Los Angeles

Augie

We haven't been doing too much interesting since our arrival in LA, just catching up with Ros's sons and Augie our little grandson. Here he is playing in a water playground. On Monday, we went to Luke's office to see his new expanded workspace and ended up staying there most of the day, while I upgraded the office computer to a solid state drive as it had been going very slowly. Luke has also lent us his car, a VW Jetta station wagon, thus saving us heaps of rental money.

Downtown LA

On Wednesday, Luke invited us to dinner to meet his new girlfriend Khristina, who lives in an apartment in downtown LA. In four visits to this city, this was the first time we had ventured into the actual heart of the city. The traffic was awful, it took us an hour and half to do a normally 30 minute journey.
We were taken to a Brazilian restaurant a couple of blocks from Khristina's apartment and had a sumptuous meal featuring all you could eat steak night. You got your own salads from a buffet, and waiters would wander around with different cuts of meat and slice you a piece anytime you wanted one. I had lamb, filet mignon, garlic beef and ribeye steak, followed by a delicious key lime pie. That diet is moving further and further away from us.
Khristina works fo a building company and is building a skyscraper just a stone's throw from her apartment. She also surfs, plays guitars and is into music a lot.

View from roof

This is the view from the roof of Khristina's apartment. The building to the left of the brown one is the current building Khristina's company is building. After the restaurant we sat out on her balcony just drinking in the view and the lights of downtown LA. Quite enjoyable. When we were asked what we were planning to do while we were here, we mentioned that we'd like to pop down to San Diego and take a look. Turns out Khristina is from San Diego so we have organised to go down together the weekend after this one and she will be our guide.

Petersen's Auto Museum

And just to add some spice to the photos, saw this unusual building whilst driving around LA, it is the Petersen Auto Museum and contains early and later model American cars. Not sure if we will have time to look inside it. Tonight we are staying with Joshua and Samantha in an AirBNB a few miles away from Michelle's place. They had originally booked it to go to the Tears for Fears concert, but unfortunately it has been postponed, so we'll probably go and see a movie instead. Dunkirk has just been released and is looking good.
More later on from Santa Barbera.

Fairfield - 19th to 23rd July

Mystic house

Well, rumours that we crashed and burned on the turnpike between Boston and Fairfield are
unfounded. I've just been either too busy or just too relaxed to write, but the real reason is humidity. We arrived during a heatwave and incredible humidity so I just couldn't get motivated to write the blog. Honestly, five minutes after getting out of the shower I was dripping in sweat again. The only saving grace was air-conditioners in the bedroom and the pool. Anyway, I digress. The drive down was about 2 hours and we stopped at a little town called Mystic, a 19th century nautical village, with houses like you see above.

USS Nautilus

We also stopped at the USS Nautilus, a submarine museum, right next to a real US submarine base, which I discovered when I turned one road too soon and came face to face with an armed marine demanding my identification. Fortunately he accepted that I had turned into the wrong road and wasn't actually trying to infiltrate the base. The museum was interesting but just as we were going to enter the actual sub, they closed it for some reason, so I never got to see the inside.

Rick & Nancy's house

After an "entertaining" drive on the interstate (let me just say, speed limit signs are only a suggestion, most people were doing at least 10-15 mph over it) we arrived in Fairfield, Connecticut. Fairfield dates back to before the American War of Independence (1776) so some of the houses date back to the 1600's. Rich and Nancy's house is of more recent construction, having been built last century, then extended as the family grew. In case you don't get the connection, Josh, Ros's middle son, married Samantha, Rick & Nancy's eldest daughter.

View from the backyard

Their house sits on a river bank, and the view has to be seen to be believed. Oh, wait, you can see it in the picture on your left. Every day we could see a parade of different birds on the river, swans, Canadian geese, Blue Herons, Great White Egrets fishing, ducks, ospreys also hunting, gulls and kingfishers to name a few. We spent many a lazy evening (in fact, all of them) on the back verandah drinking in the view. We also ate our meals here as it was cooler than inside the house.

Lightning bug

As dusk fell on the first night we were there, I was spectator to something I have read about but never seen before, lightning bugs! They would fly up by the 100's from the gardens, and briefly emit their "cold light" before fading out. Attempts to capture the sight on camera, even with a time exposure were fruitless, but Sam managed to catch one and hand it to me. A gentle squeeze makes them illuminate, as you can see by the picture on the right. Certainly a cool experience!

