swept off to

After a Long Absence

2009-07-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if this post represents my return after a long absence. Ever since Facebook took hold as a way of hearing people's updates and seeing people's pictures, I've stopped reading other people's blogs.

Perhaps, occasionally, I'll have reason to post a long note or a long series of pictures (with comments), in which case I'll blog. During my Fiji/Australia/New Zealand trip the urge to blog was present every day.

Every day is an experiment.

Obama rally

2008-03-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight I listened to Barack Obama at a rally in Eugene. I went to get more information.

I'm still undecided.

Sydney

2008-01-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

I visited Sydney on December 17 and 18.

I was surprised that no one was stopping to look at these quotations; the sidewalk memorialized famous writers, some Australian-born and some who mention Australia in their writings. I read about 30 of them and didn't notice a single person at the very crowded Circular Quay who stopped to read. The quotations were very life-affirming to me, and they gave me solace when I was alone, lonely, and homesick.

No visit to Sydney is complete without a visit to the opera house.

Bondi Beach was the other must-see place, but the ocean looked too dangerous to take a dip in. The only ones braving the surf were surfers. Nearby was a pool which for $5 allowed you to swim in a pool alongside the ocean. I loved swimming laps while waves crashed over me. Certainly, yes, it was warmer to swim in the oceans of Palm Cove or Mission Beach, but here in Bondi I enjoyed the novelty of the ocean trapped in concrete. After swimming laps, I had a lovely sauna and then a shower. For $5 it was all plenty worth not getting caught in an undertow.

That night I went out for drinks with two guys from Cork, Ireland, Joe and Tommy, and one guy from England named Neil. They shared the hostel room with me, and we hit it off very well. Now I regret not getting their last names or e-mail addresses. The next morning I left our hostel room while they were asleep and flew to New Zealand.

Melbourne Family, Part 2

2008-01-30T19:34:00.000-08:00

You read about my first visit to Melbourne, perhaps. I arrived there on November 1, spent a week; it was the first time I'd ever met my Australian cousins. In mid-December after Mission Beach I went to Palm Cove, another beach town. From Cairns I flew back down to Melbourne, to reconnect with the cousins again and also to meet Henry and Carolyn, whom I hadn't met before. Henry is the oldest of the generation of kids born in Melbourne to the Holocaust survivors. He and Carolyn have four children and two grandchildren.

They have a gorgeous apartment in a Melburnian high-rise, overlooking the town.

Before spending the night at their other house, which is at Cape Schank on the Mornington Peninsula, I stayed again with my cousins Nathan and Linda and their adorable kids Phillip and Eva.

We went to dinner at Fed Up. I enjoyed the restaurant and had the flounder. I was especially warmed by the name because my uncle, who would also be related to Henry, when he first arrived to the U.S., enjoyed a meal, sat back, rested his hands on his stomach and said, "Well. . .I'm fed up!" We've been teasing him about it ever since. I, of course, had to tell Henry and Carolyn the story.

I wasn't expecting to see the entire flounder! At the end of this fish, boy was I fed up. ;)

I wouldn't complete this entry without the view from Henry and Carolyn's award-winning house at Cape Schank.

Catching up: Mission Beach

2008-01-30T18:15:00.000-08:00

From the 9th to the 12th, I hitchhiked from Airlie Beach to Townsville and finally to Mission Beach. Featured in the following photos are baby wallabies, fan palms, a cicada, and my wonderful hosts Minke and Greg. Greg is the one wearing the bug.

I'll post a series of travel photos to catch you up with the December part of my journey. I arrived in Mission Beach around December 11.

You can see in the last photo how talented Minke and Greg's daughter is. Her name is Joseine and she painted her backyard. It's not the typical house and flowerbed picture. She included a picture of a cassowary, which is a rare giant bird. It's spotted quite often in Mission Beach, however. It is as tall as and sometimes taller than humans. And, it attacks by jumping up and kicking out. Also pictured is Mats, the little boy with the half-on Santa suit, who wouldn't change out of his Santa suit. And, it was sometimes 90 degrees Farenheit.

Mission Beach was one of my favorite places to visit, not just in Northern Australia, but in considering my trip as a whole. Minke fosters baby wallabies, and her husband and three children were delightful to be around. In the state of Queensland, I encountered such foreign-to-me behavior, such as racism, so I appreciated being around people who reminded me of Eugeneans -- open, trusting, kind, and caring of plants and animals and people.

To Answer Your Question

2007-12-21T01:23:00.000-08:00

Jen, aka "Benevolent Being" in the comments section, asked when I was coming home.

Feel free, just for kicks, to check the tentative itinerary in one of the first entries. My trip ended up being nothing like the one in the itinerary, which I'll explain later (if people are interested in knowing).

Anyway, the Coming Home date is the one thing that's remained the same: 28/12.

That's the 12th day of the 28th month, or for those of you keeping up with life in the Antipodes--and nearly everywhere else in the world--that's 28-twelfths, or 28 parts of 12.

I love questions and am happy to answer any and all.

2007-12-14T21:35:00.001-08:00

I'm homesick.

Three Week Run

2007-12-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

Those of you who could be bothered to read my blog might have caught on that we're missing about three weeks, yes, three weeks of updates. Those diving entries were mainly to keep you occupied as I traveled and rarely used the 'net. Here I am though, alone in Cairns, and the shuttle to my hostel isn't until 9:30 p.m., so let's make the most of it, shall we?

Let's shall. Here are some photos beginning November 18. As you know, I flew to Brisbane from Darwin, and that's where Siall lives. She and I were housemates at New College. We've known each other for 14 years or something insane like that. Siall now is a student and teacher and her main pastime is poetry! Currently, one of her poems (or is it more than one?) is being set to dance by some local artists in an exhibition which matches writers and dancers.

First a shot of Byron Bay at sunset, which Siall and I visited just before I headed North:

Here is Siall and my friend Andre (you might remember him from the Alice Springs photos), who coincidentally happened to be in Brisbane when we were there. We had almost approximately exactly the best drinks of our lives at this pub. Siall was drinking something blue called Liquid Opium (I'm not making that up). They had the best bloody marys I've ever had in my life, which was my second drink after a drink called Apple Cobbler. Usually I like beer or straight shots, but these cocktails were impossible to resist, almost as good as the drinks in Eugene at El Vaquero -- or just.

Back in the West End of Brisbane, Siall and her roommate played with the remote controller for a tiny whirring electric helicopter.

On November 24th, which was a Saturday and also Election Day, I took the bus to Hervey Bay. Incidentally, I was glad that Kevin Rudd won the prime minister seat, but not so glad that the third-party representatives (the Greens and the Democrats) didn't get elected. Also incidentally, whenever I ask anyone what they think of the election, if they were happy about Rudd winning, they all say "It was time for a change" or "We were ready for a change."

The next day I took the boat to Fraser Island. Here is a shipwreck there.

Because it was cheap and because the pilot said I could ride in front, I took a short flying tour of the island. The dials and guages are fascinating, no?

M5 is the motorway on Fraser Island, and it's made of only sand. And it's supposedly the only highway in the world where you can play in traffic. Pedestrians have the right-of-way everywhere on this coastline. If anyone is hanging out on the beach, sunbathing and building sand castles, the cars, legally, have to drive around them. The bus on Fraser drove practically where the waves broke, even though it had to be on the left side of the road. We were driving anywhere from 80 to 100 kilometers an hour! Also, the vehicles must share the road with the planes. It's a motorway, an airstrip, and a recreational beach! The shoreline in the view from the plane's window is, indeed, the M5.

On Fraser Island I made two friends, Ben and Fouzia. Ben is from Nigeria, and Fouzia is from France. Although we are all cozy here on the boat back to Hervey Bay, we were all solo travelers who met only that day.

That night, Sunday, I took the bus to Bundaberg, and the following morning I met a fellow named Dave who was hitchhiking to Cairns. We walked together to buy fruit from the local market, the visitors' center wasn't open, and so I threw caution to the wind and hitchhiked with him to Agnes Water. Now in Cairns, today, I'm not going farther north and am taking a flight to Melbourne tomorrow, since I'd promised my Melburnian cousins I'd return. This means, no more hitchhiking, so feel free to issue me all the warnings you want, or quote to me that four-year-old incident where some hitchhikers were killed. (To sum, it was great to meet locals rather than more backpackers from Europe, who are also very nice, of course, but nothing beats learning about a place from a local. :)

As a side note, most of the people who picked up me and Dave were older men who would talk to us about fishing. Sharing the car with a fishing pole or an esky (that's the Aussie word for cooler) full of just-caught fish was nothing new to us. We were also picked up by a garbage truck-driver, two semis (they had 18 gears!), a poet, an emergency surgeon and his rural nurse wife, and the mother of four young daughters, among other kind and friendly drivers.

That Monday, the 26th, we stayed at the Southern Cross hostel in Agnes Water, and the following morning I began my dive course at 1770, the town near Agnes. For several days I trained in a swimming pool. On Wednesday and Thursday of that week, I trained in this estuary, which earned me my open water diving certificate. That means I can dive up to 18 meters, although I've never gone below 15.

I stayed at the Southern Cross from Monday to Saturday morning of that week. It wasn't an everyday hostel. It had beautiful landscaping, free toast and tea, cabin-like rooms with decking, and an open-air common area. This view is of the meditation area in the backyard of my room. Behind it are the water tanks.

