Sydney-The Rocks, Darling Harbour, City Centre & the Beaches

We are staying next to Hyde Park in the CBD and overlook the city of Sydney, with the harbour out one window and the Olympic park and football stadium out another window. It is beautiful with lush green grass and little gardens and small restaurants here and there. The red berry trees amongst the giant oak, palm and fig trees make for a wonderful contrast. We alternate having our morning breakfast in one of the restaurants off the park. For a city of 3-4 million, Sydney is quiet and peaceful. No one rams into us on the streets and people smile here! In fact, just today whilst at Starbucks Jack said, “This is my favorite Starbucks ever, because they are so friendly and smile!”

Day One:
Darling Harbor- One of the focal points of Sydney. It contains a mixture of shops, cafes, museums and open spaces with activities.
The Taronga Zoo- We took the ferry to the zoo. The zoo is elevated on land along the waterfront and offers awesome vantage points to the Sydney harbor. Some of the animals we saw were: bears, crocodiles, elephants, gorillas, monkeys, seals, lions, but no koalas.
Sydney Harbor Bridge- People can be seen hiking the Harbor Bridge to the top of the arch. From below the ferry, the people look like miniature birds.
The Opera House- It is easily viewed from just about any place on the harbor. It sits near the City Harbor Bridge. Depending on how the sun hits its roof, it looks either white or aluminum.
Jack got hit by a car whilst jogging. Thank goodness he was only bruised and not badly injured. Lessons learned were to pay particular attention to traffic and be extra alert when jogging in a foreign city after 36+ hours of no sleep!

When the sun goes down the wind picks up and it gets brisk.

Day Two:
The Rocks- This is the old part of Sydney and is a nice escape from the hustle and bustle. It has cobbled stone streets and old buildings with lots of shops and galleries.
Manly Beach- known as one of Sydney’s top beaches, we spent a few hours at the beach. It was nice and relaxing to watch the surfers and swimmers. With no beach towels, we laid down in the sand and let it consume us making a perfect lounge chair that supported our bods. The waves looked to be little waves that were near the beach, but many surfers tackled them and we saw several who were able to get up and ride them in.
Lessons learned: it pays to have help applying sunscreen to avoid the streaking look, from here forth joint effort. Not a good idea to wear flip flops for lots of walking- Angie encountered severe blisters on the bottom of feet!
Favorite snack: Toasted banana bread
Worst food yet: Chinese broccoli- doesn’t resemble broccoli at all!

Day Three:
Leisure Centre- Swimming in a 50 meter pool! What a way to begin the day.
Sydney Botanical Gardens- Very cool and an amazing diversity of trees, shrubs, etc. It sits off the peninsula overlooking the harbor.
Sydney Opera House- An iconic landmark, the photographs can make it look different, the colors of the roof titles change depending on the roof.
Queen Victoria Building- An amazing shopping centre with upscale shopping. It had some fantastic Christmas decorations including a tree that spanned the three floors decorated completely with crystal ornaments. It had this awesome clock inside it. Sydney is getting better by the day...

Day Four:
After a great breakfast, we took the metro to Circular Quay where we took a ferry to Watson’s Bay. We did a 2 hour hike along the ridge overlooking the cliffs and a narrow inlet where there were loads of swimmers and people playing in clear calm water and we watched with a bit of jealousy from a great bridge that spanned it all. Beautiful morning. Nice to see the rock formations and the waves. Viewed the Dunbar anchor from the lost ship that crashed and sank there long ago.
Bondi Beach- Awesome swimming pool on side of beach with fresh water and the waves of the ocean splashing into pool.
Dinner was the best yet (for Angie anyways) with a fantastic risotto with pumpkin and sweet potato.

Off early in the morning to Perth.

Lisboa or AKA Lisbon

We just returned from a long weekend in Portugal; we stayed in the capital, Lisbon, as Jack had a ½ Ironman race. The area our hotel was in was Parque das Nacoes, which is known as the Park of Nations. It is east of the centre by the river; in the day time it offers restaurants, cafes and shopping, in the evenings it offers concerts, special events and a new casino.

Here is a link which will take you to some photos of the surrounding area of Lisbon. http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-34,GGLG:en&q=Lisboa&um=1. You can find plenty of information on Google.

Jack and several friends competed in the Lisboa ½ Ironman, and I was part of the cheering squad. (Watching everyone was exciting, but it also made me nervous too. I certainly felt lazy!) You can check out results of the race at this link http://www.tri247.com/results_4775.html.
For those of you that are not familiar with what a ½ Ironman is, it consists of an open swim of 1.9K, bike 90k, then run of 21k.

The weather was absolutely lovely in Lisoba! The days were filled with sunshine and a slight breeze, while the nights were calm and warm.

