My wonderful DH...

The car that DH and I are using on our holiday is a Toyota Corolla and we are hiring it at a very reasonable rate if you compare it to car hire prices in Australia. We are paying approximately $700 for 20 days and that includes full insurance. It is very economical regarding petrol consumption as well, and has given us so much freedom to do what we want to do.  We noticed some differences in the car (especially when it was raining and we got wet while trying to open the door)...it does not have keyless entry. When the car is put into Drive, all the doors lock! When the car is put into Park, the doors can be opened. We’ve also discovered that if you unlock the driver’s door, the other doors stay locked...hence a number of times DH was settled in the car, key was in the ignition...and I’m still standing on the footpath waiting for my door to be unlocked...oops!  However we have also discovered that if it is the passenger door which is unlocked first, all the doors will open...? We have wondered whether all of these features are for safety reasons??? Maybe it’s for protection against car-jacking???

This is DH

Here is our hire car!

I want to pay tribute to DH for the way he has been the designated driver on our holiday.The following is not meant to be a tirade against other drivers in the US or the road system here, it’s more about an acknowledgement that DH is doing a brilliant job albeit a scary one at times!

Here are the freeways which are everywhere here in the US; and so big too!

 People drive on the opposite side of the road here, so he had to get used to that...and rather quickly! He first drove in LA with its freeways that are twice as wide as ours at home. He has acknowledged to me that he doesn’t like driving on those big freeways...but he does! Then on many of the highways linking cities, the nemesis for my husband has been the plethora of large trucks which share the highway, grudgingly in some cases. These trucks are only supposed to drive at 55mph according to the signs...but I guess many want to go faster than that to keep to schedules! DH has found some truckies intimidating when they want to go faster in the ‘slow lane’. In recent days, the highways haven’t been pleasant to drive on because of the heavy rain. Vehicles in front tend to throw up a mist as they drive along thus reducing visibility for the vehicles behind.

The truck can come a bit close for comfort sometimes!

These freeways are twice as wide as those in SE Qld!

Last Tuesday, at the beginning of our day’s driving we went through the Mt Ashland and Ashland area. There was lots of snow there including Christmas card-like scenes of pine trees with snow on their leaves. The height above sea-level ranged between 3000ft and 4300 ft. The pass we had to go through was a very steep gradient and the roads were wet/icy. DH rose to the scary challenge of driving safely on this stretch by just taking it carefully and not speeding. Local drivers and truckies roared past us without an apparent care in the world, but we still got through with our steadier, slow lane approach. DH was scared and I know this; but possibly a bit of fear can be a good thing if it makes you concentrate and not rush blindly on.

We've gone through some steep mountain passes!



The trucks like to go faster than the advisory signs put up just for them!



DH has had to drive through low visability conditions!

The moisture comes up as mist as large vehicles career over the road surface.

Our best friend in all of this driving in unknown territory has been our Tomtom GPS unit, which we’ve named ‘Harpy’ as she nags a bit!

Our visit to Universal Studios...

Today went a little differently to what was planned yesterday. Bruce's cousin rang at about 9 and cancelled her meeting up with us. We had a plan B in case this happened so this plan was put into operation. We went to Universal Studios on public transport; Metro Rapid to Vermont, then by train from Vermont to Universal City. Then to the shuttle bus stop near the car park, then up the hill to the Studios. The queue to buy tickets was huge but DH saw the DIY ticket sales and we quickly got in that queue because it was very short.



The bus stop for the shuttle to take us up the huge hill



View from the Studios

The first think we did was get into another queue...to do the studio tour. That was great! The highlights for me were, Skull Island (3D and shaking of the 'tour tram' by the 'dinosaur), Bates' Hotel and Norman chasing us with a knife, The flash flood in the Mexican Village, the houses in Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives which I've never watched) and the buildings which were all just fronts.

Facades

This used to be Alfred Hitchcock's Bungalow/dressing room

Some more bungalows, plus Mr Potato Head

The setting for' Jaws'

A plane crash set

Scooters which were ridden by some Can Can dancers; I've posted this one for you Claud!!!

Wisteria Drive

The tram that took us on the studio tour

The queues were very long everywhere but we still saw quite a bit. We loved the 'Blues brothers R&B revue so much we saw it twice! The Special Effects show was great, as was the Animal Actors and the show at Water World! At lunch time we went to an Italian cafe and had some calorie laden food...I chose 1 slice of vegetarian pizza...the slice was huge...I ate the vegies off the top and the crust...gave the rest to DH.

