In less than 11 hours time I will be taking off on Qatar Airlines to start a practically 24 hour journey to get to Cape Town. I’m hoping that the weather is good with lots of sun and no rain. I can’t wait! I’m also hoping to convince Jules to come along with me on a sky jump and that its not terrifying to jump out of a little plane 10,000 feet in the air .. … wish me luck!

The flight over from Miami was longer and more wearying than I thought I would be so all I wanted to do when we got to our apartment in Zurich was go to sleep. And considering the weather was pretty rubbish that’s basically what I did on our first day! It was great (though that meant I pretty much ruined my sleep pattern for the rest of the trip.)

Photos are here.

The Experience

Zurich is Switzerland’s largest city, though not its capital (Bern has that distinction) and lies on Lake Zurich and the River Limmat. The main attractions, as with any other European city, are its churches and museums. All are located nearby the river and also around Lake Zurich. It also has one of the best-known shopping streets in the world – the Bahnhofstrasse.

Another appeal in Zurich is its proximity to the beautiful Alps.

We had basically about three days in Zurich, not including the day that I, um, slept away … ahem, and most of the time we actually spent away from Zurich.

• When in the city itself we spent most of it walking around town and seeing the sights such as Grossmünster, an old Romanesque church (normally you can climb the towers for views over the city but it didn’t seem to be open when we were there), Fraumunste, an old Gothic church with beautiful window paintings by Marc Chagal, a down one side of Lake Zurich and of course taking a walk down Bahnhofstrasse. Nothing too exciting but admittedly not much can beat snacking on grilled Wurst by the waters of Lake Zurich on a day with brilliant weather.

• With lots of day tours available from Zurich we opted for taking in a couple of the Alps. The first day tour encompassed a visit to Lucern and Mt Titlis. Our tour guide was pretty funny, and later on we realised a little batty, but she certainly was very accommodating and flexible on the tour. We had about an hour in Lucern and to be honest it was enough to hit some of the highlights including the Lion Monument and the Chapel Bridge. Lucern apparently has a thriving tourist industry but mainly because of its proximity to Central Switzerland. The murals on the buildings in the old town were pretty cool. To get to the peak of Mt Titlis, at 3020m/10,000ft!, we rode a couple of cable cars including the innovative revolving cable car “Rotair”. These beautiful Alps are the closest slopes to Zurich and the cable cars can get pretty crazy with skiers in the peak season. It was unfortunate the weather was so-so because we unfortunately didn’t get to do any cool activities such as riding the Ice Flyer (a giant chair lift) and going sliding. The Ice Grotto, seeing inside an ice glacier, was different.

• Our second day tour involved a visit to Interlaken and Grindewald. Not quite the Alps but Interlaken lays at the foot of the Alps of the Bernese Oberland. The stop here was rather brief but long enough to see that Interlaken is beautiful. Most of our day was spent at Grindewald known as the Glacier Village. Grindewald was a nice enough little town but basically seemed to be a base for the skiers. They do have a fairly big sports complex where you can do all sorts of activities including playing ice hockey and curling. Seeing the little kids playing ice hockey was surprisingly entertaining.

Overall I can see the appeal of living in Zurich. It’s a beautiful city with great links to beautiful Alps. The only drawback being the high cost of living.

City of Brotherly Love, Philly, the Cradle of Liberty, the City That Loves You Back, the Quaker City, The Birthplace of America. With all these names Philadelphia certainly had a lot to live up to. Its definitely a city steeped in history as we found out during our stay but its also known for its arts and culture. Photos are here.

The Experience

If you visit Philadelphia arrive prepared to see and hear a lot of history, much of it relating to the founding of the United States. The two key attractions are Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Liberty Bell. To see Independence Hall you had to basically go along on a tour (though free it is advised that during peak seasons you pre-book) and honestly it was just a tad boring. Some of the stories were interesting but on the whole I think there was just a bit too much chit chat. Also it probably didn’t help that the group was quite large so unless you were at the front it was hard to engage with our tour guide.

