Caribbean Trip
17 March 2010
January was not so hot and dry as last year, which was a relief. We have tried a variety of plants on the deck of the house and Summer has been a testing time for finding out which ones are going to survive there. Many of our activities for January were the same as last year. We went to the Australian Open: this year the centre court matches we saw were somewhat disappointing with Marcos Baghdatis retiring because of injury. Once again we helped with marshalling in the Australia Day parade on January 26th.
The new activity for January was the National Gay & Lesbian Sculling Camp. I spent the weekend having intensive coaching both on- and off-water which was a lot of fun and quite a change of pace from our usual rowing sessions. The (straight) coaches were mostly Australian Olympic competitors in their 20s, some of whom were unsympathetic to the difficulties of making a heavy almost-40-year-old body run around the lake.
Midsumma Carnival was the same weekend and we went late in the afternoon, not as volunteer helpers this year. We had a pleasant afternoon with friends but did not stay very late at the Tea Dance.
At short notice, Jay was sent by work to Seattle for a Microsoft conference in February. He was delayed a day in Los Angeles which meant he had time to visit his sister’s family in Burbank. It also meant he was able to compare the Premium Economy offerings of V Australia and Qantas to LA in quick succession. The service is similar, but V Australia is perceptibly gayer.
Though Jay’s parents had to cancel their trip and did not stay with us in February, we did have friends visiting Melbourne who stayed. Beau visited from Canberra and Jim from Sydney. We had not seen Jim since he moved to the US almost a year previously, so it was good to see him again.
Since August I had been training once a week with a trainer at the gym, Al Reidie. This was to give us some new ideas for training and also to get some specific diet advice for getting leaner. Both objectives were met more effectively than I had expected, and we have both been very happy with his work, so I’ll turn 40 feeling old but not fat.
Neither of us had been to Harbour Party before, and this year we knew there would be a lot of visitors from the US there as the Atlantis Cruise arrived in Sydney that weekend. We went up for the party and went to it with our friend Jay. We saw quite a few visitors from LA and elsewhere that we knew.
The setting for the party is very picturesque with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in the background through the afternoon and evening. The main Mardi Gras party and Toybox were scheduled for the following weekend so we missed them this year as we were travelling that weekend.
We flew to Fort Lauderdale via Los Angeles to join the Atlantis Caribbean cruise on the Celebrity Solstice. We were met in Fort Lauderdale by Billy, a close friend from New York, who was unfortunately not able to come with us on the cruise this time, but we had a day with him before boarding.
The cruise was a little different from our last one in 2007. Then we were keen to get off the boat and see as much as we could of each of the cities we visited. This time there was less pressure to see everything in each port, but we still did a number of shore excursions.
We didn’t know anyone on the cruise before we boarded, but we made several new friends and also saw a few people we knew from San Francisco. I have put a photo album from the cruise online. We had plenty of relaxation time by the pool as well as three nights of dancing. We got a lot of sun as the weather was good. Coming out of Summer in Australia we had the advantage over the predominantly East Coast crowd in having a tan from the beginning.
At the end of the cruise we spent a couple of days in Fort Lauderdale, unexpectedly mixing with the Spring Break crowd and having a farewell dinner with Ed, a friend from the cruise. From there we headed back to Los Angeles to visit Jay’s family before returning to Australia.
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The new activity for January was the National Gay & Lesbian Sculling Camp. I spent the weekend having intensive coaching both on- and off-water which was a lot of fun and quite a change of pace from our usual rowing sessions. The (straight) coaches were mostly Australian Olympic competitors in their 20s, some of whom were unsympathetic to the difficulties of making a heavy almost-40-year-old body run around the lake.
Midsumma Carnival was the same weekend and we went late in the afternoon, not as volunteer helpers this year. We had a pleasant afternoon with friends but did not stay very late at the Tea Dance.
At short notice, Jay was sent by work to Seattle for a Microsoft conference in February. He was delayed a day in Los Angeles which meant he had time to visit his sister’s family in Burbank. It also meant he was able to compare the Premium Economy offerings of V Australia and Qantas to LA in quick succession. The service is similar, but V Australia is perceptibly gayer.
Though Jay’s parents had to cancel their trip and did not stay with us in February, we did have friends visiting Melbourne who stayed. Beau visited from Canberra and Jim from Sydney. We had not seen Jim since he moved to the US almost a year previously, so it was good to see him again.
Since August I had been training once a week with a trainer at the gym, Al Reidie. This was to give us some new ideas for training and also to get some specific diet advice for getting leaner. Both objectives were met more effectively than I had expected, and we have both been very happy with his work, so I’ll turn 40 feeling old but not fat.
Neither of us had been to Harbour Party before, and this year we knew there would be a lot of visitors from the US there as the Atlantis Cruise arrived in Sydney that weekend. We went up for the party and went to it with our friend Jay. We saw quite a few visitors from LA and elsewhere that we knew.
The setting for the party is very picturesque with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in the background through the afternoon and evening. The main Mardi Gras party and Toybox were scheduled for the following weekend so we missed them this year as we were travelling that weekend.
We flew to Fort Lauderdale via Los Angeles to join the Atlantis Caribbean cruise on the Celebrity Solstice. We were met in Fort Lauderdale by Billy, a close friend from New York, who was unfortunately not able to come with us on the cruise this time, but we had a day with him before boarding.
The cruise was a little different from our last one in 2007. Then we were keen to get off the boat and see as much as we could of each of the cities we visited. This time there was less pressure to see everything in each port, but we still did a number of shore excursions.
We didn’t know anyone on the cruise before we boarded, but we made several new friends and also saw a few people we knew from San Francisco. I have put a photo album from the cruise online. We had plenty of relaxation time by the pool as well as three nights of dancing. We got a lot of sun as the weather was good. Coming out of Summer in Australia we had the advantage over the predominantly East Coast crowd in having a tan from the beginning.
At the end of the cruise we spent a couple of days in Fort Lauderdale, unexpectedly mixing with the Spring Break crowd and having a farewell dinner with Ed, a friend from the cruise. From there we headed back to Los Angeles to visit Jay’s family before returning to Australia.
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