NDBT

Oh my god – I LOVE whoever posted this. They used to play it before Rocky Horror in LA.

The places to go in 2008. Or home, if you’re me. (I’ve been to 8, and live in one of those!)

I was going to actually start updating, but I got sidetracked. I’ll be in Chch tomorrow evening (the 10th) and I’m taking the day after off. Posting then!

musica: walk away – franz ferdinand

stupid internet place closing. Fast fast; oscar race begins! The important bit; “Also included on the all-important NBR Top 10 Films list are The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Atonement, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bucket List, Into the Wild, Juno, The Kite Runner, Lars and the Real Girl, Michael Clayton, and Sweeney Todd.” Seen 2, still trying to see Atonement and Michael Clayton and Juno. Into the Wild? Really? I heard such mixed things. SWEENY!! AND GO SEE THE ASSASSINATION ALREADY! IT’S WONDERFUL!!
Strike talks reportedly broke down, but I know nothing
and 25 best musicals? Cabaret included.
Travel – quickly – done the southland, saw lots of birds, the rarest penguin, sea lions, an elephant seal (Ano nuevo is better for that though), lots of pretty scenery, did a farm tour. Will make notes tonight and write it all up when I can. I’m taking a day off in Chch in a couple, so I’ll catch up then!!

musica: This time imperfect – AFI. Ah.

Wow – so much has happened in such a short space of time, it’s hard to remember everything that’s been going on! I don’t really have time for a full update, so… here’s the gist;

west coast; gorgeous scenery

Lake Matheson (reflecive lake). Cocoa in the cafe.

Saw roaring billy falls. Couple of short walks.  Blue Pools. Saw the gates of Haast.
Stayed at Makarora in Mount Aspiring National Park. Lake and Mountains. More pretty scenery. Group meal (meh).
drove inland through the Southern alps. Passed lake Wanaka (3rd largest). Lots of stunning scenery. All surrounded by mountains.

Wanaka – puzzling world. I did the world’s first 2 story maze and completed the whole thing in about 40 minutes!! Most of the group had to use an exit door to make it out in time.

fruit stand with yummy strawberries and fruit ice cream
Original bungy bridge

In Queenstown now. Just checked in, checking email, then out for dinner, and early to bed, because I leave at 6am tomorrow to head to Milford sound. Turns out Stray will not be going to Otago, so I’ll jump up a bus going down, and then stay behind a day or two, see Otago on my own, and catch up with Hoover (my current driver) on her way around. That should still leave me time for Wellington and maybe Waitomo.

In non-travel news, I got 121 out of more than 2000 this last weekend, which bumped me up to 53rd in the competition overall. I’m so gonna break the top 50 before this game is over!!

Also – remember to keep checking out courage campaign and their fight against republicans trying to steal electoral college votes in CA.

Youth, music, sex, and the nineties. I personally LOVE Empire Records. “No – do you really know where Harvard is? It’s another universe, man, filled with big blond guys who row boats and eat ivy.”

Oh and this made me laugh. Bonus points for including Milo Ventimiglia. (Oh and Heroes 207-209 were awesome – I can’t wait for the ending!)

And from CLeolinda;

First Reviews Call ‘Sweeney Todd’ Best Film of 2007; pics from the Sweeney Todd premiere (my God, Johnny Depp cleaned up for the occasion! So did Keith Richards!); Sweeney Todd: Behind the Scenes Footage.

Your First Look at Sam Rockwell in ‘Choke’

New ‘Wanted’ stills with McAvoy and Jolie; James McAvoy on ”Atonement’.’

Katherine Heigl Admits That If It Were Up To Her, She Would Probably Have Aborted Seth Rogen’s Love Child. [Ed; I love this headline.]

I forgot to post earlier – we drove through a little town on the West coast called Ross. It is famous for being the spot of the discovery of the largest gold nugget (possibly at the time). Save the apple juice!! The nugget no longer exists. Some European monarch made it into furniture.

Slept in today, then walked out to the glacier. Nice walk – pretty scenery – and after sitting all day yesterday it was good to get out and walking, since I’ve been walking about an hour or an hour and a half every day in Chch. (Oh – yeah – I forgot to say, on my last gym appt, my trainer took my measurements. I put on 3.5 kg (of muscle!), but dropped about 9 inches from my waist and hips and such. I think she might have been a little overzealous in her measurements, though, because my pants don’t feel that much looser, but after 2.5 months I am actually a lot stronger. So yay there.)

Reading Owls do Cry by Janet Frame, which is good so far.

