hiya_tjitske

Finally, catching up :)

2008-11-28T06:18:25Z

Catching up time. Even though it feels like a mountainous task, it’ll only get worse if I don’t do anything about it. I do apologize for not writing sooner, however I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with other developments in my life. It’s hard to know where to start, but I suppose the best way is to say that I’m still in Australia even though I should’ve gone back in August.

It all started a few months ago when I visited Mittagong to do some observations at the chiropractic clinic. Mittagong is about 1.5 hours southwest of Sydney in the Southern Highlands. Anyway, I was offered a position there as a chiropractor, providing I’d do my board exams and obviously apply for a resident visa.

So, first I was a bit, very busy with trying to organize a visa. There’s like over a 100 different visa’s and finding the one that was suitable for my particular situation was a bit tricky. Then gathering all the documents and applying for the visa took up all of my spare time. It was a tad stressful and not much fun.

Because I don’t have a passport from an English speaking country I had to do an IELTS (English language test) test as well as my boards to prove I can speak English. And of course I had to prove I was healthy, so I needed to book a special medical examination.

I finished the visa application in September and was granted a ‘bridging visa’ that allows me to stay in Australia until my visa application has been processed. They won’t actually start processing my application until I’ve passed my board exams. No pressure!

I had a bit of a break (more about this soon) before starting my studies for the boards. I studied for 7 weeks and still hadn’t finished revision when the exams came along and I hurdled myself off to Melbourne for the dreaded exams. It was a bit challenging with five exams on one day and then another two the following day, but I managed to survive.

Two weeks later, and I still haven’t recovered from the exam experience, although hopefully I am catching up on some sleep now.

Anyway, moving on to more inspiring things. In case I didn’t get my visa application in on time, I wanted to make sure I’d seen at least the Northern Territories as well. So, I made sure I had 10 days in which to travel and explore a little.

I finished my job as a live-in nanny, so after saying goodbye to the family (lovely Thai take-away dinner the night before) and they dropped my off at the busstop, which was a great help as it saved me walking 40 minutes with a backpack on my back, I made my way to the airport.

On arrival in Darwin I was hit by a wall of humidity, it was like coming back to Florida or Bonaire, and was somewhat surprised by how brown everything looked. I had seen documentaries on the Northern Territories with everything being lush and green and the farmers saying how lucky they are there’s never a shortage of rain up in the NT. Then I remembered that winter is the dry season up north. This means no rain for at least 6 months of the year. Most things will start to wither at least to some extent under those circumstances, except for some trees that are particularly resistant to this climate.

The ground is a reddish-brown (ochre and/or clay), the grass is brown, the treetops are green and the sky is blue. It provides a remarkably beautiful contrast.

It was September and nearing the end of the dry season. However, before the wet season starts there’s a build-up. This is where the humidity rises and clouds start forming, but no rain will fall for at least another two to three months.

Anyway, from the airport I took a shuttle to the hostel and checked in before attempting to find food (it was 7.30 pm before I managed to check in). I asked about food though while checking in and was told there was a night market on near Mendel Beach, which was about a half hour walk away. Perfect!

It was nice to walk after all that traveling all day and when I got to the market I had some nachos before I discovered ‘The Poffertjes Winkel’ (Dutch for mini-pancake shop). Since I was full up I couldn’t contemplate a serving (20 mini pancakes), however I was tempted.

I walked around the market a fair bit as it was quite big and they had lots of stuff.

After getting back to the hostel I took a shower and in true tropical style came out just as sweaty as I went in. It did save me from having to get up even earlier in the morning, cause we needed to be there at 6 am to leave for Kakadu national park. We were in a bus/truck/very big 4 WD as there was quite a bit of off road driving involved.

We stopped on the way for breakfast before we went on a cruise on the Mary river. There we saw a wallabie, saltwater crocodiles, freshwater crocodiles, lots of birds such as geese, ducks, kites, eagles and other birds of prey, jabbaroos and a few other birds I can’t remember the names of anymore.

After we’d seen it all and were on the way back, the guide (a Harry Potter look-alike) spotted a jabbaroo with a fish in his mouth. So we went to check it out when an eagle flew in and tried to steal it off the jabbaroo. Real wildlife observation J

Then, to make it even more exciting a freshwater croc came in to try and steal the fish as well. Poor jabbaroo… However, then the freshwater croc was attacked by a saltie. Scary as the freshies get eaten by salties. It did mean that the jabbaroo could escape with his fish.

Wait, the saga is scared not over yet. Having away the freshie to a safe distance, the saltie had a go at the jabbaroo to get him out of his territory also. The jabbaroo lost his fish in the process. It’s like watching Eastenders, only 10x more exciting and it’s real J

We did also see the other side of the story a bit further up the river. We saw a male and female jabbaroo and stopped to spot the differences between the two.

Then we noticed a croc coming in. However, he wasn’t after the birds but had seen a file snake (watersnake). He caught it and then the jabbaroo’s tried to steal it off him.

Well, the croc wasn’t having any of it and remained very still until the birds lost their interest and then ate the snake before moving to a more camouflaged position.

After the river cruise we had lunch before going to Kakadu and the visitor centre there. At the visitor centre there was an exhibition about the history of the place told through schience and by Aboriginals.

After that we went to Ubirr rock where there are a lot of Aboriginal stone paintings and we were told some of the stories that the paintings depicted. There were the very old paintings by the Mimi spirits or the Creation Ancestors and a lot of ‘newer’ paintings done by the Bininj/Munggguy artists (tribes) which told stories.

Then we climbed onto Ubirr rock to have a look over the swamp (leftover water from the last wetseason), some hills and Arnhemland (yes, named after Arnhem by a Dutch discoverer) which is extremely sacred ground you can only go onto if you have a special permit (stone country). So the view was extremely varied.

Did you know that the Mary river has a floodplane of 10 km wide on each side of the river. During the wetseason the water level rises by 1.45 metres. The rivers in Kakadu have similar floodplanes, transforming the landscape in the wetseason. Absolutely amazing! And I have to see it before I can imagine it properly.

So, some of the reasons the predominating colour of the landscape at the moment is brown, is because it’s the end of the dry season, so plants are somewhat dehydrated and they have cold fires usually around June time (when it’s relatively cold) to prevent hot fires in October and November. The cold fires clear up all the dry plantation and because temperatures are lower, are more easily controlled and don’t burn as quickly allowing wildlife to escape. They just burn the grass and low shrubs, leaving plenty of seeds for the soil to recover.

The Aboriginals discovered thousands of years ago that having cold fires helps to protect the forest and stimulates new growth during the wetseason.

For sunset on the first day we went to the Yellow river and then we went to a campsite for the night.

The next morning we had to get up at 5 am so we would be the first ones to get to Twin Falls. Although it’s the end to the dry season, Twin Falls is still running as its source is a spring. It was a really nice, relaxing place tucked away at the end/beginning of a river.

There were crocs around, so although we were at a beach, it was unsafe to swim. After relaxing on the beach and watching the entrancing motion of the water falling down, we went back over the off-road track to Jim Jim Falls. Jim Jim Falls isn’t actually falling now as there’s no excess water (although there was a dribble), but during the wet season it’s a huge waterfall with tons of water coming down every minute.

To get to Jim Jim Falls from the carpark you need to do a 1 km hike over a bushtrack and some rocks along the river. Some of the rocks were so smooth from all the water washing over them during the wet season, that they’re really slippery and I actually managed to slip a couple of times.

Here we could go swimming in the plunge pool as apparently there’s only freshies around which are only aggressive when provoked. Such a relief! J Anyway, managed to overcome my somewhat irrational fear and went for a swim. After lunch we went back to Darwin.

Wednesday, another early morning. We needed to be at the pick-up place at 5.30 am to leave at 6 am. Again, we stopped for brekkie on the way and around 11.30 am we arrived at Katherine where we needed to get some petrol. Then we went to the campsite for lunch and change into our swimwear as we went to the Katherine river in Nitmiluk national park for the afternoon. We actually rented canoes so we could go down to Katherine Gorge. There we had a bit of a swim and a walk before canoeing back again.

On Thursday morning it was another early morning. We had a quick brekkie before hitting the road. When we reached Mataranka we had a stop to swim in the thermal pool there while the flying foxes did their best to poo on us. Unfortunately for one of the girls, they managed to poo on her towel and her t-shirt. The small version of the vegetarian version of bats come to the forest around Mataranka for mating and having their young.

The water in the pool was lovely at 32°.

From Mataranka we drove until lunchtime. We had lunch at the pub in Daly Waters. Nearby was the first international airstrip (unlikely spot in the middle of nowhere, but it was military) in Australia. We had a few more stops at service stations until we finally reached Tennant Creek around 6.30 pm and were at the campsite by 7 pm. It was a long day’s drive. At one of the stations we stopped there was a cattle station, pub, motel and shop all in one, another one had a display of lizards and pythons (behind glass of course) and our tourguide took the python out and had us stroke the snake. Remarkably smooth.

Friday, another early morning (starting to get used to them, ehm.. not really) cause we wanted to see the sunrise at the Devil’s Marbles. The Devil’s Marbles are granite stone (very old lava) covered in iron (soil is red due to all the iron in the ground). Very impressive! They were actually called the Devil’s Marbles because when farmers first brought their stock out there, cows ended up dead the next morning. This was due to a flower growing in the grass in summer with little hooks on it that tore the cows’ stomach and caused internal bleeding.

Later in the morning we stopped at an art gallery in between two Aboriginal communities and in the early afternoon we arrived at Alice Springs, so we had some time to see Alice and get settled in the hostel etc. For most of us it involved catching up with things.

The following morning up early again though, 5.10 am to be exact. And off we went to King’s Canyon where we arrived roundabout lunchtime, so lunch before the 2-2.5 hour hike along the Canyon. The rocks were made of sandstone and therefore quite brittle, so we couldn’t go too close to the edge (no problem on my part). There was a much older layer of sandstone which was mixed with a hard quartz and is pretty much as hard as granite.

Obviously, the older layers had also strengthened due to immense pressure that’s exerted onto it over the ages. The newer and softer layer of sandstone would crack and chunks would fall off regularly into the canyon. On top, the cracks would smoothen over time to leave round pillars, making it look like a lost city. This is also where we saw an Aslan table (from chronicles of Narnia J). Down the bottom of the canyon was a grove and a creek that would fill with water when summer comes (relatively more rainfall – average 250 mm/year).

As it was, only the grove that had some water in it because the water can’t penetrate the older, harder layer of the canyon. The water goes straight through the sandstone, so any vegetation on the top of the canyon needs to be adjusted by being able to grow long, deep roots and live off little water. Therefore, the predominant plantation is spinifex (sandgrass or desert grass), gumtrees and some other trees.

Off certain eucalyptus trees you can actually get a white powder from the bark, which is rich in zinc. It’s a much better sunblock than any sunblock that you can buy in the chemist.

After the walk we had another 2.5 hour drive to the campsite, which was situated in the town close to Uluru (Ayer’s rock).

On Sunday we left at 5.45 am to go and see the sunrise at Uluru (at 6.45 am). After that we did a 2-2.5 hour walk around Uluru. You can also go up Uluru, but the Aboriginals prefer you not to as you cross a song line and enter a sacred area. Normally, you’re not allowed to enter sacred areas as you need to be initiated and you’re also not allowed to photograph those areas. So by climbing Uluru you show disrespect to them. On any of the other sacred areas on both Uluru and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) you risk a fine of $5000-10000 for entering and you can also get fined for taking photographs of those particular sites.

It was a lovely walk around Uluru, as it was still early morning and therefore not yet scorching hot. What’s so special about Uluru is that it’s a rock, not a hill/mountain. Uluru is actually largely underground, a bit like an iceberg in the water, and goes about 6 km deep. Mind you, according to research, we can currently only see one rock, Uluru is situated on another rock, which is even bigger and is also classified as part of Uluru (as we can’t see it anyway). This rock will eventually show up as it’s actually being pushed out of the ground (sorry, didn’t quite understand the mechanism but it had something to do with tectonic plates).

Tucked away in an alcove at Uluru is also a gorge and nearby there were some Aboriginal paintings on the stone. Uluru is made of sandstone with calcium and another mineral. The sandstone has been compressed a lot so it’s really hard, but cracks still appear due to high and low temperatures (temperatures can go down to 0° C at night in winter even though temperatures in the day are still 25-30°) and bits of outer rock can break off and fall down.

After Uluru we went to Kata Tjuta, which is made up of lots of different stones compressed together to form rounded mounds. These mounds formed because there were cracks in the original mound and wind, sun, rain and mostly the varying temperatures that also affect Uluru smoothened and shaped it into the various mounds that we can see today.

When we got there we walked the track to Walpa gorge, which was dry and surrounded by bush that we’ll call spear bush for ease sake and because the Aboriginals made spears out of the bush.

The walk to the gorge and back was only 2.5 km, so after we went back to the campsite and then returned to Alice after some lunch. On the way back to Alice we stopped at Mount Connor (looks like Uluru, but is a mount, not a rock) and a salt water lake.

We arrived late afternoon and the following day I flew back to Sydney again, back to the stress of the visa application.

Once I was granted my bridging visa I suddenly realized that the board exams were only 7 weeks away and that I needed to start studying, so I went into a bit of a study frenzy while also looking for a job and everything. So, currently I’m doing fundraising for cancer research which involves me traveling up and down the city all the time. Very tiring, but at least it’s for a good cause.

Third time lucky

2008-07-30T12:15:08Z

Going for a new approach as the internet has been a touch unreliable and I was kind of fed up with losing things. Fairly sure that things should work out this way though.

Anyway, that’s part of my excuse for not writing for so long. The other has to do with being busy with work and relatively little to talk about and having a lot on my mind in general.

At work I’ve tried my hand at making muffins and cookies with the boys. They enjoy eating them, and their part in the making of them mainly consisted of licking the bowl afterwards.

The two year old really likes birds, especially kookaburras, that reside in the garden. They usually sit on a branch of the tree or on the washing line for a while everyday. It took me about two months though to catch one on the photo. The two year old always used to call ‘kooka, kooka’, but more recently has started saying ‘kookaba, kookba’. Progress. For other birds it’s ‘bi, bi’. I do have to say that his eyes seem a lot better than mine. Other obsessions he has are for cars, trucks and buses (ca, tuck and bu respectively).

Winter has really set in here. It’s freezing cold (relatively of course) and rains frequently for a whole day or so and more often at night. Apparently it’s less rain than normal in winter though, so everyone’s worried about water.

I’ve been catching up regularly with an English girl I know over here, she works as a nanny relatively nearby (about half hour by car, not possible to use public transport). We both like to hike so we’ve done a hike a while a go to the lookout point in Palm Beach. Gorgeous views, despite the grey clouds hanging over us, but we stayed dry so it was all good. It’s a relatively short hike so we also walked along the beach for a while. Palm Beach is where Home and Away is filmed (Aussie soap) and it’s about a 10 minute drive away from me.

A friend of mine from Newtown has actually moved to Narrabeen, which is relatively close to me also (about 40 minutes by bus). This means that we can meet up every now and then and not go into the city all the time. Again a while ago I went to visit her and ended up having to stay the night because there was a storm and there was a high flood risk on the Northern Beaches (all the suburbs from Manly to Palm Beach). Oops!!

