Matt and Kat Brown

We’re back in NZ right now and will be here till the end of the year. It’s wonderful to be home and spend some quality time with family, see old friends and enjoy cafes and places we haven’t been in ages. We arrived into NZ on Oct 27th – nearly 3 weeks ago already and we’ve been pretty busy since then with family and friends to see, a wedding to help with and some house hunting too.

Last weekend was Andrew and Sarah’s wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony and a fun day with both Matt and I in the bridal party. Seeing Andy and Sarah together over the last few weeks it’s been obvious how in love and committed they are – a long and happy marriage lies ahead for those two! And as an added bonus I’m delighted to be welcoming another Mrs Brown to the family

Speaking of weddings, today is the 5th anniversary of the day Matt and I tied the knot! It’s been an amazing 5 years when I consider how much we’ve been blessed with and all the fun memories. I wonder what the next 5 years holds?… We’re heading off to the Hawkes Bay area this weekend to celebrate.

The next 5 weeks promise to be busy. We’re looking for a house to buy in Hamilton at the moment – something we can rent out with the possibility that we may live in it at some yet-to-be-determined time in the future when we return to NZ. Buying a house is a complicated business really and made more difficult because most properties seem to be going up for auction right now. It’s frustrating to be unsure of the exact sale price of a house and the high pressure of buying unconditionally at auction is a bit unnerving to me!

Also coming up soon: 1 week in Sydney (Matt working at the Google office, me checking out the city) & Christmas!!!

We’d love to catch up with everyone while we’re home but we’re fairly disorganised at contacting people and arranging our schedule so if you haven’t seen us yet and you’d like to, please flick us an email so we can arrange a catch up!

Last week in Zurich was nice and relaxing. I enjoyed sleeping in and spending afternoons visiting different places in the city. I visited a Museum of Design one day and the Zurich zoo on another. I wandered around the old city and browsed the shops a lot.

Zurich seemed very orderly and very expensive. The people there were generally quite reserved. Nobody smiled on the tram and most people are quite unwilling to speak English. Despite this the city is nice to explore because everything is so clean and organised with great tram, train and boat services. The city really runs like clockwork.

I was able to meet Matt at the Google offices for dinner a couple of nights and I enjoyed getting the grand tour. Pictures of the Zurich offices have been much discussed and puzzled over online ever since the makeover last year. It was cool to see each of the zany ideas in reality. My favorite part was lying in a bathtub filled with foam and watching the fishes in the fish tank. A bit surreal really.

I wasn’t allowed to take any photos Mum, but I can tell you I did try out the twisty metal slide that goes down to the cafeteria and it was somewhat embarrassing

On the Saturday before we left we took a boat down the lake to a town called Rapperswil. The slow cruise gave us good views of the houses and vine yards along the lakeside, very pretty. We walked around Rapperswil a bit and then met some of Matt’s colleagues in the afternoon for a UK beer and cheese tasting event! It was a little ironic to be ordering a stout and a wedge of wensleydale while in Switzerland but it was an enjoyable afternoon and evening with good company and tasty food.

Early on Sunday we headed off to the airport. We shed all our remaining swiss francs at the airport plus a wee bit more when we stocked up on toblerone, lindt and some luxemburgerli yum yum!!!

The only thing I didn’t do while in Switzerland which I still want to try is a  fondue dinner. Warm summer evenings are not well suited to meals of melted cheese so I think we’ll have to plan a return visit to Zurich in winter when the city is cold and snowy.

Ever since we booked our cruise holiday in January I’ve been eagerly awaiting May 29th, excited to flee the grey cold weather of Dublin and cruise the Caribbean in style with our fabulous friends Kieron, Lucy, Joey and Robbie.

There was so much packed into our holiday last week that I don’t know where to begin in describing it. Lets just say it was 9 days of fabulousness! Memories of our tropical sunny holiday will keep me warm through the Irish ’summer’

We arrived in Miami on the afternoon of Friday 29th. We spent that evening soaking in the ambiance of South Beach, people-watching and sipping cocktails. On Saturday we boarded the ‘Liberty of the Seas’ and settled into our home for the week. Sunday we cruised towards Haiti and Monday we relaxed on the private beach of Labadee. Tuesday we rafted down a jungle river in Jamaica. Wednesday we snorkeled and swum with stingrays in Grand Cayman. Thursday we snorkeled in Mexico and Friday we cruised back towards Miami and bid a grudging farewell to the Caribbean.  On Saturday we left the ship early and managed to squeeze in some speed-shopping at Aventura in Miami before our flight home.