On Friday I went diving off of Lady Musgrave Island. The first dive was along Napoleon's Wall and the second was in the Lady Musgrave lagoon. The view was spectacular, with a visibility of 30 meters or more. This was the first time I was completely comfortable diving. My mask didn't leak. My air flowed smoothly. My nose didn't explode. I was simply in awe of the coral varieties, the colorful fish, and the eels. I could even turn and twist in the water to keep track of my buddy and his air. At one point one of the people diving with us got in my way. I tried hard to keep just a little bit of space between me and the others, so as not to cause accidents, but one guy swam right into my path, flailed (in diving you're really not supposed to use your arms at all), and nearly knocked off my regulator and my mask. Thankfully, I'd learned how to replace my mask and regulator in my safety training courses, and everything went so smoothly. I was so proud of myself. We went down to 15 meters at one point, and my oxygen had one of the highest amounts at each of the two dives, which means I wasn't hyperventilating or over-exerting myself and was just generally being calm while breathing.

On Saturday, December 1, we left Agnes and hitchhiked to Rockhampton and Mackay. I have to say, traveling with a working-class fellow from Brisbane (whose ambition is to work in the mines) really caused me to shed my touristy behaviors, one of which was the constant picture-taking. I took almost no pictures in these two towns, save for this one of Dave in the cab of the semi. One nice thing that happened, though, was that I partipated in the couchsurfing project. We stayed with a couple and their parents in Rockhampton for a night. The following two nights we stayed with an older couple in Mackay. The Rocky hosts were also travellers, and they had even visited Eugene during their trip to the States! Nearly no one I've met knows where Oregon is -- much less Eugene. In Mackay we stayed with a woman who was a Justice of the Peace and a city councillor and her husband, who was mostly a kept man, but who seemed pretty handy around the house. We talked heatedly about politics over wine.

From Mackay we went to Airlie Beach. At Proserpine an older man picked us up and told us about the sailing races which happen every Wednesday. He called his son, who was on the crew of the Lady Hawk, and we were told to meet the crew on Wednesday the 5th (last week) at the sailing club. We really lucked out. Not only did we get to experience Airlie in a way that is rare for a tourist to experience (the tourists usually take chartered sailing tours), but we happened across a boat owned by a really skillful sailor, Johnny. We didn't win the sailing race, probably because we had so many people aboard the boat, but we had a great time. Johnny won Yachtsman of the Year at the recognition awards that Friday.

By the way, Dave didn't want to have his seat on the boat, and he headed up to Townsville where I met him a few days later. Meantime, we met up with Andre, and we ate dinner with him after our sailing race experiences. He made us yummy garlic butter spaghetti.

The boats in our wake:

We enjoyed ourselves so much that Johnny took Andre and me out on the boat on Saturday, the 8th. One of the crew of the Lady Hawk, Dan, also liked to dive, and so the plan was to rent equipment, sail out to Armit Island, and dive twice in the reef around the island. I think it's called a coral cay. The other cool thing about Johnny, who is about 70, is that he's died four times. He's had four heart surgeries and says he's living on borrowed time, so he just enjoys life. He also talks like a sailor.

Johnny is sitting at the wheel with his wife Linika. They had the engine on as we started out toward the island.

They had the cutest 6-month-old Staffie. I took about a thousand pictures of him. His name is Harley, after the bike. We got along so well that Harley often tried to nibble my earlobes.

Once we got to the island, we anchored and took the dinghy to the shore. The Lady Hawk is here offshore, the one in front.

Armit Island wasn't an armpit; it was paradise. This is the shoreline off which I dove. The current was strong and the visibility poor, but the coral as before was beautiful. I posted pictures at the last entry. The pictures didn't really do the view justice, primarily because you lose the ability to see colors the further down you go. In person I saw stronger colors than what's shown in the pictures. Even so, the first color lost is red, then orange, then yellow, and down the rainbow, hence why everything seems so blue-green with the piddly little flashbulb of the waterproof camera (on loan from Dan, my dive buddy). You'll have to wait for the pictures from the Lady Musgrave Island trip, since I did take a waterproof camera, but it wasn't digital.

On the beach of Armit was such a nice lagoon where nearly everyone sat or waded and drank beers. Harley was somewhat afraid of the water and wouldn't get in. Sara, one of the gals on the boat, watched on.

Function over beauty. Upon surfacing, the skilled (or newly and somewhat skilled) diver inflates the BC (Buoyancy Control).

After a half hour or more, we went down for a second dive. We only went to a depth of 6 meters the first time, and on this one we went down to 12 meters. This put me, ultimately, in group I in the Padi nitrogen charts! I trained with SSI, not Padi. Are the groupings the same? Anyway, here's a picture of my dive buddy Dan.

We were back on the boat in time for lunch. We were famished. I don't remember eating so fast in my life. I half-ate-half-swallowed an avocado-veggie sandwich and a small container of tabouli. I forgot to mention that--and this was the case after all my dives, now numbering 8--food tastes better after diving. After my fourth dive, I had a fresh squeezed apple-pineapple-ginger juice and a falafel, and it was one of the best lunches I've ever had! That's a lot of hyphens!

On the way back, for nearly the entire journey back to the Airlie Beach shore, Johnny let me drive the boat. We didn't use the engine, just the main sail and the jib.

Then I turned the boat over to Andre. While he sailed us nearly home, I sat on the deck and watched the sun set.

This brings us to the night of the 8th, which means I'm only five days behind on updates and not 21.

Underwater

2007-12-08T05:26:00.000-08:00

Weird Diving Mishap

2007-11-28T22:27:00.000-08:00

It wasn't so much a mishap as a weird experience for the people around me.

When we surfaced, I took off my mask and my face was covered in blood.

Nosebleeds are very common while diving apparently.

So today, to recap a bit, was the third day of my lesson, and so far I've dived four times and am now certified.

10 minutes before reaching the shoreline, I saw some brownish-red spots on my mask. I did the obvious thing of wiping the outer surface with my hand. Then I did a bit of a "mask clear." Still, reddish spots. My first thought: what a strange plant, and how did those leaf-pieces get inside my mask?! :)

Darwin, Northern Territory

2007-11-22T00:36:00.000-08:00

Today I said goodbye to Siall and took the bus to Hervey Bay. Tomorrow I will take a tour of Fraser Island. Currently, it feels a bit like being in the middle of nowhere, but that's because I've been so spoiled by visitors' centers, which are usually everywhere and not here. As a result, I'm tempted to book everything under the sun. Sunday night I will take a bus to Bundaberg and then make the slow climb north, up the coast.

Also, I caved in and got a cheap mobile phone, mainly as a precaution. Unfortunately, it means checking the phone every few minutes to see who or what has called me back, and it means calling random toll-free numbers on advertisements in brochures so as to look for budget travel options, of which there are few, because--let's face it--the U.S. dollar is weak. If only I had euros to spend! Young tourists have so much disposable income these days. When I was young and taking a break from uni, I was poor. Ah, "those were the days, my friend."

So, here are some more backlogged photos. These are the last of my Darwin photos. After the Kakadu fiasco, I went to Litchfield, also a waterfall and plunge pool haven. But first, here are some more photos of jumping crocodiles (and of me holding an olive python). FYI: this riverboat is the same one as was used in the upcoming and recently filmed thriller "Rogue," which is the Aussie version of "Jaws." It's about tourists getting eaten by crocodiles and stuff. On that note...

One would think that after thinking that one member of the cohort was bitten by a snake (we didn't find out until later that it was just dehydration and shock) that I wouldn't hold a snake, but ball pythons, I assure you, are not aggressive to humans. They're almost friendly, in that make-a-friend-with-a-scaly-untalkative-serpentine-thing way. Oh, and the picture above the snake one is of a kite. The whistling kites and the fork-clawed (or was it fork-fingered?) kites swooped over the riverboat, also eager to fly home with meat in their talons.

I became friends with two travelers from England, Jayna and Nicola, aka Nic. Here they are in front of a large termite mound.

At the Booley plunge pools that were beneath Florence Falls, we made paint from ochre (red, yellow, and white). Then we painted Nic's face in an Aboriginal style. She wore the look well.

The next day I visited the Darwin market, somewhat like Eugene's Saturday Market, since it includes merchants and food kiosks, but this market had lots of pan-asian food and papaya, more fish balls than tofu, more papaya than basil, and just as many chair masseuses. Then I burned my skin to a crisp while walking to the museum, washed off the memory with hard cider, and saw a gorgeous sunset.

My new friend Zephyr, a photographer who lives in a warehouse, made me a delicious fish dinner, which included freshly cut spices and kaffir lime, as well as risotto. I stayed with Zephyr and his roommate for two nights in the warehouse before flying to Brisbane on Sunday, the 18th.

Here is a view of part of the warehouse, taken from a high ledge.

Here is a view of the delicious fish and risotto.

Kakadu

2007-11-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Before returning to Alice Springs on November 11, we stopped to collect fossils. In a short time I was bitten by many mosquitos and later resumed a course of antihistamines, which I continue to take now -- 11 days later. The mosquitos don't end, and repellant has helped, though I left my aerogard on the bus in Darwin.

I was lucky to find this fossil. The glarey bits in the center are two seashells, stuck in a rock in the middle of Australia. The backdrop here is a hostel bunkbed, because I spare no expense for this kind of high class photography.

Before going to Kakadu forest, the bus driver stopped at Batchelor for the jumping crocodile cruise. These crocodiles can fling three meters of themselves into the air so as to chomp on a piece of meat. Supposedly, all crocodiles can jump, but we see them jump so rarely because the meat isn't flying through the air at them and bobbing along the water, like the raw meat which the feeders feed them does.

