The Simontist

Spring is happening in Portland. That means a return to the amazing PSU farmer's market right next to our apartment, and availability of lots of delicious things, like rhubarb. Let me describe some of the delicious foods that I have made or discovered in Portland over this last month. Please excuse the low-quality photos. I stupidly left my camera in a Car2go, and now it's gone. Bummer. I'm a little disappointed that Car2go members are not more honest.

Firstly, last week I got some handmade pasta, wild mushrooms and dandelion greens from the market. It's a bit pricey, as it's more of a gourmet market than your normal local fruit and veggie market, but it's nice for some treats. All this meal needed was some cream and garlic. We can't have things too healthy can we?

Other interesting things I've tried this month:

Unsweetened 100% cranberry juice. Yowza. Sour, but good.

Dry rhubarb soda. Excellent.

Peanut butter ice cream. 

Vegan indian food from The Sudra, which is only about 50 metres from where I work (oh man it feels good to use metres, and to spell it like that). 

Marionberry pies from Pie Spot (also just around the corner).

An incredible sandwich containing, among other things, prawn crackers, from Lardo.

The other thing I am enjoying here is cheap bourbon. Bourbon in New Zealand is expensive, and is also considered a low-quality alternative to Scotch. Well, it's not. I've been searching for good value bourbons (like, $25 or under a bottle) and have found some. See the lineup below. Dickel #12 is excellent, and Evan Williams single barrel is a steal. I might have to save up to try a pricier one - Maker's Mark 46 is on the list, as is Bulleit 10 year. Mmmmmm. A little glass of bourbon with a giant ice ball in it, at the end of the night, is a great way to close a long day.

Yesterday, I made Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Beef in Stout , which is always a winner. I added a little rosemary and some extra flour to thicken it up, so that it can be poured like an amazing gravy over creamy mash. I also made some sourdough bread, from the culture that's been turning sour over the last week. It was a great meal. I still feel full. Check out the sourdough.

Then tonight, we finally went and tried Hot Lips pizza, a local pizza chain that makes enormous (see picture) pizzas, serve up incredibly cheap beer ($9 for a 6-pack of craft brews, dine in, or $1 for a glass of PBR, the hipster's choice of cheap, tasteless beer), and also their "real fruit sodas" which have the great ingredients list of fruit, sparkling water, lemon juice and vanilla. Tonight I tried the pear soda, which was excellent.

I love the abbreviation for Oregon – OR. It leaves you hanging at the end of each place name. He went to Arch Cape…OR? Or what? Or didn’t he? Well, I did go to Arch Cape, Oregon, with Allison and he parents who were visiting from Montana, and it was beautiful.

This wasn’t white-sandy-beach beautiful; no, it was more like the West Coast of New Zealand. Vast, barren, brown sand beaches. Tussocks and battered trees, crashing waves, driving rain, permanent mist. I loved it…but admittedly spent much of the trip indoors. It was a welcome getaway from the relatively fast pace of things at work.

We wandered on the beach at Arch Cape, and also up the coast a little to Haystack Rock, a remnant of a large volcanic formation. The rain at this point was caught in the 80+ kph wind, and it was somewhat comical just walking out to the rock. Allison had her magical SENZ storm umbrella – designed in the Netherlands, it is an umbrella that turns to face the wind, and tilts into it – it cannot turn inside out. It even worked in this situation, though it was moving hilariously fast.

The house where we were staying was called Fernhaven. It was only a short walk from the beach, but was hidden amongst a cluster of moss-covered trees. It was a beautiful wooden house, with lots of modern featured like double glazing, central heating (plus a wood burner), heated floors in the bathrooms, and a large kitchen. It was the perfect place to be trapped inside during horrible weather. Every day, I fired up the wood burner, and we made sure that the house was a very cozy temperature for us to eat, sleep, relax, play games and chat.

We visited a nice little pub at Cannon Beach, a great bakery called ‘Bread and Ocean’ in Manzanita, and a bunch of shops. One shop just down the road from where we were staying was Jack’s thrift store. Jack was there, running the shop, at 89 years old. It was full of amazing things…old tools for making cedar shingles, nuts and bolts, appliances, clothes. I bought a great bike tool (50 cents) and a roll of USA-made duct tape, which Jack assured me is the best duct tape money can buy.

We headed back to Portland once the wind had subsided, and ended up eating dinner at our local gourmet pizza place called Pizzicato. Allison and her folks spent the following day exploring Portland, before we went and got some great Mexican food, and took them to the airport. Thanks for visiting us, guys.

