My parents and siblings arrived in Arizona yesterday after a long flight from London. They were rather OMG about the heat. The Chapmans rented an enormous black SUV to take them all back from the airport, and it looks like a spy vehicle. Today we went to Slide Rock in Sedona, a big swimmy place where you can slide down the slippery rocks which form the riverbed. The water was very cold but I eventually got used to it.

My family is staying at the lodge at Cliff Castle Casino, so hopefully they don't go gambling and lose all our money!

OMG we're like so tOtaLlY eMo!!1!!

YoU CaN SeE ThEM aLL HerE

No, we haven't really gone eMo, we just wanted to make a new emo post to make fun of all the stupid commenters there who didn't get it.

Here are the photos of summer 2008 so far:
My photos

Cat's photos (part 1)
Cat's photos (part 2)

Overall there are 1368 photos!

I am now in Arizona at Cat's house. We had a good time in Spain together, we went to various beaches and swam, we went to the Terra Natura zoo and the Aqua Natura water park and we went SHOPPIIING!!!1!1! to buy Cat and I SHOES!!1! and she also got two bathing suits.

On the 16th we left Alicante and flew to Madrid, where we stayed the night in order to catch the flight to Atlanta. The hotel was fancy, it had Linux laptops in each room (which were locked down and running Debian, but we managed to get to an xterm and do stuff like play planet penguin racer). We walked around Madrid and ate at Botín, the oldest restaurant in the world, which had yummy food and Cat and Candi got tipsy on the Sangría and started talking about awkward things.

We got up early for the flight to Atlanta, and while we were sitting by the gate we heard our names being called out on the PA. We had been upgraded to business class! We had big comfy seats and posh food. Cat's grandfather Bruce, who used to be a pilot for Delta must have puled some strings. Cat also got to see the cockpit and take some photos while we were on the ground, the pilot made her sit in his seat while they took a photo of her. The flight was good, although the entertainment system kept going wrong and my console kept rebooting right in the middle of a video. They were running Red Hat Linux and you could see the little Tux penguin while it booted.

We arrived in Atlanta, went through customs and immigration (I had to go to the "Foreigners" line and get my fingerprints scanned and photo taken) then we rechecked our luggage, went through security and were free to roam the massive Atlanta airport. It has six terminals with a train between them, five runways and loads of shops.

We didn't get business class on the flight to Phoenix, but it wasn't too bad and I managed to sleep a bit. After we arrived and collected our luggage Cat's grandmother picked us up and took us back to her house. Afterwards we went to Jack in the Box, a fast food place, and got some tacos to eat. We then went to Cat's house in Camp Verde and went to sleep.

Cat has written a much longer and better post here:
Cat's much longer and better post

Our super fantastic amazing film Michael, No! has finally been completed and must be watched by you now

Cat arrived here on Thursday and we've been having a lovely time together. I graduated on Friday with an overall grade of 89%. At the graduation ceremony I received an unexpected prize of best overall grade in mathematics; the prize was a fancy Don Quijote book, which I'll probably never read.
Cat's writing this now, so if the grammar is exceptionally good, that's why.

Cat found the ceremony extremely boring, but she did shout out a declaration of love when I went up on the stage. I didn't hear it, sadly, but her mom does have it on camera.

Then there was a fancy meal, which was rather filling, and it made my tummy exploooode. But it was yummy.

After the dinner, Cat and I went on a bus with my class and we went partying in the barrio, in Pub La Antigua. It was smoky, very loud, and the toilets were disgusting. No toilet paper in the girls' bathroom, according to Cat, so they all had to use napkins.
We eventually made it home by catching a taxi at around 3 AM, mostly because Cat's feet hurt.

Today, we went to Alfaz and Cat and her mom met my kitty Ximo, who is fat and cuddly.

Now it's sleepy time.

It's my Birthday! I'm 18 so now I'm allowed to get drunk and be prosecuted as an adult, yay!

