« May 2007 | Main | July 2007 »
June 27, 2007
End of the line... or is it
It's my last night of freedom on the road. Tomorrow I start the long treck home via New York and London, and finally to my parents before heading across to Glasgow. It'll take 4 days as I'm stopping off in London to see the boss at the J.O.B about details for returning from sabatical. Jings. 9 months goes so blinking fast it's hard to believe. I've had a blast though.
If anyone's thinking of taking a length of time off work here's some of my highlights as food for thought for what you might experience:
- stuck my toes in 6 different oceans and stood on 5 different contents
- slept in Elvis and became friends with Jesus Saves!
- ate the best raw food I've ever had
- witnessed a wild kangaroo at sunrise and an ancient windmill winding down at sunset
- got stalked
- got stuck at customs for 2.5 hours suspected of carrying something illegal into the country and exclaimed "Oh the coffee!" when the officer asked "What's this?"
- shopped in Dubai without melting my plastic
- met one indian guru, one guru to be, 4 living legends and many, many inspirational people including Julie
- ran into a princess, 2 film crews and 1 very happy extra who'd waited 60+ years to get his chance but finally got it
- spent good time hanging out with the french mafia, very miami-vice!
- watched one super bowl and 1 eufa cup final while they were happening up the road
- broke my little toe (maybe)
- saw venice beach, santa monica and the bare assed sculpture on rodeo drive, baby
- discovered PCP, the worlds best smoothie
- slepted with 10 men at one time, got checked out by some huge queen called Daryl, had 1 drunk climb INTO bed with me, and witnessed someone have sex with their girlfriend in the bunk under which I was sleeping (or trying too) - all within the space of 5 days (that's Miami for you)
- saw 1 ancient settlement, 2 capital cities, 1 planetarium, 2 spitfires, 1 model of Auschwitz, 5 movie sets, 1 Arnie impersonator, 1 super model and 2 big brother contestants
- broke 1 world record
- couldn't look at the wall of remembrance at ground zero
- slept in 26 different beds/bunkbeds
- visited 15 different yoga studio across the globe. Welcomed in all of them
- saw one of my friends in hospital
- made friends with people from sweden, canada, ireland, germany, brazil, portugal, denmark, and poland as well as the countries I did visit (Oz, NZ, India, UAE, Mexico and USA)
- tried hot yoga (bikram)
- discovered a passion for baseball
- relaunched a website
- finally found a yoga mat I'm happy with
- skated in Central Park
- met some of the nicest yoga people in the world
- got recognised by John Scott and 'stood-up' by Dena Kingsberg
- got an email from the author of the "Thought that counts" who thanked me for the thought that I had
- stimulated a child game designer with hopefully a winning idea
- practised with and beside some of the best teachers in the world
- got re-acquainted with some friends who I'm happy to call 'old' friends now
- learned about passover from people in the know
- went 4 months without meat
- got sick at new year (again)
- fell for 5 gorgeous women, and one dog who fit nicely into the palm of my hand and sat so quiet once I picked her up
- broke 2 pairs of sunglasses and 1 camera
- crashed 1 scooter
- witnessed my friend's dreams slowly becoming reality and discovered 'cupping'
- bought a vintage apple macintosh
- pushed myself out of my comfort zone and did stuff I knew I shouldn't have
- learned that money is for spending and memories are forever
- turned 1 year older, but 20 years more worldy-wise
- started saving for the next trip
and
- breathed in and let go
I think it's time for a rest......
Posted by graeme at 2:03 AM | Comments (3)
June 26, 2007
Junk Mail
I'm getting loads of it these days, electronic junk mail. It maybe something to do with me renewing my match.com profile and what have you but it's a pain in the ass. I'm getting all these 'wink' messages from some girl or other only to find that when I click on the link it takes me to some website I'd never heard of. What a waste of cpu cycles!
Today I had the most fantastic meal at a burrito place - "Moes". The last time I was in one of these places was up in Atlanta where they greet you with the customery "Welcome to Moe's" shout from the staff behind the bar. No such welcome this time around but the food's damn good all the same. And for just shy of 7 bucks there's no complaints there either.
Getting ready to leave now to go back home. The trips coming to an end and my buddy here's saying already he's going to miss me. I keep hearing conversations about events that will happen later on in the week, and I know I won't be here to see them. Damn. Still, if I keep my head down, work darn hard, then I may be able to get back here for the huge thanks giving party these guys are planning. It's the 1 of 2 days of the year they're gonna have off from the cafe and it'd sure be nice to see the place once it's up and running. Oh, and there's always the somewhat cute girl from the marketting company.
