The Incredibly True Adventures Of A Yank and A Kiwi

What Kilifi is like

2009-11-25T13:06:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine asked me to describe what it's like in Kenya to her nearly 13-year old daughter. So, I figured it would be a good thing to post on my blog, too. Here it is:

We live in Kilifi, which is on the coast about an hour north of Mombasa. It's very hot and humid here all the time. It varies from hot and rainy to hotter and dry (but humid), and really, really hot and desert dry (but still humid). Nairobi is about an hour away by plane or about 7-8 hours on a bus and it's much cooler there because it's at a higher altitude.

Although Kenya is a pretty stable country, the government is also rather corrupt. As a result, the people seem to accept their fate and don't try to improve things. It's rather sad, because they are wonderful people and the country has lots of resources and a lot of potential. Nairobi is a "real" city and there is obviously a lot of money there. But, the people in power don't give anything to the people, so they are rich and most of the general population is poor. Many people here live in houses made of sticks and mud with thatched roofs made of palm leaves. Many don't have enough to eat more than one meal a day.

It's a bit uncomfortable for me to live here as a white person who is extremely rich by their standards, simply because I come from a country that has lots of money. It gets a bit overwhelming, wanting to help people and realizing that you can't help everyone, and how much is really helping, etc. etc. We have a gardner and a night watchman that our landlady provides. They get paid no more than $100 a month. Our gardner has a wife and three kids -- his house roof caved in from the last rains we had in October. When the roof caves, the mud walls melt... We gave him some money to help to pay for a new roof. We occasionally give him token gifts of clothes and shoes and food supplies from time to time. But is that enough? Doesn't seem like it. People here see a white face and they know that person has lots of money, so they are always asking for handouts or loans or trying to sell the "mazungu" something. Children frequently chase after a white person shouting "mazungu! mazungu!" and they sometimes ask for money or sweets. They don't consider it rude, they are happy to see the white person because they might be lucky enough to get a free handout. (Imagine a little white kid shouting "black person" at an African American in the US...uh, don't think so!!)

As I said before, there is no residential mail service. Most roads don't have names. People burn their garbage on the side of the roads, so there's often the smell of smoke in the air. They often recycle, but out of necessity, not out of respect for the environment (there are plastic bags floating around EVERYWHERE). Children play with pangas (really big knives), balls made of tied up plastic bags or handmade little wooden carts that have a long extended steering wheel that they push along as they walk. A few paved roads, but most are dirt. Cattle, goats, chickens roam freely. Monkeys too!

Most of the people here are either Muslim or Christian. There are lots of Christian churches of different denominations. The muslim mosques have Imams who do the call to prayer several times a day and they do prayers over loudspeakers. It's a bit annoyng when we can hear two or three going at once because they don't synchronize their prayers and it often clashes horribly (I suppose my musical ear is especially sensitive to this)!! Mombasa and, to a lesser extent, Kilifi have a lot of Swahili people -- these are basically a cross between Arabic and African cultures... The Arabs came here for trading a few hundred years ago, as Mombasa is a big sea port.

Most Swahili food is not terribly exciting. A lot of it is familiar to me, because I lived in NC for 15 years and the slaves brought their food to NC, which is now considered "southern cuisine." Things like beans & rice, collard greens, grits & okra. They eat similar things here in Kenya: beans, rice, mchicha & sukuma (chopped, cooked leafy green vegetables or spinach), ugali (maize meal, sort of like polenta or grits), various stews with beef or goat. They also make stews with plaintains and various lentil dishes. They also eat a lot of "nyama choma" which is grilled meat (often goat, beef or chicken, sometimes pork). There are also influences from Indian food. They also use a lot of chili/hot pepper sauce (pili pili), which helps. Of course, since we're on the coast, there's lots of fish here -- tuna, kingfish, red snapper, prawns, crabs, etc. Here in Kilifi and more in Malindi (just north of us) there are a lot of Italians (ya know, mafia types...), so it's pretty easy to get Italian food around here also!

There are also a good number of old-school Brits and Germans who tend to be very colonialist in their attitude toward Kenyans, which is also a bit difficult to stomach (they're usually in the over-60 age -- some call them KC's, or "Kenyan Cowboys"). And then there are the couples consisting of the pretty young Kenyan women and the old white men... a bit nauseating, although I'm sure the Kenyan girls are quite happy to have an old white sugar daddy to take care of them...

Updates

2009-10-09T02:45:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I'm not really doing much updating of this site anymore. I might once in awhile, but you're better off just being my friend on Facebook, cuz that's mostly where I spend my online time. Plus, if I update here, it should feed into Facebook anyway.

Volunteering in Kenya

2009-03-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Susan and I volunteered to help with a food drive for drought victims in Kenya. We went to a village area called Dungicha, which is only about 1.5 hour drive northwest of Kilifi (not far at all, but the dirt roads slow you down!). It was a really good experience and we had fun while also helping some people. We gave out an amazing amount of food, which consisted of 2.5 kg of lard, 6 kg of rice, 6 kg of lentils, and 20 kg of corn flour, plus some sugar and salt. It was nice to be able to give that much food, but it was amazing to think that one or two women would have to carry all that weight (on their heads, of course!) while walking for probably several miles. It really makes one appreciate how easy some of us have it in this world.

Here are some photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/VolunteeringInKenya

Getting an internet connection

2009-03-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

We are lucky enough to be able to get an Internet connection at home via a uni-directional microwave (micro as in small, not the sort that cooks your food) mast that is connected to the network at the medical center where we're working. The Internet is connected to the house next door, but not to our house (which is the guest house of the house next door), despite the fact that the mast is actually closer to our house. I brought my modem from Australia (which, thankfully, I did NOT dump as ballast when my suitcase was over the weight limit), which also happens to have LAN ports, so I could easily link up to the hub at the other house. Only thing was, I had a 3 foot Ethernet cable and I needed something closer to 40 meters!

So, I asked the IT guys at the medical center to get me a quote for a 50 meter cable (a little extra, just in case). After several weeks of waiting, they finally gave me a quote for an entire SPOOL of Ethernet cable, which is 350 meters. WAY more than I needed. Then, they tried to sell me an outdoor wireless modem, which would cost more than double the 350 meter cable to buy and install. Mind you, it took about a month to get this quote. In the meantime, my office mate, Tony, said he knew a guy who could sell me some cable, but I wanted to wait to get the quote from the other guys (not realizing how long it would take). Finally, after I got the ridiculous "more than I need" quotes, I called Tony's friend, and he said he could bring it the next day. Hallelujah!

Then, Tony's friend calls him and then Tony tells me that it would be two 20 metre cables that I could connect together. I said, no I don't want them to connect together because they have to be outside and I don't want the connections getting rained on, etc. I said I wanted a continuous outdoor cable, 50 meters. So he called his friend to tell him this, and then the friend brought a 50 meter *indoor* cable. Ugh. Well, I figured, it's still got plastic around it and Tony tells me that I can put it inside a tube that I can get at the hardware store. So, okay, I bought the cable (which, by the way was ten times cheaper than the 350 meter cable), but now it didn't have connectors on the ends (to plug into the hub/modem). So, Tony goes into town, procures some RJ-45 connectors and then asks the hardware guy at the medical center to put the connectors on. A couple days go by and I bug him to finish the job and I finally get my cable with connectors on Friday afternoon. I take the cable home and connect it up, it works -- yay! But now I have to go buy a tube to protect it from sun/rain, etc. So, Saturday, I go buy a tube (actually a PVC garden hose) and try it out on the cable. Damn, the connector is too fat to go through the tube. Now, a dilemma: do I remove the connector, wait until Monday and then ask the guy to reattach the connector, or do I slice the hose down the side, put the cable inside, then tape it up with duct tape (a perfectly DIY redneck sort of thing to do).

I decided I didn't want to be without the cable any longer, so I painstakingly cut the 18 meter hose (the houses are actually pretty close together and much of the cable has to go inside the houses) lengthwise with a pair of pruning shears that Susan just happened to buy while we were at the hardware store. I then slip the cable inside the hose through it's new seam (this really is much easier than pushing it through the hose, I'm sure!). In the meantime, Susan and I had gone to the beach with some friends for the afternoon and now it was evening and the hardware store is closed, so I can't buy any tape and Susan would really like to get online...

So, we decide to string the cable between the houses and hook it back up, with the hose with the split along it gaping in places. We put it through the shutters of the upstairs window, over the outside kitchen door light, sort of tie it to a pipe and then over a decorative turret thingy between the walls around the houses, then under the eaves of the roof and through the window of the neighbors house (there is no glass on the window, only iron bars -- it's warm here). The cable is then pushed through a series of other indoor windows and holes in one of the bathrooms, then hung on some wall lights. It's strung inside the neighbor's house like a string of Christmas lights. Finally, after all that, it's connected to the Internet hub in the middle of the house (mind you, this house is pretty large).

I did buy little cable clips to attach the cable to the wall and make it look nicer, but we don't have a hammer yet... So, who knows if we'll actually get around to sealing up the PVC hose with duct tape? Maybe it doesn't matter? Who cares if the rains come and fill up the hose? Surely, it's the sun that's a bigger threat, and now it's got some protection from that. The indoor cable still has a plastic coating... it can't be that bad... Besides, we might not live in this house very long...

And the best part is, we now have a nice, full-throttle 54 Mbps Internet connection.

Photos from Kilifi

2009-03-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm too lazy to write about anything, but I did at least getting around to posting some photos of Kilifi. Here are photos from Mnarani Club, Arab mosque ruins (ca. 14th century) from Mnarani village area, the Kilifi Boat Yard, photos of the house we're staying in and some photos from a sunset sail on a dhow that we went on with some new friends.

http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/KilifiFebruary2009

Enjoy!

Shopping list

2009-02-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are curious, I went shopping for a few groceries and I bought the following items:

1 mango
1 cucumber
1 zucchini
2 tomatoes (roma)
3 onions (red)
1 bunch bananas
2 carrots
2 limes (small)

Total cost: 165 Kenyan shillings = ~ $2.07 US

Then I bought a 500 gm bag of Kenyan Blue Mountain coffee for 700 Ksh @ ~ $8.80 US

So, the coffee is comparable to what one would pay in US (I think?) but the fruit & veg were a bargain! Anyway, I thought some of you might be interested...

Fun with public transport

2009-02-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

Susan and I had our very first excursion to the Nakumatt on Valentine's Day. Nakumatt is the big Kenyan version of Wal-Mart (you may have heard in the news about the one in Nairobi that burned down a few weeks ago). The nearest one is the north side of Mombasa, so we had to take a mutatu (small bus/passenger van) from Kilifi. The Nakumatt is in a little shopping center with a cafe where we had Kenyan/Mexican (Keny-exican? Ken-Mex?) veggie quesadillas and Susan ordered an iced coffee which was very tasty! The Nakumatt was a nice little piece of civilization and we were able to buy exciting things like sheets and Zip-loc bags and other assorted household items. However, the trip to and from the Nakumatt in the mutatus was rather frightening. Generally, the mutatus are in varying states of disrepair and they drive about 100 miles an hour and try to pass every vehicle they encounter on a 2-lane (one lane each way, without the actual "lanes") so they are constantly speeding up and then braking to dodge oncoming traffic, etc. Of course, they also cram more people than they need to into the mutatus, so it is very cramped as well. Overall, they drive the vehicles VERY hard, which just puts them in a greater state of disrepair which makes them that much more unsafe, not to mention the reckless driving habits. I discovered that looking ahead or behind as we were traveling was not an option for me because it was simply too scary, so I had to force myself to look out the side (which was a better view anyway). It's a good thing I don't get motion sickness... actually, as we were riding, I felt that I might have the potential to GET motion sickness, but I didn't and we survived! Anyway, we've been discussing the possibility of buying a car here, but we want to wait until Susan actually gets PAID (which is a problem, considering that Susan's efforts at getting an overseas UK bank account has been in limbo for months). After the mutatu experiences, I found myself wanting our own car much more urgently...

