Brighter Horizons : travelling

As Promised - New Zealand

walshy — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Well it's been a while since I got back, but I've finally got round to uploading some photos from my time in New Zealand, with Sabs, Kate, Lem, Chalky, and Bessey (our trusty ride).

There are lots of photos on flickr, but here is a quick sampler:

Team New Zealand

Driving in Bessey

Cruising the "Clear Blue" Waters

Baylys Beach, 8km from Dingy Dargaville

When you don't have an Esky

Sunset Magic

In other words... it was awesome!

Motorcade Madness

walshy — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:00:00 GMT

Well Cheney's in town, stirring up the lefties and causing traffic chaos. I saw his motorcade go past today while I was walking in the city. The motorcycle police seemed to be having a jolly-good time, angle-grinding their bikes as they skidded dangerously fast onto George St.

The motorcade itself however was pretty tame, at least compared to the one I saw in Berlin for Condoleeza Rice. Why don't you play count the policemen (thanks Graham for the footage):

Being a Church that Welcomes - Sacrificially

walshy — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 07:25:00 GMT

Ok, so it's been a while since my last post. But what with all the travelling, restarting Sunday School and then the engagement party, I've been a little busy.

The Vietnam Memorial, Washington DC

I've uploaded some of my favourite photos from America onto Flickr. I'll put the NZ ones up a little later. What I want to share today though, are some more stories from my travels.

If you ever go travelling, may I strongly suggest that you try and find a local church each Sunday. You'll meet great people, learn more from the bible, and be encouraged as you see how God is working all over the world. [1]

On my trip I stopped at four churches:

A family church in the UK on Christmas Eve (where the Pastor looked just like Mr Bean in Keeping Mum)
An English speaking Anglican church in Madrid (we're talking hymn-book, robes, communal cup)
Jman's church in NYC (Justin spoke on , except now he gets to pronounce "wrath" the American way)
A Baptist church in Washington DC (which I didn't know at the time is actually quite a famous evangelical church, pastored by Mark Dever)

The thing that challenged me the most however, was how welcoming most of the people in these churches were. In NYC I met some great people, including Lily and Brent, who graciously took me out to lunch after the service and filled me in on the best stuff to see.

And in Washington DC, I was invited back to someone's house for dinner, and then given a personal 2-hour tour of the US Capitol building by a Texan Congressman's intern named JD. I got to walk in the underground tunnels, stand in the magnificent (even by European standards) Rotunda, and watch Congress in session (which you can only do if you're invited by a Congressman or their staff). As a West-Wing fan, it was truly one of the highlights of my trip, and I'm so grateful for JD for taking the time to show me round.

Me and JD "on the hill"

All-in-all I was overwhelmingly impressed by how welcoming these churches were, and challenged to be more welcoming myself to newcomers at 645. I think it's sad that people could easily walk into our church, sit in the corner, and walk out again without anyone noticing them.

We can so be more sacrificial in the way that we welcome people. If you meet someone new on Sunday, why not invite them to wherever you're going after church. If they are anything like me, I'm sure they'd greatly appreciate it.

[1] And btw, if your thinking of doing some traveling, be sure to check out Tubeo's site: http://www.backpocketbible.com. There are lots of great tips about staying strong in the faith while on the road.

New York by Numbers

walshy — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 05:21:00 GMT

118.32 - Number of hours I was in New York

24 - Cost of my best investment, a 7-day unlimited metro card

25 - Average temperate while I was in New York (in Fahrenheit)

Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park

103 - The street my hostel was on

11 - Number of quarters required to wash my clothes at said hostel

1 - Number of times I was offered drugs

Me and Jman after Biblestudy - Self Take

3 - Number of times I did something churchy (thanks Jman!)

60 - Time spent queuing at the Empire State Building (in seconds!)

2 - Number of shows I saw (Monty Python's Spamalot, and Stomp)

Walking back along Brooklyn Bridge

18 - Size of the pizza I shared under the Brooklyn Bridge (in Inches)

4 - Cost of a Hot Dog outside Central Park

1,000,000 - Number of Starbucks I must have walked past!

