Big Wooden Horse of Life...

Scandinavia… tilting to the left

2008-02-10T19:51:00.000+10:30

SO… 4 nights in Copenhagen and 2 and a half nights through my time in Stockholm, and you’d think I’d have more to say… I’ve realized a few things though, which I shall obviously share with you, because that’s why you’re here.

I am sick to death of churches, museums, galleries, exhibitions, and anything of the type. In the end they really are all the same. With the exception of specific things like the Vasa museum in Stockholm that I went to today that has an enormous ship that they pulled out of the water almost intact after nearly 350 years. That was okay. But still…I would have preferred not having to pay for it.

As much as I hate admitting it – I do like having company. The last 2 cities I’ve been in I’ve not had the easy meeting of English speaking fellow travelers that I have had in previous places… and I’ve felt myself withdrawing more into my own little world… but then pouncing, often uncomfortably, on the nearest English speaking person that I hear say something remotely interesting. The last 2 days in Stockholm I’ve walked for at least 6 hours each day… and apart from taking a ridiculous amount of photos and getting very tired and going to bed early and getting a good nights sleep every night… all I’ve done is worn down the soles of my shoes.

And realized that when taking photos… its ALL ABOUT THE LIGHT. Stockholm is such a grey city during the day (or it has been so far) that I’m actually getting better photos here at night time, because at least I KNOW there’s no light… and I can use the flash or one of the more complicated (in a way that I know what it does and why, but not necessarily HOW) night time settings… but a grey overcast sky is just shit.

Spanish people annoy the crap out of me… how smart do you have to be to know that whispering at 3.30 in the morning is no less likely to wake people up than turning all the lights on and banging pots and pans… it has the same effect… it makes me want to destroy Spain… I’m sure there are SOME nice ones around… but… whatever… I’m just aggravated because they’ve woken me up the last 3 nights running… and some other stuff that I won’t go into…

You Can get used to everything being tilted about 5 degrees off centre… it took me about half a day, but I can now sit at the table without fear of everything sliding off into the ocean… its an odd feeling… I don’t know how long I could put up with it for, but suffice to say that I do enjoy being on land, and appreciate it even more after living on a boat for a few days…

Funny how when you try to do something after putting it off for fear that you’ll stuff it up, that you actually find it easier than you thought… I’ve found that a lot recently… and I’m hoping it follows through for University…

Books are heavy.

I’m going to have to wear about 5 layers of clothes tomorrow when I catch the plane to stop myself getting charged the ridiculous over weight fee.

Citrus fruit seem to be especially good up here… even though they still appear to be imported from the same places we get ours from…

I think the bread rolls I got to make sandwiches with are meant to be eaten toasted… they’re strange.

There’s only 5 days until I’m back at home and I’m still not sure how I feel about it… I’m almost more nervous about going home than I was before I left to come overseas… I wonder why that is…

Fear of the Known…

I’ve now been further north than I’ve ever been before… I walked as far north in Stockholm as I could be bothered… basically until I didn’t see anything in the distance that I wanted to take a photo of…

Did you know you can dry preserve, in the manner of apricots that we’ve all had… Oranges? The supermarket I went to the other day had a dried fruit section – and amongst the normal things like apricots, pineapple, guava, mango, and pawpaw, was Orange, Strawberry and Kiwifruit… fantastic…

Other than that… I think I just have to reiterate (I’m sure I’ve said it before) that unless you know someone in a city like this… it’s really what you make it. And if you don’t have a good time, then its no-one’s fault but your own…

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
- GK Chesterton

Coming back down to earth in Krakow

2008-02-08T08:08:00.000+10:30

Poland… I never really though about including Poland in my itinerary until, when asked by a Polish person if I was going, and replying with a firm “No”... I received a death stare that quickly changed my mind “Oh, well... I mean… I just don’t have time… I mean… I haven’t really thought about it… um… I mean… where would you suggest that I go?”. “Krakow” was the resounding answer that I received then, and from all of the Poles questioned from that point onwards… So Krakow was added to my list… another country, another badge, another hostel…

My first impression of Krakow was obscured by an American style shopping mall. I think Obscured is the right word… I mean… You shouldn’t blame the town planner for thinking that the first thing that a tourist would want to see when arriving from a western country to a post-communist country, would be an enormous mall… and that the first thing they would want to eat would be McDonalds or KFC. Not at all… it’s a free world. Now. And they can put their mall wherever the hell they want. I’m not going to suggest anything different at all… please smell my sarcasm… it was ridiculous. Such a gorgeous city shouldn’t be hidden behind a behemoth of an atrocity as this ENORMOUS 4 storey modern cathedral to consumerism.

Enough ranting (On that subject). My first real impression of Poland was the walk to the Hostel “Bling Bling” accompanied by two young Canadian girls from Manitoba (? I think…) whom had sat, giggling constantly, only a few rows away from me the entire journey from Berlin, and I had not spoken to them apart from apologizing to one of them when I accidentally ran into her outstretched elbow when walking down the isle to the toilet. Anyway, we got off the train at roughly the same time, and as I was walking past them on the platform I heard them ask one of the people selling hostel rooms where they might find this So-Called “Bling Bling” Hostel… I told them that they could follow me as I was staying there as well, and we quickly got slightly lost on the way. Mainly, I conclude and insist, because they are girls and girls can’t read maps and they wouldn’t give it to me to look at. On-top of that, the directions given by the booking website on how to get there were relatively vague (under the orange roof? I don’t see an orange roof!) Bastards.

Bling Bling Hostel was an experience. I think that’s the nicest thing I could say about it. Although for 2 of the 4 nights I stayed there, I DID have a bed in a room to myself… which was nice. Apart from that… there were only 2 bathrooms (yes, mum, they were bathrooms… they were where you had your shower AND toilet) for the whole of the hostel which you had to walk through reception from the rooms to get to. The showers were cold. And my room entered directly from reception, in which the particular person on duty for the night shift would, without fail, sit and talk loudly in Polish for the majority of the time that I wanted to sleep. The internet hardly worked at all… and when it did, was so slow as to make it virtually pointless to use. It DID have a free washing machine, which would have been fantastic to advertise, as I had – just the night before – gone and spent Time and Euros on washing clothes at a Laundromat in Berlin. I’m sure I could go on, but I won’t. I don’t want to sound like I’m whining about a hostel, which despite its oddly okay reviews, DID only cost me about 12 Euro a night to stay in.

The first night in town, I got persuaded into going out to get something to eat. So I walked to the town square or Market square which is enormous and surrounded by every kind of restaurant you can imagine, and eventually settled on a little place down an alley that served traditional meals. Quite nice… I had “meat” filled things… parcels of pasta/pastry-ish substance and a salad. Both of which I was very happy with and were very nice. And very cheap. After that it was decided that we needed dessert, so we went and got some amazing ice-cream. Really fantastic. I’ll say nothing of the fact that I think the ice-cream would have actually frozen more if we’d taken it outside… it was freezing but it was nice… overall it was a pleasant, not too giggly, evening.

The next day I went to Auschwitz. What an experience that was… although wandering around the barbed-wire surrounded camp was sobering in itself, really two things touched me much more deeply – one was the room that was literally full to the roof with shoes. The other was a wall on which was written in tiny writing the names of 60,000 people taken from the Netherlands to the Camp… of all the tings these two displays really hit home the most and hurt the deepest. And I really don’t want to dwell on the experience, except to say that it should be on everyone’s list of things to do before they die. Amazing.

The following day I went to the other, less intimidating, tourist attraction in the area – the 700+ year old salt mine. I mean… it was good… but after Auschwitz it was really just a hole in the ground… *shrugs* that’s really all I have to say about it. I mean it was nice…

Whatever.

Next stop – North to Denmark and Copenhagen… Land of Vikings and tall blonde women…

Fantastic…

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.
- Oscar Wilde

Vienna, Berlin, Australia day and A Pepperoni by Another Name... ?

2008-01-30T05:35:00.001+10:30

What can I say about the last few days… since I last checked in from Vienna? Did I mention Vienna? I don’t remember. Anyway, Vienna was the same as when I was the same as when I was there last time, funny enough, except staying about half an hours walk from the “circle” along a long shopping street… the same stores as you would see in any shopping street in Europe, pretty much… the only other difference is that I was here last time in May-ish. So the weather was a lot better… it was so windy that I couldn’t even stand still to take a photo unless sheltered by a building…. Couldn’t even lean against a tree… amazing. And it left me not so amazingly pissed me off… anyway, I managed to walk around the whole city and get back in time to go to sleep.

The first night I got into Vienna I met some cool people and, in the way of Hostels Everywhere, we decided to go on a little pub crawl. It was good fun and ended up at of all places an Australian pub in the middle of the city with a Coopers Sparkling ale… fantastic. The second night I was there we were a little more… subdued. Sitting around chatting about nothing in particular, a girl walks over and plonks her self down, and turns out to be a 4^th year med student from Flinders Uni in Adelaide. Crazy. Anyway, she was on a weekend trip down to Vienna from Prague where she’s doing a 2 month placement thingy… naturally we got chatting and in the end decided to catch up again in Prague and go and have a drink or something… and that’s about all that happened in Vienna that was really interesting… it really is a gorgeous city and still one of my favorites for no real reason that I can really put my finger on… nope. Been sitting here trying to decide what it is… cant think.

Prague on the other hand was, and always has been; pretty much top of my list of places to go to when I was in Europe. Again, not for any particular reason. Although I’d heard the beer was cheep and the women gorgeous… I don’t really think they were the reasons… I don’t know. Anyway Prague turned out to be very much like Vienna and Budapest in its design… on a river. Gorgeous old buildings… Like Budapest it is overlooked from one of the hills in the city by quite an imposing castle. More so than the one in Budapest because it is still more in once piece because of the lack of bombing… That is one of the amazing things about Prague, is that it was never bombed in the war… so although it has left all of the buildings in their original state… because all the other cities did was in a lot of cases re-build all the nice buildings, Prague has the effect of just having really big old dirty buildings. This is obviously why people seem to always say that it’s such a black city… I didn’t find that at all… I found it, like Budapest, Dirty. But not dirty in the same grimy way as Budapest, more in a lived-in sort of way… its hard to explain unless you’ve been there… or seen my photos which with any luck and lack of procrastination on my behalf, should appear on Facebook at any time… watch that space…

So anyway, met up with Emma – the girl from Adelaide a few times which was nice… had some traditional foods; goulash, bread dumplings, roast duck, wild boar, Chinese... Beer... One night we went out and actually had Hungarian… I hadn’t eaten out in Hungary, so I thought I’d try their traditional food as well… Turned out to be an amazing if not rather expensive evening… very good food and a bottle of nice Hungarian wine… all down in a restaurant, which seemingly like most of the restaurants in the Czech Republic seem to be in old wine cellars or breweries… very cool. And once you stopped hearing the terrible Hungarian music, the atmosphere was really quite… atmospheric. Um. Another time we had Beer flavored Ice cream. And yes. It was terrible…

Fitted a lot in a few days… considering at least twice I slept until after mid-day.

Went up to the castle, took some photos, walked around the city, took some photos… actually walked almost from one end of the old city to the other… from an old but gorgeous grave yard and church to the castle… was amazing, but I had sore feet by the end of it. Over the oldest bridge in the world (I think – sounds good though doesn’t it) past all the statues, including one that we decided was St Hilton, cause he had 5 stars in his halo. It really is a gorgeous city… I have a feeling I’ll go back there eventually…

And I think that’s about all I did in Prague…

From there I was headed to Berlin and Australia day… I really found I didn’t know that much about Berlin, in any respect, apart from obviously about the fact they had the east/west wall thing that came down, and Pink Floyed played… and um… Nazi stuff… which you sort of learn a bit about unless you specifically study history. Which I didn’t. But I DID do geography. So I knew where it was at least. Anyway, my first few days were really spent doing very little… just wandering around a bit taking the odd photo here and there… they have some amazing grafiti in Berlin.. Anyway, Australia day came and we headed out at like 3pm ish I think... it was early anyway, even for Australians… fantastic… went to a pub that had advertised some Australian things… music etc… the only beer they had was VB. And the obligatory Fosters on tap… so I ended up having Strongbow cider… a few shots of jaegermeister with red bull and a crown lager which we’d picked up from the Australia shop earlier that day, where the girl realized we were Aussies and gave us a mintie. So funny… anyway, it was a really good night, and I didn’t get really drunk which was amazing and fortuitous, because I was up in time the next day to go on the walking tour of Berlin. We went from the pub to a pizza place which had a huge range of pizzas… I decided on pepperoni with chicken… sounded nice... but apparently pepperoni is like a not hot chili in Germany, so I was a little disappointed when the pizza came out with these enormous green things on it… not happy. But whatever…

Even though it was raining … not hard, but frustratingly steady all day, it was a good tour, and I learned a lot more about the city which according to the guide, is mostly a replica, having been 90% bombed and flattened in the Second World War. Fantastic.

You’d almost never know…

Highlights were the Jewish memorial square, which is an amazing piece of landscape architecture that is left open to the individual as to the specific meaning of it, but LOOKS like an enormous grave yard with graves of differing heights from 1 to I guess 12 feet high. Walking through it is completely different to looking at it thought, and I felt distinctly like a small child lost in a sea of imposing huge adults… quite an interesting feeling.

Anyway… my general opinion of Berlin was that it’s getting there. It has some great old architecture, museums statues, etc… and it has some fantastic new architecture, like the dome above parliament, the TV tower, the bank which is actually a whale, and the train station Hopfbahnhof which is without a doubt the most amazingly designed train station I’ve ever seen… sooo cool.

Anyway, I’m running out of describing words… so I’ll leave by saying that I’m on the train to Krakow sitting on the most uncomfortable seats I’ve had so far… they feel like cardboard with one enormous spring underneath… shitty… ALMOST but not quite as bad as the coffee I just bought…

Ciao.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In Hungary; Cold, Tired & Alone…

2008-01-20T00:39:00.000+10:30

After leaving Tess at the airport I was relieved to feel nearly nothing when Betty boarded an airport shuttle bus at 8.30 this morning. It could be because I have only been awake for about 40 minutes, it could b anything, but its probably nothing.

Last night we (after I waited 40 minutes for Betty at the station) wandered around Budapest in what seemed like a completely random manner, but eventually ended up at a street where Betty announced her favorite Teahouse was. It was a very “alternative” sort of place, dark corners, incense, candles, beanbags, and of course… Tea. All sorts of teas mixed with different herbs and things like rosehip and dandelion ankle. Not really. But you get my gist… it was very nice, so we stayed there for a while and had a pot of Tea each. Which is an enormous amount of tea I realized later when my bladder was nearly bursting. And a chocolate biscuit.

From there, with Betty’s completely hopeless sense of direction we eventually made it to what translated as the “Square of Heroes-sort-of” although surprisingly that isn’t a very literal translation as Hungary apparently doesn’t like too many people, let alone heroes… anyway it was somewhere I had been on my Contiki and since the photos of that part of my journey are in Limbo it was lovely to see it again… It really is a beautifully made square decked out with more Heroes-sort-of than you could throw a stick at… and a good thing they aren’t alive, cause they don’t look like the sort of people you’d want to throw a stick at. Very Big Swords. The square its self is surrounded on 2 sides by quite nice looking museums and on the back by the Danube river of which a large section has been frozen and turned into an ice skating park. So we decided to go skating… this was much bigger than the rink I went on with Tess out the front of the Natural History Museum in London, but crowded as it was and the fact that the ice desperately needed Zamboniing made it no more or less fun than the last time. After an hour skating my butt still hurts… not from falling over mind you, just from using muscles that otherwise don’t get used… Anyway, it was a really beautiful setting with the medieval castle in the background – Cinderella style, but as with the rest of Budapest, before the glass slipper…

After that and seemingly endless bus, tram and underground changes later, we got to a mall where Betty and her friend Marie-Claude were going to watch a movie. Instead I decided to climb a hill… it turned out not to be the hill that I thought I was going to climb. Actually it was better for 2 reasons. The first being that it was a considerably smaller hill, and the second that the view and the remains of old Buda lit up at night time were absolutely breathtaking. I had been there during the day with Contiki but from another direction, so until reaching an enormous but nearly completely scaffold covered cathedral, I really still didn’t know where I was… after taking a silly amount of photos, I Came back down and sat in the mall and momentarily picked up some free internet from nearby… just enough time to poke some people on Facebook… and then we went back to the train station and picked up my backpack. The place we entrusted it to looking like it might have body’s hanging on hooks in a cool room out the back and racks of shotguns and AK-47s JUST out of sight, yet still within reach… My bag was in one piece anyway, so I shouldered it to the slight gasps of all watching and continued on my way…

From there we made the hour tram/bus/subway ride back to Marie-Claude’s house, had a very nice Hungarian Stew and some sausages made with God-I-Hope-This-Is-Rice… then I went to sleep.

Woke up. Decided to not come to see Betty off as I was sleepy, then changed my mind when I realized, or whatever you want to call it, that if I didn’t get up I would stay in bed ALL day and sleep. And seeing as how I leave tomorrow I thought I should take the opportunity to see the city sans enormously awkward backpack.

So now I’m sitting in of all places not a Starbucks (sorry dad, I was looking for a mug!) but a Gloria Jeans Coffee shop at the top of a 4 or 5 story shopping centre looking out over a relatively busy intersection and a Tram/Bus stop and a city that while in Places Filthy, Graffitied, Vandalized and so Post-Communist-eastern-block that I feel as though I could be in Russia itself (but for the fact that there are FAR fewer big fluffy hats). Its has Beauty, History and a certain Charm that’s maybe easiest to describe as “like Vienna’s Little Dirty Homeless Brother” and a population that, from what I’ve experienced, are friendly, and happier than they seemingly rightly should be.

Only thing is that their language is so strange… really not easy to make sense of. At least in French, German, Italian, and Spanish you can generally find SOME similar or recognizable words to make some sense of a sentence or sign. Here everything is S’s G’s Z’s and Y’s. Betty said something about it being most similar to one of the Scandinavian countries languages, which one I forget… but its interesting and I guess no more unlikely than the fact that Bosco-Gurin in Switzerland is still speaking the same ancient German dialect that they were when they settled there in the 1200’s even thought the surrounding country speaks Italian in that area… Or maybe its because they speak Italian… *shrugs* maybe they didn’t like Italy. Who knows.

The other end of the day…

All this touristy shit has been put into perspective just now… crossing the road a few minutes ago to see the remains of a Husky that must have been hit hard by a car – its owner inconsolably crying.. traffic going slowly around, people gawking… it really was terrible… Otherwise my day was good…. I was a movie to fill in a few hours. American Gangster with Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington… really a very good film, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to nearly anyone. From there I hopped on a tram and came back to the part of the city that I saw on my brief stay with Contiki… wandered around for a while and then headed up the other mountain… the one I though I was going up yesterday, Got a lot more photos. Particularly interesting was an enormous murder of crows. I’ve NEVER seen so many in one place.. I don’t know if that’s meant to be good or bad luck… Bad I guess if you have a Husky just about to be hit by a car. Or the driver of the car too I guess…Not good… the image is burned into my head. Not an image I wanted to take away from Budapest…

And right now I’m sitting in a very small face and apart from an Australian couple from Melbourne, here on school holidays with their kids, that I just had a chat to and who just left, I’m the only one here… the Waitresses friend and her have been sitting reading, and her friend keeps looking over at me and smiling… *coughs* anyway, its really quite quiet, its warm, and the coffee is okay… Its just that I have a headache and I have to wait for Marie-Claude to finish work and some other stuff, then I’ll get back, re-type this as I wrote it in a notepad, and go to sleep before I head to Vienna tomorrow. Can’t wait – they have an Aussie pub and its Gorgeous at night time… like here but clean.

More soon

Ciao

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
- Pablo Picasso

On a train again...

2008-01-20T00:28:00.000+10:30

Apologies once again for the gap in the entries, and I’m sure there’s less people reading this now more than ever…

My Current entry finds me, slightly motion sick, slightly claustrophobic, and very much alone in a sleeper carriage on an 11 and a half hour train journey from Zurich, Switzerland to Budapest, Hungary… I’ve just spent the most amazing 5 days with Tess, and Cornelia and Paul, Mum’s friends (and mine too now I suppose) from Bosco-Gurin, the town where Mum’s surname comes from, maybe I’ve told you that before… whatever. It was lovely. They are the most hospitable and giving people ever, nothing was too much trouble and everything was organized for us… The town is this amazing little place with a population of only about 50 but they have the smallest supermarket in Switzerland and one of the oldest Churches, plus it was settled in 1240 something… before there was even a Switzerland… quite amazing. Now they have a ski lift and it attracts quite a few snow bunnies from all over. Very nice. On top of all that they had just had a meter and a half of fresh snow and it was gorgeous. I mean, I’ve seen snow before, but this was the soft fluffy stuff you only see in movies… it’s unfortunately still cold and wet… but fun nonetheless…

I’d just like to add that I don’t know how people who can’t touch type can sit on a bus or train and stare at their computer screens all day… Its now the morning and I can sit and stare out the window as I type. Which is nice s my mind can wander as I dribble shit on my computer. Much more interesting that sitting staring at the screen. I’ve just entered Hungary, and I should only be a matter of an hour or so away from Budapest. So apart from the matter of the “a” key sometimes failing to register that I’ve touched it, the touch typing is going quite well.

I’ve thought about a lot of things that I could and should tell you all about, but now that I actually get time to sit down and type them out, I dither can’t remember, or they seem unimportant or silly. I know I was laying in bed one night thinking… and then I was thinking about thinking, and how much amazing it is that we can think, but how much of a pain in the ass it is when you’re trying to sleep at 3 am. See what I mean?

Nothing too much bad has happened at this point – I did find an amazing deal on a 4gb SD card from a camera store that has since proved to be too good to be true – it doesn’t work either in my camera or in my computer. Bit pissed off about that, but not much I can do about it now. Might try and see if I can get it swapped over when I get back to Adelaide… I know Harvey’s can do a dodgy docket up for me… but Can and Will are two different things… *shrugs* oh well… we’ll see. And my phone seems to work only intermittently, depending on the area I’m in and the service provider that my phone picks up. A tad annoying as there are people that I need to contact and I’m not sure how or when I’ll next have internet. Although the hostels I’ve booked in both Vienna and Prague both say they have internet – we’ll see how much they want to charge me for the usage. Always a killer I’ve found.

On a good note – the cold/pain in my ass/flu that I’ve had for nearly a month now seems to be getting better… the cough has all but disappeared and there’s only a relatively small amount of sinus fluid (Snot) trickling down the back of my throat. Lovely, eh? Anyway, I’m blaming the cure on the amazingly clean Swiss air. If it gets worse again in Hungary then I’m moving to Switzerland permanently. Only joking… but it was VERY nice. And I think I could pick up German relatively quickly… I do understand about one in 50 words already! It’s a start.

Its funny being alone again now that Tess has gone home. Big empty space there. It hurts like hell… I guess when something that you’re used to and you love is taken away from you, but you get used to the pain. I know I always have. Unfortunately.

Anyway, as I think of more, I’ll let you know, for now I’m going to put this away before I get too much more motion sick and I have to throw up the half a week old Croissant that I was given by the train company for breakfast.

Ciao

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough
- Mario Andretti

Random Ramblings

2007-11-01T01:03:00.000+10:30

I need to stop spending money. Hi… so, yeah, life is good at the moment, I’m in a perpetual state of “what the fuck is going on” but life is good… One moment to the next it is different. Physically I’m fine, emotionally I’m a little imbalanced but its nothing I haven’t felt before and got thru it. Although I do seem to always feel on the edge of the precipice sometimes called a panic attack – I seem to be able to push myself back from the edge when it seems to get too close. One day I might hurl myself off the edge, but for the time being I think I’m safe.

University looms larger and larger every day, as does the fact (which I’m trying not to think about) that I’m going to be a student very soon – you might think they’re the same issue, but University excites me… however being a student is a scary prospect, not the least of the issues being financial. It will be interesting to be going to school with a bunch of kids that are literally most of them at least 10 years younger than me. I’m obviously hopeful that as seems to be the trend these days, there will be several mature aged students doing the same thing as me, but I have to think that the numbers will be small.

I also think of the palm reader who I met in New Orleans who said I would have 2 great loves, the second of whom I would meet while studying. I am assuming the first was my ex-wife… whom I loved… most of the time… well… some of the time... Occasionally at least… I thought I had loved since… but to be truthful I don’t think I’ve been truly in Love… its hard to compare an 8 year relationship to something like what I’ve had since… ranging from a 6 month long distance relationship, to several that have lasted less than a month. Although I AM proud to say, none that have only lasted over-night. But back to my point – and not to make too much of it, but I didn’t tell him I was going back to school, and that I’d been married… it was interesting that he said those things. He also said I’d have 4 kids and live into my 90s… neither of which at this point of my life necessarily appeal to me greatly. Although I’m sure when the time comes… yeah. You know what I mean. Maybe.

So yeah, anyway, my second great love is apparently waiting for me at Uni. But it IS a 5 year course, who knows when it will be.

In other more exciting news, I just had a hair-cut.

I guess since I Last wrote – god knows how long ago that was… I have had a promotion at work… I’m now bar supervisor/head barman… what that means literally is a bit more money in my pocket every week – although now I’m “seeing” someone (I think… it’s complicated) that money seems to be going just as fast as before, if not faster. No more… it needs to go into the bank. I know I can do it… and she’s not needy or wanty, so it should be fine. Plus she’s in the same boat financially and will understand my need to save money.