Big house

Rick took us on a guided tour of Fairfield, past millionaires billionaires row, where houses such as the one on the left are the rule, not the exception. The city of Fairfield has recently increased property taxes drastically, and many of the houses had For Sale signs up. What puzzles me is that most of these houses had maybe, two occupants and even that wasn't year round, only in the summer. Must be great to have so much money.

Doe with fawn

Of course, nature trumps big houses, and outside one estate, we came upon this absolutely gorgeous sight, a doe, standing stock still while her fawn vigorously fed from her. Her concern for her fawn's welfare overcame her fear of us, just a few metres away from her. I don't think the fawn was even aware we were there. Simply awe-inspiring.

Blue Heron

Just some more wildlife for you to see.

Chipmunk

And a bit more, saw this little fellow on a walk one morning, along with a miniature rabbit.

Josh, Rick, Nancy & us

Finally, after four wonderful (although very hot and humid) days, it came time for us to bid farewell to our gracious hosts. They looked after us as good, if not better than a high-class hotel. Beautiful food, spotless house, gorgeous views, incredible history and wonderful stories of the past. We even attended Calvin's birthday party, Sam's sister Jill's little 2 year old boy, who was just delightful.

Then it was another interesting drive down to New York to catch our plane to L.A., again on the interstate where the speed limits are still only a suggestion. It seems that as long as the traffic is flowing and you're not doing something dangerous or incredibly stupid, the law will turn a blind eye to the speed of your vehicle. In WA, I would have clocked up my maximum number of points and either had my license suspended or car seized or both! I only had a four cylinder Hyundai SantaFe, but the engine was willing and I even ended up passing some Americans - go figure.

Boston - 17th - 19th July

Averil & Neil's house

We arrived in Boston around 8pm after leaving Amsterdam via Zurich. Zurich airport is another one that is so large it has its own railway to take you from domestic to international departures. Our kind hosts in Boston, Averil & Neil, drove 40 minutes to the airport then waited another hour or so while we slowly filtered through immigration. This is their very nice house in Foxboro. Neil has been in this house for over 20 years.

Lake path

The house is surrounded on three sides by an artificial lake and Neil actually owns part of the lake that surround his property. We didn't stay here the first night as a lightning strike has fried most of the house electrics, including the air conditioning. It was so humid that we stayed the first night in a nearby hotel with A/C. The next night was much cooler and dryer so we stayed here instead.

Wurlitzer Juke Box

Neil is the complete techno-nerd, his whole house is wired for computer control and there is a phone in every room, including the toilets! He also has an incredible collection of memorabilia, including this Wurlitzer Juke Box, a library full of leather-bound, signed first editions of popular books and heaps of old past computer equipment. Neil developed the BIOS for the first IBM-compatible PCs so is responsible for the computer you are reading this on.

His home theater is incredible - a 100" screen with huge projector, awesome surround sound, three tiers of reclining chairs and can be totally sealed from the outside air and noise. The air system is totally separate from the rest of the house and the air inside is exchanged every two minutes. We watched the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones here and it was like being at the movies, except probably better.

Altair 8800

Neil also has this beauty pictured left, an original and in perfect working order, the MITS Altair 8800 computer. What makes this so special? This is the very first home personal computer ever sold. This, my dear readers, started the whole PC revolution. This the machine that Bill Gates and Paul Allen from a budding startup company called Micro-Soft, wrote the first BASIC interpreter for without having the seen the machine firsthand!

5MB hard drive

Here's another piece of history - a 5MB hard drive. Not 5GB, not 5TB, but 5 megabytes - and it is as large as the Altair 8800 pictured above. Huge by early standards, your mobile phone has 12,000 times more storage than this device has.

Our gracious hosts

Eating out is big in America and Neil & Averil took us out for meals several times in our short stay. Here we are having dinner in the local tavern, just near the Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, for gridiron fans. The food was delicious.

Short stack

We ate out for breakfast too at the local downtown cafe. Meals are BIG in America, this is a short stack of pancakes, which makes me very glad that I did not order the full stack. I have already eaten a third and you can see how big it still is. Mind you it was delicious.

After this breakfast we began our drive down to Connecticut to visit Rick and Nancy, Joshua's parents-in-law.

