Made it to Chile!

Short post because I wasted all my time on Skype. We made it across in about 12 days or so and anchored a night in some of the chanels off of Chiloe which is an island off of Chile. Pretty painless ride from Easter Island, read about 5 books, told and retold jokes, ate well, and got blisters from steering so much. Beautiful little anchorage in the middle of nowhere where we tied off between two islands for the night.


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We're now 90 miles north in the town of Castro which is the capital of Chiloe. Funky little place, really cold, over 150 churches on the island, food's not bad... this is where they do most of the country's salmon farming. Quite an operation. We're leaving in the morning to motor up to Puerto Montt and then we're off the boat on the 13th. I've got a few days before my flight home so I'll work on getting some pictures up when I get there.

Chao,
Josh

This is It

EASTER ISSLAND

Final post before Leaving for Puerto Montt:

Spent about six hours aboard the boat yesterday preparing her for sea once again. Refueled with about 250 gallons of deisel fuel in giant bladders we had to haul to the local gas station then lower into the inflatable with a crane, and now sending a few last minute emails before we take off in a half hour.

Easter Island is an incredible place, and while most visitors come to see the statues, it's the people I've met here that will really make it memorable. I don't have time to write the poetic post I'd like so I'll save it for another time. All checked out of my hotel, spent more money in less time on the smallest island imaginable, took lots of pictures, met lots of great people and am now ready to sail.

Turns out some of the crew didn't make it so I think we're down to about 9 of us. Should be a good ride, we estimate landfall in about 18 days. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and has plenty of time to wrap my presents before I get home.

Remember you can follow the boat here, we're leg 2.

See you in Chile,
Josh

Welcome to Easter Island or Isla de Pascua or Rapa Nui

I know that if I make this to long most of you will stop reading so hop on my train of thought and lets bang this out.

Sherry droped me off at the airport and I was at the wrong terminal so I had to walk a mile to the right one when I realiaed I forgot to leave my laptop at home... you dont bring a laptop on a boat but I now have no choice. Make it to American where the lady tells me I have an illegal connection in Miami and they wont have time to transfer my bag. Illegal sounds a little strong, she makes it work, that was easy, I start to wonder what other illegal activities I can get this woman to do for me. Make it on the flight, pass out, neck pillows are ugly but I love them, wake up in Miami. Still mad that security didn't try to get to second base with me... I'm good looking, what gives.

Walk to other side of airport again, except its 80 and humid so I'm miserable. Fly to Santiago, make a sad face so the lady gives me two dinners cause I couldn't decide between pasta and steak. I drink too much wine and pass out during the last 15 minutes of the movie Inception. Make it to Santiago, feel like I was just here. they make me pay the $140 entry fee again even though I paid it 13 months ago and its supposed to last forever, that's bullshit. Take my time on my way to the next flight until I realize I'm about to miss it and end up in one of those 3 hours lines you need to get through 10 minutes ago. Meet a guy who was on all of my flights whose meeting his girlfriend in Easter Island when she gets off of the Alaska Eagle from the first leg. (He's going to propose here... shhhhhh don't tell her).

we make the flight, see Air Force One on the ground, get to Easter Island where you can't help but walk off the plane and say "Where the Fuck am I?" Theres a guy with a sign with my name on it to take me to my hotel, thats awesome because that never happens. I pass out for 4 hours and never want to wake up.

Meet for dinner with Proposal buddy, an English woman, a Chilean, and a Polish woman who runs Extreme Ulta Marathons (she did the Iditerod in alaska except she pulled the sled 340 miles). We drink Pisco Sours, pay too much for dinner, go to a Polynesian dance show where I get us in for half price then after that everyone went home. I slept all day.. time to party.