So in that respect the new manager at work has been great. As in all respects actually. She’s great. She’s actually asked me to stay and go to Uni here, offered me free accommodation and everything… hard to pass up an offer like that, apart from the fact that the course here – I’m pretty sure – is 7 years instead of 5… the cost of living is ridiculous… something that can’t be alleviated by free rent (although it would go along way to helping) and I do really like the girl I’m seeing at the moment… I can’t do it… I don’t know if I’ll regret this decision down the track… I really don’t… which makes me afraid that it might be the wrong one… but I think I want to go to Uni in Adelaide. I think.

What else has happened?? I bought a leather jacket… which is cool…

I went and saw the Stage performance of Wicked yesterday… that was amazing… the girl with the lead part had an AMAZING voice… absolutely breathtaking, skin tingling voice… but the story was Way different from the book… not bad different, just very simplified obviously… its hard to sing a story without taking some fairly hefty artistic licenses… you need to make things rhyme for god’s sake… that’s not the easiest thing in the world… if life was a musical (heaven forbid) everything would have to rhyme all the time, it would suck.

Oh, and I should have internet at home soon… which will also be cool. Although I think that maybe my webcam is broken, which sucks… but we’ll see.

Anyway, I think that’s about it… no promises, but I’ll try to write soon.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
- Edward R. Murrow

Checking in...

2007-09-25T23:06:00.000+09:30

There is nothing special about today. There is no reason for me to write an entry in my ever thinning journal of the life and times of Me. Of course there was the unexpected but not by any means unwelcome surprise of Kathryn and Elizabeth – my cousins from Adelaide messaging me at 4oclock yesterday afternoon asking me if I was at work for them to drop in on me. That was a really nice surprise, I guess even though, having lived most of my life NOT in Adelaide, and only seeing them when we’d take the long drive from Whyalla during the school holidays, or, even less, when I would come to Adelaide from Tasmania in the 8 years that I was there, I guess I don’t know them as well as I’d like. Yet it was still nice to have familiarity and family around for a few hours and we talked almost as though we had known each other for most of our lives. Instead of knowing OF eachother… If that makes sense.

I guess it does a bit.

Anyway, that was a nice surprise and it somewhat lifted my spirits that have been somewhat drooping over the last few months as I think fondly of home and the cost of living. Having said THAT, I have still been able to save a considerable chunk of the money that I’ll need to pay off my credit card that has slowly been working its way up to a difficult sum… especially as a future student and part time employee of a random pub somewhere in Adelaide. And getting a meal every day and accommodation has had a lot to do with that. I guess if I can save that money up before I get back and have a 0 balance on everything I’ll be satisfied – somehow I can’t see that happening. I have a terrible tendancy to follow my father’s habit of buying things I don’t necessarily need. This has mostly displayed itself in the purchase of clothing. In particular T-shirts. Which seeing as how Winter in the Northern Hemisphere is fast approaching – are going to be virtually useless.

And not writing my daily memoirs is somehow making me worry that I’m going to be repeating myself constantly every time I DO make an entry… Apologies.

In other news, my Pub has a new manager, A Canadian lady who everyone loves.. will be interesting to see how that goes. But whatever happens I’m only here for another few months anyway. And life goes on…

That’s about all I have to say right now…

The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only far more expensive.
- John Sladek

coughs Anyone There?

2007-09-08T23:38:00.000+09:30

So, once again I find my self sitting in starbucks, wasting my time on things of really no importance… no one I know is online and I figured it has been too long since I wrote something on my Blog. One disadvantage to this is that fewer people will read it, although I guess that could be seen as an advantage also, as it really doesn’t matter what I write.

Life in a pub is a cyclical fast paced blur of beer, cleaning, anger and laughter… as in most jobs I guess it has its good and bad times- fast days and days that drag forever… Life in a pub is an experience that I’ve always been curious about, and now that I’ve had it for a couple of months, will be glad to see the end of. I’m not saying I don’t love it. I do, in a crippling, sadistic way; a place where I can work fast and hard and not use my brain at all…it’s all that I wanted in a job this year and it’s a bit of an experiment in life I guess. I do know I’ve added it to the list of jobs that I don’t understand how people could do forever. But after reading more into my Horoscope/Astrological profile, that may be more me than the job. It says that I’m a drifter and very rarely satisfied in one job… So true… Having said THAT, for the time being I am going to stick it out at the pub. It’s an awesome way to meet new people, and although most of them are small part players in the psychological thriller that is my life… who knows which of them may end up playing a larger part? That goes for everyone I meet every day I guess.

I love the randomness of life… I love looking back on moments that changed the course of what, where and who I am… Tess for example has turned out to be a completely random and interesting part of my year, and I know I’ve got in her, at the very least, a friend for life. Peri is the same, she’s going to be a friend for ever, I have no doubt of that. As too will Meredith… funnily enough, probably all these random people that I’ve met will turn out more important to me than any of the people that I met and traveled with on my Contiki. Although, who knows? Life is strange… no telling what’s around the corner for those people either… and life twists and turns on its merry way…

And that’s all I’m going to write for now… everyday occurrences in pub life really don’t seem to warrant writing about, although in the last few months I have had probably heaps of things to write about… looking back, even on things from yesterday they seem not to matter too much. Even the bomb scare that evacuated the pub, Tess’ second visit, the horrifically neglected state of our staff kitchen, and the fact that apparently I have an attractive bottom… to name only a few things… not that they weren’t all interesting things in their own rights, but I just cant be bothered remembering enough about them to fill in space on the page…

I won’t promise a new update soon, but I hope to write more frequently in the coming weeks/months.

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. - Tom Stoppard

I Can't Think of a Smart Ass Title for This Blog

2007-07-24T19:33:00.000+09:30

Hello world… it’s been a while, how are you? I understand if you’re not talking to me… I’ve ignored you for way too long. So... what’s happened to me in the last few months you ask… where do I start? Probably best to go backwards and get more vague towards the end/beginning, than to try to remember all that has happened in 3 months. 3 Months yesterday actually… wow. Sorry…

So right now I’m sitting in my third floor room (with a large glass of red wine AND a Coopers sparkling ale) above the pub that I’ve been working at now for a bit over 2 weeks… It’s a Live in job, so I live upstairs – it means that I get to work the odd shifts, but it also means I don’t have any bills. But at this point I don’t have internet either – I’ll let you know when I do, it’ll be awesome and defiantly worth writing home about. The pub I work at is called “The Barley Mow”; a traditionally odd English name for a place of concentrated drinking… It’s Almost a local, but it’s right in the middle of Westminster, nearly in the centre of London, so we get some fancy suits and Pollies in occasionally too. The pub itself is on Horseferry road, laterally a 5 minute walk from the Thames, and one of the bridges that crosses over it. Not the one that you walk over to get to Big Ben, but the next one in the opposite direction from the London eye. My local tube station is St James’ park, but I’m almost equally close to either Westminster or Victoria Station. So yeah, for any of you that have either been here, or are currently looking concertedly at a London map, it’s a Great location… I can’t imagine what an apartment in this location would cost. So over all I’m very happy.

I guess I don’t really have too many friends here… I’ve managed to stay in touch with Peri (you may or may not remember her from past posts as one of the girls from Adelaide) who has also got a live in pub job at a different place over in Earl’s Court. We go and have a coffee once a week or so, and I would say that at this point in my life she’d be my best friend… Apart from Tess… and I wont go into that, cause it’s WAY complicated… but yeah. It’s all good; life goes on and all that… Apart from the girls, I am making fast friends with my workmates, they’re a good bunch… maybe a little young in general, but I guess that’s what you’d expect in pub work. They’re all good fun to be around – even the new girl from Lithuania who’s boyfriend looks and sounds like Russian Mafia… *Coughs* but I didn’t say that.

So before this job, I had Tess here for 3 weeks or so… that went in a blur of a lot and not much all at the same time… make of that what you will, I’m not going to expand on those three weeks, except to say that it was a good time had by all much was discussed and much strongbow was drunk. I guess I will mention, now that I think of it, that we took a day trip to Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and Bath. That was fun. I guess Windsor castle was interesting, and Bath was a really cute little town, but I loved Stonehenge… I think one day I’d like to hire a car and drive up there and just sit and watch it for a whole day… it was… ancient… very cool…

Before that I was on my Contiki trip. I am very disappointed with myself that I didn’t keep some sort of journal at the very least to make this part of the recounting easier – its not like I didn’t have my computer with me all the time, but… oh well… with all the drinking and hangovers, having my wallet pick pocketed in Florence, girls, more alcohol, more girls, and more drinking… I was a little distracted… Hopefully if my photos can be recovered from my portable hard drive (yes that’s right 5000 plus photos are in limbo right now hopefully being able to be recovered…) I’ll be able to put together more of a timeline of events from the photos… but at this point, it all went by in a very expensive blur… rest assured that if and when I get my photos back, I’ll expand on the trip and my exploits more fully.

And I guess with that overly glossed over explanation of my Contiki trip, everything is summed up in a little more than a page! Awesome…

Back to the present I guess… Work tomorrow from 12 until 8. I’m going to really try to get up early and go for a run and hopefully have time to post this over at the starbucks across the road.

I’m sure there is HEAPS more to say, but 1. I can’t think of it, and 2. I can’t be bothered thinking of it… it’s been 3 months guys... I’m going to have to warm up to it all again…

If you want to get in touch with me my new details are:

PH: 07807729864 (yeah, I lost my phone AGAIN)
Address: C/- The Barley Mow
104 Horseferry road
Westminster,
London,
SW1P 2EE

Do you realize if it weren't for Edison we'd be watching TV by candlelight? - Al Boliska

Picnics, Vertigo and Agressive Stupidity.

2007-04-21T17:43:00.000+09:30

SO….

The Contiki experience extravaganza starts tomorrow morning, and at the slightly un-godly hour of 6am at that. First stop will be the White cliffs of Dover – and spending the first of 3 nights in Paris, France. Can’t believe it’s come around so quickly.

Anyway I just thought I’d write a quick note saying “hi” and that I obviously don’t know when or where I’ll pop up from next – depending on wireless capabilities of the places I visit… I would assume that there will be internet in most places, but I can’t be sure. So I’ll probably end up writing entries and posting them all at once when I find a hotspot.

The last couple of days have been mostly nice. Two days ago Jadine, Peri and I went to Green Park for a picnic. Stopped by a Tesco’s on the way and got some sandwiches and some fruit, sat down on the surprisingly nice grass and ate, then dozed for a while in the uncharacteristically warm spring sunshine… Then we went to St Paul’s cathedral where I was attacked by a thing called Vertigo for the first time since I’ve been on my holiday; we walked up the 430 odd stairs to the first viewing thing and I got the cold sweats and had to sit down. Then head straight down the next flight of stairs back to the safety of the cold marble floor. Was odd… I mean, I did the London eye which is a little pod on the outside of a gigantic Pushbike wheel… not a moment of fear, and then I get to the top of a building that’s stood solid for several hundred years – survived the Blitz and all sorts, and I panic. But Peri and Jadine were very good – they hardly laughed at me at all *rolls eyes*. I have noticed that women are less affected by a fear of heights than men… or so seems to have been my experience so far… I mean, there are women that are scared of heights, but… meh, maybe I’m rambling…

Yesterday I woke to an interesting and invigorating situation – one of the guys in my room came in at about 6am munching on a packet of chips and talking to people who were asleep in an effort to wake people up… I looked at him and he said that he’d eat outside, but then about half an hour later he came back in and started talking and waking people up again. So I told him in no uncertain terms (which basically just means that I swore) to shut up. Well. He didn’t take that very well… I’m pretty sure he’s been drinking for 3 days straight, if not longer. And he went off… started swearing at me and threatening me, told me to watch where I sleep etc etc… pretty funny looking back at it now, especially when he started smashing his skateboard against the ground and screaming that I couldn’t hurt him. I’m pretty sure he wanted me to get up and take a swing so I’d be the one to get kicked out. But Security heard him and they kicked him out. Which was nice. Needless to say I was a bit confused when they let him back in, although at the time he was being nice and apologizing etc, afterwards he was giving me dirty looks. Me and one of the girls in the room that told him to get lost too… so yeah, that was interesting – my adrenaline was pumping for a good hour afterwards…

Today we’re going to Camden Markets before I have to be at the new hotel for my pre-Contiki meeting at 7pm… going to go down there soon and drop my bags off.

Hopefully will talk to you soon

"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Sorry! -Please Mind the Gap...

2007-04-18T03:15:00.000+09:30

So, a week or so of doing not a great deal in London – firstly I really need to apologize; I did say I was going to try to keep more updated on my blog, but one thing and another have caused me to be slack. One such thing could possibly be the screwy hours that people seem to keep at this hostel… For example I got to sleep at 4am this morning thanks to a couple of people being enthusiastically youthful on the bunk above me. Metal bunks squeak. It’s not fun – although I’m sure they’d disagree... So I got up and sat in the common room chatting to some people that were extremely drunk... always good for a laugh when you’re completely sober… and I’ve just realized that it seems like ages since I’ve blogged cause it actually has been. And it seems like last time I was not getting much sleep either. I need to stress that most nights I’ve been getting a good 12 hours sleep… its all good.

Okay… so I guess I need to rely on my memory again for the last few weeks… firstly I guess I mention the trip down the coast to see Dad’s birthplace and meet a couple of his cousins – Had a really good time – they fed me extremely well and tried to get me drunk… it didn’t work, but I did fall asleep a bit earlier than I’d planned. The next day I wandered around the waterfront a bit and had a nice lunch and a couple of glasses of wine. Definitely going back there for more than one night – it was really good. Did I already say that? Oh well. It was.

I think other than that the only other big thing I did was go back to Kingston for Helen’s farewell drinks/party. A reminder for those of you who don’t remember – Helen is the girl I’ve met that’s going to be on my Contiki tour with me. Went down there and met virtually all of her friends, and had a really good night…

Other than that I’ve been spending most of my days with the girls from Adelaide – They’re great. Looks like Jadine is going to go home after her Contiki tour, but Peri is going to stay on for a while – Will be good to have a good friend around. For both of us. Although I think those first couple of weeks are going to be insane with people visiting etc… and getting work… Flat...

Sorry this is so short, but really there’s not much more to say – WATCH THIS SPACE though, cause my Contiki starts on Sunday and if I don’t write every day I’m going to be really disappointed in myself – either that or really drunk. I think that will be my only excuse. Plan is going to be writing on the bus the next day – but we’ll see how that goes.

Talk to you soon.

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. - Walter Bagehot

New Friends and Numbers

2007-04-06T22:11:00.000+09:30

Firstly – thanks to the 3 of you who posted comments in response to me request in my last blog. Although you were the 3 that I knew anyway… *coughs* ah well… it’s all good. Hi!

So, a couple of days ago (they’re flying by so fast by the way, its crazy) I went down to Kensington to meet one of the girls that’s going to be on my Contiki tour – not a bad idea to get to know some people before I guess. Make it a little less awkward when all 30 or so of us are all in one room together… anyway, so initially the plan was to meet Helen at Kensington station after catching the train there… that was until I actually googled Kensington to see where it was and found that there are actually 25 Kensingtons in the UK. And I panicked a bit – so Helen was nice enough to come into town and meet me at Waterloo station and take me back to her town/s. She lives in one and works in the next – I mean, they’re all almost virtually part of London. Not quite but almost. Very nice little towns, bustling shopping areas and restaraunts boutique shops and department stores. All very clean and neat…

Anyway so we walked for a while, and then we walked some more, and a bit more… I saw some amazing English countryside that could have been right out of the TV. In fact apparently quite often the people that film the TV series the Bill do it in that area. Pretty cool. Walked along some amazing scenery – river banks, Kew Gardens, some other place that I don’t remember, but feel like I maybe should… anyway… really really nice… Then we went had had dine in Pizza Hut for the first time in I can’t remember how long. SO GOOD. The pizza was perfect, and then ALL YOU CAN EAT ICECREAM! Awesome… I haven’t had that in I can’t remember how long either… it was great… then we walked some more, which is probably a good thing, I needed to walk it off… I was so full. Then we went to a pub and had a couple of drinks… all the while talking about anything and everything. I can see that I will get along with Helen very well, I think if there’s anything that I want to get out of the tour (Apart from awesome photos etc) is some life-long friends. I think I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again – if you’re spending 40 something days with someone, you’re either going to love them or hate them… so yeah… it’s looking good.

Anyway, while I was at the pub, I realized that my mobile phone had dropped out of my pocket at some point in my travels. Oh well… shit happens… it was a good phone, but I’m not overly fussed. So the next day one of my tasks was to get another phone etc, so I did this in an interesting way – I firstly got the same deal on the sim card I had before with the cheap overseas calls 10 Pounds, then I got a mobile phone on a prepaid thingy on a different network, cause the first one is no good in the rest of Europe. So I now have 2 numbers in Europe – the one I’ll use the most will not be the one that I’ve previously posted – it will be 07932227356 which 1. Is easier to remember, and 2. Is the sim that’s in my phone and I can’t be bothered changing them…

If anyone wants to call me, give me warning and I’ll swap sims.

So… anyway, the next day I decided to go for a walk and get my ticket for my weekend trip up to Burnham-on-Crouch. Birthplace of Dad, and where a couple of his cousins still live. So once that was organized at Liverpool station, I decided to walk back for a while, stopping once to purchase a hard covered sketch book, and then to get a coffee and a blueberry muffin… I got my sketchbook out and before I knew it I was drawing… not bad for someone a bit rusty, I thought… so I kept walking and eventually found the ruins of the old London Wall… Amazing… it’s the oldest built thing so far that I’ve seen with some parts dating back to 200AD. So I sat down and sketched that too, and then another part… was quite a nice way to kill an afternoon, in fact, being a nice day today as well, i'm thinking I might do something similar. Might head down to the Museum and have a look around there.

Anyway, last night I bumped into a couple of sisters from Gawler near Adelaide and we ended up going out for a few drinks and a dance with a guy from Brisbane. Really good night, probably the longest night out I’ve had in a while – Got in at about 4am this morning (I’ve had 3 hours sleep! Yay) to find some wanker sleeping in my bed. He’d actually moved all my stuff off and got new sheets and everything when there was a spare bottom bunk right next to it with nothing on it… I mean, for goodness sakes, use your brain man… so I had a bit of a go at him, and after getting new sheets for the bed that I had to sleep in, got to sleep at about 4.45. Nice.

Anyway, that’s my excitement so far for the last few days – I’ll try to keep posting more regular… Talk to you soon!

You can only be young once. But you can always be immature. - Dave Barry

Crunchy Nut Cornflake Dreams; A Week in London

2007-04-04T06:33:00.000+09:30

Right, so I’ve been in London now officially for a week. Its fun. Really… no… I mean it… its nice. I’ve sat down so many times in the last few days to try and write an entry and EVERY single time, some random and unfortunately un-interesting person has come up to me and decided to try to start a conversation… not being one to be rude, I’ll struggle along with it for a while, and then excuse myself and bury my head in the sand somewhere – read a book or something.

SO I’m trying to put things in chronological order. It may not happen properly, but we shall see wont we… excuse me if I have to refer back to my notebook at times, but it’s come in handy… little thoughts and things that come to mind while walking past something or someone…

So…okay, I think we’ve established the fact that I slept most of the first day and did very little, I’m sure I’ve done SOMETHING every day I’ve been here, but It seems that my brain only remembers maybe 3 or 4 days… so there are 3 or so days that I must have been somewhere not interesting…

*coughs* continuing 2 days later… eh hem…

Right, I’m not going to worry about what order I’ve done stuff in now, I’m going to only JUST remember everything now, I could go back to my photos and use them to chronologicalise my activities, but I really can’t be bothered – if I start looking at a whole bunch of photos, I’ll get distracted and not end up writing anything more tonight… which would be a terrible occurrence.

Okay, while I’m thinking semi-straight I’d just like to ask a quick question to you – the reader… just for my own purposes, can anyone who reads this please do me a small favor and leave a short message on my blog. What ever. Can just be “Hi – Bye” I don’t really care what you write. But it would just be interesting to know who reads it.

If anyone.

So… I got in and slept, once again, that has been well and truly established. The next day I am pretty sure I went and got some groceries and the Oyster Card – which is the London transport card… so I got that out of the way. I don’t think I actually did anything else that day.

I have been to Kensington palace, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, the Tower of London, The Tate Modern, the Tate Britain, Big Ben, and into the foyers of the London Museum, and Westminster Abbey, but they cost quite a bit and I figure I’m going to be here for a while; I’ll go look at them later.

Oh, and I did the London Eye – continuing to stretch myself as far as my fear of heights is concerned. The London eye I was the most skeptical about… everything I’ve been in so far has been a building. Stable, very very much inside something. The Eye is very much a pod on the outside of a ginormous 130 meter high wheel. THE OUTSIDE. It’s a very odd feeling… but amazing. The only time I got even a hint of vertigo was once when I put the camera to my eye and someone bumped me… that was interesting, but I was fine the rest of the time. I now think I’ll be going up the Eifel Tower… whereas 6 months ago I would have categorically said that there was no way in the world that I’d do it. Now I know I will. But I can still emphatically refuse to entertain the thought of skydiving or bungee jumping.

Ever.

Now I’m just trying to think of anything else that I’ve pondered over the last few days… There are a few things – like the fact that some English accents are completely unintelligible. I have actually heard people talking – tried to listen to what they were saying and been completely unable to understand a single word…

I saw a sign in the Tate modern explaining a certain piece of art that claimed something along the lines of “the reason that this is art is that it is completely useless and pointless copy of a real useful purposeful thing”. That made me laugh.

I had a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes before bed on night and had some of the weirdest dreams I’ve had in a long time – when I wrote the title a few days ago I think I possibly remembered some of what it was that I’d dreamed… shame, cause it was weird, and funny… that’s what you get for leaving your blog a week between entries…

Damn.

In other news – I guess I’ve met a whole bunch of new cool people – a crazy percentage of Australians, but also some Canadians, French, and heaps of Germans. Went on a couple of interesting midnight walks into the city… that was nice. The worst thing about the hostel (Apart from the exorbitant amount they’re charging) is the fact that for the whole hostel they only have one tiny little bar fridge. Its Terrible. The most ridiculous thing I’ve ever experienced in a hostel. Especially when people are staying here for a couple of weeks or so like myself and you need to go grocery shopping. Its impossible to shop for any length of time. On that subject – I did manage to find one of the coolest grocery stores I’ve ever been in… really massive, but cool. Freshest food I’ve seen since Australia.

Tomorrow I’m going to go meet one (or more) of the people that is on my Contiki tour. So I may, depending on events, write more tomorrow – and therefore I’m not going to write any more tonight… count this as pretty much my most abridged readers digest version of a blog entry that I’ve posted so far – I apologize.

More SOON. I promise!

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. - Peter Steiner

19 or so hours of sleep... London...

2007-03-28T04:03:00.000+09:30

I keep forgetting what the last thing I wrote was – I’m going to assume that it was the day after my birthday and I hadn’t done much else at the time.

So Friday night Shannon, Sarah, Tess, Marilia and I went to see a band. Don’t remember what they were called, I guess you’d classify them as heavy alternative rock. They were OK. I mean, they were good for $20… but the venue was a dirty, smelly, sweaty hole in the wall that really could have done with a bath. And some deodorant. From there we got some Nachos and some soapy beer at about 2.30am. From there the weekend is a bit of a blur… The next night we went and got Chinese for dinner and went and saw the new Adam Sandler movie. I don’t recall what it’s called, but it was really good… by far his best movie to date – proof that he can play a semi-serious role. Definitely worth watching… then went and got a couple of drinks, and all of a sudden it was the next day, and I was rushing to get packed and in a taxi and on a plane, and within a blink I’m in a new city/country/continent.

London…

So far really all I’ve seen has been the inside of the airport, the inside of a train, a couple of streets, and the inside of the hostel. I got in at about 10am and couldn’t book into the hostel until 2pm, so I sat in the lounge – accidentally picked up some free wireless internet from somewhere nearby – chatted to a couple of people online to try to keep myself awake and eventually the time ticked away and I booked into my room. A four bunk room with no one else in it… had a shower and promptly fell fast asleep. I woke up briefly at about 9pm local time, went back to sleep and woke up at 10am this morning. Great sleep… interesting dreams about nothing in particular… So far I’ve seen and heard a LOT of Aussies around the place. Which is cool…

Anyway, that’s all for now, will try to find somewhere with wireless internet for free again – rather than pay the ridiculous amount that they want to charge here at the hostel. Right now I need to go find a new mobile phone plan… something that will work all over Europe hopefully…

Right... I found a Sim card that will do for the time being - currently my UK phone number is 07726 281 406. Also - this hostel is pretty much full of Australians. Almost nothing else... and while most of them have been fantastic, I'm seeing the obnoxious, loud, idiotic side of them at the same time... real shame. *shrugs* I'll try to not kill them in their sleep... (if they sleep... I haven't ascertained that at this time).

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Philip K. Dick

My 3 day birthday, and a Sombrero...

2007-03-22T22:08:00.000+10:30

Right… so you got what I did on the first day of my birthday – I was on a train – I mean… I guess it was my birthday – I was getting “happy birthdays” from Australia. Which being where I was born, I have to say makes my birthday in the northern hemisphere start a little bit earlier.

