Travel Time Island
Working Money Internet

started getting into a new routine with my fast travel internet: downloading flicks. Saw one that seemed interesting, and after I started watching it for a while reminded me of a flick I thought you were recommending while on this beach: Wall E. Had to chuckle while watching it cause it seemed just the kind of movie that you would love watching. I particularly liked the message from Disney for Americans to get off their fat lazy arses and stop consuming so much, and do something for their environment instead of watching TV all the time.

Well, just finished watching it and had to send ya a note. But I'm also glad about this new fast internet I've found. For two years I was struggling to survive, wondering how I would get fast internet, thinking it might be some expensive satellite deal, but this is so simple and perfect. Now just to get a mobile signal booster, antenna and all that sorta stuff, for about 300 bucks. Realisable. Think I was the first pea on the pod but within a few years it should be relatively easy to live this sorta lifestyle.

Have a good one!

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Well that sucks. On the other hand, I think Keta said you guys were paying 3000$ a month for rent, which is quite a bit. I've gone up and down bumpy and impoverished roads for the past ten years, but one thing I did realise during all of that that I really do not need success and tons of money to be happy. Spiritually happy. Then again, I was pursuing that as well. But even without that I think you guys will find that you can get real mean and lean, cut out a lot of fat, and find that you can be quite content drinking cheap beers, and have a roof over your head, rent the occasional video etc. I think you guys have been flying high for quite a long time and will find that you don't need a lot of stuff that you might think you now need for your happiness. It's just too bad you will be living in that stinky area of Prague, which you do not like. I found Vinohrady with all its trees and parks at least a bit tolerable. If possible, I would suggest you try to rent out your flat in Prague and rent for something cheaper some cottage or whatever out in the countryside, perhaps around Cikina. It's only a half hour drive to Prague. Or buy and reconstruct something, so that you have two places in PRague. Give yourselves something to do, work on a preoccuppy yourself. And most importantly relax and get away from the hustle and bustle. Personally I've had enough of it. Sure, some young folks joke that I'm getting old, but I've partied my face off more than most people my entire life and just grew tired of it. In my truck I can be more productive, get some good work done, stay away from a billion friends who constantly want to go out for beer etc., just have my occasional beer, and see the occasional friend. But those have simply become my priorities and I do not think it is because I'm getting old. I have just reflected on all that Ihave accomplished my ten years in Prague and it seems like a lot of endless blab blab blab and getting drunk. If you hate Prague and cant sleep etc., I think it is worth it to try some project out in the country. But I realise things are getting expensive there etc. But it doesn't have to be a palace. Nothing wrong with spending your time in a quaint little cottage. Just look at the pile of rubble we will be working on in Greece. You can always sell it or rent it once you get cash and can move up to something more fancy. But I also realise that you guys like the operas and socialising etc, and having fancy pads. Anyway, happiness is the most important of everything, and you really don't need a lot of money for that.

I've been bummed out and frustrated myself these past two years that I am not being really successful and that I have to count pennies etc., but I've learned to just accept it, not let it bother me, and continue my work in earnestness. I am more fortunate than most because I actually enjoy what I do, so I can just keep working, survive off roughly 10 bucks a day, and remain relatively happy and preoccuppied.

Glad that Jana enjoyed my postcards and hope that she is doing okay.

My plan now is to leave around the 16th, when my second prepaid month of internet will run dry.

