Join the Quest for the Golden Chicken!

I love making things like this happen...

If you're going to be in London on Saturday, do join us for this treasure-hunting, sightseeing, beer-drinking, clue-solving day of mystery, intrigue and adventure!

As you can tell, I'm rather excited about it :-)

More info / sign up here

The Go Game

It's important to play.

The concept or urban gaming is always something that's intrigued me: a group of people coming together in a city and turning it into their playground, interacting with their surroundings and with each other in a completely new way.

Technology is one thing that's making these kinds of games possible, but more than that I think it's our desire to be part of something, part of a community, connected to one another and our surroundings.

In a big city like London, everyone is in their own bubble. Sometimes, it's good to break out of that bubble and try something new!

When I approached The Go Game to see if they would be interested in collaborating on a London Urban Adventure to raise funds for Raleigh and The Princes Trust, I was overjoyed that they were just as excited by this concept as I was. And now, it's happening next weekend - the first London Go Game for Good:

London Go Game - Sat 30 May

This event's open to absolutely everyone, so if you're going to be in London next weekend, get a team together and sign up now at:

www.thegogame.co.uk/community

Hope you can join the game!

The Kinabalu Challenge

Extreme Ironing on Mount Kinabalu

Well, I might not take an ironing board but I am going up Mt Kinabalu.

This November (rainy season in the Malaysian Borneo), me and three of my colleagues are going to spend nine days hiking, cycling, kayaking and rafting through the jungle to the 4100m summit of Mt Kinabalu.

It's going to rain hard, the leeches are going to bite hard and we're going to have to spend the next six months training hard and preparing for this tough challenge.

But we're not just doing this for the adventure, we are doing it to raise money for two great charities - Raleigh and The Princes Trust.

Around one in five young people in the UK are not in work, education or training. Youth unemployment costs the UK economy £10 million a day in lost productivity, while youth crime costs £1 billion every year.

The Princes Trust gives practical and financial support to the young people who need it most, helping develop key skills, confidence and motivation, enabling young people to move into work, education or training.

Raleigh runs expeditions and challenges to inspire people from all walks of life to make a difference to their communities and reach their full potential as global citizens.

We aim to raise £10,000 to support young people nominated by The Princes Trust to go on Raleigh expedition, and to experience something that will change their worldview forever and turn their life around.

Read more about what we're doing on our fundraising page:

http://www.justgiving.com/borneoforthis

We have a massive target to reach, we are determined to reach it, but this relies also on your support. So please, visit the link above and give what you can and help us to support Raleigh and The Princes Trust to turn young people's lives around.

Green Smoothies?!?

118 188 recently launched a service in the UK whereby you can ask any question by text message and they will send you an answer. Any Question Answered (63336) have been doing this for years.

Today, I had a question. (I have been experimenting with alternatives to coffee in the morning)

I just bought a freshly-made smoothie this morning. It contained red berries, juice, yoghurt and an energy shot. It was pink/red but now it has changed green. Why?

Both sent me an answer within a few minutes, but you can see the quality of the answers really varies:

118 118: If you refrigerated the smoothie, the color might not change but if it does, that indicates that it already passed out. Thank you!

63336: Fresh cut or mashed fruit oxidise rapidly in the air. Depending on the initial mixture can go brown or greenish colour. Lemon juice would slow the rot.

Passed out??? That's not even proper English! (neither is color). Dubious.

Very impressed with 63336's answer though. Explained the problem, and gave a solution. I'm off to tell Pure California to put some lemon juice in their smoothies...

Bit of a random blog, I know. Have been enjoying things far too much to blog :-)

I built an awesome path (challenging and rewarding, painful afterwards), went on my first stag do (crazy and great times with old friends) and may or may not have participated in a "very irresponsible" party on the tube ahead of "them" banning alcohol on it (one of the most random nights of my life). Tomorrow I'm going back to school.

Yes, I am working too :-)

Maybe the smoothie was going green to celebrate World Environment Day.

London, Induction Week, Roundabouts, Barcelona and Urban Golf

Wow, it's been quite some time. How things have changed.

This is going to be one of those "compress everything into one big post" things, just to warn you!

A joyous train journey – with all my valued possessions crammed into two very large suitcases – saw me make the move to London on March 7th to embark on the great career.

And it started off pretty great, with a week-long induction welcoming the ten of us into the Business Technology Consultants programme. There was lots of corporate branding, several Vice-Presidents, lots of chocolate and coffee to fuel us and (of course) some great team-building activities. By the end of the week I knew I was in the right place – a very valued business unit and intimate community within Capgemini with loads of opportunity to develop and find my place in a company that is innovating, progressing, growing and leading.

Then the shock of the first assignment as all of us were whisked away to the small town of Telford – roundabout capital of the world – for our first taste of the consultant lifestyle of long train journeys and living in generic hotels… and working long hours on a high profile and very time-critical project for a very big client. It was a lot of fun, and a good chance for us to bond further as a group, within the confines of our generic hotel in our generic business park of course. Although we did make a few notable forays outside, including one to marvel at the very first iron bridge in the world (in a town coincidentally called Ironbridge) and enjoy some fantastic Thai food.

And I spontaneously spent a weekend in or near Barcelona, mainly to piss someone off by missing their phenomenal party, but also to see a whole load of AIESECers who’d come over for Iberoamerica's regional conference. Best moment was arriving at the hotel at midnight and being greeted very loudly by 20 Venezuelans most of whom didn’t know I was coming :-) Great stuff.

They've come a long way. Last year we were less than half that number at the conference, and the AIESEC Venezuela was officially "on alert". So I felt very proud that those two things had turned around and the country is now a full member once again, and to hear about the successes of some of the accounts that I had started. It was really great to be in that atmosphere again, but I also know it was the right decision and it was time to move on.

It was really fun exploring Barcelona – it's a really vibrant city with a very nice lifestyle. I do miss the adventure of life in another country a little. I think it's the uncertainly, not knowing quite what to expect, being surprised by things. That happens less in London.

But it does feel good to be living here. There's a lot going on. I've had a lot of fun doing all those typical touristy things with various visitors from around the world. Last weekend Drew and Lina came to visit. The highlight was definitely Urban Golf. What an idea! Right in the middle of Soho, you can find yourself anywhere in the world playing golf. Naturally, we chose Pebble Beach, California. The idea is you have a big projector screen, and a set of very nice (and real) golf clubs and a bunch of balls to whack right into the screen, where they magically turn into virtual balls in a kind of Wii-like experience but on a much grander and more realistic scale.

At one point Drew did manage to get a ball to rebound off the roof and hurtle towards our table – where it could have caused havoc and only narrowly missed about three glasses. Apparently nobody's been injured "yet". I'd certainly feel much safer if they provided helmets. They should also give you 3D glasses and have a small fan to simulate the fresh air that I think is quite an integral part of the golfing experience. Golf carts would be a plus too. Man, it could be so much better! Anyone else have experiences with unusual sporting locations or novel simulation ideas? Or slightly crazy things to do in London?

Adventuring into 2008

Welcome to the new look life of dan!

As well as writing about the day-to-day adventuring that my life occasionally entails, the intention this year is to throw in some slightly more regular posts about a few things that are important to me: 1. technology, 2. how I see the world changing and 3. things that inspire me.

I hope you will enjoy!

The end of 2007...

Although I did slightly miss the giant exploding firework-filled puppets of Venezuelan Nuevo Año, it was great to be in Edinburgh again for both Hogmanay and Hoghogmanay. Highlights included almost being trampled by the Alloa Pipe Band as I turned a corner off George Street, mass 3-step line-dancing lessons, seeing people I hadn't seen in ages, balloon-related merriment on Princes Street and the obligatory waking up in a room full of about 20 other people. That's what New Year is all about in Edinburgh, and I do enjoy it.

And the start of 2008...

Anyway, what will 2008 bring? Potatoes, yes, hopefully the chance to meet up with a couple good friends "from" Venezuela in Europe in February/March and the great mission of finding an awesome place to live then living there, either in London or Woking (one being more likely to be awesome, the other being more likely to be a sensible decision - hmm, which sounds more like me?)

In the meantime, I'm just waiting for a sunny but non-windy day for the debut launch of my giant solar airship. Sisters choose the best gifts.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope to share many adventures with lots of you in 2008!

Winter, and the next phase

Crunch crunch crunch.

The satisfying feel of frosty grass under my feat. The beams of sunlight filtering through icy tree branches. Cold air nipping at my face. Bursts of condensation following my dog Sadie as she sprints around the white scene before me with a bright pink toy.

Winter is here!

I've missed it. It feels Christmassy.

And I've already received one great Christmas present - a job with Capgemini which I accepted on Friday. I'll be starting as a Graduate Technologist on March 10th, the week of my 25th birthday :-)

So I've got 3 months to find my ideal flat in London. Any advice from Londoners on how to approach this would be very much appreciated!

The Cowboy Poet

The Cowboy Poet

What exactly is a cowboy poet was a question I was asking myself on Saturday evening. Andreas - my flatmate and good friend from Venezuela/Germany - and I were cycling across Scotland (mainly in the rain) and were in a youth hostel about half way across, at the foot of Loch Ness, in a room with two of the most typical Texans you will ever see.

Lanny Joe Burnett, the Cowboy Poet, sported one of the best moustaches I have ever seen, and his wife Cindy was an very smiley air hostess. They were of course Scottish themselves, Lanny Joe being only a fifth-generation Texan with family roots in this country.

This is one of the greatest things about travelling I think, even in your own country - the wonderful and crazy people you meet. Lanny and Cindy helped us make some Hallowe'en costumes for a party that night at the Fort Augustus youth hostel which featured a cast of Americans newly unleashed upon the concept of drinking and Australians telling us stories about "Drop Bears" and killer penguins. Makes the Loch Ness monster sound pretty believable.

Anyway, as a Cowboy Poet, Lanny grew up on a ranch, with a horse named Goldie, and now writes and performs poems about cowboy life in places as far away as South East Asia and West Texas!!

I think we know who to book for the entertainment at Get Golden 2008.

Hugs!

Well, Edinburgh was quite a hug-filled place today.

Why?

Well, this was the basic idea:



That was a guy called Juan Mann who had a very simple idea. That sometimes a hug is all that we need. Now, September 10th has been unofficially declared as International Free Hugs Day all over the world. That video has been viewed over 17 million times, the Facebook event today had over 850 thousand people attending. People just going out and offering free hugs to the world.

What a great idea.

Of course I had to do it.

So I was out in Edinburgh today, with my excellently-engineered "FREE HUGS" sign (thanks Patrick for the help, and Thom/Susie/Adam for the materials) and a warm smile upon my face. And it actually works! After two hours and 161 hugs I definitely felt good inside knowing that I'd brightened up the days of 161 of my fellow human beings.

It was amazing!

First hug was a little schoolboy, then many many students and sun-enjoying-people on the meadows, and some old ladies who loved the idea. Then tourists on the Royal Mile and my 100th "abrazo" somewhere amongst a group from Spain in Princes Street gardens.

There were family hugs, running leaping hugs, hugs verging on acrobatics, group hugs, over-energetic hugs, hugs that were needed, hugs that were funny, hugs from people at work, hugs from people in suits, hugs across barriers, hugs from hastily-opened car doors, hugs from friends, hugs from family and many, many hugs from strangers :-)

A hug. A very simple thing that just makes people feel good.

The world needs more of them.

"Explosive end to Latin posting"

Well, we always knew the taxi story was newsworthy and now it's been officially covered by my local paper, the East Lothian Courier.

"STUDENT leader Daniel Cunningham survived an explosive end to a 13-month dream posting in Venezuela when the taxi he was travelling in suddenly ignited." (more...)

Of course this was the part of the story they'd focus on, but they do certainly get plus points for "world's largest student organisation", "helps develop leadership skills in young people", "learning experience", "dealing confidently in Spanish with business executives" and "the potential to make a difference to people's lives". That's AIESEC folks!

Of course all that is a bit redundant when they miss out one of the Es in AIESEC. Still, let's hope some other Haddingtonions are inspired by the story and make the link when they see the recruitment campaign as they return to / start university!

The Bay Area

The blogging spree continues as I wait around in Las Vegas airport for my delayed flight to London.

The last week has really been quite great. Of course the big reason has been seeing so so many people who I haven't seen in years. It has been really cool catching up. Thanks so much Cristina, Karthik (and family), Laura (and family) and Helen (and family) and everyone else I saw for making it such a great few days!

But also - here we go - things that I love about the Bay Area, in no particular order other than that of my mind:

1. The climate that is just nice. Well, it was sunny the whole time I was there, a nice dry heat.
   
   
2. Great restaurants of all types packed into San Francisco.
   
   
3. Everything is just so clean - the streets, houses, cars, countryside, everything!
   
   
4. San Francisco is the perfect size. You can easily walk from one place to another, it's not overwhelming yet there are always new places you haven't explored.
   
   
5. People are all so nice and friendly (maybe some too much!)
   
   
6. Not being able to go more than a few miles without bumping into the HQ of a big tech company.
   
   
7. Sitting around in Dolores Park and such places with a great sandwich and smoothie.
   
   
8. Fun fun places are within reach - beaches, snowboarding, national parks, hiking, the rest of California
   
   
9. The possibility to eat both traditional home-cooked Indian food and traditional home-cooked Chinese/Taiwanese food at friends' houses within a few days of each other.
   
   
10. There's just a wee bit of Spanish here that I can enjoy reading and feeling special :-) And there is certainly a bit of a Latin vibe to some places, which I of course now need.

Dan wants a plan.

London and Edinburgh up next. I wonder how it will feel being back there?

US perception of Venezuela

I got a good insight into the perception towards Chavez and Venezuela in the United States watching The Daily Show yesterday. Or perhaps an insight to the big problem with the US media.

There was an interview with a US American who has just released a book about Hugo Chavez.

It seems there is a huge amount of ignorance due to the tendency to really just jump for the quick, easy, simplified and dramatised story. That story is of a slightly rebellious but not-to-be-taken-seriously South American leader with a "big personality" who is doing a great deal of good for the poor in Venezuela, but with the sole bad point that he likes to irritate the US with random unfounded insults.

There doesn't seem to be any willingness to go beyond those cliches, and it really seemed Jon Stewart just wanted those to be reinforced rather than letting the author really explain anything deeper. The author looked quite unsatisfied as I'm sure he had a bigger story to tell.

Yes, it's only The Daily Show and it is there for comedy, but would it do any harm to at least reveal something insightful and that people haven't already had implanted into their minds?

Is this typical of the media coverage of Venezuela even in the "serious" media here?

I'm sure the book paints a more rounded and complete picture, but what proportion of Americans are going to read it? I would certainly be interested in reading it - especially if it goes beyond the simplified cliches of crazy South American socialist leader trying to save the poor and bring down the US.

Because it's certainly not that simple in Venezuela. I think it is questionable to many Venezuelans whether what Chavez is doing is really going to help the people and advance the country in the long-term.
Because that is really what is important.

-

I've been very much enjoying the American attitude to service and the efficiency of everything around here - two things that are quite contrasting with the way things often are in Venezuela.

So something that really irritated me the other day was while queuing in Oakland airport - with only maybe ten people in the line - this woman behind me started complaining about how busy the airport was now, and how some airports in the US were now "like a third-world country" with their lines. I just thought, no, this isn't like a third-world country. Maybe you should try visiting one.

And, I don't know, I only have the experience of Venezuela, but really Caracas airport was pretty modern, clean and efficient. The thing about Venezuela is only a part of it is "like a third world country", the rest is really much like the US (except with slightly more inconvenient airport taxes). I guess many developing countries are like that now (that's why they're called developing and not simply undeveloped). Of course some are not. But certainly queueing in Oakland airport is nothing like the hellish 6-hour wait I once had at the bus terminal in Caracas, with stifling heat, constant shouting and just too too many people crammed together. If that's what she meant by "like a third-world country", then I think some perspective is needed.

If only everyone spent a year living in a completely different country from their own.

Total extravagence

Oh my gosh.

This is the best hotel room ever.

I’m currently relaxing in the JW Marriott Resort & Spa in Las Vegas. In a top-floor suite :-)

It’s rather good and just huge. I have two bathrooms and two balconies! Wine and ice cream was just delivered and I’m listening to loud rock music on the CD jukebox which includes speakers in one of my bathrooms.

Next up I’m going to finish my wine in the hot tub, then don my bath robe and enjoy some Haagan Daaz.

Oh, it’s a far cry from Venezuela indeed.

All free too. Gracias a Marriott.

Tomorrow free breakfast and day at the spa, apparently.

It’s really a big shame to be enjoying this all on my own. I’ll do it right next time!

Basic plan throughout all the relaxing is to figure out how to shape my career path to end up in California, because I’ve realised over the last few days that I REALLY really do like it.

And Vegas also is just an awesome concept all-round.

Ooh, there's a new feature at all Marriott hotels to have environmentally sound rooms. That means it's impossible to leave the A/C at 62F (aka "McKenzie Baltic") all day, for instance. That's good. I felt a bit bad about the environmental impact of a year in that hotel room in Newark. Now they've got it sorted.

Other good news - the employees have been "empowered to serve". And they certainly have got service down to a tee in every Marriott I've stayed in :-) Recommended!

Dan and AIESEC. The story.

I'm just about to leave Venezuela. But what was my path in getting here?

Well, in my own words compiled from genuine blog posts over the last 2 years...

Feb 18, 2005 - It all began with an internship (in California)

"YES! Drew and I were on an AIESEC conference call last night to discuss the program of events in the Bay Area. [Get Golden in Yosemite was the best]. So we're doing it. It's going to happen in April. And it's going to be awesome. Really awesome. We're going to invite AIESECers from all over the States - this will be a national event."

Sep 23, 2005 - My first Information Session (in Edinburgh)

"So hopefully will get past the screening process and allowed to join in on all the fun! I hope I can play my part in developing the LC and being part of the AIESEC experience."

Nov 25, 2005 - My first ever conference

"Just back from an thoroughly fun AIESEC conference in Belfast.

The vision is that by giving people the opportunity to work abroad, people understand more about different cultures and turn into lovely well-rounded individuals with all the neccessary skills for today's global marketplace.

Yes, it's quite idealistic but I think it is a great concept and you get to meet loads of people, develop professional skills and learn about all sorts of different cultures.

There was also a great deal of dancing (AIESEC has a thing about dancing)"

Feb 12, 2006 - Leadership Development Seminar

"They were a fantastic 4 days. 4 days of intense AIESEC experience. Motivation, emotion, learning, meeting new people and voting in the new national committee.

I am going to raise a traineeship. And change one person's life. And in turn, even in just a small way, the lives of everyone they know and meet. That is what makes AIESEC worth doing. That is why I am doing it and love it.

But I really think I want more than that. All this needs thought. A few days for things to settle in. So we'll leave it at that for now."

Mar 30, 2006 - I wanted more

"Still no idea what I'm doing next year - got lots of international AIESEC positions to take a look at."

Jun 5, 2006 - And I'm on an MC!

"So, what's next? Well, as Declan is constantly keen to put it, "they've shipped me off to a charity". Yes, I'm off to work for AIESEC for a year. After several applications to different countries (many of them possibly a bit last minute) I finally spent a good amount of time on one of them, got some amazing references together and got the job of MCVP External Relations in AIESEC Venezuela.

The job will be excellent - leading an entire country's AIESEC presence within the national team - big national accounts, organising events, managing strategies for marketing, branding, alumni relations, etc. The country looks absolutely stunning. Yes, it's a bit politically and economically unstable (it's ok, I excel at staying out of trouble!) but it will be such an incredible cultural experience, such a difference from here.

It will be challenging, it is a bit scary and I'm still not quite sure what to expect but I am sure it will be a fun and very experience-filled year!

You've sometimes just got to jump into these things, and this is the time for it!"

---

I quite like that line in the last post "it's ok, I excel at staying out of trouble!" - I think I did actually know what to expect in Venezuela :-)

And were the rest of my expectations met?

• big national accounts - Yep!
• organising events - Too many!
• managing strategies for marketing, branding, alumni relations - some
• country looks absolutely stunning - Absolutely. More than words can say!
• politically and economically unstable - Oh yes :-)
• incredible cultural experience - certainly, and very difficult at times
• such a difference from here - In so many ways I'm just a bit scared of going back now
• challenging - Extremely
• scary - Petrifying at times
• fun - Lots of
• experience-filled - More than I EVER could have imagined

So - sad to be leaving amazing people, friends, projects, things-not-done behind...

... but overall extremely happy with the whole experience and very excited about seeing lots of old friends and moving on to the next phase of my life!

