Don's Travel Blog
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Showing posts tagged travel
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Last Tango in Buenos Aires
Fairly uneventful flight back into BA from Iguazu and straight onto a “Lunch & City Tour”. Basically off the plane, onto a coach and then off to an Italian restaurant. A fairly leisurely lunch and then back on the coach for a whistle stop tour of some districts of BA (only some as the place is huge) with a stop off at “La Boca”
Then back to the Hotel to check in at 6pm, retrieve the luggage we left behind a few days ago and then out again at 7pm for a “Tango” dinner and show.
Only just made it!
This evening was the first time the main group of the MacMania tour joined together as the Iguazu trip was optional and many people didn’t opt in. Really great to see some old faces from the previous MacMania cruises.
So the Dinner was excellent (I’ll skip on the optional Tango lessons, Mrs Don and I decided to sit those out), and the show was technically brilliant with a great live orchestra and some pretty nimble dancing - I’ve never really appreciated the subtleties of Tango before. The show included some archival footage of the history of Tango - fascinating stuff but to be honest, by the time 11:15pm came around, we were all pretty beat. The show finished at 11:45 and back to the Hotel.
We’ve already booked on a full day tour tomorrow, but decided that we’d best sit that one out and just have a catch up day. Still lot’s ahead.
Bumped into Leo in the hotel lobby and after a quick chat, headed up to bed.
The hotel has pretty decent Wifi in the room so it’s checking emails and sorting out ScreenCastsOnline member queries for a bit but then I have to upload the files for next week’s ScreenCastsOnline show. There’s only tonight and tomorrow when I’m guaranteed decent internet access so I’ve kicked off the 500MB upload to continue overnight.
Providing everything works OK, I’ll update the RSS feeds tomorrow and test.
So it’s 1:22am and I’d better hit the sack.
I’ll continue to update this Tumblr blog as best I can with the rest of the trip, for my own personal record than for anything else. Not sure how updating will be when on the ship, but we’ll see.
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Last Day in Buenos Aires
Well, we bailed on the all day City Tour, deciding to have a lie in and a leisurely breakfast.
The weather has been gorgeous here in BA, so after the required application of lotion to our pasty english skin, we ventured out for some shopping and took a wander around some BA malls and ended up down Calle Florida (Florida Street), one of the more popular shopping locales in BA. Fairly typical of any major shopping street in any major city.
Lunch and back to the hotel to chill out and get ready for the ship transfer tomorrow.
The night before boarding the ship, it seems to be traditional to have a “Cocktail Party” at the hotel, to meet up with the other Geeks on the cruise, and tonight was no exception. A free bar (well for 90 minutes) and some good snacks made it a great event to meet up with those attendees who had only just made it in that day. There seems to be a large number of people for whom this is both their first cruise and their first MacMania event.
I’m sure they’ll enjoy it!
So, it’s off to bed with an 8:30am start. We’re scheduled to board the ship at 11:30am but there are some hoops to jump through during the transfer so tomorrow is pretty uneventful. Once on board, the ship leaves on a relatively short trip to Montevideo, Uruguay, to arrive on Saturday. We’ll learn more about the Wifi tomorrow and just how feasible it will be to keep the blog updated. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post at least a daily progress report and some photos.
We’ll see!
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First Day - MacMania11
Settled in the cabin (Stateroom no less). No balcony this time, but a big picture window, which is fine by me. Some of the rooms have sliding doors that lead onto a walkway around the ship, but ours is more traditional.
Initial impressions of Holland America are excellent with the ship having great facilities and seemingly in good order!
Even more people joined today making the MacMania group around 117 strong with around 70 odd signed up for the sessions. One treat is that we have Steve Wozniak with us on this trip. He’s here for pleasure but has agreed to do a question and answer session towards the end of the trip. Goodness knows what I’ll do if he turns up to any of my sessions - no pressure!
The ship has capacity for 1200 passengers and 500 crew so it’s not one of the mega liners but it’s certainly not a small ship, by any account.
If you’ve not been on a cruise, a lot of the focus is around food. You can basically eat yourself to oblivion round the clock, so I’ll need to be careful… but not too careful. The Withins Internet scales will be dusted off and reconnected once I get back from this trip to shame me into getting back into shape.
