The Sometimes Football Soapbox

America Fuck YEAH!!!!!!

2012-02-10T13:09:00.001-08:00

America F$ck yeah Part II

Day 75 (cont’d)

A reasonably pleasant flightacross the country and landed in Los Angeles without hiccup. It was too good tobe true, and our cab drive quickly introduced what would be an ongoing trend,cabs in L.A. are rubbish! But after the most confusing conversations of ourtrip (and they were in English!) we managed to find our apartment. Great place,trippy art work… you be the judge…

Crazy weed art work...

Home sweet home in LA! West Hollywood, the safest suburb in LA

First night in LA was arendezvous with Jaide and Rowan on their last night of holidays! We had drinks,awesome Indian, and some more drinks back at their hotel bar (at the CrownePlaza) which would also show us another on-going trend, full of Aussies!

Day 76

Not really having any concreteplans for our time in L.A. we spent thenext day out at Santa Monica Beach just chilling. The weather had really turned it onfor us, blue skies, sunshine and a 0% humidity 28 degC was just amazing!Unfortunately the water was freezing so even though we packed the swimmers wedidn’t manage to get in the water.

The pier at Santa Monica

Some people stand in the darkness... afraid to step into the light *slow motion*

Afternoon shopping with thebeautiful people, and the crazy people around Santa Monica. Dinner was also inthe shopping mall at Santa Monica at Cabo Mexican. A chain restaurant butawesomely cheap 2for1 margaritas and good cheap Mexican! Unfortunately thewhole concept of tipping regardless of quality really annoys me. The servicewas bad, but I was still obliged to tip the waitress, as some one who tips whenappropriate anyway it’s a bit rich. She did look like Penny from The Big BangTheory so I suppose it wasn’t a total waste! Anyway our economy is gold so Ishouldn’t complain!

Arty sunset at Santa Monica

Day 77

On the advice of Jaide and Rowanwe signed up for a combined Star’s houses/Universal Studio tour. Whilst whetheror not the stars actually live in the houses they allegedly own, it is worth itjust to see some of the awesome cribs that are in the Hollywood hills! Amazing!

Some nice home in the Hollywood Hills

Tony Stark's house from Ironman... not actually on the beach...

The tour drops you back atUniversal for the afternoon and we had a ball. Highlights were the Simpsons 4Dride (even though I discovered 4D rides make me motion sick, roller coastersnot so much, weird!), the famous back lot tour and the Jurassic park ride!

Obvious...

The happiest place on earth!

The back lot tour is reallyinteresting, with Universal being one of the few studios still with a largeback lot and hence lots of things have and are shot there. It’s interesting tosee the places from so many movies and tv shows pointed out to you. A recentfire which destroyed the original ‘town square’ means that the façade that wasa part of my child hood in the Back to the Future franchise is now the moremodern town square from the Ghost Whisper. I spose Jennifer Love Hewit isbetter looking than Doc Brown, but still…

After a massive day it was dinnerat the local at the end of our street which was delicious!

Redhead beach? no the Jaws set!

Wysteria lane (desperate house wives) complete with fake Bentley

Me and the guys from Apollo 13

Day 78

The world sporting tour continuedand it was off to a Lakers game at the Staples Centre against the Golden StateWarriors. Despite a rocky start where they informed us that we couldn’t bringour larger DSLR lens into the game, we had to check it in, our seats werebrilliant and the Lakers won comfortably in the end. Katrina even got to dosome star spotting with Jack Nickelson, Charlize Theron and the cleaner fromscrubs, all in attendance! The NBA is really a spectacle with the players, thestars, the crowd, the introductions and the hottest cheerleaders seen to date!

Live from the Staples Centre!!! Tourists!

The hottest cheerleaders of the world tour, thank you Laker girls!

Kobe, being Kobe

Day 79

Our last day in L.A. started byus picking up our car for our future road trip and spent the day shopping onRodeo Drive and generally just cruising around L.A. Katrina did pick up a verynice pair of PRADA glasses on Rodeo drive. A trip to the Nike store was also onthe cards as well, Nike (and addidas for that matter) gear is ridiculouslycheap!

Rodeo Drive, complete with Prada bag!

On the recommendation of Lee andSheree our last night was spent enjoying Mr Chow’s famous Chinese in Hollywood.It was awesome. The service was great and worth the tip!

Day 80

It was Vegas Baby! We had todetour past the general LAX area to check our bags into a storage place (if youever at LAX, note there is no luggage check at the airport itself, apparentlycommon in post 9/11 US airports). We had decided to drive out to Vegas, but tobe honest, it’s pretty boring, long straight roads through sparsely vegetated kindof dessert like countryside on the otherhand cheaper than the flights!

We arrived at the Palazzo notknowing what to expect, and when I checked in late (after Katrina) and thereceptionist said I’d be in ‘suite’ whatever, I thought, come on mate, it’sjust a room. No actually I was wrong, it was a suite! 3 tvs! A little loungeroom, a bedroom and a massive bathroom! Electronic blinds, automaticallycharging mini bar, gold!

Our Suite at the Pallazo

Our first night in Vegas wasspent celebrating Troy and Peta’s engagement with them and Mitch and Elle. Weate, we drank, we gambled! Katrina and I had the most amazing, and expensive,steak known to man, rib eye on the bone, cooked to perfection. We partied, atthe end of the day that’s what Vegas is for…

Day 81

Day 2 in Vegas was more of thesame, Katrina spent the day ‘resting’ (read: being hung over) in bed while Ihad brunch with newly engaged couple. The night time was consumed by anotherfine meal at the Palazzo, a cirque du Soleil performance of ‘Love’ to the musicof the Beatles a quick walk up to the Bellagio fountain and through some of theother Casinos for comparison. Then we ventured back to the Palazzo for moregambling…..

The Paris, from the Bellagio Fountains

One by one I lost everyone else,first Katrina, then Mitch, and before I knew it I’d won, and subsequently lostabout $700, over tipped the waitress frequently and as a consequence ended upheavily intoxicated. By this time of morning, about 8am, trying to sleep wouldbe foolish…

Day 82

Returning to the room Katrinainformed me she wasn’t getting up for another half an hour so I laid downclothed, and passed out for half an hour. What was to follow was the toughestleg of our journey. A flight to San Fran which I slept through, a killer hangover building throughout the day!

Katrina saved me from the inconvenienceof being hung over on public transport and decided to hire a car to get usaround SF for 2 days. The afternoon was spent trying to find a Maccas, readearlier statement about hang over, but instead ending up down at the ferryterminal and having an awesome GOTS burger! Nearly an instant hang over cure!

Off to Oakland to meet up withDanielle, we beat her home from work so hung out in down town Oakland beforecrashing at her place. She took us out for a lovely dinner at a local Italianplace in an up and coming neighbourhood (read: use to be dodge). She alsohelped us plan a pretty compressed site seeing tour of SF for the 1 day we had!

Day 83

Knowing we only had one day toenjoy the best of San Fran, it started early with an awesome Segway tour of theharbour area. Having seen Segway tours throughout our journey, and decidingthey were lame, we took Danielle’s advice and actual did one! It was totallyfreaking awesome! We had a perfect day which helped, but they are great fun,easy to master, and our tour guide was quite good!

Segways with Alcatraz in the back ground!

Segway tour down it was lunch at the Pier at the Fisherman’s Warf before heading down to the Alcatraz tour. Theafternoon was spent out at Alcatraz exploring the island and the old cellblock. The audio tour of the cell block is quite good and has some interestinglittle tid bits of information. As wewere leaving the boat arrived with caterers etc for some kind of launch partyfor the new TV series of Alcatraz, no stars were spotted.

I tried to shut the door... just kidding...

Art at Alcatraz...

Having one last SF highlight totick off the list it was a trolley ride up to Union Square. What I didn’trealise is that SF has trams but also the famous trolleys, which are actuallypulled by an underground cable, they are a bit of a rough ride, but look cooland old and serve their tourist purpose well!

Trolley rides bitches!

The evening was spent, youguessed it, Shopping! Levi Strauss was from SF and hence the Levi store here is4 storeys high. Additionally there was a radical sale on and we walked out with4 pairs of Levi’s for $89! Amazing. Apparently he was a tent maker and when thegold rush took off in 1849 (hence the SF 49ers!) the miners were complainingthat their clothes tore too easily. So Levi decided to make them out of thesame material he made tents out of, hence the rivet like studs that are stillfound on jeans today! (thanks Segway tour guide!).

Danielle met us in the CBD and wewent out to another amazing restaurant in the ‘hipster’ part of town. The foodwas amazing, and the company even better!

Dinner with D!

Day 84

Danielle sent us off withbreakfast and some directions to get us back to the airport via the Golden Gatebridge. So a quick stop off at Golden Gate Park a photo shoot and back to theairport.

Doesn't need caption...

We had a few hours to kill inL.A. so it was out to Venice Beach home of one of our favourite fictionalcharacters, Hank Moody (Californication), to get our Chakra aligned and have aspa treatment.

The twilight of our journey...

This was it! The day we’d beendreading for 12 weeks, time to go home. Having travelled approximately 52,458kilometres, 84 days, a long forgotten budget, approximately 45 kg mailed home,another 25kg in extra luggage cominghome and the best experience of our lives to date it was finally over.

The trip!

It may have taken me 3 weekssince we got back, but that’s it for the blog. I have an idea brewing of theinaugural Bennett travel awards, for outstanding achievement, in the field ofexcellence, however we’ll see how next week is at work. Thanks to everyone whohas read, dismissed, ignored, encouraged, discouraged this blog along the way.Despite being time consuming it has been a labour of love, I think the firstand the last 3 posts being the most enjoyable due to initial excitement andthen these 3 being able to relive after it was all over…

All our Love

M&K

Let's hear it for Neeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww YYYYOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKK!!!

2012-02-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

America… F&*k Yeah! Part 1

Day 71

Well as mentioned Day 71 wasspent in transit and knowing that we had a very tight turn around in order toenable us to attend the New Era PinstripeBowl (brought to us by New Era, they love their sponsorships!). Navigatingthe infamous border protection at JFK was surprisingly easy, a finger printscan, a friendly officer chat about our extravagant honeymoon and we were in!

Onto the Long Island Light Rail(LIRR) to Penn Station and a very convenient 2 block walk to W32nd and theStanford Hotel. Great location, nothing flash but clean and recommended (at NewYear time, accommodation in NYC is highway robbery!). We were pushing it timewise so it was into a yellow cab to Yankee stadium and our first (of many)encounters with a New York stereotype. Our lovely female African American cabdriver asked us where to, Yankee Stadium we replied. “Yaaaankeeeeee stadium, there ain’t! no baseball on!, what theheeeeeell! you want to go to Yaaaankeee stadium for!” Well there’s afootball game on out there… “Football! AtYaaannkeee stadium! I ain’t neverheard of no! football at Yaaankeee stadium! and I used to live in the Bronx!”.This along with a conversation about why we’d come to New York for New Yearsand we weren’t spending it in Times Square “everybodycomes to Times Square, you tellin me you come all the way to New York, and youain’t even gonna go to Times Square on New Years! Damn!” immediatelyendeared this city to us. GOLD!!!!!!

On to the game itself, amazing!We missed the first quarter but it was only 7-3 and still plenty of game to go!The College Football post season is a series of ‘bowl’ games that have varioustraditional rivals or fixed ranked teams playing each other. The Pinstripeisn’t the most glamourous by a long way, but Yankee stadium (even the new one)is pretty special and the spectacle of the game is worth it. Rutgers ended upin front beating Iowa State 27 to 13, although it was closer 17 – 13 going intothe 4^th quarter. Katrina particularly enjoyed the two marching bandswho had ‘band offs’ throughout the game with Iowa state (the pride of Iowastate apparently) performing a pretty intricate routine at half time!American’s can definitely do sport!

Katrina admiring her fellow flag twirlers...

Iowa state QB releases from deep in the pocket

After the game it was a shorttrain ride back into mid-town and a look at Times Square. Even on New Years EveEve (think about it!) it was crazy, with a large area already set up for themedia contingent and rumours of Gaga there for a rehearsal (hard to believe).

Wow, look at the lights!!

Some things can you make you smile anywhere in the world!

Day 72

Next morning it was down toGround Zero to visit the 9/11 site. We didn’t realise that due to the on-goingconstruction of ‘freedom tower’ you require a pass to get down to the memorial.Demand was crazy and we were unable to get our hands on one for the wholeduration of out stay in New York. We did have a look at the ‘museum’ which waspretty emotional. The model of the finished freedom tower complex looks likeits going to be impressive, and the personal stories that are contained thereare moving to say the absolute least. The construction site itself holdsbanners with the nationality of all the workers who are currently on site andthere in pride of place is Sydney!

Next up the Staten Island Ferry,which is free and takes you out past Ellis Island (processing site of all theemigrants who came to New York back in the day) and Liberty Island home to the330 foot lady (“This giant women willdevour us all!” for the Simpsons fans out there!). Can highly recommend itrather than queuing for hours, and having to pay, on the Liberty Island tours.You also get a great city skyline view on both legs of the tour for free! Ohhang on its all free…

The giant lady did not devour us all...

Us on the ferry, NYC blur in the background

Back to Manhatten and a work uppast wall street, closed being new years eve and a Saturday. A late lunch ofyum cha (good solid food to party on) in Chinatown and a stroll through littleItaly, up past the ‘iron’ shaped building in SoHo. Then it was a rest beforeour new years eve really began!

Print it, put it on your wall, i'll sign it if you like!

Our club of choice was the BryantPark Grill located at the New York State Library, in Bryant Park funnilyenough. A few blocks back from Times Square we were hoping for less crowds anda good party. By pure co-incidence Pete Duncan and his girlfriend Alex were inNew York as well and managed to get tickets to the same event. Katrina and Igot the VIP treatment on arrivial, quickly discovered that American open barsfree pour (STRONG!) and then met up with Alex and Pete.

The last sober moment of the night

Scene Missing…

The party crew!... drunk...

Maybe you can ask this guy? Hangon… who is this guy?

We have no idea who this guy is...

Day 73

The hang over form hell. Newyears day is always a killer, but when you have limited time in New York andforce yourself to do stuff its even worse. First I had the pleasure ofexplaining to Katrina how she left without telling anyone, without any id ormoney and then proceeded to lock me out of our hotel room! After Pete, Alex andI had searched the club for her for over an hour!

First stop was Grant CentralTerminal. American’s appear to love trains as well as sport! A magnificentbuilding, cool acoustic whispering dome thing, great mural on the ceiling, andthe scene of countless rom coms!

Grand Central!

Central Park to stretch the legsan attempt to cure the hang over. A bit drab in Winter without snow, no leaveson trees, no fountains etc (for fear of freezing I guess) but still impressive.Great Vision by that guy who planned it into the city layout. Ticked off theboat house, again rom coms, sex in the city etc, and then finished our wanderback through 5^th Avenue.

The boat house... beware of thin ice? beware of no ice?

And that was all we could manage,back to the room for take away chinese, from little Korea, and an early night!

Day 74

Hang over almost gone, it wasstraight up the Empire State in the morning, conveniently located on the backside of the block we were staying. We did both the viewing levels but probablycould of done just the main observation deck, (also the scene of many romanticdramas). Then off to Rockafella Centre to go the NBC store and buy Panthers(Friday Night Lights) merchandise. Oh yeah we checked out some Xmas tree andice rink whilst there…

View towards freedom tower from the Empire state

Friday night lights y'all!

Back to Times Square for dinnerand a show. Dinner the most massive steak house meal I’ve ever seen! We shareda plate that was for one, and it was out of control. The show we could gettickets to was Chicago. Going to admit it, not a fan of musicals, wasn’t somuch Chicago itself was more just musicals in general. Katrina may havesomething to add…

Shopping much?

Some Americans need to learn not to eat things bigger than their heads! that is a meal for one...

Katrina before the show

Chicago was amazing. The setalong with the dance and singing quality was inspiring. We had great seats andit is such a pity Mark doesn’t appreciate the arts….:)

Day 75

Back on the LIRR, back to JFK,back on a plane… no snakes on the plane…

To be continued…

Window Shopping... For all I want for Christmas...

2012-01-16T02:31:00.000-08:00

Day 60

An early arrival into Amsterdammeant that we had to wait for our room but we filled the time with some Skypeand general internet love. The city hotel was a score, cheap(ish) 50 EUR anight and right in the heart of the city. This day was spent wandering arounddoing not much, just enjoying the architecture, canals and shopping (ofcourse!). Another pair of biscuits to the collection, lots of tulips, cheese,food, ‘cafes’ and a ridiculous amount of shoe shops greeted our wanderings.

What's better than chocolate? Chocolate boobs...

Not really having any must do’swe wandered quite happily not doing much except for a visit to the Anne Frankhouse/museum. They have converted the old factory where the Frank family hidinto a tribute/museum of sorts although the actual hide out part of it remainsunfurnished at the request of the father (the only survivor). It is a prettydeep and moving experience with a tragic end in that Anne her sister and hermother all perished only a month (ish) before the liberation.

Anne Frank Monument outside the house

A quiet night time stroll ‘windowshopping’ through the red light district revealed that the ladies of the nightwere much more attractive than expected, some of them were down right hot!Retiring a couple of blocks back for a nice meal of tapas was a good way tore-live our great time in Spain! Ha ha!

Day 61

Our only full day in Amsterdamstarted with a trip down to the “Amsterdam” sign to dodge all the othertourists trying to get photos in front of it. It is located next to a beautiful(winter only I assume) ice rink and lovely park and skate park (see pictures ofme shredding!).

Where is Katrina?

Some kids stole my board...

Then it was onto the CanalBus tosee the city from the water, back up and around the main train station and hopoff on at one of the last surviving windmills in town. A long stroll down to a‘new’ trendy section of town with a snake bridge and the only area in Amsterdamwhere residents were allowed to individually design there terrace frontage(everything else is strictly set out by the Town Planners).

The snake bridge...

The only individual designed frontages in Amsterdam

The night was spent with yetanother group of travelling Aussies, Adam Cain and two of his mates, dinner atthe English pub below our hotel and an evening bar hopping in and around thered light district, good times!

Day 62

Back onto a high speed train (themost expensive high speed of our trip!) and back to Paris. Despite Katrina’s dislikeof the French we seem to always end up passing through the French capital.After meeting up with Amanda who had very kindly arranged her guest rooms ather apartment block for us, it was back into the city to see Woo and Burgs!With us all having already been tourists we shopped (for a change!) andwandered pretty aimlessly around La Fayette galleries.

Dinner was back to our newfavourite Moroccan Restaurant in the 18^th quarter to show Woo andBurgs how good it was! When you’re on to a good thing you should really stickto it!

Burgs, Woo and I just down the road from the Moroccan restaurant

Day 63

After a much needed sleep in,Amsterdam was tough, Amanda took us into the Christmas markets at La Defense toeat, browse, and generally get into the spirit of Christmas. The biggest scorewasn’t very Christmassy, refillable pods for our Nespresso machine! Score!Lunch and afternoon tea at La Defense and after Amanda made some calls to herboyfriend our night was planned as well!

They had arranged for us toattend one of the biggest night clubs in Paris. It certainly was impressive andcoupled with our ‘VIP’ entry was a nice way to dance away the night (sansalcohol for myself! Amsterdam was tough…) A 2am finish was late enough for usgiven we had a 6am start to get to Zermatt!

Day 64

It was beginning to look a lotlike Christmas! 3 Trains across the French/Swiss border, a 3 minute transfersuccessfully made and before we knew it we were on the Glacier Express up intoZermatt to meet the parents (lamb, beef and chicken in cold bag in tow). We metthe parents who had arrived an hour early at our apartment which was amazing, aperfect little postcard picture covered in snow!

A trip with all and sundry intotown revealed what we had suspected, Zermatt was perfect! Seriously, no carsallowed, only little electric taxis whizz back and forth, everything snowcovered and tall pines, it was truly amazing.

Not much good for high speed chases, but you find me a cooler police vehicle!

Day 65 to 70

Christmas was spent with all theparents in said apartment and up on the mountain. Again a day by day formatwould just bore everyone (and I’d like people to enjoy the last few blogs!) soI’ll just rattle off some highlights and stick up some photos!

