Home Sweet Home

We arrived home yesterday afternoon and my it was good to fly down the east coast of Tasmania and see all the familiar bays.  It was so good to catch up with the boys and to see both sets of parents today. Everyone is well and thats a blessing.   As I write this we are waiting to go and pick up our Gert from the aiport, so we will have all the kids together for nearly 5 days.  How good is that, to come home and have all the family together is just so special.     We are indeed very blessed and we have had an absolutely brilliant holiday. Thanks for sharing our big fat european adventure.  China is next!

Toilet Talk

Toilet Talk

After being nearly disembowelled in Los Angeles airport I thought a blog on the toilets that we have encountered on OBFEA a necessity.  Europeans show a special glee in demonstrating their self-expression and non-conformity nowhere more boldly than in their creatively designed body fluid evacuation systems.  From the exotic to the inscrutable to the cross legged unusable, some of the toilets we have encountered challenge the most laid back travellers, and yes they can really confuse you.

Advanced technology is being integrated into toilets with more functions.  And it was one such toilet with the automatic flushing mechanism operated by a sensor that typically flushes the toilet when the user stands up, that nearly disembowelled me in LA.  Ignoring advice from my dear mother, yes I sat down on the toilet seat!  Bad move.  After the elimination I leaned forward to tie up my shoe lace, when the sensor detected my movement and near sucked the crap out of me!!  It was a suck and flush all in one and I was riveted to the toilet seat by the great vacuum.    I was able to slowly release the suction, by prising my finger between the seat and my buttocks, nice one!!  This is not usual for the automatic toilets; they usually don’t commence their operation until you have taken one step away from the bowl, of course it was just my luck to be seated on the ambitious one.  Not only had I been sucked but flushed as well, I quickly used my chux cloth hanky to dry my nether regions and made my way back to Himself to relay this adventure!!

There is also the automatic lid operation, to open and close the lid.  I thought Riny would love this one!!  One in Pompeii that we all loved were the automated plastic toilet seat cover replacers, which automatically replace a plastic toilet seat cover with the push of a button.  These one also had a traffic light system that told you on the green light that it was vacant and red light for occupied. 

Sometimes we found that Europe when we were driving was not as accommodating as far as opportunities to relieve oneself.  In such situations, it was a necessity to find a back road and make the opportunity.  This on the odd occasion gathered an audience from a cow or two just too make the event more relaxing.

There is of course the mundane hole in the ground.  Sometimes there is a completely modern flushing system for this hole, and sometimes the hole is just a hole.  These toilets are also called the squat toilets.  Ok, someone explain to me what the big deal about squat toilets is? The flush squat toilets are not at all disgusting, and as far as I'm concerned more sanitary than the regular ones you sit on. And yes, my mother taught me to never sit on a public toilet. I must admit that I do not always heed this advice, as previously noted.  So regular or squat toilet is no problem to me—I have learnt to squat at an early age and am comfortable with either option. I now understand why many European women wear skirts and not pants!!  The biggest challenge, after squatting, may be the flushing. Some of them have high-powered faucets that will soak you from ankles down. Flush and run. The condition of the walls in most of these bathrooms is less than pristine. However, if it means holding/leaning on a wall or falling in, I'll lean any day! Parisian Public Toilet – there was one outside the Hotel Victoria in Chatelet and these work with a 1 euro charge and are a very good public restroom if the line up to get in is any indicator.  You get a locked stall with a toilet that, after you are finished it gets thoroughly steam-cleaned and auto-disinfected, along with the walls and floors! One must exit expeditiously to avoid being cleansed according to Himself who did the test run. In some countries, Spain and Italy were our experiences with this, you will be surprised to learn that the toilets are not for disposing of toilet paper. Yes, it is up to you to avoid smelling out the joint!  There is a small waste basket left near the offending sign imploring you to skip the dip.  If you try to sneak some down the chute, a clogged toilet will rat you out very quickly!

