Goodbye Australia

I guess this is it for Australia.
We spent a day at the beach on Saturday, but it was very windy and we didn’t stay long - too cold for swimming. It wasn’t far out of Melbourne on the tram, so it was easy enough to get there and home again in pretty short order. We dropped into the Royal Melbourne Yachting Squadron for a drink which was pretty spiffy. We waved our Lake Diefenbaker Yacht Club cards and that opened the door for us! We went down to Chinatown for supper and had a pretty good meal - much better than the absolutely dreadful Chinese meal we had in Chinatown in Sydney - almost the worst meal, Chinese or anything else, that either of us has ever had! Melbourne is absolutely crammed with restaurants and we have had some amazing meals. You can get almost anything you want here - we saw sushi burgers the other day!
It was tennis day on Monday - we lined up to get tickets and then lined up again to get inside and then lined up again to get onto one of the show courts - and it rained a lot! We watched a bit of Mardy Fish playing some guy from Europe with an “-ov” name! Mardy lost the first set and they had just started the second when the heavens opened. We sat under our umbrellas for a while, but it looked pretty set it, so we gave up and came home where we could watch the match at the Rod Laver Arena on TV! We didn’t feel too bad about the lost day as we had seen such amazing tennis on Sunday at the Hit for Haiti event (see previous blog).
Today is Tuesday and the weather is much better, but we didn’t want to do the wait-in-line thing again, so we went up to the Queen Victoria Market which is the most amazing place. It covers a couple of city blocks and is mainly food stalls - lots and lots of food - but also almost anything you could imagine - scanty lingerie, “opals”, leather jackets, back scratchers and on and on. I had warned John that he wasn’t to buy ANYTHING as we are packing up to leave and we already have too much stuff, and then it was me that kept seeing things that I just couldn’t do without! We hauled all our booty down to the Royal Botanic Gardens for lunch - a lovely, tranquil place with (amazingly!) lots of gorgeous trees and flowers, lake, birds and little unexpected treats like a tiny cottage we came upon where a group of artists make paper, baskets etc out of natural fibres.
Since we are at the end of the Australian leg of our trip, I thought I would do a top ten list of the good and the bad. As I started making the list, there were so many good things that I could easily have doubled the list, but here we go …
Top 10 good things , not necessarily in this order -
1. The weather! This is why we came - and I have to admit that we have felt rather smug sometimes when we see what the temperature is back in Saskatoon! (However, when the mercury hit 44 the day we arrived in Melbourne and there was no air conditioning in our hostel, we did begin to wonder what we had wished for ….)
2. Reg and Ruby’s hospitality over Christmas when John was sick as a dog. They were such good hosts under rather trying circumstances (sitting in the doctor’s office rather than driving us to the mountains!). In fact, Reg and Ruby, you were SUCH amazing hosts that we will pass on your phone number and address to ALL our friends and relatives …. (just joking!)
3. The Thai Tanic restaurant in Sydney (and the owner, Nicky). He was very friendly and served the most amazing, cheap, delicious curries.
4. Hit for Haiti - the tennis fund raiser spear-headed by Roger Federer which was organized in 24 hours - fantastic tennis from some of the top names in the game (see previous blog).
5. Desert Park in Alice Springs - I wrote about it when we were there, but it really was one of the highlights of our Australian stay.
6. Sleeping under the stars on our trip to Uluru.,
7. Waking up to the kookaburras laughing all the way down the east coast.
8. Boogie boarding at Hawk’s Nest beach.
9. Christmas carols at the Sydney Opera House.
10. “Jersey Boys” musical in Melbourne - the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons story.
Top 10 bad things - again, not necessarily in this order -
1. John being really knocked sideways by a vicious sinus infection (he’s almost better now after nearly a month, but still has a really dry, hacking cough which is driving us both crazy).
2. The flies ……..
3. Telstra - Australia’s telecommunications network is NOT world class!
4. Not being able to swim in the ocean because of the jelly fish (those of you who read John’s blog about our snorkeling trip can substitute that for #4!)
5. The road south from Cairns which we assumed would be good, being the major southern access route - but it was dreadful - roadworks every few miles, and only one lane each way which made the truckers REALLY growly so they would sit on your back bumper as you toddled along at the speed limit.
6. Sydney toll roads. I never wrote the full story of our drama with the toll roads, but we were seriously mis-led about how to go about paying the tolls and ended up with a $75 fine. I took it up with the campervan company as it was their information that had led us astray and they did take care of the fine, but it was extremely irritating.
7. Burning a perfect iron-print on the front of my new pants (trousers, for my British readers!). I didn’t have my glasses on and turned the heat knobby-thing the wrong way, with the above result - just as we were about to leave for the theatre.
8. The dreadful Chinese meal in Chinatown in Sydney - it shouldn’t have been allowed!
9. Learning the hard way that if you put dryer sheets in the same drawer as your tea bags, your tea will taste like dryer sheets …..
10. Sharing hostel kitchens and bathrooms with people who believe that their mothers are going to clean up after them.
So that was Australia. We really enjoyed our time here, but we’re ready to taste New Zealand …….

