uk & that

Hitchhiking with a substantial moe...

2011-02-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

...is possible, but more about that later. So, i know its been a while. HEAPS of you have been emailing me, continually pestering me to update my blog - so here it is.

After spanish school in Xela (the cold place) rach and i moved on to San Pedro (also know as San pedo (by us)) for another two weeks of spanish school. During this time christmas and New years passed by with nothing much of note taking place. However, for christmas we tried to make some bean burgers (veggie special) and despite soaking the beans for 12 hours overnight, it still took 2 hours of ferocious boiling to half cook them (we should have taken the can option)-so we had half cooked/half falling apart bean burgers for christmas lunch. The salad was good though...

Antigua 6/10.

It was the old capital of Guatemala until it got destroyed in the 1700s by a volcanic erruption. The city was rebuilt and is of course older than any building in Australia, so it looks old (to us). We climbed an active volcano which had a massive erruption 6 months before. There is a natural sauna there, and a place you can roast marshmallows (the only person to do so was an american) and a pit which you could throw sticks into and they would catch on fire almost straight away (just to prove there was some heat down there). Other than that, just an old city with heaps of america tourists fresh off the cruise ships...

Monterrico 6/10.

A small town on the coast where people go to do nothing, because there is nothing to do. Actually, you can go on an ecological tour through a mozzie infested swamp, release a baby turtle into the surf for Q10 ($1.40), or burn your feet on the black sand at any time from 8am to 5pm. We also started up afternoon games of waterpolo which got quite aggressive (for some players), it was also the most our soccer ball had been used since its purchase.

ps. soccer ball is the best ice breaker in central america (and maybe about 80% of the world) everyone wants a piece of the action, from the school kid to the guy selling bus tickets. Everyone wants you to throw them the ball and have a bit of a juggle...its great!

Lanquin/Semuc Champey 9.5/10.

The best hostel i have stayed in. In the rainforest, with a river running past it, great dorms, sauna and a communal buffet every night brings everyone together in a really social environment. From Lanquin we did a tour of semuc champey (worth a google) we swam in through some caves (apparently they go back 12km) holding a candle each (mine went out about 15 times) and climbed up waterfalls, jumped off rocks, went down little slides and through random claustrophobic (?) sections, we did it with a group of 27 people which was really fun, made heaps of cool friends there...Afterwards went tubing down the rapids, jumped off a ripe swing and swam in the pools of semuc champey (the ones you are looking at on google right now). The second day we were there a swiss surfing fanatic showed us how the surf in switzerland. The tie a rope across the river, then attach a board (like a door) with a handle on it on a length of rope running down the river (worst description ever). End of story, you can stand up and kind of "surf" the river, it was fun...alos kind of lame, but didnt want to tell the enthused swiss that...

Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras 8/10.

9 bus connections, one ferry and 20 hours later we arrived at Utila. The second cheapest place on the planet (apparently) to do a scuba diving course. Sounded like a good offer, so we did it. Really good fun. Met some cool people on the ferry and one dude from lanquin came with us to form our own little group. Its sounds lame, but it really is another world down there. Everything is silent, you can only hear yourself breathing. Its really calm and peaceful and you can see some amazing creatures down there. heaps of weird creatures as well...We also went to our own private island for another divers birthday. good times. The day we were going to leave the ferry didnt turn up - so we hired bikes and went to find the legendary mini golf in the jungle. A stoned american dude has been building a putt-putt course for 3 years (bad investment i say) and what evolved is an impossibly difficult course which includes a fireman pole, fighting a crocodile, an undergroud cave and "surfing the ball in" on a pivoting board. He also has designed a "thing" to help people swim easily in the sea. It is basically a foam cut out of a whale, with a place for the rider to sit, who then opperates the tail and fins by using their arms and legs. looks like a hard way to swim. He said to look out for it on the internet in the next few months (danoz direct?). I said i would...

Rio Dulce 8/10.

We stayed in a sweet place right on the water, built by a bloke from Australia. We visited the only (apparently) hot waterfall in the world. The water flowing down is from a thermal spring and must be about 80C. seriously hot, and it makes a natural steam room under the waterfall. really cool/hot. Just down the road is a sweet little canyon which you can pay Q15 to have a little kid paddle you down in a dugout canoe. Pretty fun and only locals know about it (apparently) Oh yeah! Off the beaten track!

Tikal, Guatemala 9/10.

Google it. Awesome ruins. (I forgot this the first time and cant be bothered typing anymore)

Caye Caulker, Belize 7/10.

Its an Island and other than snorkel and smoke weed theres not much to do. We did some snorkelling with stingrays and nurse sharks and just lazed around for a few days. We also ate some awesome pineapple and banana cake.

Tulum, Mexico 7/10.

After 8 hours on the bus, i got into Tulum at 10pm. I asked some French dudes if they knew a good place to stay. Before i knew it i was in the back of some randoms ute (re: hitchhiking) and out to this little camp site on the beach. My home for the next few days was a little shack of sticks and leaves which bear grylls (and his 30 strong support crew) could have built is about 7 minutes. So i was living with some cool hippy folks about 9m from the water. Awesome!

I am now in Cancun. Rachel split and is now somewhere in Honduras. Im flying out to Cuba tomorrow, I really know nothing about it - so it should be a fun experience. I doubt il be on the internet for the next 10 days while over there. Then is back to Aus...looking forward to bbqing and playing cricket (not so much uni. ha) Anyway, im up to date - that should fend off the requests for a while. Hope life is great. Take it easy :) andy

ps. the moe is going from strength to strength. I have had 7 photos with people (all girls). Many compliments from blokes, and more high fives than i can count...life is good!

¡QUE MANGO!

2010-12-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

So now you all know a little bit of Guatemalan slang, ¡que mango! its what a guy says to their mates when they see a nice looking girl walking past, some of the bolder fellas might yell it out loud in a lame pick up attempt (which fails 99.9% of the time, i am told), but usually its just said under their breath about a girl way out of their league... and the term orginates from an actual mango (fruit) and means "sweet"...more or less...

So weve been traveling for about 3 weeks or so, and have seen a bit...so il briefly run through a few of the places weve been and things weve seen and il even rate them, so you can decide if you want to visit them on your next adventure...

Hollywood: 2/10

Hollywood is lame, like most of the movies it produces. There is the chinese and kodak theatre, stars with famous people on the sidewalk, handprints of famous people in concrete and the Hollywood sign in the distance. That is it. 50m either side of kodak theatre (main area) is ghetto. actual ghetto. Only the quality burrito shop across the road road saved Hollywood from a zero.

Venice Beach/ Santa Monica Pier: 5/10.

The pier is interesting for about 7 minutes, where you can get someone to write your name on a grain of rice. or pay $11 to go on a rollercoaster that doesnt even go upside down...very touristy. The walk down to Venice Beach is pretty cool. Heaps of outdoor gym equipment to muck around on, like a giant swing set and heaps of monkey swinging rings...good fun. Theres also heaps of markets along the path, with interesting hippy people along the way, such as a guy in a robe playing electric guitar while skating along on some futuristic roller blades. There is also a freak show where you can see "a two headed turtle and pretzel boy for free, with heaps more inside!" or where you can get your marijuana prescription filled (or get diagnosed as needing marijuana for medicinal purposes). Also, an outdoor gym where all the "big boys" go to work out in their american flag speedos...

Mexico City: 5/10.

Its a city with 23 million people living there. im not a huge fan of citys...but what we saw of Mexico city was pretty cool. A lot of history, a lot of churches a lot of stuff going on all the time. Pretty safe in the centre region. Good anthropology muesum (so i heard). Awesome taco joint. 30c tacos with unlimited guacamole and jalepeño carrots. we ate here often. We didnt see much, but what we saw was pretty cool...even cramming onto the subway with thousands of other people(it moves 6 million people a day)was a funnish experience...worth it, even just for the tacos...

The amount of moustaches in Mexico 10/10.

Everyone (male, usually) over the age of 35 has one. So thats about 130 million people. I also have one (6/10).

Teotihucan 7/10.

Old Aztec ruins, has the 3rd largest pyramid in the world (the 2 biggest are in Egypt) really big site to walk around, heaps of smaller ruins and ancient paintings to look at. fun times. I also bought this little clay cougar head whistle thing, which sounds like a cougar snarling when you blow through it. I have not seen or heard a live cougar, but it sounds real...

Cañon de sumidero: 9/10

(Worth a google) Awesome canyon in southern Mexico. You get to cruise down the river for a bout 2 hours with walls 1km high either side + the added attraction of seeing the hydroelectric power station at the end of the river. We also saw 26 crocodiles. google it.

Palenque:

Google it. We were going to go there, but a landslide in the mountains blocked the road for 4 days and we didnt make it. will fill in the details on our way back...

San pedro lago Atitlan 7/10

Really nice setting. A lake surrounded by heaps of mountains, small villages and 3 volcanos. We climbed one of the volcanos and go the SWEETEST view ever. Il put photos up on here in about 4 months when im home and have my film developed. cool chill out place...more gringos the guatemantecos though...rach and I will be heading back here in a few days to do another 2 weeks of spanish school...

Quetzaltenango, Guatemala 5/10

We have been here for 2 weeks studying in a spanish school. The school is great, but 5 hours of intense 1 v 1 spanish classes really does your head in. But you learn fast. Think i have learnt more in the past two weeks than in the last 2 years at uni. Theres no sleeping in the back of the classes here, the teachers is about 35cm away and grilling you for 5 hours + homework. haha. Ive got a sweet teacher, a wise old owl who knows everything about the history of guatemala. So if i even need a brain breather, i just ask him a political question and it usually buys me about 45 minutes...haha... the weather here is crazy, between 5pm - 8am it can get down too -4 degrees, but from 8am to 5pm its about 30 degrees...so were keen to move on to somewhere a little warmer...

Carros locos (crazy cars) 10/10

The way dodgem cars should be. No seatbelts. No specific direction (head on contact permitted, usually encouraged). 10 minute time limit. Pretty much no rules. We had 7 gringos going mad on the dodgems (with heaps of locals watching the carnage)...no better way to bring out the inner kid...(not that i needed any help with that) best 60c ive ever spent...

Anyway, my internet is almost up - going to make the most of the remaining sun and play bit of futbol with some mates from the spanish school. Having heaps of fun, meeting heaps of cool people, and have had a lot of cool little experiences along the way...i guess ive just written the boring stuff in here...sorry. Just believe me, were having a GREAT time over here. Hope you are well wherever you are!

take it easy :) andy

Mexico...

2010-11-23T13:34:00.001-08:00

Hello friends,

Its travel time again, hence why i am writing in my blog. Im heading over to Mexico and possibly a few extra central american countries (currently have almost nothing planned)...Hoping to do a language school down in Guatemala as well, but we'll see how that turns out. My little sister rachel is also jumping on board, so there should be a few fun adventures down the track. Anyway i leave for the airport in about 17 minutes and still have some packing to finalise - so id better hop too it. Hope life is great for you wherever you are - i hope to write in this every month, which im sure the 2 people reading this will be excited about... Take it easy :) andy

Pictures.

2010-03-01T01:58:00.001-08:00

Heres a few pics from my adventures. I only have a film camera, so my own photos will be developed in a few months. Thanks to the people i scabbed these from.

4 guys on a lift. Silverstar, Canada.

3 guys on the snow. Silverstar.

magic. Silverstar.

same as above. (won't delete for some reason)

aussie invasion. Kelowna, Canada.
(All my photos are on film, on the camera hanging around my neck.)

Big White.

Big Shawn White.

Massive goggles. Big white.

Oasis. Ica, Peru.

Juan with his new wheelchair and sister. Satipo, Peru.

Juan Carlos(and bro) with fernando. Satipo.

Local family with some supplies.

Happy kids + pirate (dog)
(this is the guy that climbed up me like a coconut tree - read a few posts back)

little Marcos. (notice the housing)

Delivery run.
Those mattresses were held on with one piece of string(and didnt budge).

Local family(super cool and hospitable).

home time.

2010-03-01T01:45:00.000-08:00

Remember when the school bell used to ring at the end of the day and how stoked you were to get out of there. Well the bell has rung on my overseas adventure (for now). As fun as it is coming home to see family and friends, the excitement of travelling doesnt quite match up to sitting in lectures and writing essays. 10 days ago i was snowboarding some of the best slopes in the world, in 10 hours i will be in a classroom. The upside is that with uni you get 6 months holidays a year (tough), which noone could possibly complain about. So it wont be long and i will be out there again. Had a rad time in Peru, then a week each in canada and the US hanging with some aussie mates and getting in a bit of snowboarding, awesome times. Anyway im back in Aus now and will be for a least 3 months - hopefully il get to catch up with anyone reading this. If your in Australia give me a shout. If your overseas, also give me a shout, harass me to visit and give me even more reasons to keep travelling. Thanks for reading and have fun. Until next time, take it easy :) andy

lost in translation...

2010-02-16T12:26:00.000-08:00

hello friends,

i hope this post finds you well. I am now up in Kelowna, Canada visiting a few mates. I originally came up here to see one guy from back home, and ended up finding out that i know 4 people in the area. Its always cool catching up with mates from back home (and snagging some free accom and net time...joking...not)

So i left Peru about a week ago, the last few days in Satipo were pretty hectic - racing around to visit some families and hand out a few more items to help some disabled kids there. We had a really great time back in Satipo, met some fantastic people and felt really welcome there. We were always invited into people homes for meals, we got invited out to peoples farms out in the jungle, invited to play soccer games, we even helped train a local satipo youth team. We had a fantastic time there, caught up with old friends and made many more new ones. I hope that we were able to help out a few families out in Satipo and i look forward to going back out there in a few years time and seeing the progress of the kids and catching up with our ever growing number of good friends out there.

One of our friends from Lima drove out to Satipo and brought some wheelchairs and other equipment that wasnt available in Satipo. We got a lift with her back into Lima with a few days to hang out. This included going to a part of the city where theres heaps of knocked off clothing sold. Its kind of a district which is known for being pretty dangerous, so dangerous that there is a fence around a 5 block area to keep to undesirables inside. So its kind of like an urban jail, which you are free to try your luck wandering around in. I am not sure why i was taken to this place...and since i have already been mugged twice in Lima on previous visits, i was pretty alert...but i survived.

We also did a roadtrip down to Ica, where we did some sand buggying and sand boarding. Sandbuggying is where you jump in a dodgy looking buggy with a massive old V8 motor and some tiny peruvian man flogs it around the sand dunes. Kind of like a rollercoaster, without the tracks or security measures. We did a bit of sandboarding, which is kind of fun, really difficult to do standing up so most people usually just toboggan down.

I was due to fly out thursday morning at 00:45. But somehow, this time got lost in translation and they thought it was midday on thurday (instead of midnight) so at about 8pm wednesday we were about 2 hours south of Lima down the coast in a sweet holiday house on the beach. I knew we should probably leave soon, so i reminded them that i had to be at the airport in a few hours. The we all realised what had happened, so we scrambled to get everything in the car and hit the highway(they had planned to stay there that night and leave on thursday, i didnt know this). So all ended well i made it to the airport with heaps of time to spare. The only problem was i had most of my clothes at the laundrymat(?), which i thought would have been open pretty late. It wasnt. So long story short, Im now in Kelowna, Canada with daily temperature highs of 5 degrees and i have about 20% of my clothes. haha. good times.

Anyway, I am here and loving canada despite only seeing a small amount of it. I went snowshoeing on sunday (hiking with this tennis raquet type things on your feet) and am planning to go snowboarding for the next few days up at big white and silver star. Next week il bus it down to montana to catch up with an old mate from Aus. Then its back on the plane and back to uni a few hours later.

This post has been pretty rushed and a bit scattered, but all is well. Im having a great time and packing a lot into my final few weeks here. Not much time for the net so il fill you in on all the details when i get home. Hope life is great where you are. Take it easy. andy

marshmallows for breakfast...

2010-02-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

It seems that noone in Peru(or maybe all of south america) eats cereal for breakfast. Cereal is pretty much all i have ever eaten for breakfast and im not about the stop now. After scouring all of Satipo we came across a selection of 4 types of cereal. The best of these are little vanilla cornflakes with tiny marshmallows, so thats what ive been eating for the last one and a half weeks(and with 40grams of sugar per 100, i can almost feel my teeth decaying as i munch down)...fun times...oh yeah, and the only milk they have is long life milk...warm. Breakfast, best meal of the day!

The transport strike ended saturday 2 weeks ago, and we were able to get a bus out to satipo that night, prime seats, numbers 1 and 2. Also prime seats for viewing a head on crash, which occur rarely, but more often than you would like. We got out here safely (obviously) and checked into the majestic hotel , the one we stayed in last time. Its been really cool catching up with people who we havnt seen for a year or two. Things change really slowly out here, so most people were still in the same jobs, hanging out in the same spots, playing soccer on the same pitch on the same night of the week at the same time...

We came out here to almost 2 years ago to construct a school for disabled kids. We made great progress whilst we were here, and the project was supposed to be finished a few months after we left. But it wasnt. That is still the case, there has been progress(they built a sweet fence the whole way around the complex) but the buildings still arnt finished. After talking with the council we have been assured that at least two of the buildings will be finished by June. Over here a lot of things are supposed to be finished in a few months, but end taking 6 or 7 years... I am hopeful that this will not be the case with out project, as there is growing pressure on the mayor (theres an election in october) and some support groups really pushing for the centre to be completed. We will see. About an hour ago Fernando and I gave a live TV interview for about 20mins, Fernando has already made a documentary about the project which is currently being edited and given about 7 radio interviews. All this publicity is really raising awareness about the disabled kids in Satipo and we have had many people come knock on our hotel door and tell us about families with disabled kids they want us to come and visit, which is the main reason we are here.

Our main focus at the moment is helping the families of the kids directly. we have been racing around in mototaxis visiting the families and have had some really cool times. The families have been really welcoming and keen to let us into their lives. So far we have visited 15 different families and provided them with hygiene packs (laundry equipment, soaps, shampoo, kitchen items, bedding, mattresses, clothing etc) and also school supplies for the kids (backpacks, books, colouring in stuff, pencils, reading books etc). We have also tried to source some specialist equipment that would make the lives of the child/family a lot easier. We have ordered some custom showering chairs from a local carpintero, crutches, we have two wheelchairs and a metal walking frame coming from Lima, some custom leg braces made for a little girl etc. Its really cool to be able to help the families with these items that they would otherwise have no chance of obtaining, as they get no help from the government, no welfare etc. The kids are pretty stoked to get some new stuff as well, and excitied to go back to school to use their new school books. One little boy with downs syndrome ran over and climbed up me (like you would a coconut tree) to give me a hug. It is a weird experience been climbed up...

Having a really sweet time out here, really glad im able to help in some small way. Im out of here on Sunday going to be a bit sad saying goodbye to eveyone again, but i will be back and i will speak spanish perfect... hope life is great where ever you are, remember to be thankful for what you have. take it easy kids :) andy

smooth sailing...

2010-01-20T05:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, i know i am super keen. Two blog entries a few days apart. Its mainly due to the massive demand for my blog and all the people that have been hounding me to write every day (cheers Melena). Anyway i have arrived in Lima, and get to hang out it my least favourite city in the world for about 30 more hours before we jump on the Satipo express tomorrow night. I havent been mugged yet (ive been here more than 5 hours), which is good but i have nothing i want to do here, so ive mainly just been talking to people, eating the complimentry breakfast bread with strawberry jam (locally made, im sure it has dirtgrit in it, not kidding) and jumping on the free net while i have little else to do and also dont have to pay an outrageous 25cents an hour for it...

The story thus far (and i havnt even done anything yet...)

DK (Dad) was driving me down to the airport and we hit something on the road which resulted in a flat tyre. No worries, spare type...oh yeah thats flat as well (thanks Kate) so DK was scrambling around and time was ticking for me to get to my flight so thought id just stick the thumb out and hitch there. worked a treat, so cool old dude picked me up and dropped me at the airport no worries. (Ps. anyone driving the mighty colt, it also has a flatshredded spare.)

At the airport my flight was cancelled, so went on the next one to sydney. That one happened to arrive after my connecting flight was supposed to have left. I was told they were waiting for me, had to check in and found out i needed a visa waiver for the US. So i had to run to a free internet kiosk and fill out the online application. Had to go through express1st class security and all the Vaustralia staff were lined along the path to the gate clapping me on (i was running). they closed the door probably less than 1 second after i got on the plane. heaps of people glaring at me...not sure why...

Got to LAX and jumped in a shuttle to a dodgey hostel, the shuttle driver had only been working for 3 days, and i later found out had only had his license for 2 weeks...cool and he was driving a motorhome sized bus around the busiest airport in the world...funny times...he was telling me all his techniques, which were pretty much indicate early and cut people of nicely...

Up the next day at 6am for a flight to Lima via houston...everything went well, pulled into Lima this morning at about midnight and just slept on the ground with the guys i was sitting next too...second longest 6 hours of my life. Then once the sun peaked up over the horizon i jumped on a mini bus and cruised into mirafloreshostel. The transport options leaving the airport are (1) registered taxi s60 (2) illegal taxi s20 (3) bus s2. I always go the busses, thats how the locals travel...and you feel thankful to be alive when you get to the other end. The busses are pretty much clapped out toyota hiaces, fly along super quick and brake so late...i reckon these guys would outbreak shumacher going to a hairpin bend, with 15 year old drum brakes...

cool people list.
-managed to meet some super cool people on my trip...

-couple from colchester in england, they restore old triumph motorcycles
-surf photographer american junk food importer
-travelcuisine author
-guy from ohio with 15 siblings (same parents)
-2 yanks also doing some volunteer work in Peru
- random old lady from akansas.
- aussie snowboard instructor heading to ohio with glow-in-the-dark shoes.

Hope this post finds you well, dont get too excited about the frequency of this post i probably wont write again till i get home. stay tuned for some oldschool film photos in about 3 months. take it easy. andy

The hard life.

2010-01-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

hello friends,
Its your aussie battler andy here. I havnt written on here for a while because i havnt been overseas for a while, but thats all about to change in about 3 hours. Quick update for last year:
- went to uni- cannot believe i shunned it for so long, its a way easier life than working full time.
- enjoyed sweet uni holidays.
- worked about 3 weeks for the year and then have spent the last 3 and a half weeks roadtripping around aus with a few mates and watching the cricket.

