Day 49 - Back in Sydney

Well, we finally made it back home. I'm sure Tina will be busy catching up on her blog. It was a spectacular trip. We'll spend the next 20 years paying for it. :)

Here is the path we took around the globe... God created a big world! Praise Him for giving us the chance to see some of it. It's good to be home.

Dubai -> Beijing

Just to catch up the blog, we had our last stop in Beijing. I wanted Tina to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden city. Tina loved the Great Wall, but said the Forbidden City should be forbidden from having any tourists. hahaha.. She is so funny. I think it was too crowded and since we don't know a lot of Chinese history, we couldn't appreciate what we were seeing.

China

We are in Beijing for a couple of days as we work our way back to Sydney. Since China blocks many websites (including blogspot.com), we have been unable to blog from here. We'll have to catch up when we get home. I had to use a "non-standard" way to get this simple blog entry done. :)

Day 44 - Trouble getting to Dubai

One of my goals on this trip was to keep flights under 8 hours and do only non-stop flights. Unfortunately, there were NO flights from Tel Aviv east, so I had to go back through Istanbul to get to our next destination, Dubai. Due to a 2 inch "snow storm" in Istanbul, all flights were delayed and we came very close to missing our connection! But God is always watching out for us and we did make it here safe and sound.... just a few hours late.

Day 43 - Back in Tel Aviv

We are back in Tel Aviv. We are going to do a day trip to Tiberius (Sea of Galilee) and then we fly out tomorrow. Unfortunately our last two destinations are a bit far requiring some longer flights. I'm really looking forward to getting back home, but not looking forward to going back to work. :)

Tina's blogging

FYI,

Tina has had little or no Internet for days, so her blogging of these areas is way behind. I think you'll see a flood of posts today as we've returned to Eilat, Israel and have some free time.

We have really enjoyed experiencing Israel, Jordon and Egypt in such a short period of time. We sure like Israel... :)

Day 40 - Nuweiba

Today we took two days in the Sinai Peninsula (Egypt) in a place called Nuweiba.

Petra

Yesterday we made a quick trip in to Jordon. This area is called Edom(Red) and was where Esau, Jacob's brother, lived. The mountains were truly red.

Even the best plans...

Well, a couple of times on this trip we've had a few problems. Today they had rain in Eilat. Big deal? Apparently yes. They don't typically get much rain here, so when they do it shuts down the city and the roads. They have almost no drainage on the roads. So, they had the largest rain storm (not that much actually) since 15 years ago! This prevented us from getting to Petra today. Not a big deal. We are just going to relax and let Tina catch up on the blog. Hopefully things will be better tomorrow!!!

Day 35 - Dead Sea -> Eilat

Today we've moved down to the souther tip of Israel, Eilat. This will be our base over the next six days as we travel to Petra (Jordon) and Nuweiba (Egypt). I'm not allowed to take my rental car into these areas, so I had to arrange for transport to these two sites.

Tina has been remarkably amenable to traveling on our own and has felt safe. There hasn't been even a hint of trouble. The current climate between Israel, Egypt and Jordon is good. Obviously, being near Iran, Syria or Lebanon would be bad. :)

No Internet

Well, we had no Internet at the Dead Sea and I have to admit it was pretty nice! On the other hand, now Tina has lots of blogging to do now that we've moved on. Her blog has been a great journal of our journey.

Day 32 - Jerusalem

The first 2 1/2 days are in Jerusalem. Our first day here (Jan 13th) is our actual anniversary. I wasn't sure if Tina would think it was romantic spending our anniversary in Jerusalem or kind of strange. Fortunately, the former was true!!!

It was a busy day of touring and I'm sure Tina will be up all night blogging. That's not good because we have an early start tomorrow!

Day 31 - Istanbul -> Tel Aviv

Today we are heading to Israel. We'll be there for almost two weeks. I hope to spend time in Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and Eilat. While in Eilat we'll do some day trips into Jordon (Petra) and Egypt (Nuweiba). (More on those later). When we come back to Tel Aviv, we may take a day trip up to the Sea of Galalee (Tina's option).



We've been to Israel before, but we were with a very large tour group. It will be nice to be there on our own. I've arranged a tour guide for Jerusalem and Petra, but it should just be the three of us.

