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Select photos from Berlin are up here! Wheeee!!!! Flying over all the everythings! BRAAAAAINS. I imagine this is where the EuroZombies shop. Gozirra and I had a great time hanging out! I got to hold the attention of lots of German kids. Morning shadows on the blinds. Hey there Mr. Green! Brandenburg Gate! The grand Asparagus! Rails from way above, in said Asparagus. We rode these a lot! Killer street art in Kreuzberg. I left my mark on the Berlin Wall! So I’m sitting in a hostel in Berlin, optimistic that this blog will be a successful form of communication!

I’m incredibly impressed with how happy everyone is to help– I’m also incredibly impressed with the quality of food… And chocolate!!! ANIMATION MINT CHOCOLATE!!!!

The REC festival has been really fun. It’s amazing how young kids are making such quality films– yes, they’re being helped with the production process by adults, but there have been some charming stories and visual styles. 

My personal top photo pics from the trip! The album can be found here. Everything was so TALL!
Here’s what I learned in New York. HI WORLD! So I ended up going on an epic journey to the (northern) East Coast with Dimitri— in fact I’m still here! Here’s a really quick selection of photos taken in New York, Cambridge and Boston. I was super-excited on my first plane that I would have an edge seat, meaning… A WINDOW! But lo, when I sit down, this was the incredible “window” seat I got. Pffft! A WALL! …Fortunately my connecting flight let me stare out over fields and growing cities, into the largest city of them all, as I flew into New York’s La Guardia airport at night. Though you can’t really see the stars in NYC, looking down over the city while flying gave me the sensation of flying through space, all the city lights as stars! Act one, scene one: THE GOOGLEHEIM! Errm– Guggenheim! A+ for the Kandinsky exhibit! A panorama from Top of the Rock (Rockefeller building). Photosynth is this incredible (and free!) iPhone app that allows you to snap a 360 panorama, like this! Some white on white at the MoMA– probably my favorite museum so far. A wishing tree! People wrote their wishes down and hung them from the branches. Looking up at the Apple Store on 5th Avenue! Central Park! I had this crazy idea that NYC was going to be smelly and grungy. Central Park, despite the occasional homeless person, was crispy-clean, with a side feature of ice cream vendors that didn’t speak any known language. AAHHBLAHBLABLA! Going up the Empire State Building! It had been pouring and lightning was a-lightninging, leading to a closed outer Observation Deck… hence a VERY short line! We were able to watch not only the thunderstorm but also fireworks from the 86th floor. Choo chooooo! CHUGGAchuggaCHUGGAchugga… EPIC KINETIC SCULPTURES BY ARTHUR GANSON!!!!!! The MIT Museum is EPIIIIIC! Lotsa these whirlygigs were flittering about, and the holograms were being very bright and 3D and holography and everything sounded a lot more intelligent than this dorky sentence. Newbury Street, where places could be bought for only a mere 3 million dollars. Aaaaand here’s us in Central Park!

This was just an appetizer– there will be many more photos soon!

Alooooha! I’m now back home safe and sound… maybe not so sound, as the washing machine’s been non-stop for the past day and a half with ALL THE LAUNDRY to go through! (We packed enough clothes so we’d never have to use the on-board laundromat). Speaking of the laundromats, there were rumors about people getting kicked off the ship in Rarotonga. Apparently someone had left their clothes to dry in a dryer in the laundromat and took off in the meantime to do something more productive than watch the spin cycle. However, when they were gone, along came another passenger, who whinged (“winj”– Aussie talk for “complain”) about that dryer being occupied, so what do they do? They take out all that other person’s drying laundry and throw in their own. Original laundry person comes back, sees clothes on floor, is not pleased, etc etc– a fight or two broke out over this matter (one among women, one amongst guys, and I didn’t know guys ever did laundry). Crazy shenanigans on board the Sun Princess!


The cruise has been really fun so far! After visiting Dravuni Island, we hit Samoa, the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. There are five sea days between Bora Bora and Hawaii, during which we’ll cross the equator– which involves a ceremony, going from pollywogs to shellbacks– and that ceremony involves passengers, so I’ve signed up. Apparently it’s pretty messy (meringue, Jell-O, spaghetti sauce…..) so we’ll see if my name gets drawn out of the hat for that 😛 Then we’ll be doing some scenic cruising by Christmas Island, during which we’ll sing Christmas carols and possibly decorate makeshift Christmas trees. It’s the end of July, and we’re on the equator– what better time to celebrate Christmas?? 😀
And before I get to the details of my latest adventures, I’ll start a list of interesting foods encountered on the ship.
– Lemon chicken soup :: Now they say there was chicken, or perhaps chicken broth in this, but upon further inspection those slivers floating around in the broth were actually shreds of lemon. Two words I found summed up this serving quite nicely: DISH SOAP. The lemon-smelling kind.
– Glop and rice and glop :: Seeing this glop (my greatest apologies for forgetting the actual name) at the buffet, it had the 50/50 appeal: 50% chance it could be excellent, 50% chance it could be disgusting. Though it didn’t necessarily taste bad, the essence of it was too weird to go back for seconds. Two words that sum up its taste: BABY POWDER.
And why they’re serving us dish soap and baby powder on this ship is beyond me. Maybe it’s because they’ve got some two thousand passengers to feed and are getting desperate to find food sources, that or else the chefs are being creative. They’re also out of green tea and haven’t restocked! Tsk tsk tsk; overall, though, the meals have been pretty good.
And at night, at sea, it’s really something to go to the unlit front of the ship and look at the gajillions of stars out there!
Let’s get onto some adventures!


