Gesundheit

This trip is short, but decided to keep the blog going. If not for you then for me to keep track of how my views on traveling and the world change.

Did you know gesundheit means in good health in German? It’s funny the words we randomly pickup in the US. I began my trip here, in good health, in Germany. I stayed with my sister in Weisbaden for a few days and also explored Heinz, Bavaria, and Frankfurt. On the way to see my friend Andrea who lives in Reisenberg we stopped in an adorable town called Bamburg. It was straight from a Christmas story with little bridges over canals, children playing in the snow, and beautiful old buildings. However, the main thing that drew me here was to try Rauchbier, a smoked beer.  It was too dark and earthy tasting for my liking, but gave me a good reason to discover this neat town. After checking out numerous Christmas markets around Frankfurt I headed to a city I’ve been meaning to go to for years-Berlin!
I spent my first night in a hostel in close to so many vegan places I wanted to checkout, including a vegan shoe shop, Veganz café, and grocery store! With all the packaging in German, I wasn’t sure what everything was but knew it was vegan safe! Asking people “Sprechen Sie Englisch” helped me get clarity on a few things. I chatted to a guy who also was gawking over and the 2 fridges full of vegan cheeses; he was from Finland and flew to Berlin for the day to stock up on vegan supplies for a party. I love that about Europe-so many different cultures close together. After having a night in vegan heaven, I headed to a couchsurfers where I discovered more vegan paradise. We went to a place in Neukölln that had €2 pizzas. The neighborhood was an eclectic mix of punks and Turkish women in burkas. This pizza place was as grungy as it gets, but I loved it!
Berlin was amazing; where else do they have vegan doners, a hunk of vegloaf rotating on a spit?! Or the surprisingly cool Berlin Wall that has been transformed by artists. Or fast easy public transport, where I can wiz myself to 3 different vegan places within an hr before catching a flight. I suggest everyone go here if they find themselves anywhere in Europe!

Europe

sometimes I wish I could travel forever…then I remember this is my life I can do what I want with it

Traveling I sometimes I have to sacrifice my values, so it’s been wonderful being back in my Bay Area bubble the past few months. Vegan potlucks every weekend, abundant local food, being able to buy just about everything package free in bulk, not needing anything but my bike to get around, everyday I was reminded of why I loved living here so much! Still my travel itch got the best of me. With my sister recently moving to Germany, and being able to save money from a job I was working, this was a perfect time to pick up again and travel more of Europe.

I decided to make my first stop 1/2 way to Germany, in CT where my parents live.  I dug up my winter coat, haven’t worn one of those for years, off I go!

New Zealand is unreal!

Surprises always come your way when you travel. Sometimes it’s surprises like a travel company doesn’t have the reservation you made, or the tax agent loses all your pay stubs, or your car breaks down 100K from the nearest anything. But sometimes it’s surprises like double rainbows or Dunedin! I only have 24 hours in this awesome city but wish I had longer. A quarter of the city’s population is students, which shows with lots of quirky shops, warehouse style op-shops, good cafes/bars, lots of galleries, and Green Man beer!! Perhaps I’ll look into grad programs here… I swear I’m coming back to the states soon, but I keep finding more places I could see myself living.
I started my NZ travels a month ago in Auckland, New Zealnads biggest city with 1.3 million people (1/3 of New Zealands population). A lot of people I meet say they don’t like Auckalnd but I love it! This is mostly thanks to my awesome couchsuring host who showed me around the city and some surrounding areas. I was amazed by the landscape, with volcanoes within the city, plus they have New Zealands only vegan store, run by SAFE! The public transpiration was a bit of a laugh though with the central train station being out of order on a pretty regular basis.
I met up with my sister a couple weeks ago and we rented a car and made our way to Rotoura where there are natural hotsrping baths created by pressure released from the volcanoes. The whole town smells like sulfur and you see steam being released everywhere, it’s wild. We spent the afternoon at a spa getting facials and massages and then jumped into the hot springs. They were a nice escape from the fridged air. We also took a gorgeous drive down to Napier, morning fog gave way to rolling green hills. We had a couple days here where I learned a bit more about wine and admired the cute art deco style of the area. oh we went Zorbing too! An activity unique to NZ where you roll down a hill in a hampster ball filled with water, super fun! We spent a few more days on the N island and then flew to Queenstown, the adventure sport capital of the world!
Last week I got up to quite a bit including taking a boat to Milford Sound, hiking a glacier, and zipping the worlds steepest zip line. Originally I was meant to take a plane ride through Milford Sound but kept getting rained out, so I finally opted for the boat tour. It was phenomenal, because of all the rain waterfalls were in full force, hundreds of them! I didn’t think it was possible but Franz Joseph glacier topped Milford, I took a helicopter through a double rainbow, landing on a glacier surrounded by waterfalls! Sometimes I think this is all a dream….
Today I practiced for my return back to San Francisco by walking up the world’s steepest hill. I’m also preparing by purging all I own and replacing it with chocolate and booze gifts for you all. Sweet as!

