Matt and Alana's Bogus Journey

A Farewell to Place d'Armes

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:39:00 +0000

I thought it would be nice to end our time in Montreal with a post about

Things you might not know about Montreal

Montreal is an island city.
Americans captured Montreal in 1775 during the American Revolutionary War.
Montreal was the capital of Canada during the years 1844-9.
Montreal was primarily Anglophone during the middle of the 19th century (reflected on the Montreal flag, bearing the fleur de lys, of the Royal House of Bourbon, representing the French, a Lancastrian rose, representing the English, a shamrock, representing the Irish, and a thistle, representing the Scottish).
Montreal was Canada's largest city from 1860 until sometime in the second half of the 20th century.
During prohibition in the States, Montreal was a haven for drinking, gambling and prostitution.
Montreal hosted th 1967 World Expo.
In 1967 Charles De Gaulle pissed off the Canadian government by shouting pro-Quebec sovereignty movement stuff from atop Montreal's town hall. This marked the beginning of a large exodus of Anglophones to Toronto from Montreal.
Montreal hosted the 1976 Olympic games, at which 28 African nations boycotted because New Zealand attended and was still playing rugby with apartheid South Africa.
Montreal payed off its 1976 Olympic Stadium in December 2006 (Despite initial projections in 1970 that the stadium would cost only C$134 million to construct, strikes and construction delays served to escalate these costs. By the time the stadium opened, in an unfinished form, the total costs had risen to C$264 million).
Montreal was named after the Island of Montreal, which in turn was named after Mount Royal.
William Shatner, Leonard Cohen, and Celine Dion are all Montreal natives.

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Autumn almanac

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:31:00 +0000

The view from our balcony.

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Go Habs Go!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:06:00 +0000

We're leaving Montreal in November, so we thought a great way to bid the city farewell would be to attend a sermon at the Church of Bell, enjoying Canada's national religion-ice hockey. I don't know if its the price of merchandise, but here you see many more ice hockey team t-shirt, jacket and hats per person than rugby in New Zealand. They are devout here.

Violence in ice hockey and enforcers
I find the violence in ice hockey intriguing. The Canadians are such a friendly and peaceful bunch (especially compared to some neighbours), but by my understanding, the discussion on eliminating fighting in hockey to bring the sport into the modern age, is mostly dismissed. "Fighting is an established tradition of ice hockey in North America, with a long history in both amateur and professional play." I think I like this, both because it feels ridiculous, and as fights only happen when two people consent to it ("enforcers"), why not.

Enforcers explained: Imagine, for arguments sake, the first game of hockey. Some players are better than others, thus pose a bigger threat to the other team. As a response, in the next game, each team assigns one player the job to take out the other teams leading player. In the following game, each team assigns another player to defend against the players trying to target their lead player. From my understanding, this is kind of the evolution/justification for existence of the enforcers (a kind of escalating arms race). The ultimate result is mostly safe star players, and constant fighting between enforcers (who are kind of playing two games at once). Brilliant.

The Habs
Montreal's hockey team (or sect of the religion) are the "Canadiens". Their nickname is Les Habitants or the Habitants (of Montreal). For a while I thought both their name, and nickname, were embarrassingly unimaginative. But then I read this (from Wikipedia, bold mine):

They have won more Stanley Cups (24, the first in 1916, before the NHL existed) than any other NHL team.^[1] On a percentage basis, as of 2006, this makes them the third most historically successful major pro sports team in North America, having won 25% of all NHL/NHA Stanley Cup championships. Only the Boston Celtics of the NBA (26.2%) and the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (25.2%) have higher success rates.

If you're that successful, you can call yourself what ever you like. My feelings are now that their names are awesomely unimaginative (although, they haven't actually won since 92-93, and up until the game, I hadn't heard many good things said about them on sports shows).

Because they heard we were coming, the Habs pulled out all the stops. While no big fights unfolded, they hammered the Boston Bruins 6-1.

