Wow #2

So apparently I can go for a really long time without writing. I'm not making excuses, but we've had a bit going on. Let's see.... We went to Rio for New Years. That was an amazing trip.... exciting, sexy and supremely fun. Then we came back and I got pregnant after 3 years of trying. YAY, right? Well... don't get too excited. We went to SXSW and shortly after we got back from Austin I miscarried. So.... still healing (emotionally), but getting there.

I decided to leave TicketsNow in March and had landed a job with JPMC, and didn't love it. While we were in Austin I started interviewing again. I had several job opportunities floating around at once and ended up landing at Walgreens.com. I am really loving it there... the work is fun and the people are great... and it's downtown. David's job is going well, and he's as busy as ever. We're also starting to look into adoption. Anyway, we are getting ready to head off to London and who knows where else in the EU for a little stint around 4th of July. So hopefully I'll have some fun updates from the road.

Wow. I just realized what an insanely long time it has been since I have posted anything on our blog. I wasn't entirely sure I would remember the username and password, or if it would even still be an active account.

Since I figured that out, I decided to write. We are not abroad at the moment, but we are not in Chi-town. David and I are currently in Palm Springs. He was out here last week for a conference and has another one that starts tomorrow in PS as well. He flew me out for the weekend... guess I am glad he did since Chicago's weather is mostly craptacular at the moment.

We drove to L.A. on Friday morning and hung at the awesome SLS hotel. Amazingly beautiful design. I forgot to take pictures and didn't realize until we'd checked out. That's okay, I plan on making up for it here at the Parker. I have already started documenting the room...

Tomorrow I will begin scouring the job boards again... while David is at the conference.

Ng goy! Mong Kok From Hong Kong, Phooey!

Hehro,

fron Hong Kong...not Charlie Chan Master Detective....Charlie Chan Expensive Hotel Stayer...egg ro disagree with stomach...we leave now for Singapore to Mumbai...tark to you rater...

Hello from Down Unda!

Sydney is basically Chicago in the southern hemisphere. It's very westernized...so it's nice because it almost feels like being home... in the summer.... with a bunch of artificial Christmas trees up. It's strange to see everyone in shorts this time of year. David and I popped into a little tourist trap called Minus 5 Degrees today. It's an ice bar....and you have to wear parkas and everything. It felt like home inside the ice bar.

It's been warm and humid. We did a boat tour yesterday and have been walking around the city quite a bit. We both agreed that we would need more time to spend in Australia... to really experience it. Everything here is very spread out and it takes a long time to get to most of the other areas that we would eventually like to explore. There's a big golf tournament going on this week. Last night in our hotel we met a golf pro and his fiance and hung out with them for a few hours. We are supposed to have dinner with them tonight if we make it that far.

We decided to shorten the stay in Sydney and head to Thailand so tomorrow we are heading out. We are trying to get the pictures so far posted to snapfish or something. Should have a link in the blog soon.

Off to Aussie-land: )

So David HAS in fact mastered New Zeal-ish (it's a fun little accent he'll have to demo for you on our return) and driving on the opposite side of the road. He has recently been quoted as saying "it feels more natural somehow..." Heehee. He's cute : ) We drove from Auckland at the top of the north island to Raglan where our friend Greg, the pilot lives. From there went to Rotorua... undoubtedly the smelliest part of all of New Zealand. Rotorua is known for its hot springs, which have a very distinct sulfur smell. Nothing like smelling giant rotten eggs....everywhere. We also saw some very stinky mud pools around the same area and then proceeded to drive to Wellington at the far south end of the North island. Welly is the capital and was a cool, hip blustery town. We nearly froze our bums off. We are now back in Auckland,where the air is about 10 degrees warmer awaiting our flight to Australia. Sorry... still no pictures... I'll get them out there eventually. New Zealand has been beautiful. Full of rolling hills and sweet lamb-ee pies. Can't wait to come back and see it again when we have warmer clothes. Oh... I nearly forgot! Today is national jandal day(sandals to us non Kiwis), since 95% of Kiwis live near the ocean...My toes are celebrating with the rest of the country today. More to post soon mates!

Toast in Tahiti

We spent the first 6 days of our vacation ACTUALLY relaxing. On our arrival in Tahiti Nui, we took the ferry to Moorea and stayed at the Sheraton. The first few days we actually had a bungalow right near the beach and the last two days we had a bungalow on the water. The bungalow on the water was our favorite it was peaceful and beautiful. While at the water bungalow, we were not awakened at the crack of dawn by the many roosters that sounded like they were screaming their tiny rooster lungs out every morning in an attempt to get our attention and hopefully a few nibbles of some food. We had lots of fun watching this porpcupine fish who would come into an area of the water every night. He would wait for food and torment this moray eel. This porcupine fish was kind of a tank. We decided if Jake was a fish, he'd be a porcupine fish. We named the fish, Mr. Puffy Pants... since he looked so much like our Jakey.

We were generally horrified daily by how insanely expensive Tahiti is. We had decided not to pack suncreen so we didn't have to check a bag at the airport. We figured we would just get suncreen when we got there. One hundred and twenty five dollars later, we left the Sheraton gift shop with 1 bottle of 60spf sunscreen, 1 bottle of 4spf suncreen and 1 can on bug spray. We also went cheap on breakfast. We had $11 toast! $11! The funny part was that it wasn't even really toasted. It was just sort of crispy-ish. After that, I ate french toast every day and David continued with the semi-toasted toast.

Snorkeling was interesting. David got bit by this mean little trigger fish- which actually drew blood. Apparently, it is pretty common...getting bit by these aggressive little fish. The same thing happened to at least 2 other hotel guests that we knew of. Anyway, besides relaxing, there is not a lot to do on Moorea. We drove the island in 2 hours. It's small and pretty and very, very hot. When we left Moorea, we spent our last night in Tahiti Nui... which actually seemed a bit more fun. It's much more populated, and there seems to be a bit of nightlife there. We walked around there had dinner met a couple of nice guys from New Zealand, who just happened to be the pilots who were flying us back to NZ the very next day. We hung out with our new friends Duncan and Gregg for several hours. We eventually managed to get back to our hotel by the airport, we spent most of yesterday waiting for our flight...and then on our flight.

We arrived in Auckland last night and got a room at this cute little place called the Hotel Aspen. It's a budget friendly b & b right in the heart of central Auckland. We walked all over the place today and will likely be renting a car tomorrow to head down the west coast of Auckland to go meet up with Gregg. Keep your fingers crossed. This will be our first time driving on the opposite side of the road: ) I'll try to remember my USB cord next time so I can post some pictures of chickens or something.

Flight to Auckland

The longest flight of our journey is complete. 12.5 hours! Whew! That was a long flight. We watched a couple of movies and thanks to Unisom were conked out for the better half of the flight. As we were coming in to Auckland, we noticed very low hanging clouds that covered huge expanses of the water around us. The man sitting next to us said that NZ is known as the "land of low hanging clouds". Apparently named this by people who settled the islands hundreds of years ago. He also pointed out several volcanos from the plane and mentioned that NZ is also known for it's over 48 volcanos...some of which are still active.

We have also found that Marmite and Vegemite are here in NZ. I have heard of this spread, but have never tried it. David wants me to try it... I have no idea what to expect. We'll keep you posted. We'll try to post some pictures after we get to Tahiti.