House Hunting: Part II

2009-02-09T11:03:00.000-08:00

So far, we had a few housing options, but none of them seemed to be particularly good ones. On Sunday, Susan and I decided to go to the Boat Yard, which is where the rich white people (wazungu) go for lunch and to socialize and sail their yachts. Turns out, this particular weekend was a fishing contest. We were told to get there a bit early to put our order in for lunch, so we left our room around 12:30. The Mnarani Club is on the same side of the creek as the Boat Yard and the tide was out, so we decided to walk along the beach to the Boat Yard, rather than taking a taxi. As we left Mnarani Club, the guard stopped us and asked if we had any valuables and gave us a warning to be safe. So, we thanked him and carried on. Along the way, we picked up a new male Kenyan "friend" who seemed to take a distinct liking to Susan. He started talking to her and walking along the beach with us. She tried to brush him off, but he persisted and once he knew she spoke some Swahili, he started telling her in Swahili that she was beautiful, etc. She kept telling him she wasn't interested and finally, when I also told him we weren't interested, he finally gave up and went on his way. After he left, Susan explained to me that it's apparently not uncommon for men to win over white women (probably older ones) and offer them sex for money (i.e. boy toy male prostitution), so that's what Susan figured he was after.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the Boat Yard, which had essentially a bar with a kitchen and a few tables on the sand. Upon arrival, we were looking obviously new and clueless, looking about for a menu, etc. and a guy named Jofat introduced himself and asked if we needed help. Susan explained that we were staying at Mnarani Club, moving here and looking for a place and also wanting some lunch while we were at the Boat Yard. Jofat said he might be able to help us with finding a place to live and would talk to us later, then we were directed to the window where we had to buy a book of tickets that could be used to buy lunch and drinks and also where we could order our food. So, we got the tickets, ordered lunch, got a couple beers from the bar and sat ourselves down.

The food came relatively quickly and we enjoyed a huge plate of grilled fish and chips with salad on the side. Jofat came back to us after we ate and he and Susan exchanged phone numbers and he tried to explain where he knew of a house for rent in Mnarani Village, but we had no clue, so we just said we'd meet him the next day around 5 or 6 pm and we'd get a tuk tuk to take us there. We sat and enjoyed the cool breeze and people watched for awhile, then looked around at the boats in the boat yard, where Susan found one that came from New Zealand and she asked me to take photo of her next to it to show to her dad. Some time later, the fishermen (and women) came in to weigh in and measure the fish they reeled in and we saw lots of strange looking fish with odd shaped heads, along with tuna, marlins and other large catches.

The next day, we called our tuk tuk driver and got Jofat on the phone to explain to the tuk tuk driver where to take us. We bumped down the rocky & pitted dirt roads through Mnarani Village until we came up to a house with an arched gateway with flowering boganvilla vines around it. Jofat took us in to meet a woman named Beth (who pronounced her named like Betty) who was very friendly and spoke English, but not very well. The house was basically a duplex house, with the second house situated at a right angle to it. We also met the neighbor, Miriam, who wore a long wig of light brown hair and had a rather excessive amount of eye make up on. She later explained that her mother was Japanese, which explained the Asian facial features to her otherwise African complexion. Later, we were introduced to her husband, a German guy in his 60's or 70's with bad dentures and very little English speaking skills. We decided that Miram must've been a retired "lady of the night" which is probably how she met the German guy -- besides the big wig and eye makeup, she had that general air of spaciness that seemed to indicate a rough past life. However, all of the people were extremely friendly and jovial and made us feel very welcome and comfortable. The German guy said he liked to go swimming in the ocean at 6:30 am and that we could go swimming with him; I made a visual joke about having to pry my eyes open at that hour, which gave them all a good laugh. The house was clean and had two bedrooms, each with cheap vinyl/linoleum floors and it also had two bathrooms and a couple other living areas with tile floors. The kitchen was small but sufficient, but with no stove or refrigerator. The entrance room had a cheap plastic table and chairs and one bedroom had a double bed in it, otherwise, it was unfurnished. The house was surrounded by a nice little courtyard-type garden and then Miram decided to show us around her house as well. Overall, we thought the place was liveable, but we weren't sure if we wanted to live in the middle of Mnarani village, although we were tempted to move in simply because we thought we'd be entertained by living with such colorful neighbors. We told Beth that we wanted to keep looking before making a final decision, so we'd call her back.

The next day, Susan and I were discussing our housing options and were starting to feel the pressure of needing to leave Mnarani Club by the end of the week. Considering our options, I had a change of heart about calling Samid, the owner of the bright white apartments across the creek from Mnarani Club. Susan called him to ask about meeting with him and he suggested that we go meet him that evening, so we called our new favorite tuk tuk driver Jacob and went to meet Samid. We got to the apartments and we were met by the groundskeeper and the Massai guard (now with Massai clothing) let us in. The groundskeeper took us around the back to meet Samid, who had just gotten back from a swim and was sitting there with nothing on but his Speedos, which was a bit unattractive, considering the way he was sitting. Samid was born and raised in Kilifi, but he explained that his father was from Yemen and his demeanor is quite Arabic. He made a concerted effort to have casual conversation with us about where we were from and making his opinions about politics and various other things known. He called the groundskeeper back and asked him to bring something (in Swahili or some other language). When the groundskeeper came back a while later carrying cashews, Samid made a big display of reprimanding the groundskeeper for taking so long and why didn't he know where things were and wasn't he supposed to be aware of where everything is around the property, etc. This was, of course, all in English for our benefit. Samid then took the sealed back of cashew nuts that the groundskeeper brought, handed to them to Susan and said, "Cashews. Export quality." And Susan and I looked at each other, because we weren't quite sure if he was just showing them to us or giving them to us. Finally, Samid said he would go take a shower while the groundskeeper showed us the apartments. The first floor apartments (which we had not seen in our first sneak-peek), were the ones that he was willing to rent long-term and they are fully furnished. My second look at the completed apartment with furniture (which is rather pretentious and Arabic-looking, with gold upholstry) was more favorable. They are nice apartments with lots of storage space and full sized appliances, etc. and for some reason, these ones didn't seem so angular or strange. Maybe it's just because we weren't sneaking around the unfinished ones.

We wandered out to the balcony where Samid finally joined us, showered and (thankfully) clothed to have more conversation. He told us how he has a soft-spot for women because he had four daughters, then proceeded to show us photos of each of his daughters, which he had saved on his phone. He tried to have more idle conversation and then Susan finally outright asked him how much he wants for the apartment. He gave us his price, then proceeded to look up text messages from other people who were interested, presumably to make it seem like they were a hot commodity (which we knew aren't, because everyone has been telling us about the place and how no one is living there). He also told us about some people who had rented the upstairs ones on a daily basis and how he decided not to rent an apartment to a German guy that he didn't like because he thought he might drink too much or be a bad tenant. Susan valiantly tried to talk him down on the price, but Samid would not budge and went on about his expenses (which was fair enough, considering he was still finishing the place), etc. Finally, we managed to wrap up the conversation so that Jacob (who was still patiently waiting with his tuk tuk) could take us home and Samid said not to forget our cashews (oh! he DID give them to us) and we told him we were still looking around and would let him know if we wanted to rent the place.

By now, it was Wednesday and we were feeling the pressure of having to leave Mnarani Club on Friday morning (or booking more nights there, which we wanted to avoid). So, we contemplated whether to go to the large 4-bedroom house with the animal murals and pink tiles, the little 2-bedroom duplex with the colorful neighbors, or the palatial Arabic apartment building. After much pondering, we decided to go with the 4-bedroom place that was only available until April, thinking that it would have all the furnishings we need, but the short-term availability would force us to keep looking for a more suitable place for the longer term. So, we called up Kristen, the cheerful manager and told her we wanted to move into the 4-bedroom place. Shortly thereafter, Susan got a call from Ann, who is the woman that everyone said we should talk to. Susan had called her the previous week and Ann said she would call back the following week, but Susan hadn't heard from her. Well, it turns out she has a place available that is the guest house to a larger place, so Susan arranged for us to look at it that afternoon.

So, we get Jacob to take us to Ann's place and she takes us to the property next door where the guest house is. It has a nice driveway with lots of palms and boganvilla vines flowering and has two large baobab trees in the front. It has a nice-sized kitchen, dining room and a verandah (which serves as a living room area). The upstairs has a walk-through office area and a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom and a large outdoor balcony. It's fully furnished and decorated and the bedroom has two twin beds. The kitchen had a decent sized refrigerator but didn't have a stove, but Ann said she could get me one. She said we could move in right away and that she would get us dishes, a toaster, and a kettle. Hands-down, this seemed like the best place we'd seen so far, so Susan was ready to take it immediately and Ann suggested that we think on it. Then Susan remembered that we had told Kristen that we would take the other place, so she said we'd check in with her and then would call Ann tomorrow.

On Thursday, Susan was about to call Ann about the place, then she got a call from someone else about another place (apparently word was getting around now!) that was available. So, Susan decided we should go there that morning to see it. So, we called up Jacob (who has happily been making lots of shilingi from us by now) to take us there. We arrived to meet an elderly woman named Patricia who was very friendly to us. This time, Jacob decided he wanted to see also, but the woman was a bit rude to Jacob and told him to wait in his tuk tuk. No doubt, she was protecting her property and granted, it was the first time Jacob had tried this. She took us upstairs to what was effectively two separate rooms with ensuite bathrooms. One was much larger than the other, with fixtures for plumbing which she intended to turn into a kitchen, but wasn't yet. The woman explained to us that her son (who appeared to be in his 50's and we met very briefly as he left while we were entering) was staying in the smaller room, but we could have the larger one until he left. She then proceeded to show us the kitchen which is a separate building from the rooms and also from her house. She walked us through her larger house to the swimming pool area, where it overlooked the most spectacular view of Kilifi Creek, where it opens into a sort of inland lake. The property is situated next to undeveloped land, which rolls into a very scenic valley so that the property takes on a hill-top perspective. She told us that we would be welcome to use the pool and that we could probably use the neighbor's kayaks on the creek down below. Later, Patricia explained that she was intending to sell the property after she finishes her rennovations. Susan seemed to be quite smitten with the place; however, although I loved the amazing view and watersport prospects, I was concerned about having to live alongside Patricia's son and the fact that the room was unfinished and that she was intending on selling the property. I still preferred the place that Ann had showed us the day before. So, after some discussion, we decided that we would take the guest house that Ann showed us and Susan called her and arranged to meet her and move in on Friday afternoon.

House Hunting in Kilifi

2009-02-02T05:08:00.000-08:00

We've been in Kilifi for just over a week now. I've grown accustomed to the smell of smoke which often permeates the air, as it is the primary means of disposing of garbage here. It is often hot and humid, but luckily our resort is right on the waterfront, so we usually get a good ocean breeze to keep us comfortable and cool. There haven't been too many mosquitoes around, but the breeze probably helps keep them away and it is still the dry season. Once the rains come, the mozzies may come out in full force. Generally, the rainy season is from about March or April until June or July, so we've got a couple months before that hits.