Hit for Haiti

Wow - what a special afternoon!
We got home last night and turned on the TV just in time to see Roger Federer announce that he had spear-headed a fund-raiser for the Haitian earthquake victims - Hit for Haiti. In 24 hours, he (and the Melbourne tennis community) managed to put together a demonstration tennis match which was played this afternoon, the day before the opening day of the Australian Open Tennis Tournament. For $10 a head, we got some really good tennis entertainment - very light-hearted and enjoyable. Eight players donated their time to play a “match” - but it was fun, not competition. I just don’t know how they managed to organize it in such short order, but we got to the Rod Laver Stadium about 1 ½ hours before it was due to start, bought our tickets and were through the door within about 45 minutes. I’m not sure how many people the stadium seats, but it was packed which is pretty incredible when you consider the short time line. Apart from Federer, Nadal, Roddick, Hewitt, Djokovich, Serena Williams, Kim Cleisters and Sam Stosur donated their time and put on some very entertaining tennis. In case you can’t recognize them in the pictures, Roddick is wearing black, Rafa had white shorts and a blue shirt, Hewitt was in a yellow shirt, Federer was turquoise, Djokovic was grey, Serena was yellow, Kim was white and Sam was orange. The picture of Rafa and Djokovich bumping chests came after a particularly fast point! They were all wearing microphones and there was a lot of good natured bantering and teasing going on between them the whole time. At one point, there were 6 players on court at once! It was all so relaxed and SUCH good entertainment! Some of the tennis at net was quite incredible. The weather was pretty iffy, so they had the roof closed, so we were cosy and warm, and we managed to get pretty good seats. They raised about $200,000 which included some individual donations from players (Maria Sharapova threw in $10,000) as well as some of the tennis organizations, and many of the players have agreed to donate their rackets for auction to raise more money. We have grounds tickets for opening day tomorrow, but this afternoon was so unexpected and enjoyable, I thought it deserved its own blog entry!

