Feb 2007

hers jsut a few pics from my last weekend in new zealand and some photos from my time in hollywood.

our comune at the concert

the crew

mike and the ladies

shell mike and i

last hour with everyone

austin scott, lisa his girl friend and you might recognize the guy in the red, he is my buddy robby that i travelled wiht in indonesia. he lives about a hour away so he came down for the day to say whats up and we all went hiking at grifith park my favorite part of l.a.

californication

so tonight i leave america for the second time on my trip and 7 months later. ill be getting into costa rica tommorow afternoon after a few long flights and will be real close to home as i have a layover in atlanta. so head on up if ya want to be the first to see me haha. my parents are meeting me in costa rica in two weeks and the anticipation is insane. get ready for some great stories of seeing my folks after 7 months on the road.

i am back in america!!! wow how weird is that. this is trippin me out. 7 months ago i left our soil and returning has been alomst jsut as emotional. wiht no exageration at all, life in america really is that different than anywhwere i have been. though i first came into it with a bummed out attitude i have have come to realize bein in america for a short time could be fun. its so different to everything i am used to that its jsut like arriving in another country and experiencing a different culture. though just please not to long. i am staying at austin scott my firend who is out here ensuing an acting career. he lives with his girlfriend lisa and their beautiful pit bull nikka. we have had a good time going to the beach and he gave me the hollywood tour today. last night we went to a real fun drum circle on venice beach full of all sorts of different people jamming and dancing to drums. all i had to close my eyes and feel like i was in another country experiencing somehting very "non american" haha.

not any crazy antics or entertaining stories on this one jsut a recap of my amazing last fee weeks in oakura and around new zealand. this is mostly straight out of my journal which i might add is the second one i am writing(filled up my first in oz.)

though im scared of my ability to be able to relay ny time in new zeland (yes said it bedore haha) especailly in the 'naki to its full extent i will try my best to put down in words the unbelievable time i have had and what made what could be called one of the best times in my short life so far.(wow what a run on sentence). just three days short of a month made up my time in taranaki and every day but one was spent in oakura. the way i fell when i think of oakura is nothing but a positive vibe and somewhere i will long to be until the next time. i could not imagine anywhere else i would rather live and poissibly raise a family. though i hear the winters here aren't to pleasent, i could still not imagine anything puttin a bad taste in my mouth of the place. unless of course you include how much i will miss my family and friends of oakura. to start off i would like to talk about some of the most special people i have come across on my trip and that of course is the gibson family. whether it be seeing how amazing gibby and snoz are as parents or how they are people i can call friends for the rest of my life, or how glad i am to have a second sister in sammy who at 17 is so talented and had recently been given the job as N.Z. editor of WAKE magazine which is based in australia.BIG UPS SAMMY. i will no doubt always have a smile on my face when i think of them. it is amazing the people i have come across on this trip and lucky i was meeting ones who in long long run wil have shaped the person i turn out to be. i have a brother in michael and i cant wait to see him again especailly if it while he is on the road cutting loose like i have been. the three weekends in a row that were spent with him and sammy on the road will always be something i look back on and tell stories about to my kids (when theyare old enough of course to handle the fact that their dad did some pretty amazing and stupid things in his day)
mike's parents were awsome as well and always willing to lend a hand at making my trip any better than it could be. his mom angie was an awsome person and someone who because of her energy was always funt o be around. his dad gary is a very laid back guy and was such a big help wiht getting me a job which was something that made my extended trip in oakura possible. it will be interesting to see how they cope with tom their absolutley non english speaking brazilian exchange student who looks to possibly be absolutley non english speaking when he leaves in 6 months haha.

though there are tons here i could list, the friends i have made in such a short time is emmense. i dont think i was surrounded by one negative person the entire time and no doubt i have friends that will last me a life time. especailly my boy matt who may be one of the funniest and easy to get along with people i hvae ever met. though there were many to be had we deffiently missed the laughs we could have this past week if matt was with us especailyl at sound splash.

