Jung und Frei

A nice cold evening in Chicago was the perfect backdrop for the big game between the Chicago Fire and Houston Dynamo! Two powerhouses of the US Major League Soccer league! Maybe... not totally sure, but I thought it would be fun to watch!

The stadium was really nice, its brand new and had a great view from pretty much anywhere in the ground. There was a small crowd there, but a fairly lively supporters group... although when the pre-game announcer mentioned that any abusive or foul language or gestures will result in ejection.. I thought the chants would be a little on the tame side. (and after round and round of "Lets go Fire.. Lets go!"... I was right!)

So the game ended with a 2-2 draw. My four goals per game record is still holding true! (Aus vs Japan, Tunisia vs Saudi's and Croatia vs Aus all four goals scored per game!). The quality of the match was pretty ordinary - A-League is much more exciting with both the crowd and the quality of play - but it was a pretty good spectacle nonetheless. We did see the goal of the year though.. one of the Houston players launched a shot from half-way which cleared the Chicago keeper and hit the back of the net!

Off to St Louis this weekend for the Labour Day long weekend which includes a day at "Party Cove" at the Lake of the Ozarks... stay tuned!

There can only really be a few places on earth to go to celebrate ones gold birthday (where your age is the same day as your birthday - ie 28 on the 28th!), and in the USA that place is VEGAS!! Looking out the window as we were landing I could see all these fantastic shapes, sizes and colours... all shimmering through a thin veil of 40C heat haze!!

So there is a Nevada state law stating that "What happens in Vegas.... Stays in Vegas....", so unfortunately I can't really tell you all much! Here are a few lines I managed to smuggle over the state border:

• I saw the Killers!!!! Julia bought me tickets to the show for my birthday!! They were awesome... played a lot of new stuff, but also the classics! They played in a really nice and funky club.. and.. oh.. are those cops looking? I may have said too much!
  
  
  
• Ate at *WAY* too many buffet breakfasts (well, brunches!). Damn this town can put on a good breakkie!!
  

• I had a few drinks over the weekend.... Drunk at Gustavo's bar and at Sully's bar... so I basically went on a Telstra employee pub crawl! Brendon, apparantly there are clubs named after you but I didn't make into *that* end of town!
  
  
• Saturday I got to see Penn & Teller!!! Renee (Mum's good friend) arranged tickets for me (she is mates with Penn). So we had really cool seats! They were awesome! Some of the stuff they did was unbelievable... I'm still completely baffled by how they did the first trick with the box!!!
  
  
  
• I gambled a little... Not too much, but enough to win 100, then lost 150, then win 150, then lose 100, then.. not sure exactly how much I did win or lose, but I think it was less than a hundred! Sim you are definately coming with me next time... I lost $150 on the poker table!
  
  
• Somewhere amongst all the haze I turned 28!

Thanks to everyone who called and texted and wrote me emails! I was a little down that I was so far away from friends and family while celebrating my birthday - even though that lasted until the first margarita - Its good to know that people still remember me! ;)

Heeeeeeyyyyyy batter batter batter swwwwiiiiing battterrr!!!! Just to dip myself further into the whole American culture thing, a day at the baseball was definately required! With Wrigley field a ten minute walk from Julia's apartment (well... an hour and ten minutes when you take into account the number of bars along the way!) we avoided the thunderstorms and headed up to see the Cubs play the Phillies!

A few beers at the bars around the ground and we were ready to head to the stadium.... before seeing a sign that said "Batting Cages.. Upstairs!". So armed with a bellyfull of beer we decided the best idea was to have rocks shot at me at high-speed! And armed with a bellyfull of beer I decided that the best shot to play to most of the pitches was a pull-shot... and like my pull-shot in cricket.. I still sucked! (Oh and apparantly we played a bit of basketball while we were up there, but I don't remember - ie: Julia kicked my arse several times on the way to a high-score so we won't mention that!!)

We had pretty awesome seats (with cup holders!!). The stadium is really nice, we were really close to the action and the perfectly manicured grass and ivy covered wall gave it a great touch. Funny thing is that there are apartment blocks that look into the ground and people have put bleaches on the rooves so you can watch the game from across the street! Anyway, I got to get really into the game! Although my shouts of "Hit him in the head", "Bounce him", and "Whack it!" weren't really well appreciated by the rest of the crowd. I didn't even get a chance to catch a foul ball... bummer. I did find out a bit of tradition with the Cubs crowd though, aparantly when a visiting team hits a home run, then whoever catches the ball, throws it back into the field! (usually you get to keep a homer or a foul ball etc!)