In Italy they actually had a “credit card” type of set up, where you could purchase a “WC Card.    This is in Venice, Italy.

McDonalds will almost always save the day! I call it "McBathrooms".  How many times did we drop into McDonalds to use their bathrooms free of charge, I loose count.   In most places we visited if you eat in a restaurant you can use their bathrooms without charge, but don’t just nick in off the street and expect it to be free, oh no.

The first thing we did when we arrived in a new place was to buy a postcard or a magnet so we would have change for any pay for the toilets that we may encounter. We also found that if we had the option of paying versus free in the same location that it was always worth the 50 euro charge. 

The bus toilet was tiny and its use was not encouraged at all.  Himself would have had to crawl in on his knees to be anywhere near able to fit in.  The tip here was not to eat a lot of greasy food and to plan your drinks when on our bus tour.
While visiting Belgium, we noticed most men's urinals were in view of anyone. The pub we went to had a ladies cubicle and a gents cubicle and 3 urinals all in the same room, with a small board at the side of the first urinal that did not hide anything. Some women covered their eyes while waiting in line, not me.

After spending time traveling by car thru the west counties of Ireland, we discovered that bringing travel toilet paper was one of our wisest moves. Most of the service stations we encountered, even nice mini-marts, had very shoddy bathrooms way out back, reminiscent of American service stations from years past. Even those bathrooms that were clean and well-kept usually had no toilet paper. Most didn't even have an empty cardboard roll to make it look like the toilet paper just ran out. We found it odd that the bathroom would be clean, have a bottle of nice hand soap and a working hand dryer, but no toilet paper. We don't know if this was to discourage toilet paper theft or use of the bathroom altogether, but found it was a similar practice no matter where we were.

We spent an inordinate amount of time locating restrooms! What we discovered: some Irish toilets have to be primed to flush; roadside rest areas in France are invariably of the squat-and-aim type, except for the token "disabled" toilet, which is why you'll always find a row of guys aiming into the trees and a line of women waiting for the handicapped stall; French men are as matter-of-fact about relieving themselves as their dogs are, and any wall will do, even in the middle of the city

I tried to use the ladies room when I was at the Louvre in Paris, but the line-up was very long, so I used the men's room. Better to use a filthy men's room toilet than wet yourself.  In fact I used the men’s toilets rather frequently whilst away, without hesitation

The toilets in the Madrid airport had a timed switch which went off in about 8 seconds. I had to use one hand to keep punching the switch and the other hand for everything else, this was very frustrating as we were in a rush to catch our plane.

Europe is not for the bladder-shy. For one, Europeans aren't as hung up about the separate bathrooms as we are.  It is not uncommon to see the more liberal-thinking European women use the men's room, if the line is too long in the ladies', for instance. I've done it myself on occasion. The key is the right attitude: walk in as if you owned the place, right past all the men at the urinals and into a toilet. None of the men ever seem to mind.

Bathroom Prison: One of my not so pleasant experiences was when we were in Lake Maggiore and we had checked out of the hotel before breakfast, foolishly.  Of course the call of nature came after breakfast when we had gone exploring this mass hotel.  We were in a very quiet area of the hotel and Himself was in the Men’s with me in the Ladies.  Well I couldn’t unlock the door of the toilet.  Being a bit claustrophobic, I was in a mad spin.  Knocking on the door, calling out to Himself who obviously must have put ear plugs in when he entered the men’s.     I thought that I was never going to be rescued from this WC.  Eventually Himself came to my rescue, and I was ever so pleased to see him in the Ladies.

I had experienced many toilet "adventures" throughout my travels in Europe, ranging from the flushing question (do I pull, push, kick the button, handle,cord), to angry grandmotherly cleaning ladies yelling in various languages and coming up with proper coinage to use the facilities in the first place.