Cat has booked flights here for the 2nd of July, she and her mother will be staying until the 17th and then I'll go to America with them.

I have my final exams soon, written and then oral ones, scary!

Woohoo! One of my things was featured on Mashable again, my WikiFM Last.fm/Wikipedia mashup. And yes, I am planning on making it look prettier.

http://mashable.com/2008/04/10/learn-about-music/

UPDATE:

I've made it prettier and it's also been featured here:

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9917111-2.html
http://musically.com/blog/2008/04/11/wiki-fm-mashes-up-wikipedia-and-las...

And wired too:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/wiki-fm-mashes.html
Hehe, they got the person wrong:
"Wiki FM is a simple mashup between Last.fm and Wikipedia developed by self-described "geek girl" Cat Chapman, whose bio says she was born in 1992."

And Yahoo news (soon to be MSN?)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/techdigest/20080411/ttc-wiki-fm-wikpedia-meets-...
Ah, looks like they got it from here http://techdigest.tv/2008/04/mashups_are_a_t.html

Y en español también:
http://wwwhatsnew.com/2008/04/12/wikifm-escucha-musica-mientras-lees-bio...
http://www.genbeta.com/2008/04/13-wiki-fm-informacion-de-los-artistas-qu...

And Italian!
http://www.italiasw.com/wikifm-per-tenersi-aggiornati-musicalmente/
http://www.geekissimo.com/2008/04/13/ascolta-lastfm-e-consulta-le-inform...

French:
http://blog.accessoweb.info/WikiFM-un-mashup-musical-plutot-complet_a315...

Ooh, Danish
http://www.t3danmark.dk/index.php?module=Pagesetter&func=viewpub&tid=1&p...

A less positive review:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikifm_great_idea_poor_execution.ph...
Hardly my fault that last.fm doesn't play your own station unless you subscribe - it's only because I implemented a workaround that you're able to listen to it at all!
And the same in Russian: http://habrahabr.ru/blog/wiki/39940.html
I like how google translate says "In itself, the idea of cool (though not new), but its execution leaves forest berries taste"

Portuguese - at last somebody got my name right!
http://2.0.bloguite.com/mashups/wikifm-um-mashup-da-sua-musica.html

Japanese
http://terainfo.seesaa.net/article/93440298.html

I've uploaded videos of my holidays with Cat in Arizona and England to youtube, which has murdered the picture quality but oh well.

Arizona

England

I'm back in Spain after a lovely time with Cat in the UK, during which I managed to not blog at all! So now it's time for me to write about all the things we did. Or you can read Cat's post which is probably much better.

We flew to England on Friday the 14th and stayed with my Gran in St Albans, then the next day my dad and I went to Heathrow to pick up Cat. We had something to eat at Starbucks and then I went to stand near the arrivals place. I waited nervously, watching all the people come out, occasionally getting sudden rushes of excitement when I saw anybody that resembled Cat, only to be disappointed when they turned out to be, say, a male (not that Cat looks like a guy, anything was starting to look like Cat to me, and I'm sure there are lots of pretty men who like like girls). I waited and waited and waited, scanning each person and thinking "Is that Cat? No, they're old/fat/male/just not Cat." I began to get worried, wondering if something had happened, if she'd lost her passport or been denied access to the UK and sent back, when a voice on the intercom said "Could anybody waiting to pick up Caitlin Chapman please contact airport information." We rushed over to the information place and discovered that Cat had been stopped at immigration. We had to go upstairs to immigration control where my dad talked to the people on a phone and explained that we weren't going to kidnap Cat. Read about what happened to Cat here. So finally they let Cat go and we went back down to meet her. A tired and frustrated Cat came through the arrivals door and I hugged and kissed her and gave her chocolate. We went back to St Albans and later visted Gwenda and Robert, my aunt and uncle, for a Saturday Sunday roast. Cat also had the pleasure of meeting my cousin Daniel.