Carts and coasters

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:09:00 +0000

On the weekend, we treated ourselves to a horse-drawn carriage ride through Old Montreal with cousin Jen (the Road Warrior) and Josh. It was both beautiful and freezing. The weather is really starting to turn (which works out fine for us, as we have booked tickets back for mid-November). Old Montreal is one of the oldest urban areas in North America, consisting of buildings going back to the 1600s, complete with cobblestone streets.

It is one of those lucky instances of a developing CBD growing up next to the existing CBD as opposed to on top of it. That is a idiosyncratic thing about Montreal, the eclectic mixture of good architecture (versus Wellington being a mixture of mostly ugly architecture).

We followed on Sunday with La Ronde, which is a theme park on an island in the middle of the Saint Lawrence. Along with a lot of the nifty modern architecture in the city, the site of La Ronde was developed for Expo' 67.

For as long as can remember, I've thought I liked roller coasters. I think I thought everyone likes roller coasters and only weird people don't. I was sure, even though Alana was a little hesitant, both of us would love going on the roller coasters (La Ronde is home to Goliath, the tallest roller coaster in Canada, up until May 2008. The bigger the better, right?).

As it turns out, I have a weak stomach, and Alana dislikes feeling close to death. Goliath was good but the other ones that barrel roll you and spin you upside-down we could have definitely lived without. We were also under dressed for what was a very cold autumn day, so our enthusiasm was quickly depleted.

Life lesson: roller coasters=overrated. In saying that, had you told me this before I went, I would have called you a liar.

Canals, bowling balls, and giant birds

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:09:00 +0000

Get a comfy chair; I'm gonna hit you with some history, so this post is long.

It was Thanksgiving on the 8th of October, which we spent with family in Hamilton. We left early to spend a week with my grandparents in Ottawa. Despite us having 60 years on them, they out-lasted us everyday. They showed us the beautiful countryside surrounding Ottawa. Bobba was in the navy for more than 30 years, thus special attention was payed to the rivers, canals, locks and mills (if you look at the entry for Merrickville on Wikipedia, take particular notice of the photo and info box to the right. This is Alana handiwork).

The War of 1812, canals and the Fenian raids
New Zealand readers may be surprised to find out, in 1812, the USA tried to invade Canada. I know I couldn't believe it; I've always considered the Americans such a peace loving society. This was 30 or so years after the War of Independence, so you can imagine a mixture of a young nation trying to prove itself and expand, residual resentment towards the British, the British being occupied with the Napoleonic Wars, and a whole lot of guns is the perfect combination for a good war.

Apparently both Americans and the British assumed Canadians would sympathise with the Americans' cause. They were both wrong. The Canadians bought guns from Americans to fight, for the British, against the Americans(?). The Americans also tried their hand at challenging the most powerful Navy in the world, thus there were naval battles on the Great Lakes.

For this reason, after the war, the Grenville, Chute-à-Blondeau, Carillon, and Rideau canals were all built. This made it possible for a boat to enter the St. Lawrence from the Atlantic and easily get all the way to Lake Ontario. Later other canal systems were added, collectively constituting the Saint Lawrence Seaway (so eventually you could take a boat from the Atlantic, via Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, Lake Huron, all the way to Lake Superior, then using some others, back past Niagara Falls, Lake Eerie and the Hudson River, all the way to New York). I absolutely love locks and canals (or maybe the thinking behind them); they are like geographic-reconstructive surgery, a way of telling the Creator "...okay, what you've done here is okay, but it wasn't exactly what we were looking for". Pure 18th/19th century pomp. The best part is the were all redundant soon after with the expansion of railroads.

Then it gets crazy weird - the Fenian Brotherhood. The Fenian Brotherhood were Irish-Americans who were trying to help their motherland of Ireland gain independence from the British. They came up with a brilliantly simple plan. I have recreated its conception for your convenience (it is like an episode of Pinky and the Brain).