Ice Cubes

walshy — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:15:00 GMT

That's what my body has become. A shivering mess of frozen fingers and toes. I'm in Boston, and it's -15 degrees Celsius, with winds gusting up to 30mph - in other words, it's bloody cold! But no snow of course - just lots and lots of ice.

Seeing as I can't go outside, I thought I'd use this chance to share with you some of my favorite photos from my time in Europe. (I'll update y'all on my time in New York and Boston later).

Bull Fighting Statue in Sevilla

The Egyptian Temple in Madrid

Sunset over a Fountain in Madrid

Flamingo Dancing in Madrid

View from Mt Rigi Train in Switerland

The Swiss Flag, while Sailing to Lucerne

As always, there are more photos on my flickr.

Tomorrow I leave for Washington DC, where the weather forecast says there is a 20% chance of snow. I hope it does, for to go through Europe and America for 2 months in winter and not see any snow - what a tragedy that would be!

Sachsenhausen

walshy — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:55:00 GMT

We arrived by train, Graham and I, just as the prisoners would have. Sachsenhausen. It's just another town on the outskirts of Berlin, with normal people, in their normal houses, doing their normal things. But after just a short walk through the town, past the houses where the SS guards used to live, we arrive at the gate.

Arbeit macht frei. Work will make you free. We walk through into the centre of the camp. As I stand there, I try to visualise the tens of thousands of prisoners, standing at attention - tired, beaten, malnourished and scared. I try to visualise the guards as they call out the roll, and as they taunt and abuse the prisoners.

But I can't. It's all too hard. I know that in the very place I'm standing over 200,000 people once stood; most of whom eventually died in this camp, or at another. But I just can't imagine it. I mean, I'm standing here during the mildest winter on record, wearing a gazillion layers, and my butt is freezing!

After touring the camp - the barracks where the prisoners were crammed into, the cells for solitary confinement, the polls used for torture, the nooses, the electric fence running around the whole camp, the hospital where they carried out "medical experiments", and the cellar where they kept the bodies (you can still see the blood stains) - we headed out to station Z.

As the name suggests, this was the execution centre. Now Sachsenhausen was not a death camp like Auschwitz. People didn't come there to die, they came there to work. All the same, they did execute a mere 30,000 people at the camp. The picture below is of the trench which they would fill with prisoners, and then shoot into. Then other prisoners would have to clear out the trench, before going in themselves.

Eventually they would change this method - it was all too emotional, both for the soldiers and the inmates. Instead they built a building, invited prisoners in for a "medical check-up", and had them shot from behind while they were getting their height measured. It was easier that way.

Leaving the camp, I felt... disappointed. Disappointed because I thought that if I just stood in the camp, and saw and heard things for myself, I'd be able to grasp them; I'd be able to understand. But the holocaust is something that I don't think I'll ever be able to comprehend.

Since then, I've been reflecting on the whole experience. If you asked me what the most painful part of the whole thing was, it would be this fact - that after the soviets liberated the camp, after they saw for themselves the atrocities that had been committed - they did what any logical person would do: they reopened Sachsenhausen as a soviet concentration camp! From 1945 to 1950, another 6,000 people died in the camp.

People always say that we should learn from history. And yet I look at the world today and wonder if we really have: Cambodia, East Timor, Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan. And we so often forget that even Australia (and America) were founded on Genocide.

How can we ever say that humans are intrinsically good? How can I ever say that I'm a good person? The power to commit atrocities, or to sit idly by, lies dormant inside us all. History proves it. If our situations were swapped, and I was in Germany, would I have done any different?

Cooking with Squatters in Sevilla

walshy — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:09:00 GMT

It's 6pm, and I'm at my hostel in Spain. Not without a bit of trouble tho, what with the flight from Egypt being delayed until 2am, missing my connecting flight by a matter of minutes, and then getting desperately lost in the streets of Sevilla (in all fairness though, the hostel didn't have any signage and their directions were pretty shocking!)

But despite the world being against me, I had arrived. And having spent the day checking out the sights with a fellow Aussie named Warwick, I was ready for some real authentic Spanish cuisine. And it was just at that time that a guy called Tom invited me to a free Spanish cooking class. Figuring that it was about time I learnt this whole "cooking" thing for myself, I decided to tag along.

