past days

Hey guys,
So the last few days have been pretty epic, Rome was amazing once I got a map from the hostel I went all over and found so much stuff, you could wander random streets and just stumble upon fantastic fountains or a mural of some description or some random statue, it was basically amazing.
Amsterdam was rather cool, so many people ride bikes there, it was insane, but the night life was rather cool, I went out with 3 canadian girls from my dorm for a couple of nights. The city was very cool as well, there were so many parks and things and the birds there were very cool, I stumbled upon a few green parrots or some description.
And Paris, its rather cool, there are alot of cool things to see, but the city is freakin huge, I walked to from my hostel to the eifel tower yesterday with a chap from my hostel, we walked for 7 hours straight. In any case we went up the tower, via the stairs I might add, and saw a bunch of other crap on the way back.
Today I have been walking along the river, witch is a rather nice walk with lots of random buildings and things, the notra dam deally, I also tried a croissant this morning, and it was amazing, 65 cents and I got one fresh from the oven it was the best croissant I have ever tasted.
All in all its been an awesome trip, I think this will be my last post as the internet times at my hostel are stupid.
In any case, it has been an amazing trip (both the Canadian and European portions) so thank you uncle glen and auntie sue for helping me with planning it, and everyone else for reading my blog.
Chao
Chris.

dinner

Dinner was basically amazing, I had an anchovy pizza and a glass of wine, it cost me 19 euros but I spent almost nothing today so I could afford it. In any case it was quite stunning, my first time eating anchovies as well, so I suppose it was quite lucky that they were delicious and salty.
Anyway, I think thats it from me for today.
Until next time
Hasta luego (see you later in Espagnol )

its so hot!!

hello,
I have found that pretty much nothing in rome costs money witch has confused me, hoqwever I have decided to go out to dinner tonight, found a place that is in my budget, so it will be nice to try some Italian food while im in rome.
On another note I walked for aaages today up this path to get to a spot where you can see all the attractions of rome, the view was incredible, lets just say I have many 2 page pictures for my book. I also saw some really intense Romanesque buildings and found one statue of superman and batman with a rather adult theme.
In any case thats about it for today, I will call in and tell you how dinner was when I get back tonight.
Chao  

some more Rome

So I went to the Vatican today at like 8:30ish and there was no one there so i breezed through, It started to get a bit crowded so I decided i was done there, walked out and saw there was easily between 500 and 1000 people lining up to get in, so we dodged that one. In any case i stumbled around for the Colosseum and got lost, and have also discovered that i'm at a loss of things to do in rome. I think I may be here a bit too long, however I'm not complaining. there are 2 girls in my dorm who have just come from amsterdam and they said it was stunning, and that the space cake is not very good value for money and didn't work the first time round. I haven't done too much today as my camera died at about 11 am and I couldn't get back into the hostel until 2:30 so I have been wandering arround unable to take pictures. I tried some gelato, it was absolutely amazing, pistachio and some moucey thing also a nutella one that Georgia suggested, it was basicly stunning.
In any case, thats it for today

Rome

Hello, everyone.
I am in Rome now, and have not died yet..
turns out that my flight was on the 25th and not the 24th so i had a mean 24 hours in the airport to avoid looking like an idiot to the people i stayed with for the last 3 weeks. Toni ( Dennis's granddaughter ) showed me the movie snatch the other night, witch was a fantastic movie so if you get the chance i recomend you watch it..
Thats about it, I haven't done anything in rome yet as the night before going to the airport i spent with toni instead of in bed and then had to sleep in the airport witch was sketchey so i ended up sleeping like all day today.
In any case thats about it..
just letting you know i'm not quite dead yet.
chao

