Naoussa – one of the fishing ports and towns on Paros. Yes it really does look that good, even in late Autumn!

Ah yes. The Greek Islands. 17 years ago (1990), when I was an exchange student in Germany, I took a two week trip to Greece with a friend. We took a 36 hour bus trip from Stuttgart, via Munich, Austria, Czechoslovakia (as it was at the time), and down thru Greece. This was all pre-EC days, and it was interesting to see that, even then, the only person on the bus who got any grief at the borders was the lone american on the bus. It was an interesting ride tho – no aircon during the night, police in communist countries being paid off with coca cola etc. Quite an eye opener for a 16 year old kiwi kid.

Once we got there, we took a ride down to Pirieus (the port in Athens), and then a boat out to Patmos. Nico, who I was traveling with, had been there many times with his family, so I just stuck my head down and went for it. It was fun. We spent a week out on the island, then hooked up with some friends of his in Athens and spent a week on Marathon beach, which was fun – slept on the beach, ate at the bar on the beach, drank at the bar, rinse, repeat.

This time was somewhat different. I wanted to take Leonie to Patmos, however I found it was a 6+ hour ferry ride from Athens, and as I dont do boats well (and we dont have too much spare time), we decided to try Paros, which is around 2.5 hours from Athens. Rich and Gil had been there a few months ago and loved it, so we took their word for it, and headed out there.

To say it’s lovely is an understatement. The whitewashed houses, tiny winding streets, friendly people, great food, fantastic coffee (especially after south east asia, which is almost as bad as the USA for coffee), and while it’s been nice and warm (it’s 6:30pm and I’m sitting in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, drinking ouzo), it’s not hot like it would be in summer.

In Leonie’s words “it’s everything I dreamed of!”. For me, it’s bought back a lot of memories, all of them good.

We got in on thursday morning, after getting on a 7:30am ferry. Finding the place we are staying at was a bit of fun – I did mention “maze” is a synonym for “streets” here, right? – but it only took us about 15 mins. The apartment we have is lovely, situated at the back of the port town. It’s very “cycladic” – the small rooms, stone/slate floors, white washed walls etc. Once we dropped our bags, we headed into town to find some food. We only got about 100m before we found a lovely cafe and had some breakfast/lunch. After that we walked around town a bit, and had a bit of a siesta before heading into town for another walk around dinner time.

One thing to remember here at 2pm, everything closes. EVERYTHING. It all opens again at 6. Nice to assume that everyone goes home and hangs out with their families, tho I really dont know what they actually do.

The town – Parikia – is basically a whitewashed maze. It’s not very big, but the streets are very tight and windy. It would be very easy to loose your way or sense of direction, and thats why it’s like that – as a defense against invaders. Once we worked out where the main street was, and where the water was, it was quite easy to navigate. It’s a load of fun walking around a town-sized maze :)

The next day – yesterday – we hired a car (we would have got motorbikes, but as I dont have a drivers license at the moment – thanks, Bangkok pick pockets – I can’t hire anything). Aside from the bike option, I think this is the best way to get around the island. It’s about 10k’s to the north end of the island, and if we did it non-stop on the main road, about 40k’s around the whole thing. We had a little fiat, which was ideal for getting around the tight roads and lanes, tho a little more ground clearance would have been good at times.

We started with the top of the island, stopping in Naoussa for a look around and a snack – before heading to Ambelas beach, the small towns of Kostas and Lefkis, a drive to the highest point on the island, and finally back for a wee siesta before dinner, which started with a glass of bubbles looking at the sunset, and finished with some lovely tzatsiki and calimari.

Today, we headed back the way we came back yesterday, looking in the Marble Caves (last used to make something for Napleon) before heading to Marpissa, a “short” walk up to a monastery (there are a lot of small monasteries and churches here), before coffee in Dryos and lunch in Aliki.

After lunch, we tried to go to the scorpion museum, however it was closed, so we continued our drive around, heading inland a bit – on some roads which would be called “back country sheep tracks – with added concrete” in New Zealand – before heading back to Parikia to drop the car off.