Kakadu boasts a series of plunge pools and waterfalls. Although by November the forest is officially into the "wet" season (the Top End has two seasons, wet and dry), many of the waterfalls were dry or barely trickling. The water, though, is quite refreshing, especially when the weather gets as hot as 35 degrees celsius. The pools are easy to swim in. It's easy to forget that you're a boiling potato, your skin getting brown and crispy. Before the first plunge pool, I met three guys sitting beside their 4WD and who had found four abandoned baby feral pigs. I didn't want to think that their rescue might have been motivated by hunger. Always keen on meeting the wildlife, I visited with this baby pig, who followed my every step. I'd walk a step, and it'd gruntily hobble forward. I'd walk another step, and it'd walk forward, its snout at my heel. We walked to the stream together, and I braved stepping on a crocodile to refresh myself with water; the pig drank. And it wouldn't leave my foot.

At this point there's a kind of gap in my picture-taking. I visited two plunge pools (Maguk and Jim Jim) and swam with our budget-style tour group. On the tour, the drivers take us on walks and pools and waterfalls and drive us to our campsites. When we returned to our campsite after visiting Jim Jim Falls, an Irish guy from our group couldn't leave the bus. His hands had started to go numb, and his legs started to cramp. Two big blokes carried him off of the bus, and we set up a place for him to lie down and put his feet up. He experienced a type of paralysis in his hands. I put a tablet into a water bottle, which had electrolytes and which would replace his sugars, and he wouldn't drink it. I gave it to his girlfriend to give him to drink, and he still wouldn't. He was in shock and very dehydrated. Because he was screaming out with pain, the guide radioed for help. He asked the injured fellow a number of questions, and Carl said that he might've been bitten. Worried he might have a snakebite, the two guides drove him to another vehicle where he was then taken to a helicopter and flown back to Darwin City.

Abandoned by our guides, our group sat around the campsite and had lunch. An hour passed and we found ourselves in the heat of the afternoon, a thick oppressive heat even in the shade. Several women from Barcelona went to the toilet facility to wash the dishes, and they never returned. A few of us later found them in the toilet area; they were sitting on benches, and we noticed it was indeed cooler there than at camp. We brought our camping mattresses into the toilet and sat around the ladies side of the facility, even the men, playing a card game called Asshole with the gals from Barcelona. When we passed our turns, we said "paso," and when someone at the end of the round was the asshole, we called him the "culo." Asshole in Barcelona consists of an entire hierarchy of castes, including assholes, sub-assholes, the middle citizenry, queens, and sub-queens. We passed the time this way and occasionally skipped a round to shower off the heat in the stalls with the running water, cane toads, and giant crickets.

Here is what our campsite at Muirella Park looked like.

That night we camped near Gunlom Falls and walked out there for star-gazing. It's easy to see shooting stars, and I can find some of the Northern Hemisphere constellations, though they're backwards and upside-down, but I have trouble pointing out other constellations. Usually I first spot Orion, then Taurus, then the Pleiades. Also, the moon waxes and wanes untraditionally. I'm used to the cheshire cat moon (the smile) being a waning moon. Here it's a waxing moon. One of my professors told me many years ago at university that "Cum crescet decrescet, et cum decrescet crescet." With a crescent or a "C" moon, the moon decrescendos (wanes). And with a decrescent or a "D" moon, the moon crescendos (waxes). It's one of those cool Latin ironies. Here the crescents wax; it's odd.

Anyway, our tour guides were emotionally exhausted from Carl's possible snakebite emergency. (There were no puncture wounds, and it turned out to be dehydration, not helped by the night before's heavy drinking, poor bloke.) So, they left us to our devices, and we donned our bathers and climbed up the cliffs. Well, two of us did, I and my new friend Judith from Barcelona. The guides lay prone in the grass and didn't bother to tell the rest of the group. We had to wave at them from the top of the falls.

It was beautiful up there, a series of cascading pools.

I ended up climbing up even further and swam down a ravine to another waterfall (the third waterfall of Gunlom, if you're counting). Several Irish blokes from the group did the same. Later they sat atop the second waterfall and jokingly blocked the falls by sitting in a small enclosure and stopping the water.

Roos and Rocks

2007-11-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

It's been ages since I've uploaded pictures. Fortunately, I'm at my friend Siall's house, and she has a PC, and she's at her office today, granting me precious access to her desktop and all the wonders it has inside. Siall was one of my housemates my last year of university, and she is also the woman who midwifed my cat Wishbone, who is now 13-years-old (the cat).

At any rate, we're going back to November 6th here. On my last day in Melbourne, I walked around the city's botanical gardens with my cousin Ruthie and her husband Gary. There we coincidentally ran into my cousin Steve and his wife Lisa and also Casey, the girlfriend of my cousin Jeremy, and their dogs. When we ate breakfast at the Canteen, we ran into them again, including Jeremy, no small feat in a city of over 3 million people. When Ruth and Gary dropped me off, I wandered around Federation Square during the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is a huge event in Oz. Even the Prime Minister John Howard and his competitor Kevin Rudd (Australia will elect one of them on November 24) bet on the horses. Beyond the obvious fanfare of attending a gambling event, the women dress up in fancy prom-like outfits and don gigantic hats. It's a big deal. At Federation Square the races were projected onto a wall and here again on a big screen TV in the courtyard. Everyone and their mother bet on a horse. The horse who won was named Efficient, and he wasn't a favorite to win. I didn't bet on a horse, although Efficient is the type of name I might've bet on. While the racing horses are treated incredibly well and eat better than we do, there are many horses which are bred for racing and which don't become racing horses and which are treated horribly.

At the Federation Square I went inside the ACMI, which is something like the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and watched a few documentaries and animated shorts. One documentary was of Melburnian Yiddish women over 60 who do yoga; it's entitled Stand on Your Head. Also good for a laugh was Babs and Bob's Trip to New Zealand, a 6-minute documentary. Babs brought her video camera with her to New Zealand, and when she saw the red light was on, she thought the camera was off and vice versa. She gave the tapes to her Melburnian daughter to edit, and, appalled, she found the entirety of the footage was video of the ground. When Babs thought her camera was off, she carried it lens-down -- hours of footage of stones, gravel, shoes, toilets.

Following that and an art exhibition of indigenous painters, I walked along South Bank and up to the tallest building in Melbourne, 3800 meters high. Up there it's easy to familiarize oneself with the layout of the town.

Fast-forwarding ahead, I then left for Alice Springs, the town nearest to Uluru, the large sandstone rock in almost the dead center of Australia and considered to be the cultural heart of the country. Before leaving for Uluru and other geological formations, I spent the day in Alice. My favorite place was the baby kangaroo rescue facility, where we were taught to save baby kangaroos, called "joeys," from their mothers' pouches were we to find them killed in the road. They also let us hold the joeys. Here is my German friend Andre with a joey. And, here I am too with a joey named Amy. Amy licked my hand and tried to kiss me.

In the evening I walked up to Anzac Hill and watched the sun set over Alice.

The next morning I rose early and went to Kata Tjuta, arguably more sacred than Uluru. The Aborigines keep many of the mythical stories related to Kata Tjuta secret because of this sacredness. Uluru, in contrast, is more accessible.

The campsite was rather kingly. Each tent contained a bed, mattress, and sleeping bag, a stark contrast to my Colorado camping trip, in which Kimberly and I bore our camping gear on our backs and slept in a megamid during an electrical storm.

While Uluru is one solid monolith, Kata Tjuta has five or six humps. Here is one of them.

The next morning I circumambulated Uluru, just beyond sunrise. Uluru is a peaceful rock. I didn't climb it, out of respect for the Aborigines and their requests.

Here is a waterhole on the side of Uluru.

Along certain faces of the rock are cave paintings. These paintings are important to the Aborigines, in that they represent sacred stories and are ways of teaching their descendants how to survive. Not only might the Aborigines, here called the Anangu, pass on creation stories, but they also might draw maps of how to survive in the vicinity. Included on the map are plants and animals. In this drawing, the concentric circles represent waterholes or towns. The U or C shape represents a person. The line next to the C represents a digging stick.

That evening I went on my first camel ride. The camels are adorable and friendly. They'd bow their heads low so that I might pet their noses. They also enjoyed being scritched behind the ears. As I rode on one camel, I'd pet the ears of a caravaning, neighboring camel.

The following morning I hiked through Kings Canyon and walked past several features called "The Lost City" and "The Garden of Eden."

The base of this canyon is entitled the Garden of Eden, because it resembles a tropical jungle. Gigantic cycads, ferns, and eucalypts thrive in the water at the bottom.

The sandstone, mudstone, and silica formed these stratified layers.

Before leaving the center of the country, I said goodbye to my new friends and walking companions. Here are Julia and Philip from Stuttgart, Germany, and Hitesh "H" from Birmingham, England.

Pajama Party in the Toilet

2007-11-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I went on a tour to Kakadu, a forested area near Darwin (Northern Territory, Australia) which is something like the size of Sweden. On the way back from one of the many waterfalls and plunge pools, one guy on our tour started screaming in agony. He had to be helicoptered out.

Meanwhile back at camp, while the guide was away, we dragged our camping mattresses into the toilet to play cards.

More on all that later....

They Are Biting Me

2007-11-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

The mosquitos bit me yesterday, first in the morning before hiking Kings Canyon and second while out fossil-hunting. I found some shells imbedded in a rock in the dead-center of Australia. I left the rock at the hostel though, because customs would never let me bring a rock into New Zealand. Who knows where that rock's been (over the past few million years)!

