Finally we're getting somewhere!

We've been sooooooooooooooo lazy about our Europe Trip. With less than 1.5 months til we leave, we've barely booked anything except our plane ticket and tour! So me and Moishii got together on the weekend and spent the whole day planning our trip.

Maybe because we've been on holidays so many times, and we know how disasterous it always is. Or maybe we're just getting old. But searching for accommodation in Paris took us almost 3 hours! THREE HOURS! We used to pick up a book, look for the cheapest price and just went with it. This time, we went on 10 different websites, looked at over 50 hotels, cross checked the website with other websites in terms of price, reviews, photos and location. And even then, we umm'd and ahh'd over which place we wanted to book. In the end, we basically went "Screw it! Just book XYZ. I don't care how much it costs or where it is anymore! JUST BOOK IT!".

Ahhhh.....our famous last words. "Just book it". How much trouble has these 3 words caused us EVERY TIME! Lets see what happens this time. Especially considering the notes we made on our "shortlisted" accommodation. Of course there's the usual notes, price, location, free internet, breakfast included etc etc. But with most hotels offering similar facilities, it all drilled down to the following:

"Reception looks like a porn set"
"Room has pole for pole dancing"
"Dining room has chairs that looks like it'll poke an eye out"
"Hotel has weird metal wall thing we should get a photo with"

I won't tell you what hotel we booked, but porn set and dangerous chairs featured heavily in our decision.

By the end of the 3 hours, we were both exhausted! We don't know why, but it was tiring! I guess we try to think too much and plan too much. There's no point really. No matter what we plan, how many back up plans we've got, shit still happens! Things will get cancelled, we'll get ripped off, stranded somewhere, freaked out by weirdos, things exploding in our face. I guess we realised this when we were faced with trying to find accommodation in Madrid.

Moishii had sent me a link to some Palace in Madrid ages ago. We were faced with 2 choices. Book his PALACE, or spend another 3 hours researching Madrid. I honestly couldn't care by this stage, so the Palace was booked! Woohoo! 2 down and...how many more to go? *Sigh*

Atleast we're making progress! hehehe Now, should we go to Ibiza or not??? It'll be our new Mykonos, but our schedule is really really tight. Hmmmmmmmm.....

If anyone has been to Ibiza or knows of a good cheap accommodation in Barcelona please let me knowwwwwwwwwwww!! Thankies! :D

I'm off again....

Yeeeeeehawwwwwwwwww! I'll be off to the US of A for a few weeks to shoot some steak for dinner! Just kidding, I won't be shooting my own steak, although I'm pretty sure that's possible in Texas. Which is exactly where I am headed! Although I doubt I'll see many cows roaming the streets of Houston... Actually, I take that back. The biggest Rodeo show is currently on right now!

I'll be leaving this weekend, which is pretty short notice considering we only booked my ticket yesterday. This isn't a holiday, but a work trip with lots of late nights and weekend work. Atleast I get to fly business class! AND I heard my accommodation is pretty darn good! Which is exactly why Will is considering coming along to visit! Free accommodation! How can he pass up an offer like that? Especially since some of our favourite people we met on tour are also from Houston. Anyway, he's going to have to check his leave and money etc and play it by ear.

With that said, I'm expecting late nights every night, and I've already been told I'm doing weekend work. (Some of the people over there are working til 5am and coming in to work at 8-9am...) So I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to sight see any part of Houston let alone find time to spend with Will IF he does come along. I'll just keep saying to myself Business class..... steak..... ribs.... tex mex... cajun food.... Business class.... Business class.......!!!!

So I'll be MIA for awhile again, not sure if I'll get time to blog at all. I'll bring my bazooka camera along and hopefully I'll get to use it over there.

Oh! And I've got 64kg baggage allowance! So I'm definitely going to hit the shops atleast once to shop til I drop!

Will and Grace does......Europe maybe??

For the last 6 months, I've been talking with Will non stop about what we should do for out 2009 trip. We both decided to cancel out January Gold Coast trip to save more money and leave to have a proper overseas holiday together this year. December and January was insanely busy with relatives visiting. February, which I was hoping to be quiet, is extremely busy for work, and it looks like March might even be worse.

