chadstravels

bum knee

2010-04-05T10:49:00.002+01:00

Hello,

I thought there was a problem with the internet when I was trying to post but went with it anyway. Then the next day I saw what I typed wasn't posted or in the drafts. gone away somewhere i guess. that's okay, but for some reason i can't type again what i typed before because it feels staged.

so a quick summary that will likely turn into its own post:

knew i could count on you, ryan! sorry amy, should have counted you in on the short list. thanks laurie, i don't think you're a cheater. just waiting for jasmine now...

really liked kaikoura. my knee not so much. after saturdays little jaunt (10k run) through the bush in Sydney with Jose my right knee was doing some pretty weird things. then the walk around the peninsula in kaikoura secured my thought that going down was bad. only to go 1602 meters (5,250 ft) up to the top of Mt. Fyffe and then 1602 meters (5,250 ft) back down to the bottom. further confirming that going down is bad.

it is just plain weird to be in Nelson again. Kaikoura was a new place for me but it feels like too many ghosts are here in Nelson. i walked into a grocery store tonight to look at some of the pricing of the food for work and realized i was in this grocery store before. when i was more hungry, in grubbier clothes, and not able to buy so much. i drive by the bridge that we walked over to meet katja, pauline and hayley at the bar. or see the hostel where Thomas and i had a half can size of rice pudding because the grocery stores were closed for some holiday. actually he had food, and i had the half can size of rice pudding for dinner but a full bag of salt, olive oil, and butter which made me think i had plenty of food to eat. whenever you hear someone say, "this is just a taste, i'm traveling to so many places to see where it is that i want to go back." kind of a specific thing to hear but I have heard it so much. tell them, "no, don't come back, go somewhere new."

the only exception to the above rule is italy. everyone should go back to italy as much as possible.

crazy day tomorrow: early flight to Auckland, some meetings during the day (world's best hot chocolate which by some amazing weird chance is one block away from one of my meetings), over night flight to Hong Kong, flight to Beijing, then drive 5 hours to somewhere. Don't think it is actually in the region of Mongolia because 5 hours drive time in China doesn't really get you that far. So either I'm not going to Mongolia and just nearby it, or the drive will be much longer than 5 hours. If it were any other country I would put my money on the first one, but since we're talking about China, i think we're at 50/50 here.

28 days down, 4 more to go. looking forward to going home again.
your friend,
chad

14 hours

2010-03-12T09:02:00.003Z

Hello,

Yes! This thing still works. Now normally this would not work in China but thanks to the ol' remote desktop it thinks I'm over in California. That is definitely a hole in China's tight web of security.

I've decided the main reason why I like flying. it forces you to spend long hours of time with yourself. take-off, talking with the guy next to me that looks and sounds like one of the doctors from MASH, and settling myself into the nest of blanket, snacks, pillow, bottle of water, laptop, kindle, ipod, and more wires then are needed all takes about an hour. Then you have to come up with things to do for the next 13.

One netflix film killed off the partially charged laptop, a spacious but inconveniently placed seat on the plane canceled out the chance to really get into any of the six films but an attempt was made, and sleep always erases a few here and there.

But in the end I have time to think. and I think about how I need to make more time to think. lay on a blanket in a park and think, find someone with a giant trampoline and lay on it and think. for some reason i always picture clouds along with this thinking. and i see in my mind all the people i need to contact to say hi or the goals that need to be pursued - how am i going to make egyptian food for jamie? how do i get enough addresses to hand write letters to? why are the italian lessons going so slow? what would i write about on the old travel blog and there's only two people that read it anyway?

then, with enough hours come the answers. just use epicurious, buy the stuff and make it, people eat in egypt everyday, they must make something. i have a few addresses, that's all the start I need. it only goes slow when i don't listen to them. write something, i have never known what to write, ever. just start and try not to over think it.

(to ryan and jasmine)
your friend,
chad

Happy Christmas!!

2008-12-28T04:49:00.003Z

Hello,

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas!

The trip to the airport to come back to Las Vegas was interesting enough for me. With me refusing to take a 20 dollar bus ride (and cursing the no change given rule), freezing my face enough to slur my words, and finally being picked up by a bus that shouldn’t have stopped, paying the right price, and the bonus of having my pockets full of gummy bears and beef jerky (had to make change for the 20).

It has been another good Christmas with the Mom and brother. I am eternally grateful for the London Christmas with my Mom in 2002. I think it has set the right example of the meaning of Christmas in my mind at least. One of the best things was seeing my friends, with the wish that someday all of these people could live in one place again, and the reminder that it will probably never happen. It is always a battle for me of enjoying the seasons of having certain people in your life and then being able to let go when it is time to move on.

I’m looking forward to going back to the snowy Seattle. I’ve got a few ideas of sledding that I need to give a try. It looks like it might be rain for the moment, but I hope the snow makes another appearance. Although, 40 degrees does sound pretty good compared to the dang 20s it was when I left. But I do love the nonsound that the snow makes when it is falling, if that makes any sense at all.

My goal of meeting all of my neighbors has been extended one month. I’ll be getting my new professional mixer in the mail soon so I can properly deliver goods to all the organic, healthy eaters in the neighborhood. How could I tell them the cinnamon rolls came from a can, when I know some of them probably have not stepped foot into a Safeway for a few years on the chance they might buy something that isn’t pesticide free, free range, or grown by farmers that put their first names on the packaging. I can’t do that to them. So we wait for the copper Kitchen-Aid Professional 620 Mixer. I don’t know how big six quarts is but I’m guessing I can make a lot with it.

So, two goals/new things for January. 1. Bring proper goods to neighbors. 2. Start the Argentine Tango dance class with Jamie. I don’t feel like I’m going to far out on a limb to say I am not the best dancer. And so far, word on the street is that Tango isn’t the easiest thing to do. Also, I’m not exactly sure how many different kinds of Tango are out there. I am hoping Argentine is the most fun kind.

have a good day
your friend
chad.

store bought cinnamon rolls

2008-11-23T22:12:00.002Z

hello,

finally, one week later, the jet lag has been conquered. In a way it has been nice getting rid of the desire to go to bed at 4pm, but I think I will miss the feeling of wanting pasta first thing in the morning. although that might not have been so much of a jet lag issue, but more of a carbohydrate addiction issue.

now, the only flight plan for the rest of the year is going home for christmas. looking forward to family time and ryan's annual christmas gathering. not many other plans beyond that.

my goal for december is to meet all of my neighbors. its been four months now but i have either been away on a trip or preparing for the next one. i was hoping to make everyone cinnamon rolls with a new kitchen aide professional mixer but instead used the miles for my flight home for christmas. next up will be the mixer, but for now the neighbors will have to be ok with not perfect cinnamon rolls.

its time to dive into another winter round of making hot chocolates that will likely make me sick. the body can only take so much heavy whipping cream. it will pay off eventually and the reward of a perfect hot chocolate will be glorious.

italian dinner night with brian and allison! i'm going against everything in my body to not make pasta. going to try the risotto this time.

have a good day
your friend
chad

do not walk on the black marble

2008-11-11T11:24:00.005Z

Ciao from italia!

its been good fun in the italia the last week. we just got back from going to Martina's graduation. I didn't really understand a whole lot of what was going on (not too keen on the law words), but apparently the thesis presentation was a success, so she is on to the graduate school part. last night was watching their salsa dancing class and some very very good bruschetta.

the places so far:
venezia: walk, walk, walk, walking. bridges and churches and squares. we found a great place for lunch that was right off the main street and not made or priced for the tourists. and the indiana jones church, which is no longer a library but is currently housing the ever touring da vinci machine exhibition-i saw it about three years ago with my mom somewhere else in italy. very nearly falling into a canal; if it wasn't for a small piece of rope attached to the side of a wall, it would have been all over, with camera number four gone in a year. lesson learned, do not walk on the black marble. it is slippery.

milano: a communist union party rally and, later in the same square, TRL (mtv's total request live) Italia. the great duomo and some quick thinking to get onto the roof (you can't tell us its closed). the last supper; way bigger than i thought. and whoever thought it would be genius to put in a giant door into the last supper wall, didn't put a lot of thought into it. it really is unbelievable. The city is quite the land of fashion and i was finally able to buy the european jacket that i've had in my mind. next up a backpack (invicta to be specific for the italian fans), but it is a strange thing. every single person has one, but they are not sold anywhere. seriously, nowhere. looks like it will have to be www.ebay.it for me.

verona: be the first into the arena, don't trust the city maps, and buy the day passes for all the sights. juilette's balcony was actually kind of cool. for some reason nobody goes into any of the places, so it felt bad standing out on juilette's balcony while every else was trying to take a picture from the ground. they obviously did not purchase the day pass. the most impressive for me was the castle. i like to imagine the places i go as how they were when they were made. with things like the gladiator arena it takes more imagination on my part and is probably not very close to how things really were. but the castle made it easy to see things from long ago. something about walking the castle walls at night with all of the bow and arrow slots. the imagination didn't have to work very hard. we also tried climbing the hill to a castle that over looks the city. it was a good walk up, but by the time we got to the top we were engulfed in cloud, so not much to see.

it's great seeing Mattia's home and family and friends. they are all good people. the chocolate is perfect. i am determined to purchase a proper hot chocolate machine. i think that is the only way to go.

have a good day
your friend
chad

Ladas still exist?

2008-11-04T05:20:00.004Z

Hello,

Man, with this hour change it gets dark way to fast. and it always makes you realize how many clocks you have. right now i'm running at about 40% changed to the correct time.

The work travels have been good. Guatemala was good, but not enough time in Antigua. I think I could eat that Limoncello icecream thing every night of life. I was most excited about Ecuador. I only went to Guayaquil this time. As a city, not so much going on. But the people were a it-would-have-been-creepy-if-it-had-been-somewhere-else kind of good. Nearly every single person I met, wanted to know what I was doing there, how long was I in town for (not just to ask a question, but they were trying to figure out their schedules to see we could hang out), did i speak spanish, what did i think of the place, when was i coming back again (again, to schedule time to hang out), and more and more questions. I could understand running into a slightly strange person every once in a while that would ask these kind of questions. But this was everybody. Hotel people, store people, icecream people, water people, juice people, other water people (by the afternoon i realized i don't think i could live on the equator every day of the year), the lady that made my lunch, the guy picking up the finished lunch tray. everyone i met really.

i always wanted to hire a cab for awhile and go to a few places, so it was fun to give that a try. the car was a barely staying together russian lada. the seat belt might as well been a rope tying me to the seat. but Felix seemed like a good guy so he drove me around all over the place, swung around to the hotel to pick up my bag and then off to the airport. all for ten bucks. the lada didn't go very fast and nearly every car was passing us wherever we went, but for ten bucks, well worth it.

so i'm taking a break from the work travels and going to italy on wednesday with jamie. no plans at all. just hanging out with Mattia and his family near Milan (although i think he has quite the itinerary planned). borrowing Brian and Alison's camera so i am praying the camera curse for this year does not continue. real hot chocolates, scooters and the greatest country in the world, here we come!

have a good day
your friend
chad

wheel of fortune winner

2008-10-22T03:59:00.004+01:00

hello,

i nearly forgot how to log in on this thing! that's not a good sign. just constantly trying to battle balancing all of the times. friend time, work time, home time, jamie time, God time, sleep time, and all the other ones. sometimes it feels like i am doing all of these just right, and then other times it feels like i am not giving a single one of these justice. its weird, but staying awake longer doesn't make more time.

so i won't have any photos to add for a bit, since some guy thought it would be a good idea to break into my house and take my cameras, leave an envelope of cash (my hot chocolate fund), but empty out my jar of pennies. i take him for someone that would be on wheel of fortune. not nearly smart enough for jeopardy, but ends up with way more money than a jeopardy winner for just picking a few letters at random.

work has brought me to mexico again so i came down early and visited zacatecas. i have a list of cities on a post-it note on my computer of places that i have never heard of but have been recommended by some locals. next up taxco. the last trip was san miguel de allende which was pretty good but i didn't really have much interactions with people, except for old retired white guys from america. quite the opposite with zacatecas. it was only a few days but it felt good again to meet random people from all over, each on their different paths. and i felt ok with my path. apparently i didn't do any of the things i was supposed to do while i was there. did you go to the mines? no. did you go to the ruins? no. did you go to any of the mask museums? the what museums?

the world is full of museums and lots of things are ruined. but i did see a bit of a creepy french, cirque de' sole show at the cathedral kicking off some festival for something. nobody asks about that. or hiking up a hill when my body was in no mood to do so. up to the very top where oddly enough the wind smelled like alcohol, which was the very same reason why my body did not want to hike up the hill in the first place. and spent time with people. that's what i need to do more of (not so much the creepy french show, but the other things with people).

i'm happy to be going to antigua tomorrow. it grows on me more and more. the buses there make me smile. hey, i actually have a photo of one!:

That's were all the school buses go! (they can get more chromed out with flames)

have a good day
your friend
chad.