My little battery-operated mosquito repellant which I'm convinced works purely when you believe that it does was off at the time. I still might convert to Deet (tm).

I'm in Darwin now (named after the evolutionist) and it feels like 30 degrees out! That's 90 degrees for you Farenheiters.

Sanctuary in the Dandenongs

2007-11-06T02:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to the Rickett's Sanctuary. At the Dandenongs, a mountain range outside of Melbourne covered in huge stands of eucalyptus trees, is a natural reserve where William Rickett used to live. Although he wasn't an Aborigine, he experienced kinship with the Aborigines and incorporated much of the Aboriginal iconography and symbology into his carvings and sculptures. Around the forest area near his house he carved stumps into faces and people. He also employed a gigantic kiln for the use of making giant clay sculptures -- self-portraits, aboriginal children and old men, and strange and absurd displays of people sometimes with possums and sometimes with guns or crosses or swirls. He would blend Christian symbology with Aboriginal symbology and, in one instance, a sculpture featured a white man with a hat of bullets and bearing rifles. Below the war-like man were two crosses etched in aboriginal swirls; on one cross was an aboriginal man crucified, and on the other was William Rickett himself. William Rickett was a strange and unique man, and I was alternately awestruck by his use of poetry and dumbfounded by his use of absurdity.

In each corner and cranny, you could see a sculpture or engraving. Here's a sampling, including my trite picture of a furled fern.

To melt and become
As the living waters
Running and singing
A flow of life in
My Dreaming

This collection of children's faces reminds me of a sculpture I gave my mom after attending university.

Trite picture of a furled fern:

A gum tree is a eucalyptus tree. The website Aboriginal Art Online describes the Dreaming: "The Dreaming is a term used by Aborigines to describe the relations and balance between the spiritual, natural and moral elements of the world. It is an English word but its meaning goes beyond any suggestion of a spiritual or dream-related state. Rather, the Dreaming relates to a period from the origin of the universe to a time before living memory or experience -- a time of creator ancestors and supernatural beings."

I raise my eyes to the gums overhead
They filter the sun's golden gleaming
And I think once again of a friend
I once had
Who's part of my Bushland
Dreaming

Food and Family

2007-11-04T03:36:00.000-08:00

On the 31st, after returning to Christchurch, Michele and I went to the Buddhist Centre for lunch. This would be my fourth time there. I ordered the laksa, which is a Singporean dish.

Michele then got hold of the camera. Spicy food, yes, is good. My nose is long enough to reach the soup. The law of foreshortening did not work to my advantage here.

That evening the sky turned pink and orange and we biked to Misceo's for dinner. We toasted over Monteith's award-winning amber and Old Dark. The following morning I flew to Melbourne, Australia.

I have a few reflections to make about New Zealand. Remind me if I forget. Of course, it would be possible to make the reflections in December, upon returning there. Meantime, I'm realizing it's not so easy to have this journal keep up with my thoughts on things. For the most part, I've been enjoying myself, although I've alternately been overwhelmed and a bit too clearly gaining perspective on my life back home. A couple of "no longers" have surfaced in my invisible commitment list. And, many of my "no longers," or Nevers, have surpassed Maybe and entered the realm of Definitely. In other words, I'm shifting my personal vows, committing to a healthier work schedule, to a life of adventure, and--on the other side of the spectrum--relaxing my views on marriage, which I used to think was stupid.

It also seems to me that Israelis (and Jews in general) are an adaptable, adventurous group. If it were up to me, I'd allocate the money used for nuclear warheads and military research for Israeli resettlement. I don't want to weigh in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all -- just to say that Israelis like money and moving around, so why not give Israelis gobs of money to go travel or buy houses in France, the U.S., Australia, and the like? Israel is a huge desert anyway. The Bible, if I remember correctly, called it a "highway." Who wants to live on a dark, desert highway? Imagine if the U.S. government said to the Israelis, "We're not passing judgment, don't think anyone should win this land, but we know you're adaptable, so here's gobs of money. We were going to spend it on warheads, but instead we're spending it on you. Go find a lush, beautiful place. Call it paradise."

OK, crazy theories aside, I'm now in Melbourne, Australia! Before a couple weeks ago, I thought I had only one cousin here, but from thinking there was a Helen here, there grew a Nathan and a Linda, and then there grew a Ruth and a Henry, and some of them had kids and some of their kids had kids. So, the family grew exponentially from there. Many of the following photos are for my family, whom I probably just upset with my presumptious and wild ideas about creating peace in the Mideast, so feel free to read on or not. When I was in high school, I was the only kid in class who read all of our assigned Moby Dick readings, including the part about who was the son of whom. What I mean is, I won't blame anyone for skimming the part about who begat whomever -- or for skimming in general. By all means, look at pictures.

While Nathan was at work, one of the first things Linda and I did on Friday morning was run errands. First we dropped off the kids at their school, and then we stopped by three different food places. This is why I love my family, and this is why I love Melbourne. My family loves food. This town is positively dripping with food. It doesn't matter that Linda has a fully stocked pantry; we had to buy bread and cookies and a variety of prepared salads. Even then we weren't going to sit and eat our purchases. We took our grocery bags to Louie's, owned by a South African Jew, and bought breakfast. Louie's, as the guy who sat next to me on the plane said, is the best deli in Melbourne (and probably anywhere). I've never seen a lunch place like this. The tables had to be shoved in the back to make room for the display cases of stacked quiches, lasagnas, breads, meats. Foccacia breads were hanging on racks. Stored foods, as in olive oils, jams, olives, biscuits, and coffees, were lined on shelves. Paninis, sandwiches, cakes, cheeses, all fresh and beautiful and good -- the room was slathered in food.

That night I met more family members and together we had a Friday night ritual supper, where I met George, who would've been contemporary of my grandmother, and his descendants. I was still on New Zealand time and tired by 8, but I drank wine and answered all sorts of questions, though my relationship to everyone is probably considered distant by most. We're all second and third cousins. But, for us, descendants of holocaust survivors and others who were lucky, we all have to stick together. I did feel as if they were family, beyond just the label that they are. Many of them looked like me or like others of my close relatives. Beyond that, they had certain expressions and interests and ways of communicating that just reminded me of home. That type of familiarity is strange and instinctual. I'm not saying I had more than polite conversation with everyone; I didn't. As with all social gatherings, I only immediately connected with a small fraction. But, even were there one connection, it would be enough.

On Saturday Nathan and Linda took me to the Healesville Sanctuary, where we could see native Australian animals (wallabies, koalas, bilbies, platypuses). As you all know, I love animals and love places like this, nothing like zoos. Here the animals are well taken care of and given proper habitats. There is even a wildlife hospital, which is also an educational center, on sight.

Here is a koala who was supposed to be mating with any of three other female koalas. According to the Keeper (that's what they call the caretaker), though, he hasn't been interested. Koalas sleep about 20 hours a day and eat and groom for the rest, so there may not have been time for him to be seduced.

This koala was extraordinarily placid. His mom had been hit by a car, and someone had turned in this koala when he was a baby. The Keeper mentioned that most koalas don't let you hold them in this way.

Here is Eva, Nathan's daughter, in front of a kangaroo.

This morning the whole family met for brunch at Brighton Beach. (Yes, this one is called Brighton, too.) It's probably a good time to mention how we're all related. My dad's mother, whose name was Miriam, had a first cousin named Eva. Eva had two siblings, Leon and Etka. They were, of course, also first cousins to Miriam. Eva first moved to Paris and then to Melbourne to be with the rest of her siblings. Nathan was the child of Eva and George. Nathan married Linda, who is from Mozambique and Portugal. They're my hosts and have two kids, Phillip and Eva.

Etka had two daughters, Helen and Ruth. Leon had several kids, whom I haven't met, but one is named Henry. Ruth married Gary. They have three sons (David, Michael, and Ben) and one daughter, Sarah, whom I haven't met. Henry has three sons (Jeremy, Steve, and Antony) and one daughter, Cara. Cara, who looks like my first cousin (also named Miriam), married an Israeli named Zac. Together they have a daughter named Mika. Steve married a woman named Lisa; they have a son named Luka. Jeremy brought his girlfriend Casey. Antony brought his girlfriend Amanda. Zac brought his sister Shani.

We had to spread out to two tables. Here they are, beginning from the lower left-hand corner and going clockwise: Steve, Ben, Phillip, Eva's arm, Linda, Gary, Ruthie, Jeremy, Me, Casey, Amanda, Antony, Lisa, and the back of Luka.

From another angle, here they are beginning with the smiling guy on the left and going clockwise: Ben, Phillip, Eva, Linda, Gary, Ruthie, Jeremy, my eyes, the top of Casey's head, Amanda, Antony, the back of Luka, and Lisa.

At the other table, here is another group, beginning in the lower left-hand corner and going clockwise: David, Zac, Nathan, go across to the white pillar to leave off the three people in the back, Shani, Mika, Cara, and me.

In this picture you see Mika, Zac, and Nathan.

Here are Lisa and Luka, a bit too backlit but cute.

Here are the sisters, Ruth and Helen, daughters of Etka. Helen is about to turn 50 and Ruth is in her 50s. Wow is all I can say to that. Beyond witnessing how young-looking these gals are, I was glad to hear that the three siblings (Leon, Etka, and Eva) who were my grandmother Miriam's cousins all lived to a fairly old age.

