Seaton Pictures

Here are some pictures from the village where my cousin Jerry and his wife Charlotte live:

Seaton, England

The Sickness and Sadness

I am writing from the small town of Seaton in the county of Rutland which is north of London, England. I am currently watching over my cousin Jerry's dog and his house while he and his wife, Charlotte, are away on vacation to Italy. NYC has come and gone. Actually, it went much faster then I thought it would. Things did not go exactly as I had envisioned for my stay in NYC.

I had planned to see and do a lot of things in NY before my flight to London. I was supposed to be there for about 6 full days in NY. I arrived on the 19th and was due to leave on the 25th. This did end up being what happened, but my body gave out on me well before the 25th arrived and I did not end up staying in NY the entire time. On the morning of Friday, February 22nd, I woke up with a dreadful sickness that hit me extremely fast. I was fine the night before; a little tired, yes, but fine. I have since been doing my best to get over whatever virus it is that has infected me. It was not until yesterday that I have finally started to feel somewhat normal again. It is due to this sickness that I was not able to do everything that I had planned while I was in NYC. What did I get to do then?

The first full day I had in the city I spent at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). That took up most of my day seeing as how I spent about 5, or so, hours at the museum. I also decided that I wanted some free internet access so I went to the Apple Store on 5th Ave and took advantage of their computers and internet. The rest of the day I spent exploring options of what I could do with the rest of my time while in NYC. I took a lot of pictures on this day which you can see by clicking on the picture at the bottom of this post.

My second full day in NY began with me having to check out of my room at the hostel where I stayed the first two nights. As luck would have it, I did end up finding someone on couchsurfing who was willing to take me in for two nights at his place in New Jersey, but I was not scheduled to meet him until the very end of this day. I decided that I would take all of my gear with me where ever my travels happened to take me this day since it would have costed me some money to store it and I would have had to make an extra trip to come back to pick it all up. So my day began as I walked around a large part of the city carrying all of my things and wearing sandals. The looks I got from native New Yorkers for wearing sandals in 30 degree weather was quite amusing; they all seemed to think I was crazy. I found I had to explain to a number of people it was only because of a wart on my toe that I am needed to be in sandals rather than regular shoes. Although, I never said it was a wart, only that my toe was injured and I was trying to heal it. Most people seemed to very relieved by this statement and proceeded to look at me normally from that point on. Anyway, back to what I ended up doing with my time on this day: I ended up eating at the Carnegie Delicatessen which my Uncle Ken recommended to me. I ordered a corned beef sandwich for $13. After getting the sandwich, I can see why they charge $13 for it; the thing was huge. I took a picture of it and it is in the NYC album linked below. I also stopped by the Carnegie Hall to see if there were any performances that looked like they would fit into my schedule for the rest of the week. I had every intention of going to a performance here, but because I got sick, that never happened. After this I walked around a lot and went where ever my feet took me. I ended up seeing a lot of midtown Manhattan. I stopped at the Rockefeller Plaza where the NBC studios are located. This is also where the Nintendo World Store is located (of which, I had no idea) so I visited that store as well. My main destination for the day was the International Center of Photography. I did make it to the building and entered in the lobby, but by the time I got there, I was quite tired from already walking for a couple of hours around the city with all my gear and did not feel like I had the energy to concentrate on art. I did take some pamphlets and other materials that they gave out for free though. At this point since I was so tired I decided that I would go to the New York Public Library to sit down and relax to recover my strength before moving on. Upon entering the building, I was informed that I would not be able to enter with my backpack and since they were not going to hold it for me, I could not go in the building. I then walked to the United Nations building. After going through the visitors checkpoint at the UN you enter into somewhat of a lobby area that all the public has access to, but really, it is all the general public has access to unless you go on a tour. By this time, it was getting near the time in the day that I was due to meet H.B. from couchsurfing at the Grand Central Station so that he could take me to his place in Jersey where I was to stay for the next two nights. I decided that it was to late in the day to start a tour of the UN so I left with the intention of coming back another day to take in the sights from the other parts of the building. I proceeded to the Grand Central Station and met H.B. He was a very nice guy and we got along quite well. He took me back to his place in Jersey City which turned out to be about half an hour away from Manhattan on a train which I was more then happy with considering I got to stay for free. Later that night, H.B. took me to my first couchsurfing party where I got to meet some other couchsurfers from NY and all over. By the end of the night I was feeling quite tired, but I assumed that it was just due to me having carried all my gear around for about 8 hours all through NYC. After all, that was the first time I had carried my gear with me for an entire day and I assumed that it would be difficult the first time.

