Through the World I trip

Couchsurfing is...

2008-07-29T05:28:00.005-05:00

So. Well As you probably know, when I talked about all the cool places I went in my trip in 2007/8, 90% of the I stayed at.. XX's, were couchsurfers. A lot of people don't know much about Couchsurfing, and can't believe I would stay on people's couches. That I didn't know. In foreign countries! And yes, granted I saved a lot of money this way, but it was also a wee bit stressful never having a room, only occasionally having a bed, turning up in strange places and having to socialise with strange people and follow instructions to houses in the middle of nowhere, and spending a lot fo my travel time on the internet trying to arrange where I was going to stay, when I was going to arrive, who I was meeting. Honestly, it's far easier to book a hostel.

So Why Couchsurf? Well for me, and for a lot of people, it's not about the free accomodation. And recent things in the media, including a debate I wandered into here has made me think WHY do we couchsurf? And why can't media seem to get that it's more than just a free place to stay?

So.. to me couchsurfing is:

- all the cool people I met in Toronto who, considering I didn't have a job or know anyone when I arrived in May, I would never know

- the amazing 5 day drive/ferry/party in Newfoundland, the road trip I would never have gone on if someone in the CS Toronto group hadn't posted "Anyone want a ride to Newfoundland?" - I saw Icebergs!

- The party with over 100 people in Boston, all of which were couchsurfers and so happy to talk to you, and the cool people I met there who hung out with me while my friends I was ACTUALLY visiting in Boston had work all day

-The amazing time I had in NYC staying with the people I met at the Boston party the week before, and the amazing friendship I STILL have with a couple of them, even though we only met for 4 days a year ago

-My going away party in Toronto where we ended up in my friends apartment, drining Sangria and dancing Salsa (which I had only learned that night) with a couple of mexicans and an argentinian until after 5am. Man, South Americans can dance!

- the great time I had in Valencia with the tomatina crew, and the insane wine festival the locals took us to which ended up being way better than Tomatina, and we would have never known about otherwise

-the chance to watch the opening game of the rugby world cup in Toulouse with 11 crazy chain smoking French rugby players swearing at the tv

-the crazy Vegetable orchestra in Vienna, how many hostel goiers do you know of that go to contemporary art museum openings in old Nazi bunkers in their trips?

- DORA! The girl that couldn't host me, but hosted a night of wine, chatting and making Hungarian cake in Budapest, and then invited me out the next night to hang with the amazing Budapest Couchsurfers

-VIKTOR! Another amazing Hungarian couchsurfer who I met in New York and who a) talked me into going to Budapest (even though it took a couple of months to sink in) and b)let me stay in his apartment in Budapest even though he wasn't there!

-My crazy friends in Munich - people from back home I knew already - but who managed to hook us up a sweet place to crash, with an amazing host who not only cooked delicious food for us, but saved us a place in the best real German tent for the last night of Oktoberfest and then had MORE food ready when we got home after losing him at the end of the night. Oh, AND he even offered for me to wear his mother's german lady costume. Which I declined because I only had hiking boots, but when I got into that amazing tent, I felt wholly underdressed!

- Gesa! The awesomely funny girl I stayed with in Berlin who fed me currywurst, told me I could speak german because I was good at faking it at the kebab shop and laughed at drunk Americans with me

- The cool dude in Copenhagen who I hung out with watching scary movies (did you know all Danish tv is in English?)

-The very cool girl who I met at my going away party in Toronto but I kept in contact with through facebook and who invited me to her bday party in Brugge. She showed me all around town on her bicycle, showed me where the best waffles were and then the next night her flatmate took me out for a drink at another random bar in town. After her bday party (the next day) three of us hung out in the town square all afternoon and people watched - I love Brugge...

- The funny Swedish/Scottish guy who coped with me dragging him all over town in Edinburgh and took me to a ceilidh (said kay - lee) which was just fun - like folk dancing at school

- The very cool Edinburgh crew who I introduced my friends who had been in Edinburgh all of a week too, and after I left they partied with for 4 months.

- And finally - the girl I met in toronto over summer who kindly let me stay in her front room for an entire month over christmas and new years in Vancouver with no payment except some afghan biscuits and walking her dog for her!

So yeah, there have been some weird times (the guy in Barcelona who didn't talk to us much, the guy in Prague who ditched me in town then tried to make up for it with drunken standing TOO close and wanting hugs, the girl in Paris who I didn't see for the last 2 days I was STAYING IN HER APARTMENT), the good far overshadows the weird.

And I love it.

Whenever people say - what if something goes wrong? I say - firstly, things can go wrong in hostels, and secondly - I'm a grown up, I have a credit card. If it's shite, i'll just walk out, go to the nearest hotel and get a room.

Honour Roll Call (last post, going home tomorrow!)

2008-01-20T01:11:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone

So, tomorrow I leave Canadia for the final time this trip. After 6
weeks in Vancouver I am totally ready to go home. I think Vancouver
was a good way of getting ready to go home, it's smaller than either
Toronto or London (where I came from) but it's still new and different
so it was a good stepping stone on my way to home! This last 6 weeks I
have watched it try to snow about 4 times in Vancouver, gone up to
Quadra Island with my family for Christmas, hung out with CS people a
couple of times, gone down to Seattle to buy me a new (pretty, cool,
shiney) computer, gone to Whistler and seen lots and lots of snow,
gone snowboarding (-remembered how much I suck) in Whistler, gone to
Calgary to see Kerra, partied with cool people in Calgary, hung out
with lots of family in the last 2 weeks in Vancouver, including
sorting out 5 boxes of christmas ornaments and a box of stuffed dogs
at my great grandparents old house.

Anyway, as my 9 months of travelling draws to a close, I am looking
forward - for jobs and flats in Wellington ( if anyone knows of any,
let me know), and looking back to all the cool people I met over the
last year. So, (in place order from when I first arrived in Canada) -
I would like to thank the following people:

Thanks to...

Toronto:
- Shineen and family and friends, Ariqa, Sameen, Shezeen, Kristen,
Lindsay, Angie, and the boys with the awesome fireworks display, -
Tyler, Woody, Troy, and Julie - I met at the cottage over Canada Day.
- The Toronto CS Crew: Mark, Gary, Sofia, Ray, Jeanne, Maria, Megan,
Austin, Anwar / Bex and Gulliaume, Amy and everyone else I missed!

St John's: Edson, Eric, Holly, Nabil, Alicia, and the cool crew in Newfoundland, you guys were great!

Montreal: - Kim and Andres (CS people) for being cool and looking after me!

Boston:
- Grant and Halvar - it was good to catch up!, Eli, Brad and Claudine
for touring around with me, Kate for a fun party, the Boston CS crew
and NYC CS crew for a fun party weekend. Jacqui and Mark (again) for
braving the beach in Boston!

NYC: - Bastien for letting me stay, Neil, Connie, Seth, Viktor,
Nicky, Kristen, Kristina, Chris and all that braved the unitard pub
crawl, I had an awesome time in New York, come visit me in NZ!

London take1: - Julia and her flatmate who so graciously let me sleep
all afternoon at their house

Spain: - Mike and Sue, Mark, Lysette, Simon, Chris, Misha, Georgie,
Mick, Mon and Jack and the other 20,000 people that made Requena and
Tomatina memorable!

Toulouse: -Thanks Taz, Julien and Dennis, plus all the crazy rugby
players we laughed with at the opening game of the world cup

Marseilles and Nice: -Guillaume, who we love for taking us to the
black seeds and to Nice!

Switzerland: Simon G for letting me sleep and watch tv for 3 days
until I recovered from hostels, and Joe Trodahl for buying us lunch!

Austria: Michael, Abe, Spyro and all other people I met in Vienna and
esp those that played soccer with us at midnight my last night.

Hungary: The lovely Dora for an awesome night baking and drinking
wine, Annie and Eduardo for a cool day sightseeing and hanging out,
the Budapest CS crew for a good night at the pub, and Jacob for
letting em watch Heroes. Which, btw, is the only episode I have seen
this season!

Poland: Nick, Jordan, Dave and the crazy Canadians, Dave the English
man - for good nights out. Jade and Hannah and the crazy Americans for
joining me on the Aushwitz tour.

Prague: The two girls who chatted to me on the crowded train, and
Kasha who let me stay on the couch in her dorm when I lost where I was
SUPPOSED to sleep.