Another thing I learnt was baseball talk! The third-base umpire had it all sorted (Here is him saying "Good shot.. well run.. don't you think the 3rd base fielder smells?") and here is my attempt to say "Damn I'm hungry!!".. What do you think?

So Cubs lost 2-1, but aparantly thats not totally unexpected. I was a little bummed cos I wanted to see one of those kick-sand-on-shoes fights or even better one of those clear-the-bench-and-whack-the-pitcher rumbles... but was not to be! Maybe next game!

All good here... Off to Vegas tomorrow to celebrate my birthday!!! Trouble!

So after 10 weeks of travel and roughly 13 weeks of holiday, it was time for a real holiday! I went over to North Carolina with Julia and her family for a week in the sun and surf at the Outer Banks. Pretty much every day was spent lying either on the beach, or at the pool (with a very convenient drinks service) so I emerged from the week as black as the ace of spades with a liver probably twice the size!!

We jumped on a morning flight to Norfolk, Virginia. Expecting the worse at the airport we arrived with plenty of time to spare (2 hours before our flight). After checking in (5 minutes) and running the gauntlet of security (8 minutes) we arrived at our gate! So much for an Orange threat level! The flight was comfortable (I love Macca's and all the other fast food places over here!!! They get the American citizens so fat that airlines need to make economy seats as big as business class to fit them on!) and we arrived in Norfolk on time. A 15 minute walk to the baggage counter was all that stood between us and the beach! Long story short... no bags!!! United forgot to put them aboard our plane and they would be delivered tomorrow!! Bugger... so thats twice this trip. No one wants to catch a plane with me any more for fear of losing their luggage!


Bagless we headed down to the house a 2 hour car, sorry, minivan trip down to the Outer Banks, about an hour or so into the drive Julia's dad got a bit bored so we stopped off for some margaritas and oysters! A bit of a trend for the rest of the week?! We made it to the house and settled in - a task that took about 30 seconds considering the lack of luggage! Then a few beers watching the sunset from the comfort of a hammock! Sensational!!

Monday we headed over to the beach to see what was on offer, a short bike ride (in some borrowed gym shorts) and we made it to the beach. Nice warm day... white sand... gentle Atlantic ocean... nice! After a few rounds of body surfing (with one hand on my shorts - I must have lost weight coz these short did not fit at all!) it was time to investigate the pool. So after a few hours of beers, spirits and cocktails we stumbled back onto our bikes and back home - slightly pink, but somehow able to successfully ride back to the house (must be the practise in Amsterdam).

That was pretty close to how the rest of the week happened. Beach, pool, home for drinks. Being next to the ocean however gave us a great chance to get stuck into some seafood lobster, clam, shrimp (prawns), squid, fish, oysters... it was all there! Yum Yum!! Morgan cooked us up a bit seafood steamer on the Friday which consisted on a bunch of crabs and corn and potatoes and sausage all boiled up in a big steam pot. Yum Yum x 2!!!

So on the Friday, Kevin rented a Jeep and we took off up the 4x4 country over to the top of North Carolina to see some wild horses. After a bit of driving in the soft sand, the sea and "testing" out the machine - heaps of fun! - we found our first flock of wild horses. They were just grazing off the side of the road so with a few handfuls of carrots we made some new friends! These horses though you could tell were from the beach. They all were tanned brown and most had blonde spikey manes... just like surfers! So after chatting to them for a while we took off in the jeep again to explore the area. We had a GPS thingo that gave us a route to follow which we pertty much ignored and zoomed around... until we found a sign that said "Welcome to Virginia" so we got back on the GPS trail and headed back for that seafood steamer I mentioned earlier.


Saturday was our big fishing day! We headed out in a boat called "No Problem" with a captain who introduced himself as "Captain Kirk" - I could not stop giggling after he did that!! Only thing that made me laugh more was when Morgan was near the steering wheel when Kirk was casting some lines out and was told to direct the boat along the shore. We called hiim Captain Morgan! So we had the captain of the USS Enterprise and a bottle of rum driving for the most part! Anyway.. we did a bit of fishing for some Blue Fin "to use as bait". This took about an hour as we didn't have too much luck in one spot. But we tried another and soon had roughly 10 of these guys in the live box. Then it was full speed ahead to a little channel out near the horizon for a spot of shark fishing!!! We chucked a few lines out and within a minute got our first hit. Morgan pulled in a little white-tipped reef shark, then with an abundance of chump and fish oil in the water we started getting a few hits. (See my battle, and me hiding like a girl when Kirk gets him off the line, here!) It was funny cos when we pulled them into the boat, Kirk said, "watch the teeth, just grab em near the head and turn em over, they'll fall asleep!" and they did! I gave mine a little kiss and sent him back on his way. I think Julia hooked the largest one - roughly 3.5-4 foot long, so only babies but they were still sharks!

