Guatemala

After only being back in the US for a couple of weeks, it was time for another vacation. This time I headed to Guatemala with family. My brother and I arrived at 11am in Guatelmala city after leaving the states at 6 am. After only a few hours in the city it became very apparent that no one really spoke English. I would have to rely on the teachings of Mrs. Bond to get me through this trip.

The first night we went out on the town. We went to a really expensive club and were literally the only people there. I guess most people don´t have the money to spend at expensive clubs. After an hour, we went to a ¨poor people¨ club as Celeste called it. It was really fun. I got some stares for being the only gringro (white person), but the drinks were cheap and the music was good.

The next day was basically spent just getting to Celeste´s house. We managed to get to the Oaklawn mall in Guatemala city which was one of the nicest malls I have been to. I purchased a watch there for 800 q or $100. The currency exchange rate is fantastic for the US.

There were a couple days of beautiful sight seeing. We saw Semuc Campey which was a river with beautiful waterfalls and lagoons.

We also did a 1 k walk up a mountain to get a better view.

A kilometer doesn´t sound like a lot but when you are traveling straight up it can really wear you down. The coolest part was that we were walking on the road that Mayans paved long ago to get up the mountain. It was quite rocky and a difficult trek especially since we were wearing flip flops.

The family we are staying with has been extremely nice and generous to us. It is difficult to communicate sometimes because they only speak Spanish but they have cooked us many delicious meals and driven us to the best places in Guatemala. Yesterday, they took us north where we were able to do zip lining through the trees and then tubing through caves. Zip lining was extremely fun. Very cheap but probably not as safe as most zip lines. My harness got turned around somehow during one of the lines and burned my arm on the rope. I was able to use my gloves and press off the wire to twist myself around forward. The lines went over some beautiful rivers and waterfalls. 

Later that day, we drove three hours north in the back of the truck to see the Candelaria Caves. When we got there it was around 4 pm and it gets dark around 6 pm so they were not going to let us do the tubing. It took some convincing from Celeste´s family to get the tour people to let us go. Thankfully they did cause the caves were amazing. The water was cold and all we had were crappy made in China flashlights but it was quite the adventure. The cave was so long that it was pitch black inside. If you moved your light around you could see bats above. The water was completely still so we had to paddle to get through. The inside of the cave was really amazing though and the places were light peeked through looked really cool. I felt like I was in the movie The Descent.

Pictures

I forgot to set a lot of my pictures to be public on the web. That is all fixed now and if you click the link on the right you can see more pictures than you could ever want of my time abroad.

New Zealand

This post is probably long overdue. It will also be the last one I post until my new trip which is going to be Guatemala.
I had a bit of difficultly leaving the country but it was nothing that I couldn't handle. I did make an extra trip back to Sydney because of it though. Sydney was favorite Australia city but I liked it less after paying for an expensive hostel and having it rain on me everyday. I did manage to see more of the downtown area and even went out to a pub with one of the Australia's living in my hostel room.
Security on my international flight to Auckland was surprising lenient. There were no gigantic machines that scanned your underwear and I didn't have to take my shoes off. I did have a restriction on the amount of liquids on my carry on which normally doesn't happen. When I arrived in Auckland they had adorable beagles that searched your luggage for any illegal substances. I felt the strong urge to pet the dog but figured that I would get in trouble for it.
I got to my hostel no problems. I didn't really do much that night or really any night I was in Auckland. I talked to a British guy who told me to get to Queenstown as soon as possible because it was so much better. I booked a flight that night and left the next morning around 11am. He also told me to try mountain biking because it was the best thing that he did there. I will get back to that.
I first arrived with just a backpack full of clothes. It was nice not having much to carry. In Sydney, I wondered the streets for an hour and a half looking for a hostel while carrying two heaving bags and a rolling suitcase. In Queenstown, I walked the heart of the city in 20 minutes. I found a nice hostel right next to the lake. It was far enough away from the pubs that I figured I would be able to get some sleep.
The first day I basically just had a walk around the area. The population of Queenstown is only about 10 thousand but there are gardens and trails around the lake to walk around.

There is also a disc golf course right next to the gardens. It has to be one of the best places to play. I really wished I had a Frisbee. Later that night, everyone in the hostel was LOTR: The Return of the King. I thought it was very fitting considering we were staying so close to where it was filmed.
My second day was all about adventure and fitting in as much as possible. I did a jet boat at skippers canyon and mountain biking in the afternoon. The jet boat was pretty crazy. They took us through a scenic drive through the country with many stops to talk pictures. The guy really barrels through the canyon on that boat. He goes through some pretty tight spots. You have to duck when going under a couple rocks. Every time he stopped he did a 360 cookie thing and we all had to hold on cause there were no seats belts. He said that the boat could travel in 4 inches of water and its max speed is over 80 kph. 

