Kiff blog

Today we went for a stroll down hollywood Blv to the Chinese theatre, took heaps of photos of the footprints and hand prints in the concrete… Marilyn Monroe, Sean Connery, etc…… did a bit of the walk with the stars…. then went and saw a movie over near Sunset Blv (Underworld Evolution) it was O.K, I think I enjoyed the first one better…
after the movie we had an early dinner with some friends of Mel and Todds, at an Aussie themed resturaunt called “Outback”… the food was good but very far from Aussie cuisine. then we headed up the coast through Santa Barbara and up to Mel and Todds place in Santa Maria where we will spend the next couple of nights 🙂 then its off to New York!!
Will keep y’all posted…

Chris

Well, all I can say is old Walt was on some pretty good drugs when he built that place….. We went through the “Its a small world” ride, dang talk about trippy!! that and the Light Show/ Performance of Fantasmic (fantaisia but shorter) that was amazing!! wicked Effects with light and costumes… Massive water screens! mind blowing (if not a little tacky) the rides were pretty cool too, the best 2 were Space mountain and Splash Mountain, space mountain was an inside rollercoaster.. with stars and moving comets all pitch black so you couldn’t see anything but stars and stuff (I still havent worked out how they did the effects yet)
The rest of the park was kindy tacky Disney stuff… just as I thought it would be, all the same a great day out with some good friends.. thanks Mel and Todd for showing us around!
I will try to put some photos up at some point 🙂

Hi all, Had a lovely day today strolling around Santa Monica, Venice beach and Muscle Beach, we met up for Lunch with a couple of old friends of Mias from Weta that are now working for Variouse companys here in L.A that was nice.
When we finally got back to our hotel tonight our friends Mel and Todd had arrived from Santa Maria, we went out for a quiet drink and planned the next couple of days…. we are all heading to Disneyland tomorrow… yay!!!
well midnight here now, I guess we should head to bed!!

Good night all 🙂

Well, after a few small delays, (having to clear ice off the plane in Colorado etc) I finally made it to L.A, where i met up with Mia 🙂 yay!!!! we are now in our Hotel over the road from Disneyland….
both feeling pretty tired, might try to get an early night and maybe head into Santa Monica tomorrow 🙂
Hi to everyone from Mia 😉

Well, Work is over…. we packed the last 3 40′ Containers today, the last 2 arrived about 4 hrs late which meant that most of the crew that was helping us was unable to come out and have a few beers after to celebrate.. this is the best crew we have had so far, and it was really sad to say goodbye 🙁 I’m so sorry we were unable to see them off in the true kiwi way by buying them a few rounds.. a bunch of them did come out tho and we had a good time.
when we got back to the hotel at around 9:30pm Az, Liv and I went outside to make our Snowman… by this stage alot of the snow had melted which made it a real effort…… we were desperate to make use of what little we hade and I have photos of our efforts 😉
… well, I have a Taxi boked for 6:30am to take me to the airport tomorrow and off to L.A (Via Chicago) to meet up with Mia (She is already part way in Melbourne… well actually by the time I write this she is Prob part way across te Pacific on her way to California to meet me 🙂
I have yet to Pack my bags, and try to fit in all the stuff I have bourght including my new Guitar 😉
The next you will hear from me will prob be from Canada… with Mia 🙂
you all take care and I will talk to yall soon…….

Chris out .. (for now)

(P.S I write this after a few too many Stouts.. sorry if it incoherent and un-understandable.. 😉
xxxooo

Photos

oh yea… in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago they have the U boat 505 !!! the actual U boat that was captured in 1944 and one of the reasons the germans lost the war ! (the code macines were studied and all of germanys codes were cracked, helping end it all!) I got complimentry tickets to have a tour through it!!

U Boat

Well, Sat morning we headed off to Chicago…
First stop was a look around the Museum of industry and Science, what a cool place.. dedicated to Transport and other funky stuff, full of old planes and trains and other really neat things all housed in a beautiful old classic museum setting, I have a few Photos 😉
I checked into my Backpackers later that day thyen we went off in search of a good place for tea.. found a great mexican Resturaunt near my Hostel and close to Millenium Park (where the big globby Sculpture “cloud gate” was that i took heaps of photos of last time)
I made it back to my Hostel (Tried to sleep but it was hard with people coming and going all night in a 10 person Shared Dorm, I got about 3hrs sleep?)