Coming from the warmth of the south back into the frigidity of the north was a bit of a shock to the system… but I don’t think it really hit me until I saw the snow on the ground outside the train – wind picking up ice crystals and blowing them around giving the scene a somewhat arctic-tundra-esque feeling… quite pretty, but so friggin cold…

When I got off the train I went and dropped my bags off at the hostel and decided to catch a movie. Really not time to do much else and I really wanted to see 300. So I wandered back into the subway and caught the train into the city and went to a cinema on 34th st. Huge place… anyway went in, got my ticket and sat at the back of the theatre. The 300 is an amazing movie. One of those epics that when you get out of you feel 10ft tall and bullet proof… great. I’m not going to talk too much about it for the benefit of those of you who haven’t seen it yet. All I’ll say is if you get the chance – go see it at the cinema… so good on the big screen.

In any case; local time-wise my birthday dawned in NYC. I didn’t have much time to think about it, however as I was busy packing my things and catching another train headed up to Montreal. We all know my feelings about Montreal so I won’t go on too much about the city itself… When I got in I contacted both Ashley and Natasha (hi guys!) who I met last time I was up here at the “Geography party” section of the pub crawl. Anyway – I’ve been keeping in touch with them and they were keen to catch up with me again when I got back. So anyway, Tash was sick but Ashley was still keen to come out. So it was pretty funny when not even an hour into the pub crawl I pop out side and walk in with this gorgeous, petite, girl at my side… I got some pretty funny looks. Would have been hilarious to see their faces if both the girls had come… anyway, we sat down and had a couple of beers at the first bar, and then headed to the second bar for a bit… drank more, took drunk photos, drank Sangreal (Red wine mixed with something else – just call it recipe for a hangover…) and then headed to a third bar, before disbanding at about 2.30am (honestly that’s a guess.. I have no idea what time it was…) Very good night.

The next day I was supposed to catch a bus back to Toronto at 2pm… I was way too sick to be bothered so I made an executive decision and booked into the hostel for another night. I was meant to meet Natasha for lunch – but we were both too sick for that, and ended up – thanks to my hangover – planning to go out for dinner. So we went out to a Mexican restaurant with the promise of a surprise later on… not one who takes surprises very well – especially when they’re hinted at previously… I was understandably a little scared. But it turned out (after my enormous meal) to be that they give anyone who’s having a birthday at the restaurant a sombrero hat and a slice of something with a candle in it. Hilarious. But anyway – my search for a hat is over at least for a while… and Ashley, Natasha and I sat around talking for ages afterwards… was a really nice night, and a great way to cap off my 3 day birthday… Good friends, good food, a Sombrero and “The Monkeys” walk down the street...

And they both said if I ever want to move to Montreal they’d help me out. Haha… *coughs* not that I wouldn’t. I love it here… we’ll see… maybe one day… it's very tempting guys...

Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. - Evan Davis

St. Patrick's Day; a rope of sand...

2007-03-20T07:10:00.000+10:30

Trying to filter through the jumbled memories of the last 2 or 3 days… I guess it has to start with another delayed bus trip from New Orleans back to Tallahassee… It started roughly on time, but we lost an hour and a half at one of the stops. Funny things happened – as they tend to – first thing – sitting in the Bus terminal in New Orleans – well rested and refreshed after a good nights sleep… actually after a good recovery day the day before where I hardly left the hotel room… anyway… two guys walk in and go get their tickets for the bus and I knew instantly even before I could hear them talking, that they were Aussies. So I went over and had a chat to them and we talked most of the first hour after we got on the bus… was good fun. One of the guys was here to try out for college basketball apparently 10 teams were looking at him from all over the country, so he must be pretty good. The other guy had done the summer camp thing and was traveling around afterwards using up the money he’d made. Both of them were from WA.

Anyway at the next bus stop which was the one that we lost all the time at, I met a girl who was enthralled with the fact that we were traveling around America, and more so with the fact that we were Australian. Funniest thing she said was “so Y’all flew here?”… I looked at the other guys and said as dead pan as I could – oh, no, we caught the bus. I think it took her one moment to realize what I’d said, and then another moment to process it, and then another couple of moments to realize that I was kidding… by then we were laughing at her… Then there were a couple of older guys – one who had gotten on at the previous stop and I had a bad feeling about him – he just looked wrong… you know? Anyway, there was him and another older guy talking shit, which normally you laugh off as dirty old men trying to impress young girls… but they’d been filling in some of the wait with alcohol and one of them said something to the other one, and they ended up taking it outside and had a little fight. Hilarious. I’m like – well there’s two empty seats anyway. Good thing too, cause the bus was packed. Then the next stop we had 3 people get off and about 8 people wanting to get on… Was the busiest bus I’ve been on this trip. All cause of spring break.

So, because I got in late to Tallahassee Bart – Caroline’s boyfriend offered to have me stay on his couch which was very nice of him. Caroline has a 10pm cut off unless she’s drinking, and Bart was up anyway… So I passed out on his futon and woke up to the day before St Patrick’s day – which apparently is almost as big a drinking day as the day itself. Maybe its just the fact that Tallahassee is virtually a college town, and they just like drinking. The plan for the day was that a group of people were going to drive for an hour and check out some caves that a lot of people had heard about, but not too many of them had been to. There ended up being about 9 of us; a good sized group and we took two cars – they were divided into the “hungry car” and the “not hungry right now car” I went in the latter of the two. The caves were good… not the biggest or most interesting I’ve seen, but the guide knew his stuff… *Shrugs* I met a lot of Caroline’s friends, all of whom are very cool… I’d go into that more, but I’m not going to. That night we went out to check out a couple of bars… met some really cool people including a group of people from Panama at the first bar. Bart was very helpful by saying as loudly as he possibly could at every apparent opportunity – “THIS IS MY AUSTRALIAN FRIEND” Funny stuff. Oh, and they had Australian beers – but not Coopers that I’ve found everywhere else, they had Toohey’s New and Boags Premium… awesome… Boags is great beer… but I wasn’t allowed to try it, I had to try some American efforts. They were OK. I’ve had better… From there we went to another bar which was absolutely packed… Right at the end of the night 1.55pm I was on my way to the “bathroom” and couldn’t open the door – a girl was on the inside holding it shut. They appologised as they came out and at my response stopped to talk to me for a good 5 minutes. Apparently one of them’s favourite things is guys with red hair… Anyway, they let me use the facilities and when I got out they were still waiting for me… they were like “we know this is a bit forward, but can we have your number?” Hilarious. That’s another first. Anyway, I gave Meredith my phone number… more on that later…

St Patrick’s day… wow… I think this is the biggest St Paddy’s I’ve ever experienced. So, we woke up at about midday and headed out for lunch, then I went back and thought it would probably be a good idea to pack my bags since I didn’t know where I’d be sleeping and there was a good chance I wouldn’t have the time or energy to do it in the morning. So that out the way we went and had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Hilarity. Waited for a table for about 45 minutes at the bar – managed to down a Coopers sparkling, and a Boags Premium (and well onto my second coopers) in that time… I had decided that I was “virtually” in Australia, I was allowed to drink Australian beer. Sooo much better than American beers… crazy. Anyway, 2 of Caroline’s friends arrived, Mary and Kirsten who I’d met when we went to the caves the day before. Good times. And we ate. We ate SO much… the food was actually really good… I wouldn’t call it Australian cuisine, but – I mean… what WOULD you call Australian cuisine? Kangaroo? Everyone does steak… I think we decided that it was mostly just American food with Australian names. Including the ‘Blooming Onion” which is an onion chopped but left connected at the bottom – and then coated in something and deep fried. Great. Not so good for the breath, but tasted really good. The waitress was great too… had been working there for a whole year, and I was her first bonafide Australian… pretty funny. She got wind (thanks Kirsten) that my birthday was coming up, so they brought out a candle for my icecream and a bunch of people got together and sang “Bonza Bonza Birthday” such a crack up. Then we went back to Barts place for a couple of pre-drink-drinks. A warm-up if you will… while sitting there, I got a phone call from Meredith – the girl who’d got my number the night before… I was hoping for the call, but not entirely expecting it… its hard to describe her… gorgeous doesn’t really cover it. She is beautiful… really amazingly beautiful… anyway, we chatted for a couple of minutes – she was at Wal-mart getting “St Patrickified” and planned for me to call her when we got to the bars at about 11. Which I did. And spent the rest of the evening with her and her friends – completely ditching Caroline, Bart and Mary… which I feel bad about. But only a little bit (sorry Caroline… but you saw the photos…I know you understand). Was a really really fun night… I had my first “Sex-on-the-beach” (IT’S A DRINK, MUM!) and actually, my second, third and possibly fourth as well… I’m not sure… chuck in a few shots and accidentally skulling a whole bunch of terrible green beer… needless to say I had a pretty bad headache the next day. Meredith and her friend dropped me off at Barts where I passed out fully clothed on his futon

And woke up at 10am to catch the bus to Jacksonville. That was fun. When I got to Jacksonville, I walked out the front to where the Taxi’s were, and I got approached by a guy who asked me where I was going… I told him that I was going to the Amtrak station, and he said that he’d show me how to get there, and started heading off… I was like.. so its in walking distance? And he said something unintelligible… I had some doubts, but I walked with him to the bus depot, chatted a bit along the way. He was homeless and had hurt his hand so he couldn’t work, so he just needed some money to stay at the shelter that night… He got me there safe, and we had a laugh, so I gave him about $8… still heaps cheaper than the taxi would have been – it turned out that it was a fair way – probably a $20 fare, and the bus was only 75c. so I got to the Amtrak on $8.75. Not bad. Plus I was the last one on the bus and the bus driver started to have a chat to me… so that was cool too.

And now I’ve been on a train for nearly 18 hours… Thinking of going to see a movie once I get in to NYC and have dropped my stuff off at the hostel. Get rid of the rest of my USD.

I don’t think I have much else to say right now… spending tomorrow (Birthday) mostly on a train should be fun… but with real fun at the end with ANOTHER pub crawl in the awesome Montreal. Can’t wait for that. I will relate what I remember in my next post…

It Starts With a Sandwich

2007-03-15T11:32:00.000+10:30

I had an interesting evening – the evening that will color my memory of New Orleans… and it will color it an interesting shade of green. More on that later

So, Getting a bit peckish at around 6.30 I wandered down to the lobby and asked the people behind the counter where would be a good place to eat, they asked what kind of thing I felt like – and I responded in the most helpful way I could think of – food. The look they exchanged said a great deal. But they replied with “Mothers”. Somewhat of a local legend apparently. Basically a diner with local specialty foods like jambalaya, Po-boys (like a subway except better), red beans and rice, etc. So I went, and stood in line outside for I guess 30 minutes at least. Assuming correctly that if people are willing to line up for food, then it must be pretty damned good.

So I stood in line.

While waiting in line a guy in front of me asked me a few questions, which I didn’t know the answers to, but we ended up chatting about other stuff. He was a theatre/TV producer in town looking for a location to film something or other… really interesting guy. Not that it makes any difference but he was black… which made it more interesting for me that he even spoke to me at all – mainly because from what I’ve experienced so far from the black community in that they tend to keep to themselves… Definitely not the case in New Orleans… it’s been really good in that respect. He found my tales of traveling around by myself intriguing (I’ve found this a fairly common response – apparently its not something that’s very common for Americans to do… *Shrugs*) anyway, I apparently amused him enough that he shouted me dinner – I guess almost as much for the company while eating as anything… not being entirely comfortable with being bought dinner I told him that he better be coming out drinking so I could buy him a few drinks.

Anyway, we chatted while eating our sandwiches and he said he wanted to head back to the casino where he was staying and play some more blackjack – which he had been having a good run at yesterday. So off we wandered and I found myself sitting at the high rollers table in the casino (free drinks for just sitting down!!!), where he pulls out a wad of cash – about $1500. I’m like… whoa… and he asked me if I was going to play – I said $100 (1 chip) was the equivalent of 4 night’s accommodation for me, not the sort of money I have to throw away… so he started off doing quite well, and then lost it all. But in between all that “excitement” this other guy comes and sits at the table and puts down $1000, blows it all in 2 hands, then gets a $10,000 (he’d asked for $20,000) line of credit and eventually leaves us to sit at his own table… after we’d finished we went and joined him. Really nice guy, but money to burn… crazy… each chip was $500. I think the biggest bet I saw him place (and win) was maybe somewhere in the vicinity of $8000… maybe more… amazing.

So after that we headed down to Bourbon street – the heart of the French quarter and a buzzing hive of activity even on a Tuesday night… amazing place, it was like you turn off the main street and you’re instantly In another world… you go from a normal weekday night, do the midnight on a Friday or Saturday night. Walking around first thing I saw was a sign advertising “The strongest drink in the world” a mixture of 151 proof rum of some sort and something else, all mixed together in a slushy and served like a frozen coke. Except green and sickening… it was very strong though… walked up the street a bit further and found an awesome band playing covers – really amazing. They guy on the saxophone was unbelievable… the singers were both as good as anything I’ve ever heard.

We then found a group of fortune tellers sitting on the side of the road doing palm readings and tarot cards – the guy I was wandering around with wanted his fortune read and sat there and got both palm and cards done, didn’t say much, but at the end he said it was pretty accurate… I thought what the hell, it will be interesting, and so I got my palm read. Always something I’ve wanted to do… Apparently I’m going to live into my 90’s (nice to hear) have 4 kids (bit of a worry), be reasonably wealthy, but have to work for it, have 2 life partners (the second of which I will meet while studying!!!), I’m a reliable person, etc, etc… love to travel… and I have a “work hard; play hard” attitude to life… funny cause earlier that day I’d been wearing my FCUK WORK t-shirt which says Work hard play hard underneath… hmmm… spooky… overall I was impressed. There’s heaps of other stuff that he said, and I wish I had been more sober at the time so I could remember it all… but anyway… whatever…

Great night…

WARNING: MUM YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO READ FROM HERE ON…

The night came to a conclusion with my first (and maybe last) visit to a strip club. I will say one thing for the girls, as gorgeous as they are, they are mighty strong. A couple of them could climb all the way up a 27foot pole and slide down it slowly using nothing but their legs… crazy stuff… I’ll say firstly that I didn’t get a lap-dance or anything like that… in fact I’m not sure what was going on, but it wasn’t really that interesting. My friend went for a 30 minute “private” session for a good 45 minutes and I sat at the bar… chatted to a couple of girls – most of whom when they realized that that they weren’t going to get any money out of me, left pretty quick. The exception was a girl called Ryan. Absolutely stunning girl who was interesting, well traveled, smart, and just seemed happy to have someone to talk to that didn’t want to rub their face in her chest… (Not that I didn’t want to… but I guess I wasn’t in the mood) anyway, she’d come over and chat to me between “working” it was actually the most fun I had all night just talking to her. Bizarre. My friend left at about midnight citing exhaustion… I stuck around until about 2… at one point a girl came over and I laughed at her… I think she was a bit offended… but I was so drunk… the whole place just seemed ridiculous…

Anyway, that’s my excitement for the week so far… I’ve spent today sleeping off a pretty terrible green hangover… not nice at all…

Talk to you soon – probably after St Patrick’s Day!

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. - William Shakespeare

New New Orleans...

2007-03-14T06:03:00.000+10:30

Righto… So the train took a good 12 hours to get from Atlanta to New Orleans… but it was actually not too bad… I slept a bit, but was mostly entertained by the two children sitting in the seats next to me (and their mother).

I got into New Orleans I guess at about 9pm, and waited for a bit for a taxi to arrive that was willing to take me to my hostel… Take this as a review on Joe and Flo’s candlelight hostel – Don’t do it. The look my cab driver gave me as I told him where I needed him to take me should have been enough for me to say “okay, take me somewhere else. Now” but I didn’t… I’d already paid for a night and I’m a bit stubborn like that. When he told me that there were 2 people shot on the street the night before, and one boy died, Again, I should have taken the hint and told him to find me somewhere else to stay… and then when he gave me directions on how to avoid the bad areas when I went into town the next day, I should have been scared enough to get him to take me straight back to the train station and I’d wait there for the next train to anywhere-but-here-ville. But I was in a good mood, and too tired to stuff around, so I got out at the hostel. He was nice enough to give me his number if I changed my mind and needed a lift – fast. Then I sat in the foyer/lounge at the front of the hostel for an hour while I waited for someone to arrive – he apparently had to drive from his house to book me in… and when I got to my room and was greeted by a not-so-sane guy sleeping on the bottom of the bunk that I was meant to be staying on the top of… the itchy bed and the 2 inch thick mattress with what felt like bars of steel running across… I decided pretty quickly that I’d be there for one night only and used the one good thing that they had – free wireless internet – to book another hotel for the next 3 days. Luckily enough I found a reasonably cheap place right in the city, of course it doesn’t have free internet though. So I got here and fell asleep at about 4pm with the intention of getting up at 9 or 10 and going out, but I slept soundly until about 8am this morning. Nice.

One thing that did hit me was the guy that ran the hostel, also ran a shuttle bus service pretty much whereever you want to go. I felt a bit bad getting him to take me to another hotel, but he chatted to me along the way, about New Orleans, and the aftermath of Katrina... how he understood why people committed suicide, and that he'd thought of it himself. He'd lost everything, and was one of the people that hadn't seen any of the money that got poured into the community to help. He didn't get any new car or plasma tv like a lot of people apparently did. He lost everything and once he finally got his house livable, a smaller tornado ripped through and tore off the back of his house again. So he's back living in a trailer... I really felt sorry for him... I tried to offer advice, but it all came out sounding cliched and he'd probably heard it all a million times, but he listened and talked while we found the hotel... As I got out and paid him the $10 fare, I gave him a $2 tip, as I would have any taxi driver... you should have seen him... he said "is this for me?!" I said yeah... he said that he'd never got a tip before... it was really sad... I told him that I hoped things got better for him...

I didn't know what else to say...

Today I’ve wandered a bit around the French Quarter – mostly gift shops, bars and strip-joints… looking for lunch and wireless internet that I wouldn’t have to pay for… eventually I found a sure bet – Starbucks. I think I found the only one in the world that doesn’t have wireless internet. In fact I’m not sure if the girl just didn’t understand me or whether that was really the case, but she looked at me funny when I asked.

So I’ve had to pay for it back at the hotel – but it only seems to work downstairs in the foyer – not in my room…even then it's intermittent.

Damnit.

Anyway, I can’t think of much else to write today… and I’d better leave the hotel before I decide to have a nap… not a good idea when there’s a comfy king-size bed waiting for me… going to go for a run instead… American food is terrible… fattening stuff...

Oh, okay, I guess I should really tell you what I think of New Orleans too… it’s nice… it has charm – especially the French quarter – I think the most interesting thing about it is the smell…

Hard to describe the smell…

It smells like road-kill… and it seeps into your skin… its hard to enjoy a place when it smells like its dead.

and a storm’s a-brewin…

The 'Dirty' South

2007-03-12T14:50:00.000+10:30

After an 18 or so hour train ride – almost sleeping some of the way, almost awake for the rest of the time, no doubt thought that the train is heaps better than the bus. I wish I’d known about the rail pass earlier. Whatever, it’s all been an experience. Anyway, yeah, after the train ride into Jacksonville, Florida (sitting in the train station waiting for Caroline watching local Television and learning about how proud some 12 year olds apparently are about having sex…) we drove a couple of hours into Tallahassee. On the way we stopped at a Wendy’s for lunch, just as a busload of old people arrived. Standing in line, an elderly man started chatting to us and soon asked where I was from; telling me then that he really likes Steve Irwin (I didn’t want to mention that he’d died, as I wasn’t too sure that he knew) then he said that he was 91. I was impressed – he seriously didn’t look a day over 89. He did seem to have all his faculties though, which is impressive, and he’d had a full and interesting life – of which he gave me the abridged version – navy, merchant marines, carpenter, etc… then he asked me an interesting question – he said that trees in the northern hemisphere for whatever reason have a tendency to “twist” to the left, and he wondered if in the southern hemisphere they twisted in the opposite direction… It stumped me, but I said I would try to find out. Not that that will help him, but now I want to know. And I guess… Well… whatever, if anyone knows the answer to that, let me know. That would be cool.

Anyway, so we went to Tallahassee, Caroline, her friend Kim, and me. Them tired from they’re 4 day trip to Vegas, and me from my epic train ride… we drove in relative silence… not uncomfortable, just exhausted… which was fine… in fact, I was semi-surprised by the lack of uncomfortableness… was good. Anyway, yeah, we got to Tallahassee and Caroline’s place, a nice apartment in a quiet part of town, chatted for a little while, checked our emails and then pretty much passed out. Later that evening we met with Kim for Mexican, nearly went out drinking, but instead decided that we were all still tired, so we went back to sleep. Probably had my best nights sleep in 2 weeks. The next day we decided to head to Atlanta.
Firstly I’d like to say that I rarely make judgments on places before I’ve seen them. Of course there are exceptions – LA and Miami… I guess would be the 2 that stand out the most, and are the 2 places that I really have no inclination to go see just now. I mean, at some point, sure, but just not right now. So when Caroline suggested that we headed up to Atlanta for a few days (her boyfriend and his friend were going to be there at some point too) I was like, yeah, sounds good. But even though mum and dad have been there, and told me good things, I had no strong feelings on the subject in either direction, completely neutral (I guess it’s my Swiss heritage coming out). I was pleasantly surprised. I like Atlanta. I like it a lot… the people over all were friendly, the subway, while limited to a rough cross, was fast, efficient, clean, and probably the newest that I’ve seen so far, the city itself was similar, clean, new, and barring some issues with their roads not making a lot of sense, seemed to be laid out quite nicely. Anyway, we stayed with Caroline’s College friend Rick. Really nice guy (after some initial skepticism on his behalf of our odd friendship) and his couch, while extremely ‘compact’ was very comfortable.

The first night there we decided to catch a movie and get dinner at the same time... Checking the internet we found a movie that we both wanted to see, and then with the miracle of the internet, got a map and directions there. It was the best accident of the trip so far, we found an awesome little area with restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, and a really cool cinema. SO we got dinner, and went and watched Zodiac. Good movie – apart from about half way through, I realized that my wallet wasn’t in my pocket. After searching frantically around the chairs, and a couple of dashes out to the service area to see if anyone had handed it in (both times I came back into the theatre the same thing seemed to be being said in the movie) I tried to relax and watch the movie. Nothing more could be done for now… I started going through what I’d have to do when I got back – call credit card companies, etc, call mum and dad and organize then to send the cards up to Shannon’s my plans for New Orleans would have been shot, and I’d have to borrow money from Caroline to get the bus from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, but then be stuffed cause I wouldn’t be able to pay for accommodation for the night in NYC… so yeah, I didn’t pay that much attention to the rest of the movie – Caroline said that I sighed heavily several times which I don’t remember, but can imagine would make sense. Anyway, the movie seemed to go on forever, at the end of it I went up to a police officer and told him my plight, he calmly grabbed a torch and we went back into the theatre and obviously a veteran of many lost wallets, especially in this theatre, quickly located it. Between the seats inside the armrest in a little pocket seemingly designed for hiding wallets in.

Relieved I slept will that night.

The next day we met Bart and his Danish friend Simon for the Coke museum, and later for dinner, and then Caroline, myself, Rick and his girlfriend, went out to a bar for a few drinks. That was fun… played a drinking game with a jug of some pretty terrible beer… anyway, the next day we went to the Atlanta Aquarium… by far the best aquarium I’ve ever been to… really amazing… they were almost more a SeaWorld than an aquarium, they had beluga whales, otters, seals, etc, as well as the norms. Really good.

Anyway, then we got a couple of hotel rooms and Simon and I went out drinking while Bart and Caroline “caught up” and we got back at about 3am… if you take into account daylight savings starting and us loosing an hour somewhere.

And now I’m on the train… which has been good… sitting with a single mum and her 2 kids, really funny. An old lady sitting in front of me asked me if I had kids cause “you’re really great with kids… you should have kids” *coughs* one day… one day…

Now I’m tired again, time for a nap…

Ciao.

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things. - Russell Baker

Meat Pies in Brooklyn

2007-03-11T13:17:00.000+10:30

So how’s this for random? I was checking my Gmail account the other day, and Google being Google obviously have adds and things. So there’s this little text add at the top of the page that happens to catch my eye – Real Australian and New Zealand meat pies. I’m like, yeah, right, whatever, until I read the next line that says – Made fresh in Brooklyn – Free Delivery. I was like SAY WHAT!!!? I could so go a meat pie right now; I’m going to get one. So I spent an hour on the subway and walked for at least half an hour to find this place and I wasn’t disappointed! Meat pies! Awesome. So I had a potato pie and a steak pie, a flat white coffee, and a lamington. I also got a steak and cheese pie, a plain mince pie, and 2 sausage rolls to take back to the hostel to have for dinner last night, and breakfast this morning. I’m all pied out. I’ve had my fix. But check them out @ www.dubpies.com

Good stuff.

Apart from that, the girl serving there was from Melbourne, we had a good chat about all things Australian, the vegemite/folate scandal, and the problems with finding a decent block of Cheese in North America. She had a gripe about snooty Americans coming in and calling her pies “Cute” and I agreed that “cute” is not a description that should be attached to a chunky steak pie. Ever. Over all it was nice – you could buy Milo, She knew what a flat white was, and all the prices INCLUDED sales tax… I took a whole bunch of menus and distributed them around the hostel… I hope they do well.