I’ve also done two chiropractic seminars, one about chiropractic reflex technique and one about cranial adjustments. Should come in handy shortly.

I’ve also been up to Newcastle about a month ago. I’d skipped Newcastle when I was doing the east coast as I was getting tired and I was trying to get in touch with a chiropractor over there that one of my colleagues in England knew. I finally managed to get in touch with him and arranged to meet up with him.

I had to get up rather early as I wanted to catch the 6.30 am bus into the city. It’s about a 40 minute walk down to the bus station and amazingly there were loads of people on the road that morning, runners, walkers and dogwalkers. It was busier on the road than it is during the day. Surreal!!

In newcastle I checked in, had a walk around and a swim in the sea before meeting up with the chiropractor for some observations and something to eat.

Newcastle was originally the location where the worst of the worst convicts were send and had to work in the most atrocious circumstances, so there’s a lot of history. Up until recently it was mainly an industrial town, but they’ve done a lot of work and it looks very modern now.

The following morning I had booked a bicycle tour of Newcastle. I thought this was a good idea as it was different from the usual bus tours etc. Funny thing was, the guy who did the tour was a chiropractor. He did the tours in the morning and worked as a chiropractor in the afternoons. Coincidence???

Later that afternoon I went back to Sydney again cause a friend of mine had asked me to come to Katoomba with her and another friend. Stayed the night in Sydney and went out as it was one of the guys’ birthday. The next morning I wasn’t so happy as I had to get up early to meet up with Claudia and AnnaLiise to take the train to Katoomba.

Katoomba is a small town in the Blue Mountains. They had a Yull fest on over there with a market, bands playing and folk dancing. There was a great atmosphere and we ended up buying beanies because it was so cold (and hot chocolate of course).

That evening we went to visit a couple of Claudia’s friends who were also in town for the festival, they were staying in another hostel.

On Sunday morning we did the skyway cable car over the valley near the three sisters. At the other end we did a bit of a walk on the trail before we returned and took the train to Leura on our way back to Sydney. Leura is a village close to Katoomba which is quite cute. They had a market on here as well.

During the schoolholidays the family went skiing for a week in Thredbo (Snowy Mountains) and I had to come along to make the whole experience manageable. Bonus, I got to see Aussie snow and… do some skiing myself. We were supposed to leave on Saturday, but by the time we left it was quite late by the time we left, so we stayed overnight in Canberra to make the journey a bit easier.

When we arrived on Sunday it was raining, not a good start to the week. It took us a little while to get settled, but by Monday morning everyone was ready to go skiing, while I looked after the two year old. By Thursday the weather was turning around and it was snowing. We put the two year old in kindy and I could do some skiing. Yeah!!!

Conditions were a bit rough, not only was it snowing, it was also very windy and dark and you couldn’t see very far. This meant it was hard to see where the icy and grassy bits were, so slipping was a bit of a possibility and there was no opportunity for preparation.

It was hard work trying to avoid people, bumps and the slippery bits, so by lunch time I was quite tired. Am just not that great a skier!

I got a call then that the two year old had vomited and could I please come and look after him. So I went back and nursed him through an afternoon of emptying his stomach down to the last little bit of stomach acid. Luckily he was asking for water all the time.

The next day he was much better and by lunch time I was confident he would be okay, so he went back to kindy and I went for another ski. Conditions were a little better and I managed to ski a bit with the older boys. Up on top of the mountain it was still windy and snowy with limited sight.

Before returning to Sydney the four year old and me got that lovely stomach bug together. Problem was that although he was ill, in between vomit sessions he was fine, running around as usual, pressing buttons everywhere and constantly trying to break breakable things (typical four year old behaviour I am told), whereas I was knocked out and couldn’t keep up. Not a good combination. Luckily I felt much better the next day.

When I finished work on Monday I flew to Melbourne where I could stay with my friend Elliot, who I met while traveling in America. Was really good catching up.

He had to work, so I entertained myself during day by exploring Melbourne. I also managed to catch up with Sebastian (chiropractor who was in the same year as me) for a meal and with Nick (who I met skiing in America). Therefore had a busy time in Melbourne and had a good time.

Problem was that by the time I got back I was still just as tired as when I finished work. Not so good then. Still struggling a bit to keep going though, so good there’s another break coming up.

back in oz...

2008-05-20T04:00:27Z

and it took a lot longer again to write then i had anticipated. i've got a cold now, again. more annoying than anything else. anyway, on my last update, i didn't manage to get completely up to date, so this time i'll try and get you all up to date on where i am and what i'm up to.

so, about 4 weeks ago (that long already), i flew back to australia. still had a visa, and no work commitments, so i figured now was the best time to try and see as much of the country as possible. only problem, my finances started to get depleted, so on arrival i had to try and get work and that way earn some money for travelling.

the flight to australia was very long and i didn't get round to having lunch before boarding the plane in london. do not advise this to anyone, it's not good flying on an empty stomach, especially since the plane was stuck in london an hour before lift off. heathrow's so well organised, you see.

i was very glad though, that once i got to sydney my bag had arrived also. played on my mind a bit after the new york flight. after checking in to the hostel, i had a shower and some food, and i felt a whole lot better afterwards. the advantage of my flight was that i arrived early evening, so by the time i had done everything, i could go to bed and didn't actually get very bad jetlag, yey...

the following day i went round to some of the agencies i was registered with and also dropped off my cv and covering letter to some of the language schools in sydney. i felt pretty good, although my legs were hurting quite a bit, which i suppose was the result of my body objecting to having sat still for so long on the plane. i also was a bit scatterbrained, but if that was the extend of my jetlag, i don't think i can complain too much.

anyway, with sore legs, it was a bit of a long day walking around, but the next day they were feeling much better already. that was a good thing as i had an interview as a nanny ( i know, i know) all the way up in bilgola (way up in north sydney area near palm beach. it took about 1.5 hours on the bus to get there. there's four children (all boys, eeeck). after the interview i went back again.

the good thing about the hostel is that there's still people there that were there when i was there before as well. many of them had been travelling as well in the meantime, and it was great to catch up with everyone and exchange stories. it also made life a lot easier for me when i got back.

by friday i'd heard that the job was mine. i was happy to get a job of course, but also a bit scared. i mean, four boys is a bit scary, isn't it. i had the whole weekend though before i started work. on the friday it was anzac day. anzac day is a remembrance day for WWI soldiers of the australian and new zealand armies. in sydney there was a parade for all those who'd fought in WWI (and II). of course, there's not that many soldiers left anymore, so relatives are allowed to walk for those who aren't here anymore as well as people who served in WWII.

the parade started from hyde park where there's a monument for WWI with a little museum. i'd completely missed the monument and museum every time i'd walked past it before (quite a feat considering it's about 30 m high).
Kiera (aussie girl from perth who was also staying at the hostel) and me went to watch the parade for a bit, then walked through hyde park and the botanical gardens and then caught the end of the parade again before going back to newtown.

on anzac day, aussie's play 'two up' (heads or tails). simplest game in the world, but people bet on either head or tails and someone else matches the bet. they play it in the pubs around the city. when we got to the pub though, it was so busy that kiera and i gave up on the idea.

as it was quite wet, cold and windy, the weekend passed rather slowly. i did venture out, but it's just not as much fun when the weather's not good. i did go to glebe though, a suburb along the riverback where i'd not been before. nice views over the the city.

once i started work on tuesday, the weather turned around, as usual. it got warmer and the sun came out. welcome back to australia.... the boys at work are 2, 4, 7 and 8. it's hard work looking after them, but it does keep me occupied. with the job i get a room with ensuite bathroom and food as well as some pay. every other weekend the boys go to their father, so i get a long weekend.

on my first weekend off i went back to newtown. on the friday evening i arrived, we went out with a group of people from the hostel. the next morning i had to get up early as i'd arranged to meet lee anna for brunch. had loads of catching up to do. that afternoon kiera and i went to paddington and walked around the market there. in the evening i met up with claudia and britta for a night out. they used to stay at the hostel also, so we were joined by quite a lot of other people.

on sunday we were supposed to leave between 10 and 11 am to go hiking, but we finally left around noon (not too bad, could be a lot worse). apparently this was an improvement from last time. there was five of us hiking: chris (NZ), Max (German), Candice (Canadian), Paul (Aussie) and me.

Paul was our guide as he knows loads about the bush. the bush was invested with spiders (must be time of the year, as i hadn't seen that many before) and there'd been a bushfire in early summer so the damage to the trees was obvious, although a lot of the ground vegetation was already growing back again.

we had taken the train from sydney to berowra, which was about 45 minutes away on the fast train. from there we followed a 9 km track through ku-ring-gai chase national park (whole mouthful, isn't it) to ku-ring-gai train station. we managed to catch the 5.30 pm train back to sydney again.

when we got back i had to rush to take a shower and get some food before meeting up with michael, one of the aussies i met while in america (in yosemite national park). we caught up on what we'd been doing and chatted to his friends jim and jess. by 11 pm i was exhausted though and very happy to find my bed.

on tuesday i had to go back to bilgola again, but not before having a haircut. my hair was full of dead ends again, so i decided to go radical and have short hair now. very strange sensation.

on saturday i made muffins with one of the boys (that is, he chose the type and i made them and he licked the bowl).

now, i think this pretty much catches us up so far.

many apologies....

2008-05-03T03:46:17Z

hi everyone,

there's me again. it was quite a shock to see how long it had been since i'd written on here, so there's quite some catching up to do. and i give my apologies to all of you who were wondering where i were and what happened to me. hope you didn't get worried.

last time we left it in new york, i believe. now, there's a lot of thinking back involved, but i believe i had a museum day on the friday. first i went north for a change to washington heights where there's a museum in a park, tryon park. the tube station is right outside of the park, so it kind of feels like you get away from the city for a bit.
the museum is called the cloisters and i didn't realise beforehand, but they've basically taken bits from many french (rouen) cloisters and churches and put them together in new york to make a museum. inside the museum they had a collection of tombs, paintings, sculptures, playing cards, books and ohter paraphanelia associated with churches and religion in the middle ages. although it was interesting, it didn't really feel authentic, but i suppose it's the best the americans can get on that front, it's definitely popular with local schools to help make history a bit more real to children.

in the afternoon i went to the MET (metropolitan museum of art), but i was on the wrong tube, so i got off at colombus circle (59th st) and had to walk through central park back up to 81st st. but i figured that as i'd gotten out at colombus circle, which is a bit of an attraction itself, i'd better have a look around, have some lunch and have a peek inside the temple emanu-el (jewish temple), which was all that was open to the public. it was very pretty and had a very distinctive style of tiling (kind of mosque-like, only totally different) and lead glass windows.

back to central park until i hit the MET where i spend a good couple of hours getting lost among european painters (1300-1800) and then impressionism, post-impressionism and modernism. other exhibitions i didn't have time or energy for as this took me through to 7.30 pm. other exhibitions included however: spanish art; drawings, prints and photographs; 3-4 asian art exhibitions; musical instruments; american; african; greek and roman; egyptian; and medieval arts. makes you understand why people become members.

on saturday, it was a walking day again. i started at union square where there was a market and for the first time since arriving in new york there was nice looking fruit (most other fruit looked like plastic), so i bought some and it tasted as nice as it looked (not like plastic, relief...). from union square i walked up to madison square where i found a diner to have some lunch (started a bit later than usual) before walking to madison square garden (not a garden, but an entertainment complex where they also organise sporting events and concerts as well as the cinemas etc.).
behind madison square garden was penn station and the general post office, which is quite possibly the biggest post office building i've ever seen.
then i walked to the rockefeller centre (past/through the biggest store in the world, macy's on 42nd st - a whole long, block) and st patrick's cathedral before going back down to the new york library, which is quite possibly the biggest and grandest library building i've ever seen. after that, i finished by going up the empire state building. this consisted of waiting in line for xray, waiting in line to buy tickets, waiting in line for a photo against a green screen, waiting in line to go up the lift and again for the next lift. when you get up there it's really crowded and there were lots of bars obscuring the view (too many suicide attempts in the past), but..... i've been up the empire state building. (don't forget, more queing to get back down again).

on sunday i walked through central park. i was just really tired from all the walking i'd done and looking at paintings all day in museums doesn't really give the legs a break, so i took it nice and easy as i had all day to walk through the park. i had found out however, that my mum has a cousin who lives in new york. we managed to get in touch and i had arranged to visit her late afternoon, so after a day in the park, i knocked on her door. it was really nice to meet here and her husband and daughter (6 year old). i think that means that i have a cousin, twice removed or something like that.

on monday i went to the MoMa (museum of modern art) in the morning, where i managed two floors before i felt exhausted and overwhelmed. in the afternoon i walked past radio city music hall to times square and back to columbus circle.

on tuesday i was due to fly back home again, so in the morning i went to seaport (which i realised i hadn't gotten round to before and you get some nice views over brooklyn bridge from there). then i took the tube back up to central park and walked from south to north all the way back to the hostel, where i met up with two people who also had to go to the airport. when we got there, we checked in and had a coffee before each going our seperate ways to catch our flights. i flew over london heathrow, and my bag managed to get lost there, so it took 2 extra days to reach amsterdam (i'd just congratulated myself when i was in new york that my bag didn't get lost even once with all my travels, bit too soon and they immediately set me right again). anyway, everything was still in there when it finally got back, so that was a bonus.

at the weekend, both my brother and sister came to visit my parents as well, as my mum and sister celebrated their birthday. it was a good way to see some family again without having to travel for it (i know, i know, sounds a bit lazy after all that i've done).

on tuesday after i arrived two of my friends had a baby (coincidence that it was on the same day???) and they both had boys, so the boys are obviously expected to become friends later in life (they live in the same street as well). anyway, my mum and me went to visit my friends (who were lying close to each other in hospital) that evening. the babies were so tiny... and i visited them a bit later in the week again, to make sure both my friends were okay.

now i'll leave it at that for today. promise i'll write again soon.

hiya_tjitske @ 2008-04-04T07:52:00

2008-04-04T12:29:41Z

on sunday i left from bonaire ridiculously early in the morning (okay, not quite as early as i did from fort lauderdale) and had a 5-6 hour layover in puerto rico, easy compared to 10). i had been given a french visa waiver form to enter the us. i didn't understand it and the air flight attendent didn't have an english version, nor did she speak french, so i ended up filling it in to the best of my abilities and then had to ask the guy at immigration what the rest meant.

back in fort lauderdale my uncle took me to the riverfront of fort lauderdale. the new river is the interstate that runs from key west all the way up to new york. this area is downtown fort lauderdale, so there were some shops, restaurants and museums. we also went to the open air cinema. not to watch a film, but to walk across the market they have there. we got some apple bananas (it's weird, but they do have a kind of apple taste), peanuts and corn from the fruit and veg section there. there was loads of other stuff also, just like a chinese market only different.

the following day it was time to go to new york and after 1 hour and 20 min delay i finally arrived at laguardia airport where we had to wait 45 min for our luggage. luckily, public transport here is better organised than in the rest of america (as far as i've seen it anyway) and within another hour i was checking into the hostel.

the next morning i left early to go downtown and take the ferry to the statue of liberty and ellis island. when i got to the ferry though i still had to wait 1 hour and 45 min though (still not early enough....). after arriving on the island where the statue stands i still had wait again for another hour before we could go into the museum and up the pedestal of the statue to enjoy some views. the museum explained a lot of the history behind the statue.

