The Worlds Greatest Shave - Please Donate

http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/markhambley 

Rhi and I are planning our trip and it turns out that we will be somewhere in Southern Italy between march 15-17th. Somewhere during this 72 hours we will have to find a barber to shave my skull down to a number 2 and blow the caterpillar off my upper lip.

This is all for a great cause. The war on cancer!! A war we humans are getting flogged in!! Please follow the following link below and donate and/or leave me a message somewhere along the lines of "im sure your scalp will still be sexy and symmetrical even after years of AFL footy considering you are an average outside player at best".
Thanks guys - really appreciate it.
Love MAH

http://my.leukaemiafoundation.org.au/markhambley 

Bahamas Part 1: Abaco and New Years in Hopetown

Rhi and I had a long day of travel ahead of us. Starting with an early flight out of NYC to Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas. Our stay was as long as our wait in the immigration line (accompanied by a local band playing island tunes in one corner of the terminal) as we made our 5 minute taxi ride around to the executive side of the airport and boarded a 8 seater plane to Abaco. It was a very smooth flight over the famous Atlantis hotel as we headed out to our 2nd Island in as many hours. Within minutes of landing after a couple photos with Rhi's first ever small aircraft we were whisked away by James Malcolm (5th Cousin as we have now worked out) along with his kids Andrew and Claire who were on the plane with us. James visited Perth and my relatives decades ago. He has always wanted to see one of us Aussies return the favour by visiting him in the Bahamas. I remember getting a Bahamian surfboard keyring when I was little that was either from James or his dad Richard and thought to myself that I will visit the Bahamas one day. Well here we were in the thick of it! James took us to 'the lodge'. I would rather live here than Julia Gillard's Sydney equivalent. Over the road from one of the best swimming beaches I have ever seen (having said that all the swimming beaches we have seen in the Bahamas are up there with the best, something about the colour that makes them so unique).
After settling into the 2 storey, 6 bedroom (by settling in I mean taking photos of the beach from the balcony, you can see them on my flickr site) we were taken a 30min drive away to a place called Pete's Pub. A very cool sand bottom outdoor pub that serves the fresh catches of the day. The snapper I had was some of the best fish I've ever had. Rhi and I later returned to Pete's for lunch.
The following day we went on a 4wd adventure out to a local lighthouse that not even James had visited. A very cool place considering you can climb up the inside of the old English lighthouse (still scattered with original cupboards and equipment) which is now automated hence its lack of population.

Abacoian English, now automated lighthouse

The views from the top were very cool stretching out over the Bahamian sea's. We spent a couple days chillin on the beach and then slept in for a New Years eve prep.
We drove into Abaco's main town, Marsh Harbour and caught the 15min ferry to Hopetown which is described as the Hollywood of the Bahamas. We cruised around the island on a golfcart, beer in hand before having a six course meal at the Hopetown lodge. We headed back down to Firefly (Hopetown's micro brewery resort - they brew alcoholic iced tea that is really popular with the locals) and counted down a couple more hours down before returning to the main docks to bring in 2012 with quite impressive amateur fireworks. HAPPY NEW YEAR IT WAS! and a 3am bed was well and truly welcomed.

12:01am - 1/1/12 with Claire, Rhi, Andrew, Myself and James

James and his kids returned to Nassau after moving Rhi and I into the guesthouse at Schooner Bay (the large real estate development that James is the Marketing manager for) and left us on the trusty wheels of his very old, yet classic Volvo. We spent the next couple of days exploring different small towns and beaches around Abaco and cooking up storms in the very nice guesthouse kitchen for our temporary room mates Dave and Mandy who look after all the Schooner guests. There are plenty of photos of Schooner bay which is a great real estate project. I will find it hard to not visit in the future with so much intrigue as to how amazing the finished development will be complete with school, fishing lodge, pub and a handy little population.

our lovely room at the guesthouse

Before we knew it our time in Abaco was over and we boarded another small yet slightly louder, older plane to Eleuthera and Harbour Island. It felt like our own charter as the weather was perfect (you could perfectly see the different depths and sand bars of the beautiful aqua below) and we were the only 2 on the plane other than the pilot. Great start to an amazing time in the Bahamas!