Brooklyn is a beautiful suburb… I really liked it, narrow streets, Victorian style townhouses and buildings… Clean. I’m disappointed that I didn’t go there earlier or for longer… I would have stayed and wandered around some more yesterday, but it started snowing. And I already have a cold… I don’t need it go get worse… and I’d forgotten my camera anyway…

Other than that I caught up with one of the Aussies that was in Boston when I was there… funny guy… hmmm. Yeah… anyway, we went out to a bar up the street from the hostel and had a few drinks… met a couple of local girls and chatted to them for a while, Lily and Stephanie. That was fun… they introduced me to their favorite beer – Chimay; which is a Belgian style brune. Quite nice. Chatted about music, accents, and which countries are most likely to be destroyed in a nuclear war. Then after they left, the other Aussie (– we shall for the purpose of the story, call him Michael… for no other reason than that is his name…) called the bar lady over and asked how old she thought he was… and how old she thought I was for that matter… This is always a fun game for me, but this worked out well – she said I looked 24 (seems to be the most common age I get mistaken for…) and he looked 26. He’s 21. He was so devastated… it was great. And still playing the game she asked how old we thought she was (this is when it gets dangerous) he said 22. There was no way she was 22 but there was no way I was going to say that she looked 28, so I said 26. She was 29, and obviously happy with our answers bought us a round of shots on the house… good fun…

And now its time for an apology – I thought I’d posted this one, but I obviously hadn’t. so, here it is… a few days late – but safe and sound. Right now I’m in Atlanta and I’m due to catch a train at 8am tomorrow down to New Orleans for a few days, I’ll write something for you on the train and post it (hopefully – assuming internet access at the hostel) in the next few days.

Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.
- Nick Diamos

Road Trip #2 - I Love Montreal!

2007-03-06T08:55:00.000+10:30

No, really, I do… I could live there… I even love not being able to speak the language, it’s hilarious. Where do I start? I guess… I got into Montreal on Thursday evening, after having had about 3 hours sleep the night before. At least I wasn’t hung-over… that would have been awful, I was just tired. But when I got in I discovered that it was pub crawl night at the hostel… never one to pass up an opportunity, I thought, bugger-it, I’ll sleep tomorrow. So… go out I did, I have a habit of getting pizza at 4am in Montreal with random people that I meet along the way. And that happened again. We ended up in a diner Me, Chris (the tour guide) and two of his friends from the Geography party that we ended up at – Natasha and a girl that looked suspiciously like Avril Lavigne. I feel terrible that I can’t remember her name – all I think of is Avril… by no means a bad thing. Really good night.

The next day I slept… got up at about 2pm, to find that Montreal had received nearly a foot of snow, and it was still snowing… was a good day, mostly because I didn’t do anything. Then the evening rolled around and an Aussie guy – Wes, from Sydney, who had been one of the other 5 Aussies out drinking the night before, found me and told me about this festival they were having down in Old Montreal. I’ve always wanted to go to old Montreal, so we headed down there, got Wild-boar-sausage-on-a-stick (surprisingly good) went on the 120ft ice slide, and wandered around for a while 'til we got cold and felt like heading back to the hostel. Got in at about 11, nice early night.

Yesterday other than organizing my train ticket – again, during the day I didn’t get up to a great deal. Until 6.30 that is when there was an organized tour back to old Montreal and Ice Skating! I’ve been wanting to go ice skating since I’ve been here... its SO much fun. I honestly think the last (and first) time I went ice skating would have been in Hobart maybe… 7 or 8 years ago… so its been a while… mind you, I do have rollerblades and the motion is almost identical, but I haven’t been on my blades in probably 5 years… at least… So it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. Ended up cruising around quite nicely, getting up a fairly good speed – and if I needed to stop I could always throw myself into a bank of snow. Which I did several times, just for fun. I found that I am good at turning left, not so good at right. But I am proud to say that I didn’t fall over (accidentally) at all. Came close a couple of times, but it didn’t actually happen. Much to the disappointment of a particular French girl who had pushed me into the snow on the way there. I’m sorry Pa, I think I like French people… girls at least.

And I’d just like to say that Switzerland is NOT neutral. Not at all. Bastard.

So anyway… I think this time in Montreal, I’ve met more Aussies than any other part of my trip… there were 5 of us the first night on the pub crawl, and a completely different 5 (except me of course – common denominator) when we went ice skating, plus a heap of others that I only met in passing, there would have been 16 or 20 just in the 3 nights… most of which had come from Whistler or the other west coast snow resorts for a change of scenery, and to get away from all the Australians. No such luck… Anyway, we went ice skating, then we went drinking. It’s a good thing the bars close at 3 otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten ANY sleep last night, as it is I had to wake up at 7.30 so I could pack and be ready in time to catch the train. Which I am on now. And YES it’s so much more comfortable than the bus. Not hard, but anyway… this is going to be a 9 hour trip… so there will be sleeping involved. At least they have a power point so I can charge my laptop while we’re moving. No internet, but that’s not the end of the world…

I can’t think of any more to say right now… I might think of something later.

Ciao.

Contiki, drinking, and other new things...

2007-02-27T08:20:00.000+10:30

So I’ve been back in Toronto so far for a week… and done pretty much nothing. I went out Friday night and had a few drinks at the bar down the back here, met some interesting people *Shrugs* drank lots. Got home and a friend I met along my travels was online – this is at about 2.30am, and we were all pretty drunk – anyway, I met Kristin in Ithaca a week or so ago, She showed me her fake ID while we were standing at the bar. Nice one. I mean, it’s a nice fake, and on top of that – nice one Kristin – there was a barman standing there watching you… anyway, she was online and I got told to hold on a minute. Now I don’t remember giving her my number (maybe I did… drunk makes you do funny things) all of a sudden my phone rings, and its her friend, who has a thing for Australian accents apparently. So we chatted drunkenly for about 20 minutes, about nothing in particular, but it was funny nonetheless.

Other than that its been snowing pretty steadily here for the last few days which is pretty. Light fluffy flakes gently swirling around the window… falling slowly, some of them floating back up as if to look back at me, looking out at them…

Oh, I did find something out that’s interesting today… I was a bit worried about my Contiki getting cancelled cause its an odd date late April *Shrugs* anyway, I was on the Contiki website and found a couple of bulletin boards regarding the trip I’m going on, and a few people had registered that they were going on the same one as me – so far these are the names of people coming on my tour – Hayley from Sydney, Elle from Canberra, Amy from an unspecified place in Australia, then there’s Helen from London, and Anna and another Amy from Vancouver as well as someone who calls themselves Yakyak, from Norwich in the UK. And me. Of course. Obviously these are names that you will hear again in the near future when I’m on my Contiki! Anyway, so there’s 8 of us registered on this website, I don’t know how many people it takes to fill up a tour bus, but I’m assuming its more than that. So I thought I’d call Contiki and confirm that its all going ahead – and they said its Booked out! How good is that?! I mean, half of us so far are Aussies, but that’s not all bad… so long as there aren’t too many people that are traveling as a group. That would be not so good… but still… I’m starting to get really excited about this trip… its going to be awesome. Not to take anything away from my up-coming trip down to Florida, that is going to be a blast too, no doubt.

Tonight Shannon and I are going down the street for a pub meal at a bar that we haven’t been to, that should be fun, and Wednesday, Shannon, Sarah, and one or two of her friends are going to come out for a bit… might go ice skating, get dinner, then go out for a while… will see when the time comes… probably will mean another hung-over bus trip on Thursday… ha-ha. *coughs*

Oh, yeah… I’m now on Myspace.com. I’m not really sure what the purpose of that is, but I’m there nonetheless… as soon as I can figure how to link the two Google powered sites together, I will, but until then - www.myspace.com/Trojanmind *shrugs* do with that what you will.

WHITE! And The Difference between Alone and Lonely…

2007-02-23T03:50:00.000+10:30

So… I woke up at some point during the night with a really intense feeling of being alone… Nothing to worry about, it passed quickly, but it did make me think. Maybe I might head back to the hostel here in Toronto for a few days… I mean, I probably won’t… but I thought about it. For $20 a night you always meet some pretty interesting people… Anyway; the last two nights I’ve gone to a different pub each night and got a cheap meal and a couple of beers… it’s been nice, but it’s never as nice as if you’d been there with someone else… The first night I just went to the nearest place and got a chicken burger… No where near as good as the one I got in Philly, but you can’t have everything I guess… it was cheap… Last night I thought I’d try something a bit more adventurous, and had the Irish stew at an Irish bar that I found when I went for a run yesterday. It was Terrible. The beef was gristly and full of tendons and bits that I don’t want to think about… the bread, while its meant to be dry, was dry to the point of soaking up all the moisture from the broth, and STILL able to be dry.... but over all, it was a nice warm environment and they had 39c Wings. Now, I don’t usually eat chicken wings – they’re more hassle and mess than they’re worth – but I figured that nothing can be worth less than 39c, so I got wings as well… Made a mess… and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t almost worth it.

Other than that, I need to leave the building to go to the greyhound terminal and buy my Bus tickets for my next trip… Can only catch the Train with the ticket I’ve got from Montreal (Shame about that…) so I’ll head on over there, take a few days to get to New York… Really not looking forward to the 20 hour ride down to Jacksonville… I’m going to be smelly… (That counts as fair warning Caroline!)

So… I can stand being alone just fine – so long as I know that I have friends around that I can talk to… and so far I haven’t scared them all away, so it’s all good. In fact I seem to be collecting some along the way… Loneliness on the other hand… mmm… I guess it’s the feeling that you are really all alone. Almost like claustrophobia… not something I usually suffer from – and I’ll say it was just a moment… Right now; I don’t feel lonely, although I am alone… Just like sometimes when you’re stuck in an elevator you can feel boxed in, but know that you’re not going to suffocate.

Does that make sense?

Oh, and I woke up this morning, sat at my computer, opened the curtain… and EVERTHING WAS WHITE! Just when I thought that the snow might be easing off a bit, in fact it had been above freezing for like 3 days straight, and the footpath was dry enough to run on… Bloody White… It was a bit of a shock, but it looks like its going away again now… so that’s good… I’m more of a “shades of grey” sort of person.

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? - Woody Allen

Evil and Rabbits

2007-02-21T10:36:00.000+10:30

SO… huh… my little road trip is over – where did I leave you last? I guess in Philly. Philly is awesome. But I think any city is awesome through the eyes and experience of a local. Went out again on my last night in Philadelphia with Julia – found a pub maybe a block away from my hostel, that served 300 beers (Coopers vintage amongst them), possibly one of the messiest (but delicious) burgers I’ve ever eaten, all that and waited on by some guy that wanted to murder us… whatever we’d order he’d look at us like we’d just insulted his mother, kicked his dog, and spat in his beer… not so good… good thing that we were having such a good time, otherwise I might have not tipped him at all. At some point during the night, one of Julia’s friends came out and we went to another bar to play darts – them against me, cause I had drunk more, but was convinced that I was less drunk than both of them put together. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily the case, but I still managed to only loose the game right at the end… good fun… One tip thought – and I will learn from this mistake – don’t always take the word of the bar-person for gospel when asking for 3 of their favorite shots… she poured a very average whisky… very average. And whisky’s never the best shot to take anyway… I felt fine in the morning – but I did get a message from Julia saying that she hates me. So all is well. I leave another city with someone hating me; my goal in life is to have someone hate me in every city I visit. I think I might be on my way…

Only joking.

So from there it was up to Ithaca to see Amber one more time… not too much to say about that. Nothing that I want to write for the world to see anyway, but over all I think it ended as well as that sort of thing ever can. If not better… (?) I can’t say I’m not sad, but life goes on I guess… “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.” - Samuel Butler

Or something like that anyway… *coughs*

From there it was another 7 ½ hour bus ride back up to Toronto… actually had a reasonably comfortable bus and managed to sleep for a good portion of the trip, which was a welcome surprise. And I seem to have managed to sleep for most of today as well… I guess the last few weeks have caught up with me… didn’t realize I was that tired, but it was nice to have a good sleep… In fact I think I’ve been awake today maybe for a total of 3 hours… feel great. I think I probably should be conserving my energy for March and my trip down to Florida…

The title of my entry today I dedicate to the Museum of Art in Philly… Great. Great. Maybe more on that at a later date when I’m looking through my photos, perhaps… just something that caught my eye and made me laugh… very thought and emotion provoking place; the Philly museum of art… in particular I was a peculiar mix of extremely amused and furious while walking through the section titled “Modern art”… *shakes head*

I should be an artist…

Philly… Cold Toes and V-Day…

2007-02-15T08:48:00.000+10:30

Right…where do I start? I guess firstly I have to say that a few people who have read my blog have said I’m maybe a bit long winded and maybe a little too meticulous at detailing my travels… I guess I agree with you, but you have to realize too that this is as much for me in the future as it is for you now, you know? So when I look back I can remember the things I experienced… so while I’m having a good time, you’ll hear about it. If there’s too much for you to read, that’s okay too… skim thru it, whatever… see that there’s too much in a post and don’t bother at all… *Shrugs* I’m a pretty easy going sort of bloke, so you know… whatever… *grins*

So today was a pretty shitty day weather wise. Icy rain and a build up of snow on the streets meant that I spent quite a lot of time in-doors. But with the Philly Hostel, they have a policy of kicking people out from between 10.30am and 4.30pm, which means that for like 6 hours you have to find something to do. So I went into a few places, got a GREAT omelet and the best brewed coffee I’ve found in the US from a diner down the street. Went to a couple of information booths etc, then I found one place that you had to pay like $9 to get in, pretty much like a museum of federation. That was pretty funny, you should have seen all the people’s eyes light up when I walked in at about 11.30, I must have been the first person that they’d seen all day when they weren’t expecting anyone… I got the royal treatment, my own personal guide, and they even got the actor guy who obviously normally performs to a full auditorium, to start the 17 minute “play” just for me. First thing he says as he walks in the door was “what? D’you miss your flight?” So that was funny… luckily an older couple came in within a few minutes and he had an audience of 3, which is HEAPS better I’m sure… Anyway, so I sat thru this play on what it is to be “We The People” which made me feel very patriotic… sort of… I like my dual nationalities just fine thank-you anyway…

Then I went and saw the Liberty Bell… It’s a bell… *shrugs* um… yeah…

So, yeah, from there I just wandered up and down the city a bit… not venturing too far out of my way cause of the weather and the fact that after stepping in one deceptively deep puddle, I got water in my boots and now have cold toes. Which I hate.

Anyway, Last night… I should mention last night… BIG thanks to Julia, my guide last night… Great Philly Cheese Steak, and bad luck about the darts… so close… I also have to say “Hi” to Kim. Only because apparently she didn’t want her name on the blog… *Shrugs* And obviously a huge thanks to Caroline down in Florida who knows that I’m not a serial killer and trusted me with her friend… Cheers… All much appreciated. Last night was as much fun as I’ve had on my trip so far, always good to meet really nice random people, and now meeting Julia (Random Twice Removed) who is HALF AUSSIE!!! It’s just added to the number of cool people that I’ve met. Anyway, as I mentioned I had my first (definitely not last) taste of a Philly Cheese Steak – which is like a long roll with chopped up steak and cheese, and onion if you want it… really good. The kind of food that is Great when sober, but you just wish you could find when you were drunk as well… From there we found a little micro-brewery place that serves its own beers… tried a few of them REALLY GOOD!!! Then it was all of a sudden time to meet Julia’s friends and show them that I hadn’t killed her… So, yeah, that was basically the rest of the night… the group of us came 4th in a quiz night, and then 4 of us moved on to another bar where we played darts – and I pulled out a bulls eye to win in a very close one. Then I got a taxi and missed the curfew of 2am by about 10 minutes… luckily there were still people downstairs to let me in or it would have been a long walk back to find someone’s couch…

So that’s Philly so far… Happy Valentines day everyone… for those of you with someone on this very red, flowery love-heart covered greeting card company induced day, I hope you have a great night… The rest of us… there’s always next year… but it sucks being alone when you see so many people not being alone…

There’s Always Beer…

Heights, Other Things...

2007-02-14T01:30:00.000+10:30

So, Yesterday I went up the Washington Monument - 52 stories. I'm getting quite good at being inside tall buildings, there was a moment or two when my legs didn't want to walk and i didn't want to let go of the elevator, but that passed quickly and once again i found myself right at the window looking out over DC. One good thing about this and also the Provincial tower in Boston was that there's no "outside" area, so to look straight down, you're still up against some pretty serious glass.

So first thing i did yesterday was find the Ford Theatre - where Lincoln was shot, and across the road to the house where he died... I didn't go inside... *shrugs* Then i found the Spy museum... I reckon i spent a good 2 hours wandering around inside there... for the first hour or so it was really interesting, for the second hour I was starting to get a bit bored - it was mostly about the cold war and the manhattan project, but that was still okay. Over all it was still a decent afternoon... From there i headed in the general direction of the Holocaust museum, but detoured via the booth where you get the (free!) tickets for the Washington monument, where amazingly enough they had some spare tickets for the 4pm tour. Obviously i took it.

After the Washington monument I ended up at the Holocaust museum for about an hour and a half. That was interesting too... infact, i think really everything i've been to has been interesting... to some extent. They had a lot of interactive displays and things where you can look up names of people from the holocaust... lots of quiet areas, that sort of thing...

Then I had a fairly early night after chatting with Caroline down in Florida and working out the skeleton details of my trip down there... sounds like it should be a lot of fun...

Right now its snowing fairly heavily, not sticking, but enough to make my walk to the subway a little un-comfortable... anyway, i dont reckon its heavy enough to stop the bus... life goes on.

The photo up there is of one of the fountains at the WWII war memorial... it got my attention, all the pennies just sitting there... so many wishes... I wonder how many came true? I wonder about the people who threw the coins in the water... how long ago? how many are still alive? maybe its better not to think about it...

DC - Bloody Feet & Pillars

2007-02-13T02:57:00.000+10:30

Right… so I’ve been in the nation’s capital for 3 days now I guess… and my lack of posts probably says something to you… I guess it could say several things – it could say that I’m having so much fun that I haven’t had time to write anything… unfortunately that’s not the case… I mean, its not that I haven’t had fun. Oh, no… maybe it is… fun is not really the word. It’s been really interesting… I have enjoyed seeing all the places and museums and exhibits and things. The Smithsonian is amazing in all its facets… the monuments and statues are incredible and on such a massive scale – one that’s really hard to comprehend until you’re standing at the base of one of the million or so pillars, looking up at the ornate carvings… I mean, the time and energy involved must have been ridiculous. It’s not like I haven’t seen pillars before… I have… but I reckon if you took all the pillars here, and stood them on top of each other you’d get to the moon, and possibly back again… it’s like an ancient forest of marble. Crazy stuff…

So, the first day I reckon I walked for about 8 hours… timing myself I think I walk about 1 ½ steps per second, that’s 90 steps per minute, that’s 5400 per hour, so about 43,000 steps… at about 70cm per step (conservatively) that’s about 30km… I don’t know if that’s right or not… but the blisters on my feet tell me that it’s not too far off… I guess with time to stop and take photos, you might round that down to maybe 24 or 25km… either way… my feet are sore, and I’m looking forward to getting back to Toronto and wearing my sneakers for a couple of days… anyway; the first day… I first walked down towards Capitol Hill, found that, got some photos, walked around the back of it and bumped into a large group of girls (18-22yo) from salt lake city who got me to take their photo in front of one of the buildings – squealing when they heard me speak – its quite an experience… *coughs* then I walked back down towards the Washington monument, took some photos, then kept on in the same direction towards the Lincoln memorial… took some pictures… walked past the Vietnam memorial, took some pictures… kept on walking and got to the Thomas Jefferson memorial… just around sunset, got some nice photos there… walking walking, back across past the Washington monument, night time, got some more photos… saw the Whitehouse and thought “what the hell” walked to the white house, got some more photos… and then went back to the hostel… took my shoes off, realized that the pub crawl was about to start, put my shoes back on and headed out… had a few beers and got home at about 2am… not a bad day…

The next day I spent sleeping mostly… left the hostel at about 2pm and went to the museum of natural history, which was good, but not as good as the one in NYC… wandered around for a bit, decided to catch the Subway to Union Station, which was pretty cool, got some food, some more photos, and then headed back on the subway, transferring to a different line to go to a supermarket where I got some fresh fruit and some yogurt, which I ate when I got back to the hostel. Spent some time talking to some people that were heading next on their travels to NYC, and then got an early night.

Today, I’m going to walk past the Ford Theatre, maybe go to the holocaust museum… and then I think I’ll be just about done… It’s meant to snow this evening a fair bit, hopefully not enough to stop my bus leaving in the morning… we’ll see…

The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. - Heinrich Heine

My last day in New York

2007-02-10T07:51:00.000+10:30

So, after a really good nights sleep, I stuffed around organizing my stuff until about 11am, then decided to do a bit of a walk around central park until I had to be back here at 2.30 to meet Thomas and Kev and go do the boat trip. Okay, now just some advice for any of you thinking of ever coming to New York… awesome place, great things to do, I mean the people leave a little to be desired in some cases, but in general, well worth it… If you get the chance to go see Central Park, make the effort, go and see it, but leave yourself more than a couple of hours. I got to the park and did what I really like doing in new places- got myself lost… didn’t know which way is up, and I generally have a really good sense of direction, but I was lost… anyway, I eventually found myself towards the northern end of the park and all of a sudden an hour had gone past… so I figured that I had to head south and eventually would run into the reservoir which would mean that I was roughly in the area that I had to be to get back to the hostel at around 103rd st. So I walked and walked, and eventually found the reservoir, and headed around the edge (got some great photos) and again, got to the end of that and another half hour had gone, so not knowing how long it was going to take me to get back, I walked a bit faster. Walking thru some baseball fields, and the eventually not having any idea where I was, started jogging… The problem was that by that time I was in a part of the park that had some really cool things to take photos of, like Cleopatra’s needle, and some statue of a Polish dude on a horse with two crossed swords – awesome… so I was running, and like “Oh, Shit… I have to get a few photos of that” and running some more, and “Bugger… that looks awesome” anyway, eventually I found the edge of the park that I needed to find, and realized that I was on 81st street – 22 blocks from home… luckily there was a subway station right there and I caught it the 2 stops required and all was good… now I have a sore foot from running…

Then it was on to the cruise up the river… We took the 4pm one on the recommendation of another traveler who said that you get the best views at that time of day. Boy was he right… leaving the dock it was a bit glary, but soon enough the sun started to set, and apparently the smog of a huge city gives a pretty awesome sunset… yeah, got some good photos… only problem was that on a cold day, its even colder out on the water with the wind and stuff… there were several times that I couldn’t feel my fingers, at all. Not “I had cold fingers” – I literally couldn’t feel my hands. And then when I could – It hurt like hell. Photos had to come first – who knows how long before I come back?

Anyway, that took 2 hours, and afterwards we went to Starbucks and got a hot drink to warm us up a little bit… then I went back to Macy’s and bought another suitcase… *coughs* its not that I bought that much stuff in NY, and I was almost going to get another suitcase before I left Australia… but I found a good one and at a decent price and it will save me carrying around like a duffel bag or whatever which I can maybe leave for Shannon and his 60+ books that he’s collected over the last 8 months or so… *shrugs*

Anyway, then I got back to the hostel, relishing the fact that it was only 9pm and I was going to get a good nights sleep after being really organized and getting my bags packed before bed and all… but Irish had other ideas for what was also his last night in the big apple… and we went out for a “couple of pints”. Interesting night… he decided to try the old “buy a round of drinks for the girls at the bar” trick… which apparently works… sort of.

*coughs*

Anyway, I got back to the hostel at 3am, and although not hung over – I am pretty tired and I might just let the gently buffeting of the bus lull me to sleep…

Next stop – the nation’s capital – Washington DC

Post-It!

