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Published: February 20th 2013
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21st Birthday!
Although not the traditional 21st birthday, my head felt a lot better the day after my birthday then most 21 year olds. Whew it's been a while--almost exactly two months--since I've written a blog. Let's see if I can remember how to write one.
I love bears. In China, I got to hold and kiss a panda bear. In Australia, I plan on holding a koala bear. And, this winter, I hybernated the winter away just like a polar bear. To those of you reading this thinking that there is no way I literally slept as much as a polar bear this winter, you are wrong. I would wake up around 6 or 7pm, just in time for dinner (sometimes I missed dinner when the dinner table just felt too far away), and then after crawl back upstairs to my room to watch a Netflix documentary or two before falling asleep for the night. Now multiply that by two months, and not only have I watched just about every Netflix movie there is, but I've also stored up on sleep for the months ahead.
My parents tried to get rid of me a couple of times. To be honest, they kind of sent mixed messages. They'd yell at me for sleeping too much, but then when I was awake they would
Edna Mode
Now is that Edna Mode, or is that Edna Mode. Note the red onesie, and of course, no capes! yell because I wasn't sleeping. My mom has this theory that her productivity is inversely related to mine but I just think she gets easily distracted. Anyways, my parents first shipped me off for a week of snowboarding with my aunt in Colorado. For those of you who haven't met my Aunt Mamie, just picture Edna Mode from Pixar's
The Incredibles. I'm not kidding--strangers have stopped her to tell her she looks just like Edna Mode. Anyways, Mamie and I actually worked perfectly together because we are both professonal lazy bums. Without the drill sargeant (my mother) yelling at me to get out on the slopes at 8 am every morning, I was very lucky to even have an eye open when the lifts started moving. Mamie and I would wake up, have some coffee, watch TV, and eventually make it out onto the slopes (which was literally a 15 second walk from the front door) by about 10 am. Mamie and I also work well for ski trips together because we both don't like to ski together. We'd meet up at the end of the day to watch some football and drink wine and beer, as I turned 21
Superbowl Sunday
A sad day for all true 49ers fans, although maybe now we'll get rid of all the band wagoners. in Colorado. Plus, Mamie always has great traveling stories, from the time she threw away part of a car to the time when she stole a German's luggage to crawling out of a passenger car window, there is never a dull Mamie moment.
I think after Colorado my parents hoped I'd be more motivated to enjoy my break. Every day my mom would come into my room and say things like, "you know, there is never going to be another January 27, 2013, and you slept straight through it!" When that didn't work, my mom decided it was time for me to go to Florida, which worked out perfectly for me as I took the opportunity to get scuba certified and test out my new GoPro, which I got for Christmas.
I sold my soul to the devil My mom was nice enough to buy me a plane ticket to Florida in exchange for me building her new company a fancy website when I return from Australia in addition to taking pictures and videos of Olivia's new horse, Viva 2.0 (Olivia broke Viva 1.0), who is currently in training in Florida. Unfortunately for me, although I got to relax
My new GoPro!
Taking my new camera for a spin in a Florida river. with Mamie, my mom's side of the family whooped me into shape. The first day I stayed with my Uncle Kent, who tried killing me as early as 9 am by taking me for a 7 mile hike across all of Florida aka the beach.
Although only a brief visit to Florida, I used my time wisely, and was able to fit in seeing most of my Florida-based relatives, horse back riding, snorkeling with my cousin in Rainbow River, a bonfire, herding, castrating, tagging, and administering shots to my grandfather’s cattle, and a few arguments regarding the validity of global warming (I was cornered by 4 Republicans who blame the rising temperatures on magma and lava). And, of course, it wouldn’t be a visit to the farm without playing Mexican dominoes, at which the object of the game is to end up with the least amount of points but apparently I decided to play collect as many points as you can. Needless to say, I lost pretty much every hand. The good news is is that I think my grandfather was also playing collect-as-many-points-as-you-can, so we ended up teaming up against my cousin Austin who kept winning every hand.
Viva 2.0
His real name is Mega Man, but everyone needs a nickname. I’m not so sure my cousin enjoyed the game too much. My grandfather doesn’t like to lose.
Saturday and Sunday in Florida were spent getting scuba certified. It was kind of hard getting back into school mode after being on vacation for two months, but I managed to get all 250 pages of reading and the 2 DVDs worth of footage of the pre-class work done beforehand.
On a serious note, going into the class I was pretty prepared to die after all the reading I had done, which stated all the different ways you could get yourself blown up scuba diving. Running out of air, coming up too fast, not going to the dentist often enough, and breathing too much oxygen were just some of the issues. When we got to class, the instructor wasn’t there yet, and the four other people in the class were comparing notes. One guy bragged he’d had two bananas the night before and two bananas for breakfast to get his potassium up, to which another guy replied he was kind of worried because he’d only had three bananas in the last two days. I quickly racked my brain to see if
Big Mac
Adorable now, and delicious later. A win-win situation. I’d had a single banana in the last two months, and when I remembered that all the bananas went straight into the mouth of my dog Biscuit, I started to panic that my banana intake was unsatisfactory and thus I was going to die. It doesn't help that I'm severely allergic to all fruits, vegetables, exercise, and anything else that's good for your body. I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to the dentist so I was pretty convinced by the time we got in the pool either my lack of bananas or lack of seeing my dentist was going to get me killed.
Despite the odds being stacked against me, I managed to survive scuba diving to pass with flying colors, coming within 1 point of scoring a perfect 100 on my final written exam (I would have been one of the only people to ever do it at that dive shop). But, I was playing "Pocket Planes" on my iPhone when the instructor gave us a freebie answer, and of course that's the only one I missed. I blame Olivia for introducing me to that addicting game.
Alright this is quickly becoming a very long blog entry, so I'll cut it off here. Plus my plane leaves soon and I wouldn't quite use the words "all packed" yet. Thanks for reading my blogs for the past 8 months, and here's to an exciting 6 months in Australia (with hopefully just as exciting blog posts)--my final stop on my year long study abroad!
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
We missed you...
with your sleep schedule you don't have to suffer jet lag twice.