Actually, one thing just occurred to me. If you are not so poor, I'm trying to buy something from the US for around 300 bucks. It's a mobile signal booster. I can get quite fast internet practically anywhere with my new mobile modem, but it can be difficult and sporadic. I have to have it pointed the exact right way. The farther I am away from a transmitter the more difficult it is to get a good and fast connection. This booster can apparently increase the signal fifteen fold, which is perfect. I am afraid I might get to Greece somewhere in the middle of nowhere and have problems with internet. Anyway, just an idea, and who knows if it will be necessary. But I've been dreaming how I could have fast internet while traveling, always thinking I need some fancy satellite system for 5000$, and set up a stupid dish somewhere everytime I move, and store this stupid dish with me somewhere, and then the expensive monthly charges. But this 3G modem is small, perfect and fast. It's just the signal can be weak, and you can imagine I'm happier when I can park in remote areas, not have to drive to town every day, and just go for the occasional jog along the beach, stopping by the grocery store on my way back. That is about as perfect a life I can imagine for myself, except that I’m lacking the occasional friendship. But I’ve learned to become adept at offering free English lessons or something like that, in exchange for the occasional commeraderie. Or just to meet locals in pubs occasionally, or help them out with different things and quickly make some friendships. Of course the language barrier can often hinder a juicy conversation. Otherwise friends occasionally come for a visit and that is cool. For my friend visiting here last I tried to set up an internet network so that he could have fast internet as well, but there were some glitches I could not resolve, so we had to share the antenna. But there was plenty of sun power to power both laptops during the day, and in time I can resolve the glitches and set up the network. But I have to laugh how I can survive in such beautiful conditions. If I were not so tech saavy, including fixing the caravan truck etc., I cannot imagine I’d be able to survive doing this. Or I’d just have to be rich and pay others to help me. But I’m learning a lot all the time and it interests me.

Another problem in my situation is that I constantly have to be on the move. I’m finding it kind of pathetic how governments always have to be so anal about how long I stay etc. Last time I crossed the border they gave me 90 days, which was perfect, but I was going to hook up and play chess with Tomas my Czech-American friend and he wanted to go to the Greek side, because he’s trying to get laid with some Czech girl there. So because of his desperate penis I let myself cross the border, against my instincts and that little voice inside me, and sure enough the cow at the border gave me only 2 days and said I have to get a permit to stay and all sorts of nonsense. It was apparent that she was either a rookie or thought she was very cool and powerful. So today I have to cross into the south side, and I don’t have insurance, and it is a scary nuisance. They already stopped me a few times and said I was supposed to be paying customs on my caravan truck every month, or some nonsense like that. Other times I tell them I travel between both sides of the island and don’t live here, which is true, so why should I pay customs. I certainly did not import the vehicle. Anyway, various things were happening, this Greek gig came up, and overall I’m feeling my days here are numbered. My plan was to eat up the rest of my internet credit until roughly half way through December, by which time I’d have insurance for the south side, my insurance on the north side would be almost expired, things would be timed nicely, and I’d try to take a ferry to Greece. But car ferries apparently don’t work this time of year so I’d try roll on roll off (shipping), and see if I can sleep in the beautiful caravan truck during. Apparently possible but will require smooth talking. But I think some cop once told me that I cannot get off the island from the Greek side if I got on the Turkish side. Their endless pride and this stupid supposed war and the Turkish occupation. So I will certainly require some fancy talking and wheeling and dealing, but that just makes this existence more interesting. If that fails I’ll drive to the capital, keep my truck on the south side, walk across to the police station and see what charges they will want out of me. If it will be too much, I’ll simply stay on the Greek side for a while, perhaps, and I think they have 3G internet there now too. I’ve been downloading movies and working constantly while on internet, and it has been great. Hopefully that will keep up.

But today I must cross, I’ll probably hang out for a few days on the Greek side until the two days are over, and cross in again. Trying a more remote border crossing. But I just find it stupid how I have to play these stupid games. I think that in time travelers like me will be more common and they might be more willing to let me stay longer and not hassle me, when they realize I have my own income and just spend my money in their country. Right now I’m quite an oddity and many times they just scratch their head and don’t know what to do with me. But, from my perspective, you can imagine how I perceive all these governments archaic, racist and closed, when the future will probably be different. Nothing wrong against humans moving around the world. So I’m one of the first peas out of the pod as usual, but I like being the missionary, or at least living an interesting life rather than the standard Joe Schmuck who goes to work every day and has to deal with someone constantly breathing down his neck etc.