Hennessy: I passionately love Mother Ireland.
O'Reilly: Aye, I too passionately love Mother Ireland.
Hennessy: Damn the British for not giving her independence.
O'Reilly: Aye, damn the British.
Hennessy: If only there were some way we could screw the British and grant Ireland her rightful independence.
O'Reilly: But here in North America, we live so far away from both Ireland and the British.
Hennessy: No, no, O'Reilly, I've got it:

We take over Canada and trade it with the British for Ireland's independence.

O'Reilly: ?
Hennessy: !
O'Reilly: Brilliant.

Between 1866-71, the Fenian Brotherhood made numerous raids on Canada. They called themselves the Irish Republican Army or IRA, which is first recorded usage of the name.

Navigating by bowling ball
After WWII, by a mixture of wartime expansion and the defeat of the Axis, Canada ended up with the third largest navy in the world. Bobba entered the navy with a degree in electrical engineering. After the war, he was charged with developing a new system for coordinating fleets and fighting submarines and aircraft, DATAR. This was right at the birth of computers, so essentially every aspect had to be invented. Among the many innovations, they developed one of the first graphical-user interfaces using, I think, the first trackball (or upside-down mouse) as an input. This predated the patent put on the first mouse at Stanford by more than 10 years. The DATAR system was eventually tested by, you guessed it, a simulated naval battle in Lake Ontario.

Filthy savages
Just like Christmas, it seems like the general populous aren't too worried about what Thanksgiving used to mean. It is simply a family day for eating (except obviously in Quebec, where they're not even sure what's going on). This suited us fine, we got to spend some quality time with family in Hamilton and Toronto, went to the Rockton World's Fair (complete with pony rides, merry-go-rounds and lifestock competitions) , watched some ice hockey, and ate a whole lot of root ("rut") vegetables and giant bird. The only filthy savages around were Alana and I.

The Road Warrior

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:26:00 +0000

Late in September we were lucky enough to tag along with my cousin Jen, and her husband Josh on pilgrimage from Ottawa to Niagara Falls. An auntie had warned me that it was too much driving for one weekend; she overlooked one fact. Jen is genetically one quarter road warrior.

We pretty much sleep-walked to the car early Friday morning and woke up ready for an early lunch in Toronto. In Toronto we went to the top of the world's second tallest free-standing structure:

On from Toronto we headed down to Grimsby and Niagara. When I went to the falls 10 years ago, I remember it being nice; this time around we went at night time which accentuated the change that has happened in the town. It is like Canada's Vegas. The falls glow in the dark with the neon reflections of casinos:

We hit the casino and I walked away 50 cents. As a bit of oneupmanship Josh pocketed close to $300, but that was cool, I knew he was just showing off.

We got to enjoy some wineries the next day:

But we must be getting old as we bought more wine than we tested. At the end of all of this Jen drove us all the way back to Montreal via Ottawa again to catch up with Dad's side of the family (watch this space for a photo).

Lunchables

noreply@blogger.com (Alana) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:41:00 +0000

Poutine:

Poutine: chips with gravy and cheese curds!!

Smoked meat sandwich:

Smoked meat sandwich is self-explanatory. What the photo doesn't show is that they cram a whole cow into each sandwich and it is the most succulent and juicy meat you'll ever eat. You know those mythical cows you hear about that are only fed beer and spend their days being massaged by virgins? I heard that's the kind of cow they use. Only they feed it smoke.

Montreal is famous for its smoked meat -- the most famous place to get it is Schwartz's, where they use the same smoker they used back in the 20s. There's always a queue outside and once you're in they try to get you out as soon as possible. Apparently this is all part of it's charm.

Innherently lazy noise filters

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 20:59:00 +0000

I've been working my new job for about a month now and it turns out "prospecting" is just a synonym for telemarketing. This is not all bad news though. The company I work for is young and small, as far as companies go, and everyone seems to be under 30. This makes for a nice environment, even if the work is not Christmas.