Thanks so so much to all the special people who were part of this incredible year!

P.S. Join me in El Leon on Tuesday at 8pm to arrange your next trip to Europe, and mine to Venezuela, and help me say "goodbye for now" to Venezuela!

Angel Falls Top 2

And of course Steve brought his flag...

Angel Falls conquered

Strong currents and bloody freezing under the falls

Thanks Lina for the great photos!

Going home(s)

San Francisco

Well after over one year in Caracas - a city of chaos and music, traffic and street food, marches and protests, poverty and excess, hard times and great times, and meeting so many amazing inspiring people - I am making the long journey home to the UK.

It feels very strange. A big part of me wants to stay but a big part of me wants to go. Life is about change, and it is time for change again. I'm ready to embrace it!

In order to make the most of air miles and various cheap flights (and to see lots of people), my meandering journey home looks like this:

Tuesday 14 August
Leaving party / Risho's birthday party / Packing party in Caracas

Wednesday 15 August - Caracas to Mexico City to Miami
One night in Miami!

Thursday 16 August - Miami to LA to Oakland
Five days & nights in San Francisco!

Tuesday 21 August - Oakland to LA to Las Vegas
One night in Las Vegas!

Wednesday 22 August - Las Vegas to London
Two nights in London!

Friday 24 August - London to Edinburgh
...and to Haddington where I look forward most of all to relaxing at home with my family who I really do miss lots

That's almost 30 hours on planes spread between 8 flights in a single week. If anything, there should be lots of free mediocre-quality in-flight lunches at silly times of day.

The idea of this quite epic and ridiculous journey is to see as many people as possible.

In San Francisco, there's already quite a reunion planned featuring my good friend Declan, two excellent friends from California who never quite made it to visit me in Venezuela - Helen and Laura, the legendry sea-god Aaron (first person I ever met in AIESEC), Karthik and Tina from the current generation of AIESEC San Jose and various other people who I knew from my year in the Bay Area.

Needless to say I'm excited about being with all these folks in this other city where I also spent a great - in a very different way - year of my life.

All sorts of goodness is being planned - yummy eateries, dreaming about silly expensive champagne in Bubble lounge, some kind of paintballing adventure, and BBQing at the (cold) beach. If you can get to the Bay Area for any of that (especially the meal on Saturday 18th) I would love to see you there!

Equally I'm looking for people to see and things to do in London and I'm looking forward to kicking up Edinburgh during the final days of festival time.

Mark your calendars!

A fuego lento

In Venezuela almost anything passes for a taxi.

It was a very bad decision to get into this one.

Drew and I felt we needed to make a slightly comical video to document what happened, then I added a slideshow of my year in Venezuela.



Here is the sequence of events:

1. We cram 6 people into the worst-looking vehicle in Caracas (me, Drew and Steve from Scotland, Risho from Slovakia and Branko from Maracaibo / Serbia).

2. The very dodgily wired-up radio starts to make strange crackling sounds and generally fail

3. The driver pulls off the freeway as the car begins to fill with smoke

4. We discover that none of the doors except the drivers can be opened from the inside

This is the fucking scary I'm moments from death moment.

5. Steve (in the front) manages to open his door and him and Branko escape, Drew climbs out the window and the driver opens my door to start putting the fire under his seat in front of me out.

6. Risho and I push past him as he's taking his t-shirt off to put out the fire.

All this time there's a fucking police man standing across the road by his car talking on his mobile phone to his girlfriend or something. Risho and I shout that the car's on fire and we need help. He doesn't seem at all concerned. Then the taxi driver - quite nastily burned by now - runs over to get his help.

But by now the car is fully on fire and it's too late. We stay and watch as liquid burning oil drips under the car, the windows shatter and the gas tank explodes. All minutes after we'd escaped.

It is extremely sobering to realise just how easy it is to die.

As you can see, I was very happy to be alive!

And from now on, I'm checking the doors of EVERY car I even think about getting in. And I am only using taxis built in the last ten years.

What an end to Steve and Drew's trip, and my year in Venezuela.

Gran Sabana and Angel Falls

Steve, Drew and Lina (Drew's girlfriend from Sweden) just left yesterday after two very eventful and mostly enjoyable weeks touring around Venezuela.

After almost two days of general chaos in Caracas, it was Friday morning and we were stuck getting eaten by mozzies and waiting for Lina's bag to possibly be delivered by American airlines. The rest of us were all packed for a long holiday beach weekend, complete with mosquito nets that had been bought by Steve and Drew amongst much amusement and confusion in a small shop in the biggest mall in South America.

Canaima Lagoon (photo by Arnoldo)

It was now getting a bit late in the day for the beach, so we decided
- heck with it lets just go for the best first. What's on the cover of
Lonely Planet? Canaima and Angel Falls. OK.

Malaria Pills with lunch, quick internet research, some Spanish phone calls, a few black market international currency exchanges and by 9pm we're on an executive bus direct to the Gran Sabana!

The journey was great. After the bus we caught a TINY plane - just 6 seats. Apparently though the instruments don't work above the clouds and a back-up silver briefcase needs to be brought out to scare tourists :-) That was fun.

Then spectacular views of table mountains, waterfalls, planes, palms, forest and small thatched native settlements as we landed in the inaccessible town of Canaima, from where we were led by a native indian up river in a bumpy wooden canoe along with a misfit group of tourists from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, USA, Germany and the Netherlands.

Steve by this time was in full sun and mosquito protection mode with several layers of sunblock and quite a percentage of DEET in his blood. Drew wasn't as successful having put his possibly illegal 80% DEET insect repellant in a blue plastic bag. This subsequently turned most of Drew into something looking like he should be in a Vegas show.

We enjoyed barbequed chicken and slept in hammocks on an inland in the forest, with all sorts of animal sounds around us and a really useful praying mantis that couldn't seem to catch anything.

Angel Falls from Isla Raton

We got a great view of the falls as the early morning sun beamed onto the table mountain. Roughly like the photo, but in real life :-)

After crossing the river, we hiked through the forest to Angel Falls, looking out for giant spiders and "24-hour ants" on the way. The spiders trap and eat birds and if one of those ants gets you you'll have about 24-hours to live. Disappointingly we saw neither of those things!

I was somehow expecting a nice neat stream of water landing in a calm pool at the bottom where we could lie in looking up at the falls.

Well, after about 900m of falling (about the height of the biggest mountains in Scotland (Munros), or two Empire State buildings - in one go) the water is pretty much just mist! It's a very mesmerising sight.

We did swim in the plunge pool a bit further down, which is freezing cold and very very turbulent. Refreshing to say the least.

Sapo Falls (photo by One Off Man Mental)

Day 3 we enjoyed getting soaked walking under Sapo Falls - another huge waterfall at Canaima Lagoon. Wet season (Mar-Sep) is the time to go! We encountered a bright yellow and black frog (very poisonous) then we climbed up to the top. We sat on rocks in the river for a good long time just admiring the stunning scene before us - a beautiful lake - luscious green savannah as far as the eye could see - native huts dotted around in the foreground and huge table mountains in the background.

This was one of the most tranquil, beautiful scenes I have ever seen in my life. I genuinely could have stayed there for hours just relaxing in the sun with this incredible vista before me.

This region of the Venezuela has to be one of the most spectacular sights on this beautiful planet.

If you are in Venezuela and you have not been, make it happen!

Vicious packs of dogs

Sadie running

Went exploring today. There is this mysterious path off the road near where I live that leads up into the hills.

Risho and I went up it today taking a few random paths to end up at "the top" where there was a big dirt road leading to an electricity pylon. Exciting stuff. There was also a nice view of the other side of La Vega, one of the larger barrios in the hills of Caracas. People must walk as much as we did up those steep hills every day to go home! It must be unbearable when it's raining.

Anyway, we figured the road must lead to another road and eventually back to Caracas. Hah! What fools. The road did lead to another dirt road but that just led to another pylon. What the heck's the point in that? A nice dirt road plenty wide enough for a big truck and just leading between two pylons. Absolutely no connection to other roads of any form.

The only logical conclusion is they airlifted in a truck to use the road to travel a few hundred yards between two pylons. Sounds like an appropriate level of inefficiency for Venezuela :-)

So - and this will start to sound familiar to some people - it was now about half an hour before sunset and we were atop a hill in a forest.

We decided to stumble down this very steep and overgrown path that went from pylon to pylon in the hope it would lead back to civilisation.

Instead it led to a snake. A real live snake, about one foot long and deviously camouflaged. Not very threatening so we went on.

After lots more stumbling through plants and getting scratched I happened upon a dog. It had some friends. A bloody huge pack of them, barking a lot and looking like they wanted very much to bite us.

But this was the only way down. So - armed with a big stick I'd been using on the scrubs - I ran full belt at the pack of wild dogs shouting and screaming.

Luckily they moved. They were all talk.

It turns out they were living with a guy up there. Weird.

So after several minutes of shouting, running, and with dogs at our heels we were safe and it was only a few more minutes back to Caracas and "normality".

We had a well-deserved beer and now am cooking dinner and preparing to watch something exciting on TV. Except there's a really annoying and loud kids karaoke party going on in the garden. Was OK for dancing in the shower but now is just annoying.

Oh, and that dog in the picture is nothing to do with the pack of wild dogs. She's a nice one :-)

Going home plans are coming together. They're either:

- home via some days in Miami and San Francisco
- home via Cuba

These are the only two places where I can get free airmiles flights to the UK and are cheap to fly to from Venezuela.

One sounds quite fun and interesting, but I think there's plenty of scope for adventures in Venezuela and Colombia and I really would love to be back in San Francisco for a few days.

What do you think - Dan in Cuba? Is that a good idea?

Consequences

I think this from Caracas Chronicles is a very well informed post that I wanted to highlight:

Katy says: As we read the news on the student protests and watch the government's heavy-handed approach to dispersing the crowds, we are reminded of the wave of protests in 2001 and 2002 that culminated in the Carmonazo.

So now is as good a time as any to ask: where is all this leading? Do we have any hope that Chavez will allow RCTV back on the air? The government's repression will surely be bad news for Chavez and his tarnished image overseas, but after almost universal condemnation for the closure, is there anything else to gain in that regard?

...

Almost everyone who is protesting is doing peacefully, but there is always an element that takes things too far and I think it can sometimes be easy to let things spiral out of control. Of course there are people on both sides who want this.

I hope that everyone takes their responsibility to really think about why they are doing things, what the objective is and what the likely consequences are.

Hehe, I'm watching TVes right now and it seems they've replaced the crappy telenovelas (soaps) of RCTV with equally crappy ones of their own. With equal amounts of laughable sexual innuendo :-)

Student protests in Caracas

Student protests in Caracas

Well, TVes started up pretty quickly and appears to be mainly a whole load of song and dance. Reminds me a lot of the Edinburgh festival Venezuela show a couple years ago, only worse.

Today business was back to normal (I went to a meeting) but there were mass student protests at all the universities in Caracas. One of my friends got hit by a tear gas bomb that the police fired into the students at UNIMET, one of the private universities. This didn't deter her though, as she continued on the the protests in the center of town at Chacaito.

This was near where at about 5pm tonight Risho and I were walking past the Ministry of Infrastructure and suddenly everyone was running and taking cover. Then we saw a whole load of police closing the road in front of the ministry. We quickly got into the metro.

Later on the news I saw that police were using more tear gas on protesters in this area and firing shotguns into the air. It's strange to see all this stuff in the places I always go - the university, the main business district.

But it's definitely commendable to be protesting this. This is a bad bad turning point in the country's history and I hope the protests go on, peacefully. Caracas Chronicles notes that even the other private TV stations only had their licenses renewed for 5 years, ending conveniently six-months before the next election time. Imagine an entirely state-controlled broadcast TV network using government funds to broadcast their campaign to the masses, with no opposition broadcasting to challenge them. That is a very scary thought.

One really appalling thing about this whole situation is the behaviour of two of the other private TV stations - Televen and Venevision. They have not shown a single moment of these protests or this story. It is as if everything is completely normal for them. This is clearly to appease the government and keep their licenses.

Globovision meanwhile have been showing full support. Many newspaper cartoons depict it as next in the line for will of Chavez to crash down upon.

It's uncertain whether the universities will be open tomorrow.

TVes is here

Well, RCTV just switched off. The signal went black. Now we have a spinning TVes logo and the description says "will provide 24-hour programming". Evidentally not this hour.

Outside: fireworks vs. pots and pans

On the streets of Caracas

I'm quite glad I'm back home now. I just had a little walk around my locality to see what was going on. I wish I'd had my camera, but words will have to do:

First, I came across a group of red-clothed Chavez-supporters about to embark upon a march to celebrate the new TV channel "TVes". Against a backdrop of graffiti painted on walls in the barrio "With the revolution: TVes 2 - making the socialism of the 21st century", I met a group of three interesting-looking characters. They turned out to be from Germany, United States and Colombia, here to support the Bolivarian socialist revolution. They were from an international society called "Intellectuals and artists in defence of humanity". James Cockcroft, an Californian in his 50s with eyes hidden behind black round-rimmed sunglasses, had this message:

"Defendemos la vida
la naturaleza
y el planeta.
Solidarizandonos con los procesos revoluciones de Venezuela y otros paises del mundo"

which means:

"We defend life, nature and the planet. We are showing solidarity with the revolutionary processes of Venezuela and other countries around the world"

Blimey.

He asked if I wanted to join him in the march. I politely refused and moved on.

After passing a play park covered in Chavez slogans and with big murals of the man himself, I heard noise in the distance.

Someone passed me wearing a bullet-proof vest.

2 worried-looking policemen shifted their weight from foot to foot.

Round the next corner was a flood of red. Celebratory music blaring out from trucks painted red with slogans like "a socialist fatherland or death". Here they were, marching through an opposition neighbourhood, every second car a police car.

From the windows, a hundred pots and pans clattering in protest to the march. Security tight as the bravest people stand behind guarded building gates with their pots. One street-seller quietly tapping a spoon against his table as the sea of red floods by.

I overtake it and jump on a bus to the HQ of RCTV, the TV channel at the center of this messy situation.

A group of about 20 heavily armed policemen (shotguns, machine guns, rifles, bullet-proof vests and helmets) signals that I am in the right place.

There are probably only a thousand people here, at the atmosphere is quite sombre, with the occasional celebratory cheer as supporters listen to live broadcast. A huge Venezuelan flag dominates the top of the building. People are selling flags, buttons, T-shirts, food, drinks, ice cream (some things are always the same in Venezuela!) The side of the building is painted with graffiti in support of RCTV - "100% committed to Venezuela", "Don't close it", "In my heart lives RCTV" and painted hands (symbolic of even Chavez-supporters being in support of the channel).

I speak to one woman - Lourdes Bustamente - standing with a sign saying "Yo crecí con RCTV" (I grew up with RCTV). She was born the year after RCTV began broadcasting. She tells me of when she was at university, coming home every evening to watch the channel. She tells me what she likes about RCTV and what it means for Venezuelans:

"All the programs are beautiful, with no violence, very happy. The channel is a tradition, bringing knowledge and culture to the people."

I ask if the channel has changed over the years.

It took a position against all governments, but none of them tried to close it. This is an injustice. It's like a member of my family dying.

Next I talk to Abinadab Gomez Diaz, a Colombian living in Venezuela. He tells me he isn't on either side, but:

"I have confidence in God. He will decide if the channel closes. Chavez wants a war. It starts at midnight tonight."

Then the crowd is suddenly fleeing.

I run too.

Apparently Chavistas - who had been marching past launching fireworks - had tried to get in through the police blockades. A gun goes off behind me. I turn to see a police man with a smoking shotgun. Fuck.

But it was either a warning shot or a mistake. I talk to the police commander on the scene. She tells me:

"It's very calm. We are protecting all the streets. There have been no incidents and that's because of our presence. I'm not worried and tonight there will be more police here."

I think that's what she has to say.

Time for me to get out of here.

Now I'm watching Globovision and the police at the Television Commission are spraying crowds (and the TV camera) with a huge watergun. A policemen just got taken away on a stretcher.

I'm staying inside for a while.

Day of Protests

Day of Protests

It reminds me of pre-election time last December.

This time the protests are against the forced closing by Chavez of Venezuela's most popular public TV station, RCTV, which is being taken off the air on midnight Sunday.

10pm tonight I was in Altamira - a square right in the middle of Caracas - amidst crowds of flag-waving protesters, flyers lining the ground and cars - with their alarms blaring - blocking all traffic through the square.

What really surprised me was that I didn't see any police. I think they are just accepting that the protests are happening and staying out of the way.

I picked up one flyer advertising a "gran cacerolazo" tomorrow evening at 8pm. This means everyone get their biggest casserole dishes and make as much noise as possible with them, along with car alarms, horns, sirens, everything.

Tomorrow the protests are going to be centred around the National Telecommunications Commission where the government - under the guard of the armed forces - will be seizing control of RCTV's transmitters in order to switch over to TVen, the new state-controlled channel.

It's scary, tragic and illegal.

El Universal (English version) has loads of news and background about this story.

Students close university over protest over civil liberties

Students close UCAB

It was strangely quiet when I arrived at University Catolica Andres Bello this morning, where the AIESEC office is based in Caracas.

And this is why. Earlier this morning, masses of students had blocked all the entrances to the university in a protest against the closure of private TV station RCTV which is planned for this Sunday 27th May.

RCTV - Venezuela's oldest TV channel at 53 years on the air - plays an important role for many Venezuelans in providing a variety of programming including news and commentry. One thing they also provide is very vocal opposition to Chavez and his government, and they publicly promoted the coup attempt in 2002.

And now, in another move in the continuing destruction of civil rights in Venezuela, the government is refusing to renew the channel's license to broadcast on terrestrial television.

Apparently this is because of continued legal infractions. But the real reason is no secret. Chavez is in charge and he gets to decide what goes on TV. So the channel will be replaced by a new state-run TV channel, and one valuable platform for open debate against Chavez is gone forever.

Press and student bodies have united to protest against the closure, with protests this week in Caracas both for and against the closure.

Several international bodies have voiced their opposition to the closure as a breach of civil liberties and freedom of expression.

The European Parliament have approved a resolution that calls on Chavez:

"to ensure equal treatment under the law for all media, whether privately or publicly owned and irrespective of all political or ideological considerations" and "Calls for a dialogue between the Venezuelan Government and the country's private media, while deploring the government's total unwillingness to engage in dialogue in general, notably in the case of RCTV;"

The Inter-American Court on Human Rights has filed a law suit against the Venezuelan government for "violating the human rights, freedom of expression, and personal safety" of the RCTV workers and journalists.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a motion expressing "profound concern" at the situation.

Today, the national guard were deployed [Spanish] to ensure the protests remained peaceful.

There will be more protests tomorrow and Sunday.

I am kind of tempted to see what is going on but I think this could turn quite nasty.

Well, as freedom of expression is washed away, there were dramatic thunderstorms and torrential rain in Caracas this afternoon. But it has temporarily abided so I'm off to get in supplies.

More updates on this interesting and desperate situation tomorrow...

Buses and travels and things

I’m just back from training new members in Barquisimeto, one of the cities where AIESEC is in Venezuela. This is a local committee in the great but unfortunate situation that most of its experienced members seem be suddenly going off on traineeships. What’s left is like a clean slate of new members. Members who are so full of ideas and enthusiasm and who are doing some really great things. Working with these members reminds me in one sense what it’s all about – providing the platform to allow people to make of it what they want. I took two members to their first sales meeting today. I remember my own – the nervousness, the not being quite sure what to say, relaxing during the meeting as I realise the company loves the idea of AIESEC then leaving with that awesome feeling of having done a great job and being part of something really real and valuable and useful to companies.

Barquisimeto is a city of over one million people, about 6 hours West of Caracas (“because of the queue” – people in Venezuela are obsessed with traffic queues, I guess because they are so popular!) This places it in the Center-West of Venezuela, meaning it’s much warmer than Caracas but nowhere near as crazy hot as Maracaibo (so I hear). Definitely not suit-wearing temperatures though. So I didn’t.

Compared to Caracas, the city is really calm (OK, anywhere in the world would be) and very spread out with very short buildings. This is because it is on the San Andreas fault (yey – back on it after 2 years!) although apparently they only have minor earthquakes that nobody feels. The city has a total of 210 works of construction at this very moment – hence construction is the industry for AIESEC to be hitting, and every street corner has workers and blocked roads – making bus routes very random.