2007-02-09T01:29:00.000+10:30

Okay, so what’s happened since my last post? Right… well, I posted them Tuesday shortly before I was heading out… We went to that comedy show I'd mentioned which was OK. There was only about 10 of us in the crowd that had braved the Cold, including 3 Jewish guys from Melbourne... that was funny enough... but yeah, the comics were actually pretty good. Then we went to the city looking for a bar… so, the first place we found was ok, met a random Australian guy from Sydney who kept looking around when I spoke, and eventually came over for a bit of a chat… From there we found another bar and met 3 guys, one of which was from somewhere… ah… not sure, but somewhere that he had to fly back to at 6am the next morning. So yeah, anyway we chatted to them for a while, and he told us that the reason he had to fly back in the morning was because his wife was having their third child, so we were like “HEY!!! AWESOME!!! SHOTS!!!” so we all had a shot of something that one of the guys had made up himself on a previous occasion which consisted of Jaegermeister with Crème De Menthe floated on top… not a bad shot, although, as with anything that involved crème de menthe, it just tasted minty. At one point a couple of girls came over, a girl from Scotland, and a girl from the West coast… I think the guy with the baby asked them to come over and have shots with us… I really don’t remember. I do remember that the Scottish lass was an engineer and appreciated my toast to the new baby that whatever it was, it was intelligent… and the girl from the west coast turned out to be an assistant buyer with Macy’s who had actually bought most of the clothes that I was wearing that night, but had a very low opinion – in general – of men. I replied that that was okay because I have a very low opinion – in general – of women… so we discussed that for a while, and I’m pretty sure that in the end we both saw the other’s point of view… She agreed that women can be “difficult” and I let her think that I listened to what she was saying. JOKING PEOPLE!!! Its okay... they were really nice, and I actually would have preferred to stay there talking to them, but Irish and the guy with a baby coming and his 2 friends wanted to go to somewhere called the “meat packing district” yeah, sounded dodgy to us too… but we caught a taxi down there and wandered around for a while – just 5 guys looking for somewhere to have a couple of drinks, and getting rejected from every single place. Was quite funny… eventually we took a cab back roughly to where we’d been in the first place and found a place to have couple of drinks and play some pool… we got back to the hostel at about 4.30am, leaving the other guy to pack and get to the airport extremely drunk… I feel a bit bad, but i'm going to blame Irish. He drank heaps more than me and egged the other guy on to stay… *shrugs*

Anyway, after about 4 hours of sleep and being woken up by a couple of annoying Japanese guys who talk in a way that worries me… like corny Japanese TV voice-over people hosting one of those shows where Japanese people hurt themselves or other people in cruel and unusual ways to the hilarity of the audience… Makes me think they're talking dirty to eachother... Anyway, was meeting the English and French guys and heading down town, ended up checking out Greenwich Village, which was pretty cool once you knew that it really wasn’t a village that I was looking for, but a section of the city that is sort of old-school… almost like it escaped damage from the fires in the 1800s and is still sort of plodding along at a slightly slower and more scenic pace than the rest of the city. From there we found the Flat Iron Building, got some good photos, took some photos of the Chrysler Building, and then went thru Central Station and got some more photos. From there Me and the French guy went to the Guggenheim Museum of Art… really interesting building for something that was built 50 years ago, architecturally its really cool… a big spiral to the top wandering past Picasso’s and Dali’s artwork… as well as a lot of other stuff that I just can’t remember the artist’s names, but yeah, that was good…

Then I went and thought I’d find Bloomingdales. Went in, looked at the price of a pair of jeans and walked out again. Ridiculous. When %15 off a pair of jeans makes $50 difference, and still doesn’t make them affordable, you know that you’re in the wrong place…

Then I went and fixed my bus ticket and got back just in time to head out again, this time We were going to Chinatown for Dinner – one of the guys had had a $4 plate of Chinese that was apparently pretty massive and wanted to go back, so this time it was English, French, Irish (who'd gotten out of bed at about 6pm!), and a random Argentinean that had just moved into the bunk next to mine and I met while getting ready to go out… Very multicultural of me, don’t you think? I even left a post-it note on Kendall’s door to see if she wanted to come along and bring some friends… She didn’t get the note until later… Anyway, we went, ate, when it became apparent that we weren’t going to go to a bar, Irish and Argentinean left, and we went into Times Square and took some photos… and that was it up until pretty much right now… I slept like a log… I could probably do with another few hours, but *shrugs* I’ll sleep on the bus to DC tomorrow…

Hopefully.

Right now I have to get up and have a shower and maybe go for a wander around central park…

EVEN more from NYC

2007-02-08T02:43:00.000+10:30

Okay… today was a much bigger day… So, Kev (Irish) and I had talked about going on the walking tour of Greenwich Village this morning – a guided tour around that part of the city departing at about 10am… so I got up (groggily) at about 8, and wandered around until about 9.30 when I made a mad dash in a T-shirt down the street to the ATM cause you can only take $100 out at a time at the one here and they charge you an extra $1.75 on top of it… stuff that… plus the tour cost $10, and they only take cash. Anyway, 10.15 rolled around and we were advised that the guide had called earlier and cancelled due to the fact that it was freezing cold outside and there were only 2 names on the list… nice of them to tell us earlier (by the way, most of the people working at this hostel are from New York… it’s a shame… but they’re rude, boring, and have very little personality… real shame)

Anyway so Kev and I were sitting around with nothing to do, so we decided to get the City pass book which gets you into all sorts of city touristy things, and start the day by taking the ferry tour around Staten island and the statue of liberty etc… all well and good… we took the tram to times square (Helped by some locals who told us that the 2 and 3 trains are express and only stop at a couple of places – one of them 42nd which is Times Square) finally figured out which direction we were meant to be heading, walked the 15 odd blocks to the dock, and found out that the tour during Jan and Feb isn’t running on Tuesdays or Wednesday s… funny… ha-ha… yeah. So the next closest thing was the Empire state building… so back we trudged towards the towering peak – that’s one thing about New York… If you do happen to get lost, you can generally always see the tip of the empire state building sticking up above you somewhere… which is sort of comforting in an overpowering sort of way. So we found it, and we found the entrance and we headed up to the start of the tour, where we found out that because we got the City Pass book, we got the “Sky ride” for only $10 instead of the usual $25. The sky ride is like a virtual helicopter ride around New York… on like a hydraulic platform that seats probably 30 something at a guess… and after some initial problems (that were apparently solved by closing a door properly and asking the dude what time he was heading to lunch – the answer was 2.30 by the way for those of you interested… I know we weren’t) we were taken on a fast paced stomach lurching virtual tour of the city. Pretty cool, but I’d feel mighty pissed if I’d paid $25 for it, even if it was commentated by Kevin Bacon…

From there we headed to the lift. Those of you who either know me or have read my blog at all in the last week or so would know of my fear of heights and of my recent visit to the Provincial Tower lookout in Boston. At a mere 50 stories, I was not afraid at all and quite comfortably looked out over the edge of the building to the streets below… The Empire state building is a building that a month or a year or 10 years ago I could have quite comfortably told you that I had no intention of ever going to the top of. But it was part of my city pass book, I’d paid for it, and it’s really only 46 stories higher than what I’d been in in Boston… only twice the height, HA! Nothing… a Piffle… and on top of that I was strengthened by the fact that Kev from Ireland is even worse with heights than I am – to the point of burying his face in the corner of the lift as we went up… Pretty funny… *coughs* anyway, we got to the top, and once again, I surprised myself by being OK. I mean… not fantastic, and no where near as comfortable as I had been in Boston, but OK. I even went outside and got right up to the edge (eventually) and took some pretty amazing photos… Very proud of myself… it’s something that a lot of people would not believe I could have ever done… but I’ve changed guys… I even talk to girls now! I know… amazing…

So after another hilarious lift ride down to the bottom we decided that the next stop would probably be the Museum of natural History, so we went there, had a look around, there was an awesome show in the planetarium which would have been awfully romantic to take a girl to… and there I am with an Irishman… *frowns* something wrong with that picture… but it was a 25 minute presentation on collisions – from the collision that formed the moon, to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs to a few other ones that I cant recall right now and hosted by a voice out of the darkness that although initially I thought was going to be introduced as God, was actually Robert Redford… after the show Kev was bored and decided to come back to the hostel for a nap, and I continued to loose myself in the museum. No, really… I got lost… its an amazingly huge place… but I got some great photos of the exhibits… really pretty cool… and Huge… not something you can really do in half a day, so I figured that Id look at a couple of floors and promise myself to come back at some point, with a romantic interest and do the whole thing properly… with someone who appreciates that kind of stuff…

So I eventually found my way outside – fortuitously on the side where central park is – which is where I wanted to be, just as the sun was beginning to go down – and looking like it might have been a really cool sunset I decided to find some places to take some good photos… I think I did alright – played with the shutter settings on my camera a bit and got a couple of what I think are probably alright shots… some of you will see them at some point… *shrugs* some of you might not… some of you will if you want to ask me nicely. Anyway, I killed a good hour wandering around Central Park towards the city (past a part of the park that they were pumping throat burning artificial snow into for some festival or other) and then caught the subway back to the hostel… where I am now…

Tonight I’m going to a comedy thing on Broadway… I’ll let you know how that goes in the next few days!

Ciao for now…

More from NYC

2007-02-08T02:28:00.000+10:30

So… Big day… started latish and decided to go straight into the centre of the beast – 42nd St – Times square. Even in the middle of the day this place is lit up like Christmas, the 4th of July and New Years, all rolled into one big extravaganza of corporate advertising and Neon lights. Amazing place… you could just stand there for an hour transfixed by the flashing colors, and then strangely have the urge to go eat McDonalds, have several gallons of coke, eat some M&Ms and then go see 15 Broadway musicals… including about 3 versions of the phantom of the opera, and 5 things you can’t pronounce. Anyway… I didn’t spend too much time there, I quickly found the direction I needed to head to get to Madison Square Gardens and pick up my hockey ticket for that night – which I did with no hassles at all… very quick and easy (having said that I saw the line up that night before the game and I’m glad I did it early).
From there I thought I’d go and see if I could find the empire state building – I did… eventually I looked up high enough and there it was… towering above me like some really… um… tall building… It’s ugly… I mean, I guess when you’re that big you don’t need to have cosmetic beauty, its all about how friggin big you are… was actually a bit scary - I looked up towards the top of the building and there was a window either open or had been smashed, and it looked like how it looks in movies when the door opens in an airplane and the air is all rushing out cause of the difference in pressure… there was thick ice all around the window and you could actually see the air escaping… - I tell you one thing – I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that window. Ever. And apparently I’m thinking of going to the lookout at the top today… I think im crazy. But I did the one in Boston okay… this should be fine… *fingers crossed*

From there I found the Manhattan Mall… which was okay… just a mall… got something to eat, had a look around… I did find a really cool shop that sold a range of college and humorous t-shirts (sometimes they’re the same thing…) 3 for $20… I restrained myself… as much as I love a funny T-shirt… don’t know… I might have to go back today… *coughs*

Then I saw Macy’s… and being a big fan of department stores in all their shapes and forms, I figured I’d have to like “the biggest department store in the world” I ended up deciding that I needed to buy a “going out” outfit, which I managed to do in only 2 hours. I find it hard shopping for clothes for myself when I don’t have anyone there telling me something looks bad. So I went a fairly safe option, a nice pair of Levi’s a shirt and a couple of “sweaters” all name brand stuff and all came to just over $100… not too bad considering I know I would have paid at least that much just for the jeans alone in Australia, and ON TOP of that being a tourist at Macy’s entitles you to a further %11 off your already fantastic value purchase! Even if the service was a bit average (at one point a manager blasted about 6 staff who were all standing around talking – GREAT STUFF!) I figured I did pretty well… Funny thing in Macy’s… I reckon I heard more British accents than almost anything else… it was quite funny, and actually it seems to be a resounding theme throughout the city that there are a LOT of Brits here.

Anyway, by this time it was time for me to head to the Ice hockey game. Detroit Vs New York… without going into it too much; I was allowed to take my camera into the game, which was good – and I got a few good action shots, I was a bit disappointed that I hadn’t been able to take it into the game at Montreal. Madison Square Garden, while possibly being the most famous stadium in the world, is definitely not the biggest… the stadium at Montreal was definitely bigger, and more comfortable. Maybe that’s just cause its newer… who knows… maybe its because new Yorkers would be uncomfortable if they were comfortable… *shrugs* Anyway, I spent an enjoyable game listening to the swearing of a couple of Russians behind me… where the Rangers lost a close game 3 to 4. Having let a 3 1 lead slip from the first period, the fans were rightly pissed off… I would have been too if I’d actually cared who won, as it was, I thoroughly enjoyed myself – apart from worrying that my batter was going to run flat or I was going to run out of space on my memory card and the bread stick that came with the beer…

As we got up to leave the announcer cheerfully suggested that we rug up as it was a toasty 15F outside… so it was a fun ride home wrapped up as one comedian commented “like the mummy”. No, actually it was a fun ride home on the subway… I had my headphones in my ears and my I-pod playing music I like, doing some people-watching. Its funny the looks you get as you’re fumbling in the bottom of your bag with gloves on trying to find a pen and note book under recently purchased clothes from Macy’s with only your eyes showing between your beanie and scarf. Across from me sat a woman who looked remarkably like Whoopi Goldberg… there were people reading books, staring off into their own little world, or with headphone in like me riding the subway to their own personal beat… feet tapping, singing away in their head… was a nice moment… people are still people, even if they’re from New York… whatever they might think… Some people even fall asleep on the trains… it’s a crazy thing to do – a couple of South Africans in my room cheerfully recounted that the last night on the way home after “a few” drinks they fell asleep on the train and ended up on 250th street… I cant even tell you how far out of their way that is – but our stop is 103rd… so that might give you some idea…

Oh, just an observation – apparently the brand “The North Face” is THE jacket to own in NYC… I reckon at least 1 in 4 jackets is that brand… which means there’d roughly be 2 million of them walking around the city… amazing… its everywhere…

Anyway, so I got back to the hostel after the game and who should be sitting at the computers? None other than my Irish friend from Montreal… crazy stuff… so anyway, we got chatting and ended up going out for a few drinks and got back at about 2am this morning… pretty funny…

As for my own personal view on New York City… I mean, everyone says they Love NY… I don’t know… I mean… I don’t think I love it… I like it… its an amazing place, and I respect it… how can you not? It’s a pulsating, girating, hive and hub of civilization… but love? No.
Not yet anyway…

Minutes on a day in New York… Colts, Ground Zero and Spiderman…

2007-02-06T03:21:00.000+10:30

Firstly… I have to say I think today is possibly the coldest day I’ve experienced… at least on a par with when I went to Niagara falls… really really cold… today, I woke up at the reasonably early hour of about 9am after still getting around about 14 hours sleep I was understandably quite refreshed, I decided to catch the subway into the city… not knowing exactly all of the things that I wanted to look at in New York or even if I did know what I was looking for, then where these places might be would have still alluded me without a map.. I got a map. Good thinking… anyway, I got the no.1 train right to the end of its track which is at south dock or south pier or south… something… anyway, it stops where you catch the ferry to Staten Island. I looked at the map and saw that there was nothing on Staten island that I particularly wanted to look at, so I decided to head out along the waterfront where you could see in the distance – the statue of liberty… took photos, walked some more… got cold… found a sign that said “world trade center site” and thought that I’d go have a look…

The world trade centre site is an interesting experience… I, personally, found it very emotional… (But I find most things emotional, so no real surprise there…) anyway, I took a few photos, then got around to the part where the memorials and photos and things are… and my eyes started leaking. They had a list of most of the names of the people that had died… it’s a big list… they had pictures drawn by children saying that they miss their mommy or daddy and they had… you know… flowers and stuff… I don’t know whether it was one particular part of the memorial… but… yeah, I got very emotional… good thing it was so cold that I had my scarf wrapped around my head several times and all that could be seen between that and my beanie would have been my red watery eyes… could have just been from the cold… yeah sure… anyway. *coughs* From there I went across the road to the church – forget which one it is now… more old gravestones, and some more memorial stuff on 911… from there went and found a shop that sells stationary things and got some blank DVD disks so those of you who I said I’d send some photos to can expect them to arrive some time in the next … say… 6 – 8 weeks… I’ll get to them eventually. Don’t worry.

From there… I went half way along Brooklyn bridge (I figured if I don’t need to go to Brooklyn, then I mean, the bridge is symmetrical, its going to look the same from the other side… so from half way along you can see heaps of stuff (some of you might know it as the bridge on Fantastic 4 where the Thing pulls the fire engine back from the edge etc, or more importantly where Jessica Alba strips off to her underwear…) including the empire state building which looks really tall… and looking up at the suspension wires you can maybe see where the inspiration for Spider Man came from too… the cables look awfully like a spiders web… .It’s really quite cool…

Anyway, I was pretty cold by then so I decided to start heading along Broadway towards whatever might be the next subway station… past quite a few dodgy looking shops, and heaps of gangsters… some of them were pretty scary, but most of them just made me laugh… I just love the way they talk (y’all). On the way I got what is currently my favorite drink from dunkin’ donuts – their white hot chocolate, and a blueberry (my favorite berry) donut. Was all good, and before long I found myself at the subway…

Overall it was a very good day, planning on starting maybe at times square tomorrow and heading south towards 34th street where I have to pick up my ticket for tomorrow nights hockey game… I think there’s probably easily a days worth of stuff to do within those 10 or so blocks… I may come back tomorrow a little financially drained… we’ll see… it would have to be something pretty amazing, cause whatever I buy from here means I need to get another suitcase as well… which sucks…

Oh, and apparently the cold loosens your shoelaces…

The day ended downstairs in the Hostel (which I think may at one point have been an asylum or hospital or something… ) in the TV room watching Super Bowl XLI, which the Colts came from behind a very early start by the Bears to win 29 – 17. Good game… really interesting to watch it in America where people actually have some idea of what’s going on, and can actually get into it a bit more… pretty funny. Once again, met some nice people… this time I didn’t get their names – one girl who’s just moved here from the west coast and is an environmental engineer with the Govt… she’d been to new Orleans with the recovery team… all sorts of places… really interesting… and then I met Kendal in the hall way afterwards… in fact it was one of those situations where every time I walked out of my room she was there, or she’d walk out of hers and I was walking past… funny… after the 3rd time we were laughing, after the 5th she introduced herself… she’s just moved here from another state and is going to school… staying here until she finds an apartment… Like I said… gotta love hostels!

Bed time… there’s an old (slightly scary) Argentinean man in the bunk below me who I’m SURE is going to snore tonight… piss me off… anyway… I’m gone.

More later…

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense. - Carl Sagan

Bahsten and beyond...

2007-02-05T03:36:00.000+10:30

So… Boston was fun… as always, met nice people at the hostel, this time another English guy and another French guy, this time who could speak English quite well… still hilarious some of the things he said, but good people. I found that the Boston accent is in some cases very Australian sounding... which was cool...

Anyway, Friday night was the Boston hostel’s pub crawl… well, not so much of a pub crawl, as go to a pub, then go to a dance club… which we did… and on the first night in Boston this season that they’ve had real snow. Excellent… Anyway, it was a good night, there were only about 8 of us in total, all guys… one other Aussie, which is always nice… I think I would have had a much better time if I hadn’t drunk so much… I was pretty sick… and once again, I had a bus to catch the next morning… Stupid… oh well… its all good now. So anyway, it was pretty funny, at one point we got “scouted”; a couple of girls sent they’re male friends over to find out about us (me and the other Aussie) and then came over afterwards and tried to pick us up… it was interesting… and at the same time, I wasn’t interested in the slightest… from that point on I don’t really remember much… apart from maybe finding out that it was some random girls birthday at the dance club… maybe... *shrugs*

Like I said, the bus trip from Boston to NYC was okay apart from my hangover… the bus was absolutely packed. Then I caught the subway from the bus depot to about 3 blocks from the hostel. Again this would have been fantastic if it wasn’t for the hangover, and the bag that I must have somehow packed to be unevenly weighted to the left while I was still drunk and hung over that morning… today should be much better, I packed a lot lighter and I got about 15 hours sleep…

Anyway, I’m off to see the Big Apple...

Facing a Fear... and walking a long way

2007-02-02T13:28:00.000+10:30

Today I woke up fairly early in my top bunk of the Boston Hostel international, having slept intermittently thanks to the snoring and fidgeting of a couple of Koreans in the same dorm... I decided, after my breakfast bagel, to go for a walk with my camera - so I walked until i found something that looked like it would be good to take a photo of, then found that I could actually go to the top of this particular building and it had a 360 view of the city. Those of you that know me would know that I'm scared SHITLESS of heights... now this is fear to the point of phobia... its knee trembling, gut scrunching paranoia... the kind of fear that freezes you in your tracks like a deer in a trucks headlights... its not good. But, for some reason, today I decided that it was time to face it, so I went to the 50th floor of this building that looked very much like it wouldn't sway in the wind (a very good thing) and had a REALLY good time. Didn't even have a moment of fear... it was great... and got some great photos too...

Then I went thru Boston commons, meeting maybe the most friendly squirrels ever in the process... and eventually found the freedom trail - 4 or so hours later i got back to the hostel... had a really good walk...

that's all for now, more later!

Montreal - Notes d'une ville française... (Notes from a French city...)

2007-02-02T02:05:00.000+10:30

SO… 3 nights in to Montreal and it’s been a whirlwind, but great fun. I have decided so far that I like Hostels. I’ve met quite a few people already, and every one is really friendly. The first night I got here, I went into the common room and instantly got invited to play some pool… met an Irishman and two Canadians from Nova Scotia, and ended up getting invited out to a bar later on… so about 5 of us went to this place that had been recommended – keeping in mind it was recommended by a Frenchman – the place was only playing French pop/dance music. My first impression was that of a normal sort of nightclub but where everything is French and the music, while sounding like it came from the early 90’s, was also French, and also really bad. I later think I remember thinking that it’s good that they make music for white people to dance badly to, and I also remember being glad that the French, after all their reputation, still can’t dance… So, anyway, I ended up loosing most of the people that I went out with in the first place, and left the place at close which was about 3am… and went around the corner with my new French friends and got pizza… over all a really really good time…

The next day, I thought was the day that I was meant to be going snow shoeing… but it turned out to be the day of the big hockey game Montreal vs. Ottawa. I got a cheap ticket thru the hostel and when I got there I realized why – it was up in the “nose bleeds”. But I enjoyed myself thoroughly, for my first experience of ice hockey I was very impressed, and I’m even more excited about going to the NY Rangers Vs the Detroit Redwings… should be fantastic… someone told me its an inter-conference game too so it only happens between these two teams once every few years… Interesting thing about ice hockey – its played in 3 17minute periods… each of which lasted at least 35 minutes… with penalties, stoppages, and advertising… Crazy… *shrugs* I guess that’s the way the world is now…

Yesterday was the snow shoeing and the pub crawl… but it turned out that there weren’t enough people for the guided tour, and only one other person who wanted to go snow shoeing… the guy at the counter suggested that we go anyway, so we did. Cynthia was over in Montreal from Victoria BC for an interview with an airline, and had always wanted to snow shoe. So Snow shoe we did go, very tiring, but a lot of fun, got some great photos, and snow in my shoe… and very cold, we rode the bus/metro/underground there and back… was a good day…

The pub crawl for me started at about 6 when I was sitting in the computer room of the hostel surprising myself by fixing the problem I’ve been having with the wireless connection on my laptop… now, excuse me while I introduce the cast – because it sounds like the start of one of those jokes where an Irishman, and Englishman, and an Australian walk into a bar… but it was very much like that… there was an Irishman (who came out with everyone the first night) an Englishman (newly arrived from Vancouver) A Frenchman (literally just off the plane from Paris) two other Australians (from Sydney on holidays for a few weeks) and myself… We spent most of the first half hour trying to decipher what the French guy was saying (lots of hand signals… like the most painful charades experience of my life) in the end it turned out that he works for Luis Viton, has a girlfriend back in Paris… (you don’t want to know about the hand signals he used to tell us that…) and he was hungry… anyway, we went out into the cold (0 F) and found a decent little pub with reasonably cheap meals, and happy hour prices of $10 jugs… of which we got 4. The Englishman and myself polished off one each and the other 4 shared the other 2, the French guy was the biggest lightweight I’ve ever seen… so funny… the Irish guy had been drinking all day, so we forgave him, and the other guy and girl from Australia did okay… but we can take into account that they’re from Sydney… so its okay, it was good to have other Aussies there after hearing nothing but French accents for a few days I was starting to go a little bit nuts – I think the first night I actually dreamt in French.. Nothing I understood, but scary nonetheless…

Anyway, we got back to the hostel in time for the tour guide to show up late, which was good, and headed to the first of maybe 4 or 5 bars… drinking was done, numbers dwindled from about 12 (we were joined by a couple of Belgian girls, a German lad, another Australian, and a French Canadian girl who also worked for the Hostel and helped our guide with stuff)… to by the time we got to the last place (which also happened to be the nightclub we went to on the first night) there were maybe 7 or so of us… it was going off… songs that I knew this time (still from at least 10 years ago… but in English this time!!!) and once again the French people that I met the first night were there and I got in at 4.30 this morning… great great night… so funny… *coughs*

ANYWAY…. And now I’m on a bus, slightly hung-over and ready for a nap, having had only about 4 hours sleep…

Oh, this is another reason I love hostels – this morning when I got breakfast (another reason I like hostels) I saw a girl there I hadn’t seen the previous nights, and thought nothing more of it… until I saw her again at the bus stop, and we chatted for about an hour while waiting for the bus… Caroline, about the same age as me… got 18 months thru a 2 year shiatsu massage course, and developed carpel tunnel syndrome… then some other stuff happened, and now she’s decided to quit everything for a while, get away and go to Burlington in Vermont to meet some friends… *shrugs* was nice to have someone to chat to… the randomness of hostels, while I can see it would be tiring doing it for too long, is fantastic…

I slept for a bit… and we just stopped at a little place called White River, transferred busses cause the other ones heater was broken… so I went over and got McDonalds… over salty very average fries, and a burger that I’d never seen before – always one to go for the thing that’s most advertised – I tried the “Big and Tasty” burger… definitely wasn’t big, and certainly wasn’t any more tasty than any other McBurger that I’ve tried… disappointed but not surprised unfortunately. I thin to surprise me they would have to have lived up to the name of the burger.

And now – To Boston – and back to the English language…

The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel. - From "Taxi"

On the road again...

2007-01-31T08:21:00.000+10:30

Woke up at 6am this morning after an interesting night’s sleep… the thing about Shannon's room is that there are a lot of bars and things close by, which meant that until about 4am there were drunk people shouting at each other down on the street. Rather frustrating, had time for breakfast though and ate granola and yoghurt as I woke up… good waking up food is granola - lots of chewing involved… the taxi that took me to the bus terminal – weaving its way thru the dark shiny monoliths of a sleeping city – was fast. As it turned out, the bus that I thought I was meant to take at 6.45, was really leaving at 7.30 and wasn’t even a greyhound… *shrugs* from what I can see, this bus is better anyway.

