So I’m still suffering from not carrying a pen. And have only been able to journal on bb or lappy, kinda lame but whatever.

So I’m on a bus to mendoza then to san juan, to have christmas with friends family!!! I just wanted to do this sooo bad, stayin with a family to me is like … The ultimate experience!! So there is also a magical place there called the valley of the moon and we are gonna go at night to it!

K so! Bus started backing up!!!! And no ones sitting beside me !! Ahhahahaha whattttt!!! Kinda fuckin awesome don’t ya think

Ok so btw travel tips for here, tip and tip well. I caught on in argentina when I got that feel of how similar it is to karachi, and a little more here goes along way. They are poor, and just seeing a smile that they get from something as so simple as money .. Makes me feel good, these are good people, really good people here.

So btw I got dropped after suring at the mall was plannin to go eat and then leave, but I decided togo back to hostel and omg am I ever glad I did. Really talked to tristan and more imprtantly carolina!! Omg she’s sooo pretty I wanna take her home with me

K so, I need to buy some nice things for the parents tried todo that at mall but fuck it was insane .. Literally and with suitcase and pack .. Hahaha kinda made up my mind on goin back to hostel. So gonna have to try to find a thing in mendoza.

This is pretty fun actually !! Woot bus is nice and comfy, I wish I woulda pushed for first class !! Didn’t even think about it till carolina asked me, but to be honest. They look about the same, and that remindsme of travel tip number 2 , pack a nice portable pillow !!!! Saved my life on the plane, and right now

Toon time! Ciaou ciou cioau

…Later that time trip…

Ok so yay! Made sucha good call on stayin in mendoz* for the early morning, wow these seats are so comfortable !!!!!!!!! K so on way to san juan now , caught the 1400 early actually so all good!

So yeah I got 4 gifts!!! Heheh just in time fuck u woulda been proud , saw exactly what to get and made the call right away no delay.

So sleepin from 9 to 1230 made all the difference in the world! Muah !!!!!!!

…even later on that trip…

Omg .. I honestly can’t believe that I’m actually here .. This is just something that I had dreamed of and its happening.

This house is just beautiful, I have a balcony with a view of mountains and wine fields, I can see all the stars in the universe soon, there’s hardly anything out here.

So things didnt go according to my plan today =/ I was supposed to go on a bike tour of the northern suburbs, and I even got up early! like 8:00 to be at the meeting place for 9:00, and the dood didnt show up, and i msged him like enough times, then still no reply! Piss me off! so I went back to apartment, and not sure what to do now, seems like a beautiful day, but ive been doing all the touristy things all week, so AHHHH!! bike tour woulda been perfect thats why i lanned it out for today! ahh well, i’ll figure something out, and tonite gonna goto Tango class hopefully get a chance to do some more tango,  like the rock was fun and all, but tango is tango, and 2morrow creamfields !!! so that’ll be full on,

OK, so Santiago actually came by 16:00ish and took me for a real tour in his car, showed me some amazing places, and the neighbourhoods and all that stuff, so maybe that wasnt sucha bad thing missing out on the bike tour!

So btw just got back from Salsa, Tango night, OMG I loved it, was sooo much fun! and met up with some couch surfers too!!! So first was the salsa dancing, and it was workin for me if i didnt think about it and just did it, but some of the girls i danced with were like pretty bad I thought. and I had the giggles, so like it was a great combo! but by the end of it, not that many girls wanted to dance with me cuz I kept laughing, and when everyone switched I was usually the odd one left out, kinda lame for me at the time but oh wellz

Tango was so much better I thought, I liked the more longer smooth strokes of Tango. and actually one of my partners spoke english!!! so I asked her to be my partner for the whole time, and we got good at it! So was an amazing night actually, and even met some couch surfers and *might* even plan out an adventure!! but we’ll see how it goes.

So im just kinda killing time now, staying up a little late tonite so 2morrow night i’ll be up all night! Creamfields in BA, can’t fucken wait, gonna be a ridiculous party, timo, hernan, satoshi,avb and theres a couple more but thats what really stuck to me. but stil havent decided what to wear!! ahhh, might go with my army camo shorts, or my black ones, black ones are lighter so thats where the points are going now. muah! will let ya know

So kinda made plans with my one friend here to have dinner and stuff last night , but i kinda didnt want to! I decided to try out tango at this reccomended club, la virtua , and omg was it ever fun. Actually what happened was the tango lesson was from 19:00 - 20:00 but i got there at 19:45 so just in time for the last step, and the teacher was like ok go and practice with the girls, and someone asked me and after 2 steps they could see i had no idea what was going on! she quickly taught me the steps and we did a 5minute tango!

