Seven Continents & 50 States Before 25

New blog - Brandon to the Moon!

2012-10-15T21:10:00.003-07:00

BURBANK, CA -- You may have noticed that I have not posted in over a month now, and for that I do apologize - I know some of you have been checking!

Truth is I have been extremely busy, and in the very little spare time I have actually had, I have been working on building a new travel blog from scratch.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to... Brandon to the Moon! The website is much more navigable than this blog and allows me to organize my travel entries in a way I simply can't on this platform. That said, I am not going to export this blog into that one, nor will I stop writing in here.

Instead, the split will mainly be travel related. If a post is about a past, current, or future trip of mine, chances are it will be in Brandon to the Moon. If it is about my everyday life (considerably more boring, I know), chances are you will read about it here. What does that mean? Umami Burger (food), Blackhawks (sports), We Heart It (work), and other topics will stay in this space. Stay tuned for an update soon on such topics (NHL lockout, anybody?).

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the new website. The first post is a very long entry detailing my running of the 2012 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, completed on October 7, 2012 in 4:21:00!

Thank you for all your support and I look forward to continuing to write here and over on the travel site. Cheers!

Success!!!

Home for a week

2012-09-10T14:17:00.002-07:00

CHICAGO, IL -- I don't even remember the last time I was home for more than a full week. It must have been last Thanksgiving in 2011. I have taken a whole bunch of weekends, long weekends, and really long weekends, but I have yet to actually spend so much time at home - it is nice to be back!

I am flying back to California later tonight but will be back here this weekend and then again in early October for the upcoming Chicago Marathon!!! One thing that has been nice is running in different places here - I have done the same routes in California for 14 weeks in a row, with very slight differences. This past week I got in 5, 8, 5, and 12 mile runs in the Deer Grove Forest Preserve, one of the two trails I originally ran a few years ago when I first got into running. It is also home to the Midtown 5K, the first running race I ever did, way back in 2004. I got to participate in both 2010 and 2011, but sadly will have to miss this year's event. Anybody in the Chicago area looking for a great 5K to do (90% on asphalt and in the forest preserve), this year it will be on September 29th at 8:30am. All proceeds go to Bears Care charity.

Luckily it has been fantastic weather the past week. I got rained on a couple of times, which actually felt nice for a change (don't even remember the last time it rained in LA), and overall it has been 70s and sunshine - perfect for running and anything else. I hope it's the same weather for the marathon day. I'd gladly take a 55F temperature at the start and only warming into the upper 60s/low 70s! Fingers crossed!

One of the best parts about the week was taking the red-eye Sunday night (okay, so red-eyes suck, but I got bumped up to first class) and into ORD Monday very early. I told my immediate family, but being here for our family barbecue on Labor Day was a surprise for all of my extended family! It was great to see everyone. I worked the rest of the week, and then Saturday got to do a few information meetings for People to People. Two of the meetings were for delegations traveling to Australia, which was very exciting given I just got back from Australia a month and a half ago, and will be there again over New Years. I think all of the families were excited and understood the opportunity at hand, and I am very excited for those students who will be traveling abroad this summer!

Yesterday I met up with some friends and watched the most pathetic three and a half minutes of professional sports I have seen in at least five years. After that insanity came to an end, the Chicago Bears came out and whopped the Indianapolis Colts 41-21 on the first NFL Sunday of the year. It was a nice cool fall day too - we ordered some deep dish pizza and enjoyed.

Today has been a particularly productive work day - I have been cranking for the most part, with a nice lunch break and then a quick trip to the township office to get a new passport! The application fee (for a renewal) was $110, which is less than I remembered it being, a nice surprise. I was even more pleasantly surprised to find out that for no additional charge, you can request a 52 page passport instead of the standard 28 page version. This is particularly useful for anybody who has ever needed to get extra pages. My passport is only 5 1/2 years old (I could have continued using it for another 4 years), but since extra pages cost the same, I figured I'd rather just get a new passport with new binding, a new photo, etc. I did all of that and then through some emotional pain, handed over my current passport (required along with the application for a renewal). Why pain? That passport has stamps from all 7 continents in it, and I have a 50% success rate in getting old passports back from the State Department. I really hope I see it again along with the new one. It also still has some valid visas within it that can still be traveled on (along with the new passport) - Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey to name a few. It is also very strange not being able to hop on a plane and go absolutely anywhere on a whim. Not that I had plans to do that at the moment, but I feel very restricted. Hopefully it only takes them a few weeks to get the new one!

Alright, time to finish some work and then head out to the airport. The rest of the week will pretty much be cranking on work the entire time, but I'll be back for my cousin Elliott's Bar Mitzvah this Saturday! Have a great week everybody!

Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Record-Low

2012-09-09T18:31:00.001-07:00

August 27, 2012

BURBANK, CA -- First off, a very happy birthday to my Grandma Joan in Texas! We celebrated with her a couple of weeks ago, but today is her actual 80th birthday.

Today we got evidence back from NASA's earth-monitoring satellites that confirmed Arctic (northern) sea ice has reached a record-low, as monitored yesterday (August 26, 2012). As Earth continues to warm, this is more or less expected every few years. Nonetheless, as the records are consistently broken, we have yet greater evidence proving global warming and rapidly accelerating global warming in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The previous record-low for Arctic sea ice was September 18, 2007 (see image below).

The fact that the record has been broken some three weeks earlier this time means that while the record was broken as of yesterday, the ultimate low is going to shatter the record. In 2007, minimum sea ice extent covered 1.61 million square miles. Yesterday sea ice covered 1.58 million square miles, but for the next few weeks, that is expected to continue to decrease. On average, the annual minimum occurs in mid-September.

Sea ice on August 26, 2012, yesterday. The line is the average minimum extent from 1979-2010.

One thing that the satellite data does not show is the thickness of the ice. Submarine data, by contrast, has proven that the sea ice is not only shrinking in surface area coverage, but it is indeed thinning too (this makes logical sense, but from a scientific standpoint it is important to clarify). It is this thinning that leaves sea ice susceptible to strong storms. Indeed, two weeks ago a huge storm came through and took a ton of sea ice with it. A few decades ago, the ice would have been thick enough for the same storm to have little-to-no impact.

Why is any of this important? Well, there are a bunch of reasons, but I will give you the two most important ones. Obviously melting ice turns to water. Arctic sea ice sits on the ocean, so the net result is as more sea ice melts, global sea levels rise. Melting another million square miles of sea ice would have an enormous impact in low-lying areas (Maldives and Tuvalu are appropriately-cited examples of countries that will literally disappear with such large sea level rises, but the impacts will occur worldwide - Manhattan wouldn't fare so well if these trends continue either). The second biggest impact, I would argue, is in a loss of planetary albedo. Snow and ice reflect massive amounts of sunlight and heat from the sun right back into space. Water and land, by contrast, do more to absorb heat instead of reflecting it away. This is a downward spiral effect. As there is less sea ice, more heat is absorbed into Earth's atmosphere. This in turn increases temperatures and thus melts more sea ice. The key is to stop this cycle before it becomes a runaway freight train. Cynics would argue it is already too late. I disagree - everyone can do their part to reduce their carbon footprints and thus the corresponding impact on global warming. Buy an electric or hybrid car. Stop driving so much. Recycle almost everything (a good goal that is also realistic is 75% of your waste should be recycled). Buy energy star electronic products, live and work in LEED-certified buildings, buy renewable energy from your utility providers, and use them yourself too. Charge your cell phone in your car instead of your house. Or in your house, use mini solar panels instead of the wall. Taken individually there is not a huge impact. On a global scale, it is a truly global impact.

UPDATE - Check out this article (September 6) about the impact of the continuing decrease in Arctic ice levels. This is going to have a huge impact on climate cycles in Alaska, Canada, and much more so in the UK and Norway.

UPDATE 2 - Another article linking the Arctic sea ice decline to global warming, this time from the Christian Science Monitor.

Landing on Mars - Curiosity

2012-08-23T11:37:00.002-07:00

BURBANK, CA -- Good morning everybody! Since I just wrote that long post about running and running gear yesterday, I thought this would be an appropriate start:

Haha... yesterday I did 8 miles, which went well - they were all under pace by a decent margin. Today is "only" 5 miles, and then 13 on Saturday. Another pretty good one:

Hahaha. These things get passed around on facebook all the time, and most of the time I don't share them, but those two were too good to pass up. On a more travel-related theme, which is more of what the overall spirit of this blog is about:

Lastly, I give you a great shot of me tossing a Frisbee in Australia, taken by super-awesome travel buddy Paula Asinas:

Check out that form!

On a blog layout tangent, there are a few new features I have added to catch up with the times. On the right-hand side there are now four buttons for facebook, twitter, we heart it, and google plus. Feel free to like, tweet, heart, and plus away! I also added a "popular post" section with the top five posts based on individual post views. Some of them seem obviously right (All 50 States, 100 Posts/Last Days in Egypt) while a few others I would have predicted to make the cut did not (how about anything from Antarctica?). In any case, they are pretty good and will change as people find and read other posts along the way.

Beyond traveling and running, two of the more exciting things to happen in the past month or so were that I finally felt my first earthquake back on August 7. It was a tiny little 4.4, but at least now I can check that one off the list!

A couple of days before that, I live-tweeted the final hours and landing of the NASA Mars Curiosity rover, which was a phenomenal success. Check out this amazing video of the final couple of minutes from NASA's JPL mission control, just 10 mins down the road from me over in Pasadena, CA:

Since landing, the rover snapped a bunch of photos and has gotten a chance to try out all of the various instruments it has, dusting everything off after 9 months of traveling some 350+ million miles from Earth. Yesterday, for the first time, Curiosity got to drive away from the landing site.

You can clearly see Curiosity's tracks in this photo, taken yesterday.

This is the first image Curiosity snapped from Mars, two weeks ago.

At the end of my live-tweeting the event, which was characterized by "seven minutes of terror," I wrote the following:

NASA just lined up multiple satellites in Mars orbit and live-relayed telemetry of Curiosity, a spacecraft the size of a car that slowed from 13,200mph to zero in 7 minutes, and hit a target within 1,000 meters after a 352 MILLION mile trip. And all of this happened blindly, a 13 light-minutes communications signal delay away. Congratulations to all - absolutely surreal.

Illustrating the above, not only did satellites orbiting Mars relay Curiosity's telemetry to Earth, but they even got a picture of Curiosity during the landing, with the parachute deployed.

This color relief photo shows Curiosity on the surface of Mars - this was taken by a satellite in Mars orbit.

Taken from Curiosity, this is the first color panorama, looking to the edge of Gale Crater.

