flooding and winter.

hopefully the flooding won't be effecting me too much. While I am flying into Brisbane, the airport and hostel where I'm staying are open and running as far as I've been told. I hope everyone there's ok, I really do.

now, on a completely different note, we had our first proper snowstorm of the year yesterday! It was blizzard-eque from around half 12 until 7ish. I think in the end we got around 6 inched of snow, but it seems like more to someone like me, who hates snow. But I admit, it is really beautiful.
But more than anything, it's making me look forward to the teperature in Australia. Yes, I know I will be over it after I've been there for more than 20 minutes but right now it sounds so delightful.
It's mental that I'm leaving on Tuesday and will be arriving in Brisbane in exactly one week.

Here are a few photos I took today, it was sunny all morning so a lot of the snow had already fallen off the trees which was a bummer since that's what looked so nice.

 Other than walking about in the snow not a whole lot has happened in the past few days. I've been a bit flu-y for a past couple of days, so I've mostly been faffing about and nothing doing much of anything.
After another nice early night tonight I will hopefully feel proper again!

Packing.

Since I'm traveling by myself, I obviously need to be able to easily carry everything I'm taking. So I have a camera/laptop/other stuff I want all the time bag & a big pack for cloths and such.
I did a test pack, which I think I'll just leave and not move, this morning and there's what I'm taking.

carry on/camera/laptop bag:
- laptop
- camera
- extra lens
- camera & iPod chargers/firewires.
- iPod
- lonleyplanet guidebook to australia
- two other books, I've yet to decide what two.
- wallet
- passport/tickets and the like
- notebook and pens
- sunglasses & regular glasses
- sunscreen


Pack (which is the pack my mother took on her year long journey to australia 20 years ago):
- four short sleeved shirts. three t shirts and one blouse
- one skirt
- one pair of dress pants
- one pair of blue jeans
- two long sleeved shirts. one button down
- underwear/bras
- four bathing suits
- three sundresses
- one pair of leggings
- one cardigan
- one pair of flip slops
-  one pair of birkenstocks
- one pair of mary jane ballet flat type shoe
- one towel
- two wash cloths
- two sarongs
- toiletries
- first aid kit






And that folks, is everything I'm taking.

Australia!

I haven't mentioned this at all, since I haven't said anything at all for most of the summer, but in 9 days I'm leaving to go to Australia for 6 weeks.

on the 18th I'll be flying to Toronto and spending the night & in the morning (the 19th) I'll be going to San Francisco, Auckland & arriving in Brisbane on the 21st. Yes, no type there, I miss the 20th of January all together since I fly over the date line.
I'm in Brisbane until the 25th, when I fly to Cairns to take my open water PADI/SCUBA course and maybe go up to the Daintree rain forest. That should be over sometime around the 4th or 5th of February and I have nothing planned from then until I get back to Brisbane on the 6th of March to relax for a few days before my flight home on the 10th.

I seem to be past the getting nervous stage, I'm into the straight up so goddamn exited stage.
I absolutely cannot wait.

Now, I'm taking my camera (of course) and my laptop, so I will hopefully be able to update this every few days, if not daily.
I keep telling people I have a blog and that I'll send it to them, so I'll try not to disappoint.


I am just dying of excitement!

film.

hello dear blog readers,
firstly, I can't figure out how this is underlined or make it go away. But to my frustration. And so yours as well I'm sure.

Anyway! I was away from the 19th of September to the 8th of October at camp! Not Back to School Camp to be exact. A lovely, two week long camp for home/unschoolers in Vermont. I also spend 5 days in a ski resort with 40 of the people from said camp, plus a few others who visited. I wrote in my journal every day I was away, and fully intend to make a post about it. With photos (I took over two thousand over the 3 weeks) and stuff from the journal. But, I, clearly, haven't typed any of that up yet. But since I leave for Australia in less than 3 months I wanted to get back into the swing of blogging before I leave, so, I thought I'd post these photos. They're all taken with my Nikonos-V, a fixed focus, waterproof camera from the early 80's. The first one was taken last November and the latest was taken in September of this year. I currently have a bunch in the shop waiting for me to pick up & an almost full roll in my camera.

Mum, November 2009.

Crows on the LaHave Ferry, November 2009

Gow's Home Hardware, December 2009

Lunenburg, January 2010

Da, January 2010

Magnus, in an art supply store, February 2010
we almost got kicked out for doing this, even though we were oh so careful and put everything away.

Magnus hula hooping, February 2010

Ruby's Sugar Shack, March 2010

Warwick Long Bay, Bermuda. March 2010

Wave in Bermuda, March 2010

Me, by Magnus. April 2010

Magnus, April 2010

Forest, April 2010

Mouse! May 2010

May 2010

Da, May 2010

Me shoes/Da's shoes, June 2010

baby tomatoes, June 2010

June 2010

June 2010

Garlic, July 2010

Windhorse Farm, July 2010

July 2010

Magnus, Helle & Loki, August 2010

August 2010

Claire, August 2010

Second Peninsula, September 2010

September 2010

huh.

One of the things I wanted to get slightly better at which this blog is get slightly better at writing. Or, writing readable things.
As none of you know, I've been keeping a journal since the 30th of May and I love it. I can write down words to look up and photos ideas and remember what on earth I did on the 3rd of June 2010.
But, believe me, it's not always pretty to read. The spelling & grammar isn't spot on and I often repeat myself or have to go back and add things I forgot.
I have pages that have the whole Nautical alphabet written out, the meaning of the word 'mnemonic', a random Langston Hughes poem and what I ate for lunch that day on it.

I sort of hoped that starting this would make me write properly more, but of course, it became more of a photo blog right away.

At some point I plan on copying out some of my journal onto here.
The more coherent pages anyway.

Now, after that anti-photo blog moment; here are some photos from aikido. Magnus took all the ones in the dojo & I took the ones in the park.