Guatemala

Hola,

We're now in Antigua, Guatemala, which is a very charming and pretty colonial town. This is only a flying visit though as we are keen to hit the beaches. We've also arrived in a
particularly rainy period so we haven't been able to do as much exploring as we would have liked.

The shuttle bus ride here was a bit of a nightmare. We were expecting 8 hours but got 12 instead. Not much in the way of leg room and a few noisy, childish Yanks to boot. I have also picked up a bit of dehli belly too so a bit of a miserable journey all round.

We enjoyed our final days in Mexico in the chilled out mountain town of San Cristobel de las Casses. We went on a day trip to a nice Zoo near Tuxtla and have been otherwise taking it easy and missing our Puerto Escondido pool. We've enjoyed Mexico but in some ways it'd been a little bit disapointing. The food didn't really meet our expectations, Mexico City was not as good as I remember and the OCC bus company has been annoying us with very late and loud movies on the night buses. Hey Ho...

We leave tomorrow for Copan Ruinas, Honduras, then onto the Bay Islands a few days later for some snorkling and diving. 4am start tomorrow!

MandB

Mexico

Hola godtfolk! We are now in the beautiful, tasty piece of paradise that is called Mexico. We started our exploration of this country in Mexico City. The best thing about this city is definitely the metro system. It is so cheap!! It only costs 3 pesos which is like £0,3 or 1,5 NOK. Another great thing about the city is obviously the street food. We did manage to get some lovely grabs while we were there. It is was so nice to have corona in its authentic surroundings.

Mexico won a football game on the night that we arrived. The collective party we witnessed in the streets almost outdid what we expect Norwegian streets to be like on May 17th. People were screaming, jumping, and beeping their horns (while in their cars), and waiving flags… It was a crazy. Unfortunately, the main square in MCity is filled with big flat screens and coca cola banners at the moment. It was a shame, because Matt said that it is normally very pretty!

After 2 nights in MCity we headed out to Puerto Escondido. We have been here since Sunday. It took us 16 hours on a bus to get here. It was so cold on the bus and I was very annoyed because they were playing Spanish-dubbed movies until 3am in the morning!



Puerto Escondido is a wonderful place, particularly if you are a surfer. You see, it is too dangerous for us to swim in the ocean. It is such a shame because the beaches are absolutely beautiful! We did take a few surfing lessons today. As you can imagine, Matt was really good. You probably won’t believe this, but I got seasick after 10 minutes and had to give up. But I did almost stand up on one wave… sukk.

The hotel we are staying at ‘Casamar’ is so perfect! It has a great pool surrounded by 3 kittens, a humming bird and lots of flowers. We love it here. We have also been cooking our own breakfast, lunches and dinners. If you ever head this way I can really recommend the hotel.

Off to San Christobal tomorrow!

Dallas, TX

Howdy Pardners,

We've just finished a whistle stop tour of Dallas and Fort Worth today in temoeratures exceeding 35 Celcius. Boy is it hot here! We didn't have a lot of time so went straight to the JFK Museum on the 6th Floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Those of you who did Politics with me at PGS will remember all about the grassy knoll and so on and it was genuinely fascinating to actually see it in the flesh and read up again on JFK, his legacy and grissly end.

A quick walk around also informed us that Dallas is a lot smaller that I thought. Really underwhelming actually.

From there we hit the yee haw town of Fort Worth. "The Beginning of the Wild West". We saw the old Stockyards to see some cowboys and a herd of longhorns being driven down the street (the name wasn't given to them by accident). It was a little bit touristy but good fun. BBQ Ribs for dinner completed our honky tonk day. That's it for the states for now (well until 3 days in Miami in 6 weeks). I have a few observations (apologies to our American friends:-)!):

-America is very loud
-Waiters take your plate the second (literally the second) you finish. So annoying.
-Food is the main driver for the economy. Food shops and restaurants are EVERYWHERE. We think they should do more to subsidise gyms so everyone can consume even more!
-Lots of public spitting.Gross
-San Francisco is really expensive
-So many freaks, weirdos and homeless people, especially in SF. Lack of social care the reason perhaps?!
-Tipping culture - don't even get me started on that...

