I am writing this the day after we (New Zealand) got knocked out of the Rugby World Cup by France. An absolutely shocking and unbelievable exit to the frogs. *sigh
Anyway, a few weeks ago Abby and I headed up to Edinburgh for the weekend to watch a pool game of the RWC to see New Zealand play Scotland. We meet up with James and Anna from my work for a few drinks before hitting the game, there was a good atmosphere and over all it was a good trip - touring Edinburgh castle again and doing an underground tour of the old caves etc provided some entertainment after the rugby and pubs. More photos

Thorp Park
I blame Toby, plain and simple. It was his master idea to go to Thorpe Park, amusment park. Problem is I don't like rollacoasters much :( But that didn't stop us going on all the major attractions, 'Stealth' - 205ft high that accelerates from 0-80mph in less than 2.0 seconds, 'Nemesis Inferno' - one of those feet dangling ones, 'Colossus' - which has something like 15 loops - wasn't feeling 100% after this one, a nice water log ride one, then Toby - the bastard- made me go on 'Zodiac' which as you can imagine just spins, and spins and well spins. arrrg. Dizzy, dazed and confused I stumbled towards a free falling ride and the last ride of the day which was 'Tidal Wave'. It was a good conclusion to the day - getting soaked. :) I think it took me a couple of days to come right.

Other
Trips have been light of late and I am looking to pick up the pace again. So in a few weeks Abby and I are going to Lisbon for 6 days, then staying in a castle in Bath for New Years. January brings the car rally for Corde and I. Just booked one ski trip to Austria for Feb and looking to book another in March. Then in April we are going to a wedding in Hawaii which we will turn into a decent holiday as well.

Of note: Given the circumference of the world is 40,076 km, I have just clocked (~160k+ km) up a distance equal to 4 times around. I would hate to think how much additional distance would be added by strolling around these locations :)

With Abby settling in over here in London, it was about time to go back and pick up some more(!) of her stuff, meet the parents (shudder) and pick up her pet iguana Johnny. Never really nervous about meeting parents - as well…they all love me, but the prospect of living with Johnny I must admit un-settled me a bit. Something about 4 foot territorial lizard roaming the house looking to pick a fight. But at this point I had already suggested to Abby’s disgust that it live outside. Because it is a 12 hour flight, we extended it from a go and grab mission to a 10 day holiday.

Driving from the airport to Abby’s home town of Stayton, you got an idea of just how sparse the population of Oregon was. It kind of reminded me of the Canterbury plains back home with endless farms, but in this case, all of it produce - with very few live stock anywhere. I got a kick out how back-water American movie town it was - one traffic light, a diner, kids going to the river to go swimming and well that was about it. I could see how you would get bored it could be in the summer holidays and why people try to escape and run to the big city. But then all the kids worked on the farm, picking berries, driving tractors, snipping broccoli etc so I guess they were busy.

State Fair
We headed to the state fair, which is very much like the A&P (Agricultural and Produce) show back home but on a much larger scale. It was hot, dusty and a tad un-comfortable walking around. But I got to laugh at the magnitude of 'cowboys' roaming around with their Stetson hats, spurs and one size too small jeans. There was the normal variety of sickening foods, candy floss and toffee apples, fair go rides, arts'n'crafts, an as-seen-on-tv hanger of stalls, and live entertainment. I think it was a been-there done-that event where I won’t be rushing back to any state fair. But it was a good day out.

Seattle
We hired a car and drove to the State of Washington to visit Abby’s sister (Mellissa) in Seattle. Different state = different world basically, as the landscape changed from rolling farmland to forests with cities implanted in the valleys, you could see the IQ raising and the level of sophistication equaling rising. Abby’s sister has two small girls and newly acquired baby boy. The girls seemed to latch onto anyone who had given them remotest bit of attention - which was my fatal flaw. As we arrived, they asked if I wanted to have a look at something and naturally not wanting to offend 'Yeah sure what is it?' - next thing I know I am being molested for 3 days to look at this, play with that, push me on the swing this... arrg... When do we leave?

But it was pretty relaxing and I liked their life style, we went out on the boat and had a water tour of Seattle, seeing the house boats from 'Sleepless in Seattle' the movie, a sail boat race in the harbor, we even saw Bill Gates house with him arriving home on his yacht. It seems he lives in his 'complex' on one side of the lake/harbor and works in Redmond, Seattle on the other - so what better way to get to work but to drive you boat. As he arrives, 4 men in perfect white suits come out to help dock and tie off his boat. Next we did a spot of waterskiing and tubing before heading back in as night started to fall. On the same tour I was pretty happy to see an American Bald Eagle - which I learnt has recently come off the endangered species list.

Johnny
So, the iguana. Although he is pretty cool, I am no real fan. And it would seem, neither are Abby’s parents or sister who have been living with him over the last 3 months. So I think they were looking forward to seeing the back end of him. But the real excitement came a few days before we were scheduled to leave, Abby was giving him a bath at the same time as preparing his food, in the process of carrying him and adjusting his food the little blighter took a snap at her and managed to just graze across her arm - she got him in his cage before starting to go into shock and passing out, falling taking most of the deck furniture with her. Lauren and I were just going outside as we saw her hit the deck and start convulsing and shaking while soft fat and muscle tissue was pushing out of gaping wound. Putting her in the recovery position we were going to give a minute before calling the ambulance but she came out of it all alright within a minute. So we took her down to the ER to get a dozen stitches. The up-side of the incident was that Abby became a little scared of him and we decided to find an educational rescue which will look after him well. Bye bye Johnny bye bye.