London, Europe & Canada
[
Photo Gallery of the 2006 World Lacrosse Championships in London, Ontario]
Just to keep everyone up to date, last week we left NYC and shot over to London, England where we had to pick up the luggage we shipped there and open an english bank account. While we were there,
Melbourne Uni Basketball star
Scott Cuffe hooked us up royally by having us over to stay at his Hammersmith house.
London is ridiculously expensive - one day worth of public transport for us to get around and visit Liv & Caroline in Oxford cost us 50 quid - $140 AUD!!!! For one single days public transport???? Also, while where we were, it was like being at a night out at cheers in Camberwell - bars & pubs full of aussies drinking & drinking to 80's music - not a highly cultural experience (The aussies have taken over!).
Irene is now on her
29 day European Contrasts Contiki tour (which began July 14th). According to the country timeline on the right of this page, she's probably in a French Chateau or in Monaco right now.
I (Jason) am currently in
London-Ontario in Canada, waiting for a visa appointment in Toronto to try and sort out a job offer I received from
Insider Pages in Silicon Valley, California. One of my former managers at
Sensis -
Mark Smallcombe is now heading up engineering on this American startup company & hooked me up with an interview when Microsoft flew me down a
few weeks ago for their interview. If things work out, it is likely we will both move to California for the foreseeable future.
Most of my time waiting for the Visa has been spent hanging out with spanky, jono, deano, yuin & marc from the
2006 New Zealand Lacrosse team at the
ACBB Accomodation hostel in London, Ontario run by my buddy Patrick.
Hope everyone is well back home. Big shout out to Kenan & Sarah - Congratulations!
PS. Here's some video from the Haka the New Zealand Lacrosse Boys performed against Hong Kong an the 2006 World Lacrosse Championships in London, Canada:
Frontal view of the Haka:
Rear view of the Haka:
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New York City
[
21 Photo Journal Entries of New York City]
[
Jason's Streetball Blog in NYC]
We spent a week and a half in
NYC just recently and fell in love with the city!
Jill (whom we stayed with in South Carolina) put us onto her friend Abi who lives & works in NYC and Abi hooked us up royally - we spent a lot of time hanging out with her (and her friends!) and we even got to spend an entire weekend house-sitting in her manhattan apartment!!!!! Thanks sooo much Abi, getting food delivery and living in a New York studio was an awesome experience!
While we were there, Irene got to do a lot of sight-seeing where she took ferries around Manhattan, got skyline photo's of the NYC skyline & checked a number of museums (
MoMA,
Metropoliton Museum of Art). Irene also managed to get on
MTV (in an audience) & almost made a
letterman appearance (missed out by one place in the line). At the same time, I (Jason) used the location as an excuse to play basketball every day and had a ball
doing so.
While we were there, we also caught up with Jason's ex-Pacific Access work-mate Mike Booth & we purchased loads of Pizza Slices & street-meat (they have street vendors who sell awesome souvlaki, salads, hot dogs etc.).
New York is an amazing place - it would be a great place to live if given the opportunity. It is such a vibrant, diverse & happening place.. Always something to do.
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Oh Canada
[Canada Photo Journal - 16 items][Other Canada Photos - 56 items]Just drove into another country - try doing that in Australia!
The speed limits are displayed in kilometers per hour, you buy petrol by the litre, temperature is measured in degrees Celsius, all signs are in French and everybody speaks French - welcome to Quebec, the heart of French-Canadia.
Quebec City sits inside high stone walls littered with
canons on the
St Lawrence river, called the
Fortification of Quebec, and
European cafes and ice-creameries. We rolled into town on the only day Quebec comes alive - Quebec Day. There was a massive party till 4am with
free concerts and some
Quebec style hip-hop (90% French, 10% English).
Montreal was even busier as it hosted the F1 Grand Prix as well as Quebec Day
celebrations.
Old Montreal has some great walking tours and views from the
clock tower.
Next stop - Ottawa, Canada's capital, where we toured
Parliament Hill and accidentally bumped into Jason's Koukia buddy -
Benny - at our hostel.
In Toronto, we chilled out with Jason's Melb Uni bball pal
Mike with some
street meat at the
baseball and got dizzy looking up at the
CN Tower. We stayed with Mike for a few days in Bradford and was treated to some awesome home cooking courtesy of Mike's mom. We also celebrated the nation's 139th birthday on Canada Day with some fireworks.
Niagara Falls, one of the wonders of the world, was quite spectacular. It's so large that it's
impossible to stay dry within a 1km radius of the falls.
After quite a busy 1.5 weeks in Canada, we will be heading to New York to celebrate Independance Day with the yanks.
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