Life's Lessons Make Sore Backs

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Well then, April 17th to August 14th is a pretty bad break but what can I say? I have been busy I suppose and the travelblog is really not as easy as it looks. Anyways, I hope that the past three months has been as exciting and invigorating for all of you as they have been for me. My travels have taken me to New Zealand and the life of a traveling agricultural worker which has had its ups and downs but I will get to that in a bit. I will break this installment up into the following sections: Ben comes to Visit, Wrapping up Adelaide, Killer Darwin, Family Travels, Tough Lessons with Bovis, Adios Australia, Praneel Comes Through, New Experiences Large and Small, City Hotel, Wine Boycott, and finally Future Endeavors. Just to list the sections takes a few breaths so I would probably advise a cup of tea and a few minutes to read this one or maybe break it up into a few sections. Here goes.

Ben Comes to Visit

I think I may have mentioned that my brother Ben was planning to come visit me in Adelaide, but if I didn't now I have. He had been working in Hawaii for a state legislator and discovered that it would be fairly reasonable to make his trip back to Chicago stop in Adelaide for 10 days in between. What he didn't realize was that he would be flown over 5 hours of ocean to San Fransisco and then pass right back over the same ocean for a 12 hour flight to Sydney. He took it admirably though and was out to the pub with me with a few hours of arriving. Even though he only had a short trip I decided we would spend the weekend in Melbourne so he could get a little taste of the differences in Australian cities. The trip was amazing and we ended up really spending some great time together. We drank hard and saw lots of sights, from Footy games to picking up strange German hitchhikers the experience merely solidified our bonds that have been growing stronger as we both enter a more mature stage in our lives. By now Ben has entered into a PhD program as the University of Illinois Champaign and I am sure that this journey will be challenging yet rewarding for him. All the best bro.

Wrapping up Adelaide

After Ben left I was left with about a month to go before the dreaded final exams for my classes. In the Australian system these exams are weighted at a much higher level then they are back in the US. My two finals were each worth 60% of their respective classes final grades. Knowing this I dove into my books to prepare for what I knew would be some of the harder tests I have taken. As always I could have done this with a little more vigor and in the end I ended up doing fair on the exams. The lesson learned is that organization of notes and lectures has to begin almost immediately for a really successful result. Still, I left my academic experience in Adelaide with good feelings and respect for a system that might not be the best fit for me but was of the highest caliber. Socially it was tough to have to immerse myself into my studies for those last few weeks but even so I left St. Marks with a handful of close friends who I know will reappear in my life many times in the future. In the end with its pros and cons St. Marks taught me a lot of things about the way my life would have been if I had went to a bigger school instead of Pitzer. I wish I could say I ended up falling in love with Adelaide but unfortunately even with its stately parks and multitude of pubs it strikes me merely as a provincial city with a lack of diversity and culture. Life moves on but my experience in Adelaide, merely a lark decision when in California a year ago, ended up fulfilling my expectations while opening up my eyes in many ways to life outside the US.

Killer Darwin

When exams had ended I had about 24 hours until I had to be out of my dorm but a week until I had to meet my mom and sister in Cairns. I decided to fill this week with a trip to Darwin, an area that had a big group of some of my closest friends I had made in Adelaide. One of these friends was nice enough to let me stay at his place, even though his family was in the initial stages of a move. My days in Darwin were filled with fishing trips, poker nights, funny nightclubs, beautiful treks, and great barbecues. It reminded me of an awesome summer vacation and as each of my friends took me to different places when they had time. If you guys read this Stuch, Liam, and Keegs you guys came through huge. I only hope I can return the favor someday. I left Darwin feeling refreshed and renewed after a tense exam period. Yet my travels were only beginning.

Family Matters

My mom and sister made a big decision to come to see me even though happenings with my dad at work could not let him go. I am glad that we got to have the experience together and even though I wish my dad could have been with us I know there will be many times ahead that we will all be together. In the three weeks they had in Australia we went to Cairns, Airlie Beach, Byron Bay, Newcastle, and Sydney. It was a busy trip with lots of flights and traveling but under the circumstances everyone handled themselves very gracefully. Emma and I had a chance to have a few (legal) drinks together. Mom and I took some good walks. Each new place offered a different experience from rain forest walks to Peking Duck the size of a turkey in Sydney's Chinatown I hope Mom and Emma treasure the experience as much as I do.

