April 09, 2005
Trip to Prague, Czech Republic
Prague is somewhere that you have to go, especially in spring. I think we may have gone a bit to early as the leaves weren't yet growing back on the tree's, however that couldn't be helped as we were bound by the date of the marathon. I should imangine by mid-late may the place would be absolutely gorgeous.
October 09, 2004
More trips
I know, long time no updates, but nothing much has been going on (I got sick when we went to Ibiza, and we didnt take many photographs :( ).
We have both booked some more holiday and are going to be spending almost a week down in Devon visiting my family in a few weeks time, visiting my cousin's baby (Born early this year, but we haven't made it back down there to visit).
July 18, 2004
Chicago Arrival
What a great flight! Thank you American Airlines, I really needed a good flight. I cannot recommend AA more. Big economy seats, lots of leg room, fantastic food. The flight left late, and arrived late, but still early afternoon. The cab ride to the hotel was quick, thank god for Sunday traffic.
After checking in at the hotel I went for a walk down North Michigan Avenue to the Apple store with the intention of picking up an iPod Mini for Sarah. Boy was I in for a surprise. Beautiful store, however they were out of stock with no more in for at least 5 weeks. Despite this I picked up a bunch of iPod Mini Accessories, just because they are so much cheaper over here than if you were buying from Apple back in the UK. I picked up the iPod Mini Armband for when Sarah is working out, Griffin iTrip Mini FM Transmitter for those long car journey's and an XtremeMac iPod Car Charger for charging the iPod Mini on those long car journey's. I even sat in on a free Photoshop CS Pro workshop session, which was quite cool. Why doesn't Microsoft do cool stuff like this?
I also snapped some photo's from around about, and scouted where my training is going to be located. In fact, I can actually see One IBM plaza from my hotel room window (the room actually has 2 windows!
I have added some pictures to the gallery. I will keep them updated during the week when I can. (Free Wifi in the hotel, whatever next?).
July 17, 2004
Off to Chicago
Mark here. I'm jetting off to chicago for the next week for a training course related to the technology I am currently using at work. I'll be back on Saturday morning.
In other news, Sarah and I have purchased a car! We have splashed out on a J Reg (1991) BMW 316i, Automatic. Sarah picks up the car on Monday evening. It feels great to be mobile again!
Look out for photo galleries of both Chicago and the new car next weekend.
May 01, 2004
New York, New York
Sitting in a Starbucks, drinking frappuccino and on their hotspot. Bargain prices, $0.10 a minute, so not to bad at all. We needed to hop online to check where the nearest abercrombie and fitch store is. Luckily there is one about 10 mins walk from here.
A quick rundown of what we have done so far.
1. Empire state
2. Times Square
3. Spent a while in Grand Central Station
4. Ground Zero
5. Dodgy Diner
6. Excellent italian restaurant for dinner last night
7. Subway
8. World Trade Center / Ground Zero
9. Shopping
10. Shopping - Bought an ultra-cool wine rack from Crate and Barrel on Madison Avenue, as well as some bamboo coasters and egg poachers.. Bargain prices aswell
Things to note: If you need to go shopping in the UK, don't bother, save up your cash and come over here and have a holiday and shopping. Prices are excellent when buying in the pound!
Anyway. Time to take a walk to the Abercrombie and Fitch store. Seeya l8r
Mark & Sarah
April 30, 2004
Off to NYC
Just a final note to let everyone know we are heading off tomorrow morning (Friday) to New York for 3 nights (Well, flight is at 1:10pm, but it'll take forever on the train/tube to get there).
Hope everyone has as good a weekend as we do. Unfortunately we will be mobile-phone-less during the visit. I don't have enough credit history here in the UK to enable roaming on my phone with orange, and I didn't have time to go and get my phone unlocked so I could use my Virgin Pay as you go SIM. Ohwell, such is life.
April 17, 2004
It's been a long time between drinks, but we're off to New York City!
Our apologies for the lack of updates over the last month. We have both been incredibly busy with work, and on top of that my notebooks windows installation decided to go all pear shaped and I had to re-install everything!
Both of us have been very busy with work, so there has not been much to report anyway. After hopes of holiday grandeur over the Easter period were dashed by everyone elses hopes of holiday granduer (ie. Everything was booked out), we spent a quiet weekend at home (with me working on the Saturday).
Determined to make the most of the next long weekend (May 3rd) we have both taken a few days off work around the long weekend and have booked a 3 night trip over to New York City. We are going to be staying in the upper east side of manhatten, known for its opulence, private schools and museums. Our hotel is a few blocks from the east river, central park, madison avenue and 5th avenue.