air cakes and bicycles

2008-03-04T06:28:00.005Z

hello,

it was decided that an adventure day was needed. i planned this one, but for some reason i feel like it has been my turn the last few adventure days in a row. definitely not a complaint; there is a lot to discover out there.

jamie met me at my apartment where we made sandwiches and prepared for the day. this is where jamie usually tries to guess what we are going to do (and where i plant extra preparations that have nothing to do with adventure day, like bringing along the seattle hike book. it helps add to the confusion of things).

we g0t a little lost in the first portion of the drive since i wasn't entirely familiar with the area. it was ok though because i made an adventure day soundtrack mix tape so at there was at least some good music. thank you KEXP. first stop was the fauntleroy ferry to vashon island.

one of the odd things about my job is that i go on work trips with japanese business men. the common thing for them is to give some kind of gift that usually comes in the form of a box (kind of see's candy shaped) and is usually filled with very mysterious desserts and/or crackers which have the physical consistency of something between a rice crispy and air. the fun trick of all this is getting that gift back in through american customs. "Do you have any food to declare?" ".....yes..." "And what is it?" "....japanese sponge cake....?" I have actually yet to guess right. Maybe it is because i always guess japanese sponge cake and have yet to actually receive it as a gift. But the customs officers don't seem to mind or care (or wonder why i am bringing back japanese pastries from a Guatemala flight). i had just returned from guatemala/mexico with a fairly large box of something japanese. so while waiting for the ferry, we each had a mixed bag of some kind of crackers. my most interesting piece was kind of like a cheese puff. but instead of cheese, it was A1 steak sauce.

the ferry ride to vashon island was pretty short but long enough to freeze standing at the front of the boat. it is the best part of a boat ride.

vashon island is home to about 10,000 people with a lot more people and boats coming in at the summer months. with february not being a summer month, things were pretty low-key.

about halfway into the island there is a park and ride parking lot for the bus. across the street is a closed cafe and some trees, the forrest/park type. not far into the trees a small path that takes you to this:

a small bicycle in a tree. they say that years ago the bike was next to the tree and over the years it grew around it. Berkley Breathed used to live on Vashon Island and has a bike eating tree in his book, Red Ranger Came Calling. Now the bike is about 7 feet off of the ground. In 1994 it won a contest put on by Washington Mutual for the most unusual place in Washington/Oregon.

We went and had our sandwiches at a small harbor and watched state employees doing some kind of diving survey and picking strange sea creatures out of this weird kind of seaweed. apparently Vashon Island closes pretty early on a Saturday afternoon during the winter, so after lunch there was not anything else left open. and we headed back.

a pretty laid-back, 1994 award winning adventure day.

your friend,
chad.

muscle groups

2008-01-10T06:36:00.000Z

hello,

i've decided that for every random physical activity that one can possibly do, a completely different muscle group is used. muscles that will solely be used only for that activity and nothing else. for example, a pickup game of dodgeball at a community center will make the muscles surrounding your ribcage have that after a coughing sickness feeling (that it-hurts-to-laugh feeling).

since i haven't found the dodgeball machine at the gym yet, i don't know if there is any way to prepare for it. other than go every monday at 7pm.

This was the only picture where i wasn't blurry from all the dodging. i'm the one in the middle. apparently the guy next to me wasn't dodging at the moment either. we must have been doing well at the time.

have a good day
your friend
chad.

11 pounds

2007-11-25T18:13:00.000Z

hello,

everyday more and more christmas appears. the top of the space needle is a christmas tree and one of the three t.v. towers in queen anne is a giant lit up tree at night (i always wonder why only one of the three?). the bellevue buildings (and cranes) are christmas themed. and the christmas music has arrived on the radio. its a beautiful thing.

thanksgiving was a great traditional meal with all the usuals. it was a nice, slightly later than expected meal (does any one else think their red turkey-is-done popper is defective?) with jamie and mattia. we finished it with pandoro (probably the best christmas cake of time) and some super mario brothers 3, which is not as easy as i remember it being.

for friday we dropped jamie off at work and mattia and i went to the macy's santa parade:

after some shopping for mattia's italian friends and family, i picked up something that will bring me months of happiness. a five kilogram (11 pound) giant container of Nutella. as we were walking it back to the car through pike place market, i could only hear partial conversations. "oh my gosh, that is the biggest container of...", "man, look at that giant..." "nutella is my fav.." and in a way i felt like an extremely large breasted woman. all of the glances and second glances and double takes were all looking at my body and what was in my hands. they weren't seeing me as a person.

since it was an amazingly clear day, mattia and i went up to the space needle where the lighting was perfect and we could see all the mountains. these cold crisp days are good to get as much vitamin d as possible before the clouds roll in.

perhaps

2007-11-17T17:07:00.000Z

hello,

the new computer has arrived! this is relevant to me for a few reasons:
1. i am no longer location limited to an electrical outlet (my battery power life was approximately 12 minutes if i did nothing on the computer, about 3 minutes if i decided to actually use it).

2. i now have the space to fully explore music and store all of my photos. the 30 or so cds that have been on hold at the amazing seattle library are now on their way.

3. it takes about a minute to start up and have already checked my email. this compares to about 8 minutes to my old one. a 7 minute difference really isn't that much, but was a pretty good deterrent since i could always find something else to do instead of waiting for everything to load up.

this may be relevant to the two readers that are left that still check this web log:
1. perhaps there will be more posts.

i say perhaps because i don't know really if there will be more posts or not. i think of this as an extra for my life. if i have to choose between experiencing something new or writing about a previous experience, i'll go with the first one. so we'll see.

jamie picking out her pumpkin at the pumpkin patch.

hermit octupi

2007-05-22T04:21:00.000+01:00

my brother and his girlfriend staci came by for the second annual hang out during st. patrick's day (the last one we went to dublin for a very cool but very cold, guiness filled experience).

now, if you look close enough at the buildings in this picture~~^
you'll see one black building thats taller than all the rest of them (if you follow my brother's head straight up. he's the one in the middle). that's the one that i signed up my brother and myself to climb on the morning after st. patrick's day. there were two categories: the take your time, and the timed race. why would anyone take their time climbing 1,300 stairs? after about the 30th flight, i looked back and thought that my brother was going to die. i gave him a good three days (all of them work days for him) to train and prepare for it, so expectations where a bit unknown. and the team we were signed up for had a group of guys that are climbing the tallest mountain peaks in the world (and just returned from kilimanjaro? could be way off, but one of those). he came through strong though in 16 minutes. nice job.

we got this seattle pass were we did everything that i've always wanted to do in seattle but never did. it was definitely worth it. one of the coolest things i have ever seen:

i have no idea why but i could look at these guys for a long long time. little cows. little cows that look like pandas. a few of my friends have not been impressed by this and i feel like i'm taking crazy pills.

so after the seattle sites, we though a quick trip to canada was in order. pretty much consisted of random places, strange people, and me making a fool of myself. along the way we spent a night in port angeles, which for its impressive location of right at the base of the olympics and on the water, is a town with not much to do. we thought before dinner we would do some bowling and apparently we were the only ones that had that idea:

i think it was the only time in my life where we were the only people in a bowling alley. the only other person there was the bartender. i just don't see how a bowling alley in port angeles could be profitable.

in victoria we did a lot of hanging out. with the butchart gardens, where my brother had the great idea of buying and planting giant maple trees in las vegas. until he found out that you couldn't take those seeds back to the u.s. probably the thing that we shouldn't have done was the underwater observatory right in the victoria harbor area. my uneducated guess of octopi is that they live the hermit life. so when the sign says "no divers show/feeding today", it should really say "you won't be seeing an octopus today". we didn't see one. but we did go to the creepy wax museum! i would agree with my friend ryan, it might not have been the wisest choice of location for the torture scenes. right next to the disney and kid scenes. a little further down the walkway we saw a child still traumatized by the display of torture. he didn't want to walk past christopher columbus. although, maybe the more fitting place for him would be in the torture room.

it was really good to see the family and i'm liking the travel somewhere on st. patrick's day tradition. staci says the next place has to be warm (after ireland and canada she is ready for a hotter location), but for some reason i equate adventure to cold. i'll have to work on that...after i go to antarctica.

have a good day
your friend
chad.

that cold february trip

2007-04-12T19:00:00.000+01:00

hello,

this one should have been up awhile ago:

north dakota (early/mid feb.) -

is pretty dang cold.

my disclaimer is that i fully realize this is not going to sound very cool or fun, but it was. there is no other explanation. traveling with my married friends ryan and amy, we set on a mission to experience the least visited state (maybe alaska is less, but north dakota must be high up there) in its truest form, in the dead of winter. thankfully we missed the freakishly cold -35 degrees cold spell by one week.

-15 was plenty for me, and if it keeps getting colder, you can't even ice skate on frozen ponds. after a great day at the mall of america and a night of watching a fightless nhl hockey game (yes, slightly disappointed) in minnesota, we tested our own hockey stop skills in the park pond recommended by the sellers of the cheapest possible ice hockey skates at dick's athletics. my vote goes to ryan on the best hockey stop.

the real fun of north dokota started with an overnight in fargo. going to say that there isn't much there.

the next day was shiverfest 2007 in devil's lake north dakota. along the way we mistakenly stopped at the second tallest structure in the world. it looked pretty tall but is sadly three feet shorter than the tallest structure in the world, which happens to be located about ten minutes drive away. after the proper visit of the worlds tallest structure (a t.v. tower in the middle of nowhere), we made it to devil's lake only to find out that shiverfest 2007 is more of a loosely connected gathering of mid-winter events rather than an organized town community event. there really wasn't any place to go.

our answer was to take the rental car for a spin on what, from our sound judgment (being from Las Vegas), looked to be a solid devil's lake. we got the car into some pretty good spins with the parking brake. it turns out amy has a fear of walking on frozen water. she's a trooper. i'm pretty sure her fear didn't expect spinning rental cars on frozen water. so maybe it overwhelmed the fear and made it possible. that's my guess.

the best part was driving all the way across the lake in our rental car with california plates, stopping at a fishing shack, and asking the two north dakotan men where shiverfest 2007 was. "Well...you have to get back onto the road... And then go around that way. I think you'll see the snowmobile event there."

the rest of the trip continued with meeting the most random cool people, like the kite guy. some guy that makes huge (massively huge) kites and takes them to events all over the country. he let us help him put all the kites away for the day so we got to spend a lot of time with this guy that is following his passion, however strange it may be.

or going to more weird places, like the worlds largest buffalo. it was metal.

definitely the right kind of trip. lots of talking, lots of doing and not doing. and seeing the other parts of life. trips with ryan and amy are always the best.

adventure day II

2007-03-12T21:03:00.000Z

hello,

adventure day - one day a weekend (very similar to seattle saturday from when i first moved here) where adventure is the theme, or at least one of the themes. sunday was adventure day II.

i didn't have my camera for adventure day I, but to sum it up: a flower show at the bellevue botanical gardens; a quick visit to the park right next door to the bellevue botanical gardens; jamba juice, where we both ordered a small and jamie got a medium while i got a small and for some reason felt left out; a park on mercer island where i read on the small patch of swimming beach. way too cold for people swimming, but this tiny dog was determined to guard the beach from slightly confused ducks; and a walk down some of the i-90 floating bridge. a definite park theme with this adventure day.

with the camera ready, adventure day II was set to go:

driving to a secret destination (not that secret for the thousands of cars that pass it every day) south of seattle, we came across shipwreck beads, the worlds largest bead emporium. i replaced the word emporium with their use of the word "store" since i thought emporium was a better description, especially if it was a "worlds largest." one great big building with many many beads. i kept trying to look at all the employees and even the people shopping to see if they had bead necklaces on, but most of them didn't (i saw two with them on, about 15 with nothing). i guess people are doing different things with beads these days other than wearing them. Yep there it is, the world's largest bead emporium.

after a bit more driving, we arrived at the secret destination: four giant metal cows! They were right off of the freeway and made of giant oil cans. not sure if they are painted or just naturally rusted. The mother/calf one was a bit confusing since the mother cow had horns. After a little bit of research, apparently there are many breeds of female cows that have horns. The city of Austin public library says that the Danish Red, the White Park and the Texas Longhorn all have female cows with horns. It must be one of those then.

For the return trip we stopped by the Spar cafe and restaurant in Olympia, the Washington State capital. Olympia is a much cooler place than Carson City, Nevada (apologies to the 17 non-governmental residents of Carson City, Nevada). It has that cool small town downtown feel to it. Kind of like a surviving Fargo, North Dakota.

After a miscommunication with the waitress, we received our spicy macaroni and cheese $5.00 blue plate special (which was definitely not our spicy macaroni and cheese pizza $5.00 chef's special). We wondered how they were going to do a macaroni and cheese pizza, since putting pasta on top of pizza is not a usual practice. And the answer is that they can't.

