The Wayward Hoover

We're Running out of Road...

2010-12-30T05:06:00.000-08:00

Today was a wee bit ridiculous.

On the one hand, the list of animals one can find on the street is ever expanding. Add chickens, horses, ponies, camels in either couples or herds, never any other combination. Also pigs and goats, who wear coats. Dr. Seuss would have a field day.

We've also taken the public restroom revelation to a whole new level, let's just say it's not a story for polite company.

Also I talked about the ridiculous cacophony of car horns that is constantly blasting in the background. This was not correct. I'm convinced that each vehicle has a tiny little trumpet player tied to their grill blasting away till Miles comes home. The bigger your auto the more skilled your musician, motorcycles and rickshaws get your traditional squeal but the buses get little melodies and the trucks blast out arpeggios.

Horns are for everything. If you're passing someone honk your horn. If you're turning honk your horn. If you're approaching a group of school children doing cartwheels on the freeway, honk your horn. If driving on the wrong side of the road, honk your horn. If you're eating a banana, don't honk your horn that will just confuse people.

Most of the temples have marble floors. They're VERY slippery.

I am now in deep in the heart of the Madhubani region, after another solid 10 hours of bus time, which is now officially the biggest shenanigan I have ever experienced in a bus. Besides the breakneck speeds and weaving through opposing traffic, every turn we make leads to a smaller road. Eventually the bus is wider than the entire strip of pavement. That's when they start stopping to ask for directions.

There's a whole team of drivers on our bus, and they have a very nicely furnished cockpit at the front of our bus with a bed and an extra chair and a shrine.

On the way we wandered through a couple mud sculpture workshops, two excavations of sacred Buddhist sites as well as a Sri Lankan guest house for pilgrims (not the thanksgiving kind) for a rest stop and bathroom break. Think hole in the ground.

Don't take pictures of people with guns.

In the cities, we were generally ignored by everyone either because of our language or our skin or our ridiculously tacky fashion sense. Not so out here in the country. This is as close to being a celebrity as I will get. Every time we stop we immediately collect a tail of anywhere from 4-30 people following us and staring at us.

Probably wondering why we would try and squeeze a bus through a herd of camels.

Well the life of a celebrity is exhausting so until next time!

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

What's that smell?

2010-12-29T06:35:00.000-08:00

Why it smells like India! and Naan.

It took about 31 hours to get here (a new personal record) and I'm exhausted so I'll just start rambling now.

So. I don't have Malaria. Yet. I'm workin' on it.

There are dogs everywhere on the streets. Also Cows. Also Monkeys. Also Snakes. I charmed one.

First stop was New Delhi, which is also old Delhi... I don't quite understand either.

The term "public restroom" has a whole new meaning for me. Think a wall with a drain.

The soundtrack of life in India is car horns, constantly blasting in the background of everything.

Schoolchildren love to be in your photos. All of them. I feel like I need a spray for the kids instead of the mosquitoes.

I got to wear a snake. Two snakes actually. The first was your garden variety "give this to a tourist" kind of snake, which I would like to think I handled quite well while it explored my arm. The second one was the kind of snakes they make movies about and staffs for disney villains. It lunged at me. I jumped. Snake #1 was not a fan of the jumping. It was a vicious circle to say the least.

They're not police cars here, they're "Mobile Police Posts" and they have curtains in the windows.

I definitely did NOT oversleep this morning almost getting left behind.

I'm going to fall asleep on my keyboard now so I will talk to you all soon, hopefully with select arts-y photographs.

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Nah We Got Plenty of Time...

2010-03-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

So. Funny story.

A good friend of mine and fellow traveler was flown home from Malta recently by good old Tulare County to testify against the guys who kidnapped her and stole her car last December. But that's another story.

The point is the county offered to pay for my gas if I'd pick her up from SFO, and seeing how I love San Francisco I told them "Well I guess I could..."

So I left Fresno last Friday with one of her best friends to pick her up from the airport at 8.

I knew we were in for an adventure when I inadvertently took the wrong freeway west across the valley. I'm not sure who decided to randomly include a freeway exit in the left lane but obviously I was not consulted.

Lucky for my passenger and I everything eventually meets up with the I-5 here in California, and I do mean everything, so all was not lost.

