In the lane, snow is glistenin'

"Its like Edward Cullen is in the air!!!"
"CAMDEN IM GONNA SLAP YOU"

this was our exchange yesterday as we were skiing down big mountain. occasionally, if you're lucky, a magical thing happens on the mountain. driving up the day appears to be foggy and dreary and not too pleasant, but halfway up the chairlift a miracle happens. things start to get brighter. the fog starts to thin out bit by bit, and then all of a sudden you break free of the clouds into a land of impossibly blue skies, sparkling white snow everywhere, and trees that look related to the marshmallow man from ghostbusters. its amazing. its an inversion.
yesterday, the inversion was epic. on the lower half of the mountain the clouds were thin enough to still let a bit of light through. right before you broke out of the fog and into the bluebird afternoon the blue sky was visible above, but snow was still falling all around. im not a meteorologist, so i had no idea how this was happening, but it did prompt my sisters edward cullen comment. the clear, sunny air had a slight sparkle to i as you skied down the hill. at one point i stopped and looked out as the clouds were at eye level with me. it was like putting your eyes right at the edge of a table and looking at the surface- it seems to stretch for miles and miles, except these were clouds and they did stretch for miles and miles, interrupted only by the occasional mountain poking its head into the heavens above. gorgeous.

i honestly couldnt have asked for a better christmas day, which got me thinking about former christmas days. so now i will take you back through some of my fonder memories.

age 3 or 4- at this point in my life i was convinced that santa's big day was always right around the corner. whenever i heard anyone walking around the house at night i would spring from my bed and race down the hallway into the living room to make sure santa was not there putting presents out for me to play with. im fairly certain i did this whether it was the dead of winter or not. this christmas is the first that i can distinctly remember being amazed, dumbfounded, and all around astonished at santa's great feat. i woke up and went out to the living room while the house was still cloaked in darkness (not surprising though, sunrise is like 8:30am vampires would love it here.) there, waiting for me under the tree was the coolest train set i ever could have possibly imagined. santa had painted a piece of plywood green and blue to look like land and lakes and rivers, and then set up a wooden train set on the piece of wood for me to play with. i couldnt believe it. santa was the coolest dude ever. i played with those trains for years to come and if i could find them now i would definitely play with them again.

age 5?- one christmas, a couple years after the train thing probably, i asked for a barbie for christmas. well, skipper to be exact. barbie's sister. my uncle jamie heard this and said that if i was getting the barbie, then i also needed a GI joe. christmas morning rolled around and i opened my barbie and promptly set to work on making her tail change colors (she was a mermaind. nbd) and my GI joe was cast aside. fortunately it did not end up on the island of misfit toys, my baby sister adopted it instead. to this day i have never lived the barbie incident down- i have heard the story at least three times this christmas and it is also told regularly at family gatherings, birthdays and any time my family wants to embarrass me. damn you barbie and your color changing tail. damn you.

age 10- finally after years and years of begging, santa brought me a nintendo 64! my mom had sworn to never let video games in the house, but HA! victory is mine!!!

age 11- i was having some issues at this point in my short little life and the fact that my extended family had all decided to go to san francisco to see my cousins instead of coming to whitefish as usual made me very angry. i mean, so what that my aunt had had a baby on november 27th? we are way more important that a baby! plus i was bitter because i felt like everyone like them better than us (have i mentioned that im irrationally competitive and will resent even a baby for stealing attention from me?). a couple days before christmas rolls around, camden has some sort of swine flu predecessor, harrison, at age 5, has a perpetually runny nose with boogers everywhere, and I have a whole bucket of issues that kept my parents busy. they loaded us into the car and said we had to go pick up a package at the airport for our friend whose lugguage got lost or something. we stop in front of baggage claim and my mom drags me inside and i survey the scene. big deal, its a tiny airport in northwest montana- not much is happening. then i look at the christmas tree and see some people sitting under it... ok wierdos, so i kept kinda looking around. then i move closer to the tree and look again. HOLY SWEET LITTLE BABY JESUS!!!!!!! its my aunts holly and jennifer, my three year old cousin caroline, the infamous granny gigi, and my brand new three week old cousin alexandra, later to be dubbed lexie on a family vaca to the jersey shore. I was speechless and like... wow. best christmas surprise EVER. so after that we all did the whole christmas thing, blah blah blah, and we havent missed a christmas with that crew since then. also, fun fact- that was when zelda: occarina of time was all the rage. i got it for christmas to use on my N64. that shit gave me nightmares so bad i had to sleep on my parents floor for a month, and that was the end of video games in the covey household for a looong time.

age 18- im sure between the ages of 11 and 18 i had some great christmases with great memories, but im getting tired of typing, so we will fast forward a bit. that year we had a whole bunch of folks in town for the holiday festivities. gigi, grandma and grandpa covey, my moms sisters holly and jennifer, cousins caroline and lexie, my dads sister carmel and her husband richard and their two kids michael and andrew, and our friends from whitefish the whitakers. this whole clan had just finished christmas dinner and went out for our annual nog walk. this is where we walk around the loop in our neighborhood to help with digestion and drink ridiculously alcoholic and delicious eggnog. occasionally we sloppily carol to our neighbors. its good times. this particular nog walk our song of choice was "feliz navidad," but those are really the only two words we know of the whole thing, so to help us out jennifer and camden started talking in mexican accents, sort of like speedy gonzalez, and yelling "jorge go boom!" and talking about gang murders in new mexico, where jennifer lives. festive, eh? after the nog walk we went back into my house and turned on some bumpin tunes and my moms side of the family as well as some of the whitakers started dancing in the living room. my dad's side of the family, who are considerably more conservative and resereved, were not so impressed with our sweet moves and chose to watch from the sidelines. this was all well and good until my humps came on. its my mom's jam so of course good ole stace started to rock out (she dances with some aggressive arm motions). never one to be shown up, jennifer jumped up on a chair, put one hand against the wall to brace herself, and started slapping her ass while screaming "MY HUMPS! MY HUMPS MY HUMPS MY HUMPS!!!!" i died. i could barely breathe from laughing so hard. my dad's family took off faster than santa's eight tiny reindeer and, unfortunately i havent seen them since that christmas season. we may have scared them slightly. sorry for partying, jesus.

age 21- besides the epic ski day christmas has been an all-around good time. christmas ever i pounded a couple of brewskis before church and donned my purple tie that says "I <3 Jesus" and musical notes in shiny gold all over it. those catholics have never seen something so festive, im sure of it. after getting two new high scores on bejeweled while listening to an overzealous american idol reject sing religiously charged christmas carols (some of them IN LATIN! are you kidding me???), we set out for our delicious seafood feast waiting for us at home. successful night. christmas morn dawns and i start pounding water to counteract the christmas wine from the night before. presents start being thrown every which way and before you know it i have a new pair of skis, a New Zealand all blacks jersey (which im currently wearing) and a kindle (which i had told my parents i had no interest in a couple of days before... awkward.) at this point i was having conflicting feelings. i had just recieved some epic holiday cheer from santa and my family and i loved it and i was thankful, but at the same time i was a little bummed that i didnt get a new phone, which i wanted the most. its ok if you hate me for being an ingrateful bastard, i hated me too at that moment. then my mom said "ok one last present" and handed us little boxes. i thought it would be some cheesy thing that me, cam and har all got kindof as a joke. then we open them and see the trademark apple logo on the black box. wait... i already have an ipod. WAIT!!! HOLY SHIT AN IPHONE!!!!!!! we all started yelling and screaming at our brand new phones- this wasnt even in the cards. we dont have AT&T we have verizon, but apparently my parents had switched it on us without telling. sneaky sneaky. epic christmas surprise. yesssssssssss.

my friends in la they dont know...

well none of my friends know really. i imagine that many people out there have a vision of my life as a care free and lavish adventure spanning the globe from berlin to sydney and everywhere in between (except asia and africa- they have way too many peanuts involved for me to ever even set foot there). while that may have been true for a while, i have now been reduced to housewife status due to unemployment and a bank account that seems to drop precipitously with every passing day. gone are the days of surfing, scuba diving, and living in a van named gollum:



now my days really are what every housewife aspires to. i wake up at my leisure, drink my coffee and check the morning news (by morning news i mean facebook and twitter because lets get real, i could give a shit about the rest of the world). then i might have an omelet- egg white of course, choc full of veggies, followed by a nice work out. after getting all schwetty i generally eat a healthy lunch, i watch tv, search for a job, more facebook, and generally do nothing. eventually i make myself something delicious for dinner- a steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions in a red wine sauce perhaps, and watch more tv whilst drinking alone. today however, i am doing the other end of the housewife work spectrum: dishes and laundry. how fun is that!