Melbourne 1

Man, was it hot when we got here on Monday! We arrived at lunch time and by 3 pm it was 44 degrees - burning hot. We are staying in a delightful old place called The Nunnery (history in a minute) which has no air conditioning (those nuns were tough) but at least our window opens and we have a ceiling fan (the guy next door can’t open his window!) We retreated to the pub next door which was air conditioned, served cold cider and was showing tennis on the TV! We stayed there for quite a long time. It wasn’t a very pleasant night, but it has cooled down significantly now and we are much happier. Also John is at last feeling a bit better but he’s still not 100% - still coughing (barking, actually) and feeling stuffed up. He has a few more days to go on the latest antibiotic and we are keeping our fingers crossed that that will be IT!
The Nunnery - it’s a hostel in two parts and I had originally booked us into the hostel rather than the guesthouse, but something made me call and up-grade before we arrived and it’s a very good thing we did. The hostel part is very hostely and the guesthouse is lovely (although we have to share the bathroom), There are only 6 rooms in the guesthouse and it is much more civilized! We even have TV in our room. It was built about 100 years ago and has been a nunnery, home for young women and now a hostel. There is a lovely little courtyard with a fountain and palm trees which is very restful (see picture). The Nunnery is in an area of Melbourne called Fitzroy which is another “edgy” neighbourhood (like Newtown where we stayed in Sydney). This means that there are some very interesting characters around as well has hundreds of little restaurants and cafes and weird shops, all within walking distance. Our first night here, we walked down the main drag and were drawn to a little Chinese restaurant by the incredibly cool jazz coming from inside - rather strange combination, but it worked! We’ve bought tram passes to get around - the tram system is very well organized and we are quite close to the city centre so it’s easy to get around. There is no way we are considering renting a car here -they have the strangest right-turn rule at major traffic lights - if you want to turn right, you have to sit in the LEFT lane until it’s safe to go. I’m sure you get used to it if you live here, but it looks pretty scary!
Melbourne is a really pretty city with an amazing mix of architectural styles - classical Greek, modern high-rises in all kinds of shapes and sizes and everything in between (and John has taken photos of almost all or them)! The streets are very wide (to allow for all those ox carts) and are lined with trees. The tallest building is 88 stories high and has an observation platform with a GLASS FLOOR that extends 3 metres out over the city - one tourist attraction we won’t be doing!
Now that John is feeling a bit more human, we’ve been able to do a few touristy things (although we have been taking it very slowly and often come home in the afternoon so he can have a “nanny nap”! We visited the Australian Centre for the Moving Image on Wednesday, an amazing look at how movies began and where they are headed with lots of examples of all the old stuff like magic lanterns etc. It was rather overwhelming with lots of noises and voices all around, but extremely interesting.
On Thursday, we rode the tram down to the Docklands which is an emerging area of Melbourne down on the water. At the moment, it’s basically a huge shopping area with lots of restaurants - not many boats to be seen. As people know, we are not shoppers, but John did buy a pair of Ugg slippers (Uggs are sheepskin boots and shoes made here in Melbourne which are known world-wide for their warmth). We went to an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s work in the afternoon - again very well done but rather overwhelming with lots of examples of his art, inventions, ideas etc.
In the evening we went to the Princess Theatre (which is absolutely gorgeous with beautiful decorations and paintings -see picture) to see Jersey Boys. It’s the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and it was brilliant! The guys who played Frankie and the 4 seasons were quite amazing - they could all play and sing just like the real thing - and they even looked exactly like the originals! Of course, the music is from “our” era and is SO catchy - almost everyone in the audience was singing and bouncing along with it. The play was about how the band started and evolved, and was funny, sad and thoughtful - and of course, there was the music which was GREAT! So that was a huge success.
Today we went to see the cottage where Captain Cook was born which was dismantled and brought over from England some time ago. Then on to the Shrine of Remembrance which was very moving. The Australians take the honoring of their war dead very seriously - all the major cities have huge memorials.
We have another 4 days here and then we’re off to New Zealand which is likely to be a little less frantic and a little cooler.

Great OceanRoad

Half way through our trip …
John’s new antibiotics seem to be doing the trick better than the last lot but he’s still pretty wobbly. We are taking things VERY slowly and some days we just stay in the van and let him sleep. Other days he feels a bit more sprightly - the other day we “did” some of the amazing sights along the Great Ocean Road - the Twelve Apostles, London Bridge and Loch Ard Gorge. The Great Ocean Road runs along a stretch of the South Australia/Victoria coast and was begun to provide work for soldiers returning from World War I. Parts of it run right along the coast and at other times, it runs inland. We stayed at a small town called Peterborough for 3 days which turned out to be one of the best places to see the icons of the Road - the amazing limestone “stacks” in the ocean which have been sculpted by the sea and the wind. We are here at the height of tourist season, so each place we went to, we were accompanied by masses of other eager tourists. One of the Apostles bit the dust a while ago, dissolving into the sea, (and I don’t think there ever were actually 12), but they are pretty spectacular. They are a lovely, warm golden colour, and with the waves breaking round them and the blue sky behind them, they really take your breath away. London Bridge likewise lost an arch to the sea a few years ago. Loch Ard Gorge is where a British ship, the Loch Ard, went down and the only two people to survive washed up in the Gorge. You have to walk some way to see all these things, and it’s very hot and the flies are terrible. They just don’t LEARN that when you swat them, you don’t want them back! They love to land round your mouth and eyes and although they don’t bite, they are REALLY annoying! We bought a couple of fly swatters for 69c and took them with us, waving them in front of us like windshield wipers which kept most of the flies at least out of our faces. No-one else seems to have figured out this solution, and we got lots of comments and offers (no Zoe, they weren’t commenting about the hat!) A lady from South Africa asked if she could take a photo of us, fly swatters at the ready!
While John has been sick, we have both been reading for lack of much else to do while waiting for the drugs to take effect. We have taken to getting the fattest books we can to keep us going - what we will do with them before we leave Australia, I’m not sure! We both HATE getting rid of books. We’ve both read Dan Brown’s latest “The Lost Symbol”, and John is nearly finished Andre Agassi’s autobiography which I can’t wait to get into. I also read a huge fat book called the Children’s Book - I think we will have to be strong and leave all these gems at the hostel in Melbourne.
We are now in Apollo Bay and I have rented a sun tent so we can at least sit on the beach a bit and John can keep out of the sun. The sea is FREEZING and almost everyone wears wet suits to go swimming. We drive to Melbourne tomorrow along what is apparently the most lovely part of the Great Ocean Road - hope John is feeling well enough to enjoy it. In Melbourne, we are staying at a hostel called The Nunnery which should be interesting. At least we’ll be in one place for a while and hope to get his health back to where it should be.