Oh yeah – the glacier? A big block of ice. I’m happy with my decision not to hike onto it. Ooh! But I did have a kea circle above me twice on the way back, which was very cool. I believe they are the world’s only alpine parrot.  And I found a decadent mocha on my way back (no caffeine = very headachy girl. Much pain.)  in, fittingly, the cheeky kea cafe. Been hanging out with the cat in the lounge. Waiting for it to get a bit later. That’s about it.

So – the first day on tour went pretty well. The train ride through the Southern Alps was incredibly gorgeous. Lots of Alpine meadows and snow-capped peaks. Then there was a bit of waiting at the train station till the Stray bus showed up. Turns out that that was because a good number of the people on it were seriously hung over. I was talking to one other girl who joined at Greymouth, and as she said – there was a reason I didn’t join Kiwi Experience. Still, there are a lot of nice people on the bus and if I get too annoyed with them, I can try to jump forward a bus at Queenstown. And one nice thing about the bus, is we do get fabulous music. Yesterday we got Jet, Weezer, the Eagles, and Oasis, among others.
So – once we were on the bus, we drove down the West coast, stopping to get some groceries on the way (and stopping at a greenstone factory on the way – but since I already have one, I just stocked up on food). Then the bus stalled, but the boys pushed it so they were able to get it going again. We all stopped at a bushman’s museum thing, which had some Thars, deer (I got to touch its fuzzy antlers), and a chamois. Also possum pies, but I didn’t eat one of those.

The scenery coming down the coast was incredibly spectacular – maybe my favorite on the trip so far. There’s the Tasman sea on one side and temperate rainforest on the hills on the other. Where we’re (in Franz Josef) staying is surrounded by hills covered in rainforest. It looks like Hawaii but cooler. We saw the glacier as we drove into town. I’m not taking a hike on the glacier – saving up for other things later. And besides I was knackered from the last couple of weeks. So I slept in, now I’m charging my ipod and then I’m going to walk up to the glacier face in a bit.

Okay – I’m mostly just excited to see more of NZ and I’m not really thinking about headed home yet, but… I’m not going to have a chance to post this right before going home. And travel can help you appreciate the best of back home. So. Things I can’t wait for back home: jeans and real clothes, books that cost less than $30, my own bed (well, that’ll have to wait a while), a laptop, my ITUNES. Catching up on my favorite shows (Did Greg keep working CSI? What’s up with Jim and Pam?!!!), real guacamole, bagels (although I think Chch is leading the way on close to home food), TRADER JOES (and whole foods, and many brands of tofu meats), SF weather, subscribing to EW, eventually moving all of my stuff into my own place (ok – this may take a while but its a dream I’ve had ever since I was a little girl and it’ll be REALLY EXCITING when it finally happens), paying off the tail end of this trip, no longer using power adaptors/converters/ being really afraid of frying my stupid electronics, The Dickens’ Faire (and their fish and chips), Christmas at Davies Symphony Hall, Nachos from Ocean Taqueria, REAL HONEST TO GOD SOURDOUGH FROM BOUDIN and JAMBA JUICE. That’s all I can think of right now. Oh! Jewelry and beauty products. And jeans. Did I mention those? Oh! And things not being closed on the weekend.

Vid for this one; Rufus doing Judy doing San Francisco.

Still to post; my final travel mix and my packing list. But I need to go eat dinner now. Maybe in Auckland? Or between other travel posts?

I’m officially over 13 months abroad now. Go me! Obviously, taking a year off to travel is more common in Europe, but I guess this makes me part of a pretty select handful of Americans who take the leap. I’m unfortunately too broke to get a commemorative tattoo just now (as my mother breathes a sigh of relief), but I will at some point.

I think this achievement calls for a little retrospective. Mostly it’s been great to go back through all my old entries through the past year and remember all the awesome things I’ve been able to do. And a lot of the lows on here (especially those in Madagascar) at least make for really good stories, and in no way outweigh the great bits about travelling.

Ireland Highs:

Seeing Rocky Horror at the Sugar Club in Dublin

Newgrange

The mummies in Dublin (at St. Michan’s)

Slurping my smoothie at Bertie Ahern

Yamamori!!

Watching Ireland beat England in six nations

Glendalough

Kavanaugh’s bar next to Glasnevin

Killarny National Park (including the horseback ride there).

The Burren

Connemara

Donegal (particularly the famous chippers, and the walk out to lough eske)

The Giant’s causeway

The murals in Belfast

The trad session at Hercules in Belfast

Pat’s horse winning Fairysdown

St. George’s Arcade in Dublin (also, St. Stephen’s Green, the dead zoo, and the pubs in Ranelagh. And the Laser video store, although Alice’s here in Chch is still my fave. Oh! And Cafe Bar Deli!!! Yummm…. and Blazing Salads).