Toilets were a fun part of our trip!  All toilets are not built alike...this was a great part of OBFEA experience. In the eight weeks that we have spent away, we discovered many new and interesting toilets. Besides the quite standard "squatting" model, we were often met by self-cleaning models (at the flush an arm would extend and the toilet seat would rotate one cycle while it was sanitized) and models with various flush levels.  In Italy it is against the law to have a toilet seat unless it can be sanitised after every use and so hence most do not have toilet seats.

LA, Hollywood, Santa Monica

Saturday 21^st May

LA, Hollywood, Santa Monica

We really didn’t have any firm plans for our visit to LA and decided to just wing it.  So with the weather being so glorious this morning, we went for a long walk.  Firstly we start with the Angel’s flight which is just near our hotel, and it’s the title of a book by Michael Connelly that himself has read.   We then meander down to the central market.  We are totally amazed by how cheap the food items are, a punnet of blueberries for $2.00 UISD

There are a lot of homeless people in LA, more so than we saw in NYC, very sad indeed.  LA is far less busy than NYC and pretty well organised and from the little that we have seen it looks fairly well organised.  We have been however, warned not to travel the subway at night.   What ius very striking is the number of palm trees that line the streets, very wide streets at that.

We walk down to Perishing Square on our way to catch the subway into Hollywood.   In Hollywood every Disney character imaginable is in the main drag waiting for the tourist to want a photograph with them and for them to charge an arm and a leg for the picture, we smile quietly amused by all the activity.  Woody, darkvader, cat woman with the hugest cleavage, spiderman, you name it and they are there!  

The walk of fame is a bit disappointing really, but never mind we got a shot or two just the same.  We jump on a hop on hop off bus and head off down route 66.  We do the whole lot of Hollywood, route 66, Beverly Hills, Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica…to be honest we do the whole tourist thing and you know what we loved it.  Not for one minute did we expect it to be as good as it was…it was great.  We saw a whole lot of iconic places that you see on the telly and we loved them all.  Santa Monica was fantastic.  Our bus broke down whilst we were there so we had a heap of time to soak up the atmosphere.  If anyone had told me that I would love it, I would have thought they were crazy, but it was great.

I have to admit that one of the highlights of the day were of gays in car that I looked down upon from the bus, let me tell you that a girl at my tender age should not have born witness to what I saw going on in that moving vehicle, but it kept me amused all day!!!  I say no more, except that it was very graphic!!!

We finished the day with a lovely dinner at our hotel to celebrate the last full day of our fantastic adventure.  We have had the best time on this holiday, it far exceeded all our expectations.   However, now we are ready to come home.   We have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of catching up to do.   We leave for home tomorrow….bring it on!!

New York to LA

Friday 20th May 

New York to LA

A quick trip back into Manhattan for a final catch up with Kaylene and Chris for lunch before we piano piano make our way via LA back home.  We have learnt not to go anywhere in NYC without a brollie.  But today we thought we were fairly safe without one, oh no, it starts to rain within 5 minutes of us stepping off the subway!!!  So yet another brollie was purchased off a street vendor. Puddles very quickly turn into lakes in NYC !  We go to lunch at a place called Dave’s famous ribs!!  It had a sign inside the door that says “Eat like a pig”, the meals were gigantic especially the plate that himself received.  I wouldn’t think it was at all the healthiest of choices but it sure was nice.  In fact we know it wasn’t as all the meals have their calorie content printed on the menu. 

  We have had a great time catching up with Kaylene and Chris in New York, it was really lovely to be able to spend this time with them.  We bid them farewell and safe travels for the remainder of their adventure and then head back to gather our belongings and head off to the airport.  

We have been very fortunate to have spent our week in NYC with Mick and Rita, himself’s brother and sister in law, who has been living in NYC for the past 4 years.  They have been so very welcoming and very generous to us during our stay and we have really enjoyed our visit with them.  

We piano piano make our way to the airport due to the heavy traffic. The streets of Manhattan are really quiet dirty we notice on the way out.  There is a lot of rubbish in the gutters and there are great mounds of rubbish bags packed up on the sidewalks.  The other problem that is worthy of note is the state of the roads.  The roads, even the main AutoRoute are not in a good shape.  I think this may be due to the fact that all the states are broke and there really isn’t any money left for road works. 

