as well. We went to Restaurant Manx at Portside (Hamilton). It was a really good meal. The food was excellent. The only complaint I would have is that the wine-list was a bit expensive.

And now for the obligatory Fenella comment...She's doing well. Next week she is going in to be desexed. Lucky kitten.

Very excited about my birthday tomorrow.

I was thinking that it would be strange to wake up by myself tomorrow but I realised that I haven't woken up of my own accord for about three months now thanks to Fenella. This morning I woke up halfway down the bed and sideways with Fenella pushing a grape stalk (her favourite toy) into my leg. A subtle hint that it was now light and she was awake and ready to play. I don't really mind being woken up so early, it generally forces me to get up early and do something like walk to work.

Today I bought myself some birthday presents. I bought a new pair of shorts to wear when I walk to work. I new top to wear when I walk to work which also doubles as top I can wear when I start swimming (this week) and a pair of Chuck Taylor's. I have been pinning for a pair of Converse for a while but I've been unable to find them in a size 3. Today however, I went to David Jone's who I know stock shoes in my size and inquired about the existence of a size 3 Chuck Taylor. They had them, so I bought a pair of white Chuck Taylors which I have been wearing all night. Love them!

Can't wait for tomorrow - by all accounts, Tomas has something exciting planned for me present-wise.

I woke up this morning, fed the cat and was about to go back to bed when I saw that my Wii was glowing. If you own a Wii you know how exciting it can be to see your Wii glowing because you know that someone has left you a message. That someone this morning was Nintendo letting me know that they have released the News Channel. Right now I'm updating the Wii to get the new channel so I have nothing to report yet...

So, while I'm waiting, here's a picture of Fenella cuddling up to the Wiimote that I took the other day...everyone in my house loves the Wii.

I have just realised today, that when I changed my template over, the link to Julie's blog had disappeared. Sorry Jules! All fixed now though.

Andrew posted a link to LibraryThing on his blog today. So having nothing to do today (both Tomas and the cat were asleep) I thought I would check it out.

I was very impressed. I've spent most the afternoon cataloging books. I've got one more shelf to go and then I will have done all of the books we don't have in boxes. I know I have books and Mum and Dad's but I fear they may have been assimilated into Dad's library.

There a couple of features that I would like to see on LibraryThing. Firstly, I'd like to to integrate with our web cam like Delicious Monster. All you have to do is hold your barcode up to the camera and Delicious Monster will read it and search for you.

Secondly, when I'm adding tags, I'd rather not have to type them in. I'd like to just click on them and only type when I'm adding a new one.

LibraryThing is still in beta so I'm sure there are more features to be added. I like the suggestion feature and the way it shows you how many other people have the books you have (we have lots of books no one else has - surprisingly though, other people have Isaac Asimov's Easy Guide to the Slide Rule). There is even a feature that shows you the people who are the only other people to have a book you have.

You can see my books here.

Last night, after posting that Fenella was still missing, I was sitting on the couch trying to read the mail when I thought I heard her cry out. Bearing in mind, that I'd be thinking I could hear her since she went missing I dismissed it. However, when I heard another cry, this time louder and definitely from Fenella I raced out to the balcony.

As soon as I started to call out for her, she started to cry again. I couldn't see her though. I knew she was close so that meant two possibilities, down the drain pipe or under the roof. In my panicked kitten mother state, I decided it would be a good idea to climb down onto the roof (which Tomas has done the previous night and that morning to look for her). Getting down onto the roof was pretty easy, but as soon as I was down I realised that getting back up was going to be very difficult. I spoke to Fenella for a while (still no idea where she was - but I did know that she was moving around) and somehow managed to scramble back onto the balcony.

Whilst all this was happening I was trying to call Tomas who wasn't answering so after trying one more time once I was back on the balcony, I called Mum. I have to admit, I was a bit hysterical at this point in time. Thankfully Mum advised me to go and try the neighbours to see if they could help.

The guy next door was most helpful, and came over straightway and climbed down onto the roof. It took about 15 minutes but we finally found her. She was under the balcony in a crawl space between our floor and the one below. There was a little tiny hole about the size of a 50 cent piece through which we could see her. Obviously this was not where she had gotten into the gap.

Once we found her I climbed down and let her know I was there but she was quite distressed and started trying to squeeze herself through the tiny gap. We were able to lift up the bit of sheet that we could see her under but not far enough to get her our thanks to a bolt that was sticking down. After another 10 minutes we'd gotten the bolt loose, but Fenella still couldn't get through the gap.

