On the road again

Well I'm travelling again. It's been almost a year since my last updates and really I can't condense the insanity of those months. I've been a busy beaver at school, work and play. I was always fairly sure that I would travel again for my last summer and the question was always what shape that trip would take. In the end it was my return to debating that shaped it more than anything else as the opportunity to compete at the University Debating championships was too attractive and outshone my previous desire to spend 3 months lost in South America.

So my current travel plans are basically to spend 5 days in LA (already completed), 1 week skiing in Whistler (en route). Xmas with the UQ debating society and then the competition begins on the 27th of December and finishes on the 4th of January. At that stage I'll go down to Guadalajara (again!) and hang out with Angel to learn spanish for a month or so. Then I'll do a couple of small trips in Mexico and possibly visit Cuba/Jamaica before heading home.

That's the plan and it's in a bit more detail here () . I'll try keep that up to date with my super exciting plans.

Now a quick run down on my time in Los Angeles. I spent my first day just trying extremely hard to stay awake long enough that I kicked jet lag on the first day. For the inexperienced out there the trick when doing the Pacific crossing is to charge through the first day and reset your internal clock that first night by going to sleep at 9 or 10pm. I of course stayed up till midnight drinking. The next day I took spur of the moment decision to go to Magic Mountain Rollercoaster Park. It turned out to be a fantastic choice. There were barely any queues at all and I ended up spending the entire day going on my favourite rides. The only moment of stupidity was when a group of us decided to go on the rapids ride. Of course no one made the logical connection that going on a "water attraction" in "winter" (or what passes for it in Southern California) probably wan't the brightest idea we'd ever had. Thankfully tequila is an excellent way to ward off the common cold.

Day 3 (timezones??) was my token trip to Disneyland. Unfortunately having been only a year ago I think I've finally my childhood love of the place. I had a pretty good time in the end but I realized that I only really enjoy about 5 of the rides there. I paid an extra 30 bucks to get into the new California Adventure park however there are only really about 3 rides there that look worthwhile and 1 of them was shut down for the season.

Day 4 I spent shopping on the "Melrose Strip". I probably couldn't afford half of what I purchased but shopping is something I do rarely and in short enthusiastic spurts so I generally ride the wave when It hits me. I purchased some great shoes (having come with the intention of doing that anyway) and some nice dressy shirts. All in all I probably got ripped off but I had the satisfaction of not paying the marked price on anything thanks to my sensation bargaining tactic of: "Durrhhh I am the poor travellar", suckers!

Day 5. Writeoff. When you wake up at 2pm drunk you realize that perhaps you've overdone it the night before. Thankfully I still had enough time to buy the last few things I wanted and did a good walking tour up to Runyon Canyon park which offers a beautiful view of downtown LA.

I'm not sure that I'll be able to post pictures of my trip as I go. Internet Kiosk technology has apparently gone backwards since I last used it and even thinking of hooking up a camera to the computer is unthinkable. Terrorists!

If I get a chance I'll post my best pics (to be fair I'm not really taking very many anyways). Likewise with the updates to the site blog.