We've been in search of a more permanent place to live. There isn't really a local paper with classified ads, so we're pretty reliant on word of mouth. Before we got here, we had been told about a house that was being built that would be available, but the place is not yet finished and probably won't be for two or three months. Saturday was Susan's first full day off since we got here, as she had to attend a conference and then started work immediately thereafter. We took the day to go into town so that we could get a bit more familiar with the shops and markets and then we decided to take a walk up Bofa Road, which is the road that parallels the waterfront on the Kilifi town side. We wanted to see if we could find the new apartment building which sits on the waterfront like a large white beacon. We've heard mixed reviews about the place, but it is brand new and our options have been somewhat limited. Susan had been to the Kilifi Members Club, which is basically a bar which also overlooks the water and is next door to the apartment building. So we set off on foot and saw a sign across the street that had a for rent sign on it. We called the number on the sign and were met by a Kenyan guy named Anderson who showed us around the place. It was a big 4-bedroom house with two bathrooms and a big vegetable garden in the back. It is fully staffed with security, a cook, housekeeper and gardener. The place looks quite new and is furnished and the kitchen is stocked with dishes, however, we were a bit put off by the decor, which was a bit garish with animal print upolstery on the furniture, pink walls and floor tiles and big hand-painted murals of animals on the walls. Also, the water pressure was rather pathetic in the shower. We learned that the place is only available until the beginning of April, so although the place is quite large for two of us and not totally ideal, we figured it may be a good option for living temporarily until we find something more suitable and permanent.

After we viewed the house, we continued walking up Bofa Road in the hot sun, not realizing that earlier we had already been standing at the entrance road to the Members Club where Susan thought we could stop to have a drink and a bite to eat. We kept walking, then looked out over the embankment to the water to realize we had walked all the way to the ocean side -- much too far! So, we stopped in a shady spot and Susan had to call the tuk-tuk (a 3-wheeled vehicle, a little bigger than a golf cart) driver whose name and number she had collected a couple days ago to pick us up "somewhere" on Bofa Road to take us back to the Members Club. As we were waiting, I got a call from a woman named Kristen, who was the owner of the house we just looked at and she said she had another house to look at and that we could meet her back at the first house to see the new one. Just then the tuk-tuk arrived and I said we would call back. As we were in the tuk-tuk, we passed a woman on the road who had two small children. The driver stopped for her and we thought she wanted a ride, but it turns out that she asked the driver to ask us to give her money to get a prescription for malaria medication. Because she had two little children and did have a piece of paper in her hand that appeared to be a prescription, we decided to give her a small donation. Then the driver took us to the Members Club, at which point we were made aware that we had already been on the entrance road and had walked way past where we needed to be. As we went on the side road, I got another call from Kristen who said we had just passed them by and I said we were thirsty and would call them back in about a half hour after we sat and had a drink. As we sat down at the Members Club, we got a call from Laura, who then joined us at the bar. Susan had ordered a chapati (a sort of flat bread, a tastier version of a flour tortilla) and Laura warned us would take a long time to get at this particular establishment, so we decided to leave and visit the apartments next door then come back for the chapati.

The apartment building had a big concrete wall with a big metal entrance door typical of many of the more upscale buildings in Kilifi. We shouted at the gate for a guard to let us in, but did not get a response. We wandered around the side of the building and discovered that it was fairly easy to get to the other side of the building from the waterfront area. Although there are no doors on that side, the first floor windows seemed rather accessible. We then wandered around to the front again and saw a face appear at the gate -- it was the Massai guard, who had the typical tall, thin body and the stretched out earlobes, but was wearing nothing but a pair of nylon shorts. We asked if we could see the owner of the building (whom Laura asked for by name) and then the Massai let us in. We asked again if we could see the owner and he said that the owner wasn't there, so then we asked if we could look around and he said yes. The apartments were in varying degrees of completion and the floorplans were a bit labarynth-like. The whole structure was concrete with tile floors and the windows had one glass pane and one open window with a shutter. The shutters had mosquito netting on them, but if you open them, the window was completely open with no netting, so you couldn't really get air and mosquito-proof the place at the same time. The two bedrooms did have ceiling fans, which would undoubtedly be very welcome. The bathroom was very tiny, such that if you open the door, it slammed into the sink and you had to squeeze yourself into it before being able to close the door again. Anyway, the building had a somewhat palatial air about it, but the apartments were very angular and had what I would call very bad feng shui. Overall, I had a generally negative vibe about the place, as it didn't seem very secure nor very inviting.

Afterwards, we went back to the Members Club and shared the chapati with Susan. I called Kristen back and we met her across from the first house. She came in a car and she was a very cheerful and friendly woman. We were by then in Laura's car, so we simply followed Kristen's car to the other house, which was smack in the middle of the residential area of Kilifi town. It was a two-bedroom duplex, with the typical concrete floors and walls with thatched roofing. It is a brand-new house and was a decent house, but was very close to many local (and potentially noisy) neighbors with no security, a bit dark and no chance of getting a coastal breeze. We decided we would rather have something more open and spacious, as that place seemed a bit claustrophobia-inducing.

Later, Laura tried to take us to another place, but we were not able to get a hold of the contacts for it, so we went back to her place and met her neighbor to join us for a swim in Kilifi Creek (which currently is rather full of seaweed) to cool off.

Jambo from Kenya!

2009-01-26T05:57:00.000-08:00

We finally arrived at Mombasa airport on Friday morning. Aside from the excruciatingly long 14-hour Sydney to Johannesburg flight, everything went quite smoothly. We spent a few hours at a hotel in Johannesburg so we could have a quick swim in the pool (cold water, brr!) a shower and a couple hours of sleep in a real bed. The next flight was a few hours on Kenyan Airlines to Nairobi, then we flew on a new two-week old 737 to Mombasa from Nairobi. Our checked luggage arrived safely with us and the folks from the conference which Susan is attending this week arranged a shuttle for us from Mombasa to our resort hotel in Kilifi.

Mombasa is a fairly large city in Kenya and is the major sea port city. As we drove down the main road from the airport, we noticed that they've renamed the road Barack Obama Road. In Nairobi airport, the book shop (which was closed at 7:30 am) had its display shelves filled with books by and about Barack Obama and I saw several people wearing Barack Obama T-shirts.

From Mombasa airport, rode in the shuttle bus for about an hour and a half past many buildings painted with advertisements. Rather than advertising on billboards, they simply paint houses or other building with corporate logos, most of which seem to be mobile phone companies. Often the buildings are painted very vivid colors such as fuscia or kelly green, with logos appearing in several places on each wall.

As we drove up the highway north to Kilifi, we passed a HUGE sisel plantation (sisel is the stuff they often use to make rope or twine and looks quite similar to pineapple plants) which seemed to go on and on endlessly. Finally, we entered the Kilifi region and we passed a sign that had the Wild Living Resources logo on it (the organization I am planning to work with) and soon we turned into the driveway of the Mnarani Club which will be our temporary home for the next two weeks.

The Mnarani Club is a resort with a huge swimming pool that appears to blend into Kilifi Creek/Indian Ocean, which the pool and many of the rooms face. Our room is quite comfortable, a second-level room with a balcony that overlooks the Mnarani marina on Kilifi Creek. Although they call it Kilifi Creek, it's much more like a river (the Yarra River in Melbourne, for example, is much narrower!) and we are really situated just at the mouth of the creek and can see the ocean from our room as well. Often there is a good sea breeze that keeps things cool, but in the evenings, our housekeeper comes in to turn down the sheets, set up the mosquito net, close the screened windows and turns on the air conditioning unit.

The place is very well staffed and they really cater to all your needs, so we aren't suffering too terribly! The resort also has a few boats for hire and Susan and I went with one of her colleagues for a sail on a little catamaran yesterday afternoon. They also have other various activities: mountain bikes, snorkeling, scuba lessons, Swahili lessons, bush walks, road trips to Mombasa and other nearby towns, etc. There are some resident monkeys that also hang around the pool area and it's quite entertaining to watch them as well.

Yesterday, we met Susan's new American colleague, Laura, who picked us up and drove us around Kilifi so that we would know where the shops and markets are and to see some of the houses where we might be able to live. We did go to see the house we thought we might live in, but it's still being built and nowhere near finished, so we're not sure that place will still be a viable option. In the meantime, we'll be staying at Mnarani Resort for two weeks and may have to stay in Laura's spare room or elsewhere until we get something a bit more permanent.

The Times, They Are A Changin'

2008-11-05T02:31:00.000-08:00

Egads. It's been a really, really long time since I've posted a blog here.

Well, in the interest of putting a conclusion to my very cobwebbed last post, no we did not meet the King of Tonga. However, we were greeted at the airport by his personal assistant and a couple of other attendants who gave us a tour of the island before we flew to Va'vau for our week-long sail about that group of islands. It was nice, but I would've liked to have spent more time actually on the islands rather than a boat. The snorkeling was very cool.

But, that's ancient history -- MONTHS ago!

Today, was a monumental day. It was the day that Barack Obama was elected to be the next US President! I am very happy about this news! I think he gave an amazing speech and I was quite impressed with John McCain's concession speech as well. He was extremely gracious and well spoken and I think he handled his rabid crowd of "supporters" well. Now, let's hope those rabid supporters don't do anything drastic in the next four years...

I'm even more excited about moving to Kenya now. (Oh yeah, did I mention that we're moving to Kenya in January?!?!). I mean, the thought of moving there has always been a bit scary and exciting. But now, I feel like I can go there and be proud that my country has elected a half-Kenyan president. I only wish that we were going to arrive in Kenya a bit sooner. Alas, the itinerary has been made and we'll be arriving 3 days after Obama's Presidential inauguration. I've been thinking that it would be cool to be in Kenya on that important day.

Already it feels like the negative stigma that has shrouded our country for the past 8 years is suddenly lifted. Obama is a man who is preaching words like "hope" and "change" and is inspiring a country that has become apathetic and despondent. People who have felt powerless and at the mercy of those who have abused their political offices. Obama's grassroots approach is giving power and inspiration back to the people. And, in his speech, he reminded people that they have to continue to help themselves -- that they cannot depend on him, a single leader, to carry them. This is an important distinction and, I believe, something that will be difficult for many Americans to take on. But how wonderful if the people of America take on this challenge and embrace stewardship of their country's fate and its global impact!

It will be interesting to see what transpires under this new administration. I know that Obama will restore the US foreign diplomacy which GW has so unwittingly tarnished. It's also clear that Obama is inspiring people in a way that is being compared to JFK and MLK -- BIG stuff! It was powerful to see the video footage of the likes of Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey in tears as Obama gave his speech. Lots of people showing emotion -- when was the last time people reacted to a presidential election in this way? This is not only an American thing. The entire WORLD has been hoping that Obama would be the next US President. It is a global concern.

This has been a marathon campaign and I think everyone is glad that it's finally over. However, once he takes that office and the day-to-day events and decisions and negotiations start to take hold, will Obama still have the ability to inspire change?

Trip to Tonga: Part 1

2008-08-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Susan and I went on a family vacation with her family to the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga. Before this trip was planned, I never even knew there was such a place as Tonga! Hey, I like to blame it on my American upbringing, but the funny thing is that we Americans hear about Fiji all the time and Tonga is practically next door to Fiji. What's up with that? It's a curious phenomenon for which I have no explanation...

Susan's parents decided that they wanted to rent a sailing yacht for a week to sail around Tonga and bring the family along. So, with much planning and intra-family-communication (which I blissfully delegated to Susan) a vacation plan was devised and off we went! In all, there were eight of us, me, Susan, Susan's parents, her brother Joff, his partner Min, sister Michelle and her friend, Leah. Susan and I flew into Auckland the night before to stay the night at her parent's house before taking off with the rest of the family on an early morning flight to Nuku'alofa.