Some of the more interesting attractions for me included:

The Masonic Temple in Philadelphia is the headquarters for the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Pennsylvania. We thought the exterior of the building was pretty cool but inside it was truly grand and befitting its title of Grand Lodge. The tour took us to 7 different halls all of varying styles and named according to the architecture:

	Oriental Hall		Gothic Hall
	Ionic Hall		Egyptian Hall
	Norman Hall		Renaissance Hall
	Corinthian Hall

Every part of the interior is decorated interestingly even their grand staircases lined with pictures of former Grand Masters.

Until recent times (okay nearly 30 years ago) City Hall was the most visible building in the Philly Skyline with a gigantic statute of William Penn, the founder of the city, sitting on top. It is also the most hated building if you believe our tour guide with many locals ashamed of its “ugliness”. To me it didn’t look so bad so I wonder if the ugliness is more to do with the image of the building. It took 30 years and millions of dollars in the late 1800s (apparently it is estimated to build the same building today would cost at least $2 billion) to put up. Maybe the lavishness and excess of the building was too much for the Quaker sensibilities.

The tour of City Hall was fairly interesting and our tour guide knowledgeable and as a bonus I got a nod, a smile and a brush on the arm from the Mayor. It was pretty funny as he was simply walking by us and not two seconds later two of his aides came flying by shouting into their walkie talkies that the Mayor was on the way.

The view from the top of the tower at City Hall was fabulous but annoying at it is a timed visit and only four or so people can go up in the lift at once. I’m not sure if they change the procedure during peak season.

The Reading Terminal Market. This is just one of many farmers’ markets in Philly but has the distinction of having a majority of Amish farmers and products. Whenever I’m visiting my family in New York I love eating this Dutch Potato Bread. I always thought the Dutch reference was to the Netherlands but now I’ve realised it meant the Amish. Silly me. One advice is if you want any of their product to make sure you get to the market before 3pm-ish because bang on they will pack up and leave. We had a late lunch of a Turkey sandwich and gravy. It literally is a sandwich smothered in gravy.

Some other fun things include finding giant Monopoly and other Gameboard pieces, visiting the very interactive Federal Reserve Bank of Philly (unfortunately not so interactive that we were given any money – except the stuff that had been shredded!) and walking down Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philly Museum of Art and following in the footsteps of Rocky:

Finally, for fans of Iron Chef, a visit to Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto’s restaurant is a must. The restaurant has a pretty good selection of sushi and hot dishes but I thought I’d go with the $60 Omakase tasting menu (basically the Chef’s choice) because the maitre d said it was the same thing as getting the $100 Omakase tasting menu at night. They never tell you what you get but for $60 its fair to say you will get between 6-7 dishes. My brother had visited over Christmas and interestingly we had fairly similar dishes. It was all very yummy and very good quality:

Waiting for the food. Can’t wait!	Yellowtail Tartare with freshly grated wasabi and a sweet plum palette cleanser. Included crispy garlic/onion and dashi sauce.	Warm whitefish carpaccio hot oil and mitsuba leaf. Plus Chives. Delicious.
A trio: Salmon with yuzu sauce, House Green Salad with salmon bonito shaving and yuzu vinagrette	Rock shrimp tempura with spicy ‘kochujan’ aioli and chives and endives	Chilean sea bass – black bean sauce, shaved ginger and hot oil and diced bell peppers
Platter of sushi: Chu-Toro (Medium Fatty Tuna), Yellowtail, Giant Clam, Fluke, Jackfish	Dessert: Cheesecake with candied ginger and diced pineapple

Our visit to Houston has been a little different from San Diego and Phoenix because although we were there to check out the city we were also there to visit with some family. One of my mum’s favourite cousins (Auntie Vicky) has lived in Houston for who knows how long and its only now that we’d actually had a chance to visit. Photos are here.