With the lack of time for us to plan anything together, I was a bit worried as to what is happening with our holiday. We've discussed broadly what we want to do, which was what the dinner at Efendy was for. Go over travel brochures! It narrowed it down a bit, but there are still too many places we wanted to go together. (Honestly, the best way is to take 6months off, but neither us can afford to do that!)

However, I get an email from Will today with a brief 10 point plan and some links to research he's done. After about 2-3 emails, I think we nutted out most of what we want to do! Now its a matter of sorting out how much leave we can both get, and actually pick the right time to go! Then we can get into the nitty gritty details. Where to stay, what to do and what to eat! There's still work to be done, but we've got a lot more structure to work with now instead of just "lets go on holidays together".

We're both hoping this will be the best trip yet! We're trying to combine touristy sightseeing in the big cities, relaxing in small country towns, harrassing locals with a whole heap of partying thrown in! Oh, and of course get up to the usual Will and Grace shenanigans! Basically shit that only us 2 can get into! And probably jokes that only the 2 of us will get and laugh at for the next 10 years! It really helps when you get someone just as insane as you, who thinks exactly the same as you! This will be Will and Grace does Europe......with a big bang!!!!

Day 5 - Back to Sydney

We had agreed the night before that we were going to show up in the shared breakfast hall in our bathrobes. So here I was, standing in my Cow PJs with the bathrobe on when Will walks out of the bathroom fully dressed. I chuck a tantrum saying he needs his bathrobe as well since we agreed on it.

We walk out in our bathrobe when Will has another change of heart. We decided that he should check out what people are wearing so we're not the only morons in our PJs. He gives me his robe before he walks to the dining hall and comes running back screaming everyone is fully dressed. We trip back into our room where he screams at me "WTH WERE U THINKING?!?!". ME? It was a Will and Grace decision, yet I get the blame??

We get dressed into our normal clothes and head back out for breakfast. This was a lovely country breakfast where you get slices of fresh country bread, cereals, fresh fruit salad etc. When we sat down, the waitress immediately came over to offer us freshly brewed tea and coffee. We ordered a pot of coffee to share and hit the food.

Vegemite on country grain toast

Fresh fruit

As I was waiting for my toast to cook, one of the woman on the table next to us walks to the toaster to put toast in, only to see our toast there. She sits back down to wait her turn. Because she was busying talking, another girl put her toast into the toaster when we took our toast out. When she found out, she stood there GLARING at the other girl, ready to stab her with a butter knife. Someone get her some toast already!!!

Ontop of the cereals, bread and fruit, they also offer a full english breakfast made to order. After we finished our toast, the waitress asks if we would like our hot breakfast now. Of course we did! We have a hangover woman!

GIMME MY BREAKFAST!

Will's

My breakfast with the lot

Perfect runny poached eggs

After breakfast, we head back to pack our stuff. I realised I had left our cheese and olives in the fridge in the dining room and ran back out to grab it. As I walk into the dining room, I see 2 guys wrestling the toaster with a pair of metal tongs to get their toast out. The waitress comes running out to offer to turn the toaster off. They turn around and go "No, we're alright thanks." and continue to jam the tongs into the toaster??????

I grab my stuff and run back so I didn't have to be a witness to the accident waiting to happen. We pack our stuff into the car and took a step back to see how much we've accumulated in the 5 days:

The backseat

The backseat from the other view

The boot

We jump into the car to head back into Sydney. Within 10mins of driving, Will screams "MAGGIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". Without another word said, he winds down the window and I take a photo. As I said, perfect partnership.


And no, I won't bother explaining as no one would really understand. Just accept that this was a big deal for us ;)

Another 5mins down the road, I spot a sign that says "award winning cupcakes". Before I could say another word, Will parks the car to let me out. Now that's being on the same level. I walk in and ummed and ahhed for ages before picking out some cupcakes to take home:

SMJ is happy with her cupcakes!

Clockwise: Double choc, Hummingbird, Lemon cream and Bailey's cupcake

Will starts screaming that we've been in the car for less than 20mins and I've made another purchase. I spotted a heap of other signs that point to fetes and markets along the way, but we both decided to give it a miss. That is until we saw the markets in Linden

Without even discussing, Will knew that we had to stop. We find parking and run towards the market. Within seconds of arriving, our camera goes off non-stop. We did laps around the market just taking photos until I found a really nice Jam place where I bought some Jam for research.







