Tram & Paul in the UK

Hi Everyone,

Sorry i'm such a slacker, but here are a few select photos from the last few weeks here in London. There are some of our house and room, wimbeldon, and westminster abbey for you to check out. I will make up some explanations for the photos at a later date hopefully. And rotate the ones that need to be rotated. Sorry they are big again.. they looked fine until I put them in a web page, and then I sort of had to scroll to hit the "next" button. If you complain loudly enough I might resize them :) If you have a nice screen and can see the whole thing, then.. you're very lucky :) Especially if it's an LCD.

Anyway, have fun. I put them in an albumn (no html for me for once). Click here to check it out!

Posted by Paul at 07:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I was in Tennis Heaven. Whenever I go to the Wimbledon (this was my second time) I get all excited and I revert to a kid. I even got a large tennis ball and tried to get famous players to sign it. I stalked Kim Clisters with my big tennis ball with crowds of people however she only signed a couple of things and was rushed of by security guards. She didn't look very happy either even though she had one a doubles game. If I was famous I would sign at least 10 things before leaving. My tennis ball was very depressed because it only got one signiture which was from Johnny Wilkins a rugby player for the English team. Please write a comment if you know who he is and are impressed. I even got a photo with him. The best game that we saw was the doubles with Todd Woodbridge and Jonas Bjorkman verus Arrazi and Alanoui. It was very cool even though Alanoui got strained muscle in his leg and had to retire. We also saw Hanchacova who is Ashley's favourite (I think its the legs) and Barbara Schett. I don't know if Paul enjoyed the Wimbledon as much as me. I think it was the queuing up for 4 hours that might have done it. But we can say now that we queued at WIMBLEDON!!

PS Paul will put up the photos!!! (eventually)

Posted by Tram at 09:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hi Everyone, more pictures, this time of Berlin

This is our first breakfast in Berlin. Lots of cheese and bread and dips and, my favourite, salami. mmmmmm..... salami. Tram doesn't like it so I got to eat it all!

This is the line waiting to get into the German equivalent of Parliament House. There is a big dome on the roof (can't see from this angle) that is open to the public. It was raining, so we chose to not wait just yet...

We decided to go on a bus tour instead. This is a shot of the Berlin Wall.. this is one of the bits that wasn't ripped down. I also have a few photos of rubble left over from it, and in one part of the tour, the left side of the bus was in East Germany and the right side was in West Germany... Interesting.. hehe. I have a whole heap of other photos, but I can't remember what they're of, and also photos from inside a bus on a rainy day don't really come out all that well, so .. maybe if i have time at a later point I'll post some more up.

This is called the Brandenburg gate. I'm not _entirely_ sure of the significance.. but.. it looks impressive! You can see a whole heap of rickshaws in front of it. They are all over the city centre, and a cheap alternative to a taxi. Fun too. mostly. Of course, cheap is relative when you're converting to Euros from Aussie dollars :)

Tram's in trouble with the cops AGAIN :)

The sun has come out! We're going in...

This is a shot of the inside of the dome. It's very nice, well done. A lot of buildings in Germany were designed by famous architects, and the dome is no exception (no idea who though..)

The view from about half way up the dome. I will post some external views of the dome when I remember (it's a pain doing this from an internet cafe :/ )

The Berlin skyline from the top of Parliament house

Another dome thing that was a few minute's walk from our Hotel. I think it's a planetarium..

That's it for now. Once again, sorry for the update taking so long. Don't forget to read the previous post with the photos from minneapolis!

I will put more stuff up about our time so far in London, but I think this will do for today. Hopefully we will get Internet connected at our new home tomorrow, so .. I'm looking forward to that. In the mean time, Thanks for reading up to now! Any requests post in the comments or email and we'll post back. Don't be surprised if it takes a day or two to reply because the time difference is kind of annoying. We're awake when you're sleeping and vice versa. Oh well.

Bye!

Paul

Posted by Paul at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

What we have been up to in our final days in Minnesota. (Click Continue below for the photos...) Sorry it's been so long coming! I finally sort of have a few minutes spare so here you go. I'll also put up some from Germany in the next post!

Outside the baseball at the Metrodome, which is an indoor stadium where they play baseball, gridiron and ice hockey. The super bowl was held here at some time... can't remember what year. Interestingly, you can buy beer on the street outside the stadium, but you can't take it in with you :)

Watching the Twins versus the Collorado Rockies.

This is a "foam party" that we went to at a pub/club place in the Mall of America. Quite fun, really :)

These are some pictures of the second time we went boating. The whole family went along (not all in the boat at once obviously) and it was a really fun day.

The next day we went to ValleyFair which is a theme park in Minneapolis. It was pretty good... They had an equivalent to the Tower of Terror, pictured here, called the Power Tower. There are two versions of it. The first one (the Blue pole) Shoots you up really fast and then drops you about 3 quarters of the way down, and you bounce up and down the pole for a while (it's pretty sweet). The second one it like the Tower of Terror... it takes you up the top pretty fast, then holds you there for about a minute .. anticipation makes it so much worse :)

This is one of the several rollercoasters at ValleyFair called the High Roller. It's one of the older ones, all built from wood, but still surprisingly smooth. No loops or anything, just some big fast drops and .. rolling hills i guess you'd call them. Fast and fun, good for the kids ;)

Now, this is my favourite ride that I've been on. Better than the Riddler at 6 flags, and better even than the wipe out at good old Dreamworld. It's called steel venom, and it's basically an inverted roller coaster that goes up sort of a U shaped track. You just go REALLY fast up one side then roll back and accellerate even more and go up the other side backwards. I'll try to find a better photo with the whole thing .. OK have a look here: http://homepage.mac.com/susskins/PhotoAlbum3.html
Anyway, it was pretty sweet. I'm the in the fourth row, probably can't make me out very well :/

OK that's it for this posting. I'lll upload more photos in the next one. Sorry I didn't rotate the ones that need to be rotated. I'll try to remember to do it later and fix 'em up.

Bye!

Posted by Paul at 05:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)