Munich: Graham, Andreas and Rian for getting me drunk and feeding me
copious amounts of meat at Oktoberfest, the Englischers, Dave, Tom,
Eden,and Adam for letting us sit with them and for torturing us
mercilessly when they beat Aussie and we got kicked out of the world
cup!

Hagen: Christina for taking me out even when I was exhausted from
Oktoberfest, and her funny English department comrades for looking at
me funny when they found out I didn't speak German

Berlin: the lovely Gesa for lending me books to read and making me eat Currywurst

Copenhagen: Thomas for taking me in last minute, and letting me cook!

Bruges: Sibyl and Clara: one is an excellent host, the other for
laughing with me and perving at 17 year olds

Amsterdam: Mel for touring museums with me, Jenna and Jo for the
parties and the Aussie guys for a good night (even if you did
disappear in the middle of the night to do shots with the hot barman
and left me all alone! - send me photos!)

Paris: Actually, my host in Paris ditched me my last night, and still
owes me €10 so no thanks to her!

London Take 2: Bex, her awesomely odd flatmates, Tyler for giving me a
big hug when arrived, then proceeding to tell me I looked young, had
nice skin and no wrinkles, and then taking me to all you can eat Hell
(what more can you want in a man? ;) ), Leonard for going out for 'one
drink' and getting me trashed, Simon and Anneke for the same thing the
next night - fun party guys!

Belfast: Sheree and Marty for taking good care of me and taking me to
the Giant's causeway, pity it was sooo cold!

Edinburgh: Rob and his ultra cool flatmates for cooking me food with
no mushrooms and taking me dancing, Hayley and Nick for joining in,
coming to crazy CS things and doing tours with me

Manchester: Penny and Caro for letting me be sick on their couch for a week
Coventry: Paul and Jane for looking after me for the weekend:

London take 3: Bex and all her kiwi friends for the dinners, drinks,
shows and shopping, Leonard, Warren and friends for good nights out
and good drinks and good company,

Vancouver: Rayna and Garry for all the dinners, letting me stay on the
couch for a MONTH, Fi and Micah for looking after my suitcase, Simon for
taking me out, The CS Vancouver crew for some fun nights out, Doug,
Lorraine, Mum, Marg, Robyn, Maureen, Leo, Margaret, Shane, Melissa,
Marie, Mike and all my other family for being so nice, entertaining me
with unpacking, dinners, lunches and letting me stay at Aunt
Kathleen's for two weeks. And finally - to Tony, for listening to me
moan about Rogers and how they charge you heaps per minute and I ran
out of money - until he run out of money. Umm sorry!! Go Fido, I hate
Rogers.

So yeah, that's my roll of thank yous. If you have someone's email
address that I mentioned but don't have their address, please forward
this to them or send me their address. If you didn't get mentioned,
feel free to write me back and yell at me.

I will email everyone with my new phone number when I get one in New
Zealand. I hope you can all keep in touch, call me, text me, email me
and come visit!

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T22:09:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone!!

I'm having a surreal kinda day, realising that back home it's already 2008! And warm. Sip having my first cold christmas - it didn't even snow- but my first cold New Year's is making me crazy. I miss my beach parties and sitting on couches in the sun all afternoon on New Year's eve drinking beer. Ugh, weird.

I looked at getting a flight home earlier yesterday, cos I'm sick of the cold and want some beaches! unfortunately AirNZ has no flights in my fare class, so I guess it's not meant to be! Staying in Vancouver it is. Maybe I'll get more work and be able to afford a bond for a flat when I get home. Whatever, I am going to Seattle tomorrow, then Whistler on the weekend, and maybe Vernon the weekend after. So I'll travel around, have a look, and make myself not so homesick.

I think the homesickness is also to do with the fact I miss people I have met this year, esp when they are all posting parties and things they are going to tonight (and last night), Makes me wanna be in London, or NYC, or Toronto tonight!

Oh well, off to a CS party, I'm sure it'll be fun too, if not London or New York.

Happy 2008 everyone!! Come visit me soon :)

Pre Christmas update

2007-12-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

Soo. I have been in Vancouver for a couple of weeks now, and it's going well. I was a bit sad the first few days I was here, because after Europe, and London where I was last, it's a bit small. And quiet. And cold. haha.

But, I have friends here who I have been hanging out with. I saw Fi and Micah last week and caught up with them for the first time in ages. It's amazing that it's been 4 years since I lived with Fi, and they've been married for about 2 or 3 years now I guess! I also caught up with Simon and managed to convince him to come to the CS meeting with me here in Vancouver last week. He's coming again this week. If I get him to sign up, that'll be 4 of my friends I have converted, first Tim in China way back when, then Hayley and Nick in Edinburgh, and now Simon in Vancouver! haha, it's a total cult.

I have been working too, today was my 3rd day of work in the last 2 weeks. Pretty good I thought! My temp lady is pretty awesome, always ringing me up with stuff. Although today she rang about an assignment that lasts until Feb and I had to tell her I am leaving before then, so we'll see if she gives up on me now. Oh well, I managed to get 6 days work out of her, which is better than nothing!

So yeah, Vancouver is growing on me. It's smaller than London, but probably a step on the way to Welly. At least it has mountains, and my PACIFIC ocean (I made Si take me down on sunday to touch it), and a lot more independent cafes and restaurants than Toronto. I quite like it here, but yeah, sometimes I just wish I was home and in Summer. I need sun!

Mum is here tomorrow, and I'm excited. Bring on Christmas!

The UK

2007-12-04T21:57:00.000-05:00

I was in the UK all of November. I arrived after 2 months on the continent glad to be back somewhere where everything makes sense, beer is more expensive than coke, you can buy hot chips in the pubs, and people speak English! lol, not that I didn't love Europe, but a bit of a rest was great.

After a week in London recovering, catching up with family, doing my washing etc, I then flew to Belfast where I caught up with Sheree and Marty and saw a bit of the Irish contryside as well as rested a bit more. I even took a tour of the murals from the Troubles, which although the tour guide talked about it being way past them, was really only less than 15 years ago. Belfast seems nice, but it was freezing and not so much of a tourist town i think!

After that I went to Edinburgh. I had a great time in Edinburgh, catching up with Hayley and Nicky, doing two tours, one a bus tour and one a walking tour of the old town, and also going to a scottish dance called a Ceilidh (this rhymes with Hayley.. work that one out!) where we flung each other around, and having a mexican night with couchsurfers where we watched Flight of the Conchords on dvd (their season one of the tv series was just released). Altogether I had a great time and I wish I could have stayed there longer, Edinburgh is a great city!

Last week I went to Manchester where I fell ill with a annoying cold. So I caught up with Penny (who used to work at VUW when I was there) at night, and then slept all day with my head cold. Ugh. I still have a cough a week later! In Manchester we went Ice Skating, to the Christmas markets and saw lots of pretty lights (a lit up christmas tree and huge santa claus) and it felt all cold and wintery and like christmas in the movies. I bet all you people in NZ are laughing now because I heard it's extra warm there right now. Oh well, winter for christmas is a bit different I guess and I have to do it once!

So manchester was fun, even if I did only see it at night. Lastly I it Coventry for a weekend to see family and then went back to London for my final 10 days.

In London, I caught up with family, caught up with friends, partied a lot, went to the Tate Modern, We will rock you (the show - which was AWESOME, GO if you can), shopped a bit and took photos of Hyde park in Autumn. Mmm leaves. This is such a novelty to this Wellingtonian that I HAD to kick them hehe. One day I even went to Stonehenge, which btw, is tiny and miles out. The best part was the bus ride really, and the Americans complaining about smelling cows. Umm, it's the country? It made me laugh.

London was awesome as always and I met some cool people. From the dinner I had the 2nd night I was back where I spent the whole night talking to a guy called Brendan who got ditched by his gf, to the last night where it was Bex's flattie's birthday and we had a yummy homecooked dinner followed by the thickest cake ever, it was all good. Totally makes me wish I had my career sorted so I could be working there instead of trying to start again back home! Oh well, one day.

Next - to Vancouver on Dec5, and am staying with the lovely Rayna for a bit. Some of my family is nearby, so I will meet up with them for christmas and then I am coming back to NZ on Jan 22!

Paris

2007-10-30T14:27:00.000-05:00

Last stop on my trip through Continental Europe was Paris! City of love.. or something. Trust me, I saw soo many couples I could believe it, but I had fun by myself anyway.

My first day was the best, I took the metro to the Place de la Concorde and coming up from the subway station, I saw the oblisk at the Place de la Concorde, and the Eiffel tower along with the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs de l'Elysees.