the idea came from Edouard de Laboulaye and some other french intellectuals who didn't like the rule of napoleon 3. they admired the democracy in america.. france had helped america gain independence nearly a century earlier.

mr Bartholdi, a sculptur went on to design the statue. he designed it after the roman goddess libertas, the personification of freedom. it was agreed that the french people would pay for the monument and america would pay for its foundation and pedestal. the skeleton for the statue was designed by mr. eiffel (yes, the same who designed the eiffel tower). they had to build the statue 4 times before it was up to the size they wanted it (they had to enlarge it in steps to prevent losing the proportions).

the french people struggled to raise the money for the statue, but in america the fundraising for the pedestal was diabolical. that is, until joseph pulitzer got involved. he owned the newspaper The World and started publishing lots of articles about the statue and french generosity and how the rich americans were so tight. he also named every one who donated some money to the cause in his paper. eventually, there was a pedestal and the statue could come to america where it had to be re-erected.

after all that i took the ferry to the next island, ellis island. this was the immigration island for new york and one of the busiest entrances to the us. Ellis island originally was tiny and soon the military had nearly doubled its size (they thought it was an important strategic point to defend the country against the english). it became an immigration station around 1890 shortly before the immigration laws were tightened, and the us officials had to deal with the enormous influx of immigrants.

in 1897 there was a fire and all the wooden buildings burned down, so they erected stone buildings instead. soon, the size of both the buidlings and the island weren't sufficient to cope with all the immigrants anymore, so they doubled its size and build a hospital for the sick people ( a lot of people got sick on the journey across due to its length, dirt and in some cases food deprivation). ellis island served as an immigration centre until 1954.

people who arrived were first examined for possible contagious diseases like cholera, plague, smallpox, typhoid yellow and scarlet fever, measles and diptheria. interpreters were obviously very important as many immigrants couldn't speak any english. many interpreters spoke 6-12 languages and one even 15.

as people entered the hall, they had to walk up stairs and were examined there for lameness, breathlessness or bewildered gazes (indication for mental illness). they're eyes, face, hair, neck and hands were examined also. if immigrants had trachome (eye condition) or any of the diseases procribed by the immigration laws or was too feeble or ill to earn a living they were deported.

if you needed further examination they'd write a letter on your right shoulder to indicate what you needed to be examined for. immigrants who passed the medical exam were ready for the final test from the primary line inspector who had to verify if they were 'entitled to land'. only 2% failed to be admitted.

after admittance, people had to change their money and buy a railroad ticket if they had to continue beyond new york (many came here to join family). for many people the whole process could take months if one of the family had gotten ill on board.

after getting back to manhattan afterwards i noticed how hungry i was (it was 4 pm) so i got into the first deli i saw and had some lunch. then i walked past the us customs house, new york stock exchange on wall street, the national federal memorial hall and trinity church before continuing up broadway to st paul's chapel, woolworth's building, city hall park and city hall. from there i took a subway to times square where i wanted to inform after tickets for a chorus line. they still had tickets for that evening so i ended up seeing the show. brilliant.

on thursday i took the tube downtown again and walked across brooklyn bridge to prospect park (bit far, so probably better to take the tube after the bridge and walk in the park with fresh legs), and saw quite a bit of brooklyn in the process. it's not all that different from manhattan. bit dirtier and more spacious. i took the subway back to manhattan again and got off at essex street in lower east side. there i walked along the shops until i reached bowery street. here, chinatown has already expanded into lower east side. after admiring the bowery savings back building i walked north, passed cooper square (which is triangular shaped) to astor place, which is suddenly much more upmarket and clean. from here i walked past the new york university (and had a nose in their bookstore), through washington park, which is the student meeting and playground, to 6th avenue up to jefferson courthouse and walked back through bleecker street which is the shopping street of greenwhich village. when i got to soho, i did some gallery hopping and window shopping in dolce and gabbana and other big names. i also managed to buy my sister and mum presents and they should be happy, cause i went a bit mad. it was my sister's birthday after all.

anyway, all that walking was tiring, so i needed an early night after all that.

final bonaire!!!

2008-04-04T02:28:24Z

Last wednesday i went kayacking early in the morning on Lac Bay where all the mangrove trees grow. It was a late birthday present from Desiree. The advantage of this is that the inlet of Lac Bay has much quieter water than the sea (especially since it's on the east coast where the sea is really, really rough), kayacking was never so easy.... The mangroves that grow along the edge of the water is a really good and safe place for fish to reproduce. this means that while kayacking (and trying to avoid hitting the roots and causing damage to the poor tree) there was plenty to see. we saw young parrotfish (not quite as pretty as the adult versions) and young barracuda's. all over the sand were jellyfish lying up side down with algae on their tenticles miming the effect of seaweed, except you don't want to stand in it as they sting.

we also went snorkelling for a bit through a passageway between mangroves. here we could see how reef grows onto the roots. amazing. the reef had all sorts of colours: orange, purple, green and black. they also had mussles and crabs on their roots giving a very strange effect. there were also some pretty impressive fish, not only young fish, but of course some of the adult versions as well. luckily we didn't see a reefshark though, somehow i didn't quite fancy meeting one of those. they have been known to come there and give birth also.

the mangroves that grow on bonaire (lac bay) are either red or black. the red mangroves get their freshwater by distilling the saltwater themselves (very handy trees) and get their oxygen by small warts that grow on their roots just above the water surface. their flowers have the seeds blown away by the wind, so trees can grow fruits. from the fruits though, new roots already start growing until they're ready to drop into the water and dig themselves into the soil (sand) and sprout. clever isn't it? anyway, mangroves are very useful trees in combatting climate change as they store a lot of CO2 and produce a lot of oxygen.

on the way back to the car we found some deeper water in a spot where normally turtles can be seen, but unfortunately they were hiding so no luck there.

on thursday Noa went to the creche so i went for a walk in the morning (early in the morning is the only time you can walk without getting severely dehydrated and sunburned) to seru largi where they have the lookout point. it took me about an hour to do the return walk. at night we went for a night snorkel. i wasn't sure how i'd feel about being in the water at night, but i surprised myself and really enjoyed it. it was almost less scary than during the day. you can only see what the lamp allows you to see. can't look around too much then. it's kind of reassuring in a strange way. very cool.

we saw quite a few different fish. at night different fish come out from during the day and of course we saw some reef. the place we went to though had had such a lot of damage from lenny that it was mainly dead coral and some old logs lying around. there were some areas with reef, but they were kind of scattered in little islands.

on saturday we wnet into town (kralendijk) to have a look around the shops there. in the evening we watched a documentary film on the carribean and californian bay reef, which was really cool. if only to see what else is out there to see and to point at things you have seen.

hiya_tjitske @ 2008-03-25T15:00:00

2008-03-25T19:05:50Z

Last tuesday we went to a small beach called Andrea beach and did some snorkelling there for a bit. The reef here in the carribean is quite different from that in australia. In the late nineties there was a huge hurrican Lenny. the waves Lenny made caused a lot of damage to the reef. although this was a while ago, the effects are still visible. there's a lot of dead coral lying around and it's also the reason that there's less variety in the coral.

apparently the deeper coral hasn't been affected as much by the waves and you still get the variety and prettiness there. of course, you need to go diving for that. anyway, apart from coral there were also lots of different types of parrot fish and 4 eye and other sorts of fish. parrot fish all start life as a female and end life as a male, so they always see both sides of the story. could be useful as well as confusing. as they change from female to male they also change their colour pattern, making it even more complex to recognize the different parrot fish.
i also ran into some jellyfish. luckily they were of the local variety, so i had some red itchy patches for a few hours, but had no other side effects. on wednesday, I joined Desiree as she had to work on Klein Bonaire (Little Bonaire), which is a small island just of the west coast of Bonaire. Nobody lives there, there's no buildings there, just sand, coral and shrubs.
there's cruise ships that stop on Bonaire on a near to daily basis and they offer several tours, one over the island, one to take a boat to go snorkelling and one to Klein Bonaire. all you can really do there is go snorkelling, but it's really pretty snorkelling there. i went snorkelling also and in between times chatted to Desiree and the others that work there. they provide the tourists with snorkelling gear and refreshments. it was a lovely day, but some people thought it was too windy. personally i thought that only once when i got sea water in my mouth due to a high wave. it was also quite cloudy at times, making it more difficult to see the reef underwater and more easy to get sunburnt as you don't think it's that hot.
on thursday we had a quiet day. desiree had to work in the morning and i was babysitting. in the afternoon we needed to do some cleaning and laundry. needs to be done.
on friday it was good friday and i went for a walk in the morning. although desiree still had to work the morning, peter had the day off and looked after noa while i was out. in the afternoon the four of us took the car and drove to the south side of kralendijk. we first came past a lake with lots of flamingo's in it (chogogo's in papiamento) before passing the airport. beyond there lie the salt condenser basins (zoutpannen). they go on and on for miles. the first basin was a purple-pink kind of colour with white foam around the edges and as we progressed the colour of each basin slowly turned a lighter shade of pink till we got to the pier where the ships come to get the salt. opposite the pier, in between two basins you can see pyramid style salt towers which are a painfully reflective white.
beyond the pier the shades of the basins are more in the blue-green range. you get to the white slavehouses and obelisk. it was one of four obelisks they had to tell ships where to go and get the salt from in the old days. the most northern one was blue, then white, red and finally the most southern obelisk was orange (anyone see the pattern...). the slavehouses were tiny little huts sleeping two. the slaves stayed here during the week. they lived up in rincon (which is in the north part of the island) and would walk down on a monday morning (it would take them about 7 hours to walk down) and worked at the salt condenser basins all week and returned home on friday. the stone huts were built in 1850, before then they were made of lime and had leafs for roofs. apart from the white slave houses there were also yellow ones next to the orange obelisk.
on the south edge of the island there's lighthouse which is the oldest one on the island and stems from 1838. we went back up the other side of the island along the east coast until we reached lac bay. we stopped for a bit here at sorobon beach and then drove around the mangroves that surround lac bay. it looks remarkably green here.
after this we returned back to the house as we'd been gone all afternoon.
on saturday morning we took a roadtrip up the northern part of the island. we took the road along the west coast up to the gotomeer (goto lake). there's a lot of dive and snorkelplaces up along the west coast and we stopped at a few to enjoy the views we got there. one of the sites we went past was andrea beach where we were earlier in the week. along the way up to the lake we also visited the ruins of karpata mansion, which is for sale. so anyone who likes to have a project for major renovations, knock yourself out. it's got gorgeous views.
anyway, we ended up at the gotomeer which had lots of flamingo's in them and some of them were posing for us. perfect for the camera. then we went through to rincon, which is a small village and took the road to get into the kunuku (or knut) whcih is the countryside of bonaire. the countryside is filled with cacti and dividivi trees. the tallest cacti are about 4-5 metres high and have as many branches as a tree. the dividivi tree is very thorny and grows sideways due to the wind and sun. we came back down the coast to pass boka onima (where we were the week before) and went all the way down the coast till we got to the lighthouse on the most easterly point of the island around boka kanoa or boka rincon area (?).
this lighthouse we could go into and climb up, which we did, before taking the car and return to the house. we'd been gone all afternoon again.
on sunday we had to get up early as we'd planned to go to the national park washington-slagbaai which is in the northern tip of the island (yes, we did go up all the way to the north of the island due to the national park being there), north of the gotomeer and rincon. the first thing we did when we got there was hike/climb up the brandaris. on the way over to the brandaris however we came past salina matijs, which is a salt water lake or was rather. it had completely dried up and all you could see of it now was the leftover lining of white salt.
climbing the brandaris took us most of the morning. it's 241 metres high and gives you a view over the whole island (expect where vision just doesn't reach quite that far). after some light lunch in the presence of lots of leguana's begging for food, we went to have a look at a blow hole called suplado. then we went to the a window in seru bentana where we climbed up. on top of the window grew a cactus of the circular bowl variety.
a little drive further we got to pos mangel, which is a small freshwater pond. here we saw some really big leguana's. normally you mainly see young ones and teenagers, which are usually not much longer than 30 cms. these were huge though and had spikes on their backs.
otherwise we passed salina bartol (salt water lake) and salina wayaka (again, salt water lake) before getting to salina slagbaai (guess what, again salt water lake). at slagbaai there was a little beach where quite a few people were swimming.

disney, orlando and bonaire....

2008-03-18T13:34:27Z

american towns and city's are all rather, spaced out. everything is so far away you can actually begin to understand why americans drive everywhere. the shops are often so big you can't actually see what the next shop is and you can't be bothered to walk the distance only to find out it's not what you're looking for. so unless someone's told you there's something you need (e.g. supermarket), you just can't be bothered to explore.
anyway, the hostel in orlando was supposed to be really close to everything, but it took 1.5-2 hours to get to my seminar (and that for 11 miles, i could almost walk it in that time). however, before i had my seminar i had a day where i could go to disney world. i decided to go to MGM studios. i had already seen a smaller version of magic land in hongkong and it seemed different enough from universal studios in hollywood.
i planned to be there around 9 am, but due to the wonderful bus system we had to wait half an hour for a bus to show up. so i didn't get there until 9.30 am. anyway, when i got in the highschool musical show had just started, so that was handy. then i did the great movie ride, which went past scenes of some of the famous movies disney made over the years showing marylin monroe, gene hackman, clint eastwood and many others.
after that i walked all the way to the back of the park where i did the studio backlot tour. three volunteers got drenched when they showed us some of the techniques of how they shot pearl harbour (they did wear rain clothes) before we got onto a trolley and were carried around various sets, Herbie and special effects of a burning and water extravaganza.
then i watched the muppet vision 3 D show, the star wars flight simulator and the indiana jones stunt show. in the last show they had harrison ford's stunt double perform some of the stunts toether with lots of other stunt doubles and actors.
then i walked across to beauty and the beast live stage show (shortenend version of course) and did the tower of terror (lift goes up and down and across very fast) as well as the rock 'n roller coaster starring aerosmith. this last ride was definitely the most exciting ride in the park, so of course i came back for it later in the day again.
i had a look at walt disney's one man dream before it was time to go across the park and go to the lights, motors, action! show in which they performed car stunts and then showed us how they did it and filmed it.
at the end of the day there was the fantasmic! show, which was nearly cancelled due to severe weather (about 3-4 thunderstorms in the air) before it did go ahead. there was lots of light, laser, dancing fountains, special effecs and of course all the animation figures such as mickey mouse, donald duck, minnie and daisy, goofy, beauty and the beast, snowhite and her prince, the evil stepmoher etc etc.
on saturday and sunday i had my seminar for chiropractic which meant getting up ridiculously early to take 3 buses and not getting back till very late and in between time doing lots of paying attention and practising and of course getting to know some collegues of this way of the atlantic.
on monday morning i headed back to fort lauderdale as my grandparents had arrived the day before so we had some time before i was flying to bonaire on wednesday.
the flight to bonaire consisted of two approximately 2 hour flights and a 10 hour wait in between at san juan airport in puerto rico. bit trying, especially when my second flight was delayed by 15 minutes (nothing of course in the big scheme of things). we still landed at the scheduled time in bonaire though at the cutest and tiniest airport. desiree and peter and their little girl noa were waiting for me once i got my bag.
desiree had taken the following morning off, so we had the chance to catch up and noa could get used to me. on friday morning desiree had to work and noa and me tried to swim in the pool (noa is one and a half years old) at her work place as well as playing a bit. noa can play with the ground, her fet and pebbles, so she's easily amused and didn't really need the toys we'd taken for her.
on saturday we had to do some shopping in the morning and for dinner we went to a lookout point over bonaire on a hill called seru grandi, where we had a picnic and watched the sunset. it was a bit cloudy, so we couldn't see as much as they wanted to show me, but we could still see quite a bit. apparently, there was also a dutch celebrity having a picnic (Henny Huisman for those who know. he's got a house on the island), but i didn't recognize him. so i missed it.
sunday morning i went for an early morning walk before it got too hot. i felt i needed some exercise. there was quite a lot of traffic on the road for a sunday morning and i was offered a lift about 5-6 times (kind of defies the point of exercising, doesn't it) and church started around 8.30 am as i walked past. so basically, bonairians like to get up early, even on a sunday. in the afternoon, we went to the east coast of bonaire to a place called boka onima, where the native indians made rock drawings in the past. they celebrated different cycles of the moon and used some of the huge rocks for astrology. at christmas time they come to a cave where there's a hole in the ceiling through which the christmas star shines once a year. they celebrate it even now and perform nativity plays in the cave. looking into the sea at the inlet, we saw some parrot fish and a turtle, and on the rocks there were lots of fossils.
on monday i was baby sitting noa in the morning and in the afternoon we went to the beach. we forgot to take the snorkelling gear though, which was a shame, but we'll try again. in the evening we went to the beach to go star gazing.

it's been a while...

