hot chocolates

ciao a tutti,

shoot, i can see how the years go by so fast for grown-ups. time is flying. i hope everyone is getting ready for sweaters and hot chocolates and all the good that winter has (christmas is a big one for me). its raining in seattle, and don't think it will be stopping until march or later. i don't know really, i've never done a winter in seattle before. i like it.

work has really stepped it up. i am working pretty much on my own now with real client after real client. they really put a lot of trust into me and the knowledge that i have to offer, but i feel alright with that. i just make sure that i'm putting people in good hotels and on great tours. the quicker i get with things, the more clients i get so its been amazingly busy. i'm so lucky to have a great job where i'm challenged every day and am able to learn new things constantly.

my seattle saturdays have been going really well! seattle has so much to offer and i picked up even more brochures of things to do in and around seattle. this weekend i went to visit some relatives (my grandma's brother and his wife) near bellingham, which is a city right near canada. they live in a nice house right on a lake. they fed me great food and we had some good conversations. other seattle saturdays (and sundays) since the last post: the emerald downs horse racing (such awesome cheap fun!); going to a bluegrass concert!; the downtown seattle library (a modern architectural accomplishment, although i thought it was a bit too much like a museum. i prefer the old english reading room type of library); a tour by my friend byron of the downtown pier area (with a visit to the ye olde couriosity shoppe and a sushi dinner).

my last seattle saturday was a california saturday. i had to do some financial stuff and see the people in my fraternity because i would like to be more involved with them. but mostly i was going down there to see a girl. she is amazing. her name is christina and she is finishing her last year of university. things are going great and she's probably going to take a year off after she finishes school and live in seattle with her friend. i'm just really happy.

so i hope everyone is doing alright. i'll be coming home to las vegas for christmas and in a couple months i'm going to go to ireland and scotland with my brother. some time they'll send me to australia to check things out down there. that would be sweet; to get paid to travel. of course it would be a different kind of travel, but still...

have a good day,
your friend
chad.

chittenden locks

ciao everyone,

now that i'm getting settled in at the house an update is in order.

my job is awesome and the people are great. i've started working on real clients now so it will only get busier. my feeling is that there is not going to be too much down-time. thats ok by me because it will make work fly by. i got my desk on friday so now i have an established home in the office. there isn't anything on my desk, but a computer should be coming sometime soon. and the phone that i have tells everyone my name is 'denise', so i'll have to change that somehow.

my roommates and house are amazing. right now i live with emily and carie but another person will be moving in shortly. and there is a dog named abbey. the commute from work is about an hour but i think that is a good thing. in the mornings it gives me time to wake up and on the way back i have an hour to unwind. by the time i get back home i feel relaxed and calm. right now the bus goes over lake washington right at sunset, so the timing is perfect. i've met cool people on some days (and avoided eye contact with a few crazies too).

my first seattle rain happened on thursday. maybe it will stay until next year, or maybe it will clear up. my vote is that it will clear up tomorrow (i have a feeling i'll be saying this a lot).

i want to keep exploring and experiencing the city and surrounding areas, so i've started 'seattle saturdays!' i'll be doing something cool in the city every saturday. yesterday i went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and the Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Gardens. the locks were rad. its where the water from lake washington meets the sound (part of the pacific ocean). the water levels are different so they have something set up just like the panama canal. whats cool is that there were huge salmon jumping out of the water all over the place--i guess they don't want to get sucked into the pumps so they jump around at the top of the water (at least thats what some guide said). what made it really interesting is that it was pouring down rain with some wicked lightning. everyone was in their gum boots and rain coats, while i was in my hooded sweatshirt and chuck taylor converse; not quite the outdoor weather gear i should have had. first item to buy in seattle: waterproof jacket.

also, i am now a member of the seattle public library system. my first seattle library book: catch-22 by joseph heller. first i have to finish 'the traveler's gift' by andy andrews. thats a great book. anyone that liked the alchemist should read that one.

so i'll be keeping this site and posting every month. the reason is kind of a reverse of why i started it. originally it was to keep everyone at home in the u.s. informed and now its for everyone i met while i was travelling. its funny how things change like that.

have a good day
your friend
chad

Move to Seattle!!

ciao,

a lot has happened so an update is needed. after a few little trips around the western part of the u.s., i started looking for a job. in going for one in san diego, i found a great opportunity to work for a rad company. its a travel agency wholesaler that deals with new zealand, australia, fiji and the south pacific. the people seem awesome and i think the job is in the area i would like (both with travel and working with people). the cool part is that it took me to seattle. i moved two days ago and i've loved it so far. i'm still on a roommate/cool apartment search. i'm going for a good one right now but its on the waiting part. i've done all that i can.

as for "being back", i don't really feel that way. being back to what? i think that over the year i got into the habit of living life to the best that i can and making the most out of where i am. i don't think that should stop now just because i'm back in america. moving out of las vegas should help in being open to new things (mainly because everything around me in seattle is new).

seattle as a city is way cool. i don't know how cold its going to get but right now its great sweater weather temperature. it reminds me of christmas, so if its like this now, then christmas season is going to be awesome! i start my job on monday, which i'm really excited about since its been a year and a half since i've worked a non-farming job, it will feel like a new experience.

have a good day
your friend
chad

i'm starting to think maybe a monthly update posting wouldn't be a bad idea. just to keep communication up between the long distance friends. we'll see.

ciao for now

ciao a tutti,

well, its been a good year. it hasn't been too weird being home because i've been able to keep myself busy. the night before i left on this trip i moved out everything from my room to a storage unit. at the time i thought i got rid of a lot of things, but now that i'm getting everything out of storage i realize i don't need any of it. so its been a really good removal of material things.

on the flip side, i acquired a new cell phone. i guess i'm reconnected with regular society now. the folks at t-mobile have been really helpful and gave me a good deal.

i've been trying to put more pictures on the site, and blogger has made it a lot easier; the only problem is a really slow dial-up speed at the house. it takes about 15 min. a photo, which adds up. i'll swing over to my brothers and put a bunch on all at one time.

a lot of people have been asking me what i want to do now that i'm back home. my answer to that is i have no idea. my goals (still) are: learn how to drive stick shift; be home for christmas. for the first one, my brother courageously handed over his keys to me for a spin around a high school parking lot. due to the tractor practice in italy (at least i think) i am much better at manual now. i would rate myself a b- (one stall and two of those jerky start things). thats alright for a first go at it. the second goal, will be done, really i'm just waiting on christmas. so, am i "doing" anything yet. no, not yet, but i am doing the things that are important to me.

a thing that has been on my mind lately is what to do with this site. its weird, the little things that can influence people. for me, a cool person that i met in positano told me about how she had a web log once, experienced a loss, and realized she was spending more time writing about her life than actually living it. i don't regret this website at all. its going to be sweet to look back on it one day and relive the crazy times, and it really was the best way to have updates available with being too annoying. but i am going to have to agree with her (for at least this portion of my life). its time for me to live...and not continually send the updates. i'm still going to post as many pictures as i can from the trip because right now it feels unfinished. what i will post after today is any big moves (so people can know where i am, visitors are always welcome, there's a lot of karma to return) or if i depart on another adventure. given my current double digit funds (thankfully i have more than 10 dollars left) i don't know if the second one will happen too quickly, but in no way am i ruling that option out.

some final photos:

me one week after the beginning of the trip (new zealand)



me one week before the end of the trip (new york). thats cool, two "new" places. i'm a nerd. i'm the one on the left.