However, those are only small quibbles really. It's beautiful and fascinating. American people are generally very friendly and helpful and we've had a great time from North to South, East to West.

Mexico tomorrow. They have no problems at all...

M&B

Gentle people with flowers in their hair?

We are in San Francisco! By the way, would any of you prefer that I write in Norwegian? Er det noen av dere som foretrekker at jeg skriver paa norsk? Dersom noen onsker det kan jeg selvsagt skrive paa norsk. Vi onsker ikke aa eksludere folk som ikke er engelsktalende!

So, I start again. Right! We are in San Francisco. Wow! What a city! I love it. There are so many different areas in this town. It is just amazingly diverse. We have seen old Victorian houses, the gay district, run-down Mexican streets that are decorated by artists (taggers), sea lions (yes there are a few here now, around 60). We have seen so much that I find it difficult to mention it all.

What really strikes me about this city though is that there seem to be so many different kinds of people here. By different kinds of people I mainly mean different styles. We have spotted so many tattoos and piercing in the last couple of days. Not to mention pink and blue hair. My 18 year old self would have fitted in here quite well! It is also nice that this town is so Gay friendly. Although this can result in old men wearing not so flatting leather trousers… or even worse; tights. We saw about 30 naked men cycling passed us in town yesterday. You don’t see that very often! I don’t really blame them though because it was so hot that day. We were going sightseeing to the hippie area, but we had to head back home almost as soon as we got there because we felt that we were not far away from getting heat strokes!

Today we went to the very exciting Alcatraz Island. It was really interesting to see how the prisoners lived there. And it is intriguing that a few of them actually managed to escape.

One thing we do not like about this city is the enormous amount of homeless people we have seen. It is heartbreaking. We have seen hundreds.

The hostel we are staying at is OK. We have been eating dinner here twice for $5 each. You can’t complain about that! It makes Matt really nervous eating there though because of all the young, crazy people. Off course I find it difficult to not talk to people who sit next to me, so we end up getting in some strange avoidance situations at times  who’d want to hang out with us anyway? We feel so old. You will not find us in a pub crawl, NO WAY! We will wake up at 8 or 9 fresh and ready to start our days filled with culture, food and interesting facts.

Fact of the day: Sea lions may look like they are dogs when they swim in the water… but they are not. They are sea lions. (yup I went "Oh there's a dog" to my embarrassment when we were listening to a tour guide. We were standing on the Fisherman's Warf, and I did not expect them to be there at all).

Subfact of the day: You get sooo sick of bagels when you have them every day!

Betta&Mattt

Chicago

Blackhawks,

Forget the Windy City, it should be called the Rainy City as we arrived in a downpour (it had been the same when we passed through en route to Wisconsin 2 days previously). Undeterred, once we'd settled into the hostel (amazingly the first since we left Blighty almost 3 weeks ago) and set out on foot to see the sites.

We realised this was misguided enthusiasm (or maybe just overly frugal) and we cut our losses and caught a bus, soaked to the skin. This was a good way to dry off and get our bearings, however and Betta came up with the idea of doing some shopping to stay out of the rain. Clever.

That evening we had a traditional Chicago deep dish pizza at Pizza Due (the second outlet of the original Pizza Uno). They are very much like a pie... softcrust pastry and a pizza filling. Bit weird really but not unpleasant. I had one last time I was here but it was obviously not the real thing.

Luckily the weather took a turn for the better on our full day here. We had a long walk through the loop area and later took a boat ride, which was the highlight of our time in Chicago. It heads out to Lake Michigan via the lock system (I didn't know they had one!), as well as all through the river system through town. It's a great way to see they city skyline and get up close to some wonderful architecture and anecdotes. We Walked home along the beautiful north shore which was lovely...I had no idea Chicago had so many beaches.