I wandered down the avenue to the Arc de Triomphe, ate Crepe and got a bit lost when looking for food for lunch. Lesson - don't wander off the main drag! Anyway, I eventually went up the Arc de Triomphe and squizzed at the view. Pretty cool.

That evening I went to the Louvre which is free for under 26 year olds on friday nights. Yay! The Louvre was very cool, but sooo HUGE. I spent 3.5 hours walking around until my legs almost dropped off! I saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo like a good little tourist, but apart from the shock factor about how tiny it is and how much you can't see it, the Mona Lisa is unexciting. I much preferred all the sculptures.

Venus de Milo:

Mona Lisa (life size.. lol)

The Louvre is pretty at night though.

Sat I went to the Sorbonne and the university area. I went to a museum of medieval things, and spent the afternoon wandering around by Notre Dame (but not in, the line was HUGE) and around the Islands of the Seine.

Notre Dame:

Sunday my host took me up Montmatre (as featured in Amelie) and then down to the Moulin Rouge area, across to the Madeline and the Opera and then back through a giant park to the Louvre again!

We ended up sitting on the point of one of the Islands in the Seine (Ile de la Citie?) and hanging with our legs over the edge watching the light go down and all the lights of the city come up. Very cool.

Monday it was raining :(. Nonetheless I walked up the Eiffel tower and saw the limited view. I couldn't see ANYTHING from the top, except for the faint outline of the ground looking straight down. Lame. But, the Eiffel tower was cool, and the walk was fun. Pity about the rain.

The last thing I did in Paris was find the statue of Liberty. I lost my photos of the full size one in New York, so now I have photos of the smaller version in Paris.

Tuesday I hopped on the Eurostar to London and the English speaking world again. After 2 months I was sooo excited to go back! Byebye Euro and trains and motioning instead of talking, hello Pound and family!

Amsterdam

2007-10-24T07:28:00.000-05:00

After Bruges I headed up to Amsterdam. Yes I know going down to Belgium, back up to Amsterdam and then planning on going down to Paris was the wrong way of doing things, but it worked out perfectly with Sybil's birthday!

So yeah Amsterdam. For starters my hostel was awesome. It had a bar on the ground floor, so there was rarely a need to leave the place. Breakfast was downstairs, so was the kitchen and the bar. As a result, most of the rooms were extremly quiet as everyone was hanging out together.

Secondly, soo many americans. Just wanting to hang out and get stoned. Which is fine I guess, each to their own, but I found it odd a whole day in a foreign country and city could consist of going to a coffee shop. They DO have dope in the states right? I mean, I know, wow it's legal here, but still. I didn't see heaps of Americans standing at street corners hanging out drinking beer just because they could. Although, I have to say, I could actually imagine them doing that if there were enough! Anyway, Americans are funny species. There seems to be a lot of them in Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam I did all the touristy things, went on a tour, saw the red light district, saw coffee shops, went to the Van Gogh museum, the Anne Frank House and partied quite a bit. The second night I was there I couldn't sleep cos my room was right above the bar and it was kinda loud, so I asked to be changed for the last night. The girl at the front desk was nice enough to give me 2 free drink tickets for any inconvenience caused. Nice.

Photos from the tour:

Monument to the 'unknown prostitute'

The Amsterdam 3 X's

A coffeeshop

Leaning houses of Amsterdam

So, my last night I partied with some cool Aussies, courtesy mostly of the happy hour, free drink tickets and the cute bartender. It was fun.

Bruges!

2007-10-18T10:13:00.000-05:00

After Copenhagen, I got up way too early in the morning to catch the train and ferry down to Germany and then I was hoping to go across to Belgium. Unfortunately the ferry was nowhere near as beautiful the second time. My train was delayed at Hamburg indefinitely due to German train strikes (strike 2, damn supposedly efficient German trains!) So I ended up going through Cologne which has a pretty Cathedral right outside the train station.

I finally arrived in Bruges about 3 hours later than I was supposed to. So poor Sybil had to drive to the train station about a million times everytime my 4 trains were delayed. Fun. But yay, after 18 hours on the train (and stations) I finally made it to Bruges!

It was Sybil's birthday so she took friday off and we cycled around town. Bruges is a very pretty little town, which has cool little canals and over bridges and a huge town square where you can sit and people watch for hours. Which we did one of the days I was there!

Some pics:

People on a boat tour:

Canals:

They have YUMMY waffles. And lemon Sorbet. And Sybil and Clara thought I was a pig for wanting both. But I figure if you can fit them in one hand it's ok...

The Birthday girl:

So yeah, I arrived late Thursday night, we had a tour and a party on Friday night, a tour again with Clara a party guest on Saturday, and a family party on Sunday. Lots of birthday party fun. And yummy Belgium food. Waffles and Spinach. and Nutella. I still haven't worked out what it is with Europeans and nutella. Odd.

Copenhagen

2007-10-15T10:09:00.000-05:00

My Trip into Copenhagen started with the coolest train ride ever. We went across to Hamburg and then up out of Germany into Denmark. The ride from Germany into Denmark is soo pretty, you go through little pieces of land with sea on both sides, and then you go on a ferry! The train goes onto the ferry, you all get out and then at the other side you get back on the train and it continues.

On the ferry, I caught the coolest sunset, looking back at the little slice of Germany we were leaving..

Copenhagen is pretty. It reminded me of Vienna in that it has a lot of palaces, the difference here is it seems more real, because they actually still have a royal family!

I spent a couple of days wandering around copenhagen, which was cold and very expensive, but so lovely. They even have free bikes you can use. fun. Some pics from Copenhagen...

From the palace gardens, a tree in a cart. Apparently a traditional thing:

The royal house the tree was part of:

The teenage guards they seemed to have everywhere:

The little mermaid, which I cycled to on a free bike and then spent my 20Kr (about NZ$5!) on the nicest small softserve icecream ever. (also the most expensive)

The Royal Palace:

A windwill on the side of the ancient fortified old palace bit

On the other end of the scale - Statues of trash in the town square:#

And, a rally for the homeless of Copenhagen, where they tried to give me a free pair of hobo gloves. Unlike homeless in the rest of Europe, the Danish actually seemed to care about theirs. Maybe because it was Oktober, and already damn cold!(or because most people are pretty rich?)

On my last night in Copenhagen I was lucky enough to go to the Royal Danish Ballet. I had to queue for over 2 hours for tickets, but I got pretty good ones in the dress circle. If you are under 30, they are 60% off. Score!

The opera house is out of town a bit, so you can take a long bus to get there, or a ferry! I took the ferry to the very cool venue.

Pics from the ballet:
opera house inside

the Ferry:

Opera house outside

Theatre at half time from my seats:

Pretty close to the stage eh?

Berlin

2007-10-10T09:54:00.000-05:00

After Oktoberfest, I went up through Germany stopping overnight at Graham's in Darnstadt, and then Christina's in Hagen, then made my way to Berlin!

Berlin has a giant train station (the largest in Europe I think), where ironically, on the day of the France England rugby game, they were displaying giant banners of Dan Carter in his undies:

(brilliant, you come halfway around the world and it's still DC in the the jockies)

In Berlin I stayed with the lovely Gesa, and mostly lay around reading books a lot! But apart from that, I went on a cool bike tour, and saw Berlin...

Our Tour Guide and the memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust

Me standing in old East and West Berlin at the same time (the cobblestone represents where the Berlin wall used to be)

And I also went to a museum and saw the gates of Babel from the ancient city. On my last day there, Gesa and I had currywurst, which is basic bratwurst with curry powder on and then a whole heap of tomato sauce, which totally mask the curry flavour. (quite disappointing I thought - I was expecting more curry!)

Then we walked up a huge hill and looked at the city at night. Very cool.

Overall I liked Berlin, soo much history with the war, and the Berlin wall and even before that, huge palaces from the Empires.. very cool, and a nice place, but the lack of English and the FREEZING cold made it less fun. Cool big city though.

Munich

2007-10-04T11:20:00.000-05:00

After leaving Prague I went to Munich to meet up with my friend Graham from university for Oktoberfest. We were staying with a guy he met last year at the festival, and were joined by another Kiwi living in Germany, Rian.

Friday we went out to a Bavarian beer hall and had giant beers with heavy food. This was to become a theme for the weekend!

Sat Rian and Graham got up at about 8am to go down to Oktoberfest. I refused and joined them at 9:30am. They somehow decided to miss all the open tents and tried to get into one that was closed. Luckily for THEM, I chatted up some nice English blokes and got us a place outside.