more photos here- https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/FranzJosef?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPeEx_-S-LTx0gE&feat=directlink

On the road again- Bye Sydney

One of the strangest parts about traveling is how I lose track of time, for instance I totally forgot about Easter and just realized that today is Friday the 13^th. Ah April 13^th! That means it’s been year since I left the states.  It feels like I left years ago because I’ve been doing so many different things. From small things like experiencing New Years 20hrs earlier than I’m used to, surviving jumping out of a plane, and whooping couch…to larger things like going to Thailand or being Castawayed…I left home with certain expectations but pretty much this trip has gone completely opposite of those expectations. It’s made me more open to going with the flow of life, and realizing the endless possibilities our lives have*

With my visa restrictions I have to leave Oz after 12months, so I booked a ticket to New Zealand. But before I say bye to Australia I want to make sure I see the East Coast, so left Sydney a few weeks ago and am headed North. I caught a ride Sydney to Byron Bay where I revisited some of my favorite towns, like Nimbin and Lismore, and explored some new ones such as East Arm and Mullumbimby.  I did a bit of Helpxing (like WWOOFING, world workers on organic farms). It was really great to live with a local for a week, I not only learned a lot about the community in that area but also a bit more about growing food! This area is one of my favorite spots on Earth, with gorgeous rainforest hills (the area was once cleared by loggers but it’s growing back) overlooking the crystal blue waters of Byron Bay, and a vibe that can’t really be described…it’s very laid back, lots of local organic food, people are involved in their communities, lots of hitchhikers, and in general it’s a pretty alternative area. It makes sense that I found a ride up the coast to my next stop with an Aussie in his biodiesel van.

I’m now spending a few days at Farm Animal rescue, located about 40min outside of Brisbane.  On Sunday I’m going into the city to either find a ride or jump on a bus to keep heading North. My only next obligation is catching a flight to New Zealand in about 10days from Cairns, between now and then I’m not completely sure. I’m in touch with some more farms and could go help out at another one, or I can take my time exploring the coast stopping for a few days here and there.

I’m back in San Francisco at the end of May! Very excited for that as well, traveling is addictively wonderful, but the bay area is home and it’s getting to a point where I want to check back in. In the meantime life aint so bad kicking it on the beach, going for hikes in the rainforest, maybe even scuba diving the Great Barrier??!!

*I had to say something somewhat philosophical there so I can justify continuing to travel to those concerned about why I’m still wandering, but the truth is I really just like hanging out in Australia, whether the revelation about life comes or not

