Australia

As many of you have noticed, our blog updates have been getting less frequent. We are missing our friends and family a lot now that its two months since we left but our efforts to keep up to date by blogging are not easy. We are not at the volunteer place in India so don't have regular access to internet & have to rely on getting this at cafes and hotels which is often slow, collapses or just very expensive and results in numerous public squabblings about who should get priority access!! We also have to fit sitting at internet cafes/hotel lounges around sightseeing. And this has just got more and more amazing.

We just cannot update photos of the last few days of our time in INdia at the Taj and with friends in Delhi (we have tried 3 tiimes wasting several hours of Aliya's time each time with no success). So you will just have to believe us when we say we have amazing photos of us at the Taj and Agra!

As for Australia, our three weeks there has gone by in a flash. We managed to reconnect with the Australian side of the clan and want to say a big thank you to Lee and Sally and their children and grandchildren and to Oliver for hosting numerous dinners and parties and taking time out from their busy lives to chat and explain the many delights of Sydney. We barely touched the surface as far as enjoying all that Sydney has to offer - ythough managed to fit in many lovley beaches, including Bondi as well as treks in the Blue Mountains, opera, a cruise, art galleries, shopping, some legal work before finishing off our trip by visiting Uluru (previuosly called Ayers Rock) and Katajuta. It was very spiritual to see these prehistoric places at sunrise and sunset and hear the various aboriginal stories of their creation.

We will definitely come back for more desert walks.And also to get Safi and Rafi together with their cousins 2nd removed (not sure if this the right relationship) as they loved meeting, Josh, Stephany, Olivia, Jeremy and little Ella. Safi treasures her pack of Pokemon cards that Josh gave her and we have all learnt how to play them as she has no friends of her age. She is really missing school and her friends too.

Now we are in NZ in the motorhome. it is 6.6 x3metres. we have to be extraordinarily tidy and quite quiet which is a big challenge for us. Mum is trying her best to make nice food using less than 3 pans and only as many ingrediants as can fit into the tiny fridge/pantry. We celebrated her xx birthday by sleeping in the van parked away from it all at Mount Sunday which is where they filmed the Edoras bit of the Lord of the Rings. very remote and desolate, very beautiful and cold!

we have treated ourselves to a hotel room for the night though Mike and Isaac think this is for wimps and have decided to still sleep in the campervan in protest! we will post pictures again, ICT skills willing and keep in touch with what we are doing more often.

lots of love.

Finally, we're back in the blogosphere!

Hello everyone! Ali here. Hope you're all okay, and have been enjoying the snow (that I have been sad to hear has melted).

We have (well, mum has) received numerous emails and messages asking about the blog and for updates. Sorry!!! We have been trying, promise! Honestly, though... we are just having to much fun in Australia. :)

No, we're kidding. We are having fun, but we do feel bad for not updating. We haven't had any Internet connection, apart from infrequently and at internet cafes for a very short amount of time, before we're off to another beach or to see an opera at the Sydney Opera House :)
To tell you the very miserable truth, it's actually raining. I'm not even kidding. It's RAINING. Grrrrr. We came half the way across the world where it's meant to be lovely and sunny, and it's raining. We could have stayed at home and been with the snow!!!!

Nahhh, I'm kidding. We've been having loads of fun doing indoor activities despite the miserable weather, such as seeing Cavaleiria Rusticana/Pagliacci at the Sydney Opera House (which was incredible, and something very diferent then what we are used to!), going to art galleries and seeing family, which has been so much fun. The Frankel crew are all brilliant and lovely, and we've had an amazing time at delicious BBQs (when the weather was being nice to us!) and at the stunning Whale Beach house, where we were staying for the most of the time.

I've been trying to get my head around the fact that we're half a day ahead of you lot who are now upsidown on the wrong end of the planet :) So, if the earth was to explode, we would find out a whole half a day before you lovely lot in England. Actually, there isn't much logic in that. That's not true. But it might be comforting for you to know :).

Dad, Isaac, Safi, Rafi and I went to Taronga Zoo whilst Mum was working (hahahhaaa...). It was very cool- I thought Dad had fallen into the gorilla enclosure, until I realised it actually was just a gorilla (hey, he said I looked like one of the elephants!!)... We saw a brilliant bird show, and a very funny seal show, where one of the seals put on an american accent (it was very realistic!)- we also saw all the Aussie animals- koalas, kangaroos, sharks (at the Aquarium, which was also very, very good! You walk under where all the sharks and Dugongs - they were supposedly what the men who had been at sea for a long time would think were mermaids, actually they are whales... and they don't really have any resemblance to humans... - swim, and the sting rays and huge sharks swim right over your head. It's quite scary, but Rafi loved it, and was squealing at all the animals! Safi also loved seeing the Finding Nemo fish in the Reef Section; Nemo and Marvin and Dory.).

We've also spotted some other animals- Bluebottles, which are a small type of Jellyfish. But size isn't everything! Isaac and I and some of Mum's friend's children were swimming at Whale Beach in the sea. It had been quite windy, and on the shore there were these tiny balloon-like things with blue string attached. We had spent a while popping them, because it was very satisfying. Anyway, when we were in the sea, I got stung on my arm. I didn't see what did it, but I was told it was definately a bluebottle (because a sign had been put up saying "Bluebottles- Beware"!). Isaac then got stung (I had quickly got out of the sea, the sting stung and the salty water wasn't really helping) on his arm, but he saw the bluebottle, which had wrapped itself around his arm, and I think partly some of the pain was psychological, because he had seen this weird stringy creature wrapped around his arm which must have been v e r y freaky. Also, mum's friend's eldest child got stung on his foot, and he saw the bluebottle too. We decided that three stings were enough for one beach visit, so we called it a day, and went back to soothing warm showers at the house, just up the hill.

I think that's enough ramblings and adventures for now; I know we have to finish off the India with our Agra trip- the Taj Mahal and Fatiphur Sikri photos are beautiful, so we will upload those shortly (I can't promise that'll be too soon... we're going to Uluru [Ayers Rock]and Bondi... and seeing as we're in a camping van for five weeks when we get to New Zealand, I'm not so sure how likely internet access will be!) plus all the lovely photos from Australia, including family photos, so we definately will make an effort to upload those!

Please keep on leaving comments- even if we don't have time to write or upload photos to blog entries, we can reply to comments and emails! It is lovely to hear of tales of snow and rain and any other kind of weather you are having- and it doesn't always have to be weather related! All our love to everyone out there, anyone who is still reading the blog...! Don't give up on us, we are still out here in the blogosphere, safe from Bush Fires and crocodiles...!

We miss you all lots- lots of love,
Aliya
(The IT "expert" [even though I can't get facebook to work])