alright - this isn't the end of the trip, but it is an appropriate time to stop, pause and reflect on what's been done, seen and potentially forgotten over the past four and a half months. currently we are both in rome and by the time we're both back in england we'll have been gone for over 5 months... freaky shit.

alright - in the last four months we have:

a) been to eight different countries (i.e. mexico, USA, canada, ecuador, peru, england, denmark and now italy). so far they've all been awesome and i'll save the extensive stories of each country til i have more internet time.

b) been to 4 mind blowing festivals (i.e. coachella in the states, glastonbury in england, roskilde in denmark and just last weekend reading in the UK also). all have been amazing fun, with many a drunken tale to tell. most recently we were lucky enough to get backstage at reading, see the foo fighters touring bus and dressing room, abuse pete doherty and get a photo with jane gazo who used to present the super request and guest present on recovery. it was rad and she was really nice.

c) typed far to few group emails. shannon has actually been trying with these, sending as much information as possible to everyone on her list, and then i in turn occasionally remember to forward said news on to those people on my list.

d) met a range of great people. from chris and rick in cuzco to enrique the only just english speaking, tortoise owning champion from huanchaco, almost everyone we've met so far on this trip has been an absolute blast... except the annoying german chick on the tour to teotuhuacan and the weird german guy who followed us from toronto to niagra falls... that only just occured to me then.

e) seen a range of natural and man made wonders. only today we've seen the vatican, sistine chapel, colosseum and pantheon. before that we've seen macchu picchu, the pyramids at teotuhuacan and el tajin and stone henge. we've seen massive oceans, the longest breaking wave in the world at chicama, snowcapped mountains over austria and... perhaps the most amazing - really freaking green grass.

all in all there's nothing i can't say that wasn't amazing about this trip. there's more to come but i'm out of time so for now...

ciao (as they say here in rome)

cookie and shannon

right - well and truly out of date but a wee bit relevent all the same. this is the (finally) completed review of the glastonbury 2005 music festival that we were lucky enough to be a part of.

for a view of the festival through some very alcohol hazed eyes drop by our struthdrum website or click the following link:

http://www.struthbeatthedrum.8m.net/photo4.html

adios amigo's

cookie

okay folks,

just a quick note this time... and yes - i really do intend to not write a whole lot at this point cause there's not a whole lot to tell. we haven't been to a festival since roskilde, and we've both spent our time looking for work, finding work, quitting that shitty job, and moving into our new little home. we're living with shannon's cousin vicki and her husband rob (and two kids matthew and simon) now, and all is going damn well.

i'm working for a proper villain (sean) emptying houses for pretty good cash and shannon is in the process of applying for a dance teaching position. if all goes to plan we should have the world at our feet again in a few weeks.

but on to the real purpose of this posting. shannon has spent the last five hours making some updates to the www.struthbeatthedrum.8m.net website. it now has a series of photo's from our trip on it and more are on the way. i am also going to be opening a flicker page in the near future so hopefully we'll be able to show you all our photo's in no time.

hope all is going solidly at home. i'm learning cockney rhyming slang from a couple of geezers who are well and truly in the know and hopefully people will be able to understand me soon.

take it hell easy

cookie and shannon

man we've been doing stuff...

as i'm sure everyone's heard london has been the latest of a not-so-distinguished list of countries to be terrorised... and not in a school yard, bully situation terrorised, the dinky di sort.

this is just a note to let you know that we're all okay. luckily we were in amsterdam airport at the time suffering from a three hour delay... which put us pretty much right out of harms way. the most disapointing thing for me about the whole affair so far has been watching how quick and purposeful the reorganisation of the city centre has been, (between the thousands of police officers to the replacement bus services, to the hundreds of volunteers who have been assisting commuters find the best way to get to where they want to go)... then reading the absolute bullshit the english press has been putting forward about the whole debacle.

i got the paper the day it happened in a train station in london after we arrived from amsterdam, and every single article basically drew a picture of cowardly english (and let's face it - Australian) people running for their lives over the bodies of both dead and injured alike. one quote basically read 'i was running like crazy after we managed to climb out of the train, i ran past two bodies: one with a jacket over his head... i'm not sure if he was alive or not.'