The jet boat you felt pretty safe cause the guy had training but mountain biking was so scary. Not sure why I thought it would be so easy giving that I hadn't ridden a bike in about a year. I was bricking it the whole way down. There is no guard rail or anything to stop you from falling down the mountain. The people I rented the bike from said that beginners could do it but I didn't see anyone else that looked like a beginner up there. The second time I went down it was much better and by the third time I was doing the jumps and obstacles they had set up. After that I still had some time will the bike so I rode it around town (driving on the left side!) and then rode 20 k around the lake. It was really beautiful. Like every place I have visited New Zealand was also expensive. I was $70 for the bike and $90 for the jet boat. At least the US dollar is higher than the kiwi dollar.

It was funny to ride back on a plane to America with mainly foreign people. They all snickered when the flight attendant said that it is US policiy to make sure that guest to not congregate around the toilets or exits. The flight itself wasn't even that bad. It was around 13 hours from NZ to LAX. I got probably 4 hours of sleep though and there were plenty of movies and TV shows to watch while we flew.

So overall, it was an amazing experience that I won't forget anytime soon and probably one of the best decisions of my college career. At least I have this blog if I do happen to forget any details. 

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road

Been a while since I posted here. Trying to think if anything major happened between these two trips. I went camping at rainbow beach and at night we saw tiny organisms that glow because of your body heat. I guess they were mating and only do that once every five years or so. Also, we went to Brisbane a couple of times. I saw the museum of modern art. They had some cool stuff. The most memorable was the room filled with just balloons. It was supposed to be considered art and we weren't suppose to jump up and down and throw balloons in the air or have fun... but how can you control yourself like that in a room filled with balloons.

Anyway, last weekend we went to Melbourne. It is the "European-like" city in Australia. It has less people than Sydney, but it is also much more spread out so it is harder to get around. Also, it was cold and rainy like a European city. I didn't bring a very heavy coat cause I assumed the weather would be nice everywhere in Australia.
My first experience with the weather was when I went to an AFL game at MCG (melbourne cricket ground). I was the only one wearing a t-shirt. Most of them also had the scarf of the team that they supported. A couple Australians told me to get a jumper at the store they have in the stadium. They were over $100 so I decided to tough it out.
AFL is not as similar to rugby as I thought. You pass the ball forward by kicking it and you score by punting the ball through the uprights. Also, the field is circular instead of rectangular. All I know for sure is that the Brisbane Lions won the match and that is who we were rooting for.
After the game we headed down to Chapel street to get some food. We ended up eating at a place similar to Johnny Rockets in the states. They shipped in A&W root beer and it was delicious.
The next day was the great ocean road. It is similar to the Pacific Hwy in California I guess. That is what this snooty American couple was saying at least. I thought it was really beautiful. It is just rock formation but they took so long to form and have survived for so long that you got to give them respect. The most famous spot was the 12 apostles. They used to have some weird name like "a pig and the piglets" but they changed it to 12 apostles. There are not even twelve of them there are 8 and they are these gigantic rocks that are in the ocean maybe 150 yards away from the other cliffs. Our tour guide was saying that they may not be around much longer cause a couple of the 12 apostles have already fallen down. We also got to see wild Koalas and feed some tropical birds.

There were so many cows by the great ocean road as well. The scenery not by the ocean basically looked like Nebraska. I guess cattle is a big industry in southern Australia. They were cows a quarter of a mile away from one of the best surfing beaches in the world. I guess they have the Ripcurl Pro there and it is the second largest surfing competition next to one in Hawaii

That night we went to Eureka tower. It is the highest tower in the southern hemisphere. The view was pretty amazing. It may have been better in the day light though. Some of up also did the edge package. The edge is a glass cube that they put you in and then put three meters out of building. It is really freaking looking straight down through the glass. I got similar feelings to the ones I had when skydiving. They people also played all these scraping sounds and cracking nosies so it felt like the thing could collapse at any second. The British guy with us were cracking jokes too. One of them started stomping on the floor and said, "made in Taiwan this". All in all it was good. I made sure to get lots of pictures of me by the Eureka sign.

Sydney Trip

It seems I am getting to the point in the semester where I have paper after paper due which means I will probably be writing less and less on the blog.
I two weekends ago I went to Byron Bay which is about a hour south of the gold coast. It was a small hippy town. Most of the stores sold hemp clothing. We stayed at the arts factory which is a little hostel just outside of town. They had gigantic tepees that you could stay in instead of rooms. We got to surf and enjoy some of the night life the city has to offer.
Last weekend, I went down to Sydney for Mardi Gras. Sydney is really a cool city. It makes me wish that I had studied there instead of here. It was surprisingly cheaper down there than it is on the gold coast. Taxis were much cheaper anyway. The city was big but not too big like New York City.
We tried to go on a city tour the first day but missed the group so we decided to go explore ourselves. We walked around the botanical gardens and saw the opera house. The Sydney harbor bridge is right next to the opera house so we caught a peek at that too. They had street performers in that area so we watched a contortionist fit inside a box and some Japanese jump rope. The jump roping was insane. Those were the best dance moves I have seen since ABDC. We got to Oxford street early to see the parade.
I didn't realize this but Mardi Gras here is the largest gay celebration on the planet. I have never been to a gay pride parade so it was quite a new experience. Everyone was just so happy about everything and really friendly. There were lots of drag queens and lots of people dressed up. The straight people really got into dressing up as well. The parade lasted 3 hours but we only stayed for 2 because it started to rain. I managed to somehow lose my wallet on the way back home that night.
The last day we went to the Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife sanctuary. They were right next to each other. I was able to see sharks at the aquarium which is something I wanted to see while here. I still haven't seen a platypus or Tasmanian devil which is something I need to do before I leave. Most of the animals I saw at these places I had seen already but it was still nice to see kolas and kangaroos again. We went to the top of the Sydney tower to see the view and that was basically the last thing we did before catching a flight home. It was the best weekend I have had here so far.