Here Phillip (Nathan's son) plays with Ben (Ruthie's son).

Nathan, Linda, Phillip, Eva, Ruth, and Gary then took me on a drive along the beach (Brighton and Sandy). Australia is experiencing a terrible drought, and it hadn't rained hard since May, but today it poured. Whereas most people would consider today to be horrible weather, everyone was delighted about the rain. We saw the Cerberus, a purposefully sunk iron warship, which was used around the turn of the 19th century and then sunk to break the tide. We saw the Melbourne skyline, too. Here is Phillip who, as he passed me, said "Missed." I don't think I missed. What a cute boy he is!

Here are Linda and her daughter Eva.

These are the famous bathing boxes along the shore. People paint them so as to personalize them, and they cost an exorbitant amount to have. They sit low on the cabana scale -- don't you think so? But, they're cool-looking!

Tomorrow we plan to go to Rickett's Point or something like that, and I have to figure out where to go after Melbourne. Eva, the three-year-old girl, asked me if I would live with them forever. I told her that she'd have to find me a job first. She nodded her head in earnest, said OK, and walked away as if to go find me one.

Tranz-Alpine Train, Punakaiki, and Greymouth

2007-11-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

This past month I've experienced being very behind with this travel journal. Prior to today my online time was limited. This entry's photos cover Monday and Tuesday of this week, the 29th and 30th. By the next entry (or so) I'll complete my coverage of New Zealand (until December, of course, when I'll be back).

On Monday morning I took the Tranz-Alpine train to Greymouth. This is a special train trip which some folks book their New Zealand tickets expressly for. I say this because Dawn, the woman who sat next to me on the journey (before we walked to the viewing car), said that she flew to NZ mainly for this train trip. I spent the majority of the train ride (the entire morning) in the viewing car, which has open-air access to the outside world. I leaned on the railings and my head out of the car, like a dog.

At Arthur's Pass I got out just to get this picture of the engine.

When I arrived in Greymouth, I took the shuttle to Punakaiki, which is famous for its "Pancake Rocks." Over millions of years the skeletons of tiny sea animals formed limestone, which upsurged, and later eroded. No one really knows how these rock pillars formed, except that one theory (my favorite theory and why I mention it here) is that the pillars were composed of limestone and mudstone. During the erosion process, the alleged mudstone would have disintegrated, leaving these pancake stacks.

Sometimes during high tide and stormy weather, these rocks seem to spout water. They're called blowholes. While I was there, though, they remained calm. It was a beautiful day. I've had such good luck with weather but do wish I would've seen the stacks look like waterfalls, too.

Afterwards, I walked two kilometers up the road, alongside towering limestone cliffs and ferns and flax galore (pungas, nikaus, kie-kies) to the Truman Track, which took me to the coast. I passed a small waterfall, quite a few boulders, and walked out to where these gulls were bathing.

Upon returning to the hostel, I met a German woman named Kirsten, and we walked together toward the pancake rocks so as to see the sunset. These photos are just views from the road and the hostel. The shuttle driver had said that this stretch of ocean road has been considered one of the ten most scenic coastal drives in the world. I would agree wholeheartedly.

That night I took myself out for pumpkin soup at a local pub, had a hot tub on the shore, slept soundly enough to wake up early and walk out to the Pororari River. There I rented a kayak and wetsuit and booties. While doing so, a young woman named Gina arrived and wanted some companionship, so we kayaked together. At first I was hoping for a solitary morning journey, especially since no one I had spoken with had rented a kayak and I was being prideful and adventurous. Later, not only was I glad for the company, but Gina urged us to push on upriver, even when it seemed time to head back. She was right; the current took us back downriver so quickly that it was worth it to explore further than the time seemed to allow. (My shuttle was leaving at noon.)

I took the only shuttle leaving for Greymouth that day. That evening I went to the History House, where I saw pictures of turn-of-the-century (19th century, that is) ships with broken hulls, strange scuba gear, and photos of rugby players from the 1920s. These were funny photos, guys with combovers and socks up to their knees. They sat cross-legged and looked kind and sensitive. Compare them with the All Blacks team, who look so mighty and exude coolness (except for when they're sore losers after their recent disappointment in France). Following that, I went on a tour of the Monteith's Brewery. The brewery had changed their name three times to arrive at the sparkling name of Monteith's, which sounds like someone's dental work, but they happen to have award-winning ambers and darks, and, yeah, I'd say, "Not bad." Guinness, given its creamy quality is still preferable, but the Old Dark brand is still quite yummy.

After the brewery tour and tasting, I joined a few of the people from the tour next door at Speight's, the competition. Speight's beer is also not bad, but I continued drinking Old Darks. Eun Ju (which may not be spelled correctly) is from Korea, and the other two are from the UK. They told me the fascinating story of how they met, on the Internet no less! She's Glaswegian and he's from London. She was told never to marry an Englishman, but there you go. Perfect match and a delightful couple. We treated each other to beers and good conversation.

The next morning, Wednesday, I was up early to catch the bus back to Christchurch. Here's sun-up from outside the hostel.

Backlogged Videos

2007-11-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

Now in Melbourne with my family, I'm happy to be on a PC again. As a result, it's possible to upload videos. My main desktop, when it was possible to use it, in NZ was a Mac. Keep in mind these aren't high quality docs but dinky, dorky snippets taken with my really cheap camera. But, because dorkiness in action is always good for a laugh, you might like to view one or two of these. In this video we're at the Orana Wildlife Park. Michele wanted to take a photo of me with the llama, but she ended up taking a video instead. Notice how Sean-Penn-esque I get at the end. (It is tough to be on the other side of the lens, really.)

The day after we went to Peel Forest. (Was this two weekends ago? Time is moving slowly.) We stopped our hike (in the Antipodes they call hiking "tramping") for a brief moment, and Richard started carrying on about Cat Stevens. He tried to get us to remember the song that goes "Matthew and Sons, Matthew and Sons...," but we were too dense to remember it. By the way, later that evening Richard played us the song, and I completely remembered it, especially remembered Andrew's son Duncan, who at age 4 would sing that bit that goes "all day, all day, all day...." Cat Stevens is wonderful, isn't he? It's a "wild world."

This past Monday, the 29th, I took the Tranz-Alpine train to Greymouth from Christchurch. It was the best train ride I've ever been on. One car is a viewing car, and you can lean out and practically over the railings while the train zips over bridges, trestles, rivers, ravines, under jagged mountains, and into tunnels. This video doesn't show off the beautiful scenery, but if you're a train buff, it gives you a sense of being on a moving train.

Kaikoura Wildlife

2007-10-30T22:55:00.001-07:00

This past weekend Michele, Richard, and I went to Kaikoura, which is about two hours away from Christchurch. When we first arrived, Saturday afternoon, the weather was cloudy and miserable and cold, although the scenery is still quite beautiful. We took a little walk out here on the South Bay.

We then stopped by the seal colony, where we saw quite a few seals up on the rocky shore and--a really pleasant surprise--up near the hedges next to where we parked the car. This seal is quite cute, but I wonder what happened to the pelt on its neck. He looks a bit hurt.

Cheryl asked for more pictures of me, and it's perfect to be included in an entry about wildlife. Arooo.

This seal was rather blobby. It's worth clicking on this photo to see a close-up of just what a blob this seal is.

After gawking at big lazy seals, we toasted our weekend with some delicious pints of beer. That's Richard and Michele. They'll be celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary next year, a great couple.

The next morning, bright, early, chipper, we boarded a whale-watching boat. Before seeing whales, a pod of dusky dolphins swam by. The ones in the wild are nothing like the ones I saw at Sea World as a kid. They don't have to jump through hoops to be truly beautiful, amazing creatures. I just loved how they swam together and half-rolled themselves over the current.

Unfortunately, I spent more time gawking than getting any decent photos.

Next we saw a sperm whale, whom the boat crew called Big Nick, because he too had some sort of gash, but on his dorsal fin. We saw Big Nick in two separate viewings. He emerged and submerged and then we found him again when he emerged for the second time. Sperm whales keep two tons of oil in their foreheads and no one really knows why -- to help them float back up to the surface after they dive 3000 meters? I liked that theory the best.

I didn't get good photos of the whale. I might have to borrow a few from Richard to show you. At any rate, here you can see the whale spotter with a long pole which he puts in the water so as to hear the whale's sonic-locating.

An albatross! Someone tell me you remember reading "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" at university?

Sunday was a spectacularly good day.

Like anyone, I like a good dose of culture. The Maori used these "Try Pots" in the whaling days.

Before returning home, we walked up the hill to a marae, a meeting house, where we saw a few interesting wooden carvings.

Signs of the Kiwi

2007-10-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I went with Michele's friend Heather to the Signs of the Kiwi, which is like an outpost (a café really) off of the hiking trail. We took the Sugarloaf Loop trail and saw the Littleton Harbor on one side and all of Christchurch on the other. Rather than bombard you with more scenic vista pics or mountain pics, of which I have a few hundred by now, I thought it would be nice to show you the signs.

Here is the engraving on the outside of Signs of the Kiwi. On the inside, above the stained glass windows, it reads "Merry meet, merry part...."

Outside the elaborate Signs of the Takahe building was this engraving: "Let us march on singing ever the road will tire us less."

Here (and at Sumner Beach) grouper (the fish) is spelled groper. I might have to buy a groper when I return from Kaikoura.

