Una Casa Abruzzese, and Two Aussies - Time Apart

28 Nov to 13 Dec, 2021 - Manchester Center, Bennington, North Adams, Hartford, Norwalk, New Haven, New York City - (United States of America)



With the USA opening its borders in November, the opportunity arose for me to visit Vermont and Connecticut, for work. I spent two weeks at two customer sites, but got to see a little of both states, as well as some of Massachusetts while driving through, and a few days in New York City on my way out.

When planning the trip from JFK airport to my first site, in Manchester Center, Vermont, I had been looking at Maps so I could arrange a check in with the Bed and Breakfast. Given the arrival time, and the amount of distance to be covered, I made a forecast in my head that had me at my accommodation by 20:30 or thereabouts. Events were to conspire against this. None of the forecasting had taken in to account that it was the end of the Thanksgiving break. Chaos reigned through the airport, particularly in the rental car pick up, where I had to wait over 45 minutes for my vehicle to be ready. Yes, it was booked, and yes, I was on time for when it was booked for. The chaos continued, on the roads, gripped in traffic snarls, where it took me an hour and a half to drive the first 15 kilometres away from the airport. By this time, it was apparent that my Italian phone roaming was not going to activate, so coupled with the lack of any map in the car, I was now on the way north, driving from complete memory.

When it became clear that 20:30 was not going to be achieved and my arrival was going to be in the order of 23:30, I pulled in to a couple of service centres, in the hope of finding a phone so I could call them. This failed twice, and I was becoming concerned about spending more time looking for a phone than covering ground. So, I figured I would have to wing it on arrival. Driving in the dark, with snow falling, not even 100% sure I was on the right roads, I must confess I was becoming concerned I would not find the accommodation until the next day. So, it was a significant relief when I saw a turn off to Manchester Center, and drove in to the carpark of my residence for the first week.

The adventure was not quite over. The owners had sent me an email with details about my room and check-in, but sans data, I had obviously not received this critical data. I wandered through a couple of the buildings in the complex, and I eventually found a room with a key in the door. I felt this was the best I could do, so upon establishing the room was indeed vacant, I moved myself in. You have probably already guessed, the next morning I found out that I was in the wrong room. Thankfully, not a big issue, given the low number of guests, but both the management and myself appeared to show equal amounts of embarrassment.

The first week was all in Vermont. Working Monday to Friday, in Manchester Center mainly, but I got up to Middlebury one day to visit the operation up there. On Saturday, I drove down to Connecticut, stopping in Massachusetts on the way, and visiting Mark Twains house in Hartford before getting to my hotel in Norwalk.

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Morning 1, Looking Out
Vermont, Day 1. Waking up and walking around pre-breakfast, taking in just how "stereo typical" New England it all felt.


Along the Road, Vermont


A Vermont Covered Bridge


Driving Through Massachusetts


House of Mark Twain
Coming through Connecticut, I diverted to Hartford to visit one of the homes of Mark Twain.


Art Gallery, Yale Univesity

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Week two had me travelling to a number of locations through Connecticut.

Friday and Saturday night were spent in New York City before my Sunday flight.

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NYC Skyline, from Hunters Point


New York City Ice Skating
Ice Skating at the Rockefeller Center seems so iconic for New York in winter.


Skyscrapers Disappearing
Cloud engulfs the higher parts of skyscrapers around Central Park.


911 Ground Zero
Memorial pool (South Tower) where the World Trade Center Twin Towers stood.


Inside the Oculus, Westfield World Trade Center


American Utopia
David Byrne's (of Talking Heads fame) Broadway show. American Utopia.


TWA Hotel, JFK Airport
A pre-flight drink at the very retro hotel, TWA. The bar on the Constellation was, unfortunately, closed - possibly due to covid?

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On the Way to a New Adventure

9 to 15 December, 2011 – Auckland (New Zealand), Los Angeles (USA), Santiago (Chile)



So, we found this cheap fare to get us across the Pacific, from Auckland to L.A. So, all we have to do is tag on a Melbourne-Auckland flight, and from L.A, some flights through the key places we want to get to in South America... So the total price is still not bad, but we have something like 16 flights on our itinerary, now.

So, friends and family catch ups are in order. Can't afford to have our connections too tight, now, just in case.

So, first to Auckland.

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A Flower Along the Path
Just by the path, along the cliff top, Auckland.


Icecream with Amy and Karyn
Karyn is Jo's cousin - they have not seen each other in about 30 years. Amy is Karyn's daughter.


Auckland - With Shirley, Tibi, Thomas, and Milo
Great to catch up with friend, formerly of Melbourne.

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And then, it was on to Los Angeles. Very good friend, Adam, who we have now met up with on five different ocassions.

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Sunset at Crystal Cove


Clark Griswold - Eat Your Heart Out
No, this is not Adam's house, but is not far from where he lives. This house is in a street where all but 2 or 3 have gone close to this crazy with Christmas decorations.


Breakfast Burritos With Adam
It was raining. So breakfast burritos at the beach was turned in to breakfast burritos "eat-in".