The final stop was the world famous Bob's Java Jive. I guess back in the day, Bob had two chimpanzees named "Java" and "Jive" that would bang on bongos while they would play the guitar and sing. That would have been awesome to see. This place is not the easiest to find since it is nearly under two freeways. Its been in a lot of movies that were filmed in Tacoma: Three Fugitives, I Love You to Death, Ten Things I Hate About You, and Say Anything.
I don't remember any of those (ten things vaguely, but I don't remember this place in it).

So there it is. Adventure Day II.

And a side note. My friend is embarking on an amazing multi-year world trip (she doesn't actually know when she is coming back). Have fun Megan! We will definitely miss you.

I don't know who the guy in the back is.

Spring!

2007-03-02T19:34:00.000Z

hello,

first post of the year and its already march! which also happens to be the month that spring starts. seattle usually doesn't realize this for another two months, but what is more important is that the sun does realize it. yesterday i was talking to someone about watching the sunset from my last place i lived, and how it was at 9:00pm. i just can't even imagine that at the moment, but am greatly looking forward to those days. the apartment wrapping should be finished by that time as well (yep, still under construction), and the sunset views are from my bedroom window.

currently i am looking for employment. it must be (in order of importance):
a place i am passionate about working at
in a field i am passionate about pursuing (i must want to own my own business within the field)
with a position i am passionate about filling
and they must offer a bus pass. i miss reading on the bus.

other than that, nothing else matters.

i read my 2nd-half-of-the trip journal a few nights ago and it was a good shaking of my life. it almost doesn't feel like i wrote it, except there are a lot of memories that are sparked by every entry. there are a lot of opportunities for living to be had.

have a good day
your friend
chad.

home in seattle

2006-09-17T19:11:00.000+01:00

hello,

i've finally got a moment to give a few words. there is a little monthly calendar that i got from work, and it has been getting full. after my australia trip, i've decided to actually start living in seattle instead of seeing where things would take me. its great to be open to change, but when you have been in a place for a year and can't really call it home, something is wrong.

so, my home in seattle:

the place is still looking very empty but it doesn't bother me at all. having an empty living room with a tv for movie nights, a bean bag chair, a dining table without any chairs, and a makeshift work station (to be by the windows to steal internet from the cafe across the street) is a daily reminder of living within my means. i come home, walk inside and say "crap, i don't have much". i'm not trying to fill it with things just because there is space.

on sunday i joined an italian speaking group that meets two times a month. the first meeting was on monday and it was amazing! i have been missing my italian speaking fix. the first thing i did afterwards was put a long list of italian movies on my netflix queue. out of the 6 people there i was the worst speaker but no worries, i'm not trying to win the best-italian-speaker-in-seattle award. the good news was that i understood every single word spoken, and i wasn't translating in my head, i was understanding as it came. the i-need-to-work-on-it news was that my speaking was horrible. verb tenses, vocab, all the filler words, they all disappeared. we'll be working on that.

i have a hanging pot on my balcony now. the great part is that the real construction is going to start on my apartment complex on monday. i didn't really understand the message they posted and i'm not sure what they are going to do exactly, but my guess is that the entire building will be covered in scaffolding. i think that is going to be fun, like living in a giant pillow fort. maybe my hanging plant might not be so happy about it. i'll miss the view from the windows though. i gather its going to take a few months. if thats true, more time at the coffee shops! oh, i hope it doesn't effect the internet connection. i'm holding out as long as possible on that.

i will be attempting to make my own pasta. i now have a rolling pin. i'm not sure what else i need. but a figured a rolling pin was necessary.

the trip to australia was great! i've got pictures to post from it, so i'll wait on the longer explanation. no complaints, but it was more work than play. casey and i used every free moment as best as possible, but it mostly was jam packed with work things. still no complaints. some highlights: getting scraped by a kangaroo (how often does that happen?) who was way taller than i initially thought; climbing trees in an australian gum tree forrest; wake boarding on a man-made, pull-line wake boarding park (much easier to get up and going, incredibly difficult to make the turns without dislocating your shoulders, elbows, wrists, back, and ankles); mixing with the belligerent locals at a pub in alice on a sunday afternoon; scuba diving and petting a nemo fish on the great barrier reef (the cute dive instructor had me sold on the dive the moment we stepped on the boat, dang her sneaky sales tactics); riding a camel! - big fan of camels but would have liked to see what his top speed was. we were going kind of slow. i guess when its listed out like that, there definitely aren't any complaints (it was still exhausting though).

i have worked one year at my office, which means i now make a much less embarrassing salary. i feel like things are more in line with the work i produce. also i moved into a shared office with my groups manager. she is only in two days a week, so its just me the other three. i really like working with her so all the days should be great.

kickball is still sweet. the last game we played was the most fun of this season. our team was really interacting and the other team was rad, so the whole game was fun. there isn't a winter kickball season, but the other team invited us to some winter for-fun pickup games. absolutely, i'm up for that. theres something about playing outside in the winter and getting the cold hands and runny nose. its a good part of life.

invite a friend to dinner night has been going really well. i couldn't find an available friend for last weeks meal, mostly because of my more full schedule. the challenge has been the vegetarian meals but everyone seems to enjoy the picnic style seating on our living room floor.

bring cinammon rolls to a neighbor night has been a bit tougher. theres a very small window of time to deliver baked goods to a stranger, and thats assuming that they are home (my guess is from 7:45pm to 8:35pm is the best time). not going to give up on this one though. i think it will get easy as we come into fall/winter; i'm hoping more people will be home in the evenings.

personally, things are so much better. i feel more whole now. i got a book about abandonment that actually christiana recommended. and although it was a bit hard to read, there was one sentence that was exactly what i needed. part of me does want her to feel like she has missed out (its a bit immature, but still, somewhere in my head, that thought does exist). and the book says that a certian type of anger is good and: the best revenge is success. which i think is great because its helping me get back to focusing on life and living the best i can. eventually that need for revenge will fade away and in its place will be a full exciting life. i'm already feeling different over the last month with more thoughts on possibilities of life than on the all consuming thought of how i was hurt. i wish her her own success, and in the meantime i will live my life to the fullest i possibly can.

so happy overcast seattle day! theres a fall, crisp feeling to the air and i'm getting excited about all of the trees changing colors. the hooded sweatshirt is back out but not quite the wool socks. maybe next month.

chad.

1.64

2006-08-06T05:56:00.000+01:00

the new place is awesome! i spent the last hour at the coffee shop across the street. they had an alternative folk singing guy (there will be live free music every friday and saturday). i was starting to fall asleep in my chair from not getting enough sleep last night. i think i'm a pretty slow mover. i took one full day. its crazy to think that less than a year ago i moved up here with one car load of belongings. now i've got quite a few more (although, the car loads were not as tightly packed).

i really can't convey how much i am liking my new place. i had to move out of the last house on monday, and was able to move into this one on friday. that meant one week of being homeless. i almost wish i had more time. everyone at work was so incredibly nice to bring me home for the night. my apologies go out to jamie for breaking her air mattress (all i did was push the tab like it told me to). some highlights of the week: wonderfully prepared lunches for work, my first thin-tire-bike ride, a treatment massage (for my shoulders and neck, apparently i have a freakishly tight neck), but the best part was being able to hang out with people every day of the week. i would like to do more of that.

my current projects:
finish unpacking and sorting all of my crap
find where in the apartment i can consistantly get free internet
set up a local phone line for the apartment (right now, yonina, my roommate, is the only one with a local number, which means anyone that uses the apartment call box, will be calling her)
fill the living room with things. sitting things, specifically

the coffee place across the street has a great atmosphere. i will be a regular there by the years end (both to fulfill my new years resolution, and because i like it). a short hot-chocolate (with whipped cream) costs 1.64. thats a fair price for becoming a regular. they have a lot of board-games too, so maybe some game nights are in order.

have a good day,
your friend
chad.

cupcakes and bugs

2006-07-24T02:44:00.000+01:00

good moment of the day: eating the new raspberry cupcake at the cupcake royale.

not so good moment of the day: seattle is finally hot with the rest of the country. the last couple of nights i have slept with the windows open. and have been completely eaten alive by a variety of bugs. current bug bites: back of shoulder, behind the elbow, on my third rib, and the same toe on both feet (the one next to the pinky toe, and one of them is all swollen). i would like to take all of my skin off.

chad.

best thing i have done in seattle

2006-07-22T16:50:00.000+01:00

hello,

a lot of things have changed in the last two months. i'm not with christina anymore. things just didn't work out. she is an amazing person and, one day, some guy is going to be one of the luckiest to end up with her. unfortunately its not going to be me. after a good bout of depression things are starting to move forward again. my friends have been the lifesaver and i am incredibly luck to have them.

i think the timing of everything has been good for me. my lease is up at the end of this month so i'll be having a fresh start in a new place. carie bought a house with her boyfriend and moved out a couple weeks ago, emily moved into her own place closer to the city last week. now its just yonina and me, and we don't really have anything at all so the house is pretty empty. we'll be finding a place hopefully this weekend that is closer to a city center. i'd really like to walk to a grocery store; thats my only rule for finding the right place. then it will be off to the garage sales and thrift stores to get things to sit on. the ol' brick and wood maguivered shelving unit always looked good to me.

my work will be sending me to australia in about three weeks. i'll definitely be posting some pictures. its going to be a completely different trip. reasons why:
* - i won't have giardia (the sickness i picked up in fiji, that i had the last time i was in australia). i plan on seeing much more than the hostel bathrooms
* - we will actually be staying in nice places, that will be feeding us good cooked food.
* - we'll be going on some pretty sweet tours; with kangaroos, penguins, koalas, camels and a bunch of other things
* - i don't have to pay for anything
* - i actual get paid to go

not bad. not bad. also, i'll be going with casey, who started work the same day i did. we are freakishly similar. they call us chasey at work, as we both usually end up with the others papers/files/phone calls because people get confused. i'm really looking forward to the trip.

i joined a kickball league with some friends from my community group. its coming to the last game of the season, and we really need a win to get into the tournament. its amazing seeing grown adults playing kickball. our team brings capri-suns, orange slices, and goldfish to the games. our team name is 'lord of the pants'. the first game we played, i had a short stint of being first base. there was a moment of hesitation on my part that ended with me throwing the ball as hard as i could to get someone out (in this case a girl). the problem was, she was only about three and half feet away from me...and was running straight towards me. the ball hit her incredibly hard in the chest and rebounded into her face. i got the out but she (and her team) was not very happy. my team now calls this pulling "a chad". and i got player of the week last week for the league. here is the write up from the website:

POTW: Chad Watson
Lord of the Pants
With is signature move of always throwing the hat off before making the catch, Chad Watson was huge in the field on defense and never made an out at the plate in the Lord of the Pants win on Tueaday night. Chad received several calls from the crowd to throw off his hat AND his pants, but Chad is too classy for that. Way to be Chad....way to be....

playing kickball has been the best thing i have done in seattle. this season is over soon, but we'll be playing at the greenlake one for the fall season.

thanks for listening, have to eat breakfast and go to the horse races for tildy's birthday party!

have a good day
your friend
chad

the window

2006-05-13T21:43:00.000+01:00

i have finally reigned victorious over my window.

before all of us moved in, the house was painted by a crazy man living next door (who later stabbed someone with a sword on the street outside our house. he has since moved out). he wasn't sane and he certainly wasn't a very good painter. many of our windows are painted shut and while i'm ok with some of our house windows not being able to open at least since its not too hot yet, i'm not ok with my windows not being able to open.

i was able to open the window looking out to the front from the start, but the side window has proved to be quite the project. today it is finally open. after days of hammering the paint covered seams and being told some of the windows just wouldn't open (implying that my window was one of them), i now have a wonderful crisp breeze blowing through my room. i was focused so much on getting the paint off of the inside that i forgot to check if the crazy fool painted the outside also, which of course he did. so, its happy days ahead as it gets warmer during the summer.

hot chocolates

2005-11-14T00:54:00.000Z

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

2005-10-02T20:15:00.000+01:00

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!!

2005-09-17T19:43:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-26T06:05:00.000+01:00

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

2005-07-15T15:11:00.000+01:00

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

2005-06-26T18:27:00.000+01:00

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

2005-06-02T17:05:00.000+01:00

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

2005-05-23T16:57:00.000+01:00

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

2005-05-18T14:01:00.000+01:00

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

2005-05-10T17:30:00.000+01:00

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

2005-05-07T20:43:00.000+01:00

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

2005-05-04T17:12:00.000+01:00

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

2005-05-03T10:51:00.000+01:00

¡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

2005-04-28T15:14:00.000+01:00

¡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!

2005-04-18T16:31:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-12T19:51:00.000+01:00

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

2005-04-07T09:20:00.000+01:00

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

2005-03-30T15:56:00.000+01:00

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

2005-03-24T17:57:00.000Z

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

2005-03-10T13:47:00.000Z

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

2005-03-04T14:51:00.000Z

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"

2005-02-21T12:18:00.000Z

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

2005-02-09T06:27:00.000Z

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

2005-02-02T10:57:00.000Z

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

2005-01-26T16:19:00.000Z

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

2005-01-24T17:06:00.000Z

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

2005-01-20T10:35:00.000Z

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

2005-01-09T12:59:00.000Z

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

New Zealand - Cardrona

2004-12-29T22:37:00.000Z

Cardrona Ski Park near Wanaka New Zealand

my apologizes to the lady with the broken ski boot.