2008-03-07T01:08:54Z

I didn't realise how long it had been since i'd written. san diego seems like such a long time ago now. on the friday i went to mexico. i didn't realise before i left that it would rain all day, so that was a bit of a wet surprise. it certainly made the day less enjoyable and as i had a bus to catch i couldn't turn around and quickly get changed. we went to a town just across the border in mexico called tijuana. it seemed very much like an american town, except everything was in spanish instead of english and spanish. they pick on tourists like they did in china, and of course being blonde and about a foot taller than the average mexican, i kind of stood out as a tourist. because it was so windy and rainy it was rather uncomfortable to be outside and i ended up going back after lunchtime (lunch is at 2.30 pm of course), so when i got back i could warm up again under a hot shower.
on saturday it was a gorgeous, warm and sunny day. it's very strange how the weather changes from one day to the next. anyway, i went to balboa park where i had a lovely walk for two hours before entering the san diego zoo. i decided that if i was to go to a zoo anywhere it had to be here. it's worldfamous. as i'd gotten a bit thirsty i had a drink while two peacocks kept me company. it was lovely to be away from the city and see the monkeys play and other animals perform their funny habits, whatever they may be at the time. i don't normally like zoo's as i don't like caged animals, but san diego zoo is not too bad in that respect and they have a wildlife park as well which is further outside of san diego. they also have quite a few animals you either normally don't see in zoo's or i had never heard of before. one of the sunbears got one of his paws stuck between two tree branches and tumbled up side down. very funny.
on sunday i went to coronado island despite the fact it was raining again (starting to see a pattern there). this time i knew it was coming, so i was prepared. it was only about 10 mins by ferry the island which is not really an island at all, but a peninsula. the main attraction on the island was th coronado hotel, which was built in 1880 (or thereabouts). it's one of the few hotels from that period that are still inuse, most of them didn't make it after WW2. the coronado hotel has revamped itself though and is now a listed building and protected as a historical building. they have in true american style lots of little designer shops in the hotel. you're own little mall.
i actually ended up watching the musical Hello, Dolly there by a local company. i decided i might as well since it was still raining. it was a typical american musical and the performances were pretty good. when i got out it had finally stopped raining, so i could still see coronado island in the sunshine (makes it a lot prettier).
on the monday i realised i'd done pretty much everything so i did a harbour cruise, which was very navy orientated as the navy is stationed here and has been for many years. i also saw some sealions though, they're so big and smelly and they were sunbathing (and probably making themselves more smelly in the process, but hey they looked like they enjoyed themselves). there were also some interesting birds, but i can't remember their names and couldn't get them on photo as my camera's not quite good enough. in the afternoon i had another walk in balboa park again, there was still plenty of the park i hadn't seen yet.
on tuesday i had the morning before catching the train to LA, so i lost myself in Macy's and didn't buy anything. the bus from LA union station took as long as the train had taken from san diego to LA, but finally i did arrive at the hostel in hermosa beach. i wanted to be on the beach this time, to get away from the city a little bit (and it was close to the airport), but i had to go into the city two days running, so maybe that wasn't the wisest decision. hermosa beach is lovely if you can just spend every day locally, on the beach or something.
this time i did manage to get to the Getty museum, which i failed to go to last time i was in LA (the bus stopped a third of the way over???). it's absolutely huge, there's so much to see.
on saturday i flew out to fort lauderdale, florida where my aunt and uncle live. my uncle came to pick me up from the airport and as i hadn't had breakfast yet (they didn't sell veggie option on plane), i got some brunch (at 3 pm). by the time my aunt came home from work i was hungry again, which was good since it was dinnertime.
on sunday we went to fort lauderdale beach which was very nice. it was nice to be in the water again, even though apparently they have box jelly fish here as well. not a good thought. my skin had paled a bit while i had immersed myself in the snow for so many weeks (don't worry, it was still quite a bit darker than the normal whiteness i carry), so i managed to get a little sunburned despite the sunblock.
on monday i walked with my aunt while she brought round the post tot he people of north lauderdale. it was really interesting to see how the post works. my aunt has the longest route of the post men/women at her office. she has to walk about 10 miles on her route.
when we started out it was chucking it down. within seconds we were wet. luckily, we had raincoats with us and after a while it cleared up and the sun came out, so we could dry up again. along the way we met som cats who wanted to be stroked. we didn't meet charlie, the talkative parrot, because he was indoors, but my aunt phoned me the following day, so i still managed to get in a chat with charlie. have to say it was slightly onesided (he was talking all the time). of course we also left a trail of barking dogs behind us, as is only fitting for the post service.
i felt a bit lost though, i completely lost my orientation with all the streets looking similar and having similar names (e.g. NW66 ST, NW67 ST, NW66 CT, NW66 Ave; you get the idea).
i caught a cough when i was in LA and it was slowly developing into something worse (i suppose it's a cold, but it's a weird one without runny nose). so on tuesday i was knocked out after i hadn't been able to sleep due to my cough. wednesday i started to feel better again until i went for a swim in the pool.
today i travelled to orlando by greyhound again, it was more flexible than amtrak.

what a week...

2008-02-22T05:30:48Z

so, i didn't even realise that last thursday was valentines day. happy valentines still to everyone. here in america they send valentines cards to their parents, grandparents, friends, children etc etc. basically, anyone you might care about. novelty.
anyway, after my last entry i left for the train. i knew it was 1-1.5 hours delayed, so i didn't bother showing up until an hour late anyway, but then the train still didn't come. so we (there was quite a bunch of us waiting, mostly people returning from skiing/snowboarding trips) phoned amtrak (train company) and they told us after 14 minutes that the train was expected within the half hour. that time came and went, and we were getting really cold (it was approx. -10, in celcius), so we phoned again. that's when we were told that the train was delayed by 4 hours (another 2 hours to wait) due to an avalanche. that's what happens when you sent trains through the rocky mountains i suppose. anyway, first thing i did was phone the hostel in denver. they said no problem, you can still come (found out later there was a party on, so the guys at the desk didn't mind staying up). me and a girl called diana decided to find some warmth in a restaurant on the corner. the train finally came around 9.15 pm and we got to denver okay around 11.30 pm. what a day...
the following day i went into denver to the colorado history museum. a lot of italians settled in colorado. initially it was mainly italians from the north and they came because they didn't agree with the politics in italy (italy was becoming one country instead of many small republics then). later, southern italians also arrived. these were generally poorer and didn't have a lot in common with earlier arrivals, so they needed to work on their differences and smooth over some difficulties. the italians liked colorado cause the climate is very similar to northern italy, so they created their own little italy away from home. this was the main exhibition. there were also exhibits about ski soldiers in WW2 and the native american history in colorado. unfortunately, i didn't have time for the last exhibit as i was meeting up with diana again. we ended up spending the rest of the day together.
i had been trying to figure out how to get to yellowstone, but they don't do public transport (americans don't like public transport, so it's difficult to get from one place to another without a car) over here and the car hire companies wouldn't let me drop off a car near yellowstone, so uncooperative.
anyway, a girl from the hostel asked if i wanted to join her on her trip to colorado springs. so i decided that maybe that was just as good an idea. on the way over we stopped at roxborough park where we did a bit of a hike over ice while it was snowing. roxborough park is right at the edge between the warmer southern climate and the colder northern climate, which results in a greater variety of species in the area. there were many rocks again as well. it's always amazing to see what shapes they managed to be carved into by the simple process of erosion.
anyway, i ended up staying a few days in colorado springs. we (ashley and me) were staying on someones couch (ashley is a member of couchsurfing.com). the guy was called david and he was a student at the local university and he shared a flat with a fellow student jake. we (ashley and me again) went to visit manitou springs, which is right next to colorado springs and they have naturally carbonated spring water. the springs were really popular long before they were discovered by the europeans with the native americans. the mineral in the water give each spring a really distinctive flavour, and each one has been formed differently depending on the route the water took coming down from the mountain. the water comes from snow and rain water from pikes peak and surrounding mountains. it soaks intot he rocks and becomes heated and mineralises. then it flows up the Ute's pass into cavernous limestone where it becomes carbonated.
the water takes thousands of years to make this journey down to the springs in manitou, so you drink water approximately 20,000 years old. this also means it's free of industrial and atmospheric contamination. the native americans thought the spring waters were medicinal (probably due to many of them being rather bitter and sulphuric tasting, although apparently that's due to iron and copper apparently) and they also believed the waters were a gift from the great spirit manitou.
when europeans arrived, they commercialised it, as they do by bottling the water and making the town a health resort. it was very popular during the tuberculosis epidemic and many people came here and died. apparently there's still a lot of ghosts from that time haunting the town.
nowadays manitou springs is a really cute old fashioned american town where it's considered selling out when the visitor centre uses starbucks coffee beans to make their coffee (no chains at all...) and bears visit the locals in summer to rummage through their garbage. some of the springs are called after native american tribes (e.g. navajo, cheyenne, ute's chief) or people who were important in some way (e.g. wheeler - who owned the spring and donated it to the town -, and stratton), or they called it after the dominating flavour (e.g. iron springs geyser, soda spring).
we also went to visit the garden of the gods which lies in between manitou and colorado springs. the garden of the gods is a red sandstone park. many formations are over 300 million years old and were sculpted over time by erosion. there were quite a few rock climbers about despite the cold weather. i know my poor fingers wouldn't last if i were to climb in that kind of weather. they need gloves....
on tuesday i travelled to albuquerque and this time i determined i should spent a little time in the town i had passed through twice before already and still hadn't seen any more of than the bus station. so i booked to stay in the hostel overnight and i visited the old town, where they still have the spanish/mexican style of buildings (pueblo) and lots of little souvenir/jewellery shops with native american works in them and had lunch at one of the restaurants, new mexican style...
i also visited the indian pueblo cultural centre where they had a lot fo the native american history again. just to recap:
it started with the emergence. the place of emergence was the sipapu (which they had in their kiva's). according to legend they travelled through 4-5 underworlds before arriving in this world.
the native americans revere the mother earth and all women as her representatives ( how refreshing compared to most other cultures). in pre-european times they were nomadic hunters and gatherers during the ice age. over time, as many large game animals disappeared, they started to hunt smaller animals and domesticate certain plants like corn, beans, squash and cotton. initially they lived in pithouses like we saw in mesa verde, and as we know they developed their building techniques over time to build stone houses there also.
after they left mesa verde, people migrated to the rio grande river valley (the rio grande river lies along albuquerque) where they build 3-5 storey free standing houses. these were defensively build to protect themselves against the nomadic raiders which by then entered the southwest.
when the spanish came they named the indian villages they encountered pueblo's and the name stuck. the indians by then already had an internal trading system of rawhide dress, decorative beadwork, silver necklaces, turquoise, handcrafted seashells, and parrot and other exotic bird plumage. the spanish came looking for the seven cities of gold in 1539 but didn't find any (the golden coloured sand with pieces of crystal in it gave it a golden hue,that's all). after extensive exploration, they didn't return to settle until 1598.
the spanish were largely in control, except for a 12 year period where the indians took back control over the area, but the spanish returned with all their weaponry and took power again. in 1821, mexico separated itself from spain and mexico was split by the united states only a few years later.
apart from native american history, it also had exhibition from indian matriarchs who were important artists. they really helped to develop and promote native american art. very interesting and beautiful paintings and pottery mainly.
in the evening i took the train from albuquerque to san diego where i arrived the following day around 11 am. although i was very tired i wanted to try and find out about a few things imight be able to do while i'm here so i ended up going to the old town and spend the afternoon walking around all the cute little shops. and now it's early bedtime, need to catch up on some sleep. night night....

snow, lots of snow....

