Round the World

We are in Dublin Ireland!

very thankful that we are here, after the USA - Ireland is an awesome place. Much like Australia in that we speak the same language, drive on the same side of the road and eat the same food. Glorious!

We have been eating at pubs all over Dublin - nice quaint spots to enjoy a Guiness and listen to the Irish sounds of then.

Managed to get a lost a couple of times walking on the streets. Not as easy navigating the streets as it is in the States. All the roads used to be horse and cart trails - apparently horses don't like the grid system - too confusing!

We went to the Dublin Zoo yesterday and caught up with all of Jo's friends (only kidding). There was this cute Jaguar that spoke to us and we thought he wanted to 'play' - probably just was putting on a cute face to get us to jump the barrier so he can have an 'easy' meal.

Jo has been taking thousands of photos of the doors of Dublin. All old Georgian Architecture around this city. The weather has been nice the last couple of days - so we have been enjoying just walking everywhere.

Look forward to your comments

Matt & Jo

Yes we are in Boston!

Believe it or not - the New England accent has similar tones to that of us from Australia!

The hotel we are staying at is very close to MIT and Harvard University - so somehow or another we felt some amazing urge to go to the bookstore (Borders) and buy some reading material to expand our craniums. Jo is right now laying on the bed and reading her new found non-fictional book "Now Discover Your Strengths". She is feeling all inspired to work out thyself! She will probably realise that everything that I've told her about who she is - is true. Good things - its all good.

We had enjoyed our stay in New York. The culture and sites are definitely worth seeing. The ques to see the sites are not worth waiting in however. Yesterday we took the subway down to Battery Park to catch the ferry over to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty. The que for the ferry was a mile long. However you should of seen the line to get a ticket, unbelievable! It was a beautiful sunny day, so we got our zoom lens out on our trusty Canon digital camera and took a great photo of the statue of liberty and Ellis Island from the mainland. It sure beat standing in line for 4 hours. We went to Ground Zero and walked around Wall Street for awhile and suddenly Jo's stomach decided to cave in so we headed back to our hotel for her to catch some rest. Must of been the New York hotdog we had in Central park the day before.

Over the next couple of days we are catching up with friends in Boston so hopefully we will get to see the city from how the locals view it!

I'll keep you posted.

Jo should be updating her myspace for photos soon, so check on there for some New York and Niagara photos.

Well he are here in New York New York!

After being delayed for 6 hours or so from our connecting flights from Spingfield - Chicago - New York due to tornados in Dallas - NEw York has been worth the hassle.

The first day we arrived it rained all day, so we went out to see the Natural History Museum and drove around Uptown and saw the sights of Harlem and Central park. THe following day we went up the Empire State building and I (matt) was doing my nut as the lines were ridiculous and we were supposed to skip the lines with our 'New York Pass' - might save you money but you still have to line up and get a ticket! The view on top of the Empire was spectacular. We then drove all around downtown and then went back up to Midtown and stopped off at the Rockerfeller Centre to see the ice rink and then walk back to our hotel.

It as been quite cold with temperatures in the negatives and under 10. This weekend the weather has been amazing with blue skys and sunny days.

Friday we flew up to Niagara Falls for the day. It snowed there about 2 days before and it looked like a 'winter wonderland'. The Falls are always impressive, especially crossing over to see them on the Canadian side. Jo was so stoked that she was playing in snow - she really didn't take much notice of the Falls. I think she managed to take about 300 photos of just snow. Most of the attractions were closed due to snow and ice so we went to see downtown Buffallo - save the trip is just another city centre! Lots of buildings!!! We tought we could catch an earlier flight back to New York so we arrived at the airport at 4pm (our original flight back would be 7pm) and we checked the monitors and alas our flight back got cancelled. They rebooked us on the next flight - which was due to leave at 8pm but we didn't leave the airport until 10.30pm.