New Zealand - Nelson

2004-12-29T22:36:00.000Z

The world's greatest great uncle. Uncle Dan in New Zealand.

this guy is definitely one of the coolest guys i know.

The sheep photo!

2004-12-29T22:35:00.000Z

New Zealand DOES have sheep.

it was one of my goals to get a photo with a sheep.

Fiji - Coconut Bay

2004-12-29T22:34:00.000Z

Fantastic!

it was a pretty slippery hike to get this photo, and in flip-flops it wasn't easy.

Fiji - Coconut Bay

2004-12-29T22:33:00.000Z

A real nice guy I met in Fiji.

Little-man rocked. he actually had some pretty good dance moves.

Fiji - Safe Landing

2004-12-29T22:32:00.001Z

The Fiji group.

this was my first real fiji home. it was hard for the other islands to compete (although coconut, octopus and wanataki made a good effort)

New Zealand - Oamaru

2004-12-29T22:32:00.000Z

I saw this on an afternoon walk.

there isn't too much in oamaru except for the wickedly cool tiny blue penguins.

New Zealand - Queenstown

2004-12-29T22:31:00.000Z

The ice bar in queenstown, nz. the glasses were ice and the nose was a bit cold.

New Zealand - Wanaka

2004-12-29T22:30:00.000Z

I think Wanaka was one of my favorite cities in New Zealand.

this was where we stopped for some lunch on our nature hike. (sorry about the orientation...i don't know how to change that on my end).

New Zealand - Punakaiki

2004-12-29T22:29:00.000Z

the Pancake Rocks. they sell pancakes there (seriously).

New Zealand - Abel Tasman

2004-12-29T22:28:00.000Z

One day of kayaking and it felt like my arms were going to fall off

we didn't know if we were paddling right or not because we didn't get wet at all, and everyone else was soaked.

New Zealand - Franz Joseph Glacier

2004-12-29T22:14:00.000Z

crazy experience.

this is like nothing i have ever done.

New Zealand - Franz Joseph Glacier

2004-12-29T22:13:00.000Z

Hours of walking through paths like this.

Great on the way up, but really exhausting on the way down.

New Zealand - Franz Joseph Glacier

2004-12-29T22:11:00.000Z

I think i actually wore too many layers.

it got a bit warm hiking around up there.

New Zealand - Wellington

2004-12-29T22:10:00.000Z

Chad, graduate of Pepperdine, world traveler, wonderful son, and very nice person (Mom wrote this).

i was actually pretty dang sick when i took this picture. it was the first day i had any real energy and ended up on some mountain thing...i slept the rest of the day.

New Zealand - Cape Reinga

2004-12-29T22:08:00.000Z

Adrianna - visiting New Zealand from her teaching job in New York City.

Fiji - ?

2004-12-29T22:07:00.000Z

Fiji is beautiful.

i'm not sure if i took this photo or not. if i did then its at Fannies, if i didn't then i don't know where it is. (this picture could be pauline's)

2004-12-29T22:05:00.000Z

We've worked hard all day. Swam, ate, played, rested, sailed, and many other things. All done perfectly though.

Fiji - Wanataki Cruise

2004-12-29T22:03:00.000Z

Jumping off a rather tall boat in the ocean.

we stopped jumping when someone saw something in the water.

2004-12-29T22:01:00.000Z

After I left Pepperdine I got this really hard job. I make sure this hammock works properly.

2004-12-29T22:00:00.001Z

I met this really nice guy.

2004-12-29T22:00:00.000Z

I caught a big one.

2004-12-29T21:58:00.001Z

Hitchhiking?

2004-12-29T21:58:00.000Z

See, now this is a fijian tradition. You wear a flower in your ear to show your eligibility status. right ear if you are taken, left if you are single. everybody does it...even grown men that could beat you up...so don't make fun.

Blue ceramic beetle

2004-12-27T11:59:00.000Z

Hello,

Well, i've got to be thankful for the pick of countries i chose for this trip 5 months ago. Had i known how many travellers go through thailand (because it is a cool place to go), i would have joined them. However, it costs money to change locations on my around the world ticket, which means i'm sticking to my original plan. I'm hoping none of the people i've met along the way were there.

Christmas is over and i have to say i'm feeling good about that. In my mind i imagined a christmas with cool travellers that also happened to be alone. I didn't get that, but i think everything worked out how it was supposed to. its always good to have a learn-the-true-meaning-of-christmas christmas.

I shared my room with three egyptian engineers who were taking a short holiday after being sent to denmark. They liked sleeping in late, so while they slept i wrapped their presents. i got them each a button that i found at the leather market: a sun, a watermelon, and a ninja. i made a card that said buon natale and had a drawing of a christmas tree and snowman. i think they liked it because when i came back to the room, the card was on my bed with a little blue ceramic scarreb (beetle?). i got confused on the day they would be leaving (the calendar in the room was from 2003), so i didn't know they wouldn't be back. i was alone the rest of the day, and since all of florence was closed i just went to my favorite spots in the city and sat and read or wrote.

The best part of the day was the hour when i called my family and friends. it felt really good. next christmas i'm going to be home. its where i belong.

I'm definitely looking forward to january. tomorrow i leave for sardinia (sardegna). its an overnight ferryboat ride so it should be cool and i've got a bed so at least i can sleep. in the past two weeks i've learned/recalled more italian than the last 3 years put together. i only have an hour or two of english thoughts, talking, or emailing a day. other than that, its only italian. i'm not sure if i'm ready for an all italian speaking family, but hopefully i'll learn quick.

Tomorrow i'm sending my money in for the italian wwoofing card (world wide organization of organic farms) so soon i'll know where i'll be spending most of january. then its iceland!! with my brother. it should be fun...cold and dark, but a lot of fun.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Individual sheets of wrapping paper

2004-12-23T14:38:00.000Z

Hello,

I hope everyone is having a good christmas (or holiday season, if you don't celebrate christmas).

I feel really good being in florence for christmas. i think it was the right choice. i enjoyed rome, but it felt more like i was just a visitor. i don't think i know any other city more than i know florence (i studied in florence for a semester three years ago). I thought i would swing by and visit the school's villa, not really expecting anyone to be there. The director wasn't there but her assistant Lara was. she is wickedly good at foosball (i have never had to write that word out before). it was great and strange to see my italian home again.

Everything in florence is exactly the same: i had a fruit bowl in cafe liberta, and the same people work there; the leather market is selling the same exact things; there is even a begger that i recognize (he is very short and doesn't have a neck). The only bad news, and no one understands how much it wrecked me: Marizio, the chef at my school left a month ago. I've been looking forward to his red sauce since i knew i was going on this trip...seriously. i was hoping to watch him make it and keep the receipe with me forever, but oh,well. there isn't much i can do about it now.

All of the people in my hostel left to go to rome for christmas, and tonight i should meet all of the people that left rome to come to florence for their christmas. the hostel i'm at feels like a home (because i think it is one) and the people that work there are great. also, its in a part of town that i haven't explored before, so its fun to walk around and see new things.

My days have been pretty busy, but i haven't really done anything--just some walking, studying italian at parks, and trying to find places (restaurants, gelaterie-ice cream places, and stores) that are a) cheap and b) can't speak english. thankfully the two seem to be related. its frustrating to be speaking to someone in italian and have them talk back to you in english, and having us both not give in to speaking our own language. it is definitely more fun trying to speak in italian, at least for me.

Tomorrow i'm going to find cheap gifts for people in my hostel; by cheap i mean nearly free. i found a place that sells individual sheets of wrapping paper, so thats all taken care of. i'm thinking whatever happens this christmas, its going to be memorable.

Happy Christmas!
Buon Natale e felice anno nuovo!!

your friend
chad

Ciao bella!

2004-12-18T11:25:00.000Z

Ciao!,

Sorry for any repetition in the last two posts. China is a very interesting place and i'd have to say that information is a little restricted. Along with information on Tienemin Square (spelling?), my web log is restricted. i could post to it, but could not read it, which meant i had no idea what i told you already. That and the second i posted anything, the blogger website would also be blocked; those communists are strange.

I've left asia and am now in europe, the biggest part of the year--about six months. I'm in rome for a few days and i'll be in florence for christmas. Then its off to visit Dani, a cool guy i met in new zealand, and his family in Sardinia for new years. i'm trying to refresh my italian as best as possible since his family doesn't speak any english. it should be a lot of fun. I'm planning on doing a lot of farming in italy after new years, so i may not have the most exciting posts for january. i really want to get away from english and give italian a chance.

My jet lag is working to my advantage right now because nearly every cool site is empty at 7 in the morning. the only bad part is that the spanish steps had about 10 people around. i guess its supposed to be the spot to people watch, but it doesn't take too much time to watch 10 people. Today i went to a lot of the free places, like the squares and piazzas and the pantheon. i'm thinking on monday i'll go to all the pay places like the colloseum and then hit up the vatican on tuesday. i still don't count that place as its own country.

have a good day
Buon Natale!! (happy christmas)

your friend
chad

50 kids

2004-12-14T07:37:00.000Z

Hello,

ah, this place is crazy. i really can't believe i'm in jing zhou, china. visiting marcus here has made it so much more of a unique experience. he's been here teaching english for the last year and a half so he knows a lot of people. on sunday i went to an orphanage with martin (marcus's brother) and their friend marcus. the guy we visited really cares about kids, and now has 50 or so (yes, 50 adopted kids). i couldn't believe it but it is absolutely true. while we were there he invited us to what we thought was a party for one of his kids getting accepted to the chinese army (the red army). this is a big honor and families usually have a big feast. but what it turned out to be was one of his sons (he calls all of the orphans son or daughter, and they call him uncle) going to the army--meaning, in his full gear, getting on the bus to go for two years of service. it was a heavy emotional experience for the kid and the family. it was very strange being there.

a few of the 50 kids waving goodbye to us. they were screaming "goodbye teacher!!" over and over again. they were talking to the others, not me.

for a lot of the time i hang out with marcus and his friends he has made in china. they are such cool people and i have felt so comfortable here in their company. we watch movies, play games, and laugh a lot. every weekday i go to class with marcus. i give them a little speech about myself and then they ask me questions. chinese students are the hardest working people i have ever met. i can't even imagine what it would be like to study as much as they do.

christmas is not as visible here as it was in japan and hong kong. but since it is cold out, i've got the christmas spirit inside me. That and while i'm typing this i'm listening to yahoo's launch music program with ella fitzgerald singing The Christmas Song. that's all you really need to put a big smile on your face.

happy christmas
have a good day

your friend
chad

40 Foreigners

2004-12-10T07:28:00.000Z

Hello,

Mainland china is definitely an interesting place. Marcus, my friend from university, and all of his friends here are really taking care of me in Jing Zhou. Today i went to his class (he teaches english here at the university) and talked with all of his students. They asked some pretty funny questions.

this is a field in china. every day starting at 6am and going on all day, chinese university students walk the field alone reading english. it kind of has a creepy feeling to it.

I think the strangest thing here is that people really stare--really really stare; for anyone that wants to feel what it is like to be a famous person, come to china. Marcus said there are about 1.2-1.5 million people here...and about 40 non-chinese. A lot of people have never seen a foreigner (in person) in their entire life. imagine going 50 years and never seeing anyone different than you, and then i come riding by on a bicycle. that has to be weird.

the scariest thing here, by far, is trying to cross the street. there are crosswalks but they are more for decoration than function. you just start walking across and the cars will find a way around you (also, there are no driving lanes either).

the food is interesting but very good. tonight marcus and i are going to one of his friends house where her mom will be cooking. so it will be super authentic chinese food, and word on the street is that it is going to be on the spicy side.

this has got to be the cheapest place i have been on the trip so far. internet here is about 12 cents an hour.

I'll be here with marcus for about a week and then christmas in italy!

Happy Christmas!!
have a good day

your friend
chad

Pachinko!!!

2004-12-04T03:38:00.000Z

Hello,

i:ve finally found cheap internet. its free actually and i haven:t quite figured out why. due to Lost in Translation, i had some pretty high expectations of japan. it has met every one that i could think of. i:ve been in a packed elevator where i was a good foot taller than everyone else. i had a conversation with a really really old lady, where i had absolutely no idea what she was trying to say. i had a glass of wine on the 45 floor of an amazing building. there was even a guy playing piano. and i played Pachinko!!! i didn:t win, but i had a great time. its their version of a slot machine, with little metal balls that fall through pegs.

i checked out a temple and shrine in Asakusa where a nice japanese man showed me around. I think he wanted to practice his english. there was this fortune/prayer thing where you pick one stick out of a hundred. i got prayer number 36, which was a semi good fortune--something about delayed good luck. he got a *bad fortune* which started out with something like...thunder bolts will reign from the sky...
my fortune (a half-good, fortune. good but delayed).

one of the temples. it was really good lighting when i was there.

at night i went to electric city where you can buy anything that runs on electricity...anything. its not really cheaper and i didn:t need anything, but it was great to shop around.

today i:m going to Shibuya, which is where all the hip japanese people go. i:m hoping to take some sweet pictures.

these are some random pictures:

have a good day
happy christmas

your friend
chad

No apostrophy

2004-12-02T12:07:00.000Z

Hello,

I hope everyone has had a good day.