in all reality though im just dead up bored. my friends are all still at school and i have little to entertain me besides illegally streaming episodes of bones online (i watched 14 episodes yesterday). i dont even have any funny stories to impart. i went to LA last weekend for a little getaway and while it was a barrel of laughs nothing outlandish happened. oh except that alyssa peed in a del taco cup on the bus on the way to the sorority function. that shit was funny. and i had an extremely awkward man from texarcana, arkansas sitting next to me on the plane. he kept trying to make conversation with me by way of looking out the window, away from me, mumbling something clearly intended for me to hear so i was forced to say "come again?" "whats that?" or "pardon?" roughly 34 times. i was just trying to read my book! he also was an AVID fan of sky mall. he picked it up and said "you know, they got some really good stuff in here. i've got my eye on a few things that i might just have to get." i was afraid to ask what for fear that he would indicate a yearning for the meerkat lawn statues or the neckpro traction device:

its a little too S&M for my liking but hey, whatever floats your boat. overall he was a nice guy but he clearly just didnt pick up the signals that i dont do small talk. i am content to sit in silence and mind my own business without any distractions about mountains or lakes or whatever else one can see from a plane.

so since that brief interaction i have been job hunting, house wifing and doing nothing. unfortunately no one is hiring. at all. at least im not above being a craigslist man whore for hire.

lionfish, tiger sharks and barracudas, oh yes

things i have learned:

swimming in rainforests is a clothing optional activity
wallabys, while cute, can be creepy
driving on the left side of the road is just stupid
aussies dont say shrimp on the barbie
aussie dudes straighten their hair and wear jorts and drink bitch beer and its acceptable
macdonalds is my favorite
koalas are heavy
i am not allergic to the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle
sharks do not think i am a tasty treat
it is possible to drank a coca cola at the bottom of the ocean under 80 feet of water


ok so i have been working on this post for like a week because i just dont have the time/energy/money to spend too long on the internet when i could be out learning/doing any of the aforementioned things. so i will just skip over part of my epic adventure (it would have been some good stories too)and move on to the most recent stuff. SCUBA SCUBA

last monday morning, so a week ago, kit and i started getting our dive certifications in Cairns, which is roughly two stone skips and a shark attack away from the great barrier reef- so pretty damn close. we were picked up, bleary eyed and discombobulated, at the ass crack of dawn outside of our hostel. we mumbled hellos to the other novice divers anxiously picturing their own watery deaths (ok maybe it was just me) and went on to pick up a couple more people, including Mei. now mei is a special one. she is from china i think, but currently lives in scotland. if you have never heard a thick asian accent mixed with a twinge of scottish gruffness then you have never truly lived. its as if jackie chan and fat bastard had a ridiculously uncoordinated and awkward child. i may be in love. mei's grand entrance into my life will forever be remembered. as she attempted to hoist herself into the passenger seat of the large child molester-esque van that we all were riding in, she failed. apparently after hefting her bag into the car she only managed to get half her ass onto the seat, and then she fell like the berlin wall out of the van and onto the pavement. OHHHHHH SHIIIT. that just happened. no worries mei, just dust yourself off and pick up your dignity from the sidewalk. she needed it you see, because she had plenty more opportunities to lose it throughout the week, but more on that later.

our first two days of diving were split between a classroom, where this mad cool instructor janine would train us in the theory of breathing underwater. let me sum it up for you- dont hold your breath, dont run out of air, and dont be retarded, you are not going be attacked by a megaladon while diving (that was my real main concern). suffice it to say that monday and tuesday were sufficiently boring, however mei did manage to nearly drown in the 12 foot deep pool. janine had to haul her up from the bottom and hold her head above water whilst mei gasped for air and refused to inflate the inflatable vest that ones wear scuba diving. oh mei, how i cherished your plump little face compressed in the folds of the BCD while janine held you, tenderly, by your airtank and yelled "INFLATE MEI! INFLATE!" i nearly j'd in my p on the spot.

finally, bright and early on wednesday morning- and i mean bright and fuckin early as in 6am, we boarded our trusty ocean faring vessel and headed for the reef. on the ride out there we made better friends with our fellow scuba enthusiasts including three hilarious irish girls, a really cool couple from the UK, a Czech guy who spear fishes and a doctor from LA who may be my new hero because she went to an ivy league school, graduated with a degree in engineering, went home and waitressed for a while, worked in animation for several years and now is an ER doc and goes on badass vacations on the side. kit and i now have hope that we will be successful and productive human beings... someday. three hours later we arrived on the reef and suited up for our first dive.

the first day we did two dives and it was pretty damn awesome. we saw a giant moray eel with a green head and spots all over his body. the fish there are unreal. they are everywhere and waaaay bigger than any that i have seen in the past. absolutely massive buggers. especially these ones called bumperhead parrot fish. they are like two feet long and 18 inches high and they just sit in schools and drift. not even swim. drift. we also saw some christmas tree worms, which are way cooler than they sound, turtles, and stingrays. epic.

the next day we saw alot more of the same, including nemo and dory and the dude with the scar in the fishtank. on one dive we even saw TWO sharks. count em. TWO. i didnt even poo my wetsuit either. i was so stoked. mostly because they were little bastards. even so, i was trying to make friends with them.

that night we had a night dive. i hate going into the ocean at night. hate it. all my years of shark week and animal planet and steve irwin have taught me that night time is when the scary shit comes out to get you. however, i was not about to pass up this opportunity. right before we got in the water we all ate dinner. after dinner we rinse the plates in the water and usually fish school all around the boat. usually these fish are red and kinda cool. this time however there was a six foot shark cruising around with them. what the eff. i did not sign up to swim with a six foot shark at night. hell to the no. oh god. my adrenaline was already pumping and we had an hour before we went under the surface. right after this janine gathered us around a table and gave us the DL about what we were going to do and see. she of course said that we were going to see some sharks and most of them would be harmless little reef sharks, but occasionally there are some larger tiger sharks and hammerheads. uuhhh what? i do not like that. not at all. i hate them in fact. my interest piqued i leaned forward across the table and tried not to soil myself (i'm a nervous poo-er what can ya do). janine continued, "occasionally these animals can get to be aggressive. if they start circling us and acting like they may attack, we are going to do whats called the ring of steel. we will all face inwards with our tanks facing out. this will help protect us from the animal if it should attack. after we link arms, what do you think we are going to do." some people not as versed in shark behavior said "go to the surface." WRONG BITCHES. sharks attack from below!!!! GO DOWN GO DOWN!!!! i knew this fact but at this point i had stopped producing saliva and my brain was slowly shutting down. "we will head to the bottom," corrected janine, "it doesnt matter what we are over, coral, sand, rocks, we will go to the bottom. now, right before the shark attacks, they will bump their prey. if this happens, there is really nothing that we can do. if the person next to you ends up getting bumped, let go of their arm. they are on their own to swim to the surface, we need to focus on getting the rest of us to safety." at this point i was on the verge of tears. my hands were shaking and i was about to pass out. several people let out some nervous laughter before janine and the other instructors on the boat burst out laughing so hard that i thought they were going to die. apparently there are no tiger sharks where we were, and they almost never see anything besides reef sharks. fuck that. i am sitting here having a panic attack and these idiots are hootin and hollerin like they're at a nascar race. however, i couldnt be pissed because i was laughing too and also so ridiculously relieved that i didnt have to worry about any more sharks. after that i happily went to put on my gear even though they staff played the jaws theme song complete with the blood curdling scream as we were being dragged into the water. i think that night took about six years off my life. oh and also we saw a sleeping lionfish- them shits are venomous. cool.

the next day we woke up for another dive- this time a deep dive because i decided to go for my adventure scuba dive certification. this means that i can go to 30 m- 99 feet without an instructor. after you hit about 23 meters the nitrogen levels in your blood build up significantly and everyone experiences something called nitrogen narcosis. its similar to being drunk, but more fun and waay more dangerous because you are under six stories of water and have a very limited amount of air before you die- especially me. i went through air like a fat kid at an all you can eat buffet. they had to give me an extra large tank just so i could make it down to the same level as everyone else. back to the dive- we got to 27 meters and janine had us do an activity where you point to 12 numbers in a grid in chronological order. the numbers go to 13, but skip 7. to be finished you had to tell her which number was missing. i was the last to go so i knew 7 was the missing number and i was all ready to go and get the thing done in record speed. i made it through all the numbers and then held up my hands proundly. nothing. janine was still timing me. i looked at my hands just to make sure it was right -five fingers on one hand and three on the other- 7. it took me several more seconds to realize that 5+3 is 8. what can i say i dropped out of school alright. after that game janine whipped out a coke in a can and popped the top. nothing happened- it just stayed in there. she proceeded to take out her reg and drink the coke. then we all passed it around the circle taking drinks of it. it was soooooo awesome. for some reason me and one of the irish girls thought this was hilarious- keep in mind you feel drunky this deep- and i ended up rolling around on the ocean floor because i was laughing so hard. probably one of the best experiences of my life.

after one more dive that lasted 54 minutes, my personal underwater record, we had to head back to dry land. bummer. that night however we did manage to go out and dance on tables with the other people from the trip. the only downside is that at one point i was deserted by my diving friends and left to dance with rosa and gerda- the german mother daughter team that did not talk to anyone all week but strangely went out and raged with us. the best part- rosa, the non-milf mother- doesnt shave her pits or her legs. wanna puke in your mouth yet? i know i sure do!

