On Monday, January 12th, we went to Legoland. Rosie and Liam have been looking forward to this for nearly 12 months, but we had no real idea what we were coming to see.
We are looking up Google Maps each night to find out how to get to each location and have found their instructions to be excellent. We have only made a few errors but have been able to rectify them easily.
On the entry road into Legoland they had a lovely row of trees up the middle, surrounded by small hedges which were shaped as Lego bricks.
Once inside, there were large scale models of everything needed to create the theme that they wanted. Liam was extremely impressed and his whole face lit up with excitement as he wandered past the first few exhibits.
The first theme area was Dino Island and Explorer World, where all the animals were made out of hundreds of thousands of Lego blocks. They were brilliant and in some cases looked absolutely lifelike.
Legoland is specifically aimed at children under about 12 and Liam was right on the border of being totally engrossed without thinking it was beneath him. The rides were all quite tame, but still very enjoyable. The park was very quiet so we were able to walk straight onto most rides and in some cases they let you stay on for a second ride. Liam loved the Volvo Autobahn, he could drive his car where ever he wanted and there were stop signs and traffic lights which he dutifully obeyed. His skills were very good.
The boat ride was also a lot of fun since again you could go anywhere you liked. We had a little race around the course, Bruce with vastly more experience beat Liam easily. He will need to practise much more.
Another great feature of the park was the interactive nature of many of the rides. In this ride, the people on the ride could shoot water cannons at each other and at the same time, there were water cannons around the edges that people could use to shoot the people on the ride. As you can see, Liam was dangerous.
Miniland USA was an excellent display, with several US cities depicted in minature with little stories attached to each one. In New York they have even dismantled the Twin Towers and replaced it with the proposed Freedom Tower. We were particularly impressed with Las Vegas since it gave us a great insight into what our hotel looked like and where it was placed in relation to other hotels and attractions. We are most interested now to see how realistic it actually was, but I think it was pretty good.
Interestingly, we have now started to notice that the people at these last couple of attractions are much healthier looking, especially at Legoland. Bruce suspected that the type of person who like Disneyland would be different to the type that would go to the Wild Animal Park or the extremely small child friendly Legoland. San Diego seems to be a very vibrant and active city with a much healthier outlook on life.
On Tuesday, we took a look around Balboa Park, which is a museum area and garden area of San Diego. Liam wasn't really that interested and they cost a bit of money so we didn't take too many of them in, just went back to the hotel for a swim and a spa. We needed a bit of a rest before the next theme park, Sea World San Diego. Sea World was very quiet and we were able to walk onto anything we wanted. We walked around first to get an idea of what we wanted to see then started our experience.
Sea World is mainly an aquatic animal experience rather than rides, but they did have a couple that we enjoyed, especially the huge tyre tube ride, which managed to get us all completely soaked with water. This wasn't that undesirable given that the heat wave is continuing.
We were all fascinated by the dolphins, they seemed to like sitting on their side of the glass wall and just observing you. If you got too close they would surreptitiously splash water at you with their noses. The show that they put on later was excellent, as was all the shows. We had a pleasant day, but did find it difficult to get too excited.
The Killer Whale show was very well presented, but to be honest we have seen the same type of show in Australia.
The next day we drove back to Anaheim so that we could do our final day at Disneyland. Liam and Rosie planned out the rides that they wanted to do and Bruce planned to see a couple of the shows while they were doing the rides he couldn't stand.
We started out in Frontier Land at the guns that Liam had been coveting.
We then did Splash Mountain again, which was a mistake since we got completely saturated because the attendandt insisted on putting Bruce at the front, hence weighing it down when we splashed into the water. Big Thunder Railway and the Star Tours rides followed before swapping back to California Park for Rosie and Liam to do the huge roller coaster ride. Bruce went and watched a couple of street performances before going to a 45 minute full on musical presentation of Alladin. This was excellent and very unexpected.
We went home after this for a rest and a swim before returning in the afternoon for one last look before saying goodbye to Disneyland.
On Saturday, 17th Jan, we drove back down to Temecula, a small town on the edge of the mountains that is developing a wine industry. The town also has a bit of history with the railway and wars with Mexico. Old Town Temecula was quite quaint and Rosie loved the buildings and atmosphere. Interestingly, Liam enjoyed walking through all the antique shops and managed to focus in on some guns and other knick knacks.
