pretty much the greatest thing ever invented is flight control.

this is a stock image. fyi, my high score is MUCH higher than 15

flight control is an application on my iphone that lets me play air traffic controller. i am so john cusack in pushing tin. and we all know, even in a lesser movie john cusack is always awesome.

i bought flight control because it gets good ratings as a game to play on an plane. and i am all about hot tips for in flight entertainment, since on saturday i'm embarking on EUROPE 09.

europe 09 is set to be the best holiday yet. lots of friend time. lots of me time. lots of train time. and not a moment too soon because wellington 09 has not been the thrill a minute i'd been hoping for. on the upside, wellington 09 has meant spanish tapas night at liquidate. my new monday tradition. so i can't complain too much.

anyway with the prospect of europe 09 comes the prospect of more blogging from me. get your rss feeds primed and ready to go. because, in the immortal words of michael jordan: i'm back.

i wish samoa was all mine. not mine as in a colony or something. just mine as in my special secret. because the fact that other people who are not me are in samoa right now and enjoying it is literally breaking my heart.

i only got back this afternoon. the wounds of leaving are still fresh.

i would like to retain some mystery so you're not going to get a blow by blow account. needless to say every minute was awesome. even when it involved you being herded like cattle by police. POLICE. in the best uniforms ever by the way.

one of the things about samoa is you can always swim. ALWAYS. here i am on one of my first days in samoa. heading to the beach. taking to the lifestyle like a duck to water.




some of you* will be getting awesome postcards from me. samoa is filled to the brim with awesome postcards. anyway, i won't spoil those. but apia was SURPRISINGLY EXHAUSTING. i was offered about a thousand $10 lava lava. and had my bag checked at the grocery store. i looked suss. obviously. walking down the street took it out of you something chronic. thank god i was staying on the other side of the island. at a resort that offered afternoon tea every day at three.


at the end of the day though, it is the natural beauty of samoa that was the breathtaking part. like the waterfalls. the WATERFALLS.

this one is on upolu. after taking this photo a man made us coconut cream from scratch. touristy? yes. but he wasn't a tour guide. so there.



this one is on savai'i. we told ourselves it was the waterfall from the king kapisi video clip. but i was told otherwise by one of my new boyfs. and while i believed him MOSTLY at the time i've looked at the video clip again, and he was right. you can watch it here. and incidentally everything in this video clip i basically saw.

oh yeah, and in samoa there are lots of boys dying to flirt with you. honest to goodness. if you're lucky they will make you feel like a teenager again. leaving you giggling at the message they sent you via their babyfaced friend and having to sneak into your fale drunk on the excitement. and on the vailima. and maybe the whiskey too if i'm being honest. oh the boys! how many hearts did i break in the past week? heaps.

the biggest heart break is my own. i've fallen hard for samoa. and i won't hear a thing against it. and staying at a resort, which initially worried me, turns out to be the only way to live. refer to afternoon tea comment above. on my last day i lay on the beach and read. and slept. and listened to my ipod. and looked up at this....

and tried not to think too much about what i was leaving behind. and the characters i'd met. and the unexpected delights everywhere (like watching the sound of music on the ferry from savai'i to upolu and having a number of cute singalong moments with the guy next to me). and the bananas. have you had the bananas? like honestly they are the best thing in the world apart from samoa. and my new favourite song, i choose you. which i hope pumps in the apia clubs for years to come.

* not all of you though. my hotel ran out of stamps and the postoffice that was meant to be open until midday closed at eleven. for no apparent reason. samoa forever.

you know that movie key largo? or at least know of it?

well prepared to be impressed....



this is me having a 'cocktail' (okay, just soda water) at the very bar in which the movie is basically set.

also know the song kokomo by the beach boys? seriously, who doesn't. anyway, that song mentions key largo too. i am one step away from hooking in to john stamos (if you don't get the connection, watch yourself some full house already).

right now i'm in the LAX koru club waiting to board my plane home. i have been on the road for two weeks and i start work at eleven am tuesday morning (after getting in to wellington at eight am). i've decided not to think about how that will be almost impossible and instead to focus on how i've had a fantastic time away. on how miami is where the beautiful men are, and how i fell in love about eighteen times. on how i am so at home in new york now i barely need a guide book and how in boston i don't need one at all. how my new favourite song is glenn frey's you belong to the city and how this is best listened to LOUDLY as you're driving to find gators in the everglades. how i am mortally afraid of circling vultures. how i can now do the hustle with the best of them. and how i love maple syrup. and of course how i learnt a load at the conference that was my reason for coming to north america in the first place.

now i pray that i don't become afflicted with the food poisoning that is bothering my miami travel companion and that the sleeping pills work a treat. wish me luck.

am i having a good time?....


i've been in NYC since saturday night. i am having such a marvellous time i'm starting to wonder whether i enjoy my own company too much.

i came to NYC to be a tourist, and it has worked. i've been overcharged for everything. although i walk through the streets with such confidence i just KNOW i look like a local. you should have seen me ordering a hot dog from a street vendor. i absolutely did not look incompetent asking for sauerkraut by just pointing to it and saying 'that stuff'. i've also had a bagel, new york cheese cake and giant pizza. aka all the important new york foods. in fact, i've eaten well - contrary to my first day in NYC where i had two fig newtons for dinner.


luckily they are basically health food (you will note the 'fat free' label).

tomorrow is my last morning and i'm trying to decide the most new york way to spend it. probably listening to some joel (new york state of mind specifically) and eating a bagel in central park. hoping i don't see any rats or similar. and hoping i don't spend another cent (NYC is an expensive city, as the taxi drivers repeatedly tell me).

before i launch in to a blow by blow account of new york city let me get one thing out of the way. in new zealand i regularly tear up the dance floor. and impress the socks off people. but i thought it was a case of big fish, small pond. but then last night on a dance floor in downtown new york when in response to my dancing some like hip hop professional whispered "damn gurrrl" in my ear, i knew i'd hit the big time.

now for the not-really-but-sort-of blow by blow. i've been in new york since monday. i've shopped. shopped. eaten expensive tasty food, eaten cheaper tasty food, and navigated the subway like a freakin professional.

i went to a concert at madison square gardens and blissed out (that is before i almost passed out, i'm wearing myself out i tell you). and saw al pacino's limo*.

but last night might have been the bestest night so far. erin, the bride to be and my reason for new york being, celebrated her big 3 zero at some bar in nolita (see how these ny areas just roll off my tongue - i'm basically a local now). there were drinks in an oven or something to begin with but then we moved to the main room and i drank strawberry balsamic martinis and they were delicious.

by midnight i was starving (that's the thing with new york i'm either too full to think about food or starving which is why i hadn't eaten dinner yet). so a posse and i went to little italy for pizza. but city that never sleeps my foot because everywhere was closed. everywhere except this one place. where we ate delicious bread and garlic oil and then pizza, while drinking probably poisonous new york tap water. after that we took a limo (see photo...)

to this club. which is where i was whispered damn gurrrrl and where there were impromtu breakdancing battles and there were people banging on drums and they sold water for five dollars a bottle. best water i've ever tasted though. my guess is that water had no contaminants. and the djs were awesome. and everyone was beautiful. and i really understood what missy elliot is talking about when in that song she talks about sweating out all of the troubles of the day on the dancefloor.

i had the time of my life.

now i'm sitting in the best apartment in new york looking out on the rest of manhattan and wondering what the day will bring. i can only hope it will be at least half as fun.

*may not have been al pacino's limo.