Mikhail’s All-Star World Tour 2006

Snowboarding at Big Sky was a great time, and the perfect way to start my vacation. I got to try out my new snowboard (smooth!), felt myself getting better (finally I can do black diamonds!), and spent some quality time chilling with Matt, Kutta, Stacy, Corey, and Jacob. We stayed at Matt’s family’s cabin, which was very plush, played games, watched Clone Wars, and went for some walks in the snow. One time we ran into a moose - it stood blocking the road and stared at us. We walked towards it slowly as a group and it disappeared.

So there are broken links and formatting issues, but I don’t have time to fix them all right now. I think I’ll send a link to this blog out today (leaving tomorrow), and someday when I have lots of free time at home I’ll polish the appearance.

Maiken and I took off from Seattle on Friday. We left a few hours later than we wanted to because I stayed up all night finishing up some last-minute chores. We got delayed a little more in Portland because the car CD player didn’t work and we stopped by the Apple store in the Pioneer Valley mall (downtown Portland) to pick up some speakers. One piece of advice: if you’re ever in Portland, don’t eat in that mall’s food court. Worst lunch I’ve had in months, even for fast food. But maybe it’s my own fault - I tried the sketchy wraps place instead of going for the ever-reliable McChicken. Cold marinated mushrooms from a can and cold once-fried onions can really ruin a cheesesteak.

The rest of the drive through Oregon was much more enjoyable, especially with music, and we made it to California by the end of Friday. We stopped for the night in Mt. Shasta (the town), next to Mt. Shasta (the big pile of earth and snow). On Saturday morning we woke up to 4″ of fresh snow. We walked a few blocks down the street to get a feeling for the town’s character; it seemed touristy but chill in a Northern California kind of way. We didn’t get far on foot - the cold quickly sent us back to the car. So we got breakfast at a local cafe and drove on towards the Bay Area.

We’d been hoping to make it to the O.C. by dinnertime, where Maiken’s sister Julie promised to make us dinner, but we were already running late and the side trip to the Bay Area slowed us down even more. I-5 goes pretty far east of SF, so it took about 3 hours to make it over the San Mateo bridge and then back to I-5. We met up with Gabi and her boyfriend Justin at an In’N'Out in Burlingame, had some excellent burgers with shakes, then headed back out on the road. Maiken calls it the longest In-N-Out meal ever, but I’m glad we made the detour - it was good to see Gabi (on her birthday, no less), and the familiar scenery.

Driving through the Central Valley was uneventful - a straight road with lots of trucks. Things got more interesting as we approached LA. It was snowing in the mountains - apparently the first good snow of an otherwise dismal skiing season. Down in the valley, the snowfall turned into a rainstorm, and so I remember my first drive through LA as a blur of neon lights reflected on wet pavement, passing and being passed by countless cars, seeing “Disneyland Drive” on an exit sign. Honestly, the traffic wasn’t too bad - apparently this was the first time Maiken was on that road without being stopped for hours. We were only stuck in two places for five minutes - lucky us.

By the time we got to Julie’s place in Laguna Niguel, it was around 11:30 pm and we were dead beat. Julie was very nice about us being late (we had called to tell her we’d be missing dinner). She had the guest room ready for us, so we cleaned up and passed out.

This will probably be the longest blog entry I’ll write - who knows when I’ll have this much free time with a computer. Well, maybe in the next couple of days.

Today is a lazy Sunday. We slept in, got brunch with Julie at a diner - my first meal since In-N-Out, so I really enjoyed that omelette. Then we stopped to get supplies for dinner and to run random errands. Now I’m chilling out by the pool with Maiken’s laptop; it’s sunny and feels like 75 degrees.

I haven’t been to Orange County before, and the parts of it I saw today don’t seem too different from the nicer suburbs in the Midwest, like Glenview in Illinois or parts of West Des Moines, or Bellevue in Washington, or Menlo Park in the Bay Area. Maybe it’s a little bit nicer yet in some ways - even more expensive stores, hotels, and cars. Definitely the great climate. Definitely the beach. More diversity than the Midwest. Earthquakes mentioned in casual conversation. So it’s not the same as the other places, but there isn’t too much cause for culture shock either - it’s about what I expected.

I never had a dog while growing up - grandparents were allergic to the fur and confining an animal to a small apartment for most of the day didn’t seem humane. I like dogs, but I’m not really used to them, and some dog owner behavior is just downright confusing to me: one minute they’re baby-talking in a saccharine voice (”Hi there sweetie, who’s mommy’s cutie pie?”) and the other minute they’re dragging the poor critter around by the neck. Still, I’ve held on to the possibility of having a dog someday, maybe when I have a house.

Now I’m staying in a house with two dogs, and I’m getting a preview of pet ownership. Julie has a broken-haired Jack Russell terrier named Jackie, and her boyfriend Tim has a rottweiler named Meat. When we wake up in the morning and crack the door open, Jackie bolts in and hops on the bed; she’s hyper but cute. Meat is chill, he matches my personality better.