I just wanted to share some photos of the space where I am now working. It's a car dealership turned social enterprise incubator and co-work space. We had our grand opening on Thursday the 30th of January, and tons of people turned up. Cool! 

Since the start, the title of this blog has been "A mostly-visual record of my travels from New Zealand, to rural Montana, to the Netherlands, Austria and beyond.". Well, this is "beyond".

I have secured a six-month visa to go to the USA. I'll be based in Portland, Oregon, and will be an intern at Springboard Innovation, a non-profit company that has a couple of really exciting projects going. One of them is "Hatch" - an incubator for startups with social/sustainable missions. The other, which I will mostly be working on, is called ChangeXchange, which is a platform for connecting local investors with local companies, to try and build sustainable and resilient local economies. The learning curve will be steep, but I've never shied away from a challenge.

I fly out tomorrow. I have to be honest, taking life in six-month chunks is beginning to take its toll a little - never knowing what I will be doing in a year's time, and constantly moving to not only different houses/apartments but different countries, doesn't really allow for a chance to relax and feel secure in one job, or one place. Despite that, I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced so many parts of the world, and met incredible people in all of them. I wouldn't change it for anything. I must thank my family, and my girlfriend for supporting me in my adventure in trying to find a career that benefits others, and the earth, as well as myself. I couldn't have done it without that support.

This last month has pretty much just involved eating and running. Obviously I have eaten more than I have run, because I'm slightly larger than I was in November. I blame mum's delicious cooking and baking for that! It has actually been really nice to be back at home. I don't really know anyone in Christchurch any more, so it's been a time to reflect, relax, spend time with family, and get things done around the house. Now it's time for some serious work! Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope that 2014 brings you happiness and satisfaction. I'm excited!

I haven't taken many photos over the last few months, but I plan to change that once I arrive in the USA. I will try to make use of technology, and update this blog with little snippets from my smartphone. And I will try to do exciting things all the time, so that my family can see what I'm up to. For now, here's our wonderful Christmas tree...see you in 2014!

Well, here I am in Christchurch. My last post mentioned that I had secured an internship - and that is still true. What is also true is that I have not even begun the visa application process, due to a bunch of unforeseen bureaucracy. I am now in purgatory, not knowing when I will be able to go back to Portland. If all goes well, I'll have some sort of concrete plans next week. 

The last month has been a bit strange, with some ups and downs. The reason I came back to NZ so suddenly is because my grandfather was very ill. A silver lining of being jobless and visa-less is that I was able to book a flight right away, and join the family in Paraparaumu, to care for my grandfather Ewan. I was there for the last two weeks of his life, and I was there when he died. I was able to hold his hand, give him water, talk to him about the world (even when he couldn't reciprocate), and read a letter from Allison. About a week before he died, he gave me his favourite pen (given to him by his father-in-law) with a wink and a nod, saying I was a scholar and should have it. Even when it is expected, and the person is ready for their life to end, it is immensely sad when it finally happens.

Well, it's been about two months since the Condor debacle, with no updates from me. Terrible, I know. And now I am writing this blog entry from Portland Airport, again about to travel. So what have I been up to?

Well, I've been in Portland, searching for internships. An internship allows me to stay for 6-12 months and figure out my options for a longer stay. There have been lots of ups and downs, and a couple of moments of despair, but the good news is that I find myself now with an internship secured, and only (haha yes, "only") the visa application process to go through now.

I will explain about the internship once my visa is sorted - for now I don't want to jinx myself so will keep quiet about it, and just talk about Portland!

Firstly, the apartment that Allison and I are staying in is just south of downtown, on the 20th floor. It has an amazing view of the city, and on a clear day the sunrise over Mt. Hood is just spectacular from the balcony:

The view is not always so great though - sometimes fog gets in the way

But in general, Portland is a great city. One the many positives is food. YUM. There are lots of amazing cafes, food carts, donut shops, brewpubs and restaurants. My budget means I'm usually on the food cart end of that scale but luckily they are great. The beers are very much like NZ craft beers, meaning they are (in my humble opinion) way over-hopped, but delicious nonetheless. A couple of highlights which are as unhealthy as you get: Little Big Burger which sells small burgers, cooked medium-rare with nice cheeses, and come with truffled french fries. Very nice. And below that, Pine State Biscuits which offer breakfasts like biscuits and gravy, and grits, along with fried chicken. The beast in the photo is a chicken breast, bacon, cheese and apple butter sandwiched between two biscuits. It was great with habanero hot sauce. Breakfast of champions.

Don't worry - most meals are at home and much healthier than these!

