The Queen of Unfinished Projec...

Long time, no writing, trusty blog readers.

As per usual, I'm still supposed to be doing a wrap up of the last day or so or the holiday and a summary of the whole thing. That requires me remembering it though, which isn't happening right now. All you need to know is that Joan Rivers probably has a restraining order against me now.

The fact that I've not finished my trip blog is actually testimony to what I'm writing about today, my incredible ability to whip myself up into a frenzy over a "project", become totally obsessive about it for about two weeks and then my even more impressive ability to absolutely drop my bundle and give said project entirely up at the very first sign of even a minor hurdle. I like to imagine myself as a hamster sprinting madly in a wheel, but then stumbling on a tiny bit of whatever is at the bottom of a hamster cage, and collapsing to a heap on the ground, refusing to get up.

Somewhat like this

(This photo was acquired off google images, but didn't link back to a web page, so apologies to whomever uploaded it for a lack of credit.)

I find that I'm especially desperate for a project when I come back from a holiday, as I put a rather good deal of effort and thought into planning travels, and when I come back there's a large gap to fill in my thoughts.

I've come back wild and crazy from this holiday that's for sure, especially as we really aren't sure when we can next go on one, so my usual race to plan the next one can't happen. (Please note that wild and crazy in Courtney language means I stayed up till 11:30 one night, and that I tried a different flavour powerade. If you can't handle this intense revelry, you may need to leave this blog... because I'm living on the edge.) This has involved me breaking the only New Year's Resolution I was being vaguely successful at - growing my hair, I'm now sporting my usual chin length bob), buying a bunch of new clothes and shoes in a wardrobe overhaul, and out of nowhere deciding we should move house.

Yes, move house. A week ago I was frantically ringing banks, real estate agents and circling open inspections in the paper, with this idea that everything would fall blissfully into place and within about a fortnight, we'd be living in a shiny new house, surrounded by shiny new furniture and me standing in some gingham apron holding a plate of freshly cooked muffins. Naturally, it turns out, real estate is actually a lot more complicated than that, and frankly I'm in a sulk and have pretty much given up after one week. I'm all about stamina.

Then there have been the calorie counting plans (lasted 4 weeks) and the decision to do a Business Law course (SATAC application started and I was all gung ho, until I saw the price, and decided I'd rather spend $9,000 on ,well a lot of things, rather than a semester of university) all typical unfinished projects of mine. Even this blog always starts in a flurry of posts, and then goes quiet for a month after.

I just seem to thrive on being excited about something in theory, reality is too hard for me though. Or I'm just easily bored. I think it's a mix of column A and B.

In tribute to the topic of this blog perhaps, I've realised I have no idea what I actually wanted to really say and how to end this blog. So I'm just ending it now.

My Legs Hate Me

I didn't blog yesterday because the internet here is a jerk. It's free though so it's hard to complain, and while slow it is letting me do what I need. I also didn't blog though because I was so very, very tired after a long day at the San Diego Zoo.

The San Diego Zoo was a bus tour we'd booked before leaving Australia. I don't regret going, but the day was way too long. After a two hour drive there, we were left at the zoo for almost 7 hours. It's a very big zoo, but not that big, and all the food and gift places really started shutting up around 4:30 when weren't leaving until the zoo closed at 6pm so we couldn't even just end the day with a snack or something. By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 8:30pm, it was a very long day. Also the San Diego Zoo is very hilly, so we walked and walked for the whole time we were there so it was exhausting. We'd gone to Seaworld two years ago, and even though the journey and length was the same, there were a lot of different experiences to be part of, at the zoo, as much as I love animals, we just spent hours wandering around the seemingly empty enclosures because so many animals were sound asleep in their "Caves". I think it didn't help that the main drawcard of the zoo is their Pandas. Which of course Adelaide Zoo has now, so they weren't special to us. Or as Aaron said, because the San Diego Zoo is so well known, you have such high expectations it's hard to meet them.

One thing very interesting about the zoo is that they clearly have a very large interest in Australian animals so it was interesting to see the reaction of the non-Australian tourists to our animals, which of course are actually super cool. (I mean seriously, rest of the world, we have the platypus.)

Today was another day of walking around as we spent almost 8 hours at Disneyland! We took advantage of the Magic Morning access we had as part of our 4-Day ticket. Basically this gives you access to Disneyland an hour earlier than the general public. It's actually only for Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, but that also means you can get to the other lands as soon as they open an hour later.