The next morning I woke up completely sick. H.B. had already left for work and since this was my first time couchsurfing I figured I should not stay inside the persons house all day even if I was sick because I was not sure if that was okay or not. I opened the curtains and everything was covered in snow. I decided that it probably would not be a good idea to wear my sandals on this day. I left H.B.s house with the intention of seeing the International Center for Photography since I did not get to on the previous day. Even though I got to leave my gear at H.B.s place on this day, by the time I got to the center, I was completely exhausted and did not feel like I had the energy to walk around let alone concentrate on looking at art. I again made my way to the New York Public Library. This time, they let me in the front doors and I was able to look around. I finally made my way into the art section of the library where I found a Norman Rockwell book to occupy my sickly self. I did not get to see or do much more during this day because I was so debilitated by whatever it was I had. I did not have the energy to do very much at all; even taking pictures sounded like a chore. For the last couple of days prior to this I had been conversing back and forth with my cousin Cal who was up in Connecticut with the NAVY. The tentative plan was for him to come down to NYC for the day so that we could visit, however, by the end of the day I had decided that with me being as debilitated as I was, there was not really any point in me staying in the city since I probably would not end up doing very much and I had no idea where I would have been sleeping either.

So, the next day I parted ways with H.B. after a very pleasant couchsurfing experience and hopped on a train bound for Connecticut. I stayed the rest of the time on the East Coast with my cousin at his hotel room. Cal did arrange for us to take a tour of a submarine that was ported in Groton. I found that to be quite interesting and claustrophobic. After going nuts on the open sea on a sailboat after only 8 days, I cannot imagine living in a tightly enclosed tin can for months at a time with no sea to look at.

So looking back at NY, it is to bad that I got sick because I wish I had been able to go see a performance at Carnigee Hall; I wish I had been able to go on a tour of the UN; I wish I had been able to get down to China Town to have some Dim Sum. Most of all, however, I wish I had made my way into the International Center of Photography. I just hope this sickness thing does not become the norm anytime I venture into a new area. I did get to spend some quality time with my cousin, though. I just hope I did not get him sick as well.

When Monday, the 25th rolled around I was back on a train headed for JFK airport in NY for my flight to London. The flight went by without any problems, and I even got a little sleep on the plane. I got into London the next day at about 7am London time. Originally, the plan was to have me stop by the Madison House where my cousin Jerry's wife Charlotte is living and working in order to pick up their dog, Miriah, to take her straight up to Seaton that afternoon. Once I arrived at the Madison House, I had very little energy left in me. I ended up taking a nap, which really turned into me sleeping for a number of hours. I decided that it would probably be best if I traveled up to Seaton on the morrow.

That is exactly what I did, and now here I am with Miriah and the Seaton house all to myself for the next week and a bit. I am finally starting to feel better and am beginning to come around to my normal self once more. I will be spending my time here at the Seaton house relaxing and trying to determine where it is that I will go from here. Once my cousin and his wife return from their trip to Italy, Jerry and I will probably go on some trips together and I plan on helping him do some projects here around the house while I stay with them. Hopefully I will find some volunteer work here in the UK and visit some areas worth note.

At this point I feel a little odd. I have been thinking a lot about the future and the past. It is hard to believe that my life, as I have known it, up to this point, has changed, now, forever. When I return to the states, I have no idea what I will be doing or where I will be doing it. I feel as though the places I go, the things I see and the people that I meet during this travel adventure will all have a huge impact on where my life will take me...and that is a little scary for me. I feel pressure to make the "right" choices to lead my life in a direction that I am satisfied with and yet I do not even know what those choices are or when they will get here. I am also currently dealing with feelings of sadness and separation. I have fallen in love with the girl I am dating, Irene.

Irene means the world to me and it was very hard for me to leave her in order to do what I know it is that I have to. Not knowing when I will see her again makes me extremely sad, but at the same time I feel so very fortunate and lucky to have found her. Had I not sent off a single myspace message a couple months ago, right now I would be non-the-wiser with regards to the feelings that I am experiencing right now. I would feel no sadness or hardship, but I would never trade these bad feelings away if that meant that I would have to give back all the memories that she and I have made together in the past few months. It is because of Irene that I have love in my life and that I know what that love is and means. The relatively few days that I have spent with her have been the happiest of my entire life and I look forward with eager anticipation when I will get to look into her eyes and hold her hand once more.