We have one and a half more days here before we head back to Athens. Tomorrow is “No” day (Ochi Day), a national holiday. It is in celebration of when the then-prime minister Metaxas said “Ochi” to Mussolini when he was asked for Greece to surrender in 1940. There is a parade thru the middle of town, which we will be trying to see. Other than that, it’s time for some exploring of the town and surroundings, and some relaxing time. It’s been lovely here so far – the highlight of the trip for me, and the realization of a dream for Leonie. Greece, the Greeks and Paros have not disappointed.

[BTW: We stayed here, in the Aegean Village Hotel. It’s lovely – recommended.]

Well, we have arrived in Athens, after around 38 hours of travel. We got up early (5am) in Bali, got on a 9am flight to Singapore, spent 11 hours in Singapore airport (with a case of Gastroenteritis :( sorted out now tho, most likely, according to the doctor, a case of salmonella from dodgy chicken satays. Not at all fun – tho the travel first aid kit we got in wellington, which sounded like overkill at the time, fixed me in under 12 hours, so it was worth every cent. Don’t hit south east asia (or other places) without one – it was around $100 from memory, but it has EVERYTHING. From now on, I’ll have my salmonella with a nice side of dub, thanks.)

Bali was great, especially to see Rich and Gil (friends who now live in Doha, and were there during the Bali bombing), and William (who works at the hotel we stay at). Kuta was totally full of tourists – well, about 300%+ of what it was when we went there last time – which is fantastic for the Balinese people, as thats their bread and butter – or rice and veges. The aussie media and government were all there “in force” for the commemorations, tho it was no surprise that their New Zealand counterparts were not, even tho three kiwis died in the bombing. After Rich and Gil left was pretty much when my stomach started to play up, so I can’t say I enjoyed the last 3 days we had there as much, but I’ll definitely be back – sans chicken tho.

Athens seams to be an interesting place – we’ll have a look around tomorrow, as both of us are close to sleep walking (sleep blogging?) at the moment. As the Lonely Planet (and the travel agent) points out, there isn’t THAT much to see in Athens (that said, there isn’t in Auckland or Wellington, either, so….), but we’ll do the usual 4000+ year old stuff, as I missed out on going in there last time I was here (and that was 15 years ago – it’s a very different – and much cleaner – place now!). After that it’s on an early ferry to Paros, for some nice relaxing time on the island, before we get back “to work” in London at the end of the month.

Leonie’s been uploading lots of photos too, thanks to the fast, free WIFI in the hostel here in Athens – maybe some from our new Canon 400D DSLR, too ;–)

Just VERY quick one. :) We are still alive – most likely more info on Leonie’s blog.

Thailand was ok – Ko Samui was great, nice people, nice food etc, but Bangkok was, well, totally shit. Busy, dirty, unfriendly, con-artists everywhere etc. I dont think I’d even go there in transit, let alone leave the airport. Avoid at all costs.

In contrast to Bangkok, Bali feels like home. Friendly people, lovely food etc. No need to go to Thailand again, I think – just come here :)

Righto, back to the pool and an ice-cold bintang!

Well, as we can’t get any photos up onto flickr reliably, this may be quick :)

We just spent a week or so in the gold coast, followed by a week in Byron Bay (about an hour south of the gold coast). Both were really nice, and very different from each other. We stayed with Leonie’s sister in the GC (thanks Jude and Warren!), in a nice apartment on the edge of one of the golf courses. GC was nice from a weather and sitting by the pool point of view, but it’s very tourist-y, so, well, we sat by the pool quite a bit, and I managed to lose not 1 but about 4 balls when playing night golf.

In Byron, we stayed with friends (from the Gift/Grail). It used to be a hippy/alternative type place, but now it’s really just another seaside resort place with a bit of a hippy overtone. Very nice, but not what I expected. We did spent a lot of time in very good company (thanks Ned and Merle – and Smudge/Ty/Barry!), and the spiders were something else!! Leonie even saw a brown snake, which are quite rare and very deadly.