Our next travels are to Switzerland and Italy in July.

Germany and the Silvretta Mountains in the Austrian Alps

A little recap of our holiday.

We returned early this last Thursday from our trip to Germany and Austria.
We spent most of our time in Ischgl. Ischgl is a small village in the Paznaun Valle in Tyrol Austria. Its famous ski resort is called Silveretta Areana Ischgl, it is one of the largest skiing resorts in the Alps. There are over 30 ski lifts and tons of runs (pistes)! One thing for sure, Ischgl always proves to have lively ski parties and wild nightlife.

We left early on Saturday morning. It felt like it took us forever to get to Germany. We wanted to spend time with friends from our days living in Germany before heading to Isghgl. The flight from London to Germany was only one hour long, but the airline was delayed over an hour and then we waited on the run way for nearly another hour! Once we made it to Frankfurt Germany, the trains at the station in Frankfurt only run to Wuerzburg every hour, and we literally made it in time (ran to elevator, and literally ran to train, jumped on and the doors closed behind us and the train departed!)

The first day we met up with Wolfgang, our German friend who works for BMW and picked up a car from him for a few days. Wolfgang has always been wonderful to us, we have some very special memories of skiing with him while we lived in Germany and picking out Christmas trees together each year while we lived in Germany. Plus, he just so happens to be the best German BMW salesman in Germany!

Then we headed to Greuth to visit old friends and a few of the villagers (we use to live in Greuth when we lived in Germany). We visited some friends and a nearby winery. As we drove around, we allowed the beauty of the green German fields to confine our thoughts along with the explosion of colors from the homes’ stucco. Afterwards, we headed to Stefi and Christians house, some dear German friends (we stayed with them), and that evening we all met up with some American friends (Darryl and Lori) for dinner. (It was one full day!) The following morning, Jack woke and took off running up Schwanberg mountain with full determination to conquer the hills by foot (he use to mountain bike ride the trails and road ride the paved paths, so he enjoyed running through the forest to the top by foot). Stefi and Christian made this absolutely amazing breakfast for us (most memorable was the blood fresh squeezed orange juice). Then Jack and I drove around a bit and reminisced about experiences we had while we lived in Germany and drove through some of our favorite villages and roads. We met up for lunch at a Thai restaurant that was one of our favs with some friends (Nina and Travis) who drove up to meet us (we introduced the love birds, so we are especially happy to see their deep love for one another). Afterwards, we met back up with Wolfgang and headed to Austria in the car. We arrived in Austria after a 4 hour drive and checked into our hotel and went out for dinner.

The Alps were cold but very beautiful. Day one of skiing was absolutely wonderful; clear blue skies with sun and wonderful snow (although a bit crusty and icy). Before dinner, I headed to the sauna with Wolfgang to relax and unwind. I had nearly forgotten the fact that Austrians, Germans and such do the saunas nude! Wolfgang was kind enough to mock me in wearing a suit, and we discussed the Americans' prudish behaviors. We have photos of the sauna, as it was so incredibly beautiful-every sculpture and ceramic was made with love and extreme detail as my friend says!

Day 2 was unlike day 1; clouds and dark skies with a snow storm and some fierce wind. We tried to ski, but once we hit the top of the mountain over 3300 meters, the wind was up to 30mph and it really scared me. While standing still on skies, it blew us over! In fact on one of the lifts up, I began to worry about the possibility of issues that could occur do to the wind and us being stuck in the swinging lift! (The mind is very active and full of crazy thoughts when frightened!) The snow and white out from the wind and snow storm was so intense that we couldn't see each other, although we were standing only feet apart. That was our clue to get off the mountain. We headed down and realized on our way afterwards that they were closing all but like 4 of the 30 ski lifts. Back to the hotel we went, then out to lunch, followed by the sauna and a wonderful massage.

Day 3 was short but sweet. Again, we were greeted with fresh blue skies, sun along with the fresh 54 cm of snow that had fallen the day of the storm! It was extremely cold though. I made the best of the morning skiing before my legs finally gave out from ski fatigue. We left the mountain around lunch time and checked out of our hotel and began our drive back to Germany, so we could make our train in time for Frankfurt, where we were meeting another German friend, Miriam, for dinner before we departed the next morning at 7 AM back to London.

Of course, arriving back to London proved that London traffic just sucks. It is only like 15 miles to the airport, and it took us an hour via cab to go about 5 + miles. At that point, we jumped out and pulled our luggage to the nearest tube station, climbed on and worked our way home via buses afterwards. There is nothing like pulling luggage in busy tube stops and via foot in London! (Oh days were so much simpler when we had a car, but even here having a car doesn't help much!) We are certainly doing our part in contributing to living "green” for the environment!