In sickness and in health ...

In sickness and in health ….. Poor John is still feeling pretty under the weather and I‘m doing my best to be a nurse on wheels. The antibiotics didn’t touch his infection and he’s still coughing up a storm. We tried a couple of times to get in to see a doctor in the past day or so, but didn’t have any luck, and he kept saying he felt he was getting better. We’re now back on the road again, so we are taking things very gently and taking lots of “nanny naps”. I haven’t been feeling that great either, but I’m in much better ‘nick’ than the old guy. He is slowly coming around - we have been able to go for short walks and we bought some cider today to see if alcohol will help!
Not much to report since New Year due to the “lurgy” - we picked up the latest campervan in Adelaide and said goodbye to Reg and Ruby who have to get a medal for being model hosts. We really didn’t know them well at all when we landed on their doorstep to stay for 2 weeks - and there’s nothing like sitting in a doctor’s office for 2 hours to cement the bonds of friendship! They were truly amazing hosts and I can’t imagine how we would have got through John’s illness without them.
As I said, we have been moving very slowly since picking up the campervan - we only drove about 50 km the first day before I decided that I had had enough! We have taken 2 days (and about 600 km) to get to the Great Ocean Road proper - we stopped at the Bay of Islands today and saw our first real chunk of Southern Ocean real estate. (Goes to show how bad John has been feeling - he’s hardly taken any photographs for the past week or so!) We’re doing lots of positive thinking and hope to be able to do some touristy things tomorrow - we are very close to the Twelve Apostles (which are apparently only 8 now due to erosion) and the London Bridge (which is now the London Arch - also due to erosion.)
We arrive in Melbourne in 5 days, so I hope I can put a more positive blog up then.

