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blackdiamond said:
Okay, what happened? Hope you didn't chicken out. :p
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Not at all although it would have been interesting had the jump been on Saturday afternoon considering I got home from Friday night at 7:30am and spent most of the day on the couch under the a/c.

The jump itsefl was yesterday (Sunday) and as I posted in the birthday thread it was absolutely awesome. That feeling of free fall after leaving the plane is like nothing else I've ever done before and makes all previous theme park rides/roller coasters seem like a simple merry go round or ferris wheel.

Just the adrenalin rush you get is amazing and something I will never forget......I'm really looking forward to getting the dvd in a couple of days to see some of the expressions on my face - especially just after leaving the plane.

It's something I had always wanted to do and it was way better than I ever imagined it would be.......I understand now how people get addicted to it as it's just an incredible feeling that really can't be described unless you have done the jump. To think you are falling at over 200km/h by the time the first small parachute opens before the main one opens up and you then casually glide down the rest of the way before landing on the beach.
 
PAFC2004 said:
Woohoo, booked my cruise! :)
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What boat and where........


I went on the Fairstar when I was 21 and had an amazing time but they don't quite let you get away with the antics we did in those days. Between the 4 of us in our cabin we had 40 spirit bottles (duty free of course) for the first 2 weeks before we refilled in Darwin

The best thing we did was stay up to watch the sunset on the first night which resulted is us getting to know all the security, bar and other staff who looked after us for the rest of the trip. Mind you the test evacuation a few hours later was interesting given we just wanted to sleep.
 
Okay a bit of a run down from the first few days of my first overseas trip.

I left from Adelaide at 6am on Friday and arrived in Sydney to check in for the plane to Los Angeles.

There weren't many people on the plane, infact I had a whole row of three seats to myself so I could just use it as a bed - all 5'6 of me fitted quite nicely. I can't say I got that much sleep though, more shut eye than anything else. The food was good and the inflight entertainment (movies/music/games) wasn't too bad - although I had seen most of them so I was just stuck watching some Australian movies - Ten Canoes wasn't bad but anyone thinking of seeing Last Train to Freo should think again. Found it strange that they would also have alternative television shows like a follow up on Debbie Does Dallas - full frontal nudity on a plane flight with kids on board - strange!

I did get in a bit of trouble when arriving in Los Angeles (with the time difference it worked out to being 6am Friday as well), I went through customs and they had to take me to the secondary room. Problem being that I had a receipt of my ticket so I could go home in January but they wanted me to have an actual ticket so they had to sort this out first - there I was thinking I would be on the next flight home.

Apart from the above issue it was all kind of easy working through customs, nothing like what I had thought, I expected it to take much more time that it did. From there it was just a matter of waiting a few hours for my flight to Dallas.

I slept quite a bit from Los Angeles to Dallas but thankfully woke up just before touching down. Unless you are very lucky and your next flight is in the same terminal you really need to be aware and listen to see where your next flight departs from. From there you need to get on the free subway so it takes you to the correct terminal - its a fantastic service they provide and the airport is fantastic - much better than Los Angeles for the small piece I saw.

Then it was from Dallas to New Orleans, now that was a flight and a half but one I was glad to keep my eyes open for. This wasn't for what I might see when flying into New Orleans - it was dark so there was nothing to see anyway - it was the electrical thunderstorm that we were flying into that made it interesting. The pilot advised that it wasn't until we were in the air that he was advised that extra fuel had been added to the plane so he could try and fly the plane around the storm - the idea was to fly the plane to Littlerock and around the storm - as it worked out the storm was moving at a greater speed so we had to fly right through it in the end. The electrical storm was amazing though - just imagine the lights on a Christmas Tree flashing off and on in different sections continuously, not just here and there as we might see in some of the storms back at home.

Finally I arrived in New Orleans, 31 hours after I depated Adelaide - not much jet lag either - so I have been able to work myself into a different time zone quite quickly.

I haven't seen too much of New Orleans at this stage, have just been driven from the airport and across Lake Pontrachain for Sushi and then to my place of stay just outside of Baton Rouge.

The cars are so big over here, the class of cars are listed on the number plates and some are that big they are listed as trucks - its just unreal. The roads are bad, lots of pot holes and the stop lights just hang on like telephone wires. I haven't been game enough yet to try driving, just sitting in the passenger side seat I so want to drive on the left hand side of the road, plus the turning lanes are all open - very rare to see an island in the middle of the road.

The shops are huge - everything is like a bulk store and they don't have supermarkets here - they are SUPERmarkets. You can go to the likes of Target and get your groceries along with all the regular stuff you would expect to find. Im sure I will find other states to be different but here in Louisiana the shops are large and well spread out, not the jungle I thought it might be.