Just north of the junction with the 5 there is a massive facility of some kind surrounded by gigantic, 25-30 ft fence.... except for the north side of the complex.

I'm just as curious as you are.

Pushing onwards me and my compatriot got to SF without much further incident, if you don't count the ridiculous construction before the San Mateo bridge that is. Concrete barriers on each side of the lane and a 25 mph corkscrew of an on-ramp.

I felt like a hotwheels car.

In fact, as we got to the SFO exit on the 101 I noticed the clock on my dashboard reported we had made killer time, hour and a half to spare killer time.

With all that time on our hand we did what anyone would do, we hit the city.

Of course, we weren't entirely sure what we wanted to see, and we also seemed to be using Jack Sparrow's compass. If I was sure something was to our left then she was just as sure it was in the dead opposite direction.

So we wandered around the city like that until our bladders got the best of us and we parked near a Burger King to take care of business.

The Burger King on Market street has a bathroom guard. He's little and angry and holds the keys to relief. Not a good combination. Not a good combination at all.

Even after proving that we were indeed paying customers and had permission to use the restroom he had to be talked into it, and if you got that far he would still grumble about how much he hates letting people use it.

After solving all of the bathroom troll's riddles we returned to the car where I realized I had missed a phone call from south SF sometime during our wanderings.

Things I forgot to do:

1. Adjust my dashboard clock for daylight savings time.

Yup.

People whose flight got in early:

1. My friend.

Yup.

All told she waited about an hour in the airport while her deadbeat friends escaped from the city as fast as they could. Naturally we decided not to tell her why we had been late.

Naturally I was sold out as soon as we got to the curb.

The drive home was less eventful, we paid a visit to Donut Nation in Los Banos where the king requires a $5 minimum purchase if you wanna use a card and to Robertito's where they teach you how to fish your food out of a pool of delicious grease.

Finally rolled back home around 2 in AM and nobody even got kidnapped, so I deem the trip a success.

Cheers till next time,

The Wayward Hoover

Are You Rogue Enough?

2010-03-14T13:24:00.000-07:00

Where can you find a partially nude ukulele player from South Africa? Why at the Rogue festival of course.

The Rogue is by far one of the coolest things to roll through this town and this year was no exception. In all I caught 6 1/2 shows, if you count the guys dancing behind the counter of Tower Dogs. Which you should.

Speaking of, Tower Dogs are delicious.

It's hard to pick a favorite with each show being so different but it's hard to go wrong with Songs 4 Pints and their Irish antics. With a show revolving around singing in exchange for pints of Guinness things quickly dissolved from a formal concert into the giggly singing of pub songs with new friends.

There is a Disco Fever street gang wandering around the tower district in shiny gold shirts and massive sideburns.

The aforementioned Ukulele player had a banjolele. AND a resonator ukulele. Needless to say the venue manager was not happy with all the drool on the floor where I was sitting.

Since I've shaved my head I've become increasingly appreciative of the giant propane powered heat stands that the Rogue set up in its out door venues.

The Rogue Festival is said to be the biggest fringe festival west of the Mississippi, organizers decided against calling it the "Fresno Fringe" because "rogue" just feels so much cooler to say.

Go ahead. Say it.

Rogue.

It makes you want to wear a bandanna.

EDIT:: Don't forget to keep voting! http://worldtravelerinternship.com/member/andrew-hoover/

VROOM!

2010-03-10T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well it looks like being a travel intern isn't such a pipe dream after all, so I've decided to dust off the old blog-o-rooni here and fire her up for new visitors and new adventures!!

To start things off I think I'll talk about my latest adventure, which actually turns out to be applying for the STA World Traveler Internship (that's a lot to type so from now on it's just going to be STA. Or intern. Or whatever I feel like calling it at the time)! I'm going to take you back.... baaack.... to a time loooooong agooooooo.... like last Tuesday.

Specifically, the Tuesday 3 days before the STA submission deadline.

I was deeply engrossed in my studies (read: goofing off on the internet) when my sister sent me a link to the STA intern homepage and informed me that if I didn't apply she would hate me.