So a lot of fun in the sun. Ended up with a nice tan and was pretty well fully relaxed by the end of it... A few sore legs from running around with a footy on the sand (and diving into shells and rocks) but a great vacation!!

I'm off to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the week and I won't have my laptop with me, nor do I think there will be too much Internet available so I'll probably not be updating this site or replying to emails until next Sunday.

I'm always available on +1-646-465-4837 if you want to text me... ie the scores of the Dockers' matches!

Yesterday in an effort to learn more of the neighbourhood and to post a bunch of photo CD's to everyone... we set off on foot to check the place out, a quick stroll up to Wrigley field (home of the cubs) and down the street to a little Irish pub where we found MAGNER'S!! Only in a small bottle, but my Magner's search was finally over. After strolling around the neighbourhood, hitting 6 pubs (getting carded at three of them - I'm 27 and I still get carded!! Even worse when they think my Australian license is a fake!) we finally arrived at the post office! Half an hour of envelope writing, customs form filling out and an over-enthusiastic employee ("Are you really from Australia??") All CD's are in the mail!

Thus began the stroll home. Now those who know me, know I'm not too good with a map, directions, or working out my left from right... So thinking we were walking north on Halsted, looking for Diversey.... we ended up near the corner of Division. Now although thats only a mile or two out of the way, its time I introduced you to Chicago's "Blue Light District". All around the dodgy, high-crime areas of Chicago there are little camera's up on light-poles with flashing blue lights. So at the corner of N Halsted and Division... there is one of these camera's! (Somehow... we didn't get mugged!... Go Paul luck!!) :)


I booked my birthday trip today. Five days in Las Vegas!!!!!! I've got most of the rest of my trip sorted:
13th - 20th Aug - North Carolina - Outer Banks
25th - 29th Aug - Las Vegas!!!!!!!!!!
1st - 4th Sep - St Louis + Lake of the Ozarks (Party Cove!!) US Labor Day
17th - 25th Sep - Canada (unplanned yet - thinking of a Moose tour around West Canada)
25th Sep - A long flight back to Australia with no liquid or iPod!!!

So as a footnote... The UK police just caught a few blokes thinking of blowing up a few planes with a glass of water and an iPod so now no liquids, gel or electronics on board! I'm kinda pissed about the iPod thing that is going to be SOOOO annoying considering I have at least seven flights in the next month! I can only think how Anka is going to be feeling... NO HAIR GEL!!!!

Today I had an American day! I thought it was time to show the world just how Yankee I really am and have a go at the great American game... BASEBALL!! We zoomed over to a little sports park in Aurora, IL for a bit of a whack in a batting cage! I even had time for a bit of baseball!

After watching a few little tykes smack the ball around the "medium" speed cage, I thought... bloody easy! So I took a look at the "very fast" cage... strapped on a helmet... grabbed a slugger... took a few practise swings... and hit myself in the head! Not a very good start, so I turned my attention back to the "medium" cage and stepped in...

After a few swings (gentle line drives out to left field), I started swinging... felt good when it came out of the middle of the bat (yep... that was a good hit). So after my 25 hits in the "medium" speed cage.. with no umpire and fielders I reackon I had a batting average of .999 (with a .001 margain of error!)... I moved up to the "fast" cage. The results.... well this video should give you an idea of that! Maybe I should stick to cricket... or at least the "medium" speed cage!

After the baseball, we went to Hooters for some wings, a burger and a few beers. (Keeping the US theme alive!). Then a bit of loitering around a shopping mall before battling traffic consisting completely of SUVs on the highway home! A fun day, and I earned my first stripe in American-ism!

So I find myself now in Chicago... The Windy City... Home of the Cubs and the White Sox... home of Al Capone, John Dillenger and the rest of the gangster's of the 30's and now, more importantly, home of Paul for a few weeks!

