Driving on the wrong side of the road

Since my trip to New Zealand, I’ve been asked what it’s like to drive on the other side of the road. My short answer has, for some reason, been met with mixed reviews. Those of you who’ve driven on The Other Side, see if this checks out:

Imagine that you walk into a mirror, but it doesn’t break. Instead you pop through to the identical mirrored world on the other side, hop into a car and tootle off down the highway. Then you realize everything is backwards except you and everything’s insane. I think we all know what that feels like, right? Relatable stuff.

…I lost you, didn’t I. That description has earned blank stares from everyone but Alice and Jonathan Strange, so I’ll give you the long version:

Just looking
Parker and I hadn’t really planned to drive in New Zealand.

Auckland: A To-Do List

Here’s an Auckland to-do list, in chronological order.

We were in Auckland longer than we’ve been in any single place since (11 days), so if you start going ADD on me I’ve conveniently bolded the headlines for you.

Day 0: Sleep.
But first, get really excited about the view out the front window of the folks who have graciously taken you in:

Looking over this balcony is when it hit me that I am now on the other side of the planet.

Day 1: Sleep.
It’s important to hit the ground running. So be sure to do that tomorrow.

Fiji: land of tropical fruit, tourist traps and killer weed whackers

About one month ago I quit my dayjob and joined my buddy Parker LiaBraaten on a three month journey through New Zealand. We left armed with a handful of names and addresses and two backpacks each. We’ve just concluded the first leg of our journey: the north island. So, time to catch you up. First up: the flight over and the stopover in Fiji.

Adventures in Babysitting: The Supper

Nick, age 4, Mom and I sit at the dining room table eating chicken. I’m paying special attention to my table manners, being careful to set a good example for Nick.

Lost and homeless 4,650 miles from home at 1 a.m. in a ghost town. No big deal.

So I got a little distracted for about 3 months, but here’s part 2 of the Milan/Austria adventure. If you’ve forgotten the first half of the story, it’s over here. And if you can’t be bothered to read that, I present the 10 second, sentence fragment summary: went sightseeing in Milan, Italy. Took bus back to wrong airport. Flight was going to leave in an hour and a half. Freaked out. Paid 250 Euros for van that sped to the right airport. Made it to our gate with about 10 minutes to spare. Resumed breathing.

The flight was good

I forgot to include this brief gem of a social interaction last time, so we’re going to rewind the story. After I was relocated to my proper seat, I had the following conversation with the Austrian guy next to me.

Me: “Hi! How are you doing?”

Guy: “I am going to Vienna!”

Oh. Well. That really didn’t answer the question at all, did it.

Me: “Oh! Me too, I guess. And… how are you doing?”

Guy: “Yes.”

Me: “Ah.” *Awkward smile and nod.*

It was a good talk. I think we really bonded.

Paris, Day 2: The Eiffel Tower, and barking like a seal

(Here’s Paris: Day 1, if you missed it.)

Moulin Rouge: Not the Slovenian techno-pop band
The second day of the Paris trip started with a countdown and a blast off. Our first stop was the world-famous nightclub, Moulin Rouge (French for red windmill). We didn’t go in, but we did stand by the entrance and take some goofy pictures. This nightclub’s claim to fame is the large model moulin rouge (that’s still French for red windmill, if you forgot already) constructed on its roof, and the fact that this place has inspired at least 7 unrelated movies called Moulin Rouge. One is a pretty popular musical about a writer who falls in love with one of the nightclub’s dancers. Not to be confused with the Moulin Rouge from the 50s about an artist who repeatedly falls down a flight of stairs. And never ever to be confused with Moulin Rouge, the Slovenian techno-pop band from the 80s. Though I’m not sure how you ever could confuse those two, or why you’re even thinking about a Slovenian band from the 80s at all. They passed their prime at least 15 years ago.