Christmas Travels

This year for Christmas, we spent it in Utah. We left London on the 19th and flew to Dallas, Texas where we had about a 3 hour layover before flying to Salt Lake City. The flight wasn’t that bad, as we consumed most of our time watching movies. Although one thing confirmed….airplane food SUCKS! We did have emergency door isle seats and no seats in front of us, so we had plenty of room which was nice.

We spent plenty of our time partaking in the last minute Christmas shopping, since we only brought a few gifts from England back. Typically, the Christmas crowds drive us crazy, but after living in London with crowds, crowds, and more crowds of people, apparently we were immune to it this year.

We were able to get some ski time in at Snowbasin. It is a wonderful ski resort and only about a 20 minute drive from our family. We had planned to do some XC skiing, but due to the weather and having a tight schedule, plus we both came down with head colds, we weren’t able to squeeze in XC skiing.

It was great seeing family and friends. There were several people we didn’t get to see that we had hoped to see. For those of you we were able to see, thank you for squeezing time into your busy holiday schedules for us, we really enjoyed spending time with you.

Hard to believe that tomorrow is New Year’s Eve! We are back in London now to celebrate the New Year. We will celebrate the New Year at some new friends’ house in Chiswick, Valerie and Justin. (Thanks Donna for introducing us!) We are also looking forward to seeing some friends from the states, Sarah and Patrick.

For those of you eager to partake in exercise for the New Year, I created an Angie’s Virtual Training Camp. If you are interested in doing it, let me know and I will add your name and give you access to the logging document and tracker. I really miss my workout buddies from the states, so I decided this is a great way for us all to still stay connected and help each other motivate one another.

I currently hear the trainer in the background. That means Jack is on one of our indoor cycling trainers, or testing out a bike he has fiddled with. We use them mainly when the weather outside is poor, and they help training by providing resistance. I expect to see less of Jack for the next 7 months, as he is getting ready to begin training for his upcoming Ironman. The house is already full of expensive cycling gadgets like power meters, training videos, etc., and they are all sure to be used significantly for the months to come.

The West of Ireland

We decided upon the Bend in the River since we live in Battersea, and it is around the bend in the Thames River in London. We thought starting a blog would be nice, so we could keep you all updated on our lives here in London, and share new experiences with you all.

We have been in London now for a little over two months. We are finally getting settled now that our furniture and other items have arrived. We are all unpacked and mostly organzied; there are a few items such as bookshelves that we still need to replace due to the move.

We have had two friends visit London, Dave and Bob. It was so great to see you and spend some time together. Thank you for making time for us in your London traveling schedule. We look forward to future visits from family and friends.

Last week, we went to Ireland to take advantage of a long bank holiday here, and also to celebrate my 35th birthday. During our time in Ireland, I kept my eye out for the little green leprechaun, in hopes I would find one which would led us to a crock of gold! I did however drink my first Guiness!

The stereotypes of Ireland are true. For as far as the eye can see, there are fields of rolling green hills or pasturelands, separated by stone/large rocks used as fencing to separate livestock.
We spent most of our time in the lower Shannon area and a day in the West of Ireland. Some of the places we visited were Limerick, Killarny, Galway and the Cliffs of Moher. We saw many castles, a few we visited were Carrigafoyle, King Johns and the Bunratty. We also visited many great churches and travelled through some great villages.

We rented a car for our travels and Jack drove. It felt strange being in a car since it has been months since we have been in one. I really have to get use to the changes - driving on the opposite side of the road and using the gear shift with my left hand. As a passenger while in Ireland, I found my left shoulder was often tense due to me pulling myself inwards, probably due to stress because of fear of how close we were to the left hand side of the road. The roads are often times very narrow and winding with shoulders made of small rolling hills, hedge or stone. There were a few close calls were we both squealed due to how close the passing car came to us when we passed. I had to do some serious yoga breathing to reduce the adrenaline rush from the fear. We both have decided that our favorite part of our trip was the Cliffs of Moher.

In a little over a week, I will be heading to Edinburgh, Scotland with my colleagues for an off-site work meeting, and a day of rest and relaxation at a day spa. I am looking forward to visiting Scotland. As for our jobs, we are both settling down and learning our new roles at work and enjoying our jobs.

We have began a BT London Carbon Cycling Club, so it will be fun to see how many join and how it develops. I am the team captain, so now everyone can call me Captain Cartwright this time. :) We live near Richmond park; it is an amazing park with fields. On our bike rides, we often see people riding horses and elk or deer in the streets or nearby fields. It is a great escape from the city life.

We will be downloading photos to share with you all soon. Ciao for now, we miss you all!