How to lose a house deposit in 12 months

Saturday, 06 March 2010

Location: Cookham, UK

Alriiiight - just a quick hello to all those people who keep harassing us to put up an update and those who haven't harassed us but keep checking back in blind hope that one day we will actually update this page.

We are now in Cookham which is a cute little village in the English countryside where we have internet access and not that much to do and 3 months in which to do it, so we're gonna get things updated! You will note that we have occassionally added photos, but today we have also added a new diary entry dated 12 Jan 2010 from Cancun :)

If we've learned nothing else from the last three months we now know that we are not and never will be dilligent bloggers, so sorry about that, but we are trying...

xo

Saturday, 30 January 2010

Location: New York, USA

So we're not dead... but only just. We're still in NYC and lovin it, off to freezing cold Toronto tomorrow to stay with Noosh's sister and bro i n law, where we anticipate not leaving the house much, if at all, so hopefully we will manage to get ourselves completely updated very soon.
Til then we hope everyone had a super Australia Day. We love hearing all the goss, so by all means let us know if there's anything we've missed :)
xoxo

Thursday, 21 January 2010

Location: Baltimore, USA

Good morning Baltimore!! For those who know us well (or were subjected to our singing on road trips Mads, Margie, Carol...) you would appreciate how excited we are to be here in the home of Hairspray! Yesterday our wonderful, obliging and enthusiastic host Freddie took us shopping around to find winter coats and boots, so now we are geared up and ready to face the North American winter, at least a bit better.
We have again been negligent in our writings and are preparing another mammoth update of all things Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Florida, so feel free to skip over that one when it comes out, or set aside some time for some light reading.
Over the next 2 days we intend to do a Hairspray tour of Baltimore and visit the nation's capital, Washington DC, which is only and hour or so from here.
Stand by for lots and lots of photos, probably in the very distant future given our track record... :)

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Location: Cancun, Mexico

Once again we haven’t been all that diligent in putting up posts. The last time we wrote I think we were heading to Playa del Carmen. We left Cancun that day at about 11am. We’d somehow acquired another person on our travels, Sami from Sydney who we met at our hostel in Cancun. He was heading to Playa for a music festival that had started in Playa earlier in the month and was finishing up that weekend. The bus trip from Cancun to Playa was uneventful. When we got to Playa we could tell why people kept telling us that we had to go. It is beautiful, the main shopping strip including the bus station is located near the water and that’s where we went first, backpacks and all. We soon realized that we needed to find a hotel to dump our backpacks so we could crash on the beach. We found a nice little hotel close enough to the beach which required two keys to get in, one for the padlock at the gate and other for the room. Julia, Sami and I shared a room, but unfortunately we were only given one copy of each key.
The three of us hit the beach straight away. You can hire deck chairs on the beach outside the beach front restaurants where they wait on you so you don’t have to lift a finger. We had a bucket of beers together and lunch before the sun started to come down. We returned to our rooms to get ready for that night. We’d been informed that the night life in Playa del Carmen was fantastic.
Before Sami headed off to his music festival we went out for some drinks at various bars and ended up at a club/bar that unfortunately did not live up to all the hype. Nonetheless we did have a fantastic time, Julia and I left early because we had a day of snorkeling and lying on beach planned for the next day in Cozumel (an island 3 hours by ferry from Playa).
Sami returned back to the room in the wee hours of the morning….and he wasn’t fairing too well. He wasn’t feeling all that great that day but by the time he’d come back from the festival he was in worse shape. Let’s just say Julia and I were glad we had plans for the next day. There was a lot of ‘punishing the sewerage system’ that day.
The next day Julia and I got up early ready to go to Cozumel, but alas it was raining and there were strong winds so the company that was supposed to take us out snorkeling weren’t taking boats out. So rather than going back to the hotel room Julia and I decided to brave the rain and go to Tulum. Tulum is an hour bus ride south of Playa del Carmen. Its famous for its beautiful mayan ruins situated on the coastline. Basically the ruins in Tulum in their day were used by the Mayans as a significant trading port. It was also the last ruins that were abandoned by the Mayans after the Spanish invaded Mexico. It is a absolutely beautiful place despite the rain. We spent some time walking around the ruins site before grabbing a bite to eat and heading into to town to catch our bus back to Playa del Carmen.
Once we got back to Playa, Sami was still pretty ill so Julia and I headed out again to look around. Playa is very touristy, the main shopping strip has almost every American food, clothing and coffee shop that you want. There are of course the usual people sitting outside shops hassling you to come in and buy something. If you ignore them they come out with some of the best lines like, ‘almost free’, ‘100% off’ or ‘what about a Mexican boyfriend for tonight’. There are also plenty of restaurants, dos por uno drinks and a number of tattoo parlors. The coastline is littered with restaurants, bars and of course massive hotels. Everyone hear can speak some if not good English so it’s not hard to get around and find what you’re looking for.
We were going to meet up with our another friend we made at the hostel in Cancun, a guy from Uzbekistan (very random we know), but he ended up not being able to find our hotel till 11:30pm and Sami couldn’t let him in coz Julia and I had the key. That night we went to the tequila barrel for beers :) before heading to a place which I think was called maya coco. I think had it not been so extremely cold it would have been a great place because it was right on the beach. That night lucky for us it was ladies night and ladies drank for free. The music could have been better but other than that it was fun. Unfortunately some ladies had taken full advantage of the free drinks, to the extent that one ‘lady’ fell various time on the dance floor after pashing a midget and eventually passed out on a chair. She kept us quite entertained until she stepped on my foot with her heel!
The next day Julia and I again tried to head over to Cozumel for a day of snorkeling. Unfortunately the winds were still too string so we decided to have breakfast with Sami (who was determined to feel better and head to the last day of the music festival) then head back to Cancun. We returned to the same hostel we were at the first time we were in Cancun, did some shopping and on our way back decide to purchase tickets to Coco Bongo, a place that can only be described as a super club with show.
We headed out to Coco Bongo where we waited outside in a line for aaaages. It was so very cold. By the time we actually made it in we were not in the best of moods, and had high expectations of the place. It didn’t get better. There were so many people it was impossible to move, let alone find the bar. We figure that if a fire were to start in that place no one was getting out. After being pushed around by the crowd and finding it near impossible to get a drink we’d just about had it and went to leave, when we found an accessible bar. Having paid for several hours of drinks we decided to at least get our moneys worth so stopped there for a few, and thought we should give the place one last try before heading home. Well, I reakon about half the number of people had left and there was actually room to move, so we stayed and had a fantastic time! It really was quite cool, there was tickertape, balloons, dancing and great fun. Ended up being a great night, once it got going.
Next day we spent trying to post things home (they don’t let you send anything unless it is made in Mexico FYI – not sure why) and consuming our favourite Mexican delights for the last time before our stoopid early flight to Miami the next day. Just FYI, Mexicans make the BEST hot chocolate! Amazing!!

