Wandering P Tom

Punting

2007-06-29T03:31:00.000-07:00

Last week, a few of my classmates and I decided to take a break from studying for exams to go punting. Punting, pushing a flat-bottomed boat along a shallow river with a pole, is an age old tradition at Oxford and you can't really say you've lived in Oxford unless you've spent some time flailing around in a punt.

"Punting is not as easy as it looks. As in rowing, you soon learn how to get along and handle the craft, but it takes long practice before you can do this with dignity and without getting the water all up your sleeve."

– Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (1889)

Well, contrary to what Jerome K. Jerome's characters set out to do in his boat, we had no intention of doing with dignity. We donned what I thought was my finest punting attire, went to M&S to load up on picnic snacks, and bought the mandatory bottle of Pimm's.

Of course being in England, the nice sunny weather quickly turned to stormy rainfall but we didn't let that deter us...

Heading Down Under

2007-06-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

I just booked my ticket for a summer in Australia!!!

Part of the Oxford Said Business School MBA programme involves the completion of a summer consulting project (SCP). The SCP pairs four MBA students with a company looking to solve a tractable business problem. I'm on a team that is going down to Australia to work on exploring the opportunity for a group of wineries to set up their own international distribution network. Needless to say I'm excited to spend my summer (unfortunately Australia's winter) on a wineyard working on an interesting project with a really fun bunch of people.

Other than the great business learning experience and the chance to taste some amazing wines, this trip gives me the the chance to spend some more time roaming the world. Since we're stopping in Thailand for a week on the way back to London I will be able to boast that I've visited every continent (except Antarctica) in the last twelve months. At 31 countries I'm slowly filling in the map but still have a long way to go :

create your own visited country map

Yogurt Toss

2007-06-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, while lying on the beach in Croatia, a group of us invented a new sport (or maybe it's better to call it a game). We were cleaning up after a bit of a picnic and we started throwing our empty yogurt containers (picture a yop bottle) into the garbage cans that were spread along the beach. Being competitive, type-A personalities we got really intense about trying to get them in and ended up playing for a couple of hours all up and down the beach.

We've now imported the game to the happy hours at Oxford's Said Business School. Friday afternoons, when the weather is good, we go out back and get a casual game of yogurt toss going. It' fun, simple and always leads to a great celebration when someone manages to get one in (it's a lot harder than it looks). Check out this celebration from the inaugural Canadian Open:

From the roof of the school:

I have a feeling this sport is going to spread like wild fire. Check out www.yogurttoss.com for a list of the rules.

Broken Wing

2007-06-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I've had quite a few adventures since the last blog post. I've been through another term and had my spring break, which allowed me wander around and explore a bit more of Europe. I rented a car with a few friends of mine from the business school and took a drive through the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia and Croatia.

My friend Eric, who considers himself to be quite the driver took the lead on driving. As soon as we picked up the car in Prague he jumped behind the wheel and took off through the parking lot. On our first turn out of the driveway of the rental lot, smack, we crashed into a cube van. Thirty seconds into a two week road trip and our first accident. Too good to be true. Before the rental guy could see what was going on we quickly evaluated the damage and decided that with a bit of handiwork the rental guy in Slovenia wouldn't notice.

After getting back from that trip I started the trinity term of the MBA programme (at Oxford we have three terms each year and for some reason they call them Michaelmas, Hillary and Trinity). Two weeks into the programme a bunch of us from the class went to Paris to compete in a sports tournament for the top MBA schools in Europe. I played squash (came third) and rugby. It was the first time I've ever played a competitive rugby game so I was a little nervous going in. Our first game was against a French team and from across the field they looked terrifying - these guys knew what they were doing. Luckily, five of our starting players (we were playing sevens) were really good players. The plan was to work the ball amongst them and the ball wouldn't really get out to me on the wing very often.

Well, that was the plan. It went well in the first game, our guys dominated the middle and we quickly went up by a big margin - i even got the ball a couple of times and had lots of room to run (I even scored a try). That got my confidence up a little too high because by the time we reached the semi-finals I was running around tackling all sorts of people and I ended up badly dislocating my shoulder. That's the end of my short rugby career and my introduction to learning to type one-handed.

My x-rayed shoulder

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Everyone needs to go to Dubrovnik in Croatia. it's the most amazing place.

See more pics on my flickr page
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ptfrohlich/

Is anyone still looking at this?

2007-02-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

Hi there,

It's been more than five months since I last posted so I'm not sure if anyone is still looking at this site. I've heard from a bunch of you that you want updates from my life at Oxford but I'm sorry, I've just been too busy to spend time writing my blog. In the times that I'm not in class, studying, or meeting with my classmates the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in front of the computer and writing about myself. There are just too many interesting things to do around Oxford.

