Put foot rally

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Paros, not your average Greek family holiday!

Having not seen my family for some time and Greece being one of my moms favourite destinations - we headed to Greece in memory of her. Deciding not to try our luck with ferries we spent our first night in Piraeus (the port town to Athens) and boy am I glad we did that. "It's all Greek to me" has a whole new meaning to me... With a totally different alphabet and hello being the same word as "Jesus" in Afrikaans, finding our way around proved to be some what tricky.

Finally on board our ferry to the beautiful island of Paros- Dakin, Jorja and I got to play "whose the favourite aunt/uncle" with the latest addition to our family - 3 month old Kade (who was a champion traveller and the calmest baby I have ever met).

Things to do on Paros/ things I'll remember:

1. Catch up on a serious amount of jet lag/ sleep deprivation while lying on a hot beach with the crystal clear Mediterranean waters at your feet. Not to mention working on a tan after the cold months in Canada.

 Such fun playing with an underwater camera...

2. Hire a bike and cycle the island. I didn't actually do this - but smiled and waved at my brother from the air conditioned car.

Dax exercising while getting a tan... We just smiled and waved

The island is only 25km wide and I guess it was a super lazy mode of transport but the biggest people carrier the island had to offer was ours for 10 days so why not? Yes travelling with 7 people makes car rentals tricky - and with our fear of missing out (also commonly known as FOMO) we felt it was necessary to all be in the same car. Note to self - the island roads are narrow and the Greeks drive like hooligans - so a smaller car is a better choice.

Our hire car also had 160 000km on the clock (no jokes) and this was definitely not its first rodeo!!











3. Explore the village of Parikia. You know those picturesque photos of Greek islands - well I'm sure many came from the little ally ways and hidden shops of Parakia.

4. Go to Saloon D'or (in Parikia) where Constantine makes some of the most delicious cocktails I have ever had. It didn't hurt that he was also one of the hottest Greek men that I have ever seen - so go ask him to make you a "surprise" and you'll end up going back night after night like we did.

5. Santa Maria has a great beach (and a nude beach I am told) with typical palm leaf umbrellas and recliner chairs. Another chance to work on your tan...

6. Explore Naussaus. Preferably not when a storm hits as you'll get drenched! I got totally soaked while running in the rain and then had to buy a new outfit - I'm not complaining though - the shops are awesome.

Jorja spotting a typical Greek village background

7. Leave for your ferry on time. In true Parker style we left little time to spare and in true Jacky style - my sisters left bowl buying minutes before the ferry departed. So we had 6 people running with full luggage, Tristan dragging a bag and pushing a pram to make it onto the ferry on time. I am giggling just at the thought of watching Jorja sprint with her bag from miles away from the port as she just had to wait for a shop to open to get last minute presents!

En route to Antiparos for a day of exploring

This was an awesome family holiday... One which I will not quickly forget! A holiday where we celebrated mothers day in her favourite country, played card games in the sun, laughed, cried (mostly from laughing too much) and caught up on each others lives.

Sunset from our villa 

New York, New York (take how many?)

Heading back to New York i remembered that Florence and the machine were playing at Radio City, so I decided to try my luck and wait in the queue at the box office for the odd chance that I would get a ticket and HOORAH I got one. She is honestly one of my female icons of the 20th century and getting to see her was AMAZING!

For my last night in NYC and the USA, Dax had organised tickets to a show, Fuerza Bruta, for us to go see and wow wow wow...

New York is such an incredible city and she seems to change in density every time I've been to visit.

The show was like no other theatre production I have ever been to. We were ushered in and I was a little confused as to the dark room, no seats and the feeling of being herded cattle. The production happens all around you and the production staff move you around as the actors play out there scenes. I don't want to ruin any of it for you but IF you have the chance I HIGHLY recommend the show... It ended up with me literally being drenched wet from their 'rain' scene and dancing around wildly with the actors to crazy Brazilian music...


An incredible way to end off trip America!

Good bye USA and North America... Until we meet again - Adios!!

Washington D.C.

Good old Ab watching over his city

I arrived in New York at 5:50am - however in terms of my new adjusted time it was 2:50am for me (haven't felt the jet lag get coming back this way - I was KO going the other way). I jumped in a shuttle and headed to Dax place to shower, packed a small over night bag and hauled my ass onto a bus to DC. 

Megabus.com has super cheap bus fares and if you book far enough in advance you can get your fare for $1 which was super amazing... But with all things cheap you might pay the price in waiting a while for the bus to arrive or be told to "adjust your attitude" if you cannot show your bar coded ticket - which lead to me missing my original bus and having to get onto a later bus at a $25 surcharge.

DC is beautiful and very different to all other American cities I've been to. It's history is wonderful and the architecture was European in its feel and very very nicely put together. An interesting fact about DC is that it was created with the specific purpose of becoming the USA's capital city in 1790, and it definitely shows that this was a city that was very carefully thought out.

Lincoln Memorial from a distance

With only one night to spare I hit the ground running and literally got my running shoes on and walked the sites.

United State Capitol - which, like my life, was underconstruction

Thanks to Wikipedia, I learnt that Washington, D.C., hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of the World Bank (I walked past this), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (I walked past this also), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The headquarters of many other institutions can be seen from the lush streets of the city, one of my favourite being the post office.

The post office



The White House - smaller than I thought it would be - but maybe that's because I confused it with the Capitol Building - THANKS HOLLYWOOD...