Some pictures from the past 3months can be seen here- Pictures Australia 2012

Elephant Nature Paradise

Thailand is amazing! There are so many vegetarian places with delicious fresh inexpensive food, perfect weather, loads of juice/smoothie bars, Buddhist temples, amazing markets, and kind friendly people. Oh and did I mention all the rescued elephants surrounding me right now at Elephant Nature Park?
I’m volunteering here for two weeks helping with things such as chopping elephant food with a machete, scooping poop, ‘cleaning’ their mud pit, packing composted soil, building dog beds, and other random tasks. However, I feel I’m getting way more out of the experience than giving. It’s been really educational hearing various speakers, watching documentaries, shadowing a vet, going to a local school, getting a Thai language/culture lesson, and more. On top of that the accommodation is really nice; we’re fed a nearly all vegan buffet 3 times a day, and have lots of time to hang out with the elephants!
Another great thing about Elephant Nature Park is that they try to help whenever an animal is in need. When the Bangkok floods happened a few months ago they rushed down there with a rescue crew, bringing about 200 dogs here, some were adopted out and others will live their life here. There are other rescued species that live at Elephant Nature Park as well, including pigs, water buffalo, mice, cattle rescued from a slaughterhouse, a bear rescued from street performing, and monkeys from the floods. I’ve also learned how much Elephant Nature Park does for people; they have 365 employees, many from the local community and others who are refugees from Burma. They empower women by giving them jobs at the park; the tourism brings in a lot of these jobs.
A lot of people thought Elephant Nature Park wouldn’t work, that tourists only want to see elephants perform; they are proving this thinking wrong. I personally find it revolting that people would want to ride an elephant, give money to them begging in the streets, or pay to see them perform. Horrific cruelty that goes into breaking these gentle animals’ spirits so that they become so terrified of pain they will obey commands. You can help by not going to elephant shows, not buying elephant art, or getting elephant rides. From afar you can write the editors of  books such as Lonely Planet that advertise elephant exploitation, or donate to places such as the Elephant Nature Foundation*.
Elephant Nature Foundation goes above and beyond giving these animals the best life they can, however they know it’s far from perfect and there is still lots of work to be done. Ideally all elephants could be in the wild, however for most of these elephants that’s not possible. Elephant Nature Foundation has a project called Elephant Haven that some elephants here will eventually be released to. They have another incredible project called Journey to Freedom where they work with local trekking camps to stop using elephants this way, and provide a more natural life for them. I am so grateful that Elephant Nature Foundation exists, not only because they provide a better life for so many animals, but because they are slowly shifting a way of thinking and creating a kinder world.

*Elephant Nature Park is a Project of Elephant Nature Foundation.

Learn more about Elephant Nature Park and their other projects here- http://www.elephantnaturefoundation.org/go/projects

and more photos of my trip here- ENP photos

Australian Animals

I left Sydney about a month ago with one main objective, to see some Australian wildlife! Mission accomplished. I’ve seen enough kangaroos and koalas to last me a lifetime, along with a lot of other amazing birds, lizards and other animals. I started out in Perth, one of the most remote cities in the world. I stayed with some really cool couchsurfer hosts and met up with some friends I’ve met in my travels, but there wasn’t much going on in the city. Plus everything was really expensive since there is a lot of money from the mining industry in WA.  So after checking out Penguin Island to see some penguins and pelicans, I found a ride to Adelaide.

The road trip began with us breaking down at a place we had camped even though we weren’t supposed to be camping there. We spent a few hours flagging people down on this remote road, everyone who stopped (most people) were so helpful but nobody had jumping cables. We had this one bloke (man) stop and tried a ton of different things, even tried switching his battery from his car with ours.  Meanwhile we flagged down a Telstra phone operator car passing by. He didn’t have jumping cables but had some wire that he used for the phones. He cut a piece and made some jumping cables and got us started. Australians are so nice! Everyone who stopped went above and beyond, offering us rides into town, giving us their cell numbers in case we weren’t able to get help, I’m amazed at peoples kindness.

The rest of the trip consisted of a lot of random fun experiences. From exploring wineries in Margret River, sleeping on a sheep farm, exploring remote beaches, climbing a 200ft tree with no ropes or net to catch me if I fell, seeing the tingle trees which reminded me a lot of the CA redwoods, driving nearly 300k to get a picture of a rock that looks like a wave, seeing the most spectacular unexpected solar eclipse, and driving Australia’s longest straight road (the Nullarbor) thorough the dessert.

After reaching Adelaide I spent a few days exploring the city and Kangaroo Island. On KI we camped in the bush among koalas and kangaroos, they were everywhere! I found another ride along the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne. The GOR was spectacular! Cliffs and salty ocean met the smell of Eucalyptus trees and rainforest. My favorite part was camping in the rainforest, cooking over fire, and hiking to see beautiful waterfalls during the day.