I arrived on Thursday after a short flight but long taxi (weather conditions grounded the plane at Newark for 2 hours) and made it up to the Lakeview neighbourhood a few miles north of the city (see the piccie above for the view from the roof). Desparately seeking rest and relaxation, the Missouri girls rocked up the next day and we proceeded to hit the bars Friday and Saturday, so now I'm really desparately seeking rest and relaxation.

Went food shopping on Friday and had the first culture-shock of the weekend. Gallon tanks of milk, gallon tanks of vodka, gallon buckets of mayo, (I can't believe its not) butter etc. Definately a land of excess. For the record, last week in Holland I weighed 81kg's - I am going to re-weigh myself at the end of this month and see how I'm going - I think i'm up to 120kg's already! :) Especially as we went out last night and on the way home stopped in at a diner to grab some breakkie - at 3am!! I did get some funny looks when I ordered French toast with no sugar and heaps of Ketchup! :)

The city of Chicago is beautiful, it has a really good energy and the people are generally nice and helpful, definately one of the better cities in the US. It *is* missing the coast, but Lake Michigan is so massive that it looks like an ocean! Oh and I guess it does have the best pizza on earth!

So with temperatures hovering around 30C all week I think I'm going to spend a bit a of time down at the "beach" (there is a sandy patch near the lake - I'll fill you in on the water temp although it can't be any colder than Scheveningen.. can it?). I am also planning the rests of my week and time here in Chicago. I'm looking at getting to a Cub's game (Wrigley field is just around the corner), hitting (well, trying to hit) a few baseballs around a batting cage, exploring more of the city... not to mention my never-ending quest to find Magner's cider in this city! :) Oh and I am also trying to sort something for my Birthday.... Las Vegas is top of the list right now!!

Hope you are all well! Stay safe!

After being in the USA for approximately 3 days I have already resorted to eating hotdogs, pizza slices, burgers, drinking snapple and soda and crappy American beers! I feel so dirty!! Luckily I found a little Irish pub just off Times Square who had Magner's on tap! Back in my element - 105F and a Magner's in my hand! Also I do have a laugh seeing the US food menus... In that Irish pub, you can get a massive burger with fries and salad and other deep fried animals for about $5 - thats 2.50 pounds!!!

New York definately has the highest concentration of nut-bags, crazies, weirdo's and general talk-to-myself-freaks in the world (Potts Point/Kings Cross comes a close second!). I still laugh at American's... continually telling everyone how their country is the best on earth - yet not giving a crap about it! Not recycling, thinking that throwing their trash "close" to the bin in good enough, driving these massive gas guzzling trucks, complaining about the heat - yet no understanding the whole global warming thing! Funny.

So I'm now in Chicago, the weather is a little cooler, about 84F (according to Google that is 28C - a bit of a change from 105F (40.5C) in New York). I'm staying about 10 minutes north of downtown - about a block away from the gay area (coming to visit Ch?). I got in late last night after being stuck on the tarmac at Newark airport for 2 hours due to "adverse weather conditions". Quite weird to look out the window of the plane and see heaps of planes just parked on the taxiways.

So Chicago for the day, going out on the town tonight then a fairly busy weekend checking out the sites and sounds and.. as this is America... the smells!

Wow! I forgot how much energy this city has! Nothing stands still! If the traffic starts to stand still, then the horns come out and the cab's find interesting manouvres to start moving again! Busy busy busy... Rush rush rush...

So I slept in a little this AM. Not entirely educated about the time zone difference I took a nice little lie-in and got up around 11am. Strapped on my daypack, stepped out of the hotel and whoooshka! 37C heat! Nice! Only in New York City, there isn't too much that isn't pavement or concrete that allows the air to cool. At least there is a little shade from the massive buildings and at least there is some decent air-con coming from the shops... although walking up 5th avenue I wasn't prepared to go in and browse just for the coolness! (especially not in a wife-beater, thongs and shorts!)

So I took a casual stroll up fifth avenue to the park, stopping in at the new Apple Store! Amazing! The demo laptops all are there to play and try and even have live Internet so I was able to quickly check my email.. So a nice stroll through the park then back through the city to Times Square soaking up the energy, heat and losing about 20kg's in sweat in the process.

This evening I'm gonna catch up with Joey for a drink and see what the local bars around here have to offer! Then tomorrow, off to Chicago!! Yep... can't sit still! :)

It is with a tear in my eye I say goodbye to Europe and the UK. A British Airways flight out of Heathrow was my ticket out of peaceful, cultured, well mannered and weird-speaking Europe and off the the wild abandons of the USA!!