Japan is a crazy crazy cool place. every single event, from getting a ticket to a museum to buying a phone card to using the subway, is an adventure. sometimes you just want to give up, but you can:t or else things get worse. today it took me 30 minutes to get out of a subway station.

every night i am so exhausted from an overload of senses. i wish i could tell you all of the cool things that tokyo has to offer, but it will have to wait. internet is dang expensive (at least from what i:ve found...yeah, i can:t find the apostrophy either).

have a good day

your friend
chad

Whitsunday's Curry Chicken Day

2004-11-26T07:29:00.000Z

Hello,

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving dinner. Mine turned out wonderful.

All the waiting around in airlie beach and boat switching was well worth it. I ended up on a boat called Iluka, and normally it takes 16 passengers--we had six people plus three crew. That meant i got my own room (something that should have cost me another two hundred dollars! man, the free stuff just kept coming).

I few nights before i met a cool girl from the UK, helen, and found out that she was also going to be on Iluka. it was a good thing for both of us because sometimes its weird when you're the only non-couple. the other people were: an american couple studying in australia, sandra and john; and an english/australian couple, marie and jerry. the crew was: jess, the hostess/chef; cat, the deckwoman; and bryan, the coolest cap'n on the sea. (my apologies for any names incorrectly spelled).

The weather wasn't the greatest on the first day but it made for some interesting boating--so much rocking. we used only the motor so we could sail down wind the next two days. the boat brought us to whitehaven beach, which ranks as one of the coolest beaches i've ever seen. it was 100% silica; it made it incredibly white and had a quicksand feel to it. since the weather wasn't the best, we had the massive beach to ourselves. that night we had great food and great conversations about everything. trying to sleep was extremely difficult. i have never tried to sleep in such heat ever in my life. i slept on the single bed that was right next to two portholes and all i could think about was when the next breeze was going to bring me a brief moment of happy cool air. the good thing is that with all of the time awake, i got to think a lot about how cool it was to be sleeping on a sailboat the day before thanksgiving.

The next morning everyone was so honest about having a craps night sleep but we all laughed about it. the day was half beautiful sun / half clouds and showers, but i was happy to take it. we suited up in the stinger suits and went for some snorkeling. We used the sails for the first time and its the greatest experience when they turn off the motor and all you can hear is the wind pushing you along. For thanksgiving dinner we had a wickedly good (and incredibly hot hot) chicken curry.

that night i was not going back to the boiler room of doom and decided to sleep out on the top of the boat. there were some mean looking clouds coming but i thought either be awake and hot or awake and wet...awake and wet seemed the better option. the clouds scared everyone else back to their rooms so i was left solo. i couldn't be more happier with my choice and i think sleeping there was one of the highlights of australia. mean cloud after mean cloud would make its way over the boat and slowly disappear. that opened the sky to stars (some shooting), bright light of the full moon, and an amazing moonset over the water. the wind was crazily fast but where i placed my sleep mat i could only feel a nice cooling breeze (pjs and a t-shirt was all i needed). sometime after three and before four it started pouring down rain--but that was alright because i had prepared everything in case it would happen. a few drops later i was in the boat on a sofa/bench and finished off the nights sleep nice and dry.

for the last day we did some snorkeling at a place where the fish have been used to people coming around. everytime we swam in one area a big group of bluish-silver fish would come and form a school around you. anywhere you went, they would come along. also, there were some smaller dark striped ones that would come right up to your mask and stare right back at you (it was checking out the reflection). i had to keep coming up to empty my mask because i couldn't stop laughing at them.

now, i'm back on land and its hard to shake off the sea legs. i had to brace myself in the shower whenever i closed my eyes because it was tough to stand. tonight we are going to a bar with everyone from the boat (expcept for the american couple. they're on their way to hervey bay).

have a good day, and take out the christmas tunes (its officially christmas music time!)

your friend
chad

Invasion of the schoolies

2004-11-23T09:40:00.000Z

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope everyone has a great thanksgiving holiday. i guess i've only been away from home for thanksgiving once when i did the semester in florence. Adrianna and i had lasagna with eggs in it. I'm not sure what thanksgiving dinner will be this time.

my whitsunday boat ride has been delayed two days. originally i wanted to go on monday, but they said that the boat i wanted had changed its departure date to tuesday. when i checked in on monday the lady at the desk said that the boat actually left earlier that day. it was really confusing but in the end: i leave on wednesday now, but on a better boat and they gave me a free stinger suit rental, a free bus pickup, and a free underwater one-time use camera (about 70 dollars of free stuff! sweet). it should make for a really cool three days. it means thanksgiving will be spent on a sailboat somewhere in the whitsundays islands, with a bbq on the back, listening to chill music, and drinking some semi-nice wine.

the bad part is that i am going to have to skip out on fraser island. i could squeeze it in, but only if i arrive at brisbane at 6am to fly to tokyo 4 hours later. thats really cutting it close, and its not relaxed at all. sometimes crap happens, but as long as i'm having a good time with the things i do end up doing, i can't really ask for anything more.

the yha at airlie beach where i've been staying has been really laid back and relaxed, which is completely opposite of airlie beach as a whole. i guess every year the high school graduates have a few weeks of partying to celebrate finishing school--its pretty comparable to the u.s.'s spring break (except all of these people are 17 and 18 years old and they call them schoolies). it seems my time here happened to fall on the first week of partying. come sunset, the streets are filled with belligerent teens. i think its pretty funny to watch.

wherever you are, happy thanksgiving.

your friend
chad

Hardcore jellyfish

2004-11-19T04:13:00.000Z

Hello,

I hope everyone is having a good day.

So, first the test results: they came back frustratingly (at the time) negative. you know when you are sick and someone says "oh, you may have something something." and you look up the symptoms and maybe have 4 out of the 10; and thats stretching it. well, i looked up giardia online at webmd.com and i had 9 out of the ten. i'm only (happily) missing one thing, and some of them are pretty unique symptoms. the final red flag was one of the friends i was traveling with in fiji was also sick for days and also had to see a doctor. the reason why i was frustrated was that if it wasn't giardia, and my medication didn't work, i didn't want to go 8 more months with my eyes on a constant lookout for the bathroom. the doctor did say that sometimes you have to take the test three times before anything shows up and that i should finish taking the medicine. if its not better, then i would need to see a specialist--not a fan of that option.

for now, i've got one more day of medicine left and i feel much much better. the mornings are still not quite normal, but the rest of the day is perfect. come sunday, i will be one normal individual.

i met my dad, and uncles family (wife, son, son's girlfriend, son's friend, and loki the family dog) in brisbane and had a nice time. they are the greatest people and it sucked to not stay there longer. i'd have to say that i'm pretty lucky i flew in on monday instead of sunday. had i flown in on sunday, my dad and i would have booked the monday night train to cairns. that train crashed. we flew instead--since the bus would have taken days and the rails haven't re-opened yet.

yesterday we went to the great barrier reef for some snorkeling and lounging. we met holly and sara, a rad mother/daughter group, that really made the two hours on the boat getting out there and back enjoyable. at the reef we had to wear these weird lycra suits, apparently getting stung by "stingers" is not the greatest feeling in the world (its some kind of hardcore jellyfish).

I'll be hanging out with my dad in cairns until sunday. then he flys back to brisbane and i'll bus down to whitsundays for a 3 day/2 night boat ride thing. after that its fraser island for a 3 day/2 night adventure 4wd truck thing. then japan...

have a good day

your friend
chad

test results eve!

2004-11-14T08:06:00.000Z

Hello,

Nearly out of time for this internet session, so it must be limited. the medicine the doctor gave me has given me a small taste of what it was like to be normal--i went number 1 for the first time in over a week! it was a great, happy moment.

Today i went to the newtown music festival in one of the suburbs in sydney. it was an all day event filled with great bands, sitting on the grass, and visiting peoples dogs. some of the bands i checked out: the fragments, peabody, her name in lights, itu, newtown high rock band, and evermore. but, what's the deal with most bands now sounding like radiohead? they all sound good, but i never end up buying the cd--i'd rather just have radiohead.

the sun got pretty hot, so i went to see Garden State at the cinema. thanks brett and adrianna for recommending that movie. you were both right; it really was a great movie. if you haven't seen it, you should.

Tomorrow i get the test results on what kind of bacteria i've got living in me. if i've got giardia, i've decided to name it Gary or Jerry depending on the pronounciation of giardia (those kind of things need to have alliteration).

have a good day

your friend
chad

Underneath a giant painting

2004-11-13T08:31:00.000Z

Hello,

This website so far has been a pretty good summation of everything that has happened on my travels, so in keeping with that, i must get somewhat more personal for this one...

I've decided that i liked fiji so much that i would take some of it with me--in the form of a stomach parasite (or bacteria or whatever it happens to be). I haven't been well for the last 9 days or so. don't get me wrong, i'm having a great time and this has definitely added to the memoriability/enjoyment of the trip. you can't have a year long trip around the world without one of these, so its better to get it out of the way.

two days ago i asked a girl who had a lonely planet guide if i could look at a few of the maps (i wanted to see where frasier island was). the guidebook turned out to be french, as well as the girl, lucie. she convinced me to not go to bondi beach and to stay in the blue mountains for one more day to check out the caves that are there. the caves where sweet (910 more stairs!) and now i'm in sydney with lucie, who turns out to be a nurse that has been working in new caledonia. doctors/nurses seem to appear when i am in need of repair.

so today was one of the funniest medical clinic moments of my life. i'll do my best to explain without using too many words. when you check in you fill out a small form and wait in a certain area of chairs where everyone is quiet. then the doctor sees you and if you need any tests done you have to sit on the other side of the room in three chairs underneath a giant painting. this by far was the best part--everyone there looks at each others papers and talks about what got them there. i'm glad i wasn't the last guy because he was getting some serious testing done, but the asmthatic next to me was pretty funny. after seeing the nurse i had to "obtain a sample", and i don't think i have ever laughed so much in a bathroom. for about five minutes i sat on the loo with a small container in one hand and a lid/scoop in the other, trying to come up with the best method. good times.

so what does it all mean? the doctor thinks i have giardia (i haven't the slightest idea how it is pronounced). you can get it from messed up water sources (stupid kuata). i won't find out until monday morning, but he is pretty confident that that is what i have and has already put me on antibiotics. i don't know if i'm supposed to hope for a yes-i-have-giardia on monday or not. i think i want to have it because at least i'll know why i'm sick and then can be on my way to getting better. that and it would be cool to say i picked up some bacteria in fiji--its like the travel version of a tattoo.

have a good day

your friend
chad

blue mountains

2004-11-10T23:13:00.000Z

Hello,

Thank you pauline for recommending the blue mountains!

Sydney itself is an amazing city, but the hostels are all geared around party people. i don't really mind that but i'm not the kind of person that wakes up in the morning wanting to hear dance and party music. that really is the only cds they had, so thats all they played.

Yesterday i took a two hour train ride to Katoomba (i like the name, it sounds like some place in africa) where the blue mountains are located. and the music at the blue mountains youth hostel--jazz and norah jones. the place here has a lot of character and the people say hello in the halls. all the information that i had for the blue mountains was that the "three sisters" were there.

The lady at the reception said that it would probably rain the next day, so it would be a good idea to walk to the three sisters that afternoon. the first walk option she gave me sounded good, so i went with it. now, i'm not sure if she said "900 steps" or if i read it somewhere, or even if it is 900 steps (it should be 900 stairs, steps sounds too easy), but it was tough however many there were. i think if i were to pick, i like going up stairs better than down. going up is painful but controlled with the speed you go. going down didn't hurt at all; the problem was the uncontrollable shaking of my legs (i'm guessing since i don't use those parts of the muscles as often).

So, that was the hard part of the trek. the blue mountains themselves are really cool. imagine the grand canyon but instead of deathly hot and dry, its filled with rainforrests and waterfalls. something about the clay and moisture makes it a perfect place for rainforrest. along the way there was this section that was filled with birds making the strangest sound (at least i'm assuming they were birds, i didn't actually see any of them). the sound that they made was identical to a submarine radar ping, and when it was coming from all around, it was really creepy. at the end of the 5 hour trek was echo point (there is a quicker route from the hostel which takes about 20 minutes...but i didn't go that way), with a lookout on to the "three sisters"--its just three towers of sandstone. i thought the rest of the view was way better. the overcast day made it look like misty blue mountains (is that a lord of the rings thing?).