Postcard perfect! The view from our chalet

Christmas Eve brought snow andour first trip up the mountain was hindered to start with and cut short by saidsnow, visibility was low, and not a very good first introduction for Ian &Lyn who had only ever skied 30 years previous! It was nice to get a fresh topup on the mountain however. Luckily for us as well, Santa managed to locate us,although he did forget to be secretive at all!

Santa taking it easy

Christmas Day and much to Mum’sdisgust Dad and I hit the mountain for half a day to what was probably our bestday! Everyone was inside enjoying their families company and presents whichmeant the slopes were pretty much deserted! Amazing. A bit about the mountainwhile I’m here, the Zermatt resort is 3 areas with a reciprocal passarrangement with a 4^th Italian resort over the top of the mountain.All overlooked by the world famous Matterhorn, and the highest lifted pointabout 3800m putting our Australian snow fields to shame (and also inducing aslight feeling of altitude sickness at the top!). Mainly enclosed lifts, with ascattering of 6 seaters, quads and a few T-bars, makes it most accessible,great snow (maybe not as good as Japan, but pretty close!) and a good mixtureof beginning, intermediate, advanced groomed, and advanced non-groomed runs!

The Swiss/Italian Border at 3480m!

Katrina Shredding in front of the Matterhorn!

Dad Shredding up the mountain!

Christmas day afternoon was spentenjoying a baked Christmas meal with the family minus the Dubbo Bennett’s andthe Mansfield Boys who were all sorely missed. Well prepared by the ‘Mums’,complemented by some Katrina Bennett egg nog, and over indulged in by most!

Christmas 'dinner'

The rest of the week was spent skiing,shopping, eating and drinking. Plenty of all was done. A trip by everyone up tothe 3800m summit for lunch was most enjoyable with Katrina, Dad and I skiingback down into the Zermatt resort. Katrina, Dad and I also managed a day tripacross the border to enjoy some new runs, gnocchi and Bolognese!

Snow angels out the front

The boys after a hard day skiing

Ian and Lyn managed to ‘refresh’their skiing from 30 odd years earlier, surprisingly Ian’s knee held up, andapart from some bumps and bruises, I think, had a good time.

The Swiss food in Zermatt wasamazing, with beautiful Rosti, fondue and even some potatoes and raucqlettecheese (a Bennett family favourite!). An evening trip to the Verve Cliquoe barwas also a hit with all, complete with completely frozen bar, bottle ofChampagne and shots of vodka.

Senior Bennetts at the Verve bar

Mansfields at the same bar

Dinner at the pub across from our chalet

An amazing week was had by all,it was nice to share a white Christmas with the parents, and the skiing waswell worth the trip. Katrina had to leave a night early to be in Zurich earlyenough for our flight on the 30^th. We headed back to an old faithfulin the Radisson Blu, and weren’t disappointed by another wine tower, greatfood, and absolute proximity to the terminals.

One of the wine angels performing on the wine tower!

Day 71 (I think)

I’ve assumed all the way throughthese blogs that I’ve got my counting right in terms of days, but to give you aframe of reference, day 71 should’ve been the 30^th of December. Itwas on board a flight to New York City… To be continued…

All our Love

M&K

B.O.N. England

2011-12-28T12:35:00.000-08:00

Hopefully this latest post goesto ‘print’ on Christmas Eve, so firstly a very Merry Christmas, SeasonsGreetings, Happy Holiday, Happy Honokaa, etc. etc. to all! Personally we are ona train to Zermatt to meet our families for Christmas and hopefully enjoy awhite Christmas on the slopes. Although to be honest with you, we just boardeda train that we’re not 100% sure will take us to Visp to facilitate said tripto Zermatt…

For those of you not up with mypoor French title, Bon England is French (well bad French, because yes I knowit should be Bon Angleterre, but that would be even more confusing!) for goodEngland, and this post happens to cover Bath,Oxford and Newcastle. So let’s get started…

Day 54

After picking up an absolutelylovely Peugeot 3008 from down Putney way, it was off into the unknown with onlya little old GPS to guide us. To be honest with you I don’t know how peopledon’t use one of these in foreign countries, even with English road signs it isso much easier and less stressful for the driver (me) and I could not begin toestimate the amount of fights it avoided! We had a vague list of things to doin 3 days, Stone Henge, Bath, Oxford and Windsor.

We arrived at Stonehenge to somevery threating skies and a howling wind that ripped across those rolling hillsso violently I thought it would raise the dead from one of the many burrowsthat pocketed the countryside. Despite this and only having the one chance webraved it and wandered around the site, audio guide in hand. There really isn’tmuch to see except for a more close up view of what you can see from the road,however the heritage society do their best to pad out the guide withinteresting theories/myths etc. about how and why the henge exists. Cool rocks,and amazing that they are so old and how they got there without the tools eventhe medieval builders would later use is amazing, but still… just rocks.

The "rocks"... with rainbow

Back to the warmth of the car andit was on to Bath which has been on Katrina’s to do list since the inception ofthis trip, but when questioned as to why, she had no idea! Arriving in theafternoon we scored a very nice B&B in the centre of Bath for two nights.Dinner at the oldest house in Bath including old school ‘trencher’ bread didwell to remove the cold that had seeped in to our bones at Stonehenge!

Our B&B ...

Day 55

Waking to our first morning ofsnow, however brief, was quite a treat, with the small square where our B&Bwas located, briefly hidden behind some large white snow flakes! Unfortunatelyit wasn’t to last and quickly turned to rain/sleet which made our walking tourthat morning all the more brisk! The Mayor of Bath runs free walking tourseveryday of the year except Christmas and New Years and are run by old retiredpeople to stretch the legs I think. Our guide was good and we covered all thebig ticket items, the outside of the Baths, the Circus, the royal crescent andmy personal favourite, Bennett St! It gave us a good orientation for anafternoon spent wandering and shopping.

Royal Crescent

... Obvious ...

The river

But not before an audio tour ofthe inside of the Roman Baths, complete with every little detail you couldpossibly want to know. Please note if your interested in these details, allowyourself a day to do this tour, we spend about an hour and a half there andglossed over the ‘additional information’ sections!

The Roman Baths

Dinner that night was a treat atJamie Oliver’s Italian, in Bath. Jamie himself wasn’t there unfortunately, butthe food was simple, good, Italian and the wine was red (we’re not fussy!). Thechefs definitely did Mr Oliver’s name justice and I highly recommend a table ifyour in Bath. They don’t take day time bookings so you can just rock up of anight time, have a drink while you wait for a table. Although we didn’t have towait at all, and the only people who did were groups of 4+ from what I couldsee.

Day 56

Wanting to check out the ‘Cotswolds’we headed north(ish) and called in at Castle Combe which we discovered wasnothing other really than a photographers dream. Apart from that this tinyvillage was pretty dead at this time of year with us sharing the main ‘street’with a few telecom crews being the only highlight.

The happening city of Castle Combe...

Next stop was Malmesbury whereafter visiting the church we stopped at the tourist information centre wherethe guy told us that the only thing to do here was visit the church. Easy,done, back on the road!

On toward Oxford we drove butdetoured to Cirencester where we stopped for lunch and a wander through theirlittle village. Lunch was a beautiful pub meal located next to an awesomelittle private book store where Katrina finally bought something not shit toread that will last her more than a week! (sorry had to get that out!)Shantaram…great read if anyone is looking for a new book!

Arriving in Oxford we scored yetanother lovely B&B by turning up at the tourist office and seeing what wasavailable. We were too tired really to do much else so we had dinner at thelocal pub and had an early night. I thought my Man Flu was making a return soneeded a good sleep!

The local...

Day 57

We had an absolutely packed itineraryto get through on our way back to London for a night time train to Newcastle soit was go go go! A morning walking tour of Oxford was really interesting andcovered all sorts of information about how all colleges work and admissions etc.,along with entry to one of the colleges and the main university library. OxfordUniversity is a collective of 36(?) colleges in the town and as such are spreadout throughout; they only come together for special guest lectures and at examand graduation times. If you see someone rocking an Oxford University hoodie,they are a tourist as all the students rep their colleges in the choice ofclothing. A bite to eat on the run and it was a rush to Windsor Castle beforea) they shut and b) we had to return the car.

One of the colleges

The library at above college

Windsor for me is the mostimpressive of the tourist items in and around London, I think mainly owing to itsconstant upkeep at the residence of Queen Elizabeth II (and Prince Charlesofficially, still lives at home with his mum… no wonder people want him to abdicate!).Another site another audio tour which covers the grounds, the royal apartments(these are majorly impressive and you’ve got to wonder whether the private onesare more or less so, would they be more extravagant or would they tone it downwhen people have to live there?) and the cathedral. A recent (early 90’s) firehas led the refurbishment of a large part of the royal apartments and this onlyads to their appeal as they have been very recently restored/improved.

Windsor gate

Getting my revenge for sending my relatives to Australia for petty crime... oh hang on... thanks for that!

The honeymooners outside the chapel

Heading back into London we gotmajor traffic jam, but not on the main freeways. It took us nearly an hour togo about 4km’s from the exit to the Europcar depot at Putney, one lane two waystreets causing absolute chaos! All that was left then was a short 3 hour trainride to Newcastle…

We couldn’t of been more wrong,whilst I’m sure it was only 3 hours, it felt like 3 days with a group of 8young Celtic fans making their way back from a Europa league game/bender who regaledus with such hits as “If you’re not topless you’re not Celtic, ole ole!” at thetop of their drunken lungs for the whole journey. After that it was almost arelief to stand a cab line at Newcastle station for 30 minutes with all theother quiet drunks, including the ‘Emirates co-pilot’ in front of me whomistook me for his mate. “where are we going?” don’t know mate, “what are wewaiting for” it’s a taxi rank, you’re waiting for a cab, “I’m f&%king sickof this S%$t, where are we going seriously?” It’s a cab rank, I suggest you geta cab home, “I don’t know where I am or where I’m staying”… luckily to ladiestook him off my hands and put him in a cab home. Just like being at home inNewcastle…

Day 58

Having spent the night in thecomparative luxury (compared to our standard hotel choices) of the Staybridgesuites, it was a wander of the quayside and a visit to the new-castle (thetoon’s namesake) before heading to the game! This time the game won’t get itsown match report due to a) my laziness and b) a reasonably frustrating gamewhich finish nil all.

The river and one of many bridges

The new castle...

Top of the castle with St James Park in background

A few highlights in lieu,Coloccini’s header missing narrowly wide (see photo), total domination byNewcastle for much of the game winning a phenomenal amount of corners andlimiting Swansea to one half chance late on, an awesome bicycle kick from DembaBa and the amazing pre-match tribute to Gary Speed. Our tickets were alsogreat, good view of the game and also access to the “Platinum Club” before,during half time and after the game where you can actually have a real,alcoholic beer! A disappointing result, but better 1 point than none, and somegood football none the less.

A very happy Toons fan!

Collocini heads wide

Dinner consisted of happy hourcocktails at the local Latin restaurant before a curry and bed. This bedcourtesy of Michael Barwick and Stephanie Jasper which we were mostappreciative of, thanks again guys!

thanks Bob and Steph!

Day 59

Not having enough Toon action itwas back to St James’ Park for the stadium tour and a spot of shopping. Despitestill being dirty from match day, the tour was really interesting with apersonal guide who was an employee of the club taking us around the facilitiesand through the sheds etc. I didn’t realise it is the 3^rd largestleague ground behind Old Trafford and the Emirates, and one of the largestconference centre’s in England. They rely heavily on corporate sponsorshipalthough there is still some bitterness towards those who jumped ship when theydropped to the Championship, our guide was one of the many Geordie’s who was ecstaticthat we were able to bounce straight back, saving further money and job losses!Definitely a ‘people’s’ club and this was evident from the way the tours wererun, to the friendliness and knowledge of our guide.

The same happy Toons fan!

Many pounds later we left theToon shop and headed back to the Latin restaurant for lunch (we couldn’t get atable the night before). Then off to board the DFDS ferry to Amsterdam. I was abit apprehensive about an overnight long haul ferry ride, but apart from eatingtoo much at the buffet dinner and making myself ill, there was really no downside. It served as our night’s accommodation in small but comfortable bunk bedsand dinner and breakfast were ok without being amazing. So it was we arrived inAmsterdam on the morning of Day 60…

(and by the way, it was the righttrain!)

All our Love

M&K

London Calling

2011-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

So I’ve found some similaritiesbetween London and Barcelona; We stayed a week in each; we rented an apartmentin each (rather than a hotel); I won’t be writing a day by day blog for London(just like Barcelona), and; that’s it. Ok they’re not similar at all, but itwas a good starting point to explain the format of this post! So it will coverdays 46 to 53, touch on the main sites and experiences. (the post is beingwritten on route from Newcastle to Amsterdam via ferry so if the pictures looka little green, it is simply a reflection of the authors current feelings!)

Our Apartment

Knowing that we had 8 nights inLondon Katrina managed to book us a studio apartment for the week which isalways nice to break up the site of hotel after hotel (or heaven forbid anotherPeace and Love Hostel!). Set on two,tiny, floors with a double bed and ensuite downstairs, a kitchenette and 2seater lounge and TV upstairs. It was small, but well heated and centrallylocated a 5 minute walk from Swiss Cottage Tube station (in Camden Town). Onecriticism was the noise, with common plumping through all the tiny apartmentsand paper thin front doors, everytime someone had a shower, used the toilet,used their front door, or the front door of the building, it sounded like theywere right there with you! It was contained in what is the Hollywood stereotype London building which was a nice touch for us tourists!

Our 'home' in Camden

London Tower

Lonely Planet will tell you thatif you pay (lots of big London sites are free!) for only one site in London, itshould be London Tower. Whilst I personally would disagree with this, it isdefinitely a great starting point for any visit, and indeed was the jump offpoint for us. Conveniently within sight of both the Tower and London bridges(Tower Bridge is the one I’m pretty sure most people think is London Bridge,see photos) the London Tower has been the seat of the English Monarchs sincebeing united under one king of England in about 1066 (English friends pleasefeel free to correct). It was originally a fortress, turned execution centre,turned gaol, turned treasury, turned mint, turned safe; turned touristattraction and safe! So in short it’s had a lot of use. Highlights probably theshit jokes of our tour guide (also a beefeater dude), seeing a small collectionof the crown jewels and the ‘boys toys’ armoury complete with interactivedisplays (favourite being drawing a long bow!).

The white tower, the original and centre of London Tower

Tower bridge and the nanook of the north

The white tower... arty...

Buckingham Palace

Unfortuantely no sign of the ‘oldgirl’ or ‘Kate and Wills’ however there was some visiting/exiting diplomat typepeople and a bit of the fanfare associated with them. One of the mostnoticeable things at the palace, and other royal places for that matter, is thelack of a gifts from Australia. Gifts from New Zealand are everywhere, nonefrom Australia. I don’t know whether I should be proud as a republican, ordisappointed that people from around the world miss out on being exposed to ourawesomeness by this lack of inclusion… Really the palace is a bit ‘meh’ it’s afence, a fountain and some dudes in funny hats, but another one off the Londontourist list! (And since Kate and Will’s Wedding it was nice to relive the dayand see where is all unfolded.)

Some royal shit going on...

Buckingham Palace...

St Jame’s Park (not the good one…)

Between Buckingham Palace andWestminster Abbey is the large and squirrel over populated park of St Jame’s.While infinitely less impressive than the real St Jame’s Park in Newcastle(home of the Toon), it is a pleasant attraction with a shite load of squirrels,water fowls and my arch nemesis geese! Not much to say, the squirrels are tame…

The park

Westminster Abbey

Home of the coronation ceremoniesof the royal family since, well forever, and the oldest and longest continualcoronation ceremony in Europe Westminster Abbey is all at once as impressive,and just the same, as all the big gothic cathedrals in Europe. Many monarchshave been baptised, confirmed, married and buried all within this onecathedral, most recently the marriage of Will and Kate. The church is also thehome to numerous tombs of not only royals but also others who have deemed tohave served the empire. Even more still whilst not actually buried here havememorial plaques, including Chaucer (my nemesis from extension English at highschool), Jane Austin (likewise nemesis) and the great Winston Churchill.

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

At one end of the houses ofparliament is ‘Big Ben’ most frequently mistaken for the clock tower. However‘Big Ben’ actually refers to the replacement bell that was installed after thecracking of the original one in the tower. It’s a clock, it tells the time,it’s a tower, and it’s tall…

The tower that holds big ben...

Shopping on Oxford St

Shopping on Oxford St this closeto Christmas is both a blessing and a curse! The Lights are pretty, theatmosphere is buzzing but the crowd is CRAZY! We had our first Topshop/Topmanexperience and I bought a new jacket to deal with the cold. Aside I’d packed plenty of jumpershowever jumpers are really not practical when you are constantly coming in andout of the cold, you need something to zip on/off more easily! We also had ourfirst Primark (Thanks to Felicity’s recommendadtion) experience which wasequally if not more so crazy as the street outside. People go absolutely nutsfor that shitie, 3 pound shirts/pyjamas/jumpers/anything, just cheap cheapcheap. It’s kind of like a fashionable (but still cheaper) target clothes! Myone criticism is the repeatativeness of all the stores, you cannot go more than2 blocks without another Topshop, or H&M or similar and everything is mainlybig chain stores rather than anything unique. Having said that, a day spent onOxford st you could easily knock over your Christmas shopping with pretty muchsomething for everyone!

Trafalgar Square and the National Portrait Gallery

Trafalgar square was buzzing andwe scored a beautiful day to wander around. Currently home to one of theOlympic countdown clocks and the monument itself also containing a gift fromNew Zealand, again the Australian’s obviously absent! Not really much to seeother than a few happy snaps and then a wander into the National PortraitGallery which flanks one side of the square. There is currently a Da Vinciexhibition including the famous Last Supper however we were too late to scoretickets to it. We did get a nice view of the supper through the door however!Not being arty types, we are both engineers after all, we did a quick wander,Katrina directing us to a couple of famous Monet’s (pronounced Mo-net, likegangsta for more net) and it was back out to enjoy the rare sunshine!

The man himself, and some other guy on a horse...

The square, a giant lion (possibly Azlan or Jesus) and the National Portrait Gallery

St Peter’s (occupied)

The same afternoon it was off toSt Peter’s after Jaide and Rowan (see below) said that it was rad and heapscooler than Westminster Abby. Out the front (and blocking the exit as we’dlater find out) were that lovely bunch of hippies around the world known as the‘occupy’ movement. These particular hippies are lucky that our capitalist wayshave invented such things as thermal sleeping bags and wind proof camping tentsas otherwise their protest would be a freezing one. Avoiding the temptation toexplain to them that me going to work, (like their fellow Englishmen (andwomen) going to work, pays their (and their Australian counterparts) welfarepayments) we went into the church. Home to the arch-bishop guy of the Anglicanchurch and the centre of said faith, also home to the wedding of Prince Charlesand the late Dianna princess of Wales. It is definitely an impressive structurealthough it had to be re-built after The Blitz and hence is a modern buildingin an old style. Home of the tombs of all the previous Arch Bishop guys,Trafalgar himself, and numerous other friends of the church and recognisedgreat Brits. More still have remembrance plaques etc, especially in the cryptwhich runs underground the full length of the building. We did the long climbto the roof top for some impressive views and also experienced the ‘whisperinggalleries’ on the inside of the dome whereby one person whispering can be heardon the opposite side of the dome, pretty cool. (Katrina along with Jaide thinkWill and Kate should have got married there instead, but Katrina believes theywere trying to not copy due to the stigma associated with Kate being the nextDianna…’its definitely prettier’….)

St Peter's

What a view! London's alright too..

Portobello Road Markets, Notting Hill

After dinner with Kate (seebelow), she recommended a few weekend markets to check out, the first of whichwere the Portobello Road Markets in Notting Hill. As this had also beenrecommended by the Fletch we figured two people couldn’t be wrong! We were notdisappointed, a crazy busy ‘antiques’ market but home to beautiful fresh foodand other non antique goodies awaited us and we whisked away the afternoonbefore we knew it. We purchased an antique map amongst some other tourist typethings. Katrina also fell in love with a store called ‘All Saints’ which whilstlocated here is popular elsewhere as well, and purchased her Christmas leggingscomplete with reindeer. Lunch consisted of a huge Paella for Katrina and Isampled some random Mexican wrap thing.

