Australis

Madame Butterfly and The Rocks District

2009-03-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

Last night, we went to see Madame Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House. Aside from Puccini's ignorance with regards to actual Japanese culture (which is appropriate to the times in which the Opera was written), it was really amazing! The set design was positively beautiful and the music and voices were wonderful.

Today, we went to find Dallas a suit case to carry the extra things she has acquired on the trip:

Then, we walked around the Rocks District (where our hotel is located). There was some kind of an outdoor market going on, which had a lot of really cool artsy stuff... and we had to make a few extra purchases, including chocolate-covered strawberries. Actually, our first strawberries were so yummy that we had to go back for more! We also walked about a third of the way out onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and visited Cadman's Cottage, the oldest building in Sydney.

Now we are sitting in Starbucks, again, killing time until we leave for the airport at 6pm (our flight to Oahu departs at 9:20pm).

Today, we did something REALLY different...

2009-03-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

We went to a ZOO!

Well, and we also went to the Powerhouse Museum to look at the Star Wars exhibit. Sooo, animals + nerdy outing = incredibly out of the ordinary for Dallas and Cameron. Right? OK, maybe not.

Anyway, Hi Everyone! This is going to be a brief and photo-dominant post because we need to go get ready for Madame Butterfly at the Sydney Opera house.

Today we walked down George Street and around Darling Harbour to get to the Powerhouse Museum, where they have a Star Wars Exhibit (which turned out to be the very same one Cameron saw in LA not too long ago).

After going through the Star Wars exhibit, we checked out the rest of the museum:

When we were done at the Powerhouse Museum, we headed down to Darling Harbour for lunch and then to Sydney Wildlife World to get our daily animal fix.

Currently, we are sitting in a Starbucks down the street from our hotel, because there is no WiFi in our room and the prices in the lobby are ridiculously pricey... And now, as I said, we need to go get ready for the Opera. Hope everyone is well!

Return to Sydney

2009-03-06T02:27:00.000-08:00

Today we left Queenstown, had a layover in Auckland, and are finally back in Sydney. Thus, there weren't too many interesting photos taken today, but some interesting lessons were learned.

Lesson the First: If you're feeling peckish, you should have a yummy bikkie.

Lesson the Second: The Holy Bible is #15 on the airport booklist. Lord of the Rings was #1.

Lesson the Third: No spitting in trashcans. But toilets are okay.

Lesson the Fourth: In the Auckland Airport, you only find out your gate number 25 minutes before boarding.

Lesson the Fifth: It is officially Mardi Gras in Sydney.

Lesson the Sixth: The Wiggles are TERRIFYING.

Lesson the Seventh: DigE Players rented to you on the plane for $20 AUD are really not worth it because they freeze constantly.

So, that's all for today. Our hotel does NOT have internet, so we're at Starbucks down the street right now. Tomorrow, our last full day abroad, will be an epic, action-packed day of adventure and intrigue!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLTON!

2009-03-05T01:01:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! It is March 4th in the States (the 5th here), which means it's my younger brother's 12th birthday! The video is unfortunately a bit late because I'm off my game due to the difference in dates, so he won't get to see it until tomorrow. :( Excuse my singing - it's a tradition in my family to call and sing to each other on our birthdays. :)

Colton, I love you! I hope you had an amazing birthday! Here is the video Dallas and I made for you! To all of my Maui family, I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU IN 4 DAYS!

The River Wild

2009-03-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

Today we finally had our horse ride! We were picked up by the stables at 8:30am and driven 45 minutes to Glenorchy, the same town at the north side of Lake Wakatipu that we went to yesterday. Dart Stables has 62 horses, all geldings, and eight of them were used for filming Lord of the Rings. There were two other people on our particular horse ride, both young men from Ethiopia.

We actually don't have as many photos today because even though Dallas brought two cameras on the ride, it was difficult getting them out for photographs. She has also learned to not bring the big camera next time because it ended up cutting her hands bouncing during the running parts of the trail.

Besides the beautiful scenery, the best part of the ride were the river crossings. The Rees river is the result of glacial runoff from a mountain that remains snow-covered all year long, which gives the river it's icy blue color. The river was about 2.5 feet at its deepest, so it didn't even reach our boots.