Tough lessons with Bovis

In the end my hopes to work with Bovis in Sydney did not end up materializing. This result is as much my own fault as anything but it taught me some useful lessons and I refuse to look at it as a failure. The long and short of it was that even though I had worked hard to prove myself as more then a leech benefiting from nepotism while working for Bovis back in Chicago, that did not translate into so much on the other side of the world. The enormous size of the company makes recommendations from Chicago staff fairly foreign to Australian counterparts. Yet the real lesson I received was one of humility. I realized that while I had worked hard the last couple years to prove to myself and to Bovis that I was a hard worker who could start from the bottom and work my way up I still had a long way to go. This lesson would be furthered in my experiences in New Zealand. I also realized that while it will be difficult I believe that I can be successful. I suppose if I don't believe in this then who else will? No matter where my future with Bovis goes I will never forget the lessons all of my varied experiences with it have taught me and thank all of the people who were willing to take a chance on a kid who on paper had no place in those offices.

Adios Australia

Leaving Australia was bittersweet, I was ready for anew adventure but I really had enjoyed myself while in this interesting country. I could feel myself getting travel weary but I knew once I made it to a new country I would be keen to tackle new adventures. The booking agent at the airport must have sensed my tired legs because she went ahead and bumped me to first class for the trip to New Zealand, I was on my way!

Praneel Comes Through

One of the things that was bringing me to New Zealand was a friend I had made while in Southern Cali. Praneel went to UC-San Diego for a semester and had become friends with one of my good friends from high school, Jimmy Zangrilli. I met him through that relationship and we became friends as well. Praneel had just finished his law degree and was working in Auckland for Ernst and Young. I enjoyed a great welcome to NZ as Praneel took me to a few of the local watering holes . Auckland was alright but after a few days there I was ready to escape the city and see the New Zealand I had been hearing about for the last several months. I think one of the things I learned so far is that there are very few particularly unique cities and that many times they blend together into a somewhat monotonous blur. I left Praneel's couch and jumped on the bus (much more normal people ride buses here then back home) to continue my adventure.

New Experiences Large and Small

I headed South from Auckland to Lake Taupo. This area is a fairly tourist stricken but very beautiful area. One of the activities that the area is known for is skydiving. For a mere 100 USD you can get a sky dive and they throw in a t-shirt and dvd for free. I know it doesn't sound like the kind of thing you should go budget shopping for but having finally after 3.5 years of college fallen into a true poor college student mindset I jumped at the opportunity. The jump was amazing and while I don't really have any burning desire to do another one anytime soon I am glad that I decided to take that risk. I have never been a big fan of huge heights so it really tested my boundaries. Thankfully my 100 sky dive had a good parachute and I am able to write this blog.

I was staying at a backpacker in Taupo and I was already pretty sure that backpackers were not my favorite place to be. I could get past the anonymous hairs one comes upon between the sheets or the lines to take lukewarm showers in the morning but the attitude and culture of these places are not where I am at or what I want to be experiencing on this trip. Getting drunk and getting laid is pretty much to nightly goal of the mostly European travelers I have found in these places. There are definitely exceptions to this rule and as you will read about in the next section (if you make it that far) there are exceptional backpackers as well but they are few and far between. To escape the scene for a couple of nights I decided to take the plunge and try to stay with my first set of SERVAS hosts. For those of you who don't know what SERVAS is here is a brief synopsis. SERVAS is an international peace organization whose goal is to promote peace through mutual understanding of different cultures. Basically one can sign up to become a host or a traveler. All the hosts in one region are put in country specific books with interests, family situations, notice required, etc. and when a traveler is in their area you can call to request to stay for 2 nights with the host. By sitting around the dinner table talking and hopefully engaging in the normal everyday life of the host the traveler is able to gain a window into the perspective of the local individual. I can't say enough about this organization. If anyone is interested check it out at www.servas.org. Anyways I called around and found a older couple who were willing to take me in for a couple nights. My experience with Elsie and Phillip was fascinating. They were semi retired livestock farmers (remember, in NZ sheep greatly outnumber people) who were still raising a limited amount of stock. Each day I would go out and help feed the stock with Philip, riding on the back of the tractor shoveling out hay while he rode up and down the hilly country. Elsie took me on a great day hike to the top of a nearby mountain which was challenging and rewarded us with amazing views. I really enjoyed staying with them. As I life I wrote them a note saying I really felt like I had arrived in NZ after spending that time with them. Being a SERVAS traveler is not a relaxing experience though, it is a commitment to spending lots of time talking and interacting with your host. It can be exhausting at times. I made my way back to the hostel for one more night before making a big jump down to the next stop on my adventure, the south island and Blenheim.