The ghost tour in Dublin http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Jessica+Dillon/?p=38

The bog men at the National museum in Dublin

The staff at Kiely’s (well, everyone except Gavin, but they finally fired his butt).

The Guinness Storehouse

Whelans

Seeing the Anatomy lab at RCSI

Helping Kristl out with the Vagina Monologue auditions

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Stuff I posted about Joshua when it came out in the summer

I’ve been going through old blog posts (see the next entry) and I came across this one being sad about not having my christmas music. I have it this year! Yay! And I had a lady give me a candy cane today! double yay!

I forget if I posted this already, but I found this on youtube; Garbage retrospective. (The quality isn’t always great, but it’s fun to see a look at their music videos over time). I think I’m Paranoid is soo the best video ever and I’ve more or less blocked out Breaking up the Girl.

Remaining Sundance 2008 Non-Competition Line-Up Announced.

Tin Man Explores New O.Z. Since I wrote about it earlier

A cute (and short) vid on the writers strike.

The top 25 gay (or bi) tv characters. (skews recent, only 3 non-white, a bunch from Queer as Folk, and only 6 played by openly gay actors. Including John Barrowmore, who was once turned down to play Will for being “too straight”) Oh, and not surprisingly, Chris Keller from Oz (played by Christopher Meloni) ranked pretty highly. And the best is, clearly, Gale Harold on Queer as Folk. I mean, gay or straight, he’s easily one of the best characters ever on tv.

So – this afternoon, everyone said goodbye to me at work. They gave me a great card AND!!! A greenstone necklace! I had really wanted one, and couldn’t afford it.  Apparently you aren’t supposed to buy them for yourself anyways. The symbol represents the eternal bond of friendship, or the merging of two cultures. I really love it. That’s it from here. Home, dinner, lemsip, and sleepytime.

I totally forgot!!! The list for Sundance 2008 was announced yesterday!! Guess what’s coming….

“As ever, moody dramas, dark comedies and offbeat romances abound… In “Choke,” the actor Clark Gregg’s adaptation of a best-selling Chuck Palahniuk novel, Sam Rockwell plays a sex addict, war re-enactor and con man paying for the care his mother (Angelica Huston) is receiving at a mental hospital.”

I’ve been giddy all day because of that. And I need to burble about it, because I told my coworkers and housemates and they all just stared at me blankly.

Also; Holy crap check out these Watchmen stills! Rose is returning to Doctor Who! Strike can be done now? People are going back and forth on whether this week will bring about an end to the strike. (Cleolinda has a backlog of writer strike information for more).

Also – anyone in the US should check out Tin Man on SciFi on Dec 2nd, because it looks like it’ll be cool.

So – I’m working on finishing up my last couple of big travel posts. Hopefully those will be up this afternoon. I have a tickle in my throat that is worrying me – I think I’ll go buy some airborne and hit my bed super-early tonight.

Tried to exchange my used books yesterday to no avail. I’ve never been in a city where no used book store allows exchanges. I’ll go try the vagabond backpackers if I get a chance tomorrow. After work (and by work I mean working on my travel post, so that Caroline had a chance to get used to things on her own with me around if she got stuck), I saw JOSHUA!!! It was fucking brilliant. It was scary and Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga give absolutely amazing performances. I so highly recommend it. It’s about the only scary movie I’ve seen that is completly psychological – there’s no serial killer, no magic or anything supernatural. Just an upper east side family trying to get by.

Afterwords, I got some pastry dough and a pie sheet and ran home (in the rain – what is up Canterbury weather??) to bake a pumpkin pie! It isn’t totally perfect (one of my housemates left the grill on so the top of the crust burnt a bit, and I had to go to bed before I could let it cool all the way, so the middle is a little soft. Oh – and it turns out we didn’t own any measuring devices, so the sugar and spices were guesstimates.) But it tastes good! And that’s the important part. And while it was baking and cooling, I packed. So I’m sending 2 small boxes home, and I don’t know how everything will fit in my backpack, but that’s a project for tomorrow morning.

Here is an article Jon Dorschner wrote about Iraq. He’s my friend’s father, and he volunteered to go to Iraq to help rebuild and try to create some goodwill towards Americans, even though he is very against the war (he taught at West Point for two years, and when I visited his family there, he had a giant poster of Jerry Garcia up on the wall in his office – how cool is that?) Anyways, check out what he has to say about how things are going.

Round 2 of the gay writers strike is picketing NBC. Why’d they pick NBC? “HEROES is quickly becoming the gayest show on television. It’s a show with a bunch of men who run around shirtless for no reason. It’s like West Hollywood on Saturday night.” Ah… I love Heroes. Now, if only I could find the time to sit down and watch 207-209.