An Update from the Beach House

Home sweet home in New Zealand. This place is truly one of a kind. New Zealand has been beckoning me since I was a kid, and as I've grown the list of reasons to come has steadily grown with me. Maybe it's the awe inspiring diverse landsapes that vary from the endless summer beaches in the north to the huge snow covered peaks in the south, giving you the option to surf and snowboard all in the same day (I know, it boggles my mind too). Or maybe it's the fact that you only hear stories of friendly New Zealanders. Or maybe what attracts me is the fact that they don't feel the need to police the rest of the world and instead focus more on their own domestic issues, like not allowing genetically engineered crops or nuclear energy. It's for these reasons I will always feel at home here.
So it's been exactly two weeks since we landed in Auckland, and it has been a non stop adventure from the time we stepped off the plane. I've got to admit I was stressed about not knowing if we would even be allowed in due to Siri not having a visa, but after 30 minutes her passport was stamped and it was time to let the adventure begin. We left customs and walked through an empty airport to the baggage claim where we found a massive empty room with nothing but our two duffel bags sitting on the floor, so we picked them up and began our journey to downtown Auckland. We walked up to the bus ticket window, saw the price of the tickets and quickly decided to try and hitchhike to town. The ticket lady looked shocked when I told her we were going to hitch it and asked what direction town was, and and all she had to say was, "I hope I don't see you in the paper tomorrow." So we both walked away a little wary, but stoked. We wandered through the parking lot for about 5 minutes and found a ride with a guy from New Caledonia and his mom, and they drove us out of their way right to downtown Auckland. After a failed attempt at giving the guy gas money, we settled with a "thank you" and a "cheers" and went on our way. We walked about a block and found a hostel, walked in and decided this would be our spot for the night. We gave the man $50 for the two of us, dropped our bags and went out to see the town. Auckland is a beautiful city -- giant contemporary styled buildings interspersed with smaller old brick and vine covered buildings, steep rolling streets and wide cobblestone alleys. We made it back to the hostel around dark and settled in for the night.
The next morning we got up early and went out again to see the town. On our journey we went to the boat harbor, saw the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and sat in the park and watched a wackanut in short shorts fro his ginger hair, shave his nipples, and take a dip in the fountain. After that we went and checked out the University of Auckland and made our way back to the hostel to make plans for the next day. When we got back we realized that the hostel price had tripled and that, along with all the others in that area, it was booked out for the Rugby World Cup that weekend. So we started searching desperately for a way out of the city. I managed to contact a WWOOF host, and I think she could sense the desperation in my voice, because she offered to take us that night and told me she would pick us up around six in a town three hours south. This gave us about four hours to get there, so I immediately started looking for bus tickets and found that a train-bus-taxi combo would get us there right at six, so we grabbed our gear and made our way to the train station. We got there and I saw right away that the train was leaving in ten minutes to Papakura so we bought the ticket and ran to the train and made it as they were shutting the door. Catching rides by the skin of our teeth seems to be a reaccuring theme on this trip. On the train I got a phone call from Annie, and she said that she would pick us up in Pukekohe, which saved us the bus and taxi ride. We got off the train in Papakura and waited in the park for her to pick us up for about an hour, which is when we received a phone call from her husband Sean asking us where we were. I proceded to tell him we were in Papakura, which is when he told me we were supposed to meet in Pukekohe a half hour away. I felt horrible, but seriously, Papakura and Pokekohe-- anybody could have done it. So Annie came by a half hour later with a smile on her face and drove us to her orchard in Miranda which was on the East Coast on the Firth of Thames. We spent the next week at her and her husband's farm with another German WWOOFer named Simon. We woke up in the mornings to fresh squeezed orange juice everyday. After breakfast we would work for five hours around the farm laying mulch around the crops as an herbicide, eating oranges, picking oranges, mowing, eating more oranges, working in the shop, and eating homemade yogurt and more oranges. I ate so many oranges that my mouth stung whenever I thought of oranges. Every night we would eat dinner with Annie, Sean, and Simon and end the night with tea and delicious chocolate, which really taught me to appreciate the simple things in life. We also got to watch the Rugby final at the local pub, and fully enjoyed observing the drunken celebration dancing...Go All Blacks! Near the end of our stay Simon, Siri and I decided to go to the Hot Water Beach, which is a beautiful beach an hour and a half drive up the Coromandel Peninsula. At the Hot Water Beach you can dig your own little hot spring in the sand 2 hours either side of low tide and relax up until the time that the cold ocean water breaks over the little sand walls you've built and lets you know it's time to head home. After our pool was washed away, we packed our stuff and headed back to the farm. About an hour into the return trip I realized that I had left our new camera back at the beach on a rock and began to cry uncontrollably. I didn't actually cry, but it really did suck to realize all of our pictures from the trip so far were either with some French tourist or getting swept away with the tide. After we got to the house I jumped in the driver seat only to realize I was in the passenger seat, switched sides, and drove back to the beach on the left side of the road (most of the time), only to find the huge ocean waves pounding into the rocks I had set the camera on. It was a sad day. I managed to come to terms with the loss of "my precious" on the beautiful drive home.