the past week of my time in oakura was spent hanging out wiht matt before he went to college this past thursday. there was no surf so we managed to keep ourselves busy while mike and sammy were at school and work. we had had a fun going away bbq at matt's house on teusday that was filled with drunken potato gunning and relaxing with the crew along with some of the parents. matts last night and my last in oakura was spent at the gibson's house staying up late and shooting the shit. thursday saw matt leaving for school and me packing once again to get ready for a road trip wiht mike though this time it would not be a roundtrip back to beautiful oakura. mike and i hit it up to raglan to once again find small surf. the plan was to meet up with the girls the next day to set up camp at wainui reserve where the eco-friendly reggae fest sound splash was being held. by the end of the day our set included 11 girls, mike and i. that uncluded snoz and her friends shell and deb. shell is the always smiling, dread headed best freind to snoz and when those two are togehter you are gauranteed an out their amazing time deb. i first met her and her husban shane at the first wke board comp we went to and deffiently hope to see them again in the future. .deb is shell's friend who until the last day convinced all us kids she was a hardcore " born again christian" haha. all of sammy's girl friends on the trip were so fun and easy to get along with. and theoretically with that many girls there could have been someone theoretically in particular who i really enjoyed meeting but hey thats just a theory.

our time at sound splash was deffiently a memorable experience especially seeing that i got o see my new favorite band ever LITTLE BUSHMEN. we had our cars set up as a tent city and our little comune which is where we spent most of our time while not at the venue. i saw the sun come up on my last day in the country with some theoretical person which was fun.

tired as hell and with our sad faces on. mike snoz. sammy and del drove me to the airprt 3 hours north to aukland. after chillin in the airport a bit we said our farwewells though not goodbyes because i will def. see them again and hopefully sometime soon.

so its my last nigth here in th 'Naki and been having a quiet night mith sammy , snoz, mike and his mom. gibby is out of town to a conference so i said my goodbyes yesterday. tommorow we all hit the road (for the 3rd weekend in a row) to go up for sound splash reggae fest. www.motherland.co.nz is the web site so check it out and drool over all the fun i will have before the gang drives me up to aukland to catch my flgiht on sunday to los angeles the good ol u.s. of a. also a sad departure from birty happened the other day especially said seeing that it only put $100 bucks in my pocket. haha guess thats life when your traveling especially in a van with 400,000 kilometers and a seized engine. so onto the videos: jsut a quick tour of the house and where i have been living for the past few weeks. and a very repulsive video of me doing a "suicide" shot which consists of snorting salt, taking a shot of teq. and shooting lemon in the eyes sorry to offend anyone. haha seeing that this is towards the end of my trip a vid like this isnt helping the idea that i might have grown up jsut a bit during this trip haha. more videos to come fromt he concert and my time in l.a.

sorry to offend anyone at home haha hope you have more fun watching than i did making it

here is the aftermath, me trying to drain out my sinuses. idiot!

also some more photos from the time here more to come!!

snoz, jesse and i

So it seems that every time i neglet my blog for a period of time it is because of busyness from having so much fun and these past couple of weeks have been absolutley no different. It makes me worried writing this that i will in no way capture the times i have had recently with words but i will try my best.

The last time i updated this thing i was preparing myself for awhile alone and trying to cope with being anti social. Damn I couldnt have been more wrong!!! Let me take ya back to the beginning of my amazing time here in Taranaki.

After staying a night at Evan's house whom i met in gisborne i headed about 20 mintues out of new plymouth to the town/village of oakura where i have been ever since. oakura is a very laid back town consisiting of about 100 houses, a skate park and a holiday/camp park. i parked Birty up in front of the beach whom had already blown her muffler and was making the loudest most bad ass sound that turns heads and actually set off car alarms. after a day of sitting on the beach, reading and surfing i was befriended by some of the most out going and talkative girls who were holidaying with their family right down the street and were from new plymouth. Meg, maddy, izzy,. and meg are four young girls ( 15 yrs) were the beggining of my time meeting and making just some more lifelong friends. i soon started to hang out with their older brothers whom are my age and all surf.

For the next week i had dinner at their camp sites with them and the rest of their 16 family members and started to feel as if i was settleing down again , the last time being airlie beach in australia. our times were spent hanging out with the crew which was continually being added to by other kids we met who lived here in oaks and getting some awsome surf in along wiht some bridge jumping. even the girls surfed. around this time was when i for the first time on this trip started opening my eyes to the possibility of being an ex-pat living abroad, especially somewhere so amazing as oakura.