Well, hope things work out for you guys. It actually feels good to get lean and mean once in a while. The leaner I get, the lighter I feel. It felt rehabilitating to go through all my stuff when I was moving from Prague and sort out what I was going to give away, sell, recycle, take with me, or throw in the garbage. As I held each of those things I accumulated during my ten year stay in Prague, I relived the moment, and then felt refreshed when I could just get rid of it in some way, until all I had was some bare essentials (the musical instruments took up a lot of room) in a little electrically connected truck, and I washed myself of all that stagnating accumulation I’ve built up in Prague over the years. Anyway, hope everything works out for you guys!

How are you???? still on your beach or leaving for the construction??? We came back from Dominican Rep. very nice, very inexpesive, clean and pleasant in the resort. Outside horribly poor and dirty. We went for a rest and no phones and stress. Vlad's 65th. Well, we were stressed, we fought (on his brithday) I snapped and lost my cool. Came back to this construction and loans and lawyers and accountants. Not very good for couple of years if we are lucky. But we can not hold on for several years so today I gave notice , called movers and called airlines. We will move all our stuff in the unfinished house, leave the car there and go to Praha where we have an apartment and can live for a fraction of our expenses here. Even when it is getting expensive in Praha as well. So we will move in a month I will cancell my french lessons ( I took to excercise my lazy brain). I did not tell Keta yet that will be gone for Christmas again. But she is very independent anyway. We will be gone for 3 months. I will go to England from Praha to see Jana. She is not doing well at all. I am a coward and do not call Simona so she can not tell me more bad news. Jana has some side effects to all her chemo and medications. But the good news is that she had a CT scan and it came with improvemet of her condition. So all may be good for a while. I will go there and make her happy I hope. She keeps talking about you and how nice it was to hav e you there and How good you were to all of them. So you can sleep well because you are a good person and everybody likes you. (I hope your frined who is staying with you still likes you:):):):) Vlad is having a talk with his builder right now about that we have to stop construction because the $$$$$$$$ dried out. Hope it will go well. So next time write I will be more cheerful, It just got to me now. I have to go and have a drink with them. xxxxxxxooooooomamamamamama

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so looks like I got things partially sorted, and hopefully it will not turn into some hell operation getting out of here. The main thing that pisses me off is that I let myself be swayed and didn't listen to my gut feelings, when my alarm signals went off when you wanted to go to the south side. I had a bad feeling about it and should have just said no. Anyway, I crossed and Tumblybumbly or whatever its called, hung out for a bit, was prepared to stay longer, but my 3G modem decided to stop working, so I had to go back. Furthermore, there was no bank machine on the Greek side of the town and I wasn't about to drive around the south without insurance.

They gave me another nonsensical two days and said it was because I was crossing the border too often, and had to go to Nicosia and get a permit or something, which I had already tried once but failed. I decided I’m not going to screw around with any stupid bureaucracy, just parked my truck on the north side, walked across, had a beer, and then walked back later using my Canadian passport. So I have 90 days now, but there is a risk when I cross back into the south, as sometimes they want to punch my licence plate number into their computer. In which case I assume it will show up and I’ll get into trouble.

Anyway, I got one month left here, the weather is getting cloudy, and I’ve been two years on the road, which is about the maximum duration these caravan batteries survive. It has a problem charging up fully over the day, lasting fully over the evening, and I have to resort to using my laptop batteries. But I cant charge my laptop batteries during the day because there is barely enough sun to charge my caravan battery. So I was thinking that perhaps I could go the occasional evening to your place, play chess, cook ya dinner, and charge my laptop batteries. We can even screw around with the 3G modem thing and get it working on your Mac computer, so you don’t have to deal with this headache by yourself if you choose to buy a modem for yourself. And do you have an external harddrive? Based on my sister’s strong recommendation I download a Czech documentary about the 1968 Communist invasion – about 5 gigs in size. Perhaps you might enjoy watching that sometime.