Now regardless of whether or not this is the case, and i'm not saying that i would have been any different in a similar situation, what kind of image does this give to the public about the people who banded together and actually did something useful on the site of the accidents. i've read since about a 14 year old boy on work experience who received cuts, bruises and burns AFTER the accident when he spent an hour before emergency teams arrived ferrying the dead and wounded out of his train carriage. this story... however, took three days to come to head, and only appeared on about page 6 of a paper who's first 5 pages were also all about the attacks. bullshit really... i'm really pissed off at british papers.

and i know you don't really need to hear this one but i think it somes up the level they're willing to go to sell newspapers here. one quote read (and i'm not denying it's true, but what absolute f**khead decided it needed to go to print) 'i ran past the body of a woman with no head, arms of legs. the only way you could tell it was a woman was that her clothes had been blown off and you could see her breasts'. that woman is someone's mother, daughter or sister. maybe girlfriend or wife. and if i found out that shannon had been mutilated in a terrorist attack, and that the newspapers angle on her death was her discovery as a woman thanks to her exposed torso, i would be screaming for bloody murder.

enough said, but the radio stations here play shit music, and the newspapers are all stained with the colour of shit as well... cause it's all they're willing to print.

sorry to be a kill joy - but it was get that off my chest of get an ulcer.

adios

cookie

contrary to popular belief, i am not the first and second most lazy person luke crane knows. at least if i´m defending myself i will not concide that i am in fact both lazier and laziest when it comes to people he knows...

all that aside we have all been a little bit busy of late. as many would be aware the glastonbury festival was on last week and shannon and i decided to make a real event of it by arriving on wednesday (but our tickets were in london somehow and we slept in our hire car in a rugby field car park) and stayed until sunday afternoon after being completely beaten by the wettest glastonbury on record... ever. no shit - i am not lying. 350 tents were completely washed away. most were just bulldozed into a pile and left to dry in the mud until they could be removed and thrown away - god knows how many passports, wallets and photo´s were involved... but it was intense.

after sunday we had the wonderful three - four hour drive back to red hill to jacko and alicia´s, followed by setting up our crap, washing, repacking, booking tickets then heading to denmark for roskilde on the thursday. that´s not a whole lot of time to rest and relax between festivals kids. but we made it. and roskiolde absolutely went full blown spare. i have never rocked so damn hard in my life. and i honestly didn´t think i had it in me anymore.

so now we´re in copenhagen staying with shannon´s friend helene and we´re both absolutely shagged. sleep is on the agenda now, followed by repacking again, going to england, unpacking and washing again, then maybe, just maybe, settling into some kind of normality. i can´t make any promises... but that would be nice.

a promise to those who would like some more insight into glastonbury and roskilde: the glastonbury review is written and on my laptop, and the roskilde one will be done as soon as i get back. eventually i am going to attempt to write a wee little thesis on how to attend four festivals in four months and survive to write about it, but for that you´ll have to wait til after reading.

i miss everyone, as does the remaining three members of our little quartet, and soon we will settle in and make contact with everyone back home again. and i promise to write in this website more. it will not be built in vain.

so as they say in denmark, farvel everbody, and tak very much. (that´s the worst attempt at farewell everyone and thanks very much)

cookie and shannon

hey kids,

first up - cheers to danny for making an update on the site for me. we've been a little bit hectic in south america and frankly, the idea of getting to england is very appealing. so far we've taken a little over 1000 photo's but until i work out how to make them (or at least some of them) accessible to the public you're going to have to be content with the fine selection danny has made available for you.

so here's the rundown on the photo's so far:

Photo Uno: this is the triplej logo. in case you didn't know this fine radio station is the reason we're here on this trip in the first place. we also used this logo on a massive scale in a paddock back home to win triple j's 4 yearly competition beat the drum. if you are not familiar with this logo you need to do some serious rethinking about your musical tastes. start at triplej.net.au

Photo Dos: this is me looking slightly to extremely stupid in a very budget waterproof plastic bag whilst negotiating niagra falls aboard the maid of the mist. niagra falls are beautiful and well worth a visit. the wax museums, haunted houses and IMAX theatres on the other hand... well, are not.