Why oh why does it always come out that the cute ones are single a day before I leave?
I also screwed up on my ashtanga class times this evening. In my eagerness I thought the class started at 6.15pm until 7.30. It didn't, it started at 7.30pm. There was nothing for it but to go into the the level 1 hatha class and go with the flow. Turns out the class wasn't half bad though the "dragonfly" posture the teacher showed, some shoulder stretch where you lie face down and cross your arms underneath your chin, left me feeling like I'd be strangled. Strange.
Confession time. Over the last 3-4 weeks I've done like 2 ashtanga sessions. I did this deliberately. Firstly to give my body, and to some degree my spirit, a bit of a break from all things Ashtanga. I was just getting worn out. All the early mornings, the relentless pushing of my body, further and further, it was all getting a bit much. I knew that if I didn't put the brakes on I'd blow a fuse and that would've been it. Secondly, I thought it'd be a good experiment to see how long it'd take for me to loose any benefits I'd gained from not doing ashtanga. Well, my right knee was a little sore yesterday for the first time, and my hamstrings began to complain a little from all the chair sitting. I haven't taken up anything like running that'd tighten me up, just walking, though I'm by no means doing as much walking as I was in New York say. Oh I am sleeping way longer - like until 8am, which as you know is way late for an ashtanga student. So, with the return home, the experiment is coming to an end too. I know I'll be stiff for the next couple of weeks as I ease back in to a 5 or 6 day a week practice but I;m glad to report in the class this evening everything felt as open as I could've hoped. Ok I was always a bit of a stiffy anyway, but atleast I'm a long ways more flexible than what I was when I started. Oh, and for sure I've gotten back some enthusiasm for the practice, and perhaps even blogging about it too....
Posted by graeme at 2:35 AM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2007
Last week of freedom fast approaching
It's fast coming round the bend but the end of my 9 month sabatical is, jings, 4 days away. Thankfully my friends here went out to the cinema last night. I say thankfully as we ooh-ed and ahh-ed for a long time before heading out, and I'm glad we went as we ended up watching - yup - Shrek 3!
It was super funny. Ok the story line's not up to much, but some of the one liners are top class. There's 2 outstanding scenes, both microscopically fast, but if you catch them you'll be rolling about in the isles. It's great fun.
All, just what the doctor ordered.
Posted by graeme at 9:47 PM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2007
Yerall R Family
Over the last couple of days theres been a bunch of my friends pals coming over and helping out at his cafe. Afterwards we've been going out for something to eat, usually of the meat variety which has been hard on the system, and usually late on in the evening.
Last night the cafe had its new aquarium installed.
The girls came along and set it all up and after a little calibration had the water level just right. I never realised that something like this good be so complicated to install. Me? I'd have just thrown in some sand and some rocks, dropped in a ton of water and some little fishes. I've I'd done this, the pro's said, they wouldn't have lasted very long, and the tank would've quickly developed some nasty algae.
Have way through the meal afterwards we got talking about friends and families and one of the girls piped up and said she considered my friend more of family to her than a friend, he'd gone past that stage of friendship. It was very touching.
It's nice to think that as I get older the longer I keep in touch with the friends I have the more they fall into this category too. Ok, there's not so many of them any more but the friends I go have I wouldn't trade for the world. Come to think of it, there's an email in from a friend in Australia now. Gotta go!
Posted by graeme at 2:20 PM | Comments (1)
June 18, 2007
Lazy days
Another super hot day here, and another lazy day sitting not far from the lake reading the local rag and worrying like hell about the future to come. It's coming down to the wire on a couple of things and I'd sure as hell like to know what the lay of the land is, one way or the other, so I can get this stuff sorted out and get on with things.
Feeling a little stressed
And what I needed was to sit around talking to friends, just breezing by. Life is easy when you don't have a job, but it's certainly not void of worries. Never mind, I'll not dwell on the past, seeing as how it's all gone anyway.
Other than that, there's nowt much happened today. My friend's been interviewing all day for jobs at his cafe, and thankfully some pretty 'stellar' people have walked through his doors today. Oh, and it's his birthday too! Happy birthday!
Posted by graeme at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2007
Father's Day
It's father's day today here in america, and I'm pretty sure it's the same back home. I spent the morning after the night before (7 people were all celebrating birthdays last night at my friend's cafe) watching little-league baseball up at the coliseum along from the house. It's been weird to come to America and watch so much baseball without so much as throwing a ball or swinging at a pitch. Today I spent a fair bit of time reminiscing about the times that my father came to watch me compete in whatever sport was the de jour favourite, and there was a few. He spent an awful lot of time following my exploits in swimming, rugby and athletics, and even as time went on the triathlon I took part in. He was pretty much there all the time, even coming to Wales one year when the school team exchange took place down near Cardiff.