2008-02-14T21:09:10Z

one week ago was my last day in santa fe and after checking out i went to the georgia o'keeffe museum where we got a lecture on her life before walking through the museum. apart from her work they also had an exhibition of one of her contemporaries, marsden hartley. georgia o'keeffe was one of the first modernist painters in america and marsden came from europe to define modern american art. they both loved new mexico and painted it a lot. georgia o'keeffe actually had a home here and spend some time here each year until she moved here permanently after her husband died.
after doing a few more necessary things i took the nightbus to albuquerque and then through to durango. after checking into the hotel (i know, extravagant, but there's no hostel there) i struggled to stay awak so i went for a walk and got some luch. i also tried to find out about what to do the following day without much success.
so on saturday morning i still didn't know what i was going to do and i was getting a bit frustrated (the visitor information centre was closed for winter). although they weren't very helpful at the hotel i was staying at, luckily they were helpful at the strater hotel (rather posh). they helped me book a tour for mesa verde on sunday and explained to me how to get to the trainstation of the narrow gauge railroad. this train is an old mining train and usually goes to silverton, but because of the heavy snowfall this year (about 4 foot) and several avalanches, we could only go halfway to tacoma. the train was one of those ancient locomotives you see in the old westerns. originally the railroad came to silverton to improve silver mining in the area. in 2007 the railroad is 125 years old. the reason why it's called a narrow gauge railroad is because it goes along the mountaintops and on various points along the 'high line' you're that far on the edge of the cliffs going down that when you look down from the train you only see the river and no cliffs. quite cool.
you don't want to fall in the river though, too many rocks and a very strong current (and of course at the moment too cold). i think they do white waterrafting on the river in summertime. it's really pretty though and the wter is a kind of greenyblue - like oxidised copper- which we thought might come from the rocks around the river. it sets off really pretty against the snow and the green of the pines.
at tacoma we could get off and have a wander around. we had a look at the powerplant there and the old cattle train before returning to durango.
the funny thing was, it was less trouble walking in tacoma (through the snow) than in durango. in durango the roads are clear, but you can't walk on them (they'll drive straight over you), but the pavements are covered in snow and ice and it's really slippery. you never know when you might step into a pool and get soaked till halfway up your calfs. in durango they do have a trolley service, but i only used it once. the other times it didn't show up and after waiting half an hour (it was supposed to come every 20 mins) i started to walk, it hadn't passed me by the time i reached the end of the road downtown (at least another half hour).
on sunday i went to mesa verde. i was the only one on the tour, so i had my very own private tourguide.
mesa verde is the largest archeological preserve in north america. mesa verde is spanish for green table (as you can guess, the spanish came all the way up to colorado long before the english came across) and was populated from approximately 400 AD to 1300 AD by native americans referred to as teh ancestral puebloans and referred to by certain tribes as the anasazi.
initially they made simple pithouses which slowly became more extensive and in the last 200 years they built extensive villages/cities in the cliffs. the pithouses were build on the mesa and were sunk into the ground, which provided more insulation and made the houses less noticable from a distance. they dug a circular hole in the ground and used four tree poles to support the walls and roofs and then used smaller branches to make the walls and roof which they then covered with clay.
these structures were difficult to spot not only cause they were partially underground, but also because they were the same colour as the ground. they had a hole in the roof above the firepit, which was the entrance and exit also. this was initially the only hole, but as their building techniques developed they also build a ventilation shaft, which helped to reduce death through emphysema (due to all the smoke exposure). the ventilation shaft had a deflector shaft in front of it to promote air circulation.
as they settled more and developed their building techniques they started building/digging both square and circular pithouses. the circular pithouses developed into kiva's, which is a hopi word for ceremonial room. these were always completely underground. the kiva was very important cause the hopi were a very spiritual people.
in the kiva behind the deflector shaft there was a central fire and beyond it a small hole in the ground called a sipapu. the hopi believed that their sould came from the earth through the sipapu. also good and evil spirits could enter the world through the sipapu. the ventilation shaft was situated in the north and the sipapu was south.
as they developed their building techniques they started to build with bricks and sandstones to build their kiva's and square houses, which slowly became more aboveground.
live was becoming harder in mesa verde for the native americans as time went on as resources became depleted. this was when they started building their homes in the alcoves on the cliffs instead of on top of the mesa. it's amazing how complex these dwellings are. there's evidence that it wasn't just the hopi living there, but also other tribes as the different dwelling often have different architecture and varying amounts kiva's (probably depending on how important the spiritual aspect was for the individual tribe). there is also cliff palace which is a combination of different architectures and hardly lived in (no smoke from fires on the walls), and they reckon it might have been a gathering place or market place.
the only cliff dwelling open to the public was spruce tree house, which has over 100 rooms (each room sleeps approx 4 people) and 8 kiva's. it really looks city like. they had some t shaped doors in some rooms, whereas others had normal looking doors.
one kiva was especially reconstructed for us to go into and get a feel for the place. it was surpisingly spacious.
in summer cliff palace is also open for viewing and you're even allowed to go into balcony house ( they only dwelling with a build balcony). cause it was winter, one day was enough to see everyhting that was open but in summer you'd need at least 2 days. downside to summer is the shear number of tourists, over 1000 people/day. very crowded.
on monday i spent most of the day in the bus going up to denver and we still didn't get there until after 11 pm. unfortunately the hostel i was supposed to stay in had already closed for the night, so i ended up sleeping at the bus station. i honestly don't know how homeless people survive. it was cold (stone floor), noisey and when i got up i coud barely move initially. my joints didn't like it.
in the morning i went ot state capitol building. according to my travel guide it was an imitation of washington dc, but it was still really pretty with lots of marble, gold plating and whitewashed walls. even the water fountain was gold.
the state capitol is where the house and the senate sit. i watched the house decide on a healthcare bill increasing the premiums to allow more inspectors to check on hospitals etc. the senate was discussing another healthcare bill providing insurance for children under 10. i sat next to a lobbyist who was very happy with the outcome as she said she could work the people who disagreed with the bill.
anyway, then i had to find out how to get to winterpark. the train didn't go until the following morning, so i took the bus to the airport and from there a shuttle to winterpark. a little complicated.
anyway, the hostel is really nice. we're at 9000 feet altitude here, so get out of breath rather quickly, but the skiing is great here. the resort is about 10 minutes away by free shuttle bus. i suppose it was only a matter of time, but yes i went skiing.
i took a refresher lesson (ski rental, lesson and day pass for $60), which was a bit too easy for me, but it made me realise that skiing is like riding a bike. you're body doens't forget. mind, i did have to stick to the blue slopes, although towards the end of the day i did feel they were becoming easier. another day and i might have tried a blue black, but i wasn't confident enough and my legs were getting very tired. it's a shame i have to leave already (it's presidents weekend and everything's been booked up for months) so we had a good bye party in the evening.
this morning i had a walk round the local area, typical small american town.

santa fe etc...

2008-02-07T03:09:21Z

on monday, still being in flagstaff, i checked out as i was taking the nightbus to santa fe. i still had the whole day though, so merric and i were joined by louis (swiss) when we went to sedona (yeah, still got to see sedona) which is about 40 mins south of flagstaff. we took the scenic route to sedona via the old creek canyon. that was very spectacular and it started to snow, making the place look even more magical (it was already white from earlier snow). you could slowly see the rocks becoming more and more red until we entered red rock country. the red rocks set off very nicely against the green pine and conifer trees and the whiteness of the snow.
in sedona we stopped at the visitor information centre to get some info on their trails. there's loads about, so we were shown some of the nice ones.
first stop was near a vortex and there was a gorgeous lookout point as well. as we hiked to the vortex, the sun came out and some 10 mins later it stopped snowing (especially for us of course). it was quite a tough hike as it was rather wet and therefore slippery, but we had a great time.
after that we went down to bryston canyon a bit further outside of sedona and did quite a long hike into the canyon. so, where we saw the grand canyon from the top, bryston canyon we saw from below, making you feel very small and insignificant. a totally different experience, but with gorgeous views and we had an amazing time. they also have big and small cats in the park, and they sometimes attack children after dark (children tend to run a lot).
admittedly, we drove into the first part of the canyon and a little beyond the road, there was a holiday park, but that didn't take away from it and once beyond it we were in forest.
the rocks have such amazing shapes, very inspirational and i can imagine artists coming here to kickstart their creativity.

in the morning i arrived in santa fe and had to walk a few miles with backpack to get to the only hostel in town. it's a bit weird. they don't have cleaners, so as a visitor you have to do chores every day (about 10-15 mins, so not too bad), but it also means it's not really clean. but the people are really nice here and there's quite a good kitchen.
although i was really tired, i took the bus downtown and met a german couple on the way. they also wanted to got to the government palace, so we went together. we did a tour, which was really interesting. learned a lot about american history.
the native americans who are local to new mexico (state of which santa fe is capital) lived in pueblo's (villages with mudstone houses) since 800 AD. the spaniards only came as far north when they came to south america because they heard the houses were made of gold here. this wasn't really true, but the mud had a yellow/reddish hue and had bits of glass in it that made it glow like gold. hence the mistake.
anyway, the spanish came around 1609 somewhere (can't remember the exact years, heard so many of them) and were there until 1821, except for 12 years. once, the indians had enough of the spanish government cause they weren't allowed to practice their own spiritual rituals, they were forced to be catholic. the indians revolted and won and for twelve years they were in control of santa fe. when the spanish won it back, they were allowed to practice their own spiritual rituals as long as they were catholic (otherwise the inquisition would be after them). so to this day, the indians are catholic.
in 1821 mexico became an independent state. mexico was then twice the size it is now including the states california, arizona, new mexico and texas.
this remained the case until at a certain moment there was a misunderstanding where some soldiers killed some other soldiers, so america declared war on mexico. they attacked the country in three different places and mexico was defeated. in the treaty however, america gave mexico half of its country back and kept the other half for itself, which became territorial states.
new mexico was a territorial state from about 1846 to 1912 and applied to become a proper state over 50 times and was declined.
it's really cool, cause in the city they still have a lot of mexican style architecture, making it very different from other US cities.
with the ticket for the government palace i had also bought on a special deal a ticket to see the museum of fine arts. there they had lots of art from americans observing (rather incorrectly) indian society and making paintings of it, getting a lot of the details confused and romanticizing a lot.
they also had quite a lot of 'modern' art. i particularly liked georgia o'keefe. there was also a flower power exhibition featuring the flower power movement and art inspired by that era. it was mainly about the symbolic flower.
i decided to walk back when i couldn't find the busstation.

more travelling....

2008-02-04T18:55:47Z

on wednesday morning we returned to san francisco, which felt positively hot compared to yosemite. my flight to las vegas wasn't until 18.10 that evening. a spanish girl called inge who also did the yosemite tour also wanted to go to las vegas and see the grand canyon, so she booked herself onto the same flight as me and we stayed at the same hostel.
when we arrived in las vegas we had such a laugh as they had rows and rows of fruitmachines at the airport. they also had huge screens advertising the shows that were playing in the city. it took ages for our luggage to appear, so we saw all the adverts at least twice.
by the time we got into a shuttle we actually ended up having to wait for about 30-45 minutes as mr bush was arriving. apparently they don't particularly like it (that is, individual businesses) when he comes as it means that there's huge delays everywhere and if he decides to have a gamble, they have to close down the entire casino until he's finished. also, nobody knows which hotel he stays at. top secret information.
anyway, because of all the delays we actually didn't get to the hostel until 22.15 even though we arrived at the airport around 19.40.
the following day, inge and me rented a car to go down to the grand canyon. we'd been told that it took about 3 hours to drive down to the south rim, and on the map it looked like approximately 200 miles. well, it was more like 300 miles and 5.5 hours. so it took a bit longer than expected, but we did stop on the way at lake mead, which is on the west side of the grand canyon and where the colorado river empties in to. we also stopped at hoover dam where they're doing lots and lots of building works. obviously they have the dam, but they're also building some sort of highwaybridge or something. otherwise we stopped at a scenic outlook and for lunch at seligman along route 66. it was pretty cool having lunch at the roadkill cafe where they had the slogan: you kill it, we grill it. they had the saloon feel really going on and in the pub part of the building they had lots of animals hanging off the wall. very american...
route 66 was only finished around 1914. somehow because of the legend associated with it, i had thought it older than that.
when we got to the grand canyon it was already quite late, but we still had an hour and a half of daylight left, so it wasn't too bad. i don't think the park closes at night, but after sundown, the temperature drops really quickly.
my first impression of the grand canyon was that it's huge... you can barely see the river as it's so far down and rocks are obscuring it quite a bit. and although you realise it's a long way down, you can't really appreciate that it's 1.6 km deep (1 mile). you can look across to the north rim which is closed in winter and is 10 miles away. not that you'd guess that from looking, but then again, it does take three days to hike down one way, and up the other way.
even though it's so huge you can still see lots of layers. it's like looking back in time. the grand canyon formation started approximately 2 billion years ago when two earthplates came together changing the rocks into dark, metamorphic rock which you can see right at the bottom of the canyon where the river flows through it. there are light bands of granite in the dark rock and amazingly you can actually see it.
different layers of rock that you can see are: vishnu basement rocks (1840-1680 million years ago (mya)), grand canyon supergroup (1200-740 mya), tonto group (525-505 mya), redwall limestone (340 mya), supai group (315-285 mya), coconino sandstone (275 mya), and finally the kaibab formation (270 mya). the grand canyon national park overlaps with the kaibab forest, so apart from hiking on/down the canyon, you can also hike through the forest.
about 70 million years ago, the rocky mountains began to form as the north american plate began to overlap the pacific plate. as a result a large section of utah, northern arizona, western colorado and a corner of new mexico rose from the sea level to thousands of feet higher, forming the colorado plateau. it wasn't until 5-6 million years ago though that the colorado river flowed from the rocky mountains across the colorado plateau to the gulf of california. rain washed desert soil from the plateau into the river and the heavy sediment caused erosions through the different layers of rock. as the river causes more erosion it sinks deeper. and that's how the canyon was formed.
after we had a walk and watched the sunset over the canyon (kind of at an angle), we left the park and started driving back to las vegas.
as inge hasn't got a driver's licence i had to do all the driving on my own, so we stopped halfway to have some dinner in a diner. it was crammed with truckers inside and outside they had the most enormous parking area for trucks, and it was completely filled up.
when we got back to las vegas we actually went to a few of the nearest hotels on las vegas blvd to check out the casino's. it's amazing how much money people spend. inge and i both tried a dollar on a fruitmachine. she won 20 dollars, where i simply lost my dollar. so no addiction to gambling for me.
apart from lots and lots of machines, there were loads of card tables with games like 3 card poker, blackjack, texas hold 'em (no idea what it is) and loads of other games i've never heard of in my life.
of course there's also proper poker tables, dice and roulette tables.
in the morning we went downtown on the stip to have a look at the various hotels. it then became clear that in las vegas gambling does happen 24 hours a day. apart from casino's, the hotels also had shopping centres and theatres in them (e.g. the venetian: casino, 4 theatres playing the blue man group, phantom of the opera, gordie brown (comedian/impressionist/musician) and wayne brady (comedian/impersonation/music), and a shopping centre in venice style with a canal). the worst is that each hotel is designed in such a way that you lose your way and when you finally find an exit, it's the wrong one and you still don't know how to get back to the strip.
apart from the venetian we also saw four queens, the golden nugget, imperial (for a cheap ish lunch), paris-las vegas (eiffel tower and parisian style shops), the bellagio fountains dancing away on music with beautiful choreography, new york-new york (black sky for a change and obviously new york style shopping), excalibur (castle style/middle ages casino, weird) and luxor (pyramid and pharao style with greek pillars and statues). on the map these hotels look fairly close together, but in reality they're quite far apart, so there's lots of stuff in between them as well, such as shops, bars, restaurants, nightclubs etc. very deceptive.
all of them were so tacky it was brilliant, they made great imitations, but didn't really make them look real, so you couldn't possibly be offended. but i liked the venetian the best. it had a great atmosphere and i went to see the blue man group there. it was brilliant. it's a fantastic percussion group and the blue men are absolutely hilarious. there was quite a bit of audience involvement even before the show started. we were made to wish someone from the audience a happy birthday, congratulate a work party, congratulate a scientist who had just made a breakthrough, say something to a woman with a headache and say something to a random person for no real reason at all. also, you don't want to be late. they make that hugely embarrassing. they also linked percussion to plumbing (on pipes), DNA, cowboys, internet and paper, lots and lots of paper. brilliant.
on saturday afternoon i took the greyhound to flagstaff and on sunday i was planning to return to the grand canyon for the day except it was snowing, a lot. so they advised me not to go, as you'd end up sitting in the lodge all day. so i went for my back up plan and go to sedona. the bus wouldn't leave until an hour later, so i went back to the hostel and chatted to some people. when i got back to the station they told me they had to cancel the bus to sedona due to treacherous roads. when i walked back to the hostel i met spirit and merric who i'd been talking to at the hostel and they invited me to join them to go to hopi land.
the hopi are a tribe of native americans who live in north east arizona. the indian reservation is mainly for the navajo's, who were granted the land after the english defeated them for having fought so well. the navajo's won the respect from the english that way. but the hopi occupy a small area on three mesa's (huge rock formation forming a type of plateau). in hopi land you're not allowed to take any photo's as they believe you take part of the spirit from the country by doing so.
we first wanted to visit walpi, which is one of the oldes villages in america. we only got as far as sichomovi though as you can't drive any further and we couldn't walk there due to the ice. walpi is the only village that still has no electricity, water supply or road to it. we were really disappointed, but loretta, the tourguide/elder of sichomovi did give us a presentation of the history and culture of the hopi. the hopi are descendents of the naszazi, who are an extinct tribe of indians. they have spirit gods called kachina who have helped them protect themselves against more warrior like tribes and the spanish. the hopi are a farming tribe, so they didn't fight, but retreated onto the mesa. they build there houses with stone from the mesa, so from the main road you can't really see the villages on top unless you know what you're looking for.
despite the fact that the tour to walpi wasn't on, we were lucky enough that on another mesa in one of the villages they had the buffalo festival. each month the hopi have a festival and in january it's the buffalo festival, which is to ask the kachina for snow. i know it's february, but when the festivals are is depended on the moon. it was amazing to be present at the village square while they were all dressed up in their skirts and feathers (men were barechested, brrrr). there was such a vibe. we were the only white people there and we just sat with the locals who weren't in the dance. afterwards we sat down somewhere for a cup of tea and we saw a drawing of the dance being performed. so cool.
on the way back we stopped again in one or two places and spirit, who had taken his native american drum, performed a few of the native american songs he knew. while he finished a song, the sun came out and we could see something red flying. it was bright red and moved like a bird and it was huge. yet it couldn't have been a bird as it was so red. really weird. maybe this was my first ufo sighting (ufo = unidentified flying object). i don't think it was alien though, or a plastic bag (was too big and didn't move like a bag), so maybe it was a kachina. would be fitting, don't you think.
we also saw an amazing sunset. it was snowing in the mountains where the sun went under and the combination of the sunset with the clouds and the enormous plain made it look really eerie.