From the Bridge of Remembrance:

Graffiti at a small shelter atop the Conical Hill hike at Hamner Springs:

Uncertainty

2007-10-25T00:30:00.000-07:00

Today, while taking the shuttle to the thermal pools of Hanmer Springs, I chatted with the driver. Almost 50, he has almost 15 granchildren. His wife left him with five kids and didn't contact them again for nine years, so he was left with the task of raising them himself. He also survived bone cancer when he was 37, even when the doctor told him he would die. I didn't get into the whole rigmarole of discussing my family history; in a nutshell, cancer has been a major cast member in our family's play, and I fear that I might die in my 40s (hence the adventurous spirit -- what do I have to lose?). He did say something about surviving cancer that stuck with me. He said, yes, it's good to have a positive attitude and all that, but he doesn't think it was just his positive attitude that saved him. He said he had five kids to raise. In other words, he didn't have a choice. When the doctor gave him his death sentence, it didn't look like Truth.

I don't have that same firmness of purpose. Perhaps while adventuring I'll uncover it (or the path to it). It's like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle -- I can't see the electron particle and the path of the electron at the same time.

Sand Castles, Big Cats, Meerkats

2007-10-22T23:28:00.001-07:00

Now home from my second trip to Sumner Beach, I'll show you photos from my first trip from this past Friday. Here's the view to the north. Farther north (and east?) would be the Brighton Beach pier, if I have my geography correct. (See that strip of sandbar in the middle? That heads east toward the pier.)

Here's the view to the south, up on the cliffs of Taylor's Mistake. Down below is Hobson's Beach, and I only know this name because it was faintly etched on a rock I climbed down off of. Apparently, this section of beach is undergoing a dispute, in that the city wants to tear down all the houses here. Many of these houses are weekend retreats, though, which I suppose lessens the tragedy somewhat. Several of the houses, to my surprise, were on stilts. And, if you know me, you know I love stilted houses. I have three main goals in life, and one of them is to live by the ocean in a house on stilts. A vision of it came to me in a dream or a daydream when I was a teenager, and that kind of thing is unshakeable. The house, on the other hand (especially if it's stilted), might shake and might fall into the sea.

Up on the cliff these really adorable donkeys came up to me. They were tiny, maybe four feet tall from hoof to ear.

These next few photos are from the following day (Saturday) at Orana Wildlife Park. I couldn't pass up feeding this cute calf. After giving it leaves, it went for my hair.

Here's a view from inside the cage atop the truck, from the lion "experience," which Michele and Richard and I paid to do in a sudden lapse of sanity. A few lions hungrily gripped onto the cage or circled the top. Any weakness in the enclosure and we would've been lunch.

This meerkat reminded me of Gandhi. Its expression said, "I'm a visionary." I attempted to look into its eyes but it looked beyond me. I was a mere thing to this meerkat, ahead of its time and ready to solve world hunger or something.

Caged Humans

2007-10-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

I'm writing from a library at Sumner Beach, Christchurch. Since the last posting, I visited the Orana Wildlife Park and hiked through the Peel Forest.

At Orana we participated in a bizarre experience which involved a truck, a cage, and a few hungry lions. We paid for this, for some reason, and our adrenals I hope are no less worse for the wear. We boarded a truckbed-turned-cage, huddled in the center, and watched wide-eyed as the truck entered the lion reserve and several hungry lions hopped on. We were instructed to not stick any appendages outside the open cage squares. Some of the lions clutched to the cage with their paws and pressed their open-mouthed muzzles to the bars. The handler, inside the cage with us, threw pieces of bloody raw horsemeat (sorry, my horse-loving friends) into their open mouths. He also offered them meat with the flat of his palm, so that the large felines could only tongue up their dinner and not his fingers. Although he had a zoology degree, he said he only needed a one-year certificate having to do with the care of captive animals. Is a career change in order for me? What do you think, Mom?

As an aside, one of the male lions recently choked on a piece of horsemeat, and the park will now have to purchase one by mail-order.

I also fed some cute giraffes. One reached his tongue out to lick my shirt, as it missed the leafy vine I was holding out to him. I fed a cute calf. And, I saw some really cool lemurs and meerkats!

Taylor's Mistake

2007-10-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

Michele throws a stick to Buckley, after our walk along the bluffs -- past Sumner Beach and across Taylor's Mistake.

B

2007-10-19T03:35:00.000-07:00

The night before last Michele, Richard, and I ate at a fantastic Bengali restaurant downtown. If everyone could eat such delicious garlic naan, we would live in a peaceful society. Next we cycled to a theatre (sic) to see Mon Meilleur Ami (My Best Friend). Ignore the B-grade rating on IMDB; this was a fantastic film -- and strange. The protagonist is an art collector who has no friends. On a whim he bids on a Greek urn featuring the famous friendship between Achilles and Patrocles. When his contacts say he has no friends, and he retorts that he does, his business partner bets him the urn. Hilarity (and weirdness) ensues. Usually I wonder mid-film whether or not I'm enjoying myself, and at no time did I do this during this one; I was completely enraptured. Interestingly, at the Academy Theatre, in the upstairs area where we were, the seating is limited to about 15. It was like a private viewing room for people with money and bonbons. The other two people there besides us brought their wine glasses into the room with them. How civilized!

Yesterday Michele and I cycled to the very new International Buddhist Centre on Riccarton Road. Although they close for lunch at 4 and we were there at 4:30, the workers (devotees?) were kind to offer us some of what was left: steamed dumplings, fried curried pockets (very much like samosas), and fried tofu. We also had lotus tea with almond cookies. The lotus flower, which I had to taste, reminded me very much of artichokes. I had to go back there for lunch today and lotus tea. I love that Centre more than anything and want to go back every day. After lunch we went to Sumner Beach and hiked Taylor's Mistake. But, we just got back from dinner at Heather's (she made a delicious banana cake which, when warmed, goes perfectly with rocky road ice cream), and I'm sleepy, so I'll show you the pictures tomorrow.

As a side note, New Zealanders are very strange. While biking around today, I saw college students drinking beer at what must have been 11:15 a.m., to celebrate the end of the term. They were partying before noon, that is, dressed in cow-patterned cowboy hats and cleavage-revealing tops and big plastic sunglasses. Also, Christchurch recently elected a mayor, and the guy who came in 4th (at nearly 5000 votes) is a 25-year-old guy and street sweeper who spent $98 on his campaign. That's 10% of the votes of what the winning guy received, who, if he had lost, would've sold everything and moved to Italy. (We could all use this sort of Plan B.)

News from Home

2007-10-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Being away, I miss home more than ever. I'm especially comforted by e-mails and comments from faraway friends and relatives and similarly enjoy sending news, e-mails, and postcards. (Anyone want a postcard? If so, please provide an address.)

I've done a couple things here that I might not have done had they not reminded me of friends. Near Queenstown I visited a Chinese settlement, because it seemed like something Corri Jimenez would've done. (Happy 40th, Cor.) Arrowtown is an old goldmining town, settled in the 1860s. By the 1880s many of the Chinese prospectors had moved back, and one in seven had died. A few chose to remain and make a meager leaving. Near the settlement I visited a cemetary, which is something Annie Brockett would've done. (Annie just got married to Pete in DC, and I'm sad to have missed their wedding -- congrats, kids.)

My beautiful cousin Miriam had her fourth child on October 12, 4:44 p.m.; here is Russell -- quite a cutie.

Molloy just bought a new car. Here's a picture of Joey (the dog we share) in his new backseat den. He looks a bit like he's been told to "stay."

Cheryl requested I post pictures of myself. So here is a picture of me at Michele and Richard's house. A sip of coffee, a crossword puzzle, and my two doggie companions Griffon and Buckley. Notice how seamlessly I match the dog beds.

Jamie, the best roommate "in a world" (sic), seems to be thriving amid his own menagerie. He's my cat Wishbone's temporary caretaker (we call the cat Kitty). I had written him to "give Kitty a nose-kiss for me," and he wrote back:

Whenever I think of giving nose kisses to the kitty, I
first check to see if he has a live mouse in his
mouth. the other day, I was doing whatever I was
doing, and I noticed that as I'd gone in and out of a
room several times, the kitty was paying close
attention to my sweats, which I'd left on the floor.
I picked them up, and there was a mouse hiding
underneath. Kitty was right on him, and I followed
him to your den, where he batted him twice and then
ate him in three bites! oh the crunching, the
horrible, horrible crunching!

Fiordland

2007-10-14T02:23:00.000-07:00

On the 9th, after waking up early in the campervan, viewing Porpoise Bay and the fossilized forest, and eating muesli, we headed for the Fiordland. As a side note, the campervan smells a bit like cow's milk and a bit like wet socks, which makes sleeping in it a challenge, especially if you have to sleep in the same van with me, because I snore--and moan.

(Yeah, it's embarrassing.)

Just so you can imagine it spatially, imagine me traveling in the shape of a "J," but with a curvier hook. We start on the east coast in the upper middle of the south island, at Christchurch, head south to the Otago Peninsula and farther south to the Catlins, come up the west side to Te Anau and then, near Milford Sound, to the Hollyford Track, and finally Queenstown. My bus trip from Queenstown back to Christchurch makes it sort of a lowercase cursive "J," actually, but without the dot.

Our initial plan was to do the Milford Track, but the folks at the DOC (pronounced "dock" and standing for Department of Conservation) said that the track was only open to people with avalanche experience. I might like to someday take some type of class to learn how to handle avalanches. A Canuck we met on our hike said that it involves something like checking the cleavage of the ice, using a probe to search for buried avalanche victims (i.e., poking down into the ice with a retractable stick until you hit the buried person), and generally surveying a scene so as to understand your safety there. Anyone want to expand on this?

