Jim Travels The World

Sunday 27th Off to tour London a bit more with my host and coworker Nicholas. We catch a train to a market downtown, then a bus to Trafalgar square. There is a bit of evidence of the protests from yesterday, broken beer bottles, protest signs, new graffiti. We walk to the London bridge, Big Ben, and many other buildings that I didn't even know what they were but were damn impressive. not pictured: falling down Walk on more to the imperial war museum. This kind of thing is more my dad's forte, but I hear it's interesting. We spend two hours there and see only about a quarter of it. We're tired and decide to head back home. Riding the train makes me miss Australia. I wasn't too keen on London when I got here, but this place is starting to grow on me. Monday 28th Last day of work in the office, and a busy one. Bus to work is interesting, I see many bikes lane-splitting, dodging in between moving cars. It's crazy Tuesday 29th I'm outta ...

Saturday 26th The big day. Taxi to my bus pickup at 7:30. Bus to Windsor Castle. Grey and a bit rainy out. The tour bus, mostly American and Japanese tourists, filter out to the entrance. The flag is flying which means the queen is at the castle today.  flak vests and automatic weapons. these guys aren't fucking around We stroll through the state apartments, which are a bunch or ornate rooms with paintings, suits of armor, swords, other relics.  adds a bit of regal to the Brown Drab See the changing of the guard. Katy Pery's 'Firework' sounds so beautiful coming from these olde english musicians Bus then on the Stonehenge. The English countryside is pretty, green, hilly. Reminds me of Tasmania; like everything here reminds me of something in Australia. My heart skips a beat when I actually see the rock formations; I can't believe I'm here. Walk around with the audio guide and listen to the theories about why they think it's here. ...

Wednesday 23rd Make it to London via Heathrow. Bags not in London. I am not at all surprised. they will be here tomorrow, apparently. Taxi to my hotel. The city is all brown and red brick, very dark and old. Taxi driver gets address wrong, but I know I'm close by so I get out to walk.  Immediately discover a Brit language quirk: guy giving directions tells me it's 'two streets over' but he means one street over because he's counting the street we're on right now as one of those two streets.  whatevs. Like when an Australian says 'next thursday' and it's Tuesday, he actually means two days from now. Hyde park hotel. Smallest hotel room I've ever seen. The entire bathroom is literally as small as my bathtub at home. Wander around the shopping area nearby and buy some clothes so I can have freshies tomorrow. video chat with the wife then off to bed. Thursday 24th Short walk to the office. More brown drab old buildings. It...

Sunday march 20th To DIA for 4 pm flight to lax then connect in LAX to heathrow. Except the 4 pm flight was delayed so long I would miss the connection. My luggage, however did make the flight. So I got a new flight for tomorrow Monday march 21st My new flight takes me to LAX, and then to find my bags. No one knows where they are. Go to check in for my London flight, and they tell me it's the wrong flight; I wasn't supposed to connect from lax. The supervisor at American airlines in Denver hosed me. And also, my passport has a corner torn, so American won't let me fly with that passport. And they found my luggage, it was sent back to Denver. Stayed at the radisson in LA. At some point in the day I had cut my toe, leaving my sock a bloody mess.  it's better if you don't see it. I only have the one pair of socks as my luggage is in space somewhere. Tuesday march 22nd 6 am cab to the LA federal building to get a new passport. I'm first in...

One of the things I missed during my time in Australia   was the beautiful snow-capped mountains of Colorado. We did get to see some elevation (including snowy peaks in New Zealand ), and even spent a weekend at an Australian ski resort (no skiing, it was a work thing), but they were nothing like the ones back home. So of course, I was eager for ski and snowshoe season this last winter. balanced rock, north side view of cub lake from above. this was a tough hike  snow deep. this trail to Lake of Glass/Sky Pond is only accessible in winter because i literally hiked over Timberline falls to get to it. Yes, it is really as steep as it looks. getting down, and had to slide, using my snowshoes as rudders. awesome.  but that treacherous steep climb yielded this incredible result at Lake of Glass

not going to bother apologizing for the absence of posts. you know, stuff happens. moved back to america, freaked out for a while about all the new-old stuff, settled in to work and the Colorado lifestyle. Couple months ago, took a weekender to South Dakota, covering Wind Cave National Park: (cave "boxwork") Custer State Park: (buffalo showing the cars who's boss) And Mount Rushmore: (Mount Rushmore made me feel this strange pride to be American and also felt angry that they defaced such a pretty mountain by carving the heads of some old dead white dudes in it) Rushmore was about what I expected: touristy; expensive parking; lots of foreigners with huge SLR cameras and fat americans eating ice cream. Go USA! Wish I had time for Badlands, but this was just a quick weekend getaway up north. I'd recommend a visit to the Black Hills and Custer for anyone; nice change of pace.

as i write this from beautiful Boulder, Colorado, I have to bid a farewell to Singapore, Thailand, and Beijing, as I've (obviously) returned home from my world travels. Still a bit jet-lagged, but glad to be home after not living in America for 13+ months. Goodbye also to Australia and New Zealand, it's been a crazy year. I'll be posting some new adventures from to time in a new America -only blog, and if I do any more world travelling (which I hope to do), adventures will back here. Stay tuned.