Finally, I will leave you with the following video. These are thousands of images stitched into an HD movie. Due to the data bandwidth required, this was not relayed in real-time, but in the past couple of days everything finally made it back to earth and was stitched together. This is the last 45 seconds of flight, from the heat shield dropping away until the actual landing. It is a stunning reminder of what we can accomplish when we set our minds to it. Enjoy!

Running Gear

2012-08-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

BURBANK, CA -- Good afternoon on another hot day here in southern California! Actually, it has been better the last two or three days. For awhile we were topping 100F on a daily basis last week and the week before. Such is summer in the valley!

I hope everyone enjoyed the daily updates from Australia. My apologies for the delayed posting of them. As often happens while traveling, internet access became difficult, so there was really no way to update them in real-time. Of course, when I got back I was swamped with work, so it took some effort to get everything up. In any case, they are all up now, in order, with the actual posting dates. If anybody has any comments or questions on those or any other posts, feel free to leave them below.

In the past three weeks since I got back, I have mostly been here in CA focused on work and running. Emphasis on RUNNING! I'm now in the midst of week 12 of training for the Chicago Marathon, coming up on October 7th. This will be my first marathon, and I am now at the point where the training is serious enough that I'm breaking all kinds of distance records on a weekly basis. Last Saturday I ran 18 miles, surpassing the then-record 16.25 miles I ran two weeks prior. Next Saturday is 19 miles, and so it goes leading up to the 26.2 in Chicago. A couple weekends ago I was in Houston for my Grandmother's 80th birthday party (my one trip since I got back from Oz), and instead of a relaxing vacation, I woke up at 445am to run a half marathon. In Texas. In August. Yes, really.

February 5, 2012 - Running at the Surf City Half Marathon

Besides all of the actual running, one thing that was very helpful in Houston was finding a great top-end running store, Finish Strong Sports. Here in LA I go to Run With Us in Pasadena. At home in Chicago, we frequent Runners High 'n tri in Arlington Heights. A few people who are just getting into running have asked about what type of gear I use, so here we go!

The first thing I would recommend is going into a good running store. If you're in Houston, LA, or Chicago, I would highly recommend the three places I noted above. Anywhere else, you should do some research. While in Houston, I picked up a new pair of shoes, Brooks Ghost 4's, and thanks to the combined advice of my podiatrist, the ladies who give me pedicures, family, and friends, I got them a full size larger than the Brooks I was running in before. The reason why this is necessary is because the longer you run for, the more your feet swell up. The larger your feet become, the more friction there is, and the more friction, the more blisters and nail damage you create. By getting shoes that are normally too large, you allow room for your feet to swell, and when they do there is less friction, preventing or at least lessening damage.

New shoes!

So far the shoes have been great, and I've recommended them to a few friends who have asked. I use them with custom orthotics and a flat insert over them (in place of the ones that come with the shoes). I think it goes without saying that shoes are the most important "gear" when it comes to running. The next-most important, to me anyway, is actually socks. If your biggest potential problem is blisters and crazy toenails due to friction, having a good pair of socks that wick away moisture will help reduce that friction. This is actually more important than at first glance - for a long time I was simply running in short nike socks, and that was okay for a few miles, but when I found myself doing 10K's (6.2 miles) and half marathons (13.1 miles) in them, I was having major foot and toe problems.

Since then, I have switched over to Asics hydrology socks. They're a bit more expensive than "normal" socks, but make an enormous difference. Not even a year ago I was completely wiped after running about eight miles, and it wasn't because I was any heavier or had been running less. It was because I was wearing shoes that were too small and socks that were not helping. Saturday when I finished my 18 mile run, I could have kept going if I really wanted to.

The rest of running gear I would characterize as important, but non-essential. If you're new to running, just make sure you have a good pair of shoes and socks, and the rest will be okay. For years I was wearing gym/basketball/tennis shorts, which are all fine, but when you get to 10+ mile runs, it does make a nice difference having actual running shorts. About a year ago I got a pair of Nike dry-fit shorts, which are great workout shorts, and for a long time those were my default pair I'd wear during races or other really long runs, since they are great at wicking moisture (notice the theme here).

September 24, 2011 - Wearing the Nike Fit shorts at the Midtown 5K in Palatine, IL.

In Houston, however, I upgraded to an actual pair of running-specific shorts. As great as the difference between the Nike fit shorts and your standard workout/tennis/basketball shorts is, you will find an equally great difference between the Nike fit shorts and a pair of actual running shorts. I went with their men's five-inch "race day" running shorts. There are a number of advantages to these. First, they are shorter and lighter, which simply helps from a weight standpoint. More than that, however, they also embrace dri-fit technology, helping wick extra moisture. But perhaps the biggest change is they come with built-in underwear, which greatly reduces friction and chafing, as well as combined total weight. The first time I ran in them, I felt like I was flying, and they no-doubt contributed greatly to being able to pull off such a good 18 mile run.

Shirts, to me anyway, are not very important, with two exceptions. One, you want a color that is appropriate for the conditions you are running in. Summer in most places means you should basically be wearing white, to reflect heat. Second is that you obviously want to be wearing a light, technical shirt. Sure, you can go run a 5K in a t-shirt if you really want to, and I sometimes do, but otherwise any type of technical shirt should be fine. I mostly wear all of the various technical race shirts I've collected in the past two years during training - right now I'm wearing my 2012 Hollywood Half Marathon race shirt, since I'm getting ready to go out and do 8 miles this evening.

May 29, 2011 - Running the Soldier Field 10 Miler

One thing that I learned the hard way that I needed, and this only applies to men, is nip guards. They're basically nipple protectors, which helps with chafing (and when you're doing that on your nipple for hours at a time, you end up bleeding). They are cheap, easy to use, and help a ton. I use these guys for runs over an hour (anything more than a 10K in distance).

That's about it! I wear a bandanna on race days or extremely long runs, which helps keep sweat out of my eyes (or at least prolongs it from happening). I also wear sunglasses regardless of the weather or time of day, since they're much more aerodynamic and help protect my eyes. I've made a few exceptions to this, but overall I'm almost always wearing sunglasses - they also keep me a little cooler.

May 1, 2011 - Running the Orange County Half Marathon

My favorite little gadget of all is my watch. I wear a Garmin Forerunner 410, which is quite the toy to have. In addition to the basics (time, distance, speed), this does a great job tracking you by GPS and thus determining your elevation, calories burned, split times, and a ton more I won't even get into. The best part is you can customize what you are looking at, so you can change things accordingly to get whatever information you want, even while you are running. This is something I did without for over a year, but now that I have it, I am a much better runner - I am able to be more consistent and adjust my speed in real-time.

Alright everyone - I hope you have enjoyed this running post and hopefully even found it useful. Congratulations to all of you who are at it for the first time, and well done to those who are just getting back into it after a few years absence. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer, go get a PR or two, and have fun!!!

SYD-LAX - What a trip!

2012-08-20T23:39:00.001-07:00

July 28, 2012

LOS ANGELES, CA, USA -- Just as you lose an entire day crossing the international date line heading westbound, you gain one heading eastbound. The net result of this is you actually land even earlier than you left.

After departing our hotel we got to SYD and checked into our flight. We filled out our exit immigration cards, said an emotional goodbye to our incredible delegation manager Anthony, and proceeded through security. When we got to the duty-free area, we found out that as luck would have it, our flight was delayed three hours. Qantas gave us each a $30 (!!!) meal voucher, and eventually we departed around 4pm on July 28th from SYD.

One massive ocean and a particularly short night later, we landed at LAX on July 28th... at 12pm noon. Ah, the fun of international travel. :)

The flight itself was fine - we were on a newer (and thus nicer) plane than our LAX-BNE flight, and almost everyone got at least some sleep. One thing that was immediately noticeable was that after two weeks in cities and countryside that were pretty much completely pollution-free, we were landing into a typical summer day in Los Angeles - you know, where you can't see more than 5-10 miles in front of you.

On a complete side tangent, I will say that this summer has been noticeably better on the pollution front in LA. Overall, having visited here multiple times per year going back to 2005, it has actually become noticeably better pretty much every year. Turns out when you quadruple clean-energy production, double the efficiency of all electronics sold, and tax gasoline to the point everyone drives hybrid cars, it actually makes a huge difference. Sure, LA is still the most polluted city in the USA, but I am happy to report that it seems to be making strides in the right direction.

For about half of us, our trip came to an end at LAX. We said goodbye to the PA delegates at baggage claim, and they set off through customs to their connecting flight to Philadelphia. We got through customs, walked up and around the ramp, and within about 30 seconds all of the students were reunited with their families. Only later did I find out that the PA students missed their flight, spent the night at LAX, and got back to PHL late on Monday, but it sounds like they had a good time, and everyone is safely home.

To our DM Anthony, thank you for your endless passion and enthusiasm that never waned in two weeks of traveling with us. It was educational and fun, and this trip would simply not have been such a great time without you. To all of my co-teachers, it was great traveling with you, and I look forward to doing it again soon - in CA, PA, internationally, with PTP, or otherwise. To the parents who I have met multiple times here in CA, and those from PA who were posting on facebook every hour or two, thank you for your support and engagement - I hope you learned a lot through this and felt like you were with us along the way! Lastly, to all of our students, I hope you had the trip of a lifetime. Like any experience, you get out of life what you put into it. Many of you wrote detailed, informative, and emotional journals, took excellent photographs, and made life-long friends with Australians and your fellow American students. Believe it or not, the best part is in front of you. Now you get to share your experiences with the rest of the world. Let the things that you have seen and done shape you, and you will be forever better off for having had these couple of weeks abroad.

Sydney

2012-08-20T23:11:00.004-07:00

July 27, 2012

SYDNEY, NSW, AUSTRALIA -- How did this happen so quickly? As they always do, suddenly our last full day in Australia arrived. Luckily for us, this was also our busiest (and I would therefore argue exciting) day of the entire trip! We had a quick breakfast and wasted no time going straight to the world-famous Sydney Opera House.

July 27, 2012 - A beautiful morning from the Opera House, in front of the Harbour Bridge.

Made it to the Opera House!

The Sydney Opera House is unique, to say the least. First of all, it isn't really an Opera House. Well, it is. But it is also many other things. The designers simply thought terming it an Opera House would get more attention and help bring Sydney onto the world stage. In reality, however, it's a huge performing arts center, and the biggest building within it is actually the Concert Hall. The smaller of the two is the Opera House itself, and there are many other stages below ground set for live-action musicals and plays, among other events.

However, like me, I would bet that you first heard about and remembered the Sydney Opera House for none of those things. What was it? The truly globally unique and instantly recognizable architecture. Did you know that the Sydney Opera House is the only building ever to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site while the architect was still alive? Let that one sit for awhile - try to think of any other buildings that have that status. None of them were built more recently than the 1970s, when this was completed.

Check out the amount of wood, and notice that the wood never actually touches the concrete.