i wish i could post pictures of every person i met. they were the coolest part by far.

thanks for reading if you did. i hope it was somewhat enjoyable.

have a good day
your friend
chad

full black costumes

ciao,

i'm running out of days now. i've already had my last wednesday and thursday, and today will be my last friday. on tuesday i'll be eating spaghetti at my home, seeing the mom's new dog, and going to sleep in my old room. kind of strange.




times square at night time. we just got out of the show Producers, which ranks pretty high on my list of musicals. odd, but good.







the east coast part of the trip has been a lot of fun. meeting my friends at the airport (after i got through customs by being surprisingly honest) was a good feeling. on a promise made long ago, ryan and amy f. came from las vegas with the only purpose of seeing me at the airport (and having a wicked cool roadtrip). good people.

the roadtrip to rhode island and boston was perfect--one of the best parts was getting a mini-van! i was slightly bummed that i couldn't drive due to my having no insurance. but i think i make a mighty fine navigator, so at least i had control over the music. it was cool seeing lauren and amy and where they are right now with work and school. seeing americas longest running parade was sweet, but i felt bad for the bands that had the poor judgement of wearing full black costumes in the hot hot temperatures. boston was more rain than not, but thats ok, the rain does not have any effect on the taste of a boston cream pie (which is actually more like a cake with some cream on it)






brett, adrianna and i finishing our night-time empire state building visit.





i'll be in chicago tomorrow to stay at kate's parents house. she is going to ghana, africa on the day i arrive so i won't be able to hang out with her.

i'll be putting up a bunch of pictures over the next week. i haven't really seen many of them, since i've been burning cds, sending them home, and forgetting about them. maybe that will make the sight slightly more entertaining.

have a good day and thanks for checking the site every once in awhile. its been a good year.

your friend
chad

hilly side

ciao a tutti,

i'm not going to lie. its been tough to post this past month. the first reason is that the travels with the mom were to some pretty remote places in italy. when there was internet it was usually a bit on the expensive side, and i didn't really want to drag my mom into an internet cafe while i typed away. but the last week its been different. i don't really want to post because somehow it makes it seem like the end of the trip is already here. with my four days of europe left i don't want to be using the time to describe things i've already done instead of doing new things. so, there it is.


every once in a while i have moments where i freak out inside about leaving this place. it almost feels like i'm more nervous about going home than when i left (and i was about a smidge away from throwing up nervous level on the day i left), but really i think its just been that i haven't had those feelings in so long. i'm not used to it.


to sum up the weeks with the mom: really great actually. it was good to have a break from travel mode, where you have to think about where are you going to sleep, how are you going to get there, and (most importantly) what are you going to eat. my mom was like a squirrel and always packed away some kind of food, which meant not even being hungry on trains. i think everything worked out really well and we had a lot of those unique travel moments that i definitely would not have been able to have had i been by myself. i didn't get to practice learning stick-shift because the villa we stayed at was a bit on the hilly side. i did move it around the parking lot some without stalling it, so a vast improvement since the last time driving a manual car (not counting tractors).

me with the mom in lake como, italy.



my last week in europe (and italy) has been amazing. i thought about going to another country but i think its best to end on a relaxing note. so, i'm on the amalfi coast now in a cliff town, positano. before that was sorrento and capri. the mosquitos met up with me again in sorrento but these ones are on the strange side. everybody in my room wasn't sure if it was from spiders or mosquitos (my vote is on mosquitos, they're bastards). the reason is that the first day it would appear to be a normal bite. the second day it would start to swell and get larger and redder than it should. the third day the redness would go down my veins for about an inch or so. that was the worst day because after that it would kind of go in reverse order back to a normal red dot. the problem is that they didn't all bite me on the same day so i have a nice rotation of all of the above.

minus the bites this has been a great place, but again its mainly because of the people. i joined a family of solo travellers in sorrento where there was a lot of laughing and pasta cooking. they all left and were replaced by cool canadians. then in positano i joined a rad group of university students that are studying in rome for some of the summer. i'm hoping to meet up with them again for my one day in rome before going to london. they invited me into their group (somewhere right above 10 people)and made me feel really welcome.


I like christmas lights.




in a few days i'll be in new york. i've got a short stop in london at alex's--best friend from when i was growing up. its been a long time since we've been able to hang out so it will be cool to do it in london. its just so unbelievable that the new york portion of the trip is a couple of days away.

have a good day
your friend
chad

festival of the republic

so, more craziness with friends and now family. it was a lot of fun hanging out with katja in mannheim. i still can't believe that she hand built a massive giant sized home for her three guinnie (how in the world do you spell that) pigs. they make the coolest squeeky sounds. i couldn't stay too long because she had to roadtrip it down to lago di como for a holiday, so i moved over to heidelberg to stay with tyson and becky.

little people and dogs pay the same for a tram ride in germany.

it felt a lot like being back at pepperdine (my university) with good people all over the place. there was a group of students from the university that is also there doing a project and they were completely into games (cards, dice, or whatever else they could find). it made it great fun all of the time--but they really were a crazy bunch. being there with them definitely made me want to stop moving and saying goodbye to so many awesome people. thats probably good timing since there is less than two months left in the trip. my mind has been thinking much more about what i would like to do when i get home now, and a lot of it has to do with speding so much time with friends that i have met on this trip. i would like to have local friends again that i can see on a regular basis--the downside is that i know i am going to miss all of my european friends the moment i get back....guess that means i might be up for a move...


breakfast at tyson's and becky's. i had problems sitting in becky's chair; the ceiling was oddly angled.

i had problems gettting over to cologne so i had to skip out on that one for now. it was alright though because it just meant more time at tyson and becky's. everything works out for the best. for the last few nights i stayed with hayley in seregno which is about a 20 minute trian ride from milan. she is teaching english in italy and has a great apartment (huge balcony!!), roommates, and students. i guess that goes on the list of possible things to do (if only i could be an EU citizen, going to have to work on that...). i met hayley way back at the centre of new zealand (nelson) so it was cool to see how her path in life has gone.

this morning i met my mom in milan and now i'm staying at a hotel where i haven't seen that many stars on a sign this entire year. we've got about 20 days together for a sweet tour of northern italy. next week we rent a car so i hope to start working on my goal of learning to drive manual this year. i figure if i could do those tractors, i could do a car now. we'll see.

have a good day and happy festival of the republic! i have no idea what thats for, but its today.

your friend
chad

santa and screwy sleep

hallo!

man, being with friends everyday is so much different than travelling alone. time goes so fast when you are with good people.

helsinki was a cool day trip, but it would have been better if we had a local guide like sebastian in sweden. the weather turned cold and we really had no plan--that meant wandering around and seeing all the cool old buildings that we could see over the tops of office buildings. the best surprise for me--and it shouldn't have been a surprise because i could name at least 3 people who told me early, i just forgot--was that santa is from finland! good times seeing christmas cards in the middle of may. i guess he comes from "lapland" which is some place way up north, but i think finland as a whole is proud of their santa invention.

its been a really weird part of travelling because usually when i leave good friends i have some alone (and usually down) time, but now its just friend, friend, friend. it makes it easier now, but i think when i get home and all this is done, it will hit me how much i miss these people. i parted ways with pauline in estonia and went to hamburg, germany. a few hours later i was at a wedding party in Plon with jasmin and bjorn (i met them in my first two weeks of travelling--they weren't getting married, their friends were. germany wedding parties are crazy! nothing like i've ever seen. everyone was really cool and the food was amazing. we left the party at 4:30 in the morning as the sky was just getting lighter. when we finally woke up for breakfast it was 3:30 in the afternoon.