New York

As you can see from the photos we had a unique entry to the apple. Instead of the JFK landing we had a dusk arrival by bus from Boston. This is the best view of Manhattan i have ever seen. The side on view of this the most amazing metropolitan I have ever visited was awesome from the bus seat as we peaked over several bridges on the highway in. We disembarked in the middle of noodletown (Chinatown) and headed all the way up to just north of central park at 116st. We settled into a fairly cool apartment complete with full kitchen which we took advantage of by cooking in it all 4 nights, sharing the duties with Rhi and Timmy who I shared the room with. The first couple of days we showed Rhi times square and 5th avenue effectively showing her the way to the shops so she could visit later in the week. We also did plenty of christmas organising with several visit to Wholefoods securing in the end what would be an awesome chrissy lunch spread for the 8 of us staying in mid town. On the 22nd we moved into our midtown apartment on 38th st. Turned out we were living on the top (20th) story of a corporate building. The fella we rented it off is running a photoshoot / music studio but has decided he needs to rent the apartment out so that he can afford it. So on the weekend and public holidays we had 20 stories of Manhattan to our selves. We settled into this very cool place complete with views of the hudson and empire state building, 50" plasma and espresso machine. We spilt up during the first couple days doing various things. The girls did the avenue, Benny and I drooled through several guitar shops and the other guys did the tourism gigs. Our best night out was the 23rd as we walked up to the Rockefeller, through the crowds of awaiting ice skaters and tree viewers to a place Craig had heard of for its bucking bull. In we went and began drinking. Tim and i were the only game ones to sign the disclaimers and jump on the bull. We both performed well and showed the yanks how to ride the rough one! Having said that it was well humorous watching largish black women and one shameless white girl (who's skirt was rendered useless during her attempt and whose g-string we had full view of) get shaken about on the poor bull. Unfortunately Tim realised at midnight that the clocks had turned over to the 24th (Rob's Birthday) and the celebratory drinks flowed thick and fast making the night very special indeed. Taxi, pizza and bed is how the nights end in NYC! A slow hunger 24th it was and before we new it chrissy was upon us after a perfect round table little italy dinner made even more special by watching the B'bay boy attempt to eat his cupcake in a single chomp. The next day we hardly left our loft! We all donned our 'I love NYC' shirts that the girls grabbed for a steal in Chinatown (speaking of which the dumplings down there are awesome and cheap) and our santa hats. We then prepared the lunch table and handed out the long awaited, much discussed, not so secret secret santa gifts to each other. It turned out everyone at random got someone they knew except one (Ben from London got the new traveller Tim after meeting him only days earlier) which was in no doubt the best gift of them all. You can imagine the calibre of presents were low with a $10 budget and Ben got a gem! Lets just say it was the most horrible DVD you could ever imagine (some of the more sheltered readers will not be able to reach the level I'm talking about). This did not stop us all crowding around the plasma and sharing several laughs and the odd dry reach. The ice and alcohol filled bath became more empty as the hours and drinking games passed.

Boston

We flew up to Boston with a quick stopover in Charlotte and were immediately impressed by the inexpensive public transport which took us to our Back Bay hostel. There awaited the funniest (Rhi would say cutest) little receptionist who immediately offered us a cookie, free Starbucks coffee and popcorn before offering ideas for dinner in the area. It turns out there were quite a number of permanents in the 7 story accom which gave off a retirement village feel. We LOVED it! One night instead of eating out again we stayed in for the, now annual christmas tree decorating party which involved free chicken wings (mmmmm), pizza and Chrissy trivia. Rhi showed no mercy and answered several questions before the more senior permanents and scored a lovely shopping bag and 2 free movie tickets for doing so. Other nights in Boston included going to the cinemas and watching back to back movies (the old cinema jump chestnut), smashing some awesome indian set menu and a night out in Little Italy. We picked a little restaurant on a side street for our meal in Little Italy and were very impressed by the pasta we were served. On the way to the restaurant we had noticed a pastry shop packed full of people and decided we would stick our head in on the way back. "Mike's Pastry Shop" was amazing! They specialised in the Italian dessert cannoli's and had maybe between 20 and 40 flavours on offer (pretty much any flavour you can think of!). I went with the Oreo flavoured cannoli while Rhi chose a lemon cupcake. We ate our dessert in bed with a movie and they were delicious!! Make sure you pop into Mike's if you're ever in Boston. We also left our hostel after 3 nights and spoiled each other for Chrissy by going half in a 4 star night at the Ames before heading to NYC. Our days in Boston included lots of walking (which seams easy as the city is quite compact), an awesome lunch in chinatown, a visit to 'the' Harvard college (a very impressive town making lots of impressive people - Zuckerburg comes to mind), getting the crows tour of the city from the top of the Prudential lookout and several visits to Fanueil Hall (a 100m plus long foodmarket hallway offering anything the tastebuds desire surrounded by a square of shopping options). A great city and a good warm up for the biggest of apples!

Miami

After South America we agreed that although we missed the wonderful sights we really enjoyed the novelty of a hot shower, toilet paper and familiar retail in Miami. We arrived in the early evening and headed straight to Miami South Beach to our well rated hostel. The Miami International hostel has been rated in the top 10 U.S hostels on numerous occasions and its easy to see why. $25 a night and free breakfast, lunch and dinner is a handy offer. After a frustrating stop over in Mexico we were fairly buggered but were assured by the hostel staff that Sunday night was the best night to get involved in the drinking festivities. We had a glass of toughen up soon followed by several glasses of some pink vodka concoction that was being poured at reception. Then we jumped on a limo style bus complete with ridiculous laser lights and dancing poles. The short ride took us to Nikki Beach an impressive beachside club. Mattresses and tepees lined the sand with the pumping dance floors and stages offered inside. We were sitting at a suave outdoor table setup enjoying a few drinks ordered from the bar, when the waiter came up and informed us that the tables were for "table service only". After checking out the menu and realising one of the bottles of champagne was worth $10,000US, we decided to move inside to the dance floor. The next couple of days we checked out Lincoln Ave the major shopping and restaurant district in South Beach and visited the Seaquarium. For someone from Perth the dolphin and seal shows were like nothing i have ever seen. The photos speak for themselves. Tim, Craig and his brother Rob joined us for our last night in Miami which included a boys night out - plenty of drinks and laughter.
It turned out to be a very short stop over in Miami but we loved the beach suburbs, sea-creatures and social atmos! If you like beach and partying this is a must in the U.S  of A.