Portobello rd Markets

Night out in Camden

Being so close to the trendy areaof Camden, and so close to Chris’ old local we couldn’t pass up a night outdown in Camden town. We even did the travellers thing of ‘saving’ and eatingdinner before we went out and had some pre-dinner drinks! Starting at Chris’local at his recommendation, The Elephant Head, where we were greeted by anabsolutely packed bar, Christmas revellers, and punks of Chris’ and HenryRollins’ generation. It was an eclectic mix of people and a great place for afew beers. Nicely topped off by an ‘old’ DJ spinning 7” vinyl classics! Thingskind of went down hill for me from there, we bar hopped our way back towardshome, Katrina stopped drinking, I started drinking her share I think.Definitely a happening area but feel much more comfortable there than otherplaces because we weren’t the oldest people out, nor the most under dressed!Thanks Camden, you’re rad!

Drinking at Chris' old local!

Brick Lane and Spittelfield Markets

Another one of Kate’srecommendations was to head out Brick lane markets and once again facebookconnected us with Ange who also mentioned Spittelfield while we were there!Lucky really because it was raining on and off and Spittelfield is under cover.More of the same generic wares at Spittelfield and a healthy mix of Vintageclothes at Brick Lane (please don’t get vintage confused with Retro, they aredifferent!) coupled with some awesome ‘ethnic’ (this is not racial, just a widevariety of different cuisenes were present!) food. Including an awesome currythat I proceeded to spill all over my new jacket, much to it’s detriment! Wecontinued our shopping, like we needed anything more to carry, and enjoyed aday out just cruising (and me recovering from Camden!) and met up with Kate forDinner.

Obviously...

London Eye

The London Eye was an odd one. Weknew we needed a nice clear day to enjoy it, but had also been warned off it,and recommended it in equal doses from friends and wellwishers. Our last day inLondon dawned with clear blue skies and glorious (for England) sunshine so wethrew caution to the wind and made for the eye. OK it’s just a giant Ferriswheel, but on the day we had it was truly amazing views, not too timeconsuming, and a nice way to spend our final morning high above the Thames.I’ll let the pictures do the talking here…

One of my arty views from the Eye

The eye from the ground

Churchill War Rooms

After the London Eye I leftKatrina to go get her hair done and headed for the Churchill War Rooms, theunderground command centre of Churchill and his War Cabinet during WW2. Thestory goes that once peace was finally secured in Europe, the war rooms weresimply tidied and then locked up. So in theory what you get is the map roomsetc as they were that day in 1945. In truth they have added wax models ofpeople, and a few other more ‘corny’ touches however the exerts of actualtranscripts received in the rooms etc make up for this. My personal favouriteis the first ever secure telephone line which linked with the White House,housed inside a fake toilet cubicle. The rumour goes that everyone else in therooms thought it was the only underground flushing toilet in the rooms andtherefore was strictly reserved for Churchill, however everytime he enteredthere he was actually calling the Presdient of the USA. Besides, who shits forthat long…

A more recent addition to the WarRooms is the Churchill Museum which chronicles Churchill’s life and has somereally cool interactive displays including, and the parents will love this, areal life working type writer! What’s that you may ask, well it’s like analogMicrosoft Word… In all seriousness there are some good multimedia touches and Ilearned a bit I didn’t know about Churchill including his part in planning theinfamous (at least for Australian’s) Gallipoli campaign which forced him toresign from the head of the Admirilaty, and the subsequent similar failure tokeep Norway free (although he dodged responsibility for this one, andChamberlin fell partially because of it). All in all a highly rewarding visitto a museum, Katrina would’ve been bored, but her new slightly darker hairlooks a treat!

Priscilla Queen of the Desert!

Felicity and Angela were niceenough to shout us tickets to the Priscilla show for Katrina’s birthday, at thePalace theatre, complete with Alf Stewart (let’s face it, does anybody know hisreal name? I sure don’t!). The show was a good adaptation of the well known andloved Australian movie of the same name. I enjoyed it more than I thought Iwould, but grew a little bit tired of being called a lady (the ‘narrator’always said welcome, ‘Ladies and Ladies’ or ‘come on girls’). The set was awesome,including an awesome full size bus! Our seats were really high!! The theatrewas quite small but seats were practically stacked on top of each other…if youhave vertigo issues buy ground floor seats. The night was great especially withour Chinese Dim Sum in China Town enjoyed before the show.

The happy birthday girl! and Alf...

Australians in London

Well it’s true what they say,London is full of Aussies! We had the pleasure of catching up with some of theones known to us. Dinner with Mark Christopher (formally of Thiess Services)and his wife Vin (sorry if spelt wrong!) was combined with our first catch upwith Jaide and Rowan (I think the cold was a bit of a change for the native Cairnsresidents!). More shopping and a second dinner followed during the week withJaide and Rowan and it was nice to see some fellow travellers! Then it wasschool reunion time, myself meeting up with Kate Lewis for dinner both onFriday and Sunday nights after probably close to 10 years after we used to hangout at Dudley! Closely followed by the primary school reunion with Katrina’sfriend Tom Clerke and his partner Dilmar. It was awesome to see some familiar(if sometimes nearly forgotten!) faces and share some travel stories withpeople other than each other. Thanks to you all for making our week in Londonthat bit more comfortable and like home!

Tom, Katrina and I

Kate and I

And that’s a wrap folks, a bit ofa long winded wrap at that. It was another adventure in a car and the Londoncountryside which awaited us!

All our Love

M&K

PPP - Paris Prague Partnership

2011-12-10T12:21:00.001-08:00

Day 39

After the events of the year,getting married, getting old, 6 weeks of ‘hard’ travel, it was time to stopbeing adults and let our inner children out for the day… Where better to dothis than ‘L'endroit le plus heureux aumonde’… The happiest place on earth, Disneyland Paris!

There’s a lot to be said forvisiting an amusement park in the middle of winter. No lines… No waiting… Nocrowds… and lots of idiots in Disney merch. That’s right, after a very mild winterso far, many Parisians mistakenly forgot to pack the gloves, beanies andscarves for this particular happy day. Much to the amusement of the rest of uswho happily watched people in mickey and minney mouse ear beanies, big whiteoversized mickey gloves and even a few Pluto hats and tails.

Main street USA!

Fighting Zurg in the Buzz Light-year ride!

Spinning Tea Cups!

Not to harp on about everything,but some highlights were, the Buzz light-year ride, the temple of ‘peril’(turns out the French must not have a word for ‘doom’); big thunder mountain andour definite ‘best of’ Big Space Mountain! We also managed to take in aperformance of the Disney Dance Troupe (Katrina tells me a waste of some verytechnically talented dancers), the parade and some ‘genuine’ Christmas snow onmain street USA. A great day was had!

The Disney Dance Troop!

Mark Bennett and the Temple of Peril... (read: Doom)

The queen of hearts???

Day 40

The day started bright and earlyfor me, heading off before 6am to meet up with my Normandy/D-day beaches tour.3 Metros and 45 minutes later I arrived at the tour office… to be told the tourwas cancelled. Needless to say this did not impress me, and added with the beginningof a head cold which Katrina kindly passed on to me, it was the trudge back toour hostel and back to bed…

Whilst we’re on our hostel, not havingany accommodation when arriving in Paris we quickly found somewhere to stay, itwas the cheapest on offer (Paris seemed really busy for some reason) and thiscouple with a recommendation from the Lonely Planet meant that we were boundfor Peace and Love Hostel. Now as you all know, we’re not hostel people tostart with, this coupled with a ‘cash only’ policy which was only mentionedwhen we went to check in, hence a massive walk to find an ATM, ‘free’ wirelessthat was only available between 8am and 5pm and just happened to be ‘broken’the 3 days we were there, free towels that were questionably just washed andtopped off by 2 single bed sheets laid sideways across a double bed to be abase sheet which stayed on for about 10 seconds once you laid down; allcombined to ensure that our stay at Peace and Love, was definitely not peacefuland there is defiantly no love to be had there…

Me not feeling well, a shit of astart to the day meant that all we could do was something we do best… goshopping! Katrina picked up a lovely new Karen Millen (Ironically an Englishdesigner) jacket from the Layfette Galleries and we spent the afternoonforgetting about tour companies, and peace and love.

Day 41

Katrina had tracked down aweekend getaway for us (more on that later) so we it was off to the mothercountry via the Eurostar after sorting out a few bits and pieces. We did manageto squeeze in brunch with Amanda (Katrina’s friend who dances at the MoulinRouge) and then it was off to Gare Du Nord and onto the train. Our departurefor our weekend was to be from London’s Stansted airport and after a fewterrible nights sleep with the hippies at Peace and Love we splurged on the ‘interminal’ comfort of the Radisson Blu hotel at Stansted. We weren’t to bedisappointed! Service was great, food was great, and the room was top quality(and no airport noise surprisingly!). We also finished the night with somedrinks which although seemed like a good idea that night, wasn’t such a goodidea when we woke at 6am for our flight.

Day 42

An early start for an EasyJetflight to Prague in the Czech Republic. We didn’t really know why we were goingthere, Joel said ‘to drink and pick upchicks…’ everyone else just says because ‘Prague is amazing…’ whilst both were good pieces of advice they don’treally fill out an itinerary…

After checking into the motel, itwas off to explore, to be honest it took all of about 4 minutes (the walk fromour hotel to Wenslece Square) to see why. Prague is a beautifully laid out,historically rich and architecturally diverse city which is a pleasure to just ‘loseyourself in’ (hey, it’s been 10 blogs without a stupid cliché you can forgiveme that one… can’t you?

We did take the opportunity tolearn about the Czech’s personal experience at the hands of the Soviet Empirewith a walk through the Communism Museum. It was definitely interesting giventhat I wasn’t aware of the particular Czech occupation and eventual revolution(the velvet revolution because there was no bloodshed, hence it was smooth…like velvet… get it…) and Katrina wasn’t aware of any of the communist history.

Anyway, Wenslece, yes the sameone from the carol of the ‘good king’, and a convenient Segway into how awesomeit is to travel at Christmas time. Both the new and old squares were adornedwith both lovely and tacky Christmas wears of all kinds. Not to mention the biggestadvent calendar in the world (not Guinness Records confirmed) in the windows ofsome shopping centre thing. The night brought on the discovery of Trdelnik a Czech doughnut thing that isawesome. You could be also mistaken for thinking that we were back inDisneyland somewhere with the view of the old square that we were treated to.

The biggest advent calendar in the world!

Don't be confused this isn't Disney castle, actual Xmas tree and church in old square Prague!

The magical Trdelnik Doughnut!

Day 43

In an attempt to figure outwhether or not there was more to Prague than ‘drinking and picking up chicks’ or ‘Prague being awesome’ we took on the ‘ultimate’ (self-proclaimed)Prague tour. In a nutshell we started at the Square, saw a version of Wenslece sittingon an upside down horse(apparently depicting the Czech economic situation, ‘flogginga dead horse’), the astronomical clock (it tells the moon cycle, day, month,year, star sign… and the time), took a river cruise up to the King Charlesbridge, past the giant metronome (not to be confused with the Frenzal Rhombsong of a similar name Metro Gnome, Thanks Chris, love the new album), strolled through the Jewish quarter, had lunch(not worth writing about), walked back across the Charles bridge, saw thechanging of the guard at the castle and finished it with a walk through saidcastle… quite a mouthful… pretty ultimate.

Wenselece and the national museum... me doing my 'Russian' look (according to Katrina!)

The Czech economy, flogging a dead horse...

The astronomical clock... it tells the time...

Church of unknown origin... (there's been a lot ok...)

Katrina and the King Charles bridge

'Selfies' on the river!

Whilst the sites were amazing andsome pictures are included below, truly the most amazing part of the day wasdiscovering the cause of global warming. You see Prague is home to the longestcontinual meteorological monitoring station in the world, recordingtemperatures, humidity etc. every day since the early 1700s never missing aday. Scientists around the world rely on this information as the basis for allsorts of cool science stuff. Unfortunately for them, (and Mikey) what isn’t aswell known is the window below. You see since before 1700 it was home to theroyal kitchen… and hence gradually, depending on the menu of the day, thekitchen would consistently be a few degrees warmer and as hot air rises (cool sciencestuff) the meteorological station was likewise affected… Global warming… Oh no…‘climate change’ at its best… (sorry Mikey couldn’t help myself).

Top - Weather monitoring... Bottom - Kitchen...

All in all the ultimate tournearly lived up to its name. Probably could’ve done without the boat cruise buta knowledgeable tour guide equipped with a few good jokes…

What do you say in English when someone speaks English and Czech… theyare??? Bi-lingual… and 3 languages… tri-lingual… But when they only speakEnglish…

American…

Certainly made the day. The nightmade itself by a terrible performance by the local ‘Coyote’ bar girls (imagine4 hot bartenders, who can’t dance, and who hate dancing… being forced todance), and way too many cheap drinks at Starsky and Hutch bar undergrounddance club…’Where did we find love?’

The Coyote girls... hot... but rubbish!

Drunk (both) and sweaty (me!) at Starsky and Hutch

Still drunk... Still Sweaty!

Day 44

Nursing a few sore heads it was alate late start to our Sunday in Prague. But you know what they say, nothingcures a hang over like cooked meat, or maybe, meat served on a sword! Yup that’sright, these Czech’s know how to do meat goodness!

Meal on a sword!

An evening of amateur photographyfollowed… not much to say so just look.

The castle and river by night, monochrome...

The castle and river, over exposed in colour...

Our final night slightly spoiltby some fairly heavy rain and a hurried dinner of giant deep fried batter thingwith garlic, cheese and tomato sauce (again these Czechs know how to do theirfood) and of course one of those awesome doughnut things!

Prague definitely didn’tdisappoint, it was ‘amazing’, just for the record, yes Joel the chicks are hot,the food is awesome and the sights are amazing. Truly I don’t think you couldname a better weekend getaway for me thus far…

Day 45

A later flight out of Prague wasboth needed and appreciated and it was back to the motherland, the old dart,etc. An hour to get through the shortest custom’s line ever was definitely noway to treat children of the (once) great British Empire. Seriously people,does our Commonwealth membership mean nothing these days, if not, what’s thepoint, yeah granted Kate is a hottie, but she’s not even queen yet!

A tube ride and a fight later andwe were safe and sound in Swiss Cottage ready for our week long Londonadventure to begin… but as I say… more on that later…

All our Love

M&K

San Sebastian Similarities

2011-12-01T11:33:00.001-08:00

Day 32

An early start was required toenable us to train hop our way to San Sebastian in northern Spain, leaving thebig city life of Madrid behind us. On the recommendation of every Australianwho has been to Spain (or at least it seems that way) San Sebastian was a mustsee destination. Upon arrival it was clear to see why, a smallish beach sidetown with both a sheltered barely breaking main beach and an exposed surfingbeach, all within a stone’s throw of the centre of the old town. Thesimilarities with Newcastle weren’t lost on us and whilst wandering through thestreets you could easily imagine Newcastle being like this if Columbus had ofmissed the Americas and sailed right across the pacific to Australia. We’d alsoall be able to speak Spanish which would have helped us no end!

Ok a small difference with Newy, a giant statue of Jesus overlooks the beach!

Newy beach...?

Not having any plans for theafternoon we checked in to our hotel and went exploring the city. Apart fromthe beaches (more of a summer time attraction) San Sebastian is also the selfproclaimed ‘gastronomical’ capital of Spain. Up there tapas are known asPintxos and are a source of healthy rivalry between the local chefs. We avoidedthem for lunch and I reacquainted myself with my Spanish favourite sandwichlomo with peppers and cheese. We wandered past the beach in the arvo and saw aguy surfing along the backwash of the break wall on a mal, both the surf andthe surfer were rubbish and he almost ended his day prematurely bailing veryclose to the wall at one point. An evening spent Pintxos hopping resulted insome interesting morsels and a taste of the local sangria. (and probablyanother kilo for the scales!)

Day 33

Having promised ourselves a bikeride in Barcelona and then leaving it until too late we managed to secure a daybike pass for the local bike stations in San Sebastian and set out for the dayafter a quick coffee and croissant. After checking out the surf beach, decentswell but pretty messy, although some ok rides sheltered in against the breakwall, pretty packed for the temperature, it was off to the headland which isequipped with a Funicular to reach the top. A spectacular view from the topalthough the sun was still trying its hardest to burn off the cloud. In summer(and on weekends in winter, which it was not) it is host to a fun fair, but atthis time of year is deserted save for the Mecure hotel perched on top. Verycreepy, I’m sure I’ve seen a movie where the serial killer hides in the abandonedfun fair, maybe a clown mask or two…

Katrina showing off her new wheels!

The locals shredding!

The view from the creepy carnival

Walking back down to safety, ourgood day of exercising and was undone by a 3 course ‘menu of the day’ at arestaurant back from the beach. Back on the bikes and I led us the wrong way tothe wrong side of the tracks in an attempt to make it to the home ground ofReal Sociedad, the local La Liga team. Once Katrina got us back on track wefound the stadium, and the supporter store of course! Securing the bikes at thestation it was an afternoon of shopping, like we hadn’t done enough already,but this time it was me doing the buying! More Pintxos hopping ensured this wasjust a warm up for our cooking class the following day!

My wheels and the river

Real Sociedad stadium and me with my shopping

Day 34

Katrina had booked us a cookingclass/experience with a local tour operator San Sebastian Food and it was offto their office to start the day. There we found out we were to be the only participantsfor the day and what ensured was a very personal cooking class after a smallboat ride across the port to the restaurant Ziaboga(a small rowboat which they race in the area). There with our translator wewere treated to lessons in fish preparation, cooking and eating (like we needany help with that one)!

Master (Alex) and kitchen hand...

The layered monk fish and stuff...

Our chef for the day was Alex andhis Irish assistant ??? helped us prepare a combination of Hake and Monk Fishvery simply but very tastefully. Salsa de Verde was a common theme with Hakefillets and Hake chins (a delicacy in San Sebastian) throughout but we alsocooked artichokes 3 ways and a layered Monk fish/potato/crab meat thing. Agreat day was had including help from our translator as our chef is strictlySpanish only. We were then able to enjoy what we’d helped prepared with a fewextra additions from Alex, over a bottle of wine and finished with some localspirits. An amazing day that can be highly recommended by both of us, and forsomeone who doesn’t really like fish the meals were most enjoyable! Alex alsointroduced us to Txakoli (pronounced chuck or lee) an almost cider like whitewine which is ridiculously easy to drink and refreshing!

Kitchen hands, apprentice and chef after cooking!

After another hard week oftravelling (life’s tough I know!) we rewarded ourselves with an afternoon at La Perla which is a unique day spa whichpumps in sea water from the beach, filters and heats it into a series ofhydrotherapy pools which have all sorts of massage jets, submerged exerciseequipment in addition to an ice therapy pool, sauna and steam rooms! As it opensout on to the beach I couldn’t help but be the tourist and go and body surf atleast one wave! The water was surprisingly warm, and I thought the guys we’dseen in steamers (one of them with booties and a balaclava) were a bit soft!

Wasn't cold enough to warrant steamers hoods and booties... but it was pretty cold...

Shredding the waves myself...

The other benefit of our cookingclass was some tips from the translator and assistant as to the best Pintxosbars and what to have. We were informed that we shouldn’t eat the stuff linedup on the bars as we had been but instead order from the menu. With this inmind we attacked a different set of pintxos bars, Txakoli in hand this time.To say they were amazing would be an understatement with some highlights beingthe Solomillo, a beef fillet and sauce on bread slice, and the veal cheekalthough I also enjoyed the pigs ear (too fatty for Katrina) and a pork riplater on the night.

Our Pinxtos server posing for the camera!

A rare shot of the travelling couple!

San Sebastian didn’t disappointwith their food, cooking class or drink and any Australian but especially anyNovocastrian would no doubt feel at home!

