Nearing the half-way point

Okay, so it's been over two months since I've posted here. I'd imagine that most everyone has given up on me, and I can't say that I blame you.

For what it's worth, I've been posting infrequently here:
http://blog.myspace.com/loveandvandals

And have posted a handfull of photos here:
http://flickr.com/photos/vivalime

I've been in Hawaii now for nearly two weeks. Here on the Big Island of Hawaii I'm working on a coffee farm, which has turned out to be both more and less than what I'd expected. The boss - a crazy German expat/exprof who talks to himself and swears to himself like a sailor - feeds us well enough. He's unpredictible, though, and that makes life difficult. The other "WOOFers" here, Ryan and Carla, are wonderful people and I'm glad that they're here. We went out together on New Year's Eve and had a good time, dancing till the bar closed.

Here are some things that are starting to wear on me: I sleep in the barn. Granted, it is a room in the barn, but it's still in the barn. We have a composting toilet that is slightly upleasant, though generally manageable. The shower is also in the barn, and the guests at the Bed and Breakfast have first dibs on it if they need to rinse off their snorkeling gear. Also, it only has about three minutes of hot water, and you have to pull down a chain to make the water flow.

Today was my second eight-hour day of weeding the fields by hand, and I'm getting blisters and scrapes and my clothing is covered in burrs, making me look like a piece of sweet-and-sour pork. We also dug trenches around the coffee trees with tools that are dulled from over-use, and the ant colonies that reside at the bases of the trees revolted and bit us. Everywhere. I hate ants.

We've decided that the guests at the B&B feel sorry for us - what with sleeping in the barn like just another tool. Ryan played with the idea of using this sentiment to our advantage. Hans is starving us, he'd say. We get your table scraps, so try to not eat as much!

In reality, it isn't all bad. The weather is great, we've made friends in town, and this weekend Carla has hired a car, and we'll tour the island. I'm on the countdown now, and I have only five days of work left during my time here. Soon I will be home!

Dear everyone, thank you for the birthday wishes and nice emails. They mean a lot to me.

Three days ago I finished my second hiking track. Let me tell you, the Heaphy track sufficiently exhausted me. At 82k (51 miles) it is the longest of New Zealand's Great Walks. I had scheduled it as a five day hike, but after the first day realized that I could combine two of the shorter days. On the second day I hiked 27 kilometers over six hours, which I think is approximately fifteen miles. Ouch! It wasn't too difficult as far as the trail was concerned, but it was such a long way through moderately bad weather.

Oh, and did I mention that on the first day it hailed and then snowed on me? The shuttle drivers had assured me on the way over that clear skies were "just over the next ridge!" but it turns out they were wrong. The next two days rained, not horribly hard, but enough to make someone without the right equipment wet and cold. Lucky for me I have the right equipment! All of the things that I bought at REI over the past year have turned out to be good investments. Today, though, I bought extra thermal pants and shirt in case I encounter snow again.

While hiking this time I met two German women, Inge and Ellen, who are hilarious. After spending four days together we were close friends. They gave me their addresses and said that if I ever come to Germany to make sure that I come by for a visit. They also encouraged me to have crushes on German boys. Along with Inge and Ellen, we hiked at the same pace as a guided gormet tour. The tour guide carried everyone's food which was much better than my own. In an effort to save my strained back and shoulder muscles, I have been carrying oatmeal, dried soup, crackers and cheese for my various meals. These guys had fresh eggs every morning, lox sandwiches, and for dinner more fresh food. The last night they had salmon, cous cous and steamed vegetables. And cheesecake and coffee for desert.

I have never been more jealous.

All of yesterday and all of today have been spent on the bus, trying to make it south in time for my next scheduled hike, the Routeburn. This one is a bit shorter, only three days, but in an area with more severe weather and a potential for avalanches. Ahhhhh! It should be fine. I'll make a point of being in contact with the hut wardens to get the most recent update on trail conditions before I set out each day.

I'm in Queenstown today. It's really nice here. The farther south I go in New Zealand, the more dramatic the landscape becomes. I took dozens of pictures today.

Hooray for New Zealand!

From me, in the future, to you

I have been in New Zealand now for nearly two weeks. Recently I discovered that while I had thought before that NZ is only four hours behind the Western US, it is actually twenty hours ahead. So that means that while most of you are out having a pre-Halloween party on this Saturday night (now Sunday morning), it is my late Sunday evening. That's right; I'm in the future.

What can I tell you? I've spent a lot of money. All the expensive, adventurous things have been done, including a tour up to Cape Reinga, complete with duneboarding, swimming with the dolphins in the Bay of Islands, blackwater rafting through the glow worm caves, and a Maori hangi (traditional meal and ceremony). Those are the big things. In the month or so that I have left in this country I plan on saving my money more as I move on to the south island and begin my series of hikes.

Right now I'm in Wellington, the capital city of NZ, and I love it here. When I first landed I spent five days in Auckland which I regret daily. Wellington has a much more interesting culture, with museums, art galeries, cafes of every variety, mainstream and independent cinemas, and horrible weather. It is constantly windy, and if you add any amount of rain to that (such was the case all day today) it's miserable. Last night I went to the NZ Film Archive and watched a 1975 documentary about the Maori Land Crossing - when the Maori tribes walked from the northern most point of the north island to Wellington in protest of their treatment by the government.

