Weekend Update, with Steve and Sara!

So, we left off with last Thursday evening. We got back from Disneyland just fine. The next day, we went to a local restaurant called CiCis for a huuuuuuuge pancake breakfast.

My pancakes. Apparently, this is a small portion... Needless to say, there were leftovers!

Sara's waffles. Needless to say, there were no leftovers. Mainly because there was so much less food than I had!

And this is how there were no leftovers!

No more Friday pictures. Sara went off to meet with friends and family, and I decided to walk to the 'nearby' comic shop, which was actually about 5 miles away. That night, we went to bed early as we were both exhausted from our separate adventures.

Saturday brought the family gathering. No pictures of this - it wasn't my family and it would be unfair of me to post pictures without asking permission. Also, we forgot to take pictures. D'oh! After the gathering, we went down to Venice Beach, where our pictures recommence.

Part of the view from the southern end of the Venice Beach boardwalk, looking north. The clouds had come in low, but the sun was just about managing to peek through.

The remains of dinner at C&O Trattoria.

More dinner, and a stupid face. Believe it or not, this is the best of seven pictures taken!

Two full and happy people!

'We rounded out the night by meeting Sara's cousin in Hollywood and going to a couple of bars. I got to try some American beers that were more than slightly flavoured water - including a really fruity one called Arrogant Bastard - and it was nice to let our hair down a little bit and relax.

The next day saw us head up to Los Angeles' famous Getty Museum, with a little stopoff on a rather famous road.

This is me, standing on Mulholland Drive, with an amazing view over the valley.

The view, without an idiot.

More of the views.

The view to the south of the Getty Museum.

Looking down the plaza of the Getty. The whole museum is so open, with plenty of space between each gallery and building.

The same view, looking back down the plaza towards the visitor center and the entrance.

The central fountains between three of the four main pavillions. Out of shot is a wonderfully playful series of stepping stones and slabs that children (and a few adults) loved messing around on.

Van Gogh's Waterlillies.

I'm about 80% sure that this is a Monet, but the problem with doing this over a week after I took the picture (and not having taken notes at the time of the picture taking) is that I've forgotten what it is!

Again, after a week I've forgotten who and what this is. I really liked it though, the way that the orange just peeps out. It's even more subtle in the painting itself, but I do like the way my camera picked the colour out and gently enhanced it.

The view from the south of the Getty, about as far as you can go without hopping the railings and dropping 20 feet down to the cacti plantation. The tall buildings to the left are Downtown LA.

Over to the south-west. If my geography is somewhat correct, then Venice Beach and its surroundings should be in the middle of the shoreline.

And now the south-east. Absolutely gorgeous views - I could have stood all day looking at this.

More from the east.

Some bespectacled loon, obscuring a perfectly nice view.

Sara, doing exactly the same thing.

The garden cafe. The light was so bright that I couldn't really see any detail on my viewfinder, hence the unexpected appearance of Sara's forehead in the shot.

Ah, the rest of Sara.

Looking down into the garden areas. Sadly, time prevented us from walking down into here. It looked, and smelled, absolutely beautiful.

Relaxing in the sun.

Looking up at the Getty entrance from the tram station. You can't drive to the Getty. Instead you climb on board a lovely, slow-moving tram that brings you up to the plaza at the top of the mountain.

Well, that was our first weekend. We spent the rest of the evening reviewing our plans for the holiday and eating Orange Chicken from Panda Express. Om nom nom nom nom!

Now that wifi has been restored (we effectively went without a decent connection for a week), hopefully I can get the pictures from the first couple of days of the road trip up before the end of the day. You can find out how we managed to misplace two waterfalls, some hot springs, and had to make a 200 mile detour!

Disneyland! (At last)

So, just to restate why we're so far behind. My new digital camera was set to take picturesw of a size and resolution to be projected onto 3 storey walls with ease. This meant that each picture was about 5 MB in size, and so big that it wouldn't show up in the Blogger editor to resize. So we've been using an online picture resizer, whose batch resizing function kept crashing the browser, so we had to do it one at a time. Last night's motel appeared to be using dial-up, so it took about 10-15 minutes per picture to resize. Thankfully, tonight's has been much better, so we finally have pictures of our Disney day out!