Buses are very distinctive in Venezuela. The small ones (carritos) have colourful, dramatic paint jobs and are normally adorned with decorations and trinkets and slogans inside and out (often religious or political). With pumping Regaeton music blasting out from the tinted windows. And probably a street seller or two trying to grab everyone’s attention as they sit squeezed into their seats-not-designed-for-Dan. And bus-stops don’t mean anything – you just wave one down when you like and shout, whistle or somehow gain the drivers attention when you feel like the music is too much for you. Great stuff for just 15p! It’s one of the highlights of cultural experience in Venezuela!

The long-distance buses are something else altogether. Even the cheapest has very reclining chairs, air-conditioning and TVs. Cheap like $4 for a 6-hour journey. For only slightly-more you can have “executive-class” which is pretty much like travelling first class on a plane. Of course looking outside is banned, and curtains are strictly provided at all seats. A movie lulls you to sleep as you speed through the countryside of Venezuela oblivious to all. Maybe the best way for really long journeys. But that countryside can be quite spectacular and definitely should not be missed! Again, there is the occasional person making his money – someone just offered me a cachapa, which is like a thick corn-flour pancake, normally with queso blanco (white cheese).

A continual barrage of being offered things you only might just want seems to be the model of the economy for many people in Venezuela. But there are times when you do want, and if you enjoy making last minute decisions as I often do it works very well.

Ooh, great - we’re stopping for food. What timing! Writing about cachapas was making me hungry. I’ll tell you what delight I eat once I return…

…mmm, I had an arepa filled with sausages, onion and mayo. It was as delicious as I’d hoped, although nothing will ever beat the one I had on the way to Mérida in December.

Now it’s freezing on this bus so I’ve wrapped up warm and I’m going to spend my final 34 minutes of battery listening to Snow Patrol and preparing a proposal for tomorrow.

Bye!

Dan

Addition: The bus took 7 hours!!!! Which meant a fun fun fun night sleeping at the bus terminal for me, being awoken by floor-cleaning people and security-type people at horrible times in the morning.

That life-consuming thing that I love

First, let's apologise for the rather sporadic nature of posting. Definitely a case of having way too much going on.

Henceforth to sum up the last two months!

-

AXLDS in Mexico. My first international AIESEC conference - 20 countries worth of passionate, amazing people filling a room with spirit and excitement and working together towards the same goals.

The global village on the first day was an unbelievable whirlwind of culture, of strange foods, of joyous peanut butter, of Mariachi bands and gleeful dancing locals. Utter amazement at being part of such an incredible spectacle in the stunningly beautiful city of Guanajuato.

Working with leadership teams from around the Americas (and Spain) and realising that we share so many of the same challenges and problems, and also there are just incredible solutions out there. The power of sharing is incredible. The feeling of connecting and working together - something beautiful and magical. Seeing the impact AIESEC is making on people, on society.

Talking to all the US delegates who had heard the buzz of Get Golden. Roll calls at 5am in elevators. Sleep as a mere illusion of the mind. Making incredible friendships. Meeting people for the first time in real life. Being inspired.

And Mexico! Spicy food. Running up pyramids with ominous clouds set to explode upon us. The Pacific Ocean. Tequila. Long bus journeys. Strange things boiling away in big pots. Chasing muggers through the metro station. Churros and Starbucks.

Needless to say, I came back with 9 other people all filled with boundless enthusiasm, dedication and a determination to take the needed action.

My part in that has been to get damn serious about building the relationships that we need. And there are some great things very far into the pipeline now. I am not leaving AIESEC Venezuela without its sustainability.

-

Next up was our national conference. I had the huge responsibility of being the chair of this event. Bringing everything together, setting the mood, the tone, the spirit. Being in charge of conference magic was how I put it. This was very enjoyable, and at times hugely challenging. I think I did a reasonable job of it. The sugarcubes were certainly overflowing :-) (little messages people write to each other at the end of conferences. yes it's all a bit fluffy)

This conference was a success, but I cannot take credit for that. It is because of the members - something amazing has happened to them. They're AIESECers! I think as an MC we have actually shifted something, created something. And that makes me so incredibly happy!

-

Right now I'm in Barquisimeto where it is a little bit too hot but nevertheless we are forming the ultimate ER team. Tomorrow we're hitting two companies, Tuesday two more. With "new" members so full of ideas and hungry for knowledge and ready to get the results. I love it. Training in Spanish is awesome :-)

Today I ate Chinese, some incredibly Guanabana jelly, and a delicious Kebab-type thing with falafel and meat. And I drank lots and lots of water, for the two most common reasons.

You will notice that AIESEC has now completely consumed my life, but I don't care. I haven't got long left. Which is extremely sad and very exciting at the same time.

MEXICO!!!!

Very spicy Chorizo tacos

We are actually in Mexico.

I cannot believe it.

Right now I'm surrounded by people from all over the Americas at 6am waiting to check into our really nice and Mexican-looking hotel. All the people from the US know about (and love) Get Golden. I love being a hero :-)

Had some delicious and very spicy chorizo tacos for breakfast / dinner and they have Starbucks here!

Well, now it's time to enter the conference bubble...

Me and my Guinness

Me and my Guinness

I had a Guinness.

I enjoyed it VERY much.

After 8 months without real beer and after saving this since Christmas it was a great reward for getting some good results for AIESEC, and for it being St Patrick's Day of course.

MEXICO TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

The wonderful world of Dan

Miss World 2005, Me, Miss World 2006

I think this is the first time this has happened.

I’m sitting in my flat at a lost end for what to do.

I think the problem is the internet has turned off, so all access to media, work and those so-important time-wasting activities is cut off.

So, time for an update from the wonderful world of Dan.

In December I received a brilliant Christmas present – a can of Guinness Draft from a visiting AIESECer from Ireland. I thought about enjoying it at the time, but wanted to wait for a special occasion. So I said to myself: right, I am only allowed to drink this once I sign a major sponsorship deal for AIESEC Venezuela.

It turns out these things take time. It came very close with getting partners for our national conference, but in the end one deal fell through and others only resulted in product donations or participation without sponsorship. Good, but not good enough.

But now the Guinness has been liberated! A fantastic organisation called CEVEDES, part of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development are running a project with AIESEC and sponsoring one member of our national team to go to our regional conference in Mexico. Finally, the great meter of ER income has some blue ink on it (signifying income from sources other than exchange). The Guinness can be consumed.

Of course given the date it has to wait - just a little bit longer - for St Patrick’s Day is just around the corner.

In other news, I’m feeling very patriotic at the moment after setting foot on British soil for the first time in 7 months. The Embassy was almost I had hoped for – with the BBC humming away in the background, British newspapers and a nice donation of educational materials and really cool British flag badges that everyone wants. I was surprised not to be offered a cup of tea though. That situation has got desperate, with only 7 bags of Tetley and 2 of Assam remaining.

Back to my slightly confused national identity, after watching The Last King of Scotland (very good, Babel was too) I decided to use one of my national identities more to my advantage. It works! I managed to save a ridiculous $70 they were asking us for to get into a quite fancy club in San Ignacio, just by saying I was from Scotland and this was my first time in Venezuela.

It’s really shocking that people are paying more to get into a club than families just a few hundred metres away are earning to live on for about a week. Every now and then something like this highlights to me the huge division that exists in Venezuela.

But back to good stuff - I brought the good word of Dan’s pancakes to Caracas a couple weeks ago, enjoyed by all – including some trees in our garden. Got a bit of a pancake addiction now. They’re so versatile!

Oh, and yesterday, at an event launching Accion Solidaria’s HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, I met two Miss Venezuelas!

Almost all my objectives in Venezuela are complete!

Hopefully the next update will be from Mexico...

What is important

Friendship. Family. Knowing in your heart what you want to do and having the courage to do it.

These are the important things in life.

I know that some people will be sceptical, but I have just watched probably the best, most powerful and moving hour of television I’ve ever seen. The OC has come to an end, and it could not have been a more perfect ending.

Please don’t stop reading. This post is not about the OC. It is about what it means.

Yes, the show wasn’t entirely serious much of the time, but the main themes running through the entire story I think really demonstrate what is truly important in life.

Firstly, that when pairs of people come together through friendship, even more so if these people are very different, they help each other. They support each other in times of crisis. They transform each other. They allow and enable each other to develop into the people they can be.

Secondly, family is so important – helping each other, supporting each other, communicating and just being there for each other. And family is defined as this type of relationship - not in any way determined by genetics - but by the feeling of being a unit, knowing each other and knowing that you will do what it takes to help each other.

And finally, the importance of really discovering what your passion is in life, and doing what it takes, using the support of family and friends, to get there.

This is what the OC was about. The support we have around us. Going through the amazing journey of life with the people around us. Filling in the gaps that the people around us need to have filled and how this allows us to reach that balance, that point in life where things work out the way they should.

Pancake Partying

This Friday we will be celebrating the grand British tradition of making pancakes* for Carnival!

If you are intrigued, please reply here:

http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/daniel.cunningham@gmail.com/pancakes

See you for pancake-making history this Friday!

*Actually, crepes. They're better.

6 months in

All the usual stuff, can't believe it, time flies, etc.

But the question is: what have I achieved in this time?

Well...

2 "lost" cellphones
1 accidental kidnapping
1 day lost in a forest
1 fight in a bar
4 seasons of Alias
3 seasons of Arrested Development
2 bizarre tropical illnesses
3 incidents of sunburn
3 visits to the cinema :-(
3 of our "weekly" flat meals together
4 trips up El Avila
5 trips to the beach
1 amazing beach trip organised for one of the weekends i was ill
23 international tables
2 friends cancelling visits here
42 meetings with companies

So, in general quite a lot of new and exciting experiences and not quite enough of some of the things I took for granted before.

And what have I seen? Some really interesting things about Venezuelan culture:

1. It is not possible for a Venezuelan to speak without waving their hands around
2. There are strict laws to ensure nobody is ever more than 10m from music and/or radio
3. If an intersection is empty, it is mandatory to try and block it, especially if there are any emergency vehicles trying to get through
4. People love to practice their English, thwarting my Spanish grocery-buying skills
5. If in doubt, always add more sauce
6. If still in doubt, turn the music up a bit
7. If STILL in doubt, add a bit more rum
8. Every meal MUST contain a plantain
9. Handshaking is a complex art
10. Yes, there is another form you need to fill in

Apart from all that, or because of it, this has been a pretty amazing experience so far. Learning to live in a different culture is at times a remarkable journey of discovery, and at other times quite an isolating and scary experience. Learning to communicate in a different language is rewarding but very challenging. I think I have come very far in that though, especially in the last couple months. Speaking is just about confidence, but understanding conversation in groups is still very difficult and frustrating. It was quite enlightening that a Colombian girl arrived a couple weeks ago and even she can't understand half of what the Venezuelans are saying!

I'm definitely experiencing a different way of living, whether that's good or bad I'm not sure. Character building, that's it. I think what I've learned is it's possible to live absolutely anyway as long as you have the right attitude (and good people around you). Being positive, finding the things you like and learning to accept the things you don't. And having an adventurous spirit.

Of course I've made some great friends, even some who aren't in AIESEC! I've learned about different cultures, about leading, managing and motivating people, about dealing with dilemnas and conflict, about the complexities and contradictions of politics and society in a developing region of the world.

But mostly I've learned about myself. What is important to me, who I am as a person, my strengths and weaknesses. I think this is one of the most important aspects of the experience.

So I look forward with optimism and excitement to the next 7 months. I just hope this guy in charge doesn't do anything too crazy in that time.

P.S. Various Christmas shenanigans here.

Chavez has won

Just announced.

Chavez 61%
Rosales 38%

Fireworks deafening at the moment, people cheering from the hills.

Update: This is based on a 78% count of the vote.

We just watched the report in Spanish on Globovision (CNN), then in English on BBC World, then in German on DW-TV. I find it interesting that the BBC correspondant said "Chavez would be wise to sit down with the opposition" to work with them. I don´t think that´s how it works here. Chavez has at least 6 more years now. His Socialist Revolution continues...

Quiet streets on election day

Election day: quiet streets

Wait, what's that thing where all the cars usually are??? Oh, a road?!?!

This street just near Plaza Venezuela is normally totally grid-locked. I read yesterday that the average speed of traffic in Caracas is just 11km/h - a comfortable jogging pace.

But with voter turnout expected to be very, very high in what could be a tight election, the streets of Caracas were uncharacteristically void of cars today.

Now safely back in my flat having enjoyed a fantastic lunch of arepas and preparing to settle down in front of the TV and wait for the result. In a few hours, we will know if Chavez gets the chance to complete his socialist revolution or Rosales has managed to successfully unite the opposition.

Guardia Nacional

The Guardia Nacional are overseeing all the voting centres

Guards looked down on the Chavez-supporting crowds at the voting station just below Mamera's barrios.

Mamera is one of the prettier barrios, with all the houses painted very colourfully and a community centre just outside the metro with modern basketball courts.

There was a big mural up on the hillside saying "Good Job Chavez". And I really think he has done a good job here.

A very different Caracas Metro

Two things that are very different today

After checking out our local voting station this morning, which seemed pretty safe, Andreas and I had decided we couldn't resist taking advantage of the one-day only free metro.

We embarked upon a journey to see what was going on around Caracas on election day, promising Mario that we'd be back by 2pm.

Long long queues

Average waiting time: about 4 hours

This was my local voting station. Apparently some people had been waiting since 2am for the polls to open. Most had been waiting since 5 or 6am to cast their vote. People were prepared, with seats, newspapers and umbrellas to shade them from the intermittant sunny / rainy weather. Ice cream sellers and other street vendors were taking advantage of the crowd.

One outburst occurred at the front of the queue when some Chavistas arrived on motorbikes, waving red flags and generally trying to cause a disturbance. The crowd, the vast majority of which were opposition voters, reacted strongly shouting "A Fuera! A Fuera!" (Get Out!) and throwing bottles.

The military just looked on, pretty indifferent to what was going on. I think they understood that the people would sort out this disturbance themselves.

Nobody was hurt and it only lasted a few minutes. I think most voting stations are like this, dominated by voters from one side or the other.

A sleepless night

Saturday nights are normally not much good for sleep. The people in the Barrios surrounding the area where I live have taken to blasting out ridiculously loud music over the neighbourhood until about 6am.

But this weekend was of course worse, with the loud music added to by honking horns and processions of Chavez supporters parading the streets chanting "Chavez is not going". And what sounded like gun fire, but I'm sure was just fireworks, going on all night. Well, I'm not sure.

So after not much sleep, it was time to witness what must surely be one of the most important elections in Latin America.

Venezuela Elections - The Day Before

There was an eerie silence in Caracas yesterday. As I waited for a bus to work, I noticed that the streets were uncannily empty. The few students at University found many of their lecturers hadn't even turned up. This slightly tense atmosphere was interrupted only by the ocassional firework in support of one candidate or the other.

Many people have left Caracas or were spending the day with their families, concerned about possible reactions to the election result.

The campaigning is over now. People are waiting. Tomorrow, between 5.30am and 4.00pm around 16 million people will have their say. Do they want Chavez to stay or to go?

Current polls vary widely, some indicating an almost 60/40 split in favour of either of the candidates, and some indicating only a few percentage points between them. The general feeling I get is that Chavez will stay in power, fuelled by the masses of people in the lower social classes who have benefitted from hand-outs and social programs.

But Rosales's supporters - over a million of whom were marching in Caracas last weekend - are optimistic. They believe now is the time for change, and they believe they will win or at least come very close.

Venezuela is using an electronic voting system. The system prints out a receipt of your vote, which you check and then deposit in a box for auditing. Around 53% of these boxes - selected at random - will be audited to ensure the electronic result and the paper ballots match up. If there is more than a slight discrepancy, all the paper votes will be counted.

Opposition supporters have a deep distrust for this system. Many people I have spoken to are planning to gather outside the polling booths to demand that the box with their vote is audited. They are going to "defend their vote".

Officially, both candidates have declared that they believe the system is fair, accurate and transparent. Chavez a few days ago appeared on television to say that he will accept whatever the result is. If he loses, he has promised to transition promptly to the winner, even in advance of the February date marking the start of the new 6-year term.

But will the people also accept and respect the result of the election?

Tomorrow we will see.

Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution. Good or bad?

I think this quote (from this BBC survey) sums up one of the strongest objections to Chavez's government:

"I am a single mother of 3 with a food shop in Caracas. The government has just opened a Mercal store close to me with subsidised prices at 50% of what I can sell. My business will soon be finished. I am one of millions of poorer Venezuelans that are facing lower income and unemployment. Does the government planto employ 25m people? Why don't they understand they can best help us by allowing our businesses to do well? Most of us do want work and do well and provide for our families."

Andreina, Caracas, Venezuela

Contrary to what I wrote a few days ago, extreme poverty has decreased over the last 3 years. I don't think you can argue against social programs that provide access to free healthcare and education.

People really love Chavez because he is helping them at this moment, he has established a rapor with the people, and his talk of a real revolution in South America is inspiring.

But while food hand-outs and subsidies gain him popularity, in reality these are hurting businesses and not sustainable. As soon as oil prices come down, surely these will stop and then where will that leave the people who rely on them?

Two main groups are being hurt by Chavez's politics:

1. Venezuelan Businesses
   
   I read a report in a Caracas business magazine that said Venezuela is the 15th most difficult country in the world to start a business. The other 14 mostly being countries currently experiencing war. Ridiculous amounts of beaurocracy, lack of financing and economic uncertainly all make this difficult.
   
   And once you are up and running, there are further obstacles such as obscure property and unemployment laws, as well as the lack of educated professionals due to emmigration.
   
   
2. The Middle Classes
   
   The poor are getting hand-outs. The very rich are benefiting from oil income. But those in the middle are suffering. High inflation, restrictions on property ownership and lack of jobs are just some of the escalating problems. 19,000 employees of state oil firm PDVSA were sacked in 2003 for opposing the government and cannot now get jobs due to government blacklists.
   

Yes, giving more people access to basic education could be a way to lead to a stronger economy in the long-term, but what's the point if you are segregating those who are in a position to generate economic growth? (and I mean real economic growth not just increased oil prices)

Rosales, describing himself as a Social Democrat, promises to govern for people of all social classes. But as far as I can see doesn't have a clear set of policies or the charisma or vision of Chavez.

So which side has amassed more supporters: Chavez's Bolivarian revolution, with all the idealism and populism it encompasses? Or the more moderate politics of Rosales that to me seem to make more sense for a strong sustainable economy that takes into account all people in Venezuela and treats the nation as a whole instead of dividing it?

Venezuela Elections 2006

Chavez Supporters

4 days to go.

Things are getting quite tense.

This Sunday, 3rd December 2006 (or 3D as locals are calling it), the national presidential elections of Venezuela will take place.

Manuel Rosales, backed by a coalition of opposition parties, is standing against current President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez's 5-year term has been one of contraversy - especially from an external viewpoint. His vocal opposition to the United States and rash comments about certain world leaders have made him political enemies. But he has strong ties across much of South America, and with countries such as Cuba and Iran.

He is a populist leader, with socialist and even communist parties standing behind him in Venezuela. Across South America, he has been leading a "socialist revolution", offering financial assistance to his allies and working to get them into positions of political power.

In Venezuela, he is leading a so-called "Bolivarian revolution", supposedly reminiscent of revolutions of the 1800s such as Simon Bolivar who gained the Bolivarian countries - Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador - their freedom. The main manifestation of this seems to be Metro trains full of ridiculous posters of silly-looking people in colonial clothes.

Under his leadership, the benefit from inflated oil prices is supposedly going back to the people ("Ahora es de todos" - now is for all). And it does seem to be true to some extent. Over the last few years, infrastructure has been improved in Venezuela, and Social Initiatives (Misiones) are being run to help those in poverty and to stimulate education (apparently literacy is now 100%). The true success and value of these depends very much on who you talk to.

But the economy is a mess. Unemployment is high, forcing people to take on casual labour. Children are having to leave school to work. Extreme poverty is still increasing. Mixed enterprises and obscure laws are hindering the stability and growth of companies.

The majority of people I have spoken to (OK, mostly middle class students and business people) are opposed to Chavez because of what he is doing to the economy. They do not see a sustainable future for Venezuela under his leadership.

Manuel Rosales' slogan "Atrevete a Cambiar" roughly means "Dare to Change". He promises to build a Venezuela where everyone will benefit - not just those in poverty. He promises change.

But whether this will happen I don't know.

Chavez is giving a lot of people what they want. He is giving them hope. He is investing money now in those who need it most, which to those people seems great. But the question is, can it last? Well, the other question is, is it really helping?

One thing is without question: whichever way this election goes, there are going to be a large number of severely angry people. Political opinion is extremely polarised in Venezuela, and people are willing to fight for what they believe in.