My job concists of tracking down phone numbers of people who have ugly or old websites, working out who is in charge of the website, calling them, convincing them try a demo of our cheaper better system (I make my job easier by only calling people if I genuinly think we can makes their lives better). So I don't actually sell anything myself per se.

It is amazing how hard it is to give away free websites.

As you can probably guess, people are numb to strangers on the phone. To them, I am the equivalent of a billboard on the side of the road that they glance at and quickly ignore, except I'm talking to them, so they have to work out how to hang up on me as quickly as possible. This is exactly why humans do so well; we are noise filtering machines, we don't have energy to pay attention to everything. Most stuff we run into is irrelevant to us. Also, most of us are inherently lazy, and subconsciously run on the knowledge that avoiding new things seldom leads to trouble. I counter these obstacles by cunningly only asking "how" questions (you can't give a one word answer to a "how" question). Also, I find out there name, and use it a lot like we're old friends. Also I get their email address before I propose anything. My boss says "you'd only give your email to someone if they were your friend". Once we have established the friendship, I let them know I'm going to do a favour in the form of setting up a free website for them. I make 6 friends each day, who I never speak to again.

It turns out people from the auto industry are generally the friendliest to talk to. People who own pet stores are generally the rudest and the most hostile to "them internets".

It has taken me about 3 weeks to stop taking no for an answer. I was so timid and took everything so personally at the start, but lately it feels more like a game.

Squirrel-fish fishin'

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:37:00 +0000

Hook, line and sinker? More like peanut, shoelace and awesome.

ZOMG new apartment!

noreply@blogger.com (Alana) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:09:00 +0000

The first week in our new apartment has been great. We had previously spent the longest 2 weeks of our lives living in le ghetto, in a Mexican family’s basement. We never really met Jose, our "landlord", but he reassuringly let us know he was home by stomping around his house from 3-5am every morning. The place was in the suburbs of the suburbs, and it took an hour to get to town. We didn’t take any photos there but here’s an artist’s impression:

Now we’re in our real apartment and it’s pretty sweet. Mostly because of the amazing view of Montreal from our balcony. We’re on the 25th floor of a huge apartment building beside Parc Lafontaine:

From the outside, the apartment building is not much to blog home about, in fact it's pretty ugly:

But it has a gym:

and a swimming pool:

and saunas:

Parc La Fontaine is one of the nicest places in town. In winter the lake freezes over and people go ice skating. We can watch tennis, football and baseball games from our balcony, and go squirrel-fish fishing (you'll see).

We are good. Matt is still prospecting. I got a similar job but it turned out it would take at least a month and a half to process my work permit. So now I'm going to have to find a job where a work permit is not essential.

Montreal is a wicked city, there's always some festival or something exciting or weird going on. Our current hobby is going to watch our 10-year-old friend, Thomas, fight in medieval battles in a park alongside a horde of hippy drummers and tightrope walkers.

Gotta have a montage

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:36:00 +0000

This is one of the reasons we haven't posted for a while, have been making this movie. The music is ELO, which is why it is disco sweet.

Too much of a good thing/Be careful what you wish for

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0000

So I managed to get a job a couple of weeks ago. Testing video games no less.

I had been writing a post about how awesome my job is and had even made a picture.

My toolbox:

But it's funny what a difference a few days make. I would not have be able to comprehend how playing video games could be so torturous if someone had told me, so I suspect others may struggle with this: it sucks. Well some days, and then occasionally it is like "I can't believe they're paying me to do this".

The downsides to the job:

they make you play the same game for weeks on end, 9am-5pm
the games are not finished so are not very good and crash all the time
the supervisors (or my one at least) act like the comic book guy from the Simpsons, if he were competing on the Apprentice
I am not allowed to discuss any of the games outside of work
They exercise collective punishment: they stopped email (?) at work for several hundred people "until further notice" because some guy looked at porn
the pay is very low
I am nothing more than a pair of thumbs who can use a spreadsheet to them
the chairs (no couches) are awful
it is of little value on my CV

The job was way better in my imagination.

