Where can you find a partially nude ukulele player from South Africa? Why at the Rogue festival of course.
The Rogue is by far one of the coolest things to roll through this town and this year was no exception. In all I caught 6 1/2 shows, if you count the guys dancing behind the counter of Tower Dogs. Which you should.
Speaking of, Tower Dogs are delicious.
It's hard to pick a favorite with each show being so different but it's hard to go wrong with Songs 4 Pints and their Irish antics. With a show revolving around singing in exchange for pints of Guinness things quickly dissolved from a formal concert into the giggly singing of pub songs with new friends.
There is a Disco Fever street gang wandering around the tower district in shiny gold shirts and massive sideburns.
The aforementioned Ukulele player had a banjolele. AND a resonator ukulele. Needless to say the venue manager was not happy with all the drool on the floor where I was sitting.
Since I've shaved my head I've become increasingly appreciative of the giant propane powered heat stands that the Rogue set up in its out door venues.
The Rogue Festival is said to be the biggest fringe festival west of the Mississippi, organizers decided against calling it the "Fresno Fringe" because "rogue" just feels so much cooler to say.
Go ahead. Say it.
Rogue.
It makes you want to wear a bandanna.
EDIT:: Don't forget to keep voting! http://worldtravelerinternship.com/member/andrew-hoover/
Showing posts with label Free Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free Stuff. Show all posts
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Thursday, March 12, 2009
"Who wants to be run over by the Zorb?"
What a silly question. Of course I want to be run over by a Zorb. Who wouldn't?
That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.
Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.
For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.
I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.
During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.
I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.
The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.
While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.
There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.
It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.
There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.
Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.
When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.
I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.
I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.
Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.
I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.
I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.
Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.
You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)
American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.
I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.
That's right, be jealous.
There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.
Ok.
This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
That's right dear readers I'm back after an extended stay in a magical land where you have to pay for internet.
Places I have been since my last post for you google earth geeks: Picton, Kaikoura, Christchurch, Cass Field Station, Westport, Greymouth, Hokitiki and am currently staying in a field station in Harihari *Gasp*.
For the past week or so we've been bouncing around mountain field research stations where there is no internet *tear* and even when we're in town you have to pay for it, which I'm not going to do.
I finally went Zorbing, which was awesome. They filled it with water and its the closest thing I think I can get to riding in a washing machine.
During a free day in Christchurch me and a friend decided to take advantage of a nearby gondola and take some bikes back down it. After being reminded exactly how long it has been since I rode a bike on the first hill it was down hill the rest of the way. I should also mention the massive wind gusts that had me riding at a 45 degree angle (Karma for Wellington?). It was so windy that flies congregated on the side of our legs and bikes to get out of the wind.
I was chased through Cathedral Square by marching bagpipes, into a wall of more bagpipers(??) Apparently I wandered into some sort of Bagpiping competition while I was looking at a man in a top-hat.
The most interesting pizza I have ever eaten was on a whole wheat crust with onions, spinach leaf, fresh hen, ham and hare with mozzarela cheese and bleu cheese chunks. The sauce was plum sauce.
While we were in New Plymouth we were actually staying outside of town. The Profs dropped us off in town and gave us directions (kind of) to wander back into the holiday park (a motel/rv/campsite/whatever the heck else you want it to be). On our way back (well after sunset) it occured to us that we had no idea where we were going, so we stopped some poor random kiwi on the path to point us in the right direction. She proceeded to invite us to her house (think beach-front villa with windows for walls) offer us dinner, ice cream, introduce us to her dog and sons (interchangeable apparently) and then give us a ride home, leaving us with an invitation to wander back for another meal and to meet her daughters who were visiting from America of all places. She was nice.
There are at least 23 different ways to prepare black-eyed peas, I know because that's what I've had for dinner every night since Christchurch.
It more or less never stops raining here, the current storm has been going for almost a week.
There is a cave near Greymouth that I am going to get married in, and then go rafting through.
Bookstores here are only for the adventure spirited, sure there are the ones like Borders but most of them are pretty well hidden. My favorite so far was a store hidden in the back of an antique shop. I wandered upstairs where there was a clothing store and in the back of the store there was a little nook with a giant bookcase in it, when I got closer there was a door to another room crammed with bookshelves and a little cash register in the corner. Books three deep on the shelves it was smaller then my room at home with honestly thousands of books lying around.
When leaving Kaikoura our train was cancelled and we were left scrambling to find a bus to get to Christchurch.
I swam with dolphins. I hit one (on accident) in the face.
I found a blues bar in Christchurch called The Southern Blues Bar (kiwis aren't known for their creativity). It was pretty good and they let me go up and jam with the house band which was pretty sweet.
Everyone comments on my accent. I think they're nuts.
I saw watchmen on March 4th. With the dateline that's 2 days before you. And I was the only one in the theater.
I found a "Mexican" food place in Auckland that tasted like Thai food. I want a quesadilla more than life itself at this point.
Tomato sauce (ketchup) is still really weird here.
You know that crusty old bum/troubadour that you always see in movies? I found him. He lives at the Strawberry Tree in Kaikoura and he is hilarious. I think his name is Steve. He was playing with this band (by band I mean two guitar players, one from Brazil and the other from Czech Republic and by playing with I mean wandering between the two while they played their set.)