Oh dear, when we put our case on the scales.  OVERWEIGHT  the man cries, 29.4 kgs.  No allowance is made for the fact that we are sharing a case, we are amazed that we haven’t had this problem anywhere else.  We are advised to repack our case to redistribute the weight, by an obviously blind man, can he not see or understand that we only have the one case!!!   Never mind, it’s no great deal we are just somewhat perplexed, we cough up the money and continue on our way. 

We get into LA at about midnight.  Two nights and we will be on our way home and we are both feeling ready to go home now, we sure have had a wonderful holiday.

New York

Thursday 19^th May

New York

Some serious shopping was on today’s agenda as we had to buy a few last minute gifts, also we had seen cheap Levis 501’s so thought we would pick up a few pairs to take home.

We are now masters of the subway!! 

The musicians in the subway are amazing.    We strain  to hear the music over the roar of trains far below the traffic-clogged streets of Manhattan business.  They are not in it for any big money or anything. If you have a talent, if you have a passion, then you can still go down there and you can still do it. Not because you’re going to be rich. Not because they are going to be a superstar.  There is more than 100 official subway musicians performing in at least 25 locations throughout the 468-station New York subway system. Scores of other musicians perform unofficially. Although musicians have been playing the New York subway system for decades, a transit-sponsored program was established in 1987 to spruce up the city’s subway stations and make travellers’ journeys more enjoyable. Each spring, a panel of judges determines which acts are accepted into the program. This gives them a way to be organized, and it gives them a space to play so that they’re not fighting for a little corner. The subway musicians add local colour to what can be a frustrating attempt to navigate the city’s labyrinthine transit system and live tunes make the stuffy commutes a little more pleasant.  I would say that underground musicians, or even street musicians generally are a continuation of the culture of troubadours. But musicians playing to the nearly 3 million daily commuters on New York’s subway face a special set of challenges.  Playing in the subways must be difficult because people who don’t come down to the subway to see you; they want to catch the train.  So the musicians have a small window of opportunity of maybe 10-20 seconds to get someone’s interest, and then if there’s no train, to keep their interest. They have to sculpture themselves around what people like. The sheer diversity of musicians playing their trade under the streets of New York makes it perhaps one of the most vibrant performance spaces in the country. While some musicians seem perfectly content playing underground, others see it as a stepping stone and still others do it just to make ends meet.

We get down to Soho (South of Houston Street) and have a fairly successful shopping effort, so we then find a lovely little restaurant for lunch and my goodness it was a very beautiful meal indeed.  Piano Piano we make our way back to time square on the subway, soaking in all the atmosphere.   We decide to catch a movie, Mr Beaver with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster which is in a huge cinema in the middle of time square.   There are 25 cinemas in this cinema complex.  The film was different but enjoyable.

We then headed out to dinner with Mick and Rita to a lovely Irish pub for dinner before heading out to the Broadway show Rain.

I have decided that I love Broadway.  This show was a great tribute to the Beatles, the music was fabulous and we were able to bob along all night.  My hands were so sore from clapping.  They did a great job embracing the Beatles persona, it really was very well done and we loved it, all being Beatles fans. 

Another great day in the Big Apple.

Also in case you didn’t know it the world will end tomorrow. And it will end in NZ and Australia first. All through the subways are signs that the world will end on May 21^st. There are also people offering you pamphlets about and people suddenly burst out to you as you ride the subway, “Jesus loves you, you must repent before the end, etc, etc.” It is being discussed on the television and apparently only one million will be saved. However, the same religious group predicted the end of the world in 2004.

So why is NYC called the “Big Apple”?

In the early 1920s, "apple" was used in reference to the many racing courses in and around New York City. Apple referred to the prizes being awarded for the races - as these were important races, the rewards were substantial.