The Opera House has commanding views of Sydney Harbour.

By building a "building within a building," the wood protects the acoustics inside.

Of the many things we got to see and learn on our private, behind-the-scenes tour, was that the entire complex was built for $102 million. In today's money, that would be about $1 billion. Worth it, sure, but they went just a tad bit over their original $7 million budget.

Looking at the actual Opera House, from inside the Concert Hall.

Inside the concert hall - there was nothing happening on stage, so we were VERY lucky to be able to take photos!

Inside the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House. Even the seats are made of wood.

Back outside, I really enjoy this photo of the tiles. Notice some are yellow. If they were all white, the building would blind people from across the water when the sun hits it. This helps dilute that just enough to appear white in the sun.

After our excellent tour we headed over to the other side of Circular Quay for a walking tour of The Rocks, the oldest part of all of Australia. It was here that Australia was founded as a British penal colony in 1788, just a few years after the end of the American Revolution. While more than a century after the American equivalent, The Rocks are essentially to Australia as Jamestown and Plymouth Rock are to the United States.

Walking through The Rocks, dressed as convicts and British soldiers.

The Rocks

Following our tour of The Rocks, we had a quick lunch at Circular Quay, and then walked into the CBD to the National Opal Museum, where we learned about the various types of opals. Australia exports 95% of the world's opals, and they have quite the display.

Students watching a worker cut and polish an opal.

We continued walking through the CBD and eventually arrived at the New South Wales Parliament House.

While currently the Parliament House for NSW, this was also the first-ever Parliament in Australia.

Interestingly, the Parliament House predates the founding of Australia as an independent, sovereign state. The building hosted the first Legislative Council in 1829, and the first elected Council in Australia in 1843. Today, it serves as Parliament House for New South Wales, the most populated of Australia's states, with Sydney as the capital. Do note, however, that Sydney is NOT the capital of Australia. That title belongs to Canberra, some 170 miles down the road.

Sitting in the Speaker's chair in the lower house.

Inside the Senate.

After meeting two different government representatives, one from each of the two houses in Parliament, we concluded our visit and walked through Hyde Park, over to our coach.

St. Mary's Cathedral from Hyde Park, Sydney.

We continued our day over at Darling Harbour, just a short drive away. It is actually a nice walk, but it was starting to get darker and colder, plus we had been walking all day, so we opted to drive instead. We first visited the Hard Rock Cafe, where I was able to get a collector's edition Australia PTP pin! Very cool that they had one.

Sydney CBD from Darling Harbour on a beautiful evening.

We finished our day with a nice dinner right at Darling Harbour. Some of the students tried kangaroo fillets, while I enjoyed a vegetable pasta. We retired back to our hotel, had our last group meeting together, and then started packing for the long trip home.

School visit and Harbour cruise

2012-08-20T22:26:00.002-07:00

July 26, 2012

SYDNEY, NSW, AUSTRALIA -- We had a very busy day today, though ironically with "only" three things in the calendar for Sydney.

The first was our school visit at St. Mark's Primary School. Two or three of our students were grouped with two or three St. Mark's sixth-year students, who began by hosting a school-wide assembly introducing everyone. In talking with some of the teachers, they hosted a PTP group two years ago, wanted to last year, but it didn't work out - some of the students remembered the group a couple of years prior, and they had been spending weeks looking forward to hosting us! Needless to say it was a very exciting day for students and teachers, Aussies and Americans alike.

July 26, 2012 - Group photo after the school assembly at St. Mark's Primary in Sydney.

After the assembly the combined Aussie and American students went around in their small groups and visited with the various younger grade-level classes, introducing themselves and also answering any questions they had about living in the United States or anything at all. Us leaders went around from classroom to classroom taking photos and answering a few questions too. At one point, one of the younger third-year Australian students asked one of our CA PTP students about what Australia was like compared to California. In a gut reaction, before even really thinking about it, she answered "Australia is SOOOO much cooler! I love it here!" The Australian student's gut response was, "Uhhh... really?" Haha - everyone was laughing and it was pretty funny to witness in person.

Three PTP students with four sixth-year Aussie students, taking questions from a class of fourth-year students.

Following questions, the students broke off for snacks while us leaders met with school teachers and had some morning tea. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, and the snacks were great too! We set off to the school library, where students made lists of similarities and differences in their small groups, and then got to present a few of their results. Some groups focused on food, others on sports, schools, animals, and everyday life. What everyone seemed to realize after presenting was that while the differences are interesting, there are many more similarities than there are differences - regardless of the category they focused on. As a well-traveled adult, this is something I am keenly aware of. What was interesting was watching the students figure it out over the course of an hour - their enlightenment was inspiring.

From the library we headed out to the park to play cricket, touch footie, and another capture-the-flag-esque game. The students broke into three groups and rotated, while some very nice volunteer parents cooked us a BBQ lunch in the park.

Australian students made up their country border, with PTP students spelling "P2P" in the middle.

Alas, it was already 2:30 and time to say goodbye! The students exchanged emails, and I would in no way be surprised to learn of some life-long friendships emerging out of our school visit. It was truly an exceptional day.

Amazingly, our day was not even close to over yet. For the first time since arriving in Sydney, we headed down to world-famous Circular Quay to board our Sydney Harbour cruise! As soon as we got to the ship, everyone saw the Sydney Opera House for the first time.

A lovely afternoon cruise past the Sydney Opera House.

We also passed right by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I climbed to the top of in 2011!

The Sydney CBD on the left and Harbour Bridge in the middle, as the sun sets.

Coming back towards the CBD after sundown - looks like we got a little wind! :)

All told, we got some great pictures from the Harbour and the students really got to see the scenic side of Sydney for the first time. Following the cruise we set off to our home-hosted dinner, where a dozen or so volunteers cooked us a wide array of delicious local dishes. The great meal was a fitting end to an excellent day!

BNE - SYD and the 2000 Sydney Olympics

2012-08-20T22:02:00.002-07:00

July 25, 2012

SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA -- It is SO NICE to be back in Sydney! Unfortunately I was not actively blogging at the time, but I had a fabulous trip to my then-sixth continent, spending nearly a week in Sydney in August 2011. As such, it is great to be back. That said, we should start at the beginning of the day...

We had a reasonably late wake-up of 630am today, checked out of our rooms, had some breakfast, and set off for BNE. When we arrived, we said goodbye to Rob, who was with absolute certainty the best bus driver I have ever encountered in all of my years of these trips. He was first and foremost a really good driver, but beyond that a nice, friendly, and informative gentleman who greatly contributed to our entire experience up in Queensland.

After our goodbyes, we got into the airport and saw the bad news that our flight was cancelled. A few minutes later we were re-booked together onto a flight two hours later - all told, not too terrible. We checked in, went through security, and got to our gate. Unfortunately by this time our flight was delayed another two hours, meaning a four hour delay for us, which was going to actually impact our planned itinerary on arrival into SYD. Qantas was kind enough to give us lunch vouchers, so we ate at BNE and cancelled our planned lunch in Sydney, making up most of the time we lost. After lunch, we finally boarded our short one hour flight down to the Australian continent's largest city.

July 25, 2012 - Finally ready to board our plane from BNE-SYD!

An hour and a half later, we were on the coach in Sydney!

Once we got to Sydney we immediately set off for the 2000 Olympic Park. Unfortunately, it was peak traffic, and as such it took us a whopping two hours to cross the city and get over there. By the time we arrived it was nightfall, and while we luckily were still able to get a tour at the Aquatic Centre, there was simply no time to get to swim, as originally planned. Alas, that's how travel goes sometimes, and we have been very lucky to this point to have not missed anything so far!

That being said, the Olympic Park was awesome! When I was in Sydney last year, this was one of the few major tourist sights I did not get to visit, so it was all new for me. We started at the Olympic Stadium, visited the memorial to the 47,000 volunteers who staged the games, and then got into the Aquatic Centre for our tour.

Olympic Stadium from afar.

Almost there!

At the Sydney Olympic Stadium (now obviously ANZ Stadium)

Our DM's name on the volunteer memorial, Anthony Marcon.

The 2000 Sydney Olympic torch!

Inside the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, on the diving side.

After our visit was over we headed to our hotel, had some dinner, and FINALLY enjoyed some free wifi before getting to sleep.

Back to Brisbane

2012-08-20T21:44:00.002-07:00

July 24, 2012

BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA -- We woke up to another chilly morning at the farm, had some hot tea and breakfast, and then quickly loaded up the coach and set off to Brisbane, completing our week-and-a-half Queensland circle. About 20 mins into our ride everyone got their cell reception back - I had some 100+ emails, and all from what was basically a Sunday in the USA. Anyway the coach lit up with chatting for a bit, and once everyone got caught up we arrived at our first stop, the tiny town of Eidsvold. It was mainly a toilet stop, but we were making good time so a few of the students sent post cards home from the post office there, and the rest emptied out the local supermarket's supply of tim tams and other candy. I actually found three-packs of butter menthols, so I stocked up on a bunch to bring friends and family back home.

A few hours later we made it to Murgon, the still-tiny but much-larger town of 4500 people that is home to the Queensland Diary Museum. Thanks to a bunch of local volunteers who served us a nice lunch, and after we finished we had time to explore the museum.

July 24, 2012 - One interesting item from the museum was a photo of this building from 1902.
The British flag was still flying, as Australia wasn't a country yet.

Our delegation with a few of the volunteers who showed us around.

After our visit to Murgon we had one last toilet stop in the afternoon, and by evening we were back to the third-largest city in Australia, beautiful Brisbane! We headed to the other side of the river from the CBD and walked along the banks for a mile or so in South Brisbane, which afforded some great skyline photos.

A beach, lake, river, and city skyline - all in one!

The Brisbane CBD from South Brisbane.

Following our walk, we made it to Amici's, an Italian restaurant that served us a ridiculously large amount of food - everyone had salads, bread, pizza, pasta, and ice cream, and honestly I may have already forgotten something more. It was delicious, filling, and everyone got right to sleep upon our arrival at the hotel.

Ahhhhh...

2012-08-20T21:27:00.002-07:00

July 23, 2012

KROOMBIT TOPS NATIONAL PARK, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA -- Ahhhh... so nice to wake up with no messages on my phone! This is the joy of having to be somewhere with no reception for an extended period of time. Come to think of it, I haven't spent a night anywhere other than an airplane without reception since my Antarctica trip last December. It's good for the mind every once in awhile.

In any event, we woke up to a chilly morning and started our day with some brekkie and hot tea. This morning everybody got to go horseback riding, and we were divided up by teacher. I led group three mid-morning, and I had the pleasure to ride "Tramp," a beautiful brown horse. Interestingly enough, for all the times I have been on or around camels in the past six years, I have never been on a horse (at least that I remember). Tramp was kind to me and made it easy - we went on a stroll through a meadow along with a couple of donkeys and a bunch of goats. We saw one mother goat help a baby goat through a fence after it got lost from the group - adorable to watch.