The Starway which is a series of escalators going down a large hill was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, Jurasic Park at the bottom of the Starway was out of action. We went and had a coffee and brownie at a 'French cafe' and a gendarme spoke to us when DH said 'Bon Jour' to him. The gendarme came out with a string of French words...but it was just random words and even I, who doesn't speak French, knew that! he was fake!!! lol

We decided to come home about 6.30 so it was back to the shuttle, train and then bus. And that's when things went a little 'pear shaped' (crappy). On the first bus, after we'd been on the bus for about 10 minutes the bus stopped. The driver got out and came in the back door...she looked just like Queen Latifa (big and tall!!!)...apparently a gentleman behind us was engaging in a spot of 'solo sex'...ah hem...then on the second bus, as we got on the driver was spraying airfreshner...hello???? We kept an eye on our map as we knew exactly where we wanted to get off the bus...pulled the cord in plenty of time...the bus didn't stop...he was talking to some scantily clad woman up the front! We went 5 blocks from our stop. We faced a long walk back...but then our luck changed. We found a nice restaurant called Izzy's Deli. Far too much food but beautifully grilled (broiled) chicken and side salad for me! Once again excellent service and yes we remembered to tip! And of course, after a nice meal the couple of kilometre walk 'home' wasn't so bad. lol
DH's cousin had left a message on our hotel room phone saying that she isn't going to come up here tomorrow either. So we will be heading off on our own...hopefully 'that man' won't be on any of the buses we catch tomorrow!

De-cluttering continues...

Yesterday I found a large plastic box on the bottom shelf of the built ins in my sewing room which was full of school 'stuff' left after I sorted out 4 boxes of school related items about 4-5 years ago. This time I decided to throw out the worksheets for assorted year levels that I had kept. This resulted in a small 'mountain' of now empty plastic sleeves as I decided that I would only throw out the sheets inside the plastic. I made another pile which contained items that my neighbour's grandson may like, art projects, books, stickers etc. Another pile was made of books for the charity bin and another pile was things I would keep. (thankfully very very small!) Another pile was my 'throw out' pile. Now my 'keeping' pile has been placed in a box which has already been packed with items that I brought home from my classroom, soooo... I now have a whole shelf which is empty in my sewing room which means I can put away some of the clutter on my sewing table!

So that means I have decluttered 3 'areas' and that is a good start. Early this year, I colour coded my yarns and fabrics and put them into zippered sweater bags and sorted my sewing accessories and put them into various containers. At that time (January 2010) we knew that we needed to 'free up' another bedroom as one daughter was coming back from the UK and even though she had lived with her mother before she worked OS, that was no longer possible. The room was absolutely shocking because, as well as my sewing equipment being on a table in there, the room had become a dumping ground for all members of the family. I spent hours and hours sorting out things and eventually cleared enough to have a made up bed ready but really very little or no space for Meg to put her own belongings. Then her sister moved out and we had a large bedroom spare but it was quickly occupied by another daughter who had come home for some TLC after a particularly trying time in her personal life. DH and I are at present on our own and will continue to de-clutter our 'stuff'!

Today I also did some scanning of some magazine pages today as the mags were from the library and are due back tomorrow. The use of the photocopier at work I'll really miss as the scanner takes a lot longer and there is no A3 size on it. So I've copied a knitting pattern or two and 2 quilting ideas.

Talking of work, last night I finally did a task that I've been putting off for ages...re-newing my teacher registration! Normally you just pay the fees but this year they (the Queensland College of teachers) are tying registration to professional development completed. Full-timers have to do 30 hours per year. As a .6 I had to do 18 hours. The QCT had been sending us letters and emails discussing this PD etc and I was of the opinion that it would be complicated to re-register. I have to re-register as technically I'm on leave not retired. Time was running out to register so last night I made my reluctant self re-read all the letters etc and I went online. The site wouldn't accept my password, and even though the site indicated my password had been emailed to me after my request it did not arrive. No panic! remember I'm more laidback now that I'm almost retired but it would cost extra $$ if I couldn't register by 31st. Luckily I found in one of the letters that they had reassigned me a new password. So when I finally got into the site, it took me just over 5 minutes, including a redirection to pay the fees! No justification or filling out forms regarding my PD just the somewhat gentle threat of a possible audit of my paperwork showing what training I'd completed. All that procrastination!!! I could have done the re-registering before Nov 15 and have been in the draw for an iPad for heaven's sake!!!! lol

Waiting for the water taxi to head over to St Marco Square. We were amazed by the obvious complete lack of O.H. and S!!!

DH and I went out today to the movies. We saw 'The Tourist'. I loved every minute of it...pure escapism with the added bonus of beautiful Venice being the setting!

The characters in the movie tended to use the faster water taxis! DH and I (in the aqua hat) enjoying a gondola ride with others on our tour.

Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp's characters went to a function at the Dogue's palace; we just had a tour!

The scenery in the movie was delightful and I couldn't resist turning on the portable hard drive and looking back at our photos of Venice. Great memories!