Well, in less than twelve hours, I'm heading off to the south island for 16 days of fun and excitement. I'd reveal more details, except that I know that my mother reads this blog and any mention of "danger" or "peril" or "girls with low self esteem" would reinforce her hypochondria. So instead, I'll just say that I look forward to proving that I'm not a chicken during these next two weeks.
Sadly, this means that I'll be taking a 16 day break from the 'Stravaganza. Have no fear, I'll be back in no time with plenty more stories to tell. In the meanwhile, I offer you this piece that I just wrote for "Dan" at cafeabroad.com.
So back on the Cafe Abroad front, my protestacular has progressed nicely. I wrote the following article in hopes that "Dan" will reconsider hiring me for the position of travel journalist. Well, if I don't get this job, Peter Gammons will look back on "Dan's" decision and compare it to when the Yankees could have signed Big Papi back in '02.
And yes, I know that I repeat a couple of my classic Max-isms (Max-ims, maybe?). You know, Manet/Monet and Paxton/Pullman. But "Dan" from Cafe Abroad hasn't heard them yet. And if NBC Must See Thursday has taught us anything, it's that if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.
Caves, Skis and Glow Worms (Oh My)
By Max Davison
My philosophy for study abroad was quite simple: Do what I can’t normally do at home. For a sheltered Los Angeles boy now residing in Auckland, this shouldn’t prove too difficult. I mean, in Auckland there’s no smog, no sales tax and no foolish lawsuits. Although neither city has a baseball team that can manage to make the playoffs, so it feels like home in that regard. Last weekend, I took a trip that demonstrated the full range of what New Zealand has to offer. In a period of a day and a half, I went from the bowels of the earth to the top of the world, literally.
The trip started down in Waitomo, a town on the west coast of New Zealand’s north island. It is best known for the glowworm caves, and that’s exactly what I went for. I got into my wet suit and harness and strapped on a miner’s helmet (complete with light) and marched down 90 meters into the earth. It had been raining heavily that day, so the water level inside the caves was four times higher than it normally was. Lucky me.
The first step is to repel down a steep waterfall, made extra slippery by the increased rain. Getting blasted in the face with water while jumping down a rock wall perfectly set the tone for the rest of the excursion. Walking through the caves, we had to squeeze our bodies through tiny crevices. I imagine that’s what being born must have felt like. Our group only had four people in it, so it felt like a personal, guided tour of the Waitomo Caves. I also finally learned the difference between stalactites and stalagmites; something that I think 75% of the population gets wrong (similar to Manet and Monet or Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman). So to clear it up, stalactites go down while stalagmites go up. Turning the lights out, we saw the glow worms on the walls of the caves. They looked like a glow in the dark constellations. Sadly, flash photography was prohibited, but that makes the memory that much more powerful.
The rock climbing was exhausting, the heights were terrifying and the darkness was enough to make a man go crazy. It was probably one of the best experiences of my life. In the end, I stared claustrophobia in the eye. And he blinked first.
After staying the night in a hostel (Note: recently hostels have gotten a bad name. But so far, I haven’t encountered any gory underground violence rings) we set out in the morning for Mt. Ruapehu. This goes down as one of the key moments in my life, since for the first time ever, the Southern California boy finally saw snow. I snow suited up and after a two hour lesson on the basic points of skiing, I was ready to hit the slopes. Heading down the first hill I felt fantastic. But then I started to move faster than an overeager teenager on a third date. I was picking up speed at an alarmingly fast rate. I started going faster and faster and faster still.
Perhaps it’s because I was so disoriented by the snow or maybe it had something to do with my short, MTV-generation attention span, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how to stop. I tried to think back to the instructor’s lesson, but all that I could come up with was an image of Ned Flanders in a revealing body suit. Luckily, there was an unsuspecting eight year old that I was able to turn into a makeshift anchor and I avoided Sonny Bono-ing into the oncoming mountain. So I picked myself up and made sure that none of my friends saw that tumble. I apologized to the kid, took a deep breath, and got on the lift to head back down the hill, which I did four more times (each more skillfully than the next, I must add).
There aren’t many places in the world where one day you can be under the earth’s surface and skiing in the mountains the next. In the course of a single weekend, I faced my fears of enclosed spaces, heights, drowning, and abominable snowmen and I’m a stronger person for it. And people say that going abroad is going to be scary.
Oh, I've also found a new nickname that could potentially catch on: Maxcalibur. Thoughts?
See you in 16. And when I come back, I want to see the Dodgers in first place, the A's in the Wild Card hunt, and maybe the last two episodes of "Entourage" will be awesome.
-MGD
That's what she said of the day:
(A classic from Michael Scott)
Jim: Does that mean no more "that's what she said?"
