Happy Mothers Week, Mum!

Hey everybody, I have a lot of catching up to do!

About a month ago, my mother came to visit me here in London, and it was her first time to Britain. I hoped she would be enchanted by this great land and she sure was indeed. How fitting that she arrived the weekend of Britain’s Mother’s Day!

Here we are in “Sticky Fingers”, the Rolling Stones themed restaurant owned by former band member Bill Wyman.

Mom and Me

On our first full day together, we went to Marylebone Station to take a Beatles Walk entitled “In My Life”. The walk, run by a Beatlemaniac named Richard, covered areas of Westminster featured in the film “Hard Day’s Night” as well as some of the Beatles’ living spaces. The highlight of the tour was indeed a pilgrimage to the legendary Abbey Road Studios! I daresay that the famous Abbey Road crosswalk is the most busy crosswalk in the world. Many frustrated motorists honked their horns as tourists walked proudly across the street multiple times.

Abbey Road

The following day, we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum, which is one of the most unique museums I have ever visited. A museum of the Fine and Decorative arts, the V & A houses many objects of various materials from many cultures and time periods. For instance, there plaster casts of Renaissance sculptures, along with a 1970s model of a filing cabinet! Such diversity. My mom and I were especially interested in the intricately painted miniature portraits.

Victoria & Albert

A real highlight of our outings was seeing “Billy Elliot The Musical”. The film “Billy Elliot” immediately became a favorite of mine when I first saw it in the movie theater over five years ago. It tells the story of a young English boy from a working-class town who defies the expectations of those around him by pursuing his passion for dance. The musical, written by the creative team of the film, and Elton John, was amazing to see. It had such freshness and British authenticity unlike any other show I have seen. Below is a production photo of Matthew Koon as Billy, and Hadyn Gywnn has his dance teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson.

Billy Elliot MK
picture from http://www.billyelliotthemusical.me.uk

The greatest highlight of all was showing my mom around Kingston one afternoon. Luckily the weather was wonderful. We visited the street market, walked along the Thames, spent some time at my building, and went to eat at my favorite pub.

Marketplace

After a visit to the National Portrait Gallery, Mom and I parted ways in the tube station. She was sad to go, but had a great experience.

Next Post: My trip to Florence, Italy!

The Tongariro Crossing

10 Hours of astonishing sights, temperatures, and burning muscles…

The Tongariro Crossing is known as “New Zealand’s Finest One Day Tramp” (tramping = hiking here). As the summer winds down and weather becomes more unpredictable, they allow fewer and fewer trampers up the crossing, as conditions can go from sleet and hail one moment to sun, rain or snow the next… and the wind is always pretty intense, so some of my friends and I really lucked out in making just about the last beautiful weekend up to the National Park!

Though the track started up above the clouds, it was a flat start up to the volcanos. Our first real challenge was getting up Devil’s Stair Case. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but there are tons and tons of people tramping up the left side of the terrain in the foreground.

Once we made it to the top we took a nice break to recover our legs and keep them from collapsing from the constant uphill tramping… we hadn’t a clue of what was to come…

Mount Ngauruhoe, better known to many as Lord of the Ring’s Mount Doom, was a 1500k straight up climb along loose lava rock. But we did it! We climbed for a solid hour and a half straight up to the top, taking a lunch break at that greater jumble of big rocks just past half way.

The climb up was pretty tough, but it wasn’t hte steepness that was the most challenging, it was having to keep from sliding down with the rocks beneath your feet!

One thing that kept the climb exciting was the spontaneous shout of warning: “Rock!!” from above as a large rock might have escaped its stationary place on the ground, and tumbled down the mountain at high speeds. Yikes!

But all of the climbing made for some pretty fantastic views at every point we stopped at… This picture was where we ate lunch, about half way up Mount Ngauruhoe.

This was what our way up looked like…

…And this our way down. The way down was basically a balancing act going through roller blading type motions… constantly picking up each foot so as not to stop too quickly, and just basically sliding down, hoping that if you fall, you fall backwards rather than forwards! It took us maybe 30 minutes to make the trip down Mount Doom. Though Frodo’s trip might have been more exciting, I think that ours at least provided some pretty sweet as thrills!

From the top of Mount Ngauruhoe! (Shaun looks like he’s about to jump in…)

From the top, we could see people walking around the outside of the ridge on the other side. Because of the high winds and our lack of time, we decided to just watch in awe the size of the people scampering across the volcanic ridge across from us.

