To celebrate the release of Sex and the City 2, On Location Tours in New York have developed a fabulous package that includes the famous Sex and the City Hotspots Tour, dinner, a ticket to SATC2 the movie and admission to a nightclub.

“The tour visits over 40 locations from the movie and the TV show. It’s the perfect mix of shopping, drinking, and sightseeing in the hip neighborhoods of New York City.”

• Have a cupcake at the bakery where Miranda stuffed cupcakes into her mouth
• Shop at the store where Charlotte bought her “Rabbit”
• See the restaurant where Carrie and Big had their engagement party
• Visit the trendy meatpacking district
• Have a Cosmo at a bar used on the show
• See the furniture store where Aidan works
• Get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the show

Date: May 28th 2010

Cost: $179 US per ticket

Departs: 2pm in front of Pulitzer Fountain on Fifth Avenue.

Click here for more information or to purchase tickets

On Location Tours, Inc. is a bus tour company based in New York City, specialising in TV and movie location tours. On Location Tours also operates the tour of Sopranos Sites and Gossip Girl Sites, the New York TV and Movie Sites, Washington DC TV and Movie Sites, and the Central Park Movie Sites.

This is the same book that has a picture of my great grandmother Emily (aged 4) with 19 of her brothers and sisters. Yes, you read that right, 19! Rather ironic don’t you think, that I come from a long line of breeders, yet I at 33 have no inkling whatsoever to reproduce. The reason that photo was taken always blows my mind. You need to remember, that it was 1904, and getting a family of 5 to Fremantle (through bush tracks) for a “pixie” family photo on horse and cart would have been hard enough. But, you see, my great grandmother Emily was dying. So there she is, in the middle of this photo, sitting limply in her sister’s lap, with only days to live. But, she of course survived, which is why I am here, and so too are hundreds of other people, who wouldn’t be, if she had died as expected. Not only that, each of her descendants have crossed paths and changed other people’s lives. That photo captures a moment in time, where the world was sitting on its axis, waiting to spin one way or the other.

One of her daughters was my beloved nanna Beryl (and you don’t get much more Australian than a name like that). She epitomised what it is to be an Australian, especially when it came to cooking. Sure, Vegemite sandwiches are synonomous with Australia (much to my disgust they appeared regularly in my lunchbox at school – ever tried eating a warm Vegemite sandwich after it’s been sitting in your school bag in the heat all day?), but my nanna cooked everything from the Country Women’s Association cookbook, or the CWA as it’s affectionately known. I am sure that many remember this from their childhood, along with the Golden Wattle and Women’s Weekly cookbooks – I spent many an afternoon trying to make toffees from the former and lusted after many a birthday cake in the latter (we always got to choose which one we wanted and nanna would make it for us every year).

Noone could cook like my nanna. There were her home made meat pies (yes she even made the pastry from scratch), soup which she cooked on her woodfire stove (I spent many a winter’s day eating endless bowls with fresh buttered bread), apple pies, lamingtons, trifles, raspberry and coconut slice and scones, but my favourite was simply her mashed potato. Don’t ask me what she did to it, but it tasted so good, I would get her to make me a whole plate of it.

As the last siren of the school year rang signifying the start of the summer holidays, we burst out of class with exuberance and a feeling of freedom. We spent our summer running under the sprinkler and sliding down the slippery slide, which was easily made by laying the hose down along a few cut up rubbish bags with washing detergent on them. My mum had a paranoia about pools, so it took hours of cajoling and begging before she would let us go across the road to swim in Jade Slater’s pool. We were officially banned from her pool, the day we came home with 3rd degree burns from spending all afternoon in it without wearing sunscreen. Not to be defeated, I made our own “pool”, by digging a hole in our backyard and lining it with garbage bags (got to love those trusty garbage bags).

We went to the beach, and no matter how much suncream I seemed to slather on, I always ended up with blisters and peeling (which others would beg to peel off for me – one of those disgusting things people enjoy doing but will never admit to). I can remember being so burned, that I couldn’t move nor lay down, even after being covered head to toe in calamine lotion.