Don't really have time to write too much because I have a couple of big projects due soon. I'm working in two different groups on the projects. In one of the groups I'm working with two South Africans and two guys from New Zealand. In my other group there are two guys from India, a guy from Kenya, a guy from Taiwan and a girl from Kazakhstan (yes, we went to see Borat together). Needless to say, the group is very international and I'm learning a lot about people in different parts of the world.

I'm still finding some time to fit in a bit of travel. Since the program started I've been to Amsterdam, London, LA, Morocco and back to Vancouver. Check out some pictures...

First day of school

Oxford

Dining hall at my college

Matriculation at my college - Exeter

Burns Night

London

Morocco

Beverly Hills

Oxford Bound (or is it bound to Oxford?)

2006-09-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

Sitting here in the Vancouver airport waiting to board the plane for England. Describing my mood is similar to the beginning of every retirement announcement I've ever seen, "it is with mixed emotions that I announce the retirement of .....". My emotions are mixed because on the one hand I'm really excited to get to England and start school. On the other hand I'm really sad to leave beautiful Vancouver and all of my great family and all of my great friends. Spending two weeks here rekindled a lot of great friendships that I'm going to miss over the next year.

But by far the biggest reason I'm upset about leaving is that I haven't had a chance to meet my new niece/nephew. I hope to meet him/her soon.

So now I have to decide if I want to continue the blog during my time at Oxford. I'll see if I have enough time to squeeze in a post or two.

Home again, home again

2006-09-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that my South American adventure is already over. In two very short months I managed to cover a lot of ground and use a lot of different modes of transport. I was transported around Brasil and Argentina by:

-car
-bus
- plane - I flew 33,869 kms ( I know, I should pay for some greenhouse gas tax emmision credits)
-kiteboard
-dune buggy
-ferry boat
-taxi
-foot
-sandboard
-hang-glider (sp?)
-skis
-shuttle bus
- more bus

You'll note that I wrote all of those modes of transport in the form of a list. I did that because
lists:

- are easy to write
- make it look like I've carefully chronicled my journey (when in fact I haven't)
- make it easy to create humour by simply repeating an item on the list
- are easy to write

I stole that joke from Will and Ian Ferguson's How to Be a Canadian so you can blame them if you think it was bad.

Anyway, now that I'm back I've had some time to reflect on my trip. The standard question is, "what part of the trip did I enjoy the most?" It's really hard to say. I saw some amazing places, had some amazing experiences and met really wonderful people. Most of you know that the year leading up to this trip was a really tough 0ne for me. The simple act of travelling by myself was, and I know this will sound sappy, good for my soul. Getting up every morning and doing exactly what I felt like doing was what I needed. It remineded me of the things that I like doing - the things that give me energy. This trip helped me take my heart's candle and relight it. (Bonus points for naming the song that generated the previous line)

Patagonia

2006-09-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

I still can`t figure out why they decided to name an entire region of South America after an outdoor clothing brand. Oh well, either way it is really beautiful down here.

I`m in a ski town called Bariloche which is in the northern part of Patagonia on the Argentina side. Bariloche is know for its amazing beauty, great access to outdoor sports and chocolate. Yes, chocolate. There are about fifty chocolate stores in town that are all better and bigger than any chocolate store that I`ve ever seen. Who wants me to bring back some for them?

The mountains in the region area`t quite as high as the mountains in the Rockies or Coast ranges but the views in the are spectacular none the less. The weather was crystal clear for both of my ski days so the vies of the huge lake at the base of the ski hill - named called Cerro Catedral - were remarkable. I couldn`t stop taking pictures of the view. Here`s a self shot from one of the chairlifts:

Since I was renting equipment anyway, and they hadn`t had any snow in two weeks, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to try skiing again. I haven`t skied in 12 years so the first couple of turns were pretty out of control. But, as the day went on, I was surprised by how quickly the skills came back. I had such a great time that I now want to buy skis and go back and forth between skiing and snowboarding.

Oh, a tip for those of you who have had their I-pod battery quit on them in cold weather. Placing the I-pod down the pants is surprisingly effective.

Eating my way through BA

2006-09-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

In the early 1900s, the president of Argentina fell in love with Paris and decided to rebuild parts of Buenos Aires in the French style. This, combined with a large Italian and Spanish population gives BA a very European feel. So much so that I have to keep reminding myself that I`m in South America and not somewhere in Europe.