Cameron's horse Jackie was sort of a brat -- he kept kicking at Dallas's horse Harry.

So we tried to keep them separated.

While we had multiple river crossings, we also spent some time riding through fields and small groves of willow trees.

When we got back to the stables and dismounted, we could barely walk! We're sure to be sore tomorrow!

After we got back to Queenstown, we ate at Fergburger, a very popular local burger joint. Dallas's burger was huge!

After lunch and some last minute souvenir shopping, we headed back to our hotel to take it easy for the rest of they day. Tonight is our last night in Queenstown, and in New Zealand. Tomorrow we fly all day back to Sydney, where we then have one more full day abroad. We will miss the wonderful Kiwis here.

Thar be gold in that thar river!

2009-03-04T03:10:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning to find that the Rental Car request we had submitted last night couldn't be fulfilled. In fact, nearly every Car Hire company in town was sold out!(What recession?) However, after some digging on both our parts, we got in touch with Budget (which, incidentally, does not live up to its name) and procured a white Toyota Corolla. Cameron drove and Dallas navigated on the left side of the road today! It wasn't 100% smooth, but we both did pretty well considering our tendency to be somewhat nervy drivers.

Our first destination was Arrowtown, a gold mining town which sprung up in the late nineteenth century. The Arrow River is (we hear!) the second largest gold-producing river in the world. Naturally, we had to give it a try - after stopping for crepes and coffees at Bon Jour!

Cameron found only pretty rocks, but Dallas found what we think is a tiny fleck of gold! Too small to take a picture of, though. After awhile, Cameron made a bee-shaped enemy and decided she needed to flee the scene, so we spent some time walking around downtown. Here are a couple shots of the town:

We grabbed some pies and headed out of Arrowntown and back up Deer Park Heights, which you might remember from yesterday's Lord of the Rings tour. We had intended to have a little photo shoot, but Dallas was not pleased with the lighting so we gave up. At least we got to visit with and feed a lot of awesome (if somewhat gluttonous) animals!

Toward the end of our visit to Deer Park Heights, we made friends with some Donkeys. One of them loved us so much that he put himself in the way of our car and refused to let us back up and turn around! Dallas had to go out with the feed bucket and lure them all away while Cameron made a hasty but incredibly skillful 6-point-turn. :)

We finally pried ourselves away from the fuzzy guys and drove to the town of Glenorchy, and the drive was really beautiful! Glenorchy itself is super small but offers an alternate view of the lake.

We finally made it back to Queenstown, where Dallas took this lovely picture:

Bed time is here. Thanks for reading! We're riding horses tomorrow!

Adventures in Middle Earth

2009-03-03T00:43:00.000-08:00

So today we had our Lord of the Rings tour! It was absolutely beautiful! It started with us driving up to this hill above Queenstown called Deer Park Heights. Basically, it's privately owned property that costs $20 NZD to drive around on. It's made up of several pastures containing deer, llamas, goats, bison, and donkeys, as well as pigs, chickens and ducks. Various feed dispensers are located along side the road where you can pay $1-$2 dollar coins to feed the animals, who are all quite tame and friendly. The land is owned by a 90-something-year-old man named Frank who makes money off of his animals, renting his property out for movies, and tourists touring it.

Here's a view of Queenstown from atop the hill.

And a llama. Because llamas are adorable.

Here's us in front of the fantastic view, holding a film still of the same view being used as the river where the corsair ships were sailing.

Another movie filmed here was called "The Rescue", and was a 1986 Disney film that featured a Korean prison. So, here's the remains of said prison:

So, for our first posed scene shot: The gorse bush Frodo, Sam, and Gollum hide under from the Nazgûl riding the fell beast.

And here is where the refugees of Rohan are walking around the lake on their way to Helm's Deep. We look much happier than them though.

We also pretended to be Legolas shooting at Wargs. The Wargs and weaponry will be added in post production. ;)

Legolas frolicked all over these hills!

(They flipped the scene for the movie to follow the Fellowship's left to right movement across the screen.)

Warg scene, where Aragorn is dragged by the warg off the cliff.

And here's a re-enactment of looking for Aragorn over the cliff, complete with dead orcs.

From the extended version of The Two Towers, a re-enactment of Eowyn bringing Aragorn some not-so-delicious stew.

