We start in LA, hanging out for a day on the way to Australia and New Zealand with my family. Since I'm at Princeton it's okay to keep wearing the tiger t-shirt as an adult.
The wallabys are friendly. Watch out for emus though.
We went to see Milfod sound, which Rudyard Kipling called the eighth wonder of the world. Better yet, it's an actual fjord.
We stayed in Queenstown, which is an adventure travel spot and right near where they filmed lord of the rings. We stayed out of mordor.
New Zealand is Opposite Land, so they had skiing in the summer, but only if you put actual chains on the car. Which is standard transmission, and must be driven on the incorrect side of the road.
Heli-skiing.
Let's see, now we're in junior year. We lived on what was called the fifth floor, but was in fact up six flights of stairs. We had the whole floor though. Henry Hall. They filmed part of A Beautiful Mind in our courtyard in the spring, but I had already fled the country by then.
I started playing ultimate.
That was good.
We spent fall break in LA. The Price is Right was involved. It turns out shipping a year's supply of frozen pizza is not tenable.
Studying up ahead of time.
We hung out at Joshua Tree. No Bono though.
I spent the spring semester on a field course in Panama. We lived in an old schoolhouse next to the canal. We kept playing ultimate. Ever since then I don't mind playing in the heat so much.
We spent most of our time in the rainforest for the first few weeks.
90210: Panama
This is an old Swedish logging camp where we went to study the temperate forest near the continental divide.
We spent a lot of time tooling around in Panama City. Only a few other students could drive stick, so I was often chauffeur.
For spring break we had our own island and ate whatever they caught that day.
And on to a little archeology.
The last part of the semester was a course on tropical reef ecology. This is where we stayed.
Don't worry, I didn't get sunburned. Seasick, that's another story.
And we end in Hawaii, where I spent the summer doing field work on a project studying endangered native Hawaiian birds.
I worked at a marathon where we had to scrub the runners' shoes so they didn't introduce nonnative vegetation to the park.
I went on a hike with some other interns to a beach only accessible by foot or boat. The valley was later used as a Top Chef location. They took a helicopter.
Probably should have broken in my hiking boots ahead of time.
That's an actual Hawaiian bird, in my clutches. For science.
Tomorrow: senior year; back down under
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