Two dudes holdin hands on a mountain top? - awkward!! haha A victory stance like no other, after ten days in the backcountry of the Fjordlands, through knee-deep mud, relentless sand flies, scorching sun, sharp alpine winds, wading through lakes and streams of glacier water, we climb the last steep hill and are treated to a sight like no other. Completely surrounded by alpine lakes and glaciers, in the distance we can see the waves of the Tasman Sea crashing on the western shore of the South Island.

I can't really describe to you how crazy amazing the whole journey of the South Island is... I hike the Abel Tasman coastal trail in the north of the island in four days and then hitch hike my way down through Christchurch and Dunedin before catching a ride west to Christchurch and meeting up with Will. We get food and equipment and we're off for ten days adventuring in the Fjordlands. I'll have to tell you more stories next time I see you, but here are the pics of the last leg of my Grand Tour odyssey:

Abel Tasman Marshlands

This dude sees I am hiking with my blue guitar and busted out some blues riffs

I traverse many of these beautiful creeks running into pristine blue ocean water

I have to wait for low tides to cross a couple of basins

Sunrise on the Abel Tasman Trail

Whenever the trees clear on my right, this was the view

Now for some Fjordland Hiking Pics!

I guess New Zealand was almost called Fernland, also it is the last remainder or the fauna found on "Gondwana" the super continent of lore.

Definitely feels like Lord of the Rings sometimes

We get out of the forest and into the Alpine section of the Kepler Trail

Awesome alpine landscape!

Never seen flowers like I seen on this mountain

just, wow.

Next to the wet and wild Hollyford track. Mud and rain and clouds for half, sunny and warm and spectacular for the other.

Some amazing moments in between sun and rain.

Did some good lake fishing!

The color of glacier water serves as a reminder of how freakin cold it is!

We are pretty exhausted and hurting at some points during our journey, but our surroundings help us along

When we do get a break, we have some amazing views. I think Will is praying here for the below freezing glacier water to turn into a muscle-relaxing hot tub.

Delicious!!!ly poisonous

I go fishing again with some string and bread and a safety pin, too bad no fish are around to laugh at it!

I've never seen this before and don't think I will ever again, a sunbow shows us the way one evening.

And that's the end of my journey! Well, kind of. We hike out of the glacier-carved mountains onto a bus to Queensland, then on to a coach to Christchurch and a night of celebrating before a pre-dawn flight back to Brisbane, Australia. A last day with Will before I fly to Sydney, then Singapore, then London, the Rome, then Greece, and finally to Tel Aviv where my sister and her Israeli beau pick me up at the airport at 3:30 in the morning.

Tel Aviv is where I call my home for the time being, but I am looking forward to exploring Israel by bike, bus, and backpack soon. I am excited to start Hebrew classes here in a few days. The Purim holiday here is like a week long Mardi Gras and the beaches are just insane with beautiful people - all Jews! My sister rocks, I'm tired, but happy, and the beach will be the perfect place for me to chill out for awhile. Thanks for reading my blog and following me around the world! More adventures are sure to come; I hope all is well wherever you are, and till next time.

New Zealand - South Island remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

New Zealand! The last leg of my trip. It has been an adventure so far, but Kiwiland has been one of my meccas since getting into backcountry hiking in Arizona a while back. The Great Walks here are stuff of legend and the extreme scene of bungi and skydiving was practically born here. The Maori people give a whole other dimension to the experience as their culture is widely celebrated here and many cities and streets have Maori names. Ok enough intro let's get to it!!

My first stop is in Auckland to visit my former AuPair Emily and her husband Kevin and baby Billy! It's crazy she was 18 when she was talking care of me in seventh grade. We have many awesome conversations about what it was like and what I was like and various observations on BoGo family life back in the day. It's great seeing her and her 1-year-old baby boy and Kevin gives me a taste of the Kiwi disposition: no worries mate

I then take a bus to Rotorua, central North Island, and find myself riding world-class mountain biking trails, specifically made for mountain bikes!!! No horses, no people, no animals; just dirt and tires. I spend the whole day on the mountain before my legs can hardly pedal anymore.

