Hullo from South

Ladiez!
Hullo.

Well, wull wull.

Currently I am in a hostel in Cordoba, Argentina´s 2nd biggest city. The Tango Hostel is full of people drinking beer and talking and smoking in the garden. Western music is playing- where is it not around here? - and there are recognisable Scots, Irish, English, American, Aussie accents outside.

It´s weird, being put back into this ´tourist´realm, after the last week of being an ´Argentine´. Thrown into the deep end without any sense of traveller empathy I´m feeling here. It´s easy to feel isolated in a country where no one speaks your language but you soon realise that there´s travellers everywhere. It´s so deceivingly authentic.

Cordoba pulls lots of tourists for outdoor sports- hiking, riding, skydiving/ handgliding and the like. The Sierra Cordobas snake their way around the western side of the city.

My placement is in Ascochinga, 60 kilometres north of Cordoba. I´m in Cordoba this weekend with five other Australians, taking some time out to explore the town.

The first week of placement has gone well. Michael, Rueben and I are staying at a mentally disabled house run by the church. The owners, Marta and Juan, are very nice. ´Los chicos´, the 24 dudes who are looked after there, are funny, intruding, annoying, interesting, loveable. THeir characters are very distinct. It´s hard to obtain too much information about the place, as no one speaks English.
I´ll probably spend my first month in Argentina there, and then go to Villa Allende, which is closer, about 20kms from Cordoba. There I´ll be at an orphanage. Three Australian girls are there now. They say it´s very full on, and difficult to maintain sanity/ privacy at times. This is after a week, so we´ll see how four months goes. I think it´s a matter of time to get used to that really. They´ve also said that there´s not much for them to do there- when we visited today they were quite bored. Again, I suppose as comfort grows, we´ll create activities and fun things for the kids to do. They live there 24/7 so understandingly life is pretty mundane. 300 kids! Bonza.

Life at Ascochinga so far is very tranquil. It´s so quiet, and a simple life is lead there. When we´re not helping paint the place or help in the kitchen or clean, we often head down to the ´rio grande´- pretty small creek on the farm- to practise Spanish in the shade next to the wild brumbies. Pretty sweet.

I got pretty sick this past week. Not anything serious, perhaps just a cold, but I slept for 2 days. I´m better now, Marta tended to me real good, but now I have a hoarse voice and I think tomorrow there´ll be none left of it.

I have not written about the finale phases of the Ginnivan adventure, but I feel it´s too far gone. Alas, in person.

This is about it for now, I suppose. It´s 12.30am now and there´s a possibility of us going out tonight. Thing is, clubs don´t open till 2am. It may be a struggle to stay up till then. We´ll see. Definitely tomorrow night is a must.

Love for you all, hope all is well.

ps. ROCK ON FOR YOUTH ALLOWANCE!!! Kudos from over here.

xooxox Georgia

nuffy

Ah! I see that it posted. Carry on.

arrrghhh

I just wrote a blog but it deleted!!!!!!!!!
However, all is well, I´m in Argentina. Never you mind! I will write when I have more than 2 minutes left at an internet cafe.

Love to all, G

¿¿como se dice??

Hola!

I write from the great southern land of Argentina.

Firstly I will say that it´s winter again for me. This is not pleasant! I came straight from New Orleans- balmy nights, summer dresses, flower fragrances wafting eternally, cut grass, warm rain, beer, beignets, general goodness.

Currently I´m wearing three layers, a beanie, bed socks. However, I tend to look on the brightside in that these 2 weeks left of August will be the last I´ll be seeing of winter for a whole year. Suck it up, boyz.

I forget when the last time I wrote was. And I can hardly click back -or atras- at this stage of my entry.

So, I´ll begin, say, at Memphis. Memphis is an interesting town. We caught an overnight Greyhound there from Chicago, which was interesting. A pretty bad experience actually- started off with hundreds of people crammed into a small, smelly bus station, getting yelled at by totally disdainful and apathetic workers. Leah said that the only people who catch Greyhounds are the people who cannot afford to travel any other way. Tickets were $25. I certainly felt as though I couldn´t spend any more on travel after our epic 22-hora journey on Amtrak.

We stayed with a cool bloke in Memphis, played instruments (harmonica, guitar, autoharp) on his porch in our lovely dainty dresses. The town has an underlying edginess. We stayed in a lovely suburb but after one guy saying that there were many shootings and robberies and rapes and that kind of business the feeling came. That tends to be over the town and people live with that kind of fear daily. I don´t know, honestly, if it´s really that bad but we were definitely warned about a lot of things.