Everyone is sleeping, and I might do the same for a while, but firstly, just a couple more observations on Canadia… one thing is that they have milk in bags. Plastic bags. Never seen it before… interesting… the other thing is that drivers in and around Toronto – from what I’ve seen, really like using their horn… and for no apparent reason. I mean, I can understand that they’re frustrated that they’re Canadian… but I mean… live with it, eh? But seriously, they beep at each other for things that are ridiculous and unavoidable… and they even beep at pedestrians walking across at the lights – nice… here we are walking around outside in ridiculously cold weather, and they’re sitting nice and toasty in their SUV’s… lovely… real nice.

More Later, Sleepy…

Montreal… everything is in French!

A quick note from Montreal

2007-01-31T02:58:00.000+10:30

Just thougth i'd write a quick note to let peole know i'm alive. My laptop doesnt like the wireless internet at the hostel, but rest assured i will give a more detailed account at the next opportunity.

Ciao...

Aftermath...

2007-01-28T06:25:00.000+10:30

Okay, first… there are several things you don’t want to happen the morning after you’ve had a big night, the first is that you really don’t want to wake up to someone screaming – which is good, cause that didn’t happen. The next worse thing that I can possibly think of is to wake up to someone whistling the 12 days of Christmas – badly – for easily half an hour. I swear there were about 4 months of Christmas instead of just the 12 days. The next worse thing when you’re feeling fairly sick is unidentified cooking smells… Then the lights come on, and then the TV. Then people decide that once you’re up that they don’t want to watch it and they turn it off again. And leave the room.

Awesome.

Then next bad thing that can happen is finding that you’ve injured your self in ways that you aren’t quite clear on… My knees are extremely sore, and I really don’t know why… I’m assuming that I must have fell over on the ice… anyway…

The night was good fun, great to hear the noise of boisterous loud drunken Aussies having fun. We got approached by a group of guys that are part of the local Australian rules footy team, they asked us to play… but they don’t start until like April, so by the time the season starts *shrugs* I guess I might be back at some point… don’t know. Although if I do come back in the summer, Shannon would be gone, so there’d be no real reason to come back to Toronto, as nice a place as it is.

Was cool too, bumped into the couple that I’d sat next to on the plane, had a chat to them for a little while, but it was a little bit uncomfortable, so I left…

And now I just feel hung-over… but I’ll live…

Australia Day Musings;

2007-01-27T07:33:00.000+10:30

Sitting in Shannon’s apartment looking out the window, listening to chasing cars by the snow patrol… I can’t normally write blog entries while listening to music, its distracting… but I felt the need to write… so here I am. One advantage of touch typing is that I can actually sit and look out the window as I type, not having to look at the screen, letting my mind wander and ponder the words of this song… looking at a city that’s virtually learned to live thru the cold… again, it was minus 15 as I walked here this morning and its so cold that my gloves don’t work and my fingers ache… and the breath coming thru my scarf wrapped around my face freezes on the outside. Then when you get inside it feels like your fingers are in vices as they de frost… its an odd feeling… reminds me of scraping the ice out of the old freezer at home and then putting my hands in the sink with hot water in it.

So its Australia day pre party, and I’m really looking forward to it, still deciding which T-shirt to wear.. the one that says “Fcuk down under” or the one that says “No Fcuking worries” I think it’ll be the latter… its nice to try to fool people (of course I have worries – who doesn’t?). I’ve done my bit so far and had some vegemite on toast… drinking beer will be later!

Here’s an observation for you, and a warning if you are ever planning on coming up here, forget driving on the other side of the road, this is much more important… people walk past each other on the right too… its keep right all the way here… trying to walk past someone on the left gets you funny looks… I feel like I need a T-shirt saying “Sorry – I’m Australian; We hang to the left…”

Another observation – snow does 2 interesting things that I’ve seen… sometime it goes up. Which is quite cool… Also the temperature actually goes up when it starts snowing. So its lucky its snowing now and I don’t have my long johns on cause I had to wash them… but its not so cold now, so its okay… only other thing about snow is that it stings when it gets you in the eye…

I’m just doing a final load of laundry before I go on Sunday on my little trip. Thinking of going down the street to see if I can find a nice outfit for “Going Out” all of my stuff is pretty casual, I do have a couple of shirts, but all I really have is jeans, and *shrugs* I don’t know why I need to tell you this… so I’ll shut up now.

I’ll tell you more tomorrow when I’ve recovered from tonight…

Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation. - Kin Hubbard

Considering... ?

2007-01-26T04:33:00.000+10:30

It’s -15C outside… I have to walk to Shannon’s place at some point this morning to have a shower, then I wanted to go into town. But its minus fifteen degrees out there… that’s just not sensible. You have to think that whoever settled Canada must have got here after a particularly mild winter and had made enough headway by the following winter that there was no turning back. You just don’t build cities where it gets this friggin cold, this be hibernating weather…

Yesterday I woke up at my current standard time of nearly midday. Which corresponds directly to 2 things, the first that my current standard time that I'm going to bed is somewhere between 2 and 3am, and the second being that I have no particular reason to get up any earlier most days. Today however I am up at 10am. A much more reasonable hour, and having said that, if it was Sunday, I would have already missed my bus. I’m going to have to set an alarm… someone remind me… anyway, all the plans are looking good, and I only have one gripe to voice, and that is directed at the greyhound bus company – both US and Canadian sides of the border… it seems that there is no easy way to buy a bus ticket that takes you across the border. All other tickets can be purchased either on line or in person at another bust terminal, but if you want, for example, to purchase a ticket from Montreal, to Boston, as I do, there are some limitations. Well, really, there’s only the one limitation, and that is that you can’t buy it from anywhere but the Montreal Bus terminal. Which unfortunately forgoes the chance of getting the cheaper fare and saving myself $25. On top of that, when I tried to buy the ticket at the Toronto bus terminal, all they said is “no, we can’t do that here” further information was not forthcoming as to HOW or WHERE I could actually buy the ticket, calling the greyhound company directly to try to buy the ticket over the phone, I found out that apparently the US side of the company can’t process international credit cards. Which I find odd, having bought all my tickets that way so far… but “Maybe the Canadians can help you”. Maybe not…

On other news… ah… yeah… well… um… the latest album by “The Shins” is pretty good… I like it anyway… that’s about it… been pretty quiet…

I need a shower

Leaving Me Tour My Own Devices…

2007-01-22T03:15:00.000+10:30

So I’ve finally decided to throw myself off the deep end and dip my toe into the world of the Hostel. Now, I’ve seen the movie… I’m hoping its NOTHING like that… Torture and hacking off of limbs isn’t really my cup of tea. Cheers anyway, no, really, its alright, I had something before I left… but it promises to be a lot of fun, no doubt I will keep you informed along the way, and probably before then too, but *shrugs* it just popped into my head that I probably should see more of the area so my plans are as follows:

I leave on the 28th of January for Montreal, on the Greyhound, 3 nights there, then to Boston for another 3 nights, 4 nights in NYC – time to see the sights and also catch an Ice hockey game between the NY Rangers and the Detroit Redwings. That should be a Hoot. Especially when I don’t care who wins or looses. Always a good thing for me to not be TOO involved in the game – unless I’m painting my face that is… then its okay. After that I’m heading to Washington for another 3 night stay, and then up to Philadelphia for 1 night before stopping (fortuitously enough; just before valentines day) in Ithaca for a bit… again, not sure how long, or what the plans are there, but it will be good to see Amber again… of course… Then depending… I might head down to Florida for a week and meet up with my friend down there, see Disney world or land or whatever the one is that’s this side of the continent… I have to see "the keys" apparently too… may involve hiring a car *rolls eyes* its going to be an expensive month… you only live once...

So today was spent lounging around doing very little until I decided on my trip, then it was spent booking hostels online, checking bus timetables, and planning my day tomorrow. I need to buy my bus tickets from the depot itself, then I want to get a little tripod for my camera… taking photos at night time is turning out to be more than the built in image stabilizer can handle… I also need to work out what I’m going to take… I need to pack warm but light… *Shrugs* will check out the travel stores and see if anything jumps out at me... as things tend to at that kind of shop... oh well...

Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you. - Calvin Coolidge

Oh yeah...

2007-01-20T11:33:00.000+10:30

Forgot to mention that I got accepted into uni... So, I've deferred until '08 and will spend the next year deciding whether or not I go to school in Adelaide, or if I can find something in the UK. Will wait and see!

"I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down." - Mitch Hedberg

A Brewery Tour, a Movie and Aussies on Ice

2007-01-20T05:37:00.000+10:30

Yesterday was a good day… it started late, when I woke up around 11.30 (coincidentally about the same time as I’ve woken up today) and we sat around the house until about 2. Chatting to Amber and Mum at different times. Then Shannon and I went back to his place… not sure what we did, but we left there at about 4 heading in the general direction of where Shannon thought he had heard the brewery might be. Roughly.

So we took a street car (tram) most of the way and disembarked at the furthest part of the loop and started walking. Funny enough, we turned a corner and bumped into the travel shop that Shannon needed to find to change his ticket. We had time, so we went in and after they decided they didn’t know what they were doing and took Shannon’s number, we JUST had time to get to the brewery for the tour.

The tour was good. First thing they did was give us a beer, that was actually also the second thing they did, which no one complained about. The tour itself was shortish, but good, having seen other brewery tours I guess I knew most of the technical side of how beer is made – not to mention that we went thru the process in the bar course I did. So what I found the most interesting was the history of the building itself, which was an old train yard, and in the early 90s the neighboring exhibition center wanted more parking space – the city wouldn’t let them knock down the building and put up a multi-storey car park, so they pulled the building down, dug down 14 stories for car parking, and then put the building back together on top. Crazy. Anyway, after the tour, we got another beer, and a 6pack of their beer to go. Each. As we were walking down the street Shannon slipped and fell on his beer, which broke… but from there we found some more ice and slipped around deliberately. That was hilarious… great fun…

After that we went and saw the movie The Good Shepherd. Really good… then we went to a bar and met a couple of Sarah’s friends… but I had a bit of a headache. No actually, it was a really bad headache… but it was a fun night. And as we left it started snowing lightly, which was really pretty. But needless to say I slept well last night…

Today I have to do laundry.

Niagara Falls And A Biscuit

2007-01-18T08:23:00.000+10:30

So… I’ve partaken in my first real touristy adventure so far in that I’ve visited a renowned tourist attraction. Niagara Falls is, as most of you would know pretty much on the border between the US and Canadia, so on Saturday on the way up to Toronto, Amber and I decided that it would be cool to go and have a squiz.

We left at about 10 am from Ithaca and arrived at about 1ish at Niagara, as we were hungry and Amber knew that I had been wanting to try an American biscuit, we stopped at a restaurant chain called Bob Horton’s (I think that’s what its called) which Amber informed me has awesome biscuits, and she hadn’t been to in ages cause they don’t have them in Jersey. ANYWAY, there we stopped, and got our breakfast/lunch. Amber ordered a biscuit and something called Grits; which turned out to look like couscous or rice pudding, and taste like porridge… and I ordered a biscuit meal (consisting of a biscuit with eggs and a white gravy and a massive side of “home fries”) AND because they looked good, I was hungry, and I didn’t know the size of the meals, I also ordered a tasty looking pancake with apples and cream cheese filling… *coughs* both of my meals were HUGE… The Biscuit turned out to be something like a savory scone (that’s the best description I have of it) smothered in scrambled eggs and a whitish gravy/sauce that is beyond description (mostly because it had very little flavor). Home fries for those of you wondering – are like potato chips except cut into squares a couple of centimeters across, and then fried I guess… REAL healthy. Then the pancakes came out and they were a good 20cm across, 2 of them with cream, apples, caramel, and this vanilla cream cheese between them… I nearly couldn’t finish. But I did, much to Amber’s surprise.

From the diner we asked directions to the Falls, because strangely enough as you drive into Niagara there are very few signs or directions on how to get there. I guess when you’re a town with such a famous attraction; you don’t ONLY want to be known for that one thing…? After all, they have massive casinos and hotels too… and a thriving ghetto community (according to the girl at the restaurant who apologized for the fact that we’d have to drive thru it on the way to the falls – which we thought was quite funny)

We parked maybe 30 minutes walk from the Falls and trudged thru the reasonably fresh snow and ice to the falls, when we got there I went to get my camera out and realized that I’d left my memory card in the laptop when I was last transferring photos across. So we made do with Amber’s camera and got a couple of decent photos. But then we saw that there was a free car park right at the falls, so we decided to go get the car and drive back and take some photos with my big camera. Amber being Amber was more than accommodating and sympathetic to me for forgetting my memory card… but we won’t dwell on how great she is…

Anyway, since we’ve been in Toronto, we’ve been to the art gallery to see an exhibition of photos by Ansel Adams and some other guy that I can’t pronounce or spell his name. That was very interesting, some great photos, a lot of photos that were very familiar and have obviously been around for a very long time. And that is about it… On Amber’s last night in town, we went out to dinner at a restaurant called the Keg, which was a massive, beautiful mansion which served possibly the best meal I have eaten in ages, amazing. Great service, awesome wine, fantastic steak and mouth watering deserts… was a really nice night.

Since then… I’ve wandered around Toronto a bit… its VERY cold at the moment; the last few days have been around the -14 to -6C range… which Is interesting. It’s a strange feeling being so cold that your face is actually aching. I think I’m wearing nearly everything I brought with me clothes wise…

Talk to you all later.

If someone wants a sheep, then that means that they exist
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery

My second coffee and some snow…

2007-01-10T05:57:00.000+10:30

I’m sitting in a little place called Collegetown bagels; I’ve just had my first not plain bagel – a pesto bagel covered in pizza topping. Great… my first coffee was a cappuccino, which was mostly foam, and what wasn’t foam was bad coffee… I’m hoping that my second coffee – a vanilla latte/cappuccino… (They got it wrong) will be better… I’ve also got a maple glazed donut. Just for something different… I’m currently sitting, facing the window at counter on a stool… watching light snow drift thru the air like heavy dandruff. It’s just starting to settle on the pavement, not much, but enough to see where it’s been… mmm… the second coffee is slightly vanilla flavored bad coffee… *shrugs* oh well… you can’t win them all… the donut is good. Now the sun is out, and I’m contemplating what I can do for the rest of the day…

New York, New York, New Years...

2007-01-09T06:16:00.000+10:30

We left for new York city at about 3.30 on a bus that was mostly full… we all had to sit separately, and my seating partner was a massive black man who didn’t want to share and was spread out fairly well over the whole of both seats. So I sat right on the front edge of my seat and talked to Amber until we got to Newark airport and a few of the seats freed up so we got to sit together for the last 20 minutes of the trip… Coming into New York City was interesting; I don’t think maybe, it was just the fact that it was dusk and overcast… I don’t know… but it didn’t’ look really as big as I’d imagined it. Perspective is everything I guess. But we got in and the first thing that hit me as we squeezed thru the thronging masses was – strangely enough – how many people were there. And how many people actually spent money on stupid looking 2007 flashing glasses…

The forecast was rain, and it was pretty cold, but not too bad… we found a place to eat which was really nice, went upstairs and ordered a really nice bottle of Australian red wine, I had my second American steak… which as Amber has always told me, was very nice… I don’t know if it was THAT much better than how they do them in Australia, but it was bloody good. Then we headed downstairs and had a couple of drinks at the bar, which was quite nice…

Moving on we found a smallish bar a little way up the street that was interesting, we sat down and they had like really old books surrounding us, so we all grabbed a couple of books and had a look at them for a bit as we drank our assorted alcohols… after that we walked maybe 100 meters up the road and saw a sign that said “house of brews” we went up and it said that they have over 80 beers in stock, which for us was enough to go inside. As we walked thru the door we had just seen the sigh that said they have coopers pale, and we were all cheering, literally, the whole of the bar turned to look… we were like, ah, it’s okay, they have coopers *grin* .when I told the waitress that we were from the city that coopers is from, she said we weren’t allowed to have that then and we had to try something else. We were too drunk at that point to argue too much… well, not really that drunk, but… you know… she was hot… that was at about 10.30pm, and we had like a booth thing, and a big TV to watch the ball drop, so we decided to stay. It turned out to be a great little bar, and I would definitely say so far that its my favorite place so far in New York… to be fair, its out of 3; so… we’ll see next time if I find something else… we had an interesting guy come join us at one point… he was a pianist from Kentucky… first time in New York, very chatty, and he’d been drinking for the last 2 days or so… but, yeah, great guy, lots to say… lots of hand shaking and asking the same questions over and over… and he asked Sarah if she wanted to go home with him… but over all, he was harmless and quite funny…

The countdown was fun… we had hats. Of course Shannon and I, being our fathers sons, have big heads, so they didn’t fit very well. But they were there. We had noise makers too… but yeah, more stuff happened, but nothing so interesting that I can be bothered writing about… we left the bar at about 3.45am, at a guess… it was raining… we wandered relatively aimlessly for a while until someone suggested that we find the Rockefeller centre, which we walked past several times before realizing that they had turned the lights off of the big tree that everyone had been looking for… so then, still damp and frustrated by the blusteryness of the wind and the smallness of the umbrella handle, we walked in search of something open to eat in or have a coffee at… unfortunately we walked into the first place that was open. It was terrible, from the food, to the service to the looks we got when amber asked if she could pay by travelers cheque… rude, dirty and nasty… so that left me with a bad taste in my mouth, literally and figuratively… and we left for the bus terminal and had to wait about 2 hours before the bus was due to get in… Shannon and Sarah joined the many people trying to get some sleep on the hard tile floor, and I think I fell asleep several times while I was standing up… eventually I sat down when the bone aching weariness was too much to bear, and within about 3 minutes of my eyes closing a couple of police men walked thru telling everyone to stand up and kicking (gently of course) those that were too asleep to wake up straight away. I was up and on my feet at the first sound of a voice of authority, although it may have been 5 minutes before I actually realized that I was standing up and had taken stock of my surroundings…

The bus trip back was better… we all slept… then we got home and we all slept some more, we in at about 10.30, woke up at about 7, and then went back to sleep until about 10 the next morning… its amazing how much sleep you need to catch up on one night without any…

Right now, I am sitting in a mall in Ithaca NY, the first place I’ve found that I’ve been able to get internet so far on my trip, apart from a park bench outside the Toronto university library… about a week has passed, its been fun but relatively uneventful… if anything exciting happens, I’ll be sure to let you know… next weekend we’re planning on heading up to Toronto for the weekend… *shrugs* that’s all for now…

It’s about 5 or 6C outside, and it’s meant to snow, so I might head out into it and see what happens…

Bus Trips, Beer Pong, and Driving on the Wrong side of the road...

2007-01-09T05:54:00.000+10:30

So, this is written a week after the fact, so I may or may not remember everything that’s happened over that time… I have taken some notes so… we shall see…

The Bus trip from Toronto to Rochester was interesting… the first bus driver was rude, but when we swapped busses in Buffalo the bus driver was fantastic, really nice, made jokes about his Aussies, and asked where our crocodile pants and knives were… but then had his ear chewed off for the ENTIRE trip by an American lady with an extremely annoying nasal droning voice, who talked about her family, her job, etc, the whole way there. The bus driver was amazingly patient; I on the other hand made use of my noise canceling head phones…

Our last night in Rochester we went to a party hosted by one of Sarah’s friends, we took a bottle of cheap champagne each, which made it a lot of fun…. When we were ready for another drink though, we were told that we couldn’t… so, eventually we made our way back to Sarah’s place, picking up a half carton of beer on the way, and I had my first game of beer-pong… THAT was fun… *grins*

So, I’ve now hired and driven a car in the US… and apart from turning the windscreen wipers on instead of indicating a fair bit… I think I did fairly well… I didn’t crash, and I got everyone from Rochester NY to Allentown PA safe and sound. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Driving on the other side of the car is interesting… working out that the majority of the car is on the right hand side of me instead of the left was probably the hardest part, turning and making sure that I didn’t take out my passenger side… a little bit disconcerting, but all good… We got to the airport and waited a little while while amber found the right entrance and stopped circling… and then drove the 40 minutes or so back to her place…

Amber’s parents are Great, and her sister was nice too… very teenager, but very much like her sister… who, of course, is great also... Amber’s parents did everything to make us feel comfortable and at home… Their house is gorgeous… and the power only went off once…

We did a lot of sleeping and eating, watched a few movies, and generally relaxed… so that was good…

Time for a new heading…

Day1, snow and my face is frozen

2006-12-28T07:06:00.001+10:30

Snow! I woke this morning after a night of beer and burgers with Shannon, and it is snowing. So good…

I took the advice of some seasoned travelers and tried to just sleep normal hours, so I think I went to sleep at about 11 last night… or there abouts. Woke up at 11 thismorning. Good thing we didn’t get the bus today, cause we would have missed it. Today is a day of wandering around, maybe catching a movie. We went and got breakfast/lunch at a cool little restaurant/diner place, now we’re just back at shannons room doing a few things before we go back out into the cold.

I love it.

Overseas rocks!

Blurred Horizons

2006-12-28T07:00:00.000+10:30

Just a thought as I stare out the window of this American airlines flight to Toronto… it seems , today at least that the horizon is no more than a lighter, hazy mist in the general area of between earth and sky… no sharp line… I don’t know if it’s the weather, or if its pollution, I really don’t know… but it came to me a sort of thought… I guess… that it is sort of appropriate for my first day of my trip… yeah, I can see roughly where its going to end, but its hazy, there’s a line, but its not defined… clouds and pollution blur the details… I can see the basic outline of the landscape…

*Shrugs*

Who knows… But its fucken exciting…

Legs 2 and 3...

2006-12-28T06:56:00.000+10:30

Leg 2. Melbourne to LA.

Flight from Adelaide was completely uneventful… I did find that my Scull Candy noise cancelling headphones work wonderfully well. Very happy with them. I also found that short flight entertainment is imensley boring. My new book “Anansi Boys” by Neil Gaiman has started well tho, so that’s encouraging.

I am on hold with Telstra trying to change my phone plan, but I don’t think they’ve decided not to staff many people on boxing day - fair enough, I guess, it might cost them money… first call for my flight has just been announced, so more when I get on the plane.

On the plane:

And its not just any plane, it’s a big red one with aborigional artwork all over it… it looks really cool. But the seat is uncomfortable – and I’ve only been here for an hour, I can only imagine in another 14 how my arse will be feeling. One of the disadvantages of a window seat – you cant easily get up… obviously having a wall to lean against when you want to sleep is a huge advantage, but otherwise, its just another cramped seat on a massive red plane.

I could have guessed, I have a child, who supprisingly is not screaming sitting in the seat behind me. He is – however fairly regularly kicking me in the kidneys so that should be a hoot... I’m sitting next to a young couple who seem really nice, also on their way to Toronto.

Going through customs was ridiculously simple and no where near as scary as some people have made it out to be. Although it is meant to be worse on the other end of the Pacific where supposedly the Americans are rude and blunt… *Shrugs* that’s their problem… I got about $450 back at the tourist rebate scheme counter, which I am thrilled about. Everyone so far has been nice. All I have to worry about is my arse, and my kidneys.

The seats even have their own little screens in the headrests. Games, and movies all at my fingertips. And I wont even have to use my laptop…

Anyway – back to my book… more later in the flight.

My little lcd monitor in front of me tells me that there is about eight and a half hours until we reach our destination. We just experienced a quite wonderful sunset, but because of how fast we are going and the direction we are traveling, it really didn’t last long enough. Time enough however to have everyone scrambling for their cameras in time to get a photo. And now it is dark.

The kid behind me has just quietened after a good hour and a half of screaming and kicking my chair.

Looks like I just got to the toilet in time, as the line up has got ridiculous…

Probably should try to get a bit of sleep at some point… really don’t know what the best way to do this to avoid jet lag is… its only 5.30 Adelaide time, but sitting does make you tired. .. I might listen to some music for a while, maybe read some more… not much more I can say… I might even watch a movie until I fall asleep…

More later. *yawns*

Leg 3.

US customs, while slow and long winded, was relatively painless. And after getting into LA at about 7.45am and wading thru the fore-mentioned beurocacy, we were running late for our Toronto flight. (I say “we” I should clarify– the young couple from Melbourne who are working in Canada. We’ve been getting along quite well, we stood in line at customs for over an hour and they let me use their luggage trolley, and chatted: was good. Would like to catch up with them for a drink when I get to Toronto, they seem nice, and they said they don’t go out much)

I got a last call for “Masson” or “Manson” so that was funny. Because of this I had to re-check in, and the lady at the desk asked me if I wanted an emergency exit isle which has more leg room, which I was thrilled about, until the ginormous guy came and sat next to me, oozing out over both armrests and complaining about how cramped these smaller plains are. Then settled in and literally 2 minutes after take off, while we were still very steeply climbing, was snoring loudly and obnoxiously. So… screaming kid kicking me in the back for 14 hours, and now being squished against the wall by an overweight computer nerd, and hoping he doesn’t roll over on me and kill me for the next 5. So I have heaps of leg room, but no room for my body...

Great.

My first impression of LA as I stared down at the “Google-Earth”esque view was that of a massive computer chip… very ordered little squares, with the occasional dampener or electrode of a high-rise building. Then it got more into the hilly bits, which were quite nice, massive houses etc, but roads that look extremely poorly planned, winding all over the damned place… I guess its so the zillionaires can see how well their cars handle on windy roads… Crazy… Other than that, I don’t think it really feels that much different to the southern hemisphere. Fistly I guess cause another Qantas flight arrived at nearly exactly the same time as ours, and the whole terminal ws filled with Australians, and secondly, cause I didn’t’ go outside… it was just like Australia, except with a few American accents… and thirdly, cause I didn’t go to the toilet to see how high the water was, and if it spins the wrong way down the drain…

And its funny how some thing said with an American accent can sound hilarious… especially – and im not being racist in the least here - the black American stereotype way of talking… From what I’ve seen its not a stereotype at all, its true… imagine, if you will, a very large black American woman, security guard/customs officer, nice as pie, smiling at everyone, and as another security guard walks past, she calls out “hey! Tyrone, yo squeekin boy!” cracked me up… he had a squeaky shoe… *coughs* guess you had to be there…

Anyway, back to sleep I think…

I’ve had a chance to talk to the big guy sitting next to me… a doctor from Toronto, who’s just been to Brisbane for a day for something to do with doctoring… he works in Canada’s version of the Royal Flying Doctors… been interesting…

More soon...