All the lights actually went down a bit, and there was some very good students that came out and did a show for everyone. Which was quite entertaining actually.

So it was like 20:30 now and i called my friend she said shed be like another hour or so, so I decided to go and watch some more dancing, but inside they started a new lesson on rock n roll dancing, or like American 50’s music kinda thing. but omg!! it was soooo much fun, and we did the lessons and all the way up to practice dancing with all the girls! yay, and after there was a big line dancing kinda thing which just killed it! literally could not stop laughing doing it.

So by the time it was over, it was like 21:30 and perfect timing for meeting up with my friend, but to be honest i wanted to stay there for the next tango session that was starting up at 22:00 !! err, so i think i might go there tonite at 22:00 for some proper tango.

So just doing laundry right now before i head out to check out the shops and change some american bills.

ok so i woke up today and it was like crazy, my legs were sooooooo sore, btw i went out to this pop hiphop club last  night, i literally walked in, and walked out after i noticed people smokin indoors, it was like a younger crowd, and the worst was people smoke inside here. soooo nasty, i really wanted to stay just for the night out thing, but i really couldnt. it was a 2.1k hike here, and i walked there, taxid back. and besides all the other walkin i did yesterday kinda felt my legs a bit today.

but anyways went to pick up the tickets from Lorena today, person i found the ad for, and her and her bf were amazing! mentioned they knew some ppl going and shit to look out for me, and if i wanted to go out later this week they’ll take me out, they pointed me in the direction of this art meusuem and omg it was fuckin amazing!! it was this one that was closed yesterday, er i didnt see, so omg it was amazing, it was like an old school house or something but the main halls were humongeous , with marble status , and all kinds of interesting things, i just wandered around some of the other parts of it, and it was just amazing, I wandered to what looked like a theatre, and some workers there didnt seem to mind i was just looking around when i did a littl twril of my finger around my eyes.

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Well, I dont know what to say its been about 4 days here now, and man what an experience. I have been having the time of my life, and it feels as if its just getting started. BTW, im lucky to have a free wifi link here!! gotta love open networks!

So I only forgot to bring with me my quick dry towel that i got from Australia, which isnt that bad, probally will just have to buy a towel or two for when i do the hostelling.

The neighbourhood im in is just beautiful! I love how they line the sides of the buildings with trees, that go all the way up, so when u look out the windows all u can see is green! this  is actually a trait of the neighbourhood im staying in Palermo. Im about 5min walk from the main street which is got a subway stop and theres lots of shops/restaurants and all that stuff over there.

Something about the spanish culture here is that it seems very simliar to the Pakistani, always late, laid back and less caring for the less important things, the driving and all is pretty simliar too, which is why im not gonna be driving here! can be pretty bad at times too, like people that walk dogs here let the dogs shit and piss everywhere and just leave it, people come with buckets of water and just wash them onto the roads from time to time, but still pretty nasty.

I feel that ever since I was in karachi and London on my own when I was younger travelling any country alone is not that daunting anymore. For me the challenge in everything was being in a totally new world. Its still pretty intimidating for me being here, like its hard to talk to many people here because 95% of the people do not speak english.

I love the feeling of being out of my comfort zone, and trying to find my way. Im going to be leaving for Chile and Easter Island by next monday so things will get alot more interesting then!!

was just walking around was actually on the subway to goto check out this famous cathederal, when i got a bbm from Santiago (guy im renting apartment from) asking me if im intersted in going to the boca juniors game, he also had along with him was this lady from Vancouver Segred, which is always awesome to find a fellow Canadian where ever you go!!! Man was I ever glad that I did, what an atmosphere. When the game was about to start and the home team ran out the stadium went off the hook. Party streamers were flying everywhere, ripped newspaper were thrown up, signing and dancing.