Unfortunately, after the English guys left, our day went downhill. They were replaced with antisocial Americans (dumb americans - evidence #2) and then we got to watch the All Blacks lose. dumb.

Day 2 of our Oktoberfest started slowly with Bavarian sausages and wheat beer for breakfast (in which I get told off for eating the sausage the wrong way by our typically german host lol) and then we went to the Munich "English Gardens". Here they have a cool mini wave part of the river where people surf:

and we had our 2nd beer for the day:

and then headed back to Oktoberfest, where our cool host Andreas had saved us seats in the best tent, the Hacker tent (I think, my spelling is shite)

Here, EVERYONE was dressed up and I felt supremely underdressed. Oh well. There was lots of standing on benches, dancing, singing and huge beers. Our tent was so popular that they closed the doors at 6pm. At one stage during the night I even saw our waitress scoot over the table because the aisles were full! Because it was the last night of Oktoberfest 2007, at the end of the night some guy (probably the owner of the tent) said a speech which we translated as "Thanks for drinking so much and making me rich again, please don't break too much in the last hour" - but this may be wrong as I don't speak German - and then everyone sang a final song and had sparklers. It was lots of fun. Here are the pics!

Me and Andreas our host:

Hacker Tent:

Prague

2007-10-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

Well, my trip to Prague started off strangely. I took about 4 trains to get there, met a lot of American students on the way (did you know they have an NYU and a Boston University campus in Prague? odd, but true). When I got to Prague, I got lost. Basically, I wrote down the number for the place I was staying wrong, and then I got locked into a building and it was all horrible and 10pm at night. In the end I ended up knocking on doors, and borrowing a phone to call a girl I met on the train and I camped in her dorm on the couch there a night!

The next day, having finally found the right address (a whole 2 houses down), shared some odd American style pancakes with the girl I met on the train:

(Americans- move to Europe but still manage to make disgusting looking food!)

I went touristing.

Prague is pretty I found, but too many tourists! It was insane, and I ended up taking photos of the crowds:

I did the castle, wandered over the Charles bridge, which is pretty cool (if you ignore the thousands of people), but my favourite thing in Prague was the hill with the cable car. Walking down the hill next to an old wall which was part of city fortifications ( I guess) was very cool, and pretty:

Other than that.. Prague was ok. Go see for yourself, join the thousands of other tourists!

Krakow (Poland)

2007-09-27T09:26:00.000-05:00

After Budapest, I trained to Poland and after a fun train to Vienna (I met a cool American who let me watch TV with him and plug in my ipod to his computer too), and then onto Krakow I arrived at the great Greg and Toms hostel. Good place, everyone is so friendly. Unfortunately, I left my fav jacket on the train, so was gutted about that. But apart from that, had a good time the first night I arrived as the guys at the hostel took me out for beers, dancing, shisha, vodka and even a bit of fighting. haha. They were cool fun.

I didn't do much in Poland, except meet cool people the first 2 days, and then they all split and I was left trying to party with annoying americans. It was the first of many disappointing partying with American experiences which has convinced me, that in general, they are much less fun that english, aussies or kiwis. Meh.

I also visited Aushwitz in Krakow, which was amazing, horrifying and sad all at the same time. Definitely one of the highlights of my trip though, I learnt soo much about what the Nazis were like and it was pretty scary. Highly recommended.

After Krakow.. I went to Prague

Budapest

2007-09-25T10:46:00.000-05:00

ok, what was I up to? Ahh Budapest!

I LOOOVED Budapest. And that was just the vibe. I mean I did hardly any touristing there, because coming out of the train station I tripped on a pot hole and wrenched my ankle REALLY bad. Nice, so it swelled up to 4 times the normal size and I could only wear jandals (flip flops) for a week. Fun times.

Apart from that, Budapest was awesome. The people are super nice, I stayed in an apartment of a guy I met in NYC in August. Yay an apartment to myself!

There are very odd, but cool things to see around Budapest. Their main cathedral has a shrine to a saints right hand. Yes you too can pay 1 of the local currency to see the light and the hand that is thousands of years old! right. They also have GIANT statues and monuments:

and a park out of town where they put all the communist statues when they got rid of the russians. Funny, pack up all the communist heroes and exile them out of town. Unfortunately I didn't get to see this, OR go to the hot baths, due to the fact I could only hobble very slowly :(

But I DID get to meet the very cool Dora (though couchsurfing) and although she couldn't host me, we met up for a Hungarian baking lesson, and over hot wine and sangria made a yummy cake! She was super nice, and her best friend came over too and they were soo cool, speaking in English the whole night to make me feel welcome. Our cake:

Cake!:

On the last day there, I went up Buda Castle to see the view:

I also went for beer my last night there with a heap of CS people and all and all was very sad to leave! But, I had booked a hostel in Poland, so I had to leave. Highlights of Budapest: Buda Castle, Drinks with CS people, the Hero Square and Dora's cooking lessons! If I could go again, I'd do: The turkish baths, and also go to see the Communist statue park.

Vienna

2007-09-21T08:36:00.000-05:00

After Switzerland, I took a very long train (13 hours) To Vienna.

- Vienna is beautiful.All big clean buildings, the place seems like it could still be a giant palace to the Emperor. Crazy, I think if you took out all the shop fronts, the buildings would have been the same 100 years ago. It was pretty amazing. Although, as a guy I met there said, it's kinda like living in a museum, and all the Viennese are scarily similar. There's no real diversity. Nice place though.

Here, I was lucky enough to meet up with my cousin Bex who is currently working in London, but was on a work trip to Vienna for 2 days. So we met up and had some GIANT schnitzel with my host in Vienna, Michael.

My Fav place in Vienna was the Schunbrunn (sp?) Palace. The grounds were AMAZING, and you could totally pretend you too were royalty:

This is a SIDE garden, hence the emptiness

And the main back garden (and parks):

it takes about 20 mins just to walk from the palace to the foot of the hill I was standing on. And then there is park off both sides too. Pretty cool.

Apart from that, In Vienna I did some palaces, wandered the streets and went to the strangest thing on my trip, a vegetable orchestra. Yes. Their instruments were vegetables. It was the weirdest thing ever. The video looked ok.. :

but the concert was even weirder. In fact it was so bad I got the giggles halfway though and couldn't stop laughing for about 5mins. The fact that everyone there had paid to listen to that crap made me laugh soooo hard. Oh well, luckily it was part of a gallery opening in Vienna, so there was lots of cool interactive modern art to see too, plus it was in an old Nazi bunker of which there are a few around Vienna (6 i think, surroiunding the city) which are left over from WWII, but apparently really difficult to destroy so they are using them for aqauriums and art galleries instead.

My Vienna trip ended up watching the Ireland- France game with some couchsurfers and then we ended up playing some soccer in the middle of the night in one of the HUGE random statue/park/memorial things they have just lying around in Vienna.

Switzerland

2007-09-19T06:57:00.000-05:00

- After Nice,I trained to Lausanne where I slept on the couch of a guy I know from Uni, Simon, because I was so sick of heat, english tourists, 17 year olds, trying to find somewhere to stay last minute, hostels etc. Basically the enormity of moving every few days, trying to tourist while organising the next leg of the trip hit me. So I escaped to a friends.

The first 2 days there I just slept, updated this blog, watched tv and slept some more. It was good. In Lausanne I also went to see the Museum of 'Arts Bruts'. Which I guess means Brutal Arts? Anyway, it was art created by people with disturbed mental conditions, most of whom are/were in pysciatric hospitals at the time of the creation of the works of art. Although some were at home, or in a special art school for mentally challenged people. It was interesting, bu some of the stories were very sad. And some of it was just odd.

On my last day there Simon and I went to Geneva and were really touristy. We went to the UN and did the tour, and then went to CERN and went to the museum there. Unfortunately the particle accelerator at CERN is underground, so I didn't get to see it. :(

So, pictures (click to enlarge): (from top to bottom )
Sightseeing in Switzerland: Olympic museum, UN, CERN, Lake Lausanne, Swiss Mountains

Nice!

2007-09-17T16:36:00.000-05:00

Saturday the 8th September. We trained to Marseille, and met a CS guy, Guillaume. We had some Ricard and then headed to the Black seeds concert. The crowd was awesome! Soo many kiwis. And soo many people who had been to the game that day. Including some All Blacks!