As long endless summer days stretched into night, the temperature would still be often searing into the high 30s. They would turn the lights on at the beach, and people would play cricket and continue to swim in the water (this was before sharks started appearing on our shores – now you would need your head read swimming during official shark feeding time), whilst others sat on the beach and ate fish and chips.

The summer holidays also meant that Father Christmas was coming. It was always 40 degrees, which made getting to sleep impossible. In the absence of air conditioning, I would lay with a cold flannel on my head and put a bowl of water in front of the fan (I don’t know why, but this seemed to help, if at all only mentally) and beg for sleep to rescue me from the heat, in between tossing and turning. Finally, I would fall asleep and before I knew it, I would be waking up and wetting my pants with excitement because Father Christmas had arrived.

Christmas in Australia is very different to that overseas. Not just because of the weather, but because of the food. My favourite Christmas meal was the sit down lunch for 30 on Boxing Day at Nanna Beryls (see, I told you I come from a big family). We always started with as many prawns as we could eat, which was followed by cold cuts of silverside, ham, turkey, chicken; salads with finely cut lettuce; pickled onions; boiled curried eggs and lasagna. Dessert was pavlova and trifle; and a queue in the kitchen as one of our aunties would put ice cream on a cone for us. By the end of the day, the table cloths would be stained with betroot and littered with almond nut shells. Always the same food, year after year. Always the same love from our nanna, year after year.

As a child, Australia Day meant going with our extended family to the Perth foreshore, along with tens of thousands of others to watch the fireworks, simulcast with 96FM. You could always guarantee that they would play ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, ‘Great Southern Land’ by Icehouse, ‘This is Australia’ by Gangajang, ‘We Come From A Land Down Under’ by Men At Work, ‘Celebrate’ by Dragon (before Kylie did her cover of it), ‘You’re the Voice’ by John Farnham and a bit of Midnight Oil and INXS for good measure.

We would arrive early in the afternoon to secure our position. We’d set up the bbq and take the prawn nets out into the river. For those who are reeling in horror that we not only swam in the Swan River, but ate life form out of it, this was the time before it was overgrown with algae and pollution. I would be surprised to discover that any form of life still exists in the river, but eating it from it now, would surely mean being carted off in an ambulance to the nearest hospital.

Now this event is overrun with “bogans” and “yobbos”. Even if I was in Perth, I would have no desire to attend, because it’s no longer a celebration of what it means to be an Australian, but for hooligans to drink as much alcohol as they can, which ultimately means an outbreak of fighting and misconduct (gosh, when did I turn into such an old fogie?)

No, Australia Day means much more me to than that. Australia Day for me is all about my nanna Beryl. Aptly, this beautiful woman and Queen of home made lamingtons, passed away on Australia Day last decade. So raise your glass and your “lami” in honour of my much loved Nanna.

What does Australia Day mean to you?

As I sit here sipping on a sauv blanc on a sultry Sunday evening, I find myself still high on the weekend’s shenanigans. I feel like a bride who spent months planning her wedding, to wondering where the day went and how fast it passed – can we do it all over again?

After spending an hour in a taxi to get to Flemington, I arrived hankering for a champagne to commence the day’s proceedings. My first champers quickly delivered its pleasure and took the edge off my bumper to bumper journey. I located the Impact Digital crew, including Stacey, or should I say Coco, who looked a vision of Chanel. Tiff was looking just as fabulous, not 5 weeks after giving birth to Coby (eat your heart out Victoria Beckham) in a black dress with the fascinator she wore to her wedding (yes instead of a veil, she wore a fascinator – what a woman). I met Rebecca in a fabulous purple Dianne Von Furstenberg number and reacquainted myself with some girls from last year.