Staying in youth hostels has been an excellent way to meet people. Nearly everyone here is friendly and willing to share a story or two. Or a beer or two. Mostly I've made friends with people from the UK and Germany. Sometimes I get teased for my accent, but not too often. Early on I dropped a lot of my American slang and started picking up British and Kiwi words and speaking rhythms. The New Zealand phrase of choice is "sweet as." Sweet as what, I'm not sure, but my entertaining one-person joke for awhile was to pretend that anyone saying this was actually saying "sweet ass." Right...

I've posted a few pictures of my trip on my flickr account. More may follow, but the internet here is very expensive, so be patient with me.

http://flickr.com/photos/vivalime/

Much love to all of you, friends.

I'm a survivor

In case you hadn't heard, I'm here. While the currency exchange rate is in my favor, the prices of most things in NZ are still obscenely high. The money that I brought, which seemed like so much before, isn't going to afford me too much. A place to stay, groceries, and mostly low-end attractions. I'm making some exceptions for black water rafting in the glow worm caves, and possibly swimming with the dolphins. We'll see.

Here are pictures of my party!



Aaaaaand back to New Zealand. It took me three full days to figure out which side of the sidewalk to walk on. Seriously! I became very self-conscious about it! I mean, I know that down here you drive on the left, so does that mean that you also walk on the left? The answer, I have learned, is yes.

The last two nights I stayed at a hostel that strongly resembled a college dorm, and I was getting sad because with all of the sexual tension, none of the girls were interested in talking to me, and the boys with the flipped-up collars would only talk long enough to decide if they would be able to get it on. (As they say.) Tonight, though, I've transferred to the hostel a half-block down, and things are much better. I'm in a room with two enthusiastic German girls who say things like, "He just told us to get a wan [van]!" and "Oh, I'm just pissing [kidding]." It's great.

Tonight I eat pasta in the kitchen and drink a bottle of wine while watching The Poseidon Something followed by The Davinci Code. Neither of these movies particularly interest me, but the people are fun, and it should be good to kick back and rest before I head up north tomorrow.

P.S. It has been rather chilly here, much to my disappointment.

This morning I woke up with my stomach in knots again. Sitting up in bed I realized, oh my gosh, I leave tomorrow!

What was I thinking?!

The flight from San Francisco to Auckland is 13 hours, and my longest uninterrupted flight to date. In 2001 I flew from Vancouver, B.C. to London, but that was only 10 hours. I leave on the 15th and arrive in Auckland on the 17th at 6:30 in the morning. A couple months back I made reservations at a B&B for my first night in NZ. I have been in contact with them and they are going to let me check in as soon as I arrive. This means that I won't have to wander, sleep-deprived, around Auckland for six to eight hours like Amanda and I once did in Paris. That was hell.

When I fly from Auckland to Honolulu, I will be leaving on December 21st and arriving in Hawaii a day earlier, on the 20th. It's all very complicated.

In other news, Sufjan Stevens: delicious.
The woman of My Brightest Diamond: my arch nemesis and golden idol.

This morning I woke up with my stomach in knots again. Sitting up in bed I realized, oh my gosh, I leave tomorrow!

What was I thinking?!

The flight from San Francisco to Auckland is 13 hours, and my longest uninterrupted flight to date. In 2001 I flew from Vancouver, B.C. to London, but that was only 10 hours. I leave on the 15th and arrive in Auckland on the 17th at 6:30 in the morning. Earlier in the summer I made reservations at a B&B for my first night in NZ. I have been in contact with them, and they are going to let me check in as soon as I arrive, which is good, because it means that I won't have to wander, sleep-deprived, around Auckland for six to eight hours.

When I fly from Auckland to Honolulu, I will be leaving on December 21st and arriving in Hawaii a day earlier, on the 20th. It's all very complicated.

In other news, Sufjan Stevens: delicious.
The woman of My Brightest Diamond: my arch nemesis and golden idol.

For those of you who aren't Mspace junkies, I'm having a going away party this Saturday. It will be held at Amanda and Joel's house around eight, and everyone should come. Yay!

I'm too nervous about everything to be excited about Sufjan just yet. I wake up in the morning with my stomach in knots and my mind racing about everything that needs to be done before I leave. The good-bye process started up this week with some of my favorite families. The comic book family gave me a beautiful leather passport holder and lots of hugs. The twins family had a bon voyage dinner for me last week, and the grandparents drove out from Seaside to be there. It is the strangest thing to say to someone, "well... I guess I'll see you in a few months."

Especially with the twins. Over the past two years I have spent more time with them than anyone else, and more time at their house than my own. The last two times that I saw them my heart ached at how much I will miss them, and how much I do already. They are planning on going out with me to the airport, and I am going to cry.

A friend gave me a book, and in the second chapter the author says, "Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock."

If I say anything more about "counting" or "final," I'm going to shoot myself.

Just so everyone knows, I have ten days remaining in this country.
And only six days of work. Woo-hoo!

The past weeks have been hectic, especially since I've been trying to manage a full work week with three part-time jobs. Tuesday afternoon I had a random babysitting job from my nanny agency, and I got overwhelmed and lost in Beaverton and was twenty minutes late. I am very particular about being punctual with work, and the tardiness just about did me in. The oldest of the three children is a very assertive, self-absorbed five-year-old. He just about did me in. I spent four hours that afternoon fantasizing about working as an accountant.

With the heartbreak of leaving families who have become my family and the stress of working with child strangers, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to take care of other people's children.

My brother is back from Iraq, and will be home for a few weeks beginning this weekend. This is good.