Its fairly multicultural here as well - I went to this place for lunch yesterday and I was served by a guy from Pakistan and he quickly picked up on where I was from - all he wanted to do was talk about cricket and how much he enjoys watching the likes of Ricky Ponting play. The American voices are interesting, you hear them start to talk and think its fine (can understand what they are saying no problems at all - you think to yourself), by the end of the conversation your like what did they say??? Its all good though, I really can't wait to get in some longer conversations with them as they all sound quite funny right now.

There was a game of College Football here on Saturday Night, LSU Tigers versus the Alabama Crimson Tide, I didn't go but just caught it on the television (hopefully I will get along to a game soon). What surprised me was the crowd that turned up to this game - 92,588 - I mean this is a College Game and it was only the 11th game of the season (finals are still a little way off). How do they get so many people to a game when they would be second to an NFL side like the New Orleans Saints? Very strange but Im sure I will learn more about this.

Anyway I will leave it there for now, will write some more a bit later.
 

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I'd be interested in hearing more about how New Orleans has recovered from Katrina. I understand that the population is still well below it was prior to the Hurricane and large parts of the city are still "wasteland". Probably not the parts that BD frequents though.....
 
blackdiamond said:
I will let you know more about New Orleans and all that stuff later in the week.

I expect to be there (at least in the French Quarter) on Thursday.
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Keep an eye out for the 'Goth' scene as it's supposed to be pretty amazing and you may even get to meet up with authors like Poppy Z Brite and the like.
 
dreamkillers said:
What boat and where........


I went on the Fairstar when I was 21 and had an amazing time but they don't quite let you get away with the antics we did in those days. Between the 4 of us in our cabin we had 40 spirit bottles (duty free of course) for the first 2 weeks before we refilled in Darwin

The best thing we did was stay up to watch the sunset on the first night which resulted is us getting to know all the security, bar and other staff who looked after us for the rest of the trip. Mind you the test evacuation a few hours later was interesting given we just wanted to sleep.
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Pacific sun, to... the south pacific. I went on the pacific sky when it was around too.
 
PAFC2004 said:
Pacific sun, to... the south pacific. I went on the pacific sky when it was around too.
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Excellent.......

I know we're getting a few more of the bigger ships come through Darwin over the next 12 months (as they come down and go back for our tourist season) as well as some of the 'real luxury ships'.

We had one here a couple of weeks ago that had 500 passengers and 1200 crew so they were well and truly looked after.


It's something I will definitely do again in a few years but at this stage I'm looking into doing a solo parachuting course as I just loved the tandem jump on Sunday.
 
blackdiamond said:
We have a thunderstorm and tornado warning for tonight.
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My fault Scott. I've been watching 'The Day After Tomorrow' and 'Twister'.

Every time I watch these movies, some kind of natural disaster happens somewhere in the world, 90% of the time in the USA. :D
 

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just quietly - my melb trip was a cracker. Ladies day at the races was special - throughly enjoyed it the weekend was just a mess in terms of drinking and partying....

Would reccommend a day at the races highly ..
 
Troy Wingate said:
My fault Scott. I've been watching 'The Day After Tomorrow' and 'Twister'.

Every time I watch these movies, some kind of natural disaster happens somewhere in the world, 90% of the time in the USA. :D
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I will pass on your regards to the people of North Carolina. :rolleyes:
 
I've just started working for a foreign currency exchange etc company and am getting itchy feet. Have never been overseas so thought we might start with just a small trip to NZ. Suggestions anyone that's been there??
 
portentous said:
I've just started working for a foreign currency exchange etc company and am getting itchy feet. Have never been overseas so thought we might start with just a small trip to NZ. Suggestions anyone that's been there??
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I went for 3 weeks in Jan/Feb last year (Contiki tour, probably not your scene;) ). Absolutely beautiful and great for adrenalin junkies, skydiving, whitewater rafting, bungee jumping etc. I loved the South more than the North. I would definitely recommend a visit to the seventh and eigth states of Australia;) :D
 
What are you imply Gill?? FWIW I'm happy to watch my kids bungy jump and white water raft,while sipping on some decent NZ wine.

How long do you reckon you need to cover both islands?
 

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portentous said:
What are you imply Gill?? FWIW I'm happy to watch my kids bungy jump and white water raft,while sipping on some decent NZ wine.

How long do you reckon you need to cover both islands?
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Conitiki is only for 18-35 y.o's. Probably 4 -5 weeks to cover both Islands very well. Otherwise 2 -3 if only heading to the main places.
 
Bresh said:
Have fun Scott.

I'm heading over to the USA next year, off to the NBA All-Star Game in Las Vegas, also swinging by Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Probably hit up the Canyon while in Sin City.
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Well, I'm off tomorrow morning. If you have Foxtel look out for me on ESPN during the Rookie Game ;)
 

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