Susan's father, Gavin, picked us up at the airport and on the drive to their house, he proceeded to tell us about how the King of Tonga had actually gone to his primary school in Auckland and that Susan's friend's father had gone to school with the King of Tonga and that they still keep in touch. When this friend of Susan's family learned of our planned trip to Tonga, he told Gavin that he would contact the King of Tonga (King George Tupou V) and tell his Royal Highness of our arrival. So, reportedly, this information had been conveyed to King George V (KGV) and there was talk that perhaps we might be invited to dine with the King. Gavin then explained that the King resides on the island of Nuku'alofa, but our plan was to go to the Vava'u group of islands and we would only be taking connecting flights from Nuku'alofa to Vava'u. However, the rest of the family was staying in Tonga longer than Susan and I and we actually had planned to fly back to Nuku'alofa and stay our last night there before a morning flight back to Australia (via Auckland). So, Gavin suggested that perhaps Susan and I could be the representatives of the family to have dinner with KGV. Gavin is a couple years older than the King, so although he went to the same school, was not in the same class. However, he did have photos that he took as a child when the young prince came to Auckland to see the school prior to his attendance, which Gavin later showed us that evening. We were all quite amused by the idea of having dinner with the King of Tonga and wondered if anything would come of it.

We had a nice dinner with Susan's family and a couple of her school friends that she invited for dinner and then went to bed. We had to get up at about 4 am to get to the airport by 5 for our 7 am flight (ugh). Leah and Michelle are quite into gourmet cooking and Michelle pooled her connections to obtain export-quality meats to transport from New Zealand to Tonga. Not only did they bring meat, but a whole host of other goods (cereal, crackers, jam, honey, butter, etc) to feed eight people for a week. Luckily, Susan and I only brought one check-in bag between us, as we needed to check in another whole bag full of food (as did several of the others). After checking in our bags (and the airport customs hermetically sealed the meat box in plastic wrap), we then stocked up on duty-free alcohol to keep us in good spirits on our sailing trip as well. While we were wandering around the airport before our flight, Susan and I realized that we had forgotten to stop our mail delivery at home, so Susan thought of sending a post card to our downstairs neighbor to ask him if he would get our mail out of our pathetically small mailbox. I was skeptical, thinking he wouldn't get the post card from Auckland until after we arrived back in Brisbane, but she sent it (and, miraculously, it made it to Brisbane before us and he did retrieve our mail for us!).

Soon, we were on the plane to Nuku'alofa. Stay tuned for more...

For those of you who can't wait for the next installment (who know how long it could be, with my blogging record?), you can go straight to the photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/Tonga2008

Internet Broken... will blog after it's fixed

2008-08-02T21:28:00.000-07:00

!@#()&^#$(@!@$^&@#$% Telecommunication "services" totally suck in Australia.

Went to Tonga, sailed around Tonga, saw a whale and lots of coconut trees, snorkeled and got fed yummy food. Came back, had internet for a day, then it broke. Going on three weeks now... Fourth repair guy scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Perhaps he will actually fix the problem this time. Fingers crossed...

Second semester of uni has started. Busy busy! Now I must do school work.

Stay tuned...

Bad news, good news?

2008-06-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems that I may be a gecko murderer after all. Susan took it upon herself to move the plants we keep on the balcony (I think it was to dump out excess water sitting in the trays beneath the pots) and next to the ring of dirt that the one plant left behind, lay the mummified body of a little gecko. I think it's the same one as the toaster incident. So sad...

In other news, I have decided to give myself the title of "Technical Business Analyst" for my job. I think that's fitting, although I might switch it to "IT Business Analyst" -- I think that might even be better. Hmm...

I have plans to go to the Sunshine Coast twice in the next week. Tomorrow, we're spending the day and night at my bandmate's house at Coolum Beach. The band is gonna jam, maybe record, and the significant others (+ children) will bond over sand and daquiris or something... It should be fun! Perhaps we'll even settle on a band name. Now, THAT would be exciting. Later in the week I have a business meeting for work that will take me to the coast again. Not nearly exciting, but a bit of a road-trip anyway. Reckon I'll be bonding with my boss on the way there & back. Good news is that he's a huge fan of live music, so I'll get one fan to my band's gigs at least!!

Oh, and the cover band went over quite well at the hippie party. It was a fun party and apparently the hosts have them frequently, so I'm looking forward to doing that again! I expect we'll be doing some real gigs in a month or two... the drummer's already working on some bookings for us.

Susan survived her microbiology exam, but she felt like she didn't do very well and was rather unhappy about that. I have a feeling she did much better than she thinks she did. Poor girl's been studying too hard -- she needs a break!

At the moment, I'm taking a break from Visual Basic programming for my practical exam on Tuesday -- yikes. I don't like "speed programming"! Well, guess I should get back to it... wish me luck!

Work, school, music, dougnuts...

2008-05-28T23:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I've landed myself a job. It's a small startup company that only came into being this January. I must say that I was a bit unsure about the company when I first went to the interview - the thought of working for a startup company seemed a bit risky, even for part-time. But as time goes on, I'm getting a better feeling about them. I think they might just make it and it might actually be quite good. Anyway, I'm not really sure what my job title is. So far, I've been tasked with implementing a process for invoicing and payroll, implementing plans for the rollout of a couple of the products and a bit of ASP web interface modification. Anyway, they're nice folks and the office is in an old "Queenslander" style house, which is quite charming.

I'm nearing the end of the semester -- this is the last week of classes, besides a couple of makeup classes next week due to holiday conflicts. Final exams are sprawled across June, which is a bit annoying -- I'll have plenty of time to forget what I've learned by the time I get to them all! So far, I've been doing pretty well, but I've got a project due next week that's kicking my butt (yes, I'm procrastinating a bit by writing this blog).

The cover band and the original band are both cruising along. Neither band has settled on a name yet. The guitarist/singer for the cover band is throwing a fancy dress (i.e. costume) hippie party on Saturday and we'll be playing at it, along with a few other musical acts. Unfortunately, the working title for the cover band is now "Thick Crust" but I hope it doesn't stick by default! Anyway, I'm excited not only to play a "gig" again, but also because this is my first-ever house party in Australia! I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately, Susan won't be coming along because she's frantically studying for her microbiology exam which is on June 6. The original band is really coming together and we've been bantering about band name ideas, at least. We're hoping to record a few songs for a demo maybe in June, so once we get those and a name, I'll be throwing together a little MySpace page to broadcast to the world!!

Speaking of bands, Viva la Venus is back in swing and they gave me a nice little mention in their press release recently.

Oh, and if anyone's wondering how the Krispy Kreme is holding up in Brisbane, let's just say that every day that I walk by it (which is many afternoons), there is a long line of about 40 people out the door... So I'd say they're doing pretty well.

Stickers and doughnuts....

2008-04-30T19:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I'm avoiding doing a bit of homework by trying to keep up with this blog a bit more. The good news for me is that I've finally got a big, fat sticker in my passport that says I'm allowed to work. Yay! Now I just have to find a job... I'm trying not to stoop to retail or food service and aiming for some web-development/IT-related job. There aren't that many part-time jobs in the field...lots of full time positions, but not part-time. I applied for a couple of jobs today, we'll see if anything pans out. Would be nice to offset the cost of my tuition. It's a good thing I got a Sugar Mama to take care of me! :)

Brisbane's first Krispy Kreme

Speaking of sugar and food service, all my peeps in NC ought to appreciate this one. The very first Krispy Kreme doughnuts store opened in Brisbane this week! Apparently, people camped outside overnight in hopes of winning a golden ticket for a year's supply of doughnuts. Gosh, I do love doughnuts myself, but I don't even want to think about the caloric intake involved with a year's supply of doughnuts! Anyway, Brisbanites reportedly scarfed up 60,000 doughnuts on the opening day!

Life in Brisbane

2008-04-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

Brisbane is a nice city -- lots going on here, with no shortage of stuff to do. Susan and I got mountain bikes and we've been enjoying the many urban bikeways with new local Brisbanite friends Lauren and her father, Craig, who are into biking. We've ridden our bikes a couple times to the coast... we take the train to a 'burb called Mitchelton and there's a bikeway the whole way to Shorncliffe, on the coast -- it's about a 3 hour bike ride and lots of different scenery along the way.

Brisbane Botanical Gardens

We'd like to hit some offroad MTB trails, but ironically haven't been able to get to any very easily without a car, so that plus my music habit (amplifiers, etc.) and our desire to go beyond Brisbane have prompted us to buy a car, which we just got a few weeks ago. It's a 2004 Nissan Pulsar hatchback, which we hope will be good on the fuel economy. So far, driving for me has been scary, as I started out leaning TOO far left and I don't like the roundabouts! Oddly, Queensland gave me a driver's license with only a few forms of ID and no driver test. But, with each time I drive, it gets easier and more comfortable, so it's getting better.

I've been plugging away at "uni" and so far I've been liking it okay. I've decided that I'm not really into the academic theory type classes and much prefer the practical application classes (i.e. programming). This semester I took two of each, but I think I'll be avoiding the theory classes from now on! Susan seems to be liking her job well enough. She's recently started doing some research work at a lab in Coopers Plains -- a suburb at the south end of the city and she's also started working at an HIV clinic one afternoon a week -- so she's keeping busy.

I've now joined two bands -- one original band and one cover band. The original band is sort of psychedelic indie rock or something like that. We just found a drummer a couple of weeks ago and hopefully, we'll get some recordings and think of a name for ourselves so we can share our music with the world. The band includes me on bass, a Scottish guy on guitar, an Aussie (who just recently moved back to Oz after 14 years in the US) on keys/guitar/vocals and the drummer is the token local Brisbanite. We've got a number of songs, which we're still refining. The cover band doesn't really have a name yet either, but the drummer and guitarist/vocalist have been playing together for years and we may add a guitarist/backing vocalist (after I proved how badly I sing and play at the same time).

This past weekend we wanted to do our sea kayaking trip (for which we have vouchers) but we could only do it Sunday, so I guess we need to be better about booking further ahead!! So far, we haven't been very good at that... Instead, we went for a day hike in Lamington National Park, which is about a 1.5 hrs south of Brisbane in the Gold Coast hinterland (they seem to be fond of that word, "hinterland" here). We wanted to go camping as well, but ditto on the planning ahead thing... all booked up! The hike was okay, although the map I downloaded from the web was too small and didn't make much sense to us, so we were sort of wandering back and forth trying to figure out where we were. We encountered an older local couple on the trail, and they took pity on us and gave us their more detailed map. So, now we'll have to go back and get in a proper hike. This time we had gone to the Binna Birra area, but next time we want to go to an area called O'Reilly's.

I STILL haven't gotten permission to work from Immigration, which is annoying since they said it should take 7-10 business days and it's been over a month now. I've applied for a few jobs, but it doesn't do me much good if I'm not allowed to work! I called the Immigration help desk and they claim it should be processed by the end of this week. We'll see...

So... I've finally posted some pictures I've taken over the months. Some from the Brisbane area and some from Melbourne I took when we were there back in Decemeber (!!). Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/barckhoff/AroundBrisbane2008

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/barckhoff/MelbourneDec2007

Australian Wildlife

2008-02-07T22:04:00.001-08:00

Today, I ran over a gecko with my toaster.

