Florida – visiting Jenny & her family

I’m visiting Jenny and her family from 7/8-13 in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

Jenny and I have known each other for 19 years – since August 1990 when Jenny moved to Austria for one year as part of an exchange program (AFS) to live with my family and attend high school (BGD) in Dornbirn. It was great having her as a sister that year and after she moved back to Florida and  I continued living in Austria (and other places) we loosely stayed in touch throughout the years. When I moved to the U.S. 7 years ago that’s when we started to see each other on an almost regular basis. When I was living in New York I visited her about once or twice a year – I remember her wedding, her baby shower for Madison, two thanksgivings, one Christmas, and numerous other visits in February or in the summer   It’s been really nice to live so “close” and be able to visit her so often over the last 7 years. Somehow Jenny really is like a sister to me and her family is somehow family to me. Thanks, Jenny! I’m so glad we met!

I spent the days with Jenny, her daugher Madison (who is 2 1/2 now and such a cute girl), their two dogs (Jake and Zach) and their cat   On Sunday Ed joined us to go to “Lion Country Safari” where we were having a lot of fun – especially in the water park   Jenny and I went to the movies twice: Ice Age III ( a little scarier than the first two, especially considering it’s a children’s movie) on Thursday and “Bruno” today. OMG, “Bruno” was quite hilarious! I have never seen a movie like this (I haven’t seen “Borat, I must admit, though) and seeing such a movie in the States was even more unexpected. Anyway, I enjoyed both movies for very different reasons and both movies were fun – again for very different reasons

Tomorrow I’ll be flying back to New York – to meet more friends

PS: On the flight from New York to Miami on Wednesday- just as we were about to take off – there was the following announcment: “WHOSE BABY is this in the middle of the isle? We’re about to take off! Please, take your baby!!! The plane is about to take off! Take the baby if it’s yours!!!”

Guayaquil (ECUADOR) & Galapagos Islands

I can hardly believe it worked out, but it did: Verena and I are going to the GALAPAGOS ISLANDS tomorrow – on a 5-day cruise    

Since the last time I updated my blog not much has happened:

On Wednesday we met Giselle, whom we had met in Cusco two weeks earlier, for lunch in Miraflores, then took a taxi to the bus station Cruz del Sur and left Lima at 3 pm. We like ¨cama¨ buses  and our favorite seats are # 2 and 3  – premier piso

On Thursday we arrived in Tumbes in the north of Peru around 10 am, walked through town (rather strange military town) to the Cifa bus station, bought a ticket from Tumbes, Peru, to Guayaquil, Ecuador, had lunch, and left Tumbes at noon, crossed the border about half an hour later (a border with a bad reputation, but we were lucky and had no problems), and arrived in Guayaquil at 6 pm. Verena and I are in ECUADOR now   There we took a taxi to the center, checked out a few hostels and ended up staying at the Hostal Suite Madrid. The blocks around the hostel are slightly dodgy in the evening, but still ok.

On Friday we started looking into last minute offers to the Galapagos Islands (mainly 4, 5, or 8-day trips) and realized that it was harder than expected to find an affordable last minute boat trip to these islands… Went to the movies in the evening – ¨He`s just not that into you¨ in English with Spanish subtitles.

On Saturday Verena and I booked our trip – we are going on a 5-day cruise on the Galapagos Islands (June 1-5)    

Today we´re not doing much – there is not much to do on a Sunday in Guayaquil… Checked our emails, updated my blog, and will do a little bit of sightseeing now, maybe IMAX later, …

Tomorrow we´ll fly to Baltra, one of the Galapagos Islands, then go on our 5-day boat trip   After that we´ll fly from Baltra straight to Quito. So the next time you´ll hear from me is when I have internet access again – most likely in Quito in a week or so.

Have a good week everyone

North Island & “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”

The last few days I made may way from the South of the North Island (Wellington) via Napier and Mt. Maunganui back to Auckland where I started my trip in New Zealand. It rained a lot, as usual, I met some very nice people on the bus, in the hostels (Elvis from Itlay was one of my favorites in Napier), and in cafes (Ben from New Zealand was one of my favorites in Auckland) and other than that the last few days were rather uneventful. Upon my arrival in Auckland yesterday (Thursday) a storm was approaching the city which I found out about on the news after having checked into my hostel – on the 16th floor of a very tall and narrow building. I had a great view, but it felt as if the building was slightly moving in the storm. Maybe I was just imagining this… Actually, it was kind of cool to see, hear and feel the storm from my room on the 16th floor

On more thing I need to mention: I went to the movies yesterday and saw “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” – one of the best movies I have ever seen! It’s about the friendship of two 8-year old boys, one is the son of a high-ranking Nazi officer and the other is Jewish and in a concentration camp. It’s an excellent film, so if you get the chance to see it I can definitely recommend it!

Dunedin

From Queenstown to Dunedin:

The usual: It rained all day long.

The bad news is: 1) I didn’t get my passport back. The bus driver didn’t bring it – didn’t want to take the responsibility

2) The wildlife tour in Dunedin (is supposed to be really good from what other backpackers have told me) was full

The good news is: I feel very much at home here: the landscape reminds me a lot of Austria (the mountains) and England (the sheep), everybody speaks English (It’s still often a little easier for me to speak English than German – funny isn’t it), they drive on the left-hand side of the road (the only car I ever owned was the year I lived in England and so driving on the left-hand side of the road is still easy for me), the people here are nice and relaxed (which reminds me of Australia), some of them are grumpy, but in a friendly way (which reminds me of Austria), etc.

Sometimes I feel so at home here that I forget that I’m traveling.

When we got to Dunedin, a nice university town with a studenty flair to it, it still rained. I ended up walking around the city in the rain with Paula, from Ireland, so we’re both used to rain Then I went to the movie theater, saw “Slumdog Millionaire”, which I very much enjoyed, and then went on a brewery tour Speight’s is a well known brewery in the South Island Was fun – reminded me of the days when I worked as a tour guide at the “Ottakringer brewery” in Vienna And once again, I forgot that I’m traveling; it just felt as if I lived here…

Auckland is “little Sydney” to me

Auckland feels like being home – people speak English; I’m familiar with the food and many other things. Being here doesn’t feel like traveling, but as if I lived here.

I met Alyse, from Adelaide, who’s here for a week, on the Explorer hop-on-hop-off tour on Wednesday and we ended up going to the zoo together (I SAW A KIWI  ), as well as having dinner and going to the movies (“Role models”). We again met up on Thursday evening - again movies (“He’s just not that into you” – funny) and dinner. We also stopped by the casino and I won $ 20 in 2 minutes   Basically, I played once, won, and left   Doing all this “regular” stuff (except the casino) made me feel as if I lived here – meeting up with Alyse was like meeting up with friends and her being from Adelaide reminded me of the two summers when I studied in Adelaide. – New Zealand is so similar to Australia – the language, the people, the food, etc. – except the landscape, of course    Furthermore, Auckland so reminds me of Sydney – just a smaller version of it.