There are a few negatives - it's way, way behind Europe in terms of public transport, walkability, and biking etiquette. Portlanders like to think they're a bit better than the rest of the USA at these things, but the reality is that doesn't mean a lot! The opinion of public transport is still "It's great...for other people", and it's true that getting across town usually takes about an hour on the streetcar, buses or the MAX light rail. What IS great are the car sharing schemes - Car2Go and Zipcar. Both are wonderful ways of being mobile without owning a car.

The biking one really gets to me - it blows my mind how people commute at 30 kph, bent over on racing bikes, choosing a bike which cannot be used in their work clothes, and yelling "ON YOUR LEFT!!!!" instead of using a bell. Bikers tend to be largely of the militant type, riding super-aggressively through traffic and banging on/yelling at cars that come too close to them, even if they've snuck up on the car. A bit of politeness could go a long way I think, from both bikers and drivers. Cycling to work shouldn't be some elitist show of fitness or a catwalk style competition - it should be a relaxing, communal way to get to work, reduce car dependence and stay healthy. Rant over.

That's it - I have crossed the threshold from "pursuing an international master's degree on full scholarship" to "looking for work". A considerably less-glamorous title. In true Simon style, I have chosen to look for my next role in the country that is possibly the most difficult in the world in which to obtain a visa: The USA. I'm a few months into the challenge now, and progress is slow, but steady.

The USA offers 65,000 skilled worker (H1B) visas to foreigners each year, which is about four times as many as New Zealand offers (for a country with about 75 times as many people). So chances are slim.  My other option is internships, traineeships and fellowships, which would allow me to stay, temporarily, but I pay a solid amount of cash for the privilege, and then earn peanuts. I guess I just have to do what I have to do! At least I have a running start - I have work experience, international experience and am very motivated! The presence of "sehr gut" (the Austrian equivalent of an A grade) on my transcript will hopefully help too.

The other fun story I will now write about is my journey from Europe to the USA, where I am right now. I booked a ticket with Condor, a budget airline owned by Lufthansa. The airline has something of a reputation for poor service, and has quite old planes with very little to keep anyone entertained on the flights (do you like looking at the back of a seat for 12 hours? Condor is for you!). My experience with Condor was worse than I could have imagined. I will write a chronological summary of my 48-hour journey, which was supposed to be Graz to Portland via Frankfurt and Las Vegas:

4:00am: Wake up in Graz, Get lift to airport with Verena who so kindly got up just to drive me there. Check in with no problems to the first leg of my journey (Graz to Frankfurt) which is operated by Lufthansa.

6.30am: Flight takes off slightly late after one passenger decided, once they were on the plane, that they didn't like flying and wanted their bag removed.

7.30am: Arrive in Frankfurt, spend a couple of hours sitting around and drinking coffee. Head to gate in preparation of my 11.30am flight.

11:00am: Wait in huge line to get my passport scanned, due to some extra security requirements. I spot an Australian friend, Marcus, who I met while couchsurfing in 2008. He is panicking because he needs to buy a flight out of the USA or they won't let him on the plane. I watch his stuff while he runs to find WiFi.

12:00pm: The plane is delayed due to 'unexpected maintenance'. Marcus returns with a flight booked. Men are walking around the plane looking worried.

12:30pm: We are allowed to board. The plane takes off, and flies low, slow and in the wrong direction for 1.5 hours. At this point, the pilot tells us that the maintenance problem (the landing gear flaps are stuck open) didn't just go away in the air like they thought it would, and that we would be returning to Frankfurt.

4:00pm: Plane lands back in Frankfurt surrounded by emergency vehicles, and parks in a deserted part of the airport, in case anything explodes. We're shuttled into the airport.

6:00pm: After faffing around at the airport, we are taken to a hotel (minus our checked in luggage which stays on the plane) where we are told the flight will leave sometime in the morning, and to keep checking the screens in the lobby to find out the exact time. This is where the journey gets fun: Marcus and I make use of the fitness centre (me in no shoes or shirt, and my one spare pair of shorts), the pool and the sauna. We are provided a school-canteen style dinner of curry and rice. Markus and I catch up with a (€7) beer at the bar. Out of luck, I get a room in the "executive tower".

11:00pm: I call Condor to ask them what happens to my connecting flight, they tell me that computers will fix everything while I am in the air. I update friends and family on my 2 hours of free internet. Then I go to bed.

4:30am: Automated wake-up call. We are provided bread rolls with jam, and are shuttled to the airport again for our flight which is to leave at 7:30am.