This is a jump that I almost completely wiped out on, but I made it!

It is mostly just me on all these trails so I had a bunch of time to fawn over the fauna!

What a view!!! I have to bike uphill for hours before I can bike all the downhill trails.

One of many not so glamorous but insanely thrilling jumps:

There are jumps on this mountain that are ridiculous world-class wearing a helmet and I am sponsored by eight bike companies so when I win a medal for doing this I get paid tons of money jumps...but I didn't go on them.

Luckily for my legs there are Polynesian Spas in Rotorua! The city is actually on top of a huge volcanic crater, which gives off a wonderfully eggy smell wherever you go. Sulfuric pools are around many corners, and the spas use the water in their pools of heavenly egg-smelling relaxation.

It's also my birthday and Obama's inauguration in Rotorua, so I go out and celebrate the old-fashion way with a few Canadian friends - toga party!! I actually had quite the toga on, but unfortunately it was ripped to shreds earlier on the dance floor, ha!

I also explore the really amazing Rotorua Museum there with lawn bowling on the outside and an amazing amount of Maori cultural items on the inside. It also has a very well done display on the huge volcanic eruption that leveled the town a hundred years ago. After a Maori ghost ship was seen on the lake by a group of old-school tourists, the local elder said it was a sign that their culture had been lost to the expanding tourism trade... and that people should be prepared for a catastrophe of epic proportions. Two days later, the volcano explodes and hot lava shoots miles into the air and decimates the town, the tourism trade, and the Eighth Wonder of the World: the Pink and White Terraces.

http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/photos/volcanic/terraces/

Lawn Bowls, so classy:

Historical Spas/Museum:

After rockin' Rotorua, I hitchhike to Wellington. Hitchhiking is surprisingly easy and an awesome experience here. I got two rides: one from a hippy mom with all her kids and another from a plain-spoken kiwi tour guide.

Once in Wellington I hit the bar scene and check out some mediocre music, but think my time is up when the party/thrill tour scene arrives and gets rowdy. I ask one of the participants who is looking glumly in her chair what's the deal with everybody taking their shirts and shoes off and dancing on tables to music videos on tv screens? She says it's been like that every night since they started the trip, eight days ago! I guess I am getting old, 'cause that is just not my idea of a vacation!!! hahaha.

From Wellington I get to take the ferry across the Tasman Strait to the South Island. Everyone I had met in New Zealand told me to do it, and I of course take their advice. On the map, you can see Wellington Harbor on the right and the strait in the middle; you can also see the line the ship takes through miles(kilometers) of inlets before it reaches the South Island:

One word: wow. The Ferry ride is breathtaking, windy, intense, and a really amazing experience that you've got to do if ever in New Zealand. Most people just stay inside the huge ship, but I face the elements for the four hour journey with a few other brave souls and some thrill-seeking youngsters.

My first look of the South Island:

And I arrive on the South Island...windswept and wowed, awed and amazed. I made it! I cover my nappy, salt-sprayed head and ready myself for some true adventuring.

New Zealand - North Island remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

This image particularly hit home for me. Still seems like a dream, but it's a great dream indeed. Similar to the one Martin Luther King had a few decades ago I'm sure. So this is what pride for country feels like eh? Interesting feeling I think I like it. Trust me, we still got a long way to go on international relations. We are definitely going the right direction now though, finally. I'm sending my best along with millions of pats and ex-pats all across the world. I have really felt at home during these last few days through phone calls, emails, Facebook, and the occasional inspirational Obama YouTube video It has been great to hear from everybody on my bday and inauguration day, and I'm glad I could share a part of the moment with you! Much love from summer in the southern hemisphere... GOBAMA GO!! And heck yeah people we did it.