We took a bit of a look around on the Saturday and then planned to visit a few wineries on Sunday.
The wineries as a whole were a bit disappointing. It was a bit like visiting the Swan Valley, but lacked even the atmosphere of this district. All the wineries were very small and didn't look that inviting. You don't realise how lucky we are in Margaret River till you visit an area like this. We are accustomed to free wine tastings in lovely surroundings with beautiful green areas all around us. This district is very barren and every winery wants you to pay between $AU10-15 to taste 5 or 6 wines. Bruce couldn't get excited about this and eventually decided to try out just the one winery, Callaway Wines. This was a bit of luck as we found out, the atmosphere was much better than the others, they were the first established winery. Rosie bought herself a nice top to match her Callaway golf clubs and was then ecstatic to find out that the winery was established by the same man who developed the golf clubs.
Bruce tasted their wines and found their Sav Sem Blanc to be quite nice as was their Cab Sav. The Chardonnay was bland and they mixed a couple of their whites with Voignier, which he doesn't particularly like. Bruce was also interested in a Syrah, which tasted just like our Shiraz. Strangely when he looked it up, it is the same grape variety, the spicy taste gave it away.
We were going to have lunch at a winery, but were so unimpressed we went back into Old Town for a hamburger at the bikie haven.
We couldn't get over all the Harley Davidson's and had to take a few photos for Rosie's brother in-law Johnny. He would have been in seventh heaven.
Temecula is a bit of "old" bikie territory, they were everywhere and the continual noise of the Harley's was much louder than the Speedway at home. Strangely we found it all added to the American experience so it was fun.
The museum offered a bit of an insight into why Temecula is here and unfortunately the history tended to reflect many of the old movies you saw where the rich ranchers drove out the existing Indian population. They didn't seem to be apologising for it, just stating it as a fact. Bruce also finds it quite interesting as to how the US managed to take California off Mexico. Strangely in 2009, we think Mexico is winning it back. Spanish is clearly the second language and to make a point of this, today the receptionist spoke to Rosie in Spanish, assuming that with her dark hair pulled back that she was of Mexican heritage.
Rosie like this 1922 Model T Ford, since it was built in the year of her parents birth.
On Tuesday, 20th Jan, we left California and flew to Las Vegas in Nevada. It was a very short flight on US Airlines (three days after one of their planes crash landed in the Hudson on take off in NY). An indicator of how the economy is going was that the flight before ours was cancelled and ours was only half full (including the other flight's passengers). Rosie had never been to Vegas and had no idea what she was about to encounter. We were booked into the Tropicana and were pleased to see
it was just like the LEGOLAND representation of it.
On the first night we went for a walk up the Strip to see the three main free displays. The first was the Bellagio fountain show. This was a spectacular water fountain display shooting water 30-50 metres into the air all coordinated to music. It was fantastic, the show is different every second time so you could watch it a few times. The next show should have been the volcano at the Mirage, but unfortunately we found it closed for maintenance (a common story on this holiday). We proceeded up the street to Treasure Island to watch their Sirens show. This was pretty weak, but still quite spectacular and worth a look.
Going home we passed through the Venetian which is huge and spectacular with indoor gondola rides. We were able to take Liam into all the casinos, so long as he didn't stop walking. This meant that we could look at all of them on way home. A long walk but well worth it. In future we would get a 24 hour ticket on the Duece (a double decker bus going between the strip and Freemont St. This would mean you could get on and off wherever you like.
In the morning we took the tram from Excalibur to the Mandalay and then walked through to the Pyramid at the Luxor where we caught the tram back to our hotel. Rosie loved this and it looked great at night when the Luxor shine a huge spotlight out the top of the pyramid.
On Wednesday evening we caught the Duece to Downtown and Rosie was just blown away by Freemont St. It has changed a lot since I last came here, with a huge canopy over the road, which has been converted into a walkway. They put a massive light show on the roof every hour but the casino lights are a show in themselves.
I liked Downtown better than the Strip and the changes they have made have only enhanced the experience. It is just wall to wall casinos and you don't have to walk for miles to see it all. The costs in Downtown are lower and although the hotels are older, I think the experience is better.
We walked down to the Union Plaza hotel, where I stayed years ago and it was great to see it was now a major focal point at the end of the street. We went in and found the best bargain of our holiday. The all you can eat buffet was only $7.77 per person and it was excellent, with one side offering roasts, salads and vegetables, while the other side offered a nice Chinese selection. The desserts were good and Liam had a lot of choice and ate plenty.