That is our holiday in brief. I can’t really do justice to all that we saw and did or to the fun times we had but here are a few memories in no particular order :

• The Liberty of the Seas – The cruise ship itself was truly impressive. Like a small city floating around the Caribbean. Liberty of the Seas is complete with mini-golf, movie theatre, ice skating rink, climbing wall, shops and restaurants, water desalination plant, tv production studio, you name it!
• Swimming in the sea – The water was so clear and calm. I’ve never swum in such warm ocean before! I’m quite a wimp when it comes to even slightly cold water but the sea in the Caribbean is perfect, like swimming in bathwater! The blue sky and the brilliant blues and greens of the water are beautiful. Sigh. Perfection.
• Stingrays – in Grand Cayman we took a tour out to Stingray bay, a sand bar where huge stingrays will swim around you and let you hold them! It was scary stepping into the clear blue water and seeing the black shapes gliding around under the surface. It freaked me out completely to feel the stingrays brushing past my legs as they swam between us. But it was fun haha
• Formal Dress – I loved dressing up for the 2 formal nights on the boat. We girls got to glam it up in our cocktail dresses and the boys held up their side too looking very dashing in their tuxedos.
• Shopping – Well, this is more of a highlight for me than for Matt but I had a great time shopping with Lucy and Robbie in Miami. Forever 21 is my new favourite store. If only they would open a store a little closer to here…
• Sunsets – We saw some gorgeous sunsets while on holiday. The first one in Miami and then a few nights onbaord the ship. I love how a sunset never looks exactly the same as the night before.
• The little things – It was the small things that made the cruise feel luxurious, like the origami towel animals left on our bed each night by the room attendant and the attentive waiters at dinner each night who placed your napkin on your lap and brushed the crumbs off the table before dessert with their little table combs hehe.
• Food – The food, oh my, the food. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much in one week. A cruise holiday is all inclusive meaning you can eat all you want and it doesn’t cost you anything more… Expansive breakfast buffets, all day snacks and 3 course dinners. We took full advantage of all of it mmmm yum! The calories don’t count when you’re on holiday don’t ya know
• Lightning storm – On our last night on board the weather turned dark and stormy. We looked out to sea and watched the storm.  It was awesome to see the bolts of lightning flash across the night sky.
• Fabulous Friends – Holidays are infinitely better when you have good company to enjoy them with!!! Thanks for the amazing holiday guys

Check out all the holiday photos in our gallery here.

Thursday morning saw us make an early start from Avignon as we tried to fit in a quick trip to Carcassonne to see the walled city that one of our favourite board games is named after before catching our train to Barcelona from Montpellier in the early afternoon, a total of roughly 400km of driving. Thanks to the French motorway system and the generous 130km/h speed limit we managed this in just under 4 hours which gave us just enough time for a quick visit and a few photos in Carcassonne itself!

The old city of Carcassone sits high on a hill looking out over the surrounding valleys and the walls and fortifications have been immaculately preserved. The scale is impressive and you have to wonder how any attacking army would have thought they had a chance of breaching the multiple layers of walls and moat/cliffs surrounding them. These days the inside of the fortified city is full of little tourist shops and stalls, the modern day city of Carcassonne is spread around the base of the hill. Our visit was brief but we enjoyed the views, especially as we could see some snow covered alps to the south which made a nice contrast the the warm environment and surroundings of Carcassonne.

The train from Montpellier to Barcelona was fairly old and rickety, but it went slow enough that we had plenty of time to admire the coast line and scenery that we passed through. We arrived into Barcelona early in the evening and checked into the hostel. Before we arrived in Barcelona we’d been told many times to watch for pick pockets and the staff at the hostel repeated this warning in a fairly dire tone, almost like it was inevitable that we would fall victim. Despite that we never saw any sign of trouble, even in the crowded subways or walking Las Ramblas after midnight, but we were definitely watching over our shoulders constantly. While I’m sure the problem exists, I have to wonder if it is over-hyped, it would have been nice to wander through the city without having pickpocketing constantly on the mind!