Mum arrived about now which was good. I was hoping that Tom would get home soon though as his architecture knowledge might come in handy to figure out how to get her out of the hole. We had one last go at getting her out and she managed to squeeze her head and front legs through the hole so I grabbed her and yanked her out. I don't think I've ever been so relieved.

Mum took Fenella inside whilst we climbed off the roof. Fenella ran about the house reacquainting herself with everything and then proceeded to lay down some scent. She had a little drink and some food and then did probably the biggest wee ever when she saw the litter box.

So that's the story of how we got her back. Needless to say, she is not getting out onto the balcony again until we have blocked up all of the gaps that she can escape from. She's not at all traumatised by her experience. She's been very happy to be back...she played with all of her toys last night and slept quite happily in our bed. We played all morning and now she's asleep on one of the dining chairs. The only change I've noticed in her is she's been purring more, but I think anyone would be happy to be back after being stuck under a roof for a day.

It's long a story but she's back with us. We are very happy. She is very happy.

Thanks for the support though.

She disappeared last night.

It's taken a while, but when I logged in yesterday Blogger finally allowed me to move to the new blogger. Doesn't appear that much has changed but then again, I haven't really had a look. I think that it's time for a template change, I will of course have to design something first..I'm thinking rounded corners and bevelled edges and a starburst somewhere (that's an inside joke that no who reads this will get but I've included it anyway...)

Last night was our second night of trivia at our new venue. It was again very busy and loud. There were not enough tables and chairs but it was still a good night out. This season we decided to call ourselves Schroedinge's Cat is/is not dead and we were honoured with a whole question about our team name. One of the things I like about http://www.harrystrivia.com is how he makes everyone feel included with little things like that. Thankfully, the round that included our question was also the round which we won. Our final score was 91/100 which but us in 12th place.

A couple of questions from the night:

• Penny Marshall directed which 1988 film which grossed over $100 million, making her the first ever woman to do so?


• What is the only bird to hunt by smell?


• Mariner 10 is the only spacecraft to fly by which planet?

We didn't get the first one, but other two we nailed.

Trivia
Trivia kicks off again for a new season tonight. Tomas is very excited about it. He's been excited about it for a week. The other day he sent me an email with the words: "YAY! can't wait for trivia!!!". We have changed nights and venues for this season as Thursday wasn't going to work out for everyone anymore. So farewell Morningside Services Club, hello Brunswick Hotel. Hopefully its not too busy and there aren't any Droopy McGoverns there.

Transport
I had a really had transport day the other day. I left the house at 7:00 which left me 20 minutes to get over the hill across the dale to the ferry terminal. So I powered to the ferry terminal and when I got there, my ferry was there! Normally this would be a joyous occasion but the ferry was pulling out. Rather than wait 30 minutes for the next ferry to Bulimba, I caught the ferry to New Farm and thought I would be lazy and catch the bus (remember I powered to the ferry). For some reason when I got to New Farm I didn't catch the first bus I thought I'd walk up to Merthyr Rd and catch the next bus. I did this, but just missed the bus. Rather than wait, I walked to the next stop and on the way, another bus went past. This continued for half of the way up Brunswick Street when I gave up and walked the rest of the way to work.

I doesn't stop there however, in the afternoon I missed the bus because I couldn't get across Wickham St in time. Needless to say, I was a little bit angry. Thankfully Tom came and picked me (he was on the bus I missed).

Technology
I want this.

There seems to be somewhat of a lull on the blogging front of late (I'm looking at you Vanessa, and you, Julie). Perhaps people haven't yet recovered from the holiday period.

Tomas, Fenella, Fishee and I are all getting back into the swing of things (yes that's right, the household has expanded. Fishee is as his name suggests a fish - a Siamese Fighting Fish). We all had a good Christmas: Tomas had time of work to relax and see his family, I had time of work to relax and play with the kitten and enjoy presents, the kitten had lots of people to play with her and a Christmas tree to climb, and Fishee got a water change. Who could ask for more?

On the newsfront, there is not much to report. Tom and I are seriously starting to save up for the trip to Spain and around the world and that's about as exciting as it gets for us. Fenella on the otherhad, has acne. Poor kitten. She has had an irritation under chin for a couple of weeks now, so I took her to the vet yesterday who diagnosed her with having acne. The vet did say that she's never seen a cat so young with it so I'm proud of her for developing a big cat's problem. Of course, we now have to administer antibiotics to her and wash her chin with salt water, in the hope that her scent glands (the source of the acne) will stop clogging up. For most cats, tablets are a drama but for Fenella, they are just another piece of food. This morning I just handed her the tablet and she ate it and this evening I put it in her food bowl and watched her eat it along with her dinner. Most excellent, in my opinion. The salt water washes are more fun though.