The highlight of the three weeks was without a doubt the four days we spend in the island of Kauai. Kauai is the oldest islands of Hawaii and also known as the Garden Isle because of the flourishing nature found here. Its one of the wettest spots in the world and the massive amounts of water has shaped the rock into what is called pali in Hawaiian. On this picture you can see the palis:

Fernando had gotten hold of permits for us to hike the Kalalau Trail. The trail follows the the massive windswept Na Pali coastline overlooking lush green valleys and towering rocky cliffs that rises almost 1200 meters to the deep blue pacific below. The trail is 11 miles (18km) long and winds it way along the cliffs in a very varied landscape with rain forest, desert and rocky cliffs. The trail is almost never straight but moves up and down, in and out. The view is spectacular and around each corner awaits new wonders.

It was hot and humid to do the hike so we drank a lot of water. Luckily there are plenty of streams and creeks on the trail so we could refill our bottles.

Also there were plenty of guava trees and a few mango trees so we could get some fresh fruit as we walked.

It took us 8 and a half hour to walk in and the reward was amazing. I was very busted and enjoyed just chilling on the beach for the rest of the day.

We had our camp in shade of trees close to the waterfall were we got fresh water and showers when it got to hot to sit in the sun.

And the beach was of course beautiful.

We spend a day on the beach and the hiked back the next day. Here was what we looked like after having walked back to civilization.

A truly amazing trip.

Im back in Prague after three fantastic weeks in Hawaii. We did a lot of different things over there. I took about 350 pictures that I am working on uploading and tagging plus some videos which I might edit together. There will be a couple of posts about the trip coming up later.

I went over to visit friends from IAESTE Michigan 2005-2006. Here is the gang we got together, from left: Alberto, me, Ivan, Femi and Fernando (who got a job in Hawaii and hosted us).

