The weather report said clear.
They lied.
Spent 90 minutes hiding from a storm in shopping centres, and other places.
Stockholm may have more coffee shops than Sydney.
Went to the Royal Palace & saw the changing of the Guard - Very Impressive.
(NOTE Ben .. Denmark needs to improve).
Didn't see Princess Victoria or her personal trainer/husband Prince Daniel.
Booze prices not as high as we feared (phew).
Loving Sweden.
22:00 hours .. not too dark outside yet, wasn't dark at 04:30 hours, so not looking good !
Nite all.

We've arrived in beautiful Stockholm. Our flight was late leaving New York & as our connection was "tight" at Helsinki ... woops. We got the next flight from Helsinki to Stockholm. Everything nice and Northern European here Clean, organised, ikea-esk blond. Kirk's ancestral Swedish has been very useful, particularly when our hovercraft was actually full of eels ! It's 5:30 PM here, 11:30 AM New York, and we got 0 minutes sleep so I think it's time for a beer, dinner & sleep.

Our last full day in New York. Visited the Guggenheim museum and took a long walk in central park. Off to sweden tomorrow.

Lots of walking in the Hot sun,

Brooklyn Bridge, Little Italy, (not so Italian any more), 911 site.

We got a little hot.

Riding on the subway was a relief 'cos it's got air conditioning.

Alison got a new computer, trying to read the colour maps on the kindle was sending us mad !
(for the geeks an ASUS 32 G transformer pad).

A cultural day today with quite a few hours spent at the Metropolitan Museum and then a walk along the High line in Chelsea, an abandoned elevated rail line that has been turned into a park.  Supposed to be severe thunderstorms today but after all those hours at the Met - bright sunshine.

Today has been a day of architecture.  First the Top of the Rock - Rockefeller Centre for a 360 degrees view of the city, then the Chrysler Building, Empire State and Flatiron buildings.  Did some shopping at Century 21 - more of a blood sport than a shopping experience.

New York, New York....Kirk and I arrived last night after a rather long and delayed trip from San Francisco.  Today we mastered the subway and caught the Staten Island ferry to get a great view of the city and the Statue of Liberty and then headed up to Times Square.  The weather if very hot - about 30 degrees.  We are staying in Greenwich Village which is great.  Kirk is now a great uncle - congratulations to Joshua and Annegret.

Delayed at San Francisco airport.  Airforce one is just out the window.  Obama is in town.  Maybe we can hitch a ride....

Sunday spent on public transport .. well perhaps not ...

Quiet day, walk in the park, off to a hamburger joint for lunch, boat cruise under "the bridge".

They lied about the weather, we got a bit chilly at times. Anyhows (see turning American) last day in SFO, pack up our bags for an 05:35 pick-up & a 07:05 flight to New York.. happy days !

News Alert ...

Found wine with screw top !

Phew.

We arrived in San Francisco late on Wednesday night and spent Thursday getting our bearings and getting over our jet lag after a long flight from Singapore.  We are staying in a beautiful apartment a few blocks from Union Square.  It is an art deco building with a cage lift and a marble foyer.  Our apartment has a murphy bed, one that flips up into the wall.  A bit of a trick for young players as to where the bed was when we got to the apartment at around midnight.  Today (Friday) we played tourist, riding the cable car to Fisherman's wharf and then taking a boat tour to Alcatraz.  The Alcatraz tour was excellent and quite creepy with an audio tour narrated by former inmates and wardens.  We hadn't booked the tour which you need to book at least 3 weeks in advance but we paid a premium and bought the ticket from a "travel agent".  It is now the cocktail hour and Kirk is putting his cork removal skills to good use since the US doesn't appear to have discovered screw tops even on $11 bottles of wine...

Our time in Melaka is now over.  Last Saturday was Jade and Adam's wedding celebration.  The day started off with games, where the groom must "pay a ransom" to see his bride.  This was followed by a tea ceremony where Kirk and I (along with the other family members) were served tea by Adam and Jade.  That night was the wedding banquet for a mere 240 guests.  A video of the earlier events of the day was shown along with photos from Adam and Jade's 2 day photo shoot earlier in the week.  Adam and Jade had taken dancing lessons and performed a dirty dancing routine at the wedding.  From Melaka we caught the bus to Singapore for a night before flying out to San Francisco.

Arrived safely in Melaka on Wednesday night.  We are enjoying the 34 degrees heat.   The Tanswell contingent is growing in numbers in preparation for Jade and Adam's wedding on Saturday.  On Thursday we toured the old town of Melaka, with Dad in a rickshaw and the rest of us on foot before enjoying some serious pool and spa time.  Jade's parents took the Tanswell clan to a Chinese steamboat restaurant last night - very delicious.  Looking forward to nonya cuisine tonight