Breakfast and Lunch are flexible with a great choice of healthy and not so healthy options. Dinner is at 8pm for all the MacManiacs, with a block of reserved seating in the main restaurant. First day you’re assigned to a set table but for following evenings, you’re free to move around. The late dinner is to fit in with the sessions on sea days and it’s difficult sometimes, to adjust to eating so late. Once dinner is over, it can be 10:00pm or later and rather than catch the late show in the theatre, we tend to just crash out.
We left Buenos Aires at around 9pm with just a short voyage across the river to Montevideo, Uruguay - our first port of call. We’ll have the morning to ourselves and then a short excursion in the afternoon.
No MacMania sessions tomorrow, they start on Sunday, when we make a 2 day voyage down to the Falkland Islands.
Although I’ve finished most of the outlines and slide sets for my eight sessions, I need to polish them and do some rehearsal, so a good part of the two days at sea will be assigned to that.
This post is being posted via the Ships Internet service which actually includes WiFi access in the cabin. It’s slow (Apple mail really grinds considerably with all the syncing over the slow connection) but the idea is to download mail or create content offline, login, sync and log off again. I’ve bought 1000 minutes of access for the next 12 days which should be enough to keep on top of email and publish the show next week.
We’ll see!
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MacMania11 - Day 2
Arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay a little later than planned but as we weren’t planning on getting up early, it wasn’t a problem.
We’d arranged to go on a planned excursion to view the “Architecture and Old Town” later in the day. In retrospect, the town was so close to the Ship we probably would have been better off just walking off the Ship and looking around. As the tour wasn’t until the afternoon and the weather was still glorious, I did a little bit of sunbathing, a load of washing in the self service launderette (very handy having these on a cruise ship) and some work on my presentations. I’ve completed the outlines and slide sets of all of the sessions, but I need to tweak them by adding animations and transitions.
The organised tour was OK, but not really what I’d hoped for. We did see Architecture and the Old Town, but the tour guides just gave too much information and spent too long at individual sites, rather keeping a brisk pace and seeing more. Ah well! There was some drama when one of the attendees went missing, only to find he’d mistakenly joined another tour group in the same building. Took them a while to figure that out.
With the slow internet connection, it’s impossible to post any images, so for the next few days, I’ll have to stick with text updates. Email is a challenge with the limited speed and the fact I’ve bought a 1000 minute package for $100. I still need to keep on top of membership queries etc., so it’s a matter of logging on to the Wifi in my cabin early morning and later evening. Allowing Apple mail to sync. Logging off. Answering or filing my mail. Logging back on and letting it sync again. If I’m creating a blog post, I write it in TextMate and copy and paste it into the Tumblr web app.
As it was still incredibly hot, we had to call into a bar on the Ship after getting off the bus. Well we had to didn’t we. We even persuaded some friends to join us and as luck would have it, we stumbled into Happy Hour!
Great!
Two drinks for the price of one - excellent.
So four drinks were duly ordered, expecting to get them for half price. But no, it’s not that simple. It truly was two drinks for the price of one, and eight drinks arrived for the four of us. Oh well. We may visit there again tomorrow.
Left Montevideo at around 6:15pm and went on deck to discover that the winds had picked up. The next two days are at sea and it’s expected to get a bit choppy as we head down to the Falkland Islands, with waves of up to three meters expected.
Dinner was at 8:00pm as usual and we joined Leo for some good food and conversation. Table seatings are now flexible so you can pretty much sit wherever you want within the group.
The sessions started today, by the way, with the first one given by Randell Schwartz. They start in ernest tomorrow with two full days of sessions. I also managed to say hi to Sal Sagoian from Apple who is giving a full day of sessions on Monday. I’m hoping to attend some of the sessions myself, but I’d really blocked out the next two days to finish off my sessions, but we’ll see.
So that’s the emails for the day done, along with this blog post. Now to login again to upload and I may just do another hour of Keynote manipulation before retiring for the evening.
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MacMania11 - Day 3
Mainly a working day today.
Despite a heavy swell, I’ve spent most of the day working on my sessions, which start on Tuesday. The constant motion of the boat and putting together Keynote animations and transitions don’t sit too well together!