July 23, 2012 - Going for a stroll on a lovely morning!

Tramp, my friendly and well-behaved horse.

Overall it was a lovely morning with not a cloud in the sky. We had a few minor uphill and downhill sections, and crossed a river twice at a nice walking pace. One particularly hilarious part of the ride was crossing the Drop Bear zone. Drop bears are a completely made-up practical joke that Australians enjoy having at tourists (mostly Americans') expense. The joke is so famous that even the Australian Museum has a profile of them. The idea is that they are carnivorous Koalas with fangs that, if woken up, will drop out of the gum trees and attack. Needless to say, when the students saw a sign that we were entering the "Drop Bear Zone" on our horses, all of a sudden we had complete silence. I've never seen a group of students remain that quiet for that long (15 mins or so). Even better? After the ride, half of them came up to me to show me pictures of shadows of the drop bears they saw in the zone. :P

Look out and keep quiet!

Stay away from the drop bears!!!

Luckily everyone made it out!

After horseback riding I played some cricket with a few of the students, and then it was time for lunch. In the afternoon we took a nice hike to the summit of a nearby mountain, providing unobstructed views for miles in every direction. Along the way we learned about various plants, including eucalyptus "gum" trees. We did a small service project as well, helping to bridge an erosion gap on the farm with heavy rocks.

Our guide Jonathan giving a lecture at the summit.

A couple of hours later we returned from our hike and everyone was exhausted! All the other teachers left to shower and relax, and I ended up playing an hour-long one-against-all basketball game. Running around everyone was exhausting! Dinner was delicious (as all meals here are), and tonight was even MORE exercise! We spent over an hour with two of the workers learning and doing choreographed dances, which was a blast. Most weren't too difficult to figure out, and it was a great workout too. To wrap up our day, I just did 250 crunches and then took a much-needed, very refreshing shower - ahhhhh...

Off to the farm!

2012-08-20T21:07:00.002-07:00

July 22, 2012

KROOMBIT TOPS NATIONAL PARK, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA -- Well, it was an early 515am wake-up and checkout today. After finishing packing we had breakfast and then boarded our ferry, saying goodbye to beautiful Daydream Island!

After only 15 minutes, we were back at Shute Harbour and on the mainland. We loaded up the coach, made our way back to the A1, and headed south from our northernmost point of the trip. Our day today was essentially two days ago - in reverse. Our first toilet stop was at Cane Land in Mackay, where we had lunch two days back. Our lunch stop was at the same BP service station we stopped at for toilets that same day. Lunch was actually pretty good though - a turkey and cheese sandwich with some cranberry spread. Delicious!

After lunch we crossed through Rockhampton and across the Tropic of Capricorn, back into the temperate zone, where we will remain the rest of our trip. Shortly after that, however, we finally branched off the A1 to head southwest into the countryside for our farm stay.

One random, interesting note from our conversations today on the coach. Our 60 passenger capacity coach is worth nearly $1 million, and can cover some 1500km on a single tank of gas for roughly $500. That's $1 per 120 passenger miles, which is quite fantastic compared to the $1 per 8 or 9 passenger miles we get in most of our cars at home, if we are driving alone. Overall, gasoline here converts to roughly $8 per gallon, double what we pay in the US. Think about that the next time you complain about gas prices going up!

We took the A3 southwest for a few hours, and eventually exited east into the foothills towards Kroombit, lost all our cell reception, and about 20 mins later arrived to Kroombit Farm for our farm stay. We arrived to some lukewarm hot chocolate, were assigned to our cabins, and then regrouped for dinner, which was steamed vegetables and gravy followed by some ice cream for dessert.

Following dinner we proceeded to a huge bonfire where we learned about the farm, a cattle farm, roasted marshmallows over the fire, sang a couple of Aussie songs, and then star-gazed at the Southern Cross and the Milky Way as the fire burnt out.

July 22, 2012 - Singing and dancing by the fire at Kroombit Farm.

Great Barrier Reef

2012-08-16T12:24:00.001-07:00

GREAT BARRIER REEF, AUSTRALIA – This morning we woke up to sunrise over the water, and I just knew it was going to be a good day. Why? Today we are going to the Great Barrier Reef! After a quick brekkie at the hotel, we boarded a 45 minute ferry over to Hamilton Island, the most populated (and popular) of the Whitsundays, and also home to the Great Barrier Reef Airport – many of the rich and famous people from around the world will fly into here in order to get to the reef. From the airport, we docked to the pier and switched boats to the much larger 320-passanger capacity ship that would be taking us to the reef itself. Once everyone was on board (our delegation of 50 people was part of 220 on the ship today), we set off from Hamilton on our two hour journey across the Coral Sea!

July 21, 2012 - Good morning from Daydream Island!

On our ride towards the reef, it wasn’t too rough, and only a couple of our students got sea sick. The staff on the ship was prepared for this and got them some ice cubes to chew on (which really helps with sea sickness quite a bit). Eventually we arrived at Hardy Reef, one of thousands of individual reef systems that collectively form the Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

At the Great Barrier Reef!

The colors of the water were truly spectacular – every type of blue and turquoise you can imagine – and they extended as far as the eye can see in every direction (the reef is some 2,000 miles long – about the width of the United States from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. – and its alive). The ship docked to a stationary pontoon float, and we first met with our private marine biologist Crystal over at the underwater observatory, where she talked about many of the different species of fish out in front of us, as well as the wall of the reef itself, which we could make out in the distance through the water. After our lecture we went back over to our ship and had a light lunch, because following lunch it was time to jump in the water!

Scuba Diving at the Great Barrier Reef!

The students put on their colorful stinger suits (even though it isn’t the right season, you never know if a jellyfish will still be around off-season, so the prudent thing to do is wear the suits for protection anyway), flippers, masks, and mouthpieces, and they were ready to jump in! As they were doing so, the other leaders and I decided to do an introductory scuba dive! I have never been scuba diving before, and it was certainly not cheap, but what the heck, of all the places to do it for the first time, you can’t possibly top this! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scuba dive the great barrier reef? That’s what People to People and I are all about!

We got our wet suits, weight belts, and oxygen tanks on, and then got into the cold water (about 65F) to put on our flippers and masks too. We started to practice breathing, and it was very strange, just like snorkeling for the first time. With the water being a bit chilly, I was breathing faster normally, which only worsened the cause. After about 15 minutes of practice I got comfortable with it and swam over to an underwater rope about 2 meters under. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my ears to pop, which is basically the only thing (along with your oxygen) that really has to work in order to dive. I kept getting different pressure on both sides and having to come back to the surface to start over. About 20 mins of this back-and-forth between the surface and 2 meters later, the staff was about ready to give up on me, and it was seeming pretty hopeless to me as well. Eventually the head diver came out and we tried 6 different ways to pop the ears at 2 meters under – sure enough one of them worked! I basically had to turn my head 75 degrees to the left while holding my nose and blowing out for a good three seconds in order to do it, but once that was settled, we were off for real!

We swam over to the reef and it was stunning. There were thousands of fish in every direction, corals as soft as hair (that we could actually touch), and at our maximum depth of around 15 meters, we saw a sand shark (tasseled wobbegong) sleeping on the reef floor! Too cool! I went a little trigger-happy with my new underwater camera, which worked to perfection, and took a ton of photos and videos from underwater – they turned out great (see a video compilation I put together below)! Overall it was a memory for a lifetime, and I can’t wait to do it again sometime! It’s funny – the 45 mins of preparing for the dive felt like four hours, and the 30 mins of actual diving felt like about four minutes, haha.

Leaving the Reef

On our return journey to Hamilton Island we got some great photos leaving the reef, and after a few minutes a couple students came down to report that they had seen whales from the bow! I led the charge to the top deck to be on lookout, and within about three minutes of getting there the waters got so rough that the ship staff actually forbid us from leaving our seats! I really didn’t mind it being up there, but us leaders felt terrible for our DM Anthony! We had a few students with us, so we were able to keep an eye on them, but 30 mins later when the waters finally calmed down we were allowed to go down and upon surveying the damage, we had 16 students on the ground in the back of the ship seasick. Luckily, with calmer waters and some ice from the ship crew, within a little while everyone was fine, and shortly thereafter we were arriving back into Hamilton for our much calmer journey back to Daydream Island for the night.

Back to the Whitsunday Islands

The Great Barrier Reef: CHECK!

Daydreaming

2012-08-16T12:13:00.001-07:00

July 20, 2012

DAYDREAM ISLAND, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – What a great conclusion to our day, on a private island resort! Ahhhh… but let’s start at the beginning.

This morning we were up early for our departure, and once again the students did a pretty good job with it. We had a quick breakfast and then hit the A1 north. Most of our day was spent traveling on the coach. I checked a bunch of the students journals and it was good to see how great all of them are doing! A few of the girls journals were really something fabulous – they will be able to keep this and enjoy it for the rest of their lives! A few of the boys need some work, but the good news is that there is plenty of time to catch up and improve!

We eventually made it up to Mackay, the sugarcane capital of Australia. About halfway between Yeppoon/Rockhampton and Mackay the fields noticeably shifted from cattle to sugarcane, and right now they are pretty much a fully-grown 14 feet tall. We had lunch at Cane Land, which sounds like a cheesy toddler’s holiday-themed park, but recognizing that is an American-centric way of thinking, Cane Land is named as such for the very logical reason that the city is built on sugar cane exports. Cane Land is actually a brand new mall that would have fit in over in Dubai, it was so new and spotless, although it was a little small for that. In any event, we had vouchers at the food court, and many of the students tried new things. I tried my hand at some Australian fast food, Red Rooster, a chicken-themed place that is probably best compared to Chik-fil-A in the US.

July 20, 2012 - At the OUCH presentation on the Great Barrier Reef.

After lunch we continued north on the A1 into the Whitsunday region of the coast, and finally turned off the A1 towards Airlie Beach, where we visited OUCH, a private NGO that is dedicated to preserving the Great Barrier Reef through education of marine biology. We learned about various types of coral, fish, turtles, whales, sharks, and the other plants and animals that collectively make the Great Barrier Reef the largest organism-built structure on the planet, visible from the moon! A few people made donations – mostly some spare change – and then we continued over to Shute Harbour, where we unloaded the coach, locked it up, and then hopped on a ferry from the mainland!

Sunset from Mermaid Beach, Daydream Island - stunning!