So as you can tell life has been pretty hard. In a few hours im jumping on a plane to Peru (Landing in Lima, my least favourite city in the world) and going back to visit Satipo, the town we did some volunteer work at back in 2008. Im going back with a mate to check the progress and do some more volunteer work with disabled children from the area. It will be interesting to see how it all works out as i feel quite unprepared, but we cannot plan much until we get there and assess the situation. I will be out in Satipo for about 3 weeks and will keep you updated how we get on.

After Peru i fly back to the States and will either catch a bus south to the mexican border and travel around down there for a few weeks or fly up north to canada to catch up with some old mates and maybe to a bit of snowboarding(or alternatively just freeze in the snow somewhere).

As you may be able to tell no aspects of my trip are very well planned, but with that comes the ability to be spontanious and take random opportunities when they come up- which is half the fun of travelling. Better run still got a few things to pack, dont worry, ive got my ticket this time. Hope this post finds you well, take care kids. :) andy

70c wind camera...70c quality

2009-02-09T02:53:00.000-08:00

salt lake, Penong, South australia

Nullabor Plain, Middle of Nowhere, Australia

karate kids, Japan (I in orange hat)

local fishing boats, Huanchaco, Peru

Mountains, Vilcabamba, Ecuador

(just to prove that i did some climbing, actually this photo doesnt prove anything...)

street action, Piura, Peru

Sigsig, ecuador. The make grass hats here.

Train 'the devils nose' Riobamba, Ecuador (you go up that mountain in the middle)

The photo you were all waiting for: 80's retro wetsuit

with Sambo, Chicama, Peru

One of the longest breaks in the world, Chicama, Peru

On a good day they reckon you can get 4 minute rides.

Punta Hermosa, South of Lima. Peru

No drink driving.

Boat builders. Chicama, Peru

2 months late...

2009-02-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

hey kids,

hope this post finds you well. Im not sure what you know, but if you still think or have been told that im somewhere in the south american jungles chasing something around then you are wrong. I have actually been home for almost 2 months. I have been procrastinating this blog for ages, and have been doing a few things out of internet reach as well, but this arvo i find myself with a few minutes to let you out of the darkness. (unless you already knew i was back...)

(As this happened probably 3 months ago, i cant promise that all details are correct. Ill try my best but please be aware that some names, dates, locations and events may not be 100% correct.)

I eventually got on the right bus up to Piura, one of the northern most towns on the peruvian coast and switched onto another bus for guayaquil, Ecuador and the straight onto another bus for Montanita a surf town on the coast. When i did my rough time estimation from Peru, i thought no more than 15 hours, but once again i was wrong and i ended up crusing in not far off midnight almost 24 hours later, nice. Montanita is pretty well known to backpackers, but it was the off season so there was a comfortable amount of people around. Found a cool backpackers (theres 60 in the town of about 80 buildings) and was pretty much just living with a family there, i was the only person staying in their rooms. The water was warm, like 23 or 24degrees, but the waves were small as, like 23 or 24cm. So i decided to just hang out as it was cheap and eventually sell my board and get into the jungle for some exploring. I made up some "se vende" signs to try and hock off my board and stuck them round the place, but didnt have much luck; but i wasnt concerned as it was a nice place to hang out. Met some cool dudes and enjoyed hanging out with the family (who seemed to be watching "zohan" everytime i went past the tv room). There was a great soccer tournament on, including a reggae band playing during the entire game with an announcer screaming over the music like his life depended on it. The pitch was an Ecuadorian classic made up with a base of crusher dust and a top layer of gravel(with grass half a metre tall in the corners only (where no one actually runs). The soccer was great and the atmosphere even better, and when the games had stopped the band jumped on the back of a truck and played continuously till 3am while driving around the town. Nice. After 3 days i was keen to move on, needed to get rid of my board (i had just learned that i couldnt take a surfy home on BA flights) so a made a "se vende" (for sale) sign and hung it over my board bag and walked around the streets, 2 mins later a Argentinian dude bought it ( i actually made $15, yeew!) 2 hours later i was on a a bus back to guayaquil. (after buying 4 wooden spinning tops, and meeting a texan spearfisherman in need a wetsuit; what a conincidence i still had my 80's retro suit. He was happy as he wouldnt freeze in the depths of the ocean, and i was happy as id helped keep 80's fashion alive and started a free communal wetsuit group, with that one wetsuit hopefully passed around between backpackers for years to come...)

Another overnight bus trip bought me to Banos (meaning baths) up in the mountains, it was a beautiful setting with the town situated in the valley with towering mountains and even a volcano surrounding on all sides. I found 'hotel las vegas' and got a room for $3, which included a bed and a light. The cold shower and toliet were outside. Spent the day exploring the town, with heaps of cool little shops and markets etc. Ate awesome breakfast at a market stall for $1 and just cruised around. Met some cool Algerian boys (also staying at las vegas) and hung out with them for a while, they even gave me a cuban cigar, i dont smoke but a cool gesture. The next day, was supposed to go hiking with the fellas, but couldnt find them, so just set off by myself. Met Alison, a cool american chick halfway up the mountain and hiked around and got lost and searched for the volcano (turned out we were looking at the wrong mountain) met a few cool other people up there hiking around including 3 dudes from norway searching for an alleged man who lives in a tree house and monitors the volcano activity (saw them the next day at the bus terminal and they hadnt found the treehouse man). That night went down to the hot baths and chilled out. Theres a whole range of pools ranging in temperature from 6 degrees to 45 degrees. Met some cool backpackers and locals, you can spot the gringos a mile away. The next night Alison was due to bus out to vilcabamba in the south, i went to the hot springs. I came back to vegas and the dude said " your friend Alison is here". It turned out a bit hectic for her getting onto the bus, and a guy had helped her put her bag in the storage underneath, closed it and she jumped on. It turned out he must have come back and stole her bag, so she returned to banos to sort some stuff out. So that was pretty unfortunate situation for her, but im sure its turned into a good travel story by now... Later we hired a dodgey chinese one-speed quad bike and zoomed up the volcano road about 10 mins before dark, managed to get a glimpse of it not totally covered by cloud. We also found the treehouse man. What a find! Rode back in the dark, almost hit 2 kids playing on the road. (the light shone about 1.5m in front of the bike)

A few days later i jumped on a bus to riobamba, and hopped on a train called 'the devils nose' apparently one of the steepest rails in the world, where the train uses a series of switchbacks to descend. (goes forward, then reverses on a different track, then forward again) To be honest, i didnt find it overly exciting and a bit lame. Made it down to vilcabamba on my journey south back down to peru. Another town simliar to Banos, surrounded by mountains and really beautiful, had a great time hiking and meeting people. One day i set out for a hike at 8am, and ended up just chatting to people along the way (including sharing a papaya in the main square, helping push a bogged car out of mud, and chatting to a local cowboy) by 4pm i still hadnt made it to the start of the trail...i ended up giving it a miss.

Vilcabamba was my last real stop in South america and my long, fast trip home began. I had 2 overnight busses down to lima, one night rest there, then 2 overnight flights to london. I had planned to spend 10 hours in new york running around and looking at stuff, but ended up missing a connection, so enjoyed my 10 hours inside an airport terminal instead. I only just made my flight out of jfk, new york by 45 mins.

Spent 5 nights in England, and was able to spend them all in different locations. It was great catching up with mates from years back, most of whom i hadnt seen for years. It was ace! I was pretty stuffed tearing round the country, but its always worth it when you get to hang out with some cool cats. Shipped out of Heathrow to Narita, Japan Via Helsinki. Only spent 1 night there, stayed in a rad hostel and spent my 2 days, riding bikes around, trying to speak to locals with charade actions, and eating noodles and tofu (as it was all i could afford) Met some rad people there and really enjoyed the hospitality there, the people are so nice (but then again, maybe they were impressed by my fluent 2 words of Japanese, konichiwa & origato (fluent in speech only)).

And it was then on the plane to Brisbane, only 5 people knew i was coming home. Was met by Bro ben and Jasmine (girlfriend) and shot up the coast where there was a surprise party organised for my mums 50th birthday. I managed to sneak up and surprise her, she screamed right in my ear for about 5 minutes. (About half way through i was wondering if i had made the right decision to go for the surprise option)

So its been nice, being home for the summer with the family and enjoy some nice sun and surf (as opposed to the english winter) Since ive been back, ive gone for a road trip down to sydney, and have just come back from a 3 week road trip across to Perth (the other the side of the country) we clocked up almost 7000km and it was rad seeing a bit more of my own country, as i seem to do most of my sightseeing overseas.

So theres a bit of a rough overview of my last few months, it all seems very rushed and a bit random. Heaps more happened then what ive been able to bash out on the keyboard, tons more stories, heaps more cool people, more locations. For now, ill be hanging in Aus for at least 8 months as im going to attempt uni this year, but still plan to get out in the long summer break (savings allowing). I know what your thinking, and yes you're right. If im going to uni i'd better learn how to spell, punctuate, and write proper paragragh, not least a sentence. Your spot on.
(I have an aunty whos an english teacher, she said it made her physically sick to read my blog).

Thanks for reading, until next time. take it easy :) andy

ps. ill chuck some pictures from my $0.70 camera up soon.

Travelling with the third man...

2008-11-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

hey kids,

Hope this note finds you well. Life is great over this side of the world, happy, healthy and heading north towards the sunshine and warm water...yeeew!

Jasmine flew out of Lima to New York a few weeks ago. I was pretty keen to catch a bus to the airport and save about 10 times the amount of taking a taxi. Only problem was that when your looking for a certain bus it never seems to come. We ended up taking 2 and switching halfway, a great plan as it worked out cheap; but also not so great as it took ages and cut Jasmines quality airport time down a bit. She ended up having a few complications with her ticket (ask her) and only ended up resolving them 30 minutes before departure time. Then i saw her being pushed out in a wheelchair(thought she may have stacked it down some stairs or something), but no it turns out it was a time saving ploy to rush her through security and immigration. Thats fantastic...think i might leave my next run to the airport a bit late and see how i go...

Again the lone ranger, i set out to find a surfboard and then some waves. Spent 2 days going to EVERY surf shop in Lima, struggled to find what i was looking for, and boards over here are really expensive and locally made ones were pretty poor quality. Was pretty keen to get out of Lima (read previous post) and had arranged to meet sambo (read a few posts ago) 3 months late in a surf spot "punta hermosa", 45 mins south of Lima. Eventually made it to a surf house and met some cool dudes, one of which was selling a good board for 100 bucks (with a broken fin plug) pretty much because he was too lazy to fix it. The repair ended up costing 10 bucks. You little ripper! Also managed to buy an oldschool 70´s wetsuit, which seemed like a bargain at the time, but upon actually wearing it, i realised it had left all its warmth in the 70´s.

Sambo rocked up a few days later and we have spent a great (almost) 2 weeks, heading north to various surf spots on the Peruvian coast.We crammed both boards into one bag, but usually still get hit with paying for an extra person, for the room in the bus it takes up. So we now have a new friend we have to take everywhere with us "the third man". We also have to carry him everywhere, were paying for him, the least he could do is carry his own weight. We have surfed Punta Hermosa, Huanchaco, Chicama (one of the longest waves in the world, when its cranking you can ride for up to 4 minutes - look it up on google images) and pacasmayo. We havnt had the best swells, but still got a some ripper waves. Waves here are a lot more tricky than the ones i am used to in Aus. Heaps of rocks, you either have to walk over them (always with barnacles) paddle around them, surf around them, try not to get dumped on your head on them. There is usually a massive current (especially the points) so you are constantly paddling, but with a water temperature of about 16 degrees( and dodge wettie) you need it to stay warm. It had been 8 months since my last surf in Aus, and to be honest im a bit rusty and dont quite have the best paddling fitness, but have still had a great time and look forward to coming back in a few years (when im in my prime) and shredding some more...

My 70´s wetsuit also had a 70´s plastic zipper, which decided to pack it in one day. All the teeth were slowly falling out and it was only just hanging together when it just carked it. There are quite a few strong industries in Peru, wetsuit zipper repairs isnt one of them. Eventually wound up at a shoe repair man, who only had a small size zipper (like what you would need for a purse) not the tough type i would need for my extreme sporting action. This is cool... he went around the back of the shop and came out with his oldschool sports jacket (containing robust zip) and offered to cut it off his jacket and sew it onto my wetsuit. I didnt want to ruin his jacket, but he insisted. So one hour later i rock up to find a hardcore metal zipper perfectly stitched onto my wetsuit. What a legend! and how much did that set me back?... $3. ACE!

Have met some great characters on my travels from Pot smoking Brazilians(and pretty much every surfy dude) right up to a surgeon from Florida. The Surgeon said the place we were staying was the worst place he had been; it was the best hotel i have stayed in, in all of South America...serious. Sam mentioned that we were living on $10 a day (don´t worry, it buys a lot mum) he said he was spending us$10,000 on his 2 week holiday. We met him at Chicama, the long wave, usually you walk out to the point about 1km, then catch waves back to the start(also mega strong current) then walk back to the point again. Not Doc. He hired a private boat to pick him up at the end and drive him back out to point. Nice. haha. Total other end of the scale to the way I am travelling. To be honest, Ill be thankful if i get back to aus with $10 in my pocket. Thats one of the things i love about travelling, the variety of places you visit and the variety of people you meet, from all walks of life, all religious backgrounds, all financial levels etc. Love it.

(Doc also got his surfboard caught in a finshing net. Funny as. Theres some things money can´t buy! Even the Doc couldn´t afford that...haha)

Anyways my quest for sunshine and warm water was off to a rough start. I was supposed to be in ecuador 2 days ago, but am still 10 hours south of the border. I had a ticket up there, then i was waiting for the bus, and it turns out there wasnt even a bus there. The guy a bought a ticket off was about 75, so maybe he had his times mixed up. Anyways second attempt is tonight, im heading up to the border, and Sambo is heading south to cusco. Righto, thats about up to date, so many small cool things have happened, i dont have time to mention the here, but thats a snapshot of what ive been up too in the last few weeks. I shall send a new report from the country of the equator in a couple of weeks. Take care kiddos. andy

Digital photos (from jasmine)

2008-11-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

Monkey country, Satipo, Peru

Dang! Knew i shouldn´t have chosen to travel by horse and cart.

footpath and photocopy shop, La Paz, Bolivia.

Old mate. Cool beard. Somewhere in Peru.

Rambo chikens, best (and toughest) chiken around. Satipo, Peru.

$2 gets you $2 worth of quality.
( not including anything other than a thin straw mattress on wooden slats)

La union, a.k.a middle of nowhere, Peru.

La Paz, Boliva.

Tourists in Cusco. (notice ipod)

No new photos...

2008-10-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

From thew moment i landed in Lima, i hated it. Im not a bit city person at the best of times, but Lima especially i didnt like. I never wanted to go back there, unless i absolutely had too. One of my good mates Jazz flew down from Mexico - to Lima. So naturally i went there to meet her. I still didnt like Lima. One day we were searching for a random market, and walked down some wrong streets. We got mugged twice, in 5 minutes. Not that i needed another reason to dislike Lima, but i had two more in a very short space of time. It was a very surreal experience, all happened in slow motion( like they always say) we were walking along and then noticed 5 teenagers walking quite close behind us...im thinking this isnt great. Then all of a sudden i felt this hand slam into my right pocket and another one fumbling for my left. They werent overly strong and i was able to kind of push them off and of fend them away, but with 5 pairs of hands against one, they eventually grabbed my camera(which was looped around my belt) and were able to snap the strap off and then they darted over the highway and out of sight. Dang! thought that strap was a bit stronger...very weird experience...other then shoving them away-kind of like an NFL defensive linesmen- i didnt fight back very severely. I know i can kick pretty hard, and i guess i could punch pretty hard as well...and i remember thinking i should just smash this guy in the head, but i didnt. And im still not sure why...surely you have the right to fight back if you are attacked...Another group came back to try again, managed to fend them off much better, but still lost my vans adventure hat. At the end of the day neither of us got hurt and thats the main thing... so sorry guys, all those photos that i promised...wont be ending up here. But if you scout thru a few pawn shops in Lima you might just find a 4gb memory card with a few of andys snaps on it...

fear not, i have replaced my camera with an old school film camera i got from a flea market, cost me 85cents...maybe dont hold your breath for photos from that either...

So ive been travelling with Jasmine for almost a month, having some great times, went north of lima to huaraz, and then have come south, the inland route and hardly seen any gringos. ACE! had some great bus rides one of the best was 137km and we did it in a tick under 8 hours (work that out folks, thats less than 20km/h ) we were sitting in the luggage section and the road was rough dirt the whole way. kind of like having a jackhammer as suspension. The whole way. There were a few corners that were a bit sharp for the bus, so old mate had to do a 3 or 5 point turn to make it around. One corner he had the nose hanging over a 50m cliff and he had to get a passenger to run out and put rocks under the front tires to prevent any rolling over that cliff while he attempted to reverse back. Once we even had to all get off the bus while the driver negotiated a massive ditch, with rock wall one side and cliff the otherside. We have spent almost 100hours on these types of busses and roads...so far, we still have a week to go.

Stayed in some great places, including a concrete garden shed ( hospedaje) at a bus station. No shower, no toilet (included a candle) and a nail and piece of wire as the lock. Nice. cant expect too much for $1.65 a night. It was actually Jasmines birthday that night, lucky i organised the penthouse suite. (hey, at least we had a candle for light)

Travelled south down through Satipo, Cuzco, Lake Titicaca and are now in La Paz Bolivia. Went to the Uros Islands at Titicaca, they are islands made of reeds and they just float around, about and hour off the coast. I heard there was an SDA church there as well (it floats) but our boat didnt stop at that island, so we hired this dude sitting there to row us in his little boat over there, it was great we got in front of the congregation and said g"day to them all on behalf of the SDAs in Australia, they loved it, and so did we. Great experience. Fell in the water both times, trying to get in and out of old mates little boat...

Tried teaching Jasmine to ride a motorbike in Satipo. She was doing great, until we got the wobbles and almost went off a 15m cliff into the river. luckily there was a mound of dirt we got stuck on and were able to see-saw on long enough to get under control and not end up having to buy old mate a new bike.

Now in La Paz, Bolivia. About 4 weeks ago they were on the brink of a civil war, but i think the situation has calmed down a bit since then - at least it looks like it has. Althought yesterday they was a peacefully demonstration march down the main street. about 100,000 maybe even more, im not joking. But it has been peaceful. Its a cool city here. Ill show you photos one day, but youll have to come round to see them.

Anyways rough plan is to drop Jasmine off back in Lima next wednesday (she flies out, im not just leaving her...) then surf up the coast to eucador / columbia and chill out for a while. Thats the plan, we´ll see how i go. heaps more cool stuff has happened but im tried of typing ill tell you later. hope this note find you well. take it easy kids. andy

conjugating in my sleep...

2008-09-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

the title sounds sus, but its not...

hi kids, how are you? Hope this find you well. I havnt really moved very far since my last writing, im currently living in Salta, Northern Argentina. Since last time, ive just hooned up north, passing many cool rock formations and much cactus action. The scenery is rad up here, its pretty much total arid desert, heaps of shrubs, cactus and rocks, rocks, rocks. When i first pulled into Salta it was 35 degrees and dry. A really nice change form down south where i had to wear my snowboard pants for weeks straight...

So i got here just before the weekend 3 weeks ago, and stayed in a hostel for a couple of days...in my dorm there was only one other guy, from France...i used some of my spare time to repair a hole in my jeans, at which time french mate came back, and he too had a whole in his shorts, so we had a great time doing a bit of sewing, comparing techniques etc... great fun...

Yeah, went to church on Saturday, and depsite not being able to speak the best spanish, met some really cool people. Got invited home for lunch by a young married couple who could speak about 10 words of english between them, and i have ended up living at the blokes mums place every since. Its heaps of fun, and a great way to learn Spanish, at first, it was really difficult as all of them spoke pretty much no english and I very little spanish...but they were making such an effort to learn english to make it easier for me...funny as...i came back from an arvo run and they were all crowded around this massive spanish-english dictionary trying to learn words...cool as. I have since put bits of paper all round the house with the translations on them so we are all learning together... fun times...spanish is a cool language but its quite different to english in many ways...for example, each verb has about 40 different forms depending on who your talking about and in what tense...thus the challenge is conjugating the right verb for the right instance...i conjugate verbs in my dreams...

The family i live with, live right on the outskirts of the city, in the lower income area. I increasingly find that the people who have the least in terms of material possesions are almost always heaps more generous than the rich. The house we live in is all concrete, about a foot thick...the only wood are the door and window frames...the rest solid concrete. No carpet, rugs or anything. The house is always cold. Its like a big concrete fridge, even when its 30 degrees outside you have to wear a jumper inside. Really great family, and they wont let me pay board or buy anything...so i have to get up early and race the mum to the markets and buy everything before her...i have recently repaired an old bike from under the house, so of late i have been winning the early morning market races...( a got a puncture this arvo..might be a battle in the morning...)

The family insist i stay here for my birthday, and they have some sort custom in which everyone in the house pulls the ears of the birthday person for the age they are turning...they love this joke and talk about it almost every day at some point..they cant wait...i told them im going to sneak out and run away the night before...

so ill stay here about another week before heading north too meet up with jazz and for a change of scenery. Its been heaps of fun here, i am sort of a local celebrity here, with kids coming and crowding around my internet booth staring at the strange language i type in, or waiting till i finish and mobbing me to play football with them...(theyre good)...so ive made heaps of friends in age range of 6-10....(and even my own age as well!) fun times!...anyways hope this post finds you well. take care kids. andy

fotos de sudamerica.

2008-09-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

mtv midnight moshing

(to drown out disturbing neighbour noise @ dodge hotel/brothel)

Coquimbo, Chile - and the mountains 470km away, where we were supposed to be snowboarding.

I get asked to model all the time; just this once i gave in.

The andes: Chilean & Argentinian border

...and andes again.

Happy family: Buenos Aires

Punk is dead.

(...for those who couldnt work it out, i know its kind of a tricky catchphrase.)

Jumping on rocks. Tandil, Argentina

Man on a horse. For Ruth. Tandil, Argentina.

Fully loaded. Argentina

25cent Fair fairy Floss. Posada. Argentina

Iguazu Falls. Arg.

molly & ninja kid. Sao Paulo.

doll graffiti. Brazil

My name is earl. Saquarema, Brazil.