After that, it was lunch time. Here's a couple photos from our drive out of the park:

During lunch we got to peruse copies of the movie scripts. Finding typos in the "Final Revision" amused us.

We then got to play with some movie replica weapons! Our guide said the entire lot was worth about $15,000 NZD.

The cloak is one of the cloaks worn by Sam in the movie...one of five, at least. Here is Cameron with Bilbo/Frodo's sword, Sting.

And here she is with Arwen's sword, Hadhafang:

Dallas wielding Legolas' elven long knives and Andúril!:

We then had a battle...

Cameron broke Dallas' sword. :(

But Dallas had a warranty on it! :D

(For those who don't know, Narsil was the sword broken when Isildur fought Sauron and took the ring, and Andúril is the same sword reforged.)

Here's Dallas as Gimli (sadly sans beard, unlike a true dwarf woman):

And Cameron modeling Arwen's Evenstar pendant:

We then played with the One Ring. Here's Cameron putting the ring on:

And here she is wearing the ring!

So of course Dallas had to try it too...

Amazing! The world started looking grey and swishy while we wore it though. Here's Dallas wearing the ring:

After we gave the Ring back to our guide so we wouldn't be tempted by its dark power, we went to check out the river which the Fellowship boated down through to Argonath. It is also the river where the truly original bungy jump is located.

We then went to the nearby Arrowtown, where they filmed the prologue to the first movie, where Isildur is riding with the ring and then ambushed:

Finally, after returning to Queenstown, we had delicious coffee and cocoa at Patagonia Chocolates, a cute chocolate/gelato cafe right by the water.

So, that was it for today! As always, our Flickr has more photos! Tomorrow we're hoping to rent a car and drive around to nearby towns, so cross your fingers for us!

Swung into a canyon, and lived to tell about it!

2009-03-02T00:44:00.000-08:00

So, the highlight of the day was me swinging into Shotover Canyon, right outside of Queenstown.

The drive up was beautiful. The landscape is simply amazing. The river running through the canyon cuts an aqua streak through the otherwise yellow and green mountains.

So, the platform is where we jump off from. Here's some photos of us getting ready. There were two guys, one from England and one from Holland, who were completely into it and one of them went three times!

And finally, the jump videos. The first video is the one shot by Cameron and I, then edited by me. The next two are my two jumps I did (Forwards-style and Elvis Cutaway-Style) which were filmed by the canyon swing company.

Cameron is canyon-swinging too!...Sort of. :)

Here is me with the guy who was responsible for putting me out there on that platform:

After leaving the canyon swing, we decided to go up the famous gondola and take in the views.

We also put on our helmets and went down the luge! I have a video of that which I'll put up later.

After the luge, we went back down the gondola and got crepes at this little stand along side the road to the gondola station. It's called Balaton Crepes and we chatted with the owner a bit. He also showed Cameron how to do the board-on-cylinder thing.

Cameron totally has an audience. :)

Finally, for a heartier meal, we ate at Hell Pizza, as recommended by Greg:

All in all, it was a very eventful day. Tomorrow is our Lord of the Rings tour, so be prepared for awesome photos!

Yesterday

2009-03-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

Hello! I'm sure that by now you have all fulfilled your duty as supportive friends and family members and have gone to our flickr account to see yesterday's photos. In case you haven't, however, I thought I'd write a little day-late blog post.

So, we arrived in Queenstown around 12:30, but had to wait until 2:15 before we could check into our room. Once there, we dropped off our stuff and headed out to explore the town. It was sprinkling a bit, but not too bad. Dallas had been reading one of her many brochures and listed off some potential rainy-day activities. We decided to go to the Kiwi and Birdlife Park.

It was positively gorgeous inside (well, it's positively gorgeous all over Queenstown). We paid less attention to the birds than we did to the trees and foliage, haha.

After that, we walked over to the graveyard across the street and checked out the grave plots from the late nineteenth century and onwards.

We also played Buffy. :)

Across from the graveyard, we found an indoor Miniature Golf course. It was super cool.

I won by three points, but we were both over par by about 30. That course was ridiculous.

Next, we walked around the town and out along Lake Wakatipu:

We ended our night with dinner at an Italian restaurant.

Stay tuned for pictures and video from today. It was epic. :)

Oh, Queenstown...