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So by the time I got back from the game it was about 8, and time for dinner. Always my favourite part of the day, especially when I have no idea what the menu says. So was just about to hike out when I started chatting to this chick thats in my building, and she said shed join me for dinner!!!! Made the night actually! Her name was Valeria, and shes been born and raised in Buenos Aires, and spoke good english so perfect !!! so we found a nice little place close by and got to know each other a bit. Even more exciting to find out that shes a famous singer here, and she was winding down from her career touring, and is focusing more on talent promotion and teaching. She joined me for a cup of tea after dinner and by the time we knew it, it was 1:30 !! a little late by even the locals standard for a weeknight.

Right, so the flight here was pretty nice actually we stopped over in NY for like 2hours which was a great flight over too btw, i was in the middle thing and had the whole row to myself! so just layed down the whole time with ear plugs in. NY to Santiago was a bit of a hike, but wasnt as bad as I thought! it was a 11h flight over night, arriving at 9:45am. This trip I cracked out this pillow that I brought with me, its a small barrell shaped squishy comfy pillow that made the trip for me!, when i layed back and put it behind my head i could lean on either side without any pressure at all!!! i think i slept about 5-6 hours because of it which was amazing! i never been so successfull at sleeping on planes before!

The flight over to BA was only 2h, and I was greeted by the hired car I made for getting me to my apartment, his name was Dante, and he was just awesome, gave me lots of tips and tricks about the city, and even made a few calls for me to get somethings sorted I asked him about, so definately helped me out bigtime!

I took a nap soon as all the documents were signed for the apartment, so I think I ended up paying $477 for 9 days here, bit pricey but its a great place and very centrally located which is what i wanted.

So after my lil nap it was like 20:00 and i went on my first little cruise, found a nice little restaurant to have dinner at, and  I was actually going to go out for a club night to Pacha, but im still a bit tired from the trip, and im gonna be partying pretty hard in a few days anyways

To me , it feels as if im in another world down here. People dont really speak english so that makes for some interesting conversations. Im seemingly expanding my spanish somehow more and more, i even find myself talking to myself in spanish!!

SO was at this grocery store and there was some nice spanish music on the radio and there was a little girl like had to be abour 4 or something that started dancing to it, and I started smiling and actually evreyone in the store turned and then some clapping started .. hehe was just something that I thought was hilarious.

OK, so Was just having a lil time to myself after rolling through 4 episodes of Battle Star Galactica tonite, season 4 !! man, i was in tears for lots of parts in it !!! heheh before i get side tracked, i just want to drop a note about what actually motivated me tonite to write about it.

So about actually 1 week ago, there was a very favourite Prog House, Trance dj that came to Toronto, and omg was so there, got dropped off by my sister, and omg was rocking out all fuckn night! it was just magical too btw, like i havent been moved like that for a while and to feel such a  beautifull orchestration of music and energy was just an experience of a life-time. BUT the single thing that made me smile looking back tonite was !!! ok when i was walking back to the coat check to get my jacket, someone put their arm on my shoulder and i turned around and the guy said to me ‘Man you are such a good dancer’ . I was really so happy to hear that! it honestly made my day, and I thanked him and then peaced out.

So I tried calling my buddie Gem, who lived only a few blocks away, was gonna crash pad over there, but he didnt pick up for some reason, and LUCKY ME! that i found some people going to Missisauga and some how managed to swing a free ride back home, so like i still had to wake up Aunty Helen, but she’s always kool ;0

Oh btw, it was Hernan Cattaneo.

OK so maybe things didnt go according to plan.. but I still did awesome personally in singles and awesome in doubles with my partner.

So in the first round I was matched up with a Racketlon veteran Hannes, a German, and he was solid player indeed, his specialty was tennis, and when we played I only needed 8 points to win the match, but i only got 6, losing the match by 2 points!! I was pretty bummed out about that but decided to not let it get the best of me, and look forward to the next day.