From Rosales's side, there is talk of "defending your vote" and from Chavez's side of "not leaving without blood being shed".

This is rather scary.

A number of emergency laws are going to be in effect this weekend:

1. No alcohol may be purchased after 12 noon Saturday. Bars and clubs will be closed.
   
2. Any gathering in groups outside is forbidden.
   
3. The army have been given the order to kill should any trouble occur.
   

This is also rather scary.

The German embassy phoned my flat a few weeks ago to tell us to have 2-3 weeks of supplies (including water) stocked away as we might not be able to go to the shops. This week, they have set up an Emergency Centre at one of the Universities.

So, as I said, things are getting quite tense.

It's certainly an exciting time to be in Venezuela.

In my flat, we're planning to have a nice day watching all the excitement unfold on TV maybe with a few beers, surrounded by our boxes of emergency supplies. One things is for sure, I will be staying off the streets until everything is clear.

Let's just hope democracy is served and people trust in it and accept whatever the outcome without resorting to violence.

Look out for some more updates over the weekend...

A little too much adventure

October 14th 2006. 30 miles West of Caracas.

The road to Choroni

After one bus journey shut off from the world and forced to watch the cheesiest teenage chick-flick ever created (What a Girl Wants) and a second bus journey careering over about 2000ft of mountain on winding roads clearly not designed for a bus – but accompanied by a group of locals all to eager to share their 5 bottles of white rum with us – Andreas and I arrived at Choroni, a small colonial town a few hours west of Caracas.

This was a recon mission. The plan was to check out the nearby jungle in preparation for a 3-day hike two weeks afterwards.

It turned out to be a whole world of adventure that we weren’t at all prepared for.

Just add music

After dire warnings of dangerous snakes from locals and a steep trek through banana plantations and the long way up the side of a very steep mountain – especially with big packs and sweltering heat – we arrived at the top. On the way we’d seen all the abundance of insects and butterflies this country has to offer, but none of those monkeys we’d been promised.

We had about 3 hours before dark to head down the other side to find the town of Chuao, and its beach - supposedly one of the most beautiful and tranquil in Venezuela. Easy. There we planned to sit back with a couple beers and enjoy our accomplishment.

This never happened.

When Lonely Planet suggests “take a local guide” it really is a bit of advice worth listening too.

By about half an hour before sunset (which is 6 o’clock sharp) we were literally running down the mountain, stumbling through dry river beds and fighting our way through dense jungle. There was no sign of Chuao. We hadn’t seen a single person for about 3 hours – the last one being a local merrily hiking up the mountain path at an incredible rate considering his bare footedness.

The worst camp site ever
stumbled upon by man

The occasional tantalising glimpse through the trees still showed a mountain between us and the sea. It seemed almost futile. Then we lost the path. We were in an utterly horrible banana plantation. This was the stuff of nightmares. Waterlogged and full of horrible stinging plants that grasped at your ankles, and who knows what kind of terrible spiders and snakes. But it was getting dark now. We were tired, wet and desperate. We had no choice. We would have to camp here in this green hell.

Modern technology

It started with some comedy as we settled down in the tent to eat our pasta. Lack of forks meant we were using the covers of our mobile phones. But quickly paranoia started to set in. The more we talked about our situation, the more our fears escalated. Where were we? What should we do tomorrow? Where would we get more water? How would we find the path again? We came up with three options:

1. Chance it, just heading north – either straight through the jungle or along the dry river bed – until we find the beach (we had a compass at least)


2. Find our way back to the path and try and find a wrong turn that we surely must have taken


3. Head all the way back over the mountain, but with very little water.

None of them seemed like very good options. We were scared.

Somehow we got some sleep, and in the morning we managed to muster up some optimism and decided to attempt option 1 first of all. But it turned out we were trapped between two converging rivers, with thick thick jungle blocking our way. After one hour of “off-roading” it, we were back at our hellish camp site.

Back up the mountain. We now had just about 1.5L of slightly dubious water that we’d found in a tap near the plantation. It was very hot. It was very steep. We had a long way to go before we found our goal – the crazy old man living up there with some chickens, a pig, and a very strange grasp of the art of speech – but most importantly a fresh water tap.

We were desperately thirsty when one more moment of panic came upon us. We’d discovered a fork in the path that we hadn’t seen yesterday. Which way was it? If we took the wrong one where would we end up and where would we find water? Then Andreas spotted some banana trees in the distance. The old man had had banana trees. We headed that way, but it felt wrong.

Why hadn’t we take that guide that Lonely Planet had suggested? Why hadn’t we take more water from that tap? What had we got ourselves into?

A chicken!

Agua

We were there! The old man’s abode. There it was – fresh water gushing from the tap and glistening in the sun. We rushed towards it. We drank. I can hardly describe how good it felt. We were OK.

After some lunch and a long break, the rest was easy. Back over the mountain, a swim in the lovely cool river and to Choroni beach for such a well-deserved beer and some freshly fried fish.

I don’t think we would have been ready for a 3-day hike. I think we will listen to Lonely Planet in the future.

But what an adventure!

Countries I've visited in my life

Just to keep track of the score Declan!

My ex-flatmate / uni-buddy / fellow-traveller / wtfidm friend Declan and I have a long running "competition" to see who visits the most countries. Not that I condone visiting a place without spending a significant amount of time there to at least partially appreciate it. I think Austria is the only one on my list that I've visted but not really seen.

Oh, and just airports don't count. So I'm not including the Netherlands.

1. United Kingdom (1983-2006)
   My home country! I miss it quite a bit!
   
2. France (199x, 2003)
   Have family there, there was a school trip to the alps too. Favourite memory is trying something that I was a bit concerned might be pigs brains at a little cafe in a really charming historical little town near Lyon. Least favourite is getting a really silly shaped sun burn on my face in the alps.
   
3. Spain (199x, 2001)
   Two family holidays - one to Menorca (lots of swimming, and some pigs stealing our lunch), one to Granada (lots of wine, olive oil and the Alhambra)
   
4. United States (1996-97, 2002, 2004-05)
   One year in Hawaii (lovely beaches, volcanoes, snorkeling, catholic education that I don't remember, geckos).
   One holiday with Uni friends (east coast, armadillos, long train journeys, ben and jerrys)
   One amazing internship year in California (hotel-living, silicon-valley-working, snowboarding, road tripping, off-road tripping, jeeps, parties, homeland security, getting golden, friends for life - read the rest of my blog!)
   
5. Canada (2002)
   The same holiday with Uni friends, more favourable drinking age!
   
6. Italy (2003)
   Part of a 3-week trip around Europe with some great friends. Lovely, visited loads of cities, Venice was lovely, Rome was ace, ice cream, pizza, pick-pocketing not so good, Nick had far too many tank tops, cycling the Apian way)
   
7. Vatican City (2003)
   I think that ones a bit of a cheat. Watch your head on the way up the dome!
   
8. Slovenia (2003)
   Awesome country! Friendly people, great beer, underground networks of caves, incredibly beautiful scenery, castles, lakes, aggresive llamas at the zoo
   
9. Austria (2003)
   Accidentally fell asleep on the train and ended up here. There was a guy with a cool moustache.
   
10. Greece (2003)
    Athens is that place nobody recommends but everyone still visits, they do have a wee bit of ancient history though. Kefalonia was an awesome relaxing end to the holiday. One side is for old people, one side is for young. We enjoyed both.
    
11. Ireland(2006)
    Dublin, for St Patrick's Day. Great pubs, Guinness brewery one of the best tours I've ever had, dinner with the President, some silly hats. Really great city.
    
12. Germany (2006)
    Hamburg, Hanover and Berlin. Berlin is so happening. So much interesting stuff to see, excellent kebabs and bagels, really great night life, easy to get lost on the metro. One of my favourite cities, along with New York, San Francisco, Rome, Edinburgh and Dublin I think.
    
13. Venezuela(2006)
    My first foray into South America. I'm working here for a student organisation that I love more than anything. Venezuela is an amazing country - that I have yet to see most of. Caracas is certainly an interesting and unique place. The mountains and beaches and wildlife are incredible. The social/political situation is fascinating, frustrating and sometimes sombering. But the rum is great, the people like to party and I am doing what I love!

... making 13 in total (95% of the world's countries to go!)

You can have your own fun here.!

I think that you're one ahead of me at the moment, right Dec?

The Sea! It Really Exists!

Wandering

Finally, I made it to the beach!

Exactly 48 days after arriving in Venezuela.

And what a beach it was! Set on a small island a few minutes from the coast, with the beautiful water gently rippling against the coral sand (which usefully doesn't retain heat in that nasty way classic sand does) and palm trees sheltering our little camp site.

This was Chichiriviche, about five hours by bus(es) from Caracas.

Ten of us were there for a weekend that involved a lot of sun, some frisbee, some tuna sandwiches, a lot of rum, some sangria, some beer, using the frisbee as a floating beer/rum holder, followed by some more rum - inevitibly leading to those Spanish drinking games I love so much now - then waking up at 6am to see the sun rise and go snorkeling.

Apart from an extremely luxurious bus that Antje and I happened upon for the journey there (after missing everyone else by sleeping in until 5am), the bus journeys were very typically Latin American. Mad rushes to get on a crowded bus for a bumpy ride. And occasionally accompanied on the bus by these people - who spring up from nowhere whenever the traffic hints at slowing down - selling drinks, ice cream, chocolate, snacks and sometimes the most unexplainable items like pot plants and kites. Very neccessary for a long journey I am sure!

Anyway, all this traveling was well worth it for this fantastic beach. My faith in Venezuelan beaches is fully restored.

¡¡Quiero más!!

A strange experiment

A strange experiment in Caracas

A strange experiment is being performed on the people of Caracas.

On the Caracas metro, all normal rules of politeness, etiquette and decency basically break down. There is one thing on everyone's mind: get into the train. Whatever it takes. This normally means as soon as those doors slide open, the poor people trying to get out are suddenly faced by a human wall heaving their way in. Old people, children and people with long hair seem to be at particular peril in this situation. And the end result is some kind of human jigsaw crammed into every square inch of the train, rendering the possibility of getting out at your stop seamingly impossible, and resulting in some very intimate situations with strangers (some of whom like mobile phones rather too much).

So in their infinite wisdom, the Caracas metro authorities have installed a brand spanking new system of yellow lines *and* arrows at the busiest station. The gist behind this is to coordinate the masses into entering the train in an orderly fashion, like the civilised human beings we are.

Unfortunately this means resisting the temptation to skip the queue as you wind your way just past the door when about half way through the queue.

This temptation is just too much for some, and I've seen mixed results. Even with the careful positioning of uniformed attendants to "help" people queue properly. From my observations, there seems to be three types of reaction to the system:

1. Feigning ignorance and getting on the train the old way, skipping that big mass of queue-respecting individuals.

2. Trying to use it properly (and with pride?) and looking very scornfully at the type 1 people who don't obey those yellow lines.

3. Blatantly abusing the system by making a dash through the passageway where people have exited and leaping onto the train at the last section as the door closes.

All in all, there is a lot of hilarity involved in the whole affair. There's something about the ridiculous situation of having so many people on a train that just makes people smile :-)

I do think the number of type 2 people is increasing. I think there is a glimmer of hope. I have confidence in the people!

A day off?!?

Faces

After an absolutely fantastic weekend with all our External Relations members (and some from People who were just pretending), the MC had an actual day off work! I think this is the second time something like this has happened, so we didn't quite know what to expect.

Turns out it was a lot of fun (and some pain, and some rain). There we were only shortly after the agreed upon time of 11am (early for the day after a mini-conference) all met up succesfully and ready to hit the Avila, but from a different angle this time.

El Avila National Park is a huge mountain range right at the edge of Caracas, with the highest peak being 2765m (just over 9000ft). There are three ways up the range - walk, get the teleferico (cable car - and not the telefreako!), or get a Jeep to drive you up. So clearly that's the option I wanted to go for! Turns out it wasn't an actual Jeep which disappointed me a bit. I was considering bringing spasti so it's lucky I didn't. He would have been heartbroken.

So after a fun-filled trip with 8 of us piled into the back of some Toyota SUV type thing (no seatbelts, don't be silly), we found ourselves amongst the clouds in Galipan, a small village which was settled about 200 years ago from the Canary Islands. They sell jam and pork sandwiches there. Seperately that is, the jam in jars and the pork in sandwiches.

There we had a nice picnic, took some very AIESECey photos and witnessed a chance meeting of two seemingly opposing gangs of dogs. Then we hiked the rest of the way up El Avila (2135m), only to be told at the top that we still needed to pay the cable car price to get into Avila Magica. What a rip off. No happy world of haribo for them.

So down we wandered again, catching some good views of Caracas and the Carribean sea (I think it was there anyway). And we decided it would be fun to walk the whole way down. Which at first was nice - some views, interesting plants, local inhabitants playing bowls or wheelbarrowing their puppy around.

But then we heard the thunder.

Then came the rain. Lots of it.

So we probably descended that last 1000m or something (Caracas is at about 700m I think) in torrential rain, with several varying degrees of preparedness ranging from Richard and his techno-coloured (but apparently not too effective) jacket to Anita's pretty impracticle wool jumper.

But sharing the last Haribo between three people whilst soaking wet in some kind of cloud forest is what life's all about really, isn't it? Well, I think some people disagreed.

But all in all, it was a fun time. And sitting down with Luis (house number 8, sorry!) back at Bellas Artes in the noise and chaos of the city I had about the best beer I've had in a long time.

So was feeling refreshed and ready to jump back into work this morning, and of course totally unable to walk. UCAB was positively buzzing now that the holiday month is over, and with the watermelon juice back :-)

Life is good. This weekend, dare I say it, the beach!

P.S. Liz, that bird is called the Querrequerres. Yet to see any red howler monkeys, three-toed sloths, armadillos or anteaters or tapirs though.

Aji picante

OK everyone don't worry. There is real milk - well, either skimmed or full fat, but real. Although I accidentally bought Chichero the other day instead which is like really thick, sweet milk. Weird. But kind of helped bring sanity back to my mouth after the insance stir fry I made (Dec & Thom, this trumped anything the Spottiswoode flat saw. We couldn't even finish it). Note to self: the reasonably big chili peppers with the black seeds are actually insanely hot.

And I got my phone back! It was in someone's car. So I've only had one thing stolen :-)

Crazy mall

Sambil Mall

Sambil Mall in Caracas is about the craziest, most-crowded mall I've ever seen. (actually South America's largest shopping mall). Not very nice, but they do have a Sony store where I've been trying to negociate in Spanish to get a laptop case. I don't think they have them.

Also, this is where I bought phone #2 (after having the first one stolen on the metro). Unbelievelably, this one went mysteriously missing about 2 days after I bought it! So frustrating!

Other updates. The mosquitoes really let loose since that last post. I think they must have got me about 100 times now. Have upped the DEET percentage to hopefully fend them off.

And there is real milk! So that's good.

On Monday I had two meetings. One the guy wasn't in the city, maybe a bit of a communication problem there, but I did pick up a Daily Journal (English language newspaper) so was so nice to read the news! The other meeting was excellent though, really really good. Fantastic to be getting into the swing of things with the job.

Yesterday, the 5th (of 6) member of our MC team arrived, RIchard, from Slovakia, via a year in Ecuador, and on his 32nd birthday. We went to TGI Friday's which is very, very expensive but all the staff did a huge song and dance with drums and everything. So well worth it! Richard is convinced porridge is a Slovakian invention and not Scottish, but apart from that I look forward to working with him.

Just been talking to Laura about her visit here. Very excited about it. People visiting means I have a good excuse to actually go out and see this amazing country!

Time to brave the rain and go get pizza and cerveza now.

6 beds, 25 bites, 2 "robberies"

Caracas

7th August, 2006

Mosquito Bite Count: 25
Robbery Count: 2
Kidnapping Count: 0
Bed Count: 6

Well, the mosquitoes are easing off a bit now. Caracas is about 800m (or maybe ft) above sea level so I imagine that keeps them away a bit.

The first robbery actually might have happened before I arrived. I left duty free in Edinburgh with a nice bottle of aftershave and arrived in Caracas without. Nothing terribly dramatic then, just some opportunistic baggage handlers. The second robbery was on my first trip on the Metro. It gets stupidly busy at peak times (as do the roads), as in you have to wait for about 4 trains until you can squeeze yourself on. So amidst that chaos on Monday morning, my phone was nabbed from my pocket. Just after I'd got the SIM unblocked and bought an international phone card. Grrr.

So far I seem to have almost slept in a different bed every night. But it is quite interesting seeing how different people live here. There is such a diversity of cultures, and then they're all mixed up so every home is completely different - in style, customs, food (apparently "tengo hambre" - I'm hungry - is something I say far too much).

Bed 1. Jorge's house. Set in the lovely Los Naranjos (Orange Trees) neighbourhood of Caracas, set slightly away from the madness. Jorge is an AIESEC alumni who lives with his parents and is moving to London in December. Where I first experienced Latin American Idol and enjoyed Arepas, Scrambled Eggs and Maltin (very malty non-alcoholic beer) for breakfast.

Bed 2. Rita's house. Rita loves reggaton and gets the communitica to work every day to listen to it. She was on last year's national team and lives with her mum and sister. Her mum speaks only a strange Portuguese-style Spanish, which resulted in me almost getting a cup of tea when I was going to brush my teeth. Big fans of china and other strange ornaments. Breakfast was fried ham and cheese toasties, and coffee.

Bed 3. My apartment. Italian MC member Nino was here for a while, but left on Friday after imparting much wisdom on me and bidding farewell to his many "chicas". Now it's just me, Mario, Leonardo and at least one big bitch of a cockroach. Mario is an AIESEC alumni who has hosted just about everyone involved with AIESEC for the last 10 years. He works for a bank and doesn't like it when people leave vegetables in bags in the fridge. Leo is his brother who watches the TV from about 12 inches away and mostly just walks about in boxer shorts. Neither of them speak English much which is great for me!! Food so far has been quite a bit of espresso, some carbonara and some kind of stange but tasty shellfish. Also I went to the supermarket the other day (big mistake at the start of the month when everyone's been paid!) and got a massive hunk of swordfish for about 2 quid.

Biggest culture shock so far. They have no real milk!!!! Everyone just uses condensed powdered milk, which tastes like custard, or UHT 1% milk which tastes like water. I suppose I will have to get used to that.

Bed 4. Francisco's house. Since I only got my own keys when Nino left on Friday, I got locked out of my apartment a couple times. Frank is the national president of AIESEC in Venezuela. Frank hates Reggaton. He likes to listen to happy pop music in his car to distract himself from the deadlocked traffic of Caracas in the mornings.

Bed 5. Religous santuary at Los Teques (?) Last weekend was spent at the conference in a very nice venue which was actually some kind of religious sanctuary. But not in a totally over the top way. Just quite peaceful with a few inspirational messages on the walls. Nice to be out of the madness of the city!

Bed 6. The very, very nice and big apartment of Damelis, an AIESEC member in Valencia who really, really likes to go out dancing.

This weekend Francisco and me went to Valencia to facilitate a local planning day for the committee in Valencia, which is about 2 hours West of Caracas. Again, reasonably peaceful compared to Caracas. The best bit on the journey there was a robotic roadwork man signalling the traffic. The planning went well, except for the crap Nescafe coffee being the only thing available. We are planning a big event there in October so it was exciting to talk with the team about that, and I'll be back there next weekend for more preparations. After all that, and a fantastic "Perro Caliente" (Hot Dog) - on which one should put absolutely as much toppings and sauces as will physically fit, and then more - it was time to party. Some very good mojitoes were had in a pirate-themed Ronateria (rum bar) then to a club where we danced all night (or in some cases, tried to) to techno, pop, salsa, merrengue and reggaton. Then a late-night Spanish lesson over a dubious cup of tea involving powdered "milk".

The next morning breakfast was hot chocolate and tapanadas (or something?) which are like pastries with ham and cheese. Then I learned all about all the varieties of Arepas that can be made, with regional variations in size, shape, corn/wheat flour, hard/soft and just about any filling you can think of. I think I need to make a list of foods I need to try. Man, I really do only think about one thing. My only complaint about the food is that the meat is always too salty. Everything seems to be oversalted. Maybe some reason to do with preserving it in the heat? But I'm sure that's not very healthy. Still, maybe the fresh passion fruit (Parjeta) juice made up for that today. Let's hope so.