2009-03-01T02:58:00.000-08:00

We love it here. We actually stayed out late tonight, till about 8:30pm...and it was still light!

I've spent the last few hours editing photos from today quite slowly, as I'm exhausted. Check it out at our Flickr We're also watching The Golden Compass on TV right now.

Tomorrow morning, I'm doing a canyon swing. I'm terrified! But, tomorrow will have those epic photos/video, so stay tuned!

Auckland Airport...in photographs.

2009-02-28T12:34:00.000-08:00

Rained Out

2009-02-28T02:21:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

So, today we intended to rent a car and have Cameron drive and Dallas navigate the way to Cathedral Cove.

But the weather looked like this (with threats of getting worse):

We were very sad, and decided not to rent the car.

But, we cheered ourselves up with some retail therapy by going to Dressmart, a local retail outlet mall about a 15 minute drive from the city center. The exchange rate was amazing! The prices were already excellent because it was an outlet mall, but with the exchange rate we could pretty much divide the price in half for the price in US dollars.

Afterward, we came back to the city center and grabbed some food. Curiosity also led to Dallas getting this:

After lunch (and the sad loss of Cameron's sunglasses to some unknown whereabouts), we decided to go check out the Sky Tower, the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere:

It was actually a bit unnerving going close to the edge of the platform, but we eventually got used to it. However, Dallas was scared because she's jumping into a canyon in about two days.

We then had mochachinos and sweets from the tower cafe, and talked while the sun set behind golden rain! Tomorrow, we're heading down to Queenstown for crazy adventures. Stay tuned, and wish us better weather!

Auckland: Wine Tour and... ANOTHER Zoo?

2009-02-27T02:18:00.000-08:00

Note: Parker informed me that his mom, Gina, expressed a desire for more commentary on the photos in our gallery, so I just went in and added some. Feedback appreciated, we aim to please. ;)

Quote of the day: “I just read Butchery as ‘Butt Cherry.’ I was confused.” – Dallas

So, we started our day with breakfast in our hotel's cafe. Dallas's cappuccino was pretty!

Next, we embarked on our ever-so-sophisticated wine-tasting tour , which is amusing because neither of us are really wine-drinkers. We visited three wineries (where we tasted several kinds of award-winning wine), a black sand beach, a café, and a honey shop. We were accompanied by a Russian woman who had just moved here with her husband, her absolutely adorable two-year-old daughter, and her mother. As always, the bulk of the day's pictures can be found by clicking the 'Photos on Flickr' link above, but here are a few to start with:

After our wine-tasting tour, we decided to go to the Auckland City Zoo, because Dallas had her heart set on seeing a Kiwi. It was an amazing zoo! So beautiful and well-designed. All of the animal habitats felt very open, spacious, and natural. We got to see the Kiwi, but there are no pictures as the exhibit was way too dark. Unfortunately a few of the animals were unavailable because parts of the zoo are undergoing renovations, but we did get to see three young tiger cubs frolicking around! Dallas got some positively stunning pictures of these tigers, and we had some fun frolicking around the Zoo as well. :)

At the Zoo, a guy approached me, told me he was from Indonesia and asked me where I was from, and then asked if he could take a picture with me. So if any of you come across a photo on the internet of me with a random Indonesian dude who does not resemble any of my friends, you can disregard it. ;)

The Zoo closed at 5:30, so we headed to the shop to grab a couple of souvenirs and post cards. After that, we realized that we had taken a cab there, but had only Dallas's cell phone (no pay phone in sight) and no cab phone number. We walked out to the street and discovered that the last tram had left at 4:30. So, we headed out to another street and found a bus, then spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out where it would take us. We eventually caught a bus and made it back to Queen Street in Downtown Auckland.

Dallas is feeling just slightly under the weather (I think she may have caught the little cold I had), so she wanted some spicy Korean soup. We were a little sketched out by some of the hole-in-the-wall places we passed, but I spotted this from the bus and thought it looked promising. And bright green.

We located the nice little creperie that our wine-tasting tour guide had recommended. I got some french onion soup and then we headed back to the room to eat. I got to talk to Parker today, after some phone-card complications, and it was great to hear his voice again. After Dallas and I were done with our dinner, we went back down to the street and each grabbed a dessert crepe. Yum.