I really like Chicago, it's very much a big city with amazing architecture everywhere you look, but somehow feels quite small and friendly. Public transport is good and there's a very low freak & weirdo quotent (FWQ) for an american city. Maybe even more European in feel. Basically every bit as good as I remember, if not better.

Next stop, Californ-I-A

MandB

Wisconsin

We're here in the Dairy State of Wisconsin, just 2 hours north of Chicago but it feels like a million miles away. Southern Wisconsin is basicaly just one big farm and a flat landscape of rolling greenery for as far as the eye can see. It's very pretty though, especially at this lush green time of year.

We're staying with Tante Torborg and Lee in the very sleepy village of Orfordville. This was our last chance to chill right out and experience some home comforts in real america before our travelling really starts. We are being really looked after and are enjoying the slow pace and time to relax.


It hasn't been all down time though. We went to a local Emu farm which was very interesting, as well as on a very pleasant boat ride around the state capital Madison.

We're fending for ourselves from here on so it should feel more like travelling proper now. We've had a wonderful time with you all though so a special thanks to all those who have shown us such wonderful hospitality and have helped us on this bit of our trip. Thank you.

Next stop, Chicago!

M&B

Flight Itinerary

London New York 21/05/2010 17:00 19:50 BA115
Chicago San Francisco 10/06/2010 10:35 12:20 AA451
San Fran Dallas 15/06/2010 09:30 14:50 AA1440
Dallas Mexico City 17/06/2010 09:40 12:05 AA433
Panama Miami 27/07/2010 12:55 16:55 AA994
Miami Quito 31/07/2010 16:40 18:20 AA931
Buenos Aires Sydney 08/09/2010 14:00 17:50 (+1) QF18
Sydney Auckland 11/09/2010 09:55 15:10 QF321
Auckland Christchurch 11/09/2010 19:00 20:25 DJ3138
Auckland Brisbane 07/10/2010 15:50 16:40 QF126
Brisbane Singapore 10/10/2010 13:55 19:50 QF51
Singapore Bali 16/10/2010 21:00 23:30 QZ8497
Jakarta Phuket 01/11/2010 11:20 14:10 FD3941
Singapore Tokyo 28/11/2010 23:20 07:00 (+1) JL710
Beijing London 23/12/2010 12:10 15:20 BA0038

Go Pirates!

Our stay in Ellwood is coming to an end. We have had a great stay here with the Ruckerts. We have done so many things while we’ve been here!

On Saturday we were invited to Albert’s birthday party. It was so nice spending time with Adam’s great family again. We got to drink the champagne of beer, eat a great cheesecake and we had really good burgers! Matt fell in love with Albert’s car and Adam’s grandpa. Later that evening I had a nice present waiting for me at home, yes, Maura came all the way from Colorado! Spending time with all these people that I haven’t seen in 9 years is truly special.


Last Sunday we went up to a river and I had a go at Kayaking. It was great! The scenery was amazing, and I was so pleased to finally get some exercise. On Monday we went to a mall. Elisa, Maura and I had our toes done. That was great fun! On Tuesday Dustin and Maura kindly showed us around in Pittsburgh. It is a lovely city. My favorite part was going to the Andy Warhol museum. He was brilliant … and so crazy

Yesterday Matt was very excited because we had tickets to see a Pittsburgh Pirate baseball game. It was supposed to start at 7, but instead of buff baseball players, the only thing that was on the field at 7 was a long silver cover. Shortly thereafter we were sitting in a rain/thunderstorm. We could not leave because in baseball they apparently just wait out the storm, even if it takes half a day. Three and a half hours later they finally announced that the game was cancelled due to the weather conditions. I don’t even like sports, but I was gutted that I had spent such a long time waiting for nothing! Luckily (for Matt) we get to go to a game on Friday instead. I do hope it is worth it!

Cassie and her boyfriend are coming over soon. We are going out for ice cream! Tonight it is Jessica and Carolina’s graduation. They are foreign exchange students who are staying with the Ruckerts. Should be fun to see the school again!

Last but not least I would like to send all my love to Christopher and Rebecca with best wishes for the bright future that they will be sharing together.

X Betta