the next day we went to Jasmin's new flat in Lubeck, which is a rad old city. since our sleeping patterns were all messed up from the night before we never really got tired at night and played dominoes until 6:30 the next morning. her roomate moved in last night but was late from traffic. we tried moving everything as quiet as possible since it was 10ish, but i think the whole apartment building knows they have arrived.

this mornings trip to mannheim was really cool. they have a website here of people that are travelling from one city to another and have extra space for other travellers. the trains here are crazy expensive so it is such a good deal. the driver was a cool computer guy that goes to mannheim to work, and we also picked up a girl in hamburg. i mostly slept because the sleep is still screwy. i'm in mannheim to meet katja, i kayaked with her on the north island of new zealand. and then in a few days i hope to visit tyson from university in heidelberg. see what i mean...friend, friend, friend.

have a good day
your friend
chad

kubb in the park

ciao a tutti,

the transitions have been really fast lately so it makes it hard to sum up everything that has happened. i'll do my best:

i did not want to leave spain at all. the freaky weird day seemed to be perfect with naps and super late nights. i've never seen a father and son play football (soccer) in the street on a sunday night...at three a.m. i was getting used to the good cheap food, good cheap sangria, and free amazing days with good people. so, it was a good thing i was going to sweden with friends i met in fiji.

the four day fiji reunion consisted of sebastian and sofia, the cool swedish couple, pauline, from england, and myself (laura, you should have been there too). at times my mind would say, 'what are you doing in sweden visiting friends you didn't even know existed before this trip?' the week we were in stockholm was some of the best weather they have seen in a long time (long, cold, dark winters for them). it was a bit chilly at times but the sun was shining. they really know how to make cinnamin buns and hot chocolate there, so that helps take the chill away. sebastian had a pretty good knowledge of interesting swedish history and things about buildings/statues/and other sites so we did lots of cool walking tours. then we would usually meet up with sofia after she had work. it was also cool to see urban, the swedish guy that i met in croatia. one of the best moments for me was playing kubb in the park. its a game where you knock down small blocks of wood with sticks. we played two games and whatever team i was on lost. thats ok though, i'm not swedish. i feel like a wuss because for the past three days, my muscles have been sore from throwing the sticks (if you saw how big...ok, how small the sticks where, you would understand why i feel like a weenie--its just i was playing it really intensely). but really the best part was hanging out with everyone. i think if i grew up in sweden i would want to be best friends with sebastian and sofia.

now i'm in tallinn, estonia with pauline. its always been really easy to travel with her so its been a good time. tallinn is pretty small but we've been able to occupy our time with cool things to do. there's so many dang churches its unbelievable and everything has a bit of that communist touch to it. some things are cheap and some things aren't. food is nearly nothing, but getting a water always costs more than you would think. we've been really lucky with the restaruants we've gone to. the one on our first night was straight out of italy which made me happy and last night was a proper estonian dinner. my potato porridge thing with bacon was good but a traditional softdrink called kali got me sicker than i would like to admit. tonight is some musical concert--i don't really know much about it, but i'm hoping its not too fancy-pants. tomorrow we are going to helsinki, finland for the day. its not in any of my books (the scandinavian countries have their own lonely planet book, and i don't have that one) so we really have no idea what is there.

on friday i'm going to hamburg germany to enjoy some wedding festivities. i don't know who is getting married but i know they are nice. the people i'm visiting (jasmin and bjorn, the cool german couple from the farm in new zealand) are going to the wedding and i'll be joining them as a guest. i'm going to do my best to look fancy, but i'm not so sure. either way, it will be good to see them again.

so, from now until arriving home, i believe i will be with friends or family--minus a few days. this means its going to be fun for me, but also it means i'll be a lot more delayed in returning emails. if you've emailed me, or if you will email me in the next two months, i'll do my best to write back as soon as i can, but it may have to wait until i get back home.

have a good day
your friend

chad

two travelling chads

hola!

i'm going to miss spain, all of its people, beaches, sangria, tappas, and most of all siestas.

i don't understand why they don't make more buildings now like Gaudi made them. they are full of imagination and make you dream. i think if i could get two people in human history to meet, it would be Hayao Miyazaki and Antonio Guadi. miyazaki is the guy that made spirited away and other trippy cartoons in japan. they would have been good friends--a common language wouldn't even be necessary.

today i went to the dali museum in figueres, a town about an hour and half by train from barcelona. i think that guy was too smart and had to find creative ways to entertain himself. there isn't a proper path in the place and it was incredibly crowded. i think its the first tourist site where i just wanted space and to stop bumping into elbows and feeling bad for getting in the way of everyones photos. i was about to make a quick exit until i found the stairs to the top levels (where i think a lot of people skip since they just follow the flow of people). it was all of his sketches and drawings and i think i spent an hour or so just up there. that definitely made it worth it.

tomorrow is the flight to sweden for a fiji reunion! pauline is flying in from england and we'll be staying with sebastian and sofia in stockholm. it would be cool if laura could make it, but she's working in northern ireland. i'm holding on to all of my winter clothes because i don't know what the weather is going to be like. the moment i think its warm enough, all the winter clothes are getting dumped. they are in no shape to wear when i get back and the extra space/less weight would be good.

so i guess there's a website of a different travelling chad at www.chadstravels.com (which has caused some confusion with a few people i have met) he's got pictures of his trip to new zealand too. i think its good that more chads are getting around. i hope he has good times.

have a good day
your friend
chad

agua de valencia

ciao a tutti!

my last day in valencia turned out really relaxing. a group of us went to the beach (after picking up some fruit and bread from the giant market) for the morning--and by morning, i mean spanish backpackers morning--11ish. i left my sunscreen in lagos so i had to purchase some more. the only one the pharmacy had was spf 60; i didn't even know it went that high, but it was either that or nothing. everyone made fun of the 60 but, whatever, when half of the people came back with what looked like purple sunburns, they weren't making as many jokes then. i'm proud of my shade in a tube.

two of my roommates were from albania but spoke perfect italian (they study there), and had two friends (an italian couple) that were also visiting valencia. the couple made everyone a great italian pasta dinner and we finished the night with an agua de valencia at a cafe in the town center. its some kind of mixed drink with orange juice, vodka and a couple other things (although, i think it was probably 90% juice). most of the others went to another bar/club but i had to get some sleep for the morning (again spanish morning--10ish) bus for barcelona.

the day in barcelona has been perfect! i met amandine, someone i met in lagos and sevilla, and went to the beach. i swear i have never seen so many naked people in one location. ok, actually the tramatizing icelandic public pool was probably more. the best was catching a glance (i wouldn't even classify it as a "look"...strictly a glance) of a couple playing paddle-ball in the nude. you have to love europe's ability to be naked. as the sun started going down we got some icecream and sat in front of the casa batllo, a house designed by Gaudi. it is unbelievable considering it was made in the early 1900s. its straight out of a dreamy (but sophisticated) cartoon.

my hair is the longest it has ever been in my life and there are 70 something days left. its a lot hotter and i use way more shampoo, but other than that (as long as the shampoo has some kind of conditioner, or else it feels like sandpaper) i could get used to it...maybe.