What else? El Avila on Monday was spectacular. Went to the Opera this evening. Which was free!! And in an extremely pleasant, attractive and modern opera theatre paid for by the ministry of culture. Honestly I'm not quite sure why so many people are opposed to the government. So far I've met either people who are totally against the government ("they're destroying Venezuela, there are no jobs, etc.") or just a bit apathetic about it because there is no really good alternative. Of course there's propaganda everywhere. Lovely posters of people together smiling because of some government initiative (like a free opera house, or educating the people in the barrios, or the excellent metro service) and the slogan "Ahora es de todos" (Now is for everyone). Well, maybe the propaganda is getting to me.

Although officially our term began on August 1st (yay!!!) we're having a transition and planning week this week when Risho and Mario - the two Ecuadorians - arrive. Planning is going to be at the beach, for team-building reasons of course :-) Going to be another very busy week.

Thanks for reading. Night night!

First Week in Caracas

AIESEC Venezuela

Yes, I know I promised I would blog regularly. I have been extremely busy for what seems like every moment since I arrived here in Caracas! And I feel this is only a taste of things to come. I am just back from my first AIESEC conference in Venezuela, my first conference as a facilitator and my first as national committee member, oh, and my first in Spanish! This was our annual planning conference, so all the elected and last year's local leadership teams were there. The main aim was to form a national set of goals and actions we will achieve this year, based on the global focus areas defined at an international level, as well as national focus areas we have decided upon. It is all very exciting and I really feel engaged with AIESEC in Venezuela now. I'm so happy to have been able to attend this conference, be involved with the planning and get to know everybody. I've met most of the people I am going to be working with over the coming year, and there is a real sense of excitement and drive to succeed. But we have a lot of work ahead of us! And I've begun my education in salsa, etc. dancing. Again, a lot of work ahead of me!

Obviously, it was quite challenging facilitating at a conference that was mainly conducted in Spanish! The level of English varies drastically amongst the members here (I think this is the same across Latin America), even in those in leadership positions, so some translation was required, and some jokes were definitely lost in translation! It seems pretty much every word can be used in either: a) an offensive way, or b) a romantic way, or c) a sexual way. Drinking games in Spanish was definitely quite an experience, one that involved me getting quite drunk. But apparently once in that state I speak "perfect Spanish". But I do really feel I am getting to grips with it, and have had success communicating basic things in Spanish. A minor mistake in stress seems to render a word completely intelligible though, which is a bit tricky. But being immersed in this Spanish conference, it really feels like it is going to happen, I am going to learn Spanish.

It continually surprises me how many things just work differently here. Every house has bars on the windows and doors. You do not go out at night (unless in a car, although the safety of that is also dubious in my mind). There are dogs and cats just roaming the streets (I came accross a tiny kitten just sitting on the sidewalk the other day, was so tempted to take it home).

The communiticas (small local buses) drive about stopping wherever people want and blaring out local Regatton music (like a kind of explicit version of Reggae that can only be danced to in one way!) Red lights mean nothing (and only women need to take a driving test). People don't use liquid soap to wash dishes. The list goes on and on! It's all these small things that really surprise me!

But a lot of things are the same, or at least, American. I've been to McDonalds twice. People love baseball. The university where our AIESEC office is has a food court with a Subway and a Wendys. Latin American Idol is watched by everybody, and something silly like 300 million people across the continent, who rush home in their big old or new American cars. One thing that was pointed out to me on the communitica to the conference was that all the people living in the barrios (the really poor, deprived, crime-ridden neighbourhoods on the hills surrounding Caracas) have satellite dishes on their otherwise most basic of chaotically arranged dwellings. Apparently that is because it is too dangerous to go out at night so they need TV.

And there are cellphone shops interspersed amongst the dusty chaos.

The food. Disregarding the US (not allowed to call them American!) chains, the local food is, well, different. Breakfast is always hot. Either Arepas, which are stodgy muffin type things, filled with cheese, ham, whatever you want, or fried bread usually with cheese and ham (and sometimes marmalade, at least by my local flatmate Mario). All very healthy I am sure. Arepas again for dinner! Or something vaguely Mexican-looking and yummy. And always followed by fruit. The fruit is incredible. Huge papayas (like 10 times bigger than the ones you get in the UK), unbelievably sweet melons, several types of bananas, there is so much! Every morning I go down the road to get orange juice squeezed there and then in front of my eyes. And crushed watermelon smoothies are so refreshing in this heat.

It can get hot. I think it is only around 30C at the most, but in the sun that is very hot, and when it is humid it is quite uncomfortable. Luckily we have air conditioning in the office. The rain is crazy though. It just switches on randomly and comes down in huge globules then flows down the streets into big storm drains. Then it just cuts out and the sun comes out.

Just like Hawaii, tropical rain.

Somehow I managed to survive the first three days without encountering a mosquito. This was clearly some kind of mean ploy to lure me into a false sense of security. They are here. They do like me. Two types of spray and some kind of anti-mosquito air-freshener lookalike seem to hold them off quite effectively though. I can't see a single one in my room tonight, with the window wide open and the light on. Maybe it depends on the weather.

My apartment. I am living with Mario, a Venezuelan AIESEC alumnus, his (slightly crazy I think) brother Leonardo, and, until he leaves on Thursday, Nino, one of last year's national team from Sicily. It was Nino who taught me how to make Arepas, and also has been trying his very best to make sure I don't get mugged. During one year, he has been mugged twice. And he probably doesn't stand out quite as much as me. But I am certainly heeding this warning, the furthest I've gone on my own is the bus stop about 4 blocks away. Everyone is looking after me just now!! At least until I get to know which areas are safe. Nino also didn't know any Spanish when he arrived and is now fluent, so "that is great" (as he says about everything). The place itself is quite spacious with two living rooms and quite a big room for me. Not bad for $60 a month. No, I didn't miss out a 0 there.

It is about 10 times cheaper than Edinburgh. But of course things will only seem cheap while I still have British (well, American) money. Beer for about 40p a bottle in bars. Buses are about 12p to go anywhere, complete with music! To fill a tank of gas costs roughly $2. For the entire tank! That's because 80% of the economy is petroleum, they are getting a pretty damn good price for it in external markets and I don't think it's taxed locally.

Work is fantastic. It is so great to be leading AIESEC like this, and so exciting at this stage of goal-setting and planning.

I've worked every day for the last six days, usually staying until 8 or 9pm. But that is because I really want to. I am enjoying it so much and really believe in it. And there is a lot of it! Tomorrow I was told I have a day off, and I was like, what? But I want to go to work. I want to get on with it! Which is a good sign, but a dangerous one. I think I do have to be careful to have some time off! So tomorrow I am going to climb La Avila, the mountain with the cable car (but that's cheating) towering right beside Caracas. Better get some rest first. It's been a long weekend, but everything has gone so fast this

week! I have yet to unpack.

Chao chamos!

Graduation and all that

The Spottiswooders

It all happened on Wednesday!! It felt very monumental, with everyone attired in gowns and hoods, a grand ceremony in McEwan Hall, a delicious lunch with mum, dad and Kate, and a champagne reception at the Royal College of Surgeons (another big old building).

It did feel quite special in that ceremony though, sitting amongst all my colleagues after all these years of (mostly, ok, some) hard work, hearing about all the achievements of Edinburgh graduates (the only one I can remember just now is Dunlop inventing the inflatable tyre) then going up there to have my degree conferred upon me by the principal - a process which involves having your name read out, getting touched on the head by the honourory hat (allegedally made from John Knox's breeches!) and him saying "well done on the first Daniel" :-D

And the highlight of the speeches, our "graduation joke", from the vice principal of Herriot-Watt, was: "Changing a University is like moving a graveyard, you don't get any help from the people inside". The best bit though was when someone was introducing IBM Nick and said managing change within IBM was "probably something else akin to moving a graveyard". This got mild, polite and slightly uneasy laughter.

Afterwards there were some cows and some champagne and some wine and some beer and some dancing.

Top Bananas

Top Bananas

Oh, I'm getting the subliminal AIESEC messages in at every opportunity :-) Also, Arthur's Seat is bloody windy. Alex and I went up there to shake off a hangover very effectively the other day. We played a good game of throw-the-banana-skins-off-the-top-and-see-how-many-tourists-you-can surprise before deciding to come down the hard way.

Causing erosion on the site where modern geology was founded, all part of a good day's work.

A couple days after that I ran up the side of the thing (ok, only along the bottom of the Crags, but the steep way). Almost killed me. Felt good though.

Daylight strikes

Perfect positioning

This was Cortney's last conscious moment after we left a club at about 7am and found this car that just had to be photographed!

It's been such a good couple weeks of reunitedness - Julie (from CA), Marco, Ullie, Nico, Till (from Germany/CA), Cortney (from Chicago/CA), Max and Alex (from Canterbury/CA) and James (from Edinburgh). Great catching up with folk. All these people better come visit in Venezuela next year!

Germany: Land of Ideas

Small people

All over Berlin at the moment they have these stupid big plastic sculptures getting in the way of all your nice tourist photos of the main attractions. But this giant car in front of Brandenburg Gate was pretty cool, and ideal for early morning photo opportunities.

As well as cars, Germany invented medicine and Einstein.

And Berlin is named after a bog (you do sometimes get a whiff of it); it doesn't mean "little bear" as some people are led to believe. It also means it's very, very flat. They have these bicycles lying around all over the place and you can phone a number to get a code to unlock them for a single journey, then you just pay a monthly subscription for it.

Almost as cool as the "scooter man" in Edinburgh. You call him out when you've had a drink and he comes along in his scooter, puts it in the back of your car and drives you home.

Done it!

Yey, I did it. University. After 5 years it is over. It feels very good. For maximum tension, we had to delve into the depths of JCMB (one last time maybe?) to go read the result on a noticeboard, labelled by examination number. And there in the "First Class Honours" section was my number (or at least something that looked very like it, I double checked about ten times!) Anyway it was :-D so very happy me, very happy parents, very happy company taking money off me for a highly silly gown :-)

So, what's next? Well, as Declan is constantly keen to put it, "they've shipped me off to a charity". Yes, I'm off to work for AIESEC for a year. After several applications to different countries (many of them possibly a bit last minute) I finally spent a good amount of time on one of them, got some amazing references together and got the job of MCVP External Relations in AIESEC Venezuela. The job will be excellent - leading an entire country's AIESEC presence within the national team - big national accounts, organising events, managing strategies for marketing, branding, alumni relations, etc. The country looks absolutely stunning. Yes, it's a bit politically and economically unstable (it's ok, I excel at staying out of trouble!) but it will be such an incredible cultural experience, such a difference from here. It will be challenging, it is a bit scary and I'm still not quite sure what to expect but I am sure it will be a fun and very experience-filled year! You've sometimes just got to jump into these things, and this is the time for it!

So on the agenda this month (now that all the extreme amounts of post-exam celebrating, drinking, reuniting and holidaying are over!) is:

• Lots of working at Shimmer to at least mostly pay back Inland Revenue (see Working Lunch on Tuesday for hopefully an inspiring shot of me discussing UML diagrams!)


• More vaccinations (only two more days of risk of Yellow Fever and MMR side-effects now!)


• Lots of planning for the year ahead in the MC


• Maybe squeeze in a bit of work for AIESEC in Edinburgh


• One chapter of Spanish per day, and maybe some more watching of Spanish movies with Jen

So it's going to go pretty fast, then I'll be off for another year abroad, which will be very different in every way to my year in California! I'll be sure to relight the blogging spark over there.

Dan Cunningham, graduand BSc and crazy travel plan maestro

Germany

Costumes found!

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Prestwick, Lubeck, Hamburg, Hannover and Berlin. All in less than 48 hours!

University is officially over. Finished. Completely. Had my last ever exam on Wednesday and since then it's been all out celebrations (also celebrating getting a job on the AIESEC national team in Venezuela!), very little sleep and quite a bit of drinking :-) :-)

After what some might call a heroic journey I made it to Germany and two days blurred successfully into one very long but fun one! Saw the sights in Hamburg - notably a sex street which they don't let women down and the enjoyment of a traditional nice fish sandwich at a very summery looking market while it was pissing down with rain!

Then it was to Marco's parent's house just outside Hannover to grab a lovely homemade meal and a much-needed shower. Occasion number one for Marco to leave the car key in the door!

In Hannover we met up with Ullie, a friend of Marco's who had visited him while we were in California, so it was cool to see her again and go out for some nice cocktails. Then we went to a party and I tried to speak English, German and Spanish to people with varying degrees of success. I did learn to say "My hamster is dead" in Polish though just to add another language to the repertoire for that so incredibly useful phrase, then we went to a few clubs, the last one of which we stayed at until the very early morning. The atmosphere in the clubs is pretty different to the UK. For a start, it appears to be mandatory to drink Becks. Nothing else is allowed. But they have about 10 different kinds, including one pre-mixed in bottles with lime juice. Also there was quite a lot of smoking going on, which kind of made me nostalgic for the old days in Scotland. And it is just pretty relaxed, everybody dancing and having fun and not trying too hard to look super cool all the time (or maybe that was just me). You could buy beers in one place and just take them to the next one to drink there. It was good. We stumbled back to Ullie's just after the sun came up and I finally got my sleep!!

Today we had a look around Hannover, took part in a fire demonstration and drove to Berlin. Berlin is huge, with trains everywhere and lots of graffiti, cool looking buildings and kebab places. Met up with Till (another CA intern, sort of), Marco's flat mate and Pearl, an AIESECer from Seattle on a 6-week CEED over here. We all went to a very unique beer garden, on the side of a canal, beach-themed with deck chairs and loads of sand and palm trees. Unexpected but really nice for a first night in Berlin.

Tomorrow: let the hardcore sightseeing begin! I might even see my friend Declan, and his friend Nico. And it'll be back to being a slightly-lost looking tourist without my translator as he'll be at work. Cool.

No grapes, but LDS was awesome.

I am enjoying some very nice grapes right now. I feel like I haven't eaten any fruit all weekend and these are just the thing. As well as that, I've, in the last few hours experienced walking outside, in fresh air with people and cars and things around. This has all been rather refreshing after spending 4 days in a hotel without leaving until today. But they were a fantastic 4 days. 4 days of intense AIESEC experience. Motivation, emotion, learning, meeting new people and voting in the new national committee for AIESEC UK 2006/07, at the Leadership Development Seminar. It feels so good to be part of something so big that means so much to so many people. The sheer passion of all these people (mostly new members) wanting to do things in AIESEC; make a contribution; make a difference.

After every conference I come away with the feeling that AIESEC is truly great. It actually changes the lives of people, one at a time. It makes an impact on people. On trainees, on members and on companies. And I think everyone at the conference understands that and believes in themselves to make things happen in AIESEC. And we are all capable of it. The feeling of talking to a company, raising a meeting, meeting a trainee at the airport, forming friendships, realizing things about people and the world. These are all amazing feelings that can be achieved through putting hard work into AIESEC. And I want to put in that hard work and achieve those things. It is all possible, it is all easy and it is all going to happen. I am going to raise a traineeship. And change one person's life. And in turn, even in just a small way, the lives of everyone they know and meet. That is what makes AIESEC worth doing. That is why I am doing it and love it.

Now of course I am still feeling the conference buzz, which will slowly fade but I hope my passion for it will continue to be fuelled by thinking back to the things I've learned and emotions I've experienced at this conference.

So, I am going to work damn hard in the incoming exchange team, going to sow the seeds for the Salaam Project in Edinburgh (addressing the tensions between the cultures of UK and the Middle East by exchange between the regions). But I really think I want more than that. My time in AIESEC Edinburgh, as a member, will come to an end when I finish my degree in May/June. It will leave a gap in my life. Yes, everything will be changing at that time. But I don't think I'll want to let go of AIESEC. I think I've got so much more to give to it and so much more to get out of it. So yes, I will do something over the summer - probably go and work on a project in another AIESEC committee somewhere in the world. Then I could just go get a job, start a career (but still give back to AIESEC at least in a small way as an alumni). But I really don't know if that will be enough either. All this needs thought. A few days for things to settle in. So we'll leave it at that for now.

P.S. Quickly a thank you to all involved. The amazing Organizing Committee (esp Laura), the MC, the new MC who are going to be amazing, the companies who came to talk to us, our international facilitators, the candidates who just didn't quite make it this time, all the brilliant delegates. You all made it fantastic. We are all going to do great things.

Happy New Year!!

Fireworks over the castle - Sparkles

All the best for the coming year everyone! Myself I have many many resolutions, but not to get a job as you never stick to your resolutions. I will get one, but it's not a resolution.

Hogmanay was absolutely fantastic. Had about 20 people crammed into my flat (a combination of friends from Haddington, AIESECers and Tom's friends). There was a massive spaghettie bolognaise feast, lots of chaos and mess then off to an AIESEC party for Declan to sell the rest of the 28 tickets we had for the street party, and then to it.

The street party is an interesting thing. About 100,000 people suddenly descend upon Princes Street, all instantly lose all their friends and spend the rest of the night trying to push through crowds and find them again. Luckily, I did. A big bunch of us ended up joyously bringing in the new year to some stunning, mind-blowing fireworks - an absolute onslaught of fire and light and sound and music that just hit us with sheer delight upon our faces. We then made merry, Nicola sold some tiny bottles of rum and coke for about £20, we waved happy new year to a SWAT team overlooking and then all lost each other again (especially Laura, oops).

We ended up being reunited in Marchmont where the whole of AIESEC UK had decided to get chicken tikka pizza at the same time. Then me and a very kilted Big Steve scoured the streets for parties - ended up at one with a load of people from Haddington who I hadn't seen for years, then back to Rach's and Jen's and finally home to fall off chairs in Thom's room until around 6. Beautiful.

Hope everyone else had just as good a time!! After a slightly drizzly and anti-climatic new year in San Francisco last year, I am convinced Edinburgh is indeed the best.

Oh!

Don't you just love it when you're getting your hair cut by an assistant trainee hairdresser for free in your company's salon and she's doing something with a trimmer and a comb at the back of your hair and just exclaims "Oh!" in a very worrying fashion?

It all turned out OK, the senior stylist came along and fixed me up. The entire process did take about an hour and a half though, so think I might just pay next time!

Dan - helping train hairdressers around the world.

BEANS!

Just back from an thoroughly fun AIESEC conference in Belfast. Er, actually, when I say "just" it was Monday but the week's gone by fairly quick with all this late night coursework.

For anyone who doesn't know what this thing is that I am becoming increasingly drawn into, AIESEC is a massive student organisation that sets up exchanges for students to work abroad. It is the world's largest student-run organisation with a presence in around 90 countries. They're the ones who looked after me in California :-) The vision is that by giving people the opportunity to work abroad, people understand more about different cultures and turn into lovely well-rounded individuals with all the neccessary skills for today's global marketplace. These are the people who are going to shape tomorrow's world so by increasing their understanding of the world we hope to gradually make it a better place.

Yes, it's quite idealistic but I think it is a great concept and you get to meet loads of people, develop professional skills and learn about all sorts of different cultures. It was our regional conference and my first AIESEC conference in Britain last weekend, and my first trip to Northern Ireland. Naturally, I loved it. I've come away from it really inspired and motivated to do great things in AIESEC. There were some absolutely amazing people there - incredibly enthusiastic people who have done huge things in the organization and passed on a wealth of knowledge and experience to us.

There was also a great deal of dancing (AIESEC has a thing about dancing), an amazing concept called Instant Theatre (Mermaids marrying Aardvarks in the Underwater Kingdom of Hull) and many silly costumes (very silly in some cases, like mine!) Presentations will never be the same again, unless water pistols, dances, role-play and jokes about Hull are included in sufficient quantities!

So - coming away with an increased passion for AIESEC, loads of confidence in what I'm doing in the organization (raising some traineeships in Edinburgh!), a greater feeling of integration wtihin the region and some excellent skills to apply. Fantastic.

Scariness

The hunt for a career has begun. It's all quite exciting, but very scary at the same time. I'm really not sure what I want to do, but I do have a few ideas. What I don't want to end up doing is just sitting in a room programming boring applications. Obviously. I want to be working with new technology, doing stuff people haven't done before and doing things that matter in the real world. Things that are important to people and pushing the boundaries.

The big corporations are shoving everything they can down our throats at the moment and I'm starting to come back around to the idea of them. Graduate schemes, high quality training, flexibility, options to travel, working with diverse groups of people - it's all quite enticing. Of course these things look to be fiercely competitive. But that's a good thing I think. I want a job I will be challenged in and motivated to excel at.

One company on my list to apply for is Accenture. I was at a presentation by them the other day. They are a huge Consulting firm with a big Technology division. I really like the sound of it - working on projects for different clients, travelling lots and what looks like a really good graduates programme. Doing consulting means looking at the bigger picture, deploying things in the real world and getting to work with lots of different people.