Well, hope to see ya soon and get some games in before I get outa here. I truly feel the count down on my departure. latero

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I should be here in Cyprus another month and then the plan is to drive to Greece to work on Hasher Roger's (Bird's Eye) attached house. Looks like quite the challenge, doesn't it? Then maybe follow him to Bulgaria for the summer and work on one of his six houses there. Should be a good learning experience, as I think I'd like to do the same one day, and it will be good to have a steady stream of cash and to be able to translate in between, if something come in. So such a long spell should be good for me financially. I made about 10,500$ over the summer planting, but then it cost me a lot to fly out there, and get set up with equipment and insurance, and other costs, so three months wasn't really enough time to make the exercise worthwhile, and not sure if I'd be able to handle much more than three months, both physically and mentally. Plus I think my days here on this island are seriously getting numbered. A lot of strange things are starting to happen to me, such as a gun pulled on my head once on the beach, so I think the signs are coming in from the universe to GET OUTA HERE!!!

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think from time to time how you suggested I spend 20 minutes a day writing little piddly things about my daily events. Honestly can't imagine my life would be that interesting on a daily level that I would write that much, but think I've formulated a viable alternative. One is I've started a "Reflections of my Travels" page, where I just jot down little reflections that come to my mind. The most various things that I cannot effectively incorporate into a streaming blog type story, but which are nevertheless interesting and often reveal little things about individual cultures and localities. One which comes to my mind and which I think is humorous, although which does not reveal anything about the local culture, is my recent discovery about crapping in the ocean. Took me a while to figure it out, perhaps because I'm so naturally anal about opening my but hole to the elements, but eventually I found this squatting position and float with my ass practically poking out of the water, casually breast stroking my way forward with my arms. Often I'll wear my goggles and get a chuckle when I peak under water, as there is a long chain of fishies following behind me and devouring my poopoo. When I told my recent visitor about this he became an instant fan, but told me that he prefers the side stroke. So I got a chuckle out of that and thought it could be a humorous addition to the reflections page. Another reflections example is how I like to swim upside down and move "forward" while pretending to walk on the surface of the water. the wavy surface with the sun's light bending through it, and I pretend to walk as I swim forward with my arms. Quite a surreal way to look at things, but just little tidbits that occasionally come to mind and I'll have to start writing them down.

The other way I'm adding to my blob is by the long letters I write to everyone (like this one). So whenever I write to someone I keep this in mind, trying to make it interesting in a way to everyone, and I organise it according to subject (travel blob archive email, or computer tips archive email, etc. etc.). That way I'm getting greater use of all this letter writing I do. But to forcibly sit down every day and try to spend 20 minutes writing about some of the day's nonsense, I really cant imagine what interesting things I could write about. Anyway, back to work.

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don’t want you to think I’m chewing you out or anything and hope we can deal with this like “conversation”, but some bug has been crawling around in my brain, surfacing and scratching once in a while, and I woke up this morning with some other thoughts in my head, so I thought I’d just pour it out, like conversation as I said.

Getting back to when you were almost scolding me for feeding that kitty, or like you were busy trying to “train” it not to sit on the park bench, which is rather absurd considering you were only there for a couple of days and you couldn’t possibly train it for life, or train it at all, because the cat would certainly not listen to you the next time someone comes along and wants to feed it and pat it, just like your own cat wouldn’t even listen to you when I feed it when you are not there. Cats are independent and like that, and I doubt you can indoctrinate the creatures to behave a certain way when you are not there.

Anyway, not too long ago I decided I was going to try harder to give to charity. I always wanted and intended to, but I never really had extra cash, and always pumped it back into my business on the premise that things will take off and that much sooner will I be able to throw loads of funds to some charity. But it occurred to me that perhaps God was not impressed with that argument, and no matter how poor I am, I should always be able to set aside the minimum prescribed 10%. After all, people need help now and in the present, not at some point in the future when my translation business is running well and successful. And when I did have flurries of cash, I always seemed to have such a long list of things I felt I “needed”. And perhaps it is because of this approach that God has not been helping me these last few years. So I made a decision to make a concerted decision to at least achieve this 10%, and hope that God will start to help me with my translation business. Wrong motivation for giving to charity, I agree, but like I said, I have always wanted to give to charity, out of my compassion and desire. And for this I came up with a new moto: “Do unto others as I would hope God would do unto me.”