have a good day
your friend
chad

giant futuristic space ship

hello,

its been a pretty relaxed birthday. somehow the lady at the hostel knew it was my birthday; it was a bit weird but a good surprise. valencia used to have a pretty wide river running through it, but it either dried up or was stopped somehow (i don't really know). now its a park that goes and goes--good use of space. at the end is a collection of museums and other buildings. i'm not usually impressed by modern architecture, since usually a building is a building, but these were really different. the opera house isn't finished yet, but looks like a giant futuristic space ship and has a roof that looks like it isn't connected at all (except for one little bit at one end). next to it is a baby spaceship that is surround by shallow pools that make the water seem silvery blue (a lot like the blue lagoon in iceland). i'm not sure what is in that one but thats where i stopped under a tree and had sandwiches and my siesta. i've realized with the siestas, you just have to stop and sleep. yeah, you could be doing something else, but it can wait. its good to stop everything and relax for an hour or two.

tonight i'm meeting some cool people that i met in the hostel in madrid. they study here, so they have places that they usually go to. a pretty good birthday, i would say. on saturday i go to barcelona for the end of my time in spain, where i hear there are wickedly cool buildings to see (and more beaches, always a plus). and i hope to catch up on some pacassos that i missed in madrid. then its time for a fiji reunion in sweden on the 10 of may. two more months in europe! its going to go fast since for most of it, i will be with friends or family (i'm going to meet my mom in italy).

have a good day
your friend
chad

salsa-ing shoes

¡Hola!

happy may day to everyone! i'm not exactly sure what holiday that is for, but not much of valencia was open. i'm starting to see the difference between a "holiday" and a "festival". festival is the much better option because it usually means cheap food and a lot of fun; holiday just means everything is closed.

i had a great time in madrid for the few days i was there. i don't know what it would have been like if i stayed in a different hostel. the place was really small which meant you had to meet everyone. on saturday 15 of us (it seemed like more than half of the hostel) went to a salsa club. i'm crap at the salsa (it was my first time and i was in flip-flops, not the best salsa-ing shoes). tonight i might check out some tango (to watch, not to do) in valencia. the next day i went to the street market where i have never seen such a long river of people. it was dense (not chocalate festival in perugia, italy kind of dense) and it went on forever.

spain in the spring is amazing--although, lots of places probably are...but i'm not there, so i can only tell you about spain. every city i'm going to either just had a festival or are getting ready for one. i don't know if people work in madrid because everyone is out walking the streets (all day and all night long). they have huge parks where depending on where you go, can be tranquil or packed full of people, and the difference is only a minute or two walk away from each other.

i skipped out on the bull fight on sunday. not as a social stand against the cruelty of it; i just really love animals, and i don't think i could have taken the killing of 6 bulls. so, maybe i missed out on a cool cultural experience, but this trip is a cool cultural experience. i think i'll do alright without it. i did want to see picasso's guernica but the museum it was in was closed. instead i went to the prado and saw a lot of spanish art of goya and velazquez. velazquez's stuff was good but goya's paintings were really dark and powerful. my award goes to goya.

so, my birthday is tomorrow. i'm thinking its going to be alright. i kind of like celebrating other peoples birthdays more than mine. it seems like such an ambiguous celebration--kind of like new years. it does put me one year closer to cheap car insurance though (one more year), after that there aren't many more milestones. 23 has been an unbelievably crazy year for me. its going to be hard for 24 to compete, but i'll do my best to give it a good chance.

i'm getting used to eating dinner on spain time. there were two other people starting to cook dinner with me at 10:30pm. its still a bit strange, but that's when i was hungry. the sun is out today, so that means the beach. its only a tram ride away.

have a good day
your friend

chad

siesta fiesta

¡Hola!

I hope everyone is doing alright today.

its been awhile since the last one, so some things will be skipped. sorry, thats how it goes sometimes.

lisbon was a great place. my day trip to Sintra for a castle and a palace turned out beautiful but had a crazy amount of walking--sometimes signs are made only for people in cars and not for people walking. but the however many uphill kilometers through the forest was worth it. the next day, back in lisbon, i relaxed at the oceanarium. favorite animal: the manta ray. it was cool to see it and not have to swim my heart out to keep up with it (as in fiji). although, the rockhopper penguin was a close second. the cute little guy really does just hop all around, and for his size, he makes some pretty big jumps.

so, then it was lagos...i'm not exactly sure what i can say (there's going to be a few details missing) about my extended-by-one-day stay (for a total of 3 nights) at the hostel called Rising Cock--one symbol of portugal is a black rooster, which the hostel has a live one as a sort of mascot, and they just kind of played with the name a bit. out of all the places i have stayed, i have never seen anything like this hostel. first of all, the people are the most open, nicest people in one hostel. by the second day, it was one big family that you could talk to anyone about anything. the days consisted of the beach. and thats it. the nights....were long.... on the last night a group of us were going to go to the beach to see the moon and the ocean, but on the way there we ran into someone that said, "hey, its portugals independence day at midnight. there's a fado concert and fireworks." that was a nice surprise and ran into even more people at the concert. the firework show had the oddest selection of music i've ever heard for that kind of shindig. i laughed so much that night that in the morning it felt like somebody punched me in the ribs (which could have been possible).

the three nights were good, but it was the kind of place where, when you leave, you run as fast as you can. the bus to seville, spain (sevilla) flew by because i talked with three awesome french people (they were also at the same hostel, we were sort of roommates). i don't think i'm ever going to forget sevilla and it was a perfect introduction to spain. the sights are beautiful--a cathedral that makes you feel like an ant, and a palace that takes hours to explore--and you can feel the culture in the people walking the streets. definitely one of my favorites, but again, a good place depends on a lot of other things and this one had people. the best kind of people.

time for a siesta! with the siesta, spain may beat out portugal in coolness. although, there is no list. really, i just like siestas. i guess its a holiday weekend in spain this weekend (meaning thursday to sunday, and a bit of wednesday), which means i need all the sleep i can find. you eat dinner here at 10pm and go out at 12. crazy spain. tomorrow i'll be going to madrid for a few days and then its valencia for my birthday! (4 may) i don't know what it is going to be like, but i'm easily amused so i won't worry to much about it.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Bom Dia!

ciao a tutti!

Bom Dia! (hello)

i am in love with portugal. i've only been here a few days but i know i will want to stay longer. the only problem is that i have been having difficulties finding rooms. i guess april is the month for schools from everywhere to take over all hostels. it kind of sucks because if (and thats usually a tough if) i can get in, the environment is quite different. so, the solution (as to not sleep in too many train or bus stations) was to book way in advance. i'm not a huge fan of this because it makes things a lot less flexible, but, oh well.

i don't know why, but portugal just feels really good to be in. every interaction is always fun and full of smiles--if we are able to understand each other or not, it doesn't matter). yesterday i tried to catch some sort of musical concert thing, i don't really know what it was, the paper was all in portugese; it turned out to be a few more miles away than i thought. i came much too late, but the place it was at was full of art and music. the people that really know me, know that i like the acoustic meaningful music, and portugal caught on to the cool acoustic music trend quite a long time ago. (for anyone that has seen The Life Aquatic, those david bowe songs sung in portugese--thats the kind of music that is all around. it even has its own name--"Fado").

the fun part of portugal is that most of the streets are nearly parallel. key word being "nearly." so, when you think you are just one street off of where you need to be, depending on time walked, you could actually be far, far from where you want to be. on saturday night, in porto, i tried to get to an irish pub to watch the local soccer game. i walked in the door just as they turned the tv off, due to my tardiness from a 4 kilometer detour. no worries though, about 10 minutes later some guy with a guitar started playing good portugese music.

