Krauss
Andrew Krauss Joined: July 18th 2008
Logged in: August 17th 2009
Logged in: August 17th 2009
This blog includes all sorts of stuff. Some of the entries are like a diary entry, telling what's been happening recently. Some are a little story, a different way of saying what's going on. Some are a collection of photos with comments and others are informative, meant for other travelers. So I hope you enjoy the ranging posts - who knows maybe you'll even get some poems reminiscent of my old days of sending out dart e-mails (At school I had a darts group winter '08, sent out some cryptic e-mails - my creativity is random).
Updates: This site is updated somewhat randomly, normally once I've generated a bunch of content, meaning it'll come in bursts. Text entries will be more frequent since it doesn't require uploading photos, but that means that entries may come out of order (for example I just added in pictures corresponding to Aug 1st, when I've already had entries through the 5th. So keep your eyes open, hopefully TravelBlog will say when somethings been updated.
Travel Blog Posts
Ok so here's the question. I've got a massive load of pictures that I never uploaded because I didn't have the good internet. And I've got a good memory of what happened since it has to do with boats. I'll post it if people are looking but sometimes I feel like not that many people are actually checking. So, here's the deal. If I get enough people to say that they're interested, I'll post the whole year in completion, starting when I left off in January. ok, maybe not complete completion, but I'll post a lot of it. What's a fair number. Let's say 15. If I get 15 people to post below that they want more, I'll give you more. Help get me motivated or something. These posts take a while, I want to know ... read more
So I think the title pretty much sums it up but I think I should point out how weird it is anyways. Whenever I’m walking down the street, whether to go to the build or get food, people don’t say hello, they say bye. I have no clue why. It’s like they took and English class and someone switched Hello and Good Bye. It’s really strange but it just seems a little sad to me. It’s like as soon as even a smidge of a potential conversation starts, it’s over. Immediately just bye. So yeah, evidentially the Beatles were here…... read more
Never have I been so comfortably happy to drive extremely slowly down a perfectly straight and decently paved rural road or to see a cockroach in my bathroom. Why do you ask? Because these are both things I associate with being in a nice warm island nation where time just goes a little slower. So if you haven't guessed I'm in Tonga. Getting to the final legs of the trip. So far Tonga seems pretty good. I'm kinda really exhausted though, after awkward flight hours and being used to going to bed at 10pm. But today was good. I got into town and contacted Sitiveni (Steven), the builder whom Colin Philp recommended I contact out here. And, I found out that he's starting a build of a traditional 4 or 5 man canoe on Monday. So ... read more
ZBeerPants
So the way the Vaka Eiva worked is you had the Opening Ceremony, the Iron Races the next day, a day off, Sprints, a day off, and then the Round Raro. On the off days the juniors and stuff had races too I guess. I forget when the Singles were. Anyways, this was the Sprints day, which was a pretty jokey day and basically an excuse for a party. Ngakau Toa raced two boats that day in the Sprints, which we never practiced for. I was actually pretty disappointed about it because it was blatantly clear that my team didn't care at all, especially when almost no one showed up. Despite that, we did get on the water and tried to do a race we had never practiced for. In both races, an A and a ... read more
A Little Yellow Star
The Maire Nui Café and Gardens So after the confusion that was the Muri Sprints we decided to head out and get some lunch. I’d seen this place off the road and it looked like it might be a nice little café with some gardens, so we stopped there. The café is a pretty small place, very quiet because it’s off the road. I’d highly recommended if you want a quiet place to sit and have a tea or coffee. It turns out the original place was near the road but it burned down. The new shop used to be an office but they quickly converted it. They serve the usual coffee and tea (the coffee is Atiu coffee and you get a plunger thingy which provides about 3 cups) and they also had a few ... read more
Launching
So I don't have much else to do today so I'm writing the text. Truthfully, this happened half a year ago and I don't really have too much to add, looks like my photo captions took care of most of it. But I can clarify about the race, I forget if that's in the captions or not. So this was the Vaka Eiva Iron Race, mixed category, which means 3 girls, 3 guys in a boat. I had been trying to get into the regular men's race, but I didn't, I think our club only raced one boat for it. Anyways, I think this Iron race was 12k's or something, which I think took around an hour. As far as Iron races go, it actually wasn't that long at all. All Iron means is you go ... read more
Singles Head out
Vaka Eiva Singles Sadly there isn't too much to say or show about this day. I spent most of the morning working on the traditional canoe build along with the regular Saturday morning grocery shopping. The singles raced this afternoon, the picture is of the women's race heading out. My only real comment about this one is that I wish I had asked to race. Since it was 'windy' (I thought it was pretty normal for here but a lot of the imports seemed to think it was) many people decided to scratch, so I probably could have gotten a boat easily. Combine that with the fact that some paddlers had pretty slow times I think I wouldn't have embarrassed myself too bad or held up the race for another 10 minutes after everyone else finished. ... read more
Making Clothes
The opening day of the Vaka Eiva was today and one of the things that happens is the canoes are blessed. This is actually pretty much all that happens. I thought it was going to be a usual day building canoes and then attending the ceremony. Nope. At lunch I find out that Mike is supposed to do the blessing. And that I’m to take part. Interesting. My role will be to carry the holy water. So I don’t have to say anything, all I really have to do is stand there, look dashing, and follow them around when they’re baptizing the canoes. Pretty simple. So about an hour or so before the ceremony I had to get all dressed up in ti leaves and tapa cloth. At this point I’ll let the pictures do the ... read more
Atiu Coast
Krauss goes to Atiu So as I was groggily getting up this morning Dave was mentioning to me that he wouldn’t be back for lunch because he was going to Atiu for a day trip. I mumbled something to the effect of that’s ok because I probably won’t need a ride into town, I’ll be working on my NSF application all day. As he was about to leave, and as I was finally actually getting out of bed, he asked if I might be interested in coming along. All of a sudden I’m awake. I ask him to clarify and he explains that another pilot and he (grammar check demands this to be ‘he’ but ‘him’ seems more right. Would someone good at English care to comment? Maybe my sisters or Becky Chawner? Back to ... read more