Pics from the Black Seeds:

All in all, a great party. You know it's a good party when they start playing slice of heaven, and there's guys in unitards dancing to it!

After the party/concert, we drove to Nice with Guillaume. The next day we checked into a hostel, where we stayed the next 2 nights. In a giant room (10 beds). Things I learnt in Nice.. 10 bed hostel rooms suck, but you can meet cool people in hostels. You can also get stuck in room with drunken teenagers who don't care if you are trying to sleep at 5am when they get home. Meh, you win some you lose some.

Nice is pretty, but just a beachy town really. Lots of places to party, it's hot, and there's a beach.

While in Nice, we bussed over to Monaco. While there we saw (from L to R), gorgeous views of the sea, many boats, the casino at Monte Carlo, The Monaco Palace and the Church where Princess Grace and Prince Rainier are buried.

All in all, Monaco is very beautiful and soo clean! Oh, and it has a much nicer beach than Nice. There's no sand, but the pebbles are so small and smooth it's like getting a foot massage as you walk! Totally worth the 3euro to get from Nice. We also toured the palace while we were there, which is pretty, but kinda small. Still interesting though.

After this, needing a break from hostels etc, I trained to Lausanne to see a guy I know from uni and just sleep for a few days!

Toulouse

2007-09-15T17:54:00.000-05:00

After Barcelona, we headed to Toulouse, where a woman I knew from July in Toronto lives. We needed a break after the strange guy from Barcelona, so it was great to arrive somewhere where there was someone to pick us up!

The first 2 days we were in Toulouse, all we did was lie by the pool. There was a gorgeous pool, it's 50m by 150m! Gorgeous and blue, it looked like this:

There were no people in it, because of it being september and all. (everyone is back at school). The bit near the side is a cool waterfall!

Toulouse is the home of world cup rugby in France (or so they say) ... so we saw lots of Rugby related things and on the Friday before leaving, we ended up in a student flat with 9 french guys (all local rugby players) watching the France - Argentina rugby game! Understandably, they weren't that happy with the result, but the rest of the night was fun too. Parties lol.

The next day we trained to Marseille for the NZ rugby game, and .. The black seeds concert!

Barcelona

2007-09-13T11:45:00.000-05:00

After a week in Valencia (starting with the two festivls below), we moved to Barcelona. We were lucky enough to get a last minute place to stay with a guy from couchsurfing.com . I've had pretty good luck with couchsurfers until now, but his guy was odd. Not creepy odd, just strange odd. He made it clear his flatmates didn't want us to be there, and didn't try to overcome this by telling us what we could and couldn't do, or even introduce us to them! Very odd. He also never wanted to go out with us ever, and then asked why we didn't go out partying. So yeah, we din't want to stay long.

But, Luckily the girl I was traveling with, Monique, knew a guy in Barcelona, Mike, who made up for one persons inhospitability, by showing us around town. The first day we went to Sagrada Familia, which is this church that is still being built. It was started in the 1880's and is expected to finish in the 2030's. The outside facades are completed, but only 4 of the 12 towers are done. It is very cool, I especially liked the fact that the the two sides are completely different, one looks like this:

The passion facade:

The nativity facade:

And yeah, so it was pretty cool. The architect was Gaudi, who also designed a cool park which we went to on our second day in Barcelona. The walk to the top of the park gave a very cool view of Barcelona. It also had some very nice mosiac stuff and a way cool terrace up the top where you can imagine a nice orchestra serenading people! Here's the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Guell it has better photos than I will ever have. And details etc.

The next day.. we trained to Toulouse.

Europe part 1 - Valencia

2007-09-06T09:02:00.000-05:00

I left Canada August 26th, then headed to london for the day, then Spain! I arrived in Valencia on August 27th, and stayed about 6 days.

My first 2 days in Valencia can be summed up in the attached 2 pictures.

The first is the wine festival we went to in Requena the night before Tomatina. Basically, they had bands, and a wine truck. You bring your own bottle or cup, and they give you free wine, then you parade through the streets of town. And then the locals fill up buckets of water and throw them out the window at you. Because it's hot and that's funny. Oh, and it starts at midnight. Most random thing ever. But soo much fun.

The second one is Tomatina. Actually, I didn't like Tomatina so much. This may be due to the fact I had 2 hours sleep and no food after the wine festival. It may be because we decided to follow this crazy American we knew into the densest crowd I have ever been in, instead of following my instinct and going down a side street. Whatever. The combination of crowd, no food, sun, and heat, meant I spent 99% of the 2 hours there trying to breathe in the crush. It was pretty awful just in the crowd, THEN, they drive truck full of tomatoes into them. There's moments where I was sure the pressure of bodies was going to make me break a rib, and a few times where I almost fainted. But finally, the water canon fired, and the tomatina was 'officially over' and people started leaving. THEN, we could breathe, and THEN we went to throw tomatoes. The picture is taken after that. I look a little pale still though.

New England (and NYC)

2007-08-31T18:21:00.003-05:00

So,..it's been a couple of weeks. After Montreal (which I loved by the way, but I got sick of everyone speaking funny french, montreal = very cool in summer, lots of festivals etc)

After montreal, I hopped on a bus down to Boston. I have to say, after summer in Ontario, driving down through Vermont was soo awesome. When I'm rich, I'm totally wanting a cabin in the forests there. The entire trip was driving along a highway with mountains either side, trees and rivers as far as the eye could see, with the occasional house nestled in the trees, Gorgeous!

I spent a week in Boston, one of the hottest weeks this summer! I arrived thursday night at about midnight and it was still over 30 degrees. Friday, Me and Grant decided it was too hot to stay in town, so we headed out on Boston harbour to an Island with a fort on it. I got to put my feet in the atlantic! (which is v. cold btw). Friday was soo hot that breathing produced condesaion on my sunglasses which then tricked down the side of my nose all day - yummy!

Friday night Grant and Halvar went to NYC for the weekend, and I caught up with Boston and NYC cuochsurfers who just happened to have a big meetup planned that weekend! We all met at a bar downtown boston, there were over 50 people! Then sat some cs people and I went to the beach! It was soo hot, and the water was soo cold! Me and the Aussie chick were screaming and squealing about how cold the water was, and the English guy we were with didn't understand. I guess the Atlantic isn't the Pacific eh? Soo cold. it was about 40 degrees out of the water and about 15 in. perfect for cooling down, but you couldn't stay more than 5-10 mins!

So after a big cs party weekend (party sat night- about 100 ppl!, trivia night Sunday night), Grant and Halvar came back on monday and I got to catch up with them. Soo good to see Halvar after 2.5 years!

Boston was awesome, I met soo many cool people. The whole city has a pretty laid back feel, Harvard (where the guys go) is gorgeous, and I totally am adding Boston to my list of places I could easily live. Despite lots of tourist groups everywhere (apparently people care about american history?), it has a cool vibe, and my new favourite museum ever is there. The Harvard museum of Natural history is amazing. Just a small museum, made up of things harvard alumni have brought back in their travels around the world. There's this amazing section full of taxidermied animals, all collected by 'harvard scholars' in their trip around the world. They were in these, like 50's joiner cabinets, glass cases with wooden joins, painted pastel blue. There were soo many different animals in there, I was blown away! It was awesome! For example, there was a case with over 100 hummingbirds!

Anyways, it's now my most favourite museum ever.

After Boston, I bussed down to NYC. New York was awesome. Partied the weekend away. I arrived Thursday night, then toured around Friday. Went to a cool Masquerade party on Friday night with all the New York couchsurfers. Then Sat, we toured around the bottom of Manhatten, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, then went down to the financial district and saw the stock exchange and the statue of liberty. That night, we went on a pub crawl in the east village. A unitard paub crawl! Funny. We took the city by storm and made quite a few people laugh I think.

Finally Sunday night, I went to an International dinner where all the couchsurfers brought food from their home country. On short notice, I scraped together a packet of tim tams. US$6. world's most expensive tim tams

Then, I bussed back to toronto overnight on Sunday to monday.

So yeah, very cool road trip. The crew in NYC were awesome, I guess its that kind of city, people from all over the world go there, leave their families at home, so form their own family, and hang out often. very cool.

I loved New England, and wish I could have stayed later. Pity I lost all my pictures though :'(

I'm off to Europe next!

Montreal...

2007-08-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

I`m in Montreal! (as you should have guessed from the title). life was a little boring, with not working and not having any money, so «i decided to entertain myself by travelling around visiting people instead!