Day 35

A peculiarity of the Europeantrain system is that whilst you can book Spanish trains from France, you cannotbook French trains from Spain. So whilst we knew what time our various trainswere we were unable to purchase tickets in advance, with a 20 minuteinterchange the only window for us to purchase the tickets and secure our safepassage to Albi, France. Luckily we managed to get through this ordeal,including another 5 minute rush of an interchange and arrived safely in Albiwhere Jack Shaw (The Shaw’s are friends of the Mansfield families and nowfriends of us both) arrived with some of the League boys to pick us up at thestation.

Arriving at their share house inthe beautiful country side I couldn’t help but think the house was a bit tooold world and pretty for a house full of Aussie league players (no offenceboys!). An afternoon of drinking games ensued and probably was a bit over thetop when Adam and Jack had arranged dinner with everyone at their Manager’sfamily home with the president of their league club Les Courts.

Dinner was an amusing andwelcoming affair with a mixture of bad English, bad language and confusionovershadowed by an amazing meal served up by Pierre and his wife. It includedan entrée of frog’s legs for us foreigners, but you couldn’t help be suspiciouswhen it was only the Aussies that were served it! Main was a lovely duck andbean stew and we are very grateful to Pierre and his wife for taking us in.

From L to R: Jack, Adam, Club president, club 'foreigner' manager, back of my head

Suitably (or maybe unsuitably)lubricated it was off to hit the Albi town up, via an Irish pub (O’sullivan’s)to trente Cinque (25) night club. The league boys had mixed success with theladies and the night ended with a bit of confusion around how the hell we weregoing to get back to the house well outside of Albi. However no harm done andwe made it home to retire/pass out.

Day 36

A few sore heads and a late startthe Shaws took us for a quick but personalised tour of Albi including thelargest red brick cathedral in the world. Also downed some quality hang overcure from a local patisserie. An afternoon coffee and enjoying the conversationof some other English speaking people rather than ourselves had us ‘frothing’as the boys would say…

Katrina with the boys in front of the largest red brick cathedral in the world!

The beautiful old town of Albi

Dinner was a simple but very goodmeal at a little cafeteria that sponsors the club and it rammed home that Adamand Jack (and the others) are kind of like rock stars in a small town whichloves its rugby league and it’s Aussies! The ‘slap and pound’ being thefavoured greeting of club members and affiliates alike greets the boys whereverthey go.

A big thank you to Jack and Adam (andthe others) for putting us up for 2 nights free of charge, although less of athank you for the hang over that resulted! Especially to Adam who gave up hisbed for us and dropped us at the station before work this morning. Which leadsus to…

Day 37

A TGV from Toulouse is currentlyspeeding us towards Paris where we intend to spend a few days doing a fewlittle things and catching up on some washing. We have kind of ended up with anextra 3 or 4 days we don’t know what to do with so are investigating thepossibility of a weekend getaway to somewhere from London. But I suppose you’llhear about that in good time!

All our Love

M&K

Mourinho's Madrid

2011-11-27T08:57:00.001-08:00

Day 30 – After arriving aroundlunchtime into Madrid we quickly checked into Flat5Madrid to a surprisinglycheap stay at 35 EUR a night. After dumping our bags, and our ever growingshopping back it was off to hit the streets of Madrid. As we didn’t really knowwhy we were in Madrid in the first place this was no easy task! After wanderingaimlessly for a little while I took a gamble and decided we should head to theMercado (very similar to our Markets) for lunch. For the regular readers thiswas a gamble, something that I’d chosen to do, normally ended up in disaster!But Alas! Success. Arriving at Mercado de … We found a lovely enclosed marketwith an enormous range of tapas available. We sampled freely with a highlightbeing the goat’s cheese and apple focaccia and the duck sandwich.

The tapas from markets - Good photo composition by head assistant photography Mark

Not wanting to tempt fate furtherI absolved myself of all responsibilities in regards to deciding what to do forthe afternoon! The afternoon was spent wandering back through the shops(seemingly our favourite European pastime!). Some crazy lottery is on at themoment here because one particular agency had queues that must’ve been akilometre long stretching around and around the shops. It’s killing us to knowwhat it is/was but our grasp of the Spanish language didn’t lend itself tofinding out. After an afternoon rest and blog back at the hotel it was off tosample the famed Madrid night life.

BUT it was a Monday… Katrina setme up by suggesting we come back to this cool looking restaurant if nothingelse took our fancy. Not finding anything ground-breaking we returned. It wasVegetarian/Vegan… What’s the point? But in all seriousness the meal was lovely,if different, with a goat’s cheese pizza entrée and a vegie burger for main,whilst Katrina shared the pizza, but isn’t a fan of goat’s cheese (revenge) andhad an interesting cold ravioli main. Good work Vegetarian restaurant. Afterwardswe searched high and low for a drink but nothing either a) took our fancy b)was open c) was open yet (maybe we were too early for the Madristas!). So itwas an early (European early, 11:30pm) night!

Day 31 – We enjoyed a rest andwent down to Starbucks for coffee and some free Wi-Fi before a free walkingtour by our hotel. Unfortunately returning to the hotel at 11am as told byreception the day before, we were told the tour left at 10:30! So anyway wewere on our own again for the day. Not all was lost with this giving us achance to duck out to the Stadio de Bernabou (Real Madrid’s home ground) to buyme a ticket to that night’s champions league fixture (but more on that later).

Me with my Champion's league ticket!

Again with Madrid as our oysterwe spend the day wandering aimlessly around the city, down to the biggestunknown fountain ever (anyone know what it is?). Then past the palace to seesome sort of officials leaving for the day with full military send of/change ofthe guard type action. A lovely lunch of Lomo (a Spanish pork burger withcheese and peppers for me) and vegetable soup for Katrina (now I write all thisdown, maybe she’s going vego on me…) was had in a back street somewhere. Onceagain shopping at one of the big department stores where we both found jacketsthat we liked but just couldn’t bring ourselves to buy/pack/carry/send home!

The unknown fountain, no signs, not on any map...

The Spanish Government plotting against everyone else? or running from financial turmoil?

I retired for a nap inpreparation for the night’s late kick off (20:45 champions league kick off)whilst Katrina just surfed the web etc. Katrina joined me for dinner at a placewhich became known as ‘chips and…’ as you could get every kind of meat youwanted served with chips for under 10 EUR. I had a snitchzel (a little taste ofhome… yes I get the irony when it’s German) and Katrina a salmon fillet (withchips of course!). For anyone looking for it in Madrid, it’s actually calledOskars.

Night 31 – The Bernabou!!!!!!!!

Well, quite by good fortunerather than good planning, the soapbox was back where it should be, watchingfootball, the second game in less than 4 days! This time it was a ‘dead rubber’champion’s league fixture between Real Madrid and Dynamo Zagreb. Whilst theresult was unimportant, and it wasn’t the strongest Madrid line up to take thefield (no Ronaldo, no Kaka, reserve goal keeper in goals etc.), it certainlydidn’t disappoint!

The bernabou in lights!

'Baby' Madrid as was the headline...

The game started at a franticpace and before some people had even taken their seats it was 3-0, in under 8minutes. Madrid were a combination of very clinical and Zagreb very poor. Thereare quite often early chances in football but due to either a) bad earlytouches or b) good luck they are very rarely converted, especially 3 in 8minutes. From then on the game was over and you could have forgiven (for once)Mourinho (Madrid’s coach) for ‘parking the bus’ as the saying goes in football.But to his and the Madrid players credit they didn’t and what followed was anabsolute master class!

Zagreb kept turning over cheapball in midfield both due to strong tackling from a dominant Madrid midfieldespecially Xavi Alonso, and just poor decision making when attempting to playout from the back. The poor Russian manager spent the whole night in the rainscreaming at his players. At one point when Madrid went up 4-0 before the 30^thminute I thought he was actually going to pull his right back from the gamewhen he instructed his bench to warm up and exchanged ‘encouraging’ words withhim!

As much as it pains me to admitit, Mourinho is indeed brilliant, whether or not he is really ‘the special one’only history and titles will tell us, however one thing I will note issomething about the way Madrid played on this night. It may be my footballingignorance but I haven’t seen a team play with their right and left backsinterchanging with the two holding midfielders at will. It is a joy to watchand I imagine a nightmare to play against. Whilst the Dutch ‘total football’ Ibelieve allowed for players all over the park to cover for each other, asshould be the case in any professional (or amateur for that matter) setup, withsome amount of interchange, I have never seen what I saw Madrid play. Itcreates the opportunity for more overlaps than simple wingbacks and doesn’tleave you as exposed as playing with a back 3. It also I imagine, enables youto ‘park the bus’ when the need arises as you haven’t sacrificed either a back4 for a 3, or 2 holding midfielders for 1, but still generate massive amountsof attacking options going forwards. Maybe it’s old news to the more footballeducated, but to me it was brilliant!

To their credit the Zagreb fans,high in the eaves of the stadium, helped create an amazing atmosphere, singingand chanting for nearly 90 minutes. My personally favourite being “you’re notBarcelona! You’re not Barcelona!”

Did I mention it was raining?Well it was and it continued to do so until the half time whistle blew and mostof us retired to the comfort of somewhere dry. Not being able to take too manyphotos on the first half I devised an impromptu lens cover from a coke cup andused my beany to shield the body of the camera, from some (lots) of second halfphotography. Unfortunately whilst I was still piecing this engineering masterpiece (modest as ever) together Madrid were already back on the field and 5-0up (47 minutes in!).

Benzema slotting home number 6...

Mourinho was then spotted in thetechnical area for the first time of the night prompting insane applause fromthe Madrid faithful and I took some happy snaps for Bob. I say happy snaps, butfor a manager whose team is 5-0 up he was far from it. I suppose you don’t gethis results/reputation by being a happy go lucky type of guy!

Mourinho happy when his team goes up 5-0.... ? hate to see him unhappy...

I was lucky enough to see somegreat play from Madrid including catching both their 6^th goal, andan awesome Benzema bicycle kick (which hit the cross bar) through my coke cuplens! 6-0 in the 80^th minute and I honestly belief Madrid were thenvictims of their own arrogance. Searching for a 7^th they got caughtwell by Zagreb on the counter attack and conceded their first goal of thenight, this brought a fresh round of cheers from their fans. Not to be out donethe Madrid faithful brought on a round of end to end chanting from oppositegoal mouths (would love to tell you what was being said…).

The Madrid faithful...

Benzema bicycle 1

Benzema bicycle 2

Benzema bicycle 3... it hit the cross bar... damn...

Zagreb then slotted a scrappy 2^ndhome which caused some of the faithful to remove shirts and celebrate like itwas an equaliser or even a winner, not 6-2!

The final tally...

Then with the final whistle thatwas that, a 1.5 string (not 2^nd string, still contained Ramos,Benzema, Alonso etc.) Madrid side had sent an ominous warning to all theiropponents (including I might add, Barcelona with an impending Classico comingup). In fairness to Madrid and their fans, I think the atmosphere was better atthe Bernabou than it had been at the Nou Camp 4 days earlier, maybe to do withthe fixture but also I suspect from the acoustics of the eaves at the Bernaboureflecting much more sound back to pitch level. Also my seats from 6 rowsbehind the Madrid bench and next to the corporate boxes helped!

But then the moment that I willremember as why nobody likes Real Madrid. After 90 minutes of not heavy but consistentrain, Mourinho and quickly followed by the players exited stage left without somuch as a glance to their adoring fans. Ok a few of them gave half heartedclaps above their heads, but the majority, heads down retreated into the changerooms. Poor form in my books.

So Madrid, both in football andin city is no match for Barcelona in our books. Worth a night or two, but don’tlose sleep if you miss it! In the words of the Zagreb fans…

You’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona!

All our love

M&K

Barca the Best!

2011-11-21T10:46:00.001-08:00

Days 23 through 30… Barcelona

Hello from a 290 km/h trainbetween Barcelona and Madrid. After initially ragging on Spanish trains, Karmacomes back to bite me and we are currently enjoying our nicest high speed ofour journey speeding towards to Madrid. We have spent the last week in a lovelyapartment in Barcelona, resting, sleeping, shopping and site seeing. Mainlybecause of our laziness a day by day account for these 8 days wouldn’t reallybe riveting reading so instead we’ll go site by site/ event by event… Heregoes…

Flamenco Night

Our first full day in Barcelonawas spent wandering around the city shopping and a trip to the markets where webought some supplies for breakfast that week but was highlighted by a night atthe Flamenco show. A shout out to James and Kel whose Viator voucher weutilised for this lovely night out. The show itself consisted of two solofemale dancers and 3 male dancers, one female solo singer accompanied by a fullcomplement of 3 Spanish guitarists and 4 hand clapper/singer men. Flamenco isdefinitely more like tap dancing than I thought it was, and all beingunamplified in a small room the power of their voices, clapping and guitars wasamazing. The only downside was not being able to speak Spanish because some ofthe ballads sounded like really interesting hard breaking stories! Butdefinitely an awesome show much more than what I personally expected! Allenjoyed while sipping on a glass of Sangria!

Flamenco!!!

Barcelona’s Gothic Cathedral

Knowing that Barcelona was famousfor its cathedral we were surprised to see that it was actually at the end ofour street. Unfortunately it wasn’t the famous Sagrada Familia which is ‘theimage’ of Barca but was an impressive gothic cathedral none the less. Due tothe rain (which would become a semi permanent feature of our week) we wereunable to catch the lift up to the roof top. Really all these Gothic eracathedrals are very similar however this one had two interesting features. Itis ‘protected’ by 13 white geese which live in the central courtyard whoprotect the tomb of the 13 year old girl buried there. This girl refused torenounce her Christian faith and was rolled down the street in a barrel ofglass and nails, attempted to be burnt at the stake (but the flames shied awayform her and instead burnt the roman soldiers) and final crucified refusingstill to renounce her faith. The other interesting feature is the choir chapelwhich accurately predicts the rise of the X-men…

Inside the Cathedral by Katrina Bennett

The X-men pews...

Le Sagrada Familia

Barcelona’s real cathedral. Guided by an impressively detailed audio tour, wewandered through the last public work of well known (to some?) architect Gaudi.Gaudi was a renowned modernist whose life’s work would be this cathedral whichhe would never see finished. He envisaged the whole design but only completedthe pulpit and one of the facades (the gothic nativity façade) before hisdeath. Luckily for the people of the world he left a series of detailed models,sketches and writing instructions on how he saw the completed church. Whilst alot of this information was destroyed in the Spanish Civil wars the people ofBarcelona have continued his life’s work and the church is still underconstruction. I’m not easily impressed by the religious artefacts of the worldhowever I would urge everyone who reads this to see this building before theydie. It is truly breathtaking. Set apart from the typical Cathedral by it’smodernist inspired curved lines and abstract sculptures it is amazing on theoutside (the passion façade, the only other completed façade, is a bleak but atthe same time detailed account of Jesus’ crucifixion) and only surpassed on theinside by an amazing series of columns which rise from the floor into a ceilingwhich is designed to create the allusion of a great forest towering over you.Inside all people are welcomed to find a place to pray/meditate/worship ormerely contemplate something important to them. I fear that I cannot writeanything that would truly do this place justice and all I can say is, go seeit!

Le Sagrada Passion Facade

Me with Audio guide, nerding it up

Detail from bronze door on Passion Facade

The 'treetops' inside!

The nativity facade

St Marc and some gold triangle that means something...

Gaudi Parc

Containing Gaudi’s own personalhouse, two other residencies designed by him, and the famous series ofmosaicked chairs and the giant mosaic lizard it is recommended viewing beforegoing to Le Sagrada. Unfortunately wemade the mistake of viewing it in reverse order (after Le Sagrada) and whilst impressive, it fell a bit flat compared towhat we’d just seen and coupled with the weather (overcast) wasn’t living upthe hype!

The Mosaic Chairs

The ‘Cava’ bar experience

At the recommendation of the ladywho checked us into our apartment the night after Le Sagrada was spent at a little bar which serves homebrewchampagne, known as Cava to the locals. It was an amazing yet crazy experienceof being jammed shoulder to shoulder drinking 0.90 EUR cava and playing dinnerroulette by pointing at the menu and getting all sorts of warm sandwiches. Lomo was a particularly tasty porkhamburger. It was packed with tourists and locals alike and run by 6 or soMiddle aged Spanish dudes who would wave you away if you took too long toorder, or couldn’t Spanglish your way to ordering food! Amazing!

Crazy times at the Cava bar

Katrina with Cava and Lomo

Parc Montijuic

Montijuic is a large park locatedon a hill overlooking the city and the port of Barcelona. After another semiwasted morning spent snoozing and reading a book I’d found in the apartment(which as an aside was an amazing read, called Imperium, by someone Harris) we headed down to the port suburb of Barconalette to catch the cable caracross the port to the mountain. With the light fading fast I thought we’dwasted our time but it turns out, much like our wedding photos, low light cancreate some amazing scenes and the views over the city and the port lit up werequite spectacular. These views were from the Fort atop Montijuic. We walkedback down to see the Magic fountain but to our surprise and the other hundredsof people present, the fountain was broken and no announcement was made to thisfact, so everyone stood around for a while and then finally we gave up afterover hearing a conversation between some police officers.

View from the cable car

View from the fort by night

My arty view of fort and refinery terminal at port

Palace at the tope of the magic fountain backlit

The Nou Camp – Gets it own blog, click here...

Roxette

Katrina attended the start of theRoxette concert while I went to see Barcelona play. I arrived when they startedplaying ‘must have been lov’e but couldn’t find my way in to the massive venue,Palou de Sant Jordi. Never fear, I made it inside to find half of the venue‘closed’ (think black drapes hanging halfway down the Sydney EntertainmentCentre) but still inside to see them belt out the hits including ‘Joyride’ and‘She’s Got the Look’ (second encore!). It was a solid if not spectacularperformance by an obviously ageing band. It makes sense but didn’t pick thatthey would have such a large gay following, plus Katrina and I were probablythe youngest people there!

Rocking with Roxette

80s much?

The beach and the W bar…

Our last day was spent meanderingalong the beachside, which whilst nice in the sun, the wind kind of put a coldchill in the air. The guys in the water were very keen, surfing rubbish wavesin steamers and booties! The night we retired to the ‘exclusive’ (their wordnot mine) W bar at the top of 26 odd floors at the end of the port forwatermelon martinis. It was very nice and swank (read: expensive) and the viewwas most impressive, would’ve been nice if it was open in the afternoon when itwas still light!

The 'surf' with W bar in the background!

The food…

Couldn’t go past pointing out theobvious that the food we enjoyed all week was nothing short of spectacular!From the simplest Lomo (see cava barabove) to the paella’s, various tapas, gelato and snails on our last night. TheCatalans really know how to put on a good feed for a reasonable price! Sangriawas a favourite for dinner either in a meal deal or a litre jug…there were manymornings with sore heads from this magical drink! J The fresh chorizo and goat’scheese from the markets in some farm egg omelettes cooked at home were also anice touch for breakfast! Whilst hard to find, the churros that we did find wasamazing including little individual churros filled with caramel we had on thelast day down at the port. Barca has a great international selection for foodwhich is rare in most European countries we’ve been to, Katrina sampled Wok nWalk (twice) to get her Asian kick. It’s definitely the city of food.

Paella and Sangria on Flamenco night

And that was it. We have bothreally fallen in love with the city of Barcelona, how could you not! The food,the shopping, the atmosphere, the everything! We will defiantly be back (maybein summer) and cannot recommend this leg of our trip highly enough… get toBarca! NOW!

All our love

M&K!

The Nou Camp... (Two Camp)

2011-11-21T10:30:00.001-08:00

Well the Soapbox is back where itbelongs, sometimes, being about Football! Whilst the week in Barcelona will becovered elsewhere, this edition is dedicated to two of my favourite events ofthe week, both around Barcelona FC.

Like a kid in a candy store!!

The Nou Camp Tour

On Thursday we got the metro outto the famous home of Barcelona FC, The Nou Camp, or Camp Nou, depending onyour nationality. The tour is self guided with an audio guide and appropriatelynamed the Nou Camp Experience. I must say I wasn’t disappointed!

