The McKenzie’s Blog…

Ok, perhaps not just in your pocket, but backpack/laptop bag, etc. The number of devices we carry really seem to be going up and up these days, despite the fact that devices are converging and doing so much more. My personal “battle load” consists of the following:

Devices that require power

• Dell E6500 Latitude (with 9 and 6 cell batteries)
• Nokia N97 (read my other blog postings for my opinion on this device)
• Zoom 4506-N 3G Travel Router
• Microsoft wireless travel mouse
• Jabber BT3030 headset
• Power adapter for laptop (travel adapter for use with mains, car and air plane (I’ve never been fortunate enough to travel in the right class where I can use it on a plane )

Devices that use power but leech off other sources

• Vodafone K3820 3G/HSDPA modem
• 500GB portable USB drive
• Numerous Flash drives of various capacities, some have bootable OSes on them some just for data

Misc items that I carry that don’t need any power themselves

• A number of 8cm CD’s and DVD’s with bootable OSes on them (all Re-Writable for reuse, and for those machines that can’t boot of USB, WTF?)
• A couple of sets of head phones (in case of loss or damage)
• Various cables to connect devices for data transfer or charging, most use the same USB cables so it keeps these to a minimum

All in all it’s a fair bit of gear slung on my shoulder.   The double batteries for the laptop are really just to make sure I can go for hours and hours..  One question I’m sure many are asking themselves – Is all that gear really necessary?   Of course the answer is NO, BUT it’s just become the norm for so many years now, not just with me but so many people.   I can do just nicely with only my phone in most cases.  I managed quite nicely last year to post very long blog postings while out camping.  However, it wasn’t as convenient as it would have been had I had my laptop with me.  I should put my normal “battle load” into my backpack and weight it.  I’m sure it’s the best part of 8KG, might be a  bit more.

The only reason I decided to write this blog posting now was because while I sit in the Starbucks here in Newmarket Road in Cambridge I pulled out my travel mouse to find the battery was flat in it.  That got me thinking about what else I have in my bag that might need a change of batteries.  Thankfully that’s really the only device that can’t be recharged (however that’s a bad thing too really).  By that I mean I can’t plug the mouse in to charge the battery, it’s just a single AA battery.  That in itself is a good thing really, I can get replacements anywhere for it, that however can’t be said for any of the other power hungry devices I carry.  They all have bespoke batteries, so they require having some sort of charger/power adapter (be it wall wart, USB cable or some such).

So, What do you carry with you on a day to day basis?   What do you wish you could carry with you but choose to leave at home for some reason?

Yes, I’m still here and still alive The week has gone very well with the work related stuff, but there’s still work to be done this coming week (and maybe more depending on quickly things can be organized). It seems that SA isn’t a stranger to slow services like other countries.

The weather this past week has been brutal here with highs not much higher then 14C in the day time and loads of rain. I’ve been told this is not normal weather for this time of the year, especially since this is the summer time down here.

This weekends plans were a bit scuppered due to the weather but what can you do. I just hope we have better weather this coming week. I’d hate to think I brought shorts and didn’t have a chance to wear them, save for the first day I arrived.

I’ll try to get some pics and post them later, unfortunately the broadband speeds down here are less then desirable so uploading photos would be very tedious and time consuming.

I’ll post more later when I have something more interesting.

The trip to Johannesburg started with a taxi ride to Heathrow Airport in London. The trip was uneventful and actually quite educational. The driver gave me some great tips on alternate ways to the airport that avoided nearly all f the dreaded M25. As I will be going to Heathrow in Dec to collect my mum when she comes over it will give me a chance to test the routes.

Getting through security was about the easiest I’ve seen in years, well for me anyhow. Unlike most others around me (men and women) i didn’t need to take off my belt or shoes. A short wait on the secure side for the gate to assigned and opened, then about 90 mins ish in the boarding area. The flight was late owing to “catering and security checks”… Hmm security checks on the catering. On the flight I have seat 51J on a 747-400, flight VS601 with Virgin Atlantic.

The take-off was quite late. However it was announced the expected flight time was reduced from the original 11h5m to 10h15m or something, so this will make up for the later departure.

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I’m off to South Africa for a couple of weeks with work. This won’t be a holiday by any means but I sure hope to have some time to sight see around the area while I’m there.

Expect some blog postings from me while I’m there, certainly not a day by day posting like previous trips haha there’ll be way too much boring work stuff I’m sure. I will however post when I’ve done something fun and have some pics to show as well.

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Days 4 and 5.  We started the day much as other days, breakfast in the hotel, Lisa loves the waffles the most.  They are quite good that’s for sure.  On Thursday they had Chocolate ones, so that was a nice treat from the normal ones with chocolate spread on it.