Now me and dear ol' sis have had our differences ever since the Great Noogie Incident of '92 but I'm not down for hate, so I hit the link and was immediately hooked.

What followed was a marathon even in video production. I spent the rest of the day brainstorming ideas, studying the competition and writing. by 10 in the PM I had a working script and was scrambling to find a femme fatale for my opening sequence.

After a delightfully hilarious/awkward conversation I had an actress and a location and started filming 11 PM. 4 hours of giggling and hip wiggling later I had my footage and started the editing.

Editing (in all of its riveting detail) went on from 3am until 9pm with a short break to go to work at the trusty library (also riveting). and by 10 Wednesday night I had a video and an application up and ready to be voted on.

Ah voting. It took me all of 20 minutes to get banned from Facebook Chat for spamming my friends.

I think that deserves an award.

By the numbers I directly contacted over 600 friends, over 2,500 guests of the "Help Andrew Hoover" event, over 6,700 fans of a recently cancelled radio show and unknown thousands of hapless MCJ students via the campus listserve (thank you prof. Hayes!). After about 24 hours I had broken into the top 50 with a meager 2400 votes.

Then I did a stupid thing.

I went and told all of those people that if I could break 15,000 votes by the submission deadline, I would shave my head.

I picked 15,000 because it was obviously unattainable.

I am a fool.

Over the course of 9 hours, my vote count skyrocketed to hit over 18,000 votes before finally slowing down, by midnight I was squarely in the 20,000s. So fast that it prompted some to even to pose as STA administration and accuse me of cheating.

Which was hurtful.

But no matter.

I made it to the top 50! Which is awesome in at least 7 different ways.

and on that happy note I'm off to check out the Fresno Rogue Festival

In the mean time, go vote for me on my intern page!!

http://worldtravelerinternship.com/member/andrew-hoover/

Cheers,

The Wayward Hoover

Encore!!!

2009-05-05T06:25:00.000-07:00

So I have a little time and a little prepaid internet left so we are going to take a quick journey through whatever happens to pop into my head before my time runs out.

Nobody has been able to accurately recreate a good hotdog, no matter how "American" the stand claims to be.

Weirdest thing I've seen in a second story window: Bulldozer

I got to play on stage at the world renowned Bennet's Jazz Club as a guest artist for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.

You will never see cops in a group of less than 5 on the streets of Melbourne

The best way to learn a public transportation system is to get hopelessly lost on one

At any given time, New Zealand Pop culture is 8 to 10 years behind ours. Australia sits at about 5

They decided to build their mall around an old shot making factory, with-out tearing it down, so you walk out of Diesel or FCUK or Donut King and smack into the brick wall of a 5 story metalurgy factory just kind of hanging out in the middle of everything.

Some guy in a suit thought I was his son and followed me for 4 blocks before he realized his mistake.

Today I saw an Aboriginal man who had dyed his sideburns (massive sideburns) silver, the hair immediately around his ears pinkish purple and the hair around his bald spot bleach-blonde. The rest of his hair was black.

Combination shops are a big deal here, for instance Haircuts and Pet Grooming, or Pizza and Kebabs.

Sure, why not?

All over town there are tiny tile mosaic space invaders (from the game) about 20 ft up and just chillin' on the wall. I've counted almost 30, each one by itself.

Almost every single bar or restaurant in this town serves pizza for really cheap, and it makes me happy.

There is a donut shop that sells Cactus Cooler. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, there is no explaining the awesomeness it entails.

The Boat That Rocked, Rocks

Australians are very punny

They have a very weird version of football here, I understand it less then Cricket.

In the middle of the Museum of Melbourne, there is a forest. With snakes and fish and everything

Welp, out of time, hope you enjoyed this last minute encore

Until next time,

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Kangaroos Are Dirty, also last international post.....for now

2009-04-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Melbourne!! Since I left you last I have visited Flinn's Reef, Milnn Reef, Sydney, Tourqay, Geelong, Lorne, Port Fairy, The 12 Apostles, Tommy's Lookout, Hall's Gap, Rose's Gap, the Grampians National Park, and Loch Ard Gorge. Not to mention about half of the nooks and crannies spread thickly across Melbourne city center

*Inhales*

It's been a busy to say the least.