After the families from new plymouth left to go back to school after summer holiday i continued to stay in the van and started to hang out alot wiht the crew i have been with all this time. though there are about 6 or 7 of us that are constantly hangin out the core group of us is made up of Mike, Matt , Sammy and I (the crew)who hang out at sammies all day which is one of the best atmospheres i have ever been in but ill get to that later. Mike is 17 and works for a land surveying company, matt is a 19 year old uni student studying to be a vet and lives on one of the most amazing farms ever. sammy is in her last year of highschool (here it is year 13) is just one of the guys and my sister from another mister.

Besides sammies house our haunts have included matt's farm, mikes house looking over the water and the skate park in town. we spend most of our time bumming around sammie's house which is where i am staying at the moment. her parents are some of the most amazing and fun to be with people i have ever met especially for parents. Snoz, the all over the place mom is always making this place interesting and there is always some amazing reggae or other cool music blaring through the house which is always opened aired and looks over the ocean. groovey aka gibby aka paul is the dad thats hold this place together with his out of nowhere humor and relaxing as just one of the boys. i feel like i have met another family that i was destined to be apart of.

Now lets get to the amazing fun times which will partly be censored from this blog haha. we have had some awsome times together going into town for parties in auto garages and in the middle of the road based around birdy. not to mention the late night tequllia throw downs that have frequented these parts. though what i am about to write could be its own book i will try to put it in here for you to get the full grasp of what most of us are calling the best weekend of our lives.

the plan was made about a week earlier(during our tequllia happenings) for the boys to head up to raglan for a surf trip and with our fingerrs crossed that birty would make it, thats just what we did. mike took friday and monday off of work and we hit the coast with a stop half way there for a great surf at a place called mokau. now the interesting part of this leg was the fact that after we left mokau we didint arrive in raglan until 6 hours later which was surprising because of the fact it was only supposed to be a 3 hour drive.(lost) we continuoly got lost and had some amazing laughs talking boy talk and yelling at sheep. we finally made it to raglan after the sun went down to go to sleep early enough to be up at sunrise to low and behold find the surf to be completely flat.. this is where it got interesting with the choice to either head back home where the surf was good or to continue the road trip. but where to..? it just so happened that sammie, her folks and our mate rosie was on the east coast about 6 hours away at a pro wakeboard comp. with the promise of tickets to the v.i.p. after party we were quickly on the road going transcoastal.

much differently to the leg before, with bikins and beers in our mind we made amazing time over to napier. though known for being the hottest sunniest place in the country we were greeted in napier by rainy, cloudy weather but after the times we had already had there was noway anything was bringing us down from our high on life. we got a good surf in mid day (stuck)and headed to the wakeboard comp where snoz,gibby and the girls were working. i met a real cool girl named sonny from orlando who knows some of my mates from back home in the wakebaord industry. after dodging rain all day and watching some impressive riding we were ready for the after party. and ready we were!!!!! to put a long nite short we watched two amazing bands and converesed with some cool pro wakeboarders whom i realized i had alot in common with after talkin about our travelling adventures. the highlight of the night was the dancing and mikes flaming mangina. hahaha.

we woke up sunday morning glad it was still gloomy weather as the sun would deffinetly had made our head pound a bit more if thats possible. us boys had plans to travel up the coast for a surf as the rest headed home and head back the next day. but.. as on par with the rest of the trip those plans changed and the van was all of a sudden made quite busy with the girls and us making 5 and snoz and groovey following behind. our 6 hour trip turned into 12 as we all stopped numerouse times at different spots on the way and highlights included watching sammy and rosie do bunjy jumping along wiht a great lunch by lake toupo and funnily enough another highlight included the back window of my van being smashed out by matt and a loose beer bottle which somehow ended up outside the van.the funiest part of the trip had to be coming back into new plymouth. now besides the muffler problem birty had run smooth as can be and this was all about to chang. as if in a movie we were 10kms from home and not because were sight seeing we were going about 15mph down the highway wiht everyone in the back giving her encouragment at the top of her lungs and the paresnt in the front with their high breams on as our lights didint work at all. . birty decided her time was up and puttered and threatened all the way home where she is currently residing on the street waiting for me to figure out what to do with her. we all made it back to sammies at about 12 at night tired as hell and ready for a good night sleep that all of us were needing after the best weekend of our lives.

so long story short if thats possible i am having the time of my life and have extended my trip by a week and just bought tickets to soundsplash a reggae fest in raglan with sammie, mike. snoz and her friend shell. another road trip coming up!!!!
dinner an hour ago on sammies back porch

here are some more random photos