It seems that the major tourist attraction to Buenos Aires is the cheap food and drink. The Argentinean beef and Argentinean wine (particularly Malbec) are some of the best I`ve ever tasted and are ridiculously, ridiculously, ridiculously cheap (those of you that have seen Zoolander can insert the accent). Last night a group of us went to a really nice steak house called Siga La Vaca (Follow the Cow) where I completely gorged myself on some of the most tender meat I`ve ever had. The complete meal that included as much steak as you could eat (you literally walked up to the grill and pointed at which cut of meat you wanted and could go back as many times as you wanted), a huge salad bar, a nice desert, many bottles of champagne and wine cost only 40 pesos. That`s equivalent to just under $15.

My only complaint is that everything in this city starts really late. We went to the restaurant for dinner at 11:00pm (nobody dines before 10pm here). By the time we were finished desert it was 1:45 in the morning (the restaurant was still full). From there we went to a night club that was completely empty. We were told it was the most popular place in town so we waited around. Sure enough, between 2:30 and 3 am people started rolling in. By 4 am the place was jammed. When I left at 6 am it was still full. I know for a fact that I can`t keep up that kind of pace.

Bye Bye Brasil

2006-08-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

After nearly 50 days in Brasil I have finally managed to pry myself away and make it to Argentina. Not an easy thing to do because even though I`ve spent a lot of time in Brasil, I feel as though I have only touched the surface of things to do and see. So much so that I`ve already planned out a future trip to Brasil. It will include more kitesurfing up north, a trip to the Amazon (I didn`t go this trip for reasons I won`t get into on the blog), and a visit to the islands of Fernando de Noronha (apparently the most beautiful islands in the world where you can kayak next to spinner dolphins).

After leaving Rio I spent four days on Ille Grande, an island off of the Costa Verde. There I went on a couple of spectacular hikes through sub-tropical rainforest and got met some really great locals. They invited me to play in thier daily soccer game (on a proper grass field) and I got into a few impromptu beach games. Between the hikes and the soccer I could hardly walk by the time I left the island.

Now I find myself on the Argentine side of Iguazu falls. These are known to be the most spectacular water falls in the world - wider and higher than both Niagara and Victoria falls. Unfortunately I arrived in the middle of the most severe drought the area has experienced in 27 years so the falls aren`t as impressive as they could be. I`m trying to take the optimistic point of view and I`m telling myself that I`m seeing rocks that no one has seen in 27 years - a true, rare privilege. Right???

Tonight I get on my first long bus ride of my travels - an 18 hour ride to Buenos Aires. Everyone tells me that the bus system in Argentina is one of the best in the world. I`ve booked myself a seat that is fully reclinable into a bed (full cama). If it`s not comfortable I`ve always got my trusty friend - the sleeping pill. Thanks dad!

A Cidade Maravilhosa

2006-08-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

No wonder Cariocas (citizens of Rio) call it A Cidade Maravilhosa - the marvelous city. It has some amazing beaches surrounded by a backdrop of tall mountains covered with lush tropical rainforest. Even though the weather deteriorated soon after I got there (it was so cloudy/rainy on most days that you couldn't see the Christ statue) I still fell in love with the city. Great food, amazing nitelife, friendly locals and lots of fun day-time activities make it a great place to visit.

Hangliding is as close as you can possibly get to combining a terrifying experience with an ultimately peaceful one. The terrifying aspect comes when you realize you are only attached to a peice of nylon held together by a cheap frame and you are about to jump of a platform that juts out over a 500 meter cliff. Then seconds after jumping, as you realize you didn't plunge to your death, you are floating. Not flying but floating hundreds of meters above the earth in the most peaceful way. It is just like a flying dream. I would recommend that everyone does it at least once in their lives.

Another highlight of the trip was going to a Soccer match. I watched Flamengo (the most famous club in Rio) play a team from the south in legendary Maracana stadium. About half an hour before the game started the Flamengo side of the stadium was packed and the Samba drums started. The whole side of the stadium started dancing and singing the cheers in unison. There was so much energy and it was so much fun that I didn't even notice when the game started. Check out this video - the whole match was like this. They put North American sports fans to shame.

Those two experiences aside, by far the best thing about Rio is the Sucos (juice) stands. On almost every corner there is a shop filled with fresh fruit just waiting to be blended into the tastiest, healthiest dring you've ever had in your life. I went at least twice a day every day I was there (eight days in total) and didn't get a chance to try all of the flavours. There were fruits I've never even heard of. This is the lady who served me many, may drinks...

Winter???

2006-08-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

I just got to Rio a few days ago and was greeted by extreme, humid 38 degree heat. Do these people really have the nerve to tell me it´s winter???