About 15 minutes later, we arrived at Daydream Island! On our arrival we all received a lei of seashells, and noticed we had gained another 30 mins of sunlight by driving northwest all day, which was a nice realization! We took some pictures with a few mermaid statues at the north end of the island, while watching the sun set over the bay – a beautiful ending to a long day of travel. After dinner, we had a movie screening at an outdoor theater on the island, right on the ocean. On our walk back to our rooms after, the stars were so fabulously bright that not only could you clearly make out the Southern Cross, but we could see the entire Milky Way in splendid glory – truly a sight to remember!

Okay, so this isn't from Australia, but the Milky Way was truly spectacular!

Running with Kangaroos

2012-08-16T12:02:00.001-07:00

With apologies for the delay, the rest of this trip's posts are coming now...

July 19, 2012

YEPPOON, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – This morning, as part of my Chicago Marathon training, I got up at dawn and started running across our beautiful resort towards the coast. Only a third of a mile into my run, I turned a corner and ground to a complete stop as quickly as I could. Directly in front of me, just a few feet away, there were no less than 30 HUGE kangaroos. Up on their hind legs, ears flared, they were taller than me! These wild kangaroos were much taller than the ones we saw at Lone Pine. I took a few moments to enjoy the moment, in the faint light of dawn, and then very slowly walked backwards, eventually continuing my seven mile run in the other direction. The similar Chicago-area running comparison would be running into about 30 massive deer – usually you see a couple, and it’s exciting if you see seven or eight, but THIRTY? Crazy!

The run itself went well – I actually did see a few more solo kangaroos throughout the run, and found that my fastest strides were when they were running alongside me. Not intentionally, but subconsciously when wild animals are running with you, you pick up the pace!

After a quick shower and some breakfast, Kerri, Kelly, three students, and I took the same path I had earlier to the beach, and it was gorgeous! Most of the students hung out by the pool, but my logic was that you can go to a pool anywhere – seeing the sun over the Pacific in Australia is a pretty cool Aussie thing to do! In any case, their loss, and the small group of us got some fun pictures with our feet in the water, or collecting seashells.

July 19, 2012 - Beautiful morning at our private resort beach in Yeppoon, Queensland!

Eventually the delegation set off for Capricorn Caves, a national park where the real treasure is underneath, but the forested area above ground is also protected and important. When we arrived, four students got the honor of planting a tree in the “People to People garden." Afterwards the entire delegation helped in pulling weeds from a section of the forest where they were overgrown – all told we collected and tossed five huge rubbish bags worth of weeds - not too shabby!

Lunch at the national park was fine, and after we were done we got to the real highlight of the caves – naturally, the caves themselves. We had a walking tour into the heart of the caves, home to hundreds of thousands of bats at any given time. In Australia, bats are looked at quite positively, as they will eat tens of thousands of insects in a single day! As we were walking around in the mud at the bottom of the caves, we learned that it actually wasn’t mud, but bat droppings! The students appreciated that one, haha. One of the more interesting areas of the caves is “the Cathedral,” a room with near-perfect acoustics. Two of our students had the honor of singing the Star Spangled Banner from the stage, in front of everyone, and they did great! Apparently you can also get married there – who knew you could get married in a cave? Why not, I guess. :P

July 19 - Inside "The Cathedral," Capricorn Caves

From the Capricorn Caves we drove a short bit over to the Dreamtime Aboriginal Cultural Experience, and we were divided into two groups. One half of the delegation heard a lecture on the history and culture of the Aboriginal people, while the other threw boomerangs, and then the two groups switched. The boomerang throwing was quite cool – each of us got two throws. The artwork of the boomerang should always be on the inside, and you hold it like a gun as a starting position. My first throw was terrible – it bounced on the ground and then curved a bit to the left. My second throw, however, was much better and it came about 80% of the way back to me. With some real practice I am sure I could get the hang of it. Like throwing a Frisbee, it’s all about your wrist, not raw power. As such, I bought a couple boomerangs to bring home and figure this out!

Throwing a boomerang!

After we were done buying souvenirs we entered the theater and heard the didgeridoo for the first time. A few minutes into it, four dancers came out and performed a number of Aboriginal dances to various tunes. At the end we all took a group photo with them (no comment on their BO…). We wrapped up the day with a dinner they cooked for us, which wasn’t anything that special, EXCEPT for the fact that we got to try crocodile, and it was delicious! I am a very picky eater, but am always up for trying new things while traveling, and the croc was (as many things are) very similar to chicken – I would certainly have it again.

Our entire delegation with the Aboriginal dancers.

To the Tropics!

2012-07-25T04:53:00.000-07:00

July 18, 2012

ROCKHAMPTON, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – It was another early 6am wakeup call for the delegation, with a 630 checkout from our hotel. All of our luggage was loaded and keys collected by 704am – pretty impressive for our first checkout thus far!

We had breakfast at the hotel, then departed on the A1 motorway north for the Rockhampton area, some 600km+ away. The A1 motorway is the primary road up the east coast of Australia (and in fact the entire country of Australia), and goes from Sydney to Cairnes and beyond – we will be spending most of our trip driving up and down the A1. For the first time, it is actually raining during daytime, but since we’re on the coach it isn’t such a big deal – if it’s going to rain, we have pretty good timing actually.

Four hours of coach riding and contemporary pop hits later, we arrived at Gin Gin, a small country town right off the motorway. We visited the Gin Gin Primary School, grades 1-7, which has 372 students from as far as a one hour bus ride away – quite the daily round trip commute! For the past 21 years, People to People students have been visiting the school, donating school supplies (as we did), books (their library has more on American history than most US school libraries do), and money in the form of lunches. As we were having lunch at Gin Gin, they get a small profit from each lunch, and the funds are put back into the school. Over a thousand delegations worth of lunches later, and the school has gone from below-average to the second-best test scores in all of Queensland! We ate our lunch (with a delicious mini meat pie) over a short lecture, and then got to meet and play with the students during their recess. They were all smiles, and plenty of waves and high fives went around. It was definitely another unique “People to People moment.”

July 18 - Visiting Gin Gin State School, Queensland

Our entire delegation donated several large bags of school supplies as part of our community service

After our school visit, we continued north along the A1 until we eventually made it to Rockhampton, the cattle capital of Australia, and the Tropic of Capricorn! Upon entering the tropics, we found that most of the students had never been to the tropics before, which was cool for them. We got off the coach and took photos at the sign, just as the rain held off for a bit.

We made it to the tropics!!!

Beaches and Aquariums, Aussie Style!

2012-07-25T04:11:00.000-07:00

July 17, 2012

CALOUNDRA, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – After we all got a much-needed full night’s sleep, in a bed, we woke up to a traditional English breakfast at the hotel, and a few students tried out the vegemite. Most of them were okay with it or even seemed to enjoy it!

July 17 - Our lovely hotel from brekky!

During our free time after breakfast, I headed out for a run! As readers of this blog know, I am currently training for the Chicago Marathon, and as such, while it is inevitable I will miss a few runs, I am going to try as much as possible to get some runs in. I only needed to do four miles today, so I found the beach path a few blocks from our hotel and took it down and back from central Caloundra, all while the sun was reflecting off the waves towards us – it was beautiful, with more good weather on our side!

After the run (and a quick shower), we boarded the coach and ironically had lunch at Sizzler, of all places. In any event, it was quite good, and most of the students got to try traditional Aussie dessert pavlova, which I have had before and like a lot! It is very sugary but once in awhile, that is great!

Amazing TL's at Mooloolaba Beach (from left: Stephanie, Kelly, Me, Kerri, Paula)

From lunch we headed to Mooloolaba Beach for the afternoon. Everyone put their feet in the water, took some photos of the waves, got some sun, collected seashells, and threw around a Frisbee or an Aussie-rules rugby football. We had a couple of hours in the sun and water, and then we went to nearby Underwater World, which is essentially a world-class aquarium in a small town on the water, much like Monterey, CA or Seward, Alaska.

Students learning about salt water fish at Underwater World

At Underwater World we had a special private twilight after-hours tour, another one of those unique things People to People gets, and it was really great to see all of the exhibits without fighting crowds or anything. We had two tour guides with us in the exhibits, and we got a private seal show (that was really impressive – the seal standing on one arm while balancing a ball on its nose, that sort of thing), where one of our students got to actually feed the seal! We saw sea otters (one’s name was Kaos, with a K, and another Mayhem, haha), and we got to hold a turtle, starfish, and other sea creatures too! We had dinner at Underwater World, then received program completion certificates, and retired back to our Caloundra hotel for the night.

Sweet, Cuddly Koalas...

2012-07-25T03:52:00.002-07:00

July 16, 2012

BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – We had an absolutely fabulous day on arrival to Australia! Brisbane had seen rain every day for two weeks straight, and we were quite prepared for some lousy weather, but as we descended and the sun came up, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! Once we landed, we had a brief quarantine on the plane (something new for me), then did the standard painful hour wait for no reason at immigration. We all got our stamps, nobody lost any luggage, and then did the K-9 sniffer dog lines for customs, and luckily everyone listened and the dogs didn’t find anything.

We turned the corner into the public area of the airport, made a left, and there was our Delegation Manager, Anthony! To give you a little background, Anthony just did this trip with another group before us, and in total we are his fourth People to People delegation over two summers. Beyond that, however, he has some extremely impressive travel experience, having been to six continents (I am giving him a bit of a hard time about Antarctica, haha), but he has also been to some 85ish countries, WAY more than whatever number I am at (I think around 30).

After we met Anthony, some of the students exchanged $USD to $AUD, and we headed off to meet Rob, our coach driver while we are here in Queensland. We loaded the coach and set off on our first coach ride as a full delegation – our first destination? The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!!!

The Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is a private non-profit that started off with just two Koalas, but has since grown to the size of a large zoo, protecting all kinds of Australian animals – some are popular, like the koala and the kangaroo, and others are rare birds and other species that most people don’t even know. Everyone got to hold a koala, which was awesome! When I was at Taronga Zoo in Sydney in August 2011, I paid extra for the “koala experience” that got me very up and close to them, but I wasn’t allowed to touch the koala. Here, not only were we touching them, but holding them in a big koala hug! It was really quite awesome – the koala smelled horrible, but that’s mainly a product of them eating nothing but eucalyptus leaves all day long. Their cuteness and the softness of their fur was more than worth it, even factoring in the smell. In addition to the koalas, students fed kangaroos and their baby joeys, saw a very active platypus, a Tasmanian devil, and other animals. We also saw the “Birds of Prey” show, where one of our students actually got to have a bird land on her arm, which was impressive given the wingspan of the bird was about as wide as she is tall.

July 16, 2012 - Holding an ADORABLE Koala at Lone Pine, Queensland!