Based on the research of Barry Popik, the use of "Big Apple" to refer to New York City became clearer. Popik found that a writer for the New York Morning Telegraph, John Fitzgerald, referred to New York City's races "Around the Big Apple." It is rumoured that Fitzgerald got the term from jockeys and trainers in New Orleans who aspired to race on New York City tracks, referring to the "Big Apple."

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, New York City's jazz musicians began referring to New York City as the "Big Apple." An old saying in show business was "There are many apples on the tree, but only one Big Apple." New York City being the premier place to perform was referred to as the Big Apple.

A 1971 campaign to increase tourism to New York City adopted the Big Apple as an officially recognized reference to New York City. The campaign featured red apples in an effort to lure visitors to New York City. It was hoped that the red apples would serve as a bright and cheery image of New York City, in contrast to the common belief that New York City was dark and dangerous. Since then, New York City has officially been The Big Apple.

In recognition of Fitzgerald, the corner of 54th & Broadway, where Fitzgerald lived for 30 years, was renamed "Big Apple Corner" in 1997.

New York with Kaylene and Chris

Wednesday 18^th May

New York with Kaylene and Chris

Off to central park this morning with Kaylene and Chris.  It was another overcast morning but perfect for a walk in the park. 

  Kaylene and Chris were keen to see the Bethesda Fountain. Rising from Bethesda Terrace is Angel of the Waters.  The statue references the Gospel of John, which describes an angel blessing the Pool of Bethesda and giving it healing powers. The fountain commemorates the Croton water system, which first brought fresh water to New York City in 1842. The angel carries a lily in her left hand - a symbol of the water's purity, very important to a city that had previously suffered from a devastating cholera epidemic before the system was established. All that aside, it is a very lovely fountain and we picked up a hot dog in the park, just like Elliot does on Law and Order!!  We looked for bodies as we walked through the park, just in case we had to call the NYPD, as i am quiet friendly with them now!!

We sat and admired the fountain and soaked up atmosphere of the park whilst people watching for a wee while.

We then made our way to the Rockefeller building to go to the Top of the Rock. AWESOME experience! You get a full 360 degree view of NYC! Even though it was a bit overcast we still got very good views, one can only imagine how spectacular the views must be on a clear day.   There are multiple floor levels to explore up top so the crowd is spread out. It is easy to get the exact picture spot you want even if you have to wait 1 minute. It was quiet mild.  The elevator ride is pretty awesome, too! The view towards Central Park and beyond was amazing. The view south was equally fine with a spectacular view of the Empire State Building. There were glass enclosed decks on several levels and a smaller level above without any glass. We spent time taking in the view of East River and Hudson with most of the bridges connecting Manhattan to the other boroughs. Line to get up to the observations decks was minimal.  Elevators to the observation decks were hi-speed with flashing lights that were rather cool.

On our descent from the Top of the Rock the cloud started to envelope us and by the time we were out it had commenced raining.  We had decided to make our way to Chinatown for a late lunch early dinner, so we headed for the subway in the rain.  By the time we got off the subway it was bucketing down.   The rain in NYC is very different to our rain and very heavy indeed.  It amazes us that the roads and gutters overflow very quickly and large puddles form very quickly.  That is why so many people in NYC wear gumboots.  The gumboots are really quiet fashionable, and obviously very practical. 

We quickly jumped numerous puddles; of course it was very easy for Himself to leap over the puddles but not so easy for the rest of us.  We thought that Chinatown was going to be very early into Canal street, but not so.  So it was a rather long trek down Canal Street in this pouring rain.  The first Chinese restaurant that we saw we jumped at.  It was a very authentic restaurant full of Chinese people but with very basic furnishings, but we had a very nice meal. 

We jumped back on the subway and made our way home after bidding a farewell to Kaylene and Chris, we have had a lovely three days in New York City with them.  Lovely company.  Tomorrow Kaylene and Chris are heading to Washington DC for the day.  We cant wait to see the photos.