I never even wondered where he spent the nights when he was down there, but I guess I was 12 at the time and had other things on my mind. There was the game against the local school (we lost), the international (we won), and the revelation that is the fairer sex! We had some fantastic times together, seeing as how must of things I did I kinda excelled at, atleast initially, until the size difference got a bit in the way (I'm 5' 7" and 10st soaking wet). I think my mother saw me compete once or twice, but that was ok. She was always worried I'd hurt myself or I'd lose I guess.
In all of this I'd like to say a huge thanks to my dad, for what he did, and would probably still do if Yoga was the sort of thing a proud parent could come and support.
Thing is, I'm realising that this part of my life is slowly slipping away from me.
Posted by graeme at 8:28 PM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2007
Dream
So last night I had another one of those dreams. I'd be riding a huge powerful motorbike through the rough part of town, heading towards the street markets. Threaded through some narrow lanes where the markets started and I had to get off to park the bike. Street was all decked like Portobello Market in London, stalls with stuff hanging down on both sides of the roads, people everywhere.
Then it dawned on me I'd walked out of the market and had that awful thought that I'd left the keys in the bike.
So I started to walk back to the bike, came across a marching band and a remembrance service for some war or other then ended up at a tenement building where my friends here in Charlotte were staying. We spoke then I headed back out to the alley where I thought the bike was, through a park. Then I thought. "Bike is ok if I have the keys". and sure enough the keys were there in my left pocket.
Funny, today being my birthday and all.
Posted by graeme at 1:17 PM | Comments (1)
June 13, 2007
The day before
It's not every day I wake up with someone in bed beside me, but this morning I had the pleasure of the company of these guys!
The big guy sure takes up a lot of room but the wee fella with the ears had the nastiest habit of stepping on my balls as I lay there. Ouch!
Today I'm going out for eats with friends and being introduced to one of the local yoginis. In their words they said it would be nice for her to have someone to 'talk yoga' with for a change. I'm looking forward to it!
Posted by graeme at 2:23 PM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2007
Remember me?
Every time I come to the blog to write my entry I type in my user name, password into the control panel and that little message sits there glaring at me.
Remember me?
I'm heading home soon and thoughts recently naturally are facing west across the pond to wherever, whatever I'll build as my home. Will people remember me?
Will I remember me?
For sure many things are the same, physically things have moved on a heck of a lot and I'm certainly and awful lot more aware of myself than before I left. All those little things I do (or did) to convince myself of one stupid thing or another.
When I was prepping to come on this trip I wrote that I felt like I was dying, that the new me I was about to become was replacing the person I was and that was scary in far too many ways. Now, 8 1/2 months down the line it's time to come out back into the 'real' world and start facing up to the music once more, no longer safe within the bubble of the travelling life. It's been real easy to make mistakes, knowing that in couple of weeks I'd be moving on anyway, leaving it all behind. When I get back I'll no longer have that flexibility, that freedom, and the caged-in tiger feeling is sure to raise it's ugly head.
Posted by graeme at 5:47 PM | Comments (0)
June 11, 2007
Lazy days
In terms of yoga practice the last 2 weeks has been very lazy. I've done full practice, and, well, that's it. So I'm feeling very relaxed, nice and loose, and at a bit of a loss.
It's one of those things I get from Ashtanga is a bit of get up and go, and I'm hoping that hasn't gotten up and went, if you know what I mean. I've been thinking that I've been overdoing things (again), and as I've a history of over training and injuring myself I thought it'd be a good idea to take a break from it all, come up and smell the roses so to speak. Ah, what a lovely smell!
The thing is somedays I've really been missing practice and other days the day's over before I realise I've not practiced. For sure I'm doing other things, mostly eating and walking (interspersed with more eating), so there's no fear of me becoming a couch potato or anything, though I know that when I start back in to a regular practice there's going to be a certain amount of payback time for me to pay. I'll likely be quite sore for several weeks. Oh, well.
One of my friends here has her birthday 13 days after me, she's the same age, and it's been interesting to talk with her about all she's been through physically compared with the time I've had. It's amazing how much abuse we put our bodies through as kids, but as I get older I realise things are beginning to creek around the edges too. As for my friend, she's had to deal with back and knee issues pretty much all her life and will have to be real careful how she treats her body here on in. She's a bit of an inspiration that she just gets up and on with things all the same without much fuss or complaint.
Posted by graeme at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome to the South, y'all!