The first stage is a meanderthrough the Barcelona FC museum, covering everything across all sports(Football, Basketball, roller hockey, Handball and Futsal) from the early1900’s of the clubs inception all the way through to the current season. Whilstthere was way too much information to do it justice here a couple of standoutswere the 6 cups of 09/10, the information around the clubs resistance to all ofthe Spanish dictatorships including the founding presidents murder by one ofthem (Franco I think) and the amusement of the roller hockey trophies ondisplay alongside over 100 years of football cups. I mean really… RollerHockey…

The 6 cups!

For those of you not footballpeople reading this, who incidentally won’t make it this far into this postanyway, Barcelona were the first, and far as I’m aware the only club in theprofessional world to have a ‘reverse’ sponsorship with Unicef where by theydonate 0.3% of their revenue each year, over 1.3 million EURs roughly anddisplay Unicef as their major sponsor! Whilst this may be irrelevant to many Ithink it’s worth noting that with most of the major European clubs riddled withdebt it’s a sign of Barcelona’s support and financial stability that allows itto carry out this act.

The other interesting side of theclubs history is its support of all things Catalan. Cataluña is the north eastregion of Spain which Barcelona is the unofficial ‘capital’, not entirely happywith their incorporation into mainland Spain after the civil wars and WW2 theyattempt to maintain their own identity with their own language and flag (and adeep seated resentment of the Spanish capital, Madrid.) Franco attempted tostrip the club of its Catalina ties in the 1930’s, changing the clubs name andremoving the Catalan flag from the clubs emblem. This was another reason forthe founding president’s murder by fascists around the same time, being notonly the president of the club but also a member of the left wing politicalparty of the time. Even today, the club is strongly associated with all things Catalanincluding an ‘international’ played in the early 2000s between Cataluña andSpain.

Then the most amazing thinghappened, all the players turned up and we got our photos with a few them, itwas amazing…

Katrina and I with Xavi

Me and Carlos... you can call him Mr Puyol...

Another personal favourite wasthe Obama jersey and thank you letter from the White House. Barca had sentObama a personalised Jersey to celebrate his election and he had returned aletter of thank you to the club which they have proudly on display. He noteshimself as an avid sports fan and thanks the club for their kind gift, he alsohas a cool signature!

Barcelona's gift to Obama

The thankyou from the man himself!

Next stop was the ground itself.Both from above and below, the ground is impressive, holding a reduced capacityof 100,000 after the UEFA rules enforcing seating for all spectators, down fromthe 110,000 original capacity. The seats splendid in blue and red with theyellow writing of Barcelona FC on one side and ‘more than a club’ on the other.The day we were there they had the heaters on one side of the ground and thegroundsman was busily mowing in the perpendicular cuts of grass across thefield, the only ground markings were the Barcelona FC emblem on halfway betweenthe two dugouts.

Mes Que Un Club - More than a club...

From the halfway line... note no halfway line actually present...

Unfortunately only the awaydressing rooms were open to the public, but whilst minimalist, would still bethe envy of most A-league clubs I would imagine! The chapel was open but not accessible,yes a chapel, on the way out of the change rooms in the tunnel to the field.Not sure what the bigman can do for you by the time you’re ready to walk out onthe field, but I suppose it makes sense for the highly religious footballersamong us!

Me doing my best South American/Spanish commentators GGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! (field heaters in background)

Last stop on the experience wasthe multimedia section which whilst if you had all day to make your way throughthe interactive displays or sit and watch the short films (including a highlightsreel of the 6 cups) would be amazing, but with an already bored wife we did aquick brush through and into the best part of the day, the Barcelona MEGASTORE!

Like all big European clubs themerchandise is endless, from G-strings for your partner (male or female) an noI didn’t make Katrina buy one!, all the way to pencil cases, ash trays, shotglasses, socks, shirts, dressing gowns, ponchos and on and on! I showed greatrestraint and held my self to a Puyol away jersey, a very tasteful scarf and anice new Nike Golf Barcelona polo.

With my appetite wet, it was backhome to fill in the time until Saturday night when the real football displaywould be on.

Barcelona FC vs. Zaragoza

Parting ways with Katrina (forthe first time this trip) two metros back to the Nou Camp early to make sure Icould find it and my seat! It had been pissing down rain all day but mypurchase of a poncho was as good as any insurance policy to ensure it wouldn’train all night! The opponents were Zaragoza, one of Barca’s closest rivalsgeographically but may as well be in Australia when comparing class!

The game...

I will now digress into my onlynegative experience in relation to the club. Arriving early as mentioned I wentwith a hamburgessa (extremely similar to what us Australians call a hamburger)and a beer. The Hamburgessa did not disappoint, however about halfway throughmy beer I thought, this could be theworst beer I’ve ever tasted… On closer inspection I realised they only sellEstella 0.0% ‘beer’… non-alcoholic. Now before you all cry that I’m analcoholic or a Bogan or similar, I don’t care that they don’t sell beer, (muchlike light beer at the cricket) I just care that they don’t advertise that thatis what they are selling! Ha ha, but this being the worst thing to happen all nightisn’t a bad night at all!

During the warm up, I couldn’thelp notice that Messi’s carefree style just looks like laziness at times, hekind of just wandered around, clipped a few balls here and there. Even when theteam was sprinting through shuttles he just jogged around, never exertinghimself… Amazing that such seemingly little effort would result in such aperformance…

Xavi during warm up...

Messi During warm up

The game itself was a clinicaldisplay opened by Pique heading the first goal in on 18 minutes from a Barcacorner. It was amazing to watch them move the ball around with so much time.The thing that struck me the most was that they seemingly can do most of theirpossession at walking pace, and only when about to launch an attack do theypick up the tempo. This in contrast to the Roar who I’d watched earlier thatmorning that really look like they’re at top speed for long parts of the game.

Pique, No. 3 heading in the first goal

Messi who was already making andcreating impressive runs with Xavi and Fabregas in midfield then deservedly gota second just before half time. His goal came from the trademark Barcelonaplay, moving the ball back and forth across half way stretching the defence,once a gap opened, a neat series of 1-2’s a calm finish from Messi. It is trulyamazing how few long balls this team plays, every goal kick is played short toPuyol or Pique, most free kicks just tapped to a team mate and get the ballmoving again, and even very few long range shots. Most of the attacking playscome from a simple wall 1-2 with the second ball in behind the defence.Zaragoza’s goal keeper did exceptionally well to keep it at 2-0 going in to thebreak.

Celebrating Messi's goal!

The second half was to be more ofthe same with Zaragoza rarely threatening and Barca controlling long parts ofthe game. A third was inevitable although it was an unlikely goal to Puyol whostayed forward after one of only a couple of free kicks which were whippeddirectly into the box. Whilst Zaragoza dealt with the initial free kick theball fell to Fabregas who whipped in a ball to the back stick which was centredfor Puyol whose initial header was saved but who managed to prod home from theground in the resulting scrap.

Man love to start the 2nd half

Barca then made two substituteswhich if I was an opposition player would’ve made me cry. Just when you thinkthey might lay off the pressure they bring on two no names… David Villa andAndres Iniesta! Obviously being rested for the mid week Champions Leaguefixture against Milan Pep Guidiola needed to get them to stretch the legs outand have a bit of fun. David Villa almost immediately put his mark on the gamewith the 4^th goal in the 74^th minute. I’ll be honest, theactual goal escapes me but it was no doubt after another characteristic periodof possession opening up the defence and Villa showing his natural ability toslot home.

And with that the game was welland truly over, although Barca still managed to created chance after chance andnever really let up. Again the Zaragoza keeper without a doubt their man of thematch with a series of one on one saves.

Messi weaving his magic, has just beaten two of those defenders!

The happy fan!

So, one off the bucket list, seeBarcelona play live! Whilst the crowd was probably ‘only’ 60 to 75,000 it is avery impressive stadium and even 2/3rds full creates a special atmosphere. The Europeantrend to whistle instead of ‘boo’ the opposition is truly deafening, and thecheers not only for goals but just general good play, including playing outfrom the back, winning back possession and any time someone beats anotherplayer is truly a great spectacle.

The team thanking me for coming...

It was then a mad dash back to StJordi to meet Katrina at Roxette… but that’s covered elsewhere...

Lifestyles of the rich and the famous…

2011-11-13T14:39:00.001-08:00

Lifestyles of the richand the famous… Or at least pretending...

Hello again. Firstly just some context, after a 2:30amfinish last night in Monaco, a 7am start this morning, the Soapbox is currentlylocated on a 5 hour train ride to Montpellier, working on 4.5 hours sleep, and facingan ultimate arrival in Barcelona of approximately 10pm. So with that context inmind please forgive me any rambling, incoherence, spelling mistakes (mum) orother general poor form. So without further a do…

Day 17 – Having arrived in Bologna on Day 16 after someshuttling from SG and Firenze we followed some Lonely Planet advice and checkedinto the lovely hotel Panorama. Whilst having to share a bathroom was a newexperience for these two non-backpackers turns out, at least in this rareexample, it’s awesome! The hotel was immaculately clean and with only 6 roomsin total the 3 shared bathrooms were spotless and sparkling!

Not knowing why we were in Bologna, except for on the adviceof a hurried Facebook poll, we went out exploring for dinner, stumbling throughthe awesome fresh food stall area and eventually settling down on the bestappertifi to date, shared over a few beers and white ladies (Katrina’s newfavourite cocktail, lemon juice, gin and Cointreau). Even though overly stuffedon said appertifi we decided it would be criminal to spend the night in Bolognaand not taste the local Ragu (which we all know as Bolognese) so it was off tothe next bar/restaurant where Katrina sampled the local Ragout with Tagliatelle(weird they don’t eat with spaghetti) and I tried some delicious homemadeRicotta and something else Tortellini. A solid free Wi-Fi session and one twomany long island ice teas the night in Bologna was done and most enjoyed.

Day 18 – Up early-ish to do a whirlwind tour of the citybefore moving on it was off the Two Towers (not to be confused with the LOTRfilm of the same name) which mark the start of the university quarter. One ofthe two towers is on a massive lean but being less architecturally designed isnot as famous as the ‘other’ leaning tower in Pisa. The Torre that is able tobe climbed is much more upright, but at some 95m of narrow stairs is quite atrip. Superstitious students apparently say if you climb the Torre you willnever graduate, however Katrina and I have both graduated so it was all good.Whilst the view was impressive, it was very contrasting to the Grosse Torre ofSG looking out into the country side. Bologna’s main ‘old’ walled city is amass of terracotta rooves and the suburbia seems to stretch well past the horizon.

Leaning Torre of Bologna

View back to main square and Basicilla in Bologna

Foolishly Katrina then took my advice to catch a cab up toBasicilla Santa de Lucca (Bologna’s answer to Sacra Coeur in Paris). Whilst thechurch is impressive the views have nothing on Sacra Coeur and the majority ofthe amazing gardens are unable to be accessed. We then, again foolishly on myadvice, proceeded to walk along the world’s longest Portico (series of arches)which connects Santa de Lucca to the city walls. Whilst impressive, the first 5arches are the same as the remainder of the total 666 and not always wellmaintained! Also thought the choice of 666 arches was somewhat odd given thenumbers significance with the dark lord (6-6-6 the number of the beast!).

Would of really liked to of to spent the afternoon wanderingaround Bologna however, alpine Lake Como was calling!

A transfer through Milano Centrale and we were safe andsound in Como (the town of the same name as the lake, but the lake is calledsomething else historically; it is generically all referred to as ‘Como’ by usdumb tourists!). Whilst my hotel choice initially led us to think that we weresomewhat our of town, it turns out you can walk from one end of Como to theother in about 15 minutes so no harm done! Having eaten well all day (again) wesettled for some appertifi and cocktails by the ferry terminal for dinner.

Day 19 – Falling for the tourist trap that the 11:10 ferryis only on weekends (apparently this is clear if you either a) speak Italian,or b) have access to the English timetable which we didn’t the night before).It was coffee and shopping while we waited for the next ferry up to Bellagio.Along the ferry trip we saw the villa where both Star Wars (one of the shitones, maybe 2 when Annican and Natalie Portman get married) and Casino Royale(where Bond recovers and then ends up finding and shooting the dude) which wasvery impressive in that impossible lifestyle kind of way. Arriving in Bellagioto only the ‘low’ season shops being open was actually quite nice, quietstreets, the panoramic view of the lake to ourselves (oh and the thousandmillion weird flying little bugs that were there) allowed us to wander at ourown pace and enjoy the beautiful sunshine. Under the ‘bluest sky I’ve everseen’ (Katrina Bennett) we nearly bought more art work, and then settled for anamazing lunch of Pizza and lake fish with rice for Katrina.

Sunset sailing on Lake Como

Villa of Casino Royale and Star Wars fame

A stop in Argeno on the ferry back to Como was nice, butattempts to locate the fabled Bennett/Capp/Windows bar of a few years ago wereunsuccessful. The gelato however was the new champion of the world! And Katrinatried a hot chocolate which was extremely rich and tasted exactly like hotchocolate yogo…it was also champion of the world.

Moon rise from Argeno

Ever wonder where the guy who discovered voltaic cells and subsequently invented the battery lived... Como, this is his museum, powered entirely from batteries... (may or may not be true)

As we had made a habit of appertifi and cocktails it was fordinner and then a bottle of wine back at the hotel while we plannedMonaco-Monte Carlo!

Day 20 – We thought we had plenty of time to kill and tookthe railway/cart/cable car thing up the hill to Brenate where we fell victim toa combination of low season ‘deadness’ and overcast skies! After returning toComo and wandering for a while we thought we’d check the trains and discoveredthat there was now only 1 train that we could catch to Monte Carlo and it wouldnot have us arriving until about 930 that night! We still had time to stop for‘Thai’ in name only for lunch and then back to the train station where we weregreeted with the news that the train we needed to catch to the French/Italianborder was booked out, standing room only! No harm done and when we made itback to Milan Centrale via some fare evasion on a private train line fromMilano San Garibaldi we managed to get on and cram us and the bags (evergrowing with our shopping) into the train. Whilst the first few hours were abit rough, as we got further from Milan seats freed up and the train rideturned out to be quite pleasant.

The cable car/track/train thingo

Arriving in Monaco late and not knowing the name of ourhotel, thanks to a Mark Bennett classic of only writing down the address notthe name, we took a risk with a taxi. The taxi driver seemed unimpressed andafter we drove for about 2 minutes he stopped and we realised why. One of theother exits to the train station was about 50m from our hotel. He got his ownback by raping us with a fare of 13 EURO!

The fair was in town in downtown Monte Carlo and whilstbeing amazed by the back drop of billions (literally) of EURO’s in luxury cruisersand yachts we wandered the fair and down to a little restaurant which during F1time is right on the track. A beautiful Pizza and bowl of mussels later werealised we were probably somewhat under dressed to be staying in this amazingtown! This did not however stop us sampling one of the local clubs for a quickdance.

Day 21 – The day was spent wandering the streets inamazement including a trip up to the Palace where the newlyweds live. You can’thelp but noticing that in all the wedding photos of Pierre (?) and his newwife, he is the only one who looks stoked, she seems ok, but I wouldn’t exactlysay a bubbling bride (she is however ridiculously good looking). The wholeplace is amazing, the boats are crazy, the streets are spotless, there is aheavy police presence and an overwhelming sense of affluence. I couldn’t helpbut think of the Simpsons in 3d episode where Homer remarks “I feel like I’mburning money just standing here…” Alsoa quick note of their love of Princess Grace….there are monuments and postersup of her everywhere, they definitely love her.

Ready to go aboard captain

After a failed attempt to find a FC Monaco store at thestadium it was back to the hotel to rest up for the night ahead. (As an aside,the FC Monaco store was about, 50m from our hotel just down a street we hadn’twalked down!) Pre-drinks at the local (opposite the hotel) and then off thecasino where we checked our coats, camera and paid the cover charge. A verydifferent ambience to our casinos, hardly anyone drinking and a lot more‘manual’ with 4 people running roulette table for example. Having blown a veryquick sum of money on the blackjack table it was off to said roulette tables!Katrina found her inner gambler and kept us in it long enough for my luckynumber 2 to come up and have us finish up 100 EURO for the night. Not bad atall. The casino is an amazing place with a very quiet reserved crowd blowingshite loads of EUROS! (for the gamblers amongst us, European roulette isslightly different to American roulette, and you are expected to tip at thetable when you win…)

Not wanting to eat at the casino (although it looked amazingsilver service style meals) we retired to another restaurant down near themarina. Katrina had an ‘amazing’ Bombay fish curry and I sampled the mixedtapas plate which was equally as good. A stroll through the fair ended up withus having some more useless carnie folk wares after playing various differentgames. On to the serious clubbing we went back to the place from the nightbefore (where we knew there no cover charge and people of our like could get in(peasants)). Several hours later and at the change of DJs we decided we wereprobably done and retired for the night, back to the hotel at 2:15am not a badeffort for the old married couple that we have already become!

The winnings from the fair, having fun lugging around already!

Loving the Carnie games!

You'll find us in da club... bottles full of bud... etc...

As above

Live bongo player in da club

Day 22 – As per the intro currently on route to Barcelonavia Nice, Montpellier, Perpignan and Port Bou Espagne in all 12 hours oftransit and stop overs. Katrina is currently curled up on two seats in front ofme catching up on last night’s lost hours of sleep while I keep watch for anyangry Frenchmen whose seat she is occupying!

The week will be spent in Barcelona, so if you want to catchup, book a Skype time, otherwise stay tuned for the next instalment…

All our love

M&K

The travel is getting to me...

Foto Firenze!!!!!

2011-11-10T15:04:00.000-08:00

Days 14 to 16 - Well these days were spent in Florence, Florence and San Gimignano respectively. Unfortunately for the word-smiths out there we didn't actually do much. So instead of bore you all with meaningless accounts of pizza, leather shopping and climbing Torres (towers) I'm going to let the pictures do the talking this time around... plus we were trying to be 'arty' a very difficult task for 2 'un-imaginative' (not my words my 3rd year philosophy lecturers words) engineers!

(all images courtesy and copyright of Head Photographer Katrina Bennett, and Assistant to the Head Photographer Mark Bennett...)

Firenze streets...

Firenze by night

Lone scooter in Firenze

Old buildings, new neon, in Firenze

The honeymooners...

Grosse Torre - San Gimignano by night

The Duomo/Bascilla in San Gimigano

Torres (plural) in San Gimignano

Main Square San Gimignano

Red versus blue in SG...

Alleyway and moon SG

Bar Firenze SG... (Katrina 2nd from left)

Main square of SG from Grosse Torre

Behind bars, like Repunsel, Grosse Torre

A touch of Tuscanny from Grosse Torre

The honeymooners, me showing how to let yourself go...

SG... the postcard shot...

SG... the postcard take 102...

Read the sign...

Main gates at SG.

So next it was off to Bologna thanks to a hurried facebook poll... unfortuantely, or fortunately I've run out of red wine and patience tonight. More on that latter.

To those playing live, we are just finishing our last night in Lake Como before heading for an expensvie two nights in Monaco! Bring on the casino...

All our love
M&K

Meteroa Madness

2011-11-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Day 9 – After a pretty ordinarynight at the hotel Delfini (dolphin) in Piraeus it was a traipse through the(dodgy) streets to find the Budget hire car place. After a detour the wrong wayaround the block all was located and all was good. Well nearly all was good, Isigned the contract and negotiated the Grenglish with one exception… “Please donot hit people… car crash OK, your insurance cover, but do not hit people… itis not exactly, how do you say… legal to drive on this licence…” !!! Not sureabout the validity of this statement as I thought international licences were athing of the past however it was enough to put the fear of the Greek Orthodoxgod into me and ensure that I doubled my efforts not to run into any one!

On the road again and after thefirst of numerous exclamations at the way the crazy Greeks drive we arrived atour first stop Delphi. It was a brisk alpine area and even though we only justgot there before closing, 45 minutes was enough time to wander the main archaeologicalsite, and the remainder of the afternoon spent at the two ‘lesser’, free,sites. Delphi contains the Temple of Apollo where the priestesses (even backthen the women really wore the pants) used to give out oracles (fortunetellers) after you paid a fee, sacrificed an animal etc. Allegedly they used toactually get high off some sort of methyl vapour introduced into the temple viatwo underground fault lines which run directly underneath the temple and talkgibberish.