I discovered an amazing way to increase your running speed and stamina. I think I should market my idea as a training tool. Here´s how it works:

1)Start your jog from your nice, cushy Ipanema hotel (or hostel) at about 5:15pm and head for the 7.5 km loop around the lagoon.

2)At about 5:35, when you are halfway around the lagoon you realize the sun has set and you are in the middle of Rio - very close to the favella (you know, the place where the movie City of God was set).

3) Get scared.

4) Run like you´ve never run before.

I need some updates from home. In particular, what´s going on with the Canucks. Have they signed anyone? Are we going to the cup?

Salvador da Bahia

2006-08-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

Salvador is a lovely colonial city about half-way up the coast of Brazil. Unfortunately it´s plagued with the usual Brazilian city problems of poverty and drug abuse so the place feels quite sketchy. I had a very strange encounter with one of the locals late the first night I was there. Don´t really want to go into the details but in the end the whole situation turned out to be harmless.

One charming aspect is a custom where a local (usually trying to sell you something) ties a ribbon around your wrist. You are supposed to get one wish for each knot they use to fasten the ribbon around your wrist. So, when one of the street vendors approached me with her "gift" (I put gift in quotation marks because she wouldn´t leave me alone until I bought a necklace), I happily made my three wishes.

The only catch is that you only get the wishes if you let the ribbon fall off on its own. If you take it off yourself you become cursed - I think the voodoo gods strike you down or something. I didn´t think this was such a big deal because it was a cheap little ribbon - how long could it take to fall off? Well, that night I went out for dinner with some people I had met (shish-taouk for all you Montrealers. One of the guys had recieved one of the ribbons before and had been wearing it since September. Hmmm, the prospect of wearing this thing for a year wasn´t really exciting me but neither was suffering eternal damnation or whatever curse was supposed to befall me if I voluntarily removed the ribbon.

Luckily I didn´t have to wait that long. A mere three days later I was sitting at dinner on the island of Morro Sao Paulo when the ribbon came off. Everyone immediately instructed me that I had to throw the ribbon in the water and my wishes would come true.

Now I´m just waiting for my superhero powers to kick in.

Videos

2006-08-10T08:28:00.000-07:00

I´ve been trying to figure out how to save the videos that I´ve been taking so I can erase them from my camera. I´m going to start storing them on youtube so anyone can watch. So far, I´ve only had time to upload one but there are more to come.

Check out Craig take out his inner rage on a bag of Sunflower seeds.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ptfrohlich

Jericoacoara

2006-08-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

Jericoacoara (prounounced je-ri-kwah-kwah-ra), simply referred to as Jeri, is on the North-East coast of Brazil in the middle of endless sand dunes. It´s an idealic little beach town with sand streets, really chilled-out locals and great nightlife.

I spent a week there but by the end I was very happy to leave. The party scene is so good that it was almost impossible (well, for me at least) to go to bed before 5 in the morning. By day four I was feeling sleep deprived and by days six I was starting to get that "I´m getting sick" feeling.

There are a ton of activities in Jeri. While there I tried sandboarding down the dunes, lazed around on the beach, spent a great day on a dune buggy ride with a danish guy and a dutch-german girl (who is doing her Phd at Oxford - small world), and then, finally I tried to go windsurfing.

People from all over the world come to Jeri to windsurf because it is reknown for its strong wind and big waves. On the day the I went out the waves were only moderate in size but it was blowing 35 knots - offshore. For those of you who haven´t sailed or windsurfed, when the wind is blowing offshore it is difficult becuase if you are having any trouble you will be blown out to sea - in this case the Atlantic ocean.

So, in those conditions, not having windsurfed in 10 years I confidently rented my gear and headed for the water. It was a lot harder than I rembered and it was way windier than anywhere I´ve windsurfed before. I spent the first half hour flailing around in the water trying to waterstart. By the time I got up and had my first ride I was completely exausted. All I wanted to do was to head in and have a rest and a drink to get the salt water taste out of my mouth (I had swallowed quite a bit of water at this point). Unfortunately, I had spent so much time flailing around in the water that I had been blown well, well downwind of the beach. The only way to get back was to start sailing upwind. How the hell was I supposed to do that? The wind was so strong that I could hardly get up on the board. That´s when I had, what I would classify, as a mild to moderate panick attack.

Luckily, after a few minutes I calmed down and my old skills started to come back to me. I spent the next six hours (it was really only half an hour but it felt like six) sailing upwind back to the beach. When I finally got back to the beach I was completely drained and had to lay down for while. I later found out that the rental place was keeping an eye on my through binoculars and had a boat to rescue me if I was in trouble. Questions to ask before the next time I rent.