The Experience

As we expected from the space city the area where we were staying was pretty spacey looking. Well sort of. The lamp posts and traffic lights were pretty cool and a darn sight prettier than those I’ve seen to date.

As I stated above Houston was actually all about family and weren’t we treated royally! Auntie Vicky’s family was so great to us – driving us all over the place, feeding us and actually giving up a lot of their own time to entertain us. It was great fun.

Actually we couldn’t have timed our visit to Houston any better with it being the weekend of Chinese New Year. This meant a gigantic feast at yum-cha on Sunday and of course the requisite lion dances:

These lions used to frighten the heck out of me. Even now I can’t understand how the little kids aren’t scared with the loud banging of the fire crackers and the frantic movement of the lions. Still, a good lion dance is extremely entertaining.

Our time in Houston was a bit of a drive by visit so to speak as we didn’t actually go into any attractions but somehow spent a lot of time taking photos. Cowboy boots were the order of business in Houston but I’m not talking about the ones on your feet! First there were painted cows, in Berlin we saw painted bears and in Houston they had painted cowboy boots. Pretty cool.

The only disappointment really in Houston was not seeing any sexy cowboys (we JUST missed the rodeo!) Thanks though to the family for being so generous to us.

Discovery Pyramid Moody Gardens	Galveston	The setting sun
	Kemah Boardwalk

Speak of Phoenix or Arizona and one immediately envisions vast desert plains dotted with cacti. Well, that’s what I see anyway. Arizona didn’t disappoint though to my surprise Phoenix the city itself is actually a fairly built up. The desert plains, mountain landscapes and cacti didn’t hit us until we were just a bit out of the city. Photos are here.

The Experience

With only two and a bit days in Phoenix, and knowing we were going to spend at least one day at the Grand Canyon, a few things, like museums and such unfortunately had to be sacrificed despite how may good things we’d heard of such attractions like the Heard Museum (unique for both the exhibits displayed and their manner of display), the Phoenix Zoo and Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot.

What we did see was absolutely gorgeous and awe-inspiring. Headlining the act was definitely our visit to the Grand Canyon. We could have driven to the Canyon ourselves but decided to book a tour instead. Except for our fellow tour travellers (five seemingly only semi-interested-in-being-on-the-tour adults and one kid probably too young to appreciate what was going on) the tour was fab. Our tour guide was absolutely brilliant and knew the areas we visited like the back of her hand.

Before the Canyon we had a short pitstop in Sedona. Sedona is well-known not only known for its red rock formations (including one that looks like Snoopy on his back if you look carefully) but also for its arts and most interestingly the amazing energy generated by the spiritual vortexes. It is these vortexes which bring artists/musicians/celebrities etc. to Sedona because its said that if you come to Sedona you won’t leave an empty canvas. Our tour guide said that she’d been on a tour once with a woman who found the energy so vibrant and powerful that she actually had to leave Sedona. Sedona is definitely one very cool town and if I come this way again more time to explore and maybe indulge in those new age spas would definitely be on the agenda.

Another couple of hours on from Sedona, and to our surprise through snow covered roads/fields, we finally reached the edge of the Canyon. At this point my brother and I decided to go with the expensive (but definitely worth it) helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon whilst the others headed to a rest stop at the rim of the Canyon. Our pilot was only 19! but he was pretty good at both flying the helicopter and narrating our 50 minute ride. We took so many photos, and to you out there they will all start to blur together, but it was so beautiful and grand we just couldn’t help it. I even shot some video footage. However all the photos and video definitely do not do the Canyon any justice. Definitely something that needs to be experienced:

After the helicopter ride we made several stops including the Grand Canyon Vista on the South Rim at Mather Point and Desert View which had a Watch Tower built to give the widest possible view of the Canyon but still harmonizing with the setting. Its told that the architect/builder, Mary Colter , picked and placed every stone to perfection. These stops showed another side to the Canyon as whilst the helicopter ride gave you a chance to see most of the Canyon standing on the Canyon allowed us to appreciate the peace and beauty of the natural beauty without the chop chop chop sound of the helicopter. Plus we got to play with snow!