Time in Istanbul

We had a wonderful time in Istanbul, but I think Tina was a bit nervous here. Very few people speak English, those who do are trying to sell us rugs and the Muslim influence is very strong. Time to move on....

Turkey? What's in Turkey?

Tina's reaction to our trip to Istanbul was pretty funny. I knew she would figure out where we were going as soon as she saw we were flying on Turkish airlines. I tried to video this, but it turns out I needed to shots...




Turkey? What's in Turkey?



Once I explained we were going to Istanbul, she was excited....

Day 27 - Kiruna -> Istanbul

Next stop is in Turkey. I thought it would be a nice touch during the Christmas season to stop by Turkey. Haha... bad joke.

I originally planed to visit some of Paul the Apostle's sites in Turkey, but we just won't have time. We'll be in Istanbul for 2 days. All Tina knows is that she is going somewhere she's never been before. That doesn't help her much!!!

Still Alive

Well, I haven't had much time to blog. Tina's blog (http://gravesdownunder.blogspot.com) has been active...

Tina has not killed me yet. She was a bit worried about the cold, but we were able to get the right clothing and everything has been great!

I have a few minutes before we head to the airport again... I'll blog once more our next destination.

Day 23 - Dublin -> Stockholm

Today we'll be heading to Stockholm Sweden. We arrive late, so we'll be staying at a hotel near the airport. The next morning we take flight north. When you are in Sweden, traveling north is usually a BAD idea!!! We'll be going to a little town called Kiruna, home of the famous Ice Hotel: http://www.icehotel.com/


Again, I don't know if Tina will be excited or threaten to KILL me. I don't care how many coats and gloves we bought in Denver, it will be COOOOLLLLDDDD!!!

Detour

Dublin had a huge blizzard... 4 inches of snow!!! Apparently that's enough to shut down the city and airport. So, we were diverted to Manchester, UK for the day. I doubt we'll get out of the hotel the airline gave us, but we'll have fun no matter what! One unexpected leg of the trip.

Tina's Guess

On this leg of the tirp, I decided to let Tina have a guess to where we were going next. Here is what she said:


At the airport, I let her know by showing her a book I bought for Dublin. As it turns out, she guessed correctly. She is so smart!

Day 18 - Philidelphia, PA -> Dublin Ireland

Part of me feels bad about "dragging" Tina away from each location. She seems to be having fun, then I take her to the airport again! I think she'll get over it.

Next stop is Dublin. Tina has figured out that we are likely going to Europe. I think she may suspect the eventual stop at the Ice Hotel. She asked to be taken there on your 20th wedding anniversary several years ago and I think she is starting to remember that request. But we have one stop to make before then... Ireland!

Books

I went to our church in Colorado, Rocky Mountain Calvary, to buy everything I could get at the bookstore. Book prices in Sydney are prohibitively expensive, so I wanted to grab a bunch of books and materials for the fellowship's library. I picked out 5 huge stacks of books and DVDs. After ringing up all the items, I was shocked at the low price. I realized that they blessed me by providing me multiple discounts on top of the very low price. Watch out CFoE, we've got a boat load of books coming!!!

Also, just to add to the blessing, they gave me two cases of Bibles that we can use when we move into the school building early next year.

Thank you Rocky Mountain Calvary!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 16 - Denver, CO -> Philadelphia, PA

I think it is day 16... I've lost count. That's a great thing when on vacation!!!

Tina was looking intently at the computer check-in screen after we arrived at the airport to see where she was going next. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? She said, "What's in Philadelphia?" We'll be staying two nights there simply to avoid the long flight from Denver to Europe. We have been to Philadelphia before, so it should be a relaxing time. We SOOOO enjoyed our time in Colorado and New Mexico, but it has been busy, busy, busy! I look forward to just having more time to relax.

Days 13-15

We enjoyed some time with Tina's family in Evergreen. It has been very busy and not much time for blogs and emails. Tina will likely catch up her blog later in the week.

I knew this part of the trip would be very busy. Tuesday we'll be starting the relaxing part of the holiday. I convinced Tina to buy a new coat. Part of the trip will be very cold weather!

Today (Sunday) we'll be traveling back to Monument, CO to finish dealing with storage and spending some time with our friends Dan and Angela.

Albuquerque, NM -> Evergreen, CO

We had to fight some snowy roads, but we were able to get up to Tina's brother's house for Christmas eve.