City Hotel

I headed south on the bus once again, this time spending a night in Wellington at the tip of the south island before taking the ferry to Picton at the northern tip of the south island. I then took a quick trip to Blenheim my home for the past two weeks. I was headed to respond to a job notice posted on an online traveler work website. A guy named Damian posted saying he was renovating a hotel and was offering good rates and that there was a ton of work in the city offering pretty good money. It sounded like the right combo to me as my travel funds were running low and I was hoping to really experience lots of the things the south island had to offer. I rolled into the City Hotel two weeks ago and was greeted with a big goofy grin on a really kind looking guy. It turned out that this was Damian and I had made a good choice. He sorted me out with a job and made me feel right at home. I asked him about what the place was going to eventually look like and he hopped from room to room with the glee of a child and I could see the vision in his eyes as clear as the dusty floors and peeling wallpaper. I have met a whole host of great people here at the City Hotel and several I hope to keep in touch with for a long time to come. Chiago my Brazilian roommate, James my South Korean friend from work, Ross and Chris a couple of local Kiwis who are absolute legends, the list goes on and Damian is definitely on it as well. I have settled into a life of work followed by cooking interesting meals and then playing multinational card games at night. Sometimes one nationality group will decide to make a feast for the whole hostel (about 20 people). We have had sashimi from the Japanese, dumplings from the Chinese, streudal from a Czech girl, and fish stew from a Fijian. I really love the community that is fostered in the hostel and feel lucky to have found this place. Adventures have included trips to the beach to collect fresh mussels and oysters for dinner, crazy Brazilian dance parties with lots of drumming and so much dancing my feet hurt in the morning, or even just conversations about the direction of the world and perceptions of every one else's culture. Sitting around the heater the other night (it is fairly cold here) I thought that it would be great to write a book about these conversations and that I am learning as much about sociology and construction of self and the other as I have learned in any classroom.

Wine Boycott

I purposely left out details of my job here in Blenheim because it definitely merits its own section. I am working in the wineries which as revelations in this area of New Zealand. It is the winter here and so the vines are bare. My job is to take large shears, called loppers, and chop away at row after row of vines. Then I rip away the excess dead wood from last year and trim the bud that line the canes that are left for this years crop. It is backbreaking and monotonous work. I am in the vineyard by 7 and out at 5. the pay is based on how much you get done so I only take about 15 minutes a day for lunch and rarely if ever take breaks. All of that said I am really feeling satisfied with this life. I come home tired and sore but I come home feeling like I have worked hard to deserve a decent dinner and a well earned sleep. Shopping through the specials at the supermarket is a reality here, especially when you realize that that piece of meat cost you what you make in a whole hour of hard labor. This really is something I feel is missing from my experience at Pitzer. Growing up in a loving but sheltered suburban existence and attending a school where young people are spending money pretty much with abandon has not really left me a prolonged chance to develop a healthy relationship with money. I really appreciate the enormity of the lessons I am learning here in Blenheim and on this trip and I only hope that I can bring them back with me to the states. Many of the people I am living with do not come from the same culture of plenty Americans are so used to. It is subtle but I have learned that life can be enjoyed just as much is not more on a more reasonable budget. Anyways, I might be rambling a bit but it really has been a significant experience for me.


Future Endeavors

In the next several weeks I will leave Blenheim as the pruning season will expire. I am jumping onto a hop-on/hop-off bus that will take me all over the south island. From there I am hoping to work in a Fiji trip before I head back to Chicago via Sydney. If all goes according to plan I should be home again around the beginning of November. You never know though so I am just taking it one day at a time.




If any of you feel neglected I hope you know I think of you often and care about you heaps. Even though it sounds like a cop out for not being the best at keeping touch, it is fairly difficult to access reasonably priced phones and internet so I have not been able to talk to many of you. I hope this reaches you all well and if you have a minute (even after reading the epic above) drop me a message or email and I will do my best to respond.

Love

Charlie

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