In Oz at last...

Greetings from Geelong, Victoria, Australia!

Since departing from Toronto, two and a half weeks ago we have spanned 3 continents, and have visited 6 countries so far: The Netherlands, Germany, England, Scotland, Dubai, and Australia.

-England-
Our second day in England, we visited all the touristy spots like The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, St. Margaret's Cathedral, Big Ben, and The Tower Bridge. We were especially excited to see the flag flying high over Buckingham Palace signaling that the Queen was in residence there. Although we did not have tea and crumpets with Her Majesty, it was a thrill to finally see the Palace and all the guards. We even fought our way through the crowd to touch the gate! Our friend, Hayley, was a fantastic tour guide showing us the places of interest in her beloved home. A new experience for us were the fish 'n chips. I think we all agreed that it was excellent!
On Sunday we attended the Notting Hill Carnival, A celebration of the ethnic groups who were despised for so long and are now free to celebrate life! Our afternoon was filled with latin music, lively dances, and vibrant colors. It was a terrific taste of home!

-Scotland-
This is the place where our travels took an interesting turn. While in Glasgow, we realized that our ticket names were not the same as our passport names. Since we did not have a problem with this in Toronto we thought nothing of it. The travel agent in Glasgow assured us that we would be rejected if we tried to enter Australia on our "mis-matched" tickets. So, needless to say, we racked our brains for alternatives. Our first option was to change the tickets so that the names would correspond with the names on our new passports. Although costly, it was a very real option. After talking with the airline we would be flying with, they told us that we would be able to enter if we had our old passports along with the new ones. What to do.....what to do....
We contacted our Mom in Michigan and asked her to fedex our passports to the office in Glasgow. They promised to have the package there before 8:00 pm the next day. This was fine, except that our plane was scehduled to leave for Dubai 6 hours earlier. After obtaining the tracking number, we contacted the head fedex office in Paisley and asked them to hold the package for us. The next morning, Erick walked to the office, picked up the passports, and we were on our way to Dubai.

More updates on Australia to come....