One of the greatest advantages of Magic Mornings is that the normally hour or so long wait for Space Mountain doesn't exist so I headed there as soon as we got in. Aaron hates Space Mountain so he was an awesome husband who waited outside with my handbag. It turns out he didn't like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad either... oops. While it felt crazy there today it was clearly not that busy as the waits weren't too bad for anything.

I can confirm that the new Star Tours is awesome. There are apparently 54 new versions of the trips you can take on it, and we did it twice with different versions. It's a lot of fun for Star Wars geeks like us. Speaking of, Aaron was wearing a Darth Vader t-shirt I bought him at Comic-Con and he kept getting stopped and asked about it, or had people grin at him etc over it, we were all impressed.

Our favourite ride is still the Indiana Jones ride though, it's so much fun. I think we'll be doing that a few times before we go!

So yeah, that was today, which will probably be very similar to tomorrow and the day after. I can't believe that'll be the end of the trip!

M.I.C.K.E.Y. M.O.U.S.E.

First a random comment - The Avengers has broken US box office records for biggest opening weekend takings. I find it really cool that Aaron and I were part of that, as we saw it opening night. (Again, go see it!)

So we're now sitting in our hotel room in Anaheim, which means we're on the last part of our trip (*sob*). It's a weird feeling where I'm kind of looking forward to going home to see Obi, my family and my shower/bed etc but I'm having such a good time, I don't want this to end, nor do I want to go back to real responsibilities etc!

I didn't blog yesterday due to a combination of accidentally spending two hours skyping my family when I thought we'd spend half an hour doing it, and because we spent our last full day in Chicago doing an awful lot of not much. We slept in, then went to Barnes and Noble and browsed the shops a little, then crashed some more at the hotel. I have a genuinely neutral feel towards Chicago, Aaron liked it a lot, I certainly liked it but it felt like something was missing there for me. I do look forward to exploring it more when we eventually come back for a Route 66 trip.

This leads me to something I've been pondering since coming here. I have loved this trip, it's been relaxed, easy, fun and just all round great, however I'm beginning to wonder if we're missing out just flying between cities and then hovering around the city centre area or similar. It particularly hit me in Chicago that I kind of miss seeing small towns and the like. Which makes me think that as much as I like "controlling" my own holiday decisions, as neither Aaron or I will/can drive in the US, I think a bus tour might be what we do next. Whether it's a tour of the South of the US, which I really need to see or a Route 66 tour etc it's what feels right. However, realistically it's hit me that the next trip here is a long time away which really saddens me.

Ah, I shouldn't blog when I'm tired as I get all emotional!

Anyway, we arrived in Los Angeles this morning, after a 4 hour flight for Chicago. The most notable part of the trip was that I needed to go to the toilet halfway through, but the woman next to me was asleep, I felt so bad about waking her, I was doing it so timidly, that it wasn't working. Eventually a guy in the row next to us, actually woke her up for me!

I've frequently said that when I'm in Times Square I feel like I'm somewhere I'm supposed to be, like I'm complete there or something. However, arriving in Los Angeles today, on the drive to the hotel, I just realised how at home I feel in Los Angeles, it's like it's a really huge, smoggier city that belongs in Australia. The weather is perfect, the scenery looks similar to ours etc. It just feels a surprisingly nice and relaxed place to be. Speaking of relaxed, oh god, hiring a town car between LAX and the hotel in Anaheim was an awesome idea. So comfy and easy to get here. I love this hotel too (Howard Johnsons). Props to the reservations manager who when we said we were from Adelaide, instantly knew that it was the capital of South Australia.

....Diversion - what the hell is with Aubrey O'Dey's hair in the Celebrity Apprentice? There's way too much of it and it's actually a lousy colour on her.

Back to Disneyland. We ended up by a 4 Day Park Hopper ticket to Disneyland, as it was only $20 more per person than the three day one we intended on buying. So we ended up in Disneyland this afternoon after not originally planning to head there, after having a very late lunch in the Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney. It was crazy busy there so there was a long wait for most of the rides (and the Indiana Jones ride broke as we walked past it! (It's my very favourite so I hope it's fixed by Tuesday when we go back!)) so we just picked a few of our favourites or ones that had short lines and went through a couple. We were so tired though we left around 6pm and grabbed some takeaway chicken soup from Denny's to eat back at our room.

Tomorrow we're off to the San Diego Zoo.