We are now winding down for the night. It's raining outside and I'm feeling a little apprehensive, because I'm supposed to drive (with Dallas as my navigator) to Cathedral Cove tomorrow and that was daunting enough without the rain to complicate things! We'll see.

We will conclude this post with a couple of video clips from our time in Sydney:

Thanks for reading! Good night. :)

In Auckland!

2009-02-26T03:30:00.000-08:00

Hello all! Today started at 4:00AM, which is when we woke up to get ready to leave Glenferrie Lodge. We had only realized the day before that our flight out of Sydney was at the unpleasant hour of 6:45am, so our hotel booked a taxi to come get us. At the front desk, we met another Glenferrie guest trying to get to the airport, so we split our taxi with him. He was a nice Australian man in town for a business conference, and was a sales rep for touristy goods. Our taxi driver saved us from being run into by a large truck with some quick maneuvering. I'm fairly convinced everyone drives crazy here...but still not as crazy as in Rome.

Here's a view out the window from our first flight, going from Sydney to Melbourne. It's smoke from some of the wildfires. So sad...

We then immediately got on a plane from Melbourne to Auckland. The flight was about 3-4 hours long, but I slept and there's a two hour time difference between Auckland and Sydney, so it was all very confusing about how long it actually was. At the airport, Cameron found a hotel shuttle bus that was cheaper than a taxi, and we eventually got to the hotel. Here's our room:

After dropping our bags off in our adorable (and eco-friendly!) room, we went wandering around the city.

That last photo shows a bunch of young people (who had been partying in a bar next to the Mexican restaurant we ate dinner at) starting some kind of Mardi Gras march. Many of the guys were wearing skin-tights spandex pants. It was amusing.

Cameron and I also found Lush! (This is the 3rd or 4th international Lush I've been to...terrible, lol.)

And gelato!

After that, we went to see He's Just Not That Into You to wind down the day. The movie was okay, but it really made us appreciate our boyfriends. :)

Now it's time for bed, as we're getting picked up at 10:00AM for a wine and cheese tasting tour! How sophisticated of us! ;)

Day 4 - Featherdale Wildlife Park

2009-02-25T04:07:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! So, today we took two trains and a bus to Featherdale Wildlife Park. Dallas uploaded around 72 photos we took of the experience to flickr, so make sure you check those out when you're done here. :)

Dallas and I geeked out a little on pictures of Angel stars who had visited Featherdale previously:

Inside the park, we spent some quality time with wallabies, kangaroos, koalas, and a variety of other super cute animals:

When we were done at Featherdale, we took a bus and two trains to Circular Quay to grab something to eat and visit an ATM. Then we rode the ferry back to Kirribilli, where our hotel is located.

Tomorrow, we fly to Melbourne at 6:45AM, which means we have to leave our hotel around 5. From Melbourne, we catch a flight to Auckland, NZ, where we will be for around 3 days before continuing on to Queenstown, NZ.

As for right now, Dallas and I are getting ready for bed. I am SO sleepy... been fighting off a minor cold, I think, and today was my lowest-energy day. Hoping to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's early departure.

We are thinking of and missing you all! Thanks for reading. :)

P.S. Emus are evil.

Dallas and Cameron say:

2009-02-25T00:04:00.001-08:00

Comment on our blog, readers! :)

Day 3 - Flora, (Aquatic) Fauna, and Art!

2009-02-24T04:04:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! Dallas here, for once, as Cameron is asleep. I just spent the last few hours editing about 90 photos, so I hope everyone appreciates it. ;)

Today we went around Sydney opal shopping, exploring gardens, checking out Darling Harbour and the Sydney Aquarium, and studying art in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The day started with a quick ferry-ride across the harbour:

.
Yes, there are still jellies in the water...I have one more photo of them on our flickr.

Here's where we bought opal stuffs:

And here's us in the Chinese Garden:

...and at the Aquarium!

We also made friends with the dugong. Look it up. :)

We also found Nemo. (And Dory and Marlin)

And now, some photos of Cameron modeling. The first one is at the art galley, and the rest are at the Royal Botanical Gardens.

The botanical gardens were actually a lot of fun!

Especially the bats.

