Wanderful

Let's do this!

29 June 2006

DE

Random shot of me being excited
the spire of the church Max lives in
the Hamburg train station

Well well well, guess who went to the opera today. Thats right the opera, it was Don Quixote in italian with german subtitles and i didnt understand a word. Im not gonna lie to ya, i was so bored i nearly fell asleep. mareike took me downtown today for a bit of site seeing, and the highlight was a ride on an elevator that is constantly moving, there are no doors and you have to step in on the go. plus you can ride it all the way around. tomorrow ill do some exploring on my own and then come back to watch germany beat argentinia.

28 June 2006

planes trains and ........

so i made it to germany, all the way to Keil even, and now i have to get ahold of Max for a ride to his place at which point i will pass out. so far its been 28 hours of movement with a bit of upright sleeping thrown in there. its pretty hot and heavy out here, the air that is, but way way better weather then the last time i was in germany. i'm in a grocery shop slash internet cafe killing some time before i try calling max again. if this post ends up being really odd sounding, boring, or even confusing, it's my brains fault not mine.
my flight had crew members that spoke french really well and german and english. i was pretty impressed and decided i wanted to become a flight attendant......just kidding. i think id lose my mind being trapped in an airplane for a job unless maybe i was flying it.
they gave me two breakfasts on the plane which i thought was pretty nice of them
my bike travels free as long as i leave it in its bag but its the biggest pain in the butt then so.....
i think i should go to russia cause if i stay in europe too long ill never leave
the frankfurt airport was a cinch this time probably cause i wasnt flying out of it
hamburg was really busy and the wc cost money so i held it till keil then had to pay anyway
lots more people seem to know english then the last time i was here
i have that really dirty traveller feeling right now
and i have 20 min left to email my folks
the z and the y are switched on these german kezboards

25 June 2006

sorry bout that

yeah i was gonna write stuff for that last post but there were so many pictures that i figured i'd spread it out a bit into two posts so as not to overwhelm my readers. so it's now after 3 in the morning, i still have some stuff to fill out online and tomorrow is fully booked as far as seeing people and hanging out in general. i'm trying to leave monday as open as possible for some last minute relaxing with my parents. note to self, don't say goodbyes, leave, then go back prematurely ever again. seeing all these people again gets me so pumped and happy and then it makes leaving so much harder. i saw my grandparents, friends, close friends, and even met some new people in the last three weeks and to do all that in a short time is really hard on the ticker. i just wanna say i love all you folks and you better keep in touch.

OD on Nostalgia

matt
chad
eric
eric
phil tyretap
phil barspin disaster
phil downside whip unlanded
phil peg stall
phil barspin disaster
phil tuck
phil downwhip unlanded
phil tailwhip unlanded
sunday
sunday vs the frog

08 June 2006

Once Upon a Time

In this land far far away, there was an idea to try and adventure to be had. This is that story.

On Tuesday at roughly 7:30am I rolled off my Aunt and Uncle's driveway in Cochrane Alberta. Not even off the block and the trailer wheels were rubbing my bag, that was just the beginning. My goal for the day was Bottrell, well by 10 the handle had broken on the trailer but I got it working by rigging it with a tarp strap. The wheels still needed adjustment every few minutes or they would have been bald even quicker. I made it to Bottrell by 11am and decided to go to Cremona to see if I could maybe get the trailer welded up solid. On the way I had a farmers dog follow me for a bit down the highway and was trying to ignore it when all of a sudden I heard screeching tires and looked just in time to see a motocycle swerve narrowly missing the dog. Needless to say he was not happy, but hey it wasn't my dog. A trailer tire blew out even before getting to Cremona so I just kept going with the flat and trashed the trailer in Cremona. I rolled into Cremona around 1pm, had a nap and then left for Carstairs, another 30km away. My estimate of 10km/h was pretty accurate cause by 5 I was in Carstairs, AB. I treated myself to Chinese buffet and had the entire restaurant to myself. That evening I watched some baseball.
I was pretty happy with my first day progress although Cremona to Carstairs was a lot harder cause my pack was on my back instead of on the trailer. I had biked/walked approximately 80km in 8 hours. I knew by then that biking all the way to Manitoba would not happen but I wanted to keep going anyway.
Day two I left Carstairs at 7am, by 8 I was past Didsbury and almost to the #2 heading east. The reason I was going north first was I wanted to go to Saskatoon to visit a friend, ride the park, and it's on a major highway making hitching more probable. The biking was way harder due to the wind as well as there being less hills to roll down. I even had to pedal down some of the hills cause of the wind. Anyhow I passed one dead skunk, visited one cheese factory that wasn't open, and got pretty close to a badger before it ran off. Quick little creatures those badgers. By 10am my routine went like this; ride sitting till my ass really hurt (about three minutes), ride standing till my legs got tired (about five minutes), and then walk until the blood was flowing properly again (another five minutes), extremely slow and painfull but not exhusting. I rolled into Linden at 2pm and stopped there cause the next town was at least a days ride away. Besides I had biked probably 60km already. In Linden I found a little coffee shop that had internet access so I emailed my folks. On my way out I noticed a for sale poster for a van only $450. By this time I was up for anything but another day with my pack pushing me onto my seat. So I gave the guy a call and he was like "yeah I'd take $200 but it's got a major oil leak so it may not make Manitoba" I told him I'd think about it and get back to him the next day. I bummed around town for the next couple hours, had a bagel and sardines for supper and was working out the situation sitting at my campsite listening to music. Suddenly the music quit.........my ipod was not responding, my new ipod with all my music that I had just bought was frozen. I tried everything short of reseting it, nothing worked. Right there was all the reason I needed, I had to go back to Calgary, back to Future Shop and to Cochrane to get all my music again. I called Melissa, which sadly wasn't even long distance, and was gonna bike down to Irricana the next day so Melissa didn't have to drive far to pick me up but that didn't work for her, cause she's leaving for camp the next night (tonight) so she agreed to come to Linden in the morning. The next morning, I figured I'd check my ipod again, during the night it was still frozen, and sure enough Murphy's Law returned, my ipod was working. It was too late to call Melissa so that was it. No more biking to get places, not in Canada at least, time to move on a little quicker.

Here's what I was gonna post yesterday right after stopping for the day.

This whole biking to Manitoba idea is retarded.
These are my reasons:
1. My ass is hurting...... a lot
2. My back is hurting
3. My bike is absolutely not meant for this sort of transportation
4. My backpack is too heavy
5. I shouldn't even be wearing a backpack
6. The wind, oh the wind
7. It's costing me money and I'm not getting anywhere for it

Reasons I want to keep going
1. I'm an idiot
2. My legs aren't thaaat tired

Anyhow I'm gonna leave on a bus for Austin just after midnight tonight, I've had my fun, Manitoba here I come.

03 June 2006

Doug was right I like black and White


I wonder what it's like to be good at goodbyes. They are always hard, no matter what.

01 June 2006

33 posts is a pretty short fence


right on so i think i have my cameragraphic touch back. i figured out how to get my music off my ipod, involving hours of slow processes. now today i'm working on converting everything to acc which is the apple type of music file and getting my music onto my new ipod. which could take upwards of 6 hours, conversion is really slow. then i'm going to go through the library and delete the duplicates, this reminds me of organizing hockey cards when i was just a young lad. oh and that up there with the pink wheels is my bike trailer i rigged up.