…and check out the preview of more tramping that lies ahead of us… we walked along the bluer lake in the back ground eventually.

…And the descent begins.

Although much of the Tramp lacked any kind of foliage- or even anything other than volcanic rock, there were some absolutely brilliant colors and rock formations along the way.

The Emerald lakes along the Crossing are another of nature’s wonders, sacred to the Maori. Despite their state of being Tapu (Sacred), one wouldn’t want to go swimming in them because of the level of acidity in the water (which makes them green…)

This was looking back at one point toward the end of the 10 hour tramp… (well, with maybe 3 hours to go…) You can see Mount Ngauruhoe in the background, and another up/down saddle that we made our way over.

We continued through some grassy trails and down to a hut, leaving us about two hours to finish and get back to our shuttle.

…More adventures soon to come :o)

Half way…

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this upcoming blog… I promise that when I get a chance I will upload some pictures of the most recent adventures I’ve taken part in (Including a 10 hour hike of the Tongariro Crossing [see previous blog..] plus a 1500 m straight up climb to the top of The Lord Of The Ring’s: Mount Doom).

Hmm… Who will read on now, knowing that this story is not yet being told?

While for many of you at home in the states the end of the semester is in view, we down here in New Zealand have just completed the first half of our trimester and are currently on a two week break from everything Uni. To start off my refreshing break from the dense wall of work that I just broke through, I entered a race in a suburb of Wellington called Upper Hutt. Having to rely on the train to get there, and knowing that I’d have no particular place to keep anything, I shoved some cash into my running shorts, tied my shoes, threw on an extra long sleeve shirt and made my way to the railway station. When I arrived in Upper Hutt 45 minutes later, I made my way to the race beneath the somewhat forboding looking sky.

There was a 21k (Half marathon) and 10k to choose from, and not having run much more than 6 or so miles in some time, I went with the 10k to be safe- boy what a good decision that was! The race started in a heavy drizzle, and only progressed from there. Not 5 minutes into the all-grass course, lightening struck and thunder followed… apparently that’s the signal for the rain to pick up! Carrying on the pattern, the next strike of lightening turned the huge rain drops into hail! I couldn’t help laughing at times- what an insane race! Luckily by about 5k in the worst of the weather was over, and it continued to digress to a heavy drizzle by the end. Phew!

Worried about being chilled in the very little clothes that I had with me, I changed into my dry top and considered skipping the awards ceremony and instead working my way back down to Wellington. But the sun came out! And it was warm and drying- and I ended up being quite comfortable, talked with some wonderful people in the Wellington area, and ended up staying through the awards. The awards were the basic First place runner for each race, youngest finisher, earliest entry, etc… what wasn’t expected is that there was an award from the male and female from the furthest away! (lucky me!) There were two international individuals in the race- me (from NY) and a man from Great Britain! So I won a nice thermal tshirt, and found myself quite proud to have been at the small road race from so far away :o).

I made my way back to my flat on The Terrace, and had a marvelous night’s sleep. That was 3 days ago. Now, I’ve just finished packing a big frame pack that I’m borrowing from a friend, and am heading to the south island bright and early tomorrow morning for a week and a half long back packing trip! I’ll spend the first couple of days on my own in Picton and Nelson, and then I’m meeting up with two other people who I’m going to be hiking and camping with for the rest of the time… So I’ll leave you in dire anticipation of what stories are next to come, and get a good night’s rest.

Goodnight, Friends!

Catching a Breath in Between Travels

Hey everyone, I apologize for the lack of updates. I have been so very busy!

Two weeks ago, my mom came to visit and we had a wonderful time. I was hoping that Britain would meet her expectations, but not suprisingly, it exceeded them! We did so many things that I had yet to do in London, like go on a Beatles walk, visit the Victoria & Albert Museum, and see “Billy Elliot The Musical”! (More about mom’s visit in a future entry)

Last Monday, I was in Florence, Italy for a week-long art history study trip! The schedule was so rigorous and exhausting but well worth it! We saw so much art and architecture that I’ve always dreamed of seeing in person rather then in the slideroom. (This will be in a future entry as well!)

Tomorrow morning, I am on my way to a nine-day sprint through Switzerland and Germany! By the time I return, I will be in blogging debt, but have so many stories to tell and pictures to show.

Thanks for your patience, and stay tuned in!