The three kids. Rio.

The three amigos, awaiting departure. Lima Airport. (i was supposed to travel with sambo for close to 2 months, but lost him after 3 days and havnt seen him since.)

andy stranded by andes...

2008-08-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

hi guys...

hope this post finds you well, i have quite a lot to catch up on, but not a lot of time. We left Buenos Aires a few weeks back. We were just going to jump on the bus like normal and head west towards the Chilean border - but i heard from a guy that you could catch a train to cordoba - roughly in the same direction - and it was really cheap. sweet as. Down at the train station, we found that it would cost us only 25 pesos (8 bucks) for the journey, instead of 90 on the bus..cool...but that was for the cheapest seats. we had to walk down to our carriage at the front of the train, at first the seats looked really good through the window...awesome...until we got down to our cheap carriage...and it was a bench seat, like those ones in old school buses...a wooden seat with about 5mm of padding, surrounded by a metal rail, unable to recline- always at 90 degree angle. Those buses that are uncomfortable to ride on for 15 minutes...it took us 17 hours to get to cordoba... apparently 7 hours longer then the bus... i didnt tell camilla that...

Had a quick look around cordoba for a day, then another overnight bus for mendoza...were going to stay in Mendoza for a day or two, but i heard about a cool little ski resort right on the slopes and thought we should have a look, so jumped straight on a bus for Los Penitentes. Fortunately, we were able to find some accommodation, despite everyone saying we wouldnt...it was in this little wood hut about 50 square metres, and had 26 peple crammed in...everywhere, sofas, floor, under the stairs...but was quite good fun...went out and mucked around in the snow till the end of the day. it was cold...about -10. Was dissapointed to find that it cost about the same as europe to snowboard there...dang. The plan was to continue over the andes the next day to Santiago, and ski some of the slopes close to there...(they have 4 awesome resorts less than an hour from the city) but the weather had other ideas...that night there was a huge blizzard for about 15 hours and we woke to the news that the pass would be closed for at least 4 days(it can be closed for up to a month in extreme conditions) we were told we would be lucky if we could get anywhere at all...for 4 days... wasnt overly keen to be stuck in the little hut for another 4 days... luckily in the arvo someone came in yelling that there was a bus back to mendoza outside...yeeew...we ran for that bus and are glad we did...as that road as well got blocked by an avalanche the next day...so we were back in mendoza to wait for a while. Found a cool hostel, with cool people, I was cooking on the stove next to a chef from new york, who was giving me some quality tips on my spaghetti and veggie recipe i am trying to perfect. He said it looked good, but didnt taste it... spent the next few days cruising around and doing some day trips to the surrounding mountains and lakes...the scenery in so beautiful...hopefully ill have some photos soon...

mmm... so, disappointed that we didnt get to board in Argentina, we got on the net and searched for accom to book in advance for chile. all the resort places were full, and expensive anyway. the hostel website, reccommended a place called Coquimbo, on the outskirts of Santiago 21km away from the slopes...ripper. lock it in... We eventually got out of Mendoza on the bus to santiago, spent 5 hours at the border trying to get thru...along with the rest of the backlogged traffic...the line of trucks was, no joke, about 10km long...pulled into santi about 11pm and just crashed in the city with a few aussie dudes we met on the bus... next day jumped up to head out to the place we booked...at the bus station they guy said it leaves in 1 minute... so we just ran and jumped on the bus, no ticket, nothing. After about 30mins, we thought we should be almost there now...its only 20km away...then we bought tickets and they were very expensive for that trip...then looking out the window saw the beach...the mountains arnt on the beach...we thought we might as well see where we are going...the end result was, we ended up 470km north of Santiago in a smallish port town of Coquimbo. Random, but i really liked it and had a great time there, stayed in a massive french mansion, almost 200 years old, which had been converted into a hostel. There werent many people, there but they were all cool as...

Didnt end up going snowboarding after all, after all our efforts...i even bought snowboard pants...looks like ill have to sort out a trip to japan... Camilla flew out 2 days ago, so andy is back to being a lone ranger...both hostels i have stayed at since, i have been the only person staying...usually they are a good place to meet people..haha...so im in San Juan, Argentina at the moment, and heading north towards Bolivia. Having heaps of fun, Argentina is a great country, really cool landscapes...really varied, Like Australia. Have been meeting some really cool people(apart from last 2 hostels...haha), my spanish is still very average, i can get where i want to go quite well (except booking hostels on the net, which i have never been a fan of...) but my conversational skills are still quite poor. Hoping to get away from english speakers in Bolivia and do some volunteer work. well see how that works out. Ill keep you posted...ok thats enought computer, im going to explore San Juan...woohoo! andy

beaches, brothels & boca...

2008-08-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

ps. i love travelling... i have just spent 20 minutes speaking with an argentinian guy...he spoke about 7 words or english (not including his 1-10 numbers) i speak a few more in spanish...but with a combination of charades, pictures, maps and the 20 words or so we both understand we managed to understand each other...love it. he will also be in bolivia in a few weeks, so i told him i will practice my spanish on the bus, and we'll meet up for a good chat...he was stoked...

Don't worry mum, i didnt actually go to a brothel. We got into sao paulo, brazil at about midnight, and walked around trying to find a reccommended hostel for half an hour. we decided to just jump in a taxi...but he took us back about 100m away from where we had started walking to some random dodge looking hotel. couldn't be bothered getting to the other place so just booked in for the night. few minutes later (and repeatedly through the night) our neighbours made some interesting and quite disturbing noises...yeah...luckily we had pay tv and were able to drown it out by cranking mtv...

i seem to be writing in reverse chronological ( not sure if thats spelt right...i had to write a word out for a spanish speaker last night, and realised how rubbish at spelling i have become...or always was) order we spent 10 days in brazil. flew into rio - pretty much just chilled on the beach and relaxed a bit, went to a futbol game. fluminese vs vasco. man it was sweet as, you cannot believe the passion these guys have for the sport - it is pretty much life or death, the game ended 3-3 heaps of action, fans going ape...seriously reminded me of a zoo, an out of control zoo. The fans, sing, yell and scream. Slap, punch and break chairs. slap, punch and break billboards and signs. Light flares, fires and seats...man its is awesome, the best atmosphere. Definitely the highlight of rio for me.

Then we moved onto saquarema for the weekend, a quiet sleepy surf town 2 hours north east of rio. pretty chilled out, not alot to do rather then hit the beach and cruise around.

An overnight bus trip took us to sao paulo, home to 12 million people, went up a skyscraper and all you can see is buildings and house disappearing into the smog, absolutely massive...stayed for 3 days and just cruised around, wasnt really to interested in the city, but found some things to do. most notable being the portugese museum, the only one in the world...must see in SP...(i didnt understand a word, but the pictures were ace.) Heaps of homeless people. ate cereal from the box, just tip the milk in. no bowl, no worries....

From SP another overnight bus took us to the iguazu falls on the border between paraguay, argentina and brazil. Small problem at the border, the girl stamped me into brazil again, instead of out. she copped a bit from her supervisor as well, poor kid. got that sorted and jumped on a local bus to the argentine side and started chatting to some british boys...started talking about england, and as things were revealed one guy worked at the same gym i did 2 years before and the other guys played in the band at newbold college church ( i remembered his face from somewhere...and they knew a few aussies i know as well) random, on a tiny local bus on the border of argentina... couldnt believe it... both sevvies as well...so cool....

did i mention i love travelling...thats another one of the reasons( and the main one) the people you meet...

iguazu falls are mad...in total 3km long an dup to 80m high...awesome. look it up on google images, that will explain everything...i cant put my pics on here yet...

5 hours down the road we stopped at san ignacio mini, home of some jesuit ruins...awesome... actually while youve got google open, just look that up as well- itll save me from explaining a lot. and if you see the paddock behind the ruins... we jumped the fence and camped there for the night, just for something to do...it was freezing and the ground was hard as...so kind of like sleeping in a fridge, a fridge with a concrete floor...

We are now in buenos aires, Argentina. its an awesome city(and i dont even like cities) , so much to do, but i am running out of time - today went to these massive street markets, about 1km long heaps of antiques and artists who sell their work, so heaps of original and cool work for sale...if only i had heaps of money and didnt have to carry everything on my back for the next few months...also saw another futbol game this arvo. boca juniors vs. jujuy. it was the first game of the season so all the fans were keen as, and had a few months of pent up yelling and singing to get out. the atmosphere was awesome. we were in the locals stand, the cheapest ( and dangerous, we were told) and you stand up and sing, yell, chant for the full 90 minutes...sweet as...they even have a full band in there leading all the chants...had a great time boca won 4-0 and all was sweet despite all the warnings recieved...

anyways, thats about 1% of what ive done, and not even the best - just what came to my head now - having a ripper time, meeting awesome people, and seeing some really cool places and experiencing some sweet culture (how good is my adjective range...ha) jumping on an overnight bus tomorrow to not sure where, but were making our way west towards chile where will get in a week of snowboarding before camilla jets home. hope all is well where you are. take it easy. andy

andy digs holes and puts concrete and steel in...

2008-07-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

hey kids,

time is flying over here. just to fill you in on the last couple of weeks. i didnt end up finding my plane ticket and had to buy a one way to LA. it cost me $2400. yeah, not really the ideal way to start a trip... flights all went well, didnt lose any luggage despíte 4 connecting flights to get to peru. cruised around lima for a day then met up with the rest of the team and caught an overnight bus 10 hours out to Satipo. the driver was crazy, overtaking around blind corners and stuff like that. pulled into satipo to help in the construction of a rehab centre for disabled kids. The building was supposed to have started2 months ago, but we found out that the entire design for the place had changed and the only progress they had made was 4 corner pegs in the ground, was pretty frustrating having worked so hard back home, so get over here and have nothing sorted out. But once we got here things started falling into place really well, weve been here 3 weeks, and in that time we have got all the massive footings in, fixed all the steel columns, and started bricking for all 4 buildings. they reckon we have done about 4 months work at local pace in 3 weeks. everything here is labour intensive, labour is cheap, machines are expensive, so its all man power. nothing is prefab, all made the hard, slow way...but its been really cool working with the local blokes and seeing the way they build things. The rest of the group left satipo today to go on a one week tour. stevo, sam and I are staying here to work for a bit longer. Had an awesome time, working, meeting the locals and touring around a bit. Time has gone so fast, seems like about 4 days since we got here. next sunday i fly to brazil and im sure there will be many adventures to be had. hope all is well and ill keep you posted. andy

ps. we have a awesome blog covering the details of our trip, heaps of photos and proper details, not like mine...check it out www.project-peru.blogspot.com

satipo photos

2008-07-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

some of the local kids trying out their english, it was about as good as my spanish- my spanish is rubbish...but its fun giving it a crack.

renee and i sampling some local guinea pig, tasty!

i look full on scary .

we had a presentation service from the mayor, was a bigger function than expected. all the parents of the disabled kids were there. had to get up the front and do a speech to thank everyone. my shirt was fully dusty and dirty. didnt really realise till i got there.

jorge and jesus some of the good blokes running the constuction site.

an orphanage room, this is the entire possesions of 40 girls.

kid eating a chicken foot.

Get your backpack out!

2008-06-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Above is a photo of my backpack. Its been sitting in my wardrobe for about 20 months(my clothes are all neatly stacked on the floor), and is a tad on the mouldy side. Hence the reason its in the sun. But tomorrow my backpack is going to south america, and the cool thing is...i get to go as well, rad! Yeah so its been a long time coming, i dont think ive even been on a plane since returning to aus- but thats all going to change very very soon...and my backpack is still in the sun, and my clothes still on the floor...

So the plan is...i fly to Lima, Peru via LAX and am there for 1 month with 22 other mates from my church youth group. We are helping construct a rehab centre/orphanage for disadvantaged Peruvian children - weve raised $80,000 for all the materials, labour and to staff the centre - so its been quite a bit of hard work and planning, but will be awesome to get over and get stuck into some building and meet the kids over there. and also get taught how to play soccer properly... stoked! (check it out www.project-peru.org)

After Peru im flying with 2 mates to southern Brazil and we have a tad over 1 month to get back to santiago, Chile. All local transport and we get to check out a few other countries (uruguay, argentina) along the way...thats all the planning we have thus far...so im sure theres some rad adventures to be had, somewhere in there...

We drop one mate off in santiago then me and old mate cruise up the coast back to lima, and mabye bolivia for a few weeks, before my last friends jet's.

Then its back to andy 'the lone ranger', i have nothing even roughly planned from here on, but will try and see the top half of south america - then hopefully make my way overland thru central america to the mighty USA where i will fly out of New York. Then London. Japan. Home. Not sure of times yet, but ill keep you posted on here when the time gets closer. So if you are in one of those countries, or somewhere along the rough path i have mentioned, give me a yell if you want to catch up or if you have any travel location suggestions. etc etc.

Hope to seeya out there somewhere. Take it easy. Ive got some packing to do. andy

europe summer 06 - week 9

2006-10-02T03:45:00.000-07:00

muslim for a minute...no

US$1.1 billion. No way, we valued it at about 300 million. We still snuck in everyday to swim and feel rich.

check the speed combover. 85 horses, cranked.

The way home.

No sleep for 36 hours. 4 hour airport security line. 16 hours of flying. 2hour stop over in dubai. I now find myself in Brunei, a random little place i thought id stop for a few days to break up the flight. Met a dude from California and during this time we: Chased moneys through the forest, bargained quality deals at the market, crashed the pool section of a 1.1 billion dollar hotel and rode in very fast and crazy river boats. met some cool kiwi english teachers. woohoo. perfect stop off point on the way home

DAY 61: Flew home from Crete at 3am, pulled into London at 6am, spent 2 days hooning around like mad catching up with all my buddies around the place. On my final night in England my work department mates had a surprise party(and non of them can keep surprises). It was ace, and a perfect was to finish an awesome time abroad. Thanks team.
DAY 60: Crete, Greece. Had to sleep in a cave after taking advice from a fellow traveller, didnt realise how small Kato Zakros(pictured) actually was. Therefore, i had no cash and there wasnt any atms, so i chilled in my cave and ate Dry cornflakes. No one spoke english. sweet as.

europe summer 06 - week 8

2006-10-02T02:56:00.000-07:00

DAY 58 & 59: Chilled on Rhodes for 2 days.

DAY 57: An overnight bus ride to selcuk, checked out ancient site of Ephesus and jumped back on the bus to get to the ferry terminal to shoot off to Rhodes, Greece.

The cliff the ANZAC boys had to scale when first jumping out of the boat- while being hammered by the Turks. The cliff is about 60m high and would have been a lot steeper before the road was cut into it.

Troy.

DAY 56: Arrived in Canakkale were i visited both anzac cove and the ancient site of troy. Every aussie must go to gallipoli once in their life, great experience and it enables you to fully understand and appreciate the sacrifice the ANZAC's made back in world war 1.

Quality markets. best place to buy a carpet(apart from having to ship it home)

DAY 54 & 55: Welcome to Istanbul. 13 million crammed in a city. Managed to dodge 2 terrorist bombs, an average of 1 per day, not bad going. Had heaps of fun meeting people and soaking up the culture- definately visit Istanbul.

DAY 53: The only photo i have of Sofia, bulgaria- only stayed for the day and chilled, still shattered from my overnight bus ride. Left again that night on a 10 hour bus ride to Istanbul, woohoo, i love bus trips.

DAY 52: Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Stayed for only and afternoon then jumped on an overnight bus to sofia, Bulgaria.

europe summer 06 - week 7

2006-09-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Check the view.
DAY 51: We spent 4 hours climbing up to the Treskavec Monastry;(apparently 3 hours to slow, according to the locals) staying the night(free accom woohoo!) and having great fun hanging out with the friendly locals. There was only 1 monk who lived there, he was cool as.

DAY 50-51 Spent both days sheltering from the rain at lake Ohrid, Macedonia.

After paying 10euros to get in the country thought we'd get out moneys worth by staying for 2 days. Its a bit ghetto, some people a bit shady, but they're building for the future. Visit Tirana in 10 years.

DAY 48-49: Welcome to the main street of Tirana, Albania

The awesome trio.
Cool location, beautiful weather, carnival and super friendly people. What more could you want?

Carnival. see.
DAY 44-47. We find ourselves in Kotor, Montenegro. Stayed for 3 days and were lucky enough to coincide our visit with the local carnival. woohoo. you'll see what i mean.

europe summer 06 - week 6

2006-09-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

Many reminders of the early 1990's war.

Sarajevo
Met this danish guy(army green shirt) who caned this local in 10 moves at public chess. Found out that he represented Denmark at the world chess titles. No one else would give him a match.
DAY 40-43Next destination was Sarajevo, Bosnia. Met a kiwi bloke on the bus, so was now offically traveling as a trio. Stayed in private accom, our record was 8 people staying in an old ladies living room, but it was cheap and the other people were cool as, including some spanish guys id met on the train 1 week earlier. Of course I ran into the english couple again.

Bought spiderman and sunnies combined for 75cents. ripper.
DAY 40: Arrived in Mostar, Bosnia. Met Kate a cool chick from Adelaide on the bus & also a couple from croatia who have live in aus for the last 30 years and were back for a holiday- they gave us an awesome sandwich. stayed in private accom with kate, and the english guys. 5 euro a night. what a bargain.
DAY 39: Continuing south from Korcula, i arrived in Dubrovnik. Met a cool american dude and just chilled out for the day, great weather. Saw english couple again.

DAY 38: After island hopping to Korcula, i found myself staying in a hostel set up by the 2nd place getter of South African big brother. He was a crazy but cool dude, heaps of young people just hanging out. A group of us were out walking round, and went to investigate some live music in an open ampitheatre- joined in with the locals and then found out we'd crashed a wedding reception at 4am. the locals loved us. fun times.
DAY 37: Caught the ferry from Split to Hvar, where i camped on extremely rocky ground, but the superb location next to the beach made up for it. Met a cool English couple, who i ended up randomly bumping into for the next 6 days; despite never talking about our itenary.

europe summer 06 - week 5

2006-09-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

DAY 37: After an all night train from Bovice I arrived in Split, Croatia at 5:50am. There arn't many hostels in Croatia, but heaps of people offering accomodation in their spare room; even at 6am in the morning there were 25 old grandmas offering accom. For the spontanious traveller that is perfect.

DAY 35 & 36: Spent 2 days in Bovice, Slovenia; Canyoning, whitewater rafting, mucking around and sleeping in my little tent. The water wasn't as raging or extreme as I had hoped, but it was still a good laugh.
DAY34: After arriving in Ljubljana, Slovenia at 3am, met 4 icelandic boys and crashed in a hostel. Jumped on a bus out to lake Bled(middle of picture). Beautiful.

DAY 32 & 33. Budapest, cool city. Great Turkish baths.(above)
DAY 30 & 31. Chilled in Bratislava, wasn't heaps to do, but it was mega cheap.

europe summer 06 - week 4

2006-09-02T04:27:00.000-07:00

Cesky Krumlov
Ruthie and cool dude.

Charles Bridge

DAY 26-30: After meeting up with my old mate Ruthie from England, we spent the next 4 days travelling a giant triangle between Prague, Brno and Cesky Krumlov. Highlights include:

- Losing 50% of my possessions in a white water canoe capsize.
- Getting lost in Brno, despite it being the smallest town in history.
- Dancing a jig on Charles bridge to local bluegrass music.
- Finding the best "free" campsite ever, after all Cesky accom closed at 10:30pm.
- Getting stung by a bee for the first time in 7 years (20mins after commenting on the fact)

- Chilling in Cesky Krumlov.

DAY 25: I was attempting another tight train journey from Switzerland to Prague, (Czech Republic) in order to meet up with a friend from England. Due to delays i missed the final connection and found myself stranded in Dresden, Germany. After valient attempts to hitchhike, i met a student from a nearby uni, padlocked my bags to a tree and went to the biggest student uni party of the year. A best day to be stuck in Dresden.

DAY 23/24: Another (almost) 24hour train ride took me from Spain to Interlaken, Switzerland. Went for a hike up a giant mountain, the view speaks for itself.

Someone who wished they hadn't run with the bulls.
DAY 22: Pamplona, Spain- the famous running of the bulls.

europe summer 06 - week 3

2006-09-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

DAY 21: San Sebastion, Northern Spain; I slept on the beach with just my sleeping bag, was woken up at 5:30 with a sand combing tractor 20m away, and heading in my direction. That kind of thing wakes you up pretty quick.
DAY 19/20 : I eventually got to Madrid and chilled with a cool dude(Pepperami) i used to work with in England. Madrid is really hot 35C+ and dry, therefore their siestas are well earned.
DAY 18: Marathon Train journey from Copenhagen to Paris(attempting to get to Madrid), leaving at 02:06. There were no connections until the following day, decided to use my downtime to wash clothes-blackout halfway through the drying cycle, hence the primative clothes drying technique displayed in the picture above.
DAY 17: Flew over to Copenhagen, Denmark to meet up with mega cool Soren from summer camp; beautiful weather, chic city, top people.
DAY 16: Caught a ferry to Helsinki, Finland- super cool and trendy city; I fitted in really well.
DAY 15: Tallinn, Estonia. I was privilaged to share the old town with 5000 American tourists from a cruise boat.

europe summer 06 - week 2

2006-08-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

DAY 14: (evening) Eventually made it to Vilinus, cool city. Also checked out some kayak waterpolo at the nearby Trakai castle.
Day 14 (morning) Stuck at Suwalki train station in Poland for 7 hours. Only two trains a day pass through, noone speaks english, just my soccerball and I. 7 hours. Fun.
DAY 13: On the train(of course) for Vilinus, Lithuania via Warsaw(pictured) for a few hours.
DAY 12: Third day in Krakow, had formed a crew of 2 Irish boys, 3 Mexicans and 3 Aussies. Checked out a giant salt mine; which is pretty much giant caves and tunnels, made of salt. Was a cool for the first 20mins, the tour lasted 3 hours.(not so cool)
DAY 11: Day trip to Auschwitz. Shocking, but a must see if you're in the area
DAY 10: After a mission of a train journey i find myself in Krakow. I love this place. A great atmosphere, not crowded with tourists, (only travellers, like myself) heaps to see and it was dirt cheap.
DAY 9: An 8 hour train ride from Kiel took me to Kaiserslautern for the Aussie's second round match against Italy. We all know the outcome, shattered, but the boys did us proud. Had enough of Germany, caught an overnight train to Krakow, Poland.

