Misc pics - Bora Bora & Moorea

Sorry - no time to write. Check out these pics though. French Polynesia is easily one of the most beautiful destinations I have ever seen. This is one of my favorite countries and a must see destination! Oui. Oui.

Raietae

view of Bora Bora and general view. Both from amazing lookout.

Huahine

Ancient temple with view and view of island

The Cook Islands – Raring to go in Rarotonga

We have had a ton of crazy adventures over the past few days. We’ve hitchhiked all over the islands and met some really nice people. While in Rarotonga, we hitched a ride with a developer of a luxury resort chain. He brought us to a private beach, let us use sea kayaks, and gave us the run of the place.

Tahiti - Welcome to Paradise

Haven't had a minute to update. Went scuba diving five times on five different islands. In Tahiti, one dive was a wreck dive that involved going into an airplane and out of its cockpit and then onto an old sunken boat. The cruise boat is nice – if not a little gluttonous. Don’t think cruising is really our thing though. The islands are extremely beautiful and the weather is just perfect.

Bungy!

This was definitely one of the scarier things I have done in my life. Not much to tell except I jumped off a bridge that was 43m high and lived to tell about it. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO! The adrenaline was pumping for the next 2 hours. It was cool, but I don’t need to do it again.

It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s Super Dania (and Greg)

Queenstown is the adventure sports capital of New Zealand. It was a perfect day, so we decided to see the area from above. Hang gliding starts with a run off of a pretty steep hill. The flight lasted about ten minutes with our pilots throwing in some pretty wild acrobatics. I went first. After landing, I could hear Dania screaming with fear/delight a few hundred feet above.

Craziest Little Movie Theater

We visited the cutest town called Wanaka. It’s right on a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains studded with trees flaunting their autumnal colors. Can you believe I just wrote that? Anyhow, we were told a movie viewing at quirky Cinema Paradisio is a must. All seating is on couches or in an old car parked at the front of the theater. At intermission, they have huge fresh-from-the-oven cookies that are apparently quite famous. My white chocolate ginger cookie did not disappoint.

Take a Hike… On a Glacier.

This was easily one of the coolest things we have done during our travels. That is "cool" both as in 1) “gnarly” as our straight out of Deliverance guide liked to describe it and 2) straight up cold. It was a full day of hiking, climbing, slipping, sliding, and ice picking. We wore crampons on our boots to better hold the ice. I probably snapped two hundred pics to bring you these beauts. Totally gnarly - man.

New Zealand – All about the outdoors

In NZ, you can go cave rafting with glow worms (priority numero-glo-uno), bungee jumping, canyoning, skydiving, river rafting, abseiling, tramping (aka hiking), zorbing (one of those big plastic balls that you go tumbling down a hill in), etc. Basically, you name it. They’ve got it. This pic is from us kayaking in Abel Tasman national park. We kayaked in and "tramped" out.

Swimming with Dolphins

Kaikoura is a marine animal lovers wet dream (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun). There are seals, whales, dolphins, and penguins in abundance. We opted for Dolphin Encounter. The first part involved a speed boat dropping us in the middle of a pod of dolphins. We were told to dive, swim in circles, and make ridiculous squeaking noises to attract the dolphins. Tons of them swam by – often within a foot. Once they passed, we would load up in the boat again and give chase. At one point, we were dropped off in a pod of 400 dolphins. The second part involved us watching the dolphins from the boat – where I snapped these photos. We saw a seal too.

Oh Christ! That is Christchurch

It’s the biggest town in New Zealand’s South Island. Very English looking. It’s Fall in New Zealand with a bit of a chill and changing leaves. It’s a little refreshing after our thus far endless summer.

Great Barrier Disappointment

We signed up for an expensive four day scuba certification course that included 2days/1night on a nice overnight boat on the Great Barrier Reef. We were not only supposed to be fully Open Water certified after the course, but were also supposed to get a fun dive (the whole point of going out to the reef). We spent the entire time doing certification because the instructor aborted two dives due to incompetence. Dania still has to do one more dive to get Open Water certified. We might as well have been in NYC’s East river. Also, the bathroom in our room was absolutely rank. I complained and received a free day of diving certificate good in Cairns, Australia. Good for us only - through Feb 2008. This, after we told the guy we were leaving the country the next day and not planning to come back anytime soon. Thanks Deep Sea Divers Den. Thanks a lot.

Anti Semitism - Alive and Well in Oz

"Do you know where the temple is?" I guess the conversation started off innocently enough. Dania and I were walking down the street minding our own business, when one of two Australian guys asked said question. We replied that we had just arrived in Cairns this morning and didn’t know. Encouraged, by a lack of an "I have no idea" response, he asked if we were Jewish. I responded "yes." He responded with an abrupt and hateful "that’s a big nose you’ve got." We just walked away.

This is the first time something like this has ever happened to us, and it happened so fast. Aside from ruining the end of a nice day learning to scuba dive, it left us confused. Should I have just denied we were Jewish not knowing whether there was trouble? Or would I have been upset with myself later that I denied who I am? What if we had been met with violence instead of words?