Photo Tres: this is a photo of shannon after a truly interesting Meredith Monk concert we went to in Joe's Pub, New York. the lovely lady to shannon's left is meredith monk herself, and the other lady is Bjork. Bjork just happened to be in town for the gig and was lovely enough to offer her pretty face for a photo. Shannon and i were both reasonably excited.

Photo Cuatro: this is shannon and i (note the triple j logo once again) at the end of our first flight from brisbane to Los Angeles. apparently winning stuff makes you cooler than not winning stuff, hence the free bottle of champagne you can't quite see due to the amount of hosts and hostesses who wanted in on the photo.

Photo Cinco: this is the cathedral in mexico city. damn amazing place and mucho bella (very beautiful) by night. it was also very fortunately located one block from the great hostel we stayed at for the duration of our stay in mexico city. we love mexico.

Photo Seis: the sixth and final photo in this selection is the Temple of the Sun at the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan. they were well and truly rad and are well worth a visit at a whopping 190 pesos (19 Dollars).

final note. if you click on any of the photo's and chose the connecting 'slide show' option there's more photo's as well! including a very scary one of my new tattoo. sorry about that mum and dad and all those disappointed in me back home.

take it hell easy campers

cookie and shannon

My friends,

Now, that Michael and I have bought a computer and I can get email from home I thought it was probably high time I pulled my finger out and sent a group email! Why have we bought a lap top? Well, these supposedly easy to use internet cafes around the world frankly, aren't. Michael lost an article he was writing for the Chronicle (Tmba Paper) twice or three times, and I lost all my photos on my video camera from the 'Sick' tour with fLiNG and photos from the beginning three weeks of our trip (somewhere in the vacinity of 600 photos :-( it sucked lots so here I am on our first major investment finally writing to you all.

We have well and truly been away for a month and a full on one it has been! Mexico was our first major stop and wow, it is awesome, for people like us who have only seen 'old' natural stuff, the buildings and architecture are mind blowing. Especially Teotihacan and El Tajin, two Aztec sites we were able to visit. The Cathedral in Mexico City that we stayed about a block from and the Basillica, the centre of the Catholic Church in Mexico and reported to be one of the holiest places on earth are also beautiful to see and to experience.

Useless info #1: Mexico City is built on a drained ake and has sunk up to 7m in someplaces in the past 300/400 years! (which explains why some buildigs have leaning tower of Pisa styles to them!) Mexico was great for our budget!
3 hotdogs: 10 peso - $1US Hand carved obsidion statues of the Aztec sun and moon gods: 300 peso - $30US Accomodation in awesome Hostal Moneda including bedding, two meals per day and a towel: 110peso pp/n - $11US

Also, when we were there our spanish left a lot to be desired but the people are patient, polite and lovely! So much so that we managed a four day trip out of the city to places where no-one speaks english at all! LA was horrible. We didn't do the tourist thing because we were so put off by the people we encountered. So we hired an RV and got out of town. We spent time in Joshua Tree National Park, lots of rock piles to climb. Then to Indio for the Coachella music festival and through some male ingenuity (Michael and Jacko) we ended up parked across the road from the festival in Warren & Barbara Eastes backyard, with power, cable tv, a merc to drive and well
looked after for five nights! Wonderful, wonderful people.

Coachella was great, Michael got hit in the eye and his sunnies broken by Donovan Frankenreiter and I got a cd signed by the Dresden Dolls and a photo with them, their set was fantastic! We had good fun and good margaritas too!

Canada was cold. We were very unprepared for the balmy 7degrees celcius temperature that greeted us. Toronto was lovely and relaxing, if not a little boring. So we slept a lot and I got dreads! We also saw our first baseball game and went up the world's tallest man made structure!

Then we headed to Niagra Falls. The falls themselves were spectacular, pity about the downtown area, tacky like Surfers.

Useless info #2: Approximately 185million litres per minute of water goes over Niagra Falls in summer, pity we can't get some of it out home.

In Niagra we were able to get two nights of free accomodation with the HI hostel there by working for 6hours each for them, we painted a bathroom and cleaned and tidied the front yard, well worth it! We are now nearing the end of a near ten day stay in New York City and it has been interesting to say the least. Incredibly expensive, for instance the HI hostel we stayed at, biggest in the world, also would have to have the least value for money and some of the staff would be better replaced by people that give a damn. Anyway, we then got onto this awesome website, couchsurfing.com and are currently staying with two lads, Seth and Will in
Spanish Harlem for free.