Earlier we had driven through the‘cute’ town of Arachova a few km’s before Delphi and whilst the archaeologicalsite was impressive the actual village of modern Delphi didn’t inspire us so weretired to Arachova to find a room. A Lovely old couple offered us an awesome‘chalet’ style room for 55 euro; however in an attempt to make budget (for thefirst time) we kept searching and found a 35 euro bed at the hotel Apollo. Anafternoon and evening spent bar hopping starting at the Hotel Gospel (free Wi-Fi)and a ‘home cooked’ restaurant meal from some locals, led to a bit of retailtherapy and buying treats (baklava and ice-cream).

Treasury of Athens

The stadium/theatre/thingo

The Streets of Arachova

The Treats of Arachova

Day 10 – Up early to make themountain crossing towards Meteora. Arriving in the general area of Meteora wewere initially gobsmacked by the various monasteries perched (literally) on topof the boulders above the town of Kalambaka. Stopping for lunch (baklava) onsome rocks looking back at the Grand Meteora (the biggest and ‘original’monastery) couldn’t have been more scenic way to spend lunch. Our enthusiasmwas temporarily dampened when arriving at the Grand Meteora to it being shut(closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays for those playing at home). However two of thenearby monasteries were open and we went in to take in our little task of monklife. Back to Kalambaka for the night (some lucky people might get freepostcards from the Aeolic Star hotel) and dinner at a local diner whereMousakka and lamb were thoroughly enjoyed!

Lunch on a rock over looking, from left to right, St John's (I think), Grand Meteora and Versasse (or similar...)

Close up of the one I think was St John's

Day 11 – Not to miss out on thenamesake of the area it was straight up the mountain to get back into GrandMeteora (it being a Thursday and open) and we were not disappointed. Thebiggest monastery is also the most accessible to the public and this coupledwith some great historical displays on the two Greek wars of independence andthe battles associated with freedom from Nazi occupation more than satisfiedthe history nerd in me!

Grand Meteora

Unfortunately my joy was shortlived as it was back on the road and dealing with the crazy Greek drivers. WhatI thought were, line markings, road signs, warning signs, speed cameras, Policeradar traps or any other road information service… turns out they aregenerically known as ‘tourist traps’ Something that gives the locals muchenjoyment in staring, flashing lights, honking horns, yelling at the latesttourist who falls victim to these novelties!

Smiling in the face of death on Greek roads...

Not knowing where our finaldestination was we headed south towards Olympia, our eventual destination thefollowing day, and reached the town of Patras late in the afternoon. Whatcould’ve gone either way turned out to be a vibrant, modern CBD of a universitytown full of trendy cafes/bars and lots of young students. Turns out the studentpopulation is blissfully unaware of the impending European financial doom andthe general feeling in Patras represents this to great effect. Having had asubstantial lunch on the way looking over the water at Mindili we spent thenight café hopping and sampling the local chips/nuts/ general appertiffi (notsure what the Greek term for it is). What a great time, would highly recommenda night there (as long as it’s in semester probably).

Night life in Patra

Day 12 – A quick dice with deathon the roads and we were in Olympia. As per everywhere being the end of theseason it was very quiet, no crowds and with the exception of a few German tourgroups who we avoided, we had the place to ourselves. It’s a pretty impressivearchaeological site to think of all the different civilisations which have usedit for various reasons (pre-historic man, ancient Greek, Romans… and tourists).We managed to the get the actual stadium area to ourselves for a photos shoot.Being inside such a large area with no one else around gives you a feel for howmassive it really is and one can only imagine it being full of Greeks duringthe ancient Olympics. The restorations of a few of the other areas are usefulto get a feel of what the ruins that lay strewn everywhere once were.

The boxing and Wrestling arena at Olympia

The ancient Olympic 178m sprint...

Once out of the site we by-passedthe museum after I checked whether the actual statue of Zeus was there… “Noonly photo…” an afternoon spent wandering the main street of Olympia and theshops which were still open this late in the tourist season. Lunch of Gyros,free Wi-Fi and premier league replays were enjoyed in the afternoon sun andgreat whether.

Gyros for lunch in Olympia

Not wanting to dice with deathall the way to Athens on the day we were due to fly we got back on the road andheaded towards Athens. As sunset approached we ended up in Corinth and becauseit was on our to do list, but too dark to see just then, we stopped there forthe night. A heaps dodgier version of Patras we found cheap accommodation, hada quick bite, a coffee at a café and got an early night for our big day oftravel.

Day 13 – Lucky 13! Hard to thinkwe’ve only been on the road for less than 2 weeks; we have seen and done somuch already. We managed to accidently end up at the same spot that theorganised tours stop to view the Corinth Canal and proceeded to take theobligatory tourist photos. Whilst it is an impressive excavation/engineeringexercise, being a realist I can’t help but think it’s a bit of a waste given itis way too narrow to be used by modern ships. Having said that I spose it is120 odd years old, and is probably more of a feat when viewed from thatperspective. The bungy jump was closed but can’t say I was willing to try it ina post GFC Greece were cost cutting everywhere is so evident!

Corinth Canal

Successfully navigated back tothe airport and had a win when explaining to the Budget guy that our chargerfor the GPS they hired us didn’t work and he took it off the price! (We chargedit off our laptop anyway but he didn’t need to know that). A quick AirOneflight to Milan in time for the 15:15 high speed train to Firenze (Florence).High speed trains are awesome, especially in 1^st class, which ourEUrail allows us to enjoy free drinks and snacks. If only I could speak Italianto get the complimentary Wi-Fi up and running! Not to worry, I’ll hand thisblog over to the Editor-in-Chief (Katrina) and sit back and relax…

Love M&K!

Santorini Sunsets

2011-11-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

“…A few days of real Honeymooning ahead for us relaxing on a Greek island, hopefully hovering around the 20 degC mark…”

Day 5 – Famous last words! Whilst the blue skies and sunshine alluded to the 20 degC mark, unfortunately the Archipelago of Santorini whipped up a horribly cold wind chill of about -10 degC. Not the idle weather to be laying around the pool. Having said that our first day in Santorini was more than a success with the picturesque surrounds providing the perfect back drop to a day of wondering through Fira (the main town on the main island). Having no plans meant we got lost for the day, beginning with watching the local townspeople march through the main street to commemorate the day that the Greeks objected to Nazi occupation during WW2. From there it was up through the meandaring streets of Fira to find picturesque churches, over 250 on the island supposedly, blue and white dominant colour schemes, and the faint smell of donkey shit everywhere! We stopped at one of the few open churches where Katrina lit a candle for Nev and said good bye to him on the same day as everyone else back home. A hearty feed of Greek food overlooking the old port was followed up with cocktails at the same venue, after we’d walked off lunch (that’s what I told myself anyway). Finding a different bar to watch the sunset was beautiful even though the sunset into a low lying band of cloud off the coast rather than into the Mediterranean (as per the postcards!). Off to Juilius Ceasar’s for dinner and another over indulgent feed of greek food. Definalty learnt our lesson of not needing such big meals!

Breakfast at the Petit Palace

The Petit Palace!

Celebrating saying 'no' to the Nazi occupation in WW2

Nice view... the back drop is ok too...

The church where Katrina said goodbye to Nev on our behalf

The source(s) of the faint smell of donkey shit!

Sunset from Fira town

Day 6 – We had found out on Friday that the last full day boat tour of the season would run today and foolishly we thought why not. The tour takes in 4 locations on a small ‘traditional’ ‘junk’ fishing boat. First stop was the active volcano island, Nea Kameni, which is the ‘centre’ of the volcano of which all the islands are part of. A personal tour by a self indulgent geologist was too much for Katrina, retiring to take happy snaps. However the nerd of our group, me, huddled in close against the noise of the wind to learn what I could through his heavy accent. The volcano is actually a ‘super’ volcano which last major eruption was over 500 years ago. Whilst a minor eruption in 1950 something created the current little island of the main stack vent which still has some active steam pockets that could be used to warm your hands on the day. The next major eruption is not due until the earth next changes magnetic polarity, although there will be minor lava only eruptions in the next 20 years.

Next it was on to the warm springs. Only problem was you had to jump off the boat and swim the 20m in freezing cold water to get to them, and the same on the way back. Katrina and I were shown up in the bravery award by one old Aussie dude, and 4 young back packer girls, but we both thought the better of attempting it and staying wet for the remainder of the day. Soft we know.

Next stop was Thirasia, a small fishing village town ‘totally’ cut off from the modern world, or so we were told. Personally, I’m sceptical, they have a power source somewhere as the power poles attest to, and at least the one restaurant that was open defiantely had modern cook where, fridges, tills etc. Think it might be a convenient story for the tourists! It was however a stark reminder that we were here at the end of the season, whilst everything had been quiet on Friday, Thirasia¸ was positively dead on Saturday! It was like something out of a Zombie/outbreak/ebola virus movie. Scary. None more so when sitting on the dock enjoying a romantic moment we were attacked by a vicious, horrible, massive, scary…. Puppy. Still it scared the shit out of us as it was deserted and it snuck up on us ok!

Unfortunately the afternoon stop at Oia (pronuced Ee-a) was cancelled due to bad weather but we did do a ‘sail by’ to check it out. Upon returning to the dock Katrina and I, not wanting to miss the sunset jumped in a cab back to Oia to take in the most famous of the Santorini sunsets. Got to say, it didn’t live up to the hype, anywhere along the cliff delivers a good view. Again slightly spoilt by the cloud bank off the cost and the howling wind we were subjected to. Dinner at Oia was a welcome reprieve from the wind and although devoid of alcohol for me (on a self imposed alcohol free day) was still fabulous, Greeks can eat!

On the Volcano vent, windy much?

The warmest Katrina would be all day, warming her hands on the steam vents!

Lets fly Jetstar... or lets sail on the Santa Trini as it would become known (note real name Santa Irini)

Lovers sunset at Oia

Day 7 – On the 7^th day, they rested… A solid sleep in, followed by breakfast in house and back to back skype sessions with Lee and Sheree, Mum and Dad and Mikey and Tam was a much needed down day for us. The wind did die down enough for an hour by the poolside, I swear, see the pictures! And whilst the water was brisk, we had a spa bath to retire to inside our villa! We had big plans of heading in to Fira for an afternoon of washing and then dinner, however this was soon spoilt as apparently on the 7^th day, the Laundromats also rested! Not all was lost as our shuttle bus driver from the week took us to a ‘locals only’ restaurant where we had the second best meal of our trip to date (sorry Chicken and Rice for 3.50 SGD still takes the cake for me). Served with Ouzo, ‘magical bread’ (as Katrina named it) and mains of pork belly (me) and seafood risotto (Katrina) were absolutely amazing. All washed down with cheap house wine and cold Mythos. Followed up with some chocolate/biscuit awesomeness and some other ‘sweet ouzo’ (horrible) topped it off quite nicely!

Loving the hot weather!

So relaxing!

Sunset at the Petit Palace

Day 8 – Our final morning in Santorini started with our belated trip to the dry cleaners where Nona sorted all our washing out for us, folded and placed in a bag for 12 EUR. More expensive than doing it yourself, but definitely shite loads easier! Unfortuantely Nona must of struck me with some sort of annoying tourist curse as I came down with a horrible Migraine of the type I remember getting as a kid, and once this year at work, so I retired back to the hotel and Katrina charged on for the remainder of the day. So over to her…

Being the last day of the ‘official’ season, most shops were closed, and only the locals were out which was nice. I bought a painting which we had seen earlier in the week together (clearly haven’t learnt our lesson of lugging art around the world) and stopped for lunch where I met another Aussie couple from Tweed Heads, we later sat next to them on the ferry. I picked up our washing neatly folded and headed back to find out if Mark was still alive???

After her adventures she returned to save me and we headed to the new port to board the Blue Star Ferry to Piraeus (Athens Port). Am typing this on board and whilst 9 hours is a long time on a ferry it is very comfortable, once we found an inside seat out of the cold, and the only thing which is lacking is an active wi-fi connection to post this blog! Must of found one eventually!

Love you all!

M&K

Oia from the bluestar on our way out.

The Bluestar sailing to the sunset - No wonder their economy died, their organisation is terrible

The Singapore Fling

2011-10-27T06:48:00.000-07:00

Day 0 – A very un-eventful day transit after saying farewell to the Bennetts, Mansfields and Felicty and Jan at Sydney Airport. A day of travelling ended with us checking into Studio M apartments in Singapore, dinner and the Manchester derby just around the corner at “Stacked” bar for some dim sum. Two pieces of advice for those playing along at home, If you ever get the chance to fly on the A380s, do it, they are awesome, and, never pay for transfers in Singapore, cabs are way too cheap to bother!

Relaxing at Studio M

Day 1 – Not wanting to waste time on the first day of our trip we arose early to make the most of the day. Unfortunately it started with the sad news of Katrina’s grand father passing away and our thoughts were (and still are) definitely back in Kotara with the extended Mansfield family on this morning. Breakfast at the café at studio M provided a French style coffee and bread to get us on our way and this would become a stable for the next 3 days. On beginning our walk down the River we realised that our attempt to start early was most probably wasted as like a lot of Asian cultures it’s a start late finish late attitude with not much open before 10. By the time we’d walked the length of the River, down to the now famous, Marina Bay Sands we were exhausted in the stifling heat and humidity. Deciding to eat like the locals we wandered down to Chinatown for some ‘Chicken and Rice’ at the Maxwell Food Markets Hawkers centre. Got to say, the food was awesome, the chilli was hot and at 3.50 SGD for a meal, un beatable value that I don’t think will get repeated for the remainder of this trip! After the sapping heat it was nice to spend the afternoon by the pool at the hotel before meeting Katrina’s (ex-)work colleague, Simone Stokes, out in the ‘burbs’ for some local chilli crab and fish head soup.

Chicken and Rice from the Maxwell Hawker's centre

Katrina at Marina Bay Sands

Day 2 – Was our big day and probably too much given the heat and humidity. We went to Santosa Island to sample the (kids) activities. The cable car over to the island is an impressive view, a few Queenstown inspired luge trips down the hill to the beach and an ill informed attempt at riding a stationary wave at the FLO-RIDER resulting in a few too many bumps and bruises which we are both still paying for. The afternoon was much more relaxing with cocktails of the day, satay sticks and chips on the menu by the beach at Santosa. From there it was on to enjoy the view from Marina Bay Sands. Some handy advice from Simone meant that we waved the 20 SGD fee to get up the top by giving the commitment to have a cocktail at Ku-De-ta. Of course the cocktails are 20 SGD a pop, but hey you get the view and the drink, rather than just the view! We must say it is an impressive view of the city and a great place to watch the sunset and enjoy a drink, albeit a very expensive one. From there it was off to the famous Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo, intermittent rain had increased the humidity from 110%, to 10000000%... Our advice is to just leave it at the Tram ride, the walking trails at the end of an already massive day proving way too much! By the time we got back to the city we only had the energy for a late Indian dinner on Deephavali eve, which was awesome food at Clarke Quay.

On the cable car to Santosa

Luge - Santosa Style

Sky Ride back up from bottom of Luge

The infamous FLORIDER in action!

Cocktails at top of Marina Bay Sands, Ku De Ta

The Fullerton as viewed from Ku De Ta

Day 3 – Our final day was rewarded with a sleep in and a late check out in the knowledge that out flight was not until 1am the next morning. Heading up to Orchard Road to do some window shopping was made more difficult by on-going intermittent rain all day. Giving up on the shopping idea when we have no room to pack anything we headed to the Newton Circus Hawkers market late in the afternoon. We got there at opening and it was pretty much just the shop owners cooking themselves dinner. Can confirm that it is the tourist Hawkers centre with prices being more than the Maxwell and the food no better! Off to Raffles for the very tourist driven Singapore Sling, whilst the free peanuts is a nice touch, the shells on the floor doesn’t really make sense when it’s a tile floor (Katrina reliably tells me that the tradition comes from having wooden floors which enjoy the oil that the peanut shells release when crushed into the floor). With big plans of going out for another drink at one of the rooftop bars before leaving shelved due to FLORIDER based injuries we retired back to Studio M for some drinks and dinner before heading to the airport to check in early and try the ‘we’re on our honeymoon’ for a free upgrade trick. It didn’t work and after enjoying some remedial massage we boarded our 12 and a half hour flight to Zurich early on Day 4.

Singapore Sling??

Day 4 – Still on-going and the location of composition of this blog here in Athens still in transit! The flight to Zurich turned out to be great, with not only Singapore Airlines changing their movies in the last 3 days, but a low attendance on an A380 meaning Katrina and I got three seats each and managed to fit in some serious sleep. A quick hop on Swiss Air to Athens (two hours) and arrived early for our flight to Santorini. Excited by the prospect of the 15:00 flight instead of the 17:45 flight, this was soon quashed by the friendly ladies at Olympic Air informing us it would be at extra 132 EUR for that particular pleasure. Not all bad though, sitting here at “The Olive Tree” (definitely named for the tourists) enjoying a salad, coffee and some wireless inter web. A few days of real Honeymooning ahead for us relaxing on a Greek island, hopefully hovering around the 20 degC mark. Can’t wait!

All our Love, Mark and Katrina

(click on photos to view full size :) :) )

The first and Final Jets Post for the Year!

2011-10-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, the Sometimes Football Soapbox is back and this year will really live up to the name of sometimes Football! (but more on that later)

To the first round of the Jets campaign for the year. Unable to make it up to Newcastle, Lee and I watched from the comfort of Quest North Ryde. My memory fails me on the details but I distinctly remember Griffo's brilliant free kick (would've won me a substantial amount of money if Heart hadn't already scored!) and his follow up probably of equal quality but from open play. It was refreshing to see the passing game we love so much finally producing some goals rather than the last few years of playing well with no final product. The second half was more of the same and I honestly believe the Jets deserved their win but agree that the nature of the winner was more than a little fortuitous. I don't think we have a new crowd favourite like Song, in Byun but at least the enthusiasm and excitement is there, not sure whether you can claim that goal though mate...

Overall round 1 was a solid performance and showed the work of a long off season. Which at the risk of inciting some anger can only be credit to Cullina Snr. Regardless of your feelings on the matter the performance in round 1 could of only been his (and the players) doing. Players don't organise themselves that way in 4 days, and there was no way Craig Deans could've developed that understanding off the bat! I am one (of a minority?) that is sad to see Branko go. We most likely will never know the full story but you can reasonably assume that it had something to do with knowledge of Jason's injury. I wish the Cullina's all the best, and Jason in particular a speedy recovery, it would be sad to see such a great career ended on these terms.

If round 1 was solid, round 2 was as a soft as the extra kilos I've piled on since the wedding (no I won't try and convince you they're muscle tone). I don't buy in to the whole a trip to Wellington is hard so it's OK argument. I'm sure if I turned up to work and under performed a comment like "It's a long drive through traffic to Botany" wouldn't go down well with the manager! I will premise this by noting that I'm not a huge Craig Deans fan, but don't for a minute consider it coach bashing. HOWEVER, when you trade in one of your defensive midfielders for an attacking option further up the pitch, leave your back four as exposed as the Jets were, AND not produce any attack of meaning or quality, you've got to admit defeat and reshuffle. Wehrman worked hard and was probably the best player in gold (sorry memory lapse, in blue and red) out there, but what he provides in commitment and strength he unfortunately gives up in pace. He was over run all day and unable to provide adequate cover to the back four. Additionally the more attack minded players up the pitch gave up the ball to easily to compound this problem. I cannot for the life of me figure out how Kantarovski wasn't pulled back to help screen the back line. It wouldn't of helped the attacking stocks, but lets be honest the attack wasn't solid all day anyway, but may of shored up the chances that kept flowing from the Phoenix midfield.

Against the Mariners this weekend another performance like the one across the ditch on Sunday will be crucified by the Jets faithful. A lot has already been written this week about the players not being 'up for it' only they can answer those comments. All I would ad is that if your not up for the F3 Derby, you're going to struggle all season... Good luck this weekend Jets, Round 1 showed what you were capable of, Round 2 showed a performance not to be repeated, I'm sure the challenge of the Mariners will bring out the best in you all!

