The 1000 Day Holiday

mt Ruapehu has had 70cms of snow in the last 5 days.
although its now melting fast, Im doing a weekend run for the mountain from auckland tonight.

lets hope for some great spring conditions.

working in Auckland mon-wed

28th October
Tickets at moshtix $40ish

edit:
DOH! sold out.. grr should have been organised and bought them.. grr

Well post the conference this is what I’ve been up to.

Wednesday night:
Went out w julie to a bar, watched the red sox loose, was a good night if you weren’t a bostonite.

Thurs:
Not shelling out the crazy $$ for the hotel I head for the closest hostel. To find out that boston has a total of three hostels in the entire greater boston cdb area, all booked out.

So I end up in a hostel in a suburb called everett. This is worse than upper hutt!

Points of note:
You have to call them from the closest tram station to be picked up. The dude turns up, he’s 47, fat, comb over and on the ride to the hostel has decided my name is Joe. Directly after asking if craig was spelt with a c, g or k.

Then as driving around these suburban streets he keeps pointing out every watchewsky for “at large” which from my converstaions sounds like a member of parliament.
It turns out that is him, and he’s made it thru the first round of voting.

This guy is just seedy/odd really really odd.

The hostel itself is ok. Get chatiing to a few of the others, then head for the local bar.

This turns out to be a bar with boarded up windows a bathroom with dried blood in all sorts of places, and almost every local is missing multiple teeth. We played some darts for a while. Note: a beer was $1.25! Vodka was $3 haha!

I then headed into town to catch up w julie and regale her of my experiences in suburbian boston.

Got back to the hostel, the guys from earlier were having some beers, so I discovered alcohol is cheeap in everett. $13 for a dozen heineken from the bottle store!

There on proceeded to be a large poker night.

Fri:
The Mapparium had been recommended to me as a must do.

Its a 3 storey high scale model of the earth made of stained glass in 1935. Difference is that you walk inside it.

Its really cool, quite surreal to be surronded like that, the added kook is that you can hear the whispers of people standing in the opposed position in the globe. And if you stand in the middle you hear yourself with a large amplification.
—
Friday afternoon I headed north to meet julie and head to the beach. Even passed thru salem, where the hangings for witchcraft happened 🙂

Alas about 5knots of wind, however we persisted and performed graceful running launches to give the kite its apparent wind 🙂

Had some great italian for dinner and headed back to boston.

On the way back we came across a country fair. you know. silly carnival rides, best pumpkin contests, best quilt and apple pie etc.

Highlights of this:
Talking to a dude from the NRA about guns and meeting his 10yr old son who had a crazy keen interest in 20gauge shotguns.
Watching the announcement of the apple pie contest awarded by the “mrs housewife/shire queen” wearing a plastic tiara and sash
finding New Englands largest pumpkin @ 1300 pounds
Watching fat americans eat such things as fried dough. lumps of dough slow fried and dripping with fat, covered in sugar.

Sat:
7am we headed to Cape cod, it was overcast, blowing avg of 30knots and occasional rain, straight onshore wind (!) kiting on a 12 takoon, it was very scary and in fact had only half a run before coming back in and waiting for the wind to die.

Then Tyler who was one of Julies friends hurt his foot doing a rail slide, and offered me his gear, So I got out on a 9m for a great session! Totally made my holiday.

Sunday: New York
Well after getting my bags from Laguardia to JFK I got into Manhattan.
I decided to walk 5th ave from grand central terminal to battery park.
well I got a km or so into it and realised that manhattan is huge.

Notes: I’ve never seen so many handbags for sale in my life. All the street hawkers selling ‘orfentic prada, gucci etc…’

checked out MOMA: the museum of modern art. they had some cool stuff. they also have an affiliated site for contemporary art but I ran out of time to see that.

Then headed to SOHO for a couple of cocktails. NYC seems to be very multicutltural. And the subways are a godsend, if very hot.

unfortunately my photos are all corrupted on the SD Card, so I only have a few from the fair.
Yank Land Pics

Well the death by powerpoint conference has now finished 🙂

I will try to find a college ice hockey game today.
And tomorrow and Saturday I am hoping to go down to cape cod and get some kitesurfing in with Julie, who I met on the plane.

Sunday I have the day in NY before heading back for sydney.

Today was my speed tour of LA.

Highlights: venice beach, I even saw the rollerblading guitar playing dude from the old primo ad!

Pity the beach was completely engulfed in fog. So not too many hotties out blading or sunning etc.

Went to the getty centre. to learn me some culture. I have decided I’m more of a contemporary art fan.

Now on a bus headed back to LAX and we drove through fresh prince’s neighbourhood – Bel Air 🙂

Choice

No, Im not talking about screwing the crew.

But, I have always said that flathunting or flatmate hunting is a good way to meet women in a casual and outgoing environment.

They ensure they are well presented, are very conversational and you can glean a lot of information rather quickly.
It seems the idea is now out in the open.

Dating by Flatmate wanted ads.

I can’t believe Im missing the Salmonella Dub concert this weekend. Damn work functions.
U2 is playing in boston when Im there too, not likely since the tickets sold out almost 2 years ago!

Wed 28th – Saturday 1st : Wellington
Saturday 1st: Los Angeles
Sunday 2nd – Sat 8th: Boston
Sunday 9th: New York
Tuesday 11th: Back in Sydney

I should sublet my room.

Off to the Gold Coast for Networkers, ooh goody a conference full of geeks 😛

I had my fisrt day back kitesurfing in Sydney on sunday. Consistent 15-20 knots SE winds.

A little chilly with only a spring suit. But it was sooo good to get out on the water for a few hours, and catch up with all the local crew.

I would have to say that the red bull acrobatics plane ride is the best ‘experience’ I have ever done.

Its like your personal customisable roller coaster at 5000 ft, with the best vista in the world.

We topped out at -1g & +5g’s reespectively.

Doing stalls, vertical loops, 4point rolls to name a few.

A bit lightheaded in parts, I only felt sick after a red bull once back on terra-firma.

Go figure.
10 stars out of 5!