I buy a box of wine then ask the 7 year old kid at the hotel where the biggest party is on Saturday night. He tells me, I go... I'm early, it's 11:30. I go up to a group of locals and make the "please talk to me face or I'll just linger all night" face. It works. Peter passes me a funy cagarette, it would have been rude to say no, (I subsequently eat the entire bag of chocolate I was going to ration for myself on the boat in about 5 minutes), usually in these situations my conversation partner has to speak English but this time it was all spanish. I had a couple drinks in me so my spanish was perfect and we talked for a few hours. He may come visit in California.

Wake up at noon grasping for agua, realize I fell asleep with my computer on cause I was watching 30 Rock... which is rediculous, I'm on an island in the middle of nowhere, why do I need TV. I remembered to unpack my charger in the states so no mas laptop. I think its time to see some statues, start walking around the island, see lots of statues, wind up in the middle of an endurance horse race (no idea what that is), something super gross happens, then decide I'll run the 3 miles back to town beacause when you're on Easter Island you have to do as many different things as you can so you can outdo all your friends at home. Watched a soccer game, talked with a German cab driver/violinist for 2 hours, Sherry calls me to ask about shipping a spinnaker, I curse cell phone reception, and now I am currently blogging next to 2 liters of Chiles finest brew. I've been here 24 hours, haha.

Left a lot out, I'll have pictures up soon, this place is nuts. Kind of like Tahiti with less fruit and topless women. Dinner time with the motleyest of crews. No sign of the boat yet.

Chao,
Josh

Bienvenidos a Chile

Made it to Chile around 9am yesterday morning after about 17 hours of traveling. Flying over the Andes and watching the sky turn red as the sun came over the horizon was absolutely beautiful. Changed out of my plane clothes and donned my new winter apparel that was purchased at a deep discount in summertime Boston. Got to our apartment and am rooming with my friend Dan from the YMCA three years ago, and two girls, one of which is best friends with Kristen’s roommate in China.

Hung out in our apartment for a while then left to go to the supermarket for some snack foods for our pad. Chile is the only other country I’ve been to that gives out free samples of the foods in the store… pretty awesome. Picked up some Chilean wine (3 bottles for $6 US) then came home and made an amazing breakfast sandwich with ham, egg, cheese, avocado, and salsa on a baguette and a pitcher of sangria. Went out to dinner with the group to and then wowed some Chileans with a lovely duet of Summer Nights with a Columbian girl… they then made us sing about half a dozen Michael Jackson songs, before I floored them with my rendition of Sweet Child of Mine. Epic. Kept the party going for a while with some tequila in non-regulation shot glasses (read; huge glasses) before moving onto a bar called PubLicity, an Irish pub, then back to our place for some sleep.

This morning fell back asleep after breakfast in bed (complimentary room service breakfasts daily) and strolled to our meeting place about 25 minutes late… which is acceptable in Latin countries… except this time. Almost missed the tour of Pablo Neruda’s (Nobel Prize winning poet from Chile) house that was actually really awesome and quirky. Kind of what I’d like my house to look like some day. Ate Filet Mignon for lunch with some great wine, then siesta at the apartment before we go out tonight. This place is beautiful, weather is like early fall in Boston, leaves are almost all gone and those that remain are bright orange and red. We’re surrounded by the Andes Mountains, and this city feels like it could be Denver if Denver were a fraction of the size, and closer to the Rockies.

Cerveza tiempo

Wo mei yo pijou!

When I was in the middle of Cambodia 2 years ago I was able to blog every day, now that I'm in China one of the most modern cities in the world I can get to a computer once a week. It's not really a matter of available technology but the fact that we are on the run from 6am until about 9pm at night.

For the past week we've been learning Chinese in the classroom for 2 hours each morning followed by a lecture relevant to the afternoon activities. My Chinese is improving slightly, and while the language is grammatically simple, my mouth isn't used to making some of the sounds necessary to convey a message, and my ears aren't trained to pick up on on the sounds others are making. I can order a beer, say cheers, and tell people my name pretty well, and that's done me pretty good so far.