i did a few days in porto and now im in lisbon (lisboa) for a few more days to do some day trips to different towns around here, and then i'll go to the southern coast for some beach towns. then its spain! i was thinking about going to morocco for a day or two, but i have decided against it. vatican city and san marino (both incredibly small countries) are one thing to go to just to say, "yeah, i went to those 'countries'." but i think my real reason of wanting to go to morocco is to say "yeah, i went to africa." thats a lame reason, so i'll wait and do a proper visit later.

i wish i could write more about how cool portugal is, but my internet time is up.

have a good day
your friend

chad

lamb and pickles

ciao!

i hope everyone had a good weekend.

the transitions in croatia have been sudden and crazy. one minute i'm having a great conversation with an english traveler on the boat from hvar to split. less than 15 minutes later, drinking some strange juice, i'm having a much more awkward conversation in the home of a croatian family that i will be sleeping at for the night.

they took really good care of me there including feeding me. this normally would be a good thing. not quite so this time: boiled rack of lamb (so its kind of a dead fleshy grey color) and pickles--all moments before my overnight bus ride to trieste, italy. i'm not the best at eating meat with a high fat content (something about the texture of it)...naturally lamb has a lot of fat. i'm sorry to say, i gagged once but was able to cover it up by acting like i was choking from eating too fast.

i wasn't feeling too well on the bus. luckily i got on the wrong one, and an hour later they dropped me off in the middle of croatia and told me to wait a half an hour for my real bus to arrive. that gave me time to mellow out my mind and body (and digest the lamb and pickles). the rest of the ride went much smoother.

i enjoyed my i-can-understand-everything hour in italy, only to catch a bus back into i-don't-understand-anything slovenia to visit piran, a cool town by the sea. about the same time some wicked wind from the north brought frigid air and waves that broke all of the chairs at the restaraunts on the sea. the wind even has a slovenian name (that means it must not be good) so i'll be happy to go to portugal where they have no knowledge of this wind.

today i went to the skocjanske caves with an american girl i met at breakfast. i'm so glad i went because they were everything that i would want cool caves to be. it looked like it was straight out of indiana jones. there were massive caverns, a great path through them that gave crazy perspectives on the size of everything, and a powerful river going through one of them. re-reading this, it all sounds not that exciting, but trust me on this one. these caves, that i cannot pronounce, receive my "coolest caves in the world(that i've seen)" award even with 3 more months left of my travels. its just going to be too hard to compete.

i fly to portugal on the 15th from trieste, but the hostel is booked for a group tomorrow so i've got to go somewhere. i think i'll head to trieste on the bus and if i see a place that looks good (this usually means a sign that has the word "hostel" on it), then i'll get off and stay there.

have a good day
your friend

chad

bullet holes, hypothermia, and a sunburn

ciao everyone!

i hope april has been enjoyable for everyone.

croatia has turned out to be one of my favorite places yet. after a wicked 23 hours of bus and train travel with a quick stop in bosnia, i ended up in dubrovnik (its a city near the bottom of croatia). its hard to say now because its too soon after being there, but it may just be my favorite city in the world (so far). but then again, its always hard to fairly judge a city because the people you meet there count for so much.

it was great being at a hostel again. i hung out with one of my roommates for nearly the whole time there: Urban, a cool swedish snowboarder traveler. i'm really glad he was there because our other roommate "old man," didn't get along with either of us. we had a bit of communication difficulties.

its a bit difficult to describe why dubrovnik is one of my favorite places. its just perfectly beautiful. a small walled "old town" with marble streets and red tile roofs...all right on the sea. the first day urban and i walked the top of the city walls for a few hours and then climbed a mountain to see an old fort where a lot of fighting happened in the early 90s. it was really strange up there because they just left it after the fighting, so you can explore the building and imagine what it was like. the best part was bullet holes and the ends of each hallway and on one side a desk turned on its side, to be used as a shield, with more bullet holes. it was like walking onto a movie set but creepy because it was real.

the next day was relaxation day with some time at the beach. we asked an english family if it was alright if we left our stuff with them while we swam, which turned into them adopting us for the rest of our time there. it was great because the oldest daughter traveled in thailand and australia, so her family understood how things were for us. it was one mom, three daughters and one friend of the youngest daughter. my favorite moment at the beach was a competition between Urban (aged 27) and the friend of the youngest daughter (aged 14) of who can stay in the water (ice cold water) the longest. i think Urban did the right thing by walking out of the water first, only because i'm pretty sure hypothermia was setting in for both of them. his core body temperature dropped a bit because he was still shaking about 25 minutes later. that night we (Urban, me and the english family) went to an irish pub and talked for about 6 hours. they are some good people--and incredibly honest with each other. I'll be visiting them in england someday.

After such a good day, urban and i decided to stay another and visit an island just off of dubrovnik. i guess he's also into rockclimbing so we took the long way around. there's a nude beach (although, in my mind beach implies sand, which this place had none. only big rocky levels). i think we scared the crap out of the one naked man on the island because we weren't on the look out for naked people (the water is freezing!). he was on the boat back, but fully clothed and sunburned. i think we had a moment of "oh, you're the naked guy" and "oh, you're the ones that snuck up on me." One more night at the irish pub, but with even more random people. it started to feel like dubrovnik was getting to be a home.

Urban left in the morning for montenegro and i went to the beach (the non-nude one just outside of the wall) where i met amy and jess (two of the daughters). it was a great last day of dubrovnik.

for the past three days, i've been on islands off of croatia: korcula and hvar. in korcula i got an amazing room in someones house that was right on the sea and had the best view of the old town at sunset, and it was only about 1.75$ more than the one that looked at a wall--probably my most well spent 3.50 of the trip (i stayed two nights). tonight i go to a city called Split for a night and then its another overnight bus to Trieste, italy. i think it is easier to get there and then go back to Slovenia to see Piran. i'm not sure really, i just point at the map and they point at a bus.

i'm happy i chose to go to slovenia and croatia. slovenia was exactly what i was hoping for and croatia was probably the coolest surprise country of the trip (so far).

well, have a good day.
your friend
chad

18 spots left

ciao! (i am keeping ciao, even when i'm no longer in italy),

I hope everyone's easter holiday went well. i celebrated by eating chocolate. i'm not sure where to start with slovenia, so i'll go with today.

I left Bled this afternoon, but before Damien, the cool old guy that runs the hostel, suggested i hike up to a church up in the mountains that was built in the 1300s. i say yes and his directions:

go up this street
take a right at the top
take a left and cut across that field
then cut right across the same field and you'll be there.

this seemed all easy because we were standing at the bottom of the mountain and i could see the street, the field, and the church. so, i go up the street, cut across the field and then i can't see anything,--no path, no church, only trees. i cut right and end up in the middle of the forrest just kind of walking around. after a while i end up back at the village, but on the complete other side. i gave it another shot but this time at the end of the left cut across the field there was an old man with crutches sitting on a rock. i do the praying symbol (its the only thing i can think of with a church) and he points to the path right behind the rock he was sitting on. i don't know how he got there or what he was doing, but it was a bit strange.

the church was small and closed but i could see in the window. had it been at the bottom of the mountain it would have received a low church appeal rating, but after everything it took to get there, its one of the best churches i have ever seen.

yesterday i went to the Bohinj valley. i took the bus to the last village and walked an hour to a giant waterfall. i remember being so excited about seeing waterfalls in new zealand, but i'm beginning to get waterfalled out. the cool part was walking back along the lake (its about 4 km.) on this trip i've seen "mirror lakes" but usually they are small and ducks always ruin it. This lake was of good size--i would call it a medium sized lake-- but with only one visible duck and absolutely no wind, it was a mirror. i could see every detail of every tree and all the clouds by looking into the water. it was amazing.

the day before that i spent in the town of Bled. its a small lake, that has an old church on a tiny island in the middle of it, a castle way up high on a cliff, and a cool cathedral. it just feels really old (because it is). its a bit touristy but all of the tourists were from italy so i was happy. it was just a nice place to sit and read/write/think by the water. at night Damien would tell me what it was like in slovenia after and during wars and all sorts of things. also, his wife would cook me slovenian meals (well, one dinner was serbian but with a slovenian twist to it--some kind of bean and ham stew).

