Too many women

Today I undertook a 50km round trip involving buses, trains and a taxi (almost a ferry) in order to pick up Tuan Tuan. Apparently Baozi was pining. She was yearning for a house mate of a similar age (now 8 weeks). Apparently the only shop containing another female guinea pig in the whole of New South Wales was in Blacktown. Blacktown is very cool. We ate a superb arabian lunch before ambling around a bit and then going in search of the pet shop. Tuan Tuan is rather pretty. I'm quite attached to her (I did have to carry her for 25km!). It's also rather clear now how huge baozi is. She dominates the cage. Baozi has decided that it's fun to run back and forth between the two little huts that we've set up. The fact that Tuan Tuan is sometimes in the way doesn't seem to be considered. Tuan Tuan has provided us with a new set of Guinea Pig vocabulary (see this for a webpage that you probably never thought existed!)

Barking baozi has arrived!

Barking baozi ...

... did not arrive :( She got lost.

A few more photos

Frightening Sha in London

We went to London today! We started off at Buckingham Palace and saw the Queen's mail being delivered by horse drawn coaches. We then ambled through Green Park to jump on the tube to take us to Oxford Road. Sha spotted an interesting shop or two :) We finally ended up at the British Museum to find out how many objects had been stolen by the British during the destruction of the Old Summer Palace. Strangely enough there were not many signs giving us this sort of information.

After seeing a few mummies we headed off towards Pollock's Toy Museum. Sha was expected some "cute, pink dolls", but ended up rather scared and shocked. The "toys" were old. Very old. There were paper cranes made by children in hospital in Hiroshima. "The belief is that if you make a thousand cranes your will will come true" - it didn't say what their wish was. There was also an interesting "Jack and Jill Put on Uniform" where "thousands of Jills are Land Girls today. Some are helping in the dairies, others in the fields ..."

We continued on to Baker Street to see the Sherlock Holmes museum. That was fun!

... and then back ... to have a great dinner with Emma, watch the TV with Alexander and then amble back (via the pub) to our hotel. Back to Australia tomorrow!

Sunburnt in Wales

I wonder how many people have a blog entry entitled "sunburnt in Wales"? Actually quite a few!! I've just googled it! Apparently a Female, Aged 26, got sunburnt in Wales ... so did James! Anyway, Sha and I had a wonderful time with grandma, Faith and Mel in Wales and have just had another wonderful time with mum, Emma, Peter and Alexander in London.

We saw lots of castles in Wales. Grandma made us walk for miles. Sha and Mel cooked! I drank beer.

We saw the London Marathon today. We didn't take part. We also saw a dodo. Apparently the London cucumber is better than the Barcelona cucumber. We ate at Wimpy.

So many images!

A few days ago we were in Barcelona. Mum, Sha and I ambled around the city seeing the sights, walking up the hill, looking in the Cathedral, eating Tapas (including cuttlefish) ... Now we've just got back from the Louvre, after yesterday visiting Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Between the two I drove about 1100km from Barcelona to Paris in a small, manual Ford Fiesta. Mum promised me that I'd have time to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road and with a manual car ... she helped by navigating us straight through the centre of Barcelona!

We stopped the first night in Bezier (after crossing the spectacular Pyrenees - which allowed me to remember how to do a hill start in a manual!) and stopping to splash ourselves in the Mediterranean. Bezier is frightening. The roads were clearly made about 800 years ago and haven't changed since. You drive down the cobbled streets dodging the parked cars, motorbikes, people and various random obstacles. Then you find the hotel. It has no parking spot. You end up parking in a small dingy garage (made only about 600 years ago) which involved a 200-point turn to get into. Then you drink a lot of beer.

The following day we drove across the highest motorway in Europe which stayed above 1km high for quite a long time! The scenery really was amazing. Then we arrived in Paris. We got stuck in a traffic jam. French drivers are ... ummm ... interesting. We didn't crash. We didn't even scratch the car! Finally we arrived to dump the car at the CDG airport which was closed. What a journey! Now we just have to find a way of getting to England, Wales and then back to Australia.