ASIDE: as alluded to above, the Soapbox will be dedicated to holiday travels for the rest of the 2011 year. I would appreciate somebody posting the Jets results as replies to our travel posts if they don't mind. Starting this weekend as we will be en route to Singapore during the game. Stay tuned...

Delayed Season Wrap up!

2010-09-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

Better late than never I spose. But prompted by Bob, who asked me to do the season wrap up for the club newsletter thingo. So happy reading.

The season started with new faces and new hope (like Star Wars). Whilst we lost a few experienced (read: old) heads at the back we recruited well with the draw of last season’s minor premiers (in AA7’s!). (Of course the ever green Dave Bassett went around for another year.) Early promise turned into early results and an opening round victory of 9-0 at LH Waud got us off to a flying start. Some may point to the fact that we played against a 9-man side for this result, personally I’d point to good recruitment, a hard off season and commitment from all the boys! The opening few weeks culminated in a hard fought win over league leaders, and eventual minor premiers and Grand Finalists, Normanhurst, 2-1. It was a great game and really showed our mix of good passing, patience in defence and not giving up against a technically better, fitter, taller side.

Unfortunately we didn’t finish the opening round the way we started with our only 4 losses coming back to back in matches 5 to 8. These losses can generally be contributed to a lack of numbers both at training and on game day and probably were a sign of our only weakness, but one that was to plague us all season. On our day we were an equal match for any of the teams in our competition. Heads were down after match 8, but in true Rovers spirit we “fired up” and got on with the job of securing a top 4 place with 5 wins and a draw to finish the season. Whilst our top four spot was sealed with an opposition forfeit, we came out in the last round and proved we deserved it, to finish 3rd in the regular season with a 3-1 victory!

With the first week of round robin washed out it really hurt our chances with the curse of availability hitting us hard again. Losing our first game in a heart breaker which should of been a draw (if football was fair, not the cruel mistress that we love so much), conceding late to go down 3-2 to eventual champions North Ryde. It took two individual goals from their best player to break us. Knowing that we needed a clear 2 goal win margin in our second round robin game wasn’t helped by only having 10 at kick off and 11 soon after (our weakness struck again). But full credit to all that played we never said never and fought well to go down 3-1 to the other grand finalists Normanhurst.

Lot of positives out of a season of promise for the AA10’s! My personal highlights (not the views of the team) were our win against Normanhurst, Kevin getting the most ridiculous two yellow cards, one for dissent and one for jumping in front of a player trying to take a throw in (within 2 minutes for his red!), Jarrod trying to claim his goal going wide which took a deflection, and my own saved (not missed) penalty which re-affirmed my status of centre back!

Stay tuned for my a-league rants starting as I could be bothered shortly!

See you at the back stick, defending it most likely.
Peace

Back by popular demand!

2010-06-16T05:39:00.001-07:00

Well not really, but you can blame Chief and James for asking me about my lack of blog at training tonight! That's enough to claim popular demand in my mind! At least two people read it, or read it once!

Just as an aside first up, I couldn't bring myself to write a Socceroos Blog on the Germany game. It was just too painful for me. The only thing I think I can say which hasn't already been said is this; chin up boys, if Pim tries something stupid again, put your heads together and sort it out. The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome. I think for professional footballers to be guilty of this is a crime. Good luck boys, smash Ghana! then Serbia!

Back to the real winners of the weekend, THE ROVERS! I must say I was as concerned as anyone about how we would all handle the force 2 week lay off. Turns out we should take 2 weeks off more often. A bright first half by all involved saw the Rovers firing on all cylinders, despite early injuries to Chief, and Sasha we simply dominated. Whilst the Redbacks tried the long ball, we kept our heads, ball on the deck and good possession. Special mentions to James for his cameo up front for the first 15, and Sasha for his absolute brain snap and subsequent yellow card. For a moment you must've thought you were playing in the NBA finals mate, rejected the keeper? Or as mentioned at training, maybe it was that netball drill Bob had us do at training last week!

Despite long periods of domination we didn't manage to snatch a goal in the first half. Second half more of the same, and more of the Rovers curse of dominating but not scoring. Then as if Karma finally was a real force in the world, not the myth of hippies everywhere, Nahid knocked in a superb long range effort... Well... He hit a cross and it snuck in at the back stick! But to be far, we deserved our goal, although the manner left a bit to be desired! It had the desired effect and the flood gates opened!

Leo was the next on the score sheet, the positive side of him not turning up until well after half time was that he was full of running! after beating the offside trap and heading towards goal he hit what can only be described as an inch perfect pass to the back stick. Just enough to give their defender a glimmer of hope of keeping it out. But that glimmer faded as the ball, and the defender, rolled across the line. 2-0. Pete then chimed in with a brilliant run from beside me at the back which started with the comment "random run forward?" to myself, to which i replied, "go for it." Not 30 seconds later he was cutting in on his right foot and smacked home into the bottom corner. 3-0.

Armyn's goal and the Rovers 4th was controversially ruled offside. But it didn't matter the day was one. Of particular importance was a clean sheet and a good team performance across the park, it made the 3-2-1's very difficult!

Onto Normanhurst this weekend, it will be another tough game, and I'll be doing all i can, including staying of the grog at Nahid's to keep another clean sheet. (I also promise i won't go near the penalty spot this time around!) Fire up Rovers! Let's go back to back and restart our season!

See you at a TV somewhere, bleary eyed watching the World Cup!

B!

P.s. Well done to New Zealand, for showing the Socceroos what they could of, nay should of done against Germany. Ok it was against a 'weaker' opposition but the game plan was spot on, the attitude was spot on, and they got the point they needed!

White, Red and a sprinkling of Gold!

2010-05-25T03:03:00.000-07:00

I was honestly expecting to see a headline today "WHITE OUT!" and i suspect that had the much criticised Brett Holman not popped up to seal the result i probably would've. So even though the stereo type is 'a game of too halves' I'm going to write this in terms of colours! I believe it's the artist that I've been hiding under my outer engineer finally getting a run!

WHITE - The all whites dominated, it's the simple truth. Before Bertos was nearly killed (see red below) he was brilliant. Perfectly illustrated by the fact that the two challenges in question happened while he was breaking down the right wing, and then tracking back in the centre of defence. Despite this and the Killen dude popping up to latch on to a good through ball which Craig Moore could of done better with (watch the replay, he ducks under the ball as it comes over as he is not challenging Fallon who flicks it on, he's standing flat footed waiting for the ball to come to him) I honestly don't think NZ were that impressive. Rather i think they just had the calm heads required to take advantage of a dis jointed and unfamiliar Socceroos team. Add to this a seemingly bobbling pitch, which either was remarkably slow (from the coverage) or slowed down the passing so much it was noticeable and it was definitely an ALL WHITE first half. Well done NZ, I think your calm heads will stand you in good shape for SA. Good luck to you.

RED - Much covered in the media today already so i won't Andy Harper on it, but Grella's challenge had intent and was a straight red, and Cahill's had no intent but was still a straight red. I wish Pim had of done what he said post game and substituted them immediately to make it clear to the world that it's just not on! Once again i will congratulate Bertos as if someone had of nearly put me out of a world cup i wouldn't of been as calm as he has been reported to be today!

GOLD - There wasn't much of it really. Let's be honest. I'd forgotten Jason Cullina was even on the park until the second half, Grella i only noticed because of the challenge (see above), apart from one good knock down and blocked shot from Cahill it was pretty terrible. The second half was a world ahead of the first but not a world beating 45 minutes of football. No surprises Macdonald got dropped, if that 65 odd minutes were his last chance it wasn't really good enough, although it does beg the question why there weren't any other strikers in the provisional squad (brosque, Griffiths x2, that south american/australian young guy etc). Vidosic did well to be quickest to react to a deflection from a Cullina pass and did what he should have hammering his shot into the ground and across the keeper (did anyone else have flash backs to a Kewell goal against Croatia?? Or was that just me?). Hollman did well when he came on, and i won't join the numerous critics accept to say i think their are better options available, and scoring a goal at international level should not be sneezed at! My biggest concern was Neil and Moore, I'd be interested in watching a replay and running the numbers, but i would guess that they won less than 10% of the balls in the air, for a CB pairing, that's not good enough. I hope they were just having an off night, but I'm not convinced Moore is ready to go at this stage. Add to this the removal of Jade North already and another defender (at least by my count) to get the chop and defence could be our biggest issue in SA.

So it was a bit of a ramble, but i think it expresses my views on the subject at least. And it's not like anyone reads this anyway! Good luck Socceroos, I will echo Pim's comments that if the world cup was in 3 days I'd be worried, but with 3 weeks to prepare i think there was enough in the second half to suggest we'll be competitive!

See you at the art convention...

B!

Injury - double the pain!

2010-05-25T02:38:00.000-07:00

So, with myself and chief out through injury, Bob OS, Nits likewise gallavanting, Shiraz with a dodgy hammy, Tony with a suspected fractured ankle, Dusko nearly dead, and probably someone else I've missed it wasn't exactly the best preparation for a game. Having said that we started reasonably well as everyone settled into new positions and came to terms with a few different styles of play. Unfortunately as we are making a habit of in recent weeks after a 15 or 20 minute opening domination of possession and play, we gave one of their guys a bit too much room at the top of the box, and whilst i wouldn't say his shot was blistering it did enough for Rusty to have to play at it, and unfortunately just took enough off it to see it under the bar and in. 1-0.

We've (well I in particular) have been harping on at training about having better talk on the field, I've noticed that were good at talking when we want the ball, but apart from that there is a resounding silence. Unfortunately again after a good 10 minute play straight after their goal we were guilty of just this. No call of man on for Al at left back, no call between Al and Rusty, and a strikers foot in resulting in the ball sneaking in at the back post somehow. 2-0

At half time Chief and i really couldn't pick too many faults with the play, we were actually playing quite well, just conceded two soft goals. Heads up boys, we're still in it!

Not long into the second half we got our just reward. To be honest with you i can't even remember how it came about but i remember some good passing through their relatively slow back line and the score was looking a lot better at 2-1. Too good to be true right, despite numerous changes immediately after, they countered. The ref didn't give a blatant free kick to them, so decided that when Kev got hacked from behind, he'd reward it the other way! (probably the worst of a series of bad decisions from our friend with the whistle. From the resultant free kick James mis-qued a header into the cross bar, everyone stopped, except their striker who nodded home for 3-1. 3 soft goals.

Full credit to all involved we didn't give up and were rewarded again with a brilliant build up through the mids which put Chris through onto goal and he made no mistake with a neat finish into the bottom corner. 3-2.

Unfortunately the clock was our enemy and we ran out of time to equalise. It was a tough one to take for all i believe. I hate watching from the sidelines, especially when I'm injured (hence the double pain), and i can only imagine how hard it was for the rest of the boys who played so bloody well for 3 lapses in concentration and a bit of bad luck to ruin our chances!

We need to stay switched on for 90 minutes this week, tighten up, but generally play the same style as we did on Saturday. A victory on the weekend will be enough to keep us in the title race as we're playing Kenthurst who we are equal 5th with! come on boys, come on Kenny keep sending your inspirational emails and random facebook messages! Fire up Rovers!

See you on the sideline...
B!

(Just kidding, I've been cleared to play this weekend, woot!)

Things that make you go....... hmmmmmmmmmmm

2010-05-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend seems to have been the moment when the footballing gods reminded us that the game we love can be a bitter sweet mistress sometimes. Just ask ourselves, the Goblins (losing a heart breaker 1 nil with 10 men), Wigan (say no more) and Harry Kewell's groin (hmmmmm)... I only have first hand experience on one of them, and no it's not H.Kewell's groin! So that is the one i will attempt to discuss in depth.

Buoyed by our hard fought victory last weekend we assembled with confidence, however knowing that Armyn and Nahid had to leave early we took a gamble on one young Kevin lacing up the boots in anticipation of that dual loss late in the second half. We also knew that we needed to make hay while the sun shone, or in this case, make running while the bench was full! Unfortunately the game started similar to last week, we conceded early to an excellent through ball, latched on to by their striker. I stepped up to close down the player with the ball, who succeeded in beating me and Tony with his delivery, from their neither of us were likely to chase him down. 1 nil. We didn't put our heads down and concentrated on playing our own game, which we did quite well, knocking the ball around and making some very good passages of play. Unfortunately we didn't really create any clear cut chances with the ball. Roughly 10 minutes before the break nearly a carbon copy, I again stepped forward in the line to close down, failed, and a perfect through ball, another chance taken for them. 2 nil. Someone once told me that making one mistake was to learn, and to make the same mistake again was a fuck up... hmmmmmmmm i must not of listened!

We spoke at half time about being right in the game and sticking to much of the same. Which we did, we proceeded to dominate completely, I'd say in the second half we would've had close to 60% of the ball. But despite our best efforts we couldn't break down their scrambling defence. Again probably guilty of not taking our shots early enough and hindered by Shiraz's hamstring injury after the boys had left reduced us to maybe 10.5. Despite the hammy, Shiraz managed two or three decent long range shots just off target. Bob had a header lacking power on target, and countless other people had opportunities high wide and not too handsome. But it definitely wasn't for lack of trying. Full time and it had stayed 2 nil, I'm proud that we tightened up at the back in the 2nd half, but it shouldn't of taken that long, and the boys through the centre and up front toiled extra hard for no reward.

There was one passage of play in particular that even Fozzie and Barca would've been happy with, a short goal kick and passed all the way to the goal (but once again resulting in nought!). I won't harp on the fact that their striker pushed me as i stepped off my left foot to avoid Dusco, resulting in me hitting him hard with all 94kg of my frame, neither of us came off too well i don't think. The ref summed up his ordinary performance with by arguing with me that by not giving the guy a card, even though he'd seen me get pushed in the back, that he was playing the advantage... hmmmmmm... Despite me and Dusco both rolling on the ground with the wind and the shit knocked out of us. Sorry D, I'm working on losing some weight, maybe it'll only be 90kg next time! ... hmmmmmmm...

So what to do, i don't think much really, some much needed shooting drills will be on this Wednesday. Apart from that we just need to keep our heads up, concentrate on not making mistakes at the back, and will welcome back some squad members this weekend to bolster our overall numbers. Heads up and lets do more of the same, except with a tighter defence and some more goals! ha ha, easy right?!?!?!

Although i think my medical staff (me) will rule me out for rest on my injured ribs and shoulder (thanks Dusco ;) ) I will still make an appearance at training either way.

See you at the back stick (probably defending a corner!) ... Things that make you go hmmm!

B!

That was it!

2010-05-03T02:12:00.000-07:00

Well that was it boys! It was the performance that we needed to galvanise our season. Even though we were undefeated to date, it was fair to say we weren't really firing on all cylinders. That all changed on Saturday against the Eagles from Normanhurst.

Frankly, the game couldn't of started worse, James and I got caught too high, (and too slow) and they put one of their first touches straight between us, to be run on to by their very quick striker. Slotted even though Dusco got a couple of fingers to it. Like James Bond's martini's, we were shaken not stirred. Luckily that was all about to change, and we pulled our fingers out. The defence sat a bit deeper and cleaned up and we knocked the ball around well. Probably even better than well given the poor condition of the pitch. Fortunately for us, but not for the poor guy, the quick man up front did a hammy about 10 minutes in.

After having the lions share of possession we were rewarded with a penalty from a hand ball. Shiraz asked Tony to take it, Tony was on the bench injured, Bob told Shiraz to take it, then Shiraz told Bob to take it. Full of misplaced confidence after practising at training i put my hand up. Placing the ball down i thought, fuck this keeper is massive. Maybe that, or my complete lack of ability was my undoing. Always going bottom right, i managed to miss hit it straight at the keeper, saved, devo, dickhead!

Again we passed the ball around and Kevin was ruled to have been pushed in the back for our second penalty of the game, (and about the 1000th for the season I'm led to believe!) Kevin, taking my lead, smacked his penalty straight at the giagantour keeper! You ever see that show, saved by the bell, well Kevin is the new star of a spin off, called saved by the lino! Flag up, keeper off his line, have another go Kev! Slotted, 1 all!

Second half, more of the same really, i honestly believe we weren't really threatened the defence finally gelled, the mid field did everything we'd asked for and more, and the boys up front pushed hard. We just couldn't find that goal. Kenny sacrificed his shin for the cause after he was absolutely smashed to win a free kick right on the edge of the box. Up steps Shiraz to smack a screamer on target, giagantour could only fumble it, and Bob was on hand to push it in with his knee, or shin, or knob... 2-1...

Just when we were reasonably comfortable in front, Kevin had a brain snap, well two brain snaps in quick succession, yellow for impeding restart of play from free quick, yellow for impeding a throw in, results in red, bye bye Kevin. Despite the extra man, the Eagles didn't threaten too strongly, we absorbed a lot of pressure for the last 10 minutes and could of sealed it late with 2 or 3 chances on the counter. They looked dangerous from set pieces, but this was more to do with their combined height which if stood head on shoulders would've reached the moon!

Well done Rovers, apart from some dickhead who had his penalty saved, it was a dominate performance even at the end with 10 men. Rest up this weekend Kev, you've earned your weekend off! Everyone else, remember that form, and continue it!

See you at the penalty spot (if anyone lets me near it ever again!)

B!

Round 3 - tough one, point

2010-04-27T01:16:00.000-07:00

Well, let me start by once again iterating that these blogs aren't trying to criticise anyone or place blame in anyway. The whole point is to have a forum to discuss our performances, good and bad, and just have a laugh and look back on the performance from the weekend. If people are still offended after this post, and i get a direct request I will not bother posting further.

With that in mind. I think the weekend's performance was good without being great. Kevin got us off to a great start by listening to what was said at training last week, and having a shot when in range and confident. Helped by a bit of an error by their keeper, but aided by awkwardly bouncing his shot right in front, the goal went in for a 1 nil lead inside the first few minutes. We then continued to pass the ball well, moving up the field with a series of one-two's on a number of occasions.

Unfortunately lateish in the second half the first of a few defensive lapses led to them equalising. I will put my hand up, and i think the rest of the back line will as well, to say that we did not clear the ball well when required. On too many occasions we didn't clear the ball far enough or with enough urgency.

After the re-start it was more of the same really, good in attack, not so good in defence. Somebody (memory fails me) put in a good cross for Nits and Shiraz to bundle home (feel free to claim it someone, just couldn't see from my end of the pitch). Not long after there was another unfortunate defensive error, the person involved has already contacted me today to cancel dinner plans as he has been sort out by all media outlets for exclusive interviews and training sessions to teach his sublime finishing skills to the next generation! 2 all.

Kenny was rewarded for some more hard work in the box (non sexually) with being brought down from behind and having a penalty awarded. Tony stepped up to slot home to make it 3-2 with about 10 to go. The third goal to equalise, again was a result of not enough urgency at the back with a scramble and a stab home. I personally had one of those flash back moments after it went in, if i had of just gone to ground instead of just flinging out a foot i reckon i could of stopped it (or at least deflected it in! ha ha!).

So what to take from it. I'm not sure, the 4 or 5 of us interchanging out of the back line need to work together (as we have been but more) at training and talking to each other more. If we can continue to score goals and play through the park like we did (especially in the first half), but shore up the defence, another 3 points can't be too far away!

Anyone else?

See you at training on Wednesday,
Yours in Football

B!

Winter means Rovers!

2010-04-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

Ok everyone, this a-league off season I'm donating my blog to match reports for the AA10 West Ryde Rovers. They are by no means accurate, they are simply my recount of the events. Fellow Rovers I'm not using this to judge, again it is just my recount and opinions on the games. So feel free to comment and correct me or tell me I'm being a jerk! Enjoy!