And so we started on our walk through the streets. On and on we went, and as we did I started noticing that the streets were getting dodgier and dodgier. Then suddenly, the guy stops outside a graffiti covered wall, pulls back some Aluminum, and ushers us inside. That's right - my friend had kindly forgot to mention that this cooking class was being held in a Squat!

But after getting over the shock of that, it was actually a really awesome night. Of course, all the instructions were in Spanish, so it was a little tricky. We cooked organic Vegan food (no meat, milk, cheese - no products from an animal). Now cooking meat is easy - you just buy a steak, chuck it on the barbie, and you have one of the tastiest dishes known to man. But making veggies taste good - that's another story!

We made an onion soup, and an onion and potato bake, with onion and chickpeas as the sauce. (These guys really love their onions - apparently they have some special healing properties). And you know what, after a lot of salt, they actually tasted really good!

While we were waiting for the food to cook, we sat back to watch the freaky Diablo guy do his thing - and I tell you what, this guy was awesome. Gob-smakingly awesome. Then we did a tour of the squat. Every wall was covered in amazing art and graffiti. Here's one of the pieces I liked:

With softened hearts, we returned to our hostel via the "scenic route". Reflecting on the experience as we looked for landmarks, we were all really struck by the people we had met. Many of the squatters were homeless, jobless, and in our eyes, hopeless. And yet they had hope. And they had joy. Why? Because in their little rundown squat, they had each other.

Looking back, I think that God has answered my New Year's prayer already - or a least has given me a little more insight into the lives of the homeless. They are people just like you and me - only difference is, they look out for each other.

Please pray for the Sevillian squatters. The government is trying really hard to evict them - there is a court case in February. And pray to thank God for the experience, and the insight that he gave us all.

Camels and Donkeys

walshy — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:47:00 GMT

Let me just say, for the record, riding a camel is really uncomfortable - particularly for a guy! In Aswan, we rode camels for 1hr through the desert to St. Simon's Monastery. This monastery was actually one of the earliest Christian churches. With the Roman persecution, many Christians we're forced to live out in the desert, so they built a monastery out of mud brick. This site isn't very popular however, because some time afterwards, all the Christians were converted into Muslims, and so the place is now a Mosque.

This is Jono on a Camel:

This morning in Luxor, after visiting the Valley of the Kings, it was time for the donkey-ride. Now Donkeys are renowned for being extremely suborn, as we soon found out! They are not grand, they are not graceful. They are just, well, donkeys! And whoever sits on a donkey, looks really really stupid:

It reminds me of when Jesus entered Jerusalem, riding on a Donkey. He must have looked so silly! Certainly, it wasn't the kind of grand entry you'd expect for God's promised King and Saviour.

Overall however, our donkey-ride was awesome. We raced them like horses through the local village, passed all the kids who were harvesting the sugar cane. Afterwards, we stopped by a street vendor to buy some Sweet Potatoes from his cart-drawn wood oven, while our donkeys decided to go for a stroll through the traffic.

Tonight, we return to Cairo. And then tomorrow I'm off to Spain! Stay tuned for more updates.

Bigger is always Better

walshy — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:38:00 GMT

2566 BC. That was when the first pyramids were built. Over 4 and half millennia ago. It's something that you really can't comprehend, especially as you stand underneath them. How on earth did they get all those myassive stone blocks up there! They say they made ramps of sand - but I'm still not convinced!

But the pyramids were just the beginning, as we soon found out. After our all-night train journey to Aswan, we awoke at 5am - that's right 5am - to catch our police escort out to Abu Simbel. After watching the sun rise over the Sahara desert (a sight in itself), we stepped out see this:

What's really amazing is that, when Egypt built the High Dam, they had to move this entire structure onto higher ground! Now the river Nile is quite something. Apparently in it's heyday it was over 20km wide! Imagine that much water turning into blood - it really is completely incomprehensible! This is Dad standing next to the river Nile:

Now, we are off to Luxor.