• Home in prague. Finally5:30 PM Aug 23rd, 2007
• Its 2 am in warsaw – dont really know what time my brain think it is. We hope to get on a train at 7am so another 5 to go. Out drinking…2:07 AM Aug 23rd, 2007
• In warsaw now after going through LA and paris. Last leg of the trip is a train to prague. Luggage still in paris – that sucks!10:08 PM Aug 22nd, 2007
• Our trip is over and we are on the way back to prague. The total travel time will probably be 40 hours. Damn. We’ve reached LA so far.3:10 AM Aug 22nd, 2007
• Yesterday we went to Volcanoes National Park and saw how the Big Island is still growing as the lava continues to pour out.8:20 PM Aug 18th, 2007
• We made it to Big Island picked up a car and have just arrived at our camp ground.6:54 AM Aug 16th, 2007
• Just got up. Its raining this morning. We are on our way to the Big Island today.7:14 PM Aug 15th, 2007
• Category 2 hurricane flossie is heading to hawaii. Most likely it will stay 50 miles off so we should be safe.10:56 AM Aug 15th, 2007
• Sunset beach all day. Chilled. Got drunk. Swam. Chilled. Life’s good.7:16 AM Aug 15th, 2007
• Yesterday ivan arrived from minneapolis. Good to see him and now we are five :-)7:46 AM Aug 14th, 2007
• Kalalua beach is a paradise. A big beach, camping in the shade of trees and a waterfall for fresh water and shover. Mountains surround t …7:29 AM Aug 14th, 2007
• The hike was awesome. Hard but awesome. After 11 miles of walking up and down valleys along the shore we came to the kalalua beach.7:19 AM Aug 14th, 2007
• Back on oahu after four days on kauai hiking. Gotta sleep10:55 AM Aug 13th, 2007
• Found an Internet cafe today – lovely!2:08 AM Aug 10th, 2007
• Went to pearl harbour today to see the Arizona battleship. The ship got a direct hit and sunk with more than 1100 of its sailors7:02 AM Aug 9th, 2007
• Went to kaulai today and rented sea kayaks. Sailed not to some islands. Nice day.10:07 AM Aug 8th, 2007
• Spend the day yesterday at waikiki beach. Beautiful place.8:04 PM Aug 7th, 2007
• I bought a new camera today. Its another canon – those guys seems to work for me. Look out for pictures when i get online (that could be …6:42 AM Aug 6th, 2007
• Yesterday we went to waimea beach on the north shore of Oahu. During winter this is one of the best surfing spots oh the world.5:13 AM Aug 6th, 2007
• Today has been chilled. We went into chinatown for breakfast and went to the market to get some fish and seafood for tonight.4:49 AM Aug 6th, 2007
• Jetlag got me us at 5.30. After breakfast we took a trip around oahu and ended up at a beach were we hung out the rest of the day.8:54 AM Aug 5th, 2007
• Finally we got out of the airport. Of course our suit cases was not there. But fuck that we are hitting the bars now B-)10:20 AM Aug 4th, 2007
• After 24 hours, 11 time zones and maybe 2600 miles we are in hawaii. Aloha!8:37 AM Aug 4th, 2007
• Oh Its great to be back in US. We are still only in seattle airport but still its great to be back in The Land Of The Free.1:33 AM Aug 4th, 2007
• Chasing the sun around the world. Left paris at 13 in seattle at 15. Hope they got good coffee here12:02 AM Aug 4th, 2007
• Oui oui we are in paris. Airport food is robbery.12:00 PM Aug 3rd, 2007
• Two days ago was the anniversary of the warsaw rising. The citizen stood up and fought the nazis. Intersting history6:41 AM Aug 3rd, 2007
• Yesterday gosja gave us a tour of the town. First on foot and them driving at night. The city grew on me. Like to check it out again.6:39 AM Aug 3rd, 2007
• I meet gosja a couple of weeks ago on the canoe trip. She is a graphical designer studying tv production.6:33 AM Aug 3rd, 2007
• Rise and shine. Its 4.30. After a couple of hours sleep we are back up ready for the big travel day.4:37 AM Aug 3rd, 2007
• Cruzing warsaw. Cool place but not much different vibe than prague/cntr europe.10:18 PM Aug 2nd, 2007
• We are staying im warsaw for the night. Flighing out tomorrow at 7 5:27 PM Aug 2nd, 2007
• We arrived im Warsaw. Gosja picked us up from the station and we are on the way to her place.5:19 PM Aug 2nd, 2007
• Hunter s. Thompson: The Rum Diary is my literature for the ride as we cross the border to poland1:21 PM Aug 2nd, 2007
• Yesterday i went with the IAESTE gang. A couple of them are leaving prague and will not be there when i get back. Goodbyes are always a  8:37 AM Aug 2nd, 2007
• First leg of the travel is from Prague, Czech Republic to Warsaw, Poland. An 8½ hour train ride.6:40 AM Aug 2nd, 2007
• The bags are packed. Tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 8 we are taking the train to Warsaw and the day after (Friday) we jump on the plane.11:36 PM Aug 1st, 2007
• Hawaii is approaching way too fast. I’m not ready! Leaving for Warsaw in 30 hours!12:44 AM Aug 1st, 2007

So things are starting to get in place now for this years holiday and boy, am I looking forward to this one! Today the ticket finally arrived as you see.

The trip has been in the works for the past year since Fernando got a job as an engineer in Hawaii. Ever since then the big goal has been to make a trip over to visit him with the gang.
Luckily we have managed to get five of the guys together for this awesome holiday.

Today we have been laying out the plans for what we are going to do. Good times. We were sitting in four different time zones and making the plan in Google Spreadsheet. Fernando sitting on Hawaii, Ivan in Minneapolis, Alberto in Tennessee, and Femi and me in Prague. The plans include a trip to Na Pali Coast, Volcanoes NP and camping on The Big Island.

Its going to be good times with good people

I participated last year and will try to see if I can produce another 7 videos this week. Some of the videos will probably be old material but I promise that it will be material that I havent published before so hang in there this week and enjoy

The first video is from the start of a roadtrip I did with my parents a year ago. The trip went from Wisconsin through Michigan to Niagara Falls. My plan was to making a movie about the whole trip but I ended up just taking photos instead. But here is the first (and only) episode of our travelougue.

My blog posts about the trip are here (all in Danish):

• Det gode skib Freedom
• Livet på landevejen
• Michigan og Canada

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2007, vlogging,videodk

Tirsdag mødtes jeg med Julianna, som jeg havde mødt til Baltimore-konferencen. Hun tog mig med på SFMOMA, en Titanic udstilling og til Chinatown.

Og så blev det tid til fodbold! I huset hvor jeg boede var også Fernando fra Brasilien, og han fik det hele gjort klar til en stor fest på terrassen.

Moster mindede mig om at Maja var i byen, og det lykkedes at fange hende og Bodil den sidste dag jeg var i byen.