After about a week we decided to make our way to our next WWOOF host Dean Martin's house on the other side of the island in Port Waikato. We left the orchard and began hitchhiking around 8:30 and quickly began to realize that we were in the middle of nowhere after watching the sixth car go by in an hour. We finally got picked up by a really nice lady who drove us to the next town and gave us a fairwell hug and two granola bars. The next ride was by a younger girl who was stoked about everything and decided to take us out of her way to the next town we needed to go to, just because she wanted to see it too. After her ride we threw our bags on our backs and immediately took them off again to throw them into the back of an old fisherman's truck. This old guy, Jacko, was a riot. He happened to live in Port Waikato and he knew Dean. He told us stories about New Zealand and his own travel experiences the whole way into town. After about twenty minutes in the car, I looked over and noticed that Jacko didn't seem to be wearing any pants, and I began to think of ways to tell him, "bro, please let us out here." After inspecting the situation further, I was relieved to see that he was wearing pants, but they were just really short and hidden by his sweater. I also noticed he was wearing galoshes... short shorts and galoshes. The funny thing was he wasn't the first person we saw in this attire. We pulled up to Dean's house, jumped out of the truck and said our goodbyes.
So here we are in Port Waikato and damn LIFE IS GOOD! Port Waikato is a small surf town made up of about 350 people, a few dogs, a couple stray cats, a goat and a "heap" of avid surfers. I knew when I started this trip that Siri and I would be traveling on a shoestring, but I had no idea that meant staying at a little beach house equipped with surf boards, wet suits and lessons 20 meters from the beach. And not just any beach either, they call it Sunset Beach for a reason. This place is undescribably beautiful. We've spent the last week and a half working a couple hours in the morning, taking a two hour break around 10:00 to surf, then working a few more hours and ending the day with long walks on the beach. In that time I have managed to catch some waves, learn a bunch about surfing, watch some bad ass surfers, and get stung by a jelly fish. This place is paradise and the low tide walks on the beach will be etched into my memory forever.
So far New Zealand has repeatedly boggled my mind and has been everything I could have hoped for and more. With each passing day I am convinced over and over again that this will be a place I call home in the very near future. And from what I've heard we haven't even made it to the good stuff yet.
So until next time,
Cheers, Mate.