I really have no idea where I should start and which stories are worth including so I'll just start with the diving. Hard to go wrong with a wonder of the world right?

In Cairns there are three types of buildings; empty ones, restaurants and dive shops.

My kind of town.

After repacking my stuff in the dark into a bag for home and a bag for travel, a van stole me away from my hostel and shuttled me to the docks where I was given milk and a slice of cake and told to wait while they took all of my stuff and put it in my cabin and fluffed my pillow for me

The cake was delicious.

Much to my delight the cake was a constant fixture in life on the dive boat, our schedule started at 6 in the am and went something like this:

Dive cake dive breakfast dive cake dive cake and lunch dive cake dive dinner and cake dive dive

...cake.

It was wonderful.

For all you fish freaks out there I saw so many fish I couldn't even begin to try and list them all here......what's that?? You want me to try anyways?? Well if you insist.

I saw Anemone Fish, Maorie Wrasse*, Bumphead Parrot fish*, Parrot Fish, Butterflyfish, Butterfly Fish (there's a difference), Angel Fish, Black spotted puffer, Yellow Spotted Puffer, Orange and Black Puffer, Brown Puffer, Grey Pipefish*, Yellow Pipefish*, Lionfish, Grey Reef Shark*, White Tip Reef Shark*, Black Reef Shark*, Mako Shark*, Common Hermit Crab, Silver Fish, Common Coral Trout, Black Banded Triple Fin*, Common Reef Lobster, Red Sea Bass, Round Ray, Shovel Nose Guitar Fish, Greenback Turtle, Various Trigger Fish, Surgeon Fish, Forcep Fish, Reef Eel, Cardinal Fish, Little Blue Annoying Fish, Big Blue Annoying Fish, Spiny Sea Cucumber*, Hairy Sea Cucumber, Totally Gross Sea Cucumber, Giant Clams*, Less Than Giant Clams, Panicked New SCUBA Diver, and of course the Goofy American Fish.

* = something that was bigger and/or longer than me

That is maybe a quarter of what I saw, but it's all I can remember.

For those of you playing the home game and who are slightly less interested in the specific names of all the fish, I saw the entire cast of Finding Nemo.

Got there autographs.

Went out to lunch and pitched ideas for their next movie and how I will direct it.

(Minus Bruce)

If we weren't underwater than we were on the top deck eating cake or dancing or running face-first off the edge and falling to the water 25 feet below us.

I saw a crocodile. It was a baby, but it coulda ate my toes.

The city of Melbourne was built to order just for me, I am convinced of it. The layout was originally designed with wide streets for moving large carts of goods, which the citizens promptly ignored and created their own intricate system of alleyways and tunnels to get around the town.

This city is alive, and when you cut it bleeds adventure.

I have been here for about a week and a half and have been exploring from sunrise to sunrise and have maybe worked my way over half of this city.

Maybe.

Big Maybe.

There are two sets of doors here, the ones that are open during the day, and the ones that are open at night... With that in mind let's say I've only seen a quarter of the city.

Most stores don't have signs, the good ones are only accessible through the back of another store and the best ones are in the back, around a corner and down a flight of stairs. And you have to knock.

I pet (petted?) a Kangaroo. It was dirty.

There is a massive open air market here that sells all sorts of discount wares and fresh foods and fried foods and fried discount wares.....and a homeless man having a butterfly painted on his face.

I get on an airplane for the states tomorrow and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The Melbourne International Jazz Festival runs from April 26th to May 2nd.

Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my face

*wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipe*

The festival and its events however were hidden from view, to the uninitiated you would never know that jazz talent and appreciators from all over the world were converging on the city to share and experience alike the new flavors and old recipes being traded in back alleys and on performance hall stages.

Walk down any given empty alley and knock on the right door, it would be opened to reveal a packed house, stretching to point an ear towards the corner stage where the likes of Jim Black, Charlie Haden, Marc Hannaford, Katie Noonan and countless others were letting the music do the talking for them.

It was unreal. If the city bleeds adventure then it certainly Screams, swoons and cries jazz

Now there is a certain matter which is most unfortunate but we all must address together.