So a couple of weeks ago, I caught a ride to Ottawa to see my family! Now, you have to understand, I didn`t actually go anywhere near downtown Ottawa, my fmaily lives in a farmhouse west of Ottawa. My cousin and his wife and 4 kids live in the upstairs, and my aunt and uncle live downstairs. SO normally, there`s 8 of them living there. When I was there, my other cousin and 5 of her 6 kids were there too! So - there were 9 kids, 7 of whom were between 3 and 10! Plus the toddler (18 months) and the baby, oh and me the visitor! lol. It was slight chaos, but the good thing about that many kids is they keep themselves entertained mostly! Still, when my cousin`s husband and last kid arrived, it was 7 adults, 10 kids in a 4 bedroom house! slightly squished.

Last week - i headed up to Peterborough - lake country - to see another cousin of mine. She`s originally from Whakatane, and even used to babysit me when i was little, but she`s been in Canada for 15+ years now as a teacher. Her house is inthe outskirts of town in a beautiful area, 5 mins walk from the beach! I was soo jealous!

On saturday I went to a theme park, Canada`s wonderland! Fun times running around going on rollercoasters andsomehow geting myself talked into going on a ride that simply went up and then down into a giant puddle so you get soaked. That`s all. Just up and dunk. Honestly, I thought there was going o be a rollercoaster involved to make up for the soaking! But no, apparently not. Although, it is kinda scary being at the top and then realising this is the last moment you will be dry for a few hours! Good thing i was about 28 degrees. Pity we thought it was going to rain, so were all wearing jeans.

Now, I`m in Montreal. I arrived here on Monday, and am leaving on friday to go down to Boston to see my friends from Uni, then NYC for the weekend umm yeah, so doing the tourist thing for the next while, then onto Spain in 4 weeks! Ahh exciting!

Montreal is .. hot. And fun. Apparently the western world`s 2nd largest fench spêaking city. After Paris (and I guess a whole lot of non-western world places - africa?). As you can see from my many typos, the keyboard is a bit different here.

But overall very fun, and there's lots of outdoor festivals, so have been out drinking at 11pm at night (when it`s still 30 degrees), very european!

I'm boring

2007-07-24T19:11:00.000-05:00

I'm boring, that's why I haven't updated!

highlights of my week:

-Going to Ottawa last week and visiting my cousins, and their many kids. It was like being back in NZ, 4 little blond girls, a few toddlers etc.. reminds me of christmas at our house about years ago!

-Getting and reading Harry Potter last sat - it took me 6 or so hours.

-Finding out courstesy of a game called Whoonu? (who knew? in an american accent) That I like making lists better than bunnies. But my little 2nd cousin doesn't. Fun game for kids.

-going for beer multiple times with the CS crew, and planning my trip to Montreal

-making lists, now I know I like it.

Does this count as a list?

umm yeah. So nothing much. Am going to Montreal next week though, so I'm sure I'll have something more interesting to write about soon!

love and hugs,

updates again

2007-07-06T15:36:00.000-05:00

So.. umm yeah. It's been a while.

My life over the last month in bullet points:

-It was my birthday June 8th. I got:

A card from dad, mum and from Shineen.
A dinner and a movie from Shineen
A book voucher and $100 from shineen
$200 to spend from Mum(no I havent't bought anything yet... soon I promise!)
A call from Dad, Mum, and my sis
An iRewards card from my sister - which means I get 10% off books ALL year! WOo
I used this book card plus my voucher from Shineen to preorder harry potter. double yay

Other than that it was pretty quiet. Thanks for all the emails though!
The weekend after my birthday, Grant came up from boston to see how awesome Toronto is. On the friday when he arrived we went down to Niagara Falls, because I hadn't been for 7 years, and Grant hadn't been for 20!. It was awesome as always, and I got soaked, as expected. Grant took a whole heap of photos with his new super zoom lense, so I felt like I was hanging out with paparazzi. Very strange. But yeah, considering the day was about 35 degrees, standing in the splash of the falls was pretty nice after a 2 hour drive, and lunch at a great little cafe in St Catherines on the way! Grant's Niagara photos are here: http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~grant/wp/v/NiagaraFalls/

The rest of the weekend we chilled in Toronto.. went up the CN tower (the tallest in the world apparently) and looked out all over the city and to NY state.. and then went to a festival in little italy and saw lots of yummy food! Sunday we went for a drive up north and saw another lake. Basically, a chilled weekend with lots of sun. Grant has photos here: http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~grant/wp/v/Toronto/

After that I started my new job. Basically it was door knocking trying to get sponsers for kids for World vision. The people were cool, but the hours were shite (11am -9pm every day, plus an hours commute each way), and after two 35plus days where I was boiling alive and the resultant asthma of trying to breathe in the humidity and smog, I quit last thursday. Shortest job I've ever had I think - 2 weeks of 4 day weeks! I still haven't even got paid yet, as they pay a week in arrears... lol.
In the weekend in the middle of my 2 week job, it was pride weekend here in Toronto. So I joined some friends to see the parade on Sunday. OMG, longest parade EVER. Some of it was cool, dancing people in body paint and glitter, other was just plain old commercialised.. the bank float with bank staff in bank t-shirts getting in on it, but it was fun. We arrived after the parade had already started, watched it for an HOUR or more, then gave up (it was HOT) and went for a beer. The parade continued for an hour after that! I was lucky enough to score a free t-shirt that someone threw into the crowd.. everyone was pretty jealous. I would show you a photo of me in the t-shirt, but it has yet to surface from my friend's camera.. so in summary it was green and said "straight, not narrow". Perfect for pride parade anyways.
Lastly, last weekend I joined Shineen and her friends up at her boyfriend's family cottage on a lake up north-west (don't ask me where exactly I have no idea.. sorry). We had a chilled weekend lying around in the sun and enjoying the lake. Some excellent fireworks were provided by the guys on sunday night (being Canada day) and altogether it was a great time.
Now, I have to get myself sorted now I don't have to be at work all day every day, and find me some groceries and do my washing! Yay fun. And maybe find another (part time!) job for the next 7 weeks.

Finally, I have bought tickets to Europe! I leave here August 25, am in London August 26, fly to Valencia Aug 27, ready to throw tomatoes on Aug 29th! Anyone want to come with me?

Updates

2007-06-26T09:03:00.000-05:00

Hey peeps. I got a job working door to door for a charity, trying to sign people up to help. I only get paid for working 1-9, but I usually am expected to be there around 11am, and I finish back in the office around 9:30. So I leave home at 10am or so, and don't get back until 10:45 or so at night. It's tiring. The job is hot and hard, and I'm useless at it. I fully expect to be fired in a few weeks, but no matter, a few weeks is all I need to finance the rest of my time here I think. At pay of $8 an hour, 7.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's about $300 a week (depending on how much I get taxed). So 4 weeks should be enough I think! When it's 35+ outside, 2 weeks is too much, but I'll try and last!

In other news, I booked my tickets to Europe on Sat. I leave here August 25, and get back to Vancouver for Christmas on Dec 5. Yay!

accents

2007-06-14T11:06:00.000-05:00

A while back, there was an 'intrepid journey'( or something else like that) where Paul Henry went to the north of Norway to meet a guy that takes people out to fish for north atlantic salmon up in the artic almost.

Anyways, when Paul was in Norway he came said something like (I paraphrase):

"All the norwegian men are very slick. They dress well. In fact, it looks like they're all gay".

He then proceeds to crack up and say things like - oh you can't keep that, I can't say that. It was quite funny.

My point? The toronto-ian accent is odd. Like New york accent with a lifting, twangy sound (to my ear) which rises and falls quite often. On the girls it sounds like they are all 17 and so eager to talk. On the guys - well, honestly? It sounds like they are all gay.

*giggles*

Birthdays

2007-06-08T11:11:00.000-05:00

It's my birthday! Well I figure I get a 2 day birthday, because it was yesterday I was born oh so long ago, and today is the actual date in North America. (I live in the past)

oh, and there's a cute boy sitting next to me at the library. Good start to a day. Makes a difference to the smelly people that usually sit next to me!

Newfoundland!

2007-06-06T09:41:00.000-05:00

At the last minute on tuesday last week, I decided to hop in a car with a guy offering a ride to St John's, NL. The route we took can be seen here.

Basically, it was a 3200km drive. We drove from Wed evening until Thursday night, then jumped on a 7 hour ferry to Newfoundland. Then we drove up to a place called Robert's Arms and stayed the night there. Finally on Saturday we drove through Newfoundland to St John's.