I didn't mean to! Really, it's not something I'd ever aspired to do or would even think was possible in one's lifetime. But I did it. Thankfully, the little gecko was okay, although I did think he was a goner there for a moment. Here's how it went down: I was cleaning up the kitchen and decided to clean the crumbs out from under the toaster. The little crumb catching tray is on the side of the toaster that faces the wall, so I turned it around to pull out the tray and there was the poor little gecko all turned up on it's side like a hip hop dancer doing that trick where they balance on one ear and shoulder. His little foot twitched for a moment and then it was still. I felt really bad for the poor little thing and I started rumaging around for a bit of cardboard to scoop him up with, thinking I'd have to flush him down the toilet. I came back with my cardboard and the little guy sprang up and started running around in circles. With a sigh of relief, I coaxed him onto the cardboard, but then noticed that he was still running around in circles and his head was twisted sideways. I think I might've damaged his neck and he might have a permanent crook, but at least he's alive... Anyway, I took him out to the balcony and put him in one of our potted plants, thinking he might like to hang out and eat the bugs off our little herb plants, but he promptly hopped out of the soil and hid underneath the pot instead. Anyway, I took a picture of him hiding under the plant. Interestingly, when I found him he was a pale, almost translucent yellow/green. By the time I took this picture, he had changed to a dark, brownish with yellow stripes. I'm not sure how he got inside our apartment, although we do have a window screen with a hole in it that would be big enough for the little guy to get in (he's only about 2 inches long, head to tail -- just a baby!).

I've had a couple of other interesting encounters with Australian wildlife. One day, Susan and I decided to eat our lunch out on our balcony. Shortly after we finished our sandwiches, a bird decided to land on our balcony railing. He landed on the far end and then proceeded to move over toward us, until he was staring directly at us from about two feet away. We assumed he was hoping to get a treat from us and would wait a few moments and then fly away. We didn't want to feed him and encourage him to keep coming back, so we stared at him and he stared at us. He sat there looking at us for a good ten minutes! Finally, he got bored and flew away, but I've never had a bird come and stare at me eye to eye like that for so long! Anyway, I haven't learned what sort of bird it was yet -- sort of raven-like in size and shape, but mottled black & white, with a sort of warbly call. One of these days, I'll learn what it is.

Another encounter with a lizard that was much nicer than the incident with the poor gecko was with a juvenile lizard I met on Australia Day. Susan and I had gone to South Bank, which is a lovely park area along the river in the city for the Australia Day activities. As we were strolling along, I saw a little lizard on the wall, which I found to be incredibly cute because it had a gigantic head, feet and a really long tail, with an itty bitty little body. It obviously had not grown into its appendages yet and I just had to get close to it to marvel at its cuteness! Suddenly, it sprang off the side of the wall and ran towards my foot, as if to say "play with me!" However, at that point, I felt the need to chastize the little guy for running up to complete strangers like that. After all, he was obviously just a child and it's a big, bad dangerous world out there...

So far, it seems that both the wildlife and the humans here in Australia are quite friendly. I've found that random people will strike up a conversation with you while you're on the bus or just walking down the street. Everyone here has been really, really nice and helpful. Unless it has anything to do with telecommunications or internet. The mobile phone plans here are horrifically complicated and nit-picky, the internet service is locked down tight, and the phone companies charge an arm and a leg for their services, while making you wait ages to get anything hooked up. But telecommunication services aside, I've found Australia to be a wildly friendly place.

Hello World!!!

2008-01-29T17:31:00.000-08:00

Miracle of miracles, we are FINALLY online at our apartment. It's been excruciating not having real access to the internet. There is no such thing as free WiFi in Australia. You have to pay for it everywhere, EXCEPT the library -- which we finally became members of last week. Anyway, it took them 10 days to get around to connecting us, then they didn't send us the hardware until after we were connected. Add to the mix a couple of public holidays (Saturday was Australia Day, but it was also observed on Monday, so no mail on either day) and we finally got the stuff yesterday.

So, yes, we have an apartment. We met our goal of finding an apartment before Susan was to start work on January 14th. Unfortunately, the day that we got the keys to the apartment was the day that Susan got admitted to the hospital. She contracted a case of Brucellosis, which is a blood-borne bacterial infection. Basically, she had constant headaches and a fever until she started her treatment of three different antibiotics (one by injection), which immediately caused her extreme nausea (apparently her liver went a bit haywire for awhile) and she spent nearly a week in the hospital to receive IV fluids and anti-nausea meds. She needs to take the antibiotics for a total of six weeks. Anyway, it was a bit ironic that she ended up a patient in the hospital the weekend that she was supposed to start work there. Her doctor keeps suggesting that she should write up a case study on herself -- she doesn't seem too keen on that prospect. Thankfully, Susan is feeling better (tho not quite up to her usual self yet -- still gets tired easily) and she started work yesterday.

Anyway, we've got a little two-bedroom apartment that's about a 15 minute walk to the Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital, and a short jaunt to the train station and various bus stops. It's about a 10-15 minute bus ride into the city, so it will be easy for me to get to school when I start at the end of February. Now, we just need some furniture. We have a sofa, a dining room table & chairs and two chests of drawers (which we'll use as bedside tables) on order. Luckily, we happen to live across the road from a shopping center full of furniture stores. Right now we have a bed (thankfully no more air mattress) a coffee table and two folding camping chairs. The camping chairs have taken their toll on our lower backs, but at least we have something to sit on. We ordered our sofa from a place called Freedom, so Susan's been singing "Freedom's just another word for f*cking hurry up and give us our sofa..." for the past week.

I was pleasantly surprised with a $3500 scholarship from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), which is now the school I've decided to attend. I was going to go to Central Queensland University until I realized that it's campus consists of one building and it caters to international students. This was what first attracted me to the school, since I am an international student, but then I realized that I would be stuck in one building with a bunch of foreign students and I would rather be immersed in the Australian culture on a real university campus. I'll be going to the QUT campus in the Central Business District (CBD, i.e. downtown) right next to the Botanical Gardens, which are quite lovely. I've enrolled (paid) at QUT, but haven't done the student visa stuff yet. I have to do it online and couldn't do it until I got a Certificate of Enrollment from them anyway. Now I'm good to go and plan to start on that this week.

Well, that's all for now -- I'll try to write more soon! For now, here's a pic of the view of Brisbane from our apartment balcony. The Royal Brisbane hospital is in the right side of photo (just beyond the telephone pole in the lower corner).

Last Stop: Brisbane

2008-01-04T00:50:00.000-08:00

Hello World!

Susan and I made it to Brisbane on Tuesday -- it's been pouring with rain the whole time (which is a good thing, since there's been a drought here) and we haven't really had easy access to the internet. We've been trying to get around to look for a place to live, but it's been a bit messy waiting for buses in the rain! We've been staying with Susan's friend's father who has the big family home to himself and he seems quite glad to have our company. He's been very generous for opening his home to us. They don't observe daylight savings here, so it gets light very early in the morning and there are lots of different sounding birds, so poor Susan has been waking up way earlier than she wants to, but hopefully she'll get back to a better sleep schedule soon.

Last night, we had dinner at Susan's colleague's (David) house -- he's the guy that picked up all our stuff that we shipped from the U.S. We met him and his wife and two of his colleagues -- they were all very nice and I felt right at home with them. David and his family lived in Pittsburgh for 10 years, so it was fun talking with them about my home town. We were reunited with our U.S. shipment and I checked to make sure that one of my bass guitars arrived in one piece (it did) and we retrieved some of our summer clothes so that we have more clothes to wear.

I've been visiting the schools that I applied to -- I decided that I'm not so crazy about Central Queensland University and may go to Queensland University of Technology or University of Queensland instead. I went to QUT to talk to the folks there today and I like it much better. I haven't gone to UQ yet to check it out, but will probably do that on Monday.

Currently, we have very limited access to the internet, so I will keep this update short, but just wanted to let folks know we're here and doing fine -- the Aussies are very friendly and have been quite generous. Hopefully, we will be able to find our own place to live soon so that we can get settled in.

Hello from Melbourne!

2007-12-19T14:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, we have landed safely in Melbourne, Australia -- just got in the night before last. It's about 9:30 AM on Thursday here now (16 hours ahead of EST). The weather is warm, but not quite sunny yet. Yesterday, there were a few sprinkles of rain mixed in with sunny spells. This morning we're getting some nice thunderstorms (I do like a good summer thurnderstorm). Yesterday, we wandered around St. Kilda, where Susan's brother Joff lives. It's a nice little section of Melbourne with it's own beach -- the water is quite calm and there weren't really any waves coming in. We didn't go swimming, but it seemed the water is quite warm, the way folks were just standing around in it. We sat along the beach for a picnic lunch and had dinner at a veggie restaurant called Soul Mama that Joff's girlfriend Min recommended. You choose a bowl size and then go to this buffet and get to select a number of items (depending on which size bowl you bought) from the buffet -- it was hard to choose and it was all very good! I had a nice ale (Mountain Goat Ale) to go along with it. We're still a bit jet lagged, so had an early evening.

So far, I'm liking it much better than Liverpool. Good food, real coffee (I had some really bad coffee experiences the last few days in England), real beer, and people living "alternative" lifestyles... Ah... it's good to be in a normal environment again! Today, we'll venture into the city and get some SIM cards and some cheap flip-flops for me (I have no sandals here).

No pictures yet, but I'll try to take some after the weather clears up a bit. In the meantime, here's a link to a website with some pics: http://www.melbourne.com.au/stkilda.htm

Wales: Snowdonia & Caernarfon Castle

2007-12-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

The weekend before last, we went to Wales again with Susan's classmates from the School of Tropical Medicine. The University of Liverpool owns a cottage in Snowdonia (a region of North Wales) that students can reserve. It has 18 bunks and a kitchen, but unfortunately, very poor heating! We filled the place up, but on Friday night (the first night we arrived), it was below freezing outside and even though the place had heaters in the bunk rooms, the things were totally worthless. I was very, very grateful for the nice down sleeping bag that Susan borrowed from a classmate for me. In fact, it was so cold that one of the Australians in the group decided he couldn't take another night there and left with another classmate who had to leave on Saturday evening.

Anyway, we hitched a ride with classmate, Ray, and we joined a car-load of others on Friday afternoon for a late afternoon hike up Mt. Snowdon. Although it is only about 3,500 feet high, it is the highest peak in Wales and all of Great Britain. Also, apparently, Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Snowdon as training for his climb of Mt. Everest (which seems a bit absurd, considering that Mt. Everest is literally almost 10 times higher!). We started up the trail at about 2-2:30 PM and got to the top at around sunset (which is about 4:30 PM in these parts!). Although I was feeling a bit winded on the way up and I was definitely the slowest (and, pitifully worried about climbing back down in the dark), it turned out to be a lovely hike. I don't recall which track we took up, but it was a bit steep and somewhat challenging. It was a beautiful, clear day (very rare anywhere in the UK, as far as I can tell), so it was great that we were able to take advantage of the weather. The pinnacle is also reachable by train, and it was a bit odd to come up to the top ridge to to find a train track up there. Once we got to the top, we took in the view and some photos and hurried back down the much easier Pyg and Miners Tracks. We were happy to find that it was a full moon that night and we were able to find our way back in the moonlight. The view of the moonlight on the lake was quite stunning. Susan was our photographer that evening and she did not take pictures of the moonlit lake, although Ray took some beautiful ones. We're hoping he'll share them with us.

After our hike, we went to a pub in Llanberis to meet up with some other classmates and then we went to a restaurant (Pete's Bistro, I believe?), which was a family-owned restaurant that serves Tapas-style meals. Their menu had a description of their dreams to have a big bed & breakfast type place and that the restaurant was only the beginning. We were given a room all to ourselves (as there was about 16 of us) and at one point, the "grandson" who was to take our order came in the room and said, "Are you ready to order, or would you like to write it down yourselves?" We all had a good laugh over that, but in the end, it turned out to be the best way to handle it. As it turned out, the food there was quite good. Afterwards, someone suggested that we delve into the board games that she saw on the way into the restaurant and so we started on a game of Jenga (well, a knock-off version really) on one end of the table and a "Don't Lose Your Marbles" type game on the other end of the table. We're all getting pretty rowdy and having a good time, when all of a sudden the owner (the grandmother) brings out a GIGANTIC version of Jenga ("Four Feet Tall!") for us to play. Then, someone else in the group group found a gigantic version of "Connect Four" and they started playing that. Overall, it turned out to be a fantastic place to go -- with great food, fun and extremely welcoming staff, despite our large group.

