Jim Travels The World

land of the hobbits we (me and the rest of Active International) arrived in Auckland last thursday. Everyone here says "sweet as". It's the Kiwi equivalent of No Worries. .. We're on to Taupo (which, you'd think would be pronounced "tow-poh", but it's "toe-paw") to be onsite for the lake taupo cycle challenge, an event Active designed. .. 11,000 cyclists racing 160k around the lake. We were onsite to help the day before the race, distributing 11,000 race numbers. you'd think it would be pandemonium, and it was very busy, but Kiwis are sort of on island-time. Everyone was so chill. .. ..wtf? Then 3 hour drive back from taupo to auckland, 4 hour flight to melbourne, baggage, customs, cab ride, home. all in all, a good experience, but crazy long days and i need a vacation. good night everyone.

land of the hobbits we (me and the rest of Active International) arrived in Auckland last thursday. Everyone here says "sweet as". It's the Kiwi equivalent of No Worries. .. We're on to Taupo (which, you'd think would be pronounced "tow-poh", but it's "toe-paw") to be onsite for the lake taupo cycle challenge, an event Active designed. .. 11,000 cyclists racing 160k around the lake. We were onsite to help the day before the race, distributing 11,000 race numbers. you'd think it would be pandemonium, and it was very busy, but Kiwis are sort of on island-time. Everyone was so chill. .. ..wtf? Then 3 hour drive back from taupo to auckland, 4 hour flight to melbourne, baggage, customs, cab ride, home. all in all, a good experience, but crazy long days and i need a vacation. good night everyone.

the next four days will be in Taupo, New Zealand in support of one of my clients at their annual Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge event. not quite looking forward to that 6 am international flight, but it's all part of the globe-trotting experience that i'll someday be so glad i had. hard to believe i'm going to be celebrating christmas in hot weather. as it warms, i see more and more xmas decorations. it's unreal also, on the train they have bits of poetry (from, I assume, famous Melburnians) in the cars. Most of them are crap but I quite liked this one:

now that my ears have stopped ringing since last weekend, i can now post about pearl jam. Top 5 show, for sure. We got to southern cross station and then walked across the bridge to ETIHAD stadium around 5 pm. we had GA seats, and made it down to the floor asap. We were in the front 1/3 of the masses, maybe 100 feet from the stage. first up was Ian Flynn, some Aussie opening act. he wasn't too shabby. he came out later to sing "throw your arms around me" with eddie as a duet. next up, ben harper. I was a little disappointed because he mostly played stuff from his new album, which i wasn't all that impressed with. the highlight of his show was bringing eddie vedder onstage to play "Under Pressure" finally, around 8:30, pearl jam took the stage. They started with "elderly woman behind the counter..." and it was rolling from there. They played all of their entire first album except Once, Release and Deep. That's 7 songs from Ten! they played two

genius

As part of my continuing education series, I bring you another installment of Things I've learned about America from Australians . In Australia, if an Aussie confuses an American person for being Canadian, the Yankee takes no offense. However, if an Aussie accuses a Canuck of being an American, they tend to get upset. What does it mean? I'll leave the conclusions to you. pictured: Another bloody yank. but this one loves the fush n chups. please don't hate.

I don't have a whole lot new to add that you can't already read about in Lisa's blog . She beat me to it this time. All I can say is we spent three days last week travelling down the Great Ocean Road from Torquay to Nirranda and saw the famous Shipwreck Coast of Australia. we hiked to some waterfalls, dipped our feet in the sand, saw the famous twelve apostles got engaged. no big deal.

melbourne is quite known for its laneways, which are alleys that have been converted into miniature shopping districts, with tiny cafes and lolly shops and other little business. people flock to these areas and they are always packed. . always a good place to find the best cheescake or coffee and such. on vacation this week so I thought I might have a not-crowded day wandering around downtown. One thing I'm learning living in a city of 4 million is that you are never not surrounded by people. i can only imagine the shame of being Australia's second largest retailer of cake decorating equipment. or, god forbid, third. .