OMG, the drive was so nice. Upper Quebec is gorgeous, and so is Nova Scotia. (New Brunswick was ok, but not as pretty). There were a lot of old farmhouses, and wells, and barns, and basically a lot of pretty places with friendly people that was a change from the brown brick of Ontario. I had fun looking at the scenery, the old churches and the farms. Oh, and the ferry was the best ever, I think if I didn't know better I would have thought we didn't move the whole time. This compared to the last ferry I went on in NZ, with 10m swells and nearly the entire (overly full easter crowd) passenger group throwing up. Even my iron stomach was forced to go outside and look at the waves after an hour of extreme motion. But the ferry to Newfoundland - great! Although less to do, so I'm glad we went overnight and I could sleep. During the day it must be boring as.

Newfoundland itself is amazing, there's only one real city and all the rest of the islanders live in little 'bay towns'. They are traditionally all fishermen. We had a lot of fish and chips on the way over to St John's. And it was cold! We came through the centre of the island, and it snowed while we were driving. Insane, snow in June. Hello - it's summer?

St John's was awesome. I had such a good time. We stayed with these mexican students. They were great.

On saturday night they had a party for some guy's birthday and I had a good night chatting to all of their crazy international friends. I think there were only two people who were orginally from newfoundland, but it was fun. Sunday I walked all around downtown St John's in the morning while waiting for everyone to wake up! St John's is gorgeous. It's like someone took all the quaint houses in Te Aro and the Terrace, you know all the villas, and made a whole town of them. And then painted them bright colours. It, again, was freezing cold, like a sunny wellington winter day (but in summer!), but the town is beautiful. I enjoyed all the hills around town.

That afternoon, we drove up to Signal hill (apparently where Marconi sent the first transatlantic telegraph signal) and saw icebergs out to sea, as well as views over the harbour. At night we had a huge BBQ, with homemade tortillas, shish kebabs (one of their friends is Pakistani so it was real fusion cuisine!) and shrimp. The kebabs were soo yum, ugh.. the food.. making me hungry again! I flew back to toronto monday morning

Anyway, St John's is gorgeous. I recommend everyone go visit sometime, and driving through Nova Scotia is beautiful too. I took lots of photos, and as soon as I work out how to get them of my camera when I don't have a computer, I'll post them.

things that make me happy

2007-05-30T09:19:00.000-05:00

Things that make me happy:

-Sun

-Tim Horton's Apple Fritters

-Nestle Drumsticks (chocolate chunk) - this is icecream, like a trumpet really. Soo yum.

-Hot guys in the swimming pool

-Sun

-Colouring in discovery charts and deciding to do WhatEver It Takes (WEIT)

-Stepping outside my comfort zone and contacting a guy who is driving to St John's today

-Going on random road trips with people I hardly know to interesting places

-Being somewhere I can drive for 4 days and still be in the same country! (google says it's only 36 hours, but that's non stop, and not including the ferry I'm assuming) Map here

-Sun

-Mum worrying too much!

Ok, so in case you didn't get the above, I'm off to Newfoundland today. I think. I'm waiting for a phone call to tell me when. Back monday.

p.s. - I didn't mean to be rude below, I just got pissed off at the rude old lady. In fact, at the other pool I go to , there's only 2 lanes, and everyone in the slow lane can swim. It just seems to be this one pool that attracts leisure people that just want to float in the lane swims. Yesterday there was a lady in a pink flowery bikini! Coming to a lane swim. How odd.

Where I come from slow swimming lane means slow SWIMMING

2007-05-26T20:21:00.000-05:00

Canada is a continent. New Zealand is an island.

Where I grew up, everyone learned to swim at primary(elementary) school. Often, we weren't great, but that's what we did at school in summer, swam. We had learn to swim classes, then as we got older we had short units where we learnt such water sports as kayaking, played waterpolo, did diving, learnt life saving and generally did stuff in pools. It was part of physical education, the 6 weeks we weren't doing tennis, or gymnastics, or soccer etc.

I suck at swimming. Seriously. I last swam when I was at primary school. In 1995. That was the last time I had to swim in a pool, and apart from a disastrous interview as a lifeguard when I was 19 (they loved me until they saw me swim), I haven't done laps since. My swimming was restricted to jumping waves at the beach (which often involves swimming accidentally) and floating on my back in the sea in summer. The salt makes it easier to float.

This summer, as there is no beach, I decided to go to the local pool. I bought a swimsuit and goggles.

It appears in Canada the slow lane is not for those that swim slowly. I managed to catch up with people when I was doing my slowest backstroke. I ran into people when I used only my arms and no legs. I'm pretty sure my 7 year old sister could swim faster than these people. In fact, my 4 year old brother with floating arm bands on could beat them.

In Canada, the slow swim lane isn't for slow swimmers. It's for people that can't swim. Angry ones too. Old ladies that float along and say in a mean tone of voice when I accidentally bump into them (i was going backwards! I can't see!) and AFTER I apologise, "This is the slow lane you know".

Um yeah. I know. I just thought it was a swimming lane. For those who can actually swim.

I guess I might try the 'medium' lane.

Detroit

2007-05-26T11:44:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was a long weekend. Not that I work, but hey. I have friends that do. So, ANYWAY, for the long weekend we decided to rent a car and drive to Detroit. Why Detroit you say? (and believe me, a lot of people did say why. Or - "don't get shot"). Mostly because this cool couple we met a few weeks back live there, plus it's only 5 hours drive.

Detroit was.. insane. It's like dead city. I'm glad I went there, just to see, but seriously I can see why people say Why?! We lasted a day and a half and then went back to Canada for the monday of the long weekend. Windsor just looks so nice and shiny when you look at it from detroit! I have no idea why everyone doesn't just live there. The thing that freaked me out the most was the fact that everywhere you looked there were thousands of parked cars downtown, and no people. It's a downtown of 4 million people, with 6 lane roads through the middle of it. No public ransport, and well lots of roads. Some parts of the downtown area look nice, and then you tun a corner and you are faced with abandoned, vandalised, skyscrapers. It's like, it used to be prosperous once, and then everyone left. Or went underground or something. Odd. Apparently most of the people live and work north of the city, unlike most cities I have ever been in, there is nothing happening in the downtown area.

We went looking for food DOWNTOWN on monday and there would have been more people out in a small town suburb on a sunday. I was so confused... where are the 4 million people who apparently live there? I think it could be an awesome st for an apocolypse movie.

Oh well, now I've been. It was an experience. Although, in favour of Detroit, on Sunday we went to the Eastern arkets and they were way interesting, with lots of cool stuff to buy and awesome live bands jammig in every corner. Pics later.

Jobless

2007-05-25T14:24:00.000-05:00

I'm still jobless. I signed up at a temp agency last week, but htey haven't got me any jobs yet. Despite it being a week and a half. Despite her assuring me that I would probably get work soon.

And she doesn't reply to emails either.

So yeah, I have an interview at another place on Tuesday morning. Fingers crossed this will actually get me some work!

Apart from that, I am just chilling at home, enjoying the heat and reading. I wish our place had a balcony.

Weird things in Toronto

2007-05-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

Things I have noticed about Toronto and Canada so far:

The liquor stores close at 9pm. All of them. It's some government thing apparently. Very very odd. You also can't buy alcohol anywhere but at the bottle store.
St Patrick's station is painted green.
Last Sunday, on Mother's day, there was a big steel drum band in the park down the road from me. When I walked past, they were playing "Who let the dogs out?". Of all the things.
There's a million tv channels, but still nothing is on. And they schedule all the good programs at the same time too.
The weather here is odd. On Tuesday it was about 34. Today (Thursday) it's 11.
When it rains here, they issue storm warnings. Oh no! Rain! Seriously, the lady on the tv was warning that everyone should go inside AND STAY INSIDE. Right, because the first thing you want to do when it's pouring rain is stand out in it.
Canadians are really bad at accents. Some people are fine with me, others just look at me like I'm not speaking English (no matter how slow I speak). But yesterday, my interview was with an English woman and she understood me perfectly. She said she has the same problem, she has to speak R e a l l y slooow ly.
All the streets are North -South or East-West. But when you come out of a subway station and are totally disorientated, there are no signs saying which way is which. Sometimes you come out of a subway station to an underground pathway or a store, and then you are really lost. In that case you have helpful signs that say things like 'homeware' instead of which way to which street.
You have to dial the area code always. Even when it appears to be a local call.
Even if you have a toll bar and can't actually make a toll call.