aussie hip hop? hellz yeah

who knew that aussies could be all thug life and shit. ok well they're not but this week at surf camp i was introduced to a whole new realm of musical possibilities: australian hip hop, specifically bliss n esso. it was waaaayyy cool. every morning on the way to the beach our instructor would bump it and i would just get amped for the day.

ok, now lets briefly rewind. i went to five days of surf camp which was awesome. effing awesome in fact. monday morning in sydney kit and i stumbled out of our hostel at 715 and dragged our bags do the bus station, briefly got way lost, and then eventually found our bus for Waves Surf School. for the next five days we surfed for hours on end on big blue foam surf boards (so we dont bonk our heads and hurt them, which is what happened to a wee british girl named joooodi) and then as soon as the sun went down it was party time. apparently there are three kinds of surf camps: ones that are serious about surfing, ones that surf alot with drinking on the side, and ones that drink alot with surfing on the side. this camp was the latter. the first night we played an uncomfortably sexual game of never have i ever in which you say things you had done and let me tell you the european girls are FREAKS. we're talking threesomes, foursomes, moresomes, lesbian experimentation, anonymous sex in alleys. WOW. after that i felt like the little sweet baby jesus compared to some of these people. no worries though, it didnt stop us from becoming fast friends... or not. almost everyone was german or german speaking (including a swiss-italian, let me tell you a deutch loving guido is not any better than the regular american verson) and kit and i were the only americans out of our group of 18. fine by me we had to rep america right. we did. everyone kept telling us "oohh you americans are lightweights, you are all idiots, you talk funny" well guess what bitches, the second night of surf camp was the biggest party of the week and 4 europeans puked. FOUR. how many americans? NONE. who was up raging the latest- you guessed it, AMERICA!!!!



this competitive streak in me resurfaced later in the week. a couple of times actually. the first was when we were having our end of the week surf competition. i was all gung ho to win and i surfed my ass off. i mean i got up on waves, i tried to do a sommersault while moving, i did the dead cockroach while moving, and did 180s on the board like it was my job. i thought i was a shoe in to win that shit, cuz lets face it, im a big deal. after our competition we ate lunch and waited for rhys, our instructor, to announce my victory. buut nooooooooooooo. the GD swiss guido won. doubleyoo tee eff. i totally was way cooler than him! and i dont have dumb pierced ears. bitches.



that night i got all competitive again. like unhealthily competitive. we went to this bar in byron bay called cheeky monkeys with the whole surf school crew and there was also another surf school there for their end of the week party. the issue? they were raging way harder than us. i was soooo mad. they were dancing on tables, drinking margaritas and getting rowdy. meanwhile, waves was just sitting and sipping our free beer. whaaat??? i thought we were supposed to be the partiers who only surf on the side!!! have i been mislead by my faithful leader/ aussie surf bum? NEVER. next thing you know i was bumpin and grinding on the table with the dirtiest of all dirty germans (no really, she did XXX rated things on the dancefloor on a previous night, dont worry, not with me though, i was preoccupied with a much hotter and less infected german). we rallied the troops, starting with my trusty partner, kit, and before you knew it we had ourselves a table dancing good time. we only stopped dancing for competitions involving mock fellatio onstage (...) and another little contest that i participated in that involved getting naked to win a skydiving trip. dont worry, i tried my damndest to get a free skydive but after stripping to my skivvies onstage in front of all my new BFFs i decided i would keep my boxers and my dignity on, put my pants back on, and got off stage.

its alright though... my consolation prize was a bangin goodbye kiss with the afformentioned hot and disease-less german. i gave her my heart... and my name for facebook and i dont even get a friend request in return. alas, i ache... i pine... i booze.

did we go to the pub?

yoooooooooooooooooo

the blue mountains were a spectacular sight to see indeed. we even made friends with our roommate, as i said earlier. well our second night at the far from lovely katoomba mountain lodge we were eating dinner when our friend came busting into the dining room, several beers deep, and told us that he had come specifically to take us out to the pub with him. ok i suppose we can handle that. after a couple drinks in front of the fire and being yelled at by the proprietors small daughter we braved the cold night. we arrived at the pub to only find like four people there. one of whom apparently knew our friend, whose name turned out to be angus. first thought upon learning that tidbit- burger. flame broiled angus burgers from burger king (which is called hungry jack's here) to be exact. we promptly moved to the pool table after brief introductions. the fellow who knew angus is named adrian, and kit and i are reasonably certain that he is homeless. he was wearing a flannel shirt, perriwinkle addidas track pants and some strange kicks. he also insisted on calling me mistah C and that i call him mister tiger. hes a bengals fan you see, so he was very sure that they would win the superbowl. even I, with my limited football knowledge, knew that it just wasnt going to happen. sorry mister tiger. you shall be disappointed.

after kicking tigers ass in pool we moved into the piano lounge. this really was just a restaurant part of the bar with a piano in it. the piano was occupied by a "bird" in a wig lookin thing that was more scary than endearing. she was playing for an american with dyed red hair who was deeply moved by the mediocre showtunes tinkling away on the piano, and a strange aussie man who reminded me of the cowardly lion, probably because he and angus harmonized on "somewhere over the rainbow." not to be outdone i gave my best when she started playing "piano man." unfortunately i couldnt compete with two grown men on the verge of tears (they were deeply moved as well). after asking angus not to hug her any more, the piano player excused herself for the night, as did kit and i. we bid adieu to our friends and headed back to our subzero lair for a long winters nap. the next morning we hightailed it out of there as fast as we could, but not before kit had the opportunity to speak to angus. he said "good morning, did we go to the pub last night?" apparently angus is a raging alcoholic and a highly functioning black out drunk. good on ya mate.

yesterday we returned to sydney and now we are gearing up for surf camp. last night we made normal friends at the pub next to our nice, clean, warm hostel and they even offered us a place to stay in bondi beach or to hook us up in new zealand. what swell folks. also at the pub, i reaffirmed by place in hell. after seeing a woman playing pool in a wheelchair i started pondering the logistics of drinking in a wheelchair. when you drink alot sitting down and then stand up, usually you are more intoxicated that you originally thought, but what happens when you cant stand up? i am actually curious about how this changes the logistics of inebriation. my world has been rocked.

tim tam titty tat tit tut

tim tams are the oreo's way cooler australian cousin. if oreos were waaay more delicious and then the center was filled with chocolate and then the whole shebang was then dipped in chocolate, then it would be a tim tam. i love them. the only issue is that i may or may not be allergic to them. i kinda got itchy scratchy after eating them, but they were so delicious that i ate more. hmm. well im not dead so i might as well keep enjoying, right?

at the moment i am in the uber chic Katoomba Mountain Lodge- by uber chic i mean kinda gross, dont want to touch the blankets and apparently there is no central heating. not to worry though- i have a sleeping sac and anti-freeze like vodka! i'll never be too cold now!

katoomba is in the blue mountains about two hours by train outside of sydney, and its amazing her. at first i wasnt sold because when we got off of the train wearing shorts and a tshirt, appropriate for sydney, i was bitch slapped with some frigid air and rain. not my cup of tea. oh well. after braving the streets of katoomba we settled on our current accomodation, mostly becuase it was cheap and close to the main road and i was a human popsicle. today, however, is much warmer and sunny and this place is AMAZING!!! i would instert a pic but this computer is a POS and not conducive to multiple windows being open. the town is up on a cliff, and then off of the cliff is about 1000 feet until a valley floor and tons of trees and other cliffs for miles and miles around. its pretty epic. we hiked down into the valley this morning and then back up the cliffs and i loved every minute of it. i cant wait to post pics, but i might not be able to for a looong time. like 6.5 weeks when i get home for turkey day. yum.

getting up to katoomba was an adventure. yesterday morning we woke up at our irish pub hotel, bolted our brekkie and booked it to the bus station so that we could go up to Hunter Valley wine country and get googily at wine tastings all day. after freaking out and finally finding the bus terminal, all the while shlepping our crap everywhere, we learned that the bus that we had just missed didnt even exist. in fact, there is no bus service to hunter valley anymore. FOL (thats f OUR lives for the slower students). there is a train but it will take you four hours and poop you out two towns away from wher you need to be. hokay. not so good. so kit and i go into zombie mode. if anyone has ever seen me try to make decisions under stress then you know that i am not so good. i sit, i stare, and i sulk. unfortunately, so does kit. we attempted to rent a car- fail, we attempted to find another bus tour- fail, we brainstormed other locations to go to- initial fail but that eventually led us to katoomba. also in our many fails we encountered an aussie woman who kept saying "okie kokie" like it was a perfectly natural thing to espouse in casual conversation. shits weird.

also, while in sydney, we booked more activities. our planning skills were not working out well despite kit and i both attending prestigious universities. after going to europe we figured hopping around australia would be a breeze, theres not even a language barrier. wrong. im not sure if you are aware, but this shits big. its like a whole continent. roughly the size of the US. and most of it is the bush. it doenst really embrace a quick hop on a train or bus. sydney to cairns on a bus is like 2 days straight. who knew. i thought it would be like ten hours- and thats only the east coast. we arent even venturing inland probably. after realizing that this continent is indeed huge we turned to our trusty travel agent friend, joshua, for help. now we are booked on a five day travelling surf trip from sydney to byron bay (just south of brisbane on the gold coast) and a five day scuba certification course including 2 days living aboard a boat on the great barrier reef!!!!!!!!!!! YESS YES YES YES. i am so excited. epic adventures hellooooo!!!! now all i have to do is see a kangaroo and i will be set.

alright folks, tonight we are hitting the town in katoomba, possibly with our roomie whose name we dont know even though we kicked it and had drinks with him for a good two hours last night. it was our first time getting moderately intoxicated and also our first time staying up later than 10. jetlag's a bitch.