Anyway, pretty well at EXACTLY the time this conclusion came to me, a straggly starving, ribby and so hungry it wabbled when it walked dog showed up and started sleeping under my truck. As if God’s response to my thoughts was, “Really, than show yourself. I’m sending you an opportunity.” So I started buying dog food and feeding the poor soul. Then I had to pick up my visiting friend, we went around the island for a week, and when I got back he was gone – later to find out that he made friends with the restaurant dude down the street and now is being fed by them, together with the other five dogs.

But most recently two new dogs showed up under my truck – looked like a dad and its little hobbly kid. Both in fact were hobbling from hunger, rather scraggly, and about 80% of their fur was dangling and falling off, perhaps from lack of food. Don’t know. Anyway, just last night I bought some more dog food, and I fill up a jug with water from the local sink and give the little doggy that after it has filled its tummy.

And it reminds me of how a few locals had pointed out to me what a hot and dry summer it has been, with the global warming and changing weather patterns and all that, and how they said all the animals on the island are suffering because they cannot find water so easily. Others say that at least the cats can eat lizards, but they don’t know how the dogs survive. I’ve seen several dogs trying to catch the gecko and their pretty useless at it. I’ve seen a pack of dogs wade out into the sea on a hot day and cool off, only to scamper back into the bush when some scary human was walking towards them along the beach. I’ve taken many a crap behind a bush and often found it dug up and appears eaten the next day, especially the days after when I had one of those chicken rolls and a lot of meat. Yes, disgusting, but all the more do they deserve my compassion, if they have to resort to eating my shit.

After all, what do you think they have to eat on this island? I don’t see any wild animals running around. I think that most of the cats and dogs survive off of human garbage. Is that a crime? What other choice do they have? Should they be punished only because their parents were following their natural urges? What is wild about any of the creatures living on this island? They are just a product of focking and trying to survive.

So not only does it seem a bit unreasonable and uncompassionate to not feed these poor creatures, on the premise that they are “wild” and should not get lazy and dependent on people (people, in fact, are the laziest of all the creatures on this planet, and dependent on other people for food), but there is nothing really wild about his small island, or any other choice out there for them to survive on. Not to mention that you yourself have a cat, and feed it every day, and it is fully dependent on you. So it seems a little absurd that you would draw such an adamant line and say, “This cat is domesticated, so it is okay, but this cat is wild, and must learn to fend for itself.” Okay, I can agree about bears, who might eat people if they got used to eating their garbage, or other wild or potentially dangerous animals in British Colombia, but not these cats and dogs, such as the dogs in Bulgaria which make up 10% of the population.

In fact, I would take this even a step further. Considering how we humans have infested and overpopulated this planet like a virus, and consume it to extinction with our lazy overconsumption, and destroy it with our negligence to nature. With all the trees we cut down we are taking away the natural habitat of all these creatures, and even our native selves who have lived a certain way for tens of thousands of years. So we should have an obligation to these creatures, not just stuff our own faces with whatever we see before us. In fact, I have imagined it would be nice to let animals live in cities and create some sort of symbiosis and habitat for them there. It would be nice to have streets lined with trees and tweety birds chirping away in an often stark and drab, concrete city. We should learn to live on this planet with the other creatures and inhabitants of it, and not just throw them all into caged fences for us to gawk at for our entertainment and offer icecream through the barrier.

Anyway, obviously I rambled on, but I’ll just throw this up on one of my pages anyway in case you didn’t feel like reading it all. Not chewing you out but just spewing out my thoughts, as I’m back to being on my own a lot again and need the “conversation” from time to time. latergator

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