ALaska 2007 #2

A Little From Alaska:

Hi again,

well, i've got 45 minutes before my ride shows up here, so i thought i'd do some email. Since i last wrote, i've done a lot...

SHORT VERSION: lots of animals, beauty, and enjoyableness.

LONG VERSION: I met clay in Denali National Park, kinda in the middle of the state, and we prepared for our backpacking trip there. we spent the first night in the campground in the front of the park, but left for the backcountry the next morning. a bus dropped us off on a river in the middle of the park, and we were to begin our journey through rocky riverbed, spongy meadows, glacial moraine (loose rock covered glacier), steep creekbed, ice rivers, and steeper mountain passes... all littered with wildlife. we spent 4 days out there, and hiking without any trails is a much different experience than i am used to... the terrain isn't always what you expect from what you read on the topo map. one day, we hiked about 4.5 miles in 9 hours... the going was slow to say the least. the scenery was beautiful though, so it was nice that we had so much time to enjoy it, and the 6 grizzly bears, 20 or so dall sheep, 1 wolverine, 6 caribou, 1,000,000 ground squirrels, 1 red fox, and some birds too. i thought the wolverine was a badger at first, but when we got out the ranger corrected us. anyways, the pictures do more justice than my words, so i'll shut up and just let you wait for those.

along the trip in denali, we saw nobody else, my feet got shredded, we camped on a glacier, we camped on sheep poo, we camped on a beautiful bed of wildflowers, we played frisbee where nobody has before, did some extreme rock skiing in my boots, and i got ultra scared on a mountain ridge NARROWER THAN MY FOOT with one corniced edge, and the other was about 75 degrees. luckily, my rain pants work both ways, and clay couldn't tell if i had wet my pants or not. i highly reccomend it there.

after that, we had a throw away day in anchorage, and headed back to that town of homer that i started in cause i liked it so much, and cause clay hadn't been yet. there, we went fishing again, and hiked around some, and hung out with lance and his pals... it was nice to take it a little slower for a little bit. one day, my friend lance had a bbq at his place with the fresh salmon we'd caught that day, and it was the best fish i'd ever had... almost enough to make me wanna move here so i could catch dinner everyday.

after 3 days there, it was time for clay to leave and for me to go toward juneau. i had kind of a messed up time getting to where i needed to go, but it consisted of me getting dropped off in the wilderness at 2:30 AM in a rainstorm after being in the car for like 12 hours, setting up my tent for the night, then waking up the next day and trying to hitchhike to the sort of nearby town of whittier. some old irish guy picked me up cause he really liked talking, and i think he felt bad that i was walking in the rain. he told me about how much fun he used to have doing construction and drinking all over the state, so i have to go to some bar in juneau and tell his friend neil hi.

i made it to the ferry with an hour to spare, and took a sweet boat across the prince william sound to the town of valdez (think exxon valdez oil spill), and i saw the terminus of the trans-alaskan pipeline. i just kinda walked around a bit... it was a cool town.

in the morning, i packed up again to ferry to the fishing town of cordova. yesterday, i went kayaking in the ocean and saw about 100 sea otters, who became very curious as to what i was... it was like having 100 little puppies staring at me from 20 to 100 feet away, it was a pretty unique experience. after about an hour or so of that, i headed closer to the shore cause there was a lot of splashing around, and i watched salmon jumping out of the water for a while... it made me excited to go eat some of them.

anyways, this is long enough... tonight, i'm ending my solo time and meeting jonelle and ben in juneau for a few days, then we're meeting my dad somewhere else to go fishing for a week. dirty.

i'll see some of you in seattle, others of you in la after that, and hopefully even others in santa cruz after THAT.

cody

-PS: frisbee players: i saw luke from monster on the bus in denali, it was pretty random.