$6 Jugs

G'day from sydney australia. after a 14 hour flight complete with in seat movies, three meals and exploding salad dressing, i arrived in sydney less than bright eyed and bushy tailed. kit and i schlepped our carry on rolly bags with matching backpacks and duty free booze off the plane, through customs and onto a free shuttle that seemed like it may abduct us into the outback instead of drop us off at our seedy hostel. i say seedy and i mean it sincerely. it was kinda dingy and gross, but we made friends with an irish guy this morning at 8 am. he was drinking red bull mixed with boxed wine. mmmm mmm good. he also told me i looked like a brad. oh well. i prefer my name anyways and we bailed on that hostel about three minutes later. now we are staying over a pub with our own room and bathroom. much more my style- you can buy cheap pitchers aka jugs of beer and then just toddle on up to the room for a nap. HOLLA

ok that last paragraph was kinda jumpin around and like wow. i need a second to collect my thoughts so that i can properly impart the wonders that i have beheld since in sydney.'



ok thoughts collected.

yesterday after checking into the hostel we grabbed a free map and started wandering the streets. we found a really cool old catholic church and strolled through a park. we took pictures in front of the opera house and even went inside for minute. very cool stuff- its really cavernous and a little intimidating. very opera-y. we just explored the streets for a few hours and got a feel for the city before returning back to our hostel for nap time and showers. we then went to watch the national rugby league grand final at the bar that we are now staying over. it was packed with aussies and they meant business. old men were drinking jugs by themselves and all sorts of other dudes were there just yelling for the most part. kit and i, being the avid rugby fans that we are, had no idea what the hell was going on. it was sortof like football but at the pace of soccer and way more fun than either one to watch. the players would wail on each other and then get up like it was nothing, all the while without pads. they make american football players look like the wimply little kid who lived down the block from you whose mom made him wear all the pads to go rollerblading, including wrist guards (ok that was me). rugby players are bad ass. end of story. we managed to befriend a drunk aussie with bad teeth and awkwardly long jorts who sortof told us what was going on mostly by yelling "FUCK FUCK FUCKIN FUCK" whenever anything happened. suffice it to say his team didnt win.

after this enlightening experience we returned to our hotel, made some cheap pasta and then passed the F out at 9 o clock, only to be awakened by our 2 asian roommies who we never actually interacted with.

this morning after our breakfast with the drunk irish guy we went to the royal botanical gardens where we saw wild cocatoos and fruit bats everywhere. those bastards were hanging in every tree they could. apparently they dont live in caves here, just in city parks. waaay cool. we also went to the australian maritime museum and the sydney fish market. the fish market was giant, smelly and overwhelming, but made me want some sushi reaaaal bad. dinner perhaps? we shall see. for now we are hoppin on some free internet and planning our next adventure- beach time, national parks and wine tasting. HELLLL YEAH

he smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

today is the day

they day i become a man

the day i experience all that the world has to offer

the day that i get on a plane for 14 hours and think "oh god why on earth am i doing this to myself."

today is the day that i leave for australia and new zealand on an epic 7 week adventure.

for this post i attempted to rewrite "leavin on a jet plane" to make it more applicable to my life. fail. i made it through like four lines and then i was over it. plus im not completely packed, have no idea where some essential items that i may require are, and i have a runny nose. if i get the piggy flu i am gonna slap a ho. speaking of hos, i tried to find some employment while i am down under- i googled "man whoring in australia, employment." unfortunately it did not yield any viable results. oh well, for the best anyways i suppose.

well folks, wish me luck. i will do my best to update this whenever i can and take hella pictures. yeah. i said hella. pce out U.S. andA... helllooooooooooooooo kangaroos, wallabys, vegemite, echidnas, platapi, dingos, accents, fosters, barbies, and fair dinkum.

oh yeah and her:

im down like the economy

i have started like four blogs about my life for the past couple of weeks but i cant seem to get any of them right. some seem to low brow, some sound like i'm trying too hard to be philosophical, and some are just stupid. so for now i am going to stick to writing from the heart- my most sincere and inner truths... not.

lately i have been facing some financial dilemmas. i have been cut off since i am not in school, which is understandable and i can deal with that. my mom has allowed me to essentially open a tab with her that i can just pay back later. this seems ok for now, but in a year when i am (probably) starting a new school in a new town i am going to be hard up for cash and friendless. overwhelming, right? my solution- cougar.



my good friend sarah mae jennings has been searching for a sugar daddy for months and as of yet has come up short. her plans for me to become her sugar daddy are looking bleaker as my debt is reaching the heights of mount vesuvius, so i decided to take a page out of her book and find someone to take care of me. she will shower me with gifts, fly me all over the world, feed me delicious food and make all of my wildest dreams come true, and in return i will make her feel young and look daaaayumm fine on her arm in front of her aging friends. im not above being an accessory.

my search for the perfect cougar is still in the beginning stages. she has to be somewhat attractive, otherwise this just isnt going to work out. i may not have many morals, but my standards are firmly set in place. im thinking something along the lines of mary louise parker, kate walsh, or even as old as julia louis dreyfuss. tina fey (see above) is also a prime candidate. also, shes gotta have dollas. a certain family member of mine is a cougar with a boytoy a decade or so younger, but she is nearly broke as a joke. im not into that situation. i need some financial stability and an accessible bank account. liquid assets are a must, but i like to see some investments. real estate is cheap right now, so snatching up houses all over the world would be a wise decision. look at me- i can be man candy AND a financial adviser. its a win-win if you ask me.

so, in conclusion to this little side note, if you have any cougs in your life that are single and lookin to mingle- send 'em my way.

ok now that i have taken care of that, a brief update on my life since NYC, my favorite city ever.

i went to boston- margaritas, sailing, mexican food, UFO beer and sinning in a church yard.
then after a four hour delay and me having visions of the plane being swept off the runway in a flash flood, i touched down in atlanta. it was a standard ATL visit- saw gigi, ate zaxbys, saw stephen, generally did nothing. then... ATHENS- probably my second favorite city and the greatest college town ever. i kicked it at 1979, slept in a bed with a man dam so kerry and i wouldnt touch in the middle of the night, met a glass elephant named turk, saw hollis wollis and victoria jennings who walks on the moon (but not like MJ), jammed to MJ and goofy movie sound track, made some new friends, and spent some quality time with one of my favorite people in the world (not that the rest of you arent amazing) sarah mae jennings. our narcissism creates a relationship based on telling each other how awesome we are. oh, and apparently, if i was a drug, i would be heroin because i am bad ass- but not like a strung out junkie on heroin, but like a bad ass rocker/celebrity on heroin that everyone wants to be. i make addiction look cool. that's definitely going on my college applications.

these streets will make you feel brand new

as i venture out into the world on my own i am starting to figure some stuff out about myself. i am over paranoid about having food allergies. i love meeting new people and i enjoy it alot more since i decided to quit being awkward. i despise people who i want to be just like. i can be wildly inappropriate, but i love doing it. oh, and I LOVE NEW YORK. not the sassy sista from the VH1 show, though i do love her too.

i love the city
the people
the sights
the smells
the attitudes
the food
the atmosphere
everything

my grandpa lives here, smack in the middle of park avenue, three blocks from central park. since on this particular adventure i am not visiting any schools, i have a couple of days to kill. the first day that i showed up here i was hungover and slightly disoriented after a few days of good times in philly and connecticut. i dropped my things off at pops and then rolled out to see the city. my first wanderings took me to fifth avenue to explore the lifestyles of the rich and famous. as soon as i come within view of the plaza hotel i noticed tons of video cameras and people. uuhh ok so whats this about? next thing i know doctor phil's balding self is talking to a tattooed and leather clad man with motorcycles. nice motorcycles. it must have been his midlife crisis special. dr. phil really has nothing interesting to offer me so i moved on with my life. strolling down the avenue i stared at the ridiculous looking people going into the high fashion boutiques, the plump tourists waiting for their chance to pose next to the models in front of abercrombie, the homeless guys shaking cups at passersby and just hoping for enough change to buy their next drink. people of all sorts rubbing shoulders on the streets and living on the same tiny island and calling it home. alas, i digress and wax nostalgic.