gorgeous yosemite

2008-01-30T20:01:47Z

on monday morning we were picked up at the hostel to go to the yosemite national park in the sierra nevada. it was about 3 hours drive from san francisco. when we got there we first got lunch and checked in before we went out into the park. it was another 1 hour to get into the park. there we went to a few photographic sites. lots of snowy mountains, waterfalls and snowy sleet coming down instead of water. occasionally some ice would break loose and come tumbling down making an impressive sound. the ice may have looked small for us standing at the bottom, but it was way up there and the sound suggested a rather large piece coming down.
the leaves of the californian bay leave tree smell kind of like that of a eucalyptus. very good for the cold i'm suffering from right now.
there's loads of little waterfalls in the yosemite at the moment due to all the snow and rainfall. but they've had a yearlong drought over here, so they're really happy about all that water right now.
after catching the sunset on a mountain dome, which reflected int he river on camera, it was time to get back to the hostel.
the following morning we left at 8 am for a day in the yosemite. on monday there was only michael, inge and me, but now we had a group of nine (including three michaels: sydney michael, melbourne michael and washington michael).
we went snowshoeing on a trail that our tourguide (and owner of the hostel) had never done before. it was supposed to be a 3 mile return to see a collection of sequoia trees (the biggest trees volume wise in the world, redwoods are the tallest). the sequoia can become 3000 years old and the oldest one found was 3200 years old. anyway, we missed the sign that was buried under a foot a snow (it was only 3 foot high and we were walking on 3-6 feet of snow depending on where we were), so we ended up in completely the wrong place.
instead of walking 3 miles, we actually ended up doing a 7 mile hike. but we did get to see sequoia trees, which are huge, chunky trees. the bark is kind of similar to the redwood (quite orange) only much coarser, although quite brittle and easily damaged. despite this they live a very long time, which is mostly due to the fact that fire for instance doesn't cause much damage and actually helps to open up their cones and release the seeds. also the wood is stuffed with tannin which animals don't like much, so the trees aren't being eaten away.
the sequoia does rely on squirrels climbing up and loosening the cones cause they're tightly stuck on the branches. squirrels bite through the attachment and the cone falls down, so some squirrels pretty much live up in those trees.
we saw loads of squirrel and rabbit footprints in the snow. squirrels like making their nest in dead trees, as do owls and woodpeckers. dead trees are therefore important in the forest. especially in old forest that had never been cut down you see lots of dead trees.
in the forest also lives the great grey owl, which is an owl with a wingspan of 8 foot (for the dutch: humans are usually between 5 and 6.5 foot tall). it's not the bird with the biggest wingspan though, that's a vulture that lives in southern california, minnesota and new mexico called the californian condor. very rare bird though. the golden eagle also lives down in that area and is also very rare.
in yosemite though, they do have deer and we saw some male and female ones, although not long enough to catch them on camera. they also have bears here, as they can come down into the valleys where it's (relatively) warm enough for them not to have to hibernate, which they prefer not to do if it's not necessary. as a consequence, some people who live there can come across a bear when they leave their home. usually they avoid humans though and we didn't see any.
although a lot of the passes in the yosemite are closed in winter due to the snow (e.g. couldn't go to mono lake, which looked gorgeous on photo's), it's sooo pretty everywhere. it's just gorgeous, enormous and really impressive.
apparently they've got more snow now than normal, even outside the park the snow stays on the ground which is unusual. so more passes than normal were closed. it would be great to come back some time in the summer and do some climbing also. there's one mountain that normally takes 3-5 days to climb (with gear) but one woman did it in a few hours in a free climb. very impressive of course, but also total madness.
after a long day in the yosemite, we got back to the hostel and most of us went to the spa to relax a bit before getting some food.

on a sidenote: farming in this country is absolutely disgusting.
on the way from la to sf the busdriver told us at a certain moment that we could see cows in heaven. i wasn't sure what he meant as i could just see cows in a field looking happy enough but quite normal.
then he said we could see cows in hell and it looked and smelled like hell. there were hundreds of cows packed together on a wet mudfield with in some places a thin roof. they were standing in their own poo and could barely move. you see them all over the place in the valley (huge flat area of land where they also have lots of vineyards and orchards). it was just awful.

golden gate park

2008-01-27T23:27:48Z

just to finish off san francisco. on saturday i went to golden gate park. despite the fact that it was karaoke night the night before i got up early somehow. but it was dry and that is an opportunity that needs to be made use of. i took the bus down to the haight and ashbury and entered the park there. from here i first walked around a few sportsfield and a playground and came across rather a large amount of runners and quite a few dogwalkers. then i got to the botanical gardens where apart from californian natives, they also have gardens with plants from japan, china, australia etc. i also met a few birdwatchers while i was there who showed me a hummingbird and a little green/yellow bird (just a bit bigger than the hummingbird, which is minute) whose name i've forgotten. they also managed to tell me that the hawklike bird i saw was a redtailed hawk. they're really rather large birds, but they just live in san francisco.
from the botanical gardens it was a short walk to De Younge museum where i spend three hours. they had exhibitions with a lot of native american stuff, some of which was over 2000 years old and in remarkable condition.
there were also exhibitions in modern art (of which i liked the glasswork section best), artefacts from the pacific islands (mainly papua new guinea) and africa, and 19th century impressionism and realism of american artists.
anyway, after the museum i visited the japanese tea gardens where unfortunately my camera ran out of battery. i did have some jasmine tea though.
when i walked by the stow lake my aunt trijntje phoned me. the funny thing is that i ended up on the north side of the park even though on my map stow lake is situated south of the museum and gardens. bit confusing, although i did find out later that the map is sufficiently inaccurate and stow lake is actually west of the museum. no matter though, i walked back and ended up on the south side, which was unexpected but at least i could take a bus from there, so that was helpful, especially as it was getting dark.
when i got back to market street i was stopped in the street by a chinese woman who wanted me to buy tickets for the chinese new year spectacular show that evening. eventually i decided to go for it as i could get a cheap ticket. there was a lot of traditional chinese dance as well as performances by a soprano, baritone, tenor and traditional chinese instruments. in the dance they often depicted traditional stories or legends from china, such as the lady on the moon.

universal studios, san francisco

2008-01-25T23:40:40Z

last friday amanda and i went to universal studios for the day. we got there a little early, so we had time to take pictures of the universal studios dome in front of the entrance. we didn't have to line up for tickets as we'd already bought ours at the hostel, so we could go straight in nearly, except for the security checks (they need to see your passport, write down your name on the ticket and check your bags). the first thing we did was the studio tour which took us along the studios, past a basic new york street, a basic european street, a mexican village (which flooded), a lake with the Jaws shark in it (extremely fake looking) and went throught he desperate house wives street (wisteria lane).
it's kind of weird cause it's amazing what they've done, but it also looks really quite fake, making it seem impossible that we can sit in the cinema thinking it looks quite real (except for jaws of course). i suppose it has everything to do with seeing what you want to see.
we also came past the plane crash from wars of the worlds where the plane had crashed into a street and destroyed everything.
the cars from the fast and the furious also gave a performance and showed off some of their tricks.
when we got off we went down to the lower lot wherethey had a lucy tribute(from i love lucy). we also went on a tour of special effects of the green screen, how they do animals (mechanical and green screen) and how they do sound effects. there was also a backdraft tour on fire effects which was very warm, a good thing since it was a very cold day.
amanda and i wanted to do the mummy ride, but it was closed due to technological hiccups, so we did jurrasic park, which i'm sure wasn't quite so exciting. it was quite sedate (although a bit wet) until the end where a sudden adrenaline shot made you feel real good.
having done everything there was to do on the lower lot, we went back up all the escalators tot he upper lot to see the animal actors show where i particularly liked one of the dogs being naughty (although it was probably/most likely staged) and the ape who asked for her bra back was pretty funny also.
from there we went to the house of horrors where amanda got scared all the time and they kept missing out on me. i felt a bit sorry for amanda as she got the full load.
so after scary, we needed some fun and went to see the 4 d shrek show. the 4th dimension is the water spashing and the chair moving to make the 3d experience more real.
as we went to waterworld the blues brothers were performing. waterworld was as the name suggests, wet. oh, the acting and stagefighting was also pretty cool.
all we had left to do after all that was the terminator 2:3d, which was a good thign as it was getting on a bit. the terminator experience was partly stage acted and partly 3d movie and was really cleverly done. when we got out of the park, we had a walk up and down universal city shopping street with cinema and restaurants.

on the saturday a group of us went to t he hollywood sign. it was a very nice day and lots of us felt like we were wearing too many clothes which was a bit of a contrast to the day before. the hollywood sign used to be made of wood and read hollywoodland back then. after the war it needed major repairs so they made a steel structure and left off the land part.
over the years some damage was done by people painting the letters to read GO UCLA (basket ball fans) and Hollyweed. so now there's cctv keeping an eye on things.
in the afternoon i went to see the musical wicked which was playing in a beautiful theatre along hollywood blvd. shame you're not allowed to take pictures inside the theatre, cause it looks like nothing from t he outside. the story of wicked was wicked/excellent. really changed perspective on the wizard of oz story. gave a bit more of a balanced view than the traditional good verses evil story.

on sunday i wanted to go to the getty museum, but the bus that was supposed to take me a good deal in the right direction stopped in west hollywood somewhere. i didn't know where i was or where to go, so i asked for directions in starbucks. they didn't know how to get to the museum, but they did know how to get to the farmers market, so i decided to walk there (was more like 12 than the suggested 2(=few) blocks, but such is life). when i got up to the farmers market i had a walk around, bought a cd and then had lunch in a fast food mexican. interesting.
after wandering about a bit more (didn't come across a suitable coat) i decided i was too tired to figure out how to get back to hollywood, so i went to the cinema and saw charlie wilson's war. i felt much better after and managed to get back to the hostel all right. on the way back i actually met one of the guys from starbucks who asked me if i managed to find my way. it's a small world...

on monday i had a day of essentials (emails, laundry and hanging out with people) and then in the evening a bunch of us decided last minute to go to the cinema, so we saw the 10.50 pm performance of mad money. another late night....
the following day it was time to check out, get myself a weatherproof jacket and take the shuttle from hollywood to san francisco.

on wednesday morning then there was supposed to be a walking tour through the city, but it was cancelled due to a rainy forecast. so i walked the route myself. it was overcast, but i didn't see a drop, so the weathermen are just as bad in this country as anywhere else.
the weather seems very british/dutch in any case, and i have to say i seem to cope a lot better with the cold here than i did in los angeles, although of course that might have something to do with the fact i'm starting to get used to the cold weather.
anyway, i walked up nob hill to the grace cathedral where i had a look inside and walked the labyrinth (supposed to be a very spiritual experience and used in many types of religion). then i walked on t lombard street. the architecture here is much nicer than in los angeles and it feels much more like a city than los angeles. on lombard street there's a section called the crookedest st cause it zigzags between hedges. from there i walked down to fisherman's wharf. the hyde st pier was a maritime national park where they had a donkey engine (so named as it replaced donkeys and horses), waterwheel and old ships.
walking along the wharf on jefferson st, there were lots of souvenir shops. pier 39 is the main attraction as it has the aquarium on it. at pier 32 there was the alcatraz cruises and i decided on the spot to take one across.
alcatraz prison closed in 1963 due to the old buildings deteriorating and high operating costs. in i think it was 1972 american indians came to alcatraz to protest for 16 months and it resulted in the american president apologizing for how they were being treated and changing the country's policy regarding the american indians. alcatraz is now a national park. the audiotour through the prison is great as there's old inmates and officers talking.
the officers actually lived on the island with their families and had their own little village. they also started the gardens which are now looked after by volunteers.
alcatraz closed at 4 pm so when i got off the ferry i walked back through columbus avenue (part of little italy) and chinatown until i ended up at union square and had another 5 minute walk or so back to the hostel.

yesterday me and rhiannon (aussie dorm mate) had our names down for dylan's city tour and muir woods. there were about twelve of us in total on the bus. dylan first took us down through the tenderloin area to market street where we could see the city hall, and then we went down to mission where the missionairies first set up. this is where we say the oldest building in san francisco, and it's also the area where most latin american people live in the city. the next neighbourhood was castro, which is gay central. we went up to twin peaks through one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in san francisco. from twin peaks you've got amazing views over san francisco, and despite the rain we were lucky it wasn't foggy so we could see everything perfectly. apparently it's always foggy as san francisco is situated between the cold pacific ocean and the relatively warm bay. when we went down from twin peaks we came through haight ashbury, which is famour for the hippy movement and we came past janis joplin's old house.
from there we went into golden gate park where they've got botanical gardens, japanese tea garden, de younge museum and lots of sportsfields.
on our way to the golden gate bridge we came through richmond, sea cliff (where robin williams lives) and presidio (old military base, now national park).
as far as bridges go, golden gate bridge is beautiful. it's also much more impressive than sydney harbour bridge which was much smaller than i anticipated.
muir woods is 15 miles north of the golden gate bridge and it's on little mountain roads. muir woods is filled with redwood trees, which are known as the tallest trees in the world. on the way over we saw lots of eucalyptus trees also (i can recognize them now, yeah). we had a very cold, wet walk through the woods (i really do need to buy some shoes that don't have holes in them) and had some lunch before returning to san francisco. we went through the marina area, which is reclaimed land and therefore much more susceptible to earthquake damage due to the softer ground. at marina they also have the palace, which was built in 1915 for a conference. from marina we went to pacific heights, which is another very expensive area (10 million pounds per house), and then through north beach (little italy) and chinatown back to the hostel where we got a bottle of wine at the end of the tour.
after realizing how annoying having holes in your shoes really is, i bought some new shoes this morning (goretex, so i won't get cold feet again) and i bought another sweater - with san francisco on it. so now i'm cold and wet (my umbrella broke after 20 minutes and i was out for 1.5 hours).