An Obama Birthday Party remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Your moment of zen:

Madrid: Airport remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

G'day from Down Under! How ya goin? I've got heaps of pictures and grand stories from Oz, so get your brekkie ready, read on and Bob's your uncle I reckon (in Aussiespeak). Four weeks in Australia leaves me reeling from the amazing people I meet and animals I encounter and landscapes and oceanscapes and sunsets, it is just a really rich experience and I want to come back...with a 4-Wheel-Drive.

I guess we start from the beginning when I meet my Indiana friends Will and LB in Cairns - northeast Australia. It's so great to see them again and we start our adventures right with snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef...the largest living thing in the world! I also try diving for the first time and it blows my mind. It's a totally different planet down there and the reef has some amazing creatures to play with and stay away from.

You try not to swim in the ocean as much as possible 'cause blue bottles (man o war jellyfish), sharks, crocodiles, sting rays, certain coral, and rip currents will all kill you. Instead there are some amazing rainforest fresh water creeks that dot the coast and we cool off in a few... here's an interesting shot of me vine-swinging near the entrance of a special rainforest river called Mossman Gorge.

Then we go up to the Daintree Rainforest in Cape Tribulation: the oldest rainforest...in the world! Fresh coconuts await us and we drink the coconut milk and eat coconut flesh and then have coconut bocci ball games!! Did you know that coconut milk is the most sterile natural substance...in the world?! Medics used it as plasma for their patients in WWII.

Another scuba diving trip puts me face to face with the first sea turtle I have ever seen, and we hang out. In the end it lets me put my hands on its shell and it takes me for a brief yet breathtaking ride through the sea at its own pace. I come out of the water with a smile that lasts for two days...telling everyone I meet about my experience, and continue to recout it to Will and Lb at least ten times bless their hearts.

After that we go to Broome on the West Coast and get rocked with rain and wind by Category 1 Cyclone Billy. We get stuck at the hostel but finally the storm clears. We check out the alligator park and beautiful Cable Beach then we rent a car and go south to Ningaloo Reef Park. The road is not one you want to break down on as there are roadhouses out of a Steven King movie every 300 kilometers or so, kangaroo corpses litter the shoulders, and we aren't rockin a 4x4- instead we elect to get the cheapest funniest little clown car available, a two door Hundai Zoombasomethingorother. So we go driving on the left hand side of the road, with a stick shift(on the right side) a tiny gas tank, and rubber donut wheels. But we persevere!!

Lucky us we find an amazing campground right next to the beach with the most vivid sunsets...in the world!!! (that's subjective of course) For the next few days we hike, snorkle, eat, and somehow survive the 40 degree Celcius days -that's over 100 in Fahrenheit of hot sticky heat. Evening thunderstorms of the wet season made for some crazy lightning shows and natures power really came down on us again when we drove back up north to Broome through torrential downpour and long flooded roads. Treacherous yes...but also the norm in Oz.

Back in Broome, we see the movie "AUSTRALIA" at an outdoor movie theater that is actually featured quite frequently in the movie itself. Geckos crawled across the outdoor screen and eight-foot bats swooped down every once in awhile. I thought the movie was equally entertaining and confusing, just like the continent itself.

The Aboriginal topic is very much explored in the movie Australia, but it's a really contentious issue here. Everybody starts talking real low and gets very tense. There are a lot of similarities in the experiences of the indigenous peoples here and on the American continent; except here western contact happened 150 years ago in some places. Rabbit-proof fence is about two girls who escape a boarding school where similarly to the states they took Aborignal children by force into an entirely different reality. The girls travel two thousand kilometers across desert to reach home, and it's just one of the staggering stories from over here. It's a really strange mixture of fear, hatred, guilt, pride, destruction, beauty, and misunderstanding between the European descendants and the native population of Australia - I mean these Aboriginals are ancient - 40,000 years old they estimate - maybe even 100,000: surviving through two ice ages yet struggling to survive contact with the western world. Easy to forget the history while enjoying the magnificence of Australia, but an issue that is constantly in your mind whether in the rainforest streams with Aboriginal names and spiritual significance, or the social centers where Aboriginals are relegated to second-class citizen status across the continent.

