Thanks

Thanks to all who of you who have been reading our travel blog and the feedback you have given us. I know that several of you have had some trouble trying to comment on site, I'm not sure why that is, but we knew you were reading anyway.
We have decided to keep the blog going over the next few weeks, or until Xmas anyway so that some of the pics and video can be loaded up.
We'll also try and tell you some of the cool stories that haven't been told because of our technical issues such as Larry the Price Waterhouse partner we met in the Amsterdam casino who agreed that his expense account could afford to buy us happy "honeymooners" a drink. To our surprise he then bought us not one, but two bottles of Dom Perignon at 189 euro each. (heh heh, very nice thank you!
Or how we met an American guy in the smallest village in Cinque Terre who spends 6 months of his year working in Napier at the doctors Rachel used to go to when she lived there; she remembered his name!!!
Lots of people have been amazed at how much seems to happen to us when we travel; we thought it was luck for a start but we now realise that it's because we go looking for it.
The whole time we were away we ate "in house" only twice and had junk food once (McDonalds) as we were travelling late at night. Every other time we hit the town looking for somewhere cool to dine inevitably a) only going in if it looked cool and b) being the last ones to leave. In general if something looked strange, interesting, fun etc we gave it a crack.
Do that and you can't help but stumble across fantastic memories or at least a good conversation piece like how on our second to last night we hung out with a real live super model.
No pictures sorry to say, but we didn't actually know she was a famous person until afterwards...Doh!

We're home!

Yay, it's nice to be home and the sun is shining.
After 36 hours in transit we arrived back in Chch at 8.30am Friday morning.
We decided to upgrade to Business class on our San Fran/Auckland flight which was fantastic with the new bed/seats allowing us to sleep most of the way.
Then it's been all about catching up with the kids who were happy to see us and lots of laundry!

Today we hit the garden and cleaned up the pool which is already at 24C
Still sleepy but feeling much better than we thought we would be.

Homeward bound

We're now on our way home but only just.
After another few days in Cunio we were having a leaving lunch again at Danilo's place complete with another masterpiece meal from Momma and Rach was talking to Michela and Paola about our travel dates. "We fly on Thursday morning and get home Friday" Rachel tells them.
"How can that be they ask, it doesn't work with the time differance?"
A quick check of the tickets shows we actually fly out of Frankfurt on wednesday morning to get home Friday AM NZ time.
Phew, we wouldn't have checked otherwise.....

Just what language?

Last night in Geneva (Swiss) we were sitting in an Indian restaurant ordering in French and Rachel asks me in Italian how to say "excuse me lady" in French.
What's funnier is that I knew and answered her in half Italian and half French without remembering that I could also speak English.

Back in Baden

We have made another great call.For our last real (not packing) night in Europe we decided to call back in to Baden Baden for a night.
And it just happens to be the first night of the Xmas festival. Very cool and just another highlight!