Alaska 2007 #1

A Little From Alaska:

Hi all-

don't be alarmed by the new email address, you can continue to use my ucla one til further notice if you'd like.

i somehow managed to get 20 free minutes here at the hostel computer, so i'm gonna use it to give you a little update on my trip. i don't have any pictures up yet, and they're really the highlight of everything (yes, yes, cause i'm such a great photographer, i know). actually, cause its just amazing here so far, and i haven't even gotten that far into the wilderness.

so, on the first leg, i arrived here with my mom and we took our rental ford windstar down to homer, alaska. you can google earth it if you want, its in a pretty sweet place. at the end of the highway, homer has a population of around 7000, and is home to supposedly the best halibut fishing in the world. i didn't do that though. its really beautiful there, and i decided that i'd get a summer job there if the whole "engineering" thing doesn't pan out too well.

over winter break last year, my sister's boytoy invited an alaskan friend to go to tahoe with us on our family vacation... and this weird guy named lance showed up and did a bunch of stuff with us. turned out, he was actually really cool and not that weird, so i met up with this home-slice in his hometown, homer... but i didn't visit his home. he drives a water taxi there across the kachemak bay, so i got tons of free rides around the beautiful waters there, it was pretty nice.

one morning, he took me "dip-netting" which is dipping a net into a river, and seeing if you catch any fish, without any bait. so, Lance, Wendy, and i walked up the cold river and actually caught 18 sockeye that were 6-8 pounds each, in about an hour. i don't know why i ever even bothered with hooks and all that worm nonsense. i donated all my fish to lance, since he has to survive the harsh winters, and feeds only on canned fish from the summer, while hovered over a burning garbage can to keep warm. after getting back and napping for a few hours, i was ready to start day number 2 of my day. each day here in an alaskan summer, you get 2 days out of it: day number 1 and day number 2. cause theres 20 hours of full daylight each day.

i also went kayaking with otters, seals, jellies, and eagles, which was really fun. glacier water can be a bit cold though. i also hiked up to a mountain with lance and wendy where we encountered mosquito city. and considering the mosquito to volume ratio, it was more like downtown mosquito central, cause i'd never seen so many before in my life. at some points, if you just stood still, there was a constant buzz of mosquito noise around you... it was weird. i got to slide down some snow patches to make the downhill a little quicker too. the land up there was really cool though, lots of snow patches, and we walked on really plush groundcover- the kind that you're usually not allowed to walk on in rich people's yards. it was GREAT.

i also made my mom ride a bike 9 miles, so next time you see her, pat her on the back. we visited a quaint little village of soldovia, which was quaint and little. the town taxi driver had to be taken from the bar to give us a ride back to camp though.

lastly, i saw a really sweet glacier and lots of animals (humpback whales, otters, seals, sea lions, puffins, porpises, SEAGULLS!), on a boat yesterday... the glacier was enormous, and i got to see some pieces calve off live... global warming hard at work!

well, looks like i'm out of time now... my mom left and i'm heading up to denali national park tomorrow and meeting clay there, hoping to see some grizzly bears and maybe some moose too. i've been practicing my punches and kicks in case one tries to attack me... i'll seeya later,

-cody

Central America 2006 Photos

Apparently, I didn't send a final email about how great the trip was, what a shame.

Here are my photos from Central America in 2006:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/codybadger/collections/72157602246324065/

Central America 2006 #1

Pura Vida My Ass:

hello from costa rica

i write you all from the luxurious hampton inn and suites in the beautiful suburb outside of san jose, costa rica, near the airport. for those of you that dont know, ive been in costa rica for the last 2 weeks, having a pretty good time... travelling around. i saw some nice beaches and ´cultural things´ here, along with some sweet jungle action too. ive had fun trying to speak spanish again, pretty much blowing a lot, but tons of people here speak english anyways... its hard to escape.

ive spent lots of my time observing wildlife and stuff like that... saw some monkeys, crocs, sloths, birdies, raccoonish thing, caymans, and others as well, its been pretty sweet seeing all these creatures that dont really exist in the states. i also just got bombarded with political theory at the bar and instantly thought of kevin wanting to give rights to dolphins or some nonsense like that (while im on the subject of wildlife). other things to brag about: jungle zip line tours, jungle canoe paddling, beautiful beaches, blah blah blah, either stuff you´ve seen or wont care about reading. my number one highlight is hearing george michael´s careless whisper 3 times while here.