Bottled Sunshine
Now we know why the weather has been so crap in Melbourne recently - the Americans have come and stolen our sunshine for their shampoo!


Jo with her Final LA Meal
Chilli cheese fries!

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A couple of flights later, and we were on our target continent - South America. Crashing with Nolo in Santiago is always a good time.

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Jo with her First Santiago Meal
They said it would be a nice piece of pork - we did not expect a whole leg of a pig.


Relaxing at Nolo's Apartment
It's like he has his own private little mountain to look at.

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L.A, Our Way

14 to 19 Jan, 2009 – Los Angeles, USA



Adam was at the airport to pick us up. He lives in Orange County, a little southeast of Los Angeles. This is continent number three, for meeting up with Adam. We met him, 11 years ago in Vietnam, and our paths crossed again in 2005 in Peru. The day stayed pretty low key, with lots of talking, stories, and only venturing out to eat. We had a magnificent dinner at a Persian restaurant, the highlight being the chicken in pomegranate sauce.

The following day, we dragged Adam off to do some sights. We spent a few good hours in downtown LA, although it would have been less had we not all lost each other in the mausoleum underneath the cathedral. The later part of the day was spent at the La Brea tar pits, where oil still bubbles to the surface in a number of spots, mixing with sand and water and vegetation debris to create sticky tar pools. But the most interesting part is that this has been going on for many thousands of years, and there are thousands upon thousands of fossils being recovered from hundreds of species of animals that became stuck in the tar and died there. The tar then effectively preserved the bones. Significant animals trapped included giant sloths, mastodons and mammoths, camels, wolves, saber-toothed cats, but the full list is incredible. A definite highlight.

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Adam and Richard in downtown L.A.
Interior of Walt Disney Theatre, L.A.


Oooh, cheesey fries....


A towering mammoth
I don't know if this would be any less daunting if it still had flesh and skin and hair and eyes and a trunk...


One big mumma of a mammoth
One of the skeletons recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.


Tar bubbles
Oily bubbles still rise to the surface of muddy pools in the La Brea Tar Pits

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Adam generously let us use his car on Friday, so he could stay at home and work while we went out star-spotting. We started with graves at Westwood Memorial Park. Marilyn Monroe, with no message – Just her name and the years of birth and death. Rodney Dangerfield - “There goes the neighborhood”. Bettie Mae Page - “Queen of Pin-Ups”. Merv Griffin - “I will NOT be right back after this message”.

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Grave at Westwood Memorial Park


Grave of Marilyn Monroe
Westwood Memorial Park.

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We drove through Beverley Hills to Hollywood, driving on Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. In Hollywood, we had to deal with the freak show of dozens of people dressed up as movie characters who wandered the streets trying to entice people in to taking photos with them for a fee. We checked the main things out – Stars embedded in the sidewalk of the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard; the Kodak Theater, site of the Academy Awards; and Grauman's Chinese Theater, with celebrity hand prints, foot prints, and even a nose print in the concrete of the forecourt.

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Marilyn Monroe hand and foot prints
Hand prints in cement, outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood.


Shirley Temple's prints in cement
Outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood.


Superman, Batgirl, and Wonderwoman cruise Hollywood for tips
Three of the nutty people who dress as famous people and cruise the boulevard hoping that tourists will want to photograph them for a tip.

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Venice Beach was nowhere near as weird as we expected, but it was still a bit of a sideshow atmosphere. Tattoo parlours and psychics fight with ice creameries for frontage along one side of the path, while people with blankets of handcrafts and jewellery mix with buskers (of varying quality) down the other. One man selling wallets had a sign up - “Will work for marijuana”. Not the only one, I'm sure – I got the feeling that dope would be seen as a currency roughly as desirable as cash. Things in Venice got a lot more our style up at Abbot Kinney Boulevard, with eclectic shops filled with knick-knacks and quirky furniture, restaurants, and fantastic book shops.

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Silhouettes at sunset, Venice Beach
Apparently, jumping silhouettes is quite the craze at the moment.

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We dined in the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, which was a fun and vibrant atmosphere, despite the tinge of glitz and dazzle. Had a great dinner. We are learning to order appropriate to U.S. serving sizes. Generally speaking, portions are generous. So, while dining out is generally a pricier affair than at home, especially once you factor “plus tax plus tip” in to the equation, we find that we can eat well with just one course, or perhaps even one entrée (or appetizer, as called locally) to share and one main (or entrée, as called locally) to share. Note the different usage of entrée? We didn't at first, and thought some establishments particularly pricey - “If that's what they charge for entrée, imagine how much the main courses are going to cost!”

One evening, we had cheese and wine on the beach while we watched the sunset. We followed that with a bucket of prawns and some margaritas. Dessert was ice creams at “Coldstone”, where you choose your base ice cream and they chop up whatever you want to add to it, from fruits and berries to nuts and chocolate bars.

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Enjoying sunset, L.A. style
My goodness, life is tough, isn't it. Cheese, and "water" ;) at Newport Beach.

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The next morning, we sat at almost exactly the same spot and enjoyed breakfast burritos. While we ate our burritos, a pod of dolphins swam past no more than 30 or 40 metres from the shore, just beyond the surfers. Within five minutes, a flock of pelicans flew past, only centimetres above the water, rising a little to allow breaking waves to pass beneath them. Life is tough, hey.