Day of Departure – Leg 1 awakenings.

2006-12-28T06:55:00.000+10:30

Adelaide to Melbourne.

My alarm went off at 5am this morning. I turned over, moaned, and pushed my wake up time back another hour… I woke up at 5.55 am got up and had my shower. At about 6.03 I heard the house vibrating and realized that I hadn’t disabled the alarm on my phone, and it had been going off for a few minutes. You have to realize something about my mobile phone alarm – it is un-relenting. It will beep at you in progressively more persistent ear splitting tones, until you get to it and turn it off, or until the battery runs flat. I very rarely even let it beep once, the first half vibrate is normally enough to snap me awake, that’s how light a sleeper I am. Having said that, if I am snoring it doesn’t wake me up… why is that I wonder?

Anyway, I woke up at about 6.30 well after my shower and last minute rushing around was over, and waited for a while until I felt it was sufficiently close enough to 7am to wake up Sunil, who had very kindly offered to take me to the airport. Thus saving me about $25 in taxi fees. As we drove to the airport we chatted a bit… I told him about my interesting week… frustratingly interesting, both good and bad, and neither of which I will recount for the world… as I’ve said before, Life goes on…

The day has dawned cool and clear. I’m glad its not the 40+ that I predicted, because I am wearing enough winter clothes to keep me warm (I hope) in the minus whatever temperatures that are bound to greet me when I get to Toronto in 30 something hours. This has served 2 purposes – first is that I can claim as much of the stuff as possible that I’m wearing at customs on the way out of the county in Melbourne, and secondly is that I could close my bag. It is very full. I am hoping to see it again in north America….

And here I am… sitting at gate 22 at Adelaide airport, waiting the last few minutes before departure, an empty take away coffee cup on the seat next to me… a little nervous. But still not fully comprehending where I will wake up next… sweating lightly in my Icebreaker merino undergarments…

More later.

A Serendipitous Christmas Day; the emotional eye of the storm.

2006-12-25T10:37:00.000+10:30

It really really doesn’t feel like Christmas at all…

Christmas drinks at work were good last night, and I caught up with Damien, my best friend from primary school that I haven’t seen in probably about 10 years… so that was good. I got a card from my work mates and $160, which I was chuffed with… I was expecting maybe $50 or so… it seems I am reasonably well liked… monetarily at least.

All in all, life goes on… my Serendipitousness continues… and I’m finding myself in a quite content and peaceful state of mind. Maybe it’s the eye of the storm, goodness knows the last few months have been anything but emotionally calm, and who knows what the next few months will bring… Maybe I’m subduing all of my emotions and fears and hoping they go away. Right now I feel very little… which is probably a bad thing, because I really should be packing…

I would just like to add one thing before I go and have a shower and maybe think about packing some stuff… (And thank you to Caroline for my word of the day – Serendipity) I’d just like to say that timing sucks… but life is too short for regrets.

Here’s to Serendipity! May it continue to fill our lives with confusion and happiness! Cheers!

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties. - Sir Francis Bacon

If you had to remember a city, today would be the day to remember it.

2006-12-18T22:12:00.000+10:30

I have probably said it before, but I really like Adelaide. Today was a really nice summers day, mid 30s at a guess, warm breeze, lots of smiling faces. I have spent the day not packing, I might get a chance to do some tonight, but I don’t know… I think having everything organized so early has given me nothing to worry about, I’ll probably leave the packing ‘til the last minute, just so I don’t feel so anal.

Anyway, I’ve spent the day in the usual manner, mostly wandering around the city. Got a hair cut… last one in Australia for a while, and I made it practical (so I can wear a beanie) yet fashionable (I paid $59 for it… better f@%#*g look good). I also got a message from the travel agent saying that my Contiki tour stuff has come in (good thing it came in today, wouldn’t have had a chance later in the week…) that came in a really cool document pouch thing, which is a shame, cause I had already bought something that would do the same job… *shrugs*.

Then I sort of started walking in the general direction of the river, but for one reason or another (main reason is I couldn’t be bothered) I turned around and decided to head home, figured I could write my entry from the comfort of my air conditioned house, laying on my bed… but I got to the parklands at east terrace and it was nice and shady and so very very green and I decided to find a piece of grass and stop. So I’ve stopped.

So other than that; I’ve drunk 3 bottles of green iced tea. Which I have grown a taste for. And I’ve been walking everywhere in my crocs. Which now that they have stopped rubbing the top of my feet off, have become quite comfortable, and only leave black marks everywhere, which is better than blood any day of the week. And I’m trying to not think of how close I am to leaving… as excited as I am, its all a little daunting. I don’t think I’m afraid, but I’m definitely nervous.

In other news, I’ve found the program that I’m going to use to do my photos with and send them home, had a play with that yesterday, all pretty straight forward. I also downloaded the program that the Uni uses for the digital imaging part of their course. It’s a really cool program by Google called sketchup. And it’s FREE! Or at least the basic version is. Have a play @ www.sketchup.com . Good fun, and there’s a really good tutorial at the start that gives you some really good grounding. Also my “soup-n-salad” looks like it will be in at Crumpler before I go, which I’m happy about.

And that’s about it, I’m going to go read for a bit, and then continue not packing probably…

Entry 2 - A Giant Mug with a Bagel, and Sand Castles in the Mall.

2006-12-12T21:16:00.000+10:30

So….

I think interesting is the best word to describe what happened today. Joan Lesley “international psychic” (I assume psychics aren’t limited by international travel) on first impressions, quite an ordinary older lady, sort of like a young grandmother in characteristics and familiarity… with a bachelor of psychology. She said some very interesting things. To start with she asked when I was born, instantly she was saying that I’d had a tough year…(after confirming what everyone this year has told me – that I don’t look 27) she asked when my ex was born (I didn’t tell her I had an ex – but I guess these days, who doesn’t?) and I told her. She proceeded to describe her and her entire family to me in fairly accurate depth and detail – even to the point of saying that the parents were into something like spiritual or religious or something (they are pastors). Spooky. Anyway, without getting too nasty, she told me exactly what she thought of her, what she’s like and even gave a sort of description of her. All very accurate. Then she asked me about who I was seeing now, and again, without going into specifics, told me that she liked her. A lot. I replied that so do I. and she asked why I was so worried about it, etc etc… don’t want to jinx what she said, but it was all very interesting. Told me about my traveling… said that the New Year was going to be awesome and that the next 5 or 6 years would be fantastic for me, a whole new start etc… Maybe in part I heard what I wanted to hear, maybe she used her psychology degree to read me more than her cards… but there was definitely some interesting things said. She finished the session by calling in the girl from the office and telling her to do some “cleansing and balancing” and ‘cause its Christmas, not to charge me for it (she was a master of the add on sale) and then she said to do something else which I couldn’t pronounce and under her breath said “and only charge him half price for that” *rolls eyes*. Anyway… they took me to the back room and told me to take off my shoes and socks and roll up the bottom of my pants, then I laid on my back on a massage table, they placed a weighted blindfold over my eyes and stuck some headphones on my ears and played elevator music to me with a background of twittering birds and heavy rain. I like rain, but the foot massage was even better. They did some other things that I’m assuming cleansed and healed and balanced me, but I would have paid $30 just for them to do the foot massage for half an hour. It was good. When they’d finished they suggested that I had a lot of pent up stress and that I should definitely come back before Christmas for another healing… I told them I was working right up until I leave and bid them thank-you and goodbye. One interesting thing is that Joan taped the session. That’s right. Tape. I don’t own a tape deck. In fact I know very few people that own tape decks. . . I think its time for her to go digital, I should have tried to sell her a CD recorder… with an extended warranty (at half price). As I left I was told I should drink plenty of water and juice and not cross my arms or legs.

Make what you will of that.

One interesting thing I did notice was the presence of a lot of Catholic symbolism; posters, wall hangings, statues etc. I’m not quite sure what the Catholics would think of that, especially when at one point Joan said that the Archangel Michelangelo (or something) was standing at my right shoulder protecting me… I mean, that’s nice of him, but I’m sure he has more important things to attend to… like peeling God’s grapes or something…

Then my schedule led me to the gym where I had an appointment to cancel my membership. The lady came over to me and asked me my name… gave me a puzzled look, went away, came back and told me that my membership was cancelled in July, and that I hadn’t paid anything since then. I’ll have to check my bank accounts, and to be fair, I haven’t actually checked that it has been coming out, I just assumed. But I never cancelled it, and according to the normal rules of gym membership, if you do cancel you should still have to pay out the rest of the 12 month membership costs, and I didn’t. So. That’s good news… I’ve saved several hundred dollars without actually knowing it. It doesn’t really reflect in my bank balance and I don’t know what I’ve done with the extra $39 a fortnight, but I am glad that it hasn’t gone to a membership that I haven’t been using.

Then while waiting for 6 o’clock to roll around I found a Starbucks and got a “Venti” mug of the coffee of the day, which was Verona… a dark chocolaty sort of coffee in a ginormous mug. They also had bagels there, and as I’m going to the states soon, I thought I probably should try one. I picked a Blueberry bagel, and after electing to pay the 75c for light cream cheese I watched as the girl battled with a bread knife to try to saw thru the dense donut shaped bun. I then waited 10 minutes for her to remember that after it had been toasted, she’s actually meant to give it to me, and smiled as she handed me the luke-warm bagel and said if it wasn’t hot to tell her and she could do me another one. Not being one to complain I said it was fine and sat down to my bagel and cream cheese and enormous mug of chocolaty coffee… and wrote some of this entry. I realized at one point that I was sitting with my legs crossed and quickly un-crossed myself.

Then I left for the Architecture info night. On the way I passed some very cool sand castle sculptures with a Christmas theme. Very cool, I guess if you have to make snow men out of something when its 40C outside, it might as well be sand…

The architecture information was very interesting… I really felt like I was keen to be back in that environment of learning and study. Good thing about the course is that it involves a lot of hands on stuff, very few exams and a lot of group work. All of which suits me fine. The model building looks really great, and there are a lot of excursions and field trips to go on… wait and see if I get in I guess.

Time to head home, the wind is starting to pick up and it’s getting quite cool (nothing to what I’ll be experiencing in a couple of weeks – but enough to raise the hairs on my arms and harden my nipples)

Anyway, I guess if I’ve gotten anything out of today, it’s the thought that if you are what you drink – then I’m a giant mug with a blueberry bagel…

Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing. - Randy K. Milholland

And it rolls around again - First Entry: 12 Midday...

2006-12-12T21:01:00.000+10:30

Going to be a fairly full day today, shopping this morning was interesting in itself. I took a backpack and filled it with all the liquids and heavy stuff so my arms didn’t drop off… but it was seriously about 15 kg I reckon. That was my second workout for the day, as I finally motivated myself enough this morning to go for a run!

In about an hour I’ve got to leave for town… got that appointment with the psychic… that will be very interesting. They told me to have questions to ask her, and photos of people you want to know stuff about. Some things I think are probably best not to know, so I think I’ll just let her tell me what I “want” to hear… that in itself should be interesting. A few of my cousins have been to see various “seers” and have come back with spine tingling hair raising revelations or predictions… so… yeah… I’ll let you know.

Then I have to go to the gym and get them to cancel my membership. Such a waste of money that’s been. Should just tell people to get glandular fever – that helped me loose weight, since then I’ve never felt better. And I’ve started running, I honestly think that’s the key – exercise… stuff diets…

Then at 6 I’ve got an information night at Adelaide Uni about the Architecture course I’ve applied for. Don’t find out whether I’ve gotten in until about the 16th of January. And I’ll be somewhere in the US at that time…

But right now I have to go down and see if I can figure out how to extract the power supply from my PC… and take that to the place I bought the computer from on the way into town. Hopefully it’s that that’s not working, cause I really can’t’ be stuffed carrying the whole tower down there. And I’ve only got one more day off work before I leave, so I don’t have time anyway…

More later in the day.

Aimless Wanderings... Results and Christmas Shopping.

2006-12-07T21:04:00.000+10:30

So I got thru a day off without blogging… amazing. I think the main reason for this would have been the fact that I was actually uncharacteristically busy. I woke up at about 8, which is about normal for my days off... unfortunately gone seem to be the days of me sleeping in until 11am (or staying in bed until 5!) I got up and once showered and dressed I went to do my weeklyish grocery shopping. Came back, pottered around the house for a bit, and then called Amber, spoke to her for a satisfying and conversation filled hour or so… maybe a bit more, then decided that I would move my room aground.

I’ve been in my room now for nearly a year and its been the same the whole time, on Tuesday I moved it all around, made myself a heap more room, and only get to enjoy it for another 3 weeks… wish I’d done it months ago…it looks good… Bed in the corner, view out the double door onto the balcony if the curtains are open... yeah... looks good.

Then I checked the mail, in it was my stat test results. I did quite well, 166/200 and better than more then 90% of the rest of the people that have sat the test. Hopefully it’s enough to get me into architecture… I think the first round of offers come out tomorrow. I'll let you know.

Anyway, after that I went into town, didn’t take my notebook cause I had my bar course afterwards. So I wandered around town for a while… somehow hurting my leg in the process… felt like I’d strained a ligament of something on the side of my right knee, which was annoying.. but when I went to get something to eat from Woolies for my bar course dinner, I got some pain killers and some fish oil tablets… took 2 pain killers and a fish oil tablet, then another 2 painkillers about an hour later when it still wasn’t feeling any better… and its come good… still on the fish oil… someone told me it was good for aches and pains and stuff… and I don’t know if it’s the tablets or the fact that I’m just not in any pain, but… well, I’m not in any pain…

Went and booked a session with a psychic next week… will let you know how that goes…

Then I went to my bar course…last session and practical test. Got my results for the written test – got 48/50. And as happy as I am with that, it’s really not very surprising considering, as I said, that the teacher was going around giving us help… I think I did quite well in the prac. Didn’t spill the tray, poured 3 passable beers, messed up my fruit cup a little bit, but not too bad… think I did alright in everything else…

Then walking home at about 8.45 down Rundle Street, I walked past the nova cinema. Well, that’s not right, I didn’t walk past it, I walked into it… saw that a movie that I sort of wanted to see was on in about half an hour, and decided that since I’d had such a good day, and that it was a Tuesday so the tickets were cheap, I would watch a movie. The movie was A Scanner Darkly… interestingly made movie… cell shaded over actual filmed footage… strange effect, sort of messes with your head a bit… took a while for my head to get adjusted to the style. But over all, money well spent, and a nice end to a very nice day.

Yesterday at work was good too... the last few days at work have actually been really good… lots of people realizing its Christmas and deciding that they finally want to buy a TV… and I’ve found myself using the line “I’m leaving in 3 weeks, I want to do as many deals as I can before I go… blah blah blah” seems to be working, cause the last 2 days I’ve worked, I reckon I’ve done nearly 10G a day… so that’s good. If I can do that sort of thing every day before I leave, it should help the bank balance a little bit at least. I think I only have maybe 2 more days off work before Christmas...

Christmas shopping is hard…

Anyway, it seems like I’m really just dribbling today… no real continuity to my thoughts… Today I’ve done a bit of Christmas shopping (not much mind you…) wandered around town as aimlessly as my thoughts… it’s a nice day again, and again I’ve found myself down at the river front… watching some people building something on the grass… looks like maybe the flooring for a massive pavilion or something… anyway… enough for now… I’m reading a really good book at the moment and I want to get back to it…

See ya.

No degree of dullness can safeguard a work against the determination of critics to find it fascinating. - Harold Rosenberg

Another Day Off...

2006-11-30T20:38:00.000+10:30

Another day off, and I think I’ve established the fact that I don’t necessarily only write on my days off, although I feel a certain obligation to do so, but I’ll write when and where I feel like it. So there…

Today, once again, I find myself sitting on the banks of the Torrens, listening to the sounds of a city; traffic, sirens, water fountains, giggling school girls feeding a flock of assorted birds (ducks, seagulls, half a dozen black swans and a grumpy pelican) and feeling, over all, quite content. The wind is starting to pick up however and I think I see rain on the way. At the first sign I’ll be packing up and heading home, it was in the mid to high 30’s when I left just after lunch, its now probably under 20 and clouding over quite heavily. I’d love to say that I’d see another thunderstorm, but I don’t feel that tingle in the air…

This particular spot along the Torrens is a little bit further up than last time, across the river I can see Adelaide oval where tomorrow the second Ashes Test match will be played... to my left are the entertainment and convention centers… quite nice architecturally speaking, and certainly are distinctive features of the Adelaide river front “skyline” not that they’re very tall, but then again, not many of the Adelaide buildings are. To my right is the king William street bridge into north Adelaide and I can just see the steeple of the big cathedral that marks the entrance to that suburb sticking out above the trees in one of the parks. The “Pop-eye” river boats have been slowly cruising up and down as I watch, tourists waving vaguely to everyone on the river bank, taking photos of people they will never meet, in a city that they probably will only ever see the surface of… Pity…

I really don’t have much to say today… I met a few people in the mall that I knew, one girl from the bar course stopped to chat. She missed the test on Tuesday, 'cause she’s just got a job at one of the big department stores and was asked to work late. I told her that she’d probably be able to sit it this coming Monday, cause the teacher said that if anyone failed it they’d be able to re-sit it then… not that I think anyone would fail it… it was pretty straight forward, we were given 2 hours, and most people were out inside an hour. On top of that the teacher was wandering around the room giving anyone hints on any questions they were having problems with. So that was pretty funny. The other person I met was a guy I went to school with, who didn’t go to the reunion, and he spent about 10 minutes grilling me on what it was like. Didn’t want to be rude and till him he should have just come… but I think he saw it in my face cause he said he’d definitely come to the next one – whether that’s the 15 or 20 year reunion is obviously yet to be decided. I hope they do a 15… it was really good to see everyone.

I think I left the house today with the intention of maybe going to the zoo for a wander around… I did the other thing I was going to do – that’s pay my Contiki tour off, and then wandered thru the university grounds in the rough direction of where I thought I’d seen the zoo once. I knew it was somewhere along the Torrens so I headed that way. I think I smelt it before I saw it… found an entrance and saw the price of $18 per adult and thought I might leave it for when I’ve got a full day to waste. No point spending that much just on an afternoon, so one day in the next few weeks I’ll write an entry from the zoo… maybe pack a lunch, and take a few drinks so I don’t have to pay the exorbitant amount that they are guaranteed to charge once you’re captive inside their gates. Like a lemur or something made to eat whatever they have and pay whatever the price…

Anyway, I think I’m forgetting to do something… not sure what yet… I’m sure I’ll remember after I had to do it… *shrugs* the air is starting to warm up… maybe we will get a thunderstorm after all…

…

Home now, just to wrap up the day… Did get a thunderstorm, just a little one, and then some really heavy rain. But with-in half an hour it had dried up again and the sun was out. Heard on the news tonight that it only got down to 29.6C last night… no wonder I didn’t think the air conditioner was working so well… that’s the hottest spring night on record in Adelaide... *shrugs* the change has come through now and its cooled off… big day tomorrow, 12 hour shift at work… might get an early night.

Thanks for coming… Have a nice day!

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it. - Arthur Schopenhauer

Hot milk on a hot night - no sleep again...

2006-11-28T22:46:00.000+10:30

So last night was the 4 week mark till I leave. Didn’t sleep well last night… not sleeping so far tonight either. And I tried… I really did… last night I think I hit deep sleep at about 4.30am… roughly… and I had my alarm set for 5.30 to go for a run… which I haven’t done in ages. Maybe that’s one of the problems… too much energy ‘cause I’ve not been running… hmm…anyway, I got up at 7.

Lots on my mind though. Yeah, lots. But I don’t want to labor you with my concerns, suffice to say that some things seem to go thru my head more than others when I lay in bed at night, staring at the place where roughly I would see the ceiling if it was light.

Have tried the old warm milk again, and it seems to be working; my eyes are getting heavy and squinty. Or it could just be that my laptop screen is too bright for using in a pitch black room. I’m going to say it’s the milk…

Thinking about going to the gym tomorrow… also thinking of riding my bike into work… also thinking of getting up at 5.30 and going for a run… Thinking in general that I’d like to be as fit as possible before I go away. I spoke today to a guy at work who’s from Toronto, and asked him what I should expect of winter over there, he said it’s quite likely that this is going to be another mild winter, and to only expect an average of about -20C. He said (in response to my look of astonishment mixed with a liberal amount of disbelief and a healthy dash of “get lost”) that it’s nothing for it to get down to -35C or there abouts on a bad day… SO… That’s good then… good thing I got this Ice Breaker stuff… I just hope it works as well as the price gives me the hope that it will. But yeah, I don’t think I’ll exactly get a chance to go out for a run at any point over this winter, so I’d like to be as healthy and physically fit as possible before I plunge into the icy winter of the northern hemisphere.

My situation puts me in mind of those slightly eccentric Scandinavians that sit in a sauna for a while and then run naked and jump in an icy pond while whipping themselves with birch branches… except for the nakedness and whipping (I think…). Leaving mid-summer (there’s a pretty good chance it will be in the mid 40s here) and arriving in mid winter… hmmm good idea that one… *rolls eyes*

Anyway, I’m going to try to sleep again…

‘Night.

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?"/ Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
- Charles M. Schulz

Reunions (opinions, alcohol, and hangovers)

2006-11-26T21:47:00.000+10:30

Where do you start when talking about people you haven’t seen in 10 years? Some people change, some people don’t. I guess that’s the way life is.

I guess my weekend started on Thursday when we drove from Adelaide to Whyalla. Dave, a mate from work has just got a transfer to the Whyalla Harvey Norman store and was starting on Friday, and offered to drive me up. So that was good… both of us had been out the night before for his farewell with a whole bunch of people…. That was a fun night (and having remembered it now – I should say my weekend started on Wednesday night…) It was an interesting evening. For starters; everyone was in a very strange mood… a mixture of depression and frustration seemed to hang over the group like a prickly fog, straining people to breaking point in some cases… tears were shed, walls were punched, stomachs were pumped… funny to say that it was a good night with all that hanging over it, but it really was… the pinnacle of the night was the Hakka performed by one of the guys who is of Maori decent. Really powerful. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Hakka is the traditional dance done at the beginning of most of New Zealand’s sporting forays to try to intimidate the opposition. Australia’s version is a little more relaxed… we just stand there and shrug, have a beer maybe, and then beat them at most things anyway. (I say most – and I’m really only having a dig guys… take it easy)

On a side note to do with New Zealand – I have a few relatives over there… last time I went over there I was surprised by how many jokes the Kiwis have about us Aussies… to the point that I found a book titled “New Zealand’s favorite jokes about Australia” which I bought and read. When I asked my uncle why this was the case, I think he answered me with a joke about Australians…at the end of which he said, “c’mon you must have a few jokes about kiwis, tell us one” To which I replied “well, there’s the ones about the sheep, but you’ve got exactly the same ones about us and sheep, so they don’t really count, to tell you the truth, we don’t think about you often enough to make up jokes…” I think he was quite shocked. Honestly though, why make up jokes about them when all we need to do is play them in cricket for a good laugh.

ANYWAY

So, got to Whyalla Thursday afternoon went for a swim that night (the pool is kept to an awesome temperature of about 30C). I spent Friday morning in the pool, and then in my continued and as yet un-completed search for a hat. Friday afternoon I called an old mate from school – Alberto (Fonz) Salatino and arranged to catch up for a beer that night – just a couple, don’t want a big one, reunion tomorrow, yeah right. Then I called Donna and she and Pam were going out as well (Apparently so Don could escape her grandmother’s tango lessons) so we all went out “for a couple of drinks” at about 8.30. I think we got home at about 1.30. Met some more people from school while we were out and ended up having a really good night. And I woke up without a hangover, which was awesome.

The day of the reunion dawned and the temperature quickly headed up to the expected maximum of 36C, and then kept climbing to about 42C. The meeting place was our old school for a tour around to see what had and hadn’t changed, but I think the highlight was watching people rock up and walk into the staff room. Being judged by how the years had treated them. The tour was interesting, but I think most people were over it before it started... it really was just too bloody hot to be wandering around a school that’s mostly made of concrete. But anyway, it was interesting to see all the changes that have happened since we were there, I tell you what, these kids have everything. The Home economics set up is an ACTUAL kitchen, run by an ACTUAL chef! They have a music room now, the woodwork shop is pristine, every student has their own email address and access to broadband… crazy stuff… but good on ‘em, you have to keep up to date with the world, and I guess even schools are competitive, if you want the best students, you should have the best facilities.