Amsterdam - 16th July

Downtown Amsterdam

It had to finally happen, we've reached our destination and our dream trip on the river has come to an end. Amsterdam is a surprising city, often described as the "Venice of the North" because of its many canals. However our guide was quick to point out that Venice's canals are sea water whereas Amsterdam's are fresh water. Apparently in the early years of Amsterdam, property tax was based on river frontage, so what did the people do? Yep, built tall and narrow houses as you can see here.

Bicycle park

Amsterdam runs on bicycles, or as our guide put it so delicately, "psychopaths on cycle paths". We were constantly warned not to loiter in a marked cycle path, because you would literally be mowed down. I witnessed several near misses and the "psychopath" label does fit. Here you can see a multi-story bicycle park and each little bay is numbered so you can find your bike again. According to our guide, most are secured with at least two locks which are worth more than the bike itself!

Leaning towers of Amsterdam

Amsterdam is built on soft, marshy ground and the buildings are built on pylons driven deep into the ground, although not nearly deep enough for the buildings on the right. Some buildings lean sideways, a lot lean forwards to assist with raising furniture up the outside to the windows of the floor they are going to. Either way, it's enough to give a civil engineer nightmares.

Houseboats

Amsterdam has a circle ring of seven separate canals, not including the intersecting ones at right angles. Houseboats are very popular, but some of the prices are astronomical, costing as much if not more than a house on land. All these ones have permanent moorings and are hooked up to electricity, water and sewerage services.

Seven bridges

Here you can see all seven bridges at once that cross all seven ring canals and you can see the quaint bridge lifting mechanisms. An acceptable excuse for being late to work in Amsterdam is "the bridge was up".

Cheese shop

Amsterdam is well-known for its cheeses and after our canal tour we were taken to a cheese shop where this delightful maiden in traditional costume gave us a comprehensive rundown on cheese-making. Afterwards we were allowed to run riot with tasting various samples, which were simply delicious. The walls of the shop were stacked with wax-coated cheeses in various stages of maturation. We bought some.

Marijuana varieties

Lots of things are unregulated and legal in Amsterdam, not only the famous "Red Light" district, but marijuana is legal to be sold in shops. I had no idea it came in so many varieties and we passed many shops parading their wares such as this one on the right. However there is an upper limit that you can purchase before you become a "dealer" and illegal.

String quartet

Finally, it was back to the ship for our last evening meal and our last piece of entertainment, this string quartet  with these four gorgeous girls on the left, who played a variety of pieces all originating from places we had visited. Their finale featured music from all the countries the passengers come from and we Aussies applauded loudly when they played Waltzing Matilda. A fitting sendoff.
Thus ends the river trip. More from the USA.

Cologne - 15th July

Town Hall

Docked in the famous town of Cologne today and we have signed up for the guided walk. We joined the "gentle walk" as Ros's knee has been giving her grief. First building we saw was the impressive Town Hall, but as there was a fireworks festival scheduled for this evening, this was the best shot I could get of it, between various vendor's stalls. The red fruh stall sells beer as do countless others.

Tall narrow buildings

Cologne, like many other German cities, prefer these tall, narrow buildings. There are no lifts in these buildings and the stairs are so steep and narrow, most houses have a pillar sticking out of the roof with a hook on it, and it is used to raise furniture up to the floor in question and taken in through the windows, rather than try to navigate those narrow stairs. Bright colours are the order of the day.

Lollies galore

It's traditional when the fireworks are held that lollies are popular and from the picture on the right, they are very popular. There were so many varieties I was very tempted but with so much food on the ship, I resisted.

Cobblestones

All European cities and towns have these infernal cobblestones which can be hard on the feet if you haven't got comfortable shoes on. In Belgium in 2008, the walk across cobblestones from the railway station to our hotel, a kilometer or so, totally wrecked the wheels on our carry on luggage, they were never the same after that.

Roman floor mural

On our tour, we passed the Roman museum and I took this picture through the glass of a Roman floor mural uncovered during construction of the museum. It is almost completely intact and would have been the floor of a high-class person, such as a senator or general. Sorry about the quality, the reflections were terrible and we didn't have time to go into the museum proper.