Days 11-12

We enjoyed a couple of days in Albuquerque. I will only update this blog sporadically until we leave on the 29th.

Next stop: Evergreen, Colorado.

Denver to Albuquerque

We are driving today to spend a little time with my family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm looking forward to seeing my Sister Kim, my other sister Linda, her husband Chris, My much older brother Dean and his wife Blake! It is also my parent's wedding anniversary, so it should be a wild party!!! The only one missing is my brother David and his wife Leslie. We'll have to see them next time.

Day 10 - Storage

Unfortunately, I had to have at least one "work" day on this vacation. We decided to go through our storage items and do a bit of weeding. We seperated things into three groups:
1. Store
2. Chuck
3. Ship

One great thing about this is that I'm able to let Tina buy stuff here in the U.S. (much cheaper clothing) and just add it to our shipping for very little additional cost. This is GREAT news because I'm not letting Tina take more than a few days clothing on to the next destination.

While in Colorado, we'll be making a quick trip to Albuquerque (learn to spell that city name!!!) to visit my family. Then up to Evergreen Colorado (just sounds beautiful) for Christmas. We'll be leaving Colorado on the 27th...

Love and miss those in Australia. Have a "shrimp on the barbie" for me on Christmas! ;)

Day 9 - In Denver

Thanks to me, we were COMPLETELY unprepared for the cold weather. Fortunately, TIna was too excited to be here to be angry at me... whew!

We froze until Dan and Angela loaned us some winter gear. Tomorrow we'll do a bit of shopping for coats; which we will desperately need later in the trip!!!

We visited our old church, Rocky Mountain Calvary and enjoyed seeing everyone. It was funny for Tina to realize that everyone knew she was coming because of the blog and facebook. I love technology.

Surprise at the Airport

Here is a video I shot as we were at the Honolulu airport heading to Denver. Tina thought we were on our way back to Sydney!

Once we were at the airport, Tina didn't notice that we were going through an agricultural checkpoint for mainland USA flights. They made Tina throw away her fruit; which she planed to eat on the flight. She was angry when she realized she was in the "wrong" line and lost her fruit! The video shows me explaining that she shouldn't be angry about the fruit because we were in the RIGHT line and going to the US mainland.

She seemed confused about the camera, but just thought I was being silly.

Day 8 – Hawaii (Day 5 of 5) Honolulu → Denver

Day 7 – Hawaii (Day 4 of 5)

I am finding it difficult to not tell Tina she has more time on this trip. She wants to make sure she has time to find the "hard to find" items before we "return" to Sydney. Oh well. She'll figure it out tomorrow when she sees us arrive at the Domestic terminal rather than the International terminal. I assume they are different here in Honolulu, but maybe not.

Day 6 – Hawaii (Day 3 of 5)

Not much to report. More eating and shopping. I'm glad I have a good book to read!

We had a chance to visit the Calvary Chapel of Honolulu. That was a lot of fun.

Day 5 – Hawaii (Day 2 of 5)

Not much more to say. We are doing some sight seeing. Each mall seems to have new sights and we are seeing them all! Hehehe...

Please pray I survive our trip to Wal-Mart. I think this might be the closest thing we have on this earth to hell.

We will leave on Friday the 18th (11pm) heading for Denver, CO.

Limited Internet

It may be difficult to get both Internet access and a few minutes of privacy to update this blog!!!

Day 4 - Honolulu (Day 1 of 5 in Hawaii)

Praise God we have Marriott rewards points I earned during my years of travel with BEA Systems. We'll be using these points for most of our hotel stays; which makes the cost of this trip much more reasonable.

Today we spent shopping. I hope to get this out of Tina's system early so we can focus on resting and touristy things for the rest of the trip. Perhaps this won't work. I guess It's kind of like giving a heroin addict a little bit of heroin in hope they will not need any more later!!!

For those on Facebook that were worried Tina would see my posts, it's ok. I removed them before she went back online. She still thinks we are returning to Sydney on Saturday...

Day 3 - Auckland, NZ -> Honolulu, HI, USA

Tina was SHOCKED when we went to the airport. I told her I had a surprise and she was convinced we were going whale watching. Once at the airport, a lady met us at the front of the line and asked, "Where are you going?" Tina just looked at me and said, "Yes, where are we going?" I tried to avoid her by saying, "International." The lady was not appeased. Finally I had to say it... "Honolulu." Tina screamed and the lady realised it was a secret and profusely apologised. That was ok. She was going to figure it out in 10 minutes anyway.

