Are You Rogue Enough?

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/

Kangaroos Are Dirty, also last international post.....for now

Greetings from Melbourne!! Since I left you last I have visited Flinn's Reef, Milnn Reef, Sydney, Tourqay, Geelong, Lorne, Port Fairy, The 12 Apostles, Tommy's Lookout, Hall's Gap, Rose's Gap, the Grampians National Park, and Loch Ard Gorge. Not to mention about half of the nooks and crannies spread thickly across Melbourne city center

*Inhales*

It's been a busy to say the least.


I really have no idea where I should start and which stories are worth including so I'll just start with the diving. Hard to go wrong with a wonder of the world right?

In Cairns there are three types of buildings; empty ones, restaurants and dive shops.

My kind of town.

After repacking my stuff in the dark into a bag for home and a bag for travel, a van stole me away from my hostel and shuttled me to the docks where I was given milk and a slice of cake and told to wait while they took all of my stuff and put it in my cabin and fluffed my pillow for me

The cake was delicious.

Much to my delight the cake was a constant fixture in life on the dive boat, our schedule started at 6 in the am and went something like this:

Dive cake dive breakfast dive cake dive cake and lunch dive cake dive dinner and cake dive dive

...cake.

It was wonderful.

For all you fish freaks out there I saw so many fish I couldn't even begin to try and list them all here......what's that?? You want me to try anyways?? Well if you insist.

I saw Anemone Fish, Maorie Wrasse*, Bumphead Parrot fish*, Parrot Fish, Butterflyfish, Butterfly Fish (there's a difference), Angel Fish, Black spotted puffer, Yellow Spotted Puffer, Orange and Black Puffer, Brown Puffer, Grey Pipefish*, Yellow Pipefish*, Lionfish, Grey Reef Shark*, White Tip Reef Shark*, Black Reef Shark*, Mako Shark*, Common Hermit Crab, Silver Fish, Common Coral Trout, Black Banded Triple Fin*, Common Reef Lobster, Red Sea Bass, Round Ray, Shovel Nose Guitar Fish, Greenback Turtle, Various Trigger Fish, Surgeon Fish, Forcep Fish, Reef Eel, Cardinal Fish, Little Blue Annoying Fish, Big Blue Annoying Fish, Spiny Sea Cucumber*, Hairy Sea Cucumber, Totally Gross Sea Cucumber, Giant Clams*, Less Than Giant Clams, Panicked New SCUBA Diver, and of course the Goofy American Fish.

* = something that was bigger and/or longer than me

That is maybe a quarter of what I saw, but it's all I can remember.

For those of you playing the home game and who are slightly less interested in the specific names of all the fish, I saw the entire cast of Finding Nemo.

Got there autographs.

Went out to lunch and pitched ideas for their next movie and how I will direct it.

(Minus Bruce)

If we weren't underwater than we were on the top deck eating cake or dancing or running face-first off the edge and falling to the water 25 feet below us.

I saw a crocodile. It was a baby, but it coulda ate my toes.

The city of Melbourne was built to order just for me, I am convinced of it. The layout was originally designed with wide streets for moving large carts of goods, which the citizens promptly ignored and created their own intricate system of alleyways and tunnels to get around the town.

This city is alive, and when you cut it bleeds adventure.

I have been here for about a week and a half and have been exploring from sunrise to sunrise and have maybe worked my way over half of this city.

Maybe.

Big Maybe.

There are two sets of doors here, the ones that are open during the day, and the ones that are open at night... With that in mind let's say I've only seen a quarter of the city.

Most stores don't have signs, the good ones are only accessible through the back of another store and the best ones are in the back, around a corner and down a flight of stairs. And you have to knock.

I pet (petted?) a Kangaroo. It was dirty.

There is a massive open air market here that sells all sorts of discount wares and fresh foods and fried foods and fried discount wares.....and a homeless man having a butterfly painted on his face.

I get on an airplane for the states tomorrow and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

The Melbourne International Jazz Festival runs from April 26th to May 2nd.

Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my face

*wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipe*

The festival and its events however were hidden from view, to the uninitiated you would never know that jazz talent and appreciators from all over the world were converging on the city to share and experience alike the new flavors and old recipes being traded in back alleys and on performance hall stages.

Walk down any given empty alley and knock on the right door, it would be opened to reveal a packed house, stretching to point an ear towards the corner stage where the likes of Jim Black, Charlie Haden, Marc Hannaford, Katie Noonan and countless others were letting the music do the talking for them.

It was unreal. If the city bleeds adventure then it certainly Screams, swoons and cries jazz

Now there is a certain matter which is most unfortunate but we all must address together.