===============
I have spent so many days writing this post, that I have now organised a new job to start on Monday. The position is "lead prospector" at a website firm. Hopefully my imagination hasn't ruined this one for me too.

Montreal and our golden ticket

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Before we left Wellington I didn't really want to get travel insurance. My thought process was:

Insurance consists of you paying a relatively small amount of money which covers you in the case of a rare thing happening (gambling)
If one of these rare events happens, you win, and they pay you.
This is a worthwhile gamble if you cannot otherwise afford the cost of the rare thing, and it the event is possible. The rare bad things can never be completely avoided, but if you are young, healthy and travel smart, you can cut the risks.
The house generally wins. This is displayed by the simple fact that insurance companies exist.

Anyway we ended up getting insurance as a license to not worry. It turns out we got a winning ticket.

Upon our arrival at Montreal airport, we were informed our bags had not made it (from Ottawa, which is a two hour drive away). Air Canada took our details, and said they would be couriered to us within hours. It was 10pm. The delay caused us to end up at a motel (not the plan), which pissed me off, until I remembered our golden ticket. We read the policy to see that we would be entitled to replace $1500 worth of essentials if the bags took more than 12 hours.

We went to bed excited like it was Christmas; was Santa really coming?

Never have I been so happy to get back into dirty clothes. The bags arrived at 5.30pm, and we all lived happily ever after.

So anyway, turns out Montreal is totally sweet:

Marché Bonsecours - Montréal
Originally uploaded by Nino H

Gare-Hôtel Viger - Montréal
Originally uploaded by Nino H

Notre-Dame Basilica 1
Originally uploaded by Shutterscript

And the day bid a candy-colored farewell
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

The most wonderful time of the year
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

Round the bend
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

Bucky's dream
Originally uploaded by IrenaS

We have found ourselves a temporary apartment, and some groovy wheels. The trick now is finding jobs to pay for them.

The Belyea Bunch

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 02:23:00 +0000

In Vancouver Alana got to meet Mum's side of the family:

There were a lot of us the last time we met up in 1997, and the bad news for the world is that the clan seems to be expanded (in my cast not so much vertically as horizontally). Exhibit A: For the first half hour the whole thing was really quite overwhelming. For me, my extended family are kind of similar to fictional characters; I know their names, I know what they look like, I know what they've been doing, but I really haven't met them much. I cannot imagine what that must have been like for Alana.

As it turned out, Alana must have got her hands on some CliffsNotes or something, because she seemed to know everyone as well as I did. In fact, I think she might have had a better time than I did. Exhibit B: It turns out my family is filled with friendly, talented and interesting people. Almost all of my relatives are involved with some kind of artistic or design orientated career/study (exhibit C, D and E). As well as artistic stuff, one of my cousins is a game tester for Electronic Arts (totally sweet). I mentioned in an earlier post, Mike is a host for VIPs at LA clubs. Another cousin is an expert in indigenous rights in law.

I also found my long lost cousin/sister Vic:Awesome.

After the reunion was over, Alana and I stayed on in Vancouver. We spend a night with Dad's brother Fred and his partner Diane. Fred had the same twinkle in his eye as my dad does, same humour, same hand gestures.

Fred and Diane took us up Grouse Mountain where Alana got to cross her number one task of her list:These grizzly bears live in a habitat enclosed with just the number-8 wire in the photo, and an electric fence at waist height. Grizzlies can open heads like coke cans and some think could beat a mako shark in a fight.

Seattle and "the 4th"

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:47:00 +0000

Hendrix, Ray Charles, and Kurt Cobain were all from Seattle. This made me like Seattle even before we had arrived.

Sweet.

Pat and Pam
My mum's identical twin sisters live two blocks from each other in Seattle. We got to enjoy their hospitality, caught up with cousins I hadn't seen for 10 years, and Alana had never met.

