Allen and Nikki's Excellent Adventure

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So when we last left the story we had (amazingly) returned to good 'ol US of A.... where we basically couch surfed for 3 months straight.... you think I'm exaggerating** ....but, no, seriously, we've been on the move - visiting family and friends - for 3 solid months.

Pray tell, what were we doing during all that time ...... well, we ....

... caught lots of fish out at the beach house in San Diego

Allen catches a bat ray and a corvina in one cast

... soaked in the SoCal sun....

... played in some fierce game nights...

... then we headed up to SanFran to ...

... hug trees ...
... play with other friend's toys ...

"I want to ride my bicycle"

... visit the great outdoors ...
... root for Holland in the World Cup...

... and see some really freaky SanFran fog...

... then we hopped back over to Brooklyn and joined the Zany Umbrella circus for a day....

Check out those roadies

... then we headed down South to KY to play on a boat...

I'M ON A BOAT!***

... then in NC we were able to spend time with Mutti, Allen's 103 year old grandmother.

It is good to be the queen...

... then it was off to SC, where we celebrated birthdays

Hmmmm..... frosting .....

... and had adventures with our nephews....

... then (finally) back to New Jersey and New York to say our last good-byes to friends and family .... hang out with babies ...
... and play with other people's toys (again)

Can I have one, pretty please?

Believe it or not, but we're already off to India again. We leave this afternoon and will be in Delhi by Thursday evening. We had such a wonderful time visiting everyone and getting to catch up with you all while we were back in the States. Thank you everyone for letting us invade your couches and guest rooms as we crisscrossed the country. We're sad to be leaving again so soon - but ... you can be sure to hear from us soon.

;)

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* I hope some of you caught this reference.
** It has been known to happen
*** Again, I'm hoping you caught the reference.

Stuck on the Tarmac

I'll try to keep this short and sweet because I would rather not think about this episode. So you may have heard this story... about a Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow to Newark getting diverted to Bradley CT because of heavy rainfall in NJ... how that flight was held for 4 hours on the tarmac (from 9am - 1am local time) with no air conditioning (85+ degrees in the cabin) only to be finally turned into an airport that wasn't equipped to handle nearly 300 passengers and crew.

Well, that was the flight I came home on. I was suppose to arrive at Newark around 6:30pm on Tuesday evening.... but got in at 7am on Wednesday instead.

But this flight really had been doomed from the start. We couldn't board on time in Heathrow because the plane was over 100 degrees and needed almost 40mins to cool down to a more reasonable temperature (warning signs of mechanical failures to come?). We then waited another 20 min for two passengers that felt they were too good to show up for the plane on time (they never made it, and their luggage had to be offloaded).

Once we touched down in CT, we were told it was only a matter of time to refuel, recharge the plane batteries, then we would head back to Newark, where the storm would hopefully would have blown over. We had been told that the storm was so bad it had shut down all of the local airports; Newark, JFK, and La Guardia ....

However, after the third mechanical failure (power outages, which turned off the lights and the air-conditioning) .... and the ground crew filling (and I quote) "the wrong gas tanks" on the plane* .... then as the ground crew started leaving for the evening .... you would have thought someone higher up would have made the call to get us off the plane. But we had to clear customs because we were an international flight -- or at least, this was the reasoning we were given as to why they couldn't get us off the plane and wait in the terminal....... even though at least one person required oxygen because he was suffering from heat stroke...

When we were finally let off the plane around 1am (with the help of the shuttle buses from Hertz and the local hotel because there wasn't enough ground crew to help) it still took another 2.5 hours before I got cleared through immigration.

We were told that there weren't hotels available for us because there was a PGA tour going on and all the local hotels were booked --- so shuttled buses were being coordinated instead. But, finding buses at 2am proved to be quite a challenge... so it was 4am by the time I was on a bus headed back to Newark.

At 7am - 12 hours late - I finally got to Newark airport ... tired, anxious, and incredibly thankful to be headed to my parents house**.

3 days later we got on a plane to head out to San Diego.

(sigh) ... and the travel marathon continues***.

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* Seriously, how do you fill the "wrong" gas tanks on a plane? Why do they have wrong tanks on planes?