Tomorrow I’m leaving Melbourne for a road trip up to Sydney, where I’ll be for New Years.  Sydney is the first major city to have New Years, should be  fun/crazy! Then it’s another road trip up to the Gold Coast where I fly out to Thailand on Jan 6th, super excited for it all!!

xx

Jess

more photos here-https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/9GreatOceanRoad?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKS-xvrbpfPTpgE&feat=directlink

Twenty-Five

Talking about age is strange. The older I get the more I hear people talk about it, and I can’t help but think about it myself too. Mostly I think about where I thought my life would be at this age years ago. I remember being a teenager and viewing people in their mid-twenties as professionals, adults, having life ‘figured out’. Now that I’m here I realize these are just the expectations placed on most of us, but it’s not the truth.
We are on a constant journey and the expectations we place on our future selves are typically pretty misguided. What I mean is that most of us aren’t encouraged to explore our passions; who we are, who we want to be, what we want the world to be like and how we can go about creating that…instead we become content in the status quo of getting a formal education, a job, falling in love, and reproducing. We generally equate success to money, love, a good job…but is that really who we are, what we want? I believe we want this because we are not even given the opportunity to realize that we have other passions, we get convinced we have to a certain pattern, and not following that makes us fearful.
What if we were encouraged to live our lives without others expectations, without fear of failure, or worry of not fitting in. What would you be doing? Do we even know anymore? It’s a difficult question because we are not really given the opportunity to think about it. I don’t know the answer…I find myself comforted in having a job, being settled etc. However, I have also faced fearful unknowns and for me, facing these has made me happier than going along with the status quo ever could.
So, I’m not the person I imagined I’d be 10 years ago. I’m not a guidance counselor as I wanted to be, I’m not having babies as family wanted me to be, I’m not making money to support a new home, a car or babies as some undefined social force wants me to be . But I am who I currently want to be. I will try to not place judgment on where I will be at 35, because it doesn’t really matter, how things are now matters most of all.
Define happiness as you wish, it’s different for each of us, I’m only describing what works for me. Just try not to be fearful, because life will take you on an awesome adventure if you let it.

Sorry it’s been awhile

I quit the job I had in Sydney last week, I felt myself getting annoyed at answering the question “what kind of soup do you have?” 100 times a day, so I knew it was time to move on. Please people when going into a restaurant try to avoid asking these questions when the answer is clearly written in front of you. I have no set plans for what is next, but where there is nothing there is the possibility of something. I know when I get caught up in the robaticness of doing anything it’s hard to see the possibility of anything different, so for me it takes stepping away from it all to realize what I want next and then fill life with that. In general when you change the routine of your life there something extraordinary happens; there are feelings of pure excitement but also uncertainty. The uncertainty can be scary but knowing you can fill life with whatever you want is exhilarating! I encourage you to take the leaps you’ve always wanted, whether it’s as small as making time to catch that film you’ve been wanting to see, or quitting your job for better opportunities. Remember life be over before you know it so try and free yourself from any constraints you don’t like!
I love Australian culture and everyday life here. The only two things I don’t like are the huge cockroaches everywhere (it’s the tropics can’t avoid them) and cops riding horses around the city, but everything else here is really rad. I started a list of small things I enjoy about this country; I’ll share it with you:
-Things here seem to basically be ½ British influence ½ American. For example TV programs are a bit of both countries, they tend to kiss on one cheek when greeting, the coffee is very European (no drip coffee) but there is influence of American fast food, the cars don’t seem quite as big as they are in the states but not as tiny as Europe. University isn’t free but there is 0% interest on student loans and no need to start paying them back until you make a certain amount of money.
-They are environmentally conscious: Have “power switches” like Europe where you have to turn on the switch not just simply plug something in, they have ½ and full flushes on the toilets, they don’t use dryers. There are nonprofits such as Oz Harvest that collect unused food and redistribute it. Got a free bike from a bike collective!
-The Food: every single coffee place you go to will have soy milk, Funky pies, vegemite!
-The culture: People in general are so much more laid back and there is not pressure on young people here like there is in the states. They seem to all be traveling, or working part time and have enough money to pay bills and have fun. Ruby games and festivals!
-There are no guns. But there are lots of jobs!
-The amazing birds flying all over the city! The awesome animals, the koalas, kangaroos, wombats, etc etc
When you travel you really find yourself thinking what it’s all about, looking ahead you can see many options. Right now my options look like traveling a bit more of Australia in November or working a bit more in Sydney, doing an internship in the Philippines in December or coming back to the states for the holidays, I will be traveling SE Asia in January including doing some work with rescued elephants, then I need to decide if I want to do 3 months of farm work Feb-Mar-April so I can extend my visa for another year or I can simply work/travel for those 3 months and then end my visa in Australia. For the moment I’m off the Melbourne tomorrow! Thanks for staying posted. Miss you all, you should visit you’d love it here!

