First post from my iphone on the thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris and it feels clumsy on this little screen. When I woke the girls at 6 am, rosa said 'luna, we'll have to get up this early every day on the walk.' we put our packs on together for the first time, laced up
our boots and wavered down the rechtboomssloot and onto the prinshendrikkade heading towards central station through piles of orange garbage bags and broken glass. Yesterday was the party of the year and the cleaners are on strike for another 20 centsan hour. I smelt mariuana and noticed a joint in the hand of a man wearing a cream linen suit in front of us.Along the corridors of the centraal station lines of black and grey clad people crouched along the walls covering their eyes with their hands. At the office, the sun shines on us, we can travel first class so we don't have to stand all the way to Paris.Gracias!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Manyana...El Camino
We leave tomorrow. It's 12.13 am and we have to get up at 6 to get a train at 7.10. I should go to bed so just writing a few words because it is an exciting moment. Over the last few days, I've been reading over my books on the Camino: Marc Grossman's CaminoDownUnder manual which is an intelligent and comprehensive resource, Camino Footseps with its gentle insights and what is known as the best guide for the actual walk in English : John Brierley's Pilgrim's Guide to Camino de Santiago. They all say that we should take some time to reflect on 'Why am I doing this?'
Amazing news is that we have some friends joining us : Lisette and Feline from the Hague from the 4th to the 6th of May and Susie Lindeman from Sydney from the 6th to the 10th of May.
Amazing news is that we have some friends joining us : Lisette and Feline from the Hague from the 4th to the 6th of May and Susie Lindeman from Sydney from the 6th to the 10th of May.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
In The Hague, v2
TRAIN TICKETS
Procrastination. Why - when I have been planning for months to leave Amsterdam to start the Camino on the 1st of May - hadn't I booked the train tickets to St Jean Pied de Port? I'd looked up the website in Sydney but didn't go through with the booking because I thought it would be better to get the tickets in Amsterdam - perhaps I'd find another random deal like last year when we travelled to Paris first class for half the second class rate. After we arrived in Amsterdam, I put it off again until we came back from Italy because there just wasn't time with all the bike-riding and visits to friends...then there was the volcano in Iceland.
It was only yesterday, when I finally looked up the NS.NL website again, that I began to panic. Only 5 days from Estimated Date of Departure and they include Queen's Day on 30 April, which is such an anarchic public holiday that all international trains from Amsterdam Central Station are cancelled for 24 hours. Everyone goes crazy, wears orange, drinks beer and the whole country becomes one rolling garage-sale.
And this year, Dutch school holidays begin on the 1st of May so most locals want to have their cake and eat it - like us - and are planning to go to the national party and then leave first thing in the morning. That means a mass exodus of sun-seekers from the Netherlands heading south. The scenario worsened when I discovered that across the rest of Europe including France and Spain, the 1st of May is a national holiday (like Labour Day) so transport schedules will be limited. And because of the volcano, many who would usually fly have decided to go by train.
I realised with sinking feeling behind my solar plexus that this time I might have blown it and worse still, this time, I've committed online to start out on the 1st of May to all those wonderful people who have sponsored our walk.
The International Office at Den Haag Central Station closes at 17.00 on Sundays. I arrived with my friend Lisette at 16.30. When '74' lit up in red on the LED screen, I dared to hope that we would find a solution. The ticket-seller, a petite woman, with neat brown hair and dewy skin tapped her keyboard with the confidence of someone who has spent '25 years at this desk'.
'There are no places on the ten o'clock train to Paris. And on the seven o'clock there are only standing room places to Paris,' she said. 'You will be standing up all the way to Paris.' Four hours being squished up against our bags in the body-width aisles, elbows in the belly as people walk through the carriage and jittery girls.
'What about Bayonne?' I asked. 'For the children and I'.
'On the TGV there are places but what do you mean there are children, I thought you said 3 people? I'll have to look for children's places. Yes...'
'I'll have to take them.' I said. Lisette's blue eyes darkened. She had been hoping to join us for the trip south with her daughter as part of an Interail holiday but had just discovered that it wasn't going to be possible. 'We have to leave, I have no choice.'
LISETTE
When I first moved to Amsterdam in 1994, I arrived with one suitcase, a new demanding job and nowhere to live. Some friends of a new friend agreed to lend me - who they'd never met - their sunny two floor apartment on the Binnenkant, 'the inside side' of one of the fattest canals in town. I loved it so much that I didn't look for anything else and on the day before they were due to return, I realised that I'd run out of time; that I had to find an apartment that day and preferably in that street. It was a balmy summer's day, which I later discovered was not normal for July in Amsterdam, when I walked out the door and noticed a 'Voor Huur' sign on the building next door. A woman in her late twenties opened the racing green door :
'Hello, I'm Josephine, just wondering...do you know anything about the apartment for rent?'
'Yes, I'm Lisette, come and have a look. I'm just moving out of it now, downstairs.'
The second floor loft had a shiny yellow oak floor with three large windows onto the canal. 'I like it. Do you know how much?' 'I'll call the 'huis baas'. You can keep the curtains if you like, they don't fit downstairs, they're new,' Lisette said as she passed me the phone. Within two minutes I'd made a deal with a stern Mr van Gaalen, and the next day I had my own place in Amsterdam.
One night a few days later, Lisette rang the door bell at about nine. 'Come down, the people next door have put some good furniture out on the street.'
Felipe moved in 1995 and two years later we returned after our summer holiday in Australia to discover that not only was Lisette pregnant but so was I. Rutger and Luna were born within a week of each other but shortly afterwards Erwin, Lisette and Rutger moved to Spain and we moved to Sydney. Now, Lisette, Erwin and their three children live in the The Hague.
Every time we come to the Netherlands, Luna, Rosa and I spend at least one night with them. This year, we were there for 'Oud en Nieuw', New Year's Eve which is the other time of pure pandemonium in this otherwise rational and pragmatic country. The whole night was like a war zone with fire works going off continuously all over town and beyond. Luna looked at me with disbelief when I told her that she could go out unaccompanied with Rutger and the 'kids in the hood' and....they had their own fireworks...we all ended up around a massive bonfire of christmas trees and old furniture at the local intersection at midnight, children's eyes covered with hard plastic goggles.
Nearly four months later, we are back in The Hague and last night, we went to the annual festival of Rutger's new high school, the 'Haganum'. It is a 'Gymnasium' which means the focus is academic and Greek and Latin are required material. Lisette had written that the school was like Hogwarts: neo-gothic turrets, grandiose ceilings, Greek friezes and stained glass windows....and old-fashioned science labs with what Rutger described as 'dead babies in bottles'. At the party, larger-than-life Roman sculptures were illuminated from below with various shades on neon and slam-poets screamed in the stairwells.
CEES NOOTEBOOM
I was amazed when I recognised writers on the programme of the 'Haganum Festival'. Alumni of the school were presenting their work and these included Cees Nooteboom, one of my favourite writers initially because the first present I received from Felipe after we met was Rituelen (Rituals) by Cees Nooteboom in Dutch! Nooteboom was an international guest at the Sydney Writer's Festival in 2009 where I bought two of his books: Roads to Santiago about the Camino and a fantastic fairy tale inversion called ...In The Dutch Mountains...He is a writer's writer and spoke eloquently about his work on the Radio National book show. . .
Wearing red trousers and a navy blazer, Nooteboom casually strode through random lines of parents and their mobile-mesmerised teenagers at his old school to read from Rode Regen (Red Rain), a collection of short stories, memoir and poetry. It was the first time, I'd heard him read in Dutch and I found his tone - in his native tongue - more visceral and intimate.
Today I saw in the newspaper - the NRC Handelsblad - that Cees Nooteboom just won the Golden Owl Prize - the most respected literature prize for a book in Dutch or Flemish - for his most recent book. Gefeliciteerd!
Procrastination. Why - when I have been planning for months to leave Amsterdam to start the Camino on the 1st of May - hadn't I booked the train tickets to St Jean Pied de Port? I'd looked up the website in Sydney but didn't go through with the booking because I thought it would be better to get the tickets in Amsterdam - perhaps I'd find another random deal like last year when we travelled to Paris first class for half the second class rate. After we arrived in Amsterdam, I put it off again until we came back from Italy because there just wasn't time with all the bike-riding and visits to friends...then there was the volcano in Iceland.
It was only yesterday, when I finally looked up the NS.NL website again, that I began to panic. Only 5 days from Estimated Date of Departure and they include Queen's Day on 30 April, which is such an anarchic public holiday that all international trains from Amsterdam Central Station are cancelled for 24 hours. Everyone goes crazy, wears orange, drinks beer and the whole country becomes one rolling garage-sale.
And this year, Dutch school holidays begin on the 1st of May so most locals want to have their cake and eat it - like us - and are planning to go to the national party and then leave first thing in the morning. That means a mass exodus of sun-seekers from the Netherlands heading south. The scenario worsened when I discovered that across the rest of Europe including France and Spain, the 1st of May is a national holiday (like Labour Day) so transport schedules will be limited. And because of the volcano, many who would usually fly have decided to go by train.
I realised with sinking feeling behind my solar plexus that this time I might have blown it and worse still, this time, I've committed online to start out on the 1st of May to all those wonderful people who have sponsored our walk.
The International Office at Den Haag Central Station closes at 17.00 on Sundays. I arrived with my friend Lisette at 16.30. When '74' lit up in red on the LED screen, I dared to hope that we would find a solution. The ticket-seller, a petite woman, with neat brown hair and dewy skin tapped her keyboard with the confidence of someone who has spent '25 years at this desk'.
'There are no places on the ten o'clock train to Paris. And on the seven o'clock there are only standing room places to Paris,' she said. 'You will be standing up all the way to Paris.' Four hours being squished up against our bags in the body-width aisles, elbows in the belly as people walk through the carriage and jittery girls.
'What about Bayonne?' I asked. 'For the children and I'.
'On the TGV there are places but what do you mean there are children, I thought you said 3 people? I'll have to look for children's places. Yes...'
'I'll have to take them.' I said. Lisette's blue eyes darkened. She had been hoping to join us for the trip south with her daughter as part of an Interail holiday but had just discovered that it wasn't going to be possible. 'We have to leave, I have no choice.'
LISETTE
When I first moved to Amsterdam in 1994, I arrived with one suitcase, a new demanding job and nowhere to live. Some friends of a new friend agreed to lend me - who they'd never met - their sunny two floor apartment on the Binnenkant, 'the inside side' of one of the fattest canals in town. I loved it so much that I didn't look for anything else and on the day before they were due to return, I realised that I'd run out of time; that I had to find an apartment that day and preferably in that street. It was a balmy summer's day, which I later discovered was not normal for July in Amsterdam, when I walked out the door and noticed a 'Voor Huur' sign on the building next door. A woman in her late twenties opened the racing green door :
'Hello, I'm Josephine, just wondering...do you know anything about the apartment for rent?'
'Yes, I'm Lisette, come and have a look. I'm just moving out of it now, downstairs.'
The second floor loft had a shiny yellow oak floor with three large windows onto the canal. 'I like it. Do you know how much?' 'I'll call the 'huis baas'. You can keep the curtains if you like, they don't fit downstairs, they're new,' Lisette said as she passed me the phone. Within two minutes I'd made a deal with a stern Mr van Gaalen, and the next day I had my own place in Amsterdam.
One night a few days later, Lisette rang the door bell at about nine. 'Come down, the people next door have put some good furniture out on the street.'
Felipe moved in 1995 and two years later we returned after our summer holiday in Australia to discover that not only was Lisette pregnant but so was I. Rutger and Luna were born within a week of each other but shortly afterwards Erwin, Lisette and Rutger moved to Spain and we moved to Sydney. Now, Lisette, Erwin and their three children live in the The Hague.
Every time we come to the Netherlands, Luna, Rosa and I spend at least one night with them. This year, we were there for 'Oud en Nieuw', New Year's Eve which is the other time of pure pandemonium in this otherwise rational and pragmatic country. The whole night was like a war zone with fire works going off continuously all over town and beyond. Luna looked at me with disbelief when I told her that she could go out unaccompanied with Rutger and the 'kids in the hood' and....they had their own fireworks...we all ended up around a massive bonfire of christmas trees and old furniture at the local intersection at midnight, children's eyes covered with hard plastic goggles.
Nearly four months later, we are back in The Hague and last night, we went to the annual festival of Rutger's new high school, the 'Haganum'. It is a 'Gymnasium' which means the focus is academic and Greek and Latin are required material. Lisette had written that the school was like Hogwarts: neo-gothic turrets, grandiose ceilings, Greek friezes and stained glass windows....and old-fashioned science labs with what Rutger described as 'dead babies in bottles'. At the party, larger-than-life Roman sculptures were illuminated from below with various shades on neon and slam-poets screamed in the stairwells.
CEES NOOTEBOOM
I was amazed when I recognised writers on the programme of the 'Haganum Festival'. Alumni of the school were presenting their work and these included Cees Nooteboom, one of my favourite writers initially because the first present I received from Felipe after we met was Rituelen (Rituals) by Cees Nooteboom in Dutch! Nooteboom was an international guest at the Sydney Writer's Festival in 2009 where I bought two of his books: Roads to Santiago about the Camino and a fantastic fairy tale inversion called ...In The Dutch Mountains...He is a writer's writer and spoke eloquently about his work on the Radio National book show. . .
Wearing red trousers and a navy blazer, Nooteboom casually strode through random lines of parents and their mobile-mesmerised teenagers at his old school to read from Rode Regen (Red Rain), a collection of short stories, memoir and poetry. It was the first time, I'd heard him read in Dutch and I found his tone - in his native tongue - more visceral and intimate.
Today I saw in the newspaper - the NRC Handelsblad - that Cees Nooteboom just won the Golden Owl Prize - the most respected literature prize for a book in Dutch or Flemish - for his most recent book. Gefeliciteerd!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Book Crossing
I think I need to create another blog because I keep on wanting to write about non-walk related experiences... It was so easy to leave Italy despite all the warnings. I decided we would do the crazy thing and just head down to Rome the night before, check into an airport hotel (the Garden Hilton), walk over to the airport at 5 in the morning and calmly present our shabby scribbled-all-over e-tickets.
At 5.10 am , when we showed up at the ticketing desk, the KLM rep took a walk, came back a few minutes later and said 'You are on a ten o'clock flight.' It was as simple as that. A bubbly Polish waitress took it upon herself to supply the girls with chunks of white chocolate and almonds while we waited and slept in the soft leather chairs of the SKY BAR. I remind myself that it's always better to wait it out - and try to enjoy yourself - in a crisis until the way forward is clear.
Back in Amsterdam, we found a pile of books left by the previous guests who had been in town for a 'book crossing' convention. On the bottom left hand corner of the books, a sticker was pasted with a little icon of a book with legs and the words:
'I'm not lost! I am travelling. Please read & release me!'
Have you heard of 'Book Crossing?' I hadn't but I picked up 'Canal Dreams' by Iain Rankin and went online to register it at www.BookCrossing.com. Here is my first entry on their website:
I am leaning over the marble sink in the far corner of the kitchen in the tower of a medieval castle in Val d'Orcia, Italy, my iPhone clamped to my ear:
'Who is it?'
'It's S.., Josephine, are you coming back tomorrow?, Josephine, can you hear? the people who've been staying here can't get out of Schipol.'
A body-length away, six people are sitting around a table drinking Brunello di Montalcino and discussing the Pope who is on the television screen in front of them. We had been looking for news on the volcano...
'Speak up, its hard to hear,' I say to the owner of the apartment in Amsterdam.
'If you're not coming back, the other guests can stay on here. They can't fly back to London. Are you coming back?' he asked.
'No, No, We can't come back either. My plane's not listed for departure. I don't think we'll be back tomorrow.'
Two days later, we arrive back in Amsterdam to find a pile of four or five paperbacks next to the black quarto Guest Book. I think about selling them on Queen's Day next Friday but my upstairs neighbour explains that they are Book Crossing books and that I should look on the website. I pick up Iain Banks because I've been wanting to read his writing for a while (even though I doubt that I'll enjoy his work as much as Ian Rankin's...at least they both live in Scotland). Luna is excited to find an Alexander McCall Smith detective story.
In one week, the 1st of May, we leave Amsterdam to start our walk. We have some great news and I'll write about that tomorrow. In the meantime, we want to thank all those who have made donations to Our Walk For Felipe - they are rolling in and it's fantastic to support MS Research in this way.
At 5.10 am , when we showed up at the ticketing desk, the KLM rep took a walk, came back a few minutes later and said 'You are on a ten o'clock flight.' It was as simple as that. A bubbly Polish waitress took it upon herself to supply the girls with chunks of white chocolate and almonds while we waited and slept in the soft leather chairs of the SKY BAR. I remind myself that it's always better to wait it out - and try to enjoy yourself - in a crisis until the way forward is clear.
Back in Amsterdam, we found a pile of books left by the previous guests who had been in town for a 'book crossing' convention. On the bottom left hand corner of the books, a sticker was pasted with a little icon of a book with legs and the words:
'I'm not lost! I am travelling. Please read & release me!'
Have you heard of 'Book Crossing?' I hadn't but I picked up 'Canal Dreams' by Iain Rankin and went online to register it at www.BookCrossing.com. Here is my first entry on their website:
I am leaning over the marble sink in the far corner of the kitchen in the tower of a medieval castle in Val d'Orcia, Italy, my iPhone clamped to my ear:
'Who is it?'
'It's S.., Josephine, are you coming back tomorrow?, Josephine, can you hear? the people who've been staying here can't get out of Schipol.'
A body-length away, six people are sitting around a table drinking Brunello di Montalcino and discussing the Pope who is on the television screen in front of them. We had been looking for news on the volcano...
'Speak up, its hard to hear,' I say to the owner of the apartment in Amsterdam.
'If you're not coming back, the other guests can stay on here. They can't fly back to London. Are you coming back?' he asked.
'No, No, We can't come back either. My plane's not listed for departure. I don't think we'll be back tomorrow.'
Two days later, we arrive back in Amsterdam to find a pile of four or five paperbacks next to the black quarto Guest Book. I think about selling them on Queen's Day next Friday but my upstairs neighbour explains that they are Book Crossing books and that I should look on the website. I pick up Iain Banks because I've been wanting to read his writing for a while (even though I doubt that I'll enjoy his work as much as Ian Rankin's...at least they both live in Scotland). Luna is excited to find an Alexander McCall Smith detective story.
In one week, the 1st of May, we leave Amsterdam to start our walk. We have some great news and I'll write about that tomorrow. In the meantime, we want to thank all those who have made donations to Our Walk For Felipe - they are rolling in and it's fantastic to support MS Research in this way.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
stranded in italy
on our way back to amsterdam before we start our walk, we were scheduled to leave Rome yesterday but the vociferous volcano, Eyjafjallayokull, has made that very difficult for us. airlines are overloaded, trains are fully booked until next week, no rental cars available, a driver to Amsterdam? 2000 Euros! Now that they're flying again, i'm thinking of heading down to Rome airport at 6 am and taking whatever we can get. but that's exactly what they're telling us not to do.
so we have to find another way, in other words: be patient. luckily, we have friends here - a dear friend of mine of about 20 years, John Bird, who lives in part of an old castle in Val d'Orcia in Southern Tuscany. I'll write more about John in my next blog - he is the most wonderful guide and expert on local food, culture and history in this arcadian valley. And you won't believe that two other St Catherine's girls - Ruby and Eva Lowenstein - happen to be nearby in Umbria so we drove over to see them yesterday while we were waiting for the skies to clear. Luna and Rosa loved sharing spontaneous times with their friends and especially having a break from - ?
being stranded is frustrating and there are tens of thousands of us around the world - we can't wait to get back to Amsterdam to see Felipe again and tell him more about our walk and supporters. We'll finalise our gear and prepare to leave for St Jean Pied de Port on the May 1...That is, we won't be missing Queen's Day in Amsterdam on April 30. Luna is going to blog about that.
for your interest, a message written on many Stone Tablets in this area : Val D'Orcia - UNESCO world heritage : The Val d'Orcia is an exceptional reflection of the way the landscape was re-written in pre-renaissance times to reflect the ideals of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture. Celebrated by painters from the Siennese school, the Val d'Orcia has come to be seen as icon of the landscape which has profoundly influenced the development of landscape thinking.
Monday, April 5, 2010
the Camino network Part 1
It sounds like a secret society, but the Confraternity of James is an open global network of supporters of the Camino de Santiago. In early March, I googled it (http://www.csj.org.uk/australia.htm) and left a message for the co-ordinator of the Sydney group : Sandra Collier.
Within 30 minutes, Sandra called me back to confirm that the next meeting would be on the 3rd April at 12 noon at the Spanish Club in Liverpool St, where else? the only place in Sydney which provides temporary autonomous zones (TAZ*) for random gatherings of revolutionaries, charities and/or hispanophiles for a nominal charge. As the meeting was so close to our departure on the 7th April, Sandra offered to meet me for a coffee beforehand at Zigolini's in Woollahra where the Italian hot chocolate is as thick as lava.
On Friday 19th March at 5.30 , there was traffic and I was five minutes late. A green-eyed woman wearing a sports jacket was walking out of Zigolini's with trekking poles in her hands. 'Sandra?'
We sat down and like Mary Poppins, Sandra kept on bringing things out of her bag - photocopies of altitude charts, accommodation lists, cultural-heritage maps that we'll find on our way, a Pilgrim's Passport or 'Credential' with the gorgeous colourful stamps from every place you stop, a shell. As I sat there on the sidewalk of Queen St, the trip started to become real, especially the shock that the hardest days would be Day 1 and Day 2 from St Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles; an ascent of from 200 metres above sea level to the Pass Col Lepoeder (1450). Sandra confirmed that there are services that carry backpacks from one accommodation to the next. Make note to investigate. She spoke with the steady voice of a teacher and engaged the girls. It was becoming a reality for them too. They could practice using walking poles at home with broomsticks.
The waitress at Zigolini's having managed to find a place for the chocolate meringue cake amongst all of Sandra's material, announced with an Italian accent and sweet pride : 'I did it - I went to Santiago - I cycled there from Italy, 2,000 kms!'
*Thanks to Peter Lamborn Wilson who coined this term for his cult classic book _Temporary Autonomous Zones_ in the early 1990s.
Within 30 minutes, Sandra called me back to confirm that the next meeting would be on the 3rd April at 12 noon at the Spanish Club in Liverpool St, where else? the only place in Sydney which provides temporary autonomous zones (TAZ*) for random gatherings of revolutionaries, charities and/or hispanophiles for a nominal charge. As the meeting was so close to our departure on the 7th April, Sandra offered to meet me for a coffee beforehand at Zigolini's in Woollahra where the Italian hot chocolate is as thick as lava.
On Friday 19th March at 5.30 , there was traffic and I was five minutes late. A green-eyed woman wearing a sports jacket was walking out of Zigolini's with trekking poles in her hands. 'Sandra?'
We sat down and like Mary Poppins, Sandra kept on bringing things out of her bag - photocopies of altitude charts, accommodation lists, cultural-heritage maps that we'll find on our way, a Pilgrim's Passport or 'Credential' with the gorgeous colourful stamps from every place you stop, a shell. As I sat there on the sidewalk of Queen St, the trip started to become real, especially the shock that the hardest days would be Day 1 and Day 2 from St Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles; an ascent of from 200 metres above sea level to the Pass Col Lepoeder (1450). Sandra confirmed that there are services that carry backpacks from one accommodation to the next. Make note to investigate. She spoke with the steady voice of a teacher and engaged the girls. It was becoming a reality for them too. They could practice using walking poles at home with broomsticks.
The waitress at Zigolini's having managed to find a place for the chocolate meringue cake amongst all of Sandra's material, announced with an Italian accent and sweet pride : 'I did it - I went to Santiago - I cycled there from Italy, 2,000 kms!'
*Thanks to Peter Lamborn Wilson who coined this term for his cult classic book _Temporary Autonomous Zones_ in the early 1990s.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
three days to go
Kent St in the City is becoming my haunt. Today, my project is to buy my backpack. I plan to walk to the Trek and Travel store, at one extreme of the outward-bound precinct, and trawl through the options as I head back to base at Paddy Pallin on the corner of Bathurst St. But then, just as I start out, I'm drawn into Larry Adler and clearly for a reason: Jane who is manager there led Outdoor Ed camps for 20 years and is willing to spend whatever it takes - more than 2 hours - with me patiently trying on a variety of styles, each time with a 5 kg sandbag. Belt first, shoulder straps second and chest strap, third. Then the minor straps which all need adjusting to get the perfect fit. I am embarrassed to complain that the Slimline fit which is theoretically for women, cuts into my chest. 'I'm chunky in the shoulders and upper back,' I volunteer. Those faraway years of surfing in my teens.
'There is a new Ultralite pack by Deuter, but it's for older people."
'I'm turning 50 soon...'
'But you're not 60. Try it anyway.'
'Why would you buy a heavier pack if you didn't have to?' The standard (men's) version is in light light grey with strips of lime green. My colours. And it weighs about 1080 gms, a half-kilo lighter than the alternatives...I keep it on for 40 minutes while looking at jackets, poles and whistles and forget about it. That means it's my pack.
'There is a new Ultralite pack by Deuter, but it's for older people."
'I'm turning 50 soon...'
'But you're not 60. Try it anyway.'
'Why would you buy a heavier pack if you didn't have to?' The standard (men's) version is in light light grey with strips of lime green. My colours. And it weighs about 1080 gms, a half-kilo lighter than the alternatives...I keep it on for 40 minutes while looking at jackets, poles and whistles and forget about it. That means it's my pack.
Blog from Luna RE: SHOPPING IN THE CITY
Yesterday: Easter Saturday, we went to the city to go shopping...again. The one street - Kent St - is choco block full of camping, hiking and over all outdoor sporty shops. We went to the city with my Grandad and his wife to go to the maritime museum. But of course we had people who wanted to see us before we go, so mum decided to meet them at Paddy Palin as it is an easy spot to go to. We first met one of my very close friends Lucy and her dad Rob. She gave me a jade good luck bracelet which is very beautiful for me to wear on my trip.
At Paddy Palin I got my basic clothes: Icebreaker Thermal long sleeve, Icebreaker short sleeve, Icebreaker singlet and of course thermal undies... And at Kathmandu we got our sleeping bags and a light weight towel.
HOW EXCITING?......
Then i went to the museum with my granddad which was very fun.
Sorry, my blog is short today because it is Easter Sunday and soon i'm going to see my friend Claudia...
SO HAPPY EASTER ALL THOSE VIEWERS AND ADIOS FOR WEDNESDAY!!!
Thursday, April 1, 2010
FELIPE at IF MAGAZINE
we've had some lovely surprises from people we don't know so well...I wrote to thank David Michod for contributing to our website and he sent back this lovely cameo of Felipe at work, a little bit of gold for the girls:
hi guys,
i was editor of IF Magazine right around the time felipe was involved. he came along and turned a relatively dysfunctional organisation into something quite special and he did it in an entirely benevolent, productive and supportive way. IF was a business and it needed to be restructured and run as such, but he always just seemed more interested in the people there than anything else.
i spent an hour with jen peedam this morning followed by an hour on the phone to bec smith, and i'm sure these enduring IF-related friendships owe something to that whole happy, productive family environment that felipe so quietly nurtured there.
anyway, good luck with everything. i hope it all goes swimmingly!
cheers and thanks and please give my love to felipe,
david
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