I kind of wish that I hadn´t gone windsurfing. I used to windsurf a lot - in fact I spent most of every summer of my late teens and early twenties windsurfing before I gave it up about 10 years ago. I have fond memories of it and, in my mind at least, I remembered being quite good at it. Well, this humbling experience shattered any remainder of that illusion.

Photo: me, exhausted but happy to be back on shore.

My Camera´s adventure

2006-08-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

This guy stole my camera...

Well, stole might be a strong term. He actually borrowed it for a few days without my knowledge or my permission.

I was out for dinner the night before I was set to leave Cumbuco. After dinner I went to a bar down the street where I realized I had left my camera on the table at the restaurant. About thirty seconds after my realization the owner of the restaurant walked into the bar to have a drink. I explained to him in hand gestures and broken Portuguese that I had left my camera in his restaurant and was set to leave the next day. He was very friendly and wanted to help so the two of us jumped in his car and went back to open and search the restaurant. Alas, the camera was nowhere to be seen. He made a couple of phone calls but couldn´t reach any of his staff. The restaurant was set to be closed the next day so he told me come back two days later to see if the waiter had it.

The next morning I thought about leaving Cumbuco and buying a new camera enroute. The
problem was that the Brazilians try to protect their domestic economy by slapping huge tariffs on imports. A digital camera is about three times as expensive as they are at home. So, I waited two extra days in Cumbuco because I didn´t want to press onwards without a camera.

Two days later I went to the restaurant at lunch time and the waiter who had served me was there. He immediately recognized me because I had eaten at the restaurant about eight times in the previous three weeks. When I asked him about the camera he claimed that he hadn´t seen it. He went to the owner, who also recognized me and we had a long discussion. Unfortunately, the entire discussion was in Portuguese so I had no idea what he was saying but it was clear they didn´t have the camera. I did hear the word "polizia" about a dozen times and they kept pointing out the door. I thought maybe they were getting mad that I was accusing them of taking my camera so I said, "no problemo" and sheepishly walked out.

I was now in a bad mood because I knew that I would probably have to spend about $700 for a camera that would cost about $250 at home. I packed up my stuff and was getting ready to leave town when the owner of my pousada came to me with a plastic bag containing my camera. He said the owner of the restaurant tracked him down and told him that they found it behind the table at the restaurant - it must have somehow slipped down while I was eating. Right on, I got my camera back and it looked to be in good shape except the battery was drained so I couldn´t turn it on. Hmmm, that´s curious because I rembered charging the battery the afternoon I lost the camera.

The next day when I reached Jericoacoara and had a chance to charge the camera I was treated to a great laugh. I turned on the camera and found about fifty pictures of the waiter and his friends partying and posing for pictures. There´s even a few shots of some random women ( I really hope it´s not the waiter´s girlfriend) in some sexually explicit positions. You should really check them out, they´re pretty funny.

I´ve had a few days to think about the whole thing. I´m glad he took the camera (now that I got it back) because he clearly had a better time with the camera for those few days than I would have. I also now have in my possession authentic pictures of Brazilians in thier natural habitat. After I post this blog I´m going to head over to the photomat and get them developed. I´ll mail them back to the restaurant so he, and the owner, can have a look at their photography skills.

Photography lessons

2006-07-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

I´m finally leaving Cumbuco and my kitesurfing adventures on Monday. It`s going to be really tough to leave because I am loving (I mean really, really loving) kiting. I´m tempted to just stay here for my entire vacation and kite every day. I´ve met lots of guys who have been here since the beginning of June and are planning to stay until October. Nothing wrong with that and I´m sure it would be great but I think I`d feel guilty when I got home. I can just picture it, "What, you travelled all the way to South America and never left a little fishing village?" Plus, if I stayed here, I´d have nothing new to report in my blog.

My social life has gone downhill over the last few days because I´ve started reading a really funny book by Bill Bryson called "A Walk in The Woods". Before I started reading it my social life was great - I was going out every night with my kiting friends and having a blast. Now, when they ask me to come to go out to a nightclub in Fortaleza I decline because I´d rather go home and read this book.

Anyone who´s ever done any hiking or camping has to read this "A Walk In The Woods". It´s a memoir about Bill Bryson´s hike along the 2100 mile Appalachian trail and it´s is packed full of laugh-out-loud anecdotes about hiking and camping. For example, near the beginning of the book he´s doing some research on the trip and starts exploring the world of bears. He reads story after story about bear encounters and attacks that is summed up by story about four bears that enter into a camp and try to get into the food stores. He´s getting more and more nervous about encoutering a bear on the trip and he asks himself:

"What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out my backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children´s parties and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag."