We eventually get tired and leave. The whole way back to Sydney, we're looking for a car wash to clean the dead bugs off the car.


Maybe it was the car wash, or the drive, but we were hungry again and hit KFC. This has got to be one of the worst KFC experiences I've been to. I think their air conditioning was broken, as it was about 35degrees in the restaurant. I was sweating just lining up, and going to their toilet to wash my hands, they ONLY had hot water. And I mean HOT WATER. The food was still good....


Will drops me off at home and helps me unload all my crap:

2/3 of my stuff

Some of the goodies I got

The crap Will shoved into my bags

I had a fantastic time on my trip away, which was quite surprising for me. I'm not much of a traveller within Australia, let alone within NSW. I'm sooooooo glad Will asked me along, I can't wait for the next road trip! I guess any holiday can be fantastic with the right people. Especially when Will and Grace goes on holidays! That beats any other holiday out there!

Day 4 - Jenolan Caves and Blackheath

It is FREEZING in Oberon. I kept waking up during the night as my nose was so blocked up I couldn't sleep. I already had 2 blankets and desperately need a 3rd and 4th one, except I was too cold to get up to get it. There was also a heater, but it was on the other side of the cabin. Again, I was too cold to get up and turn it on. In the end, I woke up an hour earlier than planned to try and defrost.

This morning's checkout was the easiest. The boot was right next to the front door. We were practically just throwing things into the car. We popped the key into the checkout box and off we went for breakfast. We chose a local cafe that looked warm and cosy for breakkie.

Cafe Savanna

We order our coffees, me screaming I needed it in a mug before we ordered breakfast. Will orders toast, and when asked if he wants thin or thick toast, he answers thin toast. If this is thin toast, I don't want to see their thick toast:

3cm thick toast

Being in Oberon, where you can go foraging for mushrooms, I decided that mushrooms on toast would be the perfect choice. And since I had a hangover, bacon and hashbrowns obviously make an appearance. But I didn't expect THIS:



This was HUGE. It was easily 1/2kg of mushrooms cooked in butter, served with thick slabs of toast slathered in butter with a serve of bacon cooked in butter and a butter fried hash brown. I could feel my ateries clogging up with every bite. I tried my best but only managed to get through 1/2 of it.

Will leaves me to deal with the bill, which isn't a problem since it was paid for last night. He goes and does his stuff and I hit the shops. Right before he leaves,

I said "I'm going to go shopping"
he said "What could you possibly buy in a town like this??"
I said "Is that a challenge?"
he took one look at me and went "Oh, that's right. Happy shopping."

Within about 15mins, I had purchased 2 jars of home made jam from a volunteer shop, a kangaroo keyring for Will and I bought myself the CUTEST set of cow tumblers that come in a milk carton!!


Again, Will's jaw drops when he sees me with bags of stuff again. We dump everything into the car and went to the local bakery to grab some picnicky stuff for lunch. We grab a salad roll each, plus I bought olives earlier when stocking up on water to tide us over.

We get back into the car and head off towards the Jenolan caves. I have lost count of how many times I've been to the blue mountains, and everytime I try to go to the caves, I don't make it. Its either raining, or we've missed the last bus etc etc. This time, I wasn't sure we'd make it either looking at the road we had to drive on!!!

We're trying to do a SHARP left turn

I could not believe how tight some of these curves were! I'm so glad we didn't hire a caravan or campervan like we talked about. We finally make it to the bottom in one piece where we quickly park before heading towards the ticket office (Right past a warning sign that says there are snakes in the area). We bought tickets to the next cave tour, Lucas caves.

We go to the meeting point to wait for the tour to start. It was then I noticed that most people are in shorts and tshirts with a tiny bag and a bottle of drink. Me on the other hand, jeans, jump, side bag, camera bag and camera around my neck. It was only when we started our tour into the cave that I realised what a big mistake it was. Some parts of the cave are tiny and narrow. There were a few times my bags will get snagged onto something. And I didn't realise how many stairs there were! It was like a stair master workout with rocks!

The more spacious areas

The broken column

The Cathedral

Wombat remains

However, with that said, we did enjoy ourselves. The only problem was a 10yo kid who would not shut up the entire 1.5hrs and decided to give us a running commentry on EVERYTHING.

The tour ends and we immediately plant ourselves down on some chairs and pull out our lunch.