We made it to church on Sunday – Rock Harbor, a church plant from The Mariner's. Wonderful worship, and a fantastic message.

Our final evening was spent at a brew house and pizzeria with Ryan and Dan, as well as Adam. We met Ryan and Dan in Peru/Bolivia nearly four years ago, and trekked a few days with them around Isla Del Sol on Lake Titicaca. We had such a blast of an evening that we didn't feel obliged to rush home and get an early night, even though our airport transfer was booked for 3:30 the following morning.

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Beer sampler plate


With Ryan, Adam, and Dan
All three were met on previous trips.

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We must say that our States stop-off has far exceeded expectations. While the fantastic weather helped, it was so much more. Friendly people all round (and not just the friends we met up with!) Plenty of interesting sights without needing to resort to Disneyland or Universal Studios. While a little pricey, especially with our dollar struggling at the moment, we still had some fantastic feeds. In fact, Jo and I feel we may campaign for greater immigration intakes for Central Americans in to Australia, as we desperately need to lift the standard of our tacos and burritos! (Note: need to import Coffemate flavoured coffee milks, and a Coldstone ice cream franchise.) We don't know when we'll make it back, but we will face that with far less trepidation, now.

We Left Our Hearts, But at Least We Remembered Our Passports and Credit Cards

7 to 14 Jan, 2009 – San Francisco, USA



Seven nights in San Francisco. Would it be too long? Sure, there are a number of must do sights. Golden Gate Bridge. Lombard Street (the world's crookedest). Alcatraz. Fisherman's Wharf. But they could be accomplished in one or two full-on days, could they not?

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The Golden Gate Bridge


Looking up
While walking across the Golden Gate Bridge.


San Francisco skyline
San Francisco, viewed from "the other side" after walking the bridge.


Approaching Alcatraz

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Well, this certainly proved to be a great city to spend some time. We were able to really get under its skin, exploring nooks and crannies, taking plenty of time, and never felling bored or impatient.

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The Transamerican Pyramid
A San Francisco icon.

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The weather has been glorious! Certainly not typical for San Francisco winters, we have been told, and we certainly believe them. One foggy day only, in Fog City. Top temperatures in the high 60's (that's like 18-21 degrees for all us metric types using centigrade). And not one drop from the sky.

The first couple of days, we had Alex (a friend from Melbourne) staying in the same hotel, just 2 floors below us. I probably should diverge at this point and give a little description of Hotel Des Arts. A quirky place, with each room unique, decorated by locals artists. While Alex's room was pink with large pigs, ours had greens, blues, and peach hues, with a mermaid. The corridors are lined with artworks of many different styles, and it is a very funky place to spend a week. Anyway, Alex was over for a conference, so we breakfasted and spent the evenings with him until he left.

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With Alex
One of our bestest Melbourne friends was here for a conference. Great to catch up, Alex!!


Our room
One wall of our room in Hotel Des Arts.

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We walked, and we walked some more. Walked the waterfront. Clam chowder on Fisherman's Wharf. Drinks in the Fog City Diner, Walked through the back streets of China Town and the very Italian North Shore. Walked to the top of Telegraph Hill and Coit's Tower, and through the redwoods at the base of “The Pyramid”. Walked to the cathedral, and down the eight z-bends of Lombard Street. Ferried to Alcatraz where we walked around the remains of the prison. We trammed to the Mission district where we dined on some fabulous burritos, but walked back to burn it off. One day, we bussed a lot. Bussed to Land's End, where we walked the Coastal Trail, and bussed to Golden Gate Park, where we walked even more. On another day, we commuted to The Golden Gate Bridge, walked across, and walked to Sausalito. On our final day, we really got some walking done. We explored the murals of the Mission district. Starting at Balmy Alley, we went back and forth, up and down, around and around, working our way through the streets until we finished at the oldest building in San Francisco, Mission Dolores. (Incidently, scenes from Vertigo were shot in the graveyard, here!) We also visited a Warhol exhibition in the Jewish Museum, and had drinks in a 1920's bar.

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Roger, our barman
Take a step back in time, sit at the bar of a 1930s diner. Fog City Diner is supposed to be one of the best. My goodness, we felt we got the full States experience in an hour here!


Mission District Mural


Mission District Mural


Mission District Mural


Mission District Mural


Lombard Street
Called the world's crookedest street, this short section of Lombard Street has 10 z-bends.


The Labrynth
On the floor of Grace Cathedral


The Columbarium
A mausoleum in suburban San Francisco.


The Six Sisters at Alamo Square
Glorious Victorian houses, on more postcards than any other.


Solitary confinement cells, Alcatraz

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We ate quite a variety, too. Chinese, American, Indian, Italian, Mexican, Turkish, and Pakistani. Supposedly, there is 1 restaurant for every 28 residents. Not so sure I believe that figure, but it probably isn't too far wrong, judging by the density of eateries in some neighbourhoods we've been through!

All in all, we had a superb time in San Fran.