On Saturday, Suze and I took off on our own with her friend, Jo, who came to join us for the weekend on Friday evening at Pete's Bistro. She had her trusty little red car, Francesca, so we were free to roam on that rainy Saturday afternoon in search of... castles! Acutally, we only went to one castle, Caernarfon Castle, which, as it turns out, is the castle where Prince Charles was crowned as Prince of Wales in 1969 (We learned this little factoid at the castle). I was quite happy because I was catching a cold and was NOT in the mood to be cold and wet that day! It was a lovely castle and had been all fixed up with roofs and floors in some of the towers, which was very neat to see. One tower even had a cinema in it, with a very badly overacted but somewhat informative film about the castle's history.

Saturday night, we stayed at the cottage and utilized the available kitchen facilities where the whole group feasted on fajitas. Later, we played silly party games like a convoluted version of Charades (Secret Telephone Charades) that involved us splitting into groups and pairs having to convey Charades to the next pair until the last pair has to figure out what the topic was. It was pretty funny. We even did the Limbo with a broomstick (which, sadly, despite my short height I'm terrible at because I also sit at a computer WAY too much!).

Sunday, we did another day hike with everyone up Mt. Tryfan. However, this time, we split up into two groups -- one that went the steep way, which require lots of scrambling and climbing and one that went the "easy" way, which required much less scrambling. I was quite happy to be in the easy and slow group, as I'm usually the bringing up the tail-end on these excursions! At one point, our guide for the hike tried to use me as a "guinea pig" to try to convince me to climb up a harder path, but I made them turn around and go the easy way. Yes, I'm a wimp. Anyway, the hike took us about four hours and it took us nearly as long to go the long, easy way as it it did to go the short hard way, so we found the other group on our way back down. A few folks decided to stay and do more climbing, but the rest of us continued down the mountain, headed off for some lunch (leftover fajitas, yum!) at the cottage, cleaned it up and headed back to Liverpool.

Here's the link to more photos of the weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/WalesSnowdoniaCaernarfonCastle

Viva Barcelona

2007-11-28T02:46:00.000-08:00

The weekend before last, Suze and I went to Barcelona to visit her cousin, Nicky. Since it cost us about the same to fly to Barcelona as it would to take a train to Edinburgh or London, we figured this was a good deal. So, we booked ourselves an EasyJet flight direct from Liverpool to Barcelona and Nicky gave us the details on how to get to her place from the airport. Oddly, it was the first time we'd ever been to the Liverpool airport, but it's pretty easy to take a bus from our place to the airport. Once in Barcelona, we were to take what we like to call "a train disguised as a bus" (or a train-bus) from the airport to Estacion de França. So, Susan asked a helpful airport staff member where to get the train and we wandered around until we found the bus stop. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the bus was free, even though it was a good 30 minute ride to its destination. We got to the station and eventually found Nicky there and she explained that the train line was under repair for so long that people were upset about it, so they made the train free. There's nothing like being in the right place at the right time -- lucky us!

So, we followed Nicky back to her flat after a stop at the nearby grocery for some breakfast food. She lives only a couple minutes walk from the train station and her flat is literally across the street from the Santa Maria del Mar, a gothic church built sometime in the 14th century, I believe. She lives in the heart of El Born, which is apparently a hip tourist attraction -- so we were right in the middle of it all! Her flat is up several floors, with a spiral staircase and a very low ceiling (which poor Susan kept bonking her head on). It's a small 2-bedroom flat with the quintessential tile floor that one would expect to find in a Spanish flat.

After we got ourselves settled in and then we went out for dinner at a place called Origen 99'9%, which is a restaurant that serves traditional Catalan food. There was a waiting list, which we put our names on and then we went to a wine bar for a drink. We went back and were seated and found that the menu is really more like a magazine, with articles, recipes, full color photos, and full descriptions of the food in Catalan, Spanish and English. I went to their website and found that you can read the menu online in PDF format if you like (the bad English translation is quite amusing!). It was quite comprehensive reading! So, we picked out about six dishes and some different glasses of wines to try. The food was very unusual to my palate, quite good but very rich, so not something I'd want to eat on a regular basis because of its richness. We had Cannelloni, stuffed squid, rabbit and sweet potatoes (my favorite, tho it was the first time I'd tried rabbit!), a bean dish, a lamb stew and some courgette (zucchini) dish. After a long and late (it is Spain, after all!) dinner, we headed back to Nicky's flat for the evening.

On Saturday, we decided to go see some Gaudi architecture and I wanted to go to the Sagrada Familia, which is the cathedral designed by Gaudi, which has been under construction since 1882. It's quite an impressive thing, not least of which is the fact that they've been working on it so long! Nicky advised us to look long and hard at the outside and then decide if we want to pay the money to go inside. Well, the tourist in me won out and we paid the 8 Euros each to go inside. Unfortunately, there was a wedding under way, so most of the cathedral was blocked off and the rest was, well, unfinished. For an extra 2 Euros each we could go on the lift to the top of one of the towers, but the line was super long and we decided it really wasn't worth the extra money. It was quite amazing to see the pillars and ceiling that Gaudi designed to look like trees, with the holes in the ceiling allowing the light to come in just like a canopy of trees would. Beneath the church is a museum, which used to be Gaudi's workshop, where they had some interesting displays and original Gaudi plaster molds of the church facades and the like. That was worth seeing, I think, but soon we got a text from Nicky and we met up with her to go to lunch at a cafe.

Later that day, Nicky took us to Park Guell, which is a park that Gaudi designed near where he lived. The house he lived in is now a museum, which we did not go into, but there was plenty to see in the park! There were all sorts of musicians playing music in different parts of the park -- a very entertaining sort of gypsy brass band in the plaza area, a saxophone player in the cavern-like archways, acoustic guitarists, and jewelry and visual artists selling their wares. The park is quite amazing, with columns built like palm trees, archways shaped like waves, and a two tiered plaza area with lovely tiled benches all around, supported underneath by amazing columns with tiled decorations on the ceiling. That Gaudi guy was quite ingenious and the park obviously continues to inspire local artists.

Saturday night, we went out with Nicky, her friend Ana and her friend who was visiting from Norway. We went to a tapas restaurant and had a lovely assortment of "pinchos", salads, calamari and other stuff. Later we went out to a couple of bars to get our drinks on. At the first bar we had to fend off an older fellow who wanted to befriend us -- luckily, after some rather blatant discouragements, he left us alone. We went to a second bar and had a good time and before I knew it, it was 2:30 AM and we were headed off for one last drink with some of Nicky & Ana's friends at another bar. On our way to the last bar, unfortunately, Ana had her purse snatched and soon we were running and screaming down the narrow tiled streets of Barcelona after the purse snatcher. Nicky pursued him the longest, but was still unable to find him. So, that put a rather dour mood on the evening. I found it a bit ironic that Ana was the only Spanish native in the group and hers was the purse that was taken. So, Nicky called the credit card company and whatnot to cancel Ana's cards and then we went and met up with the others, now at closing time at the last bar and Ana and her friend decided to join the others at an after hours bar, while Nicky, Susan and I decided to call it a night.

After our late night of drinking, we had a slow start to our Sunday. Susan and I decided to go tour the Casa Batllo, another architectural wonder by Gaudi. This one was a private mansion and again displayed Gaudi's incorporation of light, air and designs taken from nature. It was well worth the hefty entrance fee (I think it was 16 Euros each?) and was quite beautiful. Afterwards, we joined Nicky for lunch and then we borrowed her neighbor's bike and utilized one of the ample city-provided bikes (which can be used by residents with a rental card) to ride around the city and along the coast. Still feeling a bit hungover, we spent a quiet evening at Nicky's flat and watched a few episodes of "Bro'Town", a popular cartoon about Islander and Mauri kids in Auckland, NZ (somewhat like the Cosby Kids) that Nicky had on DVD and then we packed and got ready to leave for Liverpool in the morning.

Here are the rest of our photos from the weekend in Barcelona:
http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/Barcelona2007

Photos from the Lake District - Part 2

2007-11-20T04:25:00.000-08:00

Now for some "real" photos from the Lake District. From the weekend on which we actually went hiking. The fall leaves were just coming into full color and we even had one sunny day! Saturday was a bit moist and we got quite wet by the end, so mountains and hills were in the clouds, but Sunday was lovely.

Thankfully, we did NOT get locked out of our youth hostel, although we nearly did. On Saturday night, we decided to go to a late movie (we saw "Control" about Ian Curtis, singer of Joy Division) in the nearby town and didn't realize there was a CURFEW at which time they LOCKED the doors of the hostel. We pounded and screamed at the door, to no avail. Luckily, I had the Youth Hostel phone number programmed into my cell phone and someone actually answered the phone at around midnight when we called! They contacted the person with the key to let us in (who was just next door, looked half asleep and not very happy, unfortunately). We were quite grateful because it was very wet, cold and windy that night...

Anyway, we had a couple of nice day hikes amongst the Herdwick sheep and saw some fantastic views on Sunday from the hilltops. Here are here are the photos we took of our hikes around the Langdale region.

http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/HikingInLakeDistrict

Southport, Ainsdale & Hilbre Island

2007-11-16T02:58:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, we took a day-trip to Southport and Ainsdale. We weren't terribly excited by Southport, as it was a place more for family entertainment than beach enjoyment, so we moved on to nearby Ainsdale, which had a nice hiking trail through the sand dunes. The thing that's very characteristic of the beaches here (and also very odd to me) is that they are very long, wide and flat. When the tide is out, the sand just goes on and on and on and there are hardly any waves from the ocean because it's such a flat shelf of beach. Subsequently, there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for kite karting, which is the sport of rolling around in a three-wheeled cart, powered by the wind using a kite. We saw a lot of kite karters on the beach in Ainsdale for some racing event that day.

Taking in the view on Hilbre Island

We also took a day trip to West Kirby, which we heard was quite nice. Luckily, our landlady warned us that we need to be apprised of the tides in West Kirby because the thing to do is to go to Hilbre Island. So, we found out what time we needed to be there and joined the hundreds of people walking across the sand at low tide to check out the views from Hilbre Island on a beautifully sunny day. Turns out that it's a couple mile walk around/over Middle Eye (or middle island) to Hilbre Island. I felt like I was on some pilgrimage across the desert (except it was beach sand, not desert sand). Anyway, it turned out to be well-worth it, as Hilbre Island is quite a charming little island with a few houses and an old abandoned lifeboat station (in use ca. 1840's - 1930's), with views of a distant seal colony and the mouth of the River Dee where it meets the ocean. The only thing that was missing was our packed lunch, which we didn't know in advance to bring. So, we trekked back to West Kirby and found a charming little cafe in which to refuel before we hopped on a train to head back to Liverpool.

Here are some photos I took that weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/SouthportHilbreIsland

Yes, I'm still here!

2007-11-15T13:24:00.000-08:00

Yikes, it's been nearly a month since I last posted anything here. Well, I do have a valid excuse -- we've been without internet access at the house for over three weeks and I've spent my precious hours online checking email or doing work, so haven't had time to post anything. Sorry folks.

So, what have the Kiwi and I been up to? Well, I've applied for school in Brisbane and have been accepted to two of the three schools I've applied to. I heard from the one I wanted to go to most within two weeks, which I thought was pretty amazing, considering I'm in the UK, my "permanent" address is in the US and the school is in Australia. I'll be going for a Masters in Information Technology at Central Queensland University. So, I'm pretty psyched about that.