Another full day at sea tomorrow. expecting to dock in the Falkland Islands on Tuesday morning at 8am.
Internet access from the ships very hit and miss. Took me 15 minutes to establish a working connection, but when you consider just where we are, it’s amazing I have any service at all.
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MacMania11 - Day 4
Another full day at Sea. So sleep, breakfast, keynote, lunch, keynote, cocktail party, dinner, bar, emails.
The swell has subsided so it’s been much calmer today.
Managed to finalise all the slide sets for all the presentations (OK, except for the last one) and did a quick run through the two sessions I need to deliver tomorrow. We arrive in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands tomorrow at 8am. We’ve booked a shore excursion to go and see some Penguins at 10:00am. It’s only a half day tour so I’m hoping to be back on the Ship by 3pm.
Once back onboard, a quick freshen up and then down to the Wajang Room (?) to setup for my session at 4:00pm on “Forget The Mouse”, followed by another session at 6pm on “Go Paperless”.
That will take me up to 7:30pm, a quick change and then a formal dinner at 8pm.
Unusually, we had a few drinks after Dinner this evening so it’s now quite late. Looks like something is up with email so I’ll try again tomorrow morning to do a quick catch up.
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MacMania11 - Day 5
Decided to take the shorter trip to see the Penguins at Bluff Cove here in the Falkland Islands.
It meant we didn’t have to leave until 10am and would be back around 3pm, just in time for my first sessions at 4pm.
Really strange being in the Falklands after hearing so much about them during the war in 82. Virtually every place name resonated with me and brought back memories of the various battles and significant events that seemed so far away over 25 years ago.
It really is like a little England floating in the middle of the South Atlantic.
The ship was moored outside Port Stanley so the only way onto the shore was via Tenders - mini boats carrying 80 or so passengers to and from the ship.
Once on the shore, a short wait for a minibus, and then whisked off to an area a few miles outside of Port Stanley, where we transferred to a 4x4 for some cross country japes. Following what must have been the bumpiest ride ever, we arrived at Bluff Cove Penguin Lagoon.
I really wish I could post some photos (damn slow internet) but we got very close to some of the Gentoo Penguins, Barbara even managing to stroke one on the beak. It was fairly bracing but after a short whilst with the Penguins, we retired to the onsite cafe for complimentary tea and cakes. I recorded a quick audioboo but haven’t been able to upload it.
All too soon, the visit was over and we retraced our steps and vehicle rides to end up back on the Ship as planned.
A quick shower and I threw all my gear in my overnight bag and headed off to deliver the first two of the eight sessions I have scheduled. Despite a low turn out for the first part of my first session (many people were late getting off the Island via the Tenders) the sessions seemed well received and I’m now nursing a slight hoarseness after talking for three hours.
At least the first ones are now under my belt. Another one tomorrow, so I’d better get back to my slide set!
In fact, forget that, I need some sleep!
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MacMania11 - Day 6
Discovered that the Internet connection flies at 7am so uploaded a photo of a couple of penguins from the Falkland Islands!
Yesterday was another full day at sea as we headed down south to round Cape Horn.
Actually managed to sit in on Wally Cherwinski’s session on “Creating Fabulous Videos” and picked up lot’s of tips for future travel videos.
I gave another session today, “Mastering the Finder”. A very well attended session which again, seemed to be well received.
In the evening we finally reached Cape Horn with some trepidation. Apparently, the last cruise hit some pretty bad weather and we heard all sorts of stories of monster waves and people being confined toround their cabins. As luck would have it, the sea was like a mill pond and we sailed around with no problems whatsoever. I think the ferry across the Mersey can be rougher. The wind did get up and people were blown about on the top deck, but really, it was eventful just for the occasion.
This morning, we sailed into Ushuaia, Argentina for a short stop. Booked in for a trekking excursion. Hope my leg holds out as it’s still causing me some grief following my over exertion in Iguazu.
I’ll survive!
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MacMania11 - Day 7
Three awesome things to report from yesterday!