after this small stroll i went to lunch with a couple of my former sail caribbean students at serendipity. deeeelicious. then we went walking through the streets some more. we passed 30 rock, david letterman, and a huge street fair stretching for blocks down lexington avenue. as we kept wandering we realized that the VMAs were scheduled for that night at the radio city music hall. that explains all of the ridiculously formal people waiting in lines that said "check in." we wandered towards sixth ave and all of a sudden hear taylor swift blasting over through the streets. assuming its just a promo for the show that night, we kept walking. we were about to turn a corner when we saw people running back towards where we came from. there she is. my future wife and the love of my life- T.Swift singing and rockin out on top of a cab roughly 50 feet away from me. AAAAHAAAHHHHHHHHh all of my hopes and dreams have come true. i saw her. after standing there in shock for roughly 45 seconds her song ended and she climbed off the cab and went back inside, presumably to do more rehearsing or something. my life has been made almost complete. now i just have to figure out a way to get her to marry me. ideas? thoughts? suggestions?

so that concluded the main excitement for sunday. monday rolls around. i decided to walk from pop's apt uptown all the way down to ground zero to pay my respects. i passed through madison square park, canal street, soho, noho and NYU's main campus. the people watching was world class and i highly suggest to anyone who visits to say screw the subway, screw the cabs and hoof it all over. i wandered for six hours and walked 8-9 miles. amazing. on the way downtown i was confronted with gates and policemen everywhere. wtf? im just trying to go for stroll and you are in the way sir. i inquire as to why they are blocking me. dont they know i am a big deal? no. they do not know that i am a big deal. in fact, the reason they are there is because the president of the united states is within that block delivering a speech. oh. barry O. i think. hes a big deal. he can block my way. that being dealt with i continued on my way

today i am staying in my dad's hotel because he is here on business. downstairs, as i live and breathe, serena williams is doing an appearance for nike, so im gonna go sneak around and see what i can see. if i get arrested, its been lovely blogging for you for the last seven months. if i dont, then expect more to come in this epic adventure story.

hello. in the past ten days i have had two encounters with bears. that may be as many as i have had in the past ten years. i also danced with some hippies in the streets, drove nearly a thousand miles, made some new friends, and politely informed a pita pit worker that the pita she was rolling resembled an african refugee and that she should redo it. all in all, relatively good week. right?

ok well maybe that was not the whole week. for the most part i have been sitting on my ass doing nothing. i have watched the entire fourth season of weeds, third season of dexter, and i am halfway through the first season of 30 rock. god i love netflix on demand. its amazing. also i have been socializing with my lovely grandmother, gigi. i'm sure i've talked about gigi before, but just to refresh everyone's memory, i'll give you the quick and dirty 411 on gigi. shes 75, acts 93, only drinks chardonnay, and only if said chardonnay is under 6 bucks and only after 6:00. however, if she does not have a little class of cheap, chilled, chard in her hand at 6:02 she will yell that shes late for cocktails and boogie on over to the fridge. she watches the stock market like its a match to the death between a sabre tooth tiger and a stegosaurus (sabre tooth has the teeth, stego has the spikey tail- tough call on who'd win), and of course she could never miss tennis match or golf tourney- she just likes yelling at the balls. how do i know all these fun facts- why i lived with her of course, and now gigi is in spokane visiting my family.

since gig (pronounced geeg, not to rhyme with fig) and i are generally outsiders in my house, have no friends in spokane, and nearly get lost going to the mailbox we have been at home for days doing nothing. fun. not. anyways, yesterday my mom decided to take us up to this area called green bluff where you can go pick apples and peaches and veggies and stuff from all these farms. well as soon as we get up there gigi became determined to not only get the most fruit, but to get the biggest and tastiest fruit. her tendency to act older than she is quickly disappeared and she was spry as a bird, nimbly plucking peaches from the trees and not hesitating to take a bite when she thought necessary. you gotta sample the product, right? so as gigi stood by, both arms straight out to her sides to avoid dripping peach juice down her front, sortof like a toddler does when they are peeing in their pants, my mother and i continued gathering fruit. gigi liked to get her input in whenever she could- "charlie grab that one!" gigi its 8 feet in the air "i dont care you're tall grab it!" alright gig.... and so it continued. by the time we got to the third farm gigi was over picking in the field and had started considering the 5 finger discount approach to fresh produce. "OOHHH char look at that tomato- wouldnt you just love that with some nice mozz and balsamic, hey snatch that right up, will ya? just stick it in your pocket they'll never know." yet again i was forced to refuse the requests of my kleptomania-cal grandmother. i will not be an enabler in her quest to be the stingiest person on earth. lord knows she does a good enough job herself. after a brief encounter with some freakishly large zucchini (too big to steal) and, in her words "a wonderful" porta potty, we packed up the car and headed for home. another eventful day done.

bless my soul, herc was on a role

so this summer at my job as a yachting staffer (we dont say camp counselor, its below us) i regularly had disney song jam sesh's with the kids on the boat. so as soon as i got home i bought like thirty disney songs and there is a slight possibility that i am still jamming to them. i just enjoy hearing some soulful sistas singing about a disney friendly version (read: no sex, murder or libations) of a greek myth, alright? good. glad we could talk about that.

now i am twenty one years young. oh shiiiiii

iiiit. its a big deal. im not sure if you are aware of how long i have waited for this day. since i was roughly fifteen years old i have been counting down to it. i knew that my bday was going to be on a saturday and, oh buddy, i was stoked. i had visions of a huge party with all my friends, possibly a keg, tons of presents and a day dedicated to my final gateway to adulthood. alas, like many of my visions of grandeur relating to my life, this situation did not come true. i did go to downtown whitefish for the first time and saw no one that i knew. oh and i was only with tayler. and sober. whenever i met people who fou

nd out it was my 21st they would say "why arent you puking/blacked out?" at this i would awkwardly shuffle my feat, jingle some change in my pocket and say "uuhhh im workin on it." i should have drowned my sorrows in my beer, but unfortunately i cannot afford that type of therapy very often anymore. i am also semi financially independent- thanks mom and dad!!! so anywho, after an hour and half of standing in the corner of the bar with tayler while some dude tried to pick her up we headed for the door. this is when the night nearly completely redeemed itself!!!!

tayler babysits for this dude who is 100% creeper manchild complete with wife and four kids. if tommy boy and and dennis the menace had a love child, that would be chad. taytay always complains that he is creepy and hits on her so i say "dont babysit for him anymore" yet she doesnt listen. so on the way out of the bar she starts hitting him in the arm saying 'byebyebyebye" and then he strikes up a conversation after kissing her on the cheek (!!!). i resume awkward foot shuffle and change jangle. i feel a tap on my shoulder and i turn around. well hello drunk 35 year old man. he says "what the fuck this guy is hitting on your girl".. shes not my girl just a friend. in the following minutes me and this guy get to know each other. his name is marty or monty and... well thats a

ll i really got out of him. however, we did discuss the manchild at length. ohhhh geeze. monty came to the conclusion that the manchild looks like david bowie, but gay. well that or a gay fabio with short hair. he goes up to tayler, taps her on the shoulder and says "why the fuck are you talking to this guy, charlie's got it. hes got it." then extracts himself from the situation and goes on his merry way. i pulled taytay away from the creepmaster and leave the bar laughing so hard that i nearly shed a tear.

the next night, the night of my actual day of birth, i donned an uncle sam style hat which had "21" and "charlie" emblazoned onto it. it was given to me by my parents dear friends who are, in fact, over 60. they attended my party. as did their friends who are also over 60. in fact there were only three people younger than 40 at my party- me, my friend kate and my aunts boyfriend who may or may not be closer to my age than hers. either way, below 40 and thats what counts. after barbecuing, imbibing and chatting for a while, it was time for presents. the only people who brought me presents were not related to me. my parents just couldnt schedule it in to pick one up for me on my birthday. its alright, it caught them off guard. its not like my birthday is the same day every year or anything. whatever. move on to cake. unfortunately, i do not like cake, so i had key lime pie instead. i dont really like that either. oh well. birthday cake shots it is- vodka and franjelico followed with a sugar-coated lemon. deeeee-licious. all present, including 60+ crowd, took part. it was a sight to see. after that kate turned on some techno so we dance partied for a while. well mostly my mom and kates mom. everyone else just kinda sat there. afterwards i ended up at home, soberish considering it was my 21st. i wouldnt have even been par for the course on a regular night. its alright though- i still have my birthday hat and i can go celebrate all over the world. YES!

when i grow up i want to be a superhero

today as i walked through the wilderness of upper-middle suburbia with my dog, a thought struck me. dogs have it made. i watched as marge charged forwards, smelling all sorts of new smells, drinking in the sweet perfume of this mid august day. she jumped over logs, played with sticks, and peed wherever she felt it necessary, all the while looking to me for words of encouragement and approval. she had the doggy smile on throughout our whole hour long stroll through the forest. nothing could bring her down. she ran, she swam, she scared a bald eagle out of a tree. i want to do that, but alas society dictates that i must pee in the toilet, or at the very least be discreet about peeing in public, and i'm fairly certain that if i attempt to scare a bald eagle out of a tree i could be arrested for harassing and endangered species and/or clawed by said species (i considered that possibility in depth during my walk).  my wistful ponderings of life as a canine promptly helped me onto another train of thought: i want to be an animorph. 