The Fijian Life

Okay, let's finish the Fiji story and get on to New Zealand! Where was I?
...So there we were, with our duffels on our backs and our day packs on our front, walking the 2 kilometers down the road from Sigatoka to Save Two's village of Nayawa. We had no idea where we were going or even whether we could trust the person we were walking with, but we kept walking until Save took a sudden right onto a barely visible path through the thick plants. We walked through the banana trees for a bit until we came out onto an open dirt section full of people playing volleyball. We went past a few small houses until we reached his mother's house, where we were able to put our bags down. Save wrapped a long cloth around my waist to show respect of the village custom. We walked back outside to see the village as the sun was setting, and just in time to be eaten alive by mosquitos. It was so bad that Save actually took us back to town to get bug repellant before the ceremony!
The village was larger and more established than we had expected, but definitely nothing like any town or neighborhood in America. Save's mother's house consisted of one big room with a tapestry separating the double bed that we were given, while everyone else slept on the floor mats together. There was electricity and running water, with a separate toilet and shower outside next to the cooking fire. The properties all flowed into one another, without any fences or barriers or really any seeming ownership of the areas. People would walk in and out of each other's houses and sit down for a meal as they liked. Food grows easily everywhere on the island, and every plant can be used for making medicines or rope or furniture or anything else one might imagine, so greed is a foreign concept. Both Neal and I were taken aback by the simplicity and ease of life, especially since it wasn't due to naivete to other lifestyles. The people are accustomed to tourists and visitors of all types coming from across the world to see them, but they seem to have no desire to live any other way than the way they already do. We walked around the village a bit and heard the echo of people singing a Methodist hymn translated into their native language, then we sat down for kava.
The next morning before we left for Nadi, Save took us up to the place where they grow cassava. We got to pull the roots out of the ground and chop off the edible bits with a giant machete! We also drank fresh coconut juice fresh from the tree, and we walked through a lush forest of banana trees where Save's ancestors had lived. We were welcomed into the village life and treated like family from the moment we entered, and we thank Save for being such a generous host to us, even though we could only stay for a short time.
That night we stayed with Save One and family once more, and drank kava one last time before our morning flight to Auckland. What an adventure we had, and this was only our first week abroad! Many more adventures to come!

BULA!