This afternoon i checked out Katoomba, which didn't take very long. the rest of the day it was crap weather (good thing i walked yesterday) so i lounged on comfy couches, read, and wrote. tomorrow i'm going to the opposite side of sydney--bondi (bon-die) beach. i guess its pretty popular, but i've never heard of it before. then its off to my uncle's house in brisbane on the 15 nov. my dad's there too, so it should be fun. i'm still debating on if i should go to whitsundays (for a 3 day/ 2 night boat cruise) and fraser island (for a 3 day/ 2 night 4wd truck trek on an island). I'd like to, but i think i might be rushing things--since it would take about 4 days to get there and back. i refuse to be the rushed traveller, so i'm thinking it may be better to say "next time" on this one. i figure i'll enjoy brisbane and surrounding area with the family (including thanksgiving!...but they don't cellebrate thanksgiving, since they are austalians.... and they're vegetarians). maybe my dad and i will sneak out for some turkey sandwiches.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Found Nemo

2004-11-09T11:15:00.000Z

Hello,

Sydney has officially become my favorite big city. Its big but is able to have character throughout all parts of the city. The skyscrapers (well, i don't know what the official height of a building has to be for it to be a skyscrapers, so maybe its just the really tall buildings) are each unique in some way. there aren't many of the standard rectangle ones that fill most cities. lots of glass, strange angles, and columns.

Yesterday was a happy day for me. you know when you do or see something and realize that its on your "cool things to do/see in life list," but you just didn't know it--so its kind of a surprise goal. well, this goal started in fiji when i saw the manta ray and couldn't get the teacher's voice out of my head from finding nemo. then i also saw what looked like the silver fish that gave marlin and dori directions to the eac. the goal was completed at the sydney aquarium where they had a whole area just for nemo! I saw dori, bubbles (the yellow fish in the dentist aquarium that says bubbles bubbles bubbles anytime theres bubbles), deb and her twin sister flo, gill, and of course nemo. after re-reading this last paragraph over again, i realize how much of a dork i am. but if its on my "cool things to do / see in life" list, i can't do anything about that.

Tonight was one of the last days of the sydney Italian film festival 2004 (i like things with dates). it was so cool to see an italian film again. the movie was prima dammi un baccio (kiss me first). i really enjoyed it: good soundtrack, good characters, and good story about love and fate.

Tomorrow i'm going by train to the blue mountains. someone in my room went yesterday on a day trip and said that he couldn't see anything at all in the crap weather. so good weather tomorrow please. it cleared up some in the afternoon today so i'm hoping the trend continues. After the blue mountains i'll be going to bondi beach. i hear its really laid back there. anything that includes beach and laid back reminds me of san diego, and thats a good thing.

have a good day

your friend
chad

Bula! Bula! Bula!

2004-11-06T08:43:00.000Z

Bula everyone!

I hope everyone has had a good last few weeks. I'll try to sum up how my time in fiji has gone but it will be difficult. i'll do my best. (right now i'm at an internet cafe in sydney, but we'll get to that later) here it goes:

You can't go more than 15 minutes in fiji without hearing Bula! (boo-la) from someone. and i don't mean hearing it once in the first 15 minutes of fiji; i mean every 15 minutes of every day...all the time. it means welcome, kind of like hawaii's aloha.

The first day was a bit of a disappointment--hear me out on this one. for some reason i expected to land on an island that was just big enough to fit an airplane, had i done any research at all before arriving i would have known that the main island of fiji is a big one. i landed and saw no beach, went to the hotel i was staying at and still no beach. the nadi bay resort was great but really it could be anywhere that could support palm trees--although the little frogs that you could see jumping around definitely added to it.

Pauline and Laura from new zealand had arrived a few days earlier and stayed in the same hotel. they left a note telling me their fiji plans and the next day i was off to meet them at the smaller islands with a bula pass (bula really is everywhere) for the boat ferry service. The island they were at was booked up so i had to stay at a different one called Bounty Island. This was a very very happy day for me. everything that i imagined fiji to be was true and the disappointment from the day before was completely erased. On the boat ride to bounty someone said, "the water is so aqua." i think that sums it up nicely and is funny at the same time.

On bounty i was with two canadian girls who were very cool. we hung out all day: walked around the entire island (25 minutes); swam; snorkeled; swam to one of those platform things out in the water and napped on it; and played a lot of games (did you know that chutes and ladders is really called snakes and ladders for the rest of the world?). Highlights for bounty: an attacking crab on our walk (one of the funniest things i have seen on the trip so far), the biggest steak for dinner--huge!, and smiling all day because i couldn't believe i was in fiji.

The next day i got on the yasawa flyer (the name of the ferry boat) and it picked up laura and pauline from the next island. we went all the way to the top of the yasawa island chain to a place called safe landing. now the further away you get from the mainland, the less commercial you get, and we where the farthest possible in the direction we chose. Safe landing was an amazing place. originally we got a dorm but upgraded to a shared bure (hut) that was right on the beach--it ended up being only 5 fijian dollars more a night...roughly 3.50 us dollars more a night. You open the door and all you see is the beach; and a nice hammock tied right next to us. it truly was paradise. Ryan F., it is difficult to find a hammock that isn't tied between two palm trees.

We stayed at safe landing for only two nights but it was incredibly hard to leave because we got so attached to the people there. Hannah was a really nice girl staying in our bure and our swedish couple neighbors were the raddest people ever. Sebastion looks like cris carraba from dashboard confessional and his girlfriend Sophia was really cool. also, we really connected to the staff there. But we had more islands to see...

Otto and Fanny's place was the next stop and honestly we probably didn't give it a fair judgement because we were missing safe landing so much. the semi cool thing about otto's was that it was pretty much a palm tree forrest. i say semi cool because as we were walking to the beach we heard a deep thud from a coconut hitting the ground. it didn't take us long to imagine a scenario of one of them banging off our heads. another plus, was my first night ever (at least from what i can remember) of sleeping with a mosquito net. they creeped me out at first because they remined me of ghosts for some reason--at least a place where ghosts would hang out.

coconut bay made the trip amazing. it felt more like living within a village. there seemed to be a lot of people working (but really really more like living) there. they all tried to learn our names and would call them out whenever we ran into them--of course only after the bula!. everywhere we went though, laura was always the most liked. within a few minutes of getting off the boat we met moses, brooks, oscar, bel, and bill-the man who built everything at coconut bay and even wove us baskets. laura and pauline got purse looking things made out of palm leaves (i know its supposed to be frons but not sure on the spelling). i got a fijian man bag.

our first night there we learned the bula! dance, which has been described as the fijian maccarena. we also had a ballon dance, which i lost. it was hard. the next day was awesome. after breakfast laura booked a dive so we went along with her to snorkel around a coral wall while she dove. One of the guys from the boat went spear fishing and it was incredible to see him swimming around and getting the fish. pauline and i were also happy to stick with him because we would have easily gotten lost. It was fijian night that night so we had a ground cooked meal followed by a kava ceremony. kava is the fijian traditional drink. most people say it tastes like muddy water, which in a way it is. it is water run through a ground up powder of a root. i think it tastes more like medicine...probably because it is a medicine. it is a seditive that makes your tongue go numb (especially if you hold it in your mouth for awhile). it is the funniest thing to see a bunch of old fijians on the kava mat; they are the most sedate group you will ever find.

the next day was the toughest day in fiji by far. we thought a trip to a local village was cool so we set one up for after breakfast, along with about 7 others. someone may have casually mentioned bringing water so i picked up a 1/2 liter fiji water; but what they really should have said was "prepare for a walk of doom up slippery rocks, through hot grasses...twice, and up and down a mountain" seriously, the walk itself wasn't too bad. the problem was that it took over an hour to get to the village and i easily sweated a 1/2 liter in the incredible humid heat...easy. and with my rationed water, it was tough because i knew we had to go back.

the village, however, made any walk worth it. we visited the chief's house but he was away so we just talked with his wife. the best part was a trip to the kindergarden. for 20 minutes the kids sang and danced for us (they were practicing for their singing and dancing tests which were coming up). there is so much life in the faces of the kids there. we also checked out the local hospital before going back on the trek of terror. i walked back with tim and a cool couple, rich and charlie. we couldn't go slow because the heat was killing us and we just wanted it to end. tim didn't bring any water at all for the whole walk so we shared the 200 mL that i had left (he's crazy).

it was not easy to leave coconut but it wasn't so bad because he were going to meet up with rich and charlie on a later island. wanataki cruise was the next nights place since we got it free with our bula! boat pass. i really enjoyed it for many reasons: sebastion and sophia were also on the boat that night, so it was good to have friends there; there was air conditioning!!; and it was a unique experience. laura and pauline were really exhausted from the village walk, but i thought it would be a good time to try out the kayaks. when i got back it was just in time for a quick ride in a small boat to a beach to play volleyball. now, fijians take everything nice and easy..except for games. i have never played such a serious game of volleyball. i wouldn't be surprised if they ever won the olympics in volleyball. i finished off the evening with jumping off of the big boat with sebastion and sophia. busy exhausting day.

the night was short because most of us got up at 6am to swim with the manta rays!! we took a small boat to a tidal current of water. they drop us off and all we do is float with the current. the guides stand on the boat and tell us where to float. and then all of a sudden in the water a massive massive ray appears and swims upstream right past you. we saw three and i got behind one and measured with my arms--it was bigger than my 6 foot armspan. we also saw a shark. a short break for breakfast and then back into the water for snorkeling. fish all over the place, another shark, (some saw an eel, but i was out of luck), and a blowfish. the real highlight of that swim for me was swimming with a school of little bluish greenish fish. at first they tried to get away from me but then they decided i was alright. ten minutes of good swimming surrounded by fish. one thing i found out--laughing with your snorkel mask on means water up the nose.

Octopus resort was probably the poshest place we stayed at and it was a good mix of everything. good people, good food, and amazing location. our first night there was movie night. it was a great setup: outside, under the stars, on a projection screen with quality surround sound. (see, posh) for some reason we thought it was going to be big fish, but it turned out to be 13 going on 30. i was bummed but 15 minutes into it i was hooked (i'm a nerd)...and then the dvd stopped working. the movie was changed to gothika and i promptly got up and left. only happy thoughts in fiji, not scary movies. No worries though, it was on the plane to australia...jenna does end up with matt after all.

Sebastion and sophia, the swedish couple, came the next day and we had a nice chill day. we played bouls a lot, which is some game of throwing heavy balls around the sand. We went to the village--thankfully this one was much closer--on sunday to go to church. the service was interesting but hard to stay focused. the heat was tough and the entire service was in fijian, which i don't know. We went back to the village the next day for a fijian ceremony and market. i got a bookmark for a dollar.

Laura had to go to america (and she's already in france now, crazy!) so it was just pauline and i for the last few nights. we went to Kuata and met up with rich and charlie. this was the worst place for a few reasons (don't get me wrong though...i'd go back there any day, its more like the least favorable island in fiji): since we were much more south it was becoming much more commercial, we didn't meet anyone that was fijian there; the setup of the place made it difficult to meet people, but really rich, charlie, pauline and i were happy to hang out alone; and (this is just a guess) we ate/drank something that made the rest of the trip much more interesting. the good thing was amazing snorkeling.

We all headed for south sea island for the last night. this is the closest island to the mainland and is tiny tiny. its about a five minute walk around the island with flip-flops on. since the beach was so full of shells and i'm such a weenie, it took about 15 minutes to get 3/4 around. the final day was sunbathing (in clouds unfortunately), bathroom breaks (stupid kuata), and snorkeling. the final evening was everyone preparing for the next travel destination: pauline, rich and charlie are now in the cook islands, and i'm in australia.

i feel like i've started traveling all over again. after going two weeks of seeing no cars, computers, or buildings in general, sydney has been a bit of a shock. things i miss: not wearing any clothes (shoes are crap), hearing Bula!, friends and friendly people. Sydneys a city so most people are busy. my hostel is big and people don't say hi in the hallways.

my first day was difficult because i didn't know what was going on, but after a free concert that night, i'm seeing the little things that make places great (like a nap on a patch of grass overlooking the sydney opera house). today it was a medival fair that included an ochestra and a choir in a cathedral. tomorrow is a spanish festival. as a big city, sydney is growing on me.

so, thats most of it. hope it was enjoyable. thanks for reading such a long post. if you have emailed me during the last two weeks, i have just seen it for the first time yesterday. i will respond, but with a short delay.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Cheers new Zealand

2004-10-20T22:43:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I hope everyone is having a good time. i'm actually really happy that i ended my new zealand travels with an extended stay at christchurch. the hostel got to be very homey because there were a few people that misjudged their travels and had to stay in christchurch for more days than they would have liked. this meant that i usually ran into them lounging somewhere in the city whenever there was sun.

