More Ushuaia...

Our first full day in Ushuaia we go up and enjoyed a nice breakfast in our hotel before heading over to the old prison museum for a quick tour.  Ushuaia was initially set up as a penal colony and a way for Argentina to stake a land claim to the base of the continent.

A section of the refurbished prison

The old section of the prison - without any updates it was freezing inside...

Bathrooms in the prison

After the prison and a quick lunch we went over to a travel agency and booked a tour of Tierra del Fuego and El Tren del Fin del Mundo for the next morning.  We then wandered over to the office for Areolineas Argentinas to ask about our luggage that was supposed to have arrived twice earlier and still was nowhere to be found.

There was some of that standard bureaucratic stonewalling and desire not to work from the guy at the agency in town but eventually we did get him to admit that our luggage was still in Buenos Aires but that it was going to be on the next flight and delivered to our hotel that evening.

With the assurance that our missing bag was on its way we were able to relax and didn't have to head over to the outdoor stores to buy new sets of the snow pants and long underwear that were packed in the that one bag.  We wandered the town some more and enjoyed some of the small little bars that are in Ushuaia.

 

That evening we had a nice dinner where we met up with Sharon from Polar Cruises, whom we had booked our trip with and two other people that would be traveling on the  cruise with us that had also booked through Polar Cruises.  Enjoyable dinner at Kaupe but we were again disappointed when we returned to the hotel to find that there was no luggage there waiting for us...

The next morning we were up first thing so that we could meet the bus down in front of the Rumbo Sur agency where we had booked our tour.  A short ride out of Ushuaia that was accompanied by an informative speaker and we are at El Tren del Fin del Mundo.  A rebuilding of the old train that used to take convicts out to the forests so that they could bring lumber back into Ushuaia to build the town.

 

 

 

The train winds up through the park and then at the end we are back on the bus to drive down to where the highway ends.

 

Km 3079 - the end of Route #3 in Argentina

Here we are - bottom of South America

 It was a great trip that got us back into Ushuaia just after 14:00.  We were set to board the ship anytime after 16:00, so instead of stopping for a needed lunch we quickly ran back up to our hotel to check if our luggage had finally found its way do to meet us.  If not we would have had a short window of time to run around and purchase some last minute clothes for the trip, but this time we were finally able to relax and breathe a sigh of relief as our missing bag was there waiting for us.

We wandered happily into town, grabbed a quick lunch, and then stopped by a local wine shop to buy a few bottles of wine to enjoy on the trip and a bottle of champagne that we planned to pop open after our first day at the Emperor Penguin rookery.  

Just before boarding - we are on our way...

Shortly after four we were boarding the ship and settling into our cabin.  We had a meeting with the captain and our life jacket drill before we headed to dinner and then retired to the bar to meet some of the other passengers that would be on this voyage with us....

Day 1 - Ushuaia

It's been a rough few weeks since we've been back from Antarctica, just filled with a lot of work and errands and everything but we are hoping that it will all slow down soon and we will have the time to update here on a more regular basis...

And with that said, lets start talking about our Antarctica trip and that first travel day which got us down to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world.  The travel started out great in that we received notification that we had been upgraded on the first segment of our trip, Chicago to Dallas, so all was great.

The second leg was down to Buenos Aires, and although we weren't upgraded we did enjoy exit row seating and managed to sleep like babies on the overnight flight.  We landed in Buenos Aires and after the lengthy wait to get through customs we grabbed our luggage and hopped into a taxi to transfer from the international to the domestic airport.

Two days before we had flown down the Argentinians had a strike with their airlines, and when we walked into the smaller airport and saw the lines we realized that they were still struggling to get rid of the backlog.  As we stood in line they would call people up out of line based on their final destinations, we were fine since we had a late evening flight and had about 6 hours that we could wait in the airport, so there was less stress then you could see on some of the other people that looked like they were 15 minutes from missing their flights...