animorphs were quite possibly the coolest superheroes ever. they were in their early teens, they fought an alien race called the yeerks,  and they got to go to the zoo all the time to acquire animals. oh yeah, and they could morph into a ferocious beast of a creature whenever they felt like it. i mean being a dog is one thing, but think about morphing into a rhino, an elephant, or a vicious bald eagle. freakin sweet right? im not going to lie, after i finished the first animorphs book that i read (third grade, the first volume of the megamorphs books) i may have tried to acquire my grandparents dog. for those of you who were not animorphs fans, acquiring is when the animorphs touch an animal so that they can later morph into it. i also tried to open diagon alley next to the dumpsters behind my middle school using a pencil as a wand, but thats another story.  i think that i read the first 33 or so animorphs books before i got burned out. they were released once a month and i would beg my mom to buy me one, read it all in one night, and then have to wait another 30 days before i got another. thirty days to a 9 year old is like a year to more grown up people. it was BRUTAL. dont worry though, i got the deets on how the series ended. i spent several hours on wikipedia this spring reading up on all the plot summaries that i missed. 

i dont think i have ever stopped wanting to be an animorph, or a wizard for that matter, which is why i am always wrapped up in a book. i see books not so much as an escape from reality as a way to provide you with a new perspective. i didnt necessarily want to leave my old life behind to become an animorph and run off to fight the yeerks. no. i just wanted to be able to morph into cool stuff and have some new adventures off of these two feet. i wanted to run around in the woods behind my house, sniffing new smells and finding whole new worlds behind every stump. it seems as though my dog is always filled with delight at finding a new beetle or anthill. maybe that is what i want. that sense of wonder at the smallest things. the life of a dog. and, of course, the privilege of peeing anywhere. 

all who wander are not lost

some people do not have to search, for they find their niche early in life and rest there seemingly content and resigned at times. i envy them, but i usually do not understand them, and seldom do they understand me. i am one of the searchers. There are, i believe, millions of us. We are not at all unhappy, but neither are we content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power and unspeakable beauty. we like forests, mountains, deserts, hidden rivers, and lovely cities as well. our sadness is as much a part of our lives as our laughter. To share our sadness with the ones we love is perhaps as great a joy we know, unless it is to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitions for life itself and for anything beautiful and can provide. we do not want to prove ourselves to others or compete for love. This passage is for wonderers, dreamers, and lovers who dare to ask of life everything which is good and beautiful.

-Anonymous

twenty years from now you will be more disappointed in the things you didnt do than the ones that you did do. so throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

-Mark Twain

and finally...

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather my sparks should burn out in a blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than asleep and permanent as a planet. the proper function of a man is to live, not to exist. i shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.

-Jack London

put my swag on

hello hello. and how are you today? i am FAN-friggin-TASTIC because tomorrow i leave for the caribbean for 2 months WAWAWEEWA i will be in red water panties!!!! just kidding i only have black, gray, blue, and green water panties i was only teasing you with the red ones. and in my current state i can only wear the gray ones and the black ones. my diet of fast food, fried food and booze has helped me gain a few pounds in the last month... oops. at least im off to a magical land where teenagers who dont know how to boil water (no really they dont) get to cook for me for two months. two bites of cement like risotto for dinner helps everyone get slim and trim.

well since we have last communicated via blog i have returned from germany in once piece, no thanks to those bastards at air france. monday before im supposed to go transatlantic on an air france flight in an airbus 330 from paris a transatlantic air france flight in an airbus 330 going to paris went down, as im sure you all know. so how good did i feel about my flight? well i was convinced we were gonna die somewhere around greenland. i was neurotic the whole damn flight!!! i was planning on watching movies in my personal in seat tv, like i did on the flight over, to calm myself, but alas, no personal in seat tvs for me. bastards. so i strain my neck looking at the 4inch by 4 inch tv in the ceiling. also i had an issue with the movies- the first two were last chance harvey and yes man. no problem with those. then they whip out marley and me. AWW HELL NAW!!!! i know exactly what that movie is about and i have attempted to read the book twice but i have to stop 2/3s of the way through because i know whats coming. seeing and actual dog on screen and knowing whats about to happen would not bode well for me. i had absolutely zero intention of watching this movie. it became a non issue however because after i had some semi-good pasta for the hot meal of the trip i was convinced that i was having an allergic reaction so three benedryl later its night night charlie. oh and fun fact- definitely wasnt having a reaction im just a paranoid retard. 34 points for me.

so since my arrival in atlanta i have been hanging out with all the high school buddies and neighborhood pals. i have been to the pool, eaten at every damn restaurant in this town, been to the aquarium to look at the majestic whale sharks and creepy ass jellyfish, which stacy finds fascinating, and i have generally just been a bum for ten days. amazing. oh yeah, AND I GOT A TATTOO!!!!!!! i have been wanting one for like a year and a half and after ping ponging between many ideas i finally settled on a compass. i enjoy sailing and i am kinda going on this expedition "to find myself," as tristan so eloquently says, for the next year and any and all expeditions need a compass.. duh. so there it is, on top of my foot. i know it looks like an ankle due to the hair but i just have hobbit feet. no worries.

tomorrow i leave for the caribbean to hang out with some sweet teenagers and impart my knowledge and wisdom to them aka tell them to go ask someone else whenever they have a question that i dont know the answer to, which is roughly 90% of them. dont worry about it. im a G.

das kinder no liken das bier!

ok so thats not actually german but its my version of the language. i have become fluent in like three days, mostly because i know about five words now as opposed to my original 2 and then everything else i make guttural noises and yell like cartman in the south park episode "the passion of the jew." its a classic.

so the last time i had left you i had just arrived in berlin i think and we hadnt done too much yet. wellllll thursday we went sightseeing and did some standard touristy stuff. holocaust memorial, reichstag (german parliament), checkpoint charlie which separated east and west berlin, all that stuff. also on thursday we didnt eat for like... a really really long time. i was surprisingly ok with this, however i still have not had a schnitzel because they scare me a little bit. thursday for dinner, after nearly starving to death walkiing all the F over berlin we decided to make some delicious bratwursts and some other stuff. kates kitchen is down the hall from her room so we went in and started making some delicious eats. we were coming and going from teh kitchen, figuring everything was fine. kate, however, decided to turn up the brats because they were taking far too long to brown up properly. bastards. we return to her room to drink our beer and hang out for a couple minutes. after a rousing conversation of some sort we returned to the hallway to smell smoke and realize that there are clouds of it billowing from the kitchen. AAAHHHHH we run into the kitchen only to find our delicious brats burning!!!! nbd. we can just scrape the burned part off a little bit. kate tries to hold them out the window so that the smoke doesnt come inside anymore. right before i say "hey we can just scrape them off" she makes and executive decision to ditch the brats and tosses them out her window, four stories to the cold, unforgiving ground. FML. bye brats. i cried.

after this a dutchman named kasper convinced us to go out to dinner with him and a couple friends quickly before we were supposed to meet other people at a bar. the couple friends turned out to be like 12 people and we were 2 hour late to the bar. NBD. also i was sitting at one end of the table that was exclusively dutch. they spoke some english because its rude to speak a language that not everyone can understand, but its kinda rough having to speak to your buds all in another language. i get it. i sat there some, not awkwardly mind you, just kinda acting like i was interested. they could have been saying that i am a giant homo with buckteeth and three nipples and i woudnt have been the wiser, i probably would have smiled slightly and looked at my beer some more. i only looked at my beer because at some point in the night i started having mad chest pains, which FREAK ME OUT. i hate that shit. its probably cuz i have mad allergies. damn genetics. i kinda stopped drinking for the night, bummer, but i still had some GTs at the restaurant (where i found another love of my life, a german girl named sarah) and the cuban bar where we discussed the choking game and hypothetical theme park ideas centered around it for roughly an hour. maybe more. good times all around.

we also had some other adventures too- more on that later because kate needs the internet and i cant use my computer here fo free. baaaaahhhh

luft balloons

this week i was planning on naming all my posts something german related. unfortunately i only know like 4 german words and all the other ones are like a million syllables long so i am not going to learn those either- for example- dorotheenstadtischer. come again? i even had to leave off some dotty things because quite frankly that is beyond my realm of comprehension and typing ability.

so yesterday when i left you i was in the midst of schipol airport in amsterdam sipping my starbucks and not understanding a word anyone said. then i got on my plane, where i witnessed a very indignant asian girl correct the nice british/czech (who knows?) dude speaking to her that she was not, in fact, japanese, but TAIWANEE!! calm it down sweet cheeks no need to be rude he was just making conversation. after some minor mechanical difficulties we were airborn and the pilot had apparently confused our 150 capacity passenger plane with an F-15 because we were doing all sorts of turns and shit that made me want to puke. then we landed and bounced and went all wonky and i nearly peed myself because i was convinced we were skidding off the runway. have i mentioned im slightly neurotic? anyways. i went through baggage claim, looked for customs, concluded that there was no customs and went on my way to meet kate in the airport.

