despite not really doing anything today, i couldn’t finish uploading the first batch of spain photos.
instead, here’s something to stare at, in anticipation:

click me! (this may take a while to load.)

 

i don’t mean to brag, but i’m in denia/spain again, this time with my family – the first family holiday in several years…

(click me!)

random thoughts:

• it’s an interesting feeling leave the country, travel half a day, and arrive at home, and yet 2.000km away from home. :-)
• dad actually decided that i should be the driver. our rental car is a fiat grande – it’s so quiet, you can hardly hear the engine running!
• i think it’s kinda sad that at the age of 21, i’m already happy to be (almost) cut off from tele-communication for a few weeks.
  oh well. :-\
• i have trouble just imagining that about 200 years ago (?), spain was covered in dense forests. it’s pretty close to a savannah now.
• trying to get something out of your system sometimes has the exact opposite effect.
• i hate to hear my own native language (or some dialect of it) when i board a plane, or when i arrive at a foreign place. in this regard, spain may not be the ideal holiday location…
• as i write this, i’m sweating just by sitting here. i love summer!

i can’t believe all the places he went to!
even jellyfish lake in palau!!

for more information, visit www.wherethehellismatt.com

port macquarie was another one of the places that travelers from my generation considered …boring. :grin:

i was told that it was founded in 1821 and is sometimes jokingly referred to as “australia’s first holiday resort” – pointing to its initial purpose as a penal settlement for lifers.

p.m. has several beautiful bays along the coast, all linked by a walking trail.
there’s also the koala hospital (which has an unbelievably long waiting list for volunteers!), billabong koala park, and two nature reserves close by.
not to forget the nice churches, including st. thomas anglican church – built in 1824 by convicts – which houses the only walker pipe organ on the southern hemisphere…

i got chinese take-away one evening, and was given a ticket with the number 666. the waitress said “oh, you got a lucky number”. i responded “depends on what religion i’m in.” she looked at it again, and just said “oh, yeah…”

 
[view photos: port macquarie]

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on my way down to port macquarie, i had a 5-hour-stopover in brisbane.
a welcome break, since it’s a 15-hour-busride from hervey bay to port M.
i spent this time in some parks, walking around in the city, getting travel infos on new zealand etc.
 

on the bus, they showed some videos, which made me make a list of the worst movies of all times:
#1 in the ranking would be a movie whose title i actually had repressed. i had to do some googling to find out its title: connie and carla; but
#2, titled calender girls isn’t really less bad, and it’s even a little worse than
#3: like mike
these are what i call “headache movies” (because they make me want to smack my head against something hard), and i’ve come to believe that the busdriver wanted to torture us…

anyway…
 

[view photos: brisbane stopover]

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it can be hard to get a rental car when you’re 21 or 22.
most of the companies i’ve encountered (which, admittedly, aren’t too many) either don’t rent their cars to the “young” folk at all, or they have unreasonable surcharges.

in spain, i’ve found two websites that allow drivers from 21 – and they’re pretty cheap, too:

• sungo rentacar and, even cheaper:
• cars4holidays (de) – but on this site, be sure to check the individual company’s terms&conditions for the minimum age.