Overall, I dont know if I could live in Byron – not big enough for me – but the Gold Coast is definitely an option, we even checked out some of the new apartments around where Jude and Warren live (nice, and quite well priced)

Next stop – yesterday – was Singapore. I thought the heat in aussie was going to prepare us for south east asia, and while I’m glad we didn’t go auckland to singapore directly, it’s nothing on the 30 deg and around 150% humidity that it is here. It’s just insane, tho I guess I’ll acclimatize quickly enough – maybe by the time we get to Ko Samui. We got into the hostel about 9:30pm, and tried to find little india. After going the wrong way from the MRT station, we gave up and went back to the hostal. It’s quite a change for my internal compass to be so far off – it’s normally Leonie’s that is 180deg off!!

Today we got up and headed for town. We revisited little india (lots of, shock horror, indian stuff), china town (nice, lots of chinese themed stuff and a lovely lunch), sentoza island (via the cable car – over priced, very tourist-y, not at all good), and finally to the night safari at the zoo. We did the tour (after some MUCH needed dinner), which is excellent, and then the creatures of the night show – in which I got to hold an (approx) 3m reticulated python. I’m not good with snakes – but it was quite an experience. It was very heavy (it’d easily knock my to the ground if it fell on me), and felt funny – not warm, but not cold, and very dry. The strangest thing was the movement. Leonie got some video, which I’ll (maybe) put up on YouTube if I can.

So 16 hours after we left (on about 4 hours sleep), we are back with super sore feet. It was a great day tho.

Overall view of Singapore is: I really like it. It’s nice, clean, organised, and the people are really friendly. If they would tone down the humidity, it’d be perfect…. except the price of beer. $12 for small beer is just crazy! Roll on the $2 Bintangs in Bali!!

Tomorrow is more looking around – well, a bit of it – then off to Bangkok followed by Ko Samui. Yay for laying on a beach!

Elizabeth over at woolgathering has been doing a drawing a day, and today is day 1000! Congrats :). In the spirit of her “competition”, I thought I’d give it a go.

An important part of this project has been the slowing down, the sitting down, the noticing. The individual drawings matter less to me now than the feeling of moments accumulated, the excuse to pause and daydream, to woolgather. I’m grateful for all these moments, for what I’ve been learning along the way, and for the community I’ve found online. Thank you all so much for your visits, your comments and your silences, your links, your questions, and your suggestions. Please know how much your presence means to me.

And I hope you can join me for the next 1000!

If you are joining the distributed drawing party, please add a comment to this post and let everyone know what you drew. (If the picture is somewhere where you can link to it, that’s a wonderful extra treat for all of us. If that isn’t possible, don’t let it worry you!) Comments on this post will be open through midnight (Eastern daylight time, U.S.) tomorrow, September 25th. Welcome to the party. Cheers!

We are in the gold coast at the moment, staying with Leonies sister and her husband. They live in one of the (many?) planned communities in GC/Surfers, right on the edge of a nice 18 hole golf course. It’s really nice here – quiet, but there is a pool etc, and Jude and Warren are right in golf, so it’s a no-brainer for them (it’s a 3 min walk to the first tee-off).

This is the view from their deck, over the driving range.

Yes, the weather has been like this the whole week. I can now see why they moved here. It’s also going to serve as a nice stepping point for going to Singapore, Thailand and Bali, which are the next stops.

So, I thought I’d draw the view from here. I have a nice book to draw in (Moleskine with heavy pages), which I normally use for notes, and I borrowed some of Jude’s pencils (she’s also an artist and photographer :) ). So……

I’m not sure how to do the green of the grass etc without color, and after an hour or 2, I kinda lost interest…… but hey, it’s the first time, and we are going all sorts of interesting places, so I can always try again!

Next stop Byron Bay (tomorrow), then back here early next week, then off to Singapore.

Yup, the time has finally come! We have spent 42 days in a campervan, and tomorrow we fly out for the first leg of the international part – the Gold Coast to see Leonie’s sister and friends, then Singapore, Thailand, Bali, Greece and finally into the UK at the end of October.

It’s going to be HUGE! :)

On the same note: Both of our cellphones are staying in NZ, so dont bother texting, calling etc to them. Email is the best option, but if you must, the old home number is still active, and it emails us the voice message and caller ID info.