Check this website out and click on the Aboriginal history link if you have time: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/

This is a good website that explains some Aboriginal Culture:
http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/

I am able to meet some community organizers in the Mossman community, try and play the didjeridoo, view some amazing artwork, and hear some dreamtime stories, but I hope to work in a community one day here and experience life on the other side of the rabbit-proof fence. Here's some didjeridoo - http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=QSXjpWUDvO4&feature=channel
Ok fhew a beautiful, tough, but necessary part of the Australian experience.

Will and Lbo head back east, and I decide to keep the funny clown car and drive down to Perth. I meet Daniel, a great German Austrian guy, to join me in my ride and we split the costs of gas, food scuba equipment, and fun for the five day trip down to Perth.

A pink algae-filled lake somewhere on the coast...

On our way down we somehow find out where sea turtles are nesting and I spend two hours on a deserted beach in the middle of the night sitting and watching a mother turtle laying her eggs in the sand then returning to the half-moon lit sea as quietly as she came. It's a truly amazing experience when you're face to face with a million-year-old ritual that has been done at the same place at the same time for thousands and thousands of years. I have some video of it, but it's just not the same. I realized that all that blue planet stuff is really amazing but you lose the experience through the screen. You've got to go out there and have these encounters yourself! They are really powerful.

We reach Perth and go our separate ways. Perth is the most isolated capital city...in the world!!! But I am really only there as a stopping point on my way to the great southern old-growth forests on the southwest tip of Australia! Perth is ok but I stay in a crappy hostel that I can't wait to leave from and I meet a really amazing woman from Switzerland who can't wait to leave either! SO we get supplies and head down to the southern forests through vineyards and tree-lined roads that remind you of California Napa Valley or something. We climb these two-hundred foot trees with amazing views and do some great hiking adventures through the old-growth Karri forest in and around huge 500-year-old trees. There are these tree-top walks as well that swing with the wind two hundred feet off the ground...really spectacular.

After that we head up the west coast for some more great hikes and make it back just in time to turn in the funny clown car that Will, Lb, Janine, Daniel, and I all drove really hard up and down the western coast of Oz. We putted in with a hub cap missing, quarter tank of gas, dirt encrusted paint, with insects sprayed across the front fender, and a sandy interior, I didn't get all the deposit back, but we certainly got all the adventure and fun possible out of it and I'm very appreciative of that.

I fly back to Broome the next day, then to Perth, then to Brisbane where I am shown great hospitality by some family friends of my Uncle David... we drink some amazing wine and have great conversations and meals. Their warmth is a great book end on a long and eventful journey. Thank you Barry and Kaye!

I leave Australia bewildered, exhausted, amazed, thoroughly smiling, and wanting to come back... with a 4x4 of course. Thanks for reading and I hope this makes you want to travel! It's addicting and life-expanding for sure... let me know if you get the inclination, I would love to join you wherever you decide to go! Much love from the Land of Oz...

AUSTRALIA remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

I meet some really cool people in the hostel, some Aussies, and Indian, and a Kiwi. We all get along really well have some awesome conversations about travel and what it can bring out in a person. The Indian guy introduces me to cricket and somehow makes it seem exciting. I know that India will definitely be one of the next places I visit. The following are some snapshots of me in Rome:

Piazza de Populo I spend an hour here people watching

Rome from a hill top on the outskirts of the city

One of the many beautiful fountains

Midway up the Spanish Steps

The Sistine Chapel blows my mind I spend two hours here contemplating the paintings and what they represent.

Outside St. Peter's Basilica

The Merry Go Round from Heaven

The place that has the biggest impact on me: The Colosseum, built by Jewish slaves.

Inside the courtyard of the Vatican by a strange sculpture entitled: Sfera con Sfera, meaning a sphere within a sphere. It trips me out and I spend an hour contemplating its meaning, especially in that setting.