They seem like a good company ethically as well. They have a programme called Accenture Development Partnerships where you can go off and use your expertise in developing countries or with charities. To be honest, that sounds like it might be better and (bizarrely) easier to get into than doing an AIESEC Development Traineeship appears to be. Hopefully I'll still get to go on one of those too.

Hello anyone from AIESEC Edinburgh reading this now that my contraversial-sounding post is dominating Google :-)

Anyway, lots more careers presentations coming up. Application forms and interviews are looming ever closer now. It's time to decide what I want to do with my life!

Pizza explosion!

Ready for the oven

About 6 months ago Declan and I made a pact. That we would one day live together and make pizza for the masses. One week ago that dream was realized. As well as making a gigantic mess in our kitchen and significant holes in our wallets, Declan, Tom and I (to varying degrees) managed to summon up not one, not two, but THREE fantastic pizzas AND a tirimisu. This was completely from scratch too - no pre-made bases or sauce or any cheating like that. Raw ingredients, man power, a little bit of creativity and a pinch of narrowly-avoided disaster were what went into these babies. We were very proud of ourselves indeed.

The plan was to have Fliss, Lucy and Bill - the friendly bunch from across the hall - over for dinner to repay them for the lovely dinner they made us a couple weeks previously. But unfortunately all but Lucy forgot about this. As well as the extraordinary feast, they missed out on the Craig Charles Funk Show (things got pretty "funked up"!) and the kind of religious debate that can only be had at 5am after several bottles of wine and several (too many) hours of funk. It's like being a student again!

Also being a student, I've rediscovered, means lots of practical work, late-night lab sessions, late-night drinking sessions, far-too-early-mornings and having to spend small fortunes on course books. This is what I did today in preparation for reading week next week. I really am going to buckle down and make some progress on Graphics, Databases and my Project. All to the soundtrack of the seven new CDs I had to buy from Amazon whilst buying course books.

Burnin'

I just discovered this thing called FeedBurner which allows you to merge multiple sources into a single RSS feed. Feeds are a great way of keeping track of blogs, news sites and other sites that update regularly. You subscribe to feeds using a Newsreader (such as the web-based Bloglines or the one built into Thunderbird) then you can quickly and easily see which sites have had articles added to them since you last checked. The articles then appear much like e-mail messages.

Anyway, using FeedBurner I've created a combined feed of my blog and a photostream of selected photos from my Flickr collection. Use this link to subscribe to it:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/dancunningham

Pedalling for Scotland

Hundreds of cyclists abandon their bikes for pasta

Drew and I undertook what turned out to be a pretty damn difficult feat on Sunday: Cycling from Edinburgh to Glasgow in the annual Pedal for Scotland charity bike ride. Being a charity bike ride, I think we both thought it would be quite easy, but not so. Quite the opposite. The weather was absolutely appauling (think bitter cold rain hitting you in the face at 30mph) and it seemed to be uphill almost all of the 50 miles. Thankfully, they provided lots of snack stops along the way - a pasta party in Linlithgow (with a folk band - I was transfixed), tea and home-baked cakes in a church somewhere and Tunnock's Caramel Wafers at The Time Capsule near the end.

There were a few comedy moments along the way - me almost knocking over the the Lord Provost of Edinburgh when high-fiving the poor woman at the starting line, a spoke flying off my bike mid-hill and evidence of the practice of fruit-lobbing at cyclists obviously from some of the more cultured citizens of Glasgow. Much relief was felt when we got to Glasgow after about 7 hours, inexplicably beaten by loads of kids who I'm amazed survived the thing. We rewarded ourselves with a good old fashioned Sunday Roast from Wetherspoons. That is the only food you must ever eat from Wetherspoons, the rest is utterly crap, especially the steaks.

Well done Drew for completing "the hardest thing you've ever done"! You are officially more buff than Wee Steve now, if that's what you want. Although I've heard he's been buffing himself up in preperation for the lying on the beach of some Spanish island he's doing right now.

Thanks to everyone who sponsored me. Between the 2000 of us I think about £50,000 was raised for Children 1st and Barnardo's. That's another event to add alongside Bay to Breakers on my annual sporting calendar.

This is it

Last day in California. In 22 and a half hours I will be back in Edinburgh. It's a very strange feeling. I cannot wait to see everyone back at home and I am looking forward to going back to University life, although I'm aprehensive about it. It's going to be very different and will take a lot of adjusting to. At least I will have the guys from Edinburgh from this year around so we can get used to things together. And I expect a few of my old friends will be about for a while too.

I can't believe it's been a whole year. More than a year. It has been such an incredible time. I've met so many great people and had a lot of amazing experiences. I've really made some friends for life and it's very difficult having to say farewell to them. I foresee much travelling in the future to keep in touch with all these people.

Declan, Alex and I found ourselves watching the very worst comedy we'd ever seen in New York when we realized it was the anniversary of our arrival (July 11th). So we had a toast to the fact got up and walked out, in hysterics about just how bad it was. That was the lowlight of the trip though (or maybe has 2nd place to getting interrogated by homeland security). The rest of the time was very much fun - chilling out in Portland, eating good food at the market in Seattle and going out a lot in NYC, finishing up seeing Audra and her family in Massachussets.

Alex, Kenneth and I did Portland and Seattle, oh where I also met up with Westley, a friend from school in Hawaii who I hadn't seen for ten years! Then we headed over to New York and met up with Marco and Declan there for a week of big city life and sleeping on subways. Not all the time of course - we were staying in Kenneth's apartment in Jersey City, just a short ride away (or expensive taxi as Kenneth now knows). I know I've said it a lot, but I really do like New York. It's just non-stop that place. So much going on, so much to do and see and it's just so alive all the time. If I ever manage to get in to the country again I'll definitely be giving it a shot living there.

Had a really nice last day and night anyway. Well, up until a point but I'll get to that. First of all pissed off Helen (it's not that hard) by being in the shower when she got back from class, when I said I'd be at the Laundrette with her house keys. But after she'd stopped sulking we went to this really cool little place for lunch (in Berkeley) called the "Brazil Cafe". It's just this little shack by the side of the street covered in Brazillian flags with latin music blaring out and the best Tri-tip steak sandwiches in the bay area. Then had a little nap instead of doing my packing, finally did my laundry and headed out into San Francisco for the evening. Helen and I went for a really nice meal at this little Italian place called "Sociale". It's in the middle of nowhere and it just looks like an alleyway but it leads to this quaint little courtyard/patio. The food was very good, some quite unique dishes like deep fried stuffed olives and gelato with tarragon in it. Couldn't have asked for a better last meal in the city.

Then went for a few drinks with some of the new trainees (Drew and I have been imparting valuable knowledge on to them so hopefully they can attain to living up to us!) and some other people to say goodbye to. Eventually we ended up trying to get back to Berkeley on the BART (where I'm staying with Helen at the moment). But we kind of missed the last train (which is stupidly early like 11.30) so we were stuck in West Oakland (a "high crime area" according to the guy in the station). So Helen didn't like that much and we had to wait about half an hour for a taxi, which then ran out of gas. Oh dear! What a way to end things. It's all good fun.

Time to look for a device to somehow compact two 35kg bags into 32kg bags...

See you all soon!!!

Last few weeks :-(

By request of Kate and Connie I am finally updating my blog again. You asked for a long entry so here it is:

Goodbye work!

Only one more week of work left now! I've had my performance review, which was very positive :-), and am just wrapping up things like documentation and so on. Definitely got that coming to an end feeling :-(

My project (looking at a new way of tuning the memory testing process) seems to have been quite successful, at least in getting visibility for my group and stimulating people to thing about adaptive methods for testing. Limited resources have meant I couldn't do as many experiments as I would have liked over the last few months, which is a shame. There's still a lot of work to be done before deployment but it looks like it's going to be a high priority for my group next year which is satisfying for me.

Goodbye car!

Mark and I sold the Jeep on Monday. This has meant three things:

1. Much sadness at having to say goodbye to the first car I've ever owned. We've been through so much with it. It also kind of symbolizes the beginning of the end for this incredible year.


2. I have been forced to use public transport and/or scrounge lifts off people. Public transport is crap. It takes ages and I am not very good at getting to bus stops on time which makes it take even longer. It frustrates me not being able to get to places whenever I want. It's now so much more of an effort going anywhere - the mall, the cinema, even just work. They all require planning, arranging to go with someone, etc.
   


3. I suddenly have more money than I've had for the whole year. So I've been on a bit of a spending spree (don't worry I haven't spent all of it!). Going to Vegas and the Grand Canyon this weekend (tonight in fact!) with Helen and Jim, and meeting Santa Clarian Sun trainees Alex, Max and Tom down there as well as Cortney from Arizona (who gave me a new hat for Spasti at Get Golden which he lost by the end of the weekend).
   
   I've booked flights for my summer trip! Portland, Seattle, New York and Boston with Marco, Alex and Kenneth. Laura's been trying to persuade me to hop up to Ottawa too, and Drew and I had a crazy plan to drive from NY to Florida. I doubt either of those things will happen. I'd be quite happy just to hang out in NY for a week, but we'll see.
   
   Also over the last few days, I've bought the watch I lost in New York (a very nice Seiko one which was a 21st birthday present from my flatmates last year. Hopefully won't repeat that in July!), possibly bought an iPod and got myself a couple new pairs of running trainers. I'm now on a quest to find a laptop without a silly shiny super-reflective screen like most of the new ones seem to have.

Goodbye AIESEC!

Last weekend Aaron (our AIESEC ex-"minder") threw a party for us down in Campbell. It was a lot of fun. We had a keg, did sambuca shots, went to a club, did body shots. All of this inevitably led to some less than sober activities. Alex got into a breakdance-off with someone which I joined in. Andrew and I got kicked out for using the store room to make a phone call then Aaron worked his magic on the bouncer to get us back in. We did some drunken tree-climbing. Tom spent a lot of the time fertilizing Aaron's garden. Steve accidentally slept sitting on the doorstep with a cup in his hand!

It was also Nadine's leaving do in San Francisco. We got fish and chips beforehand, which was good but not British. There was no newspaper (they lied!), they didn't know what a "fish supper" was and there was no brown sauce. Still good though. We then went to a bar where I argued with Mark's girlfiend Sandy for what seemed like most of the time. She likes arguing way too much! After the party, about 12 of us went to change the wheel on Patricia's van. At one point the cops went by but we obviously looked to be on top of it as they didn't even ask if we needed any help. The two things to remember are:

1. Loosen the nuts before jacking it up, otherwise the whole wheel will just rotate.
2. Tighten them up each a bit at a time, moving between them diagonally.

Post-Get Golden we all seem so much more integrated into AIESEC which is a shame now that we're leaving. There are definitely a lot of people I'll try and keep in touch with and no doubt see again in the future.

Hello home!

Wee Steve and Max are off home one week tomorrow. Nico's already gone back to Germany. Most of the rest of us will be here for a big July 4th celebration as our last big event (mostly) together then people are off at various times in July. My summer travelling extraveganza is taking place between July 5th and 19th.

The wheels are in motion for my flight home on Wednesday July 22nd, putting me back in the UK on July 23rd. Looking forward to seeing all my family, friends and pets over the summer!

Jumping Rock Stars

Jumping Rock Stars

This took about 10 tries! Apparently jumping on three is different to counting to three then jumping, or squatting in preperation for jumping on/after three. Boy, it was difficult!

Cunningham road is a fun fun place.

More great pics of the fantastic weekend at the Get Golden Group. Some good ones from Wee Steve, Helen and Kenneth.

Got Golden!!

another group picture

Wow. What an incredible weekend. After months of preperation, "debating" and a fair amount of stress we managed to get a fantastic mix of 74 AIESECers up to Yosemite for a soon-to-be legendry week.

It was an incredible time and I want to thank everyone who attended it and made it was a success. Especially those who came from out of state. You guys really rock. Thanks too to the rest of the guys who helping with organizing it - Marco, Drew, Andrew, Big Steve, Wee Steve.

To my car sharing team (Kenneth, Wee Steve, Helen and sometimes Jenny and Marco) thank you for providing such good entertainment!

We really could not have asked for this weekend to go better. The feedback I've been getting back from everyone is very much appreciated and it seems like everyone is still buzzing from the weekend.

Photos from everyone are slowly taking over Flickr so have a look at the best of the best:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/getgolden/pool/

Some things I learned at the weekend:

- Trying to boil water for spaghetti for 50 people isn't easy
- Mosquitoes kill
- When someone says the water will be 70 farenheit, they are most likely lying
- Helen should never be allowed to drive a jet-ski
- Wearing expensive sunglasses while jet-skiing is just stupid
- Smors are awesome (thanks Cortney)
- Peppermint schnappes and chocolate milk tastes pretty good, but schnappes does not do good things to the trunk of a car
- How windmills work
- It is somehow possible to teach people to ceilidh dance by headlight in the woods

Thanks again to everyone who came. Some great new friendships were formed and the memories of this weekend will last a long long time.

If we've inspired people to hold a Get Golden 2006 (and I think we have) I want to be there!!

Log running in Yosemite

Log running!

Had a superb time with Kate (my sis) at Yosemite National Park two weekends ago. We set off on the Friday morning (it was meant to be early but ended up being about 9 or 10 I think).

We had a couple brief stops on the way up. First on the 580 to take photos of the massive wind farm. This pretty much set the theme for the weekend with a strong emphasis on photo-taking! Our second stop was in Oakhurst to be a bit miffed at missing the chocolate festival there by a week.

We got up there in less than 4 hours (not bad) to be greeted by some truly spectacular scenery, more good photo-taking opportunities and chaotic traffic in the park due to a temporary one way system. We headed into Yosemite Valley and did a couple shorts walks to take in the meadows and the incredible waterfalls. In the picture dwarfing Kate and I is the Upper and Lower Yosemite falls, together forming the tallest waterfall in North America, and the sixth tallest in the world!

After getting very wet taking close up photos of this spectacle, we drove up to Tunnel View to see the sun set over the valley. By now my camera had already run out of both memory and batteries (due to some slight oversights on my behalf) but there was a mass of photographers already there with tripods, medium format cameras, light meters all at the ready. It seemed like some of these people had been waiting hours for the perfect light which I reckon was around 6pm just before we got there.

We were camping at Curry Village, which is a huge forest village of permanent "tent cabins", set up over 100 years ago by David and Jennie Curry (so nothing to do with Indian food sadly). I thought it was a pretty cool concept - more comfortable and spacious than camping but still pretty basic and cheap. Great for families. The breakfast buffet is excellent especially for free! We missed the dinner so had to fork out a small fortune for the overpriced bar and pizzeria food, but there is a good atmosphere at the eating area in the evenings and we ended up chatting to a couple for Orange County.

On Saturday, we headed up to Mirror Lake on the lovely air-conditioned complementary (but crowded) buses. Again more photo taking and a bit of paddling in some ice cold water. We also saw some lizards and a snake on some sun-baked rocks. The lake itself is a seasonal lake and is only there during the Spring due to snow melt. Apparently it will eventually turn into a meadow. We ended up doing about a 6 mile walk all the way around it. Kate was glad when that was over!

We headed back in the evening to catch an hour of Andrea's leaving party then into the city for a precious few hours sleep at the hotel Steve had kindly booked us into in preperation for an early start at the Bay to Breakers run.

It was so nice seeing Kate for a couple weeks - going on trips together, exploring San Francisco, eating out, eating in and just hanging out. Thanks so much for coming to visit!!

More Bay to Breakers Pics

Here are some good pics of Steve and me running in Bay to Breakers last weekend:

http://www.sportphoto.com/event/event.cgi?EventID=32

Put in the secret code of bib number 574 to see conclusive evidence of me beating Wee Steve by at least a few inches! If anyone feels like buying me one of those pictures, please feel free!

Thanks again to everyone who sponsored me for the race. I managed to raise $200 for cancer research. You've still got a week to donate money if you haven't already.

Get Golden this weekend!!! It's finally here.

British Food

Discovered this on Flickr - Shepherd's Pie at the Irish Bank pub. Will need to go and eat some of that!!

Even bigger news: there's a proper fish and chip shop in San Francisco!! I found it while looking at SF Weekly's Best of 2005. It's called Picadilly and is on Polk St (at Pine). It sounds fantastic. They fly in cod from Ireland, have good thick-cut chips and even wrap the whole thing in newspaper! Don't think they have brown sauce though - this is an English-style chippie, not Scottish :-( Still should be damn good though! Open until midnight on Fri/Sat night, 11pm on other nights. Good reviews on Google Local too! This is the mission for this week. Maybe a post-Star Wars meal?

178!!

Ready for the race

After months of training, the day was finally here. The 94th annual Bay to Breakers - a 7.56 mile (12km) run through San Francisco which has run every year since 1912 - was taking place today.

Wee Steve and I were there, at the front of the pack (as pledge runners raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) at 6.30am, warming up, digesting our Starbuck's breakfasts and watching the flying tortillas! It was really nice being at the front of the pack (especially thinking of poor Declan behind about 70,000 people) - we got to see the mayor warming up and join in the count down to the start (accompanied by some great motivational music). Once we were off, there were no delays - straight into running.

Soon into the race, we were surrounded by naked people. Apparently illegal and "frowned upon" but nobody ever really gets arrested, although they do have to get dressed for the finish line. Steve and I started up a competition to high five as many people as possibly, with bonus points for cops and naked people. And they loved it!! Young, old, naked, clothed - we must have high fived about 150 spectators between us, including some daring jumps and diversions off the main track.

We high-fived one naked guy who gave us some beads to wear, which we will now cherish forever! And bring back to B2B 100 in 2012, which we have made a pact to come back to.

There were some great costumes - human centipedes, cat women, the titanic, a star wars family, a picasso guitarist, people on the loo, tiki-bars - it all added to the fun of the event.

The spectators were also great - cheering us on, playing music and high-fiving us (some reluctantly but willing and some loving it, especially when we had to jump for them). Thanks to them, and me and Steve pushing each other to run the whole way without slowing down we set an excellent pace and made it in 1:05:59 - a time we were very pleased with indeed! (I was aiming for less than an hour and a half).

And, out of about 70,000 people we finished in positions 177 and 178!!! Awesome! SO HAPPY!!!!

Exit row rant

In response to Wee Steve's post about people in exit rows on planes not taking enough responsibility:

I don't think you need to stay awake throughout the whole flight though. That's asking too much. What if it was a 14 hour flight to Australia or something? I'm sure if something happened you'd be awake pretty quickly anyway!

Plane crashes are obviously very devastating and if one occurs I imagine it's extremely rare that anyone survives the impact and actually has to open the emergency exit. But that's not to say you shouldn't be prepared - as you say - at least read the instructions and be alert during take off and landing (when most accidents happen). I personally always look at the safety instructions and work out how to open the doors if I'm within a few aisles.

This reminds me of when I flew to Minneapolis and the woman in the seat beside me, moments after the "no cell phones allowed and turn off all electronics during landing" announcement, took out her phone to make a call. She clearly knew it was against the rules as she was hiding it under her hair from the flight attendents. Couldn't she wait a few minutes until we'd landed? This is the very worst time to use a phone! Didn't she realize how important that rule is? It's not in her interest to get away with it if the guidance systems mess up and we crash land, is it?!?! So I told her to get off the phone (very politely and Britishly of course).

She retorted with "But you're using your CD player". I did have my headphones on, but had the player switched off, which I told her. Anyway what difference does that make? If I was breaking the rules, that doesn't mean she should too. And I think a cell phone probably generates a lot more interference than a CD player.

So Steve - I agree with you. People don't have enough respect for the rules of flying. Let's all do our bit and complain to them or the staff whenever we get the chance!!

Far more important though are the risks associated with driving - the American habit for drinking and driving needs to stop. There are just too many devastating stories. Don't ever, ever do it. Ever.

"Fucked up brilliant"

That's how Chris Martin described one of Coldplay's fantastic new songs while playing an incredible set at the Coachella music festival, near Indio in Southern California. The man is a legend. He was clearly enjoying himself on stage enourmously, bouncing all over the place with excitement and laughing at himself when he messed up his own lyrics. Very entertaining and much livelier on stage than you might expect. I really like their new material. Speed of Sound grows on me more every time I hear it and the other new stuff definitely lives up to classic Coldplay. Can't wait to get my hands on the new album. The other highlight of the set was the super-special version of "We're all at Coachella" Yellow. Fantastic. The new album, X&Y is out on June 6th.

The gang this time was me, Declan, Declan's friend Jude (from Edinburgh, but now studying in Austin, TX which sounds like the party/student capital of the world), Drew and Big Steve.