Cologne Cathedral

No tour of Cologne would be complete without a visit to the famous cathedral there. It is an awesome sight and took 600 years to build. The day we were there they were holding the funeral for the Archbishop so we couldn't go inside because of all the dignitaries there. Nevertheless, the sights from outside were spectacular. The cathedral is constantly undergoing maintenance as the stone gets eaten up by the atmospheric pollution and you can no doubt see the black stains on the stone, in contrast to the white cleaned stone.

To give you some idea how tall this building is, see the top finials on the two spires? Then have a look at the next picture to see how big they really are.

Cathedral finial

This is the actual size of the finials on top of the two towers. It will hopefully give you some idea of the scale of this building.

I'm writing this blog in Boston, the last two days of the tour were so hectic I didn't have a chance to write, then Monday was spent all day flying.

Marksburg Castle - 14th July

Castle gate

We docked at Marksburg and were bussed up to the castle you saw in the previous post. We went through four gates to get into the castle proper, the first gate is where the drawbridge was originally located.

Castle walls

Here you can see the external walls - imagine trying to storm these in the middle ages!

Garderobe

This wooden structure is a garderobe, the medieval equivalent of a toilet. The waste dropped straight down the outside of the wall, either into a cesspit or the moat. Later on, you'll see the inside of it.

Guide with castle key

This is our enthusiastic guide at the last of the four gates holding up the key to the castle gates. This castle is original, never having been destroyed and rebuilt like most of the other castles in the region. Note the rough floor, hewn straight from the native rock on which the castle sits.

View from top

You have no idea how many stairs I had to climb to get this view! But I think it was worth it.

Bed chamber

The bedroom, paneled with wood for insulation against the cold and the four poster bed, with a canopy and curtains that were drawn around the bed to keep the occupants warm. The bed is small for two reasons - 1. medieval people were not very tall, 5 feet at the most; 2. - they had a superstition that if you were lying flat, the Devil would think you were dead and take you away, so they slept sitting up!

Bottle glass window

Flat sheet glass that we have today did not exist in the Middle Ages, windows were either open to the outside air with shutters or, if you could afford the luxury, they were filled with bottle glass such as this one. This window is original.

Sink

This is the washing facility - a sink hewn out of a single piece of stone with a drain pipe going - yep, you guessed it - straight out the wall outside. No such thing as internal plumbing in medieval times.

Garderobe interior

Remember the garderobe you saw outside? This is the interior of that. The door had no lock on the inside because this garderobe was in the dining room and you left the door open so you could continue to talk to your dinner guests. Yes, that's correct, common practice in the Middle Ages. There is a lock on the outside of the door to prevent enemies breaching the castle by climbing in through the garderobe. Yuk!!

Roof of chapel

There is a small chapel for the residents, decorated with drawings and paintings of Jesus and his disciples. Religion was very important in medieval times, so castles always incorporated a chapel in their construction.

Narrow stone stairs

This is the stone stairs we had to climb out of the chapel. Deliberately made small so if enemies did get into the castle, they could not move easily or very fast. The door was also very small, I had to turn sideways to get through it.

Knight costumes

These are some of the knight's armor used in the Middle Ages. The one nearest without armor was a musketeer who didn't need armor for obvious reasons.

Hurdy gurdy

After the tour, it was time for the banquet and we were greeted by musicians playing authentic medieval instruments such as this lady to the right playing a hurdy gurdy.

Hurdy gurdy interior

For the uninitiated, the hurdy gurdy produced its unique sound by having a wooden wheel that was turned by the handle on the exterior. It vibrated the strings contacting it and the tune was produced by pushing levers underneath it which activated hidden frets, as you can see at the right of this picture. The frets shortened and lengthened the strings, changing their pitch accordingly. It is a weird other-worldly sound, but very musical nevertheless.

Suckling pig

No banquet would be complete without a roast whole suckling pig. The entertainers went to great lengths to make the experience as authentic as possible, with mead served in stone cups and music and much announcing during the banquet. All the food was delicious. We had the chicken.

Acrobatic entertainment

One of our number was press-ganged into "assisting" the female acrobat, who was highly entertaining. Here she is regailing the crowd of her abilities and achievements, plus describing the requirements of the gentleman lying prone on the table.

Finale

And here she is performing her balancing act with the assistance of said gentleman. She received thunderous applause, more for her conversation than the balancing act. After this it was time to make the perilous descent to our waiting buses to be driven back to our ship.