I have uploaded pictures from NYC:

New York City

NYC

Right now, I am at the 5th Ave Apple Store in New York City using their free internet.  This is Apple's flagship store, and I must say, it shows if only by how many people are present in the store right now.  If I were at an Apple store at home, and had to guess what day and time it was, I would say it was 3pm on a Saturday; but it is not a Saturday, it is a Wednesday and it is 5:09pm here in NY (that's 2:09pm back home) and this place is booming.  

I was hoping to be able to come here to the Apple Store tomorrow to be able to upload all the photos I have taken so far, but alas, I asked and they would not like me doing it.  I suppose I will have to wait to be able to upload what I have taken so far, however, it will not be at the hostel I am currently staying at because their connection seems quite slow and there are too many pictures to upload.  

I am quite excited to see the pictures I took today up close.  I must have taken about 100 photos at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  It amazes me to see what the experts consider art.  There are some pieces that I look at and can say for sure that it took some time, energy and passion to produce the finished product.  Then there are other pieces that were created in about a minute and seem to have no meaning or purpose (that I can see) to anyone other then the artist that made it.  Why, then, would a museum choose a seemingly meaningless, simple body of work?  I am sure there must be more to the story then I am seeing; something they know that I do not.  Maybe that is the case.  Or maybe art is just so subjective that only a fraction of all the wonderful, meaningful art in the world is ever recognized and put on for display.  Perhaps what is meaningful to me is meaningless to someone else and vice versa.  I find the thought, that their are artists whose work is never enjoyed by the masses simply because they cannot make the showroom cut, most troublesome.  

NYC, UK and Europe?

Months ago, when I first started making preparations for my travels, I found it very funny that when I told people that I was going to go travel the world, they would ask me: "So, what are you going to see in Europe?", or "I heard you are going to Europe...?". I received numerous inquiries that were all variations on that same theme. For some reason everyone seemed to assume that because I was going traveling in other countries of the world, I must be going to Europe. I would promptly correct them by saying that the only place in Europe I knew for a fact I am traveling to at some point is London and greater UK. I would explain about my intentions on traveling across into the south pacific then working my way across the world eventually ending in London. I would then state that I really did not have any intention of going anywhere in Europe expect for the UK and MAYBE Germany. Well, now it seems, Europe is my destination after the UK. They all said it so much, I guess they made it come true.

Tomorrow morning I take flight for New York City; not before a connection in Chicago. I must thank my good friend Peggy for gifting me a free flight anywhere in the US that Southwest flies. It has certainly come in handy. I will be in NYC for about a week before I leave for a flight to London on the 25th of February, where I will then meet up with my cousin Jerry who lives about 2 hours north the UK capital. At this point, I am not sure how long I will be staying with Jerry or exactly what I will be doing when I am there. I just know it has been far to long since I have seen Jerry, his wife Charlotte or their dog Mariah.

Regarding NY:
I have been to NYC before, but only for a weekend. At that time, I did not do any research of the area ahead of time. Rather, I simply walked the streets, going where I wished. This time, I have scoured the internet looking for things that interest me. I now have a decent list of things that I want to see and do; more then enough to keep myself occupied. While I am in the city, hopefully, I will be able to meet up with my cousin Cal who is apparently bored out of his mind, waiting for the NAVY to finish up his schooling in Connecticut before he is stationed in Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Los Angeles submarine.

I have been having a hell of a time trying to find a place to rest my head for the week I will be in NYC. Hostels there seem to be extremely expensive (as high as $60 a night in some cases) even for dorm style accommodation. I have been vigorously attempting to find someone on the website Couchsurfing.com who will host me (meaning let me sleep on their couch). Finally, I may have made a breakthrough and one person seems to be free and able to take me in. I am really looking forward to my first couchsurfing experience as it is meant mainly to be a way of sharing thoughts, ideas, art, peace and good times for everyone all over the world. Last week, when all hope seemed to be lost in finding someone who would host me on Couchsurfing, I broke down and booked two nights at a hostel on Manhattan, but hopefully I will be able to fill up the rest of my nights on some friendly couches!

I am in eager anticipation to get out and about in the world once more. NYC should be fun and I am looking forward to seeing my family.

The Original Plan

When I originally started planning for my travels abroad, I mapped out the general itinerary in my head of the places where I wanted to travel and the order in which I wanted to travel to them. I knew when I made this plan that things were going to change as I ran into obstacles or I found other opportunities and decided to take them.

My grand scheme started out in my head with a list of places I wanted to go. The list is as fallows: China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Figi, Thailand, U.K., Hawaii and Alaska. I then began brainstorming a single path to which I could take that would allow me to hit all of these areas. I started with Hawaii.