Other musical highlights were Snow Patrol, who seemed very good, but Declan, Jude and I had just gulped down a fair amount of Vodka as even water bottles weren't allowed in under the Draconian American drinking laws. I also really enjoyed UNKLE - lots of great dance music and lasers and so on, finishing with remixes of The Killers and U2 (the previous two gigs I'd been to!) Sage Francis was a surprisingly good hip hop act by this bearded black guy with a big robe. And Keane were also excellent. Very cool seeing all these bands with a backdrop of mountains, desert and palm trees!

Renting convertibles was one of the best decisions of the weekend! It felt so right to be driving down to LA with the sun beaming down on us and the wind in our hair. We had very tasteful Chevy Sebrings - nice handling and very quiet (compared with the Jeep!) but not too powerful. Probably a good thing or Drew would have got a ticket when the police stopped him. It is the way to drive though. You really feel a lot more in touch with the road and aware of everything going on. That didn't however stop us from getting lost - several times! Jointly to blame for this are:
a) Declan,
b) Google Maps,
c) Too many freeways in LA.
We managed to clock up about 100 miles more than Drew and Steve over the weekend (totalling 1270 over 3 days!), and I think we drove through LA airport roughly 5 times.

We were staying in about the worst area of LA (cheapest though!) - Inglewood, just under the LAX flight path! (I think Declan had a few close encounters with planes in the mornings) They did have good blueberry muffins in the hostel/hotel (LA Adventurers) though, and a bar that was open late. Leaving convertibles outside in this area is not a good idea though - and someone did attempt to break into one of them!

We spent Sunday relaxing on Venice beach (I think where Baywatch was filmed) and watching all the stuff going on. There were people driving all sorts of crazy contraptions - big wheeled fat-burning bikes, Segways, police on quad bikes, etc. I saw one lifeguard drive about 10ft in his big yellow pickup from his little shack, equipped with a megaphone just to scare the wits out of some poor swimmers who were in a no swimming zone! There was an impressive amount of sports going on - basketball courts, squash courts, paddle ball courts (kind of like short tennis / life-size table tennis). Of course there were also myriads of tourists buying souvenirs (us included). After all that we went on a driving tour of LA, led by me (now map-equipped) then Steve and Drew went off home and Declan and I stayed to get Jude to her 10.30pm flight. We investigated downtown, did some covert parking (as all the attendents had abandoned their lots), wandered around the desolate remains of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations (lots of balloons and flyers seems to be what that's about) and ended up having dinner at a beach-themed bar on Sunset Blvd.

The weekend ended with a night time drive back home, up the almost-deserted 101, fueled by red bull and the Alias soundtrack (resulting in inevitable tailing of other vehicles :-)). We made it in 4:44, beating Drew and Steve's time (up the 5) by 1 minute. Very proud. We actually caught the start of early morning traffic with people trying to beat the traffic into work. Those crazy commuters!

Photos here!!

Jurassic Bark...

...is the saddest episode of Futurama ever. It brings a tear to my eye every time. It's all about Fry's pet dog. He waited outside that pizza place for 12 years, just waiting for Fry to come back. The poor little guy. Never giving up hope. Never.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that. Family Guy should cheer me up in a few minutes. New episodes starting May 1st! (and American Dad)

Oh yeah, they shot a mountain lion in a tree in someone's back garden in San Jose today. I was shocked. Why couldn't they just tranquilize it or something? I'm sure in the UK the RSPCA, Pet Rescue, Rolf Harris, etc. would all be there and putting it gently into a cage. But here, it's just "Right, get the shotgun out of the car". Typical of America really.

Queuing fun

Ooh dear - lots has been happening and I haven't been keeping up with my blog. So here goes:

Last weekend we had a massive pool party at the hotel, which was a lot of fun. AIESEC were kind enough to give us some money for the event (well, 'give' as in I paid for everything but should get a big fat cheque on Friday) so we had lots of good food, marinaded multiple different ways by two teams - Tim and me and Mark and Sandy. The quality of the cheapo meat we got from Costco let us down a bit but on the whole it was very yummy and enjoyed by all.

A *lot* of people came and the party continued way into the night so I was very happy since I did most of the organizing. I think we managed to fit about 20 people in the "max capacity 8" hot tub at one point, causing it to overflow either with water, beer or some mixture of the two. I did notice it was cordoned off the next day, possibly for detox. Other achievements included me managing (eventually) to climb into a rubber ring through the middle and end up in a reclined position without falling out (much harder than it sounds) and learning a new way to tie my shoes (thanks Michelle/Helen!).

It's called the "bunny ears" method. You make two loops/ears (one in each hand) then just tie them together. I'm pretty sure it results in the same knot but my extensive tests have shown it to be not quite as secure. Marco's daring feats of hot tub photograpy will no doubt be posted on his new flickr account very soon. (courtesy of yours truly after they kindly gave me a couple free ones to give away for being such a loyal supporter from its humble beginnings to its present Yahoo-fueled and turbo-charged incarnation)

Let's speed things up:

Sunday played golf. Much fun. Sunny. Near-kneecapped incident with golf-ball originating from Dinuk but lived through it. No crashed golf carts. Tuesday: Killers. At the Fillmore. Excellent venue. With chandeliers. Good gig. Lively crowd. Much "bopping" so Lewis happy. Some new songs. Quite good. Not U2 though. Friday night: Laura's leaving do. Make out room. Strange place. Crazy decor. Happy hour. Dancing. England beaten by Germany at pool. Declan given verbal assault by Laura. Home at 5am. Saturday: Berkeley - very good pizza at Jupiter with Sarah and Helen and all the guys. Home early (well 2am) to get up at the crack of dawn to queue for System of a Down gigs in San Francisco.
7am. Queuing with 690 people in front of us.
8am. Hungry.
9am. BBQ on the street.
9.05am. Staff mumbling something about the fire department.
9.06am. BBQ extinguised with orange juice.
10am. Queue starts moving!!!
11am. Sold out, about 100 people in front of us (and about 900 behind us). Blast!
Home. Dejected. Mystery Spot to the rescue. Just like Father Ted but better, and genuinely mysterious, entertaining and like a very tacky 50s tourist destination. Altogether now: Ooooh. Aaaaah.

We proved that Lewis is in fact only about 5'11", and Andrew is, in fact, a muppet. So that was it. My life over the last few weeks. And a lot of full stops. Sorry. Periods.

Get Golden countdown: 31 days.
Star Wars countdown: 23 days.

Bay to Breakers

I'm running the Bay to Breakers on Sunday May 15th. It's a 7.5 mile run through San Francisco (which means hills!) It is the oldest consecutively run foot race in the world, having started in 1912 with around 200 runners and grown today to about 80,000. I'm raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, a charity that is funding cancer research and providing support for sufferers and their families. My goal is to raise $200 so any money you could pledge, no matter how little, would be greatly appreciated.

Make a Pledge

Get donating people! I want to beat Wee Steve, in the race and in terms of donations! You can pay on that web site by credit card (US or international) or send me an e-mail if you want to pay by cheque or even Paypal. Thanks!!

Hmmm, I seem to have got my foot tangled up in the window blind machanism in my office.

Golf and Get Golden

More new sports! I hit a golf ball for pretty much the first time on Wednesday night. Andrew is organizing a golf tournament/game for this Sunday (post-pool-party-hangover) so I thought I'd go along to the driving range with Steve, Andrew and Nico and give it a shot. Nico just started playing this week and has already bought himself some clubs. Of course being German, he's already good at it just like he was with tennis which he'd apparently never played before. It's a pretty cool feeling when you get the technique just right (or at least vaguely right which is really all I can hope for at this stage) and the ball really flies. I think I managed 150yds with a 7 iron which I was pleased with!

Can't wait to get buzzing around in a golf buggy in the sun on Sunday!!

Plans for our trip to Yosemite trip, Get Golden, are going very well indeed. There's quite a bit of interest (ranging to excitement), we're getting money from AIESEC and Marco and I have spent a ridiculous amount of time on a web site that we shall launch soon. Everyone's invited! Just e-mail getgolden@gmail.com.

U2 Concert

Just back from the U2 concert. Wow. What an incredible performance. Bucket loads of energy and emotion and the most amazing and original light show I've ever seen, with fountains of lights showing all sorts of things ranging from a fighter jet flying with a city skyline in the background, all the flags of the countries of Africa to just blasting us with flashing words. They were some very cool effects!

Photo by Lorena / lorenayaya@yahoo.com

It wasn't just about the music and show though - there were some very powerful messages in there too. We had a snippet from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a tribute and funny story about the Pope, and about 10,000 people getting their mobile phones out to voice their support for One, Bono's campaign to put an end to AIDS and poverty worldwide. Seeing that many phones all lit up around the stadium was just beautiful. Go to the web site and see just how easy it is to help.

They put up a few names on the screen of those who'd texted in their support. You know what's coming... "Daniel Cunningham" up there in front of about 20,000 people. Made me very happy!

Undoubtedly one of the best concerts I've ever been too.

Tennis season!

Well, the sun is upon us. Who knows for how long? Taking full advantage of it while it lasts anyway - tennis yesterday and going for a run today, maybe followed by some kite-flying at the park. Already setting up a pool party for next Saturday too :-)

Bought a new tennis racket yesterday (it was about time). It's a Wilson H-Rival 112 - oversize, 112 sq in, very light at only about 9oz, slightly head-heavy to get more power on baseline shots. At the moment I've got a demo model from Tri-City to see if I like it. You pay $20 to try the racket out for a few days and you get your money back if you decide to buy the racket. It's really nice to play with, especially compared to my old racket, so I'll be going in on Friday to get the real thing.

Right, off to conquer Don Edward's Regional Preserve and the Coyote Hills. Oh yeah!

The rare Huberdink of Northern California

(Pronounced: HU-ber-dink)

Order	Rodentia
Family	Sciuridae
Sub-family	Sciurinae
Genus	Ammospermophilus
Species	A. Huberdinkus Maximus
Common name	Bong rat

Picture this: Thousands of huberdinks merrily roaming free on the slopes of Mount Diablo, CA. Joyously tending to their offspring and revelling in the beauty of the flower-filled meadows. Frolicking to the water hole in Spring, and burrowing through their tunnels to hibernate in the bleak winters.

Huberdink

Now, skip forward to today. Man's selfish destruction of this natural habitat in order to build car parks atop mountains has upset the balance of nature and resulted in an almost unheard of decline in numbers for these sweet little rodents. These poor little blighters have dwindled in numbers and only a handful are thought to exist. Above is a rare photo of possibly the last-surviving member of this repressed species. There is debate in the scientific community that this image could possibly actually even maybe be a capture of the ghost of the last surviving one. Further investigation would be required to rule out this possibility.

Help the plight of these poor, innocent animals, victims of man's desire to conquer nature by building a road up to the top of a mountain so that freeloading, lazy, good for nothing tourists can feel like they've achieved something by pumping toxic fumes as they chug their way up in their SUVs into the vast expanse of rivetting open space created here by nature's forces, by sending your credit card details to me at spannerdan (at) gmail.com.

Actually, maybe it's just a squirrel. Oh.

Drive-thru mountains

On Saturday morning me, Alex, Declan, Lewis and Wee Steve finally made it up Mount Diablo, the tallest peak in the Bay Area at 3849 feet (not far off the height of Ben Nevis - the tallest mountain in Britain!)

With a planned departure time of 8am, we didn't make it out of Newark until about 10, probably thanks to the night before and Declan's state, and much to the annoyance of myself, Alex and especially Wee Steve.

First, an interesting fact: Mount Diablo was used as a reference point for the early pioneers while mapping California, and as such, much of the map grids in use today for California and some of Nevada and Oregon are relative to the location of this peak. In a way, this mountain is the centre of California. On a good day, views of much of Northern California can be seen, even as far as the Sierras and Yosemite.

Our route (which we, well I, had actually planned the day before!) started at the North side of Mount Diablo State Park, at Mitchell Canyon. We set off from the car park at 11.30am. The plan was to walk along up through the valley east of Eagle Peak, traverse Bald Ridge and finally climb to the peak, to be back about 6 hours later. We only ended up following this very loosely.

Raaaar!

We started out on a small trail (no bikes thank you) slowly rising up the side of a valley, with lush meadows and views of forested areas and Walnut Creek below. The sun was shining, Alex was talking crap (literally), Lewis was lugging his tripod around and Steve was ready with his matches to deal with any tick attacks at a moment's notice. I was busy trying to navigate us up this mountain, using far too much brain power to convert between miles to km and feet to metres. Damn imperial system. What fools invented that anyway?

Humming bird

We quickly realized we'd missed a very obscure turning to go through the valley and we ended up on the very steep and land-slidey path up the side of Eagle Peak. Already there were some incredible views below us - so much green, and lots of beautiful wild flowers. Spring is definitely the time to be walking in California. Such a contrast to all dry, brown landscape we'd seen the previous summer. There were quite a lot of walkers around Eagle Peak - good wholesome people who enjoy exploring the wilderness and like to get an actual sense of achievement by not driving to the top like the tourists on the main peak later on (grrr)!

Quarry

After a close shave with a very bold hover fly :-), we got to the top at about 2pm where we stopped for a lunch of french bread, salami and cheese. More great views and some really big eagles flying around the appropriately-named peak.

Shadows

We headed along the ridge leading to Mount Diablo - again slippery rocky paths surrounded by some incredible wild flowers turning later into densely-growing bushes. We got to the junction of Murchio Gap where we had a choice to take the fire road around Bald Ridge followed by a steep climb, or go right over Bald Ridge on a very small path. There are loads of these fire roads around, to provide access for firefighters should a fire break out in the wild. They are generally reasonably flat and wide. Not quite as fun though, so we opted for Bald Ridge. It turned out we couldn't see much from the ridge as it was covered in forest.

Alex sitting on a rock

Once over Bald Ridge, we were almost at the summit. The museum, no doubt filled with freeloading, lazy, car-driving tourists was in sight. The path we were taking (now the Summit Trail) led us all around the peak to the south side. There were views of the entire East Bay from here, although it was a bit hazy. We had some fun clambering around an outbreaking of rocks then continued our way up the final stretch. We were now surrounded by all those drive-to-the-top people who didn't seem as friendly as those we'd met earlier. Not local you see.

View from the top

When we got to the car park almost at the top, we realized we'd lost Lewis somewhere along the way. He'd been trailing quite a lot of the way, stopping to take photos and set up his tripod (reminded me of constantly waiting around for Steve on holiday in Europe with him and Nick two summers ago). We waited for a while, I went back to look for him, spoke to some people who had indeed seen a tall man in a blue bandana taking photos, but I couldn't find him. Best plan was to go right to the top and hope to meet him there. Still no sign of him, but some good views - could even see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. By now we were getting quite agitated about where Lewis was and the fact it was 4pm and we ought to be getting back if we didn't want to be walking around this mountain in the dark. He eventually popped up, took a few more photos and we began heading down.

We went down a much faster route, using Fire Roads most of the way and going through Mitchell Canyon back to the car park. It was getting a bit cold on the way down so we really moved and managed to make it by 6.30. Perfect timing. 3000ft of descending in a couple hours wasn't too easy on the old feet or knees though!

An excellent walk anyway. Must have been about 12 miles, with around 4000ft of climbing (20km, 1300m) so doing it in 7 hours was a good job. I definitely think doing it from Mitchell Canyon was a wise choice - more challenging and a wider variety of terrain and views than just doing the round route mostly along Fire Roads would have given us. It was good to be doing a serious walk. It had been far too long. Mt Whitney next? (tallest in the 50 states) Maybe not quite yet, but hopefully in June some time. Next up I think will be Mt Tamalpais, which has been recommended to me by several people now.

Taxi tracker!

Google have come up with a couple exciting new products:

First, there's Google RideFinder which allows you to find taxis in your local area. It actually shows you the position of each individual taxi on a map, so you can call up the right company knowing that their taxi is just round the corner from you!

The second one, which is even more revolutionary and surprising, is Google Gulp, a kind of energy drink for your brain just released by the big G. I think the limited stock was only available three days ago though.

Restaurant Review: The Slanted Door

I visited The Slanted Door with Audra and Nika on Friday night.

This Vietnamese restaurant is located in The Ferry Building, a stunning setting with incredible views of the Bay Bridge out of large floor-to-ceiling windows. Entering the restaurant you sweep aside a large curtain to be greeted by the spacious (150 seating capacity) and atmospherically-lit interior, with a full and enticing view of the kitchen in the background (complete with massive flames).

The menu, which looks like it changes daily based on local produce, features a large range of Vietnamese and other Asian-inspired dishes - meat, seafood and a good selection of interesting vegetarian dishes. Food is served "family-style", meaning you order a selection of dishes and share them together (for three of us, our server suggested something like two appetizers and three entrees, but one and three of each was plenty). This is a relaxed and fun way of dining, and I like it!

We started with a "Vietnamese Vegetarian Crepe" - a thin pancake filled with tofu, cabbage and tree ear mushrooms. The idea was to slice it up then wrap the crepe in the lettuce, dipping it into a sesame/soy sauce. This provided no end of messy enjoyment and the mixture of flavours and textures was spot on.

We then had three main courses - Shaking Beef, Ahi Tuna and Spicy Japanese Eggplant. The beef was perfectly cooked and very tender, served with beautiful caramalized red onions and a ginger and lime sauce. The Ahi tuna was absolutely incredible, just lightly seared, still raw in the middle - a great contrast in textures, with a spicy ginger/soy sauce. But the eggplant was really the star of the meal - thin strips of eggplant infused with a subtley coconutty sauce - delicious. And I don't even usually like eggplant that much.

This is definitely food to be savoured and enjoyed slowly. Every bite was devine, with wonderful flavour combinations, clearly made using the best and freshest of ingredients available.

They have quite an extensive wine list, with a huge range of Reislings that apparently accompany the slightly spicy food very well. And indeed they do. We had the cheaper ($20) of the two half bottles they had on offer, a 2002 Kabinett Reisling from Selbach-Oster of the Mosel region of Germany, which was slightly sweet and very fruity and matched the food really well. They also have an exceptional range of beers and cocktails.

After a satisfying couple of courses, we were under the impression we were suitably filled up and ready to go... until we saw the dessert menu, with such irrisistable offerings as "E. Guittard dark chocolate pot de crème with espresso granité" and "Meyer lemon creamy cheesecake with huckleberry compote". All I need to say is that these lived up to the rest of the meal and you must try them.

The service was absolutely meticulous, with seperate food, wine and dessert experts helping us with our choices. The wine opening and tasting process was particularly impressive with wine bottle, cork and a candle lined up very precisely on the table after acceptance of the bottle! A bit over-the-top, but somehow managing to remain quite relaxed and light in mood.

A truly excellent dining experience. I will definitely be trying to make it back here!

For 3 courses and drinks, we spent about $45 each. Reservations are absolutely essential. You'll need to call at least a month in advance to get a table on a Saturday night!

Urban Snowboarding

"Grinding to the Golden Gate!"

Drew and I tried to go snowboarding on Sunday. But we're not talking about that any more. We ended up on Treasure Island, inventing the sport of Urban Snowboarding and getting some excellent pics in the process. Drew's video guide to Urban Snowboarding is currently in post-production and will be online soon! Stay tuned for some right good silliness.

Asian Art Museum

On Saturday, I went to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco with Audra and Nika.

We started with one of their temporary exhibitions - The Kingdom of Siam. This featured rare items from the Ayutthayan kingdom of what is now Thailand which prospered from the 14th to the 18th century. The kingdom was taken over by the Burmese in the 18th century, destroying much of the artwork of this period, making this stuff very rare. The exhibition included some interesting sculptures taken from temples and the like, but by far the best thing was the chests (the kind for storing things in, ok?). They had these huge chests with the most intricate drawings on them, mostly of very silly looking animals. They had "amusing rabbits", birds cheekily biting on plants, monkeys playing, dogs, fish, etc. all with the most ridiculous expressions. It was so funny!

Photo from Asian Art Museum

We also saw a lot of the Japan exhibition which has got me even more excited about going in the summer. They had a mock-up of a Japanese tea cermony, some really cool basket sculptures and some wood block prints the Edo
period (1615-1868) [pictured above]. The process for creating wood block prints is really interesting and produces a very distinctive looking painting. The artist first draws the outlines, then someone carves the outlines in wood, then the printer applies black ink to the block and makes an impression on paper. The artist then assigns different colours to each section, and the woodblock carver makes a block for each colour with raised bits where that colour is. So there is now a block for the outlines and a block for each colour, lined up by reference points in two corners. The printer can then print many copies by applying the colours to the different bits of wood and layering them on. Quite ingenious.