After our first real Australian meal at Lone Pine (chips with tomato sauce = fries with ketchup), we had a short city tour of the city of Brisbane. Brisbane is the third-largest city in Australia (after Sydney and Melbourne) and is the capital of Queensland, which as a state essentially covers the northeast corner of the country, along with the Great Barrier Reef (which runs adjacent to the Queensland coast). In addition to Brisbane’s Parliament House, one really interesting place we passed by was General Douglas MacArthur’s US Pacific WWII HQ, a building in the CBD (CBD = Central Business District = “Downtown”). By hosting the US HQ for the Pacific theater of war, Brisbane became the most important city between Honolulu and Tokyo. Everybody knows all about the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Did you know their preparations and logistics were made from Brisbane? We also saw Cathedral Square and Brisbane Square, the two main central parts of the CBD, and the Botanical Gardens, which lay adjacent to the Brisbane River. In late-2010/early-2011 the Brisbane River flooded to historical levels, due to torrential rains combined with poor dam management upriver. The resulting floods made international and even US news, which you may recall – standing some 30+ feet above the current water level, Anthony told us we would have been underwater at the height of those floods. Pretty hard to imagine all of that water flowing through the middle of a major city.

Next stop is Caloundra, a small town an hour north of here on the coast, where we will be staying two nights.

LAX-BNE

2012-07-24T05:04:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone! I'm FINALLY hooked up to some decent wifi, and as such am going to start posting my blog entries going back to last week, in order, as per Antarctica. Here's the first one!

July 14-16, 2012:

SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN – Well, nearly a year of preparation later, we are finally underway! Having only been to Sydney, I am most excited to head to Queensland and see a lot of a new part of Australia.

After one last In-N-Out burger, Paula and I met our delegates at one of their houses, took some departure photos, loaded up the coach, and we set off for LAX! Most of the students were a bit sad to say goodbye to their parents, but after a few minutes on the coach we were excited to be officially on the People to People Exploring Australia trip! At LAX, check-in and security were smooth, our gate was very close, and after about 30 minutes we met Kerri, Kelly, and Stephanie, the three other Teacher Leaders on our trip with Paula and I, and the rest of the students from Pennsylvania – we have 44 in total. Those guys flew from Philadelphia to Dallas and onto LAX – needless to say, they were pretty tired by the time we even met them.

About an hour later we all boarded our QF (Qantas) flight 16, a classic Boeing 747-400 double-decker jumbo jet to Brisbane! A few of our students had never even been on a plane before, so they sure got quite the introduction to flying with a 14-hour version!

July 14, 2012 - Our CA delegation departure photo!

Most of us were seated together. I was next to R’Rian, one of our LA-area students, and we had a bit of an adventure from the start. She had a safe lock on her backpack, which is fine, except what she swore was the code, 1-2-1, was not working. Uhhh… uh oh! I tried fiddling around with it for a bit and nothing was doing. After 15 mins of random guessing, I got a little methodological with it and decided I would try every combination, starting with 0-0-0. About 40 mins later, 2-3-3 did the trick, and needless to say she won’t be using that safe lock anymore!

That bit of fun aside, most of us started watching our movies and we were in the air to Australia! To the right we could see the lights of Ventura, and then that was about it! Nothing but the largest ocean in the world, the Pacific, between us and our destination. I watched 21 Jump Street, which was actually quite good, and had some decent chicken breast for dinner. Most of the students were pleasantly surprised by the food as well. After dinner I dozed off to sleep…

About seven hours later, I woke up to see we were over halfway into our flight, had crossed the international date line, and as such it was July 16– July 15, 2012 will never exist in our lives. Kind of crazy. Dawn slowly approached the plane from behind as we were served breakfast, and we began our descent into Brisbane!

Next Stop: Queensland!

2012-07-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

SAN PEDRO, CA -- Well, only two more days until I am off and at 'em once again! I know, I know, not all that surprising or impressive at this point, but I am finally wrapping up an incredibly busy week of work and starting to get excited about this trip!

I will be traveling with People to People Student Ambassador Programs, as is usually the case when I am not traveling for work or personal vacation, and I am thrilled for all of the students I will be traveling with for a couple of weeks! For most of them, they have never left the United States - indeed, most of the passports are so new you can hardly open them. Many of them have never left their home states of California (half of the group is from the LA-area) or Pennsylvania (the other half is from PA). Needless to say, jumping on a 14-hour flight from LAX to BNE (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) is not something anybody does everyday, and for an 11 or 12-year old, it is a truly life-changing experience to do this with your peers and in an academic setting.

I will save most of the preview for the trip for now, since I will be blogging as much as possible from the trip itself and it will be more fun to read "live" and with pictures, but in short, our itinerary takes us to Brisbane, up to Rockhampton, MacKay, the Great Barrier Reef via Daydream Island (yes, that is the actual name of the place), Toowoomba (yes, another real name, and the second-largest inland city in Australia), back to Brisbane, Sydney, and then back to LAX. My next post should be from Queensland!

Since my last post, I have actually stuck around the LA area for a change. Had a nice Independence Day in Santa Monica with some Penguin Highway members and other friends. Mainly, I have been RUNNING the past few weeks, and I am currently halfway through week six of 18 for my Chicago Marathon training. This week's schedule: Monday was a rest day, Tuesday I ran 3 miles in Burbank in 95F heat, yesterday I ran 6 miles in Burbank in 91F heat, today I'm running 3 miles down here in San Pedro in much cooler weather, tomorrow is off, and then Saturday morning I am doing a whopping 14 miles in Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Marina del Rey, and Malibu first thing in the morning before our Australia trip! Saturday's run will actually be my longest pure running run ever (I've done more distance, but with significant walking involved). A couple more stats... June was my second-best running month ever, at 79.2 miles, and as of last night, I have now crossed the 800-mile running mark since I started tracking and seriously running in August 2010!

Beyond that, work has been going really well, but as I mentioned earlier, I have been insanely busy - mostly a good thing though. Roger Federer smoked then-#1 Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals and then dispatched hometown favorite and world #4 Andy Murray in the finals for his record 17th career Grand Slam win, tying him with 7 career Wimbledon wins, and restoring him to his rightful place as the #1 tennis player in the world. On Monday he will set a new record for 287 career weeks at #1... do the math and think about how insane that is. Oh, and he's 30. No big deal. Check out this excellent article on Roger that was posted today. Also, check out another excellent article focusing on Novak Djokovic, who was the world #1 for the past year, posted yesterday. I'll tease you with a couple quotes:

Article 1:

For me, the separation of Federer from everyone else comes in what he's done when he hasn't won. True, the 17 Grand Slams are bananas, but it's the 33 consecutive quarterfinal appearances in those Grand Slams that remain beyond comprehension and -- to me it is this fact that trumps almost all others' feats in all other sports -- that seven-year period in which Federer reached at least the semifinals in 23 straight Grand Slams. That is like Woods going seven years straight and never coming in worse than fourth in a major. Just let that marinate for a minute. Finished?

Monumental and epic, even. It really affirms the one element that characterizes greatness more than anything: Consistency. That separates Federer from sports icons and transcends into non-sports categories when trying to universally determine precisely what greatness is.

Article 2:

"My ass would get kicked so fast and so hard," says Ivan Lendl, the No. 1-ranked player through much of the 1980s.

"The level of play is mind-boggling," says John McEnroe, commentating for NBC during a recent match. "I'm still trying to figure out how these guys do it."

Here's how: In his rise to the top of his sport, Djokovic has turned himself into a case study of what it now requires to be No. 1. Every detail is crucial. Every angle is considered. Every moment a chance to gain an incremental edge.

His food is gluten-free. His drinks are a combination of half a dozen vitamins and minerals. His sleep sometimes comes in a hyperbaric chamber. His reading material is about body awareness and mindfulness. His stress is tested using a biofeedback device. His water is lukewarm during matches because cold fluid idles too long in the stomach. His free time is, in fact, "recovery time," arranged by a professional scheduler. His celebratory beer in the locker room after winning a tournament is just that -- a single beer, a reward meant to entice performance.

On that note, I am off for my next run. Have a great couple of days everybody, and I will post next from Australia!!!

What do you do after all 7 continents and 50 states?

2012-06-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

BURBANK, CA -- Well, what can I say? It has been over two months since my last post, and I've covered another 30,000+ miles around the world. I guess making it to all seven continents and all 50 states before my 25th birthday took a little of the spirit out of the blog, but have no fear, I am back with more posts and updates!

May 4, 2012 - Congratulations Brittany!

It would take forever to go through everywhere I have been since my last post, but in sum, I have been back home to Chicago three times - first, for my sister Brittany's graduation from Roosevelt University! I am so proud of her!!! The second trip was for Mother's Day, and the third was totally unexpected and just happened to be over my parents' 26-year anniversary! Beyond that, I also made it over to Arizona in April where I saw the Blackhawks beat the Phoenix Coyotes from the 5th row in OT - amazing game, though sadly the Hawks lost the series. The Los Angeles Kings eventually knocked out Phoenix en route to winning the Stanley Cup - it is nice having the Cup here in close proximity!

I also managed to make it to Las Vegas for Cinco de Mayo with some of the coolest people in the world - 11 of us Antarctica travelers spent a couple of nights on the Strip partying it up Penguin Highway style! I've been to San Diego three times and San Francisco once for work in the past couple of months, and also ventured over to New York as well. I only had a day, but managed to do the one NYC thing I hadn't made it to yet: the new September 11, 2001 National Memorial.

June 7, 2012 - 9/11 National Memorial.

Overall I found the memorial to be very well done. There is still a ton of construction going on in the immediate area, and it will be much quieter as intended once all of that is done, but that said on the whole, I was impressed. It was also nice to actually be on the grounds. Since the first time I visited New York in 2005, I have never been able to get into the grounds, as they have been closed - being on the inside gave a completely different perspective.

One of the reflecting pools at the 9/11 National Memorial.

Most recently, a week ago I visited two United States National Parks: Sequoia and Kings Canyon. They are next to each other and operate as one unit by the National Park Service, and I would highly encourage everybody to visit. We camped at Sequoia National Park at around 6,000 feet in elevation, a nice change from the LA area. The most famous attraction at Sequoia NP is the park's namesake, the Sequoia Trees, which are the largest trees by volume in the world. Put another way, there is more wood in these trees than any other trees on earth. The largest of them, the General Sherman Tree, is 275 feet tall, 25 feet in diameter, and approximately 2,300-2,700 years old. To put that in perspective, Socrates was founding all of western philosophy at the same time this tree was born.

June 18, 2012 - General Sherman Tree, Largest Tree on Earth. Sequoia National Park.

Over at Kings Canyon National Park we took a beautiful 4-5 mile hike to Zumwalt Meadow, surrounded by thousand-foot tall granite cliffs.

June 17, 2012 - Zumwalt Meadow, Kings Canyon National Park.

One other piece of awesomeness from the past few months: I finally put together a video of my entire Antarctica trip, and it is rather spectacular. See the video below!