When Did We End Up In San Francisco?

The title of this blog is dedicated to the weather today, which was foggy all day with a chill in the air that was so similar to the weather we hated so much in San Francisco. However today it was actually an oddly pleasant change from the hot and humid hell Chicago was yesterday. (It's honestly the greatest shift in weather I've ever experienced.) So all the outdoor photos today are pretty much of fog. I wanted to get an awesome photo of the Sears Tower (yes I know it's now the Willis, I just don't care) because the top was poking up through the fog but I couldn't get it right.

We spent all day at the Field Museum complex. We did the Aquarium yesterday so today headed off to the Adler Planetarium and the actual Field Museum. The Planetarium was really good, and we spent most of all day there. I think it helped that we hadn't really seen a lot of that stuff at other museums so it was new and interesting. One thing we particularly enjoyed was the Atwood Sphere experience. You go on a little cart and it takes you inside a sphere that recreates the Chicago night sky as it was in 1913. So all the constellations and the North Star etc were visible (well the ones that were visible at the time, eg not all the zodiac constellations were). We were lucky to be the only two on our "ride" so we were able to have a good chat with the guide about the differences in what we see at night compared to this. I was all impressed that I recognised some of the constellations without ever having actually seen them in real life. You could also see and touch part of a meteorite that had fallen from Mars so that was pretty cool. I did get huffy at how much more intelligent all these medieval guys with astrolabes and sundials were than me though.

We then walked through the freezing cold to the Field Museum, mostly to see Sue the T-Rex. Sue is the most complete (around 90%) skeleton ever discovered of a T-Rex, including her massive head. (So massive they can't store it on the actual display because it is too heavy.) They had a cool Ancient Egypt Exhibition which included a replica of a tomb, which featured actual walls and a lot of mummies. I think I'm a bit funny with mummies though, I feel fascinated but also kind of horrible when looking at them. They were buried with such ceremony and care by loved ones, and now they are paraded for gawkers, it feels kind of disrespectful. There was also a special Genghis Khan exhibit.

We didn't stay too long at the museum because I was exhausted and we'd seen a lot of the museums exhibits (or close to) at other museums in recent years.

We met my friend Ginger and her husband for dinner again tonight, going to a Mexican place called Xoco, which is owned by Rick Bayliss (who won Top Chef Masters) and a chef I follow on tv etc. After dinner we walked to a cinema for the opening night showing of The Avengers. It was such a fun movie, lots of genuinely funny one liners etc. If you see it, stay till the very end. A different experience for us though as people clapped and cheered through it, which isn't something you see a lot of in Australian cinemas. It was so nice to spend time with another couple.

It was another good day in Chicago, tomorrow's our last day here and we plan on taking it very easy.

We're Not From Merseyside...

Firstly a note that I'm about to break one of my earlier resolutions, that I would not cut my hair this year. Frankly it has gone to hell this trip, and if I happen to come across a no appointment needed salon here or in Anaheim, I'll be rocking my short bob very fast.

This morning we caught a hop on hop off bus to the Willis (better known as the Sears) Tower, the tallest building in the United States, and for a long time the tallest in the world. We laughed on the bus tour over as the Tour Guide was noting where everyone was from, but didn't ask us, he saw Aaron's Liverpool cap, anfd heard our accents and decided we were English, and kept making comments about being English to us. I eventually asked where he thought we were from, and he over confidently said, "well I can tell you're not from Merseyside" like that was the trick... I don't think he expected my response that we were from the Australian part of England...

Thank god for the Chicago City Pass as there was an hour wait to get up to the Skydeck, but we had a fast pass so went straight up. The views were better at the Hancock Observatory, we noted, however the Skydeck features reinforced clear plastic/glass boxes that you can walk out on, so you're literally hovering above 100 storeys above Chicago. We both walked out but I admit, I was fairly nervous standing there because there was nothing to hang on to. The experience was somewhat ruined though as they were so unorganised with the elevators it took us half an hour just queueing to get out!

We then went to Giordano's across the road which serves Deep Dish or Stuffed Pizza, a Chicago creation and tradition. We ordered a cheese and pepperoni pie. My god, it was impossible that we could finish the "small" pizza because of its richness but it was fun trying.

We then hopped on another hop on hop off bus to head to the Shedd Aquarium which is in the Field Museum complex, and across the road from Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears (BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!). On that bus we were asked the dumbest question we've faced in the US - "Are Australia and New Zealand actually separate, or are they the same place?"