Yesterday we slept in after only arriving at our hotel at about 1am. The day was beautiful and we did the NBC studio tour and saw the sets of Conan O'Brien and Saturday Night live. It was very impressive. After that we walked down to Macy's. They have an amazing flower show on in the store with such extravagant displays. Of course the store was packed so it was constant pushing and shoving just to see a blasted flower! We then walked back up Time Square where we had a bite to eat and saw the movie - Horton Hears a Who.

Today we are going to go to Time Square Church which is David Wilkerson's church (Cross and the Switchblade), and then walk around Central Park. It is such a lovely Sunday - so we intend to enjoy it.

Happy Easter to everyone

Hi Everyone!

We're in the Airport at Springfield Missouri at the moment (free Internet...sweet!), smack bang in the middle of the USA. We're hoping to board our connecting flight to New York via Chicago shortly. The weather is really bad, with many flights being cancelled (There are tornado's in Dallas, so all of the flights in and out of there are cancelled... yikes!) Hopefully our flight will only delayed and not cancelled as the weather in Chicago isn't too bad.

It's been really cold, but sadly for me (Fantastic for everyone else) it has not snowed even though some nights have been 0'C and below. Alas I still have hope, as they are forecasting snow in New York this week.

We've had a great time in Springfield, just relaxing and catching up with some old friends. Yesterday we went for a cruise through the town by ourselves and saw all of the town's highlights, they have a great Wal*Mart and Bass Pro Shop here. Our dads could easily spend a day or 2 checking out all of the nifty gadgets at Bass Pro, we spent at least 2 hours there walking around, playing with some real guns, and being mezmorised by all of the flashy lures, boats, trike's, camping equipment, the live snakes, and cool indoor natural looking aquariums with giant waterfalls, complete with fancy ducks. It was great!

But as always the highlight would have to be the people that you meet. I had the privilege of meeting Pastor Jess and Paula Gibson, who totally spoilt us with Dinner on Saturday night and lunch on Sunday afternoon. They pastor a wonderful church called Cornerstone, (The Church that Matt did Masters Commission at in 2003) where we attended on Sunday, they had a cool Gospelish feel to the music, which was great to experience, Pastor Jess spoke about the importance of Palm Sunday, and whether we want to do things and see things our way, or do and see them God's way. It was a very neat-o day indeed.

We also met up with Rick regularly (Matt's Masters Director) whom picked us up, ran us around the town, and dropped us off. We spent yesterday evening with He and his wife Nicole and their 3 children. It was great just to chat with them and get to know them, they are a great sort.

We're about to board our plane, I’ll keep you posted with all of the adventures that we are about to have in New York, New York.

and as always, I have posted a bunch of photos on Jo's MySpace, check them out at www.myspace.com/mee_too_you

Love Love Love

Matt and Jo!

Wow what a place Vegas is. If you wanted to have a continual 'schoolies' then this is the place. Nothing but drinking, gambling and sleeping around. Of course that isn't US at all. So we just walked up and down the Vegas strip of hotels (Luxor - Stratosphere) and ate lots of food.

The food was awesome but the atmosphere here isn't, but once you get into a show - the entertainment is world class!

We are so cheap - we got roped in for a Timeshare presentation (4 hours mind you) and after getting through all the tough sales tactics we got 2 free dinner buffets and 2 free shows. We saw the Toxic Audio which they do these cool songs and beats with nothing but the human voice - very cool. And we saw the V Show - which is like a sampler of all the shows in Vegas. Matt was a volunteer with one of the acts. It was so hilarious - he had to get up on stage and the presenter placed a rubber mask on his face and made him do some funny stuff. He had the audience in stitches. For that effort he won 2 more show tickets to Toxic Audio that we had already seen. Oh well - we are going to find some random couple and bless them with the tickets.

Tonight we saw 'Stomp Out Loud'. That was totally awesome and energetic. They were dancing around the place and banging and tapping bits of metal junk, garbage cans and just things you see everyday. It has us tapping everything when we left the show. We nearly walked up to some random bald guy and start tapping his head to a beat!

Jo has updated her myspace with photos so make sure you check them out - www.myspace.com/mee_too_you

We head off to Springfield tomorrow to catch up with some friends and shake off the dirt of Vegas.

Talk soon

Matt & Jo