Bula, bula-- this is definitely the mot du jour in Fiji. Bula when you greet, Bula when you eat, Bula when you sneeze, Bula when you drink kava...As our local friend Save Two said, "Bula stops only for sleep, then Bula again the next day!" This is the Fijian life.
The people here are strikingly hospitable, and friendly beyond mere politenes, to the point where we could have been blind and deaf and still ended up on the right bus!...or more likely, staying at some friendly local's house as part of the family.
We were met at the Nadi airport by Save (the first of two on our trip...we will dub him Save One), a host we met through the CouchSurfing website. He walked us to the bus stop, where we waited in sleep-deprived delirium and culture/climate shock until a bright orange, open air bus tightly packed with people came to a stop in front of us. I remarked on the cars driving on the left side of the road and Neal looked around with a boggled look on his face. He had not even noticed the difference, probably due to his delirium. We got on the bus and rode to Barara, Save's neighborhood, and met his entire family (we quickly learned that one house can have many extended members of the family living there for various timespans). The walls of the house were covered in painted paper made from what looked like coconut husks, and over it were hung pictures of the family, the islands, and Jesus. We put our bags in our designated room and went outside to play rugby with Save's two sons John, 8, and Maku, 5. Rugby is a BIG deal here. They play it all over the place, rain or shine, and when they aren't playing it they are talking about it. BIG deal. We watched the New Zealand vs Australia game on television in Suva, and we could hear the groans and cheers from the neighbors through the walls. BIG deal.
After playing until we were too drenched in sweat to see, we sat down and chatted with Save's uncle, Elijah. We discussed religions around the country and learned many Fijian phrases to use on our travels, and then he showed us a few of the traditional plants that are commonly eaten in Fiji. One such plant is cassava, a.k.a. Tapioca, a starchy and extremely versatile plant that is eaten with nearly every meal. I want to remark on the strangeness of this experience for us: Just a little over two weeks ago, Neal and I were visiting his grandmother Rita in Alpina, Michigan. Neal's aunt had brought over a big bowl of homemade tapioca, and she asked if my food allergies permitted me to eat it. I said I didn't know, and what is tapioca made of, anyway? We all searched the box for clues, but the only ingredient on the label was "Tapioca." So we left the mystery unsolved and I ate it anyway.
Well, friends, TAPIOCA MYSTERY SOLVED! Solved as much as anything can be solved, in fact. We got to know cassava very intimately on our trip, even visiting a cassava farm and harvesting it ourselves. Neal even got to plant a stalk of it (which pretty much consists of cutting the top off of an existing plant and sticking it into the ground because EVERYTHING grows in Fiji, but it was exciting nonetheless)! I also learned that my stomach does not do so well on three daily meals of cassava. Ah, the pleasures of learning! Nobody can say that we did not have an authentic Fiji experience after this trip.
We stayed with Save and his family for two days, then took a 3-hour bus to stay with the Finseths in Suva, promising to meet up with Save again at the end of our trip. Travis Finseth is my godparents' son, so when we heard that he was living close by, we hassled him via Skype and email until he let us stay with him. We spent four nights with Travis, his wife Jaime, and their three kids Reed, Mari, and Cade. They are a very upbeat and welcoming family, and we had a fantastic time with them. Travis took us to Colo i Suva, where we hiked through the rainforest and jumped into a warm pool from a rope swing. Neal practiced his backflips, and I practiced not screaming out loud before hitting the water. The next day, we got to see the tourist way of life at Pacific Harbor, building sandcastles on the beach and eating banana fritters in the shade. We watched the rugby game at their house and ate homemade mango ice cream. And on our last night, their friendly housewoman Matalita served us a full-on delicious traditional Fijian feast. The Finseths went out of their way to make us comfortable and we  enjoyed every minute of our time with them. Thank you again, Travis and Jaime! Come stay at our house anytime, as soon as we have one, and we will give you our version of the royal treatment.
While riding the bus to Suva, Neal struck up a conversation with the man sitting next to him, who we will call Save Two. By the end of the chat, Save had invited us to visit his village and participate in a kava ceremony, so we decided to take him up on it before leaving the island. We almost missed the bus out of Suva (buses are the only things that don't run on Fiji time), and Neal had to run up to the window as the bus was pulling out to stop them from going off without us. We met Save Two at the bus station in Sigatoka, after waiting for several minutes and nearly getting on the next bus to Save One's house in Nadi. He ambled up with a big smile on his face, and we walked with him to his village of Nayawa. Along the way, we shook hands with every single person on the street, who he was always somehow related to (I swear he had ten grandfathers)! As we walked, he talked to us about the True Fiji and told us that we had not truly been to Fiji until the moment we tasted kava.
Okay, our internet time is up. Updates again soon....

A Little Background For Y'all

Hello World! The sun's rising on Friday and the birds are singing. This experience in Fiji has been amazing, there is so much to take in and at times it is overwhelming. But before I go into explaining the Fijian life I want to catch up on this past summer and fill you all in on what it took to make this trip happen.

I can not believe we are actually doing it. I think I may have proven once again that it is possible to manifest your own destiny. Whatever it is you desire in this world you can have, all it takes is a little hard work and a dream.

I have been dreaming of a world adventure for years and at the beginning of this year my trigger finger was getting itchy. So in February of 2011 Siri and I began discussing the idea of traveling together. The idea sounded exciting, but we knew that embarking on a trip of this magnitude together had the potential to tear us apart. We also understood though, that if it didn't it would make our relationship that much stronger. Either way it would be an experience we could share, it would make memories that last forever, and it truly would be a trip of a life time.

So we decided to stay together and shoot for the stars knowing that if we only made it to the clouds it would still be one hell of an adventure. I began doing research on a trip from the US to Alaska, Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, India, Israel, and Turkey and came to the conclusion that a multi stop trip like this would would cost about $2o,ooo. This was a huge price tag especially considering the fact that Siri was a full time volunteer and I hadn't had a steady job in over a year and virtually no work for the previous three months. So at the time we decided to go for it we had no money and I was barely paying my bills, so $20,000 seemed impossible. But what the hell right, why not try.

