Shephard's Alley

Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Last Mile....

(Melbourne, Australia, between sunshine & rainclouds)

I just flew back from Sydney & Melbourne, Australia. 13.5 hours. First class.

Believe me, I know exactly how lucky I am.

(The Twelve Apostles, The Great Ocean Road 3 hours south of Melbourne)

Australia was everything we hoped it would be, and so much more. In fact, we fell in love with the metro feeling of the cities and the warmth of the people we met. They are so laid back.

Bucket-List time. Australia wasn't on my bucket list. Or B's. But this koala was! I got to pet a koala!! And I took TONS of pictures. His name was Jack (that's him above). And it cost me a whopping $12. Best $12 I've ever spent... in my entire life.

The Last Mile... sort of a reference to The Blond Ambition Tour we've been on. Only one more junket coming up (England and Spain) and maybe a few awards shows... and then we're free. We will be returned to our regularly scheduled programming.

Above: Park Hyatt Bar....where B&I killed time, waiting with Nathan and M*ndy and Z*ach and everyone, for the announcement that....

T*NGLED was nominated for TWO GOLDEN GLOBES!! If we look a bit frazzled... it was 1am, Aussie time.

We were gone to Australia for 18 days. The longest we've been away from home since college.

It seemed to us that Christmas is a bit of a summer after-thought to the Australian cities we visited.

Hardly any decorations, and no mussing and fussing, most shops closed at 6pm just 6 days before Christmas. It's summer there. And summer takes priority over Christmas. Christmas is just a holiday that kicks off their summer. It was kinda refreshing to tell you the truth. That certain quiet loneliness often felt Christmas day... gone. Replaced my merry-makers hitting the beaches, cafes and restaurants and pubs. A lively but laid-back Christmas holiday. Post-Christmas blues? Not likely. It's summer-time.

We drove The Great Ocean Road with the help of a local, Smedley the Koala (above). Look for his adventures in an upcoming post.

We took about 200 photos of The Opera House after Oprah was through with it. Its beauty and form and location in the city were impossible to resist.

We said hi to Hulk Hogan.

We shopped a bit. Ok, we shopped a lot. Honestly... the amount of shopping in Sydney and Melbourne far out-numbers that of Paris or London. Not kidding.

We saw some theatre (something I sadly didn't get to do very much this year) in Melbourne and attended an ABBA interactive exhibit in a Sydney museum.

We saw a spectacular light and music show projected onto St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney that would shame anything we've seen at Disney in the last 10 years. Wait til you see the photos.

We spent a day at Manly, a funky beach just a ferry ride away from Sydney proper.

(Twelve Apostles, The Great Ocean Road)

We used trams and buses in both cities, and explored with our friend Clark who joined us. We saw both the Sydney & Melbourne Zoos (Melbourne's zoo is far better, in our zoo-exploring experience).

Did I mention we met Little Jack and got to pet him? Oh, I did?

There'll be more photos of him soon.

And a few other animals. :)

I saw a sparklie in Melbourne that I couldn't resist.

We had to hunt for the Christmas decorations, but we did find them. :)

It's been an incredible year.

B reminded me of all we've been through this year, and it made my jaw drop a bit.

While he was working 10 to 12 hour days, 6 and 7 days a week for 8 months, we struggled to find a new house, then struggled to buy a new house in a market with crazy-ass-stupid banks who kept yanking the real-estate rug out from under us. I fractured my toe, two of our sweet cats died within 3 months of each other, we moved all our belongings in one day, which re-injurred my foot, and we then began the struggle of selling our old house (escrow pending as we speak). We traveled to New York, Palm Springs, France and Australia, and dealt with the monumental stress put on B&N to make a big enough hit movie to SAVE the future of the studio with 600 employees (not much pressure there). And oh yeah, I gained weight because I couldn't exercise (fractured toe), hardly saw friends because Blondie trumped most plans I tried to make, I got a short-story published in an anthology and I basically did my best to hold our lives together with the help of some dear friends.

Yeah. 2010. An incredible year I do not want to repeat, but am very grateful for.

And so to 2010, we say "Gooday, Mate. Thanks for everything, see you!"

Here's to 2011, whom I hope is quite a bit more lethargic and peaceful than 2010.

Happy New Year to all of you.

You've been a bigger part of my (sanity) year than you may realize.

~Shephard :)

Labels: Australia

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Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Tiptoe Through the Tuileries

It has become the very first thing we do when arriving in Paris. Like our trip 2 years ago (geez, was it that long ago?), we start at The Louvre, and walk through The Tuileries (gardens), then down the Champs Elysees, ending at The Arc de Triomphe.

The Louvre on a gorgeous breezy Autumn afternoon (after a 9 hour flight).

Statues surveyed the tourists from on high, unimpressed with our autumn fashion choices.

In those days, they had faces....

Orange is my favorite season.

I had high hopes the above photo would turn out half as pretty as the real thing. The light saturate the colors beautifully even tho the distance is a bit blown out.

Our good friend Olivier walking with B. :)

So ashamed to be wearing white after Labor Day.

One of my favorite photos. :)

Parisian Pigeon Perch.

The French are big on golden gates.

Shhh. Let's not wake him. Or he might punch the photographer.

Perky Parisian Pontoons

As we walked toward The Champs Elysees, I spotted the word "Lenotre"... being a rabid chocolate monster, I recognized pne of my favorite brands of chocolate, and was seized by cravings. Little did we know, it was a whole restaurant!

The food was beautiful AND tastey. So much so, I only took pictures of the starter and dessert for forgot to take a picture of my Risotto avec Duck Confit.

...and now dessert....

Everywhere you go, food is art in France.

I don't know who these two happy gentlemen are, but they seemed so at peace and happy to be in Paris with a good friend, enjoying scrummy food and a walk through an Autumn garden.

Seems like every time we walk this, we have an entirely different experience. I didn't take many photos of the shopping on The Champs Elysees, but the above had a certain Elton John charm.