DAY 8: Trained up to Kiel, Northern Germany to catch up with a mate i'd worked with in England. Also visited the corn man. (pictured, obviously)

The adventure begins- europe summer 06

2006-08-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

DAY 7: Trained it up to Hagen, to visit Saskia, another summer camp champ. Also celebrated in the streets with all the Germans after they knocked Sweden out. Fun times.
DAY 6: Stuttgart. Australia vs. Croatia. After a nailbiting, rollercoaster ride of a match, Harry Kewell nets the most important goal in Australian Football history; sending the roos through to the second round. Absolute magic.
DAY 5: After our extended train ride we ended up in Koblenz visiting out old summer camp mate Chris, the crazy German. Seriously, he is crazy, his chosen sport is the 4 man bobsled and he's driven on the autobahn at 282km/h. He's big.

DAY 4: Camped on random Island 'Gohren' in the very north of Germany. Th etent actually worked better than it looks in that picture. Jumped on a train for Cologne, went 2 hours past our station, just so we could stretch out in the cabin and sleep. We both had train passes and time to burn- no worries.
DAY 3: Overnight train from Munich to Berlin got in at 6am. Whole day to explore the city but didnt do to well, just saw the Reichstag and Berlin wall then spent the rest of the day mucking around at the Adidas world of football.
DAY 2: Game day.Munich. Couldn't find a match ticket anywhere, so opted for the fan fest, where there were 50,000 aussie and brazilian fans- pretty much an outdoor stadium built solely for the unlucky/tiecketless. wicked atmosphere nontheless. Aussie boys went down 2-0.
DAY 1: Flew into milan trained it up to Munich, and met up with another Aussie mate in preparation for the AUS Vs BRAZIL game the following day; stayed with random germans who were hosting visitors for the world cup. (pictured)

off the beaten track.

2006-07-27T03:08:00.000-07:00

well the joys of travelling away from the big city. i was assured when i jumped on the bus to nova gracia that there would be plentiful connections to rijeka, northern croatia. the next train out is at 7pm tonight, there are no buses and i arrived here at 8:15 this morning. Forced to relax, i can handle that. At least i have an extra few minutes to catch up on my journal and scam a few free internet minutes at the local library, which randomly has a vine snaking through the bookshelves. I think i listed the countries id visited a few weeks ago, not really sure where i got up to,(mabye czech republic) since then ive hooned through bratislava, budapest, ljubjlana, lake bled, bovec and now noca gracia. (hopefully rijeka later on tonight and then down the coast of croatia. Had some awesome days out in the wilderness in bovec, went canyoning which is where you, jump, slide abseil, scramble etc over/through waterfalls, cliffs and naturally made waterslides. ace. yesterday went whitewater rafting, not quite as extreme as i would have liked as the river was a bit low, but a decently fun arvo out. I have also attracted a large army of ants, which seem to crawl on and around my bags constantly, could have something to do with the jar of raspberry jam whihc shattered in my backpack... having stacks of fun meeting random people and experiencing the different cultures and lifestyles of people over here. trying to organise a visa for romania at the moment, which is proving quite difficult; over the next 4 weeks ill be working my way down to turkey(hopefully including romania), will be a stack of fun. My time is running out though- ill be back in oz in about a month. cant believe it. anyways gotta run. hope life is great where you are. take it easy. andy

europe 5 weeks in.

2006-07-20T12:09:00.000-07:00

hey team, well im slowing down a bit at the moment, for the first 4 weeks i had a rail pass which covered every country in europe so i was hooning around checking out as many countries as i could. heaps of night trains, very little sleep, but heaps of new mates and great experiences. below is a list of the countries ive either explored, travelled through on transit or watched football in. the list is solid :
flew into
-milan then,
-austria
-germany
-poland
-lithuania
-latvia
-estonia
-finland
-denmark
-belgium
-france (re: stuck in paris)
-spain
-switzerland
-czech republic
-slovakia
-hungary (i arrived today and im typing this instead of seeing stuff)

i have 1 month left to make my way through eastern europe down to turkey, should be a stack of fun, i love eastern europe.

so, what did you do last month? hope you had as much fun as i did. anyways my net time is running out. hope life is ace where you are. im still alive. take it easy guys. andy

europe summer

2006-07-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

hey guys,

have pretty much no time on the net so quick update. i left the uk on the 17th of june and legged it to germany to watch the ol socceroos play in the world cup. After being robbed by italy i headed to krakow and warsaw in poland, vilinus in lithuania, and also riga in latvia. Today i find myself in tallin, estonia. having a stack of fun meeting heaps of cool people, and really loving eastern europe. off to helsinki and copenhagen in the next few days. got heaps of countries to pack in. absolutely loving it over here, perfect weather, everythings cheap the people are cool as. heaps of mini adventures which i dont have time to write about. just letting you all know im alive and having fun. take it easy guys. andy

dublin-and the rest

2006-05-15T03:43:00.000-07:00

hello team,

well its been ages since ive written anything on here, mainly because i havnt really done anything exciting enough to warrant me writing about it. If you have read any of my previous blogs you would remember that i was going to Dublin last month, then doing a 3 day tour around ireland and also catching up with a long lost uncle and cousin. That was the plan, but it ended up somewhat different. As i had to catch an early plane from a london airport i stayed at a mates place the night before, left at 2:45am and caught a series of ngiht buses in order to get to luton airport for 5am, my plane got in about 7:45am into dublin, which gave me 45mins to get to the departure point of my tour. the bus ride into the city centre was estimated to take 30mins, it would be tight- leaving me 15 mins to find the hostel departure point. the bus was 30mins late. so i missed my tour. the conversation at the hostel went something like this:

Me: hello, has the tour already gone?
Her: Yes
Me: is there any way of catching it up?
Her: No (she was quite helpful and talkative)
Me: do you have any vacancies for 2 nights?
Her: Yes
Me: book me in.

so that was it, my 3 day tour taking in the best sights ireland had to offer turned into cruisign around dublin for a while, actually turned out to be good fun, met aussie and kiwi blokes and also a couple form belfast(northern ireland) and pretty much just mucked around, did a bit of sightseeing etc. pretty good fun. then on my last night went down to catch up with my cousin and uncle who i had last seen back in sydney about 11 years ago- great fun catching up, played a bit of backyard cricket, went down to the beach, ate at a quality italian resturant, played some pool and arcade games. ace.

Anyways that was over a month ago, ive been back at the hotel slaving way, cranking the overtime to save for my big summer trip... cant wait...ive got my ticket to germany for june 17 just in time for the brazil v aussie world cup showdown...then 2 months touring europe. bring it on.

Oh yeah, exactly 365 days ago today, i left home. cant believe its been a year, seriously seems like about 3 months.

1 month and 1 day til i finish work- felt so good handing in my resignation.

34 days until we kill brazil in the world cup (haha)

Anyways hope all is well where ever you are. i will be home soon, as i wont have much/any money left after europe. take it easy. andy

chamonix pictures

2006-04-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

preparing to decend the mount. woohoo

the valley.

4km above sea level, thats the visibility you get. You can even get a better look through the binoculars.

Aiguille Du Midi : 3842m

dodgey looking cloud hanging around

one of the runs looking over the valley

view from our chalet.

snowboarding again.

2006-04-06T04:41:00.000-07:00

hey team, i think we were up to day 5 in my snowboarding week before i was cut off by the internet. i have another hour to use, so we'll get going:

Day 5: woke up a bit stiff, actually i couldnt really move the right side of my body at all- the bruise on my hip was starting to come through. but i was only here for another 2 days so there was no way i wasnt goning to get out there...we went to a new place today 'La Flaerge' went down to the green slopes with the other guys for a while and warmed up a bit, then caught the the cable car up to the top of the slopes and started hammering away- some really nice blue and red runs had great visibilty- so no more big stacks today. had a great time. the other guys went home early, i stayed and caught the bus home. great day, got home absolutely exhausted and a tad stiff.

Day 6: we went back to La Flaerge again today, but the visibility was rubbish, so we just mucked around, went off the trails a bit, did a few jumps and just mucked around. i fell on my hip twice, but it was at slow speeds and i was mucking around, so i guess i cant complain- was cool just chilling out. the cloud came down even lower so we went home at about midday- which was a shame as it was out last day. at 2pm. i decieded to go out once more, want back to les grand montets, it looked like it was covered with cloud, but once i was at the top it was perfect. the cloud had lowered...woohoo...so i had a few more hours hammering down the slopes. i also taped my camera to my head with gaffa tape and took a few 'headcam' videos. great fun.

Day 7: up at 6am, to return the car and fly home. back to the normal grind.

So that was is, as soon as it had started it was over. the week flew by so quickly. my first experience with real snowy snowboarding, and i can say i finally found one good thing to cheer about in winter. it is starting to warm up a bit over here, is about 10 degrees today..woohoo..anyways i have to run...im going to ireland tomorrow for a whirlwind tour and to catch up with an uncle ive met once. sounds like and adventure. take it easy. andy

snowboarding on real snow.

2006-04-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

hello team. well as you know ive been doing a little bit of snowboarding on the plastic ski slope outside my hotel. well 2 weeks ago i got to put my skills to the test on the real snow- and in one of the most famous skiing destinations in europe. chamonix in the french alps. awesome fun and im still here to tell the stories.

DAY 1: up at 6am to pack. then crammed into a mates toyota celica...which is a sports car. we had 5 people, 50kgs of luggage and 2 snowboards. yeah it was a bit cosy and my neck still hurts, but we got to stansted aiport ok. oh yeah, for those who dont livein the uk, stansted airport is 2 hours away. got to the airport checked in no worries, despite my name being spelt wrong. and we were off to geneva. the airport is on the border between switzerland and france. we hired a car and drove up to chamonix in france. cham is a village in the valley of the frence alps. stopped at a supermarket to stock up on supplies. got to our little chalet at about 6pm. solid day. muked around a bit and thats about it.

DAY 2: Raring to go we were up at 7:30, 2 of the other guys had to hire boards and boots etc. i grabbed some boots (had got the rest of the gear off a mate) and we were off to Le Tour one of the slopes, it had some nice green runs (the easiest) as 2 guys hadnt boarded before we all mucked around on them for a few hours, to get some practice. was stoked to find that its much easier on real snow. loved it. picked it up really well. after lunch. 2 guys stayed on green slopes- me and the other guy caught the gondola up to the blue and red run and went on those all arvo. it was great such an adreneline rush, i loved it. was a great challenge and really enjoyed pushing myself down steeper and faster slopes. fantastic. after the chairlifts stopped running we went down at caught up with the other guys on the greens, found a little mound/jump of a little cliff whihc landed in powder snow. mucked aroundon that ofr a while and went home totally exhausted. slept well.

DAY 3: up at 8, and raring to go. went to les grands montets which had some great red, black and blue runs, as well as a few greenies for the other guys... great visibility nice and sunny all day, was hammering on those slopes all day- discovered prob my fav run of the whole valley, a really steep long red run, and just kept doing it over and over again. so much fun, you meet cool people on the chairlift on the way up, the hammer back down, ipod blaring, flying over the snow, one of the best feelings in the world. so great. went home absolutely worn out. again.

DAY 4: Up at 8, everyones starting to get up a bit slower as the days roll on. we went back to Les Grand Montets. there was heaps of dodgey looking cloud hanging around the top of the mountain. went up anyways and was having a great day. until...it was nearing the end of the day, i was on one of my final runs and i was catching the gondola up to one of the steep red runs (oh yeah, the difficulty of the runs goes, green, blue, red, black, double black) the ride took about 10 mins, and as i was going up the cloud was coming down, you could literally see the cloud moving down the mountain side. i was amazed at how quickly the weather could change. so by the time i got out of the gondola i had about 3 metres visibility. the only was was down (well actually i could have gotten back in the gondola, but wheres the challenge in that) so off i headed. there had been a lot of snow the previous night and as it was the end of the day all the snow had been chopped up by all the other people. so there was heaps of mounds of snow, hard packed sections, soft sections. the problem is its all white, so its quite hard to see the contours of the snow. thats in normal visibilty. i had about 3 metres of it. all i was doing was looking for the guide sticks that flashed past to make sure i was still on the run and not about to head over a cliff. despite the poor vis i was hooking along pretty quick, it was my 3rd day, i was confident and having a blast. then i stacked it. really hard. not really even sure what happened as it was so fast. but i know i went from a soft section with heaps of grip to over an icy section lost the edge of my board, and smashed my hip in the fall. i couldnt move my leg for about 10mins. thought i was in serious trouble- my beanie fell off about 10m up the hill. and my leg hurt so much that i decided that i wasnt going to go back and get it. luckily someone brought it down. after 10mins, i slowly started making my way down the slope. took me about 40 mins to get down, usually takes a few minutes. got to the bottom and hobbled down to the green slope and just rested for a while. the visibility didnt improve so we decided to go on the augille di midi. which is a cable car that gos up to about 4800+ feet. which is high. but as there was cloud everywhere we couldnt see anything. you can really feel the altitude up there, you can feel the air getting thinner the further up you go. really cool experience. anyways my computer time is up. so i have to run. ill finish this off soon. oh yeah, 2 weeks on and my hip is still bruised, its getting better- take it easy. andy

egypt pics

2006-04-04T02:49:00.000-07:00

the mighty nile.

queen hotshetput's(?) temple

sneakycam: artwork inside of of Ramesses tombs

king tuts tomb

valley of the kings: luxor

spinx

random old mate.

the andys at the pyramids

cool guy at the pyramids

looking out over part of cairos 25 million people

boats-at a little town called el quasar

the view from our little villa. just over those buildings is the red sea. up in the sky is the sun.

its warm. woohoo

So here it is, a few pics from the egypt trip- nice warm sunny days, swimming in the red sea, eating quailty buffet food. plus touring cairo, the pyrmids and luxor with the vally of the kings- what a ripper holiday. the perfect mix of exploring and relaxation. woohoo. take it easy. andy

egypt

2006-03-14T03:07:00.000-08:00

hello. well yes i went to egypt the other week. i was getting a bit sick of freezing everytime i went outside or opened my window, so i thought id go somewhere sunny and warm. suggested the idea to a mate from the gym, and my old travelling mate andy. found a cheap deal on the net. sorted. its a 6 hour flight to egypt. bit of a mission, i wasnt used to it after all my short flights around europe, ill seriously have to prepare myself for the long haul home. i bought a little soccerball. named patrick, which was an awesome investment, we were kicking him around the airport- and then when we got into marsa alam (our part of egypt) we were juggling him while we waited for the immigration line to subside, a few of the security guards joined in. fun times. we met our resort rep- davey, on the bus, he was 21 and had only been in the job for 3 weeks, had the worst jokes ever- dont worry over the week we gave him a few pointers in the comedy arena. most of the people in our resort were older than us, and there was heaps of italians. the resort was exclusively italian until about 3 months ago. so we were the young boys, with a guitar and a soccerball. but the end of the week everyone knew who we were. everyone loved us. like cult figures. whenever we walked into the resturant all the chefs and waiters would come out and hand shakes and high fives would be flying around. in the pool throwing patrick around turned into a italy vs australia waterpolo match. (the italians took a beating). and we also had an aussie vs egypt soccer match (the aussies took a beating, fair enough thou. egypt did win the african nations cup 1 month before). great fun. the food there was fantastic, it was 4* buffet. and we got our moneys worth. our resort was right on the red sea, you walked out onto the pier and at the end there was beautiful coral with millions of beutiful fish, had fun jumping off the pier did a few flips and stuff, and eventually got a few other boys to join in as well. spent the first few days just lazing around. most of my trips through europe thus far have been quite short and hectic- cramming every sight possible into the time i had. but as we were pretty much living on an oasis in the desert there wasnt anything to do outside of the resort, which suited me just fine. it was great to just laze around, got for a bit of a swim, eat great food, and make a stack of new mates.

but, i dont think i could have lazed around for an entire week, i think it would have been a bit of a waste to come to egypt and not see any of the sights, andy and i decided that we probably wouldnt have to chance to come back anytime soon- so we did a few of the excursions that davey,our rep, offered us. on tuesday- andy and i were up at 1:45am to catch our bus 3 hours up to hurgarda airport and fly to cairo. we we jumped on a tour bus and raced around a few temple and mosques and stuff like that. then we got to the pyramids, they were awesome- the largest one it 132m high, absolutely giant, we got to go insnde the second largest pyrmid, the tunnel was tiny, you had to double over just to get through. it was amazing actually standing inside one the burial chambers of a pyramid, one of the wonders of the world, something so massive, that had been handcraft over 4000 years ago. it blew me away. i cant even describe what i was feeling. amazing. (im sorry my descriptive words are a bit rubbish). we were taking a few photos and these tourist policeman offer to take a few photos of us, then asked for a tip. sorry mate, thats boardering on bribery. there heaps of guys trying to scam tourists- they give you a gift, than make you pay for it. we also checked out the sphinx and the surrounding areas. quite incredible. also went to the cairo musem which is filled with artefacts for burial chambers, statues, carvings etc. all the stuff from tutankhamens tomb is there, all the furniture, his sarcophargeus, his golden headpeice. all in really good condiditon as well. theres also a mummy section- there was about 10 of them, all in such great condition, all their hair, fingernails and teeth were still intact. very interesting. Ramesses II was in there also. after a few minor dramas at the airport we were back in hurgarda at about 9:30pm, the bus ride took a lot longer that 3 hours and we were back at our resort by about 2am. then...

we were awake at 3:45am for our bus ride to luxor. it was a 6 hour journey. i was tired. but it was to good a chance to let go by, we stopped at the valley of the kings and saw the tombs of Ramesses I, IX and IIX (i think) they were awesome, so well decorated- one of them was dug about 65m deep into solid rock, and all the walls were covered with inscriptions, painings, carved pictures- it was awesome, so much work had gone into it. we also paid a bit extra to get into tutankhamens tomb, which isnt as well decorated as some of the others and was quite small. but still just as interesting, his body is still in the burial chamber as well. after lunch we saw the karnek temple, which ramesses II built to honour amon rah, the sun God. it was fantastic. 134 huge carved coloums, stacks of statues. it covered about 300 square metres. unbelieveable. once again i apologise for my poor description of these places. also went and saw how papyrus is made, which is pretty much strips of plant, layed in a criss-cross formation and pressed- until dry and there you go. you have paper. we left luxor at about 6pm. got home about 1am.

left egypt at 5pm, it was 27 degrees and beautifully sunny, the security guy also made me deflate patrick (the soccer ball), but the guy with his pocketknife got through. great work security. we arrived back at gatwick, london. and it was -4 degrees. welcome home boys.

so there you go, i know it was quite a rushed description of what i did in egypt, but im running short of time so itll have to do. i seriously had so much fun over there, and saw and experienced so many wonderful things, it was actually quite daunting to try and condense the main points into this blog, there was so many smaller random incidents, which i didnt include that made the trip so good. im not convinced ive done a good job in this entry, but ill put some pics up soon, which i hope will help you form a better more comprehensive picture in your mind. anyways i have to run. going snowboarding next week. cant wait. ill write some more after that, providing i still have full use of both my arms. take it easy. andy

serutcip (work it out)

2006-03-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

another building in paris. cant remember the name. saw to many buildings over there.

random chrissy party pic to break up the monotomy of buildings and history.

dotre dame with banana

thinking man: by auguste rodin. see you do know it.

catacombs (paris)- yes they are all bones- and theres another 1km of that. its big.

sacre coer- paris

edinburgh

me riding a cannon in edinburgh- for some reason

ok. so theres a few more pics to show you what ive been up to in the last few months. some pretty cool ones there, although kate has the best ones of paris (inc. disneyland). got some ripper photos from egypt(like me pretending to eat a pyramid) which i havnt got on cd yet. but you will be the first to see them, (apart from me, the laptop owner and everyone in the hotel) i promise. hope life is mint where you are. take it easy. andy

trainwash.

2006-03-10T07:59:00.000-08:00

it was thursday night the 23rd of feb and i went into london to meet up with andy, one of the blokes i was going to egypt with on friday, he lives/works up in leeds (northern england) so he came down the night before to stay down in the south with me. another mate from summer camps had also recently come over to london, so it was a good chance to all hang out. i met up with andy a few hours earlier and we just chilled in a nice pub, as it was about 2 degrees outside. had great fun just mucking around and having a laugh. then met up with anna, and did much of the same. the night wore on and it was about 11pm- and i knew the last train back to mine, left about 11-11:30 pm. thought we'd better make a move. so said goodbye to old schraffty (as shes affectionately known) and jumped on the tube to waterloo. the train heading back was at 11:34pm on platform 19. plenty of time, so we grabbed a seat. time to go, walked over to platform 19 and there wasnt any train there. weird. went back and check the board, and there was nothing about our train to reading. mmm. walked back to platform 19 and a train was there. sweet. jumped on and settled in for the ride. but the train left the terminal really slowly and crawled along for about 20 min at a snails pace. then all of a sudden we were(the train) showered with water and these giant washer/scrubber wheels ran over the windows. yes you guessed it. we were in a trainwash. like a mechanical carwash at the servo- but for trains. it was then we realised that we were the only people on the train. unlucky. the train then stopped in the middle of nowhere and the lights turned off...with us still inside. so i reefed on the emergency handle thing...and the driver came out. we had a bit of a laugh, then had to walk over 'live tracks' back to the station. it turned at that we hadnt heard the announcer at waterloo saying that the train platforms had been switched. thanks for telling us.

so by this time it was about 12 :30am, and the only train we could get was back to waterloo, all the tubes where shut, so we ended up chilling at the eurostar terminal with a christiano ronaldo look-alike and his girlfriend from spain, and also a couple from greece. was actually a bit of a laugh. andy had all his gear so he went straight to the airport in the morning. i caught the 5:15am train back to bracknell. caught the bus back to the hotel. showered, packed, ate brekkie and got my ipod charger back from a mate all in 20mins- then my other mate picked me up back to the train station to get to the airport. bit of a mission but it all worked out well and was a bit of a laugh. turned out ot be the best packing job ever. didnt forget anything. got to the airport, no worries and we were off to egypt. 6 hour flight to northern africa. had a wicked time over there. am to tired to even start typing those adventures, but i will soon, so dont worry. anyways i must be off. i put a few more pics up and start on egypt soon. take it easy team. andy

colour photographs.