Anyway, I learned the other day that Brazilians are terrible photographers. I went out with my Dutch friend Quierin and my Slovenian friend Branko for dinner the other night. It was a beautiful setting on the beach so I asked the waitress to take a picture of us in our surroundings. The first picture turned out like this:

I wanted her to get more of the table and the sand so I asked her to take it again, this time getting more of us and the table in the shot. Here´s take two:

She managed to take the exact same picture only this time with her thumb in the shot. She noticed the thumb in the picture so offered to try again:

Hmmm, could be time for some photography lessons

First Jumps

2006-07-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

The learning curve for kiting is surprisingly steep.

The first few days are tough - you spend most of your time in the water and when you actually do get riding you are generally going straight downwind. You spend the whole time battling the direction of the wind and the waves and ultimately you end up pushed downwind. After flailing around in the water for a while you inevitably look up and realize you are far downwind of your starting point so you head to shore to walk back. They famously call this the "walk of shame".

Well, after a few days of the "walk of shame" I can now consistency stay upwind. That means I can ride around for as long as I like and come back to the same spot on the beach.

So, the next step was to learn how to turn around without a big crash. Now the technique for this is really quite easy. Picture riding along, going to your right, with your kite out in front of you at a 45 degree angle at about 2 o´clock. To turn, you slowly fly the kite up directly above your head, to 12 0´clock, carve the board upwind and steer the kite in the other direction to 10 o´clock. This pulls you in the other direction and off you go. Easy enough, right?

The only problem is that if you do the exact same thing, only fly the kite across the sky faster, you jump.

Really high.

Guess what happened the first I tried?

Hacky, the guy who runs the school, was watching from the beach and said I flew about 8 feet into the air. Now that might not sound like a lot but when it is totally unexpected it´s a little scary.

Luckily, when I was in the air I instictually steered the kite back up to 12 o´clock wich made the kite act like a bit of a parachute and I landed very softly. By the time I landed it was actually a really fun feeling and it has happened a couple more times since.

Now I´m off to the beach to practice turning and perhaps try some intentional jumps.

Kiter Demographics

2006-07-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Two Frenchmen, two Dutch, a slovenian, four Norwegians and a Canadian walk into a sushi restaurant in Brazil.

Is this the setup of a bad racial joke or is it a typical night of hanging out with kiters in Brazil? If anyone can come up with a punchline of the setup I´d love to hear it.

The people I`ve met here are quite interesting. The locals are all very friendly but none of them speak any English and as you saw in a previous post my Portuguese sucks.

The foreigners are all here to kite. 99% of them are men and 99% of them are European (I think I´m the only North American in town.) All of the kiters easily fall into one of two categories - either they are surfer-types who have moved here because they want to drop out of European society or they are type-A professionals here for a quick adrenaline fix. The type-A´s far outweigh the dropouts. You can tell right away if the guy you are talking to a dropout because when you ask about their day they reply by giving the exact same sign. ItÂ´s hard to explain because I´d really have to demonstrate for you, but they flex their arms in towards their chest like they are holding a bar really tightly and then they start making crazy wind and grunting noises. I think it means they had a crazy day out on the water but I haven´t heard the official interpretation. Talking to the type-A´stheirt thier day (I´ve met three management consultants, one fund manager, three doctors and a I-banker) they all give you very precise details about what equipment they used, the wind and wave conditions, what time they went on the water and how they performed.

The thing that seems to unite all of us is age - everyontheirin thier late twenties or early thirties. I´ve also noticed that the majority of us all have slightlye slighly-receding hairline. It makes me wonder if wanting to kite is somehow genetic?

Everyday after kiting I´ve gone for a run either on the beach or on the dunes that are right in behind the town. It´s been great to stretch out the legs while running through somesceneryful scenary listening to the I-pod. I´ve mainly been listening to the CBC radio 3 podcasts. The other day a song came on by Old Man Luedecke called I quit my job. You can probably guess what the song is about but you should have a listen by clicking on the link. I can´t think of a better moment - running on a dune during a sunset after a day of kiting with a nice banjo-driven song perfectly summing up your mood. Not a bad trip so far.

No Wind

2006-07-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

The past two days have been slightly cloudy which translates into no wind. Given that this whole town is based around kitesurfing there is almost nothing to do when it isn`t windy. The first no-wind day reminded me of an exchange between Jerry and Elaine had on Seinfeld:

Jerry: What did you do last night?
Elaine: Nothing.
Jerry: Nothing? You must have done something?
Elaine: No. I did nothing. I just sat and starred.