**************2 points lost, not a point gained!************************************

We started first half very poorly, even though I warned the mid field pre-game that they needed to drop deep to pick up the ball, and pass through the opposition, they proceeded to completely ignore me. No one dropped to receive the ball, no one played the easy ball when we did have it. Their first goal was a comedy of errors from myself, Dusco and the linesperson. Their striker (who was like 17, and ran me ragged all game) was no joke, maybe 5 metres off side, goal keeper finally found his boot and cleared myself. Not seeing a flag I chased hard, and then Dusco put his hand up and said he’d been called off side so I pulled up, their striker, now standing literally next to Dusco just passed the ball in. No flag, no whistle, goal. I know I shouldn’t of pulled up, even with Dusco’s call. (Unfortunately no one stuck a rocket up me but...) I stuck a bit of a rocket up Sasha about if he wanted to play at the back all he had to do was ask and I’d push forward, just before half time and had to explain after the game i was just trying to express some encouragement and got carried away! OOPPS! Chief and I also exchanged some heated words at the half time whistle (white line fever no hard feelings guys). Nits missed a penalty after being brought down in the box.

Second half was better with at least some reasonable possession, Then Kenny (I think it was Kenny anyway?) also missed a penalty from a hand ball. 30 seconds later they scored I think from a corner and resultant scramble, I can’t even remember how exactly. Heads went down, but luckily that meant that not everyone was running towards goal and we suddenly found our midfield and just played through them for the last 30 minutes. Tony slotted a penalty after another hand ball (dubious, but we'll take it) he also moved into the mids basically whilst we defended 3 at the back. Not exactly planned but given that Sasha was pretty much a CB anyway it was a good outcome because he hustled really hard and I reckon changed the game in our favour. Leo tried to fight some guy, then Kenny stabbed home to equalise. They hit the cross bar twice, both bouncing straight down (at least one looked to cross the line to me) but neither awarded. Numerous other chances on top of the 2 missed pens meant it could’ve quite easily been 5 or 6 to 2. Basically we cannot be happy with a point when we missed 2 pens. I also honestly believe we are a far better team than:
a) the way we played
and
b) the opposition, their defence in particular was sloppy and haphazard.

Need to do better next Monday. Hopefully we have more than 10.5 turn up (the 0.5 was chief (re-injured within 10 minutes) we had two U17’s fill in for us luckily).

(Once again Rovers, feel free to correct me, add your insight, and all round contribute)

See you at the back stick,
B!

When beautiful isn't working - try hard nosed

2009-10-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Well. I think I'm not alone when I say that I breathed a sigh of relief when at full time the Jets had managed to hold on to an initial 2-0 lead to win 2-1. It has been a long time coming, and whilst the performance left a lot to be desired, the result was certainly what the players, the club and most importantly the fans needed! Plus it is always nice to get a derby victory!

I'm going to say that it was the worst performance by the team I've watched this year (remembering that I was OS for the Brisbane home defeat). A brilliant opening 20 minutes died off into a 7 or 8 man back line that any Italian side would've been proud of. Our attacking flair died but the defense to it's credit did not once leave BK exposed. The two 'saves' he was forced to make late on were 30 or 40 yard speculators which the defense could do little about. Whilst he did deal with them well, there were still some moments where he hesitated to come of his line (or stay on his line) which does nothing to erase my seed of doubt that he his fit to play at this level.

Up front I think Branko would be mad to change the Bridges/Haliti combination unless some how we managed to sign Drogba on a guest stint. They worked brilliantly together on Friday night and were justly rewarded with a goal each! Despite an abundance of strikers now fit I would definitely be leaving them on the bench for what has to be our solid first choice combo.

Kudos as well to Ange Costanzo (or gorgeous George as we like to know him). He has struggled for game time, even struggled for a spot on the bench but has not complained and played the team line all year. He was rewarded for his patience on Friday night and I would like to think that he will retain his spot regardless of Lljubo's fitness. I think it also highlights the fact that Branko has 3 class centre backs in, George, Lljubo and T-S, and he should not thrust someone like Kanta into the back line 'a la' the week before. These guys have a wealth of knowledge and experience, read the game like it's a short children's book and barring an injury to two of them at any one time 2 out of the 3 should be on the field. If Lljubo does make a return from injury I think there is merit in pushing him into the holding midfield role and keeping the back line as is. We need to tighten up enough to maintain a clean sheet however, from my memory the last one was against the Gold Coast and that isn't good enough to win games or challenge for a finals spot!

Unfortunately for the faithful, wins to Nth Qld and a Wellington thrashing of Gold Coast (comedy gold for those who watched) does not alter the Jets position on the table. They need to back it up this weekend against the Roar who, if their game against Sydney is any indication, will be hard to break down and dangerous on the counter. Also be ware the team with a new coach! Shut down Van Djik, Mitch Nicols and Tommy Oar and you'll isolate Reinaldo (assuming his injury was only a knock). Easier said than done!

The players confidence should be back up, I know mine is as a supporter and I'm looking forward to back to back wins for the first time this season. I would like to see more than 20 minutes of beautiful football that we are capable of being played. But if it means another 3 points in Brisbane, I probably won't even mention it next week!

Yours in Football,

Not Again... Beautiful game, heart breaking result...

2009-10-06T03:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so I know it's been a few weeks again but I do have a life after all (including a work relocation to Newcastle through the week now!) To the Football...

Why? For the third week in a row the boys have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Now I know your screaming that they had a draw with Adelaide yesterday but when you play as well as they did in the first half and only walk away with a point, it feels like a loss. At least from where I'm sitting it was. So what's going wrong? I just don't know. They have a solid back line with hard nose centre halves and quickish left and right backs. A dynamite midfield anchored by D'appuzzo (who had his best game in a gold shirt yesterday) who is most probably the weakest link. 3 out of, Fabio, Abbas, Patafta and Song is just amazing. Fabio distributes and the others buzz around him like very skillful little puppies it truly is beautiful to watch. But up front.

Ok so it's not ground breaking to say that it's up front where we are not getting the results from our players. I think we have the personnel to score goals but like all strikers they just need to find some form. My new concern after watching Bridges is that we have signed not a goal scorer but yet another provider. Considering it was his first game in over 6 weeks he was outstanding. But not as a 6 yard box striker which is what we need but dropping back and picking up the ball and creating (like the assist for Song).

Ok so i kind of rambled without much of a point. I guess that's because i don't really no what to say. They are playing brilliant football but just not finishing, and because of that just not getting results. All i can hope is that one, or even better, all, the strikers hit some form and capitalise on what really is the best football in the a-league.

Keep it R, L! Yours in Football.
Peace

Bad form not just me....

2009-09-16T01:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so my lack of posting is extremely bad form, the ACL been and gone, and the first 6 weeks of email with no posts. In my defence i didn't start on the a-league because i knew i would miss 5 weeks due to my European adventure. So I'm going to start this one with a few comments on the a-league so far and my short but exciting European football adventure. (in my defense further, if you read this, make a comment, i feel like I'm talking to myself most weeks!)

So to Europe first. Couldn't get tickets to the Serie A so that was extremely disappointing. But did make a trip to a Ligue 1 game in France Nice Vs Montpellier. THE FOOTBALL - was great, well at least from Montpellier it was. The pace was impressive, and i think the largest difference was the technical side of the players involved. And no i don't want to go on a date with Les Murray, Craig Foster, the army of Dutch coaches the FFA has locked up in their basement or the countless other people who preach the A-leagues lack of technical prowess. The issue is they are right and i challenge anyone to watch the game i watched and tell me otherwise. All the players, from the strikers to the goal keeper were just brilliant on the ball. There was rarely a poor first touch, and when players received the ball they knew what they were going to do with it before they had it. The movement off the ball was equally impressive. THE FANS - were terrible. Well i should clarify the Montpellier fans were terrible! Whilst already up 2-0 they proceeded to throuw large fire crackers on to the field which smoked, and then exploded with a huge band (enough to make a young boy sitting near us cry!) and 5 or 6 sparkler type things spread all over the field. After the 3rd one the ref called his officials off the field, 1 AR was running a line in front of said fans. after a 15 minute intermission he must of agreed to continue with the game on the basis that the police got the Montpellier fans out of there. The riot police came in, pushed them out whilst the game proceeded. The irony of it all was that they were already winning 2-0 and they continued to dominate Nice and ended up 3-0 to the good! So basically my heart was broken to have European football hooligans confirmed first hand! I also would like to go on the record to say that if that's what we have to put up with to have a 'European' style top flight football league. i don't want one, give me 8000 fans including families and kids anytime!

So a quick note on the Jets. I still managed to follow their progress online and via SMS (thanks Lee and Mikey!). Mixed start to the season topped by that victory over the Gold Coast (i nearly cried when i heard this!) but I'm not going to review the games. My two tips which i believe, if the Jets can overcome, could lead to another finals appearance are thus:

1) Squad depth - put simply they don't have enough. The current departure of the Young Socceroos, growing injury list highlights the fact that realistically Branco (or is it Branko?) only really has a starting 11, or maybe 13 or 14. They will miss the o's Fabio, Sasho and Lljubo (i just thought of that then!) as senior players whenever they don't make the 90 minutes. And the fact that the Young Socceroos world cup can cause so much disruption to our starting 11 (rooney, Kanta and even Hoffman (shudder)) is a problem not with the players but with the lack of players to replace them. I can only hope some of the current swathe of triallists make the cut!

2) The Fans - or lack there of! I know the cliche but Newcastle teams, the knights, KB united, the Breakers, the Goblins have always relied on big crowds to lift them when the chips are down. Current showings are poor and i hope the Newcastle faithful pull their fingers out and get to the ground on game days!

More soon, i promise! I love you all!
Peace

(another shout out to the Goblins who lost their GF in a penalty shoot out. I felt your pain that day even half way across the world! I love you all and there is always next year!)

Turning Chinese - I really think so??

2009-03-12T01:42:00.000-07:00

Well. Its been a while but i just didn't really feel up to commenting on the grand final. Mathew Breeze is an idiot, has made terrible decisions all year and even though both his decisions were overruled, we will be subject to more of his shit next season.

ACL Opener. After an absolutely torrid opening 30 minutes in which Toper-Stanley conceded a goal, that's right, Toper-Stanley, not the Jets, the boys really did turn it around. They weren't great by any stretch of the imagination but they learnt from their mistakes and tightened up through midfield and started passing the ball around almost like our championship winning team that seems so long ago! Sasho was unlucky not to equalise, you can't help but think if he had of been playing against us he would've slotted both those chances. As his tendency was to do so often in the past!

I'm going to name drop and give a little shout out to Ryan Griffiths. I have some vague long forgotten connection with him (who could forget that great surf rock band The Grift Experience, i heard the bass player was amazing!). His goal was very well taken, he should of had another 10 minutes later which went a bee's penis wide of the back stick. Quite frankly he was a league above Joel. It was great to see him run around again, just a shame he had to inflict a defeat on my team!

Positives for the Jets. Ljubo (spelling?) was solid in central defence. De Groot and Vinegarette dressing were great and you can really see that technically they are well above the a-league standard. Passing in the last 10 minutes of the first half was spot on. There was enough out there to make us think that there is a good team somewhere in that squad.

Back to T-S i'd just like to point out it wasn't merely his poor decision making all night, his obvious lack of mental strength to put up with the heckling from the crowd, but his utter lack of heart once he had turn the ball over was horrible. He dawdled around the park like it was Sunday afternoon kicks with mates. It was a disgrace to the shirt.

So on to Tuesday. I'm going to make every attempt to make it up the road. GVE, bench or drop TS and put george costanza into central defence with Ljubo (something that nearly gives me an erection). I'd also like to see Jono get on the bench so i can admire his locks! There is definitely enough talent there to make a game of it and have a shot at progressing past the group stage. Good luck boys, despite the result you've definitely restored my faith in the shirt!

See you at Marathon on Tuesday!

A quickie for the week - blog that is

2009-02-10T00:38:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one this time around. Firstly finally Jets management have delivered some signings. I'm going to hold on to my judgement to after i see them play but i think there is enough quality there for some real potential. Congrats also to Mitch Johnson, he's a friend and he deserves his chance, good luck and i hope your 6 months turns into many more.

I believe there will be enough quality to mount an ACL challenge or at least avoid embarrassment, De Groot is my pick for the stand out.

Despite the Jets season being over, the season is far from it! I managed to catch replays of the coast game and the second half of the Melbourne game. Qld and Melbourne were both deserved winners. As per my blog a few weeks back, Coast just aren't good enough, but i would also advise Frank Farina to check out when they clawed back a similar deficit against us last year! I'm going to agree with David Lowe in the Newy Herald today and say that a Melbourne Qld final is on the cards. I don't think Coast are good enough, did i mention that? I don't think Adelaide have the attacking prowess to get back the 2 goals from Melbourne, and i think they will struggle in attack against a free attacking qld side the week after. but good luck to all parties, except the mariners, i just can't bring myself to say it.

Bring on the GF, bring on the ACL!
Yours in Football,
B!

Season Closed - ACL Open

2009-01-27T01:33:00.000-08:00

Well. Let me just say it would be all too easy for me to write yet another article highlighting the Jets failure on Sunday, Failure this season, or failure in with the looming transfer window closing. So I won't, instead I'm going to try and take the highlights.

Tarek Elrich - What a season this young man has had. Whether it has been at left back or the left side of midfield he has excelled. It could be noted that his defensive game has suffered slightly because of the increased attacking focus. However despite this people must remember that this is what is required from him in GVE's formation both at the back as a wing back or as an attacking mid fielder. His selection in the up coming Asian Cup Qualifier is just reward for a top season, lets just hope he isn't the next player to be poached by Asia or another A-league club.

Marko Jesic - What can I say, this kid is going to be class. His technique is the best i can see out of all the young strikers (ha ha, see Matt Simon for the biggest gap in technique), he works hard and despite being seemingly injury prone he is definitely one for the future.

Ben Kantarovski - I don't think I really need to say anything. Look at any one of his performances, and then think he's only 16, enough said! Good on you Son!

Jobe Wheelhouse - I'm sure no one who frequents Newcastlefootball.net read this, but his treatment on that forum is unacceptable. Yes he has under performed in the past, but he has been outstanding in either the back 4 or in the holding midfield role. He is solid, he is a local boy and he has a heart, something the Jets have been lacking this year. Lets hope his good form continues, and the his treatment by the 'fans' improves.

The Squadron - Apart from the above mentioned treatment of Wheelhouse the Squadron have been consistent and outstanding in their support this year. There has been plenty of controversy, but like they say, any publicity is good publicity (Ian you should appreciate this). My case in point is that on Sunday, away from home, in a dead rubber, they still managed to make themselves heard throughout the SFS and it was brilliant. Even down 4 nil they gave the boys a send off and shouldn't be under estimated!

The Physical Stadium - I'm not sure when development is supposed to be finished, but even the two corners that have been completed are top quality, with the other two being done currently. This will give the Jets a home ground they can be proud of. (I could say how poorly they continue to be treated by ground management but I said only positive!)

The Transfer Fees - If your going to lose players, you should be compensated. The Jets have at least managed this much this year and with some smart investment decisions should be able to reap the benefits!

The Future - Given the terrible year, and being a loyal fan, it is hard to think it can get much worse. I'm looking forward to at least some signings, big names or not, being announced before the end of January. With the amount of young talent coming through, a few experienced names should be all we need to get back in the game!

As an aside, with more to follow later in the week maybe, I think we're looking at a Melbourne Adelaide grand final. The Central Coast aren't good enough, Melbourne are, and the Roar can't grind out results, and Adelaide can.

So to close, for now, I'd like to say, heads up Jets fans keep supporting your team even through the tough times. Hopefully some news later in the week.

Yours in Football
B!

What a week - A win, A spat and a Sale... maybe

2009-01-20T22:48:00.000-08:00

Firstly, welcome back to you all (all 3 of you). I've been a bit absent of late, with work, moving and lets be honest not much positive news to write about anyway. I must say it was a great feeling being able to talk about a Jets win on Monday morning. Whilst all of the people i work with don't follow the A league, they are aware of my passion and can't resist having a dig after another Jets loss. My project manager must of felt my buoyant attitude as he commented on the victory to me first thing despite more pressing matters at work.

A bit of comment on that game first up. I think it has been highly underrated by the media as a performance. Yes ok the result was a non event given the spoon is coming this way anyway but the performance was solid across the park, and the scoreline flattered Perth. The Jets five man mid field dominated and the back four were solid without being totally unbreakable (I can't help but think Rukivysta's pace would've changed things if he was in the country). The lone striker in Mooy (spelling?) did an ok job of holding the ball up and the movement (both in attack and defence) from Patafta, Song and Thompson was spot on. Credit to Kovacic (again with the spelling?) for his first goal for the club, given our defensive stocks going out the door there could be a big future for this man. Anyone else you would question for milking the penalty (contact was outside the box initially) but Matt Thompson just seems like the most honest player you'll come across and it seemed just reward for his efforts (he looks good in the captains armband as well which shouldn't be lost on anyone). Great work Jets, if you spank Sydney on Sunday whilst i can watch i will almost forgive the season, or at least resign it to the history books.

On to upsetting matters. I have been a staunch supporter of Con since day one, i defend him in every argument on the basis that if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have a club at all. This week i'm not so sure. As a businessman he should know better than to let his emotions take control like they did. Abusing the most public of the Jets fan base was never a good idea regardless of the situation. I can understand the 'protests' of the squadron and really upside down signs and a wooden spoon don't hurt anyone (i'm more appalled the occasions that the players themselves are boo'ed off the park). So Con, you have a lot of bridge building to do.

And a word of advice, don't try and build that bridge with the $1m you might get for selling Joel! I personally don't think it will go through, but will be devastated if it does. It doesn't make good business sense, its not going to put you back in the black on the books and it is only going to further negatively effect crowd numbers and hence tickets and gate revenue. I don't know what else i can say...

Hopefully the end of the (well our) A league season next week will allow all involved to concentrate on some late signings for the ACL and a re focus on what is important to the club. They need to do something to address crowd numbers before the ACL games, its going to be embarrassing enough fielding an understrength side and some potential punishment from opposition, but if you do that in front of 6000 people at home then you have permanently and i feel irreversibly damaged the Jets brand in Asia, not to mention the damage to all the hard work Adelaide have done this year!

I love you Jets, that won't change, but lets just say i'll think twice about ever defending Con again, and if he sells Joel, i won't... ever.

Fallen Champions and shit house pitches

2009-01-06T02:19:00.001-08:00

Ok, so i'm not going to harp on the Jets much this week. But i will raise a few points. We were unlucky not to go into the break 2, 3 or 4 up except for some fine goal keeping by Glenn Moss, i think the Victory have bought well there. Elrich and Griffiths were exceptional, hard working, dropping deep to defend and creating chances up front. Like so much of our season we switched off when it counted in the second half. Instead of responding to a lucky goal from Bertos with renewed intent and vigour, we switched off, conceeded again, and then gave away a silly penalty by an inexperienced young Jet. Better luck next year Jets, your just not good enough at the moment, and until GVE asks me to come up for a training session, i just can't put my finger on what has gone so horribly wrong. Just an aside what the hell are Pheonix going to do without Smeltz, its a rhetorical question... or is it...

So elsewhere. The friday night game Melbourne, Roar, and what a game! Apart from a joke of a pitch it was a most enjoyable game. Fluent attacking football from both sides. End to end pace from the two midfield units, as a neutral it was definately the game of the round without a doubt! Good goals and i think Melbourne deserved to win in the end! Tiatto and Farina are both idiots for behaviour on the field and post much comments respectively!

Sydney Adelaide. What a disappointment. I was hoping to see a refreshed Adelaide outfit tear apart another fallen champion in Sydney FC. It wasn't too be, played on another poor pitch, too hard, too quick etc. Adelaide did what they have done well all season and ACL campaign which is sit back, absorb pressure and score when needed. Sydney weren't neccesarily bad, for once. They just don't have the attacking threat that they need to capitialise on their possession game, you know the one that Kossie keeps raving about as the best in the league ha ha! Good work Adelaide, your experience is so far beyond anyone else in the league!

In breaking news tonight apparently Elrich may be going to Turkey as well. Dear Con, don't sell, this is an example where no amount of money at the moment will compensate for his loss. Sit him down, tell him another year in the a league won't hurt his young career. For God's sake sign some players for the ACL. I can handle the embarresment of our current a league form, but will not accept as a fan an internationally recognised embarrasment!

Yours in football, despite the current heart break.
B!