So I decided I needed to make some big changes in my lifestyle and needed a good job (any job). Within days of deciding it was going to happen I was offered a job with my good friend John Fitzpatrick doing an office building install which put about $2000 into the travel fund for about a weeks work and at this point I realized the universe had already started its magic. Right after that job I started working for my friend Ron Andrews from King Cage full time and at this point the snowball was already picking up momentum. Shortly after this I moved out of my house and into my truck with my dog, started selling everything I owned, started building furniture on the side, got rid of all my unnecessary bills and started saving every penny I made. If these affirmations weren't enough, I was also finding a penny every single day, which is insignificant in the big picture, but gave me confidence daily that what I was doing was right. At times I would be walking my dog, and best friend, Takoma, and realize I hadn't found a penny yet and literally find one within seconds... Talk about coincidence.

It was truly hard to sell all my belongings I had become so accustomed to and move out of the house knowing that it would be the last place I called home for the next 2 years. But once it was all gone I felt free and realized how unnecessary this baggage was in my life. At this point it was all or nothing.

Takoma took the move hard at first, but slowly began to get used to the drifter lifestyle. We began to spend every minute together, which was great considering my future plans unfortunately did not include him.

I worked for a while and slowly began to realize that at this rate I would not be able to save enough for this trip, so once again I needed to make some changes. First, I needed to sell my motorcycle and second, I needed to find a full time job that paid at least $20 per hour. The night I made this realization I went to bed with the intent that I would have these two things. Within no more than a week I sold the bike and received a phone call from my good friend Dontje asking if I could help him on a job, which turned into a full time $20 per hour gig, once again proving the law of attraction.

Shortly after this I made the decision to buy the around the world tickets through Airtreks, which was the first time I realized this dream may actually become a reality. As the date neared we began purchasing the gear we needed and received an offer to take photos for next year's Gregory Backpacks catalog from my friend John Pieper, in return receiving our packs and duffel bags for the trip. Everything seemed to be falling into place.

The day before we left I decided it would be fun to add up all our expenses and savings up to that point and found that we had saved, in about 8 months, almost exactly $20,000 and I couldn't help but laugh. Manifestation, destiny, or coincidence, this is up to you to decide.

So what seemed to be just another pipe dream in the beginning has turned into the start of an adventure that will live on for years to come through our stories and memories. I truly hope that this trip will inspire everyone I know in my life to follow their dreams, whatever they may be.

Why are we doing this??

To be honest, not a lot of people actually ask us this question. The "Why" seems to be the same for just about everyone who is interested in travel. Here is a list of some commonly sought offerings of the travel experience:

• Getting away. Travel offers a feeling of FREEDOM that you can't get at the office-- being able to do anything any time of day and any day of the week. 
• Finding different ways of doing things. Travel gives insight into other cultures that cannot be understood from textbooks alone, and it gives us a unique perspective on our day-to-day lives.
• A simplified form of living. The traveler is engaged in and aware of every decision he or she makes from the moment of awakening to the moment of sleep.
• Sunrises, sunsets, and landscapes. The natural world offers an inexhaustible supply of food for the spirit.
• Meeting people from all walks of life.
• "In the end, I meet me." The endless journey of self-discovery.
• It is something you just cannot live without anymore.

We can all agree that the reasons for traveling are worthwhile; it is the HOW that seems to be the mystery for most of us. Most often when we tell people that "no, we are not going to school or getting a job, we are traveling the world," they respond with a big smile, lots of excitement, and some excuse as to why they haven't traveled yet, ending with a wistful sigh and a long stare into the distance. The excuses typically revolve around money, age, and time. And often, people will try to figure out how our situation is different from theirs in some significant way which allows us to manage a trip like this. My advice is to stop looking for the differences and start seeing ways in which you can get out there in whatever way you can. I would recommend to those of you who are interested in traveling to not let the struggles with HOW become one of the reasons WHY NOT.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen," and I support that philosophy wholeheartedly.
So I suppose rather than ask us why we are doing this, it might be more beneficial for US to ask YOU: Why not??