The Morrow's

Friday, July 10, 2009

The long way home!

We have now finished work, packed up our things into 2 backpacks, moved out of our flat in London, and are officially on our way back to Australia. There are of course a few detours on the way! So that you can keep up with our travels, our plans are as follows:

12 July - 22 July - Croatia / Montenegro - Sailing & generally working on the sun tan!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&om=0&msid=104847206302786006390.0004442cb6dad2726a65e&ll=42.912183,17.259521&spn=2.414043,3.295898&z=7&source=embed

25 July - 3 August - Turkey - a whirlwind tour of an interesting country

7 August - 25 September - Africa (Nairobi to Capetown) - Our great African adventure

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=-23.402765,24.785156&spn=28.157863,39.550781&z=5&msid=111837157664461150029.00045ea3875665687d7b8

As you might appreciate, we might find it difficult to update the blog over the next few months. Once we return to Australia we'll be sure to upload the many photos of our journey, so watch this space.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Summer has finally arrived and yes the temperature has made it to 30 degrees.

Epsom Races.

It wasn't the nicest of days for one of the most prestigous race days on the social calendar. Lucky for us we had bought tickets into the Lonsdale enclosure which didn't have a dress code. Ponchos out and strappy shoes not recommended.

Our section was on the finish line and across from the Queens enclosure. After she arrived we didn't see her again until the main race.

It was cold and wet.

Our enclosure in the centre of the track

Must protect the food

Glastonbury or Races?

Champagne for the big race

Looking at the weather before the big race

Much stricter dress code in the Queens enclosure

The divot dudes make a return

Wimbledon

We read all the different ways to get tickets and had decided to go and join 'The Queue' early (about 6am) on the second day when Steve saw an advert for the sale of unwanted Debenture tickets. They are released 2 days ahead at midday so both of us had a computer and watched the BBC news count down to 12:00. Woo hoo, we get to sleep in and sit on centre court! For the record we tried to get 2 more tickets for friends of ours but they had sold out in 90sec.

We got there at 10:30, so we had some time before the matches started at midday and even then play was only on the outside courts. This gave us a chance to bag a seat for Sam Stosur's match. The crowd was 90% aussie. When we left after the first set (which Stosur won), there was a crowd surge for our 2 seats.

Centre court

Roddick serving - please note that Claire took this photo!!!!

Venus Williams after a fairly easy match

Murray warming up

Murray celebrating

Relaxing on 'Henman Hill' or 'Murray Mound' during Venus's match

So close yet so far. We found Federer on the practice courts, and then tried for an autograph but had to surrender the fence to the children.

Umpires swap out. The old man was challenged by Murray on numerous occasions but experience showed through in the end.

The change of balls routine is one the kids have practiced!!

We have about 10 days left in London before we embark on the trip home. Stay tuned...

Friday, May 29, 2009

BERLIN

After spending the first May bank holiday (long weekend for the Aussies) in London we felt it was time to return to Heathrow and head to Berlin for the second. This was a belated birthday trip for Steve's 30th. The forecast was for sunshine so our time in dutyfree was spent on new sunnies and sunscreen - gotta love 50+.

We have taken notice of the credit crunch and rather than not travelling we have downgraded from hotels to hostels and saved quite a bit on accommodation. Arriving late on the Friday night, we headed up to the hostel's rooftop bar for our free welcome drink. When we returned, it was to find our US army room-mates snoring peacefully. Ahhh the life of a hostel!

On Saturday we joined a free walking tour that friends had suggested to us. There were around 300 people there and we were separated into groups of about 30 people. We spent about 3 1/2 hours walking around the main sights of Berlin with our guide. Our guides' personal interest was in Street Art so we got a few extra local artworks thrown in as well.

The weekend we were there was the 60th anniversary of democracy so the area around the Brandenburg Gate was having a free concert lasting all day.

Brandenburg Gate

The famous German band - Pur. We didn't understand a word!

Our free walking tour leader - Summer from California

This part of the wall is fenced off and next to where Hitlers Gestapo was based. The wall encircles the area of West Berlin which was considered to be West Germany.

Claire on the Berlin Wall.

Checkpoint Charlie

Ampelman - the East German traffic light man that was adopted by the West. Before you ask there is an Ampelgirl but we didn't manage to find her.

Graffiti aka. street art

Holocaust memorial

On Sunday we took a daytrip out of Berlin to the Sachsenhausen Memorial. This served as a concentration camp from 1936-1945. It was designed as a model for other concentration camps. It was intended to give architectural expression to the Nazi world view and symbolize to the prisoners of the absolute powers of the SS. More than 200,000 people were imprisoned between 1936-1945. Tens of thousands of them died of starvation, disease, forced labour and maltreatment, or were murdered systematically by the SS.

For our final few hours on Monday we decided to see the view from the Reichstag (home of the Berlin government). After enjoying the sunshine in the slow moving queue for an hour we decided that our time was better spent elsewhere. There is a 1.3km section of wall that is known of the East Side Gallery. It is the largest open-air gallery in the world with its sections painted by groups of artists from all over the world in the first few months after reunification as a memorial to freedom of expression. Due to graffiti vandalism and the heavy flow of traffic that flows nearby it has suffered greatly. A restoration project is underway, with one section completed 5 years ago, and a large section being worked on whilst we were there.

One of the sections that hasn't been repaired yet.

We saw a couple of these crazy tourist bikes. Five people facing inwards, all peddling, generally looking strange and not going very fast.

We also need to mention that there was a protest down the street from our hostel. We had noticed quite a number of police around on our way back but a couple of hours later the riot gear was out. There was a slight diversion on the way to dinner, but all in all it was a very peaceful event. 1000 riot police 1 - Protesters Nil.

Friday, May 08, 2009

LONDON

Here is another selection of photos from in and around London.

We went to Last Night of the Proms. The main event is held inside Royal Albert Hall, but they also hold a separate concert in Hyde Park. They also televise the official finale.