2006-03-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

the end of the world. cornwall. it was cold.

outdoor ice-skating: windsor castle in background

urquart(?) castle overlooking loch ness

quality snow action in the scottish highlands

me and bagpipe man chilling sideways

the year is 2006.

heres a few pics form the last few months, i seriously have thousands more, ill whack a few more up in the coming weeks, just got home from egypt-some ripper shots with the pyramids, and im also going snowboarding in 2 weeks, should have some good snowy pics, (or the inside of a hospital room..haha) take it easy :) andy

mona lisa. garlic snails. 6 million dead people. welcome to paris

2006-02-20T02:54:00.000-08:00

hello team. well as usual i am way behind on my blog entries, so time to fill you in on the last few weeks. as i always say- time is flying over here, cannot believe how fast it is cracking on. so january 23rd, i got up and walked/trained/bussed my way to heathrow terminal 1, where i met my good ol aussie mate kate for a whirlwind tour of paris. we had 4 days to throughly explore one of the most famous cities in the world. bring it.

so we rocked up at the charles de gaulle airport just outside of paris, and the place was deserted, there was about 10 people that i could see in total. a bit weird. bought a week long travelcard and caught our train into the heart of paris- possibly the slowest train of all time, but we got there in the end. went and dumped out gear at our youth hostel and hit the street. woohoo. first on our list was the notre dame. really beautiful building/catherdral, great artwork/scultptures all around the exterior of the building and heap of gargoyles guarding the place. you can climb up the tower and have a look around. but we didnt. off to see the most famous landmark in paris-the effiel tower- we thought youd be able to see it from everywhere in the city as its giant- but due to all the buildings when we got out of the tube station, we were virtually standing right in front of it the first time we saw it. just walked around the corner of a building and it jumped out at us. we got there at dusk, which is the best time to see it. because in the daylight, it really is just a mammoth piece of rusty metal. you have the choice to jump in the lift or climb the stairs. we climbed the stairs as it was cheaper and you didnt have to wait 30 mins with other lazy people to get to the top. as it turned out we could only go to the second level, which was a bit budget, but still a pretty mint view. i once again regretted have a budget camera, sure its small and pocketsize, and takes great photos if your 2m away, but it struggles with landscapes of cities at night. lucky katie had a quality camera. beautiful sunset while we were up there. got some wicked photos-just have to get them all of kate. as it was now dark we headed off to see the moulin rouge. we didnt see a show as: (1)the cheapest show was 87 euro and (2) i wasnt interested. so we(kate) just took a few photos of moulin rouge sign (you know, the windmill ) and that was about it had a bit of a walk around the street and checked out the area. we kind of got lost on the way to rouge and ended up at sacre coeur which is a church on the highest hill (?) in paris, so you have a great view of the whole city. beatuiful. by this time the clock was ticking over into a new day, and the tube was about to stop running so we raced back to out hostel. met a few randoms in our room, 2 aussie guys from melbourne who where a good laugh and a chick from japan, fun times just mucking around and laughing. day 1 complete.

day 2 we were up at about 8ish for our free brekkie which was tea/coffee/orange juice and a bagette with jam. simple but effective. jumped on a train to varsaille, which is town about 20km out of paris, we'd heard people raving about it, so went to check it out. theres a gaint chataeu there, which looked pretty cool from the outside but cost 15 euro to go in. no. so we had a quick wander around, nothing overly exciting to be found. so we were heading back into paris within an hour. kate is an art fanatic, she studies it at oxford. so am i. but just not on the same level. one of her favourite sculpturists(?) is auguste rodin, im not sure if you recognise the name (i didnt) but he did the scultpture of the thinking guy( hes leaning his head on his fist while hes thinking) you'll know it when you see it. theres a whole musuem dovoted to him. hes done some pretty cool work. we stayed there for about 3 hours. sure, if i was there by myself i would have been a bit quicker. but i think kate was trying to culture me (did that make sense?). while chatting to the melbourne boys the night before they said they were going to the catacombs, which is, the bones of over 6 million dead people arranged in some sort of order/artwork at the bottom of an old quarry. had to see this. it was 2.50 euro to get in (bargain!) and you walk 1.3km through this really erie quarry/mineshaft tunnel to get to the bones. then you just see bones everywhere, i cannot even begin to describe what it was like. bones stacked perfectly about 2m high and 5m deep along the walls of the mineshaft. yes it sounds like alot already. then keep that height and depth of bones going for the next 500m. i kid you not. it was unbelievable. all arranged perfectly the arm and leg bones (i work in a gym, thats the technical names for them) criss-crossed in piles, with skulls added for decoration. hard to describe. check out the pictures ill put up soon. after the catacombs, we were off to the arc di triumphe. which is the big square archway in the middle of a gaint roundabout. through which the champs elysees runs (the final straight of the tour de france bike race) we were also up there at dusk. was beautiful with all the city lights and all the headlights of the cars streaming around us. once again we got some mint photos. on kates camera. the giant roundabout surrounding the arch is great fun to watch. as its about 12 lanes wide(with no designated lanes), and theres about 10 roads entering and exiting onto it. so much of the time the traffic is at a standstill as one little car/moped on the inside lane is trying to cut at a right angle through 11 lanes of cars to make its exit. funny as, great entertainment. by this time it was about 8pm and we were off to meet one of my mates from summer camp in america. she actually lives and studies in paris, but has an american mother- so she speaks both languages perfectly. we went out for dinner where i tried some snails as a starter. actually quite nice. there are servds with garlic butter and you have special tongs and a little fork to dig the little fellas out of their shell. and really its like a piece of garlic butter day old chewing gum. yummy. actually was pretty nice. so we just chatted and caught up on the gossip from the 05 camp season (as she had gone back last year) then just went and chilled in bastille(as is bastille day), which is a section of paris(sorry thats all i remember about it-no historical facts). found a nice little chill out place and just relaxed and chatted, was great to catch up and chill. at about 12pm itwas time to say goodbye and jump on a tube back to the hostel, where once again we chatted to the wee hours of the morning with some randoms and the melbourne boys.

day 3. coffee/tea/orange juice/ bagette. again. now this was the day i had been waiting for. the day of art. we started off at the musee' de orlay (i think) which is art from a certain time period displayed in the old train staion which they had done up quite well. we walk around for ages, it was amazing how much art kate actually knew, pretty much all of it. i was happy for her that she could see all the stuff in real life after seeing it in books. so we walked around and saw everything. there was even a sculpture of a guy feeding a crocodile (random) steve irwin. its the only one i took a pic of. we only found out that you could take photos when we were nearing the end of our walking around. so then we had to backtrack and kate took a photo of all the ones she liked. which was all of them. except the steve irwin one. the only painting that i knew was of whistlers mother. kate was very impressed. until i said that i only knew it because of the mr bean movie. i did my best. had a lunch of a bagette, cheese, water and some little deserts. they make the best pasteries and deserts in paris. went for a nice walk along the river. saw an aqua car, a convertible car which you can drive through the water using the little propellors on the back. cool! then it was time for the louvre. luckily for us it was late night louvre night, so we could stay until 10pm. goody! as soon as you step inside. it just overwhelmes you. it is rediculous how much stuff they have put in there. they say that if you look at every art piece for 30 seconds, itll take you 30 years to see everything in the museum. thats rediculous. we were there for just over 4 hours. and we didnt see everything. but kate saw the stuff that she really liked (carvalho, i think). so that was cool. i didnt recognise anything, so i just followed kate around as she knew what she was doing. got out at closing time, 10pm. and made our way back to the hostel. legs tried, and brain fried from looking at more art than id seen in my entire life. there was a new aussie dude and his german girlfriend in our room, and also a kiwi chick. chatted to them for a while (the melbourne boys had gone to amsterdam). slept like a log.

january 26- australia day- wallabies jersey on. the final day of our tour of paris. after taking in all the history, art and other random stuff. we needed to have a bit of childish fun. so we went to disneyland. mate it was ace. had heaps of fun, just running around going on rollercoasters, the teacups, cinderellas castle thing, getting a photo with micky (he was an angry french micky) it was cool as. i somehow got in for a students price, which ended up being cheaper than the childs ticket. how does that work? it was a great day, and there were no queues, the longest we had to wait was about 7 minutes. but it was -3 degrees outside, bitterly cold- and a thursday. it was ace. got some ripper photos which ill put up soon. and that was it. back to the airport and back to heathrow at 11:30pm. got back home at about 1am. and had to work at 6:30 the next morning, absolutely shattered. not productive in anyway. but it was a great trip, had so much fun, saw a colossal amount of stuff. as you can tell because you are now extremely bored after reading all of this (good work to those who made it this far). ok ill finish up. winter olympics are on right now. so cool having it in prime time. im possibly getting a ticket to the chealsea v barcelona champions league game on wednesday (very slim, but ill take it) and im off to egypt for a week on friday with a few mates. cant wait. its gonna be mint. and warm. woohoo. hope life is great where ever you are. til next time. seeya

bring on 2006

2006-01-17T03:07:00.000-08:00

hey team, well i love new years celebrations, theres something about opening up a new year and starting again from scratch that really excites me. not sure what it is- but its just a buzz. i was looking for the best place to go to bring in the new year. everyone i talked to said edinburgh was the hot place to go. so scotland it was. managed to scramble 4 days off work, which was sweet- so i booked my flight up there, arrived at 10am up in edinburgh and caught a bus up to aberdeen, to meet up with one of my aussie mates and her cousin, and stayed with them in their great aunt and uncles house. they had a wicked house which backed onto a river and all this land, it was so cool, the air was fresh up there, not all smoggy like down south around london, it was beautiful. spent a couple of hours exploring aberdeen, walking around and taking in the sights, found some dodgey pet shops selling illegal (thats my take on it) reptiles and stuff. heaps of cool old gothic building and museums and that. nice littleish city.

on the 31st we went into edinburgh and started to explore the city, edinburgh is mint(my new word),such a beautiful city with the castle-kind of up on a little mountain thing, and then the valley beneath (which used to be a moat) has all the shops and houses and buildings surrounding the castle. really nice city. quality. so we just crusied around looking at the sights, checked out some old cemetries and climbed a random mountain, which we thought was arthurs seat, but turned out to be just a random mountain. it was quite steep and rather that climb up the obvious path, we just started walking straight up the grassy slope. going up wasnt a problem, but coming down i ended up sliding the whole way down, my jeans still have the grass stains as proof. we were going to check out the castle, but it cost £10, so we thought nah, but in hindsight we should have checked it out. we went into a little shop next to the castle and they we running heaps of different tours, and kate and i were keen to see loch ness and the highlands- and there turned out being a tour the next day and there was 2 seats left. is that a sign or what. so we snapped it up. just chilled for the rest of the arvo, ate a quality meal from sainsbury (kinda like a cheap woolies) and waited for the festival to start.

the street party kicked off about 9pm. you had to have a ticket to get in, otherwise it would have been packed out. there was 6 stages spread out over the streets all with different types of music playing. we were just chilling at one of the dj stages, met up with old mate andy. but about 11pm there was way to many people, it took about 30mins to get between stages and you seriously had to form a pack of people going the same direction and just charge through. it was a mission and got a bit tiring after a while, the the atmosphere was awesome. everyone was there for the same reason, the have a stack of fun and bring in the new year with new 100,000 mates. wicked. met heaps of cool people along the way. at midnight the fireworks erupted from the top of the castle on the mountain, so cool. it was wicked. there was a group of guys just yelling for ages, was heaps funny, for a few minutes everyone was equal, there were hugs and high fives flying around, hippies, dudes in suits, guys wearing kilts- everyone was having fun as one. you could feel the love. mint.

the only prob about edinburgh, was that it ended way to early, at about 1am, the lights went off and everyone started leaving. the crews came in and started dismantling the stages and cleaning the streets. whats going on. so we found a chill out club that was open till 5 in the morning (oh yeah, we didnt have a place to stay for the night) stayed there until it closed and the went to a 24 hour pizza place, bought a pizza and ate it really slowly, then about about 6am got kicked out and went down to the train station, where kates cousin and andy caught the first trains home, myself and kate waited and hour then went up and jumped on our highland tour. yes we were quite tired, as we didnt get any sleep the night before, so the bus ride itself is kinda a blur. but all the stops were mint. such beautiful scenery up there, and there was hardcore snow, like a foot deep in some places. the air was really fresh. and we saw some highland cows, which are cows with really long shaggy hair and big horns, they are cool as. so on our tour, we went to glencoe, inverness, a few random places in between. but the highlight was loch ness, ive always wanted to go there. we went to the urquart(?) castle and then for a boat cruise on the loch, no mosnter sightings but i was looking out for it. awesome, then jumped back on the bus and headed back to edinburgh. oh another highlight was seeing the smallest shop in the world, its literally just the size of a door and about 1.5m deep, its a real estate shop with 6 properites for sale, hopefully buisness booms in 2006 and he can afford a bigger place. got back to edinburgh about 9pm. found a hostel and crusied around edinburgh at night a bit more.

on the 2nd, kate caught the train back to london, and i caught a bus over to glasgow, to catch up with a mate, but this didnt work out as my friend was sick and in hospital. so ill have to get up there some other time for a reunion. staying in glasgow for a few hours then caught my 10pm overnight bus back to london. what a mission. eventually got back to the hotel at 11am. had to work an hour later. slept though my alarm. got woken up by the duty manager. fun times. i did make it to work a few mins late. and wasnt very productive, but i was proud that id managed to explore a quality chunk of scotland in 4 days. hardcore travel, little sleep, good mates. thats the way to travel. going to paris on monday, for another hectic 4 days travel adventure. cant wait. itll be mint.

white christmas...almost

2006-01-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

hello team, well its been a while since my last entry, getting a tad lazy over the festive period, so im doing a bit of catchup today, well as you all should know december 25 is christmas day, and as i couldnt afford to fly my family over here (or even just myself home) i was invited up to middlesborough to join in with one of my mates families for the festivities. now i live about 4 hours away by car, it ended up taking about 6 and a half, because my car is special. but i eventually got there, i was aiming to get to church on chrissy eve- but my car was to slow. so i got there and we just chilled- cant really remember what we had for dinner, but i do remember the homemade banana chutney- awesome. it was mint.

christmas morning was cool, everyone was up and buzzing that christmas was finally here. woohoo. went downstairs to the chrissy tree and opened presents. i was really spoiled and got a great haul of pressies-including a sled, cambridge rugby jersey and giant europe map and some other nik naks like choccies, books etc. it was cool as, totally spoiled. thankyou everyone involved. then it was time to head off to church, and back home for lunch- englandites take their christmas lunch very seriously, they eat so much. i work in a gym and we have been flat out since new years with people trying to work off all the food and alcohol they have consumed over the festive period. ate so much food, but it was quality food, not like the stuff we get at the hotel, and was very cool, afterwards we played heaps of board games(i guess theres not much else you can do when its like -10 outside), not the hugest fan, but it turned out alright- bit of a laugh. and after my extensive research of questioning people at work, ive found out that playing board games on christmas and boxing day is quite common, tradition even.

boxing day we went for a hike up in the mountains, visited a monument for Captain cook (yes the dude who discovered australia) as his birthplace was nearby, there was heaps of people out enjoying the walk/hike, i believe that this is also sort of a tradition on boxing day for the locals, either way there where stacks of people out there, nice view of middlesborough(its not a pretty city but you can see it all- so that means you have a good view of it) and the sea also, cant remember what the mountain was called but it was nice being out there in the fresh air/freezing icy wind.

and that ended my quick christmas visit up north, visiting a warm and friendly family (thanks guys) i didnt get to see any snow fall on christmas day, it snowed 2 days after i left. but the next time it does now im fully equipt to make the most of it with my shiny black sled. and if i should sled so far and get lost ill have my europe map to guide me home. great presents. great christmas. well as good as it could have been without a bbq, the beach, 35degree weather and cricket on the tv. take it easy. andy

we never lose.

2005-12-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

ill be the first to admit that its been a rough year for aussie sport, ever since i came over here its seems like we havent won anything. ricky hatton beat kosta in the boxing, we lost the ashes, we had the worst rugby union losing streak since 1962. but noone ever beats us at rugby league. thats our game. the tri-nations event with us, the kiwis and poms was on a few weeks ago, and as australia had already made the final, i thought id go and check it out- also it was up in leeds and a good opportunity to hang out with my old mate andy. so i drove up there, about 3 and a half hours and met andy at the walkabout pub, the designated meeting place for the aussie supporters, we were going with a group called the fanatics- theyre the guys you see on tv all wearing the same t-shirts and making a racket. great fun, there was about 300 of us there. we met a few randoms and all jumped in a taxi going to elland road stadium. there was about 28,000 in the stadium. about 27,500 of them were poms. england didnt even make the finals, but they had already bought their tickets in the hope (ha) that the poms would get to the final. so instead they all turned up hoping for a kiwi victory. the poms seriously hated us- everyone was against us- but i guess its a healthy rivalry. it was great chanting with the aussies boys stuff like:

- id rather be a kiwi than a pom!
- are england playing tonight?
- 3nd is better than 3rd!
- you sent us to paradise. doodah doodah. etc

sure reading it off the computer screen you cant excatly feel the vibe or the passion, but it was a great having a bit of friendly verbal jousting with the poms, we were doing it for a laugh, i think the poms were sledging beacause they actually hate us. haha.

well to cut a long story short, we are not as invincable as i thought we would be. actually we got killed. 24-0. i dont think we even had any attacking raids in their 20m. worst id seen the aussies play- at least the heckling was fun.

went back to the walkie to meet up with all the aussies and kiwis, real good spirit. at about 11pm most of the aussie team came in, looking all tough and cool, and i was like- thats the worst ive ever seen you play, you shouldnt be smiling mate. so me and andy struck up a plan to get back at them, we picked out a player who thought they were extra cool. first target scott prince- who was sitting in the middle of about 9 girls and thinking he was superstar. we got my camera and went up to him and said, 'oi scott could we grab a quick photo', 'no worries boys', then we gave him the camera and told him to press the button on the top and got him to take a photo of me and andy, he looked like goose and didnt know what to do- a few girls laughed at him, haha-mission accomplished. we also did the same thing to willie mason, he got mega cut and took a photo of the ground and turned his back on us. next time score a try mate, thats your job. anyways that was funny as- had a great night chilling with andy and catching up. then slept in the car for a few hours, dropped andy off at the train station and drove back to work the late shift. in under 24 hours i covered 451miles (750km), and spent quite a bit of money doing so, only to watch the aussies get walloped. oh well i guess sometime we had to lose.

...

2005-12-02T03:08:00.000-08:00

well it wasnt a real emergency, i was covering for someone at a gym down the road and was working on my own, so was using the time to be productive and write some more in my blog, and the lady on my next shift came in 30 mins early, so i had to get off the net...

anyways i arrived in dusseldorf, germany about 8am, and caught a series of buses and trains up to bremen, where i had planned to meet my mate at 3pm. trains are really expensive in germany as they are privately owned, i travelled on them for a total of about 8 hours during my trip and it cost me 131 euros ($200+ aussie). bargain. i met my mate outside the train station, it was so busy, im glad she saw me cause i was scanning the hundreds of people pouring into the station and had no chance of spotting anyone. it was so cool to catch up again after 15months. awesome. so we took a tour of bremen, which is a cool city, it doesnt seem overly big, but its got everything you need. Theres a giant uni in bremen so theres young people everywhere, who create a cool, hip atmosphere. so we cruised around the city and just chilled. went back to her little flat which she shares with 2 other people; and found that werder bremen's football stadium is about 5 mintues walk down the end of her street. and even better there was a game on saturday night, and there was still tickets so we snapped up a few of them. just chilled for the rest of the afternoon and met a few more of her mates. that night we went to see one of her friends mates bands at this underground hip-hop clup, the music was cool chill out style and her mate played the trombone and also beatboxed as well, was cool as. also met a stack of young people who seemed pretty excited to try out their english with a real english speaking dude from australia- good night out.

saturday morning, we went for a more extensive tour of the city and cruised around looking at all the touristy stuff, including a statue of 4 animals standing on top of each other. we crusied along the riverbank and just chilled in general, than off to the werder bremen game, if youve never heard of them; they are a quality side, in the champions league; and they were playing wolfesburg this night and absolutely walked all over them winning 6-1. solid crowd, and a great atmosphere as they had a lot to cheer about. walked back to the flat and chilled with a few mates. everyone goes out really late in germany, if youve left the house to go out by 11pm youve peaked to early, we were heading to an indie club where we were meeting some people and caught the tram(yes, melbourne's not the only place to have trams) at about 12:30, and headed to a place called tower. quality fun. it was packed and everyone was just having a good time. one guy was talking to me for about 2minutes, the whole time i was trying to tell him i couldnt understand and i only spoke english, but that somehow much have translated into some sort of germany conversation when mixed with the loud music. got home a bit late and hit the sack. sunday we caught the train up to hamburg which is about an hour away, to meet up with a few more friends and take a quick tour of their city. also to a cruise up the river/sea, it was nice but freezing cold. all of germany was freezing, but so far the snow had been dodging me. 4 days after i left they had snow. at one stage i was wearing 5 jumpers (all that a brought) plus my jacket and i was only just warm. sunday night we took it easy and just chilled.

monday and it was time to leave bremen; said goodbye to my mate with whom id had such a great weekend and had so much fun, with the promise that i would be back next summer for the world cup and id come and say g'day again despite how expensive the trains were. i jumped on the train for another 3 hour marathon down to cologne for a quick visit. the catherdral there was absolutely amazing, must have been about 50m high with great detailed sculptures. there was also a christmas market which started the day i was there. they set up all theses stalls selling random christmassy things and traditional german food (sasuages) ther're open for 4 weeks before christmas and all the germans working in the hotel rave about them, so it was cool to check out the market and get caught up in the christmas atmosphere, everyone loves chrissy over here. in australia it doesnt seem to be so hyped up. sure, kmart loves getting the decorations out in october; but over in europe everyone really gets into the spirit, everyone has decorations, everyone has a traditions meal of christmas day. in australia you just have a barbie on the beach, then go for a surf, and if your really making an effort, you cut down a tree from the forest a few days before and wrap a bit of budget crazy clarks tinsel round it. its cool to see how things are done differently in other countries. and that wrapped up my lightning tour of a selected part of germany, i had so much fun- the time flew by; its always great catching up with old friends and meeting new people along the way; thats half the fun of travelling.

my flight back home was a nightmare; due to bad weather conditions at stansted, and the fact the the budget airlines get low priority when it comes to landing slots, we flew back 4 hours late, therefore i missed my train back to my car, and had to sleep at the airport. got home at 11am, to start work at 2pm. bit of a mission, but all part of the fun.

next trip is up to scotland for 4 days, including the biggest and best new years street party and fireworks in the world, cant't wait. anyways gotta run- im going to buy a decent jacket.

we're going to the world cup!