u.s.a....los angeles

2008-01-18T06:51:37Z

hi everyone,
well, i arrived safely in los angeles after a bit of a trip. i couldn't sleep so watched three films instead. at least i can say i've seen a few films again cause i had no idea what was on in general. i fell asleep about half an hour before landing which was bad timing, cause i just had to wake up again.
immigration wasn't too much of a problem except for a queue of half a mile. then of course i had to change my new zealand dollars to us dollars and take a shuttle to the hostel. the driver was in my eyes a dangerous driver (which i suppose is quite easy), and it didn't really help that we saw two accidents on the way. the hostel is in hollywood so after checking in i went to get some lunch and coffee (needed some caffeine to stay awake) and walked up and down hollywood blvd a bit. the musical wicked is playing and i'd love to go and see that some time while i'm here. i tried to go and see it in london, but tickets here are a bit cheaper, so it might just work out for the best this way. on the walk of fame are many stars, most of whom i don't know. but when you get closer to the chinese and kodak theatre you do see more of the famous ones. took some photographs as well, so i'll see if one of these days i can put them up.
the weirdest thing was doing tuesday twice. now i'm running behind on the rest of the world instead of ahead. kind of weird, but i'm getting used to it slowly.
the following day i did a limo tour of beverly hills and bell air going past famous people's homes. interesting, except you can't see any of the houses as they've got these huges gates in front of them. so it was actually much nicer looking at some of the other beautiful (and not so beautiful) houses they've got over there. we had a stop at rodeo drive and got some cupcakes from crumbs (?). apparently they're really famous cupcakes. was very nice, but never heard of them before. did go in to ralph lauren and fell in love with a white suit of only 1000 dollars (maybe, some time in the future...).
later in the afternoon i went to a chiropractor on wilshire blvd who i'd been in touch with to do some observations. we (dr. benton, aliza (the acupuncturist) and me) actually went out for a bite to eat after which was very nice.
today there was a shuttle bus down to santa monica beach. some of us actually got dropped off at venice beach (which is not quite so nice) and walked back to santa monica.
in the afternoon i actually visited malibu and went for a walk in the santa monica mountains. was good to have a bit of exercise and it was a lovely day. they've got some beautiful houses there as well, and some expensive cars, so must be quite a neighbourhood.

take care

coromandel and great barrier island....

2008-01-14T21:35:50Z

it's been a while since i entered, i was quite shocked i have to say. anyhow, i've been to the coromandel peninsula, which is not too far from auckland. it was just a shame as it appeared that the only way to do it and be able to get there properly was by doing a tour. the normal buses didn't go any further than thames, which is right at the bottom of the peninsula, so quite useless.
anyway, with the tour we took the ferry from auckland across to coromandel town. it took a couple of hours and on the ferry i already got chatting to Iris, Alja and Bianca, who were on the same tour. when we arrived we got some time to have lunch and then went to driving creek railway. the railway zigzagged uphill through forest to a lookout where we got off and had a wander around while we got some explanation as to the history of the place. the forest's been planted in the last 35 years, but looks really well-established and is part of the national trust or something of that sort due to plantation of native trees only. they're also trying to restore the original wildlife.
the owner was also a fervent potter, so when we got back down, there was a little shop with lots of pottery for sale.
from the driving creek we went to the gold battery. it's the only gold battery still in its original state in new zealand, and they showed us and explained to us how they extract gold from the rocks they get from the miners by crushing, grinding, adding mercury and then removing the mercury again. didn't get an awful lot of it, as i was unhappily situated too far away to be able to fully hear what was being said. it's always a surprise to find how heavy solid gold really is though.
after the tour the four of us had a coffee and a chat and alja and i actually ended up cooking dinner together, which was nice and definitely a new experience on my part (never had beetroot salad in that way before).
in the morning we were supposed to be picked up at 7.15 am but the bus was late and didn't come till 7.30. we arrived in thames just before 9 am and had 2.5 hours there to see the market (it was market day). there wasn't a great deal to do, so when the bus arrived we went off on the scenic route to a town called tairua. here we stopped for an unscheduled walk to a lookout over the region. lots of hills/mountains, the inlet, the ocean and a few little islands. that's something they don't have a shortage off here in new zealand, is little islands. they're everywhere. very pretty.
from there we went to the hot water beach. we didn't need to warm up as it was very hot and humid, but it was still really nice to do, and quite amazing too. the hot water beach is near hahei which is north of tairua (both are on the eastern coast of the peninsula). we dug a hole on the beach and hit water, cold water. seeing our disappointment, the people in the hole next to us asked us to join them as they did have warm water. so we got in and burned our feet. there was a reason why people didn't sit in that part of the hole, the water was bubbling it was so hot. we managed to squeeze in though where the water was a bit cooler, a bit further away from the geothermal source. the really weird thing was my bum was sitting in cold water and my feet were still burning as the water there was very hot.
after that we went to cathedral cove. it was a 30 minute walk down to the beach and once there we had a lovely swim before it was time to go back to the bus.
we had to take a 5 minute ferry across an inlet to get to whitianga whereas the bus had to drive around it, which took about 45 minutes.
we had a bone carving lesson though. i didn't particularly like the drilling as the bone dust was really irritating my throat, so i kept coughing. but the sanding afterwards was kind of therapeutic, and my bone carving doesn't look too bad if i say so myself.
we stayed in whitianga for a bit, and then travelled back by bus to auckland. in thames we kind of split up a bit as a lot of people went down to waitoma and rotorua, but iris and i went back to auckland.
on arrival in auckland i couldn't be picked up as michelle and ian were at a funeral and JP was at uni, so i walked around auckland (with an 18 kg bag on my back) for a few hours. i did make use of this time to actually buy a new camera (about time i suppose). it's actually a better camera than the one i had before. i also had to go the police station to pick up a report of my having reported it lost.
on friday michelle took me down to the sealink ferry, which is quite a way out from the other ferries, where i embarked on the five hour ferry journey to great barrier island. it was a gorgeous, sunny day, so there were no worries about the ferry being cancelled. it was quite a shock then to realise how much the boat was swaying in between the coromandel peninsula and great barrier island (open sea). it seemed like such a calm day. i know i've been suffering from motion sickness quite frequently recently, even though i never used to, but i was feeling very sick on the boat. eventually someone gave me some good advice (many people have many opinions) and told me the back of the boat was calmer, which it was.
there was also an irish band on the boat, who were to play at the irish pub that night and the next day at the musselfest. they decided to have a bit of a rehearsal on the boat, so we had some background music on our way (although they were forced to stop when the boat swayed too much, if you can't stand up unsupported it's kind of hard to play an instrument).
on arrival i felt a bit sick, but the hostel was really nice and there was just me and a lady called felicity in the dorm, so that was good. for dinner we went to the irish pub, so we saw the band play with kilts on.
the following morning i wanted to go kayaking, as there was supposed to be a local company. as my phone didn't work (no reception) and my phone card was finished, i decided to walk up to the office and organise something. unfortunately, he didn't have an office and when i asked everyone told me he was really difficult to get hold of. finally i managed to speak with him and he was less than helpful, so instead me and felicity went (hitchhiked) to port fitzroy on the other side of the island where the musselfest was.
of course i didn't eat any musscles (they're absolutely huge by the way), but the trip over to port fitzroy alone was really nice. we came past medland beach, which is a really popular place especially for families and camping. we also came past the surfing beaches where they had some really nice waves and we came past the beach where they filmed the last series of castaway. on of the ladies giving us a lift actually worked with the crew bringing them supplies etc, so that was quite interesting.
at the musselfest we walked around the arts and crafts market and also did a bushwalk down to the waterfalls.
at the end of the day we hitchhiked our way back to tryphena again. we were really lucky. all the people giving us lifts were really nice. some people live on great barrier island and others just come to great barrier to holiday and have a holiday home.
the following morning i went for a swim in the bay. the water was really calm and you could see everything in the water as the water was so clear. luckily i didn't see any stingrays as i had been warned they were in the area, but unfortunately i also didn't see any dolphins. some people had told me that when they went for a swim there some dolphins came to swim with them. that would've been so cool.
after lunch it was time to take the ferry back to auckland where i was picked up by JP as Michelle and Ian were out for the day.

south island con't

2008-01-06T02:52:49Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone.....
in the morning we drove as close as we were allowed to cape farewell and did a hilltop walk (another 3 hours) where we walked along the ocean between the sheep en cows and looked out over the cliffs and hidden beaches with seals on them (including very brave and cute looking baby seals) and of course we caught some glimpses of cape farewell, which was difficult to see properly due to haziness and winds blowing sand everywhere.
back in collingwood we had some lunch. we had actually planned to have some lunch at a place called the naked possum (as suggested by inga), but on our way over there we hit some traffic (in the middle of nowhere) when the road went across a floodplain. a car had driven off the side and was hanging down the side of the road. two 4x4's were trying to pull the car back onto the road rather unsuccessfully as the car only went down further. as we were hungry and couldn't really help anyway (didn't have anything useful with us) we decided to turn around and had lunch at a cafe in collingwood instead.
after lunch we travelled all the way down to the maruia falls (south of murchison, about 50 km before maruia town/village). here we spent the night in the company of two caravans.
in the morning we drove down to hanmer springs where we had a nice and relaxing time soaking in some sulphuric water, admiring the clouds (amazing shapes) before heading down in the direction of christchurch. on the way we stopped at waiparo where we tasted a little bit of wine and bought a bottle of the one we liked best. we found a picnic area nearby and didn't get to christchurch until the morning.
in christchurch we walked through the botanic gardens and the city centre before checking into the jailhouse hostel, which was an old jailhouse in use until 1989. charming...
that afternoon we did a tour in the fudge kitchen to learn how fudge was made, among lots of fudge tasting of course. delicious. we also got to taste some hot fudge, which tasted quite different. lovely.
after all that fudge it was a good thing we had to walk back to the hostel to try and digest some of the fudge we had consumed. the campervan also needed to be returned, cause mum was leaving again and we were flying back to auckland in the morning.
back in auckland we were actually taken to muriwai beach by michelle, which is one of the black sand beaches on the west coast and looked at the gannet's as they looked after their young. they're fascinating to watch.
sadly mum's gone back home again and should be arriving home to my dad again soon, so i hope her trip went well.

see you all soon

from north to south island

2008-01-06T02:07:27Z

from rotorua we drove down to taupo where we first of all visited the vulcanic activity centre which explained a lot about the vulcanic and geyser activity that we had seen around rotorua and also taupo itself. it also explained a lot about earthquakes and tornadoes. vulcanoes are formed and earthquakes occur due to shifting earthplates. new zealand is situated on the edge of the australian and pacific earthplates, so vulcanic activity and the occurance of earthquakes is largely due to the earthplates moving either over each other, under each other or along side each other.
the geyser we saw in rotorua was caused by cold drops of water joining in with the heat building up underneath the earth surface and once enough cold was upsetting the balance, water and steam were propelled up into the air through a narrow tunnel.
after all that (including an earthquake simulator, even though you know it's coming, it's still a surprise when it suddenly starts shaking all over) we needed some fresh air and stretch our legs, so we went to the huka falls and walked along the river down towards taupo. the huka falls aren't entirely natural, they are of course originally, but they use the water for an energy plant and can slow down the river if they want to (usually at night, when less energy is needed).
after dinner we decided to head for wellington as the next morning we had the ferry booked to go across to the south island. on our way we needed some more fuel (for the car and ourselves in the form of a cup of tea), so we stopped in bulls, where most shops carrry the name bulls in it. very funny to walk/drive through.
in the morning we took the ferry down to picton. the ferry took about 3 hours and was really relaxed. the weather was gorgeous, so we got some really nice views.
in picton we had some lunch and generally wandered around a bit before we left for the scenic drive along the coast towards nelson. on the way we stopped a few times and went for a short walk on the queen charlotte walkway (which in total is about 71 km, so we didn't actually get all that far). we got eaten alive by sandflies in the forest, good welcome to the south island then...
in nelson we met up with inga, who's a colleague i went to uni with. first we had some pineapple juice in town which came in handy as after that we walked up to a lookout (60 minutes uphill). by the time we got back down again we were all quite hungry, so we had some lunch at one of inga's favourite places. it was a lovely cafe in a park in nelson. very relaxed.
after a walk along the shops we actually went down to the WOW museum which was on our way to richmond, where they showcased some extra ordinary fashion designs. very interesting.
for new year's eve we stayed in richmond on a camping, had soem wine and celebrated the new year with some dutch people who stood just opposite us.
the following morning mum and i left for abel tasman where we did a four hour walk. it was gorgeous, walking through the forest with regular views over the ocean and islands in front of the coast. when we finished we had some lunch (pre-packed obviously) and took a watertaxi back to the carpark.
the watertaxi was basically a speedboat, when we got back, the speedboat was taken up on land and carried by a tractor to the carpark, with us still in it. we had a right old laugh at us sitting in a boat while going overland.
after a bit of a break we drove up to collingwood and further up north to pakawau where we stayed the night.

north island.... (oh yeah, xmas too)

2007-12-30T04:21:31Z

Chistmas morning.
we did presents early in the morning as we went for breakfast to some friends of michelle and ian's who had invited us too very kindly. it was a champagne and strawberry breakfast with pancakes and mince pies. after breakfast mum and me went on our way for a 4 hour drive to Paihia at the Bay of Islands.
as it was raining all the way up there we didn't stop too much along the way cause we'd only get soaked. in paihia it was also still raining so we cooked our dinner in the rain. by the time we'd finished it had dried up a bit, so we were able to go for a walk and explore through paihia a bit.
the following morning we had a 7 am start again for a tour up to cape reigna. on the way up stopped for some tea and coffee, and we were also advised to buy lunch here to take with us as there were no further opportunities to do so up north. when we reached cape reigna the most striking thing were the views of the bay, cliffs and the tasmand sea and pacific ocean meeting. we walked down to the lighthouse and could see how far away we were from places like sydney and london.
for lunch we went down to a quiet bay along the pacific side and ate it at the beach after which the coach took us tot the dunes through the creek. at the dunes we did some sandboarding. great fun and very fast (up to 60 km/hr). from here we followed the creek down to the 90 Mile Beach which is only 90 km long actually. bit controversial then. it was a long drive donwn the beach. at a peninsula, only one bus was allowed to stop, the maori bus, as the maori's own that bit of the beach. before getting back to paihia fromt he beach, about halfway through we stopped in a little place where we had some (fish and) chips (for us veggies).

on thursday morning we went to the waitangi treaty grounds where the maori signed the controversial treaty with the british around 1840. it was controversial because the english version was different from the maori version, which meant that when the maori found out they felt deceived and often they still do. here we also saw a maori performance as well. in the afternoon we went back down to auckland, had a break with michelle and ian, before travelling down to Te Awamutu where we camped overnight. it was a very long journey.

it meant though that the next morning we were only 32 km from the waitoma caves. we decided to do blackwater rafting in the caves (bit different from your average tour), so we changed into swimwear, put on a wetsuit and boots and got a helmet with a light on it and a tube to keep us afloat in the water.

the caves were very cold and the water was freezing. it was very easy to trip over the rocks, but that was all part of the fun. i didn't even mind getting dead fingers and feet (until i got out and had to walk on my feet, couldn't feel them anymore, oops!). we saw lots of glowworms and learnt they eat insects (yek) and catch them by little threads that hang down into the cave. we also saw eel in the water, although they obviously disappeared as soon as we disturbed the water.

when we got back we got a hot shower, some soup and a bagel to warm us up again.

after all that we visited the kiwi house in otorohanga, where they also have lots of other native birds and gecko's. mum was in raptures...

then it was time to travel to rotorua. on arrival we cooked dinner again and then spend the evening in the polynesian spa soaking in sulphuric water from the geothermal hot springs. i definintely think it's done my skin some good and it was lovely after an action packed day. only downside was the smell, but you kind of get used to that after a while and it wasn't nearly as bad as at the geothermal springs you see everywhere around the city. gorgeous but destructive and smelly.

saturday morning we were still in rotorua so we went to Te Puia or Te Whakarewarewatanga o te ope taua a Wahiao (the gathering place of the war parties of wahiao). after a traditional maori welcome we got a concert filled with song, female poi dance (lesson for females), traditional stick games and the war dance, the Haka (lesson for males this time).

at the end of the performance we got a guided tour through the cultural centre, weaving and carving schools (to pass on those maori skills), the kiwi house across the grounds to the Pohutu Geyser. after the tour mum and i walked around a bit more and got some corn boiled in a geothermal bath.

in case i don't come across another internet for a while, happy new year to everyone.....

new zealand, we have arrived...