At the end of the day we had the obligatory stop at a Native American Trading Post. Nothing too exciting to be honest but the stories our tour guide had about Native Americans in general was pretty interesting.

It was going to be hard beat the Grand Canyon as an attraction but the rest of what we saw in Phoenix didn’t let us down.

A visit to the Desert Botanical Gardens should be on everyone’s list. I think I read there were 50 acres of desert plants! That’s a lot of plant! I’d recommend heading there towards the end of the day so you can see the Gardens in the daylight, experience the gorgeous setting sun and then see how the Garden glows at night. Its pretty cool – though tough on cameras!

Those into architecture must definitely visit Taliesin West – a working and living memorial to the Frank Lloyd Wright. He built the place and it was actually a kind of living experiment for his little architects/designers/builders. A tour of the place is recommended. Frank Lloyd Wright was definitely a man with a theory when he was building houses. For example, he built all the door ways small so when you passed through to the other side you always felt you were emerging into something. Everything was very geometrical. He was also apparently very stubborn. Case in point: when the buildings first went up there wasn’t such thing as glass so when the glass did have to be installed he refused to move anything so in one case they had to cut a hole in the glass to allow for a clay pot that was sticking out!

Finally they say that no visit to Phoenix is complete without driving the Apache Trail. Not quite willing to trust our budget car on the no doubt rocky terrain we took a jeep tour that started at Goldfield Ghost Town at the Apache Junction. The trail is fairly long and very scenic. You’ll definitely see a lot of cacti, especially the Saguaro, on your drive. I was very glad someone else was driving because I swear at one stage one of our tires was actually hanging out over the edge! The Saguaro is known as the Hotel of the Sonoran Desert and is the most amazing plant. However it is extremely slow growing, taking between 60-80 years just to develop an arm, and slow to propagate! I’m not sure if its true but our tour guide said that literally millions of seeds would probably produce just one Saguaro. This is probably why they are therefore protected so if one gets in the way of you building a house you have to apply for permission for it to be moved and then I think it has to be returned to the same spot.

Phoenix was definitely a delight for all its natural beauty. I could see myself living there in a heartbeat if not for the searing heat in the summer and the awful traffic.

First stop on the “USA Express” was the beautiful San Diego. Welcome to San Diego! This is what everyone said to us wherever we went be it the bus drivers, tour operators, employees, people on the street and even a tourist from New Zealand. What a friendly place.

After the hassle we’d had with our flight connections it was actually nice to be in a city where everyone was so helpful. Photos are here.

The Experience

As with all the American cities we are going to be visiting over the next few weeks we were having a sort of whirlwind visit. Theme parks seemed to be the order of the day in San Diego with a visit firstly to San Diego Zoo on day 1 and then Seaworld on day 2. Our final day saw us exploring the Old Town and heading off on a sail boat in an attempt to catch some whales (slightly unsuccessful on this point.)

San Diego Zoo is reputed to be one of the best in the world and you can see that a lot of thought has been put into the lay out of the park so even though you might feel you are criss-crossing the park a few times you will hardly ever need to walk the same path twice. Although I’d hoped that the weather in San Diego would be warm and sunny the cooler weather actually ended up being a bit of a bonus as it meant that most of the animals were actually up and about including the polar bears and pandas. So cute! To make your visit a little more interesting check out the Animal Enrichment program which the Zoo run every second weekend of each month where the zookeepers and trainers try to do something a little different with the animals. You may be surprised by the results.