Torsdag tog jeg med Julianna til Sacramento, hvor jeg hoppede på en Greyhound bus til Salt Lake City.

På en af de mindre landeveje hvor der næsten ingen biler var, slap heldet op for os og vi blev stoppet af politiet.

Af en eller anden grund slap Tom dog med en advarsel selvom han kørte 15 miles over fartgrænsen – nogle gange skal man være heldig.

De næste tre dage tilbragte vi i forskellige nationalparker i det sydlige Utah. Det storslående i landskabet kan ikke rigtig fanges med et kamera, men jeg tog stadig masser af billeder så her er et par stykker. Først fra Arches NP.

Så kørte vi off-road i Canyonland NP.

Derefter blev det Bryce Canyon NP hvor vi hikede ned til bunden og tilbage op igen.

Og til sidst tog vi Zion NP, hvor vi gik ind i det der kaldes The Narrows, som er en kløft dannet af en flod. Det er et meget imponerende sted hvor man går i en meget snæver kløft. Nogle gange går man i vand til brystet andre gange kan kan man finde pletter hvor man kan gå tørskoet.

Den sidste dag jeg var i Utah tog vi op i bjergene omkring Salt Lake City og skød med pistoler. Det er en af de ting der har stået på min to-do liste af ting der skulle prøves i USA og endelig kom jeg til at skyde.

Tom og Edyta havde en 9mm Walther, en .40 Walther, et haglgevær og en riffel, og jeg fik prøvet det hele

Skægt og skræmmende på samme tid

Efter at have kørt med Ramashis bil i fire dage var vores færd sammen (og mit hjem i hans bil) ved at være ved en ende. Det gik for alvor op for mig, da vi sent torsdag kørte ned fra et af bjergene, der tegner sig på østsiden af San Francisco. Fra at have kørt i relativ mørke åbnede der sig et lyshav foran os og vi kan se ud over meget af det, der kaldes Bay Area.

Jeg har ikke brugt lang tid på at forberede min rejse til vestkysten, så der er en anseelig grad af improvisation undervejs.
Jeg havde et par venners venner jeg kunne bo ved, men jeg havde ikke fået svar fra dem endnu, da vi nåede St. Louis, så i stedet startede jeg med at kontakte kollektiver. Vores hus er en del af den nationale organisation NASCO, og derfor prøvede jeg at kontakte andre kollektiver fra samme organisation, for at se om de kunne huse mig. Imens vi var på landevejen, ringede jeg til en række forskellige kollektiver, og endelig lykkedes det mig at finde et sted i Berkeley.

Så vi var på motorvejen på vej mod lysbadet af San Francisco og jeg havde skriblet nogle vejvisninger til et sted, hvor jeg tror jeg kan sove og så er det tankerne kommer Hvad laver jeg her? Hvad er det jeg har gang i?

Motorvejene i Californien er hurtige, så jeg nåede ikke at tænke så meget før min afkørsel kom. Huset jeg skulle overnatte i hed Oscar Wilde House og da jeg kom, var de godt i gang med en open-mic/karaoke aften, hvor folk optrådte med forskellige ting. Folk tog godt imod mig selv om jeg ikke kendte nogen af dem og jeg kunne sove på en madras i deres tv-rum.

Dagen efter gik jeg en tur rundt i Berkeley og på University of California campus, som ligger flot midt i Berkeley bydelen.

Om aftenen tog jeg ind til San Francisco for at se promoveringen af vloggercon i AppleStore, hvor jeg også mødte Andreas fra Aalborg.

Senere samme aften fik jeg kontakt til Lyn, som også boede i San Francisco, og hvor jeg kunne låne et værelse for de næste par dage. Lyn har studeret i Stockholm i et par år, så han kunne snakke svensk og da jeg vågnede lørdag morgen blev jeg mødt af et Dannebrog udenfor mit vindue.

Der bor ca. otte i huset, som er et typisk San Francisco hus fra begyndelsen af forrige århundrede her med Jennifers boble i forgrunden. Så bliver det ikke mere Californian.

(Dette indlæg er en uge gammel. Jeg er tilbage i Ann Arbor, men har først nu haft tid til at opdatere, så der kommer et par opdateringer de næste par dage)

Her er en lille video fra køreturen til vestkysten:

Det var rigtig fedt at se mine forældre igen og vi havde en god uge sammen, samtidig med at vi oplevede en masse. Se alle billederne fra turen her.