Saturday, 09 January 2010

Location: Cancun, Mexico

Hello hello from trashy Cancun - we love it! Firstly, apologies for the last two volumes, and congratulations to those who stuck iy out and read them! we promise to try our hardest to never let that happen again – there’s just so much to tell y’all…
So we’ve been here for a couple of days now after the overnight bus from hell from Palenque. It wasn’t that bad really, but it sucked a fair bit. Anyhoo, Cancun. Been pretty fun so far. Didn't do a whole lot on our first day here as we had to save ourselves for a looooong day-trip to Chichen Itza, one of the new wonders of the world. To be honest, while I was enthused about going to see said ruins I wasn't all that convinced that it would live up to wonder-of-the-world status - so totally did.
Our little tour took us first to a cenote (sink hole) which is a massive underground pool I guess you'd call it, kinda in a cave... anyhoo it was cool, we liked it. Then after a massive buffet lunch (one of the selling points of the tour) we headed to the ruins. Our guide was pretty good and we learned lots of crazy amazing things about the Mayans. They were a smart bunch, a little too smart if you ask me, kinda to the point of freaky. PS the whole 2012 thing, the end of the Mayan calendar, not the world. Our guide assured us that we should feel free to make plans beyond December 2012.
The ruins are pretty cool, except for all the locals trying to sell you all their crap (a lot of which we would have bought were it not for space and cash restrictions) and we had a great afternoon wandering in awe at the incredible things they did and appeared to know. Twas a good day which turned into a massive night.
We got back from Chichen Itza about 8ish and then headed out on the town with a bunch of people from our hostel. Had a great night, but let's just say there were some very sore heads this morning, as well as mild cases of amnesia. We spent today feeling sorry for ourselves, eating greasy food and desperately searching for the beach, which we did eventually find. All the resorts have a massive monopoly over the beaches so you have to find one of the public entrances (few and far between and we found quite difficult to spot) or you walk through a hotel lobby.
Tomorrow we head to Playa del Carmen with our new friends, a random combination of people we met at our hostel which includes an Aussie a Columbian and an Uzbekistani, for some snorkeling and maybe swimming with the dolphins or something. who knows.

In sad news Noosh has made the decision to throw away our packet emergency 2 minute noodles, which she has been carrying since Paraty, Brazil. Apparently they now resemble something more like dust, so I guess it was the right decision.

Wednesday, 06 January 2010

Location: Cancun, Mexico

Hi everyone,

This is a bit of a side to our usual blog. I thought all you fellow chili eaters would love to hear about how great the food is in Mexico. Not only is the food super tasty but everything including breakfast comes with a side of chili. This could be chili sauce (green or red), chili salsa, jalapeños, a type of spicy guacamole or Tabasco. If you’re lucky you might get all of these plus wedges of lime.

I am loving Mexican food!

xoxo
Noosh