When we went to Seaworld the weather was absolutely rubbish but again something positive came out of it. The drizzle meant there were less people in the park, you didn’t care, or cared less, if you were sitting in the Splash Zone at the Dolphin show and Shamu, the Killer Whale’s, show and getting wet on Journey to Atlantis (which we managed to ride about 5-6 times in a row!) was a walk in the park. The highlights at Seaworld was definitely Believe – Shamu’s show where killer whales did cool tricks to an amazing and moving soundtrack and feeding the bat rays (who feel like jelly) and dolphins (who feel like a wet hot dog as one little girl described it.) See below to see me feed the bat rays and also some of the other creatures in their habitat at Seaworld:

The manatees were also very sweet. The sea cows are very affectionate and when they weren’t sleeping (which they do a lot!) seemed to be constantly touching each other and even kissing! See below for the Shamu Video:

Old Town is a beautiful and amazing recreation of times gone by (as in the early 1800’s) in San Diego. The architecture is a mix of Spanish and early American and it felt quite authentic. During the day it felt a little sleepy but it definitely becomes quite a lively place at night. We found the little Mexican ladies making tortillas/tacos/burritos etc. fresh by hand in the restaurant windows quite entertaining.

Our whale watching expedition was a bit of a disaster in the sense that we saw one whale spouting for about 3 hours of sailing. Having said that we were able to enjoy a beautiful, if slightly nippy, day out on a sail boat which is sooo much more peaceful than those giant cruises that take people out for whale watching. The only thing that ruined the atmosphere was the horde of helicopters and jets that kept flying overhead.

On to the next city … Phoenix!

Its sucky but disappointingly we were delayed leaving Brisbane and as a result missed our connection in New Zealand and as a knock on effect missed our connection in LA for San Diego! The worst thing was that when we finally arrived in LA we couldn’t get even get a confirmation on to the next available flight and instead had to go on stand by for about 5 flights before we finally managed to get out of LA. I think in the end a two hour delay in Brsibane translated to a nearly seven hour delay by the time we finally got to our hotel in San Diego. What a waste.

Its never nice to have delays but nevertheless its very entertaining to see how people deal with it. One lady in the Fashion Industry (as she kept pointing out to everyone within shouting’s distance) was a bit extreme – I’m not sure if she made herself so angry that she started crying or if she was genuinely upset. Now I understand that the delay was hardly pleasant but there is no use in shouting to the ground staff at the airport. All I could think was lady at least there were ground staff around to deal with our complaints. Plus, we all got $5 phone cards and $12 meal vouchers for the three hour delay in NZ so immediately we were in a much better position than we were in Lisbon!

Tomorrow my brother and I fly out to the States. I’m feeling a little sad that its already time to say goodbye to my family and Australia. Time really flies by so quickly!

Dad and Mum have been great. What am I saying – they’re always great! It was really nice of them to take off the couple of weeks to spend with me. I certainly miss them when I’m in the UK and though I try to talk with them every week, and sometimes seem them over the webcam, nothing is a substitute for the real deal. They are both so sweet and whenever I’m about to come home make sure they do all they can to make me feel, well, at home!

The weather delivered as I expected. It must have been between 35-40+ degrees in the first few days with humidity way up there (thank goodness for air-conditioning I say!) but after that it dropped down to a “mild” 30 degrees or so and with the breeze was actually quite pleasant.

The highlights of my visit include (its probably no coincidence that three out of the seven highlights below are about eating and that I gained about 5kgs on my holidays 🙂 ):

	Spending time with the family		The beach and the sun
	Dad and Mum’s cooking including one of my favourite desserts – fried ice cream!		Eating summer fruits such as mangoes and lychees
	Catching up with friends		Beautiful seafood including mud crab and lobster
	Seeing how much Bris-vegas has grown up!

Today begins my annual sojourn back home to Oz. As usual I’ve planned for a bit of time off from London but I’ll only be spending a fraction of the time at home with the rest of the time spent travelling across the States with my brother. I’ve been to the USA so many times before that it feels like every second page of my passport has that green immigration card tab stuck stapled to it! At least we have five new cities to explore … I can’t wait and even though I’m in Oz for only a short time I’m really looking forward to spending some time with the parentals on the sunny Gold Coast!