I also started some volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity and have met some interesting folks there. I've especially enjoyed meeting an Iranian refugee woman who volunteers with Habitat. It's been interesting hearing about her experiences and views of the world. Today, I learned that she watched the "Six Million Dollar Man" on TV as a child in Iran. Who knew? I also learned about how they bury people to their shoulders and then stone them to death for converting to Christianity in Iran. So, as you can imagine, she's quite happy to be living in the UK and hopes to get a permanent visa in the next few months. I hope it goes well for her.

Our recent weekend excursions include: going to West Kirby and walking out to Hilbre Island, which was quite lovely. We also went back to the Lake District with Jo to go hiking. In the Lake District, we spent the night at a Youth Hostel in Langdale (which we nearly got locked out of for being out past the curfew which we knew nothing of) and two days of quite nice hikes. We also tried some famous gingerbread in Grasmere, which is somehow a crumbly, somewhat chewy concoction that looks a bit like graham crackers, but is much yummier. Last weekend, we went to visit Susan's relatives in West Mersea, not far from Colchester and then I spent a day in London by myself before returning on a convoluted series of trains (really, the train system here is quite maddening and expensive!) due to my discount ticket.

I'll post some photos a bit later, once I get caught up...

Wales: Betws-y-Coed and Conwy Castle

2007-10-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we ventured off to Wales in search of some castles. We haven't really ventured out to see any of those yet and we had picked up some helpful brochures in Chester (with both English and Welsh translations) about castles in Wales. After reviewing the train routes, I decided that we only would really be able to get to two castles by train: Dolwyddelan and Conwy. After a nearly fruitless search for places to stay, I finally found us a hotel that had space and would allow us to book for only one Saturday night (we're on a budget, here) in Betws-y-Coed. It seemed that Betws-y-Coed is quite the hot-spot for tourists to launch their outdoor excursions, so it seemed like a good place to stay. Upon further searching, I found that there was what seemed to be a popular mountain biking trail in Betws, so I thought that might be a good idea for us as well.

After gathering the somewhat confusing train schedule information, Susan found out that a classmate of hers was planning to take a trip to Wales also. He was planning on leaving at 6:30 AM (ugh), which would get us into town at around 8:30 AM, which seemed much better than getting there closer to noon by train. So, I sucked it up and agreed to wake at that ungodly hour for the free and early transportation (mind you, a one-way train ticket isn't much cheaper than a return ticket).

So, we arrived in Betws and Alex and his friend, Bill, were hungry and we weren't sure what would be open, so we stopped in a lovely, though somewhat pricey cafe' where we could get some coffee/tea/breakfast. Alex and Bill were heading out to the wilderness to train for some foot race that involves reading a map, so they wanted to stop in the local outdoor sports shop to see if they had any maps that would be at the unusual scale they expected during the race (the unusual scale of the map makes things tougher, apparently) so that they could get used to it. While we were in there, Bill said that the book that he had an article in was in the store. Suze and I asked him to show it to us. To our surprise, the book was on the Sahara and Bill's article was about the care and feeding of camels, for desert travel purposes! Not what we expected at all. We glanced over the article and he showed us photos of him (which were indistinguishable because he was wearing a turban, etc.). Anyway, we were amused by the last sentence of his article, which said something like "I hope I never see another camel again."

Soon, Alex and Bill were off on their excursion and Suze and I ventured over to the Visitor's Information office to gather basic info. We found out where the bike hire place was and got the local train and bus schedule. So, we ventured over to the bike hire place and found out that they were all out of bikes. After Susan prodded him a bit, he did give up the information that there was another place that hired bikes. (Funnily enough, there was never a mention of the other place from the Visitor's Centre.) So, we found our way to the other place and they luckily had some bikes available. We dithered a bit, trying to determine whether to attempt to take the bus to Dolwyddelan Castle first or rent the bikes, bring them back and then go to the castle. The guy at the rental shop explained that we'd need at least 2 hours to do the castle, so we decided to go biking first and get a later train to the castle.

So, we changed into some biking clothes and got ready to go. We had a map that we got at the Visitor's Centre and which the guy at the shop had embellished with further information. He gave us some basic guidance on how to get to the trail and we were off.

An hour and a half later, we still hadn't found the trail. The guy at the shop made it sound very nearby and simple to find. What we discovered is that there are a number of forestry roads that were unmarked on the map and we took off on a road that had nothing to do with the map. We rode back and forth cluelessly, then, found our way to a very steep road, where we saw two guys with mountain bikes climbing up. This seemed like a good sign. We climbed and climbed up this steep road that was too steep to actually ride, so we were walking our bikes up the hill (me, more than Susan, of course). Then we came to a farm. We then saw a sign for a road to a landmark that was on the map. About 2 miles later, we found the trail. By this time, we were already winded and exhasted! We encountered a group of guys who seemed to be nearly as exhausted as we were at the trailhead. We then got out the map again to figure out how much of the trail we wanted to do (as there were a number of forestry roads that we could take as a shortcut), as we had already lost two hours in the search for the trail and were only planning to rent the bikes for a half-day). The guys were interested to see the map also.

So, we got on the trail, stopped for lunchtime break near a lake along the trail and got the useless map out frequently to try to make sense of where we were on the trail. The trail wasn't as long as it seemed on the map, but I felt like there was a LOT more uphill climbing than downhill (Susan said it was because it takes longer to climb and only SEEMED that way). Anyway, we saw some lovely scenery and the trail was quite nice, but near the end, I became exhausted and started hyperventilating (I'd forgotten to bring my inhaler with me), so we had to find the nearest path back. As it was, we had already taken the bikes for longer than we had intended.

So, by the time we got back, I was completely exhausted and had no intention of going anywhere but to our hotel room for some R&R. We checked in and found ourselves in a lovely room that had been recently remodeled with a HUGE bathroom. We were especially excited to have a bathtub at our disposal (a luxury we don't have in our current housing situation). Naturally, we took advantage of it and took a nice, long bath to wash off the grime and warm up from the dampness from the drizzly day. Susan inquired about whether we were going to the castle and I decided what I need was some food, hoping that would perk me up a bit. So, we ventured out to pub next door and had ourselves a pint and some good, hearty Welsh dinners. After dinner, we saw the guys that we'd met on the bike trail and they said that they got off the trail soon after we saw them -- obviously, they were worn out from all the hill climbing and now we knew why they were so interested in our map! That night was the World Cup rugby match between England and France, so we took a walk around town and went back to watch some of the game at the pub.

Sunday, we got up and enjoyed our lovely complimentary Welsh breakfast at the hotel. We both had ham and eggs, as well as really good Welsh yoghurt and cereal. We had some more confusion over bus schedules and went back to the Visitor's Centre to find out when we could go to Conwy to see the castle there. Unfortunately, we were told that the bus didn't leave until around 11:30, but we later figured out that there were earlier buses. Oh well. We finally got on the bus and took a ride through some very scenic Welsh countryside to Conwy, where we got to walk on the City Wall and paid our entry fee to scramble around Conwy Castle.

Conwy Castle was built around 1287 and is in impressively good shape. They had rebuilt many of the circular stairs so that tourists can walk all the way to the tops of most of the towers (I can't even imagine being the Queen in all her regalia walking up and down those stairs). The tops of the towers provided impressively good views of the city and surrounding areas. One of the towers was the Chapel Tower, where they held Christian services -- they had actually rebuilt the floors and roof, and on the lowest floor of the tower, they had a museum display about tower chapels used in castles. Most of the towers did not have floors in them anymore. The interesting tidbit about the Prison Tower was that the bottom-most floor was only accessible by a trap-door in the floor, i.e., it was a point of no return. Rather grim, but it was better, in my opinion, than the castle I went to in Ghent where they had a whole display about the torture devices used in medieval castles. There seemed to be no mention of this at Conwy Castle.

We spent a couple hours walking around the castle and then it was time for us to find yet another pub for our late afternoon meal and to catch a train back to Liverpool.

More photos of Betws-y-Coed and Conwy Castle here: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/WalesBetwsYCoedAndConwyCastle

Blackpool and The Lakes District

2007-10-10T04:28:00.001-07:00

Blackpool Tower

This past weekend, we went to visit Susan's friend Jo, who lives near Lancaster in a town called Caton. Jo invited two other friends, Sonia and Hilary, to her place for the weekend as well. We went to Blackpool -- it was fun, though quite cheesy. Blackpool is a seaside resort town, somewhat like a gigantic Coney Island, complete with a gazillion streetlights, a huge lookout tower (which looks a bit like a mini Eiffel Tower), various amusement parks, casinos, horse and buggy rides, trolley cars, donkey rides on the beach, wax museum, Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, etc. etc.

We took the train to Blackpool North, which we later discovered was really on the wrong end of town, because Jo bought us tickets to the amusement park called Pleasure Beach. It was a lovely, warm (for UK), sunny day and it was a rather nice stroll to the park. However, the plan was for us to go to an ice show in the park, so as we strolled along the beachfront promenade (which, unfortunately, was also under reconstruction), we suddenly found ourselves in a rush to get to the park and to the ice show on time!

Jo, Suze, Hilary & Sonia

Amazingly, after much confusion at the park entrance, we managed to get into the show (there wasn't really a cutoff for audience arrival anyway), running past some skaters about to take to the ice backstage and finding some seats. Really, there weren't any bad seats in the house. Although, the costumes for the ice show were a bit hideous and Susan and I were having fun laughing about the paltry budget the costume designer must've had.

Pepsi Max Big One!

After the show, we ventured off into the park to find some expectedly bad fast food and then went off to hit some rides. Jo's friend Hilary, explained to us that Blackpool is "famous" for it's "rock", by which we learned was actually rock candy, not mineral deposits found on the ground. We went to ride the Space Invaders 2 ride (like Space Mountain at Disney World) and while we were in line, Hilary and Jo went off to buy us all some rock. I was even more surprised to find out that the rock candy is really peppermint sticks with an outer coating of colored candy (my definition of "rock candy" is clumps of colored hard candy that looks like rocks). Some of them had "Pleasure Island" emblazoned into the middle of the peppermint stick. It was a nice treat, some of which I saved for an "after dinner mint" (to settle my tummy after my dinner of fish & chips that I ate while walking back to the train station that evening). Later, we enjoyed a couple rollercoasters, especially the Pepsi Max (TM) Big One, which sports a 235 ft. high hill and speeds up to 87 MPH! We rode the Big One at sunset so we had a lovely view of the sunset over the ocean from an extraordinary height! (although, it was a bit frightening, I admit).

Sunday, we went to Jo's family's farm in the village of Witherslack, which is in the Lakes District, for a huge Sunday roast dinner prepared by Jo's mother. The dinner was quintessentially British, complete with plenty of Yorkshire pudding, Brussels sprouts, potatoes and a custard pudding for dessert. Mind you, the word "pudding" is synonymous with "dessert" in England, unless it's Yorkshire pudding, blood pudding or probably a dozen other non-dessert puddings which I'm not yet privy to. A bit confusing to my American sensibilities, although the Kiwi finds it perfectly normal (mind you, her mother IS British).

Grooming Mr. Chips

Before dinner, we met Mr. Chips, Jo's horse and Jo employed me and Susan to help with grooming his mane and tail. After dinner, we took him out for a ride, along with two bikes they had at the farm which were, of course, both too big for my short little legs. Unfortunately, the one with the smaller frame had a rusted seat post that required a wrench to adjust, so I had to ride the bigger one with the adjustable seat. It was a bit excruciating after a huge Sunday roast dinner that Jo's mom cooked for us, since I had to double myself in half over my very full belly to reach the handle bars. Going up hills threatened to prompt a revisit with dinner, but luckily I managed to keep it all under control.