Photos

I added quite a few photos and videos. They should be public now and I believe you can view them by following this link https://picasaweb.google.com/104385918922478847724

Skydiving and Surfing

I finally did it. I have wanted to sky dive for as long as I can remember and I was finally able to do so yesterday.
The bus to Bryon Bay left at 5:15 in the morning. Bryon Bay is an hour away and that is where we did both activities. When I signed up online it very simple and easy. All I had to do what pay for it really, but once I got there, they had me sign my life away and asked if I wanted insurance and these other extras. It was still barely light out when we left. I didn't get any sleep on the way there or on the way back.
Once we got there, we stood in line for literally an hour or so waiting to turn in all the paperwork we just filled out. You have to be a member of the Australian Parachute Federation to jump out of the plane so they had to wait for that to go though before you could jump. Once we finally got signed up there was more waiting and anticipation. My stomach started to get uneasy from nerves.
Before the jump we had a quick 10 min session about what was going to happen and what we should do. The guy did tell us though, if you forget any of this it doesn't really matter. It was a tandem jump so the guy I was attached to basically did all the work.
We took a small plane 14,000 feet up in the air. I was told to wear a long sleeve shirt cause we would be so high up but it wasn't really that cold. It took about 20 minutes to get up there. I was the second to last person to jump out of the plane so I had to watch as basically everyone else jumped out. When jumping out of the plane, they told us to cross our arms and hold the harness tight and to tilt our head back. I am wondering if they had us tilt our head back so that we wouldn't freak out when looking down from the plane.
My tandem partner, Gabe, pushed us out of the plane and for about 3 seconds I got the uneasy feeling you get on a roller coaster. We did a couple flips and then Gabe unleashed the trail line to stabilize us. We stopped spinning and I was flying though the air at around 160 mph looking straight down. The free fall lasted 60 seconds. I felt weightless. I tried to flap my wings like a bird, but I realized that it was hard to move my arms cause of the force of the wind. I almost hit Gabe in the face so I stopped after that. The scenery was really amazing but I basically just looked down cause I was afraid my goggles would fall off. We did some horizontal spinning which was really cool, but I have to say that I was still pretty relieved when the chute was pulled.
Once he pulled the chute I got really uncomfortable. I don't think that my harness was on right. After about 20 seconds I couldn't really feel my arms. I told Gabe this so he said "ok I got it". And he loosened the bottom straps around my legs. I dropped only a couple inches but I scared the hell out of me. He loosened some of the front straps too which made it slightly better. My arms were numb like how your feet can fall asleep, but he still let me control the parachute for a while. I pulled it all the way to the right and put us into a rapid spiral downward. This was at his request cause we were a ways behind the others that jumped before. I still felt like I was barely in the harness which was the worst part of the whole thing. The feeling that I could easily fall out if not careful. We hit the ground and I was so relieved. I couldn't get a grin off my face either.
It was an incredible experience that I don't think I will be doing again for a while. My shoulder is still sore and hurting and it is really quite expensive. Next time I do it I want to do it alone on a static line though. You don't jump from as high but I like to be attached directly to the parachute instead of worrying about being connected to a person that is connected to the parachute. Too many factors.

Surfing! My goal was to learn to surf and I think I accomplished that. It really is not that bad. They didn't teach us any amazing secrets or anything. I was able to get up on the board a couple of times so that was good. I did well in the beginning but the longer we surfed the harder it got. We were all pretty tired from waking up so early. Add to that the waves hitting you and the sun beating down on you. It was actually a really nice day if I stop and think about it. The water temperature was perfect and there was a little breeze to keep you cool.
The reason it is so tiring is that you catch a wave and ride it to shore and then you have to grab your board and haul it all the way back to sea to catch another one. Also there was so many people in our group that you had to bail out if you were going to hit someone and it would kill the perfect wave sometimes. Overall though I really enjoyed it. I wish I lived near the ocean cause I could see myself trying to get into surfing. I hope to go surf a couple more times before I leave here cause Australia has the best waves for surfing.