world traveler
by Tony Peters on October 7, 2006
Well I'm finally home after 2 1/2 weeks of wandering the earth...Diego Garcia is the definition of tropical paradise...granted the only things to do are exercise or drink and I'm not a drinker...long walks on the flour soft white beaches in the morning and evening. I found a turtle nest one evening, watched a bunch of sunsets and sunrises, snorkled almost daily in the lagoon and hiked some great jungle trails. An hour or two of work a day just to say that we accomplished something...it truely made up for the week spent in Bahrain which is about the furthest thing from paradise that one can get. I did my best impression of either a mad dog or and Englishman as I walked to a local mall under the noonday sun...I think it was 100degrees (or more) of as they say "dry heat" sorta like hell...I lost 7lbs in 2 hours...not one of my smartest actions that's for sure. I now understand why the locals don't do anything in the middle of the day...night time was a much better time to explore the markets (called souqs)...I bought a bunch of saffron for my whole family (xmas shopping early) and a couple of rugs...Rug shopping is very fun...I had a budget and a particular country of origin (Pakistan) of the rugs I wanted. Pakistani rugs are simpler, bigger patterned, and of lower quality than say Persian/Iranian rugs but of better quality than say Indian...I would love to buy an Iranian rug but they are waaaaaay beyond my budget (like 5-10 times what i want to spend) and in truth too fine a rug for my household (cats and dogs) but handling them while shopping sure is nice. I think I looked at 70-80 rugs narrowing it down to about 6-7 before walking on the rugs to figure out which one I wanted...then came the bargining...a good half hour of bargining from about $400 down to to what I actualtly paid which was $220...it was definatly worth it though and the carpet looks great in our bedroom. I also added to my collecting of prayer rugs. Sadly my trip home all 27 hours of it was not fun at all, topped off by KLM/Northwest losing our luggage (all 11 pieces) someplace between Bahrain and Detroit...Made going through Customs easy though. Oh yes and once I got home I realized that I left my cell phone in the room in Diego Garcia...thankfully they found it but it'll be two weeks before I have it again. Never thought I would be jonesing for my cellphone
vagabond-punk
The musings of Tony Peters, a perpetual child, no matter where I am I will find a way to climb something or go skateboarding Read more »
retirement
I should spend more time working on things like this during my time off. I find I am playing more though. These were shot over memorial day weekend, Muji and I went to the beach Go »change 2
well I got to work this morning and I got my holiday break back...it seems that our money guys don't want to pay to have 2 groups of people traipsing around the med at roughly the same time soooooo...they want one team to fly from end to end and then back again over a three week period and it's probably gonna end up costing as much if not more than it would for 2 teams to but and here is the part that sucks for me it'll cost less this year, and we are broke this year, Jan 1 starts are next batch of money...so Go »Under water and leeching
yesterdays rains have lead to a flooded power station, 24 hours of no power, a river that looks like class 6 rapids and me sitting in the parking lot of my local Midas drinking DnD coffee and leeching Wifi trying to find out if I've got school this afternoon.....I hope we have power by tonight I would really like to cook diner instead of take out again. Go »Mornings....
It's cool today. As I pull on my jacket, the leather creaks as the zipper closes. The engine, a bit reluctant to turn over in the brisk morning air, settles into a rumble as I finish donning my gear. Go »Driving in europe.
OK one of the more enjoyable part of my job is the fact that I get to drive overseas. Part of this is due to the fact that I have had an international diving permit for 7 years now and another part is that I am actually used to driving on the wrong side of the road. (3 years in Japan). Go »