That`s what I did for the first no-wind day. I sat on the beach and stared at the ocean waiting for the little ripples to turn into whitecaps but nothing happened. At the end of the day I felt completely useless.

The next day the weather was exactly the same so I took the 30 minute bus ride into Fortaleza with a nice couple I met to do some shopping. I was on a mission to buy some laptop-sized speakers so I could play music in my room off of my Ipod. I spent the entire day going in and out of electronics stores trying to explain to the Portuguese speaking sales people what I was searching for. Finally, after three hours and about thirty stores, I found a pair tucked away in an office supply store. They looked perfect and they were cheap so I bought them. On the way out of the store the sales women, who only spoke Portuguese, kept pointing at a power bar next to her computer and kept showing me how to plug them in. I wasn`t sure what she was talking about but she seemed a little crazy so I smiled and walked out of the store. When I got back to the Pousada (guesthouse) I excitedly plugged the speakers in and started cranking music (Wolf Parade`s I am a runner for those of you who are music fans).

After about thirty seconds of music bliss, the speakers started smoking and stopped working. They were really hot and the whole room smelled like burning wires and plastic. After a lot of swearing and cursing, Rob, an English guy who is staying at the same place, figured out that the speakers are made for 110v and the plugs here in Brazil are 220v. The women at the store was trying to tell me that I needed to plug the speakers into a voltage transformer.

I need to learn Portuguese.

Kite Lessons - Take 1

2006-07-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

I now think I know what it`s like to take a violent beating.

I´m sure kiteboarding lessons are designed to torture every single muscle in your body. Even without the dramatic high-impact crashes my arms and shoulders are sore frosteeringng the kite, my neck is killing me from constantly looking up in the sky and my legs are in agony from straining to walk the kite upwind against the resistance of the 25 knot wind. Basically everything hurts.

I took the three day introductory kite course with a Dutch couple who have recently moved to Brazil. The guy, Juli, has just finished a few years of modeling in Paris and wants to get out of "the hectic life". Me and a British guy who hangs around the school have nicknamed him Zoolander because he was telling us that he`s never read an entire book in his life. Anyway, the course was taught by a really chilled out Austrian dude named Haki (standing behind Juli and Kim in the picture below). The first day of the course was all on land just learning safety aspects and how to steer the kite. Day two was all in the water without the board learning how to "body-drag" by flying the kite through the power zones. Day three was the big day with the board and unbelievably I got a few of really good rides right away. The learning curve for kiting is a lot like snowboarding - the first two days are a complete write-off and then suddenly day three is magic.

This sport is a great mix between Snowboarding, Wakeboarding and Windsurfing. I`m loving it. I`ve already made plans to extend my stay in Cumbuco by at least a week.

Oh, a number of you got the right answer (Pulp Fiction) to the quote prize but there seems to be some controversy. Megan was the first to post the answer on the blog but Watson was the first to reply by email. I was leaning towards giving the prize to Watson because according to the time-stamped video replay he technically submitted his answer first. But, after consulting with the judges, it looks as though we have a tie. Both can expect a South American gift upon my return.

Brazil

2006-07-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

I`ve realized that Brazil is a long, long way from Vancouver. I left Friday night at 10:30 and finally arrived at my destination in Fortaleza at 3pm on Sunday. The flights down were quite relaxing with the only real stress coming at JFK airport when I checked in at the Varig desk. I was supposed to have a 12 hour layover in New York so I was quite excited to check my bag and spend the day wandering around Manhattan. When I got to the desk she told I should get on the the flight that was delayed from the night before and was set to leave in a few hours. When I told her I´d rather wait around for the evening flight so I could spend some time in New York City she told me I´d better catch this flight. Her exact words were ^you never know if there is going to be another Varig flight^. It turns out that the airline is on the verge of declaring bankrupcty. Not the most confidence building statement but I got on the flight and fotunately the situation ended up working out in my favour. When I got to Sao Paulo I had an overnight layover and had to either spend the night at the airport or go to a hotel. The women checking my bag for my flight to Fortaleza didn`t seem to care about anything and gave me a voucher for a free nights accomodation at a local hotel. I liked my introduction to Brazil.