Make sure you watch the above in 1080p HD quality, and let me know what you think! G Adventures, the group I went on the trip with, picked up the video and put it on their facebook and twitter pages, which generated a lot of the traffic. I really do love the video though, and hope you enjoy it!

I am also running a ton! Immediately after my last post on all 50 states, I came back and that weekend set a PR running the 2012 Inaugural Hollywood Half Marathon, at 1:59:57 - under 2 hours! I really toned it down for the rest of April and all of May, and then three weeks ago flipped the switch and kicked it into gear. Why? Well, I signed up for the Chicago Marathon back in February, and the race is October 7th. To do an 18-week training program, my first day was back on June 4th! I ran 19 miles the first week, 20 miles the second week, and 17 miles last week. This week we take a pretty big jump up to 23 miles - first run is tomorrow! On the plus side I'm losing about a pound per week, which is nice too.

On the travel front, I don't have anything on the calendar this week, for the 4th of July next week, or the following. However, on July 14th I am flying over to Brisbane, Australia with People to People! I will be "Down Under" for about two weeks with some of the best and brightest students from Southern California and elsewhere - keep tuned to this space, and I will be sure to post some stories and photos from the trip while we are over there! Highlights: Brisbane (never been), Great Barrier Reef (never been), and Sydney (only been once). As we get closer, my excitement continues to build!

Until next time, have a fabulous week everybody, and I will be sure to post more frequently now that travel season is here!

ALL 50 STATES!

2012-04-05T10:55:00.003-07:00

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA -- Well, I have done it. As of April 3, 2012 at 5:39pm Eastern Time, I have been to all 50 United States. Much like my recent foray making it to all seven continents by visiting Antarctica, I have had an abundance of time that has only produced more thoughts, without a whole lot of clarity.

What I have realized is that I could not have achieved either of those goals without the help of many people. For the continents, who is to say I would have gotten to Asia so soon without the help of Greg Steinberger and Diklah Cohen, at the UW Hillel Foundation? Or that I would have had the tenacity to go to Cairo and Alexandria by myself, if it wasn’t for my LSE classmate Eric Harrsch? South America without Jason Harris? Europe without my parents, People to People Student Ambassador Programs, and a teacher unbeknownst to me? Antarctica without Melissa Ardales to inspire me?

For the 50 states, the list is even longer. Countless road trips over the years, while often at my insistence, would still not have happened if not for many friends wanting or at least agreeing to come along. John Engelhart, who was with me in New England – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. My brother Justin, who covered Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and then later flew up to North Dakota with me. Poppy Davis, who braved a cold and the cold to get over to Montana from Idaho. David Levinson, who was agreeable when I told him that he didn’t have a choice but to accompany me down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 2009 – we hit Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi en route to Louisiana. SB, for getting me up to Alaska. And most recently, Mary Grace, who joined me on this final road trip to my last four states.

This trip has been in the making for a long time. Ever since I realized I had an actual ability to pull this off, I have been systematically targeting outlying states. I did Alaska in October 2010, Montana in December 2010, Oregon in July 2011, and North Dakota in September 2011. With that, I reduced my missing states to four, but all in one geographic region: Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. All doable in one relatively short trip. The only question – when to go? Well, as the title of this blog suggests, the goal for the past few years has been to do it before my 25^th birthday, which is in just over two weeks. As it turned out, last Thursday I got word from my boss that he would be taking part of this past Monday, as well as yesterday and today off. There it was – my window. I jumped on flights and tried to figure it out.

After an extremely productive day in San Francisco this past Friday, I had a fun People to People meeting in Claremont Saturday afternoon. From there I headed straight for LAX, and hopped on a crazy three leg/two layover “red-eye.” I flew LAX-LAS, LAS-ORD, and finally ORD-ATL, getting into Atlanta, GA at 10:45am Sunday. Having already been to Georgia years ago, the immediate goal was to get out to Alabama. Lucky for me, Mary Grace, who I met in Argentina and Antarctica in December, lives in Atlanta and was so kind as to host me for a few days. She picked me up at ATL, and we drove over to the Alabama border for a photo stop at my 47^th state!

April 1, 2012 - Welcome to Alabama! State 47!

However, as has been documented in this blog, a photo stop does not count – something substantial or at least significant needs to be visited or done. As such, we ventured to Cheaha Mountain, the tallest mountain in the state of Alabama at 2,407 feet above sea level. We drove to the top, and then climbed up Bunker Tower at the summit. From there we could see as far as the horizon 25+ miles away. The immediate area surrounding Cheaha State Park is preserved by way of Talladega National Forest – the view from the summit is nothing but rolling hills and a variety of species of trees. A gorgeous day – 80s and sunshine – only complemented the view.

April 1, 2012 - Perfect day at Cheaha Mountain, Alabama.

After a nice lunch overlooking the valley, we turned around and headed back to Atlanta. A couple of hours later we made it to The Varsity, an Atlanta famous establishment that is the Atlanta equivalent of a Chicago Superdawg. A burger place, you park and the servers come to your car window, just like the Chicago comparison. Having just had lunch in Alabama, we opted for the “F.O. – Frozen Orange” dessert, which was very refreshing (and full of sugar) on a warm spring day. Sunday night was Antarctica night at Mary Grace’s house. She invited a bunch of friends over for dinner, and afterwards we watched an Antarctica slideshow she put together, as well as my Antarctica videos and my photos as well. Overall it was a fun night and I think it was rather educational for her friends too. J

Monday morning we went for a 4.5 mile run around the neighborhood, which was very much needed. With the hills and the heat, it was a nice break from the flat trails I run in and around Burbank. After cleaning up, we headed into downtown Atlanta, where we walked through Centennial OlympicPark. Built for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games that were held in Atlanta, the park is the cornerstone of downtown Atlanta, on which many cultural attractions rest. We opted to visit the CNN Center, where we did a behind-the-scenes tour. The tour was rather generic, but as an avid viewer of CNN, I found it to be very interesting. We saw the control room, the enormous CNN newsroom, and then the live sets of CNN and HLN. It was pretty cool seeing Suzanne Malveaux broadcasting live, about 25 feet in front of me, and watching the live feed of the broadcast off to the side at the same time. The studio is massive, and as it is the most recently remodeled of CNN’s studios, it hosts all of the special election coverage. For the primary elections, CNN flies Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, and the rest of the New York and Washington D.C.-based crew into Atlanta to film the special events. Seeing how massive the studio is, it makes a lot of sense. Overall, in addition to CNN and HLN, the Atlanta center also broadcasts CNN International, CNN Espanol, and CNN Radio. Random fact: it is also home to the largest free-standing escalator in the world!

April 2, 2012 - Standing in front of the largest free-standing escalator in the world. CNN Center, Atlanta, GA.

April 2, 2012 - Famous fountains at Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta, GA.

Another walk across the famous fountains in Centennial Park, and we were on the road again – next stop South Carolina, my 48^th state! We took another photo at the border, and then headed into Greenville, where Mary Grace did her undergrad. A native South Carolinian, she showed me around downtown and introduced me to a couple of friends living in the area. We had a fun night at a local restaurant/microbrewery and then at a sports bar, where we caught part of the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship game, which Kentucky ultimately won.

April 2, 2012 - Welcome to South Carolina! State 48!

Yesterday morning it was time to say goodbye to Mary Grace. I thanked her for all her help and lovely hosting, and then switched into my rental car at the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport. Another 45 minutes later, I crossed the border into North Carolina, my 49^th state! After the obligatory mini-tripod timed self portrait off the hood of the car photo, I continued into Asheville, NC. Referred to lovingly by all who have ever been there, it was not hard to see why once I got into town. Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina, and it is completely surrounded by mountains. An artist colony with a strong hippie vibe, it reminded me of Sedona, AZ, and is nicknamed the San Francisco of the east. As it turned out, one of Mary Grace’s friends I met in Greenville the night before is from Asheville, and he highly recommended a restaurant to visit as soon as I got into town. Thus, as soon as I parked the car I booked it for the Tupelo HoneyCafé on College Street, helped myself to a spot at the kitchen bar, and then proceeded to enjoy the best combination tomato soup and grilled cheese I have ever encountered. A fleshy vegetable broth with some kick enhanced the flavor, and the meal came with a biscuit with homemade jelly and honey. Simply phenomenal, and phenomenally simple.

April 3, 2012 - Welcome to North Carolina! State 49!

April 3, 2012 - Beautiful downtown Asheville, NC.

April 3, 2012 - Life is good at the Tupelo Honey Cafe, Asheville, NC.

After lunch I walked around downtown for a little while, took some photos, and then decided that my last 30 mins would be best spent taking a few pictures at the grounds of the Biltmore Estate. I took the 10 min drive over to the estate, where to my disappointment I found out that tickets were required just to enter the grounds. At the same time, I noticed some rapidly approaching ominous clouds, and found out that a severe thunderstorm warning was declared for Asheville. I took a couple quick photos at the gate and then booked it out of town. Unfortunately I still got clipped by the storm, which came in fast and furious, but had blue skies ahead of me and after about 20 mins of slow travel due to torrential downpours I cleared the storm for good. Not shortly thereafter I crossed the Blue Mountains I-26 gap into Tennessee.

April 3, 2012 - Welcome to Tennessee!

April 3, 2012 - TN scenic overlook.

April 3, 2012 - Welcome to Virginia!

Having been to TN a couple of times before (as mentioned above), I did a flyby welcome sign photo, took a couple pictures at a scenic overlook, and generally just made my way through the state. After an hour or so I crossed into Virginia, another state I have visited many times. As I entered the state I hit another round of powerful thunderstorms, and intentionally slowed my pace to try and let them cross the highway ahead of me. I ended up lucking out – I got caught in some heavy rain, but the lightning and hail all passed over the interstate ahead of me by a small margin. A little while later, I made one final turn north, and shortly thereafter entered the East RiverMountain Tunnel. When I got out, the first thing I saw was the welcome sign to West Virgina.

I put on my emergency lights, pulled the car onto the shoulder of the interstate, noted the time, and took a deep breath. 5:39pm. April 3, 2012. All 50 states.

April 3, 2012 - At 5:39pm Eastern Time, I made it to West Virginia, my 50th and final state.

I took a quick picture at the welcome sign holding up a sign I made with a big ‘50’ on it, and you can tell that the smile was about as natural as they come. Setting difficult goals, working your ass off for years, and finding a way to somehow accomplish them is powerful stuff. It produces a great feeling of real happiness, and causes great reflection too. I know a few people who have been to all 50 states. I know even fewer who have been to all seven continents. Most of them are in their 60’s… or 70’s… or 80’s… and of those who are young, most of their parents took them on annual cross-country road trips when they were children. But to do both, intentionally, without being forced into any of it, and without a penny being bankrolled for me, all at the age of 24? Ass-kicking pride, genuine accomplishment, and an enormous gratitude and thanks for all of those who have supported me in making this possible.