Wednesday, it was back to the Albert Cuypstraat Market again for a couple of things that we didn’t get the day before.  We’d only walked a small part of that market.  Then it decided we’d take in the Tropenmuseum.  This is quite the place.  Four floors of Dutch history centred around the Caribbean and tropical areas.  They also had a great “Getting to know China” tour in a special area of the museum, the only problem was it was given entirely in Dutch by a Chinese guy.  It would have been nice for a just a little bit of English to be given, but oh well.  They covered the Chinese art of Tai Chi and Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese cuisine, Chinese writing with hair and feather pens.  They also spoke about Chinese traditions for celebrating and honouring the dead and Chinese tea ceremony’s and different famous Chinese teas.

I have heaps of photos from the museum which I’ll get up shortly.  After the museum we headed for the “China District”, which is just on the edge of the Red Light district.  Bloody shame too, we had to walk through the RLD twice again that day   We had lunch at a Chinese Dim Sum restraunt.  The sign outside (I have a photo somewhere) that read “All you can eat for 8.95, in 1 hour” haha

After stuffing ourselves with Chinese food and leaving the owner suffering from a minor stroke having witnessed the awesome eating power of Yuki (I’m certain he’ll change his sign either increasing the price the cutting the 1 hour to 30 mins), we headed back to Nieuwendijk and Kalverstraat shopping areas and Dam square.  One of the tram drivers from a previous day liked his job a lot, when we approached Dam square his announcement over the tannoy was something like “Now stopping at the Dam square, all those going to the Dam square get off here at the Dam square”.  We wandered around the square and got a photo with all the girls and Batman, which nearly made Emma cry, what a scary cat.  Yuki then went to the Amsterdam Diamond Centre.  I stayed around the square with the kids.

After that it was back to the hotel, rather early then previously, but we were all completely knackered.  Poor Yuki, when we got back to the hotel we’d found out the Internet had been shutdown due to some technical problem (apparently their open wifi was used by spammers or something so the ISP killed their connection for 24 hours).  It was a long and boring night with no Internet haha

We all just chilled out for a while then about 1830 Lisa and I walked down the street to the Domino’s Pizza and picked up a medium pizza and some chicken wings for dinner and took it back to the hotel room.

Thursday morning we got all packed up and had breakfast and got a taxi back to the Olympic Stadium Park and Ride.  We had too much stuff to carry on the Trams there, it was just easier.  The Park and Ride was by far the best bargain of the trip, 6 Euro per day, so 24 Euro and the car was kept safe in a well lit, underground 24hr guarded parking facility.  I was well impressed.  Anyone planning to drive to Amsterdam should seriously consider using the P-n-R facilities they have, it’s cheap and easy for sure!  Wish more cities has those sorts of secure short/longish term parking facilities.

We then made our way back towards the Hook of Holland port, taking our time and exploring some of the county lanes along the way.  There weren’t many windmills to be seen really, to really experience those you need to get on a bus tour from Amsterdam .. we didn’t bother as they were quite expensive and very long.. they were 32 Euro for each adult and 16 for each of the kids plus they were 5 ½ hours out on the go.  There’s no way the kids would have survived that trip

We took a bunch of photos of the countryside and settled in the Hook of Holland to explore the small town here and have lunch before getting on the ship.  We found a nice little clothing shop and managed to find Yuki a cute PJ set with Snoopy on it (that’s her fav), plus we picked up a bunch of things for the kids and I got a fleece jacket I’ll keep at the office (since our AC is mental and seems to be set on “Fend off Global Warming” mode all the time), that was a bargain as well, a huge bag of clothes for 40 something Euro.  Much better then shopping in Amsterdam haha

That brings me to the current time, 1426hrs.  Currently sitting on deck seven of our ship just waiting for them to cast off and hoist the mainsails, heave the anchors and get the cat-o-nine-tails out to encourage the rowing team to crack on with the crossing.

Yuki has given up on getting online for now and decided to sack out over 3 chairs and try and sleep.  It’s highly unlikely that will happen, now with our kids.

Speaking of the kids, they’ve been in the kids play area for about the last hour or so since we boarded the ship.  We’re sat right next to the kids area, I’m not sure if that was a good or bad idea.. haha we can see the kids but we can also HEAR them too.. do they sell mufflers for children?  If not they should, there’s a fortune waiting for the smart bugger that brings that to market!!

Right, enough for now.. we have about 7 hours until we land I think.. then it’s straight home with the kids and get them to bed.  We’ll deal with the aftermath of the clothing and bags tomorrow or something.  I’ll be ready for bed myself as son as I walk in the door I think.

Good bye Amsterdam and Holland, it’s been mostly good but had it’s moments as well.  Can’t say we’d hurry back again, but mostly that’s just because of the cost of visiting verses a couple of bad experiences.