When I arrived in Fortaleza on Sunday I was picked up by a local taxi driver. He didn`t speak a word of English and I realized that I only speak one word of Portuguese - Obrigato which means thank you. After a few minutes I managed to tell him where I was going by pointing to the name of the town on an email. We got into the taxi and he was blaring something that sounded terrible on the radio. The man on the radio was screaming like his children had just been abducted. It was only when he screamed out ^Gooooaaaaallll^ did I realize it the guy was announcing the finals of the world cup. After about 10 minutes of trying to communicate with the taxi driver I finally found out the score was 1-1 in the game. I got to my pousada in time to watch the overtime of the game and the shootout. After each penalty shot there were cheers from the entire village. Everyone was watching.

So, now I`ve spent a couple of days in Cumbuco. It is a really sleepy fishing village that has been semi-overtaken over by kiters. The town has only recently been discovered as a great kitesurfing spot so it still doesn`t have a lot of tourist infrastructure. There are a few small restaurants and about 20 small guesthouses. There is a nice routing that I`m settling into here. All of the kiters get up in the morning, wander down to the beach and wait for the wind. It usually picks up around lunch so everyone rides until sunset at six o`clock. After that, people eat and go to sleep pretty early - around 10pm - and get up the next day and do it all over again. It`s a very quiet, relaxing place.

I`ve started taking Kiting lessons from a couple of really cool Austrian guys at a kitesurf school. I`ll give more details in another blog but I will say that it is really hard. I`m surprised there is any water left in the Atlantic ocean - I think I`ve swallowed most of it.

Thanks Ryan!

2006-07-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

RMac managed to save me from having one the most embarrassing conversations of my life. I think it would have gone something like this:

Brazilian Customs Agent (BCA): Hello. Passport and visa please.
Me: You need a visa to travel in Brazil?
BCA: Yes
Me: Oh, I don't have one.
BCA: Then you can't enter the country
Me: When's the next flight back to Vancouver?

Thankfully Rmac gave me the heads up on the Visa three days before I was set to leave. I had to postpone my trip by two weeks to get it but everything turned out really well. I got to spend two more weeks in Vancouver hanging out with my family and friends. It also gave me two more weeks to rekindle my desire to move back to Vancouver when I'm finished school.

Now I'm sitting in the airport lounge getting ready for the red-eye flight to New York. From there it's on to Brazil!

Calling Shotgun

2006-07-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

When most people call shotgun on a roadtrip they normally are saying they want to sit up front in the car. Well, on night one of the road trip, somewhere between drinks at the crazy Cactus and shotgunning beers in the fountain at the Bessborough hotel, Sandy and Watson decided it would be a good idea to buy an actual shotgun for the trip home. Now, normal people would probably have laughed and said, "yeah, great idea!", and would quickly forget it. Not us, we went to three different stores in the morning looking for the right gun before we found a store that sold the right shotgun and trap shooting device.

So, the usual mind-numbingly boring drive from Saskatoon to Calgary took on a whole new edge. As soon as we left the city limits we started looking for a place to start shooting our huge box of clay pigeons. We realized that a shotgun makes a fairly large amount of noise and on the flat prairie the sound could carry a long way. Normally on the drive from Saskatoon to Calgary all that you can see in any direction are empty fields. Now that we were actually looking for an empty field all we could see were farm houses in everywhere. Finally, after about an hour of debating, we pulled off the highway and drove for a couple of minutes up a grid road. We ran into a farmer who was mowing his lawn. Sandy bravely jumped out of the car and asked if he would mind if we took some shots in his field. The farmer seemed totally unfazed that three guys in an Audi would ask to shoot a shotgun in his field and gave us permission to shoot. He even gave us some pointers for launching the clay pigeons (always launch them into the wind, who knew?)

Shooting is fun.

I was by far the worst shot of the three but by the end of the second session we were all hitting every target. We started to launch two at a time and then launching them at different angles and speeds. All those of years of playing Nintendo's Duck Hunt had finally paid off.

Semi-Verbal Communication

2006-06-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Communication between friends is an interesting thing.

Minutes after picking up Craig and Sandy at the Saskatoon airport I was driving to the hotel pointing out the glorious Saskatoon sites. It was while I had my head turned, pointing towards the Robin's Flour factory that I heard that familiar, somewhat panicked sound coming from Craig's mouth. It's a hard sound to describe but anyone who's spent enough time driving with friends will instantly recognize. It's not a scream or a moan but you can't really classify it as a word either. It sounds more like someone is trying to say about twelve warning words all at once so it ends up coming out as a completely incoherent garble of vowels and consonants. Fortunately the sound is made with such emotion that as the driver you have no choice but to snap to attention and see what's going on. In my case I noticed the car stopped about five feet in front of me and had to slam on the breaks. That sound saved me the embarrassment of crashing three minutes into the road trip. Going 1500km with a smashed up car wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.