The Washington Monument



Jefferson Memorial - by far my favourite Monument

 The National Mall is a large, open park in downtown Washington between the Lincoln Memorial and the United States Capitol. Many wonderful museums line the outer boundaries of this park. The Smithsonian Institution operates 19 museums and the National Zoo, all free to the public and all easily accessible from the National Mall. As I was limited for time I only managed to walk through the Smithsonian Institute and Gardens (really beautiful and was nice to get grounded while walking through blossoming gardens on a fresh spring morning), the Freer Gallery (which housed amazing exhibitions of art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt) and the National Museum of Natural History. But if I had the time I would have loved to get to the National Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of African Art and the National Museum of the American Indian.



Smithsonian Institution



National Museum of Natural History - saw the biggest whale EVER!!

 Yes I ran around this museum like a 5 year old child. It was awesome seeing all the dinosaurs and other ‘aurs from different ages. Who knew there were ages between the dinosaurs and us? Yes that is  very blond thing to say – but I saw the remains of VERY odd looking animals and walked out of the museum feeling much more intelligent than before.




Freer Gallery

I thought it was a sign that just outside of the Freer Gallery was a sculpture called the 'Twisted Form' (Traveller's Guardian Spirit). This stone sculpture made of Agi stone and Peruvian granite was a gift to the Hirshhorn Gallery by Nobutaka Shikanai in celebration of the museum and sculpture garden's 10th anniversery in 1984 (this also just happens to be my birth year and I am travelling). 

So with the amazing omen in hand - I explored more of DC with  bigger smile on my face.

Oh and as a backpacker going through DC... I highly recommend Hostelling International - Washington DC. It was close to everything, clean, cozy and has wifi.

Vegas BABY!!

Jeans. Knees. Jeans. Knees. A blurred view of the awesome Bellagio hotel lights through the dark tinted windows of our limousine. Some song blearing on the radio while a friend of mine lip sinks to the lyrics, hands in the air. I now know why they call this place sin city - its lawless in all the right places.

Our evening started off in this limo, a bunch of excited South Africans who had all met up in the middle of the desert looking for a scene out of the hangover. Vegas is everything I expected. Bright lights, full of Americans (not just the pretty LA / NYC people I've come across - but the real MacDonald's type) and designed to make you part with more than your budget initially allowed for. Not that I actually got to see a lot of Vegas - because there is honestly so much to see and do - with every different hotel/ casino sporting a different place on earth and offering massive bright lights, entertainment and a promise of more to come.

"I know this song" I remember vaguely thinking while on our way out to Sapphire,  the worlds 'biggest' strip club. I can't remember whose idea it was - but at 2AM it seemed like the logical thing to do, with the main justification being "it's Vegas!" and "where else would you see 200 strippers in one place" coming ironically from one of my friends girlfriends.

The evening started off at the Bellagio, where Derek our dedicated party tour guide met us at the Lilly lounge to start off our evening of fun. Like any other place on earth, I realised its not what you know but who you know and Derek was the best person to know. He got us into "The Bank" (Bellagio's resident nightclub) walking straight past the hundred strong crowd queueing outside, onto the guest list and we were at the bar before you could say "abracadabra"... And all I could think was "Toto we're a far way from Kansas" when the barman was pouring free hand and the drinks were just so yummy.

"200 strippers!! Maybe not that many, but I can't be certain because this place is dark with no windows... It could very well be" we're my remarks to my friend. At that time of night they became more of objects than actual people, and if you've seen one boob - you've seen them all right? In the queue to get in were more woman than I thought would want to go watch other woman dance - but it seems they all had the same excuse as we did. As long as we were back at our hotel by 5:30 to get ready for our Grand Canyon trip I would be happy.

There were no photos taken on our night out - or if there were... I'm certainly not going to post them ;)

5:45am bare foot and running back to our hotel so we could change into something more appropriate to spend the day in a bus. In hindsight a helicopter was probably a better idea - but then I wouldn't have been to the most RANDOM place on earth on Route 66 where the locals favourite past time is watching tourists from their porches. We met the mayor of this town also - I can't remember what his name was or if I was still intoxicated from the night before - but Frank was about 80 and it appeared as though he knew the whole town (all 50 people). This one horse town was a far cry from Vegas - but a total experience at that.

Frank has the black hat on

45 minutes outside of Vegas is a random town with outlet malls. Driving through the desert and the next thing you see if this crazy huge shopping centre. I guess the property prices are lower the further out of Vegas the outlets are - but this will probably be the second most random thing that I have seen all trip.

The GRAND Canyon is exactly that - grand! It was totally worth it sitting in a bus for 6 hours to stand on the edge of this magnificent wonder of the world. Unlike the night before - I did take photos of those and I will let them do the taking about our experience of the canyon.

Finally we made our way back into Vegas after our 15 hour long Grand Canyon trip. Full moon was out and the strip was so beautifully lit up... Just before arriving at our hotel I spotted the biggest billboard stating "implants starting from $675"... hello Vegas...

If you ever get the chance to go, and besides the obvious Vegas attractions - do go see the fountain show outside of the Bellagio... its pretty spectacular!

Sunday blues at the airport on route to LA was an interesting event. I have never heard so many people mumble unhappily that they want to be home already. Vegas is not for the faint hearted. She's like snow whites evil step mother - but the poisonous apple keeps you awake for a lifetime.  I was happy to be boarding a plane to head onto the east coast for a while, but sad that my time with travel buddy Ant had come to an end!

Las Vegas - City of the thirsty and land of the dry...

2 very tired peeps...