I have always had a drive to go to Hawaii. I think all Americans should go there at some point in their life. A chain of small, beautiful islands out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with warm climate and warm water. What more could you ask for? Anyway, I stray. I will fly to Hawaii first, I thought. From there I can then catch some sort of relatively cheap transport to some other islands in the south pacific then make a hop to New Zealand or Australia. Perhaps I could even go directly to Japan from Hawaii. Mainly my thoughts hovered around the south pacific though. I figured once there, I could easily hop to the places that I wanted to go or that sounded interesting. Thailand would be very easy to get to once I had my fill of the south pacific islands. From Thailand it would not be very difficult to travel north through Cambodia into China. The Trans-Siberian Railway leaves out of Beijing and I could take that all the way to London then take a rail up to Scotland and a short flight to Ireland. This was the initial path I had laid out in my minds eye for my Trek.

My thoughts centered on this island hopping that I was going to be doing in the south pacific. Charter flights or boat rides could add up fast, I thought. I needed a way to be able to get around from island to island without eating away at my money to much. Sailing. I could become a knowledgeable sailor to get from point A to B. I might be able to make some money on top of it, I hoped. Then when I was in the U.K., at the end of my trip, I could even sail back across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean Islands and eventually back to the States.

The plan was taking shape. It was all coming together in my head. Now on the execution. Seeing as how I knew nothing about sailing or sailboats, I thought it would be a good idea to learn. I made a connection with a captain of a boat heading down the coast of Mexico that was willing to take anyone with half a brain. Seeing as how I almost had half a brain when it came to sailing he made an exception and let me on his boat. This was my chance to learn as much as I could about sailing so that once I was down in Mexico I could find a boat heading out into the great blue of the south pacific to get to the places of the world that I really wanted to go. I am glad to say that I made it off of that cork in the water alive. I made the decision on-board that if I were to make it off alive, that I would be going home for Christmas and New Years holidays. Once home I could then determine how my original plan was to be modified. Mexico was never on my itinerary of places to see in my lifetime, but I did not, however, want to pass up the opportunity I had to volunteer my time and energy to a worthy cause in a place I knew nothing about. So I held up for a while and found R.I.S.E. where I helped watch over and play with kids whose families could not care for them for one reason or another.

I am home and the holidays are now over; I am no sailor, but I still want to travel for cheap. How does one get across a large vast expanse of water without paying large sums of money? Early on in my plans of sailing I devised an alternative backup plan if my sailing career should fall short. Cargo ships. Excellent, I thought. My plans for sailing did not work out, but to get across the Pacific Ocean and continue with my original plan should be easy enough on a freighter bound for Australia or Japan right from the major shipping port of Oakland, California which is not but a half an hour away from home. I assumed that this would be simple. After all, who in their right mind would ever travel on these things when they could fly. A plane can cover in an hour what it takes a freighter a day to do. The crews of these freighters must be giving away tickets to anyone willing to even think about getting on board one of these behemoths, I assumed. I thought myself quite clever.

Well I do not think myself so clever now. The cheapest I have seen tickets for any freighter headed anywhere in the world is 90USD per day, per person...and that is on the CHEAP end. I have seen as high as 250USD per day, per person. Well for this kind of money the crews must give you lavish drinks, comedy performances and rub you down with baby oil every night right? Wrong. Your money goes towards your room, which is nothing special, and 3 meals a day that you eat with the crew. Leisure activities include walking around the deck and pondering the great expanse that is the ocean, reading, walking and reading, talking with the crew and sticking your hands in your pockets where money used to be before these freighter companies stole it from you. I am not exactly sure what is going on here. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why it costs so much money. Perhaps the combined total of my weight along with my luggage (200lbs) slows the megaton vessel down and they need to make up for that lost time by running the engines extra hard. In any case, I will not be taking a cargo ship out into the south pacific. That leaves me with one option...to fly somewhere out that way, or alter the plan.

At this point altering the plan sounds much better to me. I can get to London far more cheaply by air as compared to anywhere in the south pacific. I suppose I will just have to flip the original plan backwards. Start in Europe and end in Australia or New Zealand. This will give me the chance to see my cousins in the U.K. much earlier then expected and I find that quite exciting. I will also be going to a country where English is a native language, which I also find very exciting. The only draw back that I can see for this change of events is that I liked the idea of going to Australia/New Zealand right now because it is summer time there. I am quite fond of California weather. The idea of following the warmth around the earth appealed to me.

The plan is changing. There is no telling how much more it will change or what will happen along the way. I guess that is what makes it fun and exciting.