Boeing factory

I convinced Alana, Dad and Nic we should see the Boeing factory, where they do tours through their production line. It is the largest indoor space in the world (the blue doors in the picture are the size of football fields). It is in fact so large, that legend has it, one time they forgot to turn on the air conditioning, clouds formed inside the factory, and it rained. Another time, they had to send everyone home because there was a snowstorm inside. The factory is so big there are approximately one billion employees there. Each day they collectively consume the same amount of food as Finland does in a year. You can see the Boeing factory from space. The Boeing factory affects Earth's rotation around the Sun.

The true story is not quite as good. Like most things, the Boeing factory was better on paper.

Pike Place Market

Before the Pike Street Market, both fish, and the act of throwing existed. The Pike Street Market was the first place to combine the two (or something).

EMP (Experience Music Project)

EMP is a totally sweet museum founded by Paul Allen (who also co-founded Microsoft). We made the mistake of going EMP on a Thursday evening, when it is free to the public. It was originally meant to be a museum of Hendrix, but after disagreements with the family, ended up being a rock and roll museum, with a Hendrix focus. I would describe it to a Wellingtonian like Capital Discovery Place (which I don't think exists anymore), but with rock and roll, and with one hundred times the budget and taste. Neither the Boeing factory nor EMP let us take photos.

The 4th
I remember when it was Waitangi Day earlier this year, having to explain to Ben, a French friend, that New Zealander's don't really celebrate our national day (and I had never thought about until then either). You're more likely (guaranteed?) to see protests on the news. Compare this also to the number of American flags flown from front porches here, and you realise Kiwis really don't have a huge amount of patriotism (until Peter Jackson releases a film).

So I was pumped about the 4th of July. I wanted fireworks, mob frenzies, and guns being shot into the air.

As it turns out, they are not crazy up in the Northwest. We got fireworks (the best I have ever seen or ever will), a helicopter carrying a flag, and a brass band, but I would not describe the crowd as a mob, nor as frenzied.

Night terrors: Funniest story of the trip and everyone's chance to think less of me as a human being

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:00:00 +0000

So we rendezvoused with my family in San Francisco, and ended up sharing a room with my brother Nic. Mum, Dad and Nic were jet-lagged, so were sleeping at different times to us. One night, Alana and I were sound asleep, while Nic politely watched TV in the neighbouring lounge, as to not disturb us. As we had gone to sleep, Alana and I had both realised we had forgotten to lock the deadbolt, but gone to sleep nonetheless. The hotel we were at was themed (I think the theme was "arty"), and had murals all over the walls (they looked a bit like linear vomiting, and would have given you nightmares if you were a child).

Okay, so, scene set: Matt and Alana asleep, Nic not asleep. Weird room. Door not locked.

Nic quietly sneaks into the room at 3am for bed. The door to the bedroom is about 50cm from the foot of our bed (for those of you who have not met Nic, he is big).

Apparently, Alana was awoken by this. By Nic's account "she sat up in bed and started screaming". Poor Nic's attempts to reassure her, were drowned out by her screaming. One would guess an adult screaming is easily enough to wake the neighbours on both sides, as well as those above and below.

I am awoken to Alana screaming, the silhouette of a large man, and I panic. I start screaming. By Nic's account my screaming "was much louder and higher pitched". The screaming lasted "a very long time" but also was followed by a bout of all of us in hysterics.

Can you imagine being woken to two people screaming in the middle of the night? Absolute madness. As a side note, no one did come knocking to see if we were okay.

"Let's show these fools how we do this on that west side/Cos you and I know it's tha best side" ~ Tupac

noreply@blogger.com (Alana) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:21:00 +0000

We've arrived in Seattle after a road trip up the west coast with the rest of the Lanes (minus Kris). Here's a pictorial account of us conquering California, Oregon, and Washington:

Yes, I made a Matt-map. He forced me to do it.

1. Visiting Albie at Stanford Uni (just outside of San Jose). This is the university bookstore (containing more Stanford merchandise than books, including whole Stanford Mom and Stanford Dad sections).