We left at about 6.30 to get to Anaheim in time for the gates to open at 9. Traffic was much better than anticipated. Here, Sara tries not to die of embarrassment whilst I take pictures of her.

We got there at about 8-ish, and not wanting to hang around outside the park for an hour, we decided to find breakfast. Go-go $3.79 pancakes, eggs and bacon! NOM!

Somebody's excited! (Daisy Duck parking lot, level 2, sections 5-6)

It's a horsey!

Queuing for the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Disney queueing is great, always something see whilst waiting in line.

Our Kodak moment, courtesy of a kindly passing Scotsman.

I didn't know they did characters from the Pixar films. And I  probably shouldn't have taken pictures of kids that aren't mine...

I WILL be the once and future King, dammit!

Argh, which joke to go for? Looking for her Prince? Having a frog in her throat? How great I'm looking in this shot? I CAN'T DECIDE!!!

The Mad Hatter's teacup ride.

The Mad Hatter, sans hat.

The same.

Boy, NASA have become a lot less selective since they shut down the space shuttle program! On our way to ride Space Mountain.

Not quite a pose, not quite natural. WTF am I doing?

MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!

The Matterhorn. We rode this right at the end of the day, and it was fun, if a bit sucky.

The Finding Nemo ride submarine. We weren't sure what to expect from this one, but the effects were great and pretty much everyone from the film showed up. Well, not the school of fish. I love them...

Inside the sub. One of the strange things about being underwater is that Sara's face suddenly became three times its normal size. Who woulda thought it?

The view from the front of my Autopia car. This ride was incredibly fun. I remember sharing a car with my Dad when I came here in 1994.

One of the silly, fun sights from the ride.

6.5 mph? I hope I watched my speed!

TUNNEL!!!

Bloody tailgaters....

Me, by me.

In one of the small streams around the center of the park, we found a mother duck with five cute little ducklings.

I hope you're enjoying the pictures, because unfortunately things took a rather nasty turn.

As they were swimming around, a mallard turned up. Contrary to what the kids think, mummy and daddy ducks aren't in love. In fact, a daddy duck basically forces himself on a mummy duck. And this one was in the mood.

Thankfully, by ducking and diving and hiding in the undergrowth, mummy duck was able to escape and lead her ducks onto the walkway. Everyone who had watched understood what was going on, and basically joined together to block traffic, scare the mallard away, and allow the mother and her ducklings to cross to another part of water where they were safer.

The view from the Tarzan treehouse.

Put a small person on an oversized walkway and they look even smaller.

It's me, with my fraudulent '1st Visit' badge.

Me, with my first churro. Imagine a long, thin, ridged donut covered in cinnamon sugar. Nom!

Us, on the jungle cruise. Self-taken pictures kinda work!

The best bits are usually the unplanned bits. We decided we needed coffee at about 4.15, and popped into a coffee-selling-place at the top of Maine Street. Inside was a pianist performing ragtime music, and playing it very well. After a few minutes, a member of the audience asked if he could play with him, and the two proceeded to improvise around famous rag tunes for about 10 minutes. It was absolutely amazing. The piano, as you can see, was open, and watching the hammers go on the strings was really something. It was a very pleasant way to enjoy a cup of overpriced coffee.

We walked down Main Street and came across a barbershop quartet. What you see in their hands are pitched chimes. They shake them to produce a pitch, and used them to great effect in their routine.

One of the shops and museums had portraits of notable Disney collaborators. This is Jim Henson, the creator of Sesame Street and the Muppets. I absolutely love the Muppets, and wanted to get a picture of me with his picture. And here it is.

The view of Mickey's Toon Town from the top of Donald's house.

Later at night, on the carousel.

Same place, different person.

Notice the rain jackets. After threatening to do so throughout the day, the rain finally hit late in the evening. Thankfully, we were on our way to an amazing dinner at the Blue Bayour restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, so we missed most of it.

The famous Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse statue, with the original Sleeping Beauty's Castle, beautifully lit, in the background.

And so ends our day at Disney.