i think the number 2 highlight of my trip was getting ALL OF OUR SHIT STOLEN from our car. well, thats a lie. they stole everything but the car, ben´s snorkel flippers, and my backpack full of clothes. but they did get away with tons of stuff. they also stole my frisbee that had been in 20 different countries and survived getting lost in the ocean 2 times and hellhole once, and my prized ucla hat (and sure, they got all our passports, cash and cameras). anyways, i now have my temporary passport where i look like a terrorist, and my mom managed to have her credit card saved so she gave me some cash to get me through the next 4 weeks where ill be in guatemala and belize... but sadly i´ll not be posting any pictures now, or later. so, if you hate reading and see an email from me in the next 4 weeks, just delete it cause there will be no special links to jealousy-inducing pictures of me doing cool things.

in the next 4 weeks, i hope to mount some kind of animal and have it transport me around, even if its in a big circle for money.

hope all is well back there, feel free to drop me a line... ill hopefully and gladly write back,

cody

Spain 2005 Photos

Here are the photos from my time in Spain in 2005:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/codybadger/collections/72157602287731501/

Spain 2005 #3

here is my last installment of pictures from my trip.

the last couple months living in spain was a blast... i'd love to tell you all about it, but i dont wanna type that much right now, so just ask me if youre interested. the pictures can kinda give you a story about what i did with my time there: trip to munich, salzburg, barcelona and a few hours in madrid. other than that i spent a lot of time in cordoba, and enjoyed it there a lot more, especially once i could speak and understand better than in the beginning.

now, i'm back in santa cruz for a few days then i'm off to UCLA to finish my last quarter of school... then i dunno, hopefully something fun.

here:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcNm7ly2ZtWJG&notag=1

and as always, here is the link to ALL of my shared pictures, in case you wanna go look at the other ones:

www.geocities.com/codybadger/pictureindex.html

which was just updated with some REALLY helpful explanations of what each link contains. again, the picture of me in the red dress is NOT me.

seeya,
cody

Spain 2005 #2

Hey everybody?

It?s been a while since I wrote last, but here I am, writing. I don?t really remember what I said last time? I think just stuff about daily life for me here, so here are some stories of things that have happened cause the school, family, and daily routines have not changed a ton.

By now, I have traveled quite a bit through the south of Spain in the Andalucia province? to cadiz, algecerias, sevilla, granada, almodovar, saw gibralter? I also went to Portugal and morocco for long weekends too. brag brag. While I?m at it, I think I am going to return to Munich for a long weekend and visit Petra (and hopefully Amy vv is meeting us there), and possibly Barcelona and/or Madrid. I chose to not travel in the north of Spain because it will give me an excuse to come back and spend another extensive amount of time here? and I like to spend more than just a weekend in a city or region.

I don?t wanna bore y?all with details of all the sights I?ve been seeing here, but I would like to mention my trip to morocco, in a city called Marrakech (we also went to Casablanca for a night in transit). I went with Chris, Monica, Marissa, and Jessica (some of my ameri-pals here)? and to sum it up, I think Chris put it best: ?anything? absolutely anything, could happen right now, and I don?t think I?d be surprised.? And it was totally true.

The streets there were insane with donkeys, scooters (with horrible 2-stroke exhaust that made me noxious every now and then), dead animals hanging from vehicles of all types, taxis, cars, horses, people, bikes, wagons, chickens, etc. Some streets got too backed up and everybody would try to go at once; even the pedestrians would get in traffic jams. I saw vegetable markets with the food just sitting on the dirty, oily, old, streets, the butcher shops were just an old bloody room with the raw meat and organs sitting on a counter on the sidewalk? exposed to everything passing by (people, exhaust, donkey farts, etc). it was a total culture shock for me and the others, we knew what we were in for when we left? this kind of lifestyle was so much different than anything I had ever seen before.

Also, an interesting thing was that it seemed like the people there didn?t know what the united states were. They could NEVER guess where we were from? often times we claimed to be Spanish without questioning by the Moroccans. I got Japanese, Italian, everything European, and only 1 guy the whole 6 days guessed American? it was strange. Even when I would say I was from the US, sometimes they just returned with blank stares. Aside from the craziness of the way of life there, the people that we dealt with were generally really friendly with us? we were offered food by locals at sundown to celebrate Ramadan a few times, got a lot of stares but usually followed by smiles rather than maddog looks, and the orange juice and dinner guys were like our best friends, always happy to see us around, and would try and hang out with us while we ate.

