I'm melting.......melting

Yes, it has been awhile, but i have been busy swimming my way around the adriatic. now, i am in rome, and it is sweltering. And some man is currently amusing himself with my dirty underwear as i type. i just paid one million dollars to get some washing done. Sally doesn't blink an eyelid at what ever anything costs, but she is a rich lawyer. Sigh. Maybe one day i will be a rich lawyer, and not be such a penny pincher.

But rome seems cool. i got my favourite photo of me on this whole trip taken today. We just arrived in via train from ancona, we got a bit stuck there last night when we got off the ferry and there was just no transport anywhere, so we hiked 2kms or so with our packs to our grungy hostel. i suppose that's not that far. but i hadn't had dinner, and you know what i'm like. Well maybe you don't. i need FOOD.

So, anyway, we've just got in rome. And the photo. i found this giant watermelon under the station, roma termini. There's a supermarket under it. And this watermelon would be, ummm, the size of, three of my heads. I struggled to left it. So i got sal to take a photo of me right there in the midst of all those pushy people. Mi scusi. You are in my bubble.

I'm so hot i'm lightheaded. A bit, whoa, floaty, sweeeeeeeeeet bro. But the placed we are staying in here is nice, i am learning some italian, and tomorrow we are going to pompeii.

my free internet is about to run out. Aroha nui.

p

ps this site is all in italiano, but i've become so proficient with t he language it ain't holding me back none.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIMMY

I hope you had a great one, and you dorking boys got my postcard. Sorry this is a little late nz time, but i was thinking of you and i hope you had a great time in the sounds.

i will write an update tomorrow in heathrow hopefully, at the moment i am on one million dollar a minute internet. bloody pounds to nz dollar conversion......

okay, hope being 26 is totally awesome and makes you even more of a double hard bastard.

love b

Where is my castle???

Well, it appears that my clan may not be quite so important as i thought it was. We have coasters, scarves, fridge magnets and key rings, but not a book. All the important clans seem to get books, and wall crests. I did read a bit about the boy/Mac's clan and it appears he is from one of the important clans. Many hundreds of years ago the big chief from his clan came to the region where my ancestors were from and married my big chief's daughter....it doesn't make me feel dirty. Not even the slightest. I know people from the Naki who have done "it" with family from the same generation after all...

Ummm, yes, so we're in Edinburgh. Got a train from Glasgow this morning. Ireland was fantastically hot and treated us very well. Glasgow was very pleasant and sunny as well, our hostel was really nice. Edinburgh, i've pulled out both jerseys and my jacket today. And tomorrow we're heading north and into the hills for a day tour round to find that monster. If i get a photo of her i will eventually post it. Probably i will be riding it.

Feeling a bit perkier this afternoon, i think maybe because i bought a nice dress to wear in croatia and italy and eastern europe where we will be places for three or 4 nights at a time rather than living this eternal bedouin existence. Also, its a damn nice dress. But its a bit cold to wear it here. I'm a little frightened about the financial situation, it is very hard to keep the spending down with the difference between the pound and nz dollar, as they seem to be almost equivalent. or i am a dopey tourist whos getting ripped off. But who really gives a shit, i'm not likely to be back here again and on holiday for 2 and a half months again for awhile. And mostly i've been buying presents for other people....

We have almost been mistaken for australians twice today. unfortunately, the americans mistaking us for british doesn't work over here.

Lauren has left us to be an auntie. The nice hostel boy managed to switch mel so she was in our room so i gave him a cream egg.

Pretty soon we're going out to brave the cold. We're seeing the castle and a bit more of edinburgh (with the bus tour we took today as our basis on sunday). Hope this is mildly coherent. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