My trip is ending, and soon (Tomorrow Soon). However my adventures will not be ending, if I have anything to do about it. I will be rumbling around the central valley for about a month before heading off again to work as Ranger Director on Catalina island, and then after that, who knows??

I should mention that I lived in a van for a week in the Grampians National Park. Also google the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, they were awesome.

The question is, should I keep tip-tapping at my keyboard to share my experiences, accidents, ravings and discoveries? Or should I leave it as a tribute to the epic journey that these last 4 or 5 months have been?

I will definitely return to at least share some pictures that I feel represent the various highlights of the trip, as I know you are all just tripping over yourselves to see exactly what I have been rambling about.

But before that, I have one more night to try and trick this City into showing me what she's hiding, so until then

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Neener-Neener!!

2009-04-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful readers, friends, family, random visitor from India that I keep getting.

I am currently traveling in Australia, and have nowhere near enough time to write a full post right now as I am waiting on a van to pick me up and take me to a very large boat, on which I will be living for the next 3 days and from which I will be jumping as often as possible into the Pacific decked out in SCUBA gear.

For the win.

I Definitely only told you so that you could be jealous (neener-neener!)

Also this marks the end of my semester!!

No more tests, homework, random geology side trips, lectures in beautiful places, rests in less than beautiful places. From here on out its just me and my wandering compass needle until May, which is when I will be returning to the beloved U. S. of A.

Allegedly.

Who knows? I might miss my flight.

Needless to say this will lead to an epic increase in tomfoolery, mischief and your all around good fun shenanigans.

Only about half of which I can tell you about.

Because my mother reads this blog that's why.

Well, my van is here, so until next time...

Oh ya, I'm in Cairns for all you Google Earth fans. Since Queenstown I have also been to Dunedin and then back to Christchurch before flying north to Cairns.

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Gravity is my favorite toy

2009-03-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

It is totally unrealistic to try and Hang-glide, Skydive and bungee-jump...

... In one day at that is, I had to spread it over two.

I am currently staying in a room above Queenstown and am doing my very best to jump off of every high place within spitting distance tied to whatever rope is convenient.

No rope? No problem, give me a foil or a parachute and I'll be glad to jump face-first off of a perfectly good cliff or out of a functioning airplane.

Due to a quiet little mix-up somewhere in the cosmos we are enjoying an extra day in Queenstown.

Great news for my adrenal glands.

Horrible, horrible news for my bank account.

The Routeburn track is one of the great back country trails in New Zealand and is renowned worldwide for its breathtaking vistas and cascading waterfalls. It is fitted with 32 kilometers of trail ranging from maintained and groomed to vaguely marked slabs of rock. With four huts (kiwis can be wusses about their backpacking (tramping) and build huts on trails to save the horror (the horror!) of carrying and pitching a tent in the wilderness) the trail is recommended at 3-4 days, 2 days if you're experienced and in a hurry.

I don't have that kind of time.

Luckily one end of the trail emerges north of Te Anau (home of giant cement statues of extinct birds and where I was staying last week) and the other end empties into Glenorchy just North of Queenstown.

You know what sounds like a great idea? Day hiking the Routeburn track while your friends van it from Te Anau to Queenstown and meeting them there.

Naturally we had to try it.

You know what's less than a great idea? ( ^that idea right up there )

Actually I stand by it being a great idea. That side hike to the summit of another mountain maybe a little less standing by that idea.

Three of us set off on the first trailhead shuttle at O'dark thirty on the 21st to tackle what we were guessing was going to be a 10 hour day of steady hiking. 30 minutes in we had our first seriously rolled ankle.

Go team.

Between tripping over each other and tripping over ourselves we managed to trip over a waterfall.

All 174 meters (metres if you fancy) of it.

From the waterfall we could see all down the glacial valley we were sidling to see the fjord-lands and the Tasman Sea off to the west as well as the Misty Mountains (read: waaaaaaaaaay to much Lord of the Rings on this trip.)

New Zealand tracks are marked not in distance but in time you should expect to hike between landmarks. They say it is because the terrain can be so deceiving when viewed on a map and people end up stranded short of their destinations. For the first 6 hours or so we were able to make the check points in about 2/3 of the time expected of hikers. So when we arrived at the high point and 2/3 distance mark of our hike a little over an hour in the black we decided that we had time for a quick (read: not quick) jaunt up nearby conical hill.

