Cabin Weekend

Last weekend I had the privilege of being invited out to Audrey's Grandparent's cabin. The company, great food and pirate boarding parties all provided for good times, but an event that stood out in my mind was the chance to sleep out on the beach under the brilliant display of stars. (This event may have stood out in others people's minds for different reasons. I don't know what they're talking about. I never heard anyone snoring. I was sleeping too soundly.)

Our Morning View

I've thrown together a few pictures I took. I should emphasize the word "few", we were in good hands to have the weekend photo-documented and I'll try to provide links to those people's photos as soon as I'm aware of them.

technorati tags:cabin, weekend

Ed's Birthday Bash

This past weekend I had the chance to celebrate the birthday of a good man by the name of Ed Bohncke. For his birthday he had the privilege of having Tuesday Bloom* perform for him live on an outdoor stage.

* Unfortunately no official website link is provided as web search results provide a litany of things Orlando Bloom has done on Tuesday, as opposed to anything by the band.

Tuesday Bloom comes highly recommended by me. While I can't claim to have good musical taste, I can claim to be picky and Tuesday Bloom matches those arbitrarily high standards. Their songs are musically interesting enough to stand up as coffee house acoustic versions and lively enough to work in an open air festival. Beyond their musical abilities, the group's clearly ad libbed conversational banter provides another layer of enjoyability to the show.

Rocking the Grott

After the bands had cleared the stage and we had taken a quick dip in the lake, it was the opportune time for a midnight game of ultimate. Out came the Survivoresque torches to mark the end zones and supply of glow sticks to identify the players. The photo provided below isn't actually a cool camera affect, but a fairly accurate portrayal of what it looked like to play the game.

Ultimate At Night

The red circle is fairly obviously the frisbee (or disc for purists). Blue and green blur pairings represent each hand of a player on our team and orange and red the opposing team. Interestingly enough the apparent domination of the blue and green team (mine) seen in the picture, is also fairly accurate.

Playing in the dark provides interesting dynamics. For one, if a defensive player holds their hands behind their back they can't be seen at all (I may or may not know anything about that). Also, because you can only see lights and not the players themselves, you have no idea who is who. Lastly, although we never really play with out of bounds when playing pickup, if you are playing with a chain link fence just outside the boundaries of the playing area, the boundaries are enforced. As discovered by Adam running full speed into one of them.

Overall it was a great night and a great welcome back to Canada for me. Happy Birthday Ed!

It's Officially Infographic Day

Since we're talking infographics anyways, here's another interesting one from today.

Independent Online Edition > New Articles

Perspective

Hey, I'm back in the Peg. Hopefully I'll have time to do some more recap blogs in the near future, but in the meantime a diversion from the journal style.

Discover how you fit into the rest of the world via a neat infographic at Population : One - One Person is One Pixel.

In Between Places

I`m sitting in an Internet cafe in Rijeka right now, waiting for a night train to Germany. The Croatian leg of the trip is behind us and the final party in Berlin is before us. At the same time the end of the trip looms before me, a short four days away. So while the promise of weekend full of good times lies ahead of me, already the realities of home that I will need to return to are filling my mind.

From this perspective, I can look back on the trip and how fast the time has flown and say that it was truly great. Since I`m feeling slightly retrospective, I`ll talk more about the life of a backpacker rather than a specific place.

We all take our vacation very seriously, so sleeping in is an important part of our routine. By happy coincedance this also works well with partying late at night. Another important part of our day, beyond relaxing and recreation, is eating. I am happy to say that all members of our travelling crew enjoy eating, so this is often a highlight of the day. Casual conversation over meals prepared fresh with an unparalleled backdrop. Europeans, to make a generalization, tend to appreciate their ingredients. For a foodie at heart, this brings joy to even the simplest dishes.

Of all these things, possibly the most unique aspect that I identify with the travelling life is the expectation of the unknown. Each day we go places we have never gone, eat things we have never had before, meet people for the first time and make decisions with truly unknown outcomes. For me this defines travelling and is the feeling which I will miss the most.

Bavaria!

We are in Croatia at the moment, and are having a blast on the beach, getting tanned, burnt(again), and general enjoying the beach life! Before we left for the beach bum life though, we had some more good times in Germany that need to be highlighted. Monday was both a tragic day for Australia, who were ousted from the world cup, and a celebratory day for Wolfgangs daughter, Laura, who passed a final exam! Salute Laura! We all went out to celebrate that night at a very cool out door beer garden, located in the english gardens.
The Gardens are very beautiful, and we stayed late into the night, drinking beer, and eating giant pretzels. The next day in Munich marked the end of our Bavarian experience for this trip. To end the ocasion, we all went to a local Beer garden which was home to one of the excellent beers from throughout the region. We were not dissapointed. That evening saw us boarding a night train to Croatia, to begin the next leg of our trip. But more later on that.

Ciao for now!