By the time the tour had finished, needless to say, everyone wanted a drink. So we headed to the New Whyalla (once known as the Gowrie Hotel). Drinking started at 3pm. I remember the vast majority of the night, there are very few photos on my camera that I don’t remember taking. I guess there are stories I could recount, or people I could talk about, but I don’t think I will… I think I’ll leave it by saying that I think everyone had a good night, weather it ended at 8pm or 4.30 in the morning as it did for me… falling asleep on the floor in Pam’s hotel room. Not very comfortable carpet… not very comfortable at all… I’m sure everyone will remember the night for different reasons…

Morning was a time I will leave to your imaginations, but I was not a very well boy… very glad that I had changed my bus ticket from leaving at 10am to 12… and even gladder that it could be pushed back to 3. Yeah… not very well at all…

Now I’m on a bus on my way home, mostly full of kids on their way to “schoolies” which is the big party for kids just finishing year 12. Sort of funny … What can I say? I sort of feel that some words would be appropriate… To everyone just finishing year 12 – keep in touch with your friends, even if you move away, make the effort. In the end friends are all we have in life…Stay excited with life, if you feel it’s getting stale, mix it up. Have plans, and then break them. Have Ideals, morals and expectations of yourself and try to live by them, but don’t beat yourself up if you make mistakes – everyone does… that’s what life is about… Take your time… if you can live without a car do it! Try to stay fit. I guess in the end, live your life, it’s yours to live. Just remember that the next 10 years will go by very very fast.

Peace out.

Addendum: Itchy Ponderings on a Hot Night…

2006-11-19T21:20:00.000+10:30

I made several mistakes tonight. The first one was to sit in the living room for too long once the house became empty. The second one was having my music on random. And the third mistake I made was to open my bedroom door to the balcony.

It is a hot night. Absolutely gorgeous. The sort of night that makes you wish you had someone by your side to soak it up with. I sat in the living room and my brain started working. I wont go into or on about the details, leave it at saying that no one is meant to be alone… we are social creatures and as much as we might thrive on being alone (as I do most of the time, I enjoy being by myself; my company is as good as 90% of any of the people I’ve ever met) we all crave someone to be with. Saying you don’t miss something ‘till its gone doesn’t do it justice either. Some things are great to experience by yourself and relate to other people (my trip is on the whole going to be a huge growing experience for me and something I have to do alone) But I think life just isn’t always complete unless you have shared experience with someone you… Anyway, I wasn’t going to go on about it, so I’ll stop there.

In my slightly somber state I decided I would retreat to my bed room where I could read or listen to music or something to keep my over active mind occupied. I-Tunes had different ideas about that however and I walked up the stairs (and the drifting and haunting melodies of Josh Pyke wafted down to meet me… ) to the words “so we ask these questions, then cover our ears, but I think a question un-answered is, much worse than an answer we don’t want to hear, when your silence grows wings, and your doubts start to travel now, scenes between the virtual and real they unravel now…” what can I say to that? It almost speaks my neuroses to the letter…

So in that frame of mind I took a deep breath and kept walking to the door facing the balcony at the front of the house, looked outside, saw a beautiful evening and opened the door. Thinking that standing on the balcony in the warmth might make me feel better… I stood on the balcony in the warmth. *coughs* it was so nice I even went back inside and grabbed my good camera and the wide angle lens to take a couple of snaps… but I soon found that its impossible to take a photo that truly conveys a warm night. Above is the best I could do… photos are cold things… images that capture the moment, but you have to be there to capture the feeling of the moment. It was a nice evening. We all know the deep down joy and fuzzy feelings of a warm, slightly humid night (until you try to sleep anyway) maybe attach your feelings to my photo to get an idea. Now add to this feeling the sudden realization that you’ve been bitten in about 8 very painful places by large mosquitoes… just above the fingernail on my left ring finger, above the knuckle on my left middle finger, the inside of my wrist, the back of my neck, and the back of my legs were all targets for the buggers… if there’s an insect that I hate as much as any its mosquitoes. Don’t like flies or cockroaches much… but in general they don’t bite you and suck your blood…

Anyway… that’s been my night… not terrible, but not great… I’ll leave you with the words of the song that’s just decided to play on I-Tunes.

“They’re calling out c’mon lets go, but I’m miles away to a year before…. Think I’d like to stay a minute longer, would you like to stay a minute longer, If you’d like I’ll stay a minute longer…” A Minute Longer – Stereophonics

A Difficult Night, the STAT Test and Retail Frustration.

2006-11-19T17:30:00.000+10:30

Last night I woke up at 1.30am, went down stairs, warmed up a mug of milk and seriously considered putting on some pants and wandering the night in search of the alarm that has been going non-stop for 3 days… Several options occurred to me as to what to do to said alarm once I had tracked the persistent high-pitched wailing to its source. Some involved large rocks and spray paint, others rather less destructive involved nasty notes threatening to sue them if I did badly in the STAT test today. In the end, the hassle of putting pants on out weighed the annoyance of the siren and I stumbled back up the stairs with my too hot mug of milk, turned my fan on a higher setting, turned the A/C on, and put my ear plugs in my ears. After drinking my still fairly hot milk, falling asleep, and half an hour later waking up cause I needed the toilet, I finally fell into a deep sleep at around 3. Which was nice.

I woke up this morning at about 7.30, called for a taxi at about 8.30, and was at the Show grounds for the STAT by 9. The taxi driver on the way over was good. Young Indian guy who was very friendly and told me that the best time for a taxi driver to drive is Sundays. Not many cars on the road, which makes perfect sense. The worst time however is between 4 and 7 on a Friday night. Which also makes sense. So now we all know what the best and worst times are for taxi drivers to drive in, I’m sure it will come in handy at some point… I’m just disappointed that information didn’t make up any part of the questions in the test. I would have blitzed it. There were however questions on bird habitation in re-growth forests, blind dates, historians, maps, poetry and, amongst others, peanut butter. 70 questions in all and about 2 hours to complete it. I finished with about 10 minutes to spare which gave me time to go back and re-check a couple of questions I’d found a little bit iffy… found a few glaring mistakes, and start to breathe again. I’m sure I stopped breathing as soon as I hit the first difficult question… All up I think I figured there was a little over 450 people in my sitting of the exam, with another 2 tests later in the day. Pretty good number of people wanting to go back to Uni, I’m actually quite impressed. And with ages ranging from early 20s thru to late 50’s there was a good mix of people too. Over all I think I did quite well. Fingers crossed!

Afterwards I decided to walk home back thru the city, treat myself to lunch and maybe look around for some bathers. I have bathers at home, but none of them fit me anymore. I mean, it’s a good thing I’ve lost weight, but its also expensive. I went to every surf shop in the CBD, some of them twice, and one of them three times, in search of a nice pair of boardies… Now here’s the thing… if someone had come up to me and offered me some help or suggestions, I probably would have spent a lot more than I had planned on spending. Not because I… no… that’s wrong… *rolls eyes* I do tend to spend more than I intend to initially anyway but that’s not the point…. If I think I need a new pair of board shorts, I will go looking for a new pair of board shorts. I found several pairs that I quite liked, but didn’t have the guidance to make me make the decision to buy them. So I went from one shop to the next looking at shorts, and waiting for someone to ask me if I needed help. If someone had asked me I would have probably ended up also buying a beach towel and a hat…and maybe a pair of thongs. All things that I will need – maybe not right now, but my justification is that I’m not sure what’s available in Europe, and at what cost… So I figure I’d just get them now and save the uncertainty *shrugs*. Don’t worry, it doesn’t make much sense to me either, but that’s how I work.

Anyway, I ended up walking home slightly annoyed (and fairly sweaty, it was a humid 30 something degrees today) before remembering that there is a surf shop up the street on the Parade. So… off I went up there, really not expecting to find anything different in stock or service. It is a small shop, but I was greeted straight away by an older guy I presumed to be the owner. Then a girl came up to me and found all the shorts I could carry into the change rooms and kept looking for more. She was super friendly, really nice, and joked with me about what a pain I was (I am going to believe she was joking – shut up). She commented on each pair I tried on, and in the end helped me decide on a pair. She did what every other sales assistant at the other shops should have done, and got herself a sale. Probably a good thing the shop didn’t have any towels or hats, cause I would have bought them off her too. In-fact I still might.

Maybe being in retail so long has spoiled me as far as my expectations of other sales people… It’s a shame. And I feel a little bit like I’m an old man writing into the news paper complaining… but I’m just glad that there are some sales people around that are at least good at pretending that they enjoy what they are doing, even if they don’t. And if they do; good for them… but it will pass…

I think that’s enough ranting for now; my next rant will be probably Thursday night from Whyalla. Talk to you then.

Ciao.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct. - Benjamin Disraeli

The Path Less Traveled, Starbucks and Emo Pigeons

2006-11-16T17:55:00.000+10:30

First of all I’d like to say that I am possibly making blog entries a little too often. Please don’t get too used to it, 'cause I really don’t know how much internet access I’m going to have when I'm away. Also as I’ve referred to in other posts, maybe writing a blog about every single thing you do, might in the end be a little bit like having that video camera, writing about the past instead of living the present… Anyway, we’ll see…

Today Is another day off, and as has become my habit, I have taken to wandering into the city in search of a quiet, or comfortable (but preferably both) place to sit, read, blog or study… or any combination of all of the above. Today I left home with the intention of doing all the normal things. Something stopped me at the intersection and where I always have turned right to take my well worn path into town, today I looked left, saw nice houses and green trees and my legs, seemingly of their own accord followed. It was nice. I can’t say I’ve never gone that way before, but it is very rare, and so when I got to the edge of the parklands on the edge of the city, I even went across the grass, off the path completely, to really muck things up. Its strange how taking a different route thru familiar scenery can give a feeling of strangeness and a disconcerting feeling of not knowing maybe exactly where you are – even though you know precisely the place you’re in, but maybe facing a different direction…

On my way thru the parklands I had an epiphany. There was one of those pigeons with the crest on the top of their heads. This one however had 2 instead of the standard 1… and I’m sure it had eye make up and tight black jeans… way out of its normal habitat; I think the sunshine and masses of school kids had pushed it out of the mall and into the edge of society… Sorry… I’m being silly… But for a moment, I was sure that that might have just been the way the Emo society had started… someone saw my pigeon or one of its forebears and thought, “I like its hair cut, and I think I’d look good in eye make up”

*coughs*

Anyway…

Something then drew me back onto one of my normal paths – thru the mall… Not that you have much choice if you want a coffee… which I did… and the thronging masses lead me straight to Starbucks. While waiting in line wondering why I thought it was a good idea to pay $6 for a coffee and scanning the board for something that even looked like a coffee I might have heard of, I was surprised to see in small writing at the bottom of the list of over priced and over named drinks: “freshly brewed coffee of the day – ask for details” and at the attractive price of only $3 for a large (And when I say large, I mean Venti, and by that I mean ginormous) how could I resist? I asked what it was; she said it’s a Sumatran blend that’s slightly spicy… I said, its $3 it sounds great. And then also bought a low fat blueberry muffin that was sitting by itself behind the glass with all the other muffins looking very sad, very low fat, and very lonely and I realized later when I sat down to eat it why it looked sad – I reckon it had been there for at least 3 days… a bit tough was our little blueberry low fat muffin… but the blueberries were still succulent (or extremely well preserved – I refuse to differentiate) which made up for the toughness of the outside…. I wouldn’t say it was stale… but fresh isn’t a word that I would use on the same day as talking about it either…

From there I found myself walking through the Adelaide Uni campus grounds, coffee in one hand, muffin in the other, and looking for a comfortable place to sit and do my STAT sample questions… (I figure if studying for the bar course works so well in a pub, probably studying for the STAT in a Uni is a good idea too). However I kept walking and found myself at the river. Which is where I’m now; sitting in the sun, watching people walk back and forth across the bridge, birds frolic and catch insects, and small ants crawl over everything I own. But it’s a gorgeous day, the water is sparkling (not clear but the sun is reflecting on it which makes the brownest river look pretty) there’s a very slight breeze every now and then which cools my probably sunburned arms. The strangest thing seems to be a man in a kilt and no top roller-blading along the other side of the river…

On other news I’ve booked my going away drinks for the 9th of December… probably be at the Belgian. Now I’ve found out that that will be the weekend that my parents are down for the last time before I go… might have to change it to the weekend after, but I just worry that if I leave it too late people will have family stuff on and won’t be able to come. I guess if they want to drop in for a couple of drinks they’ll make it either way. I think at my current employment I’ve made some good friends, as I did at my last place of employment… I guess that’s comforting. I’m not sure why exactly, but it’s nice to know that you’re likeable. Even if you don’t make “friend” friends, and they’re just workmates. *shrugs* not sure exactly what I’m trying to say here…

Over all Life feels good…. There’s only 40 days till I leave and I’m getting less scared and more excited as the days tick away… I have my health – and even my foot (my feet have been my biggest problem and concern the last few months) is feeling good… I’m happy, and find myself smiling at nothing…

Maybe I’m just going a little mad…

See you soon world… but not too soon…

Eating widely and critically

2006-11-14T22:15:00.000+10:30

I left the house this afternoon with the intention of studying for my STAT test this Sunday… instead so far I have looked at laptop bags and had the worst KFC burger of my life. The coffee I got however is good, as was the popcorn chicken.

The STAT test (Adult entry University exam) has come up on me very quickly… seems like only yesterday when I bought the SATAC guide and diligently put off reading or filling in any of the required forms until the last minute. In-fact, I went past the last minute and into the minute that costs you an extra $70 to register. Had one of those moments where you think something is due the month after it is actually due. So that sucked. Anyway, my intention – so as to make it clear to the world – is to sit the STAT test, hopefully pass with enough points to get into architecture, and then defer the course for as long as I possibly can to accommodate my travels. The suggestion given for ‘studying’ for the stat test is really quite vague… it says that while doing the sample questions may give you an idea of what you might come up against, the best way to prepare for the test is to “read widely and critically”. To this end I purchased a book called “The pig that wants to be eaten and 99 other thought experiments” which is very interesting… Basically involves a page or half page of a moral or mental dilemma, and a page or a page and a half of the author’s take on the particular conundrum. Over all it is very enjoyable but has made me think very critically about weather I should buy any more books before I go away. The answer I have come up with so far is no. Hopefully the critical reading will pay off… it will certainly save me money…

I have done some University study, about 10 years ago I started (for some reason that must have made sense to me at the time, but in hindsight makes absolutely none) a degree in Computer and Information Science. I don’t even know what information science is. And computer science? All I know is that I started the course, found out there was copious amounts of programming involved, and spent the next 6 months hanging out in the Uni bar playing pool (which was free) and the Jukebox (also free). I remember distinctly that we played Live’s Throwing Copper to death. That was the album of that particular chapter of my life. To this day it makes me want to sit around and do nothing.

Anyway, 10 years or so have passed and I think I have matured enough to go back to Uni and study something that will improve my chances of getting a job that is fulfilling. Both psychologically, and for my bank account. Right now though I need to go to woolies to get myself something to eat before my Bar course starts. Really can’t rely on the food from the corner stores near TAFE… being situated on Hindley St, they are decidedly aimed at the drunken munchies rather than the brain food needed for a student…

I’m sure there’s more to say, but I’ll leave it for my next day off…

Caio.

Writing the Lightning

2006-11-11T23:23:00.000+10:30

It’s a Saturday night, I’m home alone… could have gone out I guess… but I have a sore foot. And plus I have work in the morning *rolls eyes* like that’s stopped me in the past…

3 things have happened tonight that make me glad I stayed home. The first is that there was an Adam Sandler double on TV. Billy Madison followed by Happy Gilmore. The second thing was an interesting call from Whyalla…

But the third is why I’m writing.

The third is what inspires me. Gets my blood flowing, excites, and arouses me. Gets the adrenaline coursing thru my veins

The third thing is an awesome thunderstorm.

Ever since I can remember sitting on the front porch in Whyalla as a young boy watching the thunderstorms roll over the Spencer gulf, counting the seconds to work out how far away it was, watching a wall of flashing lights and crashing noise approach me from the dessert; It has done something to me… maybe it’s the warmth of the air before, maybe it’s the intensity of the rain afterwards, maybe its just the flashing lights. Probably deep down it’s the primeval instinct that made the first humans look up at the terrifying lights and noise and imagine angry gods smiting sinners, throwing thunderbolts or farting… even though most of the wonder is gone from it thanks to science, it still provokes awe in all of us to some extent. Weather fear or excitement, I hope no one can say that they feel nothing when there’s a thunderstorm.

I stood out on my little balcony with my camera wondering how people take photos of lightning… in the end I did one of the things I’m pretty bloody good at (those of you that know me might not believe me) – I waited… camera at the ready, pointed at one patch of sky… It’s not an easy thing to catch lighting in a photo.. its bloody fast stuff and I ended up with a lot of photos of nothing… but I managed to catch It a couple of times. The funny thing about taking photos of lightning, is that it’s a bit like waiting for the perfect wave… you wait and wait and miss a few and then when you give up and go inside, you see the flash of a massive strike right where you were pointing your camera just a moment before… or hear about the perfect wave they caught just half an hour after you went home. It’s tempting to stay out there all night with my camera and wait for the perfect photo… but there will be more lightning other days, clearer skies, and less bright city lights… of course then I will have forgotten my camera… but still…

The other thing about taking photos of lightning (as an awesome flash lights up my room, with the thunder only a second or so behind – close!) is that it’s a bit like having a video camera on a holiday. Its tempting… like I said… to stand there and take photos of it, but it’s also nice to just experience it. The reason I’ve decided not to take a video camera with me around the world is mostly for that reason – I’d prefer to be in the action than recording it…

On to other exciting news – the holidays I booked for the 25th of November so I could go back to Whyalla for my 10 year reunion have been changed… I had booked 3 days, but the kindly people doing the roster this month have given me the day before and the day after off as RDO’s as well! That means I’ll get an extra couple of days with my family and my dogs before I go away. Be the last chance I get to see the Dogs before I go… and as much as I hate to say it, probably the last time I’ll see Wulfie alive. He’s getting a bit old… I got him the year I finished year 12, and this is the reunion, so he’s 10 and a bit… that’s a pretty good run for a dog of any type. But enough about that, I’m making myself sad.

Other than that – The Contiki tour is booked!!! Leaving on April 22nd on the Ultimate 45 day contiki tour! Can’t wait… should be awesome. On top of that, the girl at the travel agent who booked it was chatting to me (I’d love to know how much commission she gets for booking a trip that cost that much…) and she said that she used to work in the Walkabout Pubs in the UK. She said that all you need to get a job there is an Australian accent. Plus they do accommodation that just comes off your pay each week… how good would that be. Definitely going to check that out.

Seems to be a lull in the thunder storm, and the rains stopped… so this might be a good time to finish up…

Later guys… Cheers!

Studying in a Pub

2006-11-08T20:35:00.000+10:30

Firstly I must say that this is not just any pub, it is my favorite Adelaide pub – the Belgian beer café. Really good beer, good chips and a great atmosphere. I say in Adelaide, my favorite pub in the world is yet to be decided – but I will let you know when I find it.

I have been doing a bar course, which I am hoping will get me work in other parts of the world – mostly Europe, and therefore in studying for my bar course, I thought it was probably appropriate to study in a bar. I chose the Belgian for the above reasons, as well as the fact that I love Leffe Brune beer. It is great. Blonde is not too bad either… but I’ve definitely developed a taste for the brune. Some people may argue the differences betwixt the two, but in the end its how you identify yourself.

I have found that 1-2 beers while revising for a bar course do wonders for the memory, however today, while doing a practice for the STAT test, I discovered that its not so good for cognitive and problems solving skills. Good thing the STAT test isn’t held in a pub.

There is also something very… European about sitting in a pub with my backpack, and a study folder… not to mention a laptop… I don’t know… that’s how it feels anyway. Again, not having been to Europe as yet, I’ll let you know how it feels for real when I get there.

Speaking of Europe, I went and paid my travel insurance today. Got a good deal from the guys at YHA travel and QBE insurance. Firstly I won, by default, a competition which I entered the other night when I went to a travel tips and tricks night at the Adelaide YHA. It was one of those things where you put your name on a sheet with your email address and they call you if you’ve won… one of those things where you’re never sure if everyone has won or if its just you… but anyway, got a phone call from one of the ladies there saying that the person who’d won the prize had already bought their travel insurance and mine was the only other name she’d remembered from the night, and she’d thrown the paper with all the names on away… 2 things spring to mind as curious about this statement… one is that my phone number was on the sheet that she’d claimed to have thrown away, and the other is why did the person who already had travel insurance put their name down for the competition in the first place? But not being one to complain, (not when its something that seems like a good deal anyway) and someone who’s always up for a bargain, I went in and bought my Travel insurance from them. The prize consisted of 31 days travel insurance which they took off the price of my 12 month travel insurance, and then on top of that, as I am a member of the YHA, I got an extra %25 off on top. So something that I figured was going to cost me about $1400 - $1600 ended up costing me the princely sum of $996. This includes snowboarding cover and excess buy out (which means if I have to make a claim I don’t have to pay the extra $100 every time!).

Anyone who doubts the need for travel insurance should take the advice of the guys at the travel night “if you cant afford travel insurance you can’t afford to travel” and also… you probably don’t know me; If I fail to lose something, get it stolen, break it, or injure myself or someone else in the process of the next 12 or more months of travel you should send me a medal or something… its bound to happen. Even at the bar course last night… I knew I was going to spill the tray of drinks (water thank goodness) and sure enough… good thing I was already sunburned, cause I would have had a very red face otherwise.

*coughs* anyway... getting onto Europe as was my initial plan... right now looking at a brochure for a 45 day Contiki tour. Expensive but looks so much fun... and you only live once. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing that. If you take out the accommodation and food costs, plus travel costs on a nice heated bus, its going work out quite well - plus you don’t spend 45 days with a bunch of people without making some pretty good friends. I think that’s what is important to me, making some life long friends. Plus this tour takes you to Troy and THE BIG WOODEN HORSE! How can I not go?

Anyway… That just about concludes my notes from the Belgian beer Café… as enjoyable experience as it has been…

One note to close with… a pet hate of mine is people snorting their own snot back down their throat and swallowing loudly. Makes me want to spew… and punch people forcibly in the throat… It seems to be happening more and more lately, maybe it’s the changing of the seasons and colds are rife, but really people; if you have snot, blow it out, don’t eat it. It can’t be good for you…

Death Rays, and How to Name Your Blog...

2006-11-04T21:23:00.000+10:30

Hello World...

And when I say world, I really mean the few people that will possibly take the time out to read my blog. (Hi Mum...)

So this will be the Blog of Me. Troy. An Aussie traveling the world, possibly having adventures but not quite sure where I'm going or what I'll do there. Rest assured though, that as soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know.

To give you an idea of my current itinerary: I leave on Boxing day - December 26th for those of you not in the colonies - 2006. My first stop is Toronto to meet up with Shannon my brother - check out his blog, funny shit; www.cheesebandits.net/things . From there we are going to New York for New Years :) Really looking forward to that. Then at some point within my 90 day window where the US authorities let me stay in their wonderful country (and as long as my girlfriend can stand to have me...), I fly from Toronto to London, and there I'll stay for as long as I want. On the cards is at least one Contiki tour (all of which I've discovered start in Amsterdam... Even the US ones I think fly you to Amsterdam first stop just to get you in the right frame of mind...) My ticket is open for 18 months, at this stage I'm planning to use every day of it... Again, I'll let you know...

At this stage there are many many variables... My life is like one of those choose your own adventure books; Each decision I make will get me closer to an end of some sort. Hopefully none of those involving evil aliens using death rays on me, or monsters ripping my limbs off and using them to pick their teeth...

Having said that brings me to my next point, that of how hard it is to decide on a suitable name for your Blog. How hard is it? Very hard... That's how hard. All very well for these people with imagination, but for a normal person, finding something that is suitable and interesting for other people to look at; is not easy. You think of all the things that you like, or that represent you in some small personal way, and try to put them into a sentence that is not only interesting for other people, but maybe says something about yourself... Something that's easy to remember... And still, at the same time, on some level, a little bit cool. OR maybe, like every thing else in my life at the moment, I've just over thought the whole thing... That is a distinct possibility. The truth of the matter is probably that there is no big problem, and the problem in-fact, is the fact that I always think there's a problem, when in fact there isn't one. And there-in lies the problem.
See what I mean?

So my suggestion as far as blog naming goes, is worry about it as much as you possibly can, think about it for days... After all its quite possible that in a million years when civilization is dead and some new dominant species evolves, all that will be left of us is a Web page and some dust... So think long and hard people... Long and hard... And in a flash of inspiration, the name will come to you, the perfect name for your blog... And you type it into the space provided... Your heart pounding...

And someone else has already taken it...

Email addresses are just as bad, if not worse... Cause when someone asks you for your email address, you want it to be cool, you want it to be in some way distinctive, and you don't necessarily want to have to spell it every time. And using your own name is just boring. I should know, I've been using my own name as an email address for ever. All the time seeing all these other cool email addresses popping up and feeling obsolete, inferior, and that somehow I'm lacking the imaginative cognitive functions of that of the younger people... So when I thought Trojan.monkey would be a cool email address, you can gasp in shock and horror as I did, when I found it was already taken...

Anyway, All in all I am very excited about my up coming adventure... So, I'm going to let this Big Wooden Horse of life in, see what comes out and hope it doesn't kill me. But I guess, if life really is a choose your own adventure then I've already made dozens of choices towards one end or another... So here goes... Cross your fingers, Hold on tight, Keep your eyes open, and Enjoy the ride...

To follow the Evil Dead back into the Forrest; turn to page 93.
To swallow the blue pill of rejection and give up; turn to page 28.
To trust your instincts, live your life, and make mistakes along the way... Read on...

~Bigger than my body gives me credit for~ John Mayer (and how I feel All the time)