In the past week, we've been to a Buddhist temple where we prayed with monks, waited in a 90 minute line that was no less than 2 miles long to view the body of Chairman Mao, which was slightly eerie but carried a lot of weight as many Chinese see him as a god, met with a Communist policy maker, learned from a woman who works in an adoption clinic, created a new way to kill an afternoon in a foreign city (see "5 Hour Flow" below) met with a female entrepreneur in little Korea, had dinner with intellectuals that were stripped of their occupations during the Cultural Revolution, met with one of China's biggest critics of the Communist Party and it's environmental policy, learned secrets of the Olympic Games, ate on an organic farm that grows it's own food and makes New York style bagels and other delicious dishes, accidentally left a student at a bathroom on the side of the road, spent an afternoon learning to make dumplings from a Chinese librarian who tried to out drink me at lunch and invited me to live with her family if I'd like (we're making her dinner next week), got a massage from a blind masseuse, partied in some clubs on a lake, went out with our Chinese teacher, got caught in the rain, went on a romantic paddle boat ride, ate fish eyes, twisted my knee on a stripper pole (been limping for 4 days) went to a Chinese hospital, got sick for 2 days then got well, and now I'm going to call my mom for mothers day.

5 Hour Flow: We had an afternoon to ourselves where we were free to do whatever we wanted and since I was trying to receive acupuncture I missed some of the groups that went out to explore... never fear, I had an idea.

Grabbed a beer and walked to the bus stop and took the first bus I saw, took it to the end which was somewhere in downtown Beijing, hopped off and found a little news stand that sold the local firewater and some grapefruit to mix it with, headed down some back alley and got lunch for 45 cents which consisted of noodles, spices, tap water, and bacteria, headed into the slums with my iPod blasting, walked into some little shack of a store, bought a beer, the owner set up a table outside and came out and had a drink with me, one drink turned into two, one friend turned into a dozen, and there we were throwing back beer and munching on pickled garlic cloves while the locals laughed at the white boy that had wandered off of the beaten path and into their lives, an hour and a half later I was feeling pretty good, and between the music from my phone and the smiles on their faces which was the only communication we had, I began feeling generous for the experience I was enjoying and tried to pay 100 yuan for the 4 yuan worth of beer I had drank ($16 for $0.75), the owner chased me down and gave me all my change, they refused to accept anything more than what I owed, I thanked them and kept moving, hopped on another bus and ended up at the Beijing Zoo, walked in a back gate and met a tour guide named Joe leading around a group of Filipinos who spoke perfect English, he helped buy me a ticket, and took me on as co-tour guide, I led a family to the restrooms then split for the giant pandas, beer is sold everywhere and the zoo is no exception, took pictures of the giant pandas which is a bit misleading because they're not that giant, watched the little ones play on a jungle gym which pissed me off because there are no tire swings in nature, bought a panda key chain and moved on, saw some monkeys which seemed miserable, sat at a lake for a while where I later found out some friends saw me but I took off so fast they couldn't catch me, grabbed a beer and some giraffe food and satisfied them and myself, left the zoo, hopped in a cab because I had no idea where I was, two minutes later I was back on campus, I was just around the corner after all. 5 hours, no plan, no direction, no rules.

Wan an,
Josh

Please Keep Clea

It's 6 AM on Monday Morning in Beijing, China and in two hours I'll start my first lesson in Survival Chinese. I've been here 4 nights now, and if I don't start writing some things down they'll escape me forever.

The few days before I left were a blur. Pack up my room so Tyler could move in, pack up Tyler's room so he could move out, help move Tyler into my room, get ready for the stuntman to move into Tyler's room for the summer, finish up preparations for The 7 Books Project (more details on that later), pack a small backpack with clothes and supplies for 2 months (4 days longer than the last trip) which includes clothes for being in a city, working in an internship, hiking through the forest etc...