Conical is a Kiwi euphemism for monstrous and malicious.

Just like Damp is a Kiwi euphemism for sheeted downpour.

Conical Hill was worth it. It also left us with 2 and half hours to hike the last 12 kilometers, rated at at about 4 hours. So we did what every sensible hiker would do, we ran as fast as our nerves would allow. Which for about an hour was a very slow scramble as we worked down bare rock paths and steppes. Back in the forest though we were able to step up the pace to half the marked times.

I fell, I bled, I made it to the trail-end by 6 (our goal). That last part is all that matters.

I changed my mind, there is no such thing as too much Lord of the Rings.

In Queenstown, it rains people, at any given time you can look up and there will be no less than 10 parachutes/hangliders/parasailers/man-birds soaring around above you.

I know that I have been doing something right because I have started to run into people over and over again. Travelers and natives alike are in the right places at the right times and its like a reunion between old friends with people I talked to waiting in line for an ice cream cone.

So free pool night is my absolute favorite bar gimmick. While staying near Lake Wanaka I played a fellow student who was from Switzerland. After getting totally stomped on for a couple of racks I asked how long he had been playing, to which he replied "Oh I stopped playing tournaments when I was 10".

It was then I decided to stop taking it easy on him.

There are wild goats here, and they don't get much taller than my knees, they are ridiculous.

well until next time,

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

"Who wants to be run over by the Zorb?"

2009-03-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

What a silly question. Of course I want to be run over by a Zorb. Who wouldn't?

That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.

Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.

For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.

I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.

During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.

I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.

The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.

While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.

There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.

It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.

There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.

Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.

When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.

I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.

I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.

Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.

I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.

I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.

Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.

You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)

American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.

That's right, be jealous.

There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.

Ok.

This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Just a quick fix......quit your whining! I can hear it all the way over the date line!!

2009-02-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

At the moment, three things hurt; my head, my stomach and my limbs, so this will be brief just to whet your appetites.

I am currently in Kaikoura, which is on the South Island, after leaving Rotorua, I was in Auckland for almost a week and then New Plymouth for not nearly long enough.

Since my last post I have tried the most interesting pizza I have ever tasted, I caught a ride from a kiwi, met some organic farmers from Maryland and swam with penguins.

I'm afraid that's all I have for now because I need to sleep off this headache

cheers till then,

The Wayward Hoover

Volcanoes, I Climb Them

2009-02-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ok. So at the moment, I am hanging out in Rotorua, where they charge you by the minute for the internet.

Ridiculous.

After leaving Wellington, we moved on to Turangi (tUr-an-ee) where I was promptly assaulted by every sand flea within spitting distance. My feet look like some sort of cross between hamburger meet and a leper.

In between biting and being bitten by the fleas, we managed to wander our way over to the Tangariro Crossing, a very spectacular hike over one of the most active volcanic fields of modern times. This includes Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.

Mt. Doom stinks.

Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs and sweaty tourists.

But the rest of the volcanoes were amazing. After wandering past river after river of (cold) lava, we hit the flank of the ticking time bomb everyone kept calling a mountain. A few stops to inhale dangerous volcanic fumes and we were hiking across the floor of a crater about a 1/4 mile across.

Awesome is a pansy word compared to these peaks and craters.

After scrambling up a few more volcanic rims we came to a series of lakes, which were that beautiful turquoise blue that you always see when you're exhausted from climbing volcanoes. Sadly for us, they were quite literally lakes of sulfuric acid (dilute, but hey you don't see me jumping head first into the acid lake). Warning signs abounded, so naturally a couple of girls from another hiking party (Americans of course) thought it would be fun to have a swim. While their skin was slowly eaten away (they got a rash) we stumbled upon what would be the first of many fumerals, all of which smelled like burnt sin.

Natural deposition of a pure mineral, one of the rarest occurrences in the world, brings about the absolute strongest urge to vomit I've had in recent memory. Vaporized sulfur spouting out of these vents was crystallizing around the edges of the fissures in the ground. Apparently, moving directly from a gas to a solid is smelly business because there is no escaping the brimstone (rotten eggs). We continued on and found tons of interesting (says the geology prof.) rocks, one of which he had only heard of but never seen in person but expected us to identify it just the same (Olivine bearing Rhyolite).