still spain

hey guys
so, the russain uy has gone now and I have moved from the 2 bedroom apartment to the studio, and my host's granddaughter is coming on the 14th so until saturday I am all alone.
I have to walk the dogs 2 hours a day now so my workload has dropped considerably witch it good, however, I'm a bit bored of this whole beach deal, trying not to spend any money so I can have as much to fall back on as posible but the beach has gotten old already.. roll on Rome I say.
I nearly picked up a snake the other day, saw my first one slivering into the bush and i was about an inch away from picking it up when I thought, wait a minute, this is a bad idea.. So on the plus side, first snake, and I have for the first time used a bit of common sense so theres that.
In any case other than this I have seen marbella however, it was prety much the same as mijas and feungirola.
I think thats it from me, just posting to let you know I'm not dead yet, however close I may have been with all this snake handler buisness.

The Spanish coast

Hello everyone,
I have arrived at my 3rd workaway all gravy, and it is rather stunning. The mountains and country side is all well and good however it is wonderful to be at the beach, I think i will enjoy the next 3 weeks of being a beach bum, not to rub it in or anything.
I am not the only workaway here this time, there is a German chap here also, he tells me he has been hitch hiking his way all over Europe, witch sounds prety amazing to me, other than the time he has spent in the cells for hitch hiking on the highway.
The dogs I have to walk are quite anoying and feel they are ahead of me in the pack and so they do not listen.. however i would put up with this until the end of time as the beach is amazing and the weather is fantastico, the place I'm at is not very touristy witch is nice, so you can go on the beach and there is almost no one there.In any case i think you get the gist, the sun is great and the beach is stunning.

At my last workaway the power went off the second day that I was there and so I had no internet for 3 or 4 days hence the lack of contact, all in all they were nice people, just a bit.. different.. however they were vegetarian, witch i thought would not be as hard as it was but the food was not as good as Glen and Sues vege dinners and was mostly raw vegetables, witch may be fine for them but I can only eat so much lettuce before I get homicidal.
In any case i think thats all from me'
Chao for now.

Workaway number 2

Hola everyone,

so I'm at my second workaway now and I'm getting a very free love vibe from them, we had a sort of singing session at lunch and the husband is a very hippe looking chap, so that caught me off guard.

The place is cool, their on a hill and instead of one big house there are many spread out over the property with a little pathway leading between all the places, for example I am currently in the internet shed.. however its a rather cool place and the people are nice, they are German and everyone here, other workaways included, is German, so I am the only one sitting in ignorance when the talk to each other..

in any case the past few days have been good, Steffi and Steve really made me feel at home while i was there, to the point that I would be lying in my bed after a night of movie watching and I would forget that I was in Spain.

Also I have with me 1 piece of a roman roof tile and 1 piece of a broken pot that were found during my stay, so if they make it through customs then perhaps you can see them :)

anyway I think thats enough from me

Chao

Chris 

Spain time

Hola everybody,
I have made it to Spain, with my kidneys in tact, and so far my first workaway is quite stunning.
Steffi and Steve are really nice people and the house is amazing.
The house is a cortio witch is a Spanish farm house but the have turned it into a sort of hotel but the don't do food, i am unsure what you'd call that, however its very nice, the work is hard work and so im feeling it this morning, not that I'm complaining.
I found some roman roof tiles while gardening yesterday also, that was quite exciting. The history in this place is fantastic, makes quite a change to see maori history dating back 100's to European history dating back 1000's of years.
In any case the place I'm staying at the moment is fantastic it is easily twice as old as civilisation in New Zealand witch i think is very cool, and the sunshine doesn't hurt :)
Until next time,
Chris

Nodnol

Hello readers of my blog,
Thursday morning 11:30 I landed at Heathrow airport after a 9 hour flight on witch i managed to get 1 maybe 2 hours sleep, and my first human interaction in this fine country I recieved a bollocing from the woman checking my passport for putting it in my mouth..
Moving on, I managed to last most of the day at Gary's bar an hour or two nap when Gary put a movie on, however i made it out to the pub that night and didn't get back until 1 so i think this is acceptable.