The DOC workers suggested the Hollyford Track instead, so we filled out a form stating our intentions and bought a hut pass. That's the other thing: many of the tracks here also have shelters along the way. These aren't thatch-roofed huts or anything; they're wooden buildings with bunk beds, mattresses, sink water, cast iron stoves, and outdoor toilets. The huts and the level of maintenance on these tracks make my alpine wilderness experience with Kimmy in August seem like an eXtreme sport or death-defying activity. I would kind of have liked to have done the Milford Track, avalanche potential included, just to be challenged, because one could really have done the Hollyford Track with one's grandmother and her walker and she's dragging an IV and she's wearing inappropriate shoes and dragging a handbag the size of Bharain.

That evening I took a ferry to the glowworm caves. I really would've loved to have shown you pictures of these caves and the glowworms, but no cameras were allowed in the caves, as that causes the worms to switch off their lights. The ferry takes you through the fiords to where rivers and waterfalls go underground. The glowworms, much like spiders, catch insects in sticky material. They spit sticky strands which hang from their bodies. They then produce a glowing light at their tail-end, which is somewhat a mystery to scientists, but which is made by some combination of ATP, oxygen, and some other ingredient. The lights look like stars at the roof of the cave, and they look nice to insects and to gawkers like me on slow underground boat rides.

Here is what the mountains looked like on the ferry ride home.

The mountains, some of them snowy, some of them containing waterfalls, generally looked like this. When I was a child, I'd draw triangular mountains with snowy caps and was both exhilerated to see mountains for the first time and saddened when, in North Carolina and Tennessee, I saw rolling mountains with green peaks. In the Antipodes, however, the mountains are jagged and snow-capped, just like in childhood artwork. It really is life imitating art, you know?

Along the Hollyford Track were a few swinging one-person capacity bridges.

At sundown these were the views just outside Alabaster Hut.

Moeraki and Curio Bays

2007-10-13T02:46:00.000-07:00

Over the last week I took about 200 pictures, most of them of mountains. So, I will attempt to play catch-up with pictures. Now that I'm back in Christchurch, I could spend the subsequent days recollecting some of the highlights of my travels from October 6th on. In a nutshell, in case other stuff happens and I don't know how to itemize it all, I joined the Swedes in their campervan and drove south to Moeraki Bay, through Oamaru and the Otago Peninsula, into the Catlins, across to the Fiordlands, up to Queenstown and back.

Here is a picture of one of Moeraki Bay's famous boulders. They're ancient and really round and people seem to like them.

Before finding the boulders on the beach, Fil did a u-turn on the road, and we ended up stuck in a muddy ditch. Being stuck is fun with a campervan, which is like a bulky man on little legs, bulky chassis on little wheels. Several really friendly guys from China and Vietnam helped us; they jacked up both sides of the van, and we collected stones, which they shoved under the wheels for traction. We tried many times to push the back of the van while the car started. 45 minutes after we had gotten stuck, we succeeded in pushing the van out. On our successful push, the tires and clogged-up muffler sprayed mud and dirt on us as the van charged over the grass. We were covered in dirt and screaming with joy. Those guys who helped us are our heroes. When we asked how we could thank them, one guy, William, said, "Just enjoy the rest of your day."

It was one of those faith-in-humanity moments. Fil, Ola, and I are all relatively positive people, so no one was ever really angry or frustrated throughout that ordeal. We actually considered the getting-the-van-stuck experience to be the highlight of our day. At any rate, that night was Fil's birthday and the three of us got really really drunk, so much so that we spent the whole next day lolling about Dunedin.

A couple short walks, spotted shag sightings, beach hikes, hundreds of sheep, and one yellow-eyed penguin later, we left the Otago Peninsula (on the evening of the 8th) for the Catlins, where we saw waterfalls, Porpoise Bay, and Curio Bay. Curio Bay features a fossilized forest, which dates back to the Jurassic Era and which one can only see at low tide, i.e., too bright and too early in the morning.

It's now past midnight, so I'll wrap it up and post a couple more select pictures tomorrow.

Porpoise Bay

2007-10-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

This morning, around 7:30 a.m., at Porpoise Bay:

Tomorrow morning I'm heading for the Hollyford Track. We're only going to trek for two days. The Department of Conservation is so funny; they said they'd call the police if we're not back by the 12th. I can understand their precautionary measures, though, especially since so many tourists get eaten up by the weather. Currently, even though it's quite warm out, it had been snowing and so there are avalanche warnings everywhere.

The Banks Peninsula

2007-10-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to the Banks Peninsula. Nine million years ago the land comprising the peninsula were two volcanoes. Eventually the two volcanoes joined with the mainland.

Therefore, in greater Canterbury, you can drive from Christchurch to Akaroa--or completely around the peninsula surrounding the city of Akaroa, in a camper van, with two young men whom you might've met about 1000 miles away in Fiji last week.

Before the boys arrived, I biked to downtown Christchurch. Some of the old buildings have been converted to artists' studios and galleries. In one of the courtyards is this sculpture, for lack of a better word, called "Echo." I didn't just draw on the picture with Microsoft Paintbrush (especially since I'm consigned to use a Mac here); this is a real thing that's hung in the air with clothesline-type things, and that's my best description of it.

I returned to the Canterbury Museum to learn more about the Maori and the moa. I was especially surprised and somewhat saddened that the Maori used to wear cloaks not just made of pigeon feathers but also of dog.

Then I went to the art museum, which featured an absolutely interesting exhibit of Ans Westra photography. She published a children's book in the '60s called Washing at the Pa, which was about Maori day-to-day life, all told with black-and-white photographic images. The lovely book was banned at the time by their version of a Board of Education. Controversy ensued, because it was around then that New Zealanders were coming to terms with their colonial past and their treatment of the indigenous Maoris.

I left the gallery around 5 in the evening.

I, then, biked home. Ola and Fil, my Swedish friends whom I met in Fiji, drove their camper van to Christchurch to pick me up. We'll travel for a few days while Michele is finishing up her freelance work, and I'll help them with petrol costs. Thankful that they had a place to sleep for the night and even shower, they made us a taco dinner. I like being cooked for.

The next morning we left for the Banks Peninsula, a day trip in the camper van. I told them that if I was going to share the van with them that they would have to wash their dishes first. :)

Here is one of the bays within the peninsula. This one has a landmass looking a bit like an exclamation point.

As the sun started to lower in the sky, the sea turned from blue to silver, like liquid mercury. Fil said it looked like cement, but he pronounced it "semen." For the longest time I looked out at the water wondering why it looked like semen. I thought that I must really have led a sheltered life until Ola finally caught the pronunciation mistake. Suffice to say, we were all embarrassed.

And here's where everything becomes lowbrow. We stopped for coffee (and ended up with Devonshire tea and scones with strawberry jam and cream for some reason--an honest mistake?). This sign was in the restroom.

After having a proper tea, we visited the museum at Okains Bay. Better than the museum in Christchurch, this one explained quite a bit about the Maori. Here is a statue as one of the exterior decorations to a meeting house. If you click on it to enlarge the photo, you'll see that there are faces in strange places...

Fil and Ola and I drove around and down to the exclamation point and walked up it and ate Cadbury chocolate. Here's a view of the exclamation mark longways.

At the end of the day, we stopped at Birdlings Flat to look at the sunset and collect smooth rocks.

Christchurch, New Zealand

2007-10-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

By the way, if Bush bombs Iran, I'm staying here forever. Michele and Richard said they'd adopt me.

Yesterday, after getting my bike adjusted (the front wheel wasn't true), I biked into town, ate, purchased the requisite hot chocolate at a book café. The drink makers in Christchurch tend to serve hot chocolate with giant marshmallow confections. They look like big pastel mints. I wrote there in my little handheld computer and looked out on the walking mall, filled with loitering teens, much like Eugene's West Broadway before the road went through their concrete territory. When I left, it rained, and I ducked into the cathedral.

Christchurch is 7% Maori. The Maori make up about 20 or 30% of the rest of the country. I found it interesting that this engraving of a common Christian prayer, probably done in the mid-1800s on the walls of the cathedral, featured the accompanying Maori translation. I especially like the Maori translation for "Forever and ever."

The cathedral was undergoing construction, and I was amused by the mechanical crane contrasting with the flying buttresses.

The "Pacific Chapel" is the size of a shoebox. What does an accessman access? What is this man doing? Is he about to ride off and away from the cathedral in his mobile accessman ake, ake, ake?

En route to my bike, I ducked into the Canterbury Museum, which was only open for another half hour. The moa were large flightless birds, now extinct, which used to hang out with the Maori. Here is an artist's interpretation of a moa, which for some reason is tucking its neck over and around to protect an egg. It looks kind of pathetic really.

Next I walked through the Botanical Gardens and sat on this bench and watched the Korean and Japanese tourists saunter by.

The sun emerged.

Therefore, I took pictures of tulips.

Brighton Beach

2007-10-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's about a 20-minute drive to the Brighton Beach pier, including a library and its downstairs restaurant. Michele and Richard brought their dogs to the beach with us, and we went for a long walk (not off the short pier but down the beach). The dogs chased birds, and we zipped up our "jumpers" and strode into the wind.

Like Oregon, the coastline isn't too built up, and behind the dunes are mountain bike trails. I walked up one of the dunes, so as to use nature's toilet, and was able to get this nice shot of the beach houses in the mountainous distance.