We spent most of Friday exploring the Gaudi parts of the city, starting at the Sagrada Familia and continuing on to the Park Guell in the afternoon. The Sagrada Familia was definitely a highlight, possibly of the entire holiday. The building is amazing, both in design and construction but also for the fact that it has been under construction since 1882 and is nowhere near finished yet! The style and shape is like nothing you’ve seen before. We took a tour through the inside of the church which is currently a builders workshop where you watch the workers crafting the custom mouldings and pieces of the church. It is scheduled to open as an actual church sometime in 2010. Park Guell continued the Gaudi theme with lots of spiral styled pillars and mosaics. For a single artist/architect Gaudi has left a very distinct mark on Barcelona.

On Friday evening we tried to visit the Font Monjuic on Monjuic mountain, an impressive fountain lit by a multitude of lights that performs in time with music every evening. Unfortunately the fountain turns out to also be in the middle of the Barcelona convention centre area where there was some sort of auto show on. Toyota had taken the opportunity to exclude the public from the area and put up giant inflatable tents that obscured most views of the fountain. A sad end to the day, but we tried to make the best of it by climbing to the top of the mountain to watch the sun set over the city. We dined Spanish style around 10pm at a delicious Tapas restaurant near to our hostel. Needless to say that every meal we had in Barcelona was delightful and ridiculously cheap (compared to Dublin standards) too!

By Saturday, the last day of the holiday, our feet were getting pretty tired of walking and exploring so we spent most of the day exploring Barcelona’s beautiful leafy parks and testing the park benches. Barcelona really is a beautiful city with lots of green spaces and plenty of families and friends out enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

Barcelona was definitely my favourite city of all the places we visited, followed closely by Aix-en-Provence. As lucky as we are to have been able to spend 8 days in such a wonderful part of the world, I can’t help but think that we need to spend much more time there to really get a feel for the place and pick up some more of the language and culture. If only Google had an engineering office in Barcelona…

Photos from the last portion of the trip are in the gallery as per usual:

• Carcassonne
• Barcelona

We came home with over 600 photos between our two cameras and spent a good few hours today sifting through them and writing some captions.

The first installment can be found via the link below:

• Photos from Nice, Monaco and the Cote d’Azur

More to come in the following days as we find some more time to edit and caption the rest.

It’s been a tough Monday getting back into the swing of things after our weekend away. Truthfully I’d much prefer to have spent my Monday relaxing in a piazza in Florence, sipping wine and eating antipasto.

We flew into Pisa airport late on Friday and on Saturday we spent the day in Pisa. In the morning we went looking for some geo-caches, before most of the town had woken up. We wandered through the old town and eventually ended up where all tourists in Pisa end up – at the Leaning Tower. Yes it does lean, quite a lot actually. We laughed at all the funny contortions of tourists as they took cheesy photos pretending to hold up / kick down the tower, and then we took some cheesy pics of our own

We spent the remainder of the day exploring the main street, doing a spot of shopping and eating some gelato – yum! Meals were an adventure as neither of us know any Italian.  It was worth the effort to venture out of the tourist area to eat, we made a point of going to a place without an ‘English’ menu for dinner. Ordering was hit and miss but overall led to some good food.

Feeling that we’d exhausted all Pisa could offer us on Saturday we decided to take the train to Firenze (Florence) on Sunday. It was a good day to be on the train as it rained heavily for a lot of the day. From what we saw of Florence in between downpours it seemed like a beautiful city. Looking out over the river Arno and walking over the Ponte Vecchio was a highlight for me.

We took the train back to Pisa in the afternoon ready to catch our flight home. Photos from the weekend are in our gallery.

Over the weekend I found the slow, relaxed pace of life a little… frustrating.  Shops not open when I wanted them to be and restaurants still empty at 8pm when we wanted to eat.   A two day visit isn’t really enough time to settle into the ‘go slow’ that would make Tuscany so appealing on a longer more relaxing vacation.  I’m happy with the small taste we had but can definitely see potential for a long lazy holiday there in the future – sipping wine and reading a good book, soaking in the ambiance… bellissimo!

Already over a week since we were Scotland and I’m only just getting around to writing about our second day there! The new year is certainly off to a roaring start.