I made it to the airport on time where every TV was screaming about SWINE FLU!!! We flew over the top of the world via the North Pole, and successfully landed in Beijing 14 hours later where we were scanned by infrared cameras for any signs of disease. My teacher just told me that the plane that came in after us was quarantined for 3 hours, the passengers were kept out of the terminal and forced to go onto the tarmac where they were inspected before being let into the country. They sent a Mexican man home... after the SARS scare they are taking no chances with this shit, and I can totally see why.

Have to speed this up as to not waste digital paper: landed in Beijing at 2pm, got our luggage, hopped on a bus that took us to the Minda University in downtown Beijing, it honestly feels like driving on a newly build 405 freeway and heading into a cleaner Los Angeles, settled into our dorms, went and had dinner, hung out with Chinese girls at a dance party on a soccer field, went to sleep, woke up at 4:30 AM, couldn't fall back asleep, went for a run on the track next to our school, watched the sun come up, Chinese breakfast, 1 hours bus to the Forbidden City, saw Tienanmen Square on the Chinese equivalent of Labor Day which is one of two major holidays here, hundreds of thousands of people everywhere, walked through the Forbidden City, lost the 2 Chinese people who came with us ironically, Chinese people kept taking pictures of us, they rarely see white people I guess, and the black kids we're with might as well be movie stars, I held a baby for a picture, Forbidden City is incredible and gigantic, and requires at least a week to see it all, went to some more temples, exercised my right to carry an open container everywhere, money is like Monopoly money and it goes pretty damn far,yesterday we woke up at 5 am again, went to the Great Wall of China yesterday, got all choked up on the drive looking out the window listening to the Beatles Love album, climbed the great wall, unbelievable, it's over 8000 miles long, that's like LA - New York - LA - Mississippi, they built a toboggan ride down from the top, it's like ancient wonder of the world meets Disneyland bobsled without snow, came home, went to dinner with Chinese ambassador students last night, went to bed, and here we are.

This place is incredible, I see why people fall in love with the country as it's unlike anything I've ever seen, can't wait to leave the city and see the countryside. All for now, updates soon.

- Josh

Back in Beantown

Last night I arrived back in Boston around 8PM to find a crowd of people waiting for me. Included in the crowd were a few cameras and reporters with a number of questions for me. I never thought I would the guy they were waiting for.

Today I start work at The Tea Room, I'll be sure to let you all know how that goes. Here's a clip from Fox25 News.

eBay Kid

My English Family

I arrived in Oxford hoping for the best. I had met a girl a month and a half earlier in Vietnam, and moments before my last post, I sent her an email telling her that I would be at the bus station in 4 hours. When I got off the bus, nobody was there. I had no money on me, so I waited there for close to twenty minutes, contemplating whether I ought to ask to use someone's cell phone to call my friend, who's number I had written in bright red marker on the inside cover of my waterproof travel journal. Just then I looked up and saw her walking toward me, and it was as if a weight the size of my backpack had been lifted off of my shoulders.

We hugged, and shook our heads in amazement; a drunken idea had manifested, and 45 days later here I was in Oxford. We walked into a local pub and had half-a-pint that was quite nice, and has a pear aftertaste. I told her of everything that had happened since Vietnam, and we caught up for nearly an hour when she rang her mom. She told her I would be staying the night and to "Throw another Jacket in the Oven" which is just English slang for a baked potato.

We left the pub and headed to her house located in the village of Bleubury. Naturally I walked to the right side of the car to get in, when she asked me it I had planned on driving...that's right, it's all backwards here. The drive took us twice as long because many of the roads had been flooded from the rivers that had overflown their banks. We walked inside, and I was more than excited to meet my first English "mum." She was quite friendly as she fixed us each plate of jackets and beans, and she, like every English person I've mentioned it to, could not believe why anyone would sell themselves on eBay.

After dinner Kirsty told me I should look up the train schedule so I could get to Leicester (pronounced Lester)in the morning, I guess I'll just be staying one night then. I figured it all out, and did some online banking which reminded me of the times I'd be losing in Monopoly and couldn't wait to land in jail so I didn't have to keep landing on hotels.

