http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/riveenema/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from riveenema en-us Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:44:44 BST Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:44:44 BST i'm writing this eating a loaf of bread from the market as my breakfast in true backpacker style just ripping off chunks.so i need to fill everyone in about what i did for christmas. you've seen a few of teh pictures it was definitely not a traditional onethe friday before christmas kennedy and i got transport to mukuni village that's the main village around livingstone it's where the ch http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/Mukuni-Village/blog-233646.html okay finally posted some new pics....it's taken me two hours to upload these so the stories will have to wait for another day but at least you have proof that i'm alive hope everyone had a merry christmas enjoy new years and be safe http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-230974.html just wanted to let everyone know that i'm still alive in livingstone i know i haven't written in ages... it's now the rainy season which means lots of bottomless puddles to avoid and loads of delicious mangoes i usually pick one each morning for my breakfast i'm getting quite adept at peeling with my teeth.so i don't have time to write loads i'm meeting a friend in town soon...but a few hig http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-228486.html Another week in Livingstonehellip.what have I done this week A whole new crop of volunteers came about ten of them so itrsquos been a bit of an adjustment 3 new girls at Mambo a Scot and 2 Germans the house is no longer the American house. One of my housemates had to flee the country his visa expired and he had to cross over to Zimbabwe probably the first white person to flee TO Z http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-211142.html i decided to voluntarily risk my life yesterday and raft one of the biggestbaddest rivers in the world the zambezi. okay maybe it's not the baddest but class 5 rapids classify as pretty scary for me. and when the guide with 13 years experience on the river warns you not to fall out on a certain rapid you tend to listen and take him seriously.everyone in the house at mambo decided to ra http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-206936.html so here's the deal i have a couple of incomplete blogs so i'm just going to combine them into one some things might repeat or be boring...life here has settled into a routine so sometimes there's not too much to write about.partial blog 1 After nearly 2 weeks in Zambia I finally made it to Victoria Falls the primary reason why Livingstone exists. After horseback riding was canceled due to http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-204496.html So to get along in Africa you have to have a really open mind and just go with the flow my time in Europe was very beneficial for me in that nothing here bothers me the bus that you're in just got stuck in the sand and you're 60 km out in the bush no worries. Supposed to take blood pressure and don't know how it's okay. Someone asking you to marry them not today. Brave one of the Zamb http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-202604.html The irony of writing this on a laptop while listening to music on an mp3 player is not lost on me I'm using electronics worth more than most people here will earn this this decade. The unemployment rate is basically 100 most people scrape by through creating their own enterprise carpentry roadside stands selling anything you could possibly imagine the smell of freshly popped popcorn is on http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-202603.html well the europe part of my trip will be done in a little bit more than 12 hours. i'm off to zambia tomorrow with a few stops inbetween. i fly out of dublin tomorrow around 11 get into heathrow 90 minutes later then fly out at 5 to livingstone zambia via frankfurt and johannesburg. i get in sometime on thursday afternoon i believe. the only change as far as blogging will be that i'll be s http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/blog-199021.html i just finished a short field trip in ireland trained up to galway for a day then down to killarney for two days where i did some hiking in the national park and food shopping in tesco. i'd advise against training anywhere in ireland not quite as efficient as other EU countries. to get from galway to killarney which is approximately 1.5 hours driving took an amazing 8 hours on the train a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Dublin/blog-198506.html it's been a while since i've written a proper blog and this one won't be too long either...my apologies on that...i've been a bit busy trying to squeeze the most out of the eurail pass that marc and i got. we did a WHILRWIND tour of scandinavia if we were't sleeping or on a boat or hiking we were on a train there was no downtime at all. norway was spectacularly beautiful. took a fjord crui http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Ireland/County-Galway/Galway/blog-197474.html just a short one right now i'm in ikea and volvo land yup made it to sweden safely. since i last wrote i've showered and almost fallen out of the shower on a train spent multiple nights sleeping on the train bought cheese in prague that smelled frighteningly like a well used public toilet visited the berlin wall and WWII memorials for a day extremely sobering rested a bit walked for http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Sweden/Stockholm-County/Stockholm/blog-193774.html apparently the travelblog server crashed and all of my previous entries were lost if anyone happened to save any please email them to me and i'll repost. mom and sue could you please copy and paste these into word so i have a backup copy i'm currently in munich eating lots of cheese and nutella so much for the 6 pack happening in europe it'll have to wait until africa.....leave barcelo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Midi-Pyr-n-es/blog-188278.html so marc had told me that spaniards can eat i had been doubting him until i experienced the wedding feast last night. tapas were first plates and plates of salami shrimp snails which i tried a bit salty like seafood salmon and caviar also a bit salty dont quite understand people's obsession with it fried goodness of all sorts smoked ham leg which is displayed skin and everything a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-184265.html for all of the females out there ferrarris are made in maranello italy outside of modena italy. really makes you want to go there right me not so much funny thing about cars i don't really care about them. i drive a super ghetto beater truck that has been totaled. so i was not the happiest about training to modena to see something i had no interest in marc was very patient with my grump http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/blog-182770.html so i consider myself fairly athletic kind of fit decent balance...not so much a bike rider though i don't think i've ridden for maybe 10 years. but hey there's free bikes in verona marc practicaly learned to ride before he learned to walk and he's been itching to ride the entire trip. so i get on the bike yeah my balance is real shaky throw in traffic and an unfamiliar city...there's a h http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Verona/blog-182761.html ....i havent but i experienced the opening seen of it in venice. so marc and i trained to venice from rome and got in around 8 in the evening with no place to stay but no worries because i have my trusty 'let's go europe' guide with names and locations of hostels. so off we go traipsing through the city jaws dropping as we turn each corner venice is truly magnificent. so bax pax is the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-182754.html just wanted to let you all know that i'm still alive...i've managed to illegally ride the public transportation in almost every major city that i've been in including the water taxis in venice eaten lots of fantastic bread and gelato and chocolate and peaches. i'm currently in barcelona will hopefully see a bullfight on sunday and then off to the pyrenees to see some mountain stages of the tou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-182743.html okay so these next blogs are going to be out of order i have about 6 to write today and i have ADD when i do these things so that's just how it is. yesterday friday was a rest day you'll hear about thursday soon. nicole's flat is wonderful old old old place from the 1500's or so probably earlier. she lives close to where michaelangelo lived kind of blows your mind to think about th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-172498.html today marc and i decided to fly to florence hey let's go have dinner in florence tonight....okay i hear the food's pretty good and there's some statues and museums....okay sweet let's get to the airport. actually marc had bought the tickets already and nicole knew that we were coming but still it's wild to just get up and go wherever we want it's nice not to have everything so planned th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-172496.html