Ljubljana, the capital of slovenia, is the next prague (in feel, not in price). it was good and bad being there on easter weekend. good because no body was there and i got great pictures; bad because everything was closed (which includes any place to buy food). i was incredibly hungry all weekend holiday long. my chocolates from italy kept me going and i found apples at a gas station but it was tough going for a few days. on easter (actually every sunday) they had one of the best antique markets ever--from russian communist war helmets to way old video cameras and postcards. i got two buttons since they are easy to carry.

now i'm back in ljubljana (and its not too difficult to pronounce), and it is a completely different place. there are so many people everywhere its a bit overwhelming but a lot more fun and there is less hunger.

i've had to change my schedule some and i'll be leaving slovenia to go to croatia in a few days, and then i'll come back and finish the west side. its going to make it easier to catch my flight to portugal.

my mind had an incredible difficult time of deciding what language to speak my first few days here. it was telling me "they don't speak english here, change languages" and all i have is italian, which is alright here, but they know i'm not italian because i can't hide my hair anymore. so i would end up not speaking any language and just mumbling and pointing. it really was akward. however now i have convinced my mind to speak english first and everything is flowing much smoother.

tomorrow i'm going to the u.s. embassy here to find out if "hypothetically" i run out of space in my passport for stamps. i'm sweating a bit because there are only 18 spots left and i think (think) that i only will get 17 more. thats really cutting it close, and i need to know what my options are.

ok, sorry for such a long post, the next one will be from croatia! sweet!

have a good day
your friend
chad

stick-shift, make-shift

ciao a tutti!,

Happy Spring!! the last farm was wonderful and having it be hot hot was an added bonus. for the last ten days i was part of a really cool italian family. (husband Luca, wife Chiara, kids Giacamo, Elisa and Alice) In the part of italy where i was they speak with a lisp, which threw me off my italian for a few days (i would only focus on the lisped words). this farm was what i imagined "farming" was going to be like--the plant kind, not the animal kind (although there were animals too). every morning i would feed the animals: pot belly pigs, cats, chickens, ducks, tibetan goats, and some freaky cross of a chicken and a turkey. my favorite animal, by far, is the tibetan goat. they're like normal goats, but they are small and have cool calico coloring. i was sad, though, when one of them went on a hunger strike and didn't eat for a week (i think it was pretty sick, and i'm not sure how long its going to live) the afternoon would usually be filled with raking the cut branches or apricot and peach trees and then a huge lunch that would always last over an hour.


the tibetan goat.


the real fun was working with Luca, the farmer guy. about four hours after arriving at the farm, i was driving around a stick-shift, make-shift tractor (seriously, he made it himself) with a palet lift attached to the front of it. it had no brakes and i didn't tell him that i didn't know how to drive stick. that time everything went relatively well, but two days later i broke it so it could only go forward in fourth gear but was pressed up against a trunk, so it wasn't going anywere(Luca was at work, and his dad, who visits to work on the house, asked me if i knew how to drive it, so i said, "sure, its no problem at all."). the next day i opened the transmission, realigned the gears, and let luca do the rest of the driving. (i did feel better though, because he broke it two days later).

the other tractor that i drove almost daily had tred like a tank instead of wheels. it took a few trys but i figured it out and had a much better time driving that machine (even with a trailer) than the other tractor of doom.

it just felt really good at the farm and i hope to go back someday. that was probably my last wwoofing experience for the year, depending on money, so i'm glad things ended so well.

tomorrow i head out to ljubjana, slovenia. i'll be in slovenia and croatia until april 15, then its portugal and spain.

Also, the start of the end of my trip occured today. i have my dates and times for coming back to america:

July 1st London - New York (arriving in new york at 7:15pm)
July 16 New York - Chicago (arriving in chicago at 7:32pm)
July 19 Chicago - home (arriving in las vegas at 8:27pm)

so there it is, i will be arriving back home exactly one year and 14 hours later.

i hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the official start of spring and all that is warm (except for everyone in the southern hemisphere).

have a good day
your friend

chad

emilia romagna

Ciao a tutti!

I hope the rest of the northern hemisphere is warming up like florence is. i've still got a few layers on but not that "its really cold outside" pain that has been lingering the last 4 months. there have definitely been moments where i wish i didn't give Dani's jacket back after iceland. i knew it was going to happen, but hopefully the hard part has past and i may even be able to leave a layer or two along the way.

it has been great the last week in florence staying with my friend ashley from university. a few days ago we went to the most extreme hill town in tuscany--civita di bagnaregio. its this ghost-townish place that is falling off the pedestal of land that it sits on. there's only 14 people that live there permanently and i think we may have met one of them at the restaruant/bed and breakfast that was there. other than that we've just been hanging out at the apartment and around florence. its definitely made me more prepared to live in a place again (at some point, not quite yet).

i go to my next farm on sunday. they only speak italian, so i should probably start thinking in italian again. that way i won't get sleepy when i arrive. its in the emilia romagna region of italy--north of tuscany (its the one with Bologna in it). but tomorrow i leave for ravenna; i guess thats also in the same region. i've never been there and it sounds like its got a lot of cool history.

i just finished The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. the way he used words was amazing. Grace, one of ashleys roommates, lent me the Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara. it looks really good and hopefully it won't turn me into a communist (although i think he was a good one).

maybe the next post will be from Slovenia!

have a good day
your friend

chad

rooster and a peacock

Happy Spring!

i know its not officially spring, that happens on the 21ish. but its march and thats good enough for me. at the farm near siena, i kept saying "happy spring!" and "this isn't winter snow, this is spring snow. its much different." so its been dang cold lately. i arrived at the farm in a furry of snow and left in the same way.

the farm was a good place, with excellent food, people, and strange events. also, in addition to being a farm its a meditation center too. the source of money comes from different groups that stay for a week or more and work on being higher level meditators (i really don't have any idea what the levels mean or what they do). but, on sundays the group gets tested and they need people to work on (me). i found out what it means to truly meditate. i guess the simplest way to describe it is to be awake but completely void of thought. i felt like i was awake, but after the hour long session i definitely "woke up" and felt like i was drunk. definitely a strange feeling, and it made it even more strange to be getting a healing meditation session in a giant villa in the middle of tuscany.

i didn't get to ride any horses but i spent a good amount a time feeding them (and sometimes cleaning up the crap, but its really not that bad at all when everything is frozen). not a fan of geese--they are animals of the devil. this farm gets the weirdest animals-that-are-friends award: all day a rooster and a peacock hang out together. i didn't know those two birds could be friends, but i guess its possible. one cool event was driving a bobcat (i really small bulldozer type machine) during an all-the-water-pipes-are-frozen-and-the-animals-need-to-drink-water crisis (those don't happen to often). i grated my thumb while trying to zest a lemon and burned my fingers on a lid that i just removed from a giant stone oven--not my most shining moments.