Surprisingly, Tina was very excited and didn't question the fact that we were traveling so far for only 5 days. I thought she'd kill me and say, "You are going to put me on a plane for 8 hours each way, just for 5 days!?!?!" But she didn't. She did great on the plane and was excited the whole time. Whew!

Day 2 – In Auckland

We did some of the touristy things today like lunch in their tower building (Orbit) and the aquarium. On the edge of town there was a mountain (large hill) called Eden mountain. So we had to go to the top of that and have a look. There we found one of those plaques that tell you how far you are from various places on the earth. I laughed (to myself) as I had Tina photograph the direction and distance of Honolulu, our next stop! Little did she know...




Tonight I told her I had a surprise for her this morning, so we had to get up a little early and hit the road. She thinks we are going whale watching, but we'll be headed back to the airport for the next leg in our journey.

Day 1 (Continued) – Travel to Auckland

Packing light

One reason I didn't want Tina to know about the trip details was because of the stress it would give her in packing. She has only packed enough clothes for 7 days even though the trip is much longer. She will either kill me or thank me... time will tell. Of course I have a plan. When we get to the U.S. she will be allowed to go on a shopping spree and get more clothes. She'll like that!!!

Close calls

We had four close calls on the first day where Tina almost found out more about the trip. She is suspicious now, but she still doesn't know.

Close call 1: Airport checkin.

I made a small sign I've been handing to people that reads:

This trip is a surprise for my wife (20^th Anniversary)

PLEASE don't discuss the details of the itinerary. Thank you

The man at the checkin counter read the sign and just stared at me. He than said, “Uh... I need paperwork...” I simply handed him an envelope with all the details. That was fine and he checked us in without another word. As we left he just had a big grin on his face. I said “THANK YOU!!!” as we left. Tina turned to me and said, 'That was weird. Why did he want 'Paperwork'?” I told her that flying Air New Zealand was often like that. They checked a lot more of the trip details than most airlines...

Close call 2: Sydney customs

When it came time to go through customs, I made the mistake of letting Tina start filling out the exit cards. I completely forgot that the card asks how long you'll be away. She was going to put “7 days.” I made up some excuse why the cards were wrong and I quickly went over to another counter, picked out two new cards and filled them out. Tina is used to having me do all the paperwork, so she must have thought that was strange, but she didn't say anything...

Close call 3: Auckland customs

When I gave my passport and papers to the customs guy in Auckland, I didn't have my “special card” handy. So it took me about 10 seconds to fish it out of my pocket. Meanwhile, the guy said, “You are only staying here two days?” I handed him the card and he just smiled and saw the itinerary. He promptly stamped our passports and waved us through without another word. Again, Tina said, “That was strange.” I mentioned that we only had two days hotel booked and that he was probably suspicious about that.

Close call 4: Calvary Chapel Auckland

I had shared the fact that I was doing this holiday for Christmas and our 20th wedding anniversary with some of the people at church. One of them mentioned that I had taken Tina here to Auckland for our anniversary! Tina simply corrected him and said this was just a quick get-away and that our anniversary wasn't until January 13th! hehehe...

Between these four events, I suspect Tina knows somethings up. She'll find out for sure on day 3!!!

Calvary Chapel Auckland

We found out that Calvary Chapel Auckland was meeting on Sunday night. We decided to run over there after getting off the airplane. We had a WONDERFUL time with that group. Thanks Andre'!

Day 1

Sydney, Australia -> Auckland, NZ



We have a shuttle picking us up at the airport in about 1 1/2 hours. Tina is sleeping after a long night of packing. I can't imagine how stressed she'd be if she knew about the whole trip!

Day 0

Tomorrow we begin the trip. We just completed our Bible study and everyone was so good to not give any of the details away to Tina. She believes we are going to New Zealand for a week.... She will either kill me or love me when she finds out there is much more!

I wanted to include a photo here of when we were dating (22+ years ago):



Thank's Ang for sending us this photo!!!!

Surprise

I am taking Tina on a little trip this year. She has NO IDEA!!! It is a big surprise. Just in case she finds out about the blog (she'll be helping with photos), I can't give the details here yet.

Happy anniversary Tina!!!