According to the posters plastered everywhere outside, the dancers in the Moulin Rouge aren’t really big on wearing shirts. How about that. I don’t think that was in the movie. Either of them, though I’ve never seen the one about the guy falling down the stairs, so I guess I can’t be sure. Either way, let me repeat we didn’t go in. We did do the can-can ouside the entrance. We also made a human pyramid. We got a few strange looks. Probably because of Eric’s orange backpack.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Evil Fancyclowns in Milan, Prelude to Adventure

The journey to Austria was one of the craziest trips of my life. And if you know me at all you know that’s kind of saying a lot. But I’ll get to that in the next post. Before anything went too crazy, our little group had a fairly normal day seeing the sights in Milan, Italy:

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
The Galleria is what happens when you cross a palace with a mall. Under the disorientingly-impressive glass dome you have a few huge, super ritzy shops and… McDonalds. Of course.
Vodpod videos no longer available.

There’s also a famous mosaic of a bull on the floor. Apparently it’s good luck to plant your heel on the bull’s, uhh, lower extremities, and spin around 3 times. No, I don’t know why. I don’t think anyone does. But so many people have done it that there’s a huge hole worn into the stone where that bit of the bull should be.

We're pretty cool.

Honestly, I think the good luck part’s all a bunch of bull, considering our luck the rest of the day. I have the sneaking suspicion that some Milanese prankster and his friends just started doing this one day to see how many other people they could get to look like silly weirdos. Anyway, it’s working.

I got a bike, and it’s trying to kill me. But this nice guy named Jesus fixed it.

Walking: kills shoes, naps and travel plans. And people, when they blow away.

One of the most common European stereotypes of Americans is that they’re addicted to their cars. I think this is completely ridiculous…ly true. Here in Spain you would never think of driving to the grocery a mile away. Or even 5 miles away. You could definitely walk that. You probably spend over an hour a day walking here, minimum. As awesome as this is, I have a few problems with it:

• It did this to my shoes:

I call this the “classy hobo” look.

A third of my poor, overworked sole just fell off halfway through a crosswalk. I carried it around in my pocket the rest of the day because I didn’t know what else to do with it. Aaand, when this shoe died I was an hour and a half away from home, so I got to walk around like that for the rest of the day.

Classes, and Dashing Toward Them

This little list below has been my daily routine for the past 3 weeks. Except for when I have an evening class. In that case, my daily routine goes out the window and is replaced by a healthy amount of frantic dashing around, since I’m really not great at remembering that things like classes still exist after 3:00 pm. (For more on that scroll doooown.)

View from the bridge I cross every day.

The routine:

• Wake up at 7:20 am (midnight and a half back home)
• Squint at the wall until 8:00

Going Places: Spain in Pictures

I’ve been in Spain over a month already. Increíble. We’ve gone on quite a few little trips here, in and out of Seville. I could write 1,000 words about each of them, but really we should both probably doing something more productive right now, so I think instead I’ll just write 1,000 words and cram 1,000 pictures down your throat.

But not literally. That would be unpleasant and weird.

Note: If any of these slideshows are going too fast for you or if you want to see a larger version of a picture, just click the slideshow and it’ll open in a new page. Then you can go at your own pace.

Sept. 1 (3rd day in Sevilla): La Rábida…

La Rábida was a monastery that Columbus (Cristobol Colón in Spanish) hung out at for 2 years before he went on his little adventure to the new world. And it turns out one of the monastery dudes is the one responsible for Columbus actually getting to talk to Ferdinand and Isabella and get funding for the voyage. I wasn´t really paying much attention to the tour guide, but I think that’s its only claim to fame.

Highlights: 1. Some neat 3Dish paintings. (It’s like Avatar, but paintings! …And actually not at all like Avatar!) 2. Lifesize replicas of Columbus’ ships. They’re much smaller than I was expecting.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

People get really excited about Columbus over here. I get the feeling that if anyone brought up all the stuff they taught us in high school about how he was kind of a jerk and is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Native Americans… I dunno, you might get punched or something.