To conclude the trip, I drove another hour and a half into Charleston, WV, where I treated myself to a lovely Italian dinner. This morning I returned my rental car and ventured to the state capitol complex, where I found the West Virginia liberty bell replica (each state has one – I have been known to collect photos of these too), took some photos inside the rotunda, and then walked over to the Governor’s Mansion. A three mile walk back along the Kanawha River into downtown, and my trip was complete. I headed to Charleston’s Yeager Airport (CRW), and headed back to California by way of Chicago.

April 4, 2012 - West Virginia State Capitol, Charleston, WV.

All 50 states and all 7 continents, before age 25: check!

Umami, Hash, and more...

2012-03-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

LONG BEACH, CA -- It has been an insanely busy and productive couple of weeks since I returned to California from the Wisconsin wedding. From a work standpoint, there hasn't been a single day since I got back that hasn't been 100% productive to the absolute limit, including weekends for that matter. That said, we have been getting a lot of important things done, and sometimes you get into a groove! For the most part I've been in the LA area, although last weekend I spent a night down in Laguna Beach cranking out a ridiculous quantity of production. It feels good to be productive!

March 11, 2012 - Gorgeous view makes working alright on a Sunday in Laguna Beach, CA.

In non-work related news, however, there have been a couple of other interesting developments in the past couple of weeks. First, UmamiCatessen opened up in downtown Los Angeles. UmamiCatessen is a spin off the traditional Umami Burger, featured to some extent in this blog and much more heavily on my facebook and foursquare profiles. UmamiCatessen is a huge (6,000+ sq. ft.) restaurant at 9th and Broadway in Los Angeles, nearly the size of three or four Umami Burger restaurants combined. The reason for this? Well, UmamiCatessen is five restaurants in one! In addition to the newest, eighth Umami Burger location, the Catessen is also home to The Cure (Kosher), Pigg (NOT Kosher), Spring for Coffee (coffee/drinks bar), and & a Donut (a dessert bar).

UmamiCatessen's soft opening was on March 3, the same day as the Wisconsin wedding. However, no doubt I made my visit the first day I was back, the night of the 5th. Needing another trip, I did round two on the 10th. Having now been twice, I have a few observations. 1) Having sampled at least one item from all five restaurants, I can confirm that the other four are very good restaurants, and it is worth trying them. 2) That said, they are simply not as mind-blowing and earth-shattering as a Hatch Burger from Umami. In other words, it is more or less what I expected, but in a good way. I will say that I really enjoyed the ambiance in a larger space and semi-industrial, semi-postmodern feel. There was a wait the entire time, but never for more than 30 mins given the large number of tables. Despite that, the restaurant was always full, even at non-peak hours and during the week. Overall, I'd give UmamiCatessen a solid 4/5, but that Hatch Burger alone is still the best burger on this planet.

March 10, 2012 - The Hatch Burger - it is simply the best. UmamiCatessen, Los Angeles, CA.

The other news of the past few weeks comes with respect to the Long Beach H3. Hashing, if it has not been properly explained thus far, is running and drinking... yes, together. Collectively known as a drinking club with a running problem, hashers meet up once a week in a predetermined location, and for $5 you get a few hours of running and drinking to places and in quantities that are undetermined prior to the start. From the running standpoint, we really have no idea where we are going. The runs are generally between 3.0 and 7.0 miles in total distance, although there are "beer checks" every 1.0-1.5 miles, where you can find beer, water, and sometimes other beverages too. The checks help to slow down the pack, and it breaks up the distance nicely so that almost anybody can run. In fact, there are usually 10-15 walkers to complement the 60-70 runners as well. Eventually we make it to the "on in," or the end of the run, where there are snacks, more drinks, and a fun party atmosphere. After songs and "down down's," we head to the "on after," usually a restaurant or bar somewhere nearby. That, in a nutshell, is hashing.

As a training and distance runner for over a year and a half now, as has been documented well in this blog, I first heard about hashing in late summer and early fall of 2011. Finally on January 8th I actually woke up early enough on a Sunday to get myself down to Long Beach, where I experienced my first hash run. Ever since I have been hooked, and have made it a point to do whatever possible to make it to hash - so much so that I even flew back from my San Francisco trip a month ago in order to make it in time for hash in the morning.

What is recently new is that the past two weeks, hash runs have switched from Sunday mornings to Thursday nights. As such I have been heading down to Long Beach in the early afternoon to beat traffic, have been working from a boba tea spot near CSLB, and then making my way to the hash around the start time. So far it has worked out great! Yesterday was Chasen's (who introduced me to hash) birthday run, and his 25th hash overall. For me it was my eighth, and I am hoping for a name sometime soon!

March 15, 2012 - Hashing in Signal Hill, CA - about to start!

Well folks, that is about it as far as updates go on my end. The travel circuit is going to be picking up and in a hurry soon, and I am very much looking forward to that, but I will post updates when I actually have them set. Until then, GO BADGERS in this March Madness insanity, GO HAWKS in the push for the playoffs, and have a nice weekend everybody!

Wisconsin Wedding!

2012-03-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

MILWAUKEE, WI -- Ahhh, how nice to be back in the good ole state of Wisconsin! For all the time I have spent there, it had been nearly a year and a half since I was last in Wisconsin, and even longer since I had spent any time in Milwaukee. My timing was perfect - I timed a pickup at MKE driving from Chicago to the minute, and made it to the hotel with no issues. Then, about three minutes later, it started snowing. Sure, it snowed in Antarctica, and we were surrounded by snow there, but this was the first real snow I've been in for more than a year.

March 2, 2012 - Got to the hotel and about an hour later everything was covered in snow!

It was gorgeous watching from the hotel. Later, at night, I drove over to the church to meet up with everyone en route to the Friday night dinner, and what is normally a four minute drive took about 20 in the snow. Luckily it stopped snowing shortly thereafter, and in total dropped about 6-7 inches, which is a solid snow but not a blizzard or anything that would have impacted the wedding logistics - lucky timing and just the right amount!

Interestingly, this was my first "real" wedding I have attended of my friends and peers. Turned out I was not alone - the same was true for many of us. As such it was an interesting first experience, given all the weddings you see in popular and religious culture. Mike, the groom, was my roommate in Madison for three years. He and his wife, Beth Ann, have been together for around eight years now, and as such she practically lived with us in Madison as well. In addition to the wedding itself, this was the first time that all of us former roommates at UW got together since graduating over three years ago now, so it was a great mini-reunion of sorts with everyone flying in from out of town too.

Overall it was great to see everybody after so long, and as is often the case with close friends, we picked up right where we left off and had a blast. The dinner before the big day was nice - it was at an Italian restaurant that eight years prior served as the location for Mike and Beth Ann's first date. The wedding day was nice weather - the light reflected off the snow which made for some good outdoor photos. The church was completely full, the service was short and sweet, and everybody in the wedding party did a good job escorting, holding rings, and walking backwards in formation.

March 3, 2012 - Just married! Walking down the aisle as husband and wife.

After the wedding service we made our way back to our hotel, which was the location of the reception. The party started around 5pm and went into the early morning hours. A few highlights...

Wedding party takes their seats.

Cutting the cake!

First dance.

Last but certainly not least, some six or more hours later, after a night of fun and endless dancing...

Congratulations Mike!!!

United Center

2012-03-02T22:32:00.001-08:00

CHICAGO, IL -- The United Center. Home of the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Bulls, the United Center was built to replace the Chicago Stadium in 1994. With a sellout capacity of more than 22,000 for hockey, it is the largest hockey stadium in the world, and for the past five years the Blackhawks have led the NHL in attendance annually. For the past decade, it has been my home-away-from-home, as we have had season tickets for the Blackhawks. In High School and even UW days, it was not unusual to make it to 20-30 games per season (out of 41 regular season home games). In more recent years, however, my ability to get to home games has been much tougher, living in London and then for the past year, living out in California. This season specifically, my last trip home was for Thanksgiving in November, and during that time the Hawks were ironically playing in LA and Anaheim, among other western cities. Being particularly busy with work recently, this meant I would have the chance to make it to just one home game this year, and that took place on Wednesday night (2/29) at the UC.

February 29, 2012 - Opening faceoff at the United Center. See any empty seats? Didn't think so!

Last weekend, if you look at my previous blog post you notice the Hawks lost both of those games, in LA and Anaheim. They also lost a game before that, so they were on a three-game losing streak in the stretch run here before the playoffs start. In addition, after Wednesday night's game they embarked on a three-game road trip, essentially rending the game a must-win for the Hawks. Against an original six rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the game did not disappoint. Just 59 seconds into the game the Leafs skated out to a 1-0 lead. A few minutes later the Hawks tied it 1-1, but shortly after that the Leafs scored twice more to take the 3-1 lead, despite the Hawks having the better of the play. We stuck with it, and sure enough, with just 30 seconds remaining in the period we scored to make it a 3-2 one goal game at the end of the 1st period. In the second period, the Hawks scored twice to take their own 4-3 lead, and wound up winning the game 5-4 in an electric atmosphere. It was just what the doctor ordered, and the Hawks jumped from the 7th to the 6th seed in the Western Conference.

February 29, 2012 - Hawks win! After the victory, the players salute the UC fans by raising their sticks at Center Ice.

However, despite my excitement at attending a home game and one that the Hawks actually won, I promised a blog comparing the fan experience to that at the Staples Center and Honda Center. As such, I will say that relatively speaking the Staples Center is a better comparison. That said, the United Center is bigger and louder. The food selection is not that special, but it is not bad either. There is no marble in the concourse, but with Chicago winters, that wouldn't be the best idea anyway. The in-game entertainment is not as good as at the Staples Center, but better than Honda Center. Ticket prices are widely varied. They are as cheap as at Honda Center for the worst seats, but more expensive and comparable to the Staples Center for the top-end tickets. The scoreboard is new as of a few seasons ago, and is just slightly below the Staples Center standard. Parking here is expensive - $27 for the lots next to the stadium ($20 in LA and $15 in Anaheim to compare). Additionally, the location is terrible. There are no easily accessible interstates, and the neighborhood is one of the less desirable places in Chicago. That said, the best part of coming to a Hawks game is the fans - we are passionate beyond anything seen in LA, Anaheim, or almost any other city in the NHL really. I said above that it gets loud in the United Center, and it stays that way for hours on end because it is full - all of the games are sellouts. The stadium is rocking, something that the others cannot say. At the end of the day, I give the United Center a B+ grade. The only reason the stadium isn't higher is because the in-game entertainment could be better, and the location is a real sour point. There is, however, a reason why all hockey fans know they must make a trip to the United Center at some point in their lives, and the above is a sampling of the reasons why they do.