It was mostly rainy and crappy but i still had a good time. my last two days were definitely the best of the christchurch days. while it was raining i saw the documentary "the corporation" and i recommend it, but i just don't know what to think or do about it. anyway, Emilie and Elizabeth that i met way back in nelson and queenstown were also in christchurch so i hung out with them. we had a great night of pizza, monopoly, and watching sixty minutes and the movie the others...yeah we're nerds but i'm not ashamed of that. they really are cool and its like being with comfortable friends.

The last day was perfect--mostly sunny but still crisp air. I saw the art gallery which had some really disturbing displays, but those are always the best because you know it is really causing emotion in people. Next it was a long nap in the huge botanical garden (i'd call it more a park) the air was still a bit cold but the ground was nice and warm. i was still deciding about getting a haircut and ended up getting one. its nice but as she was cutting it i decided no more haircuts for the rest of the trip.

That night i did one of the coolest unique things. the day before i went to the cathedral to check it out and saw a sign asking for people that were interested in joining the bellringers society. i talked to a bunch of people in the cathedral and got the ok to join them tuesday night. so i went. it was mainly old people, but they were so so friendly. we climbed halfway up the tower into this room that had a circle of hanging ropes. they gave me lessons on how the bells work and what they do and then i got to hang out with them as they practiced their bellringing. two very strange hours. I ended the final night of christchurch with emilie and elizabeth at a pub that had cheesy music tuesday. (i thought the music wasn't that cheesy)

Now its my final full day in new zealand and i'm at the hostel i stayed at for my first night. its mostly full of people that are just starting their new zealand travels (i guess some people like to come to new zealand when the weather is perfect...i still think nz winter is just fine). i've had an amazing time and could easily stay another year if i could, but for now, i'm ready to move on. on the plane ride from christchurch to auckland i could see most of the top of the south island. Even the exact spot where Katja and i kayaked in the abel tasman...i can't believe it took us a day to do that! The water there looks exactly how i picture the water in fiji to be, so it got me happy and excited.

so, goodbye new zealand.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Pre-fiji

2004-10-16T01:32:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Christchurch has been good to me so far. Its a 50/50 mix of auckland and wellington, so that makes it a big (ish) city with a bit of character. I'm here for a bit too many days to wait for the plane back to auckland, so this afternoon i'll find out what kind of day trips to do. They've got a church square like in a lot of english towns and there is a guy there called "the Wizard." He's this guy dressed in an all black wizard costume and he talks in the square on a big step ladder. He rambles on and on about the strangest things. The topic for my time watching him: industrialization of new zealand (and the world in general, he was just using nz as an example) and the progression of society to its current state of conformity. I haven't used big words like that for months. He is one of those people that you don't know if they are too smart or just crazy, but in most of the guidebooks he is listed as the unofficial mascott of Christchurch (and i hear he gets paid by the city to do what he does...i'm leaning to the calling him smart side).

the crazy wizard guy.

I hung out with Pauline last night and this morning she went north to meet up with Laura. They'll be flying to fiji together two days before i get there. I'm really lucky to have met them. Its made the trip feel like i've been traveling with good friends. Other than that i'm just catching up with emails, sorting out my pack, and getting ready for fiji (things like buying a snorkel and such). Three months hasn't been enough in New Zealand, but i think i am ready to see what fiji is going to be like. And i've decided to get my first haircut of the trip tomorrow. i figure it will be easier to swim with the snorkel mask with shorter hair.

My mom has been in canada for the past week, which means Google (my mom's new dog) is staying at my brothers house. Before my mom left she decided pepper was going to be the name, but my brother's changed the name to Jasmin. I'm all for this because i think it is a more clever name than pepper. (Jasmin = kind of tea = boston had that whole tea thing = mom's dog is a boston terrier) I'm still pushing for Google as the middle name--and nothings going to stop me from calling the dog google anyway.

So, the postings may get sparse for the next few weeks. I won't be doing too much for the next few days and i'm going to keep my distance from computers in fiji, unless theres a nice rainy day to catch up a bit.

have a good day

chad

Akaroa

2004-10-15T01:58:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I hope everyone is doing well. The little blue penguins turned out so great. They're so tiny!! We saw a little over 70 of them (at least thats how many they say there were, but i thought there were more in the 50-60 range. i guess they're better at counting miniture penguins) They swim up from the beach in little groups and walk across this wide path as they make their way to a little shire of mini-houses. Penguins make you smile, its decided. I went to the penguin reserve with a cool couple from the UK, Scott and Susara. They were really nice and were going north the next day also and were nice enough to take me along.

On the drive I read about Timaru in the Lonely Planet guide. Now, the lonely planet guide can find the coolest little things in just about any town, so when it said "apart from the something something museum, there is really no reason to stop here." That meant i stayed with Susara and Scott all the way to their final destination: Akaroa. Definitely the best thing i could have done. The Bon Accord hostel in Akaroa was amazing. really friendly host (Cathy and Boots her dog) but the coolest part by far was a comfy sitting room built over a stream. My first night there I had some pasta (really, every night i have pasta), put on some chill music, and took a nap to the sound of the water.

That alone convinced me to stay one more night and the next day I took the woodills walk around akaroa. The walk was really peaceful (and moderately tough in some spots). Lots of sheep, a few horses, a random chicken...i'm not really sure what that was doing there, and even gave a deer a head rub--a farming deer, not a wild one. Right in the middle of the walk was this garden/house where you pay 8 dollars for a berry drink that was perfect. I can't really find the words to express how cool it was.

I've come to christchurch this morning. Cathy, the owner of the hostel, gave me a ride. Its about 1 1/2 hours away from akaroa! she was headed into town anyway, but it was cool of her to take me along. I feel like a nerd for worrying about my transportation way back in te anau. In new zealand there really is no need to worry about anything.

I ended up in the same room as pauline (laura left this morning to see whales in kaikura) so i'll meet up with her later. The hostel feels really comfortable and has a huge mastiff like dog named murphy that gets easily attached to guests and cries anytime someone leaves.

I've sent a cd of pictures home so in the next few weeks i'm hoping my mom will be able to put up a few of them. I'd put them up myself but you have to download some program to do it and i can't do that at internet cafes.

Chocolate birds

2004-10-12T03:28:00.000+01:00

Hello,

First off, I'm a lot less stressed than the last post. So far, everything is working out fine with the transportation. Dunedin (pronounced duh-need-in) turned out to be a really cool town. It used to be an important port town but when the panama canal opened it became significantly less important. Now it is mainly a university town with everyone there having something to do with the school.

Have to say that every chocolate tour i have been on has been somewhat of a let down. Its usually just what you expect it to be. A lot of metal things doing their magic hidden behind all of their panels...and not loads of free chocolate. But the Cadbury chocolate factory tour in dunedin has been the best one by far. First, you start off with free chocolate, then start the tour of the factory. Yeah, there are still heaps of machines and things you can't see, but they make it as fun as possible. It ends with a one ton chocolate fall, which serves no purpose at all but to look cool. That's the willy wonka style i'm looking for.

Later that day I went on the twilight penguin adventure tour. I'm not sure exactly why its called "twilight" because we left at three in the afternoon and the sun was still up when we got back to the hostel. Along the way it stops at a bird colony and we saw a few royal albatross flying around. I've never seen one before and i couldn't believe how big it was. It has a wingspan of 3 meters (10 feet!!) Imagine a seagull crossbred with a teradactyl...thats an albatross. Huge.

I had more fun at the penguin reserve than i would like to admit. The end goal was to see yellow eyed penguins, the rarest penguins in the world. Along the way there was a miniature shire made of little houses. Those are for the blue penguins; they're about 20 cm tall...little tiny guys that live in little tiny homes on the hillside. We saw one of them inside his home, and he stood there looking out at us. Something about penguins just makes you laugh. Then we went into bunkers that felt like they were straight out of wwII. That's were you can view the yellow eyed ones. From the boxes dug in the ground we were probably only a few feet away from them. They were cool, but didn't walk around at all. Thats the comedic part of penguins so i spent most of my time watching little duck chicks whizzing around a small pond as they learned how to swim. they were much more entertaining.

Since I'm saving the last two hours remaining on my bus pass, I decided to hitch from dunedin to omaru. I got a ride to a hitching spot from Dione, a girl from L.A. Along the way we stopped at "the world's steepest street." Its not like the one in san francisco that zigzags its way up to the top. This is just a hugely steep neighborhood road that goes straight up a mountain. It was difficult to capture it on camera, so you'll have to take my word for it.

After Dione dropped me off, I had a ride in under ten minutes with a semi-retired man named Lawrence. His job: a sheep shearing coach. yep, he coaches competitors to win the golden shears. We had some good talks about traveling and the sheep shearing competitions and in a few hours he dropped me off at omaru. Soon I'm going to go see a whole colony of little blue penguins, so i'm actually really excited. I hear their interactions with the seals are really funny.

Tomorrow I'm off to Timaru. I forgot what was there, but i'll be there for a night. Then its christchurch and surrounding areas until the 20 oct.

No rain, No bus

2004-10-09T09:27:00.000+01:00

Man, I don't know where to start. First some clarifications about milford sound. It is more sunny than rainy, but when it does rain, it pours like a crazy person. And in my wishing for a sunny day, i got what i wished for, but in getting a sunny day you gain one thing and lose another. Basically, any direction i put my camera i could have made a post card out of the picture, so thats the plus. A dozen waterfalls along the way and a really cool stop at an underwater observatory where i saw black coral and other cool things; those were good. Now the downside of a sunny day: there are only a dozen waterfalls. When it rains there are over a thousand waterfalls all around. Missed out on that, but i will be back, just not this trip. Time to move on.

this is called the "elephant".

Norway's fiords are going to have some tough competition. Rudyard Kipling called milford sound the "eighth wonder of the world." He's a smart guy, and i'm going to concur. It is a bit strange though. Milford sound is actually a fiord. A sound is a body of water through canyony type mountains that is formed by water going through. A fiord is a body of water that is formed where a glacier used to be. It makes for some wicked sights that can't be explained in words, so i'm not going to try. Its sweet.

I've come into a transportation dilema that will sort itself out. I'm nearly out of hours on my bus pass. This afternoon I had planned my last two weeks out day by day and when i called to reserve the first leg of the bus trip, i found out my hours wouldn't cover it. So change of plans. It will be cheaper to fly from christchurch to auckland than taking the ferry and the bus.

Well before I get all poetic about how beautiful this place is and how sad i am about leaving, i will stop for now.

have a good day

chad

5 Underpants Jump

2004-10-07T23:15:00.000+01:00

Hello,

The minus 5 bar actually turned out to be a lot colder (originally they kept it at -5 degrees Celcius but things were still melting so its a lot colder than that now). We split off with the original group and i'm so glad we did. There were only 12 people total and we were 8 of them. We got to know the others quickly and had a great time surrounded by ice. There was only one rule: don't fart because it doesn't leave the air for about an hour. Apparently someone in our group wasn't listening and near the end there was a pretty bad smell hanging in the air. Luckily they turned on the air conditioner some more and got the bad air out of there pretty quickly. I took about 20 or so photos so one day they'll be posted. I think the ice glass was one of the coolest parts. When we were leaving the group we split from was going in...all 27 of them, which i think would not have been fun.

Minus 5 bar such a weird place.

I've done my last jump(s) for queenstown and it feels like i've done all that i can. I skipped out on one of the bungys because, really, there's not much difference between 2 and 3 jumps. that and i need to leave something for next time. Yesterday I went with Laura to the Canyon Swing and I think that if you do one thing in queenstown the canyon swing is it (with the nevis close behind). Its about 15 minutes away from q-town in a massive canyon. You get all strapped up, jump off a ledge, free fall for 60 meters, and then swing in an arc for about 200 meters going 150 kilometers/hour. i don't know how fast that is, but its dang fast. Now, it would be nice if all you had to do was jump, but thats too easy. Their goal is to find the jump that will scare the most crap out of you (they rate all of the different kind of jumps by number of underpants). My "jump" was hanging upside down over the ledge, with my feet wrapped around the top of the cord and my head looking straight down into the river below. They pull the cord and then you fall headfirst down the canyon. They call it "Gimp boy goes to Hollywood"

The next jump only costs $20 dollars more, which lead me back to the ledge to do a backwards jump off. The fall itself wasn't that bad; gimp boy was definitely more exciting. But making myself jump off of the ledge was really intense. Somehow on jumps with a countdown it makes it easier because its almost like someone else is deciding when you do it. No countdown on this one. "Lock your fingers behind your head, lean back, and push off the legde as you're falling" ...small talk...small talk... "So I'm good to go?" "Yeah" ...a few silent moments to harness my chi, and then a backwards jump.

I'm happy to be leaving Queenstown. Its a great place to be busy and do everything, but its crazy expensive (no one thing is expensive, it just adds up so quickly) and doesn't feel like a place I would like to live. My ratings: Q-town good; Wanaka great.