I FINALLY MADE IT TO BERLIN. first we took a bus for like an hour, then got lunch in a really cool square thing with this old church that had been bombed in WWII and was all torn up. its this really old building right in the middle of a really modern area filled with stores and restaurants, fast food and everything but its just chillin, lookin all old. i think we are going to go into it later but i still had my bags and stuff so we couldnt really. after dropping stuff at kates apt/dorm room we made our way to the school which was an hour or so away and like 3 buses/trains. its all so confusing idk how anyone could ever get around this city because all the words look the same and the places do too. without kate i would probably end up in the red light district, if it exists, and have to whore myself out to make some dollas to get back home. im not against it. so at the school we got beer. yes. beer at school. HOW AWESOME IS THAT! apparently you are even allowed to drink in class. awesome. i hung out and kate did some work and then we came back to her apartment because i nearly passed out on the couches in the student lounge/beer drankin area.

last night was uneventful. we went to the getrankenmarkt or something like that but when you say it it sounds like "get drunk mart" and all they sell is booze so its appropriate. a case of 16 oz beers in glass bottles is 10 euro. its a steal!!! and the beer here is SOOOO good. lovin it. so we got some food, but passed on the drank, before going back and making dinner. well kate made dinner and i tried to keep from falling asleep at 6:30. i finally made it to 8:30 when we turned on something about mary and i fell asleep before the opening credits had finished. oops. oh well i slept for 10.5 hours and now im on berlin time and ready to paahty (i feel like thats how a germany would say it phonetically). time for breakfast and sightseeing and then tonight we are going to some bar that is awesomely amazing i hear. and in closing- HAMMELBRATEN.

blog maken

that is how you say make a blog in dutch. who'd've thunk? i am currently sitting in the amsterdam airport waiting for my final flight to berlin and trapped in a perpetual morning. let me tell you- i am not a morning person. you see, yesterday i woke up at 530 am to go to the spokane airport for a 7 am flight to minneapolis. then i left minneapolis at 3 pm and landed in amsterdam at 545 am. the only problem is that my 545 am's were only 15 hours apart. i missed the whole evening and i love me some evening time. i am like 18 types of confused right now but i am just going to keep telling myself that it is 730 am and go with it, however im still pissed i missed happy hour last night. damn time zones.

the trek so far has been pretty tame. i did see one guy that i thought was really awkward and started composing a little blog passage about him in my head until i realized that he has mild downs and that i am definitely going to be smote for making fun of a mentally handicapped person. FML. oh well. cant win em all i suppose. i also thought that there were a TON of mexicans on my flight ot amsterdam and i was like "geeze why are they going to the netherlands?" then i realized that the mexicans were really indians (dots not feathers) and that my flight had continuing service to mumbai from amsterdam. so thats 2 smites for me all in 1 neverending morning. im pretty sure its the smites you're out. god help me. also i saw a bunch of asians with sars masks on that made me laugh, but i dont call that a smite because i feel like its a highly humorous sight. it wasnt even old people either one guy around my age was lookin like a wankster, but he could have achieved gangster status if he had not been wearing a sars mask. it immediately negates any and all street cred a person may have, hence i laugh in the place of piggy flu and sars HAHAHA. take that suckaaaaaas. other news- the man sitting next to me in the waiting area was in his forties, looked like a normal business man and was playing dungeons and dragons. i was too afraid to check for a wedding ring. poor guy. also in minneapolis i went into a bar to buy a bottle of water and some chick eyefucked the shit out of me and then walked by like five minutes later and did it again HOLLAAA i look good wearing sweats, a hoodie and without shaving for like 3 days. nice little confidence booster before my 3 benedryl induced stupor on the plane.

upon arriving in amsterdam and getting a little lost i managed to find my way to the right terminal and my first mission was food. on the flight we got some strange kind of kung pow chicken for dinner ( i ate the roll and oreos instead) and a egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast (could've used ketchup). i wanted to start this eurotrip off right with something delicious and european. (side note- some chick is giving me the stink eye at this very moment, what a bitch). of course the first thing that i see is starbucks. no, thats american and i dont even like it that much state side. next stop- foodcourt with sbarro, burger king and the dutch version of popeyes i think. only problem closed. dammit. starbucks it is. however i did learn that "drank" means "drink" and i use drank instead of drink all the time. this country and i were made for each other. so now here i am paying far too much to be on the internet and disappointed that hulu and abc.com cannot be streamed outside of the US. how am i supposed to see the ugly betty finale when i cannot stream it fo free? bastards. oh well life could be worse and i am SOOOOO stoked for the next week!!!!!!!!!

the santa fe lean

this weekend camden elizabeth covey graduated from high school, and i nearly off'd myself. we had 15 people sleeping in our house, which meant got kicked to the curb and had to fend for myself on various couches for several nights. not my ideal situation. also we had a graduation party for my lovely little sis. since i have not spent much time in spokane i do not know anyone and generally did not want to have to speak with my parents' friends and say either "oh yeah USC is great" and fake that i loved it more than puppy dogs and rainbows, or say "yeah im just taking some time off..." the second situation inevitably leads to one of two things "oh my gosh thats so awesome/oh to be young again/ tough life (insert annoying, semi drunk middle aged laughter hear)" or a lecture from some douchenozzle who i have known for all of 5 seconds and quite frankly doesnt know me from adam and has no reason to tell me that i am making a mistake and give me advice in all that i do. i really hate the people who try to tell me im making a mistake. idiots. do you not think that its crossed my mind? of course it has. i do not go with the flow well and dropping out of school for a year requires a very high go with the flow-ability. im freakin out man. but im still doin it! i mean my fam and the people who actually know me are all for it which is good. now i just have to grow a pair and figure my shit out (i feel like i say that a lot, no?)

back to the party. to deal with the onslaught of my parents friends i decided that i needed to get slightly buzzed to deal with all of this. just to take the edge off. well that happened and things were going alright. then i went from being buzzed to tanked in like 7 seconds flat. who knew 4 beers, vodka, and a couple bottles of wine did that to someone? i proceeded to eat all that i could possibly get my hands on, play sloppy drunken pool with my 9 year old cousin, and tell my mom and her friend (not an idiot friend, a cool one) that when i get road rage i call people twats and cunts. after a solo dance party in my sisters room in front of some of her friends i decided to call it a night and passed out on a couch in the basement. 6:30 rolls around and i woke up, not because someone called me or made any noise whatsoever, but because it felt like pearl harbor was happening between my temples. good. i stumbled upstairs and got a glass of water, ignored my 82 year old grandfathers cheery "good morning," grabbed a banana, and searched unsuccessfully for tylenol sinus. advil it is. i went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror and nearly had a heart attack at the sight. my eyes were bloodshot and puffy, i looked like i had been hit by a train and sortof wished that i had. i at my banana and took my advil and went back to lie down. 10 minutes later i returned to the bathroom to puke my brains out before finally going back to sleep for 3 hours.

breakfast was quiche. not good on a hangover, especially when you have to hide the hangover from several people, namely grandparents and young cousins who want you to run and play with them. not happening. i nearly barfed again when my mom offered me crab quiche. seafood before noon and on a weak stomach? hell to the naw! i stuck with my bacon cheddar quiche, 6 cups of coffee, 4 advil, 2 dayquil sinus breakfast and then had gatorade for dessert (lovin those electrolytes). i felt like hell throughout the rest of the morning, the commencement ceremony and up until dinner when i took more advil and finally felt human again. this feeling was short lived because our waiter at dinner was so GD creepy that i wanted to jump through the large windows by our table into the water hazard below (it was on a golf course). he had buggy eyes, big ole ears (that may or may not have been uneven) and some wonky ass teeth. when he took orders he went right up behind you and leaned over and whispered in your ear "what can i get you tonight sir/ma'am?" uuh you can get me a steak with a side of personal space you jackass now step off! it was a joke. and he never brought our appetizers. the tip was rapidly dwindling, but the food was pretty damn good. the only good thing that came from the whole hangover ordeal was that i got on texts from last night again! mission accomplished!!!

after dinner i played pool with my cousins and talked to my parents and my aunt for a little bit before turning in. instead of going right to sleep, which i wanted to because i was dead tired, i started having a panic attack. i had to get up, walk around the house, check that all the doors were locked, drink water, sit around and twiddle my thumbs, all the while with the sinking suspicion that the world was going to end at any minute. clearly i was super rational. now i am sitting on my bed after all of our various house guests have left, still thinking the world is going to end at any minute, procrastinating packing for germany and the caribbean and freaking out about my life. its productive. i also really have to pee so i suppose i should end my cyberspace tirade and go take care of business, starting with a delicious leftover steak sandwich. next time you hear from me i will be in BERLIN!!!!!! im sooooo stoked. be ready. it will be epic!

babies, bongs and agita

disclaimer: spell checker isnt working, please do not judge me on spelling or grammar errors even though if you make them i will, in fact, judge you.