I was long overdue for a shower, so I cleaned up and went to sleep in her 12 year old sister's room who happened to be at a sleepover for the night. I couldn't fall asleep because I kept wondering whether or not my cousin would receive the email I'd just sent him, telling him that I would be arriving in just about 12 hours. I laid there for an hour or so watching the minutes tick by on one of those clocks that shines the time up onto the ceiling in big red numbers before I finally fell asleep.

In what felt like 15 minutes I was woken up by Kirsty telling me we had to leave in 15 minutes so she could drop me off at the Ditcok train station before work. I fell back asleep and woke up 13 minutes later, threw some clothes on stuffed my bag and ran out the door. We said our goodbyes, made promises to visit soon, and she was off. I bought my ticket to Oxford, and my credit card worked; I could breathe again. The trains were stopped because of the flood so we had to take a bus which also was delayed and took an hour and a half. I made it to Oxford and went to buy my ticket to Leicester. I told the lady behind the counter that if my credit card worked it would be a miracle...it was a miracle. This meant that the money transfer Tyler made had worked, I was rich again!

I went next door, ordered a sandwich, croissant, and a cup of tea and handed them my card. "We don't take cards, there's a cash-point next door." No worries, be right back.

Insufficient Funds
Insufficient Funds
Insufficient Funds

"I'm sorry, but I cannot pay for this food" and I walked out of the cafe quite embarrassed.

I had stashed a granola bar in my jacket a week ago, and snacked on that while I waited for my bus. The bus ride was painless, and we were in Leicester in just over 3 hours. Ok, time to find my cousin (whom I haven't seen in 7 years, and god forbid he send his wife to get me as I've never met her) I look all over the train station...nothing.

I have exactly enough money for a phone call, which is 40 pence...it rings, then I get a voicemail, now I have nothing. I dig through my backpack and find 8 euro in coins, I can't believe I hadn't spent those, but they may save my ass because the 45 minute bus ride to the village of Broughton Astley costs 2.10 Pounds.

I walk around in the rain to 4 different banks trying to change money;
"Only if you bank with us sir" do I look like I bank with first bank of Scotland?
"Sorry, we only change bills" some of these coins are 2Euro coins, what's that about?
"This isn't a bank at all, this is a bookie joint (to myself)"

I'm told there is a travel agency in The Shires, I think they're talking about Lord of the Rings...rather, it's a shopping mall. I find the travel agency, and walk out of there with 4.20 pounds. That's 2 bus tickets!!!

Back to the bus station, hop on the number 13...I'm going to make it after all. I hand the bus driver a post-it with an address on it and ask him to tell me when to get off. 20 minutes later I'm standing on the corner of Broughton Street next to Ye Olde Bull Pub. I like the idea of that, at least I could wash dishes for food(beer)if need be. I walk down Broughton Street looking for Astley House, heaven forbid they use street numbers. 10 houses down the lane I read "Astley House" on one of the brick walls. Maybe this is it? Then I see a Dodge truck...this has to be it, only an American would have a Dodge in England.

I knock at the door, no answer...I peer in the window and see baby toys! I MADE IT, it's just nobody was home. I pull out an old train ticket from my bag and a red pen,

"MIKE, I'm at the pub down the street." -Josh

I walk in the pub, "What ya got in that rucksack, you're whole life?" some tough lookin' guy says to me. "Pretty much" I respond, "Any of you know the guitar teacher down the road?"

Nobody knows the guitar teacher down the road. I ask them if I can "Hang Out" for a bit, see if my cousin turns up. The bartender and a regular named George split the cost of a pint for me, and invite me to sit down and tell them why the hell I'm in Broughton Astley.

I tell them about my trip, but realize these guys only want to hear the parts of my story that I'll never tell my kids...so I entertained them for a while and looked out the window at a gentleman approaching, I turned to the bartender, "I think that's my cousin walking in..."


-Josh