If you have ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke (the correct answer here is "Yes The Wayward Hoover, of course I've seen Cool Hand Luke") then you have a pretty solid of where we stayed in Turangi.

There were rows of small 8x8 cabins with spring-net cots, and the proper dosage of sand fleas. But it was so far my favorite stop. We spent the majority of our time sitting on our stoops playing ukelele, singing and swatting bugs.

Rotorua is world famous for its hotsprings, which are heated by volcaninc vents, which vent sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. Seriously, the whole town smells like rotten eggs, and its a tourism hotspot.

I will never understand.

While in Rotorua we are responsible for our own food. For the most part we've teamed up with our roommates and been able to wrangle some pretty decent meals out of the Pack 'n' Save (Kiwi for Costco).

The tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world is approximately 25 ft high, and I rafted it.

I have not gone Zorbing yet.

I know that I have had too much art history because today we were at a museum and I noticed that the guide was wrong.

I don't know what you know about masking tape and newsprint but if you are looking to create a realistic portraiture in the round, pick some other medium. I spent the better part of 12 hours last night trying to convince the sports section to look like my ears and nose.

At the end of it all, I thought it looked pretty decent. My art professor disagreed.

Things I still want to do:
Luge
Jump out of an airplane
Bungee Jump
Shave a sheep

If someone ever asks you what Kiwi peacocks do for fun, the answer is bite tourists.

I have lost all track and sense of time. I can't tell you what day or hour it is, all I know is that in 3 days we leave Rotorua.

I think that is awesome.

The ketchup here is weird. It's sweeter, almost like bbq sauce except not tasty. The hunt is on for some good old fashioned Heinz 57.

Have I mentioned how much the Kiwis love curry?

It is wicked hot here in Rotorua. I sleep on top of the covers underneath the window with as few articles of clothing as my roommates will allow.

The actor who played Jango Fett also apparently used to work making videos (very cheesy videos) for New Zealand museums.

I already miss my friends from Lewis and Clark.

I am running out of coins so this post has to stop here.

Tune in next time for something else I haven't told you about yet!

Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover

What!? Another Post!? It's Only Been 2 Days! Is He Out of His Mind?!

2009-02-03T00:09:00.001-08:00

That's right everyone. I'm back already for one reason and two reasons alone.

Pictures.

And Slang.

And an adventure!

First things first, I think you should all be updated on the words that are starting to slip into my everyday use before it slips into my typing and you give up reading in a fit of befuddled frustration. So pull out those buzzers and lets look at the categories shall we?

Maori (Indigenous New Zealanders)

Te Papa - Our House
Te Ara - Our Story
Mana - A life source. Kind of like karma/juju/something else I'm not entirely sure how to translate
Tapu - Sacred
Noa - Normal, not sacred
Waka - War canoe
Kia ora - Thank you but translates to a whole basket of friendly things
Manaia - Kind of like a spirit
Ka Mate - "It is death"
Marei - A ceremony house

New Zealand-y things

Sweet as - its like "awesome" but with more variety (*colorful adjective* as)
Breu - sounds like bro with an accent, and you can pretty much tag it on the end of any sentence
Cheers - thanks, goodbye, hello, pardon me, the list goes on
Diddums - "awww po baabyyyy"

So today something very out of the ordinary happened. Remember that level of 007 Goldeneye where if you stayed in one spot enemies would keep pouring out of the doors indefinitely?

Well it was kind of like that.

But with ducks.

We were definitely attacked by a flock, no - an army, of ducks. They just kept coming out of the bushes by the thousands (ok, so maybe there were 10 or 15 ducks). But they were organized!

They killed and ate Jack. True Story.

I had a dream the other night where Jack was flying a plane with the group in it and we all fell to our deaths, so I guess it all worked out.

Anyways... on to the main event!!

Look Samson, Pictures!!!!

...

...

Dear Readers, Blogger hates me and pictures will be delayed.

Again.

Bees, Trees and Kiwis

2009-02-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

So.

New Zealand.

Its pretty fantastic. True story.

Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.

About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).