I finally arrived at my friend's home, a place I've been looking forward to visiting for most of this trip, not only because he's pretty much my best friend, and has been for most of the last 10 years that I've known him, but also because I knew I'd be able to relax here more than anywhere else on this trip. Oh, and there's the added excitement of the coffee shop they're both opening together!
I'm so excited for them. There's less than a month to go before the opening and everything is falling nicely in to shape. I've asked hundreds of wee questions trying to poke wee holes in their plans but they've pretty much got all the bases covered. They're not serving haggis sandwiches, which as an omission I think is a major mistake, but I'll forgive them that one! I'm sure the place will be a great place. Look out for some pics from me showing off the place when it's nearer completion.
So I'm getting close to 4 days now since I've practiced. Oh, y'know I dont really mind that much when I think back to when I first started I only practiced once a week. Still, I can feel little bits of stiffness creeping in though I am doing a fair bit of manual labour around here to help out. Still, I'm happy about the rest from Yoga for a while though I'm keen to get back to a good practice routine soon.
Posted by graeme at 2:00 AM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2007
All good things come to an end
And so my time here in New York is almost over. I've for one full day left today and then most of tomorrow until I catch my plane late evening down south. Ah well. I've had a blast here and sooooo glad I decided to come across and take a look.
New York's nothing like I thought it would be. It's a damn site safer for sure, so much so that I haven't seen any sign of trouble at all, I can even say I didn't pick out a single person acting suspiciously the whole time I've been here. Ok, I've been in the center of the city, where all the tourists are, and not out much past midnight, but for me this place gets a big thumbs up.
There's some interesting times ahead for sure. It's turning in to the final stretch when I have to work out where I'm going to be staying, and think about getting back to work. Bummer. Had some great inspiration from this place though, come up with some good ideas of what I want to be doing with the rest of my life. Just a case of putting that into place.
Posted by graeme at 3:00 PM | Comments (0)
June 5, 2007
Wellies!
It's been lashing it down here today, but when it cleared I managed to get in to town just in time to see the rush hour traffic. It was funny to see so many pairs of brightly coloured welly boots on show! Bit of a fashion statement these things! Ha, and I thought London was bad for the Sloan rangers wearing hunting garb and driving off-roaders in the city but theses guys wear their wellies with a certain amount of pride (and a fair dollop of panache!)
This morning I was up at Yankee stadium for the behind the scene tour. It was awesome. We were shown the Press Box, a view over the new Stadium, a view of the pitch, to sit in the home dugout, and also into the hallowed turf of the clubhouse (locker room) where the team prepare for the game. The guide was full of interesting tidbits of knowledge. One of the players has a second changing cubicle - for all his fanmail; another had a picture of Babe Ruth appear on his cubicle wall, and played the best month of his career, so refuses now to take it down; and another, well, you're not allowed to touch his boots, apparently he changes them after every innings (or frame or whatever it's called!).
Here's some snaps...
View from the press box
Typical fan view. Some of the boxes around this side range up to $6000
View frm the dugout
I bet there are some great discussions go on in here!
Needless to say security was very tight and no photography was allowed inside the clubroom, which is a shame as it's something to behold. You can smell the history in the place even though in Babe Ruth's time they changed on the third base side of the stadium.
Posted by graeme at 3:15 AM | Comments (0)
June 3, 2007
Oops
So rather than face my dilema on which baseball team to follow in New York I took a walk around town today and ended up in this place...
faced with this bad guy!!!
Oops, bad man, I know but it was Friday after all.
I also saw this site near by. It begs the questions "where?"
Finally I wandered through to this place
the Toy Store from 'Big', the film with Tom Hanks. Here's someone doing the famous scene on the big Piano...
It's been blistering hot these past few days. I'm beginning to miss home and the breaks in the weather. Ok, not that much, but it sure could do with some rain around here.
Posted by graeme at 12:20 AM | Comments (1)
June 1, 2007
What to do.....
I've started watching the Yankees play whilst in New York, not actually going to a game but on the big screen in Bryant Park and on TV when and where I can. Most of the people I see around town seem to be sporting Yankee related tops, hats and the likes and it just seems to be the 'natural' choice of team to follow. In fact, if you'd asked me where the Mets were based I certainly wouldn't have said New York (Didn't know that was in their name!).
SO here's the thing. I'd like to see a 'live' baseball game, but the Yankees aren't playing at home again until after I leave, but the Mets are.....
Should I go?
I know for sure back home in soccer terms I'd never dream of going to see the 'other' local side play, I'd get lynched by my friend for even thinking about it... Perhaps I could go and support the team the Mets are playing? Hmmn..
Ah, non attachment... It's only baseball after all !
Posted by graeme at 1:59 PM | Comments (0)