oh and some recent pics are here- https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/93011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNjqke2MovKPvQE&feat=directlink

and here-https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/20111016?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLPJ8pz-yYeN9wE&feat=directlink

back in Sydney

Hey friends,

It’s so liberating letting go of all planning and expectations from life. Reflecting on the past 3 months a lot has happened that I didn’t expect.  I can only imagine what the rest of this trip, and my life, will be like . I decided to get a job in Sydney since things are so expensive and I’ve spent a lot the past few months. Plus jobs are quite easy to find out here and it’s a great way to feel like I’m actually living here, not just passing through. I registered with a bunch of temp agencies and got some random work such as handing out name tags at this cloud computing event, doing reception work for a textile company, and working at the Australia v. South Africa rugby game this weekend! I also got a stable job at a restaurant/fast food place called IKU.  I love it, everything is vegan and I have really nice coworkers.  Today I worked in their Westfield mall location handing out samples and telling people about our food, getting non vegans to eat vegan meals!

I love Sydney!  There are so many diverse neighborhoods (Paddington, Darlinghurst, Glebe and Newtown are among my favorites) and nice beaches. Although it’s winter here it’s still mostly sunny days.  The other day I was at Bondi Beach and there was an ice skating rink, but the surfers were out as well. I always thought the cool thing about San Fran was you could drive a few hours to ski in Tahoe or to a beach, but Sydney takes it to a whole new level.

Not much else has been happening, just getting settled in Sydney and working as much as possible. Oh did you all know I had whooping cough?  That explains why I was coughing for basically the past 2 months.  I went to one doctor and she said it was allergies, a few weeks later I went to another doctor and a blood test came back positive for whooping cough.  I’m better now so no worries.

Lastly I think I know what it feels like for a fish to be pierced when humans bait them in, and it’s not pleasant. But lip rings look much better on me than on them!

Fiji

I’m on a 14hr train ride from Brisbane back to Sydney, hence having time to splice together the video above.  I got back last night from traveling 5 islands throughout Fiji. I flew into Nadi, the shuttle I scheduled never picked me up so I hoped into a taxi.  When we got to the resort the driver never asked for payment, after getting out of the car and having a silent couple of seconds I said “How’s $5?” he said “sure whatever you want.” I read in a guidebook that this is the way taxis often work since they have no meters. If only they worked like that everywhere!

Arriving on each island we were greeted by a warm “Bula!”, singing, and often a tropical dink to cool us down.  With all the fun activities and getting to know Fijian culture, the past 9 days were amazing. They have consisted of a lot of tea time,beach volleyball, reading, snorkeling, kayaking, dancing (Bula dance!), crafts, cracking coconuts and eating bananas. ” Fiji time”, as they say, definitely slows life down a lot. “Lunch will be served at 12 o’clock, Fiji time, listen for the drum”, so basically afternoonish. While most resorts had limited generator power and cold showers, they were very cool with hammocks hanging from coconut trees throughout, mixed in with straw covered huts and exotic foliage. We were provided with mosquito nets for our beds on some islands, but I didn’t really need it since I rarely get bitten…while most people were covered in bites…someone mentioned that mosquito’s are attracted to milk or more precisely, as I looked into, lactic acid which is most commonly in dairy products.  Another advantage of being vegan, I’ll take it.

At this café on one resort there was nothing that could be vegan on this menu so I asked for some fruit and was give a bunch of bananas freshly picked, yum yum!  They taste hardly like bananas in America, much smaller and sweeter, picked and served at the peak of ripeness. Oh and I ate 5 for 2 Fijian dollars, so like less than a dollar American.

I slept in one huge dorm (I lost track of how many beds, but someone said there were 120),  a bit crazy but I didn’t spend a lot of time there, just a few hours of sleep each night.  I stayed up late dancing, playing cards and chatting with people from all over the world. I’d meet people on one island; we’d split up and then run into each other again on another island. A lot of people I met ended their trip on the island of Beachcomber, so it was cool to have one last night all together. Backpackers are all so nice, I love it!

Here are some pictures- https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/Beachcomber621?authkey=Gv1sRgCPy3143GnKio6gE

pictures- https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/Walilailai?authkey=Gv1sRgCLKOtrPHnZ-OIg

and pictures-https://picasaweb.google.com/113632205059513991529/NaculaIslandNabuaLodge615?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDDr5iAtaTqgwE&feat=directlink