now i'm neosporined in florence at ashleys and am going to go to another farm soon--maybe somewhere in bologna. i would like this one to be an only italian speaking place since my italian didn't really improve much with them speaking perfect english and me spending most of my time with a german wwoofer. it was a good week but i'm ready to focus on italian again.

i haven't cut my hair since new zealand (october) and i finally have wings. i think its taken so long because hair grows slower in winter--and i've had a lot of winter.

happy spring
ciao ciao
your friend

chad

"england's oldest pub"

ciao ciao a tutti!

its been probably one of the most varied week and a half of the trip so far. after leaving iceland with my brother i went to manchester, england (near manchester) to hang out with pauline. unfortunately it was only five days but we did fill the short time nicely. after checking out manchester we went to the "lake district" which is an area north of manchester.

we had a good time there with long hikes around farms, hills, mountains, and lakes. it felt a lot like being back in new zealand; there is a really good nature feel there. the strange part was seeing every single person, from babies to old people, wearing only outdoor clothing (north face, columbia, 66° north, and every other brand). wearing jeans makes you stand out there. waterproof hiking pants are all that can be seen.

manchester is high on my list of possible places to move to. the only bad point is that it isn't on the beach--and, that they drive on the other side of the road. but both of this are alright by me (for a short period of time). but, we'll see. i change my mind a lot about these things.

after leaving pauline, i went to see dani in nottingham to hang out for a day and to return his jacket. it was a good time checking out the place where robin hood came from. i had to leave so quickly that we couldn't do much, but we did stop by "england's oldest pub" -- at least thats what they say. i guess its a few hundred years old and the inside was very cave like.

the next day i was in rome for a night before going to florence for ashley's birthday. ashley is a friend from university that is studying art here for a year. her friends are rad and we all had a giant dinner at il latini (my favorite restaurant) and then saw Finding Neverland in a really cool italian theater.

for the weekend i went to an organic farm conference near siena. it was mostly just spending time with other wwoofers while all the italians talked and voted on official things. the location was really cool and i'll be going back there to farm for a week. they have horses and i would really like to spend a lot of my free time with them so i can be more comfortable around them.

after that i think i will visit a wwoofer i met at the convention who lives in balogna, and then maybe find a farm somewhere near there. i think after my month of italia i may go to slovenia and croatia. i still have to look to find the cheapest way to get there, but they are pretty close to italy so it should be easy.

this month my entries may be a bit more spread out, but i'll fill you in whenever i get a chance.

thanks to pauline, dani, and ashley for letting me stay at their places. it means a lot to me.

have a good day
ciao ciao
your friend

chad

hotdogs

Hello,

So, i'm feeling pretty low after leaving iceland. i thought i was getting used to saying goodbye to people and places, but iceland really was something special. last night at the hostel in england with my brother, we didn't know what to do because our new family wasn't with us. although, in a way its a good thing--it means we had a great time.

If you ever go to iceland (and you should), try to plan it so you are in reykjavik on the first weekend of the month. every weekend of the year there is a pub crawl called "runtur" (i'm not actually sure on spelling), but the first weekend is special because everyone in iceland gets paid once a month at the beginning of the month and they go out with their new money. on friday we went out with a big group from the hostel and watched an iclandic regae band play at a university bar and then spent the rest of the evening at prikid, a more relaxed bar where you could talk with people. we called it a night at 3am but all the icelanders were just starting...crazy people. saturday night was more of the same with some local bands and many other bars/pubs/clubs/cafes. we got back in time to say goodmorning to a lady who was catching the 5am bus to the airport. one sign of how late things usually go is that the hotdog stand stays open until 7am.

Maybe my idea of spring is wrong, but when i think of spring i don't think of cold, wind, ice, rain (ok, this one can be in spring...but cold rain, no), hail, sleet, and snow. I think winter returned after that tour guide said it was spring; but, it made for some great times. i've never swam outdoors in the snow before. my brother and i went to the geothermally heated pool next to the hostel and while we were playing on the kid's slide, which was good fun, it was snowing a pretty good amount. the locker room was a bit tramatizing but maybe i'm just not used to having 15 minute conversations with my friends while in the nude (it seemed like this was normal for everyone else from age 6 to over 60).

Being from las vegas, my brother and i decided it would be better to put the driving of icy roads into someone else's hands and took tours to all the sights. Iceland is an amazingly beautiful place that could easily compete with the natural beauty of new zealand. i could list out the things we saw but it just wouldn't be enough. "waterfall" can't really describe what we saw in gulfoss and the "black beach" in vi'k is more than a beach with black sand. so, i'm going to have to leave that list out--sorry.

The best thing by far was the people. we spent so much time together doing random things, like ice skating, movie nights, or watching the superbowl--all filled with laughing. everyone knew everyone else. it felt so good to be there and so wrong to leave. and now i'm back in england. my brothers on a bus to the airport and thankfully my bus leaves tomorrow morning for my visit to pauline near manchester. it will be nice to be with a good friend instead of trying to make new friends at a new hostel. i'm not quite ready for that yet.

Also, big thanks to Dani (my italian friend from sardegna that is living in england). Thanks for the use of your jacket. i truly don't know what i would have done without it.

Have a good day
your friend

chad

Burned his butt

Hello from Iceland!

first of all, iceland isn't at all what my mind was making me think. there is a bit of ice here and there, and it can be a bit funny if you don't see it. but, it isn't a below freezing snowy wastland. i guess there was a lot of snow two weeks ago, but our tour guide yesterday said that its spring now in iceland! good news!

me with the brother (his name is steve)

we spent a few days in reykjavik. its the capital (the northern most capital in the world) where you fly into. it kind of has a ski town feel to it because it isn't that huge of a place and people enjoy having fun. iceland is on a geothermal bed(volcanoes and other hot things) so heating is basically free and i have never seen so many radiator heaters ever in my life, but places are all warm and toasty. also, it doesn't have that nasty sulfer smell like rotorua (in new zealand) had.

after reykjavik we decided to go to hafnarfjordur for a day and night. its a "suberb" about 20 km from reykjavik. really, its just a cool small town. we kind of just showed up without reservations anywhere and found that every hostel was closed or not taking anyone. but luckily the last place was open and turned out to be really cool. it was in a home that had a guest apartment on the bottom floor (they like having three floors here). Axle was the name of the guy who lived there and he was very...tranquil. the town has a lot of old lava flow that is hard to explain, except that it makes you feel like a giant. theres a thing about little people living there (elves and other mystical little people), so the people have built tiny houses all around the town. you even have to get clearance to build something on your land by an official person that checks for residences of little people.

yesterday was an odd experience of the blue lagoon. i would imagine that nearly every girl in the world would like to go to there, which made it funny being there with my brother. first, what it is (its better than it sounds): its a power plant about 40 minutes outside reykjavik. it uses steam and hot water from deep in the earth to create power for iceland. the water is then poured into a lagoon that...people swim in. the place is super high tech and fancy pants and it really does make you feel important. the water is the craziest color blue and in some places incredibly hot (incredibly). it was strange mix of deciding to be cold standing outside of the water or slowly boiled inside the water--i chose a half and half mix. i guess there are a lot of minerals and blue-green algae in the water that make your skin better somehow. the whole place is like a super huge day spa, with hot waterfalls for massages and silica mud masks (but no cucumbers). the geothermal steam room was a little much; i would consider it torture after about two minutes. my brother, steve, burned his butt (even through his swimtrunks) on one of the seats in the steam room.