So we had our first mixed doubles match earlier in the day, and we won that pretty easily, and then shortly after that was my singles consolation match semi finals. (I had a bye), but this was a guy from Montreal and a really competitive guy, and really good at badminton. So he was pretty good at table tennis also, and I beat him 21-14, and then came badminton and just wow he was amazing, i was struggaling to get a racket on the ball, but i did manage to get one point! a cross court smash, that he wasnt even close to! I smashed him in squash, but made a couple mistakes, and going into tennis i needed to beat him by 2 points, which was very doable in my mind. So the whole match through it was pretty even, id be up by a couple points, or he would. Eventually landing up with a scoreline of 19-19, and just wow, my favourite part of the match where everything is on the line for these next couple points, im not sure what it was that stuck in my mind that made me feel completely at ease or what, but i was totally relaxed. He was serving and didnt deal with the pressure that well, with a double fault leaving a score of 19-20 for me, and then i guess feeling a little shaky with his serve he hit a serve that just floated over the net, I smiled and ran up and hit one of my favourite shots a down the line forehand, with the perfect amount of pace on the ball and all he could do was watch it go by Samad wins!! So turning around I realized that everyone in the club was watching this match, and being rained on with cheers and applauses as we walked off the court, the Umpire came up to me and said he was really glad I beat that guy, he was one of those guys that doesnt smile, and is too serious, just not fun! and for some reason the club crowd was loving me!! and a big high five from my partner Ally!!

I won the finals pretty easily, the thing that I liked about the finals was that I beat this table tennis coach in table tennis, and he was furious with himself., just furious!! lol and we actually had to play the guy I beat and his partner that Allison beat in mixed doubles, so we beat them pretty easily too to jump into the finals, eventually losing a heartbreaker by 2 points in the end, this time at 18-18 we couldnt pull it off ;( but another time most definatly.

I got talked into staying around for the Vancouver Island Squash tournament next weekend at the same club, so I re-arranged my flight to suit it, and am looking forward to it quite a bit.

1. Michael Phelps

Ok, can anyone else say big deal? Wow you got 8 gold medals, good for you. Does that mean that we have to hear about it 24 hours a day ?! I dont think we’ll see anyone running 100m dash backwards anytime soon. So please give it a rest with all these lame variations of how fast you can swim across a pool.

2. TV Coverage

So when theres a Canadian athelete our Canadian broadcasting company usually tries to do their best in covering them on tv, which is great! I love being able to support my fellow countrymen in whatever sport they’re participating in. So why dont they do it ?! We had a Canadian table tennis player competing in the first round, and the CBC schedule showed that the match would be broadcasted from 02:00am — 05:00am, and omg what was on the air at the time?? Yup you guessed right swimming! They actually did show a 5min clip of the highlights of the match, where our fellow Canadian lost 14-11 in the 7th set, and had 4 match points.

3. Lame Sports

Wow I didnt know ballroom dancing was actually a sport., and wtf is equstrian ?? riding horses is a very popular spectator sport for the wealthy, but somehow managed to make it into the Olympics.

4. No Squash

OK, so im a little biased on this one being a squash player and all but come one, squash is a great sport even to watch. Ive had so many non-squash players ask me why squash isnt in the olympics and it makes me laugh everytime. Like I honestly wish I could be at the meeting when they decide becuase its actually mind boggling to see some of the activities that actually make it into the olympics.

5. Professional Atheletes

Stay at home please. As if anyone had a chance at winning tennis with players like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal playing in it, like come on you guys have enough glory, leave the competitions to the amature atheletes across the world. Professional atheletes should be banned from all of the competitions in major sports period.

Regardless of these 5 major factors the olympics have sparked some intersting conversations with people, and been great background noise, and im hoping for the day when they actually are a little more concious of what the olympics actually are. For those of you that are so excited to actually watch swimming for the duration of the olympics while theres real athletes competiting in sport then im happy for you.

im just thinking to myself, all my loved ones havent heard from me in a while and i thought i would say hello.

I started off saying hello to an old friend, she was very happy to see me and made me feel so cozy again. shortly after I could hear the rain coming down, so i decided to go for a walk, and getting about to the end of my street i thought to myself.. why am i walking lets ride!!

I ran back home to grab my bike, and booked it over to the creek. I drove in the main gate, one of the rare times i have but now that i have a membership it rocks!! i

Just as i was pulling up to a set of picnic tables just off to the side, opened up a rather large field that absolutely lit up completly by a sharp bolt of lightnign right in front of me!! i dropped my bike off and climbed up onto the table for a while, reaching for my bag i grabbed my water and just stood there for a minute just watching the night sky.