Yesterday we went dog-walking twice: first on the beach with Jackie (Meat was too big for the car drive down) and then around the neighborhood with both dogs. Laguna Beach scenery is picture-perfect: we walked past a complex where Gwen Stefani had her wedding shower and I’m sure I’ve seen some of the other buildings on TV. The beach was full of other dogs and people who wanted to pet Jackie. Some guys meet girls by taking the dog to the park, and now I see how that works - everyone wants to talk to you when you’re attached to a cute, curious, playful furball.

Later I was strolling down a suburban side-street with Meat on a leash, and a lady with two big brown dogs was walking toward us. “Come on by and say hi”, she said, “they’re very friendly.” The situation seemed harmless: her dogs wagged their tails, Meat ambled over, sniffed, and then, when he was only a foot away, snarled madly and tried to eat one of the dogs’ heads. I had to yank him away, scorching my fingers with the leash. “Sorry, guess he’s not in a social mood today.” We hastily got out of there. My future dog will have to be a little smaller than Meat.

I had some time in the last couple of days to plan the rest of my Europe trip. I used the Yahoo trip planner to track all the trains/flights/accomodations and various notes. There’s still more to add, but the trip is finally taking shape. Now it’s four of us for Amsterdam-Berlin-Prague-Amsterdam: me, Kenny, EVK, and dblack. And now I’m stopping in Paris for a few days too.

I had an Australia itinerary from earlier as well:

Flew into New Zealand yesterday morning at 7am, picked up our car and drove down to Matamata, where the Hobbiton scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed. Driving around New Zealand is unreal - crazy trees, green rolling hills, really high speed limits (what’s a “kilometer” anyway) and traffic-safety propaganda billboards everywhere. “Lose your confidence, save your life”, “Locals crash too”, etc. Driving on the wrong side is easy (once the jet lag wore off), sitting in the passenger side with a steering wheel is a bit trickier.

Matamata is a tiny town (~10K people), and the LOTR tour is their biggest draw. I usually detest tourist attractions, but this one is straight up my alley - I’ve read those books countless times in Russian & English, I liked the movies, and now I actually got to walk around the Shire, crawl into a hobbit-hole, stand on the road where Gandalf rode in with his fireworks wagon. Totally made me feel like a kid inside my favorite cartoon. Too bad $2 NZD only buys me 15 min of internet in this old-school arcade-style machine, or I’d try to post pictures too.

I’m writing this from a hostel in Taupo (resort town on a mountain lake) where we stayed. Off to more adventures…

Yesterday was another sunny late-summer day; we drove down to a scenic loop that goes around the plains. The scenery is incredible, and it changes every hour as you drive, one landscape after another: first rolling green hills with groves of trees, then a deep evergreen forest, then the pines give way to tall oaks, then you’re on curvy mountain roads, then you reach a plateu of wild grass with exotic sword-leaf bushes, then green hills again - this time covered with sunlit sheep. And in the background: Mount Doom. Definitely the best drive I’ve been on.

After all that hectic sight-seeing for the past couple of days, and finishing the scenic drive this morning, we decided to take it slow in the town of Rotorua. The locals call it “Roto-Vegas” because it’s an ultra-commercial tourist trap, and I guess we fell for it. Really, it has little in common with Vegas, just a bunch of tourist shops like Pier 49 or Pike Place Market. No gambling, prostitution, or nightlife anywhere I could see - the town was practically closed down at 7pm on Sunday.

What Rotorua does have is underground thermal activity, geysers and boiling mud pits that release copious volumes of sulfur into the atmosphere, the consequent ever-present smell, and a Polynesian Spa where we spent Sunday afternoon moving from one hot tub to another. I finally got some sun (looking less like a Seattlite every day), and a bit of reading time.

Today we slept in Tauranga and now we’re off to Auckland, to the airport for our Sydney flight….

Hey Brendan, your town is the bomb! We walked around Circular Quay, had some great quasi-Danish “Copenhagen” ice cream, took countless pictures of the Opera House and a few of the Bridge, saw Hyde Park, shopped for beach towels on George Street, and chilled in the Botanical Gardens. Lunch and dinner were both with a view of the harbor.

There’s a historic neighborhood called “the Rocks”, with some of Australia’s oldest buildings (early to mid-1800s). “Cadman’s house” is a nondescript white building given the full landmark treatment, with displays explaining “archeological” digs that uncovered a 150-year-old toothbrush and revealed that this house’s chimney was a later addition. Yeah, it’s a young country - even younger than the US. After seeing this we walked under the Bridge and stumbled upon Garrison Church, packed with much cooler displays of recent history - trophies and memorabilia of Australia’s involvement in 20th century wars.

Culinary discoveries: apparently people here think that an “egg and sausage roll” goes great with a cappucino in the morning, since this is the standard breakfast combo. We tried some game: croc tastes like chicken and kangaroo is a tougher meat. Both were worth trying just for the sake of trying, but I was glad it was just an appetizer - a cow steak will do just fine, thanks. And I remain addicted to Coke Zero, which comes in bottles with black labels here.

Sydney feels like a very happy city: sunny, green, new, beautifully designed. The most memorable part for me is walking around the harbor - yes, it’s a travel cliche, but for a good reason.