Finally, I have gotten used to the cars being on the other side of the road. I look left when crossing. I even remember to make like I'm driving all the time to get in the passenger's seat. However when I am crossing the road and look down at a car (for example if they are stopped at the lights) I always get a shock that there's no driver. And then I realise that they aren't driven by ghosts, just the driver is on the right.

Things

2007-05-15T16:30:00.000-05:00

Ok I have been slack in updating. Mainly because I have been doing nothing but reading books. Ahh bliss. If only I could do this always.

Quick update:

Last week I went to a CS brunch. I was a bit nervous, going to brunch with 10 people I didn't know, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a bit of a relief actually, to meet people who are interested in travelling and travellers. Too many people I meet here have the instant response "I wish" when I say I just took off for a year around the world. They wish, but they have no intention of actually ever leaving. I even met a guy who has only left Ontario twice in his life! Come on! It's 2 hours to the border, max!

So yeah, travellers = good. In fact, I am going on a road trip this weekend with one of the CS guys to Detroit. Yay, random road trips!

Other than that, I have done nothing. My money didn't come through for a week, so last week all I did was slowly eat all my money up, watch a lot of tv, and apply for jobs online. I've decided I'd quite like to be a tourist and be available for random road trips, so I am applying for temp jobs. To leave me free to pop to the US when I feel like it, or whatever.

updates

2007-05-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

I have moved! I now live downtown (ish) Toronto. I say ish, becauseit's not really, where I live is quite suburban, and on the outskirtsof town. But, it's still considered downtown, because it's on thesubway line. I can be right in the centre of toronto after a 20 minsubway ride, so it's pretty good.

The area I'm living in is way cute. There are plenty of parks, shops, delis, fruit markets and evena huge park!Oh, and they have a kiwi themed bar. Which is so terribly bad it's funny. The place has a tapa menu with a map of NZ as background, but the sign for the pub has a kiwi with a boomerang on it! Sooo bad.Um what else?

I moved in here on Monday, then on tuesday I caught a ride with my friend's parents to Ottawa. I forgot how pretty Ottawa is! The downtown area with the river, and the canal, and the old,castle-like, parliament buildings. Nice. Anyways, from there I left town and went to see my aunt and uncle thatI lived with last time I was in Ottawa (2000). They now live withtheir youngest son, his wife, and their 4 kids! Woah, it was full on in that house. It was good to see them all though.

So I got back here on thursday night and spent all yesterday tripping to Walmart to buy sheets and pillows for my new place. It came furnished, but without bedding!Ummm.. yeah nothing much interesting has happened to me, I'll start looking for a job soon, but I'm having so much fun being on holiday!Plus, I don't have a computer to print off CVs , so I am borrowing the library's computer. But I only get half an hour here a day, so it's all a bit rushed!

Canada

2007-04-26T18:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finally arrived in Canada, about 30 or so hours after I left home. It was a long Tuesday 24th April for me, and now, we've only just made it to wednesday. Flying was... well boring as usual. I watched a couple of movies - the pursuit of happyness, and the good year... but mostly I just slept the entire way, as well as reading a book.

I started my journey at 4am at the Airport, my flight left at 6:30am. From there, I went to Sydney, then to Honolulu, then to Vancouver, and lastly on to Toronto. Things I learnt from my trip:

-Carrying a laptop is a pain in the arse. I was carrying my sister's for her to Vancouver, and it had to be unloaded and put in a seperate box at EVERY x-ray machine. Pain in the arse.

-Going to America is shite. Avoid it at all costs. First of all they make you take off your shoes. And they check your bag (which has already been x-rayed) by pulling everything out. And then, they make you go through customs in Honolulu (and check your carry on luggage AGAIN), which means taking fingerprints and a photo of you. This means standing in a line for an hour, going up and down escalators, and finally finding yourself back at the same gate getting on the same plane. I think it's all a big decoy so they have time to clean up the plane personally.

- On domestic flights across Canada they don't feed you. This is bad as (a) they don't tell you they don't feed you until you arrive on the plane, (b) the plane trip is 4.5 hours, which would be an international flight in some places, and (c) they even charge you if you want a blanket and pillow. ($2 but still)

-The view flying into Vancouver is pretty amazing, as is any random islands you fly over in the pacific. Way cool.

Um, apart from that, the flight was non-evenful. Cold while flying = bad.

Ok -Canada. Today I am staying at my friend's just outside of Toronto, Ontario. I have a few things to do: Social insurance number (SIN) to apply for, Bank account to open, phone to get, place to live needed, job etc. lol. Ok a lot. Today I have been grocery shopping and to the SIN number place. Once. However, the stupid people don't take passports as a form of ID, so I had to come back and find my citizenship certificate. The Canadian government is strange. They expect other countries to accept their passports as the ultimate id, but they don't accept it themselves. They don't even have pens in their offices for filling out forms. So now I have to wait an see if anyone is going out again today later (I don't have a car), to go BACK to the office and see if I can get a new SIN card. I actually have a number from last time I was here in 2000, I just don't know what it is. Ugh, bureaucracy pain.

So yeah, that`s my random thought spew for the day. Canada is cold and brown (given all the brick houses and trees that haven`t decided it`s spring yet), my trip was long, camp was cool and tiring, and I haven`t done anything yet.

Photo of the view from the house I am staying in:

It just makes me want to sing the Weeds song...

`Little boxes, little boxes...`

ok, I hope you are all well...

Camp

2007-04-26T18:01:00.000-05:00

Camp... was awesome. Met some way cool people. One of which wants to come to Spain with me to throw tomatoes! Yay, La tomatina!

Coming back from camp also cool, no more getting up at 6am, or looking after teenagers, but I was soooo tired. I only had a day and a half to get all my washing done, finish packing and leave. I'm sure I lost half my stuff in boxes that were hastily put away when I found out my cousin was coming, but hey, I think I got most of my clothes.

I also managed to get a cold, which was fun when travelling on aeroplanes. Blocked sinuses and a runny nose for 4 international flights. Woo yeah.

The camp I went on is kinda a lifeskills course for teenagers, and I was, with 21 other people, volunteer staff for a week. We also had a 3 day training workshop. The course was heaps of fun and lots of work. It's like most personal growth course, except for the fact that you have some teens who are relectant to be there, so you get to spend the first 3 days being energetic and trying to get them excited about it. I met some cool people there, and had a great time. Even if I was exhausted by then end! No sleep and a lots of running around will do that to you.

Overall, camp = fun. Awesome people, no sleep, far too much sugar, far too stodgy food, and lots of dancing and good chats with some amazing people. I loved it and will definitely be back next year if possible!

The sun back home

2007-04-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

It's sunny! I'm at my parents place, hanging for the couple of weeks before I hop on a plane to the other side of the world. I've been very productive - visiting old friends from University days and running all over town trying to catch up with people. And it's been sunny!

You forget what hanging out on sunny days is like when you have been caged in an airconditioned building for so long! I'll say one thing for hicksville though - it's a whole lot easier to get downtown there. Trying to get down to see people who work in offices here involves driving to a bus stop, paying $6 for a day bus pass and then sitting for half an hour. And then trying to get home in rush hour when it's raining and bus after bus passes you and then other 70 people waiting at the stop because they are full.

In hicksville I walked 10 mins from my apartment, and was downtown.

Things to do... ahh so much.

It's the thursday before easter and I still have to....

UNpack my car and put all the boxes somewhere, then clean the car so Dad can sell it online, then I need to try and find the gear I want to take overseas, and then pull out the gear I want to take to camp next week. All by Wednesday when I leave, and I am thinking of going to the beach for Easter....yeah,

so what am I doing? Procrastinating here, and on Facebook.

One day and one hour left of living in Hamilton!

2007-03-29T11:00:00.000-05:00

So. It’s 4pm , Thursday 29 March.

I have one day and one hour left of working in hicksville! And a whole 2 days or left in this town.

Thank god.

It’s sad and exciting to say goodbye to everyone, but at the same time it’s a total weight off my shoulders not to be here anymore. I think the only way I could stand the last year was knowing I was saving to get out. Note to all the peeps out there, if you have a shit job, live somewhere shite, plan to get out. It makes living the life heaps easier, having a secret plan no one knows about.

Have decided to start a travel blog, modelled after my fav cousin with a blog, beeerad (mostly cos he’s the only cousin with a blog I know about). Beer ad. Funny moniker.

It seems to work for him, so I might try it. Although, knowing me, mine will have more rambling, more punctuation, and less comments.