Other good fun we had was to go to a few hotels and join their "Player's Clubs". This automatically meant you were given a pack of cards and a few vouchers. The best one was at the Binion's where they also gave you a free photograph of you with one million dollars in cash.
If you were astute you could most probably convert the free dollars they gave you into real money by cashing in whenever you had a win but this all took too much effort. The base table rate on the Strip is $5 but you could find $3 tables in Freemont St. This does tend to make gambling an expensive business and Bruce wasn't really motivated enough to get involved in this at all. Even without the gambling, Vegas is a great place to visit at least once in your lifetime.
On Thursday, 22nd January, we finally left the US to travel to Canada. We flew out on Air Canada, which surprised us a lot. We were expecting a Qantas and got a Virgin Blue. As you can see from the photo, Las Vegas wants you to get to the casinos quickly, I am sure some of the hangers back straight onto a casino. The four big casinos you can see are the ones around where we stayed.
It took forever to get through immigration in Canada but everything was in order so we had no problems. By the time we finished in immigration our bags were waiting for us and we just walked out of the airport, no customs checks. Greg and our sponsor Ron came and picked us up, taking us to our hotel. It was a bit late when we arrived (Toronto time) but we hadn't eaten so we went for a short walk to the nearest restaurant. Unfortunately we arrived exactly at 10pm when they closed. We then had to go for a longer walk until we got to McDonalds which was still open. Fortunately it was only about -7°C so we survived.
The next day we picked up our hire car and took a drive to Liam's school and enrolled him. They were very helpful and everything went smoothly. We then took a drive around the area before going to the house to pick up the key and to meet Judy for the first time. Greg and Judy were both flat out getting organised for there own trip but we had a good talk and a bit of a look around.
On Saturday we went to an orientation event where they went over a bit of information. They put on a very good child minding centre, which Liam enjoyed, and it was good to meet a few of the other teachers and hear about the upcoming events. We will try to get to as many as we can.
After this we did a bit of shopping (something that was to become the bane of our lives over the next few days) hoping to find Liam some suitable outer wear for going to school. Finally we set out for the house so that we could settle in and unpack our bags for the year. It was nice to be able to finally start to settle down and it was nice that Greg and Judy left us a few little gifts to make us feel welcome (they are obviously more thoughtful than we are, Bruce just left lots of wine). Liam investigated the whole house and then happily set up his bedroom. By late Saturday night we were nearly settled in.
First thing Sunday morning Bruce had to go out and clear the ice from all the windows (he has had to do this each morning this week). We then went off looking for clothing again but everything in Liam's size was sold out because of the really cold snap.
On Australia Day, we all walked off to school in -18°C with Liam dressed in four shirts and two jumpers. The principal met us at the door, took one look at Liam and suggested that he might have to stay inside during the breaks since he didn't have a warm jacket (he was allowed out since it was only -10°C). That day we got him a good jacket. After school we went to pick him up and by the time he finally came out, Bruce had lost all sense of feeling in one of his fingers - next day Bruce wore a really good pair of gloves.
On Tuesday it was only -14°C when we walked to school. That afternoon, Liam became impatient and tried to walk home without us (we weren't late, he just left early). This meant another long wait outside looking for him, with the help of his teacher Mr Lucas and the secretaries. We found him when he came back, he went down the wrong street. During the day we got Liam some ski pants so he was now all set to go outside and play, he was ecstatic and immediately got dressed in everything and went out into the backyard to make snow angels.
The forecast for Wednesday was a massive front to come in and dump 20-30cm of snow. We got Liam all dressed up, as can be seen on the left, and again walked off the school. It was a pleasant -2°C, and everything was covered in snow.
When Rosie and Bruce got home, Rosie was very keen to get her first chance to shovel snow so we went out and cleared the driveway and path. The exercise was great and there was a real sense of achievement for a couple of minutes when you looked at the job we had done. Unfortunately it was forcast to snow all day, so a few minutes after we finished you couldn't see the driveway anymore and by this evening it will be hard to see the difference between ours and those who hadn't bothered.
The good side to the snow is that Bruce's school was closed, putting the exam schedule back a day. This means that the PD day will be on Monday and he won't have to start teaching until Tuesday.
Our next major concern is getting a car, we were going to look today but the snow stopped that so it will have to be Thursday.