Christmas

It’s very strange (and people will get sick of me saying this - but it’s very strange!) to have Christmas in hot weather with everyone wearing shorts and T shirts. We were at the mall the other day, and there was Santa all dressed up in his beard and red suit, Jingle Bells playing in the background and you go outside and there are palm trees … It’s VERY STRANGE! We had a lovely Christmas day with Reg and Ruby and their family. They have made us feel so welcome and have been really hospitable. There were 4 kids in the mix, so lots of excitement and gift wrap ripping! Reg dug out some of the kid’s birthday candles (John’s birthday is on Christmas Day) and we found two 6s and a 5 - 66 + 5 = 71 which is John’s age, so that went down well stuck on top of the Christmas cake! We talked to Zoe, Andy and Shelly so at least we were in touch with family back at home.
One of the highlights of the day was that we were adopted by a magpie (looks a little like our Canadian crow in magpie uniform without the long tail). He came hopping up to the screen door so Ruby put some food out for him and he wasn’t scared of her at all. As the day went on and kids and dogs roared round the yard, he/she stayed put and became tamer and tamer, to the point where he was sitting on peoples’ shoulders (and pooping on them!) and eating out of their hands. We reckon he must be someone’s pet which has either escaped or been set free. Other magpies have been bombing him, so he’s obviously something of a freak. We wondered if he would still be around today (Boxing Day) and he was waiting for us all to get up - running up and down on the ground outside asking to be let in. He started singing today which he didn’t do yesterday. Magpies here have a curious warbling call, and his is very quiet and the more he went on, the more he added other sounds which weren’t magpie at all - as if someone had been trying to teach him to talk. John was convinced he heard “G’day”!
December 30 - We have been house-bound for the past 3 days as John picked up some kind of nasty cold/flu and has looked and sounded like death warmed over. He really has been unwell so we trundled off to the doctor yesterday and he’s now on antibiotics - 24 hours after taking the first one, he’s back to giving everyone a hard time, so we think he’s better! Before he got sick, we went to the Australian Motor Museum where, as you can imagine, many photographs were taken (the total for the trip is now over 8,000 I’m told!) There was one car which was actually a huge mobile phone, complete with push buttons and receiver, and was rigged up so that people could make phone calls on it, but for some unknown reason, that is not one of the 8,000 photographs! The Museum is quite near the Barossa Valley which is a famous wine-producing area, so we tasted our way through a few vineyards! On the way home, we stopped at the Whispering Wall which is a large concave dam. After building it, they discovered that it has the same acoustic properties as the dome at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London - you can whisper to people who are at the other end of the dam and they can hear you plainly - so of course we had to do that!
Ndw Year - We did manage to get John vertical and awake enough to come out on New Year’s Eve. His throat was still incredibly sore and he didn’t feel great, but he made it to midnight and even managed to dance a bit! This “bug” has really knocked him sideways - we’ve been very boring guests for Reg and Ruby who had all kinds of interesting plans for our stay with them, and we ended up not moving out of the house for 4 days straight. We really have appreciated being at their house while John has been sick - he’s been able to stay in bed and be looked after by Ruby-mom who gave him ice cream for his sore throat. They were so understanding - Reg sat with us for 2 hours while we waited to be seen by the doctor and they both did everything to help us get him on the road to recovery. We are just hoping that they don’t get whatever it was. John’s definitely on the mend now, but we have constructed a “Recovery Scale” and have decided that he is now higher than “comatose” and a little better than “awake“, but “enthusiastic” is still to come and “vibrant” is a distant dream! We leave Adelaide tomorrow to pick up our campervan to drive to Melbourne, so hope he will manage the trip OK.
Comments - we have heard that people are still having trouble leaving comments on the blog. If you pick the “Anonymous” option, you can leave a comment and just put your name at the end so we will know who it’s from. The alternative is to leave it Anonymous - particularly if you leave a comment about The Hat, which SOME PEOPLE have chosen to do!!!
Happy New Year to everyone - good health and happiness.