Wood block print

One other really cool thing was a big boulder that had been sliced in half and polished to be slightly concave. Water was then pumped extremely slowly up the middle producing a thin layer of water on top and trickling down the sides, giving the top a mirror or glass-like appearance. You couldn't see the water moving, but when I took a photo you can see small ripples moving outwards from the centre.

I would definitely recommend this museum. Admission is $6 for students. That includes free tours and an audio guide too. It's closed on Mondays. The Siam exhibition is running until May 8th 2005.

San Francisco Tour Guide Extraordinaire

My friend Audra, who lives in Massachussets but was part of the Hermit's Croft crew (my Uni flats) in Edinburgh in first year, was visiting San Francisco this weekend, along with her friend Nika (who is Russian but grew up in MA). It was excellent seeing them both, and hanging out with a different people from usual was very refreshing. We did lots of touristy stuff, ate lots of superb food and I had very little sleep travelling to and from San Francisco every day for three days.

I think I did San Francisco proud in showing them around, and introducing Audra to the West coast where she'd never been before (sharing some of the organizational responsability with Nika as she was in the city at Christmas). It's funny that I've probably travelled around more of the States than either of them. Mind you I think Nika may have seen more of San Francisco than me. Maybe this is something to do with not wanting to do "touristy" things in a place where you consider home, or maybe it's just because it seems like we should be exploring the whole of the States in a year (which is obviously impossible).

Since we did quite a lot over the weekend, I'm going to write this as several entries - this one summarising the whole time then a detailed one for The Slanted Door restaurant and the Asian Art Museum.

Thursday

I picked up the girls from the airport on Thursday night. This was the only parking I had to pay for all weekend, which was a nice change as parking in SF is normally very expensive! At SFO, airport parking is $1 per 12 minutes, which makes parking at Millbrae BART often a good choice unless you're in a rush (it's free over the weekend, but I was in a rush on Thursday). Audra and Nika did very well to stay awake until 3am their time at a late-night Pizza place on Columbus. I think it was the 90s dance music that did it!

Friday

Friday night was one of the best dining experiences I've ever had, at a Vietnamese restaurant called the Slanted Door. Perfect food, meticulous service and of course, excellent company! After that we headed to the bubble lounge, which was very cool as usual. We nicked a reserved table, looked like we were meant to be there and spent the night sipping expensive drinks (except for my coke which was free) and having to sit closer and closer together to combat the loud music. Good strategy to get people to dance / buy more drinks / fit more people on the sofas!

Nika also has an irrational fear of toothbrushes!!! More precisely, the sound of other people brushing their teeth (my own is ok). It really freaks me out. She seemed to think it was quite normal and lots of people do, but I don't think I've met anyone else that gets so irritated by it. I couldn't find much on the Internet about it so don't know how many people experience this. Reply to this with your views on the subject!!

Saturday

Saturday was a most enjoyable and suitably touristy day. Started off at the fascinating Asian Art Museum. The "amusing rabbits" in Siam exhibition were the highlight, and the Japanese exhibition was also excellent. That deserves its own entry (and will get one).

Next up was the Alcatraz tour, which we had tickets too but ended up being about 15 minutes late (due to my dissillusions about the location of Pier 41). 511 and MUNI to the rescue though and we got a bus there, hopped into the standby queue and to our delight and surprise got on the next ferry. Apart from dubious subtitling on the intro video, the prison was remarkable to see and the audio tour (a concept I'm not entirely sure I like) very good with input from ex-"Correctional Officers" as well as prisoners. It certainly seemed extremely harsh - some of the prisoners there were kept in 24-hour solitary confinement for years on end. There were some great escape attempt stories too - the most notable documented in "Escape from Alcatraz" in which the inmates making fake heads to leave in their beds so as not to be missing from the head count. One thing we weren't expecting was the incredible plant life on the island. I think the word "lush" must have been used by Nika at least a dozen times! I don't believe it was quite as nice at the time of the prison though. Excellent value at just $16!

After Alcatraz, we set off to walk to China town for (illogically) some Japanese food, popping in to a Pet Food store on the way to get some presents for Sadie and Poppy. The store was just beside Dolores Park, which was teeming with people playing and lots of dogs. China town is actually pretty cool. There's a whole chunk of it I hadn't seen before with lots of markets and fish stores, away from the "trying to sell cheap stuff to tourists" bit. We got dinner at "Sushi Boat" which was extremely good value (great California rolls and Tempura sushi. Not great tea-topping-up service though)

China Bazaar next for the mandatory cheap-stuff-for-tourists souvenir shopping. There was some interesting stuff in there - a great book called "Feng Shui for you and your cat", and a spectucular "Chinese Wedding Bed". The book was so full of BS, but had some great photos. Apparently cats can detect and neutralize negative Chi, which results in them sleeping in warm and comfortable places and also sometimes the most bizarre places.

Well overdue, we went to Starbucks for Audra and I to get our coffee fixes for the day (Nika had her tea-fix already). They forgot to make my drink after I ordered it so I've got a free coupon for whatever I want (second free drink of the weekend woohoo!). I'm thinking 5-espresso-shot-mocha-latte-frappa-dappa-cinno with whipped cream, chocolate flakes and extra special attention to getting my name right on the order!

We then wandered down to the Metreon next to check that out, which involved watching the same Spider-man 2 clip twice in the Sony shop, playing some motion-sensitive games and browsing a cool book store. Then we were going to vaguely head to the Thirsty Bear where Drew was holding up the bar for AIESEC, being the sole participant at Sarah's latest social event (but seeming quite happy to be). But the power went out in the whole block, causing chaos on the streets due to lack of traffic lights, and Drew to be ejected from Thirsty Bear after one candle-lit drink.

So we walked past the Martin Luther King memorial, which is a just big waterfall - loud, oppressive and with a big flood around it. Not really a fitting tribute. After that we went round to Chieftans, one of two Irish pubs on Howard street with coloured Christmas lights outside it. This caused Drew no end of trouble finding us as he went in the wrong direction and found the wrong one. They've got good Irish beer, cliched Irish music and actual Irish staff.

It was really fun hanging out with Audra and Nika for a couple days. I will really have to make an effort to try and visit them at their side of the country before the summer. I'll try and co-ordinate this trip with when my friend and ex-flatmate James is visiting Audra in May and June.

Monkeys will rule Alcatraz soon!

Photos and full Slanted Door review coming soon...

Update: Alcatraz Pictures here

Statistically Improbable Phrases and the popularity of Legally Blonde 2

While looking for the Alias soundtrack, I spotted a couple really "cool" new features on Amazon.com:

Firstly, they have this thing called Purchase Circles. They create best-seller lists of CDs, books and DVDs based on where people live, what company they work for or what university they're at. The Alias soudtrack appears to be popular at Ohio Universities and in France. Sun Microsystems employees like Dan Brown, The Far Side, Battlestar Galactica and Legally Blonde 2. Apparently there isn't enough statistical information to work out what Californians as a whole like, but people in Newark, CA need to lose weight and enjoy buying CDs and DVDs about the Beatles.

The second interesting feature is SIPs - Statistically Improbable Phrases. Sounds like something from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy doesn't it? Here's what it is: For any book which has "Search Inside", you can view a list of phrases which appear in that book which are very rare across all other books. For instance, Dan Brown's Digital Fortress includes "mutation strings" and "her terminal" as SIPs. What an exceedingly useful feature!

Right, I'm off to buy the Alias soundtrack and run around like a spy for a bit...

The new powerbook and PSP-mania

clear_powerbook

Complete with transparent screen! (Lewis's next toy?)

His current toy (as well as just about everyone else's here) is the Sony PSP, which looks absolutely incredible. The quality of the graphics and the screen is phenomonal. I almost ran out and bought one but Drew stopped me which is good because I can't really afford one. Anyway, it looks like it only has racing and sports games on it so I'll wait and see if there are any good first-person or role-playing games. GTA might swing me. The fact it can play movies too! And wi-fi multiplayer and soon enough I expect Internet and e-mail. I am very impressed. Next paycheck methinks. It doesn't have a transparent screen though ;-)

It's sunny again!! Just in time for Audra coming. And I got a reservation at The Slanted Door (which was *hard* to get) for Friday night. I swear they always tell you they haven't got any then you just have to kind of say, "are you sure?", "please", "could you check again?" then wham! Out pops a table out of the blue. Hmmm, looks expensive though.

Tim, Wee Steve and I went to kick-boxing at lunch today. It was good to be doing something resembling martial arts again, although it's mainly just an aerobic workout and not self-defense or technique or anything. I'll try and keep it up though.

Neck-stretching skills

Reaching for Air

Among the amazing creatures I saw at the California Academy of Sciences on Saturday was the soft-shelled turtle. This little guy buries himself in the sand under water and extends his long neck up towards the surface to "snorkel" and take a breath. The notice said he has a "nasty temprement" - probably because they put the water up just a little too high so he has to get out of the sand!

After seeing this amazing feat of neck-stretching once, my Dad and I were determined to see how long he could stay under the sand and see him do it again. We waited a couple of minutes. A small crowd gathered (OK one family) We assured them that this was very cool and worth the wait. A couple minutes went by. Then a couple more. The family lost interest. But we remained vigilant. After a while we decided to take turns monitoring the tank while the other looked around the rest of the aquarium. The little blighter stayed under for a full 25 minutes!! Then he was up for about a minute and gone again. What a fulfilling existence!

We also saw some flashing glow-in-the-dark fish, some Nautiluses (Nautili?) (like squid but in big shells), some lungfish, an amphibian thing that was like a cross between a lizard and a sea-snake, with legs at the front and a tail at the back and loads of other weird and wonderful creatures. The information about each animal was very well-written and the sheer range of weirdness made this probably one of the most interesting aquariums to visit (better than Monterey). Go there!

It was really great seeing my Dad over the weekend. As well as the aquarium, we went to MOMA, had a very nice meal at a French restaurant (Rue Lepic, minus the romance!), shared the experience of a crap Jazz show, saw a totally over-the-top police escort with about 40 manic and enraged police motorbikes, spent quite a lot of time walking up and down hills and went for a walk near Stanford in the one hour of non-rain there was on Sunday.

I think I've actually seen my parents about as regularly as I do at Uni - it's been every 3 months so far. It just doesn't feel like quite enough, probably because it's not been at home with everyone together (except at Christmas). Anyway, my dad has convinced my sister to come and visit so she's coming in May!! Can't wait!

Excitement

Oooh, there's all sorts of excitement going on. Going out in San Francisco tonight for St Patrick's day. The plan is to leave at 6pm so we can get the BART there and back, but you know what we're like at leaving at a decent time. It just doesn't happen. I might just leave with whoever's ready at 6 (hopefully that will include me!)

Connie from MN sent us a gift pack of Paddy day stuff - tattoos, stickers, etc. so we'll be donning all that tonight and probably looking very silly. Thanks Connie!!

The other bit of excitement is my Dad's getting here tomorrow! Got his birthday present now, so just need to wrap it. We're going to be staying at the Marriott Renaissance hotel in San Francisco, which is a good job because it looks like everyone else is buggering off to Kirkwood to catch the last snow of the season without me. Anyway, the hotel looks very snazzy, with a free limo service to anywhere in the city during the week and coffee brought directly to your room every morning. You've got to love Marriott Friends & Family discounts! So on the cards for this weekend - Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Jazz Collective, and possibly a day trip or some wine tasting, although the weather seems to have turned crap and cloudy in anticipation of my dad's arrival.

More excitement! My friend Audra from University who lives in Boston is visiting next weekend, so I've got all sorts planned in the city, including a trip to Alcatraz, possibly at night.

Even more excitement - Marco and I are considering taking a few days off work next week to hit Cancun for Spring Break. It's the biggest college party of the year and everyone's telling me Cancun's the best place to go (including the lovely Cindy Taylor of Wild On). There's bound to be some good SCUBA diving down there too. This is a once in a life time opportunity to experience Spring Break - can I really turn it down?

Birthday Celebrations

Now that I'm not hungover I feel I can write a full and vibrant report of my birthday proceedings.

After work, Mark and I went to the park to play with the kite. Unfortunately there was the least amount of wind I have ever experienced in my life, and also the park was fenced off for some kind of maintenance. But we had a contingency plan - tennis. We played for about an hour, with Mark winning 7-5 (on my birthday - how dare he!) To be honest neither of us were playing particularly well but it was good fun nonetheless. Played again yesterday evening with Steve and Dec too and did much better, even getting a few aces in (mainly I think because I was using someone elses racket). Did get totally eaten my mosquitoes though, and I'm suffering today!

Anyway, back to my birthday: After tennis, I was greeted by a BBQ ready for me at the hotel (thanks Steve and Lewis!). Some eating, lots of photography and me stuffing my face with cake ensued. Then everyone realized they were drinking which almost scuppered plans for going into the city. But Marco came to the rescue and fought through his tiredness from his weekend to take us on a rollercoaster ride through San Francisco (almost literally - I think all four wheels left the ground while "rallying it" over a fantastic hill on Fillmore Street). After searching around for somewhere for a while, we gave up and just went to Delerium again. It was pretty quiet but was nice just having a few drinks there with Steve, Drew, Dec and Marco (including of course, the inevitable Fernet (?) and Ginger Beer :-) They had Family Guy on the TV and there was what seemed to be a girl with a beard there, which was a bit odd. So quite a low-key birthday, but really good anyway. I'm really thankful to be staying out here with such a great bunch of people.

It was my first birthday without family, which was a bit strange but is an idea I expect I'll have to get used to. I don't much like missing an entire year of my family's birthdays though.

Dad coming to visit on Friday!! We're going to eat good food, go to a jazz concert and maybe go on a day trip somewhere. And stay in a posh hotel.

New Blogs

My flat-mate Mark has put up a nice concise collection of photos of our time in California, taken from a selection of all our photos, and organized as a set of blog entries. It's quite a good summary of all we've been up to, although it obviously misses out anything Mark's not been at (New York, Santa Barbara, San Diego and Ice Fishing - quite a lot!!): Mark's Photo Collection

Also new on the Blogosphere: Andrew (another Sun trainee from Edinburgh), starting off with a good review of our SCUBA diving weekend: Andrew's Blog

A turning point? Nah!

Well, I've reached the age where you switch from wanting to be older to wanting to be younger. The big 22. It's not so scary though. I have no plans to grow up or become more mature or anything like that just yet.

It's a beautiful day here in the Bay Area. Opened my curtains to blinding sun at about 9am after a (very much needed) good night's sleep. Had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel then opened my (few) presents. Mark, my flat mate, got me a 6ft stunt kite, which I'm going to go and try out at the park after work. Thanks so much Mark!! It's a really excellent present. You've been a great flat mate over the past 8 months.

I also got an awesome Red Hot Chili Peppers CD from my parents - Live In Hyde Park which I've been listening to all day. It's from the same tour that I saw in Edinburgh with my sister last summer just before coming out to the States. It's a superb live album. I also got a very silly book - Stephen Appleby's Normal life, and a few other bits and pieces. Stephen Appleby is a brilliant comic strippest who drew my all-time favourite comical illustration - "The Infinite Subtlety of Cat Expressions". It was a set of about 30 drawings of cats experiencing different moods, but always looking almost identical (except, I think, for "Asleep" and "Pretending to be asleep" which had closed eyes. It was up on my fridge at home for about 10 years (might still be there?) and always cracked me up.

After breakfast I watched the Star Wars trailer again (woo!!) and walked to work with the sun shining down on me and blossom flying from all the trees. Spring has officially begun. And it seems California does Spring very well indeed!

Tonight - BBQ, 24 and San Francisco.

Skills

All scuba'd up!

After a weekend of diving in Monterey Bay, I now have the following skills:
- Mask clearing skills
- Regulator retrieval skills
- Bouyancy control skills (almost)
- Shore entry and exit skills
- Buddy share air skills
- Emergency ascent skills
- Underwater navigation skills
- Chasing sea lion skills
- Getting attacked by a crab skills
It was an excellent weekend of diving anyway. The weather was dissapointing after all of Declan's hype, but the diving was all good. By the second day I was feeling pretty confident under water and it was really fun wondering off with just Declan on our final dive. Managed to get my SAC (surface air consumption) down from 50+ to 32, which shows I was more relaxed and controlled. We saw all sorts of cool stuff (mostly thanks to Dive Master Tom showing us) - anenomes, starfish, big fish, small fish, colourful fish, spiny crabs, big vicious Dungeness crabs, sea slug things, lots of kelp, some coral and a sea lion. It's so much fun exploring underwater and just hovering watching life go on down there! We also went out on Jeff's boat and saw some sea lions, otters and a pod of dolphins (very cool) and had an encounter with some BIG waves.

Thanks to Jeff (our barking instructor) and Tom and Andrew. If anyone wants to do an Open Water certification, I would definitely recommend Captain Aqua's.

More SCUBA Photos

Hello Nomadlife!

Hi everyone!

I am a trainee in the San Francisco Bay Area, from Scotland/England (depending on who I'm talking to), working for Sun Microsystems for a whopping entire year!

The lovely people in Minnesota introduced me to Nomadlife, and I've been writing a blog for a few months now so I thought I might as well stick it up on this excellent community you've got going.

So here I am. I'll be transferring all my old posts from Livejournal to this blog so you can read a bit about what I've been up to over the last few weeks/months.

This weekend (tomorrow): my first SCUBA diving experience in the ocean. Stay tuned for tales of my adventures under the sea!

Get Golden 2005

It's on.

April 22nd-24th.

Yosemite National Park.

The biggest Bay Area AIESEC event to date. Book your flights now!!

(ideally plan to arrive in the Bay Area on Thursday evening, or anytime Friday would do too)

5 miles!!

I made a "todo" list for this week, and after just one day I've already accomplished 3 of the 8 items, so I'm feeling good about that:

1. Book a hotel in San Francisco for my Dad and I when he comes to visit next weekend. I wanted to get the super-grand-looking Marriott at Union Square, but unfortunately the friends and family rate (roughly half-price, just for speaking nicely to the hotel staff :-)) was no longer available so that was a bit pricey. Instead, I booked the Stanford Court Renaisance Marriott, which is atop Nob Hill and looks even nicer. Will probably be totally OTT. Apparently it has a really great restaurant though. Other plans for my dad's visit: go see some Jazz, go to MOMA again, go for a hike/walk somewhere. I didn't really organize much for my parents last time they visited as they had a car and kind of did their own thing so I feel I should be a bit more pro-active this time. I also noticed that I've not got enough Marriott Rewards points to stay in *any* hotel for 2 nights, but will save them up for Hawaii in July.
    
   
2. Get on Sun's case about not being paid yet. Well, by paycheck arrived and I paid it into my bank so that was relatively painless. Sun payroll are difficult to deal with so I'm glad that sorted itself out.
    
   
3. Go for a run. Now that it's light in the evenings (until about 6.30) I want to start taking advantage of this. So yesterday Declan, Tim and I went for a run after work. Our setting was the Coyote Hills, about 5 minutes drive away, with the sun setting over the bay as our backdrop and legions of mosquitoes and noisy frogs to drive us on. It was a good run, with some very steep hills and more distance than we had planned - 4.9 miles in total, which took us just under an hour. All good practice for the Bay to Breakers run through San Francisco in May, which I think is about 7 miles, and definitely involves hills. We also discovered a running path that goes across the bay, so that's the next one I want to do.
   

So a good start to the week. Also made a start on my tax return with Declan and Mark. It seems reasonably simple to fill in ourselves without having to pay some company $100s to prepare it. I should be able to get all my Federal tax back which will be great, although I'll have to pay UK tax on my return. But first I need to harass Payroll about why they think they've paid me an extra $8k (i.e. housing and relocation expenses twice). Oh joy. I just love being redirected between 3 different companies to sort this out.

Captain Aqua

SCUBA diving class began today! Declan, Lewis, Steve & I are all doing our Open Water Certification, which involves a 3-day intensive course this weekend and diving trip at Monterey next weekend. So after spending an inordinate amount of money on our equipment - mask, fin, snorkel, booties, gloves, and then a bag to carry all that in, we settled down in a (very cold) room to begin our instruction. Our instructor, Jeff (aka Captain Aqua), is quite a character and seems like a very good teacher. The 3 hours went surprisingly quickly. He told us some great stories about what people do when they get "narked", which is basically when you go a bit silly due to too much Nitrogen in the blood.

Tomorrow we get to go in the pool! But only after the 'dreaded' test that Lewis has been revising so diligently for. I don't know why - it's multiple choice and involves simply filling in the blanks from sentences taken *directly* from the book we've just read. Can't wait to get in the water with all my new toys anyway!! Good night's sleep required first though.