2. Me and a python at the San Francisco Science Academy. San Francisco is a cool city but we didn't have time to see much of it.

3. Almost a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge.

4. Somewhere on the Californian coast.

5. This was great.

6. 'Avenue of the Giants'. Pacific coast redwoods are the largest living things on Earth. I saw the stump of one that was 2500 years old, and was cut down in the early 1900s. Redwoods are so big and resilient they are practically immune to fires, floods, and time generally. Not so immune to chainsaws it seems.

7. American cuisine. (TV dinner trays provided in our mobile home.)

8. Matt and Nic finally found their county courthouse that they had lost.

City of night, city of night, city of night, woo, cmon

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:37:00 +0000

"[Los Angeles] is Big. Really big. It may seem like a long way to the corner chemist, but compared to [Los Angeles], that’s peanuts." -Douglas Adams.

Everything in America is bigger and louder than we're are used to. The people, the cars, the food, the cities. For your convenience here's a picture of LA next to Wellington at the same scale. The red X is my cousin Mike's apartment, and the Mickey silhouette is Disneyland.
This means from Mike's to Disneyland was like going from Wellington to Featherston, except, all the way to Featherston, there are a whole lot of people in your way (13 million).

Due to Mike being such an excellent host we ended up staying for an entire week (coincidentally Mike's job is being a 'host' at LA clubs). Mike is half American and half Canadian, and I think shows the positive traits that one associates with each country (confidence and friendliness). All Americans seemed to speak loudly and often, and I have found myself speaking quietly and infrequently to try and compensate.

Mike's apartment was in West Hollywood, right next to Santa Monica Boulevard. Here is a picture of Mike and Alana:
The last time I was in LA I was 13 and I remember Disneyland being lame and Universal Studios being cool. I'm not sure who's done the changing, but this time around it was the complete opposite. Universal Studios seems to be struggling (for the price of 1 ticket, you get a year long pass), and Disneyland was great.

One of the worthwhile moments at Universal Studios was seeing a set from War of the Worlds. Alana has a fear of flying, and if you watch closely, you can actually see Alana's soul quiver with fear:

Disneyland was great.
Pictures:

Tahiti and stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Matt) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:16:00 +0000

So, this is our blog. Please, sit down. Make yourself at home.

It has taken us a week to decide what to call it. Alana vetoed Shampoo Mohawks (which was timeless and totally sweet):

We've opted instead for Alana's Bill and Ted theme (less timeless, but slightly sweeter than the 'Poo'Hawks). This is an alternative to us bombarding you with group emails-you come here to read what we're doing at your leisure. But, as ironic as it has been, enough blogging about blogging.

We left Wellington on the 13th to catch our plane from Auckland the next day. Turned out, due to a mixture of the dateline and me being dumb, the plane didn't actually exist. So, after an extra night in Auckland we were off.

After spending 4 nights in French Polynesia, I can now confirm that it is great (the most expensive place on Earth, but great). We got to swim with sharks, dance with angry natives, and I even got to enjoy the local food poisoning.

Papeete, French Polynesia's capital, had been described by Lonely Planet and others as scummy. Lonely Planet and Others were right, but it wasn't even scummy enough to be remarkably scummy, just plain-regular scummy.

We stayed on the island of Moorea, a half-hour boat ride from Papeete:

...which you will all notice bears a striking resemblance to the Wu-Tang Clan's coat of arms:

We stayed in a bungalow right on the beach at the top-left edge of the 'W' in WU. Prices in French Polynesian are so expensive, and the conversion rates are kind of weird, so I ended up actually writing IOUs for the soul of my first-born child to pay for the accommodation.

Turns out sharks are just as scary as you always thought they were (they had terrifying manic grins), but lack the cunning and taste that I had thought they had. They failed to work out how helpless and delicious Alana, myself and some other tourists were when swimming with them, which was slightly offensive but mostly relieving.

Pictures:
1. Alana trying hard to be eaten

2. Me terrified of the puppy-like rays

Next stop: America.