crazy blue water



So after that we had a sedate movie night in the hostel in reykjavik with some cool norweigens. we still have a few days here so will be going to a town called vik tomorrow, where they have black beaches and some cool rock formations near the ocean. the weather is supposed to be clearing up soon so we'll also go to see a waterfall and geyser. the geyser is in a town called "geyser" and its where the name geyser comes from...i think thats kind of cool.

have a good day
your friend (and his brother)

chad (and steve)

Clothes are clean

ciao,

so, the clothes are clean and i'm in london. its kind of strange. i left sardegna, an island in the Mediterranean and it was freezing cold, pouring rain, and not one bit of sunlight. to arrive in london with sunshine and blue sky. yeah, its still pretty dang cold, but in the sun it feels good enough.

i'm not exactly sure what kind of soap i used for my clothes (i found a box of something in the bathroom in the hostel), but there were bubbles in the machine so i think thats a good sign. i figure soap is soap and hopefully i won't get a rash.

my brother comes in a few hours!! i think he's going to be all messed up with the time changes and flying all day. he arrives pretty late at night so hopefully he'll be tired and can get hooked up with england time quickly.

tomorrow we fly to iceland. i was happy to see the sunrises here sometime around 7:30-8ish. thats good news because hopefully there will be some amount of sunlight in iceland. the good thing is that with each day, the daylight will get longer...and thats better. (weather permitting)

its always a shock to go from a not-so-commercialized place to an over-commercialized place (like fiji to sydney). you can always tell by how many signs there are on the road--and on everything that has enough space for an advertisement. there were about 4 huge signs on each side of the road in the space of about 50 meters saying there was a camera that would catch speeders...and thats when a car flew by our bus to get its picture taken. i think there's just so many signs that people don't pay attention to anything. i think i'm more of a fan of the less sign-age lifestyle.

one of the good things about london is that i can get 24 hours of internet for less than the price of one hour in sardegna. i would give that up though if everyone spoke italian here. i miss it (and i can't stop saying si' for yes).

have a good day
your friend

chad

My sideburns are dark

Hello,

I hope all of my east coast friends have stayed indoors with some hot chocolate and made it through the blizzard. they show it on the tvs here and it really is crazy how much snow is there.

i can't believe i've spent a month in sardegna. it's been a good month with a different kind of travel. staying with the family and then at the farm has been interesting. i think i've been spoiled with amazing food (il pandoro will not be forgotten) and a family atmosphere. i've been lucky though and i think it may continue for another month. two weeks with the brother should be really cool and its going to be good to see him. oh, and i've passed my six month mark on the 19th of Jan. I'm more than halfway over with my trip now, with five months and some number of weeks and days left. its one of those weird time is going so slow but then so fast at the same time.

my italian is better, i think. today i picked up a Topolino (mickey mouse) book and understood most of it. the pictures help but i'm most happy about seeing all the different verb tenses and understanding them now. also interactions with shop people, post offices, and other places are going much better. still it helps when i wear my beanie because they can't see my hair. luckily my sideburns are dark and they don't assume i'm american, english, or german.

honestly, right now, i'm the most smelly on the trip as of yet. the last time my clothes were washed (thank you italian family in Sini) was on the 6th. thats not so bad, the bad part is that i've been farming in my clothes for 10 days. they look dirty, feel dirty, and when i move in certain ways they smell dirty--well, they smell dirty all the time, but i can only smell them at certain times. job for tomorrow before my flight: wash clothes. (or job for england as soon as i get there...although washing them with the euro would make me much happier than a wash with the pound...crappy dollar...)

have a good day
your friend

chad

Frustrating but cool

Ciao,

I hope everyone is doing well. the farm in sardegna has been great! after a few days of total body hurt from actually using my muscles, i'm feeling good. the farm i'm at is a bioagroturismo in sardegna. that means its kind of like a bed and breakfast but on a farm. and since its in the winter and there are no guests, i get a really nice (really really nice) room with an amazing view.

The work i've been doing has been simple but hard. i've cleared two fields so Franco, one of the owners, can plow it with a tractor. also, i've been working with compost piles. i feel really bad though because yesterday when i was moving (not the right verb, but the closest i can think of) a compost pile, i wrecked a mouse's home. he survived but i still felt like the farmer in the secret of nymh that was destroying the nice rat's home.

My italian is at the frustrating but cool stage. you wouldn't think it but to have a normal conversation your vocabulary has to be way bigger than it needs to be because you never know where the conversation is going to go. at least now, i don't skip out on things to say because i don't know the right words. i just start talking and figure out how to explain random things. its a good thing Franco and Maddelena are patient.

Also, i had my first dream in italian!! way cool, and the dream the night before was my first flying dream! i've always wanted one of those.

In a few days i'll be meeting my brother in london to go to iceland for two weeks. then i'll visit pauline (who i met in new zealand and fiji) in manchester for a week or so before flying back to italy for a good month of italian language...that and its cold up north.

If you've emailed me lately (meaning all of january), i'm not ignoring you. internet is slightly difficult in sardegna, and i've been trying to stay away from english as much as i can. it really does set me back.

Well, its my free day, so i'm checking out Palau and areas near there. i hear theres a rock that looks like a bear.

Have a good day
your friend

chad

il pandoro

Hello,

First of all big thanks to the mom for helping me post pictures. i've got to do some editing on some of the captions (and explain that last photo with the flower) but that will have to come later when there is cheaper internet.

My one day in rome, on my way to sardegna, turned out to be my coolest day in rome yet. i spent most of the day with Claire, a cool girl who is studying in paris for the year. we spent hours on the spanish steps and at the trevi fountain just talking about random things. it was definitely what i needed after the solo days in florence. the coolest part was her showing me the birds in front of the train station at sunset...thousands and thousands of small birds flying in different formations.

and then sardegna... the all night ferry to sardegna was interesting because i was sleeping in the if-this-ship-sinks-i'm-going-to-die part of the boat. you couldn't get any lower on the boat than where my room was--even the cars were higher than me. it arrived in cagliari in the morning where Dani met me. then a dream i have had for the last three years (to live with an italian family) came to be.

Dani's family was way cool. there was his parents and his two sisters at the home but in the village of 500 people it seemed like it was mostly his extended family. not really, but there were a lot of them and they were all really friendly.

For new years we went to alghero, which is like the las vegas of sardegna (for new years celebrating, not for casinos and things). it was me and 10 italian friends who spoke lightning fast italian. i didn't understand much, but it was exactly what i wished for. when i got back to dani's family's house i really understood their slowed down italian that they spoke for me. thats when Dani got deathly ill for a few days, which left me without a translator...which was even cooler (although it would have been better if he didn't get sick...its not good to be happy when friends don't feel well).

some of the crazy italians in alghero, sardegna. the day after new years.

They fed me so much good food and sardegnian specialties, i think i've gained back a kilo or two. i love the holiday season in sardegna, its like none other. i'm not sure if they sell it all over (they probably do), but il pandoro...you must try.

I've left dani's and now i'm in a small town called fertilia. yesterday i had a really cool moment. the chain of buses to get to fertilia had me at the alghero airport for an hour and while i was there i had a five minute debate on do i go to london, or a small town in sardegna? it was a really fun debate because both options were 100% possible. Sardegna won out because in a few days i'm going to work on a farm in the northeast part of sardegna. so, there'll be another gap in posts.

For all the people that emailed me, i'm really sorry but it is going to take me awhile to respond. internet is sparce and expensive here, so it may have to wait until february. but thank you very much for thinking about me, i greatly appreciate it.

Have a good day
your friend

chad