So there it is... the first leg of my Grand Tour. Thanks for accompanying me Dave, and all the people and places that helped us on our way. We were truly blessed I think with luck and travel skill and good people. I will probably add a bit more photos and videos when I get a chance to in Australia (where I am boarding a flight from here in London in about an hour) but don't be a stranger. I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth or anything! Drop me an email it will be good to hear from you. And here we go to the second leg of the journey... the land down under. OOOOO scary:-) I hear that where I am going, anything that moves can kill you... That means I better chill and work on my tan as much as possible! Till next time.

- J Lev

Rome - The Eternal City remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Jimi Hendrix Cafe!

Beached pirate ship

There is a yearly festival called Eid that is happening when we are in Morocco. In each family, sheep are gathered and butchered for the celebration and we see sheep and rams being unloaded and transported everywhere during our stay here. We have a chance encounter with one of the street celebrations too, check it out:

Now to Tangier! We start walking out of Asilah and hitch a ride on the "communal taxi" which is just a bunch of people in a car going to about the same place. We get to Tangier and try to find the phone number and address of our next contact Clare who works at the American school there. We finally find her number, but no answer. We can't find a taxi to the address to save our lives, so we just wander around the city for two hours. When all hope is lost and I turn down a random street because it's down hill, wouldn't you know it we stumble across the American School. I drop Claire's name to the guard who let's us in. We talk to the receptionist who calls Clare, and we finally get in touch with her! Wow life!

Clare sets us up at a real nice and real cheap hotel called the Tangier Inn. It happens to be where all the beatniks hung out in the fifties when they were in Tangier. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs holed up here and Burroughs wrote "Naked Lunch" in this building. The sight from the hotel room was really surreal with the rooftops of Tangier and the Mediterranean Sea in the background. We chill at the bar right next door and get cheeseburgers at a 24 hour place and sleep happy.

The next day we go to the Medina which is the old part of the city. It's walled off, and the narrow streets give a really human feeling as you walk. It's like your face to face with your neighbor and are forced to interact with them, a far cry from how things are in the states I think.

We wander the narrow streets and again stumble across an elderly Moroccan man who calls out to us. We keep walking because everybody is a hustler in Morocco and we don't want to be fooled again. Something tells me to go back though, and we do. He leads us past a pile of wooden planks, three locked doors, and into a synagogue. It must have been three hundred years old, huge, the walls covered with ornate Hebrew lettering. A balcony for the women, wooden seats for the men. Beautiful lighting and really clean. We are awestruck and stay there for a good while praying and giving thanks. It was a remarkable experience and I am so glad I had the opportunity to see it!

We then find gifts for all our loved ones back home: Great fabrics, cool boxes, nice hats, and some other trinkets. Dave looks good in his new hat!

Off to the airport, I mean seaport, I mean airport we go, but we realize that our flight was at twelve that afternoon and we are already eight hours late for it! We're glad we got to do the things we did that last day in Tangier, but the next two days in airports are a tough price to pay for it!

Morocco: Tanger and Asilah remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Dave and I take a breather from each other, and I check out a totally non-eventful and non-professional futbol game, but it still draws a crowd!

I rock the beach and decompress, break out my trusty wooden turtle flute and play to the waves for a good while before heading back to the city.

I then meet up with a cool couchsurfer named Alex; he's a Brazilian socialist whose been to Cuba and wanted them to stamp his passport on the way out even though they said that if they didn't stamp his passport with the Cuban seal it would to make it easier for him to travel. Hardcore! I head to a Mucha exhibit with two of his French roommates and it's a truly amazing exhibit for sure. I had an idea of his work, but the scope of it and his art Nouveau style really hit me. Check it out: http://www.oh-holidays.com/travel-blog/barcelona/alphonse-mucha-exhibition-barcelona. I get this really nice sunset pic on the way out of the exhibit back to Alex's flat next to the "Catedral."

David and I then reunite and make tacos for Alex's international conglomeration of roommates - and they love it. We rock hookah all night and discuss politics, religion, society past and future. It's really good stuff and we pass out after an impromptu Pictionary game cause symbols worked better than communicating in languages that none of us really knew.

Now to the last leg of our European/Africa journey: Morocco.