Friday, bright and early, i was up and on the bus heading into London, we arrived at victoria station with a feint smell of smoke a result of my mind exploding at the epicness of this city, I got to my hostel and then went exploring. I saw many things on my travels that then lead me to the british museum where I saw many many more things, prety much everything but the rosetta stone, the one thing that i had been told a HAD to see by Glen, however I couldn't find it and ave up when my camera died.

Saturday, today, I bought my ticket to Paris from Amsterdam, I got the last seat on the train at 8:16 in the morning and headed back to the museum to see this stone of Glens. Now my camera batter had not charged at all durrin the night and i had to charge it via my lap top for the 10 minutes i was getting ready this morning so i had to save the life of it and take minimal pictures, in any case after 2 maybe 3 hours somewhere in the chinese portion of the museum it died, so i had to find a shady corner with a socket and charge my camera. I managed to charge it for a good 15 minutes before security told me i couldn't do that, so i went for a wander.
After maybe another hour of searching I had decided to give up, headed for the door but got lost and found the Rosetta stone.

Vancouver city

Been walking all over Vancouver today, completing as much of glens quest as possible.

Went to Gastown this morning, its quite possibly the coolest place in Vancouver so far, all the road was brick as were the buildings and sidewalk. if i could i would build a brick house and live in Gastown.

i have also completed a little over 1 quarter of the things on my list as it was sunny and the over cast today, didn't rain once, witch was very good. 

Vancouver is an amazing city, however there are far to many bums, they ask me for money "for the bus"

one guy actually said if i had a 5 he had change for me, i'll give you $3.50 change he said, i just need to get on the bus, he said. however, i am no fool, i know that a bus ticket is $2.50, and even if he needed to take the seabus it would still only be $3.50.. silly bum.

in any case that is enough from me, rambling on about bums like that probably dosn't intrest you so i will leave it at that..

grouse park

Good evening readers of my blog.. mum, dad and Glen.. today i write to tell you once again of my days events.
Today i have once again gone up grouse and it was foggy, as per the recent pattern, and i went down a couple of runs.

Now roll on somewhere arround 1, 1:30 the haze of snow cleared up and not only did i see the city i also received some seemingly nonsensical advice from a girl on the ski lift, if you are not falling down you are not learning.

I did some more runs and as i did i thought about her advice, decided it made enough sense, and so felt compelled to try out the wee park on grouse, like jumps and rails and junk, I bailed a couple of times, landed a couple of jumps and learnt a few things all the while..

so i opened a message from glen this morning, basically they are kicking me out for 3 days and i'm going to live in the woods until dinner with the lee family.

Snow

So, I'm sitting on my bed after a half a day of boarding in poor visibility conditions, and I'm looking out the window at the car, witch is covered in snow, because it is snowing.
had i not just gotten out of the shower i may have half a mind to run out there and make snow angels.
in any case i am amazed and very happy that it is snowing down here, as i think it must be snowing like a mother licker up on grouse and so things are looking good.
Also, Glen tells me that one of his and Sue's friends who works on cypress mountain may have a job for me, I'm not too hopeful as it would have to be under the table because of my lack of a visa but in any case, that would be stunning.

nothin' much

sooo... i went up Grouse again today.. nothing new to report other than I have been riding on blue runs now, or rather i have been riding 'a' blue run, as all the others seem to go to the peak so i have not but one run to ride. In any case, I lost my left glove to the bus today so old leftys gonna be a bit cold on the mountain tomorrow.
Glen showed me some pictures of him and dad in S/A and then London.. it is very strange to see him and dad so young, thin, and with a ful head of shoulder length hair.
In any case, i think thats all from me for today..

grouse mountain

went up grouse again today,however, this time i destroyed the cut that had beaten me a few days past.

Grouse

went up grouse for the first time today, turns out the cut is a lot steeper than it looks. I will be sore in the morning..

Arrived in Vancouver

Glen and Sue picked me up from the airport today