Meanwhile spring is creeping it's way into our lives as the clouds are starting to thin and sun's rays are beginning to bring warmth instead of just light. The trees in our street are yet to break out with leaves, however, rest assured as soon as they do I will post a few pictures. Along the vein of pictures, I have received my replacement camera from the travel insurance claim, and will start taking some more photographs as spring sets in. Expect a new gallery for our New York trip, as well as some random Southend and surrounding areas galleries.
March 06, 2004
Travel Update
I forgot to mention this earlier but a travel update is needed.
Today (Saturday March 6th) Sarah has taken off for a week spent with family and friends in Milan / Cremona, Italy. She will be getting back next Saturday 13th March.
Lets hope she takes some good photo's on her new camera phone. Hopefully it won't be to much longer until the insurance money comes through for my stolen camera and I can get back to taking proper photo's, I'm really missing a good camera.
February 22, 2004
Holiday Over, Reality Starts
Sarah and I have successfully braved the challenges of being a tourist in London during the winter season and are back in Southend. We have been to a number of tourist locations, in no specific order being:
- Madam Tussauds
- The London Dungeon
- The Olde Operating Theatre Museum
- St. Pauls Cathedral
- Southwalk Cathedral
- Kensington Palace
- The Big Bus London Tour
- The National Gallery
- Trafalgar Square
- Tower of London
- Walked across Tower Bridge
There is so much more to do, but we didn't want to rush everything as we have plenty of time to do those things we missed this time later in the year.
Much apologies for the Moblog (Photo Weblog) not getting updated while we were travelling, but my new phone seems to have issues sending email to the Text America format email addresses used to send photos online. Rest assured these will appear once I have figured out how to pull them off the phone.
For me reality starts tomorrow with my New Employee Orientation with Accenture. Although I have had a love/hate relationship with the last 3 months of my life, I am going to miss being able to sleep in in the morning!
February 18, 2004
London calling
I am starting work this coming Monday so to make use of some of Sarah's annual leave before she loses it all in the new financial year we are taking a trip into London to see the sights. Yes, thats right, this is the first time we will be going into London to do touristy things!
Although I don't have a new camera yet (insurance is being a bit slow), I do have a cameraphone that I just got so I am going to try get that working so our moblog hopefully will get updated as we travel. So, if you are interested in what we are up to, check back on this page routinely over the next 4-5 days to get regular pictoral updates just below this paragraph whenever we snap a picture from the phone!
If you want to catch up on what we are doing then you can check out our textamerica moblog and that will show you all the picture we have taken over the next few days.
January 16, 2004
Trip to Paris
The first 3 days of this week for me (Mark) were spent in Paris with my parents and other family. It is a fantastic city, so beautifull, I havent come across a city yet that matches it. Unfortunately my camera was stolen from the hotel lobby (along with all my accessories and camera bag), so I dont have any photo's to share :(
December 31, 2003
Victoria and Marc's Wedding
Sarah and I will be heading back down to Devon again over the next 4 days for my cousin Victoria's wedding. I will put together an Xmas photo gallery while down there and will be back online on Sunday evening. Take care!
December 04, 2003
Young Persons Railcard
If you are between 16 and 25 (inclusive) and living in the UK and havent heard of the Young Persons Railcard then make yourself aware and get one. 1/3 savings on travel throughout the UK, it costs 18 pounds for the card but its worth its weight in gold, its going to save me about 759 pounds on an annual travelcard from westcliff-on-sea station through the to the underground, plus it saves me 20 pounds every time I travel from london to devon. Bargain!. Check it out.
November 18, 2003
Arrival
Well I have arrived in the UK, flights were a bit of a drag, but then they always are. The luggage got stuck on the plane and it took them almost an hour to get it out, so that, combined with the fact that the plane was late arriving meant that I actually got out of heathrow about 2 hours later than I should have. Not happy! a
Airport security at heathrow was, well, non existant, which was a surprise, I expected a lot of guards everywhere. Passport checks were incredibly lax. They just looked at my photo, looked at me, then let you through. Its a bit strange when you are used to proper passport checking. Still I cant complain, its better than tight security I guess.
I managed to sign up with Freeserve as my Internet provider, 9.99 pounds a month for the first 3 months, then 14.99 a month after than, so all is good there, connecting was easy, though they try and get you to install everything automatically using windows internet connection settings (.ics) files. No thank you! I dont want my ISP taking over everything with their own settings. Thankfully .ics files are text so you can just read inside and set everything up yourself.
Now its time to look for a place to stay, Have been browsing property rental websites, mainly FindAProperty.com. Its definately a bit strange looking for rentals online, it doesnt feel right, so its time to make some appointments to see some properties this weekend.
No pictures yet. I will go for a walk this afternoon and take some.