We visited Graceland, which was INCREDIBLE. Our visit happened to coincide with Elvis Week- probably too big of an ordeal to go into detail right now. However cheap and tacky the experience was (not literally cheap by any means) I left the tour complete with a greater respect for the King Of Rock- taking care of business.

From Memphis we amtraked to New Orleans. As youse can tell from my earlier statement of the place, it´s glorious. I only spent about a day and a half there, which truely wasn´t enough. It is such an alive place. Very romantic in how raw, how full of soul it is. We also couchsurfed there which was wunderbar and we went out with Justin and his incredible friend Horton- maybe the coolest person I´ve ever met. Cool in a ´I can´t believe you actually exist and are talking to me´ cool, rather than connecting with him on an everyday level.

And now I´m here in Buenos Aires! I´m a bit devo that I´m leaving tomorrow. That means about 1 and a half days total so tomorrow I´m planning on going for a big wander. Shall be fun! Today was a bit of a haze really.

Oh, and I think I got majorly ripped off by a taxi driver. He charged me $50, which is super expensive, even for Australian terms rather than Argetinian pesos. However when I confronted him on this matter he talked rapidly at me in accent-riddled Español which left me in no state to continue. Reluctantly I handed over the money and felt extremely jibbed.

The taxi also conked out in the middle of a 10-lane tollway, which was also a bit crazy. Afterwards the taxi driver simply pointed to a cattle truck passing and said ´carne´. Fair enough, really.

Ok so that´s about it, my time is pretty much over here. I´ll update again once I get settled in at Cordoba. So far, all is good.

Love to youse all.

Muchos besos!

Yorya

Antoine- He's from France

Hullo hullo hullo!

I write from Canmore, AB. I am reunited with all of the family for a three-day folk festival which has been likened to our very own Yackandandah Folk Festival, pulling all five of our clan here.

I write, slightly tipsy, after a beautiful lunch downtown with mum and three sisters. Drinking wine in the middle of the day with a good meal is something truely luxurious and pleasant. This afternoon mammoth amounts of mist were spewing over the surrounding Rockies so we're just back at the hotel for a breather/ digging out our relatively unused winter clothes.

I realise I haven't written since New York. I progressed to Saskatchewan's backblocks promptly afterwards which created quite the culture clash for myself. Meeting up with a pal there, Donell, I stayed with her for about 10 days. I worked with her for some days- at the Lloydminster Golf Course, serving drinks on the golf buggie (what a grouse job that is), doing a bit of exploring, before heading to Shell Lake for some camping and reunioning with her family. That was great, too short though, but just being able to hang out and swim in the sun and go fishing amongst the forest at sunset was just what I was a hankering for.

We then embarked on a road trip into Alberta, heading through Viking and Hanna and other such fun towns before stopping off at Drumheller- DINOSAUR CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. This was a freaking cool place and it was excellent being able to take the same pictures that Leah took there 6 months before me.

Then, in Calgary, I was reunited with parents. We went out for dinner with Donell and her brudda, before heading to the hotel to wait for Leah's arrival. Unfort., Pies' plane got mega-delayed and we weren't embracing until the next morning, but lovely, it was.

And since then we've all been hanging out as a unit. Time has absolutely flown by. We spent a couple of days in Banff, doing some walks, lazing by the wondrous Bow River, laughing at gophers (stupid gophers), eating fudge, all of these things. I got to live the dream of visiting Lake Louise, which was remarkable. We hiked 5 ks to a nice tea house nestled in the mountains, munging on scones and rose tea, before heading home and eating some nice quinoa and watching Goodbye Lenin!

We leave Canmore tomorrow for Montana. Myself and the sisters will be catching Amtrak to Minneapolis, before heading south and seeing where we wind up before I leave for Argentina on the 17th of August. I'm pretty excited for the new leg of this journey, if not nervous for my lack of Espanol. Will write more from the ol' US of A.

Muchos Besos

G.

the kids don't stand a chance

From the couch, the window in Justin's apartment looks towards uptown New York, the Empire State Building nestled amongst others. From the other side of the room, it overlooks the Hudson river, and over to New Jersey.

Last night I sat on the top of the apartment building, eating my rice and greens, admiring the view at sunset. Others were up there too, splitting six-packs and eating dip. There was a warm wind. Twas lovely. I then went for a walk along the Hudson. There's a parkway along it designed for runners, boarders, walkers, skaters, bikes. Dogs. Everyone was out last night and the colours of the sky against the buildings and water were wonderful. I stumbled across a jazz band 'George Gee and his big band' (appropriate) who were at the end of a pier, pumping out tunes to the city. They had also done a swing dance workshop prior so the place was abuzz with couples of all variety getting their doo on.