7:00am: We are told that the toilets on the plane are broken, and that the plane cannot leave. The passengers are getting unruly. A delayed take-off means the crew will exceed their maximum working hours so a new crew must come. Revised take-off time: 12:30....ish. 

9:00am: We are not allowed to stay in the gate lounge because another plane needs it. We are put on buses to be transferred the 50 metres to the adjacent gate.

10:30am: Word gets out that there is a different flight going to Seattle, and that we can switch. I inquire, and they tell me it is possible but then they wouldn't offer anything further, i.e. I'd be on my own from Seattle to Portland. I figure I'll take my chances with Amtrak, and I make the switch. I look back at the poor souls who have been waiting for 24 hours to get to Las Vegas, with no solution in sight. Marcus is one of these. I wish him good luck and get on the plane.

11:30am: Plane to Seattle takes off. I have a nice seatmate from Seattle and we chat. I fall asleep.

9.30pm (12:30pm Eastern US time): It is 41.5 hours since I woke up in Graz. We arrive in Seattle and are told that the passport control area is full. There will be more waiting. I wait in line for 90 minutes, while my name is called over and over on the intercom, but I am not allowed to skip ahead.

11:00pm (2pm US): I make it through passport control where I am told that I have missed a connecting flight I didn't know I was on. Hence the name announcements. But they can put me on a flight at 6pm. No Amtrak needed. Hallelujah. The inter-terminal train offers me some moral support:

4:00am (7pm US): Alaska airlines pulls through, and exactly 48 hours after I got up in Graz, I arrive in Portland. Allison meets me there. I am delirious with tiredness. An hour later we make it to the house and I collapse into bed.

Shazam! All in one week, I have become a master of science, and old. Thirty years. Sheeeesh. Where did the time go. I guess I was enjoying myself too much to notice it flying by.

Here is a picture of my with my exam committee after I got my grade:

Woohooo! All done. Now I can celebrate, and try to ignore the fact that 1) I am now officially a tourist in Europe and 2) I have moved from "pursuing a master's" to "unemployed". Damn. So two days after my successful defence was my birthday (shhhhh30shhhh) and I was able to put on a small BBQ party in the lovely surrounds of the Zelgers' place. Here is a photo of us trying to look drunk when we were actually sober (notice the unopened bubbly)

It was a nice night, although a little cool because summer is clearly coming to an end. I was greeted at my bed by this wonderful surprise of scratchy glitter everywhere. I admit...it was a pretty good prank. I can't be angry at glitter.

And so my time in Europe is nearing the end. I will do one more blog post with pictures of Croatia, and then I'm off to my graduation week (of course at a castle in Austria). Then I fly into the great unknown. I will keep you posted. But for now, I'll be relaxing here:

And eating breakfast here:

I didn't take my computer with me on my recent visit to Portland, hence the huuuuge gap in posts. So now I resume posting, and I have all kinds of great photos to share. The first set of these will be the 4th of July fireworks. 

It was a pretty relaxing day really - we made some snacks, and we watched fireworks, and that's about it. Our snacks were impressive though - check out these margarita limes. You squeeze the juice out of about 12 limes, then go through the somewhat painstaking process of scraping out the inside of each lime half. Then using the lime juice, tequila, triple sec and gelatine, you make margarita jell-o. You pour it into the lime halves which can be stabilised in a muffin pan or egg cup, then let them set. Then cut the halves, so that you have what looks like normal lime quarters. But they're actually margarita jelly! Whoooo!

Yum! We also grilled up some burgers, and for dessert had grilled pineapple (please note my excellent grill marks, a-thank you, a-thank you) and brownie with berries that we had picked a few days earlier. 

After dinner we hopped on our bikes and took the short 10 minute bike ride along the river to a good spot to watch the fireworks. Everyone else had the same idea, and unfortunately we misjudged exactly where the fireworks would be, so we were behind a tree! We shot up on to a motorway overpass and had a much better view, albeit through a fence. Still, it made for some great photos!

The final day trip from Andrew's stay in Graz was out east, towards Riegersburg, where an epic fortress (a Burg, which has a military purpose, not to be confused with a Schloß, which is a fancy residence. In English we tend to use castle for both). sits atop a big rocky peak. It's a bit of a bike ride from the station, but that's ok because just around the corner (and up a huge hill) is the Zotter chocolate factory, where really, REALLY delicious chocolate is made.

Twice have I been to the Zotter factory, both times taking a different route on the bike, and both times being horribly surprised by how hilly the terrain is, and how much effort it takes to ride around out there. Still - we made it past the factory, down a huge slope, and towards the castle:

It was pretty impressive close up too. If invaders made it up the huge hill, they would have been met by a huge moat, and well-protected walls.