Kangaroo Island

There’s a definite animal theme going on here - we just got back from a 2-day trip to Kangaroo Island just off the coast near Adelaide which we had been told by other travelers was worth a visit (and, yes, there are lots of kangaroos there). Thousands of years ago, it was part of Australia, but the ice caps melted, sea levels rose (does this ring a bell?) and Kangaroo Island was separated from the mainland by about 18 km (which we crossed by ferry). It’s about 150 km by 55 km, so quite large. There were only 14 of us on the first day of the tour, so it wasn’t too hectic and we had a lovely driver/tour guide called Richard who knew the most amazing amount about the island - history, geography, flora, fauna etc. The pictures are of a hairy frog-mouth (fascinating bird that is a master of disguise - he catches insects in his froggy-type beak), some sealions on the beach and a chicken with a really bad hair-day. No particular reason for the chicken picture except he caught my fancy! John took lots of pictures of the New Zealand fur seals that we saw on the rocks (different from the ones on the beach), but we were quite far away and it’s hard to tell from most of the pictures which are rocks and which are seals.
We started out at a eucalyptus oil distillery (there are large number of eucalyptus trees on the island - I can’t remember how many types there are, but well over 100). It was interesting to see how they distilled the leaves into oil and of course there was a gift shop where you could buy all kinds of soaps, oils etc. The lady who gave us the tour had a huge long list of the things that eucalyptus oil can do for you - she reminded John of the old snake-oil salesmen at the Ex, and her patter definitely worked as I think we all bought something!
Next stop was a birds of prey free flight show. John and I had seen a really good show in Alice Springs, but this one was different in that we got to see the birds up really close. (That’s where we saw the hairy frog-mouth.)
Then off to Seal Bay where we went down on the beach and could get quite close to the sealions. There wasn’t much action for quite a while - if sealions aren’t out hunting, they are snoozing to regain their energy so they can go out hunting again. There were a few pups which were pretty cute, but it was very quiet. Just as we were about to leave, we saw some adults in the water - I figured they were young adult males as they were surfing in on the waves, and then swimming out again so they could ride another wave! Just having a blast! That was fun to watch. It’s amazing to compare how they move on land and how graceful and fast they are in the water.
We went to a pretty ho-hum animal park and then onto a sheep dairy, where we watched “the girls’ getting milked! It is a small cottage industry but very successful. They make the most amazing cheeses and yogurts from the milk which we sampled, but couldn’t buy as we had no way of keeping things cool.
In the evening, we went to see the fairy penguins come in from their day’s hunting. Unfortunately, about 79 other people also turned up much to the amazement of the people running the show. Se we were divided into 4 groups, but the beach is pretty small and 80 or so people clumping around probably had quite an impact on the number of penguins we saw! We did see some though, mostly chicks waiting for mom and dad to bring them their dinner. They are very small and of course, being penguins, terminally cute.
The next day, we were joined by 3 ladies (mom and 2 daughters and 2 year old grandson). Question: why would people think that a 2 year old would be likely to be happy to be dragged around in and out of buses all day, visiting places where you are supposed to be quiet and listen to a commentary? We’ve had a couple of instances (one at the Opera and two at Jenolan Caves) where it has been almost impossible to hear/concentrate because of a screaming kid. NOT the kid’s fault, but you have to wonder where the parents’ heads are to take a small person along. OK - now I’ve got that out of my system (!), on with the blog. We went to a honey farm (quite an industry on the island as the bees are a pure strain which is unlikely to be contaminated as the island is far enough from the mainland to keep foreigners out). Then on to some caves - we thought we were caved-out (or caved-in) having already seen the Capricorn and Jenolan Caves, but the screaming kid didn’t come, so we went along and it was a really good tour. The guide obviously loved his job and knew the caves extremely well, so it was a great success. The caves weren’t as spectacular as Jenolan, but impressive all the same.
After lunch we went to see the Remarkable Rocks which really are! They are a cluster of huge granite boulders right on the ocean, sculpted by the weather and the sea. Close by was Admiral’s Arch where we saw the New Zealand fur seals. The coast is very rugged at this point, and you wonder how the seals don’t get bashed to pieces on the rocks as they try to land on the rocks as the waves crash around them. The Arch was an amazing formation in the rocks which looked, remarkably enough, like an arch!
Last stop was to watch a flock of pelicans being fed - they are much larger than our birds in Saskatchewan and the same guy feeds them every day at the same time, so they know exactly what to expect. He comes along with a huge box of fish and at one point, he hoists armfuls of fish into the middle of the flock of pelicans. One bird caught the most enormous amount in his bill (I would guess about 4-5 lb) which we watched in fascination/anguish as he tried to swallow it. Bad case of indigestion later, I would imagine.
So it was a pretty full 2 days, and John swears he won’t get on another bus for the next lifetime, but it was a good trip.
Coincidence - we sat next to an English couple (who were also on the trip) for lunch one day and I asked the universal traveler’s question, “Where are you from?” The wife replied that they were from England (she obviously hadn’t picked up on my accent!) When I asked where from, she replied, “Guildford” which happens to be where I was born! When I told her that, she said that actually they were from a small town near Guildford called Godalming - where my mate Jane lives! Small world - which we also found in Edinburgh when we were sitting in a pub one night and John got chatting to the guy next to him who turned out to be a blacksmith. When he heard that we were from Canada, he said that a blacksmith from Canada had just been working with his forge in Scotland. John asked if that had happened to be Craig (a blacksmith friend of John’s) and, of course, it was!
My blog is morphing into something more than just our travels - little pieces of trivia are making their way into the story which I don’t seem to be able to do anything about. They present themselves as we are on the road, I write them down and then can’t resist adding them in! So there we are.
We are now in Adelaide with Reg and Ruby who we met about 3 years ago when we were on a tour in Greece. We spent about 10 days with them (on a bus!) and really enjoyed their company. We’ve kept in touch since then and when we told them that we were coming to Australia, they invited us to come and stay with them. When it looked like we would hit Adelaide in mid-December, they immediately invited us for Christmas. I sent them a very carefully-worded e-mail saying that we would love to drop in on them for a day or two, but they insisted that we spend our whole 2 weeks with them, which I thought was incredibly generous (and possibly insane!) They have been most wonderfully hospitable and we are having a wonderful time, living in a real house, eating real food, snoozing when we want to and generally re-charging our travel-weary batteries. This little island of calm has come at about the ½ way point for us and is very welcome.