11 - 13 August 2008

Milan, Cinque Terre, Portofino
ITALY

Me eating giant slice of pizza in Autogrill - common highway restaurant stops.

11 August 2008

Today me and Michelle flew into Milano (Milan) airport, picked up our hire car (they drive on the right side of the road in Italy) and headed off into the city for a quick look around.

Milan has a pretty huge cathedral (duomo) but as my skirt was too short wasn't able to go inside. I have attached a picture I got off the Internet as when I saw it, it had scaffolding, a popular theme with tourist attractions on our trip!

Milano Cathedral - very gothic looking

After a quick look around we drove to La Spezia (well Michelle did as too expensive to put all names on insurance) where we were met by a 16.50 Euro toll - these became the bane of our existence during the first half of the trip.

Michelle and me in Milano

12 August 2008

Today we drove into La Spezia so we could catch a train to Cinque Terre - The Cinque Terre (pronounced CHEEN-kweh TEHR-reh) is a rugged portion of coast of the Riviera to the west of the city of La Spezia in the Liguria region of Italy comprising five villages, "The Five Lands": Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Panoramic view of Monterosso

First stop was Monterosso - the biggest and most touristee of the "five lands" here we took some amazing photos and had a swim in the beautiful ocean. Second stop was Vernazza followed by Riomaggiore.

Monterosso train station

All the five islands had beautiful views of the sea and the lifestyle of Italian people in small villages.

Gossipying old men in Vernazza - Me in main street of Vernazza

13 August 2008

Today we decided to drive up the coast a bit. We headed into Rapollo for a quick bit and some apperitives - snacks you get with your drinks in some bars (you can sometimes pay 3.00 for a drink an enough snacks for a lunch) before catch a boat to Portofino - is a small Italian fishing village, comune and tourist resort located in the province of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town crowded round its small harbour is considered to be among the most beautiful Mediterranean ports. Portofino was again another beautiful seaside village. It was said that George Clooney visited there a couple of days before we arrived, unfortunately we didn't run into him!

Castle in Rapollo - Me in Portofino

Buckingham Palace

On Saturday Niki, Hayley and myself decided to go and visit the opening of the state rooms in Buckingham Palace as they are only open for two months of the year. It appears that almost everyone else had the same idea and we had to settle for buying tickets to go and see it on Sunday.

So on Sunday we arrived at our allocated time, had a (not so sneaky) photo in the waiting area and then proceeded to go though the palace. The palace was quite cool and we had an audio guide which is really handy. This year was the first year ever that they set up the banquet room and it was amazing. Definitely the highlight of the visit. Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to take photos in the palace so I have copied some off the Internet. Also unfortunately the Queen wasn't there as she is away for the summer so people can invade her house. Some of the rooms are so amazing (and a little over the top). The queen even has her own secret entrances.

I totally recommend going to see it when its open, way better than Kensington Palace

Redback

On Friday night it was one of Michelle's last nights in London before heading back to NZ. So me and Hayley missioned it to the Redback Tavern in Acton to catch up with her. I had never been to the Redback before but heard it was the place of "snakies" - A snakebite is a pint glass half filled with cider, half with lager and a couple of dashes of raspberry cordial. Not as bad as I would have expected but not good either. The Redback is where a lot of Antipodeans hang out and as soon as I walked in the door, it reminded me of my youth and the hours I spent at the Outback!

As soon as the music went downhill we missioned it home on three different night buses and oh so many hours later the only up point to our trip home was that I got to see my first foxes in London.

Wicked

Last night Hayley and me went to see Wicked the Musical. It had been on the list for a while and we managed to score cheap tickets to go and see it last night.

Wicked is say, a sorta prequel/side story about the Witches of Oz.

Wicked tells the story of Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West and her relationship with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Their friendship struggles through their opposing personalities and viewpoints, rivalry over the same love-interest, their reactions to the Wizard's corrupt government, and, ultimately, Elphaba's public fall from grace. The plot is set mostly before Dorothy's arrival from Kansas, and includes several references to well-known scenes and dialogue in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but can tell you that I now look at The Wizard of Oz in a different light. The musical was fantastic, the singing brilliant and even had some funny parts. I would totally recommend it ... it was WICKED!!

BBQ in Acton

This weekend we headed out to Acton to have a BBQ at Pete "The Olympians" house. He was one of the olympians we met on the monopoly pub crawl last weekend. We had a good time chatting with some new people and eating bbq food. Yum!

Various

Various updates from the week

MAMMA MIA

Pam, Hayley and myself went to the movies on Wednesday night to watch Mamma Mia. I had heard mixed reactions from various people but generally the reviews were good. So we settled down with our lollies from Sainsburys to a packed theatre and tuned it. We were not disappointed. Mamma Mia is hilarious me and Pam were laughing at the top of our lungs (much to Hayley's embarrassment). The cast is fantastic and you just start to cringe when you think they are going to break into a another song. It has the total cheese factor and I would totally recommend it, but probably for the girls.

Has anyone else seen it? What did you think?

GOOGLE READER

Here is just a handy dandy tip, I picked up from Hayley, for all those gmailers and blog readers.

Its called Google Reader and can be accessed from your gmail home page. This tool allows you to load up peoples blogs and whenever they update their blogs you will get an icon saying that they have -ie. Toni's Blog (1) - if you have one unread update. This is very good to make sure you don't miss a blog update if there are more than one, and not wasting your time clicking though not so vigilant blog updaters (and that is why I knew your site was updated Jason, even though I got a personal message)

NOW WORD OF THE MOMENT

Wicked - don't know why, but it keeps coming out of my mouth when anything good happens!

WORK

Managed to extract a couple more days out of my current job so am due to finish up there on Wednesday.

HOLIDAY

Am due to start my holiday on 11 August 2008, can't wait.

Monopoly Pub Crawl

Favourite photo of the day!

Us in our beautiful t-shirts - front and back

This weekend was the much anticipated girls monopoly pub crawl. With Louisa on school holidays she was in charge or the organising. With our printed tshirts, pounds by the plenty and maps all ready at 11am we started off.

You can find the map and the route here - Monopoly Pub Crawl

There are a bazillion pictures and have put them all in my photo gallery.

First, up are pictures of the actual streets.
1.2.3.

4. 5-9 we decided to miss as they were all out of town, took ages to get to and the pub transport in the heat is quite unbearable. So we started again at

10.11.12.

13.14.15.

16.17.18.

19.20.21.

22.23.

We had such a fun day and all up managed in 18 out of 26 pubs. We had a alcohol beverage at all except one and we had shots and were mixing alcohols like you wouldn't believe. Surprisingly none of us were out of control drunk and I didn't have a hang over the next day. So all in all it was a success and compared with the boys who manged I think 16 pubs, 70 pounds and were home at 8pm drunk - Our 18 pubs, 40 pounds and home at 11.30ish not wasted was an ass kicking!! :)

Here are some more pictures of the day - there are loads in the photo gallery and some really good "kodak" moments .

Me playing monopoly!

Shots with "real" gold. This stuff was Cinnamon and so yum, really warmed the insides!

An AUSTRALIAN guy who was also doing the pub crawl and liked to strip down at most of the pubs! Henry Hunter I believe his name was.

Shirt swapping.

Me wearing Tom Tom's?? glasses.

Hayley and "Rossi" (another crawler) doing tequila!

Photo taken especially for Hayley's facebook profile picture

Baileys shots

Hayley and Swallow Street (hehe)

Us and "The Olympians" more fellow pub crawlers

Toni

xoxo