Michael: Yes.
Jim: Wow, that is really hard. Do you really think you can go all day long? Well, you always left me satisfied and smiling.
Michael: THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!
Sadly, this means that I'll be taking a 16 day break from the 'Stravaganza. Have no fear, I'll be back in no time with plenty more stories to tell. In the meanwhile, I offer you this piece that I just wrote for "Dan" at cafeabroad.com.
So back on the Cafe Abroad front, my protestacular has progressed nicely. I wrote the following article in hopes that "Dan" will reconsider hiring me for the position of travel journalist. Well, if I don't get this job, Peter Gammons will look back on "Dan's" decision and compare it to when the Yankees could have signed Big Papi back in '02.
And yes, I know that I repeat a couple of my classic Max-isms (Max-ims, maybe?). You know, Manet/Monet and Paxton/Pullman. But "Dan" from Cafe Abroad hasn't heard them yet. And if NBC Must See Thursday has taught us anything, it's that if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.
Caves, Skis and Glow Worms (Oh My)
By Max Davison
My philosophy for study abroad was quite simple: Do what I can’t normally do at home. For a sheltered Los Angeles boy now residing in Auckland, this shouldn’t prove too difficult. I mean, in Auckland there’s no smog, no sales tax and no foolish lawsuits. Although neither city has a baseball team that can manage to make the playoffs, so it feels like home in that regard. Last weekend, I took a trip that demonstrated the full range of what New Zealand has to offer. In a period of a day and a half, I went from the bowels of the earth to the top of the world, literally.
The trip started down in Waitomo, a town on the west coast of New Zealand’s north island. It is best known for the glowworm caves, and that’s exactly what I went for. I got into my wet suit and harness and strapped on a miner’s helmet (complete with light) and marched down 90 meters into the earth. It had been raining heavily that day, so the water level inside the caves was four times higher than it normally was. Lucky me.
The first step is to repel down a steep waterfall, made extra slippery by the increased rain. Getting blasted in the face with water while jumping down a rock wall perfectly set the tone for the rest of the excursion. Walking through the caves, we had to squeeze our bodies through tiny crevices. I imagine that’s what being born must have felt like. Our group only had four people in it, so it felt like a personal, guided tour of the Waitomo Caves. I also finally learned the difference between stalactites and stalagmites; something that I think 75% of the population gets wrong (similar to Manet and Monet or Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman). So to clear it up, stalactites go down while stalagmites go up. Turning the lights out, we saw the glow worms on the walls of the caves. They looked like a glow in the dark constellations. Sadly, flash photography was prohibited, but that makes the memory that much more powerful.
The rock climbing was exhausting, the heights were terrifying and the darkness was enough to make a man go crazy. It was probably one of the best experiences of my life. In the end, I stared claustrophobia in the eye. And he blinked first.
After staying the night in a hostel (Note: recently hostels have gotten a bad name. But so far, I haven’t encountered any gory underground violence rings) we set out in the morning for Mt. Ruapehu. This goes down as one of the key moments in my life, since for the first time ever, the Southern California boy finally saw snow. I snow suited up and after a two hour lesson on the basic points of skiing, I was ready to hit the slopes. Heading down the first hill I felt fantastic. But then I started to move faster than an overeager teenager on a third date. I was picking up speed at an alarmingly fast rate. I started going faster and faster and faster still.
Perhaps it’s because I was so disoriented by the snow or maybe it had something to do with my short, MTV-generation attention span, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember how to stop. I tried to think back to the instructor’s lesson, but all that I could come up with was an image of Ned Flanders in a revealing body suit. Luckily, there was an unsuspecting eight year old that I was able to turn into a makeshift anchor and I avoided Sonny Bono-ing into the oncoming mountain. So I picked myself up and made sure that none of my friends saw that tumble. I apologized to the kid, took a deep breath, and got on the lift to head back down the hill, which I did four more times (each more skillfully than the next, I must add).
There aren’t many places in the world where one day you can be under the earth’s surface and skiing in the mountains the next. In the course of a single weekend, I faced my fears of enclosed spaces, heights, drowning, and abominable snowmen and I’m a stronger person for it. And people say that going abroad is going to be scary.
Oh, I've also found a new nickname that could potentially catch on: Maxcalibur. Thoughts?
See you in 16. And when I come back, I want to see the Dodgers in first place, the A's in the Wild Card hunt, and maybe the last two episodes of "Entourage" will be awesome.
-MGD
That's what she said of the day:
(A classic from Michael Scott)
Jim: Does that mean no more "that's what she said?"
Michael: Yes.
Jim: Wow, that is really hard. Do you really think you can go all day long? Well, you always left me satisfied and smiling.
Michael: THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!
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