This city is incredible. It's funny though, one thing that is very evident in being here is the emphasis on money. Perhaps it's just who I've been with, or what I've been around. Times Square was at first full of energy, amazing, buzzing. Then the amount of people, of tourists, of trashy paraphernalia, people bugging you to buy their new gangster hiphop album or bus rides or bicycle tours got to me. It's just a bit too intense.
New York is expensive and the experience I'm after- somewhere undiscovered, honest, raw- differs largely from the experience of Times Square. The 3-storey M&M building, for one.
If I lived here (which would be nice, sometime) I would grow to find these places and find the city that I'm seeking.
I wonder if the city is this full of tourists all the time. It's the height of summer here now, so maybe not.
For the meantime, exploring the place on foot is going wonderfully.

Talk soon.

Ho-tel Mo-tel Holiday Inn

Well Hi!

Indeed it has been quite the while.
I meant to do a finale blog for my time in Melbourne, but it seems that time passed by.
Currently I am sitting amongst 1 of 3 computers available for internet use at the Manhattan Holiday Inn. Hooley, Dooley. I arrived in NY on Monday night, flying from San Fransisco. Rentals caught their plane 1/2 hour before mine, so they greeted me at the baggage counter and we began our time on the east coast.

I feel though, it may be better to start at the beginning. So lets see.

I arrived in America after a big night out with some friends in Melbourne. My friend Kat's band Lionhead Staple had a gig at the Tote, and after we headed out to one guy's house in the outer south-eastern suburbs for some funs. I got a couple of hours sleep before catching an early train back home to sort out some last-minute preparations.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle with my debit card, which I was only able to activate 1/2 hour before leaving Dudley St indefinitely. Luckily though, this happened without a problem - thanks to some smart manoeuvering by my cousin J- and all was settled.

Emma and Rosie took me out to the airport at 10am Monday 22nd. It was a nice way to depart, I had an absolute ball living with them folk (and the absent Kath-dizzle) and they bade me adieu.

Then, the same time on Monday 22, I arrived in San Fransisco, into the arms of parents and older sister. It was exciting to see Lee Lee after so long. That day we lazed around, ate some amazing Vietnamese food and slept on the lawns of San Fransisco's town hall. That night we saw Wicked which was wunderbar. I was so tired but it was a great show.

Then I hung out with Leah for two weeks, indulging in ferry rides, gay pride festivities, exploration, meeting her co-op pals, eating great food. All this has been very pleasant.

I THEN spent 5 days with a cool bloke Caius, camping and hiking in the Kings Canyon National Park. Unbeknownst to many, the Kings Canyon is the deepest canyon in the WHOLE of the States. Whopper eh. So Caius conned me along with the claim that we'd be walking 25 miles. Turns out it was 40 miles, over the course of 3.5 days. Now, for all youse aussie boags, that's a good 60 kilometres. Up and down mountains. Through snow! Through valleys! Through mountains! But it was great. Tricky, at times, but great. I had a flight to catch the next monday morning, so that definitely kept me going. We had to hitchike from Fresno into the canyon, which was probably 60 miles each way. We did this with ease upon arrival, it was a lot of fun. Coming back we got stuck in the forest due to a fire, which kind of mucked up our plans a little bit. I shan't focus on the rest of the detail but rest assured we did make it back in San Fran in time for the flight.

I will upload pictures onto facebook.

And I've spent two days here with the parents. This has involved exploring the amazing Central Park, visiting the Met, eating Ruben Sandwiches, going to Times Square, and walking. We caught a ferry past statue of liberty around the bay (free!, hooley dooley) which was lovely. The weather here is very beautiful and the city seems to come alive in the summer. There are also lots of tourists.
We caught the musical 9-5 on Broadway which was pretty il speco, with Alison Janney in a lead role. My my my, CJ.

Parents nicked off to Washington this morning, which leaves me free here for a week before catching up with dear ol' chum Donell in Canada. Last night we caught up for dinner/ beers with Cousin Justin and family friend Pete. Justin's office building is right above Times Square, which is pretty amazing. What's also radicool is that he's offered me a bed at his place until I leave. Yes please! So that will be fantastic.

After this I'm gonna take my old trusty backpack there and then explore parts of Chinatown, Chelsea, Greenwich Village. It's amazing to just bump into places with so much cultural history. Ex- The 59th St. Bridge (anyone feelin' groovy?, Chelsea Hotel, yada yada. New York City Cops,
Dylan, and the folk and jazz that has come from here.

Tonight Matisyahu is playing for free in Central Park. Count me in, rangas!

Love for all, hope youse are kicking bums.
xoxoxo GG