For more media, check out my or Leonie’s Flickr stream.

So, in my hunt for places to stay on the international leg of our trip (hehe, that sounds rather exotic….), I thought I’d have a look at travelbug, which is the travel thing from trademe (or, maybe, from some other part of Fairfax)

It’s really rather nice. It’s totally not what I wanted – we are sorted for NZ accommodation – but it’s really nice, very clean design, and very easy to use. I found something on great barrier island which I’d consider staying at – this one sounds really nice.

Just a few “comments” on it tho (Rowen, are you able to shed any light on this?):

Why can’t I use my trademe login to login? Why another one? I’m sure OldFriends uses TM login’s (or maybe mine is just synced :) )…..

How do people add themselves in, eg if they own a hotel or similar? Not that I do, but I can’t find it – maybe if I make an account. (later: nope…)

When I found the above place, registered (which logged me in), then added to fav’s, it kinda crashed on an https page. going back to the homepage, finding the place again showed it in my fav’s…. odd.

What’s it written in? the URL’s look Rail’s, and it has a bit of a rails feel, but TM uses ASP.NET… and ASP.NET can do the URL rewriting with no problems at all.

I love the bug. Very cute.

All up – very slick. It’d be great for overseas people, and I think, once we get back, I’d use it to find B&B’s and other similar places.

Oh,this is great. :) This song was HUGE in the US when we were there…..

Ah yes, more and more days in a camper :)

Since the last post, we have been down the east coast (to east cape), up to napier for a friend’s 50th (Hi Carol!) which was loads of fun, up to waikaremoana for most of a week (which was nice, but cold and wet – we even walked thru snow one day!), then back to wellington for the day and up to wanganui. Next stop(s) are taupo / rotorua (for a nice hot soak!) then raglan (mmmm, cafe’s and surf) then to auckland until we head off to australia.

Leonie has just put a load of photo’s up on flickr, tho I think more of them are loading as I type…

It’s been loads of fun being in the van, and visiting some places i’d not been to for a long, long time. Petrol has proven to be the unexpected expense of this trip – more than the hire of the van even! But still – great way to see the country.

I’ve finally got all of our accom booked for the next leg(s) of the trip – australia, singapore, bangkok, ko samui, bali and greece. It’s going to be loads of fun!!

Not a lot to report at the moment – been traveling around, will post shortly on that, if I can.

iWork / iLife 08

We picked up a copy of iLife 08 in Napier on the way thru, as Leonie has around 7000 photos in iPhoto and the events thing looks great. So far, so good. I like it.On the other hand, I am totally uninspired by Office for Mac (looks and works like a windows app, not a mac one, for a start, feels clunky etc), so I started trying out iWork – wow, Pages is really nice! So on the way back thru Wellington, I picked up iWork as well. I dont use an office package much, but so far, it’s very nice. Unlike Rod, I dont need or want a mail client – I have gmail and mail.app, and I dont have Exchange, so thats not needed.

MS Office: $500 or so. iWork: $100 or so. I hardly even thought about purchasing iWork. The price was just “right”.

Both do what I want them to do. I’m glad I didn’t pay $500 for office (thank Phil for the MS Shop purchase :) ).

New iPod’s

Can you tell I’ve been offline for a while? :)

Still uninspired by the iphone as a phone, but the ipod touch looks really nice. In the US it’d be great – not sure about NZ (not enough public WIFI around). Should work well in Europe. Rumour has it that there is a HSDPA iPhone set for release in Europe on TMobile. THAT would be worth it. And to think, I’ve just got my SP5 fixed….

iPod classic. I have an 80GB gen5 iPod, and it’s great. I dont see me upgrading to the classic, but I’d jump on the 160GB one if I actually needed one.

New Nanos. Nice. Very nice. Depending on what the environment in the UK is like (do people still get mugged with white headphones?), I may pick one of these up… I dont want to lose my WHOLE music collection to some idiot with a attitude.

Righto. Online today, offline for a while after that – like, until we get to the UK! – unless we find something in OZ / Sing / Thailand / Bali / Greece etc.