Wednesday, July 8, 2009

sorry again

hey everyone, i have little time for internet, so there have been no updates. I will do my best to catch yall up.
I am currently in porto, on the mainland of portugal, i am learning some portuguese and things are going well.
i will try to say more soon!

thanks

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

ok, so i flew to lisbon and i was supposed to connect to a flight to an island called sao miguel, its about 2 hours west of portugal. my flight to lisbon was late, and i had to get my bags and recheck them before flying off to sao miguel, but one of my bags was lost and i ended up missing the flight. I spent the night at a hotel in lisbon, which was very nice after spending the last few weeks in cramped hostels without any luxuries, so yeah. It was a little difficult getting there thought because the bus driver told me i couldnt bring my bags on the bus, which was entirely rediculous, because how am i supposed to get anywere. I ended getting on the next bus just fine. SO i then flew out of lisbon the next afternoon and i landed in sao miguel just fine. I then made it to the hostel and here i am in the city of ponta delgada, on the island of sao miguel, the azores archipelago, in the country of portugal. Everything is going pretty well. I had my first portuguese class today, which is exciting. In portuguese my name is Joao, which has a french type of sound to me. ANyway, sorry i cant give too much detail, i just have to catch you all up on so much and i dont want it to be too long. i will have more internet now than before so i can post more often and give you more detail. Gotta go! bye bye! Obrigado(thanks)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Lots has happened, sorry for the delay

I am soooo sooo sooo sorry it has taken so long for me to post. My last post was in my very first city in tanzania, and since then i have been to, in tanzania, moshi, dar es salaam, zanzibar, tanga, in kenya, mombasa and narobi, and i have flown to qatar, london and lisbon and I am not in the city of ponta delgada on Sao Miguel Island in the azores off of portugal. Theres been a lot, so I will try to keep it somewhat brief.

So Jenna and I went on a Safari in Tanzania for 4 days. We went to Lake Manyara national park, Serengeti national park and Ngorogoro crater. We saw a leopard in a tree, a cheetah, lions, warthogs, hippos, elephants giraffees, warthogs, ostriches, a rhino, a whole lot of different kinds of antelope including thompsons gazelle, grants gazelle, african buffalo, waterbucks, dik diks, topi, elands, wildebeets, and others, and we saw lots of cools birds and other really cool things. Everyone always wants to see lions on safaris and we ended up seeing 30, so i think we were really lucky, we even saw lion cubs chewing on a wildebeest. "Gnarly." Sorry I have no pictures yet, but I will get some up at soon as a can.

After that, we left arusha and took a two hour bus ride to Moshi, where we ate some really good pizza and lasagna at and indoitaliano restaurant. haha. Then we took a 6 or so hour bus ride to dar es salaam, and immediately got on a ferry to zanzibar island. Which was very cool. Stone Town had lots of old stone buildings and cobblestone like streets with lots of narrow alleys all over where it was really easy to get lost. We went after a few days to the other side of the island, which was all beaches. When we got there we were pretty eager to get into the water, and when we went to water the tide was way out and there were all these women in the shallow water farming seaweed, and it was really funny because we were like, wheres the beach? and in a few hours the tide was high and it was a regular beach but it was pretty funny. I got a lot more sun than i have in a long time and i got badly burned, even my legs and feel had skin peeling off, again, gnarly.

So after getting back to the mainland we spent a few days in dar es salaam, and then we took a 5 or so hour bus ride to tanga, right next to the kenya border, we than took another 5 or so hour bus ride across the border to mombasa in kenya. we spent less than a day there and went on to nairobi, which took 9.5 hours on the bus, it was crazy. we spent a few days there and then left on june 18th. I was to go to portugal and jenna was to go to dubai. We left our hotel about 10 am and took a taxi to the bus that takes us to the airport. It only costs about 65 cents for 30 minute bus ride to the airport, but he had too many bags that we took up extra seats and had to pay double, but thats ok. So i flew out of nairobi at 3pm and was in qatar airport at 8 om local time and my next flight was at 8am the enxt day, so i went to the quiet room and did my best to sleep in the airport. I got up and then flew to london. I rushed to the gate to get my next flight to lisbon, but the flight was delayed. Finally i flew to lisbon

MORE SOON!! gotta go!