The Couches of Catalunya and the Beaches of Barcelona remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Antique shopping in Brussels David checks out a $1500 euro watch

The next day we go sightseeing. David and I really like the vibe in Brussels and we see some amazing places on our short tour. That night, Dave goes to see a family friend in a town somewhere out there in Belgium by the Netherlands border, and I stay with Tim and Jessica for an ex-pat Thanksgiving feast that was truly a dinner to behold. Great wine and great beer and great company. I am shown the difference between dubel and tripel beers, how the best beers come from monasteries, with one in particular only handing out one case per person once a month. Brussels in brief, but a great time nonetheless!

A true thanksgiving thanks to Jessica and Tim!

Brussels!! Who Knew? remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Our hostel is Flying Pig Uptown which is conveniently occupied by like-minded souls who are exploring Amsterdam just as we are! We make an Aussie friend and off to the show we go! It's a haze of coffee shops and red lights and I only make it to 8:30 the first night before crashing at the hostel We do see some beautiful places the next few days: Vondelpark, Leidsesplein, Central Station, Powerzone, boat rides on the canals. The only thing is you have to cross two bike lanes, a motorbike lane, two car lanes, three tram lanes, two car lanes, a motorbike lane, and two bike lanes to cross a street in Amsterdam- any street.

We go to a great show at Boom Chicago where David yells something loudly and becomes a centerpiece for one of their comedy improvisations. It's a really good show and afterward we hit up Leidsesplain square with street performers and ice skating and Pofferties and toasties and then to a reggae concert just off the square at the Milkweg (Milky Way). It was the best Mondaag (Monday) night I ever had.

This old dutch dude was taking this other poor guy's huge chess pieces and throwing them down in disgust it was pretty funny

We switch to the Flying Pig Downtown for the next two nights, and it's just as cool if not cooler, we have a Thanksgiving meal there and I end up explaining the intricacies of the holiday to everyone 'cause no one is really from the States. I make the traditional awkward speech about being with good friends and family which is especially awkward cause we didn't really know anybody. Then we go around and people say what they are thankful for, which is just as awkward cause they had never done it before and were wondering if it's always that awkward and we assured them yes, it is always this awkward. To make up for not being in the states during Turkey Day, we went to McDonald's and remembered how gross it is anywhere you get it. It's all good though - that night I stay up till seven in the morning keeping company with a Scandinavian dude who is trying to sneak various illegals over the border the next morning. Truly a remarkable day of thanks!

Our last day in Amsterdam we hit up the Heineken Museum which is like a Disneyland theme park ride except the theme is beer and the music is techno. We meet three older women from England, one of whom is getting married soon and we all have a blast. We are judges in the Cannabis Cup as well! I've never seen the ridiculous beauty of cannabis like I saw it at the Cup. I wont get into details, cause I don't remember them, but I was glad to be a part of it and I was glad when it was over... and where do we go to detox? The bars and beers of Belgium!!! Next stop Brussels.

In AAAAAmsterdaaaaammm remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Notre Dame was just down the street from my flat!

I go sightseeing the first two days and then meet up with some really cool people through couchsurfing.com. Cyrille is a great guy - cool professional photographer and he takes me out to the great bars and serves me some fine traditional french food in his apartment.

Stephanie is a German taking French lessons in Paris and we meet up with her two Italian girlfriends and a Persian guy - English seems to be the language of choice but I think only because there is an American in the room! And then I realize I need to be fluent in two other languages - within the next five years. The Persian dude assumes I am an ethnocentric American, but I quickly turn his stereotypes around and we talk for two hours about the politics of racism in Iran and the U.S..

I also go on a walking tour of Paris but get lost after the sun sets at the Louvre. I am ok, but I feel bad for the tour group who I had quite the affinity for! I made some good friends, but too bad I got disconnected from them. I guess that's the good thing about traveling alone... you can never get lost from yourself!! haha (or can you? oooooo).