My trip is ending, and soon (Tomorrow Soon). However my adventures will not be ending, if I have anything to do about it. I will be rumbling around the central valley for about a month before heading off again to work as Ranger Director on Catalina island, and then after that, who knows??

I should mention that I lived in a van for a week in the Grampians National Park. Also google the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, they were awesome.

The question is, should I keep tip-tapping at my keyboard to share my experiences, accidents, ravings and discoveries? Or should I leave it as a tribute to the epic journey that these last 4 or 5 months have been?

I will definitely return to at least share some pictures that I feel represent the various highlights of the trip, as I know you are all just tripping over yourselves to see exactly what I have been rambling about.

But before that, I have one more night to try and trick this City into showing me what she's hiding, so until then

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Neener-Neener!!

Hello faithful readers, friends, family, random visitor from India that I keep getting.

I am currently traveling in Australia, and have nowhere near enough time to write a full post right now as I am waiting on a van to pick me up and take me to a very large boat, on which I will be living for the next 3 days and from which I will be jumping as often as possible into the Pacific decked out in SCUBA gear.

For the win.

I Definitely only told you so that you could be jealous (neener-neener!)

Also this marks the end of my semester!!

No more tests, homework, random geology side trips, lectures in beautiful places, rests in less than beautiful places. From here on out its just me and my wandering compass needle until May, which is when I will be returning to the beloved U. S. of A.

Allegedly.

Who knows? I might miss my flight.

Needless to say this will lead to an epic increase in tomfoolery, mischief and your all around good fun shenanigans.

Only about half of which I can tell you about.

Because my mother reads this blog that's why.

Well, my van is here, so until next time...

Oh ya, I'm in Cairns for all you Google Earth fans. Since Queenstown I have also been to Dunedin and then back to Christchurch before flying north to Cairns.

Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover

Volcanoes, I Climb Them

Ok. So at the moment, I am hanging out in Rotorua, where they charge you by the minute for the internet.

Ridiculous.

After leaving Wellington, we moved on to Turangi (tUr-an-ee) where I was promptly assaulted by every sand flea within spitting distance. My feet look like some sort of cross between hamburger meet and a leper.

In between biting and being bitten by the fleas, we managed to wander our way over to the Tangariro Crossing, a very spectacular hike over one of the most active volcanic fields of modern times. This includes Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings.

Mt. Doom stinks.

Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs and sweaty tourists.

But the rest of the volcanoes were amazing. After wandering past river after river of (cold) lava, we hit the flank of the ticking time bomb everyone kept calling a mountain. A few stops to inhale dangerous volcanic fumes and we were hiking across the floor of a crater about a 1/4 mile across.

Awesome is a pansy word compared to these peaks and craters.

After scrambling up a few more volcanic rims we came to a series of lakes, which were that beautiful turquoise blue that you always see when you're exhausted from climbing volcanoes. Sadly for us, they were quite literally lakes of sulfuric acid (dilute, but hey you don't see me jumping head first into the acid lake). Warning signs abounded, so naturally a couple of girls from another hiking party (Americans of course) thought it would be fun to have a swim. While their skin was slowly eaten away (they got a rash) we stumbled upon what would be the first of many fumerals, all of which smelled like burnt sin.

Natural deposition of a pure mineral, one of the rarest occurrences in the world, brings about the absolute strongest urge to vomit I've had in recent memory. Vaporized sulfur spouting out of these vents was crystallizing around the edges of the fissures in the ground. Apparently, moving directly from a gas to a solid is smelly business because there is no escaping the brimstone (rotten eggs). We continued on and found tons of interesting (says the geology prof.) rocks, one of which he had only heard of but never seen in person but expected us to identify it just the same (Olivine bearing Rhyolite).

If you have ever seen the movie Cool Hand Luke (the correct answer here is "Yes The Wayward Hoover, of course I've seen Cool Hand Luke") then you have a pretty solid of where we stayed in Turangi.

There were rows of small 8x8 cabins with spring-net cots, and the proper dosage of sand fleas. But it was so far my favorite stop. We spent the majority of our time sitting on our stoops playing ukelele, singing and swatting bugs.

Rotorua is world famous for its hotsprings, which are heated by volcaninc vents, which vent sulfur, which smells like rotten eggs. Seriously, the whole town smells like rotten eggs, and its a tourism hotspot.

I will never understand.

While in Rotorua we are responsible for our own food. For the most part we've teamed up with our roommates and been able to wrangle some pretty decent meals out of the Pack 'n' Save (Kiwi for Costco).