hello devoted followers and not so devoted followers. i welcome you all. since i have last updated the world on my badass life i have gone on a journey and found myself in a new place. not figuratively or spiritually, but literally. sorry, no self revelations this week. i drove from los angeles to spokane washington. it was a journey of epic proportions that has never been undertaken (undertook?) by any man before. please go take a potty break now because recounting all of my adventures could take a several hours.

friday morning sarah and i awoke to a bright and sunny day in los angeles. step one- get all my shit to fedex or in my car and then pce out. several hundred pounds and $135 of fedex'd boxes later i was ready to leave my humble abode in chez ronnee and make the harrowing journey across town for one last meal in la at Urth cafe. egg sandwich and large coffee. so GD good i could hardly stand it. one minor mishap involving spilled coffee, a table with holes, and my brand new white kicks and we were on our way. my lovely gps system, named gretel, directed me throught the heart of hollywood to the 101. perfect. sarah's number one goal in LA was to see some celebs. no such luck. consolation prize- seein some crazies and there is no better place for that than hollywood. we were not disappointed. we saw a few semi strange fuckers wandering around the streets but the real treat came at the corner of sunset and vine. we stumbled upon a man in shorty shorts out on a run. relatively normal... until homeslice started bustin a move and breakin it down on the street corner. he wasnt just kinda boppin or whatever he was full on running man style and channeling his inner kfed (who did start out as a dancer before he became britney's bitch). people around him pretended to ignore him but you know they were thinking "holy shiza what is this guy doin?" luckily sarah had her camera out and ready and we caught some of our shorty short friend's fly moves. the evidence is still forthcoming.

after this brief, yet amazing spectacle it was northward bound! to santa cruz to see tristan my roommie and stay at his beach house for a night. the drive was boring. there is nothing between LA and santa cruz except almonds and bakersfield and a town in which everything is named "casa de ___" it seemed a little casa de fuckin retarded, but they had clean bathrooms and gas, which we desperately needed so we did indeed stop. the last 45 minutes going into santa cruz on some road were waaay cool. it was like descending into jurassic park. i really wanted sarah to turn into jeff goldblum and explain the chaos theory to me and then nearly get mauled by a t-rex and i mean that in the nicest possible way. its either that sitch or she turns into laura dern and starts rootin around in dino poo. yum. there was even a place called dinosaur point! however we saw the sign too late and didnt deem it important enough to turn around. sorry dinosaur point. maybe next time.

santa cruz was a pretty sweet little town. i mean there were crazy hippies lookin rough on the street and playing bongos and shit and i was diggin it. there were also fucking retarded high schoolers. i hate stupid high schoolers who think they are the shit. we saw a father dropping off some 14 year old girls in front of the movie theater and they were dressed like dirty hos. how can this man live with himself knowing that his daughter is probably out on the town blowing anything that she can wrap her herp infested lips around. ok that was rude. sorry (im not really though). bottom line is step up your parenting or hire someone who can do it for you. kidding about the hiring someone part (not). that night we played rock band and chilled in the guest house of the beach house and then made the trek to the ocean at roughly 12. sadly, no skinny dipping occurred. however sarah and i were both quite pleased that we managed to touch the ocean. mission accomplished.

the next day we went to san francisco with safia and had lunch and wandered around union square and fisherman's wharf. relatively unremarkable. we saw some tourists, some sea lions, a really cool spray paint artist, a fat ugly man with a hot asian (and in my opinion probably mail order) wife, and a mexican woman with some epic fupa belting out some terrible tunes for all to hear. fun times for all. after getting slightly lost in san francisco a la the Homeward Bound sequal, we floored it on up to redding california for sarah's first in n out experience and a lovely evening at the hampton inn. the concept of the menu thats not on the menu at in n out was highly intruiging to sarah. she thought of it as being a part of some sort of club if you are lucky enough to know the menu. i informed her that it really just means you are a fat ass and should lay off the double dobles with extra crispy fries, which are a secret menu item. i proceeded to mentally call myself a fatass for knowing the secret menu and then inhale the rest of my fries to make myself feel better which worked wonderfully and i fully overcame any misgivings i had about sometimes getting a double double, crispy fries, a coke and a grilled cheese on the side. ya gotta eat.

sunday! off to bend oregon and to see my buddy tayler bertelsen. along the way we passed mount shasta, which was epic, and and made a stop in lovely weed california to buy some stupid memerobelia. im currently wearying my "enjoy weed... california" shirt now. there was some sweet scenery between redding and weed and some afterwards too once we got into oregon. our lunch stop was in Klamath Falls, Oregon aka Creepy Shithole, USA. on a sunday afternoon, typically when people go out and about and do shit, there was NO ONE downtown. it was creepily quiet. like half the shops were closed and we saw maybe 10 other living breathing souls in the 1.5 hours that we were there. we went to lunch at this little italian restaurant which left alot to be desired. our waitress was a sassy little number (read: sad sad woman with no hope for her future) with bright blue eyeshadow and a snaggletooth. it was all i could do to resist the urge to ask her to do the lady and the tramp spaghetti thing with me. she also forgot to put in our order and it took really long, which was strange because we were the only people in the restaurant. cool. pce out klamath falls i hope you burn to the ground or become infested by gremlins or both. bastards.

we finally made it to bend at around 5 that night and tayler and her friend ryan were at a house by the river. whose house? still couldnt tell you but i met a bunch of people there. we walk to the backyard and there are like 4 little kids running around, which seemed strange because most of the people were young, 23 or 24 at the oldest. turns out 2 of the girls there had kids, which was cool. im not trying to rag on them or anything like that it was just unexpected. after our journey i really had to pee so eventually i make my way inside the house to be greeted by 2 guys jamming ont he guitar and a bong and a hookah on the floor. oh, by the way, the kids were running around the bong and the hookah. WOW. what is happening. this is another world. i just accepted it and wandered on to find the bathroom, which was located through the bedroom. i walked in and almost took out a curly headed ginger. i say "oh.. uuh hi im just trying to find the bathroom, im charlie by the way." instead of introducing herself she just cut right to the chase, "im really drunk and i might try to make out with you because you're really fuckin hot." well nice to meet you too. i didnt take her up on her offer, it was a ginge after all and i also had to pee like a racehorse and when i emerged my drunk friend had left. it was ok though because her "really fuckin hot" comment was enough to stoke my ego for the time being. i later found out that her name was danielle and sarah had met her too. new friends all around.

after the river we went to a bbq at this girl katie's house. katie was mad cool and alot of the people were too. they were all kinda crunchy hippies, which is not my style and i felt slightly out of my element and the only way to remedy such a situation is to get schockered. the beer started flowing and i started drankin. we shotgunned a few, like big shotgunning groups too. one of them was intiated by this girl named autumn. another girl i met was named tara and she had a feather in one ear and a really long braid. alright, not my style but to each his own, ya know. i even shotgunned with one of the moms from the previous house. she had to pass off her kid while she did it but what a fuckin rockstar for still partying even with a 3 year old. after hours of drinking and i informed tayler that i was really drunk. she didnt think i was but i told her "no no. im just pretending to be sober." go me. so we meandered across town, leaving my car and all of my posessions behind, to go crash at tayler's friends house. the journey was long and arduous. the toughest part was passing pita pit and not being allowed to go in because no one was nearly as excited about it as i was. such a let down i could have done work on a delicious chicken ceasar pita right then. we then had to walk through a park next to the river which was home to plenty of geese. fun fact- geese are catchable. tayler's friend jace informed me of this fun fact and then showed me how its done. the geese hiss at you but they dont ever bite. i spent the next ten minutes enthusiastically chasing geese all over the place to no avail. the only ones i avoided were the ones guarding the babies because i knew that momma bears are mean angry bitches and kinda figured momma gooses are too. bears and geese are very similar creatures, clearly. i finally had to give up and take a feather as a consolation prize. we then crashed on a pullout couch. the next morning i woke up not really knowing what to do. tayler was no where to be found, sarah was feeling similar to how i was feeling, and i had only a vague recolection of where my car was. WINNER. eventually we found all our shit and managed to even have eggs benny for breakfast and then hit the road for spokane.

from bend oregon to spokane washington, there is pretty much nothing. and when i say nothing, i mean nothing. we passed some broke down old towns where the gas pumps had to be operated by the attendants because they were old as fuck and we also passed an A&W/KFC. perfect place for lunch right? wrong! the root beer floats, gold fries and too-greasy food wreaked havoc upon my poor digestive system, and sarah's too. luckily, i travel with pepto bismal and benedryl in my glove box. the pepto may have saved our lives from any number of ailments including, but not limited to, nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach and diarrhea! WOO. thanks pepto!

we made it to spokaloo eventually and had family dinner with my mom, camden and harrison. sarah loved it. she wants camden to have her own reality show and calls her "favorite covey." bitches. the next day gigi came and the party really started. she told us all sorts of tidbits of wisdom like how to play hide and seek with my cat Cappy and that italians say "agita" with lots of emphasis when they are getting stress induced indigestion. good to know. i'll limit my comments on this portion of the trip because im sure sarah will go much more in depth. she loved it.

now i am sitting in my lovely backyard with my dog marge and generally loving life. my adventure are off to a good start. and now, good day.