Its been a long time since my last post, I have since moved up to the Gold Coast, am Married with 2 children.

I will start adding posts about our life on the Gold Coast as part of our travels.

Back in Melbourne

A long flight, the plane left late but all is good, I am now home.

Universal Studios

Universal Studios opens at 10am so I have a full day ahead of me. A train, then a small bus gets me to the entrance and line-up was huge. The quickest way to get in was the ticketing machines, I am only coming here once I so I get the VIP ticket to avoid the lines.

As soon as I walk in, I go straight into the first thing I see, the House of horrors. It was a bit of fun, a couple of young girls behind me made me laugh, they were screaming allot with characters jumping out from hiding places.

Everything runs like clock work, need to really organise everything around the show times.  I realise on my way to the simpson's ride, that the VIP was a great idea, the line had to be near an hour long. A 5 minute wait, I am ushered through to the front and into the virtual roller coaster. This ride was the best of its type that I have been on, it was awesome, it felt like I was on a real roller coaster.

Terminator 2 3D felt like a pretty old, the show had both actors and 3D effects up on the big screen. They took us forward in time to blow up the main computer, it was entertaining but probably needs an update.

Onto the main reason most people go to Universal Studios, to do the studio tour. The sets were awesome, its crazy to compare real life to the movies. The 3D ride where you drive in on tram and everywhere around you for 360 degrees, you see King Kong saving us from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, pretty cool.

The Mummy and Jurassic park rides were right next to each other, down 3 sets of long stairs. The Mummy ride was a quick roller coaster ride, fun, fast but I would have loved it to be longer. The Jurassic Park ride was in a boat, dinosaurs everywhere and it was cool getting drenched because it was so hot.

The special effects stage showed us how everything has progressed and the importance of technology in evolution. A heap of volunteers got involved, flying around the stage and put in different situations.

Quickly I head off to Shrek 3D, hoping to see whatever else I could. Turns out that this was the same as the one in Warner Bros on the Gold Coast. It was good but ended up being the last thing I did.

It was near 5pm, I am getting picked up at the hotel at 7:30pm so I decided to give the last couple of things a miss. I look back and think I got to see so much, yet I think some unlucky people might have only seen 3 or 4 things max.

A small bus, then a train back to the hotel, all is good, the shuttle arrives and I catch the plane that night.

LA Angels

I head off early this morning, the plan originally was to go to Universal Studios, those plans changed when I worked out the only time I can watch a game of baseball was this afternoon. I go for a walk to check out the home of the LA Lakers, the Staple Centre and ESPN has a massive big X-Games festival on today. I walk around, its got some cool stalls and some of the contests would have been awesome.

I look up the metro lines to see how to get to Anaheim, the only one I find is out near Long Beach, a fair distance away. I get out there around 11:30am for the 12:30pm start between the LA Angels and  Texas Rangers. The instruction on the web seemed easy, get off the train and go across the car park. I see no car park and nothing even close to a ball park.

I wander around, ask a couple of people who don't know what I am talking about, I get to a Holiday Inn. They advise me that I should have headed over to Anaheim in Orange County. Instead of a Taxi, I get a hire car which will save me a bit of money and I have 20 minutes to get there. The guy speeds, I arrive at the end of the first innings but it costs $90 including a nice tip.

The game was low scoring, LA kept a lead for most of the day, my seat was down in the sun not to far from the play. Texas put a bit of scare into the locals at the bottom of the 9th with bases full but LA came up on top.

I find the correct train back, turns out it is a rural train, which only runs so many times a day. I get lucky with the last train of the day running a little bit late. I get back to the hotel, really tired, dehydrated and hungry, I didn't really look after myself today not wanting to eat the rubbish served up at the baseball.

Happy to eat Subway and recover for tomorrow which is going to massive day, I head to the room early and relax for the night.

Welcome back to America

I wake up feeling fine this morning, no hangover, nothing, just the after effects of a day I wasn't sure how to take in. I get a knock on the door, it seems I have organised a ride to the airport, I decide I should renegotiate the price, the price halved before I am happy.

I get through security with about 3 hours to wait, I eye Bubba Gumps, for a decent feed and it also provided free wifi. The Rib Eye was the most expensive thing on the menu at $30 and exactly what I felt like. The time seemed to go slow, the flight left on time around 2pm.

A long day of travel, I arrive into LA at 8pm. A wait for the shuttle into town took longer than expected, I organised it earlier this morning online in Cancun. I get to the hotel around 10pm, get some food, have a quick look around and head to bed. For a saturday night, I was surprised how quiet it was in downtown LA.

Last Night in Mexico

I woke up this morning with a massive grin on my face, a good sleep, everything paid for and was looking forward to getting some breakfast. The buffet was alright, a couple of non alcoholic juices and straight back up to my room to plan the day.

I read on the balcony for a bit, letting my tummy settle and down the gym for a workout. This place is hot, so I sweat up a storm and head back to the room for a shower before its pool time. The weather was awesome, relaxing in the pool drinking cocktails. I don't like waiting for the pool bar, so I like to walk up out of the pool to another bar, and then jump back in.

This works well, talked to heaps of people, enjoying myself. I started ordering bigger shouts, they were going down nicely and I was giving some to others also. I am pretty happy, half way through the afternoon, I order another 4 drinks, on my way back, I slip over spilling all the drinks. I think nothing of it, picked up the drink which was atleast half full and kept going.

Turns out, the hotel were not impressed, they grabbed me, ripped off my arm band, kicked me out the front of the hotel and called the cops on me. That, alcohol and being scared witless that all my money and passport were in the hotel had me in a state of panic.

More than 2 hours later, the cops look at me, I am told that for one last night, you can stay in the room and can go no where else. In my state of panic, I was scared that they might come back, I take this as being kicked out so I grab my stuff, and leave as quickly as I can in a taxi to the airport.

I get there, its getting late, I was hoping to change my flights to find somewhere to sleep. I go from terminal, to terminal but all was pretty much stopped. It was after 10pm at this stage, I find some dodgy dudes in there taxi, who take me to a hotel and I can atleast sleep it off. For $210, they get it all organised for me and atleast the hotel was real nice, the end to day I would prefer to forget.

Cancun

The tour ends this morning, I was planning to go with David and Anne to Cancun but I wasn't ready so they left at around 11am. I had a bit of lunch, got myself back together and left at around 1pm. I arrive at the hotel around 3pm, wait for a while for the hotel to work themselves out, drop my stuff in room and at the bar by 4pm.

This place is massive so I grab a drink and keep moving. Anyone who loves resorts, good weather and heaps of people would really enjoy this place. It has a pool bar, a beach bar, and a couple of bars spread out around the place. I start off on beer, soon realise, cocktails were free also so I moved onto them.

A bit of walk down the beach I descovered the Parasailing centre, I hadn't done it before so off I go. I didn't know what to expect, it is mainly cruising up in the air about 50 metres looking into the distance. Relaxing and enjoyable but no adrenaline rush at all.

A few more drinks at the pool, a buffet meal with a glass of red and I decide to head back to my room and catch up on sleep from the Mexican tour.