On Day 2 (Dec 28) we started out from Inverness on a very cold, frosty and foggy morning and attempted to see some more of Loch Ness, given that it was pitch dark and foggy by the time we arrived in the area the day before. We did manage to get a glimpse of the northern tip, but the fog didn’t really seem to be in a hurry to move and show us much more than that so we pressed onwards towards Aberdeen in search of some castles for Kat. Unfortunately when we arrived at the main castle on our list we found it completely covered in scaffolding and looking like a plain white box. Not to be deterred we pressed on and found a few other castles to look at and then stayed for the night in a converted castle just outside of Aberdeen.

We’ve been doing some Geocaching on our travels as an interesting way to see some sights off the beaten track. Our success rate was 6 out of 8 and declined seriously as the trip progressed. We found 2 on the first day, four on the second and then none for the rest of the trip!

Day 3 was a bit of a rush as we hurried down from Aberdeen to get to Falkirk (following a circuitous route through a golf course and some random back roads thanks to some dodgy Google Maps directions) in time to see the Falkirk Wheel in action. Outside of the Hogmanay activities, the Falkirk Wheel was probably the highlight of the trip for me. The wheel is basically a large canal lock which very efficiently transfers boats between two canals just outside of Edinburgh. A magnificent and beautiful piece of engineering.

The reason for our haste this day was that we needed to get into Edinburgh, drop off the car and get to our accomodation in time to be in the central city by 6pm for the Hogmanay Torch Procession. 20,000 people carrying flaming torches through the center of Edinburgh up onto the top of a hill where they let of lots of fireworks and light a huge Lion shaped bonfire. An excellent way to kick of the Hogmanay celebrations.

The rest of Hogmanay was just as good, including the New Years Eve street party in the middle of the city. They reckoned there were 100,000 people there, all remarkable well behaved despite the free flowing beer and wine. No drunkenness or stupidity like you’d expect at a similar event in New Zealand or Ireland! We had a great time. The fireworks were again spectacular with short bursts every hour from 9pm until midnight and then a long display to see in the new year.

So, all in all, Scotland rates highly in our book. Our biggest mistake was trying to see too much of the countryside in the first few days. We didn’t really factor in the fog and early sunset at that time of year (around 3:30pm) which means that we will definitely need to return at some point to do justice to the beautiful scenery that we glimpsed as we rushed through.

Photos from the trip are up:

• As one big gallery
• or individually
• Day 1 – Glasgow to Inverness
• Day 2 – Inverness to Aberdeen
• Day 3 – Aberdeen to Falkirk
• Hogmanay Torch Parade
• Hogmanay 2008

Our Scotland jaunt started last night when arrived at Prestwick Airport after only a short delay from our Ryan Air flight. We picked up our hire car and made it into Glasgow for the night without incident. Our hotel room for the night  (Ibis) was serviceable (and a carbon-copy of the room layout of the Ibis hotel in Bratislava!) if not particularly cozy and we were glad to get on the road in the morning.

We picked up a pay-as-you-go 3G internet pack in Glasgow so that we could use Google Maps and some navigation applications in conjunction with the GPS on the new Android phone that Matt got for Christmas from Google. While Kat battled with the 3G modem Matt took a wrong turn and ended up driving for 30 minutes in completely the wrong direction! Eventually we managed to get both the 3G and our bearings sorted out and got out of the Glasgow area (in the right direction this time) just before lunch. Having the GPS and Google Maps as we drove along was very interesting and useful, although the Internet eventually cut out as we got into the really nice scenery leaving us with just the GPS.

The landscape was beautiful, lots of lochs, grand mountain scenes and plenty of frost on the ground. We were glad for our hats and gloves! We had come prepared and managed to find and log 2 out of the 2 geocaches that we attempted along the way. By 3:30 it was starting to get dark and we were only just half way to Inverness. We captured some beautiful sunset photos looking west across Loch Linnhe around 4pm and then drove the rest of the way to Inverness (alongside Loch Ness) in the dark and gloomy fog. No sign of Nessie!

Stay tuned for more news tommorrow (maybe, depending on time and internet access :p)!