2005-11-30T08:19:00.000-08:00

i know, i know, its old news- its shows how long its been since my last entry, but i am still over the moon about australia qualifying for the football world cup. or should i say soccer world cup. its been 32 years to long since the mighty green and gold nation was represented- and since im over here at the moment, i will be there. i doubt i will get tickets, theres a total of 2 million avaiable and over 60 million people applied for them. i have registered with an aussie company who will be selling (very expensive) packages to the aussie games, so i may have a slim chance of buying one of those, but even if i dont have a ticket into the stadium, i will be outside as they set up giant screens showing the game, and often there is more people outside watching than the capacity crowd insdie the stadium. exciting times, bring on june 12.

ive had a really great month in terms of travelling, on the 11th i went with a mate to Bath, which is a small town in western england, pretty closeish to the border into wales, and Bath is famous for its Roman baths, which are baths that the Romans built when they occupied this part of the world, quite interesting, they are naturally spring fed at a consistent temperature of 39 degrees, due to some underground volcanic layer or crack in the earth or something; the tour took over an hour, and i cant concentrate for that long. look it up on google if you want more information.

the big trip of the month was on the 18th and i was off to germany. it started at 2:30am, when i ran out to my car with my backpack, to find my quality mode of transport resembling a block of ice, im serious it was about 1cm thick, as i had never seen this before, i was totally unprepared to 'scrape off' my car and make it safe to drive. i needed to get the ice off my windscreen, but had nothing, i thought it cant be that hard to get off, ill just whack on my wipers, no luck, i need a scraper, i had some stiffish cardboard in my boot (from my hallowwen costume, see pic in previous posts) its just made the cardboard damp, i eventually had to rip the ash tray out of my dash and use the metal edge to scrape a little square i could see though my windscreen and little squares for my mirrors- meanwhile some of the biys from upstairs were having a party and somehow saw me down there and started yelling stuff out/ making up songs about me, it was actually quite funny for 2:30 in the morning. so about 20 mins later i was off, i couldnt see much, but there wasnt much traffic so i was alright, drove up to cambridge and had to run to catch the 4:38am train to stansted airport. it was such a mission, but when your flying budget airlines and you plane leaves at 6:30, thats what you have to do.
to be continued...
emergency

The flood of pictures continues.

2005-11-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

well i know ive been in a bit of a photo frenzy of late, heres the latest installment a few from denmark, oxford and halloween. my costume for halloween is a snowboard box; its not scary in any way, but it cost me nothing and thats the main thing.

hope all is well. andy

mega intelligent aussie mate studying at oxford uni.

pumpkin.

some halloween weirdos: how cool is the box costume. wicked.

my budget halloween costume. scary.

horseriding in the bush

our 'trial and error' fish preparing exercise.

free kobenhavn environmental bike

old school 'pull the strings' clappy hat- wicked

more pictures- in colour!

2005-11-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

me and cous helping guard parliment house- or just making the guard angry

minibike in sweden- hard for anyone other than a midget

one of the many exciting train rides through the italian countryside.

couple of hotel mates on my first night.

2 mates from summer camp. malaysia. wicked tan.

who could resist having a bit of a play fight with real swords. check the tan.

summer camp mate in malaysia. notice the tan.

old mate from ireland

random pics

2005-11-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

mates from america; in london

sideways punting in cambridge

before the rain came: wimbledon 2005

flippin' pancakes in cambridge.

ive just been kicked off the internet, more photos soon. andy

kobenhavn.

2005-10-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

hey team, well i have just arrived home after another one of my long weekend adventures, this time it was off to kobenhavn (aka. copenhagen, denmark) to do a bit of exploring and check out a new country, but the main reason i was going was to catch up with a super cool mate who i met at american summer camps last year. ohh yeah! it had been 14 months since our last meeting so i was mega excited. once again a booked my budget tickets for £30 return, but this meant an early flight. i drove up to a mates place in cambridge the night before and woke at 4am the next day in order to make my 4:38am train. arrived in malmo, sweden at about 10am, and caught the bus down to copenhagen, which took about an hour; and i think i might have gone over the longest bridge in the world, but i cant confirm that. my mate was in uni until 2pm, so i just cruised around for a few hours, rather aimlessly as i didnt have any clue where i was going, so i just cruised and took in the atmosphere. our meeting place was outside the front of city hall at 2:20pm; so i stood there and was scanning the crowd for my mate, when out of nowhere, he came hooning along on his bike, it was so cool seeing him again, i cant explain it. awesome. one of the many good things about denmark is they are really environmentally concious; and they offer free bikes for people in the city- you just put 20 kronor in the lock thing and it unlocks and you get your money back when you return it. so i grabbed one of those and we hooned round the city for about 4 hours, checking everything out-walking up towers, into churches, city hall, along the coastline, everything- was so cool, def the best way to get around the city. we went up this spirl tower thing, and there wasnt a designated lock place for me bike, so we tried to hide it- we kept an eye on it out of the windows when we were walking down the stairs, no worries, got to the last little window- still there- and we walked out the exit, literally 15 seconds later and the bike was gone (along with my 20 kronor) unlucky for me. fast theives in copenhagen. haha. we also checked out the statue of the little mermaid- the writer of the story and the disney movie is danish- so they made a statue for him for his good work. its just this small statue sitting on a rock in the harbour, not overly impressive, the the japanese tourists loved it-not surprisingly. at dusk we went back to old mates house in holte, about 20mins north on the train-met all his family who were really cool and nice-had the best food since ive been away from home, as it was the first home cooked food ive had since leaving aus. after dinner we went out to this little jazz club, the venue was tiny the music was ace, apparently the best musicians from denmark and sweden were there, sounded like it. ripper.

Saturday we went down to the harbour and checked out all the fishing boats that were coming in. we bought 3 fish for dinner, as we had been asked to cook up a storm, or at least try to. we bought 2 flat round fish and one longish one, it might have been a cod. then we went for a run in the forest it was cool as, they had a big storm over there and all these huge trees fell over, some fell over the others making a giant see-saws- had fun for hours just mucking around and being kids. we ran around for ages and up a few hills (the dont have mountains in denmark-its pretty flat) simple fun. got home and were told not to underestimate the time it took to prepare the fish- so we got stuck in- it took as about an hour to get the fish ready(takes a real fish person about a minute) as neither of us had done it before- there was a bit of trial and error involved but i reckon we did alright. we crumbed and fried the round fish, but the long one we did a bit of experimenting with jamie oliver as our inspiration, we made a little packet out of tin foil and put the fish inside, and stuffed it with onion, garlic, oregano, salt, wedges of lime- and the key ingredient- a diced apple off the tree in their backyard. ripper. wasnt sure how it would turn out but hoped for the best- was also made some baked potatos and beans with a pasta side dish- was a little sceptical how it would turn out and was feeling the pressure as both his parents are wicked cooks, but it turned out really well and everyone loved it...well so they said. played a game of matador (monopoly danish style) after dinner, but with revised rules such as; you dont need a set of property to build a house, so you can start building straight away, and if your car (marker) hits another player you have to give them $1000. the game went so fast and i got wiped out early on after landing on consecutive hotels and my 9th and 10th spins, yeah i think the game was a little too fast.

the final day was abit of a chill out as we had quite a few late night and done heaps with our time, to we kinda just relaxed and in the afternoon we went horse riding in the forest, went down to some ladies farm and hired some horses for an hour, she assumed that because i was from australia i would be a 'bushman' and a really good rider. i am the opposite, it must have been a good 12 years since ive riden, and even then i wasnt any good...but my horse wasnt to keen on going fast, not very motivated, at one stage it stopped dead and wouldnt move, so i jumped off and picked up a giant stick in front of its nose, didnt give me any trouble after that. then i grabbed my bag and we headed into copenhagen for the last time, and just chilled and mucked around, went out for dinner and then- all to quickly- i was back on the bus to the airport. had such a great time in denmark, was super seeing my old mate again- quite possibly the best couple of days ive since being away- cant explain how much fun it was...anyways i have to run, off to germany in a month to catch up with another few mates from summer camp, cant wait. hope all is well where you are. check out some of the photos from sweden on my links (thanks cous) take it easy :) andyb

its getting cold.

2005-10-18T03:17:00.000-07:00

well today is the first day that its really hit me how cold its actually going to get, the last few weeks ive noticed a change in the weather, you can really feel the cold coming in. not like in australia when a few random days in winter are a little colder than the other 365; you can actually feel it snap into the next season over here. ive been getting away with wearing long sleeve t-shirts and thongs everywhere outside so far, but i think today was my last day of that. rugging up from now on. and the worst thing is that its only half way through autumn, so it will be cold until halfway through spring next year or for about the next 6 months- now theres something to look forward to. haha.

i havnt done anything real exciting since i came home from sweden last month, but theres a few little things i might as well fill you in on, last weekend i went into london to catch up with my cousin, was cool just chilling there ('there'- being somewhere other than the hotel) one of his housemates is french so we met up with half the london french community on our night out, went for sushi in queens park then onto leicester square. a sophisticated night out. it was interesting eating out with 12 french, 1 italian, 1 spanish and 2 aussies (us) translation was needed from french into english on more than one occasion. they were all nice people and we had a good laugh. transfered my ipod photos onto cd at my cousins and also wiped off my 3728 songs in the process. unlucky. but i put all his ones on so no worries. someone told my itunes was difficult to use.

last tuesday i went to homebase (like bunnings) and was going to buy a plant(or shrub) to give my room a little more life and excitement, and i saw a bunch of bonsai trees in the corner, most of them looked pretty dodgey and half of them were either dead or on the way, and right in the middle of them were was this little fella who was alive and kicking, full green shiny leaves, and only cost £4.99. bargain. so i snapped him up, and now have a little bonsai, about the size of your hand, so its a real mini one, but its cool as. ill try and get a pic of it. im also going to try and bring it home, not sure how successful that will be, but ill give it a shot.

i dont think ive actually actually described what i do for a living over here, so ill give you a quick rundown. my offical title is 'leisure club assistant' which is a reasonably attractive name for, receptionist, cleaner, phone answerer, unqualified gym intructor, coffee barister(?), waiter, pool chemical technician and first aider, on any given day i can be doing any or all of that. but usually i will be just chilling in the reception area either: (1) chatting to customers (2) chatting to workmates (3) surfing the net or (4) doing extreme level 5 sudoko (like number crosswords, sort of, i dont know if its taken off in aus yet, but everyone over here loves it.)
so thats my job- its really easy, that staff are cool. i really dont get paid enough to work very hard, (thats what i think anyway), but i do enjoy talking to all the members, thats def the best part; and you can totally justify it by saying your building customer relations. so i have been quite lucky finding this job with a few days of arriving in the uk. it does get a bit boring every now and again, but i can make my working hours pretty flexible which means i can travel a bit- and that is my priority at the moment, so i cant complain.

speaking of traveling im off to copenhagen, denmark on friday to catch up with a mate from summer camp in america. cant't wait, im only going for 3 days, but even so it will be wicked to catch up and get a tour from a true local. november 18 im off to bremen in germany to catch up with another mate from camp, and im working overtime at the moment trying to get the weekend after off to go to paris with a few mates, so a hectic couple of weeks coming up. time is flying at the moment, im loving it, it seems like ive only just come home from sweden and im off again. woohoo. anyways thast what ive been up to for the last few weeks, got a few ripper ones coming up sp i can't wait. hope stuff is good where you are. keep smiling :) andyb

stockholm.

2005-09-29T02:57:00.000-07:00

as most of you know, or are about to know; i was in sweden for a couple of days at the end of last week. at the peak of our trip organisation there were 6 people coming but due to unforseen circumstances our party was whittled away to a faithful 3. so it was myself, my cousin from london and a mate form the hotel. our flight out was at 8:30 from stansted, the cheapest(but not necessarily easiest or most convienent) way to get there was to drive up to cambridge park my car in a mates street and catch the train back to the airport, had to leave the hotel at 4:10am, bit of a mission. and we passed a crazy guy running on the side of the road at 4:15am! he was a keen health enthusiast. Flew into sweden about an hour from stockholm and caught the bus up to the city centre, found our hostel which was slightly dodgey as there was no reception, and you just got given a door code, which meant any random off the street could get in if they knew the code. i left booking the accom. a bit late, so i take full responibility for the low quality accomodation. sorry team. despite feeling a tad tired, we headed down to the tourist info station, where we stayed for about an hour asking every question imaginable, yes it seemed we were quite underprepared and really didnt know where to start in our exploration of stockholm, we ended up jumping on one of the regular busses and kinda toured around a bit of the city. we saw a sign advertising something like road safety, couldnt read the sign just the date and the street name, so we went to check it out- im still not totally sure what it was all about but, we got to ride a mini bike, penny farthing and play with some other little gadgets, and do a bit of rock climbing, so that was a bit of a laugh (pics coming soonish) had a look around some little markets, where they tried to rip my cous off with some dodgey strawberries. ha. got back to the hostel and met johan, this dude who was going up to work in a ski resort up north, he was pretty cool, so we talked and chilled for the night and nothing much else. friday we kinda just walked around the city, went to a place called old town, which had heaps of touristy shops and stuff. some of may have heard of the icehotel, if you havent its a hotel, carved out of blocks of ice which is way up north in sweden, everything is ice, the bar, the beds, even the cups you drink out of. and there was a mini replica set up in a room size freezer, pretty funny, you put these cape things on for warmth, then just look around inside the freezer. photos will explain it better, but it was a bit of fun. also went to a few museums and that, a highlight was the dance muesum. you have to check it our if you go. got back to the hostel and there was a random sleeping in my bed; and my cousin had someone using his sleeping bacg and everything. i told you randoms could just walk into our hosetl. not cool. woke up the next morning and had our regular brekkie form the supermarket, and headed off to skansen, which is like a zoo/wilderness place on one of the islands in the harbour. we also checked out the vasa, which is a oldschool battleship which sunk in the harbour on its maiden voyage. so there a big museum about it, reasonably interesting, off to skansen, where there was an olden day festival on, people playing their accordians and other random instruments, old markets selling jam and bread and stuff, was cool, then we walked around the zoo part and checked out the animals, there were a couple of brown bears fighting and some elks just sitting there,also fed a wolverine some apple and a whole banana skin, he was loving it. was cool, just walking around on the island, nice scenery, relaxed atmosphere. for dinner we decided to had some tradtional swedish food, i still dont actually know what that is, but we rocked up to this restuarant and asked for a table, and they told us we couldnt go in. the reason being that, at night the restuarant was transformed into a gay night club. ok. but they told us it was their 2 year anniversary, and there was a free buffet, free drinks, free everything. and being low budget backpackers, we thought, we'll give it a go. so we went back at 9pm, and had some of the best food, it was real quality(especially after eating hotel canteen food, and supermarket food) and the people were nice, in a non funny way. we just chilled and chatted to them and that, was cool; so that was a great free night out and a great day overall. our final day in stockholm was just a chill out as we were pretty tired, we went out to the tv tower, the tallest structure in stockholm, and a great view of the city. and there was a nice park at the base of the tower, which we relaxed in, also had a go on the kids flying fox(zip line) and eventually got bullied off it by real kids. caught another bus around the city, and ended up at night just chilling at this cool little bar thing, which had the best music, really cool beats. got home to the hostel and slept for an hour and had to get up at 3am to catch the bus back to the airport for our 6am flight. flew back into stansted and went up to cambridge and had a bit of a look around, then back to the hotel where i am now. so in all sweden was totally wicked, even though i only really got to see the city(would have loved to get out to the wilderness and gone fishing or kayaking or rafting or something) i had heaps of fun just chilling out and meeting a few locals, they all speak perfect english, like better then me; and they are all really nice and willing to have a chat with foreigners; especially australians. woohoo. so thats about it, back to the normal grind back at the hotel now, ill be off to denmark on october 21st, to catch up with a mate from america. can't wait. anyways hope all is well where you are. keep smiling :) andyb

photos from sheffield

2005-09-27T04:45:00.000-07:00

the kop: where all the true fans sit- like me the australian.

hillsborough: home of the mighty sheffield wednesday owls

chalk cliffs

Scarborough: north-east coast

getting old

2005-09-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

hey guys, i havnt been on here for a while, been pretty busy lately... a lot of stuff going on, i have about 9 minutes of internet time left so this will be quick, but last week i drove up to sheffield, about 3 hours north, near manchester- a good test run for the old car, didnt overheat which is a bonus and actually drove pretty well, started shaking pretty bad at about the 100 mile mark, but for £300 i wasnt expecting a v8 supercar. so happy with that, went up to see a mate up there who i met in san deigo last summer, it was actually a year to the day when we caught up...funny, so it was cool seeing his place up there, and having a bit of a tour around the surrounding areas, went up to scarborough a nice little town/holiday getaway on the coast, and it had a cool little wall/castle on top of the hill, which we climbed. great fun. and we also went to the the mighty sheffield wednesday owls football team play the once mighty leeds united. a decent crowd came out to see the owls notch up their first win of the season. great stuff. im gonna get cut off. im going to sweden tomorrow, and i turned 20 on monday. getting on a bit. ill post in more detail when i get back to the uk, and hopefully some more pics as well.
have a good one :) andy

finally.

2005-09-07T04:46:00.000-07:00

pidgens in san marcos square. venice

Venice at night from the rialto bridge.

florence at night.

'get off the grass' at pisa. the tower doesnt actually look on much of a lean from this angle but it is.

'no photos allowed'- sneaky shot in the sistine chapel.

Colosseum : sorry bout your sore neck.

Travelling crew to italy: first day in roma.

Cool artistic shot at oxford. unfortunately my computer skills dont match the quailty of the photo, so youll have to look at it on the side.

South african mate went to stonehenge with.

Stonehenge: Hippies Galore.

Stonehenge: the morning after.

well its taken a while, but ive finally got some pics on the net. i have about a thousand more, but i havnt figured out how to make them into a full gallery yet, but that will come. the photos actually went in the wrong order, so scroll up from here and it will be in cronological order. cool cool, hopefully these dont take to long to load either, but if your reading this now i guess youve already found out how long it takes. sorry if it was ages. hope you enjoyed actually seeing some of my adventures as opposed to being bored senseless reading about them. have a good one.

andyb

leaning tower and the rest

2005-09-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

well in my last blog i believe i finished somewhere halfway thru Rome on my whirlwind tour of italy. the last blog was way to long, so ill summerise my remaining adventures a bit. - our last day in rome finished with a visit to st. peters church, its the biggest catherdral in the world, and really was cool, lined up with about 500 other people for half an hour to get in, but it was worth it. we climbed up 326 stairs to get to the top of the dome and look down inside the church, the detail and decoration blew me away. was awesome. all the walls are like mosaics and they are about 40-50m high, thats one huge work of art, i cant imagine sitting there for 30 years just decorating one wall. unreal. the pope also gives his weekly blessing on wednesday, the day we went, if we were organised and prepared to wait in a queue all night for about 18 hours, (we were neither) we actually would have got to see him. but we saw it on the big screen outside the church, the square they hold it in was massive and filled to capacity with people; and when he actually came out, everyone went nuts, it was more like a rock concert, everyone was screaming and taking thousands of photos, didnt seem like a very religious occasion. we also went into the vatican museum, where the sistine chapel is housed. that was also very cool as it took michelangelo 23 years to paint the roof, he built scaffolding up to the roof and lay on his back painting everyday for the best part of 23 years. great dedication.

We left rome about 6pm and anticipated that our ride up to pisa would be reasonably short. 4 hours and 15 mins later we pulled into pisa, found our campsite pretty easily. it was a cool place to stay we were staying in this little cabin thing, kinda looked like a caravan inside. the place had a nice pool, resturant, bar etc. a quality little place, but as we got there after midnight everything was shut. rose bright and early then next morning to check out the tower; it was 800m away from our hut, but it took us 2 hours to actually see it, due to the market lined streets and the fact i was travelling with 2 girls. and thats all there is in pisa- a small town which is famous for dodgey construction of tall buildings. it really does lean a long way, i think its 4.6m off perpendicular, doesnt sound like much; but its heaps when you see it leaning out from behind other straight buildings.

caught the train to florence from pisa, was a short ride only about an hour or something, got there about 3pm, but we didnt find our hostel until about 8pm, as we did not know how to read street signs properly. the word 'via' does not have the same meaning as in english, im still not really sure what it means, but it made our job hard. ended up being a place we had walked past like 5 times, quality, went to explore the city at night; and one of my thongs broke, was devastated. bought by a mate from walmart in the states last year for 99cents, they were the best, so i had to wear shoes for the rest of the trip, im not a huge fan of shoes. we found a cool little bridge that was pretty crowded with people, listening to these guys play really cool accoustic covers, just chilled there for a few hours and soaked it all in. bought the biggest gelati(?)(ice cream) the cone was probably about 30cm tall and had 6 giant scoops in it; seriously tok me a good half an hour to polish off. we also saw the statue of david in one of the museums and heaps of other old and supposedly significant builings, i cant remember them all.

we headed off to the island of venice and have a wicked time, was heaps of fun, venice is kinda hard to describe, its pretty much 117 small islands all separated by canels or rivers (that really wasnt too hard) take a normal city and replace the road with a canal, swap the busses for waterbusses, police cars for police boats, ambulances, taxis etc, its cool as, like another world. at night we chilled at the rialto bridge and san marcos square, just taking it all in. you'll recognise the bridge if you see it, pretty famous. and san marcos square is where everyone feeds the pidgeons, there are millions everywhere, you can buy bags of feed for €1, the pidgeons see you walking for the stand and just attack you immediately, one of the girls bought a bag and was kinda scared just holding some on her hand, so i threw the whole bag over her and the pidgeons- lets say they moved in quickly/swarmed/frenzy attacked her... lets also say i wasnt too popular with her for a few minutes, but it was heaps funny and we got some cool snaps of it. also went up to murano. another little island where they make the best stuff out of glass, pretty much the whole island is glass, thats all they do. the coolest stuff ive ever seen; if i even make a fortune ill go to venice and furnish my house with their glass. totally awesome.