Sunday Morning I got up early and walked across Downtown Chicago to Meet the rest of the team at their plush Hotel 😉 (I was being Dutch and staying at a Backpackers…)
That day there was a big game on between the Chicago Bears and some other team so town was nuts, we decided to go to to Museum of Contemporary Art which was Wicked.. heaps of really amazing Works by Andy Warhole and heaps more… Then we headed for our fav little part of Chicago “Wicker Park” a bit like wellingtons Cuba Mall, heaps of cool shops and cafe’s and resturaunts.. we shoped a little and then found a nice quiet italian place for Dinner…. yummy Italian mmmmmmmmmmm.
Monday morning was much the same as Sunday…. (except with less sleep 🙁 people snoring all night!!) I got up even earlier and went for a morning stroll around Millenium Park and down town Chicago, went into Borders for a bit of Breakfast then headed over to The others Hotel so we could all walk over to the Field Museum together. (back across town past my hostel… ) I think I walked about 8-10km that morning… The Field Museum was really cool.. we had Comp Tickets waiting for us for the Pompey Exhibit .. lots of Molds of Dead people caught in the Volcanic Eruption at around 25AD (those of you that watch Discovery channel will know all about it). very spooky show. the rest of the museum had the most Amazing Diaramas of every species of Mammel, Reptile and bird you could think of and also avery type of Flora you could imagine. (it is Chicago’s Natural History Museum after all) a few Dinosaurs as well.
after that we went back up to Wicker Park (more shopping and then headed back to Indiana.

So… Back in Indianapolis…. Loaded another 3 containers today, also went out to a music shop and picked up my new baby… litterally…. a Baby Taylor…. its a weee baby Guitar .. and about $600 cheaper than in N.Z 🙂 yay!!!! it will travel with me everywhere !!
after I finish writing this Im off to a posh Resturaunt in Downtown Indianapolis…. then home for some much needed sleep….
all this and My holiday doesn’t even start for another 2 days 😉 woooooot!!!! thats when the real fun starts !
I will keep yall posted 🙂

Oh Yea, Its snowing like a muther F^%*R outside so Im all cosy in my Ski gear… to walk to Dinner 😉 got a belt buckle in Chicago a canadian flag with “Frickin Cold” written on it 😉

Chris

Photos

Yay its monday!!! 🙁
Back to work! still not sleeping well, I keep waking up at all sorts of wierd times….
Had a good weekend tho, managed to get to the Indy Childrens Museum, apart from all the Kids it was pretty cool.. they have this great Dinosaur area thats brand new and very snazzy!
Bought a 1gig stick of Ram for my Lappy (was on special for $149)… she now has 1.5gig! and got this cool Texas Holdem game its really funny, Its called “Telltale Texas Hold’em” you have to use small and big blinds tho (but thats easy eneough)
yay for poker!!

O.K, I am in Indianapolis Finally!
Yesterday was prob the worst days flying I have ever done.. My Flight to Chicago was scheduled to leave at 10:40am, being the causiouse traveler I am, I decided to get to SanFrancisco airport just a wee bit earlier than the required 90min, so I got there at about 8:30am (figured I would check in and then just sit around and watch a few episodes of “Prison Break” (great show BTW) anyway by 10am there were talks of Minor Delays, about an hour or so.. as it was, that would be cutting my connecting flight from Chicago a little fine, I went to the Customer Counter for United and asked for a later flight out of Chicago… they assured me that I should still be able to make my 5:45pm connection (in fact I had a whole 15min once I got into Chicago!!) but they booked me in for a 7:45pm Flight Just in case. a few hours later and We still hadn’t taken off from San Fran, I would definately miss my 7:45pm flight too!! I had been waiting in a line to see customer services again for about 1.5hrs (still no closer to the front of the line than when I started!!) they had 1 person from United to deal with everyones problems and each person in the line took between 10-20 min! I was still Halfway down the line when they started boarding my flight…. I had to give up and hope I could sort it out in Chicago..
I arrived in Chicago just after 9pm and luckily my 7:45 flight had still not taken off! apparently there was really bad thunder storms around Chicago and Indiana all day and all flights had been Held up or Canceled ! as it was there were 2 planes still going to Indi but they didn’t have any Crew ! the planes were there waiting.. as were we.. but the crew was on another plane that had also been delayed, by 11:30pm most flights had been Canceled.. ours was still on the board.. well it was until 12pm when all the Info Boards turned off for the night. finally our crew arrived minus one Hostess that got knocked out when opening the door on the last flight… by 12:30 we were being boarded into our plane and by 1am we were airborne 🙂 … the time in Indi was 2:30am when we landed… and we rushed to get our luggage…… which had been put on the wrong plane! luckily that plane was also heading to Indiana and we only had to wait about 40min for it to arrive.. I did meet some friendly people in the lounge at Chicago, they were giving a European Tourist (that they met in San Fran airport) a ride to his hotel in Indianapolis and mine was pretty close so they gave me a lift too, (saved me trying to get a Cab after 3am…) as it was I got into my hotel just befor 4am and climbed into bed 🙂

… still really tired/Jet lagged, we start our rigorouse De-install tomorrow… only 16 days to go befor holidays!!!! YAY!!!!! I hope I make it 😉