Egypt is Something Else

walshy — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 15:09:28 GMT

There is really no other way to describe it. The pyramids are something else, the markets are something else and the driving is definitely something else! They are all things that you just have to see to believe.

I arrived three days ago, stocked up with my family, my camera, and a lot of Imodium. Since then, I've seen the Pyramids in Giza, the Egyptian museum in Cairo, taken a sleeper train to Aswan (on which ironically, very little sleep was had), woken up at 3am to take a long drive to Abu Simbel, ridden on a camel and visited a Nubian village for dinner.

Overall, the Egyptian people are quite nice - expect for the horse cart guy who, on my way here, tried to scam me out of $50 with the old note swap (pounds for pents). He almost got away with it too.

Tonight we set off on a 3-day cruise up the Nile to Luxor. I'll update more later, hopefully with pictures and the like. But for now, it's time to sign off.

The English Countryside

walshy — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 23:04:00 GMT

After all that writing, I think it's time for some more photos:

Christmas Day "Linner", in Brighton

Jono and Dad, in front of the White Cliffs (near Dover)

The view from the Warwick Church Tower

William Shakespeare's House, in Stratford-upon-Avon

Fulham vs West Ham

walshy — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 10:54:00 GMT

No trip to the UK could truly be complete without experiencing a Premier League football match. And so it was that on a freezing cold December afternoon we descended on Craven Cottage for the London derby between Fulham and West Ham.

Sitting just 8 rows back in the Fulham stand, we instantly became (for ease and safety's sake) vocal Fulham supporters!

Here are some of the highlights (click to enlarge):

Unfortunately for us, the game ended a scoreless draw. But it was definitely a worthwhile experience (although I think my ears need a good washing out!)

Crazy Golf - London Style

walshy — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 19:08:00 GMT

And so it was, the day after the Aussies reclaimed the Ashes, the UK Walshes (who coincidentally have just decided that cricket is not a sport) decided to challenge the Aussie Walshes to a game of golf.

The weather was the best it had been in a long time - a balmy 2 degrees Celsius. On the Aussie side was myself, Jono, Patrick and Dad. On theirs, Pete (dad's brother), Tom and Adam (our cousins) and Grandpa.

The game was tense from the start, and the stakes were high. The Aussies got off to a roaring start, with Jono hitting the green first-up, and little Patrick landing the most magnificent chip from 5 metres - straight into the hole! But the Pommies retaliated fast, landing some great shots to close the gap.

And yet at the end of the day, it was the golf course that defeated us all. As we watched the sun drop below the horizon (at 3pm in the afternoon!) our innocent game of family golf was transformed into some-kind of cruel "survival of the fittest" reality show!

The ground frosted over, as did our clubs, our golf balls and our poor poor hands. Pity we didn't bring any gloves.

But my stubborn father, he wouldn't give up. And because he wouldn't give up, nor would my uncle (they have this crazy ego-fest each time they meet up). And so the crazy golf continued well into the night (well, the late afternoon - it's so hard to tell over here!).

By the last hole, only four of us remained - myself, dad, grandpa and Pete. Beaten, bruised and benumbed, we forced our frozen hands to grip our clubs one last time, before climbing the stairs to the clubhouse. But it was all worth it, because... the Aussies had done it again!

I'm in Singapore

walshy — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 15:32:57 GMT

At least, for the next 30mins. This flight is a killer! Maybe I should have prepared for it by having more than 4 hours sleep last night! Maybe.

And who was the smart fellow who thought "Snakes on a Plane" would make a good in-flight movie! At least they aren't screening United 93 - btw you should see if you haven't already, it's quite well done.

12 hours to go. Dreaming of sleep.

Round the World We Go!!!

walshy — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:28:00 GMT

That's right, today I depart on my round the world trip!

This is the route I will be taking:

I've calculated that I have about 73.5 hours flight time in total! To keep me entertained, I'm going to bring a whole bunch of books:

Stay tuned to this blog. I'll try to update it every few days with stories of my adventures; and of course, lots of photos from my new camera: (thanks heaps Sabs!)

Please pray for safety and sanity as I embark on my first leg in cattle class - Sydney to London. Total flight time: 23 hours, 30 mins.