Milan was the last place on the list and we got there rather late from venice another midnight check in. get free brekkie in the morning, and as we had pretty much starved the whole week, that was welcomed, i think we ate for then we paid for the room. bargain. as it was sunday most of the shops were closed, but all the catherdrals were open, so we checked out one of those, which wasnt overly exciting after looking at virtually the same thing every day all week, before i left the uk i checked to see if there were any football matches in milan, there was at 2pm, and i said i am going to watch this match even if im by myself. they wanted to see another church or museum or something, so i headed off solo style. i didnt have a clue how to get there, some guy pointed which way i should catch the tube, i was hoping i would see some supporters i could follow, but the station was dead. then i head them singing from about 500m away, 2 dudes came down the stairs totally decked out in their inter milan gear singing their team songs at the top of their lungs, great timing. so i tried to talk to them(no english) i indicated i was going to the san siro to watch the football( andrew does football kicking motion-they instantly understood) and i also told them i was from australia, all they said was 'kewell, viduka, good'. so even though we spoke different language we could still laugh and point at stuff and thats about it, but they were cool and showed me where i could get tickets and the best place to sit. i sat in the hardcore fans section, where you walk thru the gates accompanied by riot police and thru 2 metal detectors, more security than the airport in milan. the section was the 2nd tier right behind the goal and it was buzzing. the game started at 3pm, at 2:30 the whole section was up and chanting, noone sat down or stopped yelling until 10mins after the final whistle-including half time, there are 6 guys with megaphones at the front railing/riot police and they coordindate all the chants/songs, i cannot describe the atmosphere, unbelievable- it was slightly better than the brisbane strikers home supporters. inter milan won 3-0 over treviso(?) the crowd went nuts, was the perfect way to round off a wicked trip through italy, i had the best fun, but now im back at the hotel grinding out long days in the gym. fun. off to sweden in 2 weeks, should be a bit of fun, as long as i keep travelling ill be happy. until next time keep smilin :) andyb

camera case for sale.

2005-09-01T03:34:00.000-07:00

'Rome is a fairly safe city- you are most unlikely to be assaulted. However, theives are very active around Stazione termini, at the major sights such as the colosseum and the city's more expensive shopping streets, especially in the summer and during holiday and festival times. Pickpockets like to work on crowded buses.'*

It was the ending of a busy day of sightseeing and walking around in the hot muggy air of roma, it was about 10pm, and we jumped on a crowded bus, heading back towards our hostel, which was situated about 100m away from the main transport terminal in Roma. the bus was crowded, about 20 people past the reccommended safety limit. myself and my 3 other travelling mates jumped on just before the colosseum, 2 of them jumped off at the colosseum to take some night shots, while we continued back to the hostel, i had jumped on with my little olympus mju mini, and had got off the bus with and unzipped, empty camera case. spewing, and i think i knew who it was who stole it, but by the time i had got off at my stop and had looked for an decently english speaking policeman to back me up, the bus was far off into the distance. on one hand, im dissapointed that i didnt just jump on there and confront them myself, but then; they also looked pretty rough, and were probably armed, so in hindsight im glad i just let it go. i have good travel insurance so hopefully thayll take care of it. luckily it was at the start of the trip, and i had previously dumped all my photos so i didnt lose any valuable shots. when we all met up back at the hostel, i told the other 2 the story, and it turns out, that the same guys had also tried to knock off their camera as well, when they jumped off at the colosseum, the case was fully unzipped and camera half hanging out. very lucky, cause her camera had all the wicked photos on it, and was worth about 3 times the value of mine.

Roma.

welcome to Rome, i know that wasnt a very positive way to kick off this post. now ill get back to the start and tell you the best stuff of the trip, which was everything bar what i just wrote before. we flew into campiano at about 4pm local time, and had to get a bus from the tarmac of the airport to the terminal, funny thing was, the bus only took us 70m, im pretty sure we all could have walked that, as opposed to waiting 10mins on a bus for everyone to get in. walked out of the terminal, past a guard carrying a huge machine gun, and jumped on a bus heading towards the city centre. it really dawned on me than, that i really was in another country- sometimes when you travel to places such as the uk or usa. there are many similar things which make you feel not to far from home. but when immediately out of the airport, you struggle to communicate with the bus driver, you struggle to read the road signs and determine whether you really have got on the right bus, and when the 3 people your travelling with are the only people speaking english out of crammed 92 seater bus. you immediately felt like you're in a new country; and it felt great.

well found our hostel very easily, and dumped our gear. the 4 of us where sharing a room with 6 other people, all were really friendly and turned out to be great fun over the next few days. the great thing about roma is that pretty much all the main attractions are within walking distance, so off we went. even just walking around the streets you can see so much history and culture, totally amazing. saw a guy cutting people's hair in a deck chair in the street, people cooking pizzas in a woodfired oven on the street, it was all happening. we crusied down to the collesum to have a look, it seems weird to say that, after seeing so many pictures of it, seeing it in movies, travel books and as one of the most recognisable features of roma, we had the luxury of just walking there whenever we felt like it. it flew me away, its sheer size, it held 80,000 people, even today rarely do they make stadiums with that capacity; we spent quite a while there just taking it all in, we continued down the street and were just drinking it in, all the ancient architecture. we saw heaps of other buildings and and palaces that night, too many to mention, to many to remember all the names.

No matter where you go in the world there are always Indian people setting little gadgets and trinkets on the side of the road, a classic in roma, was little tripods and paintings, they would sit there with an old painting kit and pretend to be painting the pictures themselves, but then the guy 15m away was selling exactly the same paintings, to be that similar they must have gone to the same art school and learnt the same techniques. and the guys selling roses were funny as, they would walk up to a couple and give the lady 3 roses and walk away saying they were free, but then 2 mins later they would walk up to the man and ask for 5 euros, we got targeted alot. i never bought any roses. being hounded by indian dudes selling stuff that we didnt want made us tired, so we went back to the hostel and crashed.

we woke early on the morning of the 23rd as we had a lot to do,we decided to jump on a tour bus and see absoltuely everything in roma then head back and see the stuff in more detail that we thought was worthy of out limited time. we again headed back to the coleseum, and checked it out in full daylight i was keen to do a tour inside but time didnt permit, we flew through, the palentine, the pantheon, the spanish steps, spagna, and the font di trivea all in a matter of hours, all was absolutely amazing, had lunch in a nice little cafe down a random back alley with some guys playing music on the accordian accompanied by his mate playing spanish guitar. the pizza was awesome, very expensive, but you had to do it for the atmosphere. i would liek to go into more detail about what we saw, but time is running low, and its best explained with pictures-so ill try to get them up here soon.

my internet time is about to clock off, so i have to run, still so much more to write, in my next blog we'll be going on a journey from st. Peters basilica through the vatcan city and the sistine chapel and ending up in pisa with the worst constructed tower in the history of time. stay tuned.

*Lonely planet guide, Italy

italia.

2005-08-19T04:37:00.000-07:00

well it has been a week full of action over here in the uk. unfortunately i have little time, so ill give you a quick summary. On monday i got a hair cut, my head now feels about 1kg lighter and looks alot more tidy; so as my once dark tanned skin continues to fade, the long shaggy surfy hair has also gone. but i still have my ocker aussie accent, which i will never lose. I bought a car on wednesday, im going to pick in up in about 30 mins, its a 5 door peugeot. cheap to run, cheap to fix, and i got a sweet deal as the owner moves back to canada tomorrow so he had to sell. bargain. if it doesnt break down in the next 12 months, or if i dont crash on these wet and icy roads, i will be thoroughly stoked. it wont cost me anything apart from petrol as its already rego'd and taxed. deal. im going to italy on monday, i can't wait, going for a week and it will be a whirlwind tour. starting in rome and continuing on to pisa, florence, venice and finishing in milan(and hopefully a football match at the san siro) so im really excited about seeing all the famous buildings and works of art etc. plus im going with some cool mates from south africa so definitely some fun times ahead, shame its only a week, but im sure we will cram stacks into that time. anyways i have to go and pick up my car, ill write again after italy. hopefully some photos as well, still having trouble putting them on the net, as you would have noticed, but they will be up soon, or after i take a computing course. cool cool. hope your enjoying life. keep smilin :) andyb

plasticboarding.

2005-08-09T02:46:00.000-07:00

well i havnt written on this for a while. thats because i havnt really done anything worthy of this quality blog, i didnt want to let the standard drop. but, last night i went snowboarding, well its snowboarding without the snow- someone obviously couldnt get enough of the sport during the 3-4 months snow period so they built a place where you can do it all year round. pretty much they get a big hill about 100m long/40m high. so they gradient on the slope is pretty decent, and they put this matting stuff on it, which looks like giant velco- the plastic hook side. and you strap on your board or ski's and off you go. simple. now as there is a pretty high risk of injury on the slopes you are supposed to have 4 lessons before you can go by yourself. but i thought, ive done quite a bit of skateboarding, mountainboarding, and a bit of surfing, if i combine all that skill and balance together i should be able to give it a decent crack. so luckily there was a girl working behind the desk who didnt really look like she knew what she was doing, so i just asked to go boarding and she let me. woohoo. so i strapped in, and went down the small slope to the lift. i thought i shouldnt try the huge run with the jumps and rails on my first try. so i caught this little lift thing up a pretty big slope which didnt have any obstacles in my path for me to smash when i barreled down the hill totally out of control. i got to the top and as i didnt have any idea of how to start off i thought, ill just go straight down and then move my feet and body a bit and see how the board reacts. sounds like a solid plan. its not that solid when you are going dead straight and really fast(you use the edge of the boarding to control your speed and course-by digging it into the slope at different angles- it would have been nice to know that about 20 seconds ago.) so im barrelling down the slope dead straight and i can feel the back end starting to slide around. im a goofy footer, so my left foot is at the back- so i am now caning down the hill backwards- yep only a matter of time before i stacked it. hard. and it was right at the bottom of the hill, when you're going the fastest, coincidently. the first 30 minutes were very hardcore, i took quite a beating. in hindight, lessons could have been a wise decision. using the trial and error method used to sometimes work in grade 8 maths. but i wouldnt recommend it when you are strapped to a piece of a wood going down a steep hill. by the end of the 2 hour session i was actually going pretty good, compared to the start anyways. but i dont think ive really learnt how to snowboard properly, i learnt ways how not to do it- give me a couple more sessions and ill be pulling backflips of the kicker ramp. so over all was great fun and i can't wait to do it again. also can't wait to do it in the real snow apparently its easier as well. i also went ice skating twice last week, but i wont write about that cause its pretty tame and non eventful compared to grating down plastic sheeting on your head with a board strapped to your feet.

ps. how was the cricket-i was so cut, been copping it from every pom at the hotel-2 runs. would have been the best victory ever, oh well at least it makes the series interesting. hope life is good where you are. keep smilin. andyb

beach!

2005-07-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

well it had been over 2 months since i had seen the beach, waves, sand or anything that reminded me slightly of home back on the sunny coast, so i was pretty excited to be heading off to brighton for a few days last week. we got there at about 10pm on thursday night- as everyone had worked the early shift, so we jumped on the bus and 3 1/2 hours later, via london we had arrived. we hadnt organised any accommodation so that was the main thing we needed to sort out, i had grabbed a bunch of numbers for hostels and that of the net just before we left- and planned to just call when we got there and hope for the best. as it turned out- it was very busy and the only room free was like £100 for the night- (or like $243 aussie). i dont convert everything back into aussie anymore- i used to, and it made everything look extra mega expensive. we decided that we'd rather sleep on the beach for a few hours that shell out £100; but we continued to crusie the hostels and we found a little one that was booked out, but one of the reserved parties hadnt yet turned up- and they said that if they hadnt showed by 11pm we could have the room. so it was either the beach or the reserved room. lucky for us the other guys didnt show up, so we got a cool room right on the beach for like £25. great deal. we headed out to see what was happening down by the water, and it was pretty cool, a great atmosphere, there were heaps of people just chilling and sitting around fires on the beach and stuff and just taking it easy. and that pretty much what we all did for the next 2 days, just sit on the beach and relax, the weather was pretty good-no rain at least- so thats good weather. now about the beach, it was actually made of pebbles or stones or rocks, i dont know what was going on- it looked like they were put there like from a landscaping place- but the beach was about 50m wide and 2km long-surely not. and the water was like 5 degrees- only a few brave people ventured further than ankle depth- i wasn't too keen on hypothermia on my break days- so i wasnt one of the brave few. there was also the brighton pier which had all kind on arcade games and rides and rollercoasters and stuff. it was also home to the most uncomfortable rollercoaster ever made. but it was fun for the 23 seconds it lasted. we also played mini golf on the dodgiest course ever, but it was cheap and fun. thats all that matters, it it was a great couple of days out just relaxing, twas a great atmosphere with everyone just chilling and taking it easy on the beach. cool cool. anyways i'd better be off. things to do today. hope life is great where you are. keep smilin :) andyb

ps. i have a new moby number over here. 07886625009(uk), 447885525009(everywhere else)

plagiarism

2005-07-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

well i am ok, havnt written for ages- not since the bombings, but all is well. i live about an hour west of london at the moment, so i wasnt near any of the action- neither were any of my mates who live in the city. bit of a shocker last thursday- seemed to come out of nowhere, and it seemed to have happened so easily. hardcore. well i actually have some things to report this time, i have been doing a bit of travelling and catching up with old mates so ive had a pretty cool week. I ended getting 3 days off work as i had some overtime clocked up, so on monday i went into london with a few of the saffa boys for the day, then caught up with andy after he had finished work, we are both on a pretty tight budget, so off to trusty old sainsbury's for dinner, we bought a loaf of bread(£0.19), 2 for 1 avocado (£0.29), a packet of salt and vinegar chips(£0.59) and for desert- a packet of vanilla creme biscuits (£0.39). deal. who said its expensive to live in london. ha. so we cruised down to hyde park to set up our picnic, and then we realised we didnt have a knife to cut the avos, we tried to scam one from some local take away shops, but had no luck. we ended up cutting the avo with a key and spreading it with a paddle pop stick. yes mum i am looking after myself. budget but funny, we had some people playing softball as entertainment, was heaps funny- one guy was complaing he couldnt pitch because he couldn't throw that far. it was like 5m. but he was an accountant, understood. after the game they sat down and had dinner and just chilled. it was winding down and we were still just sitting there and one of the ladies came over and asked us if we'd like something to eat as they had heaps. they must have seen the quality of our meal and felt sorry...we were like..umm..but ended up going over and just sitting and chatting with them for like an hour. they made us take food home. one of the ladies must have been a mother, and she forced us to take food. scary, so we took it and gave it all to some homeless people in the tube station. win win. we get rid of the food, and the homeless dudes are stoked. then me and andy went to trafalgar square and chilled. great fun. crashed at andys for the night.

Tuesday morning, caught the bus to kings cross station (really heavy security) and caught the train up to cambridge. i didnt have a ticket, so i had to buy one on the train. the guy tried to make me pay double, but he ended up sitting down next to me and we had a chat for 10mins. he was from texas, and we were just sitting there laughing- and he was acusing me of trying to get of the subjuct by asking me which nfl team he supported (which i was- mabye he would forget i didnt have a ticket), was heaps funny, everyone in the carriage must have thought i was an idiot- but it was funny, and i got away with paying the normal fair. win win. Got to cambridge and met up with my old mate from america, was great to see her again. (im not sure im your supposed to write peoples names in here or not, everyone who knows her- will know who im talking about-if you dont know her then it doesnt matter) She graduated from cambridge on july 2nd, but i think shes going to do a couple more years furthing her education. so it was ace to see her again, and that afternoon, we caught up with her brother and his girlfriend, and we went punting, which is a square-nosed boat that you push along with a stick/pole...kinda like the gondalas in venice. it was wicked fun, takes a while to get the steering right, but once you got the hang of it, was awesome fun. we toured the canal that went behind some of the cambridge colleges (cambridge uni is made up of 30 individual colleges, i think) punting was really popular and since the weather was great, everyone was doing it. was cool just cruising the canal, when i was poling(?) i saw this random little alley canal, so i thought id give it a shot-no one else had gone down there- so it was either an undiscovered mystery canal or you werent meant to go down it for one reason or another. have a guess. so i went to check it out. now in the main canal the bottom of it is rock so you can easily push off it with your pole and hoon along. my little random canal had a floor of mud. so id go to push off and the pole would sink 6ft in to the mud, no worries,but then id have to get the pole out. and id lose all the momentum because the pole was stuck in the mud. so we ended up going about 2ft per stroke. lets just say we were going at a leisurely pace and enjoying the sunshine. after punting we went touring through a few of the bigger and more famous colleges like kings, corpus christi (?) and the biggest one that you all would recognise if you saw it-Homerton. was great. and beacause one of us had a student card, we could actually go into some of the buildings, as opposed to standing on the path. how good is it to have contacts. for dinner we had pancakes and rockmelon, the best rockmelon i have ever eaten (thank you again sainsburys-jamie oliver endorses sainsburys- so it has to be good). got some great action photos of us flipping pancakes. they'll be up soon. hopefully.

wednesday we just chilled, and checked out some of the shops and a few more colleges, wanted to buy a cambridge uni rugby jersey, but they only had L and XL. do you know how L and XL the rugby boys are? so ill have to wait for my next visit and hope for the best. Went bowling that night it ended 1-1, so we had a bowl off/decider, when we both had to bowl at the same time in a finished lane, and whoever knocks down the most pins wins. lets just say that the gentlemen always lets the lady win. So i had a wicked time up in cambridge, heaps of fun seeing a new place, great weather, great company, great punting boats, and cool colleges and stuff to check out. the only downside was the rugby jersies being to big.ha. ill have to go back.

Came back to the hotel and worked for 2 days then had another day off- went to church which was fun- then another saffa mate, asked if i wanted to do something random, of course- so we jumped on a train to oxford. once again we didnt have a ticket (trains are really expensive over here) but luckily enough there was an 73 international school kids on a tour of oxford, so we just jumped in the middle of them and blended in, cause the teacher had 1 ticket for all of them. we sat next to 2 boys from sweden, they were heaps funny, one of them loved inxs and midnight oil an he was 18- how can an 18 year old swedish guys fav bands be 80's aussie music. so it was heaps fun chatting to them on the way up, and as im going to sweden in september got some great tips of where to go and what to see, now i think of it, i actually can't remember what they said- but i know theres cool people there. we got off at oxford and as we didnt have a plan, just walked around checking out colleges and old buildings and stuff. they have pretty much the same set up as cambridge i think. heaps of smaller colleges making up one big uni. and i saw the oldest university building in europe. 1400's i think. either way- its old. so we just cruised around- oxford has a canal with punting boats as well. the 2 best uni's in england. who's copying who. isnt that plagiarism. don't you get kicked out of uni for that. i brought a book of italian phrases, so i can learn a little before i head to italy, hopefully thatll make getting around a bit easier. im not fluent yet.

anyways that whats been happening for the last week or 2, have really had a great time. and some more adventures to come in the near future i hope. hope life is good for you. im trying to get to pics up tomorrow. if i do you'll see them. keeo smilin :) andyb

bingo!

2005-07-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

well i havnt really done alot since my last post, so not alot to report. a few minor things, theres a girl at the hotel who loves to play bingo, shes not addicted-i dont think- she just goes every now and again, and she asked me if id like to go and check it out, id never played before, so i thought why not, so we rounded up a few people and went downt ot the good old bracknell point bingo. there was heaps of people there like 300 oldies, we were the youngest people there- we were there having a laugh and eveyone else had like magnifying glasses and like blinkers and serious faces so they could fully concentrate on their cards. on the way to bingo we were discussing how we would 'shout' bingo if we won, because apparently here, you just hold your card in the air or say 'yeah' or something- wheres the fun in that. i think we played a total of about 20 games that night. the 3rd game in i got a full house- which is the best one to win, you get the most money- i couldnt believe it- so i just shouted 'BINGO!' as loud as i could, and everyone stopped and stared at me, but it was ok cause i had won £30 and they hadnt, so i didnt care. i also won £15 at the end. £45 for an hours fun, not bad. the bingo girl from work also won £45 and another mate won £5, so it was a bit of fun. i think ill retire now, and end my career as a winner.

I also went bowling last night, it was like disco bowling with fluro bowls, quite exciting stuff. everyone knows what bowling is so i dont need to elaborate. im not sure if i wrote this in the other post, but im going to italy with a few mates from the hotel in august for a week, got some cheap flights so we thought why not, we came here to travel so we should take all the opportunites we get... cool cool... anyways the library internet time that im currently scamming is running low...ive gotta run...sorry for the low quality of the post, i hope to improve next time, and have something ace to talk about, hope life is great..hoepfully some pics soon as well...keep smilin andyb.

wimbledon.

2005-06-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

for those of you who havnt been monitoring the english weather, we've had a heat wave over here for the last 2 weeks pretty much, been really nice sunny weather getting up to around 30 on the hottest days, and i had friday off last week, so i thought, great weather, day off, grand slam tennis tournament on just down the road. woohoo. so i headed off to wimbledon, i didnt have a ticket so i had to wait in a the queue. it was 1.2km long. i ended up standing there for 3 hours 45 mins, but it was actually pretty fun cause i was standing next to a guy from london, and another guy from denmark, they were both heaps funny- so we were there laughing the whole time. the sun was blazing down the whole time we were standing in the line- the moment, i pay for my ticket and step thru the gates, the clouds start rolling over. i raced over to Henman hill,( a hill with a giant screen where all the people who can't get into centre court sit to watch the big matches) and managed to watch the last 3 points of lleytons win over some dude (whoever he beat in the 2nd round). there was heaps of aussies on the hill so it was a great atmosphere for the 50 seconds i was there. i then raced to one of the outside courts, and there was mixed doubles playing, i hadnt heard of any of them, but the standard was really good, some top points- its great on the outer courts because you can literally sit about 1m away from the players, so your really close to the action. they make impossible shots look so easy. it was 4-3- on serve- in the first set when it started raining. and that was the last tennis i saw. i would have loved to have been able to watch tennis all day, even the people youve never heard of are so good, its cool watching anyone. if you go to wimbledon you have to be prepared to queue. you have to wait for everything-to get in, for food, for autographs, theres even a 20min line to get into the gift shop- its crazy busy, but an awesome experience, hopefully one day ill get to go back for a full days play.

after coming home from the tennis, there was a few of us looking for soemthing to do, and as there is an ice rink about 50m from our hotel, we decided to give it a shot- turns out we went on the wrong night, as there was about 300, 12-17 year olds there, and i was like a disco on ice thing. you can probably imagine. i hadnt skated for a couple of years, so i was a bit dodgey. i was doing pretty well until about 5 mins from the end of the session. when i got my skates i asked for the speed skates(because im speedy)...but i got those dodgey bluse ones with the jagged pointy bit on the tip of the blade(same as the ones at boondall.) so i was going along, really fast(because im speedy) and the tip dug into the ice and i hit the deck, and kinda landed on my knee and hip, kinda hard, but i was ok. because it was the end of the session all the ice was churned up and slushy, so i was like sliding across a lake, if thats possible. but all in all it was a great day. it probably doesnt sound to good as your reading it- with wimbledon getting rained out and me stacking it on ice. but it was. smile. andyb

queens of the stoneage.