At one point we were called up to a counter for flights to Ushuaia, and when we get up there she looked up our information and said something like "Ah, that flight is somewhat full can you maybe change to another flight?"  You could see this look of disappointment cross our faces, we had time to be delayed a day and still make the cruise, but we really wanted to have a full day in Ushuaia to get out and do some touring, but before we could mutter a response the agent followed up with, "We have a 12:30 flight that is slightly delayed and we can put you on that earlier flight..."

Final Leg - Flight to Ushuaia

So that was it, we were on an earlier flight and would even have a few hours to walk around the town that first night - so far everything on this trip was coming together better then could be expected.

A short flight later and we are landed and excitedly awaiting our luggage and watching what equipment our fellow travelers have brought with them.  A whole French group of downhill skiers, a big group a backpacking kids, people with the bags we were trying to find before the trip.  After coming up to near an hour of waiting the 10-15 of us still waiting on a bag or two realize that there aren't anymore bags coming through.  Another 15-20 minutes of dealing with agents and we are told that with the earlier flight several bags didn't make the plane and they would all come done on the later flight that we had originally been scheduled on.

Okay, no problems, our last bag will come in later that evening and we've a few extra hours of time to see the city, off we go to enjoy... 

View from our hotel - Valle Frio

Our hotel was a great little place, Valle Frio, and the manager took our information and told us he would contact the airport for us and make sure that our luggage would be waiting for us when we returned that evening.

 

We ended the evening like you should anywhere in the world, with a few drinks at a nice Irish pub.  Tomorrow we get to tour the city and see about booking a trip to Tierra del Fuego...

Hello again everyone....

It's only been about 18 months since we last posted something here, so it does feel like it's about time for something new.

A few weeks ago Tina posted the above photo on Facebook with the statement "Reality is now setting in! The 20 year wait is finally over." so now I'd like to take the time to relive the reality that has passed and it still just sinking in...

As several of you that know us are aware, we have just returned from a two and a half week trip of which the highlight was a 10 day trip aboard the M/V Ortelius on an Weddell Sea Antarctica trip to see emperor penguins.  The trip was a lot of fun, and we have thousands of photos that we are itching to get a chance to look at and sort through, and I'm guessing at least 5 blog posts detailing out the trip.  Right now with the return to work and the Christmas holiday fast approaching I can't promise when these posts will be up, but do believe that they are coming and they will probably even be worth the wait....

San Francisco Trip - Part 2

This one shouldn't be as long as yesterday's post, but I will load it up with more photos then the last one....

Saturday morning we were up early and met up with Alex and Dr. Lim for breakfast, and then off to Napa Valley for a day of wine tasting. The day before I had dropped the three of them off from the rental car at the hotel and headed out to gas up the car, but what they didn't know is that I had returned the rental and Tina had rented a limo to drive us around for the day. When they came back down after breakfast and we were standing outside by the limo their look of confusion and surprise was better then we could have hoped for.
We left earlier then originally planned so that we could first swing by the Golden Gate bridge and get some photos, since they weren't sure when they would get a chance in the final two days of their trip.
Once done with that we headed up to the wonderful wineries of Napa Valley, stopping first at Robert Craig to start the day with a tasting.
From there a quick stop at a supermarket so that we could pick up food for a picnic which we enjoyed with a bottle from the Clos Du Val winery.
After lunch we went over to Rubicon Estate, the Niebaum-Coppola winery for a tasting and a tour of the Chateau, some of the property, the wine caves, and the history of how Coppola found himself in the wine business.
That's a long day of enjoying a limo, good picnic food, and some outstanding wines...
So we headed back via the Bay Bridge with a stop to get some nice photos of San Francisco, finally returning to the hotel after a quick stop at the top of Lombard Street.
A few minutes to get freshened up in the hotel and we were off to dinner at Spruce. Spruce had come recommended, and with quite a wait list for reservations, and it did not disappoint. Easily one of the best meals that Tina and I have had in years, and we had the impression that our guests enjoyed it too...