On the 16th we all went for a pub lunch - Cat and I had bangers and mash, yummy. We then went for a cold walk around a lake and looked at the ducks and swans and posh-looking geese, which were walking with their heads up high, acting superior to all the other anatidae (thanks Wikipedia).

We took the train to London on the 17th, arriving at the fancy new St Pancras International station. We then went on The Tube and visited the Tower of London. The guards inspecting bags at the tower were surprised to find lots of stuffed toys in my bag and then, upon finding the kitty in Cat's backpack, one remarked to the other "awww, it's just like the one I got you." We explored around the tower and saw the crown jewels, then that evening we went to see Spamalot which was very good, although the Black knight didn't work properly - his real arm remained visible holding the sword when his fake arm was cut off, but that just made it funnier.

The next day we went to see the sights and museums around London, which involved a lot of walking, so our feet got very tired and painful. We saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, where lots of silly hatted guards were observed, then we went through St James Park and saw the squirrels and prettiness, up through King Charles Street, round past the closed off and heavily guarded Downing Street and on to the Houses of Parliament with the famous clock tower (which isn't actually called Big Ben, that's the name of the bell). We saw various ambulances and police dog vans at the Houses of Parliament so something must have been going on! We had a little picnic in the square opposite then found a nice little place for coffee. Afterwards we went to Harrods and looked at all the expensive stuff. Cat bought stuff for her parents and a GSM phone. We then walked all the way to where the museums are. Cat and I went to the Natural History Museum, we saw the Ecology gallery and the Minerals gallery which had lots of pretty rocks and gems for Cat. Despite our very painful feet we managed to get on various trains and walk until we were back at St Albans.

On the 19th we went to stay in Moulton, where my Grandparents (Mother's parents) live. We saw the windmill, church, graveyard, pub, post office, butcher's aaand that's all there is there. The next day we went to Spalding and had cake at Bookmark, a fancy book shop and went to various shops.

We drove up to Whinfell Forest on the 21st, stopping at my aunt and uncle's (Tricia and Steve) on the way for a meal with various relatives of mine. We also got yummy chocolate bunnies! We arrived at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest, went through a military style security checkpoint and got to our lodge, which was rather nice. We used bikes to get around, so we sometimes ended up cold and lost, but we managed to get where we wanted to in the end.

Saturday the 22nd Cat and I swam around in the Subtropical Swimming Paradise, bought £10 worth of sweeties and then ate burgers at an American style restaurant called Rock Legends, which was quite fun as at one point all the staff started dancing to music such as YMCA.

On Easter Sunday, which was also the 1 year anniversary of our love, it snowed and was very pretty. We had an Easter egg hunt, and Michael got the chocolate orange one, grrr. Later we went to Penrith with Gwenda, Robert and Daniel (aunt, uncle and cousin, are you keeping track?) and ate at a pub, then we went to a pretty pretty lake surrounded by snowy hills, where Cat, Daniel and I didn't go on a walk and instead went to his hotel room and got Internet access.

On the 24th we drove back to St Albans and created a film called "Michael, No" which should be available worldwide once Cat has finished editing it.

So that brings us to Tuesday the 25th, when Cat had to leave My parents and I took her to Heathrow, and she printed out her boarding pass at one of the machines, however when we went to queue up at the World Traveller Plus (Economy+) queue the person there said we had to go to the Club World (Business class) baggage check desks, which was what it said on the ticket. Yep, Cat had been magically upgraded to Business Class! After checking in her luggage (which they made us do at super-exclusive the 1st class place for some reason) we had a coffee and eventually the time came for her to go through security and leave us. We hugged and kissed a lot, with our eyes all full of tears, and said goodbye, knowing that although we would be apart it certainly wouldn't be the end. We have the Internet and we will be together again in the summer and many times after that until the time when we won't have to be apart ever again.

I truly love you Cat, I had an amazing time with you and I can't wait to be with you again