x
pix

Ireland

Sorry, i have 11 minutes of internet left, and i'm not going to try and be clever and creative. Pounds are very expensive. We are in Northern Ireland now, after a few days in Eire, which i really really liked. We have hired a car, and drove from Dublin (after a pint at the guiness factory) to Kilkenny and this amazing monstrous castle. I will i was clever enough to post the photos, but we honestly had to walk back the length of a football field to contain it all in a photo. And the inside had been painstakingly restored so the fabrics and patterns on the wallpaper and furnishings matched how it had been decked out when it was a 19 century home to the Butler family, who were quite definitive in Irish history, and their were a few familiar names from tudor steward history, the charles' and james' etc.
We went and looked at the tip of northern ireland yesterday, after a very unceremonious crossing of the border. But people do seem different here, slightly more guarded, less bonny. We had a look around the giants causeway, which is supposed to be about 6 million years old, a bunch of rock formations on the coast which smelt like red rocks with those dirty seals, and as Sally said, maybe not as impressive as the pinnacles at the south of the north island in new zealand. (They were after all the setting for the paths of the dead in the lord of the rings)
Today we are doing a tour of belfast, hopefully getting a good dose of that history that i learnt way back in 5th form. Actually it looks like the bus is getting ready to leave.
Thank you so much for your emails. i'm a little ashamed of those stabs of homesickness i get every now and again, especially when i'm trying to get hold of people on the phone and my timing sux....but the emails help significantly!
I haven't been drunk in ireland yet but there's still time. If i wasn't so bloody tired.....
Oh and i talked to jacob the other day, night, morning whenever the hell it was and he was so cute. Everything i told him, about the time difference, the castle, was "hoooooly". Usually it's quite difficult to get him animated on the telephone.
i feel like perhaps we've done more than this, but it's a quick glimpse at our whirlwind tour of ireland. We fly out early in the morning to glasgow. i'm quite excited about that, as both sides of my family are scottish.....although my family had been in nz since the 1860s.
I'm just trying to take it all easy, and just be in a place, rather than rushing around like a mad woman like in the US. i think that's the way to go.
xxx
b

Sally lost on the sub...

So we've moved to a backpackers that is a million times better than our hotel. And we've got a great afternoon planned for our last one in the big apple. Sally and I are off to the Metropolitan museum of art.. Well, first we were going to check our emails here at apple land. And on the sub she starts telling me this amusing story about the time Joe hit her in the eye. Well, it was accidentally of course.
Sally: I think this might be our stop (in her measured, she'll be right kind of way)
Me: oh shit!

What happens next is in retrospect, not as funny as i found it at the time. I leapt off my seat and out on to the platform. I turned around to see a sad faced sally waving at me through the window as she was whisked off to the next stop. I'm giggling. It's comical. And i finally feel as if i'm starting to fit in to this crazy land as the people around me stare at me quizzically while i laugh to myself. And then i sit. And wait. And wait some more. And she doesn't come back.

So if you weren't me, and you were sensible, you'd have jumped on the next sub to catch up to her right. And that's what i'm sure she was thinking. Unfortunately, my first instinct was to wait for her to turn around and come back to the right stop. By the time i figured out i was probably meant to be the one doing the moving, and then moved, it had all gone horribly wrong. I couldn't see her lanky frame anywhere. And she wasn't here at the apple shop where we planned to go next. And so I went to the Met alone thinking we'd catch each other up.

It was amazing. Probably a day or two's worth to see rather than an afternoon. 15 minutes before closing i sat out at what i hope was the sole entrance and waited to see her emerge. I waited half an hour. And still no Sally. She probably got carted out to Queens where she was mugged and left without her memory and now i will have to go to the crazy little precinct in times square and say i lost my friend.

Okay, i'll try our hostel. I need a wine.

Sesame street porn

I forgot to say that the broadway show was cool and funny, but not orthodox i think. There were muppets in it, that sang, and two of them got it on in a very pornographic sort of way. But the muppets interacted with the real people. Not in a pornographic way. That would be crossing a line.

After the show, the theatre next to us had a limo parked outside, and out rocked julia roberts. I saw her. Well, I saw the top of her head....

Bird flu

I am in NY with a nasty cold and a slight fever. We stayed in bed until midday, which seems like a bit of a waste, but I have been dragging my ass round central park and the guggenheim as it is. Poor Sally, i must be such a drag. Bit fevery, very runny nose. And i don't know where the hell my appetite has gone! Oh well, the park was really nice. The modern art was mostly not my thing.

A mouse got into Sally's backpacks and ate her pineapple lumps. We told them this morning and they are going to change our room. I was relieved at how shocked they were. Afterall, this is probably the most we are paying for any accommodation the entire trip. It's a bit rough being rodent invaded.

I saw a million squirrells. they scramble up the tree trunks like lizards.

It isn't so hot today. That is a relief.

Got an american hotdog out of one of those wagons. Will probably get a bout of food poisoning now to accompany my cold.

Tomorrow I want to go to the Met museum, which is back in the park. And to the public library, which is meant to be amazing. And i want to buy a handbag. And Lou an I love NY tshirt. And maybe do one of those tours around on the buses. Then the next afternoon we are flying to Dublin.

Thanks for emailing me. I am the teensiest bit missing home. It was nice being around some trees today.