The tallest commercially rafted waterfall in the world is approximately 25 ft high, and I rafted it.

I have not gone Zorbing yet.

I know that I have had too much art history because today we were at a museum and I noticed that the guide was wrong.

I don't know what you know about masking tape and newsprint but if you are looking to create a realistic portraiture in the round, pick some other medium. I spent the better part of 12 hours last night trying to convince the sports section to look like my ears and nose.

At the end of it all, I thought it looked pretty decent. My art professor disagreed.

Things I still want to do:
Luge
Jump out of an airplane
Bungee Jump
Shave a sheep

If someone ever asks you what Kiwi peacocks do for fun, the answer is bite tourists.

I have lost all track and sense of time. I can't tell you what day or hour it is, all I know is that in 3 days we leave Rotorua.

I think that is awesome.

The ketchup here is weird. It's sweeter, almost like bbq sauce except not tasty. The hunt is on for some good old fashioned Heinz 57.

Have I mentioned how much the Kiwis love curry?

It is wicked hot here in Rotorua. I sleep on top of the covers underneath the window with as few articles of clothing as my roommates will allow.

The actor who played Jango Fett also apparently used to work making videos (very cheesy videos) for New Zealand museums.

I already miss my friends from Lewis and Clark.

I am running out of coins so this post has to stop here.

Tune in next time for something else I haven't told you about yet!

Cheers!
The Wayward Hoover

More Hokey Pokey Than You Can Shake a Stick at and Not a Maple Bar in Sight

New Zealand!!!!

Where do I even begin?! Well, the simple answer is: I don't know where to start so over the next few posts I will tell of the odyssey that was getting to this beautiful country. Also, pictures will follow shortly when things settle down and I can sit and put it all together.

It was a a beautiful (cloudy) morning (ish) when we rolled up to the buzzing (empty) Fresno International (1 flight to Mexico) Airport. A quick puddle jump up to SFO and my compatriots and I hunkered down for our 7 hour lay-over, which consisted mostly of low-speed chases up and down the moving sidewalks in the international terminal. Naturally what's the only thing to do after a 7 hour layover? Delay the flight of course!! The plane, which had been sitting there all day mind you, had been under catered somehow and everyone was boarded with the exception of the last 10 or 15 people (my row) while more food was put on the plane.

Don't worry dear readers, that is where the troubles end! I've decided to only fly international from now on. If I'm going to Phoenix, I'll fly down to Mexico City first and connect because this is the only way to fly!! There is this magical screen in the back of the seat in front of me loaded with hundreds of movies. On that note, I highly recommend "The Counterfeiters", a German language film about a massive counterfeiting operation in Nazi concentration camps during WWII... but I digress. Flying international is wonderful and I thought you should know.


On a more current note, classes have started and I have now spent almost 30 hours wandering around the Te Papa museum here in Wellington. Most of this wandering involved doing research in this library hidden in the back of the top floor, which is actually kind of cool. There are these massive frame-less glass automatic doors that only open with a card key and there are original printings of Darwin's The Origin of Species. Other than that though the classes are pretty low key (or Quay here in the NZ).

There are two other schools staying in our dormitories (called the Weir House), one from GA Tech, who are like ghosts, and one from Lewis and Clark University in Oregon. We've actually only heard rumors that the GA Tech kids are here, but I stumbled on the LC students late on the second night and glorious ukulele/guitar/melodica/harmonica jams ensued for the rest of the night. I've decided that they are awesome.


There is so much to tell and so little time (I'm borrowing laptops to piece together this post) but suffice to say that I am alive and doing my very best to get into trouble (unless my mother is reading this, in which case I am sitting in my dorm room, doing my homework with my passport chained to my leg).

More to come soon!

Till then, Cheers!!

The Wayward Hoover

Hi, I've Got an Appointment with Mr. Ullman...

Living in Fresno is weird with everyone gone, kind of like my own personal version of the shining, hold the blood. I'm taking a crash course in Art History and I was unaware how intense art can be, but I'm not sure it's intense enough for the 8-5 time slot it fills three days a week.
Weak.
Cabin fever has started to settle in a little. I figure this is how old rich people must feel, hundreds of rooms and living space but nothing to do with it all. For the moment people seem to be sifting in and out of the building enough to keep me occupied, but it's still eerily quiet.
On the upside, this gives me lots of time to noodle on the old ukulele, catch up on some good movies and eat sinful amounts of Jimmy Dean Breakfast Croissants (which are delicious in case you didn't know).

I'm also getting pretty good at Rockband and there's nothing wrong with that.


11 DAYS!!!!!