I’ve had 2 great days in New York so far. My flight arrived late and amid torrential rain and turbulence on Saturday night. By the time I got through immigration I was very tired and very very glad to see Matt waiting for me! Interestingly, I had trouble at immigration because they couldn’t get their system to match my fingerprints to the results they already had on their system from my last transit through LAX?! While the border control staff were all very friendly it was still a bit unnerving to have to go to the back office and wait for them to scrutinise my passport! So apparently I have difficult fingerprints… Who knew.

The weather was much improved by Sunday morning and we spent the day strolling through the different areas of Manhattan. As we walked through Chelsea and Greenwich Village I was very taken by the leafy tree lined streets and the gorgeous boutique stores and cafes. Definitely an area I could spend more time in! We also walked through Chinatown and visited Grand Central Station and Times Square. Tired feet by the end of the day!

Yesterday we spent some time in Central Park. It’s an amazing place, huge and sprawling. When you’re in the midst of it it’s hard to believe you’re still in the middle of New York! We walked around the lake, ate hot dogs, and Matt spent some time experimenting with his new camera lenses.

In the evening we headed back to Times Square. Since none of the Broadway shows we wanted to see were available we decided to go for the low budget option and see a movie instead at the AMC Empire 25 on Times Square. Times Square by night is pretty impressive. The mad kaleidoscope of colors from all the flashing signs and billboards provided Matt with more opportunity to practice using his SLR.

Today Matt is back at work and I’m working a half day too. The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse so we might be putting off plans to go up the Empire State Building tonight… will have to see how it goes. We hope to have some photos up soon!

Last weekend we took a trip to Belgium, staying in Brussels and visiting nearby Bruges. As with any weekend trip it flew by too quickly and left us very tired by Monday morning. But we did have a great time away and really enjoyed visiting Bruges, sampling the local fare and snapping photos around the city.

A cheap and nasty Ryan Air flight plus a 1 hour coach ride plus a short metro trip got us into Brussels at midnight on Friday. We were very pleased to step into Hotel Bloom and relax. The funky decor and gorgeous comfy room were the perfect beginning to our weekend. Would definitely recommend Bloom to anyone traveling to Brussels!

We strolled Brussels on Saturday morning stopping by the Grand Place and the city’s signature statue ‘Mannekin Pis’. We were very surprised by the level of graffiti around some of the city and thought the litter problem there may just exceed that of Dublin! By lunch time we decided we’d like to take a train to Bruges as we’d heard great things about it and also recently seen the movie of the same name.

Bruges was only about an hour away and was really delightful to visit. While a bit touristy it was still very nice with its canals and old cobble stone paved streets. We ate frites in the central square and then climbed the 366 steps to the top of the Belfroi to look down on the town. It was a dizzying climb up the old spiral stairs but well worth it at the top. We got to hear the church bells ringing close up which was quite interesting.

No trip to Belgium would be complete without trying some Belgian beer so we searched out a bar with some space outdoors and sat by the canal for some pre-dinner drinks and enjoyed the quiet ambiance. I’m not a beer drinker at all but I tried the Framboise (Rasberry fruit beer) and found it quite nice. We ate at a lovely restaurant and were very pleased with the creme brulee for dessert!

On Sunday we took a Metro just out of the center to visit the Atomium, a giant monument building from the World Expo in 1958. Big and shiny it seemed a very modern design for something built 50 years ago. It has 9 steel spheres that you can walk between, connected in the shape of an iron crystal. Nice views of the city from the very top but the wait to go up there was very long.

After a very nice but slightly touristy lunch back in the center of Brussels we raced to catch our coach to the airport. As it turned out we needn’t have rushed ourselves as our flight ended up being delayed by 5 hours! Not the nicest finish to the weekend as we had to be held in the boarding area for several hours before being transported to Liege to fly out on a different plane.

Overall, a great weekend. Well worth the trip and I feel we got a good idea of the country and the culture even in the very short time we were there. Now that we’ve recovered from the busy weekend and the late arrival home its back into the swing of things. Matt’s birthday tomorrow and then Matt is off to New York on Sunday for 3 1/2 weeks of work in the US offices! Luckily I’ve been able to arrange to go over for 1 week in the middle of that so it’s not so long apart. I’m very excited about visiting the big apple for the first time!!! We’ll have more blog posts over the next few weeks to keep you posted on our travels.

xx Kat