And then that was it, our quick two day trip was over. We got up early the next morning so that we could catch a flight back to Chicago, and Alex and Dr. Lim had a final day, which they finally managed to get some shopping done, before heading back to Malaysia.

They came down in the morning to see us off, and presented us with a travel lunchbox of morning snacks and coffee that we had the fun of figuring out how to finish during a 10 minute ride to the airport.

It was a perfect weekend, and really great to see them again, and as a final bonus they did promise that one of their next international trips they would make it all they way over to Chicago to visit us...

Before our next trip, we tell you about our last one..

Ok, so we are leaving for holiday this Friday to spend a week off enjoying the fun of this world, and I'm thinking that following that we will go back into some sort of regular posting. Only time will tell...

So with that bit out of the way - on with a long post of what we did just about three weeks ago. As most of you who have been following our blog may already know - while we were in China we became close friends with a family out of Malaysia. We met two sisters of the family in Xiamen and then the rest of the family down in Ipoh on the first of what would turn out to be several trips down to Malaysia to visit them.

We stopped back down to Ipoh over Thanksgiving last year during our short 10 day 5 country trip. While we were there we learned that Alex and his friend Dr. Lim would be traveling over to the United States this year for their vacation, and we knew that we owed them a first hand view of the States for all of the accommodation and touring that they had previously planned on our many trips to Ipoh. Sadly, when we discussed their trip with them they would not have time to make it out to Chicago so that we could give them our version of a local red carpet tour...

Well that seemed sad to us, and there was no way that we weren't going to meet up with them. Therefore on the last Thursday in April we took a late night flight on Thursday out to San Francisco so we could meet them on the tail end of their holiday, and hopefully show them a little of California that they would not have planned to see if they were on tour by themselves.

First thing Friday morning I left the hotel and rented a car, and as soon as they finished breakfast we met up with our friends and started their tour. The weather turned out perfectly, without a cloud in the sky and a temperature a comfortable 20^oC. As we got caught up on the LA, Las Vegas, and Grand Canyon section of their trip we drove over to the ocean for a nice coastal drive down the 1 highway. We along enjoying the scenery and making a stop along the way to enjoy the cliffs and one of California's old lighthouse's before finally pulling into the quaint storybook town of Carmel-by-the-sea. We enjoyed a great lunch at a small little restaurant in the center of town and then wandered about for a while taking in the beach and perusing the many knick-knack stores that make up the town.

From there we drove a few more miles south of town before turning around and heading back to San Francisco so we could head out to dinner. They had flown in to San Francisco a few days before us and had already toured the main touristy sites, which allowed us to pick some restaurants that they normally wouldn't have gone to. Friday night we had booked a reservation at a nice seafood restaurant, only to have them inform us in the car that they had been having seafood the last several nights and that they were kind of finished with it….

Oh well, that's too bad for them since a few hours aren't enough time to change reservations to another restaurant in the city, and off we went to Farallon for dinner. Turns out that they were just eating average seafood and that's what they were tired of eating, since everyone devoured the scallops, oysters, lobster, and everything else we ordered. Tina did most of the ordering of the food, and in a return to the Chinese style of dining, we had them bring us out small plates so that we could each share a portion of the meals that we ordered. It worked out perfectly, other then the point where Dr. Lim excused himself to the bathroom and decided to take it upon himself to pay the bill…

Seeing as we found that unacceptable we ignored their pleas to head back to the hotel after the long day and instead we went over to a small jazz bistro to enjoy a few drinks and some enjoyable conservation before calling it a night and finally heading back to the hotel and to bed.

The second day of our quick weekend tomorrow, or when I get around to writing about it.

The plan is to have it finished before we leave on Friday, but I do also know that I've a lot that needs to be packed up tomorrow night, so I will not be making any promises...