American pool is impossible to find here. Every table has billiards a little bigger than golf balls and side pockets with rounded rails, it's ridiculous. All I want is a free pool table with real billiards.
I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at the Botanic Garden in Christchurch, and I watched the rain scene, while it was raining.
That's right, be jealous.
There is a man in Cathedral Square in Christchurch who looks just like Doc from Back to the Future. They call him Wizard. He has been screaming at passer-by for over ten years they say. He has a milk crate that he hides his water bottle under, no one knows why.
Ok.
This is all I can remember for now, I may or may not have knocked my head on the roof of a cave (repeatedly).
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Bees, Trees and Kiwis
So.
New Zealand.
Its pretty fantastic. True story.
Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.
About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).
I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:
The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.
Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.
Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.
It says, "Hello."
If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.
Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.
They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.
I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.
I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?
Speaking of food.
Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.
I don't get it either.
I miss Mexican food. A lot.
A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.
I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.
Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.
Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.
Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?
New Zealand.
Its pretty fantastic. True story.
Things are well under way here and, Geology homework aside, everything is great! The weather, more or less, refuses to dip below 70 and when it's hot the wind keeps things cool.
About that wind. It never stops. Ever. The windows in our rooms are designed to only open part way which is great for all sorts of reasons but nothing gets you out of bed like a good gust of wind slamming it shut come 3 in the AM. Going down the harbor you see people riding bikes at 45 degree angles leaning into the wind (this gets absolutely hilarious between gusts).
I've been spending more and more time in libraries lately: city libraries, university libraries, research libraries, quiet libraries, loud libraries, libraries that serve drinks. The on-campus library at University of Victoria is currently my favorite for one reason alone; they have so many books that they simply started lining them up on the floor. At first I just thought it was messy, but when I saw bookends on either side I knew that this library and I were going to be great friends. Every row, between shelves on the floor there are little lines of books when they run out of room on a shelf, labeled and organized. It just goes to show what I've been telling my parents all along:
The floor is the biggest shelf in the house...err..library.
Directly up the hill from our dorm building is the Wellington Botanic Gardens, go ahead, Google it. You know you want to. It is absolutely gorgeous on 6 or 7 different levels. The upper parts of the garden are all natural foliage just left to grow with oodles of noodling paths running through it. In a week of going at least once a day I haven't taken the same route twice, which is wonderful. Anyways at the top of the garden is a tree, a magical tree.
Imagine, if you will, wandering along a quiet path with some friends when you happen upon a tree. As you walk past this tree, you notice it has been manicured and trimmed to form a perfect cylinder and then just before you turn away it does something really weird.
It says, "Hello."
If that doesn't make you re-read the labels on your medication I don't know what will. Turns out that this tree has grown together at the top to form a very sturdy web of branches that you can walk across, sit on and view the whole city from. It really is pretty magnificent. Of course, there are a few holes in the web, most of which I promptly found (and fell through). It has turned into the premier place to meet people. So far we've encountered just about every variety of south pacific culture there is and scared even more varieties of tourists.
Speaking of tourists (I am not one). (Really). We've become something of a tourist attraction ourselves. Be it a game of good old fashion American football or just throwing a baseball around, we manage to gather an audience. My favorite is playing catch under a near by cable car and watching everyone scrambling in the windows to pull out their cameras. Kiwis love baseball.
They love cricket too. Cricket is something that I don't understand. At all. I spend a good 2 hours trying to watch a game and all I got out of it was that there is a very specific way to wipe the ball off on your pants. I will admit that it is probably the best dressed sport out there; all collared shirts and khaki pants and trendy hats and whatnot.
I actually have nothing to say about bees in this post, it just rhymed with kiwi and tree.
I do have something to say about birds. Today I saw a bird going after a grasshopper and I wasn't sure which one I was supposed to root for. Comments? Suggestions? Theories on the social paradigm represented in the struggle for food?
Speaking of food.
Curry. So much curry you wonder what the plural for curry is. Wellington (which is where I am) is one of the stops where the group is fortunate enough to have some sort of dining facility to prepare meals. However, this means we do not get to control the menu which apparently means that we are to eat our bodyweight in curry. All varieties of curry: lamb curry, rice with curry sauce, vegetables with sauce and more lamb curry. Our chef is Welsh.
I don't get it either.
I miss Mexican food. A lot.
A kiwi introduced me to an interesting new dip for your potato chips: cheese & bacon. Weird, right? The taste isn't all that interesting one way or the other but the texture reminds me of old jello.
I cannot for the life of me get over how many things are free here. There are free concerts every night in the Garden, and they're really good and they're packed every night. All of the museums are free, the cable car service is dirt cheap and so are the taxis. Four bucks American can get you anywhere in the city in a taxi. Even the auto insurance is free (my parents would love it). There was a free reggae festival serving free food; free delicious food, mind you. They had watermelons cut in half and filled with assorted fruit, like a fruit salad in a bowl you could eat.
Pictures are taking me longer than I thought. This has nothing to do with my being unable to locate my connector cord for my camera. Nothing at all.
Well I think this is a sufficiently aimless and long winded post for now so stay tuned for more kiwi adventures! Coming next time: Kiwi slang!!
Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover
P.S.
I am missing the Superbowl and this makes me sad.
Edit ::
This is a really long post, should I make them shorter? Should I post more? Should I just please, for the love of all that is good, stop rambling?
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