After a short while, Jo, gave up the reins to Susan and then later to me. I was a bit concerned about being able to ride Mr. Chips with my short little legs, and it's true that Jo put the stirrups on the shortest setting and they were just barely short enough.
Thankfully, Mr. Chips was very gracious about his new human riders and he heeded our inexpert commands very nicely. At one point, while Susan was riding, a car had come rather quickly around a blind curve and Mr. Chips stopped and remained quite calm when faced with the vehicle suddenly in his face. Thankfully, horse and car driver were quick to brake and there was no accident!

Soon, it was time to head back to the train station and to make a rather confusing journey back to Liverpool (trains weren't running in parts, so we had to take a bus instead). All in all, it was a good weekend.

More pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/BlackpoolLakesDistrict

UK Postal Strike

2007-10-04T02:32:00.000-07:00

Well, I did actually get around to buying some post cards and was seriously thinking I might actually write some and even mail them soon. But, then I was listening to the radio (good thing, too!) and heard something about a UK postal strike. So, I went to the BBC website, and sure enough, I heard right. They're on strike and asking the public to hold back on mailing stuff to avoid a "logjam" of mail. Here's the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7027142.stm.

Well, sorry folks, you'll just have to wait a bit longer for those postcards (I know you were just DYING to get one). I hope they get it resolved soon -- these sorts of things can get messy fast!

Weekend excursions

2007-10-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Susan and I went to Chester, which is a charming walled city with lots of medieval buildings and some Roman ruins and history. It was an easy 45-minute train ride from Liverpool, so it made for a good last-minute day trip. We took a stroll around the wall of the city, were a bit non-plussed by the Roman ruins, and were surprised to stumble upon a horse race entirely viewable from the city wall at England's first ever race course (built in 1549 or something like that?). I took some photos and posted them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/ChesterEngland.

We also ventured to New Brighton because Susan had a hankering for the ocean. We just strolled along the promenade in the afternoon, but aside from a nice walk, it wasn't terribly interesting. Surprisingly enough, when we got off the train, we found one of Susan's classmates walking back to the New Brighton train station. A small-world moment. We had a late start to our day, so we didn't make it to West Kirby as we'd initially planned, which was a bit further and is better when the tides are low (in order to venture off to Hilbre Islands).

I've also posted some other photos of Liverpool. I'll probably continue to post photos of Liverpool in this same album, as they come. http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/Liverpool2007.

Penny Lane & Liverpool Nightlife

2007-09-27T02:08:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, we joined a group of about 20 from Susan's class on a taxi Beatles tour. Of course it was cheesy, but it was good to see more of the city and socialize a bit with the others. When we started out, it seemed our taxi driver was obsessed with doors. The first place he took us was to the door of the place that used to be the consulate where John & Cynthia got married. That's about how he told it to us and we were all confused. None of us were big Beatles trivia buffs, so we didn't even realize John was married to a Cynthia. (Guess if I'd thought about it, I'd realize that was Julian Lennon's mom.) Then he took us to the Liverpool Institute of Art, where Paul went to school and now apparently he bought and owns the school. Again, our taxi guide took us to the doorway and seemed to make a big fuss about how it was "where Sir Paul walked into the school" -- I just never got that excited about doorways, myself.

Anyway, the tour got a bit better as it went on, but there were other oddities, like when they made us go inside the "barber shop" (now, more like a beauty salon) on Penny Lane to have a group photo while we held a Penny Lane sign up. Really, the photo could've been taken anywhere and it was hard to get 20 of us in the photo, considering it was so small. But, we now have photographic evidence of the event.

We also took a look at what used to be the bank on Penny Lane (which they also sing about in the song, sort of). The place has since become a surgeon's office. Our taxi driver couldn't understand why the group was getting all excited about a plaque on the wall. What he didn't realize is that the tour group was a bunch of doctors taking a course at the School of Tropical Medicine and the plaque had the name of one of the surgeons who had taken the same diploma course (as shown by the letters behind his name) that all these doctors are in. It was a geek-out moment for the doctors.

I think my favorite part of the tour is when we went to the church where John and Paul met (at the tender ages of 15 & 17!) and they had a picture of the yellow submarine that John drew when he was a kid. The story is that John and his friend David (who donated the picture) saw a beached whale when they were kids and apparently the whale was decaying and yellowed as a result. Hence, the inspiration for John's drawing shortly thereafter.

Saturday night we went to some clubs -- good lord, the place is hoppin' on weekends! We saw this guy, Joe Driscoll (from New York), perform. He was a one man-band with loop pedal an octave pedal and guitar -- he did beat boxing and rap type stuff -- I liked it for about the first three songs and then it got kinda old and gimicky. He did a cover medley of a Led Zeppelin song (No Quarter, I think it was?) and then went into "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" by the Beastie Boys. His guitar was out of tune and so it was kinda bad -- we left shortly thereafter... Anyway, people go out at night here -- there's an area where all the nightclubs are and there are millions of people everywhere! Quite different from the US, for sure. It was quite overwhelming, really. The girls all dress in next to nothing with stiletto heels and lots of sequins and glitter, and we were all bundled up in jackets and jeans feeling overdressed and under-dressed all at once, yet amused by the outlandish attire.

This weekend our plan is to go to Chester and see what there is to see there. We thought about going to Edinburgh, but transportation confusing and surprisingly expensive (yeah, we know, people warned us about that). Chester will be much simpler and cheap and something new, so hopefully we'll have a good time with that.

Liverpudlian

2007-09-19T08:55:00.002-07:00

Everyone here talks like the Beatles. Or worse, at which point we just can't understand each other (sometimes, anyway). I stopped into a bike shop to inquire about cheap, student rate bikes (we're feeling poor due to weakness of the US dollar right now). The guy said the cheapest he had was for 90 quid, "the blue one over there." I said, "This one right here?" He said, "You call that white?" Nevermind. Note to self: Only Americans use the term "right" to mean something immediately near oneself.

Home Sweet Home

So, I've walked all over Liverpool -- well, round in circles, really. From home to the University (of Liverpool) to City Centre (downtown) and back again. My knees hurt from all that walking. And my shoulders, because I was carrying my backpack with my laptop in it to try to find some WiFi spots. There aren't many. Thankfully, I fixed the wireless in our homestay house. By moving it to a phone jack that actually works, as opposed to the former one which apparently didn't. Not so many tech geeks in Liverpool. It's an adjustment for me.

I haven't hit all the Beatles tour spots like Penny Lane or The Cavern. I figure I shouldn't blow my wad all at once. It's a cool city -- lots of bustling and whatnot. They're supposed to be the Cultural Centre of Europe in 2008, so there's lots of construction and cranes EVERYWHERE.

Liverpool: City of Cranes

There was some round the world yacht race that started here the first weekend we were here. On our second day here, we took a bus and found the bus detoured because of some women's cycle race in Sefton Park *just* before we were about to get off the bus. Then we kept going and going and then some nice people explained to us where we were (as if we knew anything on our second day). Thankfully, the good doctor remembered that Smithdown Road is where all the shops are where we're to go shopping because it's near our new home, so we got off near there and found our way back. So, that was fun.

Aye, we made it!

2007-09-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

Hello world. We are in Liverpool now. Once we landed on solid British soil and we were in transit at the London Heathrow Airport from one terminal to another, I looked at my favorite Kiwi and said "We're in England!" Her response was: "well, we're still in transit." I didn't quite get it until we went through Immigration in Manchester. Yikes, it was a bit scary -- the Immigration Officer was a bit suspicious as to why I might want to spend three months on travel in England while my sweetie went to school the whole time. Finally, after much interrogation and a couple phone calls by the Immigration Officer, she let us through. I had forgotten about the queries about whether we have enough money to spend while in England, so I didn't bring a bunch of bank statements or anything. But it seems that by explaining that we are a couple trying to establish interdependence for possible Australian immigration, she was finally satisfied. Whew!

So, we caught our train from Manchester to Liverpool, then a cab to our new homestay near Sefton Park. At first, we were greeted by the neighbor, Barbara, who was cleaning and helping out our landlady, Brigitte, who was out on errands. We hoisted all our luggage up three flights of stairs to our charming pink bedroom. Shortly thereafter, Brigitte showed up and we were amused to meet the somewhat funky London native. She offered to take us in the car around town and show us the way to Liverpool University and Smithdowne Street, where all of our retail needs would be met. It was a lovely sunny day and we attempted to maintain as much information as we could in her whirlwhind tour of Liverpool in our jet-lagged states. As it turned out, Brigitte was planning to go away with her husband and two daughers (all of whom we met very briefly) for the weekend and leave us to the house by ourselves.

T-Minus One Month

2007-08-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

Travel distances from Christchurch, NZ

Yes, it's true. I'm becoming an accidental world traveler. I've never had a strong inner calling for world travel; yet, here I am counting down the days until I hop onto a plane to cross "the pond" to start a new life, starting with three months in Liverpool, England and then off to Melbourne, Australia in December 2007 and then... who knows?

My friend, R, is jealous of me because I've already been to more continents than her. She aspires to see the world, and her goal is to visit every continent (except, perhaps, Antarctica), while I've managed to visit more than her "accidentally"! Well, not entirely... but that's how it feels. In some ways, it feels like it "just happened" without any real intention of my own, except to be with the one I love.

So, I've found myself in a relationship with a world-traveling doctor from New Zealand. It's kind of fun to say that -- it sounds so exotic and adventurous. But, in actuality it's true... and it's the most efficient way to explain my situation. In New Zealand, world travel is a national past time. I suppose it makes sense, if you think about the fact that the country consists of a couple of small islands about in the South Pacific, with the nearest neighboring land mass (Australia) being some 2000km away . So, naturally, world travel is no big deal to the New Zealander because everything is far away from their homeland!

This is a bit difficult for us those of us in America to understand. Ours is a large country, with so much at our disposal that many Americans simply can't understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else. It is expansive, with every extreme of heat and cold, wet and dry climates, and a wonderful collection of flora and fauna. To show our love for this land, we've built wide open roads to drive our millions of beloved cars back and forth over it. I, like most Americans, have grown accustomed to all the comforts of our home: central heat and air conditioning, dozens of choices for any consumer product that one can possibly imagine, and a ravenous hunger to burn up as much petroleum in as many ways as we can. America fancies itself as the world police, with a government that stampedes the planet like a bull in a china shop. We are a young country with a short history and a big, fat ego. Nothing more than spoiled children. Yes, I am entirely guilty of being an American born into a world of convenience and competitive low prices for goods that I don't even need. And now I will see where it all began -- from where the Imperialists came to pillage and conquer foreign lands and then forced them to succumb to European ideologies. Ideologies that are due for a makeover.

I will only be a few short months in England. Once we move to Australia, I will find myself seeking not only new employment and a visa to allow me to stay in the country, but also a new spirit, a new mentality, a new paradigm that will allow me to keep up with the ever-ambitious doctor who already has her sights on Southeast Asia. So far, counting my own, I've been to four continents, two of which I've visited in the past year to be with my beloved Kiwi doctor. Who would've guessed I would end up in Africa, New Zealand, Europe and Australia in the span of a year? Certainly not me!

I was in dire need of a catalyst for change -- my life has been too stagnant for far too long. Mind you, I realize that going to England and Australia is hardly a far cry from the American way of life. However, for this American, who really never considered leaving the country (except for political asylum from our current "commander in chief"), it is a big deal. And, considering that my favorite Kiwi is not one to be "pinned down" to one country for very long, this is likely a mere introduction to a much greater worldly expansion for me. I can't wait to find out how I will "reprogram" myself in this new realm and to see what will happen next!

So, the intention for this blog is to write about my experiences, thoughts and ideas as I allow myself to plunge into this new expatriate lifestyle. It is for all my friends in the US who want to know what I'm up to. I hope I can keep up with it, to keep it interesting and useful. We shall see...