So, go look at our flickr photos! I got some great shots of turtles, sharks, etc. :)

(Sorry the writing bits are so brief, I'm running out of internet time in a few!)

Flight, Glenferrie, Taronga Zoo, Circular Quay

2009-02-23T04:07:00.000-08:00

Dallas just added a bunch of pictures to our flickr account, which can be accessed by clicking the link above that says "Photos on Flickr." Here are a few highlights...

First, because it amuses us, here is a picture from the plane, which was taken directly after the flight attendants had sprayed the cabin for quarantine purposes. As you can see, the man across the aisle from us was also less than thrilled:

This morning, we woke up bright and early in order to partake in the hot buffet breakfast.

Dallas tried Vegemite which, she tells me, is an Australian staple:

Here are a few pictures of the Glenferrie Lodge Property. The back yard area is where everyone eats breakfast.

After breakfast, we set out walking toward the zoo (~4 mile walk, if you do it correctly - longer if you are named Cameron and Dallas and you decide to take the wrong fork in the road). We made a friend outside of the hotel:

Australia has large spiders:

Here is the field Dallas walked across in search of a short-cut, after we figured out that we had walked about 20-30 minutes in the wrong direction:

Finally, we made it to Taronga Zoo:

Here is a view of the Harbour, as seen from the Zoo:

Next, we took the gondola down to the wharf, and then took a ferry to Circular Quay. There were an ungodly amount of Jellyfish in the Harbour:

We walked down along the Harbour and checked out the Opera House from a distance. We were too tired to climb all of the stairs.

All in all, a pretty darn fun and beautiful day! Again, there are many more pictures in our flickr gallery, so go check them out. :)

P.S. These are our wombat babies:

Safe and Sound

2009-02-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update before bed: we are here, we are safe, and we are very happy. I just uploaded a couple of pictures to our flickr account - nothing special, but we'll have more for you tomorrow, probably in the evening. :) Hope everyone is well.

P.S. We had to carry our suitcases up two flights of stairs!

P.P.S. There is a moth in our room and his name is Reginald.

On Oahu

2009-02-20T14:24:00.001-08:00

I arrived on Oahu last night almost an hour late due to head winds. It was a positively ghastly flight, honestly. I have never been on a flight with so many screaming babies before, especially one squalling right behind me and to the left while her brother kicked my seat every five seconds or so. I love babies in small and happy doses, but this was just terrible. Thankfully, the experience is behind me now and I am safe and sound on Oahu - currently sitting in the Photo Lab at UH Manoa, researching the best places to go if you want to shnuggle baby australian animals. My Pocket Parker is beside me (pictures of this awesomeness later), keeping me company while I putz and plan.

I hadn't met Gabe (Dallas's fiance) before this trip, but I'm pretty much already giving him my seal of approval. Thumbs up, Dal. They have both been exceptionally good hosts and I'm so happy to be reunited with my Dallas after so long!

I saw Donald earlier! We caught up and did a couple of crosswords, and then he had class. Dallas says I should post this picture, even though it brings back memories of when I had braces and all of my smiles looked insincere:

In other news, I get to try on a bridesmaid dress today! Dal and I are going to go run some errands once she gets off work @ 3pm, including heading over to Ala Moana, Ben Franklin, and Bridal Emporium. In the meantime, Dallas has been amusing us with photo-merges:

Yes, there are two Dallases in the first picture.

I guess that's all for the moment. We leave tomorrow around mid-day for Sydney, and I am so so so very excited. Stay tuned. ;)

Welcome!

2009-02-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to our blog for our Aus/NZ trip, as we've been calling it. Only five days until we leave! We depart from Honolulu on February 21st, but arrive in Sydney, Australia on the evening of the 22nd, thanks to that little International Date Line thing. :) Time travel!

Cameron and I haven't seen each other in person since 2006, but we speak almost weekly, and she's going to be one of my bridesmaids when I get married next year. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a photographer, so be prepared to see tons of pictures on this blog. Especially since we have to update photos like this, from summer 2006:

Now we're older, wiser, and have college degrees. Thus, during our trip, we'll spend our time being mature and exploring botanical gardens, going on winetasting tours, and perusing art galleries. I'll also be leaping off a cliff. Good times are ahead!

PS. Yes, I did make our eyes extra sparkly in that photo. :)