Apparently the walls were never breached. That's what happens when you build a fortress on top of a dormant volcano, and build the castle OUT OF THE VOLCANO ITSELF. No corner-cutting in Austria.

Inside, there were a few exhibits - one on witches, as some famous witch trials were held here. Everything about that was quite horrifying. Next up were the fancy rooms where the owners lived:

This room was a contrast to a lot of the others, which featured a lot of wood and some very ornate radiators for the heating. This room however did have a little message on it, which showed that the owner had a good sense of humour:

That says "Bauen ist ein schöner Lust. Was es mich kost ist mir bewußt". Which means "Building is a beautiful/great pleasure. I am aware of how much it costs". Classic. Fancy castles don't come cheap.

The final exhibition was the weapons exhibition. Andy's camouflage shirt, which he was wearing purely out of coincidence, made for some pretty funny scenes in there. Especially at the somewhat disturbing exhibit comparing modern rifles with old rifles, in which you aimed a couple of real guns at someone's house below...

"I've got you covered bro!".Yeah. You could also hold one of the really old huge muskets and try to aim it (a laser pointer was installed in the barrel) and all I can say is - bugger that. It must have weighed 15 kilos! We also got to try on some sweet helmets.

At this stage energy levels were dropping, so we followed the smell of roasting cocoa beans to the Zotter factory. You are greeted in the foyer with a picture of Mr. Zotter himself, which he, I assume, thought was a wacky way to show how much he loved chocolate. All I can say is, I'm not sure how well this photo would go down in the USA:

Luckily, his chocolate is spectacular, and the factory tour lets you learn about the process of chocolate-making, as well as letting you taste 140 (!!!!!) types of chocolate, all the way from the freshly-roasted beans, to the nibs, the powder, the liquid and the solid chocolate. You can taste pure white chocolate, which, when it is real white chocolate (i.e. just cocoa butter, milk and sugar) is totally delicious, tasting to me like cinnamon. You can also try every different percentage up to 100% (i.e. no sugar at all), as well as sheep's milk chocolate, soy milk chocolate, and chocolate made with spices, fruits, berries, and all kinds of things. Not to mention drinking chocolates, chocolate bon bons, chocolate coated nuts...you get the idea.

After the tour was finished, we loaded up with some goodies from the shop, and quickly checked out the "Essbarer Tiergarten" or "edible zoo". This is where you can see and pat a bunch of lovely animals, then wander into the restaurant and eat pieces of the corpses of their brothers and sisters. 

The restaurant was not open, so we couldn't eat anything in there, but I do like the idea. The animals have a pretty sweet life, next to a chocolate factory, in a picturesque valley. Like the chocolate, the animals are organic, fair trade, and everything else: free-range, rare breed, can recite the entire works of Shakespeare and hold frequent stakeholder engagement meetings to ensure that the next to die are selected through an equal-opportunity participatory framework.

Seriously though, it would be hard killing them - look at this little guy who could come and go from his little pen as he pleased:

Awww. You couldn't eat him. There's no meat on his bones. This guy might be more suitable:

One part of our hastily-organised trip that was non-negotiable was going to Italy. Andrew is an espresso fiend, and wanted to compare his espresso-making skills with those of the Italians. Also, both of us like good food so Italy was a must!

Bus tickets and accommodation were booked the day before, and we set off at the leisurely time of noon, for the 6-hour bus journey. This meant we arrived in time for dusk, and got some pretty spectacular views over the water. Our B&B was located on the north side of the island, away from the crowded centre, but still only a 10-15 minute walk into the thick of things. The first picture below is looking through the window of the vaporetto stop down the grand canal, and the second is looking west from the boat.

It's been a full two weeks since I updated the blog, but there is a good reason - my brother Andrew came to visit, and it would have been a bit rude of me to sit on the computer writing blog posts when we could have been exploring. Now it is catch-up time, and I have lots of photos to share. This post will be mostly writing, but there will be a separate post of all photos for you to look at.

After one relaxed rest-day for jetlag recovery, it was time for the first day trip. The Grüner See (the green lake) is a lake in Styria which sits at a low level for most of the year, skirted by grass and park benches. In spring however, the lake fills up with very clear water from the melting snow, and makes a spectacular green and blue lake. It's very popular with tourists, hikers, and even scuba divers! Our plan to get a rental car failed when we realised all of the rental places were closed, and we were saved by (who else but) Alice, who let us borrow her car. Amazing.