Milford Sound is next: voted the second most beautiful place in the world by national geographic (Norway's Fiordland was first). It rains about 230 days a year there, so hoping I can slip in there rain-free.

have a good day

chad

Cold as

2004-10-06T07:19:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Back in Queenstown for another two nights. tonight we are going to a bar called minus 5. You wear boots, gloves, and big heavy jackets with fur around the hood. Then you go into this room made of ice that is kept at -5 degrees celcius. Even the walls are ice and all around there are ice sculptures. Part of the price includes one drink out of a cup made of ice. It should be fun since it is kept to a maximum of 25 people and we should have about 10 or so of them.

And sorry for the malfunction with some of the postings. There was something wrong with the computer in arrowtown, which kept posting things over and over again. Everything should be all fixed now.

From what I know, Google is still officially nameless.

Have a good day
chad

Q-Town

2004-10-03T06:40:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Its seems like so much has happened since Wanaka...probably because a lot has happened. First, there was amazing success with my first hitching experience from Wanaka to Queenstown. I waited at a grassy field with two snowboarders who were looking to go to cardrona. One of them was a girl from seattle who back home made coffee and went snowboarding and in wanaka, she makes coffee and goes snowboarding. For some reason i think that is really cool. We had a good half an hour talking and laughing about everything. Eventually I was picked up by a nice couple that were also going to the ski fields. It was a tough choice riding with them because if i never got a ride, i always had the bus; but if i went to the ski fields i would be committed to hitching the whole way. So i went with them (it was the more adventurous route).

I got dropped off at the road and they continued on to the ski fields. Since finishing school i've got a goal to read one book a month, and even though i'm traveling, the goal still stands. Right now i'm reading a hilarious book by sue townsend called the growing pains of adrian mole. Its supposed to be for kids, so i think it fits me fine. Anyway, i just held up a cardboard sign that said "Q-TOWN" and had my book behind it. It was a nice time standing in the sunlight with fields and mountains all around. About 15-20 pages later a travel van stopped with the raddest couple from scotland: Louise and Ewan. I jumped into the back of their van and headed off for queenstown: listening to great music and talking about the most random things. They even stopped so i could take pictures!
Louise and Ewan and their van. they had no back seats so that they could pass inspection (the seat belts were broken, which equals a no pass. but if there are no seats, its all good). so i just laid in the back, used my bag as a pillow, at stared at the sky.

Ok, so new zealand isn't that big of a place in general. The south island is even smaller (people wise) and most people traveling the south go either down the west or east coast and then up the other side. Queenstown is one of the only cities where nearly everyone spends extended time since there are so many things to do. This turns it into a by chance gathering place for everyone. After checking into my hostel i ran into louise and ewan again so we went to a pub to hang out. After a montieth's and a tui we parted ways, which left me alone for about 5 minutes, until i ran into Pauline and Laura. From there we hung out all night long, running into about 20 or so familiar faces along the way. It really was crazy. Everyone knows everyone else on the travel route.

Jumper junkie: once you jump off one thing, your hooked. Remember how I said Hayley was thinking about doing a bungy jump (but she only wanted to do it with someone)? Well, she arrived in q-town on thursday night. By saturday afternoon she had already jumped 4 times and saved the Nevis for last. Sunday morning i booked the Nevis jump at the same jump time as hayley and at 2:00pm we were heading for the nevis river jump. 134 meters doesn't mean much to me, so i wasn't really thinking that much about it. But when we got there and i saw that 134 meters means 440 feet, it is friggin huge! I guess to put it in building terms, its like jumping off of a 44 level building (well, actually i'm not sure, is a level 10 feet or 12 feet? anyway its a really big fall). You take this little tiny gondola to a big one that is made more of glass than steel. Heaviest jumps first, which put me near the end (stupid metabolism). You get strapped while you sit in a chair that looks more like a dentist chair, and then you baby step to a ledge (since you feet are tied together). They count down from five and then you jump. It was one of the most intense feelings i have felt--way harder than sky diving.

And thats when i became a jumper junkie. Five minutes after the bus dropped us off, i was signing up for a different jump at 7:00 that night with a guy named darryyl from ireland. It was only a 43 meter jump but you could do a forward flip off of it, which of course is what i went for. Still a crazy feeling, but nothing like the Nevis.
the second jump of the day. this one went much too fast.

I've left queenstown now, since it was way too much money, and now i'm relaxing at arrowtown about 20 minutes away.

I hope everyone is doing ok. My mom got a puppy! Its a bosten terrier and currently it is nameless. My vote is on Google, but I think I have been banned from naming animals ever since Wonder Butt. I'm a little bummed because it will be almost a year old before i see it for the first time.

Have a good day.

your friend
chad

Snow Day, for real this time

2004-09-29T05:24:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I checked into my hostel right after the last post and the lady said, "the weather is going to be real nice tomorrow," and i heard, "go snowboarding." So all day yesterday i was snowboarding at the cardrona ski park. I left the hostel at 8 in the morning and it took me until 1 pm to realize that i was snowboarding in new zealand (one of those moments that you just can't help but smile). It had snowed the day before so there was a good amount of powder left on some of the harder runs. A great day for snowboarding! All around were mountains that look just like the paramount pictures mountain. Two things i will not forget: I hit a lady so hard that it broke her ski boot. I felt so bad and after she simmered down she was nice too. I thought it was completely my fault, but later on i saw a sign that said the downhill skier has the right of way, which was me, so i feel less bad about it now. And the other memory was going straight through the middle of a SLOW sign. I completely took it out. It was in a really steep area and i was trying to do an all stop. It made me jump more than stop and went right through the sign. Now this probably makes me sound like i was completely out of control out there, but i swear those were two isolated occourances. I was able to do some difficult runs, had no bad tumbles, and kept my clothes dry the whole day (i didn't want to hire the waterproof clothes because it was just to much money with everything else).

Last night we went to the raddest movie theater i've ever seen. It was called cinema paridiso. The picture size wasn't great, the sound wasn't great, but the character of the place was awesome. It was small and all of the seats were different couches and comfy chairs. My seat (i think the best seat of the house) was in an old Morris Minor, a cool new zealand car. It so neat to be sitting in a theater in this old car.

the sweetest movie theatre of all time. i sat in the car the whole movie. my feet were in the glove compartment for a footrest. comfy.

Today is Puzzle World, which is some weird place with mazes and goofy things, and i'll probably hike up to some peak nearby. Its been great hanging out with Pauline, Hayley, Laura and friends (their friend group just keeps growing). Pauline, Laura and i may hire a car tomorrow and go to mt. cook. Its probably the cheapest way to see it and should be a good day trip. Next stop is Queenstown and i might bungy jump with Hayley off of the Nevis. Its some gondola obscenely high up. We'll see if I can get there early enough, Hayley is on a tight schedule and can only do it on sat.

I hope everyone is well. have a good day

your friend
chad

Fox glacier

2004-09-28T05:00:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Its so good how things work out sometimes. Yesterday i was going to go to fox glacier with pauline, hayley, and some dutch and brits. However, with my plan of not planning, the place to reserve the shuttle ride opened at the exact moment that the shuttle was leaving, which means i missed it. It was raining nicely so i thought it would be a good time to give hitching a go (fox is only about 45 minutes away from franz joseph). I was hoping pity would be high in the drivers. As I was packing up to go, i was talking to adrian and luis who were also leaving, and were going in my direction. 15 minutes later was riding in the back of their civic in a pile of backpacks heading to fox glacier (and i was dry). I must hitch once while i'm here, but it will have to wait if things keep going as they have.

Fox glacier was...very similar to franz joseph. There were little things different but you can't get on the glaciers without a guide, and i wasn't ready to do two glacier walks in two days. So maybe there were differences on the ice, but i couldn't really see them from the bottom. One part that was neat was the drastic change of environment. I rode a bike there and i saw this really cool bridge over the glacier water river. It was in the middle of a rain forest (with jurasic parkish waterfalls and all), 15 min. on bike later everything was rocky and barren, a 15 min. walk later and your at the edge of the glacier.

So, for the next few nights i'm in Wanaka. Its a small ski/lake town. I hear its cheaper to go snowboarding here than in queenstown, so thats got me interested. Pauline, Hayley, and crew are coming tomorrow afternoon, so maybe i'll wait till then. We're thinking about going to mt. cook. Its just a really tall mountain in new zealand, and for some reason it feels like we would be missing out if we didn't see it.

have a good day
your friend

chad

Snow day...more like ice day

2004-09-26T06:50:00.000+01:00

Hello,

They say glacier differently here. Maybe i've been getting it wrong. i've always said glay-sure but here its glay-see-er. If you look at the word, i think they may be on to something. Anyway the glacier walk at franz joseph glacier was one of the best things i have done in new zealand so far. The ice is this strange shining blue and when you are squeezing through two walls of it, it is a different experience. One rather large man got stuck for quite awhile, so we just had to stand behind him in between two walls of ice about 30 feet tall on both sides. I wish i could post pictures because when i say squeeze through, i mean forcing yourself through a hole that you think a full grown human would never make.
the large man that got stuck in front of me.

One of the cool parts is that it moves and changes everday, so it isn't the same glacier that it was two days ago. This means that we would have to go back occasionally because a route that was fine yesterday was completely blocked today. After we had lunch on the glacier you could have a go at sliding through an ice cave. Our group was the only ones who tried it, but i think the other groups may have been a bit smarter than ours. It wasn't a very long slide, but in that short time, it felt like two or three people beat me with heavy sticks on all sides. It didn't feel good at all, but i would still recommend it. When else would you have a chance to slide down an ice cave on a glacier? You have to take those when they come, even if they do feel like a good beating.
sliding down the ice tunnel of doom.

Well, i'm completely exhausted and i've got to go get the free soup. I've got a feeling like the soup is going to mean so much more to me today than yesterday.

have a good day
chad

Great guy and hopefully great ice

2004-09-25T06:50:00.000+01:00

Hello,

I think i have met the coolest guy ever. My great uncle dan, my grandma's brother, is such a neat guy. He is good to the core of his being. I stayed three nights at his house and i wish i could have stayed another week. He told me stories about moving to new zealand when he was 18 (he's almost 80 now, so thats a good deal of new zealand history), about how he was a dozer driver (it was great, we went to some lakes with his neighbors and as we were coming back, he said "i made that...and that too" when we were making sharp corners through mountains), but the best part by far was stories about when he was in the british army during wwII. Yeah, there were stories about fighting and shooting kind of things, but the good ones were ones like how he shot a deer for food and had to hide it under his bed during an inspection (he would have gotten in a lot of trouble for using amunition). He just really enjoys life.

I have to thank my stomach for being way stronger than i have ever seen it. For the people that really know me, i've got problems in cars sometimes, but the worst is a bus. But for some reason today, i was able to handle a 9 hour bus ride...while people were number 3ing all around me. Good work, stomach, good work.

Today i'm at franz joseph glacier, tomorrow is a full day hike on the ice; ice boots and all. There are some cool people from the UK here, pauline and hayley. Hopefully i'll meet up with them tonight. But for now, its free soup (hostels here are the best)

have a good day,

chad

South is great

2004-09-20T23:44:00.000+01:00

The last three days (maybe four days, i don't know, i lose track) have been so great. The ferry from wellington to picton went pretty smooth from talking to others. I spent half the time at the back of the boat talking with two people from the UK and an older couple from california. The last hour i stood at the front of the boat, leaned back on a wall and just took in the scenery on both sides of the boat. There's definitely something different about the south island. When I arrived in Nelson, there was Thomas, a guy from munich, in my room that i had met in rotorua and lake taupo. So it was like having a good friend already there.

The next day I met up with Katja, a german girl that i also met in rotorua. We did a walk to the "centre of New Zealand." Word on the street is that it isn't the real center of new zealand and that its really 50km away on some mountain, but it works for me. That night we went to a pub with some cool people from her hostel. It was one of those locals only type of places and it was great because they were having a going away party for someone so there were all these snacks and sandwiches on the covered pool table.

The next morning Katja and i took the dang early bus to the abel tasman national park. We didn't really know what we were going to do there, but it ended up a perfect two days of abel tasman. Once again, Thomas the german guy was at the hostel (the fourth time to run into him) The first day we took a boat a good distance into the park. We got dropped off at a beach, walked for a few hours through bush/forrest, had lunch on another beach, and walked for a few more hours to yet another beach. Best part of the day walk was a suspension bridge over a river and a 30 minute rest laying on a rock in the sun at the beach where we were to be picked up. That night we knitted a llama. Yeah, weird, but its what we did.

katja and me in front of the "split apple rock".

The next day we hired a two person kayak and went all over the place. At the end of it, it felt like my shoulders were going to come apart at the joints; but its one of those things that you only remember the great parts (when the pain goes away). The water was a turquose/jade color and the beaches were actually gold color because of the rock in the area.

It was great traveling with Katja, but she left today to go back to germany. I'm in Nelson today, sunburned and exhausted. Its beautiful out there, so there's a hammock out there with my name on it. Today is rest, read, and write day. Tomorrow I'm hoping to meet my great uncle dan, who i hear is a rad guy.

Have a good day,

chad