2011- Part One

I was planning on doing a big 2011 review of all my travels, but I might split it up into a few posts with a few different photos. 2011 was a pretty big year, although I think 2010 might have to be the "best year of all time", this year certainly had its highlights.

As for the pictures above, we have first of all from the night of our wedding, staying at the Sydney Harbour YHA, with magnificent view over the harbour.

The next shot is from the Australian Footbag Championships, that was a while later in the year, with my good pal Caroline. I was not so pleased with my performances this year, particular compared to my dropless routine the year before. However, it always good to see everyone and catch up with what's happening in the footbag world.

The next two are also Footbag related. First of all a match of Kubb at the Narooma Footbag Jam, next year will be the 5th annual and the first one I won't be able to attend. The next photo down is from my trip to Kuala Lumpur, where I gave Footbag demonstrations and judged the first ever Malaysian Championships- sponsored by Adidas. A very good time, and gave me a lot of ideas, hopefully some of which I can put into action next year.

The final photo from the first installment is Francisca and I at a very well known location, along the Great Ocean Road. We did that for our honeymoon and I think that was an excellent decision.

I hope to do some more similar posts in the next couple of days, this might be the first of four parts to my round up of the year. Still a couple of days to go, we will head down the coast tomorrow for the New Year celebrations and hopefully we will have a good time down there.

Once more unto the breach...

For most people, a wedding is a one time experience. Not for everyone though, plenty of religions seems to have the equivalent of the multiball option in regards to wives, whilst these days it's quite common for re-marriages to occur etc. And, in our situation, when your from two sides of a vast ocean, it really is necessary to have two ceremonies.

So after having our "proper"(according to the law) wedding in Sydney earlier this year, tomorrow is the next Big Day. There will definitely be no more weddings after this one- they're a lot of work!

The bride arrives

I made a little zine for the wedding guests

Champers anyone?

At both events we have been lucky enough to have some incredible garden spaces to use. In Sydney we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, their gardens lay themselves out over a number of levels, which was a really perfect setup for the ceremony we had, meant we could change the focus point a couple of times throughout.

A good friend of mine, and a long time servant of Footbag in Australia, Ian Pritchard, just so happens to me a wedding videographer for his day job, so he had a bit of fun and took some photos on the day- what a great way to spend one of your only weekends off!

With this ring I give you my love

You may now kiss the bride

The happy couple

Cheers mates

José, a good friend of ours, who is from Brazil cooked up some amazing food.

Here's cheers

Another view of the garden. Grandma planted the Jacaranda when she was young.

A fierce battle for the bouquet

Then time for cake

Grandma and Grandpa- couldn't have happened without them

We were very fortunate with the weather the first time round- after some, very ironic, morning rain, the skies cleared up, and it was a perfect temperature, not too hot either- the next couple of weeks saw almost every day in the 40s, and the previous weeks in Sydney were full of rain, so we did well.

After "official proceedings", a bunch of our good friends joined us to take a water taxi into the city. Originally we had just planned to take a ferry, but in hindsight, it was definitely best to take the water taxi, meaning we had our own boat, I think the maximum capacity was 27. This was a great way to head into the city, as a whole bunch of us were staying at Sydney Harbour YHA.

When I first brought up the idea of staying in a hostel, I would say my Mum's reaction was one of horror. I worked for the last few years in the YHA in Canberra, and had the benefit, regularly used, of staying almost anywhere else within the (quite expansive) network for free. Plenty of the guests were fellow staff/mates from work, so they had some free rooms too... what I was not expecting though, was to have the best room in the house, and champagne and chocolate in the room- I don't know if you could expect that in a "honeymoon suite" in a flash hotel.

It was a great chance to have everyone together there, though you may say the night become a whole lot less formal as it went on.

Our honeymoon, we didn't want to make it a big, expensive trip at all, as we already had plenty of overseas trips booked for later in the year, so we made our way down to Melbourne and The Great Ocean Road.

I think it worked perfectly for what we were after, it was a chance to just take a laidback trip and see a few sights. Francisca had never been to Victoria at all, and I had not been all that far along the Great Ocean Road, so it was really a good chance to travel along there.

So now it's time to prepare again- the wedding is in Rancagua, it's about an hour and a bit away from Santiago. There has been a big turnout of family- sixteen in total, and my good friend Doug as well. Today the family are out touring down the coast, Doug and I will join them in a bus down south tomorrow. Not sure exactly what's going to be happening to come back, but there's a good chance our "romantic exit" from the wedding, it may also be in a bus with sixteen family.

What I do know is there will be a good spread on at the wedding, that in itself is doubtless. According to the last few days, I think the weather will be good, a little on the hot side, but there are going to be marquees set up. It will also be a good chance to meet some more of Francisca's family and friends that I have not met yet- we can share a mix of my hopeless Spanish (though it's getting better, slowly), and whatever English that they have.

We were incredibly happy with our first wedding, everything went exactly as it was planned, and I definitely hope tomorrow we will be saying the same.

Look Mum, no hands

Today Mum and Dad and Alison arrived in town. They are staying in Bella Vista, right next to the furnicular, so we headed up there today. They were all pretty jetlagged, so we took it reasonably easy, though it's a bit of a steep climb (particularly after long hours in a flight) from the top of the train up to the top, where this statue of Mary is at the top. Doug and I went there in the early days in town, I would like to start walking up there regularly, maybe every week or so, maybe once a fortnight. A good hill walk is always good.

We had a fun/not really visit to a government office before meeting the family. We were following up on the progress of our marriage certificate- of course we got the usual bureaucratic response from any place, oh it takes this long to get here, another month and this and that. And of course, it had been sitting in a file in that office for close to two months. So that will be ready on Friday, we will be legally married in Chile.

After that, we're going to have a second wedding ceremony- the very next day actually. It will be yet another stage in what has been a pretty amazing year all around.

Us in the water taxi after the first wedding.

So it's a bit weird to have the family here pretty well immediately. Not quite as immediate as Doug, who arrived the day after us, and will be back in town in time for the wedding, but people asked if I missed them, and honestly there hasn't been enough time. We've been here for about 3 weeks and it's been time to eat sandwiches, tomar cervezas and meet new friends and family.

I got my first Chilean rejection letter today, and it was actually very positive. I applied for a job writing for a website called "This Is Chile", which is run by Santiago Times. They said they liked my work and mentioned specific things, and said they would keep me in my mind, the usual stuff.

However, seems both of us have stumbled into some work, and not just any kind of work, but the kind of work that could really, if all goes well, define our careers and really be the "next stage". It will be to plan a conference in the Atacama Desert, with a mixed focus on lighting, urban planning, architecture, astronomy and tourism.

If I say sometimes just by the thought of it I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, that would not be a lie, however, particularly if things go well, that will make us very employable anywhere in the world, if things go well, it would also be a big boost for Chile, particular up in the north, and that would be pretty amazing to be a part of. Let's see what happens...

This little piece of graffiti sums up the title of my post, as a matter of fact it also says- look Mum, no hands.