This is right before I get lost from the walking tour

Then here comes David!! My good friend and bandmate from elementary\middle\high school is supposed to meet me somehow in Paris and wouldn't you know it - I spy him on the street around my flat, and pounce on him from the back. Good thing he didn't kick my ass because he is much better at martial arts than I ever will be. He lets out a "HHHHHEEEEEEEYYYYYYY!!!" all of Paris can hear, and our time together for two weeks throughout Europe and North Africa begins.

We only have a day and a night in Paris before we train to Amsterdam, so we try and make the best of it. Notre Dame, River Sienne, St. Marc, The Louvre and Mona Lisa, Champ de Ulysses, Arc de Triumph, Tour de Eiffel, Pompidou, baguettes and stamps, we open ourselves and absorb the city. We meet up with another couchsurfer Nanou. We go french grocery shopping, make pesto, drink wine, dance in Greek restaurants, get lost in metro stops, wander the streets, sing french karaoke, I don't think any of us slept until we got on our train at six in the morning to the Netherlands. What a Parisian experience... now on to Amsterdam.

Le Citè de Parìs remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Hi!

If you are reading this, you are an amazing person, because you know me well, and I know you well, and we still keep in touch, which is pretty amazing in itself considering our short time on this planet and who we decide are the great ones we want to be around in our lives.
And as a wanderin' warbler who might wander himself into some really warm and happy or really cold and dreary places in the universe, it would make me happy or happier to know that you might be thinking of me wherever you are, doing whatever you're doing at that given moment: hence the online travel journal.
I'll try to be good and update it if you're good and check up on me and make sure I do, or else please send camels after me in North Africa if I don't. You can comment on things throughout this site, subscribe to it and get automatic updates, check my trip map, and send me messages too (and you can always email me as well). To be truthful, I am also doing this site for myself, and I might write wacky things from time to time, not really expecting anybody else to really read it, which is(as you probably know) how I am anyways. OK here we go...

Quick update on what I've been doing this summer/fall: I stained the new deck at 9 Montvale, which took me awhile.

I went on a week bike trip just me to Ocean City, Maryland- so nice.

I was in Ponies Gone Wild 3 at Assateague Island, Ocean City:

Then I rode the Obamawagon through Indiana where I presented on a teacher panel> I did some canvassing in Cleveland, Ohio on my way to visited Tony Bernardo in Massachusetts.(You rock Tony Bernardo in your Hippie Palace). Check out funniness occurring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baVjD3Gmpl0

I then visited New York(Hello Nathan Gilbert!), saw Jessica Sobin and Family at a rockin' N.Y. comedy club, and had a beer with Christiana Simon and her first dude.

After a long day being a voting line monitor at various polling stations in Philly handing out snacks, singing songs, and snaking lines, I finally got to party in the streets of Philadelphia with Andrew Ma and Annabelle Smith. I think I lost my voice to:

I say O, you say BAMA.... "O" "Bama!" "O" "Bama!"

After Obama won, the next day I felt as if I was on a hallucinogen : everything was literally brighter and more interesting. But the effects soon wore off, although I do have flash backs now and then when I realize he is the President of the United States of America - elect.

Trippy Right?

So now to the next stage. I am almost all packed, and I'm taking a small book bag because traveling light is best for sure. I have like eight flight reservations, all organized into plastic sheet holdy thingies. And a really small book with the 20 contacts on CouchSurfing.com I've made in the past two weeks. I'm selling the Warbler(Chevy Lumina) for $1,700.00 That's pretty good for driving it through scorching hot muddy dusty rocky sandy desert and 90,000 of American highways in three years huh? I'll miss it...kinda.

I'm excited.. I feel like I'm going to join the world citizenship club. I know I'll miss people though, especially you, and yes I mean you , but yeah we can keep in touch - if you want a postcard from anywhere, let me know and I'm on it. You can check out my trip map to see where I'll be when, and post comments on this page if you so desire. I think you can subscribe to this and it will update you when I update it. Ok then, thanks for reading and till next time!

Bye Bye 9 Montvale!

- me

Justin Lev - Almost Ready to Fly remains copyright of the author JustinLev, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs