Another Boring Observation

The glories of traveling with laptop and iphone….

I’m sitting yet again in a wireless hotspot in a hostel in NZ. I’m bored shitless, mainly because this city has a whole lot of not much going on a Tuesday night except torrential rain and wind. So once again I am drawn into writing in my blog, which I hope is an endless source of amusement to you all.

Any who as I was sitting in my bus today basking in the beauty of this country (it really is amazingly pretty), it dawned on me how different it was to travel pre laptop and phone. When I first traveled in 2002, it was a battle to find an Internet café and send an email. However, in this age of facebook it is just so easy to get someone’s details and you can discover many intimate details about them in moments.

I have been on the Internet everyday since I got here because I’m addicted to knowing the football scores and what is going on in the world. I’m also not used to be on my own and it takes a while to adapt.

The moral of my story is that my computer gives me a source of entertainment if necessary and also provides me with information on travel resources that would have been unavailable to the traveler in the last century. I think maybe it’s taken a whole lot of fun out of the adventure, and at the least it’s made the experience a whole lot easier and accessible to the IT savvy.

Possibly the truly hardcore adventurer should embark on a journey with only the post as a means of communication….????

Another thing about traveling is some of the funny stuff these crazy kids eat in the common room. On the table in front of me is a communal bowl of maggi noodles, with a three-litre bottle of AJ to wash it down. This young kid next to me is eating two boiled potatoes with butter and salt. The girls next to me are drinking coke with red wine, accompanied by plastic cheese and crackers. God bless them all. ohhhhhh, some guy just got a large dominos, he has a hell of a lot of acne!!!!

CRAP Bus Rides

Yesterday as I was sitting on one of the more average buses floating around new Zealand, I had a few hours to reflect on crap bus rides around the world. There are many factors that can make or break a bus ride. These include distance, bus condition, temperature, amount of crap people on bus and whether you had anyone to talk to. Another massive factor is your level on hungoverness and how much sleep you had the night before.
This particular bus ride was only four hours, but went through some towns that could only be described as struggling with some fairly heavy social problems. Also the bus was full and the average weight of people on the bus was about 150kg. The guy sitting beside me looked like a house, he also smelt like his body hadn’t been wet for at least a week. So as I sat there in my fairly tight space, I wondered why I had come back to the backpackers life? Especially since the bus driver, who looked like he had been on a meth bender for four days, decided to put ‘War of the worlds: The musical’ on the DVD player. He had filmed it himself live in Auckland last year. It was torture.
However upon dragging my sorry arse to my hostel in Rotorua, I had an excellent chat with the young maori girl at reception. This girl was a travel goddess, she gave me my own room, she pointed me in the direction of the hot springs and all my problems seemed to melt away.
So I guess the moral of the story is that these average experiences make you feel extra happy with what you have at home!!!!

First port: Auckland

So here I am, sitting in sunny Auckland relishing in its awesomeness. It's been a funny trip, since I wasn't really ready to be on a plane overseas, it all hasn't sunk in yet.
Anywho, I have a funny story of the first three hours of my trip.
To set the scene, I'm sitting on Flight NZ124 from Melb-Auckland enjoying the wonderous Air New Zealand hospitality. Thoroughly enjoying my in-flight movie, Defiance, starring Daniel Craig, I was handed my NZ immigration card.
Not really concentrating on filling out the details of this card, I had to get a second one given to me because I used ticks instead of crosses to mark my answers. On my second card, I reached the occupation box. I thought to myself "what do I do?", I couldn't say "all around awesome coffee guy", because that didn't fit in the gaps. I couldn't say "dead-beat promo loser", because I didn't work promo anymore. Also I couldn't simply say "Student" because everyone knows I finished my Commerce-management double degree nearly two years ago.
So as I watched Daniel Craig kill another German with his bare hands out of the corner of my eye, I simply wrote "Magician" and put the card in my passport and got back to my meal and movie.
After disembarking, I rolled up to the customs guy and the conversation went something like this:
Lincoln: 'Hey champ, how's life'
Customs Official(looking at passport and immigration card): 'Pretty Choice mate, good flight?'
Lincoln: 'Above expectations my friend, food and entertainment on board were first rate!'
Customs Official(now with strange look on face): 'Magician eh? When did you get into magic?'
Lincoln(blood drawing from face, thinking of something to say and struggling): 'Well that's not entirely true, I'm not fully qualified yet, I still have six months left to go in my TAFE course'
Customs Official(looking satisfied stamping passport): 'You're the first person I've met who studies magic. Have a great time and good luck with it!'

As I walked away from this, I wondered a few things:
#1 Why did I write magician and why did I forget this vital piece of information as I walked into customs
#2 Never be a smart arse when writing in your immigration card, and if you do, have a story ready to back it up
#3 If I tried to pull this off entering the US, would I be bailed up, Vince Colosimo style like Airport Security and cavity searched?

Lesson Learned

Travel Insurance....

So I've been hunting around looking for the best travel insurance deals. This will surely be my last trip using travel insurance, because for my next trip I shall make sure I have a Platinum credit card which gives you automatic travel insurance on purchasing your flight.
It's a tough decision, because the reviews of pretty all the travel insurance sites have been pretty poor. I think this may be due to people only complaining about a shit service and not giving good reviews for sound insurance. Anyways I've gone with 1cover.com.au because they cover my computer and my phone. I'll let you know how they are! It's quite an expensive purchase though and I have a slight case of buyers remorse.
xoxo

interesting stat - apparently 20% of travel insurance claims are fraudulent

Also check out this article on travel by the marketing director of SBS, she has some great points! http://www.sbs.com.au/blogarticle/109164/How-the-web-ruined-travel/blog/The-SBS-brand

The Treat Poem

My Ode to Treat!

Treat Café

A Poem by Lincoln George Brown

O Treat Café, what a wonderful place of employment
Standing by the window making coffees is endless enjoyment
Chatting with those Toorak mums
I pretty sure they have lipoed bums
I shall miss Treat Café

Sammy and Shanky rule the kitchen
The endless food is always bitchin’
Our muffins suck
Who gives a fuck?
God Bless Treat Café

Mattman stole fifties from the till
Chicken toasties, he’d had his fill
Did Cam get fired for being lazy?
The details are a little hazy….
Eat at Treat Café

Hickey loves a competition jug
Old women drink their coffee in a mug
Laskie jokes, Mc Cormack smokes
At Treat café there’s so many awesome blokes
We love Treat Café

Ball, the leader rules with an Iron fist
Well sometimes, just not when he’s really pissed
Piercey is happiest when he bakes
I just wish the flies would get off his cakes
Good Luck Treat Café

Feldy has a broken foot and is a wussy
He got it while he was chasing pussy
Victor gets bigger by the day
I’m sure some are upset he isn’t gay
O wonderful Treat Café

Bella helped Jess get the sack
I’d laugh if she made out with Jack
Ben is dating little nettlefold
She’s not exactly what you’d call old
Goodbye Treat Café

Kirsties ironing is just first rate
Lexi Cottee is rarely late
Im sad that my time has come
Just my favourite thing before I’m done
May the tip jar be always Frothing!

the infinite benefits of skyscanner.net

For the modern traveller in 2009, no website is more helpful for transport than skyscanner.net. This site scans every discount airline on the route you want and gets some killer prices, I just got something like eight flights for under 600AUD. Chew Beauty. Get in early I say.... Does take the fun out of travelling a bit, but if you want to avoid the arse raping handed out by European train prices then get on board!