central station brisbane qld

surfers paradise

yesterday at France and James Slattery's

France picked me up at the Helensvale train stop at 530. Great to see a familiar face, and then meet her two special guys, of which, one of them is quite new to this earth. Lachlan Slattery 18 months and 11 kilos! I slept on the train and read a bit of the Pelican Brief on the way there. barbecued steaks and mashed taters with steamed veggies last night for dinner, looked through wedding pics of their ceremony in adelaide. They were both smashingly handsome in the picturres and it appears to be the beginning of a large and happy family. James is enroute to being a fully fledged physician in the next 24 months give or take. We had some interesting discussions about health care and the australian/canadian/us systems. France is finishing up her masters in clinical psych. Beware young lachlan! Your parents just might "fix" you!

today

drove out to surfers... lots of condos and chinese restaurants, fake body parts and sea world... hmmm

then went up to the mountains to check out the high view of surferes... saw Kookaburras! and ate fudge and spice bush pie. Great day so far.

Queensland

Not all that much to report as I got a sunburn that has house ridden me for a few days. Steve and I went out to Coolum and Noosa Beach to check out if the recent typhoons had ripped up much of the sand. Coolum seemed to bare the brunt of it and noosa seemed untouched as it has some natural protection from noosa point. Noosa beach was fine brown sand almost like brown sugar but finer. The women were gorgeous and the waves werent half bad. Coolum had 12 foot swells with a so so break and I wish I had gone in for some body surfing there as well. I spent way to much time on the beach just lounging and ended up burning myself pretty bad. I hate how you really cant tell until an hour afterward how bad you've screwed up. I did use sunblock of my face, neck, and ears thank goodness. speaking of which it is about 97 degrees today and I better go "slip slap slop" myself all over before we head out for the day.

Its been really nice just hanging out here with my cousin steve and his wife heather. They are very laid back and very accomodating. They recently retaught me to play rummy and then canasta with their friend named greg who is a lifelong qld'er. Canasta has a bit more to learn than rummy I learned. I caught on alright and look forward to playing with the brushetts at some point in the future as im sure they are into it as well. Heather and Greg wasted us.

The sunshine coast has treated me well in the seafood category. You may notice a picture of a lobster looking creature below. I was quite taken by this new addition to my crustacean knowledge base. this freak of nature crustacean is a cross between a prawn and a lobster.It is a shovel-nose lobster. Instead of claws, it has a flat, segmented surface that it uses to "shovel" things into its mouth cavity. I cant wait to taste one!

6 Aldinga Place Moololaba AU.

light years away in a land with sun and heat (and kebabs)

!4 hours goes by surprisingly fast when your neighbor hands you a xanax and you wash it down with a few bloody marys. I slept like a baby! Except for the fact that i had completely insane dreams about being caught in the middle of a robot war slash galactic crashup derby. My unconcious is nuts lately. Must be all of the vitamin X.

My neighbor for 14 hours was a nerdy gay fella who was absorbed in a sci fi book called "the genesis machine". He was from illinois. Go fighting Illini! just kidding. GO SPORTS! got you again. My other neighbor on the plane was a very kind lady named margaret who was on vacation with her husband who coincidentally reminded me of the father from "arrested development". Mundane details begone. onto more cool stuff than the people sitting next to me.

My cousin Steve Hopkins picked me up at the airport and the whole ordeal from san fran to sydney and sydney to brisbane went slicker than I imagined it would... I kept asking myself... what time is it... what day is it. why is brisbane a different area code than sydney??? it turns out Queensland does not participate in daylight savings and is therefore like arizona and indiana! Im not sure how I feel about bucking trends. I dont have any idea why some people have to be difficult... I am one of those types! If I were a state or province I think I could best be summed up as hmmm. I need to think about that more before answering. Here is info about daylight savings time in queensland! YAY

http://www.nodaylightsavingqld.com/dark.htm

The car ride to Mooloolba where I'm staying was rather nice for a highway drive and I saw lots of large birds similar to herons but with larger broader bills.

I am in what is called the sunshine coast which is a 100 km stretch of coast north of brisbane
http://www.bcl.com.au/sunshine-coast/ more about it in the link here

san francisco treats

San francisco,

capp and 25th st. is where im staying

alex ryan is who im staying with. here is his website teameverything.com

what im eating, pho, flamed grilled shrimp salads, tea, tiger bear and sierra nevada, alex's fantastic cooking, pesto butter and noodles, ridiculously delicious mexican and central/ south american foods, and hot toddies.

what im doing, biking ariund on alexs bike which is fantastic fast and light, safe, etc. walking up hills, walking down hills, looking for cheap memory cards FOUND EM! hiking around diamond heights, the pictures of me near the flowers is a canyon in diamond heights. hanginf out and adventuring with kris bouchard at various places, ucsf neuroscience backyard fire party. Biking through panhandle park

spoke with cousin steve hopkins last night and we have a pretty good tentative plan for the arrival in brisbane and the following week. thank goodness! he is picking me up at the airport. that will be very nice to have a soft landing with family. i will be burned out no doubt.

i miss you all at home, love to family and friends if you are reading this. mom, ty, k, alicia, mags, megan, all yall.

seattle and vancouver

"



there is no doot aboot it. northwest cities of vancouver and seattle kick the crap out of the northeast in sheer rugged beauty. I can't say that it enough. Now before Boston, New York, and Philadelphia go and get jealous... you are cool too but just in different uglier ways.

a quick list of northwest related things.