Day 3 started early again, what day with two kids doesn’t. Breakfast in the hotel again then off to shop till we drop.. Ok by that I mean follow Yuki around until we drop. We walked from the hotel east to Van Woustraat, then north 4 or so blocks to Albert Cuypstraat, Amsterdam’s biggest, oldest and most famous open market. We were a bit early for shopping again but managed alright. In and out of what seemed like 200 shops and stalls. We walked the entire length of Albert Cuypstraat to the end at De Pijp.

Once there we found a nice kebab shop where we had what appears to have been a faeces free lunch, much to our delight. After lunch it onto a tram heading towards the Central Station. We ditches the tram at the Rokin and Grimburgwal stop. There was a tour boat leaving in 15 mins so we got out tickets and boarded for a 1hr tour. Sadly this boat didn’t do cover the canals through the Red Light district, however it was still very good. It has a GPS triggered multi lingual playout system for the commentary which was neat.

Once back, we embarked on a monumental walk which I will try to work out with google earth later… But it went from the Allard Pierson Museum NNE along Kloveniersburghwal, down Oude Hoogstraat, before entering the Red Light District we stopped for a snack.. Another experience of cost of living here.. 2 average sized chocolate dipped donuts with sprinkles, 1 chocolate topped waffle with crushed peanuts, a coffee, a bottle of Lemon Ice Tea and use of the bathroom … €14. Unreal!!

Now we set off to the Red Light District. I have to admit I was a bit bothered about having the kids there, just on principle. However, seeing how many other famines there were made me feel better… Two wrongs might not make a right but it give some validation haha. It was interesting and loads of ladies hanging out in their windows looking for punters to ‘do business’ with. The place was very clean and tidy. I’m sure its much more impressive at night though. We leave that area and head WNW through the Warmoesstraat district, mostly sex shops, sex screening and what not, then out past Beure van Berlage shop, sort of your Harrods of Amsterdam I guess, 6 floors of ass dragging shopping goodness.

We then joined Nieuwendijk and headed SSW on there till we reached Dam Square. We continued south along Kalverstraat till its very bitter end at the Kalvertoren and the Flower Marker… tulips, tulips, tulips…. And yup more tulips. Bulbs for mile.

Right, for those keeping locational tabs, we are now (still on foot I might add) at the corners of Singal (flower market), Heiligeweg, Koningsplein and the start of the Leidsestraat shopping area. We now walk SW for the full length of this area, starting to remember some of the muddle we found ourselves in yesterday looking for tram tickets.

Getting hungry again due to the now 4 or 4.hrs that have passed since walking..er I mean lunch. I’ getting a union signed up for my next holiday! We found a nice little Mexican place and ordered 5 starters, those left us stuffed. Total damage was only €31, a record for the week!!

Right, fed watered and leaked we were now able to get back to the hotel to get the kids a much needed bath. That simply consisting getting 2 trams with a change. Luckily we guessed right and even managed our stops without the need for one of our soon to be patented

‘oh shit missed the stop, never mind, get off at the next on and either walk back or tram back, screw that its too far just get a tram’

This time it all worked out perfectly, how said you can’t teach imports new tricks. The rest of the evening was uneventful back in the room. We should be fully chilled out and ready for tomorrow…..

Posted by Wordmobi

Today is Lisa’s Birthday. We’ve not really planned to do too much today through, The day started about 7am to pitter patter of little feet and rain drops out on our balcony. Neither was welcomed at that hour haha. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Sort of a continental cum random nibbles sort of affair, but was good. Then it was off to get a tram to the Fashion and Museum District, home of the Van Gogh Museum, Diamant Museum and Rijksmuseum.

Having walked around for about 1.5mi looking at shops that apparently don’t open on on Monday until 11am, or if at all. One lessoned learned is NEVER go to Amsterdam on Monday, it’s shut!! We were looking for a tourist info booth, which should have been somewhere around the Diamant Museum, so we could buy a couple unlimited travel cards. Turns out they hide them from the tourists, never found either that was in the mile or so radius of each other, shocking. Finally managed to get some tram tickets, not the ones we wanted but whatever, got us out of the rain.

Then it was onto a tram heading towards the Central Station, looking for the Magna Plaza shopping centre. We’d missed the stop so had to fetch another tram going back the opposite direction to get back, we did that a lot today .  After the Magna Plaza, we wandered the entire length of Nieuwendijk Street shopping area.  Ok, HOLY CRAP that’s a lot of places to go in and out of.  There must be 500 stores in about 1/2 a mile.  We finally decided to stop for lunch, the kids were starving, we were too to be fair.  We wanted to get some of the Holland pancakes.  Right, this is where our day starts to take a major shit, pardon the French but you’ll see why.

(Continue reading… it’s a beaut)

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