Sailing the Whitsunday Islands

This was a real treat. We had great weather for this 2day/2night sailing trip. All told, the boat slept 32 people - talk about cozy. I made sure we had the honeymoon suite - one of two sleeping berths that could remotely be termed "private." The scenery was amazing, and we did some decent snorkels. Dania even steered the boat for a good 20 minutes!

Sandcastle Heaven

Fraser Island is the largest island composed of sand in the world - measuring 120 km long and 20 km wide. The beach doubles as a highway for all the tourists that come. It was neat hurtling down the beach at 80 km/hr in an all terrain vehicle. There were several beautiful fresh water lakes with very white sand. There is also a cool shipwreck on the island. Lots of neat wildlife too.

Herb is the word

Nimbin is the hippie capital of Australia. It even has its own hemp “embassy” and hemp museum. People walk around bare foot, have drum circles in parks, and offer “hydro” bud every 10m. Dealing was taking place like crazy in the hemp museum. Baggies, scales, and everything…

The hippie (pictured w/ Dania) in the hemp embassy really provided an education and had a ton of good lines. Say NO (that is K-N-O-W) to drugs, with the “KNOW” being some ridiculous acronym. The embassy is also a “referral center.” He “refers” people to the park for amphetamines, the alley for shrooms, etc.

I finally have a place to put my needles!

These things are everywhere in Australia. So the story goes – a park cleaner picked up a bag of trash, was poked by a discarded needle, and then contracted AIDS. Thus was born the let’s encourage shooting up in public bathrooms movement. Nice…

Brisbanal?

Brisbane. Never heard of it? Neither had I. It’s Australia’s 3rd largest and fastest growing city. I liked it. Dania gives it a tepid review. It’s undergoing a massive building boom, has signs of culture and design popping up in places, and has a real lived in feel (people always out and about).

Seeing stars

In a bid to make sure that we never have to come back, Dania and I spent the last three days seeing everything still on our Sydney list. Highlights were a cruise around the Harbor and the Sydney Observatory. The latter involved learning about the distinctive southern sky (the constellations are different). We were able to see Saturn through a powerful telescope, which was pretty neat.

The sailboat photo is from the cruise. It was hard to take because we were moving, and the sailboat was moving. I rather like it. The sailboat balances the North Head land mass and the proportion of water to sky seems about right. I can sign a very limited number of copies when I get home.

Bridge Climb

We walked across Harbour Bridge earlier this week to celebrate its 75^th B-day. We also had the opportunity to walk on and over it a few days later! We had an amazing time during this really unique adventure. They should introduce something similar in the US. A big thanks to Rob & Jake for hooking up a wedding present that is one heck of a memory!

The Sneaker Museum

I wish I was kidding, but the pics don't lie. I forgot to post these from our visit to Melbourne. We 've crossed some kind of boundary by displaying sneakers as an art form. Look at the displays. The shoes even have numbers for little write ups. So cute!

Happy Birthday Bridge. Happy Birthday to you.

We have participated in SO many neat celebrations while in Australia. The 75^th anniversary of Sydney’s Harbour Bridge has to be one of the most unique and cool celebrations in which I have ever participated.

The entire bridge was closed for traffic. Several hundred thousand people had to sign up more than a month in advance to walk across at an appointed time. We nabbed a spot to walk across at sunset – during the aboriginal bridge smoking ceremony. We were not disappointed. Beautiful aboriginal music was played, enveloping smoke & incense were lit, funky orange hats with powerful lights were passed out, and the bridge was lit colorfully. It was a sea of humanity and everyone was in a good mood.

Survey says: 95% of Aussies have catching up to do

"Oh, my, that's ambitious. I have to say that you will have done far more of Australia than 95% of the Australian population, including me!"


This is Shane Dikoli's (Fuqua Professor extraordinaire from Australia) response upon hearing about our two week itinerary after school. It's all probably Greek (errr Australian) to you, but you'll get the picture.... Fraser Island camping trip, Whitsunday's Islands sailing trip, learning to scuba on Great Barrier reef, Byron Bay (beautiful hippie beach hangout), Gold Coast (like Miami or Punta), and Brisbane (3rd largest city).


Planning it was like having two extra classes. The itinerary includes two night buses. Ugh!! I was dragged off one at 3am (after having taken 3 tylenol PMs - which still didn't work) while crossing the Russian/Estonian border a few years ago. I swore not to take a night bus again, but my new friend Ambien has assured me that everything will be a-OK.

Aussie Rules Football

This game is awesome. Dania and I went to the semi final of the pre-season tournament while in Melbourne. The game is very physical, fluid, and played on a massive field. A great sport to watch.

What a pinecone!

Have you ever seen the likes?

Dania & Cute Koala – Errr… Cute Dania & Koala

Let’s just call both of them cute. Here are the two cuties right next to each other. Taken in the wild on the Great Ocean Road drive near Melbourne.