Pulled into Ushuaia as planned and set off on a planned excursion. We’re not the most adventurous of people so rather than wander off into the town, or make independent travel arrangements, we opted for the excursions offered by the Cruise line at all of the ports. They offer a choice of up to a dozen or so excursions at some ports, so it’s fairly easy to find something (albeit, expensive in some instances).
The first awesome thing was a Trekking expedition into the foothills of the Andes mountains close to Ushuaia. After a short coach ride, we ended up in some truly spectacular (you’d best get used to that word as I may use it again in this blog post) scenery, with mountains and glaciers surrounding us. We’d been advised to wrap up warm, have plenty of layers and a prepare to be a bit chilly. The only problem was that today was the hottest day of the Summer in Ushuaia, I think it even took the locals by surprise.
We ended up at a lodge at the start of the trek to change from our normal shoes to Wellington Boots! The first part of the Trek was via some marshland and we needed to walk through some quite wet and boggy ground. Suffice to say, the walk was amazing, with fantastic scenery and breathtaking views. I will post some photos when I get back home. I just wish it was a bit cooler! One wake up call about this trip is that I’ve learned that I need to get into shape, and pronto!
The second awesome thing was that I finally got to say hello to Steve Wozniak. Although he’s on the MacMania trip, I felt like I wanted to respect his privacy and wait until a suitable and appropriate moment occurred to say hello. Well that moment happened in the afternoon, after the trek, when I discovered he was in the front row for my “LaunchBar MasterClass” session.
Front row and centre.
For one of my sessions….
No pressure!
Anyhow, he was very chatty and personable before the session when I went up to say Hi, and he didn’t walk out when I started - result!
After the session, he came over and said some nice things about the presentation and gave me one of his famous metal business cards.
Absolutely awesome!
The final awesome thing was the passage from Ushuaia.
Insight Cruises and Macworld had sponsored a party immediately following my session, in a room called the Crows Nest on the ship. This is a huge room on the top deck of the ship, at the front (bow?). It has huge windows with a full panoramic view of the area in front of the ship as it moves forward. Well, at the time of the party (6:30pm) it was still light and we passed slowly past some huge Glaciers on the Starboard side of the ship.
Spectacular (see, I told you)
Holding my video camera in one hand and my iPhone in the other (using ProHDR) I managed to take some great shots of the Glaciers. I’ll post one with this blog post and the others when I get back home. Apparently we’ll be passing more spectacular scenery in the next few days as we make out way up to Santiago.
Today is a day off, free from MacMania sessions. Today is also the day when an intrepid bunch set off to fly to Antarctica, including Leo. Wish we were going with them, but it wasn’t to be. We’ll be on a much more sedate tour of Punta Arenas.
Will report back tomorrow.
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MacMania11 - Day 8 - Punta Arenas
Well after all the awesomeness of yesterday, not so much today!
A full day in port at Punta Arenas, Chile. Also described as the most Southernly City (as Ushuaia had been at the last stop) but this time the most southernly on a continent.
Ushuaia is on an island so doesn’t count according to Chile. Tell that to Ushuaia.
We’d booked on another excursion, but only a short one, just visiting some sights of the local city. As it was short, it didn’t leave until later in the morning, so as we sauntered back from breakfast, we happened across the excited group heading off the ship for a trip to Antarctica. Waving off the intrepid explorers, we headed back and got ready for our trip.
After visiting two museums, a cemetery and a look around some local “craft” stalls, we were back on the ship after a few hours. Not the best tour in the world, but the guide was very enthusiastic and did the best she could with the limited material she had.
On the way back to the ship I switched on 3G to pick up some tweets when I discovered a rather sad message from Leo. It looks like the Antarctica trip got cancelled as it was impossible to land there today.
A huge disappointment for all concerned but the fall back was a trip to somewhere else and a partial refund. We’ve not seen anyone from the trip to find out what happened, but they should all be back on board as we’ve just left port.
The rest of the day was fairly quiet and I did some more tweaking on the other 4 sessions I have to deliver over the next few days. Just one more tomorrow (at 8:30am!), one the next day, a day off and then two on the last day.
We’re at sea for the next two days, travelling through the Chilean Fjords.
Some spectacular scenery due as we travel up to Puerto Montt, the last stop before disembarking at Santiago at the end of the cruise.
