Finalmente, estoy aqui!

Mexico es increible, extraordinario, fantastico, maravillosa, y muy emotivo

Mexico City was fascinating - politics and fiestas on the street in the main square (El Zocalo - like trafalgar square, but flat and with the tower in the middle replaced by the hugest flag you ever saw). I loved walking around - I didn't realise I had been waiting for this so much, but it feels very much like "I'm finally here". Asia, Africa, Australasia and the USA were great preparation, wouldn't have missed them for the world, without them I wouldn't be here now, like this, eyes and ears open, soaking it all in like a sponge. It's noisy in the youth hostel, but I didn't mind, or not until about 1am anyway ... The Spanish I know is just waiting to come back to the forefront of my mind, I have pauses and gaps and fumble for words and tenses, but have read more than the headlines, and talked politics with Mexicanos as well as ordered food and bought bus tickets ...

mexico with melissa !!!!!

hey everyone, well we have just arrived in mexico, and from what I can see it seems really nice. We are staying in a youth hostel, and last night there was music on until 3am in the morning. Heather, Mark and Rosa did not sleep but I did, yey. Today we are just going to walk around and not do that much so blog ya later

- melissa - comment please!

Hola from Mexico

We got up at 4am in order to catch our plane to Mexico and arrived at 4pm. Mark suffered a lot from the cat allergy that had been kept at bay by anti-histamines and could hardly see and breath on the flight.

Melissa in the USA

Hey well, we are just packing at the moment, because tomorrow we are going to mexico.

well where have we been here? We have been to a real american diner which was cool, especially the milk shakes, and the food was nice too. We also went to san francisco, which was really fun it as it's full of shops, but we did not go in any! I was not even able to go to nike town - sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol.

We also went to see redwoods today, at Big Basin which was really amazing. Here are photos:

The Andrew Moss tour of Frisco

My mum grew up in North London, and one of her friends from her teenage years there now lives in San Francisco. On short notice he invited us to stay over at his one evening, took H and me out to dinner with friends of his, and gave us a fantastic tour of the city the next day.

Palo Alto Avenue

As I write this, we're in Mexico City, taking it easy and recovering from the nightclub on top of the youth hostel that finished at 3am - but more of that later! We arrived here from a great week in California, courtesy of Rachael in Palo Alto, and Andrew in Frisco (subject of tomorrow's blog).

In Governor's Bay

It was a long drive to Governor's Bay, so we arrived in the dark - and we wished we'd had longer to stay and look around once we got there.

Dinosaur Eggs...?

We drove up Highway 1 from Dunedin to Christchurch, stopping only to visit the Moeraki boulders - large, very spherical boulders formed millions of years ago at what was then the bottom of an ocean, in a process something like the layering that builds pearls in oysters. To us they looked like dinosaur eggs, slowly emerging out of the cliff face, hatching when they were ready on the sea shore.

Aramoana

Lisa, Paul, Max and Myra are regular visitors to Philip and Madeleine's house at Aramoana - the adults took Heather and me there while Rosa was having a birthday skate with the other young 'uns.

Rosa is older!

I am fourteen now!!! I had an official birthday party (like the Queen does) on the 17th April.

Otago Peninsula

On a blowy day, we headed up the Otago Peninsula, the long jutting-out-bit that protects Dunedin's bay from the sea, and made Otago Harbour a great place for sailing ships - hence Dunedin's existence.

The Edinburgh of the South

Staying with our friends in Dunedin was so good. We felt instantly at home and we easily slipped back into an easy and friendly relationship with them. Our kids just clicked with theirs and we had so much in common and had a similar sense of humour, cared about the same things and just got on well. It was also great to be living with a dog again - thanks Luna for being such a good dog, even though she did poo in our bedroom!

Up and down in Queenstown

Paul's mum Lyall spins and knits the wool she's spun (as well as cross-country skiing, running a bed and breakfast, baking her own bread, tramping all over the area, keeping up a lovely garden and who knows what else). She gave Heather a jumper - which came in very handy as we crossed the high passes on the way to Queenstown ...

Hawea and Wanaka

Lyall Campbell welcomed us into her A-frame house in Hawea. Surrounded by mountains and with views down to the lake, it used to be the family holiday home, built by the Campbells when the roads were unsurfaced and the land was cheap - Lyall has lived there, offering a couple of rooms as B&B accomodation, for the last twelve years.

Welcome to Middle Earth

Lisa Levitt met us at Christchurch airport (a week ago last Thursday, by now), and we began a slow meander down to Dunedin over the next few days, looking around us for hobbits et al every step of the way. Our first night was spent in a great little cottage next to Lake Tekapo that Lisa had found - with an open fire as excellent compensation for our coldest evening for many, many months.

Breaking News: we're shortlisted!

We interrupt the smooth flow of daily updates of fortnight-old news of our travels to bring you this exciting announcement:

Heather and Mark have been shortlisted for the job-share "Visionaries" project we applied for - making us one of the chosen seventeen out of 1600 applicants, with six posts up for grabs. We're thrilled and a little scared, and one of us (probably H) will be coming home for a few days for the interview on the 10th May!

Thanks again to everyone who helped with the application - and maybe some of you will be seeing one of us sooner than anticipated!

Now over to Melissa in our Sydney studio ...

Sydney's Olympic Stadium

Hiya, Melissa here.

When we were in Sydney we decided to go to the olympic stadium for a tour. We toured the Telstra stadium in which the opening and closing ceremony was held, and all the athletics finals were held too.

Darling Harbour

Our YHA wasn't far from Darling Harbour, with its Aquarium, Imax, and shops - and a nice walk through Chinatown to get there.

Free food, and a zoo

After Hobart, we came back to Sydney, and stayed in the Railway YHA - nice enough, although no nearer to the train station entrance than the other central YHA in Sydney.

Melissa's Asian Highlights

These are the things I liked most about Asia - with links to read more about them, or to see our photos.[use the Back button on your browser to come back here after you follow a link]:

• INDIA - kerala, specially varkala
• CHINA - great wall
• INDIA - bangalore
• CHINA - trying strange food
• THAILAND - changmai
• CHINA - shanghai
• CHINA - cheap electronics and posh hotels
• INDIA - all kinds of cheap stuff
• THAILAND - fake things
• INDIA - goa
• INDIA, CHINA, THAILAND - nice food
• INDIA - cheap books
• CHINA - nice hotels
• INDIA - meeting max, myra, paul, lisa, tizzie, naveen, jess
• CHINA - meeting cui-cui
• THAILAND - meeting fanta, moodang, pom
• THAILAND - cheap silk scarfs
• THAILAND - going bamboo rafting

OVERALL VIEW - i really liked asia. it was a lot better than australia because it was a lot cheaper, so you could get more for your money in asia

- melissa

Antipodean photos at last!

Hooray! The photos are going up! I finally got time to faff with the camera and use Paul's nice fast connection to put some down under photos up - so here's the first (long!) installment. We've more, shorter, collections to come in the next few days, plus some blogs from the girls coming soon, and news of how you can help Lani win money for the disabled group she visited in Kenya.

Click "Read more" for the photos!

Great things about Tasmania

Like da lady sez - for photos you have to bide your time. So here's a little descriptive prose (sorry about that, will try and use only mechanical means of communication in future) to keep you going. Great things about our week in Tassie:

Sydney here we come!

Hi all, just arrived in Sydney after a really great week in Tasmania with Theresa, Keith, Hannah and Sarah. Mark will no doubt put up lots of good photos all in good time. We were really well looked after and felt very at home. Tasmania is disturbingly like England in some ways but