** I still have some serious questions about how poor the decision making was while we were waiting on the tarmac. I'm not really convinced by all that we were told - there must have been something else going on, but they didn't want to scare us ...? Regardless, the whole thing felt really fishy.

** I realize I never really gave a full time-line of where we've been and where we're going:
May 1 - May 25: Sikkim
May 25 - June 4: England
June 4 - June 16: Baltic Sea Cruise
June 16 - June 22/23: Holland
June 26 - July 6: San Diego
July 6 - July 12: San Fran
July 13 - Aug 1/2: BROOKLYN
Aug 5 - 17: NC, KY, SC
Aug 18 - Aug 26?: New Jersey
Aug 26: Return to India

Hup Holland Hup!

Go Holland Go!*

So after cruising back through the UK, the whole family set off for the Netherlands to visit our extended family.

We took in the local fare...

Hmmmm... Raw herring with raw onions on a bun... delicious. Tastes sort like sushi

Ohhh.... sweet and savory pancakes for lunch? Sign me up!

We also took up some of the local sports.

World Cup Fever!

We criss-crossed the country... Rhoon... Rotterdam... Haarlem... and of course Amsterdam. We took a canal cruise around Amsterdam.

Enjoying the view

Bikes, bikes, bikes and more bikes

(Sigh) We had such a great time, it was sad to say good-bye to everyone at the end of our stay. But hopefully we'll be able to get back sometime soon...

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* (tear) Especially after USA lost to Ghana today...

Baltic Sea Cruise: Part 3 (Finland and Sweden)

Cruise Day 9: Helsinki, Finland

I feel a little bit bad for Helsinki, following immediately on the back of St. Petersburg... and besides the weather didn't want to cooperate either; which didn't help matters. But despite all that, we were determined to be excited about Finland because Allen's sister, Sally, spent a year there before college and only had wonderful things to say about Finland and the Finnish people.... and a particular licorice sweet called Turkish Pepper. So...

Ohhhhhhh.....

Ahhhhhhh.....

Ice breakers down from the north for the summer

Funny enough, we happened to be there on Helsinki's founding day (June 12, 1550), which they celebrated with a samba carnival. No joke, those are the floats of the various samba schools setting up on the center of town. Our tour guide felt bad for the girls in bikinis dancing on these floats in the rain.... But.... Samba? Carnival? Finland? (shrug) Best not to ask too many questions.

Cruise Day 10: Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm was also remarkably pretty.

Nikki in front of the Nobel Museum

Old medieval alleyways

But Stockholm was also where we did easily the coolest excursion of our trip. We walked on top of the roof of this building.

A roof-top tour - only the second city in the world to do this type of thing (the other city also being in Sweden).

They decked us out in some pretty serious full body harnesses .... but considering what we were walking on...

... the harnesses definitely did the trick of making us feel safer. That said, you really couldn't beat the views we had.

It was a really amazing way to see the city - an experience we're sure to hold on to.

The other big excitement for this port was we were finally able to find Sally's licorice candy, Turkish Pepper.

We had a tour guide that recommended, instead of getting Swedish glass, that we bring home local delicacies like Surströmming, fermented herring that is a favorite up in the North (she was kidding*) .... we pounced on this advice and asked her if she knew about this Finnish sweet we were on the hunt for. Given, as she told us Swedes eat approximately 1kg of sweets a week each, she told us that yes they had this sweet and the best place to look for it would be a local convenience store.

Who would have thunk it?

But we found them ... and they are "interesting" ... they are salty licorice, which I guess is an acquired taste. But we found them! Which was awesome!

The other craze sweeping the nation was the up-coming (now completed) wedding of the Swedish Crowned Princess Victoria to Daniel Westling, her former personal trainer. Stockholm was the city of love in preparation for the nuptials ... and there were signs of everyone's enthusiasm everywhere you turned.

Back in the old part of town they have a little statute of a boy made out of iron. It is said that if you rub his head you'll come back to Stockholm someday.

Fingers crossed.

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* Apparently it is inadvisable to travel with cans of this stuff because depending upon how old they are they are likely to explode. - although there is debate about whether or not this is just a myth or not.