2007-12-24T11:26:46Z

hi everyone,

wishing everyone a very merry christmas wherever everyone is. i arrived in new zealand nearly one week ago and was picked up at the airport by Rosie's mum, Michelle. on the plane i suddenly realised i had forgotten to write down their address and phone number and felt terribly disorganised. luckily michelle was more organised and had made a sign for me, so it was easy for me to recognise her. michelle is lovely and we got chatting quite easily as we drove from the airport to their house.
as it was already quite late, we just had some dinner. the next morning michelle took me out for a scenic drive just outside of auckland. it took us quite a long time as we stopped regularly and went into a visitor's centre where they had all sorts of information about the kiwi (that's the bird, not the fruit), the laughing owl and other birds as well as the native plants and trees and of course a little bit about the maori.
after the scenic drive we went for a cuppa at michelle's friend robert (where we got delicious chocolate brownies) before returning.
on thursday i left quite early and took the bus into the city to take the ferry down to rangitoto island, which is a vulcanic island. the most recent eruption is estimated to have been around 1400. there's been quite a bit of revegetation, but there are still big areas of bare vulcanic rock as well. the island was really pretty as the kiwi christmas tree was flowering (i think it's called the hutuwara or something).
it took a while to get up to the summit, but once there it was well worth it as the views were lovely. it was a nice clear day, so you could really see everything and we were all the more appreciative of the weather as it had been raining the last few days. unfortunately, i was unable to take many photo's as my camera ran out of battery.
we also went down to look at some lava caves, and from there we took a different route back to the wharf. considering how many people arrived with the ferry that morning, it was amazingly quiet and peaceful while we were walking. as we got back to the wharf a ferry just arrived, so we took that one back to the city and had a coffee and wandered up queen street for a bit, which is the main shopping street.
soon it was time to take the bus back again. when i got back though i couldn't find my camera in my bag anymore and because i'd run out of battery i could have lost it anywhere between reaching the summit of rangitoto and getting back. we got all the phone numbers of different companies, but of course with it being after hours there was no point in ringing as the offices were all closed.
so the next morning i phoned up all the different companies where i might have dropped it to see if anything had been found and handed in. no luck, so michelle took me into the city to check at a few places where we didn't have a phone number for. while we were there we also went up the skytower, which is aucklands highest point and you get really good views over the city and surrounding areas. after all that the afternoon had flown by.
on saturday, michelle, her husband ian and me went to waiheke island on a wine tour. it started at the very reasonable time of 11 am where we got the ferry to the island. there we were picked up and taken to a winery and vineyard called stonyridge. apart from growing vines, they also have some olive trees and make olive oil. they're completely organic, and they explained to us a few thing about vines. vines are closely related to roses. the reason why at the end of a row, there's always a rosebush is that the rose bush picks up the same fungal infections and everything as the vines, but is more sensitive and therefore shows it earlier. this then gives them the opportunity to treat the vines before they become affected also. very useful.
we got some lunch at stonyridge as well, which was probably quite an essential thing considering we were already drinking wine (oh no, it's tasting isn't it). from stonyridge we went to rangihoua estate where they have lots of olive trees and make olive oil. they explained to us the process of getting the oil from the olives and allowed us to taste the different types of olive oil they made. what a difference. some tasted really vegetable like and others quite woody (?).
at rangihoua they also had some reclaimed wood that was 36000 years old and they'd made a bench out of it. quite comfortable also. they'd also made a chess set out of old fence wood.
from there we went to the wild on waiheke vineyard. apart from wines, they also made beer here. they imported their malt from germany and made a beer that smelled a bit like banana and tasted like white beer.
after that, there was one more vineyard left over. this one apparently is the most famous one, it's called mudbrick. i think we were all quite tired by then ( i blamed that on the wine of course, am still not used to drinking during the day).
on sunday morning my mum arrived very early, so we made sure we were on the airport in time to pick her up. my mum actually felt okay after the journey, so we decided to go to devonport after some breakfast and a freshing up. around devonport we just walked around and climbed up to the lookout.
after a good night's sleep my mum felt a bit better in the morning so we went into the city and went to auckland museum and the rose gardens. there's a lot to see in auckland museum so we didn't even manage to see half of it, but we had a good time anyhow.

anyway, wishing everyone a very happy christmas. love, tjitske

penguins, lots of them

2007-12-17T04:07:03Z

so on sunday morning i was picked up at the far more reasonable time of 10.30 for a trip to phillip island to see the penguin parade amongst other things. again, i was the first one to be picked up (should i feel honoured now??). there were 5 other girls who were also on my great ocean road trip who joined us, so we had a bit of a reunion. really good fun and it made the day immediately feel more relaxed.
it took till lunch time for our first stop at a wildlife park. here we had lunch and saw a wambet which we were able to stoke. very cute. we also saw lots of koala's, although no patting was allowed here. one of the koala's climbed on top of the roof of their shelter though, which was quite funny. we also fed wallabies and kangaroos. the wallabies were very cute and nice and they ate from your hand, but the kangaroos were a bit more vigorous and rough, so we just had to hold out our plastic tub with food for them. three of them starting fighting over my food, all of them trying to get food from the tub and i couldn't even retreat as one of the kangaroos had put his front paws around my hand and the tub, holding it in place. oops.
there was also an albino kangaroo and a mother kangaroo who had a baby in her pouch. she was also really kind and allowed you to stroke here while she was eating. initially all we could see of the baby were its paws, but a bit later he also stuck his head out and it looked so cute.
to help settle our lunch we went for walk along woollamai beach. from there we went to pyramid rock, which is called so cause it sits like a pyramid in the ocean. we also saw some wild wallabies here and when looking at one i accidentally stepped on a dead bird. that'll teach me for not paying attention to my feet.
the next stop was swan lake which is a popular bird watching site. there were lots of birds, but apart from them we also saw some swamp wallabies and rabbits, oh and also one of those hedgehog like animals with a pouch (can't rmember their name, but they're classified because of their pouch in the same group as kangaroos, koala's and wambets). of course, they look a bit different from a hedgehog.
then we went to to nobbies, which is the place to see seals sitting on the rocks about 500 metres out in the ocean. this means you only get to see heads sticking out from the rocks. we also saw some penguins sitting in their nests (little holes in the dunes), very cute.
after some diner we went to the penguin parade. we got front row seats (in the sand) and had such a laugh. penguins don't like coming out of the water as they get very scared, so they wait till it's sufficiently dark before they make a run for the dunes.
before they actually set off, they make a few false starts. in the case of some groups, about 10-15 false starts, where they start walking onto the beach and then quickly turn around again into the sea cause they get too scared. each time before they made a start, they first had a meeting with what seemed like a heated debate (note the interpretation here). when finally one of the groups closest to us really got going there was one penguin who hadn't realised all his friends left and was lagging behind rather a lot. he couldn't catch up with the main group and ended up standing alone in the middle of the beach not knowing whether to proceed forward, or to return to the sea. he stood there for about 10 minutes before walking back, coming across some weeds. feeling a bit safer and proceeding to the dunes again keeping to the seaweed on the beach. eventually he reached the dunes. bless him. we applauded him for being so brave.
on the way out there were lots of penguins waiting for their mates and you could hear them feeding their chicks in the bushes and in their nests (sounds like: beep, roll, beep, roll). you could also hear adults fighting or mating (sounds like: roll, roll, roll, roll). of course, because we had to wait till dark (9 pm) we didn't actually get back to melbourne till about midnight. another long day....

great ocean road etc....

2007-12-17T03:43:40Z

after gundagai i finally got to melbourne. i had already noticed in gundagai it was a lot drier here than further up north. the following morning i was picked up at 7 am for the great ocean road day trip. our first stop was just beyond torquay at a lookout point over the ocean. there's rocks all along the shore and you can really see the different age lines in it. they kind of look like someone's shaved them straight off as they are so steep (90 degrees). it was really busy at the lookout and after taking a few pictures i spend most of the time standing in line for the toilet in the rain chatting to a girl from the new territories in hongkong. she was from a town near tsa tin, which i visited, so we talked a bit about it. after a quick tea and biscuit we set off for the lighthouse. this lighthouse was built here as many ships got into trouble along the rocky shore line. this lighthouse was the one used in round the twist (for you brits, old tv programme for the dutch amongst us) and apparently even features in mad max. the great ocean road between the lighthouse and the memorial arch was actually used a lot for the filming of mad max and the house which was mel gibson's home in the film actually still stands there.
of course we also had a stop at the memorial arch. the great ocean road was built by soldiers from the great war (WW1) and when they finished they built the memorial arch and there's a war monument right next to it.
on our way to the next stop we went through the town of lorne, which originally started around 1850 when a rich man decided it would be a good holiday location, so he built a hotel there. it's been a holiday town every since. around lorne, the whales breed also. so each year they come to have their babies and teach them the basics about being a whale in june, july and august time for approximately 9 weeks.
at the grey river we saw some koala's. one of them was eating, two were simply staring at us (although their eyesight is appalling, so they probably didn't actually see us, but they stared in our direction), most of them were asleep, but one of them was balancing on two branches which on their own would probably not be able to support his weight. very funny, we stood there for a bit ready to catch him should he fall. one of the sleeping koala's was actually a mum and had a baby on her back, so cute...
after lunch we went down to apollo bay, which is a safe haven, which means it has a sand beach, and there's no real rocks nearby, making it a safe place for ships to moor in. it's also the byron bay of victoria because it's popular with surfers and artists and backpackers. apparently it's easier to get work in apollo bay though than in byron.
they also used to work with timber a lot and cut down a lot of the cool temerate rainforest that naturally grew there. part of the rainforest has been preserved as a rich man wanted it as his retreat. lucky rainforest. we went for a walk through here. it's very different from a tropical rainforest, lot of eucalyptus trees and other plants, and also very cold...
next up were the twelve apostles, which is only really 8 apostles now, as the other ones have collapsed through erosion. it's a natural erosion process that's occurred since the last ice age and apparently new apostles will form once more of the coast line erodes away as part of this process. basically, the apostles are rocks standing in the ocean, but they're really impressive looking. close to the apostles is the lock and gorge also, where a major shipwreck occurred. there were only two survivors who washed up in the gorge on its beach. we walked down to the beach and after around the gorge to the razorback, which is about 5 minutes away (walk).
after this it was time to go back to melbourne. on the way we stopped for dinner in a small town. having been the first pick up in the morning, i was also the last drop off in the evening. it was a very long day....

great ocean road and other things....

2007-12-17T03:20:01Z

hi everyone,
been a long time i put an update on here. i was in sydney for about 2 weeks, bit longer then intended as i was having too much fun (hence the lack of updates i guess). too much partying, brunches and dinners out. anyway, on wednesday i did finally leave sydney to travel a bit further down. first stop was canberra. i arrived there around 1 pm and after checking into the hostel, i walked down to the botanical gardens. it was a bit further than i expected, so it wasn't until about 3 pm i was able to get some lunch (and the cafe was closing). after having had something to eat i walked through the tasmanian gardens where a lot of the plants looked very dry despite the fact it was raining when i arrived (for only 5 minutes, i admit). they also had queensland rainforest in the gardens, which was interesting as i'd already seen so much. this time there were signs telling what which tree was and such. not that i'm remembering any of the names, but hey.
after the botanical gardens i walked up the hill to the telstra tower (in the black mountain nature reserve), where there's a lookout point over canberra. there's an artificial lake that was designed by a man called griffin, hence the name, lake griffin. it doesn't really look artificial and even has an island in the middle-ish of it. there's also black swans on the lake which is kind of cool.
of course, after all that i had to walk back again and by the time i got back i was pretty tired and a bit dried up (didn't fill up my water bottle before leaving, silly me), so i went to the sauna to relax for a bit.
the following morning i struggled to get up though, but after some breakfast i managed to check out and put my stuff in storage so i could go and visit the old parliament house and the science and tech museum.
it took about 2 hours to get from canberra to gundagai where i took it easy the rest of the day. the main thing to see in gundagai is the bridge and rail viaduct over the murrumbidgee river. the river wasn't actually that wide, but the flood plain is, so the rail viaduct was 819 metres in length, the longest timber truss structure ever built in australia. the rail viaduct was built in 1903 and was in use till 1984 and formed the main railway connection between sydney and melbourne. there was also a station at gundagai that is also open for tourists. when i got there, the police was there. they told me it was okay for me to go in, so in i went. when the police came in the man who ran the place told me that some teenagers had stolen the gold coin donation box empty. apparently they had about 400 dollars in there. obviously, he wasn't feeling too great about that.
the bridge for other traffic was called the prince alfred viaduct and built in 1896-1898 is the fourth longest timber girder ever built in australia, and it's the only one to retain its 19th century form and length. it was named after prince alfred, son of queen victoria, who came to visit australia around the time the bridge was built. the bridge was built to ensure that floods didn't cut off road communication between sydney and melbourne.
they also had a museum with lots of antiques in it, and also some stories of the floods. the town of gundagai is now built on the hill, but used to be on the flood plain, where it was built despite the local aboriginals warning them that the flood plain would flood sooner or later. they had two major floods there around 1850 and two years later again (they didn't learn from the first flood and the warnings and rebuilt the town in its original place again, after the second flood they rebuilt the town on the hill).
i didn't see the dog on the tuckerbox, which is outside the town but did get a little poem about it:
now dog upon the tucker box
you've got us puzzled flat
they'll hold a royal commission yet
to find out where you sat
was it at the five mile
now tell us dinki di,
or was it on the tucker box
nine miles from gundagai?
you're holding up the country
you can't keep doing that
we want to know once for all
where the hell you sat
was it at the five mile
don't blink your bleary eye
jack moses said you did the trick
nine miles from gundagai

there you go. see you soon.....