It felt as though we were all still there from the same day last year, and I had a moment where I thought f**k, a whole year has passed, followed by lamenting just how fabulous a year it has been. The champage was free flowing and Coco urged us to “drink up, get pissed, it’s great”, to which we added “daaaarling”, and then Coco decided great just wasn’t cutting it and should indeed be replaced with fabulous, and ladies and gentlemen, fabulous we were.

Having spent $500 to roll myself out in a Carrie Bradshaw inspired pink dress with tulle complete with new shoes, well actually new everything, I was definitely going to circle the room. I enlisted Michael as my partner in crime – with the state of play being, I would approach the females to make an inroad for him, and vice versa. Alas, the pickings were grim. So grim, we started to play the “if you had to choose someone, who would you choose?” (reminiscent of Ricky Gervais in Extras), with Dipper Domenico being the best thing in the section of the room I had to choose from. As I said, grim.

I contemplated doing a walk from one end of Flemington to the other to share the love, but the lounge was far too comfortable, and my new peep toes weren’t up to the challenge (definitely not all day shoes). All too soon, we were again at the last race of the day and ready to move to the next destination. This year, we were heading to the Fringe Bar in Flemington, hence why we were walking in our heels up the long (did I say long?) path to the exit. At the 5 minute mark, Coco and I were in a world of pain. Our heels may have been fabulous, but they were cutting off the supply of blood to our feet and at any moment our knees were going to buckle from the pain. In desperation we flagged a taxi that was in a queue to the entrance. In a highly illegal move, the taxi driver motioned for us to come over, and Coco bargained with him like an 18 year old doing a dodgy drug deal on a corner street – “I’ll give you $50 to take us around the corner”. How much was I loving her!! We hopped in the taxi and immediately sighed in relief as we slipped off our heels. Our dignity may have cost $50, but taking off our shoes was never an option.

Upon arriving at the Fringe bar we were stamped “postage paid Australia” which enabled us entry into the VIP section and ensured the continuity of free flowing champers. Michael and I discussed the way forward for his new flame (a keeper if I ever did see one), and I secured a lighter for a friend in need (am happy to report I did not partake – am officially a born again non smoker). It was here, I met Dave. Unbeknownst to me, he was the guy I would find myself talking to later in the evening. It was also at this point, I was to employ my tactic of “see the man, not the suit” – one I had shared with the single ladies earlier that day. Many a woman has been duped by a bogan in a suit at the races, and I felt it my duty to protect them from the morning after buyer’s remorse, that comes from discovering that Armani Man is in fact a knuckle dragger.

After bantering for some time with “Dave the Dapper Electrician” (my synopsis post his suggestion he turn up to work in his good shoes and suit), I established that he is a self confessed workaholic (warning, warning Will Robinson – my Freudian relationship pattern is to attract unavailable men) and has never seen the insides of a theatre, but would be happy for me to write in the study on a Friday night whilst he watched the Bulldogs fight it out on TV. I hit the dance floor, safe in the knowledge that he was my entertainment for the evening, but not a contender for a LTR (long term relationship). Harsh, you might say, but I will also add he was equally distressed (and more than likely charmed in equal measures) that I don’t do offroad, don’t camp, don’t cook and don’t drive in utes – how on earth would I get into one in my heels?

It wasn’t before long, Dapper Dave and I were hailing a taxi and I found myself surrounded in the “ambience” of a room in the Elizabeth Towers. Think ye olde worlde charm – red carpets and orange curtains. I am sure if I went to the restaurant, I would have been greeted by King Arthur and his merry men eating huge legs of turkey at a round table. It was the kind of establishment that men would take women for affairs in their lunch break. It did however have a certain charm, which Dave and I discussed into the early hours of the morning.

You know you’ve had a great night (no, lets call it fabulous), when you find yourself returning home the day after in the dress from the day before, regretting that you didn’t bring your sunglasses with you to abate the cold hard light of day and wishing you could do the day all over again from the start.

Flemington 2010, Flemington 2010 … and yes Coco, I’m in for a double act next year – Emirates Stakes and Melbourne Cup here we come!