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Entry 3 - still in Arusha about to to do Safai

Still no pictures, sorry. The past few days ive been in arusha. I have have mainly spent time over the past 2 days at the school that jenna has been teaching at and playing with the kids there. They are very fun to play with, although there is basically no verbal communication between us, we still play together well. We rode in a "daladala" to get there to the school. We had to squeeze into a small bus/minivan thing with about 26 total people in it, it was pretty crazy. I never thought id see so many people on a vehcile of that size. You would say it could comfortable seat 15 or so. Ive done some shopping/haggling, which is kinda fun. SO the biggest news is that I will be going on Safari with Jenna starting tomorrow. It will be in some different national parks in Tanzania. They say we will see lions and elephants and all that and I will update you on all that, hopefully with some good pictures too. SO today, sunday, we are just getting ready for the safari. There wont be any updates for the next 5 days or more, but i assure you i am fine. I promise not to get eaten by a lion. That will be all for now, but I will let you all know, all 2 of you, when there are other, exciting things happening. Thanks a lot, and i hope you are doing well. Thank you and goodbye.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

entry number two i think, from arusha tanzania

sorry there are no pictures yet, i have no had the chance to upload anything yet. So i drove to sfo, flew to montreal, waited for a few hours, flew to london. walked a long long way to the undergound and that station wasnt working so i had to go to a different one. Oh, before that, my luggage was styill in montreal because they did not tag it properly. So in london i took the underground from thje airport. I had to transfer, but the station i was transferring at had a problem, so i had to take the bus, and the bus dropped me off at a different spot than the subway was supposed to. So i had to spenbt like 1/2 hour walking around looking for my hostel. I found it and it was actually pretty nice, for 12 dollars a night. They had breakfast. I stopped there and then i walked around. I saw the royal parks and i fell asleep in one of them. But whenever i nap i wake up feeling groggy and that was really not good. So after seeing some things there for 2 days i went to the airport to fly to nairobi. I got there so early once i got through security and everything i still had to wait for 3 hours. I was nervous because i had to pick up my luggage and i always just get nervous with security things. So I flew to doha, qatar. We had to get off and take a bus and standing outside for 30 seconds was close to the hottest 30 seconds of my life. I thought i might be late for that one but there was plenty of time. But the bus was not going towards the airport so i thought i got on the wrong bus or soimething, but then it turned and everything was fine. So then i took another flight to nairobi. I was a in a big hurry because the flight got in at 1:10 and the bus i needed was supposed to leave at 2 something, so i was very nervous, but i got my visa and everything was just fine. The road is crazy, Driving seems extremely dangerous and people seem to feel that they dont have to look out for other cars or pedestrians. Cars just drive towards each other and eventually they vere off a little, its like playing chicken every few minutes. I learned this on my bus ride to arusha tanzania. it was about 6 hours and we had to stop at the tanzania to get visas. I had to pee really bad for two hours. I eventually made it, alkthough that last 2 hurs or so were very dark and dusty and bumpy or slow, there are many very bumpy dirt roads on the way, and i was dozing off all the while. So i made it and someone from the hostel picked me up and saw my cousin jenna. Today, thursday, we walked around and did some haggling/shopping. People like to hastle you and it takes a lot to say no, haha. So now we are at an internet cafe. And thats whats goinon. I have to pay for this internet, so i am not saying as much as i could and I am sure that whoever is reading this can only read so much. Sorry if any of this is unintielligable, I did not have time to proofread it. Thank you everyone.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

I am about to leave!

So I am leaving at 4 a.m. My total Flight order is SFO to Montreal To London To Qatar then to Nairobi, Kenya, bus to Arusha Tanzania, bus back to Nairobi fly back to Qatar, sleep in the airport, fly to London, fly to Lisbon, fly to Azore Islands, Fly back to Portugal, trave around there, probably fly to italy and then back to london and then edmonton and then SFO. AHHHHHHHHHHHH.