1) had great hosts in danielle and scott in the pike/pine st area of seattle. They as many hosts along the way thus far trudged around the city showing me the 3 hour foot tour of the city including Pike Sreet market fish mongers/vegetable slingers/ sauce hockers/ and "official seattle t shirt" flingers. The international district had some great asian food and uwajimaya is a fantastic little asian market similar to Super 88 in allston/boston.

Danielle will be featured on the cover of seattle magazine next month for her work at Verbena. http://www.verbenahealth.org/ PEEP it. Nikaaskini.com

Frink and Leschi Park with giant seqouias, cedars, and waterfront were excellent. I actually caught seaqttle on a nice sunny day on feb 12th. I felt very lucky.

"The park was a former campsite of Chief Leschi, of the Nisqually tribe. Leschi was executed by territorial Governor Isaac Stevens for his participation in the Battle of Seattle. The 1854 treaty which took away native lands led to an attack on the settlement in 1856. Many tribe members and two settlers were killed, and Leschi was subsequently tortured and hanged. In 1889, the site became an amusement park at the end of Lake Washington Cable Railway's trolley line. The attractions included a casino, gardens, boat rentals and a zoo. The zoo animals were donated to the City in 1903 and the site itself was sold to the City in 1909."

2)

chicago, minneapolis, seattle

It has been a hell of a trip so far.

The first leg of my trip has been a tour through the states containing some of my very dearest friends. The ones who have moved on to greener pastures,had children, gotten married, found jobs in the midwest metropolitania, or are street performing in brooklyn and the other normal things that happen when you are pushing 30.

The people i have met on the trains and planes have left their marks and are helping to fill in and color my picture of america even better. I really like the idea of getting a random sampling every few years of a random assortment of americans and to see a good sampling of cities to get the pulse. The presidential candidates must feel mixed about this. They have to do this to the extreme. Im sure it is very rewarding at times and downright awful and awkward in others. People pouring their hearts out about whatever it is they are going through at every stop... people sure do this to me on the train!

The flight from minneapolis via Las Vegas and Phoenix was grueling but fun. I had never been to "Lost Wages" before and I must say it was actually very pretty flying over the rockies then catching a spectacular sunset as I flew out en route to phoenix. The sheer amount of barren desert that you can see from the air between Iowa and colorado always astounds me. The panoramic view you get from a plane usually keeps my head craning sideward. The view from the plane coming into seattle was amazing as well. There was a tiny bit of fog on the ground and it made all of the lights of the city appear as glowing orbs... my digital camera could not reproduce it unfortunatley so i didnt post the pictures i tried to take.

Currently Im in seattle heading for vancouver... and I STIL HAVE MY PASSPORT. Amen. For those of you who did not know this, I was freaking out right before I left about misplacing my passport. I explored replacing it before I found it and basically got feedback from the passport folks in DC that this is the WORST time in years to have lost a passport and expedited forms are being processed at a rate of 4 weeks while regular passport apps will get processed at the glacial rate of 6-8 weeks. I remember getting my expedited passport beofre heading to italy in 3 days for the low price of 120$. Oh well Thank god I found it.

I would also like to shout out a thank you to my roomates who decided to move away while Im on vacation. Thanks pals. Murphys Law baby!

nyc to chi a LIST!

1) 18 hours
2) sleeping pills!
3) dining cart... continental breakfast consisting of banana, raisin bran, milk, turkey sausage, and yogurt
4)the lady sitting in back of me "marrian" and her sons Ammadou and Ibrahim were taken off the train for having their visa's "stalled". SHe was married to an american citizen, i'm not sure what her status was. It was sad because she had to pack up in the middle of the night and be detained with two little boys in rochester NY. I have lots of pictures to post that ammadou and ibrahim took.
5) sleeting in chicago at the moment. GRR
6) Union station is HUGE and circular... i got a bit lost in there.
7) Seeing Jeff SPencer and Stacey ? tonight.
8) SOme very pretty views while leaving nyc... the hudson was all misty, smokey, and the hilly terrain along the track was 100% prettier than driving along the highway.
9) My time is running out as i write this from the chicago public library. 1 minute left DAMN!
10) the Harlold Washington Public library is very big and im going to explore it now. Mixed up files of Basil E Frankwiler Style!.

open road

buy the ticket... take the ride


thats what a good friend of mine says quite often.

I've now done just that. one way from san fran to sydney to brisbane 1075$ from asaptickets.com aka ITN corp.

amtrak will take me the rest of the way across the great divide. breaking up the legs of the journey is making the train part much more expensive. Im working on that though. The last 3 hours have consited of craigslist hunting for ride share to minneapolis and buying my tickets to australia.

137$ for a ticket to minneapolis vs. 165$ for a ticket all the way to seattle. If anyone has a better idea TELL ME!