I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:

The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.

Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.

Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.

It says, "Hello."

If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.

Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.

They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.

I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.

I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?

Speaking of food.

Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.

I don't get it either.

I miss Mexican food. A lot.

A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.

I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.

Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.

Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!

Cheers!

The Wayward Hoover

P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.

Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?

More Hokey Pokey Than You Can Shake a Stick at and Not a Maple Bar in Sight

2009-01-24T23:32:00.000-08:00

New Zealand!!!!

Where do I even begin?! Well, the simple answer is: I don't know where to start so over the next few posts I will tell of the odyssey that was getting to this beautiful country. Also, pictures will follow shortly when things settle down and I can sit and put it all together.

It was a a beautiful (cloudy) morning (ish) when we rolled up to the buzzing (empty) Fresno International (1 flight to Mexico) Airport. A quick puddle jump up to SFO and my compatriots and I hunkered down for our 7 hour lay-over, which consisted mostly of low-speed chases up and down the moving sidewalks in the international terminal. Naturally what's the only thing to do after a 7 hour layover? Delay the flight of course!! The plane, which had been sitting there all day mind you, had been under catered somehow and everyone was boarded with the exception of the last 10 or 15 people (my row) while more food was put on the plane.

Don't worry dear readers, that is where the troubles end! I've decided to only fly international from now on. If I'm going to Phoenix, I'll fly down to Mexico City first and connect because this is the only way to fly!! There is this magical screen in the back of the seat in front of me loaded with hundreds of movies. On that note, I highly recommend "The Counterfeiters", a German language film about a massive counterfeiting operation in Nazi concentration camps during WWII... but I digress. Flying international is wonderful and I thought you should know.

On a more current note, classes have started and I have now spent almost 30 hours wandering around the Te Papa museum here in Wellington. Most of this wandering involved doing research in this library hidden in the back of the top floor, which is actually kind of cool. There are these massive frame-less glass automatic doors that only open with a card key and there are original printings of Darwin's The Origin of Species. Other than that though the classes are pretty low key (or Quay here in the NZ).

There are two other schools staying in our dormitories (called the Weir House), one from GA Tech, who are like ghosts, and one from Lewis and Clark University in Oregon. We've actually only heard rumors that the GA Tech kids are here, but I stumbled on the LC students late on the second night and glorious ukulele/guitar/melodica/harmonica jams ensued for the rest of the night. I've decided that they are awesome.

There is so much to tell and so little time (I'm borrowing laptops to piece together this post) but suffice to say that I am alive and doing my very best to get into trouble (unless my mother is reading this, in which case I am sitting in my dorm room, doing my homework with my passport chained to my leg).

More to come soon!

Till then, Cheers!!

The Wayward Hoover

Leavin' On A Jet Plane

2009-01-20T14:39:00.001-08:00

So this will be my last post from the United States! I am stoked to say the least. I really am too restless to write anything of value so I'm just going to ramble for a little while.

Yeah I got nothing.

Next time you hear from me I'll be in New Zealand!

Hi, I've Got an Appointment with Mr. Ullman...

2009-01-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

Living in Fresno is weird with everyone gone, kind of like my own personal version of the shining, hold the blood. I'm taking a crash course in Art History and I was unaware how intense art can be, but I'm not sure it's intense enough for the 8-5 time slot it fills three days a week.
Weak.
Cabin fever has started to settle in a little. I figure this is how old rich people must feel, hundreds of rooms and living space but nothing to do with it all. For the moment people seem to be sifting in and out of the building enough to keep me occupied, but it's still eerily quiet.
On the upside, this gives me lots of time to noodle on the old ukulele, catch up on some good movies and eat sinful amounts of Jimmy Dean Breakfast Croissants (which are delicious in case you didn't know).

I'm also getting pretty good at Rockband and there's nothing wrong with that.

11 DAYS!!!!!

My Very First Blogspot

2008-12-25T20:53:00.000-08:00

So my friend Taylor told me that she liked this template so this is going to be it. On January 21st I leave for New Zealand, which is the main reason for the creation of this here blogg-y diary-y thing...y. I've never actually had a blog before and am a notoriously neglectful pen pal so we're just going to cross our fingers and hope I can keep it current.