Mixed Olives

Salad Roll

Even though the food was simple, it was really satisfying after my fryup this morning. We duck into info to grab some brochures and decided that we should head to Adam's shed which has wine, jam and honey tasting. We decided to try a different road out of Jenolan caves to avoid having to go around the bends/cliffsides we just went through. And let me just say, the 2 times we stopped to take photos of dead roos, a car drives past BOTH TIMES. @#%#@#$

The upside was, the view was gorgeous:


We eventually get onto the freeway towards Adam's shed, only to find out they were closed! To make up for it, we pulled into a little cafe/garden/nursery for some gorgeous scones:



They also saw the bazooka of a camera I had and recommended that we go to a secret lookout to watch the sunset. We were both knackered, so we decided to save that lookout for our next trip instead. We follow the Navman and eventually arrive at the guesthouse we booked:




As they were showing us our room, we realised they had mixed up our booking. To make up for it, they bought us a bottle of wine, woohoo!! AND, they had chocolates on arrival!! How sweet! Plus slippers and bathrobes for extra luxury. They even upgraded us by giving us a spa bath!

Modelling with our bathrobes

Chocolate on arrival

Showing off our spa bath

Will cracking open our wine

Being hot and sweaty, we take a shower and jump into bed to relax with our chocolate, wine and my surprise just for Will. Little Britain USA! We crack open the wine whilst we're watching this, and whilst I get completely plastered on wine, Will slowly sips his one glass until I ended up on the floor as I couldn't walk straight. Not a good sign. We decided to start watching our Mykonos holiday video, until a certain "scene" came on TV when I decided I should get ready for dinner and hide in the bathroom. Next thing you know, I hear this soft thump thump sound. I open the bathroom door and see this:

Current State: Insane

Current State: Winding down

Current State: Exhausted

Me? Just drunk

We hop into the car and manage to find our way to the main strip. We drove past Tails, which was recommended by the scones people as a great place for a nice dinner. The restaurant is actually part of a Motel, which wasn't a huge issue. The problem was that our table was in the corner of the room. LITERALLY in the corner of the room. We both sat staring at the walls of the restaurant???

With that said, the food was really nice:

Chicken breast wrapped with pancetta and baked, with rocket, tomato and parmesan salad

Herb crusted rack of lamb with almond and lemon risotto and lemon sabayon

Choc walnut cake with a choc mint ice cream - HEAVEN on a plate

We head back to the house, where we find that someone had lit the fireplace for us! I LOVE fireplaces! I absolutely LOVE LOVE fireplaces! We got changed into our jammies and bathrobes before plantings ourselves down on the plush armchairs by the fire. Without even asking, Will brings me a glass of port to enjoy by the fire. Now THIS is a holiday. We sit infront of the fire, chatting, drinking when we suddenly decide to call Gus up and abuse him a bit! Its not right if we don't abuse someone.

The port pouring

Me, my jammies and port!

The look of content

A combination of the bottle of wine I had earlier, the satisfying dinner, the fireplace and now the port with some heart to heart chatting meant we were both ready for bed. Besides, we had emptied half of the port bottle already....

We get ready for bed when I walk into the bathroom and see a spider on the ceiling. We both start screaming that the other person has to kill it. We run out into the livingroom and kitchen to look for bug spray or something to kill it with. We grabbed a mini broom thing from the fireplace ready to do some eradication.

Armed to kill

We're standing in the bathroom,arguing over whats the best way to kill the spider. I scream at Will to just stab it with the broom. So he does, but then it falls from the ceiling and tried to scuttle away. So here we were, 2 full grown adults, screaming our head off whilst bashing the tiled floor with a brass broom. We eventually get the spider into the toilet to try and flush it:

It looked much bigger IRL

After all that excitement, we were both wide awake with our hearts racing. We eventually get to bed when the alcohol kicks in again. As usual, Will dumps the tea and coffee into my suitcase.


Just as I am almost asleep, out of nowhere, came the LOUDEST jackhammer like sound from our window/wall. I had a mini heart attack whilst Will fell out of bed thinking someone was trying to break into our room with a chainsaw!!! It was basically someone having a shower and the waterpipes going nuts. I thought someone was doing construction outside our room at 1am in the morning. I'm not even sure how we managed to get back to sleep after that.