A strong gust of wind came along and gave me the signal to move on, and onwards I rode. what an incredible sensation it started to rain, only drops came but it was enough to let me feel it.

Next I came up to the shore line, an elder tree agreed to watch over my bike if i would return one day and tell him about how the world has been changing. He showed me his three children and just as it turns out they were watching the night sky also. I sat down beside the youngest of the 3 and we were so engrossed into watching the night sky shine bright with light, that it was the entire universe. I returned back to the elder and pulled out a snack, i packed a grape fruit earlier and omfg was it evar delicous, it was the most lucious juicy fruit that ive ever had in my life. i sat down on the ground emcompassed by the warmth of the elder i was rejuvinated from the cooler temperature, and I enjoyed that grapefruit so much, i worked my way down to about 1/2 of the fruit left, and i broke it in half. A little snack for someone i thought to myself as i dug a lil hole in the ground and put my peels away.

the sky was lit up with colours that will only ever exist in that moment of time. The wind returned to guide me as it again was time to ride on.

oh k btw, just figured out that computrer problem (xp) i found an old ide kicking around and slotted her in.

I was being engulfed by the forest as I carried on my journey and it was just amazing to feel the energy like that at that moment. I was completley in the heart of the woods now, and I took a stop to meditate here and absorb, resonate with the earth as much as i could.

it was pooring rain down so hard at this point, it was incredible i was just sitting there and not even getting that much wet, pure bliss.

The rain stopped and i knew it was time to go from here. I continued on, and shortly after i came to a clearing that was well light up by the sky. I needed to take a pit stop, and nows my chance i thought, i pulled up beside a tree and started to let it drizzle out. A sharp snap of a twig caught my attention and the sounds of little footsteps coming towards me made me feel a lil funny.

I was still firehosing away and was not ready to stop yet, but the footsteps were closer and closer, and finally i could see it what I was fearing .. the penetrating white lines of hair on black. A skunk, im not really too familiar with behaviour patterns for them but this one was coming closer and closer to me, I made out a shhhhhh’ing sound to try and scare him off, but he started to circle me in a 2m radius ok finally im done pissing!! yes, i grabbed my bag and hopped on my bike fast i couldnt get my pack around my shoulder and it swun back down towards my handle bars, fuck the strap is caught in the wheel as im frantically pedalling away, FUCK the skunk is charging at me as i look back,,k after a nightmare few seconds of trying to get my strap out of my wheel, as the skunk is barrelling down the path at me its only 1m away and i can see its eyes glowing. Finally my strap breaks free of the wheel, with one swift motion i swung my bag over my shoulder mounted my bike and rode off into the woods. before the skunk got me.

wow what a rush, obviously i was creeping in on his home and taking a piss at his tree he prolly wasnt too happy with the idea of someone moving in on his terrotory but whew, it made me laugh so hard after that i was tripping so hard about not getting sprayed by him.

I carried on my way. and for a good while i just biked, no direction or aims, just rode through the darkness as a king and his horse. the woods guided me to the exit and i made my way to the street, i was just crossing the street when i saw a pretty big frog down below, i immediately parked my bike to the side and watched him, i thought to myself id love to hold him, but then part of me thought that would scare him, i watched his throat bulge up and down as he sat there, and as i approached he stopped. BUt at this point i decided that he can feel the energy around him and know there is no dager from me, i grabbed for him, he slipped right through my hands the first couple of grabs but i got him this time,kneeling on the ground i opened up my hand and he jumped right out. My warrior instincts took over at this point and i grabbed him again , and this timei raised my hands up to my eye level, and then i released my grip on him. Excactly as i thought he wouldnt jump out becuase we’re too high, i told him i was sorry for disturbing his peace but i wanted to to touch him. he was responsless to me, and he made me laugh as i knew he wasnt going to budge., I lowered my hands to the ground and he stayed there for a sec, and then with one big leap he jumped into the bushes, off to share his encounter with me to his companions.

I eventually returned to my home, and started to trouble shoot my dads vpn problem, time is running out and i gave my word that i would fix it. Im happy to report that the xp install is about 90^ done now, and the xplite seed worked like a charm, on that spare ide drive that i found kicking. and its like 7:00 now everything working perfect dad is actually eating breaky and lookin foward to a stable VPN.

Love to Live