2005-06-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

a bit of a tricky title today, but it will make sense after you have finished reading the rest of this post. if you want to see a replica of my room, go to the comments from the previous post and check the picture that adam put on, its exactly the same, except its sky blue with a white roof, thanx mate. i have done a bit of touring over the last few days during my time off. On friday i was going to go into london with a mate from south africa, we had it all planned- but didnt end up making the 7am train we were hoping for so, just chilled for the day, but decided we had to go somewhere we couldnt just sit around, so we looked where the buses could take us. saw windsor on the list and jumped on. took about 45 mins (via legoland) on the dodgyist old bus you can imagine, every time it was idiling i thought it was going to blow up. the first thing you notice when you arive in windsor is the castle, obviously what its famous for, but i had pictured like, a mansion sized castle, just something the old queen could live in. but its huge the outer wall is like a 500m long, you can go inside and check out everything, but it was shut by the time we got there, and it also cost £12- would have been a tough decision, but it was cool to actually be there. i guess i actually didnt see much of the castle, but i saw the outer wall. yay. the town of windsor is really nice, like a step back in history, all the buildings are old, a heap of little cobblestone alleys and sidestreets- we were there in the evening so it was nice and peaceful, we stopped and chilled on a small little bridge, when crossed the river thames, and a busker dude came up and started playing classical guitar-was cool as just chillin. we also visited eton college which is where i believe will and harry went to school. So that was windsor really nice little place to chill.

A few days ago i heard about stonehenge, im not sure how many of you guys back at aus have heard of it, but if you saw a picture you'll know what im talking about. look it up on google pictures. So pretty much its a few circles of big rectangular rocks built into what looks like a sacred site or place of worship or something. apparently they were built about 5000 years ago by sun worshippers. Supposedly when the sun rises it shines thru one of the arches and something special happens. as you can tell, my knowledge of its history is slightly sketchy. So a mate said she'd heard of a festival which going on monday night. Its called summer soltice and its the longest day of sunshine for the year, so because stonehenge was built by sun worshippers; hippies and the like have made the habit of going out there to celebrate the longest day of sunshine. so i thought, cool, sounds interesting- so we headed out, i expected to see a few hippies and that gathering round, we got there about 9pm at night, was probably about 300 others there as well, like i expected. the day of the soltice is the only day you can actually touch the stones, so we wandered over and were looking around- and one guy started playing a djemba(big drum) so we're just sittign the chillin and talking to people etc. gradually more and more musicians came along and joined in. at its peak there were about 30 people playing drums, othere playing piccolos, recorders, harmonica, maraccas, tambourines, digeredoos, one guy was playing an indian guitar( a mandolin i think) and and another dude had a muslim prayer horn that was about 2m long..and they were all playing in harmony, one guy on a drum would give the beat, then the rest would just join in...sounded so cool, and everyone was so friendly and just chillin dancing, bobbing their head etc...was like an outside, natural night club, the tribal beats were cool, we were right in the centre of it all as we got to the middle of the rock circle pretty early...we left at about 12, so had been there for about 3 and a half hours...we left the circle and i couldnt believe it- while we were in there another 15,000 people had arrived. just everywhere. crazy stuff. one official guy said at the peak, which was sunrise, there was more than 20,000 people there, it was packed. was such a great atmosphere it didnt matter what colour your skin was, what part of the world you were from, how long your dreadlocks were, how much weed you had smoked- everyone just got along so well and chilled together, was truely awesome. No one goes to sleep, everyone is awake all night chillin/partying so they can watch the sun come up. was great. was also freezing as they day before was hot (30+) so i was wearing shorts, thongs and a jumper. so i was freezing for like 5 hours, thats why i was excited to see the sun come up- not to watch it through an arch, but to warm up.

So over all ive had a great few days, had some really cool experiences which is what i came here to do, so far so good, i hope to get some pictures up here soon, hope life is going great for you, keep smilin :) andyb

broomball.

2005-06-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

hey team, it feels as though i havent written for ages, because i have dont so much stuff the last week, been mega busy, but im finally on the computer so ill try and update you with as much accuracy as possible. here we go. so i caught the overlander train from waterloo, london to bracknell, which is a small little town about 1 hours west of london which offers very little other than headquarters for multinational companies and other industrial buildings etc. not much doing there (but it is pretty close to windsor castle and legoland. can't lose.), so got to the train station and was stoked that is was closed, as i happened to not have ticket and therefore could just walk round the station rather than going thru the turnstiles-which you need a valid travel pass for. sweet. so there was 4 random people who got off the train and we were all standing there waiting for a taxi- i was first in line- a taxi pulled up and i asked the others where they were going- it turned out one of the girls lived around the corner from the hotel-so we split the cab- she was pretty cool, ended up getting along quite well. sweet. so i got to the hotel and was shown to my room, which is pretty decent, but its kind of a loft with a slanted roof on one side, so i cant really stand up straight on one side of my bed, theres 50 staff rooms, and i live in the main section, like the bit that joins all the corridors together, and i also live right under the bell tower- the bell rings every 15mins - which has its pros and cons- good because you dont need a watch and get quarterly time updates...bad because you can only sleep in 15 minute intervals. ha. yeah so monday was my first day at work, i met the crew, all pretty cool workmates- so should have a bit of fun there, and also the waves department(the leisure dept-where i work), is the most laidback in the whole hotel- everyone else has to wear suits and look professional 24/7 - we just chill, and its cool cause you can just sit around and talk to customers and have a joke and that so its cool as...but at the same time its not very stimulating...it can get a bit boring during the day. see how we go..think ill give it 3 months, then might look to move to a different part of england. ive met some really cool people here as well, heaps of internationals, and most of them live up in the staff area as well, so its cool just chilling up there, listening to music and that-and listening to the bell. the guy who owns the hotel, also owns about another 15 companies...apparently he's the 36th richest guy in britain. right behind the hotel is the ice-skating rink and a dry ski slope*, which is cool because you can walk to them, and you get a tidy staff discount. woohoo. * the ski slope is probably about 100m high, and its like this plastic grass like stuff...like astro turf...and you can ski and snowboard on it..like theres chairlifts, ramps and stuff...its actually really cool, id never seen anything like it...so ill have a go on that as much as i can, cause its good to get the basics on a snowboard, so i cant get that sorted so i dont waste 3 days learning when i arrive in austria or switzerland (take your pick, ha)...cool cool.

was at work on wednesday and the girl from the taxi dropped in, had a chat and she goes, ' so do you wanna hook up?' and i must have given her a weird/startled expression, after explaining that she meant hang out, i was like yeah cool, so we ended up chillin out that night(nothing in it-just mates) and just played a bit of pool and that. i suck at pool, i already knew that, but i just reinforced the fact by sinking the 8 ball on my very first shot. unlucky. so that was cool just chilling and seeing a bit of bracknell and reading, its cool knowing someone who owns a car- so fun times. thursday night i saw a poster that advertised a game of broomball at the ice rink- didnt have a clue what it was so went down to the rink with a mate from south africa and had a social game of broomball...it was great fun. pretty much its ice hockey, but without skates on, and the ball is like a size 1 soccerball but rubber and really light. so it was awesome just running around on the ice and sliding around. you can actually run pretty quick, you just cant stop for about 5 metres. so i loved it-as most of you will know i like any kind of sport and i also like random stuff, so if you add them both together broomball fits in perfectly. got asked to permantly join one of the teams, so if i can get the time off, ill be running around on the ice every thursday night. woohoo.

this is a giant post, im even using paragraphs. hardcore. on saturday i went to church at newbold college, which is a college run by the seventh day adventist church, so that was really cool, met some more really top people, and college is out at the moment, so most of them arnt there, so im really looking forward to going there and getting to know a few more people. on sunday we had what is called communications day, when all the companies that old mate owns get together pretty much for team building activities such as: jumping castle volleyball, archery, learning the haka, playing tribal hippie drums and heaps of stuff...was a good laugh, then everyone came back to our hotel and had a bbq and went to the nightclub and chilled and that- pretty fun, heaps of people, i had an early one cause i had to work at 6 this morning, still had fun, anyways i think thats about it for now, my fingers are starting to cramp and you are probably bored to the max so ill wind it up...hope your enjoying life...keep smilin :) andyb

peak hour london

2005-06-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

Ive had a great couple of days over here, it think my last post went up too saturday, so ill continue on from there, sunday i just chilled and went down to hyde park, where they have this place called speakers corner. its pretty much just an open space where people bring a little step ladder, stand on it and they can talk about whatever they want, although the vast majority usually concern politics and religion. some of it is quite interesting, some is just plain rediculous. so people just gather around the speakers to listen, debate, haggle, yell and in extreme heated cases even a few punches can fly around, was pretty fun. then i cruised over to the 'football fields' section of hyde park, which is pretty much the whole thing as they are crazy bout it. i ended up playing with a mixed bunch of arabs, albanians, turks and 1 aussie ( me), was great fun and met a few cool people at the same time. London is such a multicultural city, its amazing- you think you can pick some people- like hes defintitely a pom, then he starts speaking perfect french (because i know how french sounds, and know when its spoken perfectly.ha.) but you know what i mean. so many people here dont speak english as their 1st language, there people from all corners of the world here. on monday,( bank holiday(public holiday), gav(a guy i met in america) came over from ireland with his drama/arts college class, and they had a bit of spare time, so me and andy hung out with him for a couple of hours, and just chilled. good fun. Tuesday i didnt do a lot, as i had to wait for a few phone calls reguarding job opps. lined up an interview for 11am on wednesday morning. was stoked with that. tuesday night we went out again with gav and his class, had a great night just chillin and kicking back, and as there was 30 drama students there, it was really funny- met some more cool people to visit when i get to ireland as well, but the night kind of got away on me(the sun goes down at 9:30pm, which puts you out a bit) as i was having a ripper time, looked at my watch and it was 3am, thought id better get home and get some rest for my interview, as i got to the bus stop i saw the bus i needed pulling out. i waited 40 mins for the next one. got to sleep at about 4am. woke up at 6:30am and ironed my shirt and pants and that, dressed up a bit for the interview. at 8am was standing on the tube platform, waiting for delayed train. it ended up never coming, with a severe delay warning blaring over loudspeaker. so i headed for the busses, which were now crammed full of people fighting to get to work on time. it ended up taking me just under 2 hours to go 13kms. which is close to the average human walking speed of 6km/hour. how fun is PEAK HOUR LONDON. we were lucky if we could go 100m on the bus without stopping for something, was crazy. ended up working alright i got to the train station near my interview at 10:52am, after a 5 min taxi ride, i was standing in the lobby with 3 mins to spare. easy. had a ripper interview. i start on monday, working in a 4 star hotel as a gym and spa attendant. its a live-in job with free food, so that should be great for saving money. and itll be nice to eat something other than baked beans on white toast. (kidding mum). and its 2 mins away from a church i think ill like, so its all working out pretty well, thank God. so thats about all that happening at the moment, hope all is well where you are. think i might go play football with some randoms. keep smilin:) andyb

ps. happy birthday dad.

london in a day.

2005-05-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

Had a great day yesterday, the weather for the last few days has been sweet. apparently there is a heat wave either here or on the way; all the english are spewing but everyone in our house is stoked. so yesterday was pretty warm, probably close to 30 and it was prefect blue skies, so i decided to go on an open roof bus tour, so its a double decker bus, with the roof cut off, and you get driven round the city seeing all the big well known touristy stuff, and there a guide who also tells you some of the less well known stuff, and you can jump on and off whenever you like. so i was exploring for about 10 hours yesterday, was ace. the first guide i had on my fisrt bus was a bit dodgey, i think she was new, she was like ' we are coming up to mayfair, and thats what it was, it used to be a fair held in may', and i was like, wow, she knows stuff . the second guide i had was irish and really funny, and knew all this random stuff about everywhere, some of it sounded like he was making it up, but he was entertaining non the less. i also saw the hairdresser where princess diana got her hair trimmed, it costs £500 and theres a waiting list for 7 weeks. apparently. i also got off at buckingham palace and saw what i thought could have been the changing of the guard, there was heaps of those dudes with the big, black furry hats marching around with a band playing and stuff, was pretty cool. so i saw all the big things, like trafalgar square, big ben, the london eye, westminster abbey, london bridge(the london bridge is actually pretty normal, the cool bridge is tower bridge-most people get them mixed up) etc. then i met up with 2 girls from camp, and met up with andy after work, and we went out for dinner at this japanese or chinese or something place, was really cool catching up with everyone after not seeing them for 10 months, had a great time, then me and andy just chilled at trafalgar square, looks nice at night and you can see the big ben all lit up in the background. it was cool as, just being there, id seen it on tv so many times, and to be there just hanging out was sweet. great day. hope all is well wherever you are. keep smilin :) andyb

how keen am i.

2005-05-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

hey team,
well i think this is the 4th post in a week, thats bordering on computer nerd territory. Im not working yet so i might as well take advantage of the free time i have, as i might not be able to write so regularly later on. since saturday, we have moved houses, we went about 1km down the street to a smaller but equally as cool little flat thing, some of the other people moved out so we had to downsize a bit. so we had to move all our stuff by bus, had to do a few trips. it was a mission but a bit of a laugh, me and 2 other guys went back for the last load, and there was more left than we originally thought, still we battled on. we actully looked like criminals stealing stuff. one guy was dressed totally in black, including beanie. and was carrying a tv, dvd player and a guitar. had a bit of a laugh at him, so we hurried along as to not get questioned by the bill. the fa cup football (soccer) match was on between man u and arsenal, that was pretty huge as everyone is football mad over here, and pretty much the rest of the weekend we have just been chillin and setting up the new house, nothing to hectic. today, monday ive been doing a bit of job searching, seems to be going ok, waiting for a few phonecalls, one looks pretty promising so with any luck ill be working next week, which will be nice, instead of burning my aussie dollars with the conversion rate over here. so ill keep you posted, anyways thanx a lot for all the comments and emails, its been ace hearing whats happening back at home. keep smilin :) andyb

ps: oh in one of the cupboards in the new house we found a clarinet, and even though no one in the house can play, its still entertains us for hours as we attempt to either try to play something like 'mary had a little lamb', three blind mice or simply try to annoy the other housemates by seeing how loud we can squeal it. how fun is london.

mind the gap.

2005-05-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

i have currently been in london for 4 hours and 15 mintues. had a ripper flight, managed to get a bit of sleep and it all went really quickly, which is great cause its pretty boring sitting still in a chair for 13 hours straight, or there abouts. But first i think ill update a bit on the last part of my malaysian adventure, i had so much fun over there and staying with a real malay family ensured i had the full experience with food and culture etc, the last few days i kind of just caught the train around and explored stuff that people recommended. There is heaps of shopping centres over there and since aus dollar is stong against the ringgit (their money) its ace for us, but since i didnt have much room in my bag, and didnt really feel like buying anything, i didnt, makes sense. One day i was walking down the street and stepped on a grate/sewer/drain pipe cover - and nearly fell through it. the original one must have rusted thru, so they replaced it with a bendy plastic one that looked exactly the same, pretty funny since i didnt fall in, would have been different if i had. - so i had a great time in malaysia, i saw all the main touristy sites in kuala lumpar, but next time id like to see more of the countryside and some of the surrounding islands, so had an awesome time, was looked after so well. ace. So now im sitting in an internet cafe in dollis hill, bout a 30 minute tube ride from the heart of london, been here for a couple of hours, havnt seen any sun yet, its been overcast and drizzly rain, which is cool because it feels like, how i pictured england. Was a bit worried at immigration, cause i only have a one way ticket, but the dude didnt even ask any questions, just stamped the passport. fine by me. beautiful. A mate was going to meet me at the airport, but emailed and said he wasnt sure if he could make it, so i just started walking toward the tube was about half way there and there he comes running up the tunnel, was heaps cool to see him again, been about 8 months. so im staying with old mate, everyone in the share house is aussie as well, so thats cool, but their lease runs out tomorrow, so we are moving somewhere else tomorrow, its cool cause im able to stay with them for a few weeks for pretty cheap, also might have snaked a job as well, cause one of the boys works somewhere and a guy is leaving, so might have a shot there, i think its working in a warehouse or something. Not huge money but better than nothing, think its gonna be mega hard to save any decent money for travelling. so ill stay in london here with the crew for a few weeks and see if i like it, if not ill move on...oh yeah i got a mobile number just then...it is..07876365778..if your in australia, which i reckon would be the vast majority, try 0011447876365778 if your keen and you have the energy to type in all those numbers..i think sms will work from aus..not sure...try it... anyways theres the update until now, from what ive seen, which isnt much, england is pretty cool, so i look forward to getting into the swing of things and doing some exploring as well, should be fun. Oh and the title of this post 'mind the gap' refers to the voiceover in the train, in australia i think its says 'doors closing soon' or something, but here they say ;mind the gap', the gap between the platform and the train. i was going to work it into the post, but i forgot. hope you all have a great weekend. keep smilin. andyb

malaysia time

2005-05-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

well i am now in malaysia, had a shocking flight, no sleep or anything, felt fully wrecked...but was the best landing ever, i hardly even felt the plane touch the ground. beautiful. Had to wait at the airport for about about 10 minutes for my mate to come, in that time i got asked about 50 times whether i wanted to use their taxi. I asked a guy where a payphone was and he tried to sell me a 20 buck phone card, but i saw right through it and made a call for 10 cents, bargain. The family im staying with live about 45 mins from the airport, the highways are really good, but the driving is not, people just drift from lane to lane, and im still yet to see anyone use their indicator and then theres the motorbikes, when approaching a traffic jam, everyone just stands on the brakes at the last minute, but the guys on the motos just speed up and rip through the middle of the cars, unbelieveable. The driving is crazy, but they are all the same so it seems to balance out and there arnt many serious crashes, there arnt many courteousy waves either, for that matter. The food over here is obviously different, totally weird for me, but im willing to have go as an experience; as eating is such a bit part of the malay culture. At home for brekkie i would be tucking into a bowl of weet-bix. This morning i had steamed rice, with marinated baby squid/octopus and sundried small fish (kind of like guppies)... so that was interesting, but living with a malay family you do everything as they would, and really experience their way of life, which is cool. Last night i met up with another girl i met in america and we went up the mentura(?) tower, looks like the centrepoint in sydney, Its the 4th highest of its kind in the world, went up to the observation deck and had a pretty good look over kuala lumpar at night. Then went out for dinner at like 11pm with some more friends...they eat dinner really late over here. and today, everyone was working, so i caught the train into the city centre by myself, just cruising around and looking at the petronas twin towers, the tallest buildings in the world, so they say, i didnt reckon they looked that tall, and as i was taking a photo these 2 other boys walked over about to do the same, and i said "bloody tourists everywhere over here", and had a bit of a laugh, turns out there were from brisbane, and they're catching the same plane as me to london, so that was cool as. So we all caught a taxi to the chinatown markets, the home of imatation stuff...like all the big brands. In australia homeless people carry their clothes in a garbage bag, here they carry their stuff in a fake gucci or prada bag. Awesome place for seeing weird stuff and having a bit of a haggle, one of the boys bought a rado watch for 30 bucks (after bargaining down from $210,nice),he was having a bit of a champion moment, when 10 steps away from the stall, trying to adjust the strap, it completely snapped off. Funny stuff, we gave him heaps. The people go to great lengths over here to sell you their stuff, and prove that it is genuine, like burning the leather goods with a lighter to prove its not plastic. mmm. interesting. heaps of funny stuff going on. we're thinking about renting a car tomorrow and trying our luck in peak hour traffic, but im thinking that is not wise, so we'll probably stick to the good old trains for now. Anyways having a great time over, enjoying the experience-pretty hot, mega high humidity, and all the shops and trains and that, have the air con fully cranked...so you go from boiling to freezing. So having a pretty top time over here at the moment, but will be really stoked after clearing customs and settling in london. But for the moment ill be in malaysia for 2 more days, ill enjoy that, then see how we go in england. Hope all is well where ever you are. keep smilin :) andyb

Leaving Home

2005-05-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

well this is the first real message for my blog, i think ive got it all sorted out. Today is the 15th of may and in about 12 hours ill be on the plane to kuala lumpar, exciting stuff, ill be in malaysia for 4 days, really dont know what to expect- like what climate, how expensive things are etc. So thatll be cool, i like going to new places and experiencing new cultures and meeting new people and the like...so fun times ahead. I havnt even left oz yet and already ive had a few hiccups, such as my dad somehow losing my plane ticket when he was looking at it...a tad unlucky there, as it is quite and important travel document. believe it or not. I got a phone call this morning from a mate, whos picking me up from kuala lumpar airport, wondering where i was, as they had been waiting for an hour already, somehow the dates got confused and she was a day early. and on top of that i think ive just got the flu, not the best start to an overseas trip. Hopefully its not a sign of things to come, and today wont set a pattern of bad luck for the next 18 months. see how we go. So apart from that, it still hasnt really sunk in yet that im leaving in a matter of hours,havent fully packed yet- but everything is coming together alright. Really looking forward to whats in store for the future, im sure there will be some great adventures down the road. to everyones whos reading this, keep posted, ill try and write weekly...feel free to throw in a comment or 2, or hit me back via email. beaden7@hotmail.com. cheers guys, have a good one :) andyb