hotel-olmi.it

Barrea, Abruzzo... here I come...

June 1st fly out! Wow, it's going to be great!!

Italy

Well, I (Tia) might be going to Italy for a month this summer.
Right now I'm just attending some meetings, getting details, getting excited.

The only downfall is that the trip will be sans-Jeff which will be really really hard. Not to mention that I will feel pretty guilty for flying off to Italy for a month while he stays home and walks Ohia.

Anyway, we'll see if this opportunity amounts into anything.
In the meanwhile, it's life as usual: finishing up school, homework, work, dog walks, and chilling out with Jeff.

xxo

Atlantic Surfing

Well, we just got back from our trip to the East coast.
It was a fantastic time. Not only were we there with some of our coolest friends (christina and tyler) but we spent the whole week surfing in the frigid Atlantic ocean. The break in Lawrencetown and Musquatwat... er... that's what I called it, was not too bad. I think our best day was nearing 4 foot break. So, not nearly as nice as Australia, but absolutely surfable and a lot of fun.

Highlights included:
-the road trip breaks.
-tin can robots.
-Tia finally seeing some marine life (a huge seal popped up right in front of my board).
-free camping.
-hanging around in Halifax.
- getting a pretty sweet wetsuit tan.

Since being back we've spent a week working in the bush outside of Chalk River and just celebrated Andria and Travis Barber's wedding.

This week we're moving back up to Ottawa and will finally be back into some semblance of a routine.

Just Around

Well, we've been back in North America for 2 weeks. Both of us have been spending a lot of time catching up with family, cutting grass and realizing that things have remained pretty consistent since we left. We've been spending our time between Crawford and Grimsby, but also spent a couple of days up near Huntsville relaxing on the lake. Also we spent an afternoon in London. I think we're both getting pretty anxious to get out of this limbo. We'll be briefly in Ottawa around the 8th of August for some apartment hunting but will be charging the Eastern surf shortly afterwards.

Ohia has become a healthy and happy country dog; all of our plants have been diligently watered as well.

We've consumed numerous veggie burgers and are slowly adjusting to the driving, currency, weather and long days. However, we are already aching for the waves. 12 days and counting.

Sad and Excited

Well, we've come to the end of our Australian adventure. God, are we ever sad.
Actually, we're both really mixed about coming home. Firstly,, we have lots of great things to come back to (most notably our families, friends, Ohia and our scooter) so we're excited.
However we are, at the same time, very sad about leaving Manly, the ocean, and our easy-going life style.

Regardless, we ARE going to be VERY happy to give you all good handshakes and hugs when we get home. Our flight leaves this coming Monday from Sydney around 1pm, and we should be arriving in Detroit around 9pm that evening. (However all said it's about a 22 hour ordeal).

We can't wait to tell you all of our boring stories and eat about a million Harvey's veggie burgers.

Until September you'll be able to find us bumming around Ontario with a short interlude to Nova Scotia (hopefully with some quality time spent in Quebec City on the way back; I love Quebec City).

Thanks for everyone's support. This trip never would have happened without the financial support and encouragement of almost everyone we know. Thanks dudes.

xxo
see you soon!
Tia and Jeff

New Zealand

Jeff and I rented a sweet campervan and have spent the last week touring around Southern New Zealand. What an amazingly beautiful country.
Since we're going to be home in about 2 weeks, I won't spill all of the details, but here are a few snapshots to give you an idea of how great our week was. Hint: it was pretty great.


The Fox Glacier.

What a great time.

Here is our sweet campervan. We didn't get to pick it out so pardon our foulness.

Cruising the open roads my friends.

The awesome blue pools.

Jeff and a mountain.

Jeff and I at a waterfall in Hass Pass.

This is a BEAUTIFUL lake in Wanaka, where we spent our first night in the camper.

We took a lot of timer pictures. Half of the fun is trying to run in front of the camera without running off of the cliff.

Amazing Mountains.

Dolphins surf way better than I do.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I surfed the same wave as a dolphin today. I was surfing today while tia was at work and I had seen a school of them pass by a bit earlier, it was cool and everything but they were about 20 feet out and the just keep going, about an hour later they were making thier way back up the beach and catching waves like mad, I had just popped up when I saw a huge grey thing beside me, only to realize it was a dolphin less than two feet away sharing a wave with me. Tia wasn't there to snap a sweet picture so I drew this which is pretty much better anyways.

Ta for now

Jeff (and Tia who is at work still)