L.A. Christmas

Stop one on the journey to the other side of the world has been L.A., Santa Monica to be exact.  We spent Christmas day, with about the entire population of my home town (which has included at various times: Ryan Gosling; Robert Bateman; and Finger Eleven), at Disneyland.  Ambriya, blissfully unaware of the commotion, thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas parade and the pirate ship tour.

The weather here, while not being hot, has been a welcome break from the Calgary winter and Christmas on the beach can never be a totally bad thing.
Today we may head back to Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where one can see houses that may actually hold all the people at Disneyland on Christmas, or the Pacific Aquarium so Ambriya can stare at fish.

All this before heading back onto a plane for an 11 hour flight to the Pacific Islands of Fiji.
I hope Luke is enjoying his first taste of the cold and that lovely addition we Canadians refer to as "wind chill".

Moving Back Down Under

--> So, T minus 2 days until I leave my friendly confines in Calgary for Los Angeles en route to Australia.
I thought I would start the story of my trip where it all begins in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

A quick comparison of the two cities

	Calgary	Bendigo
Location	Canada, 80km east of the Rocky Mountains	Near the centre of Victoria, 150km NW of Melbourne
Settled (by Europeans)	1873'ish	1851
Population	1 100 000	90 000'ish
Famous for	Oil, the Stampede, 1988 Winter Olympics	Gold Rush, Victorian architecture and Bendigo Bank
Climate	(Very) cold winters, mild summers Record Low: -45 oC	Dry hot summers, mild winters. Record High: 45.4 oC
Cost to Ride the bus	(C)$2.75	(A)$2.10
Mayor	Naheed Nenshi	Alec Sandner
Famous Residents	Nellie McClung, Owen Hargreaves, Feist	John Brumby, Billy Murdoch, Sidney Myer

Temperature today -21 ^oC and with the wind chill -29 ^oC.  Temperature today in Bendigo: 37 ^oC.  For those of you struggling with the maths, that is a difference of 66 degrees [37 - (-29)], which makes one wonder how Luke, my exchange partner, will deal with the shock?  

To those of you who will be following my blog, thank you and I hope you enjoy the trip.