So I headed into Paddington Station for a few final Magner's with Anka and the Heathrow express out to terminal 4. Arriving with about an hour before my flight left I jumped in an incredibly long queue to check-in... only to be told by a very polite gentleman that I had missed my flight.... bugger.... a quick trip to the BA service counter and I was rebooked on a flight three hours later! Bonus! So back into the incredibly long line to check-in for this flight!!

I finally made it to check-in, through security and with an hour to spare and some pretty boring shops to look at - I decided to say goodbye to Mr Magner's once again! :)

So finally in my seat... back-seat bogan once again and up up and away!! With a tear I looked back... past the toilets and past the tail to wave goodbye to the continent of Europe.... "I'll be back... don't you worry about that sunshine!" I said... Europe smiled and said... "No worries... just give me a few months to recover!"

A little over 7 hours later the pilot gave us the word that we were arriving into JFK... then a little over 7 hours 5 minutes later he gave us the word that we were put into a holding pattern... then a little over 7 hours 35 minutes later he gave us the word that we were now making our final approach - apologising for the delay but adding "we like to queue, after all we are British!"

So I arrive, make it smoothly through immigration and customs (a little bit surprisingly after the way I usually get hassled at LAX) and into a shuttle to my hotel! This trip takes about 1.5 hours crammed in a small minivan over the very dodgy roads of New York. Fast check-in to the Hostel (a 10 room dorm in a really funky hotel) and as it is roughly 4am Europe time - off to bed!!

So the last week I popped over to "the continent" to go back to Holland, I took the ferry over which was a fun experience. The cruise was about 3.5 hours long, but was cheap (25 pounds) and the ship had five bars, a casino and 4 restaurants so there was more than enough to keep me occupied.

I made it over to Utrecht safe and sound and got picked up with Yvonne... the hostess with the mostess... the dutchess with the muchess!!! A very nice surprise!!! A few beers in the sun in Utrecht, then off to Zeist for my new home for the week!

Wednesday we had a quiet day lounging around at Maarseveense plassen (a big lake near Utrecht) where I made the stupid mistake of saying "The best invention you guys have is the ozone layer... you can lie in the sun and not get burned!". So after getting home and inspecting my SERIOUSLY pink tummy... I thought... touchee Mother Nature.. toucheee!!!

After getting back to Zeist, I tried my hand at cooking dinner - starting by doing some shopping (at a store where everything was written in Dutch), two hours later I made it out with some pasta, wine and some other goodies that sounded cool in Dutch!

Thursday I took a day trip over to Den Haag, spent the day strolling through the town, visiting the parliament buildings, the Queen's palace and the peace palace. Strolled through the shops and grabbed a quiet beer and lunch, then back to Zeist for a wonderful dinner around the corner (and the start of my dutch language lessons)

Friday was Dutch day!! We went up to the Open Lucht Museum near Aarnhem. Saw dutch folk dancing, climbed a windmill, saw a traditional dutch brewery, bakery, cheese and butter factory, confectioner, everything!!! Sooooo much fun!! I wore Klomps (clogs) and ate Drop (liquorice; the dutch way). This was also the first day of my bike riding lessons.... lets just say I failed and we had to make a short detour back home to clean the blood off my leg and the bike! :)

Saturday we went out to Amersfoort to do some shopping, then headed up to Amsterdam for a BBQ and night out. The BBQ was great... a tiny little disposable BBQ in the park, a few wines, a few beers - then off into Amsterdam for more beers and dancing.. off into Amsterdam on a BIKE!! Four of us on two bikes... Paul still hadn't got used to the keep right idea and almost got killed... Then we partied the night away in a few bars and clubs before once again riding home... well, almost home... as I was completely drunk, I misjudged the final corner to home and sent myself and Yvonne into a garden bed! Ooops!

Sunday was a little more peaceful... mainly due to the lack of sleep and the massive hangover! But we finally got our gear together and headed out to Loosdrecht to do some sailing.. unfortunately, the rain came in so we settled for hot chocolate overlooking the bay.

All in all an absolutely fantastic week in Holland. Very difficult to explain how great it was just by typing... but i've totally fallen in love with the place and the people so hopefully I can keep my Dutch language learning up (thanks to a few Donald Duck comics) and be a total native the next time i'm there! - oh... and maybe some bike riding lessons!!!