Eva and Les

We reluctantly checked out of our hotel - it was such a fun and friendly place, and we went out to pickup our car and it all happenned smoothly. We got a Ford Taurus, which I do NOT like at all. It had a column auto shift and it beeped at us annoyingly for whatever we did not do (like putting on seat belts, having the key in the ignition but motor not running, not eating chocolate for 5 mins - OK I made that last one up). We did get used to it after a while. Nifty navigator Eva (I call her Genius in Positioning Selves or GPS for short) got us through San Francisco easily and we crossed the Grey Ghost in partial fog again, but we would have another chance on the way back as Napa is North of SF and after Napa we will come back down south and go along the west coast from SF to LA (OK?). We headed along busy highways for about an hour and found the Napa Visitors Centre OK, and Sylvia there booked us into a nice hotel in the middle of the "Napa strip" of wineries at Rutherford...

Does time speed up towards the end of a holiday? Sure seems like it and there is so much we want to do! Good way to be I guess. The trip from Montreal was quite long with a delay at Chicago and the 3 hour time difference (backwards) made the day very long. When we arrived at San Francisco we decided to get a cab in to the hotel as it was easiest, even though the alternative of BART (train) was far cheaper. Turns out it was a good move as the taxi driver was so friendly telling us of his move to SF in the "love years", being the 60's, and of his family as well as very many tips about SF, where to go etc. What a great introduction to this very friendly city! Our hotel (Compton Place) is a block from Union Square which is a great central part of SF and easy to get other transport and walk from - as long as you know which way to go to avoid the hills! We decided to make the most of our time and ventured out for a walk. It was a little chilly, probably 16 degrees with a ...

Well, Chicago the musical was excellent, with a very unusual set design of a large tiered platform for the orchestra taking up most of the stage, which meant the dancers were really at the front of the stage so we could see extremely well. We had coffee and New York Cheesecake opposite the theatre and the man who played the lawyer in Chicago had his dinner at the next table. It was fun. We got a car to the airport the next morning and arrived in plenty of time, and our flight was delayed by an hour or so (did I say already that I don't like airports ...grrrr..). Miri and Robi were waiting for us at Montreal airport, and it was so good to finally meet. The relationship is that Miri's father was the older brother of my grandmother, making my mother and Miri first cousins - but whatever the relationship is called, the four of us have had such a wonderful time together, it has been fantastic. Robi drove us to their home on the 5th floor of a very lovely apartment block and to...

Wow! Up to now I thought we had been really pushing ourselves each day, but New York has SO much to do that we had a fantastic week, and collapsed late at the end of each day, to start the next one early! We arrived very late, with the time difference it was something like 4am and there was a very long line at immigration (and we were at the end). It was all straight forward though and our taxi driver made good time, but was pissed off when I gave him $50 for a $49 ride (it was all I had). No tips? he asked. The Sofitel on 45 West 44th is a fantastic hotel. So nice, quiet, comfortable with wonderful furnishings but not overdone in any way. Our room was large and we greedily sought out the solace of the bed. Surprisingly, we woke at 7am (we had gotten to bed at 2am local time) and we were raring to go! I thought I'd sent Laci and Marilyn an email from Munich (later found it had bounced) and so I thought they would contact me, and we set out. We managed to change some money (no...

Well, we did get to the Arabia museum/shop in Helsinki and it was fun using their trams. We couldn't work out how to pay on the trip out, so had a free ride! The Arabia factory was huge and incorporated a Design University of some sort on its 5th floor. The bottom floor was a shop that sold much more than Arabia things and there were other shops as well selling fabrics, pots etc. It was OK to look around in, but basically just shopping! The museum on the 9th floor was very well laid out with examples of Arabia design of their plates etc as well as artworks of their designers. It really highlighted the relationship of art and functional design. I saw an example of the sunflower Arabia plate we have but we didn't stay too long as it was SO hot. We concluded that Helsinki is not hot for very long and so they don't have air con anywhere! We went back into town and did some more last minute shopping and looking at design places and got the bus to the airport. The airport. Wh...

A rare photo of Les - about to get some exercise lifting up a cup of coffee.

Eva outside the Cathedral in Helsinki

I'm slowly getting the hang of blogs and have now added some photos, so check out the posts below for some piccies. I seem to be only able to add one picture per post (is there another way Ben??). Anyhow, back to the saga! We did a last minute 2 hour shop for Eva and a 2 hour walk to discover parks for Les in Stockholm and then we headed out on the train to the airport. We arrived in time, but had to queue for nearly an hour to get checked in! And then the flight was delayed half an hour which was just as well as we (or our luggage) may not have made it. The flight was about 2 hours and the time difference was 1 hour, so we are back to daylight till midnight now, which is great. We found the hotel, (Seurahuone) after getting a bus from Helsinki airport that took about three quarters of an hour to get in. The frightening part is that the traffic going the other way was heavy and we will have to get through that going back! We decided to go for a few hour walk which we did ...