Driftwood:

Griffin, the roguish dog, tromping along the shore:

As you can see, the Pacific here is much greener and colder than the Fijian variety. The weather has been intermittently windy and sunny, from tanktop weather to hat-and-scarf weather in 60 seconds. I bought an All Blacks jumper today (partially for warmth), which I'll discuss in my next post, and plan on being a rugby fanatic. As far as I can tell, rugby is a lot like football, only it involves quite a few more illicit activities in the men's showers. Care to comment?

Fiji, part 4

2007-09-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

These are the last of my Fiji pictures. This blog is weighting more in favor of pictures than stories, and I hope to make up for that later. At any rate, here you can see the sandbar adjoining the islands. A few times a day the motorboats would get stuck on the sandbar. All the passengers would pile out and push the boat up and over the bar; they'd get in and resume their journey. Every day at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, however, the high tide would cause the sandbar to completely disappear. I would be up to my waist in water while standing on the sandbar -- and up to my neck in water while standing slightly over the edge of it. Interestingly, I was the only one swimming in the water at this time. Most travelers would sit inside or sunbathe, rather than swim or risk getting caught in an undertow. Compared to Florida waters, I found the waves mild and pleasantly bouncable. The neat thing that happened on the sandbar during high tide was that the waves from the north and the waves from the south would crash against each other, creating a "ravine" effect. Swimming into this dip in the water while the waves broke upon itself was really fun. It was like lying down stomach-first in a crazy hammock made of water. Plus, I had the ocean to myself, especially when it rained.

Every night we sat in the common room and drank Fiji Bitter or Fiji Gold. I preferred Fiji Gold, which tasted like a cheap yellow American beer, while Fiji Bitter tasted like goat vomit. You can see Alex in the back; she is from England and had quite a few stories to share about Laos and Africa. The four travelers in the foreground are from Denmark and Sweden. I mostly made friends with the travelers from Sweden, who all happened to attend the same university but who hadn't met each other before Fiji -- very coincidental for them.

Nessie, not the sea serpent, organized nightly activities for us. He and his cohorts performed a fire dancing show, in which one dropped a burning poker near a traveler from Holland and then burnt his own hand, which was comforting. Anyway, they did their best to entertain us, and the Fijians have such open and warm hearts; it's as if each one of them is Mother Theresa embodied. They haven't been ingesting Mother Theresa, though, because cannibalism was a custom in their old religion, before missionary influence. Here we are dancing during the Card Game. A sign for each suit was placed in each corner of the dance floor (the floor being just sand), and when the music stopped (nearly always that "shake your ass, girl" song from the "About a Boy" film) we all scrambled to a corner so as to indicate our suit choice. Nessie would choose a card--clubs, spades, diamonds, or hearts. And, if our card was picked, we had to leave the dance floor. The winner and runner-up won a bottle of free beer.

Every day there was a volleyball game, including tourists, villagers, and sailors. (At any given time, two or three sailboats would anchor off the island. They'd come ashore to drink beer with us. One was from California, one from France, and one from Holland. One admitted to be living on a boat for eight years. Also, whenever they dropped anchor, they had to get permission from the village chief. They'd have to offer kava as a gift and then drink loads of kava with him.)

Fiji, part 3

2007-09-29T22:27:00.001-07:00

At the village, we met the chief. He's the guy wearing the blue-striped shirt. We drank quite a few cups of kava, which made my tongue and lips numb. Most of the tourists in the foreground are young travelers from England. They go island-hopping and treat Fiji like one big party, which it is, of course.

Alex, the gal to my left, snapped a photo of me drinking kava. Here I'm on my first cup--or coconut shell, as the case may be.

Nessie, the guy who led us to the village, not the Scottish sea serpent, introduced us to the oldest resident in the village, Roosie, who is 87.

Roosie, like many people who formerly served in the military, had a mermaid tattooed on his arm. He also had an interesting and bawdy poem scrawled onto his shutters.

I am such a softie when it comes to animals, and I miss my dog Joey. I spent awhile petting this dog, who reached up to sniff my camera as I was taking this shot. I meant to take another one, but he then started to clean himself, one leg lifted like a cat, and that's when I realized that not everywhere do people neuter their pets. If I snapped the shot, all you would see would be testicles, and it would take away from how cute you perceive him to be in the following photo.

While we drank our kava and clapped at the appropriate times and made the appropriate remarks, this older woman slipped away to catch some food. She returned clutching an octopus, the length of which was four feet or more. Spear in one hand, octopus in the other, she humbly posed. Meanwhile, I got a better understanding of the gender roles and differentials in Fiji: the women do all the washing, cooking, fishing, and spearing, while the men just sit around doping themselves with tea.

Fiji, part 1

2007-09-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

I've been in New Zealand since Thursday night. After settling in at Christchurch, we seemed to have quite a few engagements and errands. I now have my own used bike to ride into town with (it takes about 20 or 30 minutes to bike downtown). But, for the moment, I'll tell you about Fiji.

I arrived on Sunday morning, a week ago today, at nearly 6 a.m., which is nearly 11 a.m. Saturday, Pacific time. I then, a bit sleep-deprived, followed the tide of tourists to the Yasawas, which was only a three-hour ferry ride away. I got off the ferry at a not-so-touristy resort on Waya Island, and the word resort is used loosely, because the accommodations were spare. I shared a dormitory with four to eight other travelers, the amount dependent on the day. On Waya, computers don't exist, although the management could radio out, and everything must be paid for in cash.

Each day I swam in the warm water, ate papayas, and shared stories with travelers, most of them from England, but some also from Scandinavia.

Some photos and captions:
Here the ferry is rounding one of the islands -- an interesting rockface.

Every morning in Fiji, I woke up before the sun rose. This shot features a view of the island and water from the hammock-sleeper's perspective.

When the sun rose on Monday morning, the clouds had rolled in.

Fiji, part 2

2007-09-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

The blue hammock was my favorite one. Later that morning two little kids, Mela and John, pushed me on it, as if it were a swing. You can see my dorm in the back, in the upper right corner, behind the tent.

These shorebirds would skirt the edge of the coastline, nearly dipping their wings in the seafoam.

On Tuesday a few of us took a motorboat to the village on the other side of Waya. Here you can see the Sunset Waya resort from the boat's view. The left-side of the photo stretches out to a sandbar, which leads to another island, and which would disappear during high tide.

At last we arrived at the village. First things first -- we meet the pet iguana.

The twin boys scrunched their noses at the iguana.

This village was very self-sustaining. Papaya, breadfruit, and coconut trees were plentiful. Also, the villagers would smoke their own fish in small smokehouses. Here's a kitchen set-up.

Baby goat from Waya Island

2007-09-28T05:45:00.000-07:00

I think it looks like a puppy.

It's now 1:30 a.m., so a few select photos will be posted tomorrow.

Home-cooked pizza in L.A.

2007-09-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

Lisa made me a delicious spinach and tomato pizza. Here it is before she put it in the oven. I just love those large chunks of fresh mozarella. It was delicious.

Also, I'm uploading this in honor of my friend Aaron, who often posts pictures of delicious food on his blog.

I arrived safely in L.A., by the way. I'm appreciative of the Eugenean security guy who re-packed all my toiletries in a smaller freezer bag than the one I had (while I twiddled my fingers and searched the eyes of shoeless passers-by). He let me keep the sunscreen which wouldn't fit in the "improved" ziploc. The airport's Orange Alert might be an indication that my skin will turn orange in Fiji without sunscreen; I doubt the security at LAX will be so kind.

Backpacking: two videos from last month

2007-09-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

Nearly a month ago (from August 19 to 24) I went backpacking with Kimberly, an old friend of mine from New College. (She lived in the dorm across from mine.) We hiked the Indian Peaks Wilderness, a trip which took us up to 12, 400 feet and to cold alpine lakes, high meadows, and waterfalls. I got high altitude sickness, but the worst of it only lasted a night, and the rest of the time we were both giddy from lack of oxygen. Here are some short videos Kimmy took.

In the "Tea" video I didn't know I was being filmed, at first. The day before we had descended from the Continental Divide. We had found the perfect place to camp, near the top of a waterfall, and we were below treeline (at about 10,400), so I didn't feel sick at all the following morning.

This video was taken the same day, about three hours after the first. Notice the intense climate change. Here we're back up above treeline, and it's no longer sunny and hot. It's cold and misty and intermittently rainy. The scene was like certain parts of Northern England (misty, green, tree-less), the rolling terrain marked with small white granite boulders.

Family Encouragement

2007-09-15T17:49:00.001-07:00

My uncle encouraged me to start a blog so that he might read about my travels. I'm going to consider this public journal to be an experiment. Occasionally I'll post pictures and write about my thoughts and goings-on overseas. Here is my travel itinerary:

September 19: Fly to LA; visit my college friend Lisa
September 21: Fly to Fiji
September 23: Arrive in Fiji (Where did that extra day go?)
September 27: Fly to New Zealand; stay with Michele and Richard
September 27 to early October: Wander around Christchurch, NZ
October some time: Travel around NZ with Michele
End of October: Fly to Sydney
Early November: Go on "outback" trip with Michele and Klaus
Mid-November: Fly to an Australian destination (Melbourne? Brisbane?)
Then until mid-December: No firm plans (more AUS and NZ exploration)
Mid-December: Hang out at beach house near Aulkland with Michele and Co.
December 26: Fly back to LA; hang out with Lisa again
December 28: Return to Eugene