I don't know if we're aquariumed out, but I didn't much enjoy the aquarium. I think it felt like it had everything to be good, but it kind of ended up half assed. Eg if you're going to have a show where dolphins and Beluga whales do tricks, have them actually do tricks, rather than it be an education piece on how you train them with whistles. It also didn't feel like it had a lot of animals, eg there were 6 penguins and two otters.

We then met a friend I've made on the internet for dinner which was lovely. I was terrified especially as I had been near killed by humidity so looked absolutely hideous, but Ginger was lovely and very easy to talk to.  We dragged her around shopping for a while, and then went to the Flat Top Grill for dinner where we were joined by her husband. Cool place where you create your own stir fry, the sort of place I wish we had in Adelaide. It was really nice to be out and about rather than just back in the hotel. Tomorrow we're meeting up again for dinner and a movie. Social lives are fun.

Talk to you all tomorrow!

Everything I Know About Chicago I Learned From ER.

Did you ever see that episode of ER with Ewan McGregor? Damn that was awesome. Oh and the episode where Carter was stabbed, and he fell to the ground, looked over and Lucy was dying on the floor next to him...wow. Man when that show was good, it was fantastic.

Anyhoo, for some reason, despite having been to Chicago before all I could remember of Chicago was that I'd been to Old Navy, and reference points from ER and Ferris Bueller's. (Mind you where the heck isWrigley Field? Oh and hang on Wrigley Field makes me think of Perfect Strangers. Let us all do the Dance of Joy!)

Oh, yeah something about Chicago... Firstly let me say that Philadelphia airport sucks. As do most US airports I've been in, except for my beloved McCarran Airport in Vegas.

So we arrived at Chicago about 2pm, was able to check in immediately to our hotel which was nice. Our hotel is just off the Magnificent Mile, which feels like Chicago's version of Fifth Avenue, and just near Tiffany's and Burberry... <insert evil laugh>.

From the flight over and the taxi ride in, we worked out that Chicago is unbelievably massive. We can't comprehend it, so we went for a quick orientation walk to clear our heads. The John Hancock Center Observatory was just down the road so we went up to the Observation Deck, which gave some great views and has a really great audio commentary tour. We realised that Chicago was indeed massive.

We hopped on a hop on hop off trolley tour just after, just to do a loop around (we'll hop on and hop off over the next two days) so we could further acquaint ourselves with the city. After thinking that we'd probably have too much time in Chicago, because it was just a big city, but instead we're exhausted and desperately trying to work out what we're going to do over the next few days.

To finish the day, we ended up at the Cheesecake Factory, because I have a "problem" with their Strawberry Lemonade" and frankly I needed a fix. Bad. Three giant glasses later, Aaron rolled me back to the hotel, and here I sit writing away with Storage Wars and now Dog the Bounty Hunter on in the background. Off to work out what we do tomorrow now.

Bye Philly.

Today was our version of relaxing by a pool or on a beach while on holiday, where we felt totally relaxed, but were still enjoying being out and about.

After our first real lie-in of the trip, we strolled into Center City, to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch (I adore their Twisted Chicken Mac and Cheese). We were reminded that the service in Hard Rock is always worse than most other eateries in the States, they clearly decide there that if you're not going to spend up big, they should move you through fast. That said, they do a fantastic chocolate mousse.

For those who know me well, they'll know that I have a strange phobia of the Statue of Liberty (the Statue itself is fine, but I am deeply bothered by any alterations, or imitations of it etc). Well I've realised I have a new nemesis, the giganto statue of William Penn on the top of Philadelphia's City Hall. It's freaking terrifying, and I am quite convinced tonight it will attack me while I sleep.

http://gened.temple.edu/philadelphia-arts-and-culture-f2010/2010/11/05/alexander-calder-city-hall/

After taking photos in Logan Square of the Love Statue with the "Rocky Steps" in the background, we stopped into Macy's so I could buy jeans to replace the ones I broke.

We then walked back to the hotel because it was so humid here, we needed to cool down. We finished our afternoon by heading off to Franklin Square for historic Philadelphia themed mini-golf. I was victorious. (Duh, because I'm awesome.)

The day has been finished with a cheesesteak, and now we're packing in readiness to head off to Chicago tomorrow. Exciting! We feel totally satisfied with Philadelphia, we don't have a need to ever come back, but we certainly had a good time here :)