The way you shop there is strictly by haggling with the shopkeepers, and we quickly learned that we really had to lowball them cause they started with outrageous prices. I got thrown out of 3 different stores because my starting prices were insultingly low (I just didn?t want the junk they were asking me to buy). Lastly, I was there during Halloween?so naturally we bought a lot of the Moroccan garb and dressed up as Muslims to celebrate, it was quite fun, you?ll see the pictures. I now have 5 turbans? or turbs for short.

The aftermath of morocco: I don?t really want to go into the details cause they?re kind of graphic, and generally? girls don?t like the discussion on the consequences of stomach problems so half of my audience would be ill-at-ease (except maybe Rachel and Kelli). But I think I got sick from the pigeon that I ate there? because they are equivalent to rats in my mind, and I imagine they carry diseases quite often?. I?ll send updates on my tapeworm periodically. All 5 of us got sick afterwards, and it?s been 2 weeks now and its still lingering a little bit, but whatever? I had a good time there.

I also saw a soccer game here (well, in Sevilla)? it was pretty fun, although we were never able to find our seats. Spanish stadiums are not marked with gate numbers, row numbers, or seat numbers, but we did have 4 assigned seats? strange. Anyways, it was between FC sevilla and atletico Madrid? and it was really cool to see all the crazy fans there. They have chants like we do, but they sound much more melodic. It sounded like a choir of 10000 people when the crazy end of the stadium would do their thing.

As for my Spanish? it?s getting better. I?m sure my accent is still pretty bad, but things have gotten a lot easier for me since the last time I wrote. I?ve made a few more Spanish friends, and try to hang out with them as much as possible a) cause its fun, and b) cause it helps me get better at speaking. One of them knows English about at my level of Spanish, so we help each other out and practice a lot. Although I?m sure it was ugly on my end, we are able to have interesting conversations about philosophies and crap like that. I also am more comfortable at home now too? I hang out and watch TV with the family, and talk to them about random things, ask for advice on where to go and whatnot. We all understand one another much better now, so I don?t have to think of my conversations before I start them.

I had a few interesting experiences here with the language too? one night, Chris and I were talking to 3 Spanish girls and we were exchanging insults in Spanish and English. For some reason, I thought of douche-bag so told them about it? but then they asked for its meaning. I said it?s ?a thing? but also just an insult, but they wanted to know what the ?thing? was. I don?t think they have them here or something, but the girls were pretty entertained and disgusted when Chris and I tried to explain what it was? the first discussion took 1 hour, and we?ve had 2 more since. One of the girls said she?d like one for a Christmas present, but we told her that she was mistaken. They then told us to bring a picture of one, cause our explanations weren?t sufficient? so that?s my homework for the day. Another story, is one of my friends invited me over to her house for her friend?s birthday-ish party, so I brought Chris along with me. I mentioned that I had been sick earlier, and my friend asked if I went to the doctor, and I said no, I don?t really like going to the doctor. She asked why and Chris said ?bend over and cough? but in English? so this required an explanation in Spanish, involving pantomiming the action. At this point, all 12 Spaniards in the room directed their attention at Chris and I, while we had to explain that when boys get a physical they have do drop their pants and cough, while the doctor does his thing. They were absolutely mortified that this happens on a yearly or bi-yearly basis, and thought that doctors in the states were kind of perverted. One of the guys chimed in with a comment on how it?s a score if the doctor is a female. Right.

Anyways, I realize I have written way too much? hopefully you were able to make it down this far. If you write back, I have been pretty good about responding (sometimes gotta give me a few days), but I enjoy hearing from people back home. My friend loaned me her laptop for the weekend (yeah, I?m in my living room watching a western in Spanish with my ?mom? and she just asked me if I have eaten horse. I said no, and she tried to convince me to do it because the water we drink is dirtier than the water horses like), and I figured out how to steal internet on this computer, so I posted a bunch of pictures of my experiences in morocco, la tomatina (huge tomato fight), and my time here in spain. They have descriptions that are sometimes helpful, sometimes stupid. Keep in touch,

-cody

Spain and Portugal:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcNm7ly2ZtWIT&notag=1

Morocco:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcNm7ly2ZtWIx&notag=1

Tomatina and Valencia:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcNm7ly2ZtWIg&notag=1