I have been running around doing classes at the Martha Graham centre, Alvin Ailey School, Merce Cunningham School and Trisha Brown Dance Company Centre. Very awe inspiring and exciting, not to mention hard work, sore muscules, etc.
Michael decided to make a permanent show of his patriotism and got the tatoo he wanted of the Australian Made symbol!

Now, the highlight of the trip for me so far: last night we went and saw a performance of the Meredith Monk ensemble (music, one of the people whose work I admire incredibly and look up to), it was mind numbingly great. Afterwards, I went back to do the star struck thing and get her to sign something, and as I was waiting patiently for my turn, who should rock up and give her a big hug, but none other than Icelands biggest export: Bjork!!!!!!
So, I am now the proud owner of an autograph from Meredith Monk and a photo with both her and Bjork, taken by the equally excited Michael. We head off to Ecuador tomorrow, then onto Peru and to England, so I will attempt to update you again when we get to England.

I have attached a couple of photos, hope they come through okay, and you like them, if you don't want to receive updates and or photos, email me and let me know and I'll stop sending them. Other than that don't forget to check out our sites www.struthbeatthedrum.8m.net and http://comprehensiveadventures.blogspot.com (especially for the view from Michael's window)

Also, sorry for missing birthdays!
Take care
Love
Shannon and Cookie

this post has no relevance to our trip whatsoever. this is just a way for me to vent my anger at having written two articles for the Chronicle only to have lost them on shitty computers. what's worse than that is the underlying fact that both instances can be blamed on noone but my smacktarded self.

grrrr grrr grrrr. blah blah blah shit.

regards

dickhead the gangster.

america is... for want of a better expression... a weird, weird place full of weird weird freaks.

that's not to say that there's not a whole lot of rad shit to be seen and to do in one of the only remaining superpowers, but the question that has to be addressed is whether or not the rad shit on offer is worth dealing with the less than rad people involved.

example A. shannon and i land in los angeles. this is prior to our trip to mexico and as yet this is our first encounter with another country. step one - find transport. this involves interupting a damn near physical encounter between an angry woman who wants to get somewhere - but feels that the shuttle bus director should not invade her privacy by asking where she wants to go - and said shuttle director who feels that the easiest way to get through to someone is to repeat what you just said slower and progressively louder until your point is made.

a few blank looks later and we're on a shuttle. enter first decent american... but she's from russia. Tatiana (who works for nestle) is really nice and give's us the heads up on where is great to go out in LA. her answer - Las Vegas. she's been there a week and is a little hung over by the looks of things. all the same she's the nicest person we've met so far.

example C. repeatedly explain to the cabby the name of the hostel in Santa Monica you're staying at, and that it is located on 4th street. get through to cabby employing a similar technique to that of the shuttle bus director (louder and slower) and finally get a smile of recognition... only to be dropped in the cold on 2nd street, two kilometres and 200 homeless people from where you want to be.

examply D. skip forward past mexico to our return to LA. we're in a hired RV (big dirty motor home) and heading the eff out of LA as fast as possible. we're introduced to Ralph's (which is much like Woolworths) and the world of american food. the bread here is not really great - as far as we understand they grind sugar into flour and make bread with that - seasoning of course with cinnamon. thankfully we discovered french bread - which is almost like aussie bread but not sliced. upon shannon's request: 'would it be possible to use a wider blade to cut the bread so it doesn't get all squashed?' we are met with an initial blank look (perhaps all americans look like this) and the response 'i can't understand what she's saying'. i shit you not - i think these people might be a little retarded... maybe it's the bread.

but not all is lost. good news can be found as soon as you get out of the city and head east. we arrived in Indio California (where the coachella music festival was being held) and got thrown from one end of the spectrum to the other. it was here that we met Warren and Barbara. all the RV parks were way to far from where the festival was beign held, and were all quite expensive. apparently fortune does favour the bold as Jacko and I were fortunate enough to meet warren by waltzing up to his front door and requesting a patch of dirt in his back yard to park our car. what do we get?

we get (a) the most lush lawn in america to park on, (b) power to our RV so we can watch television and power our microwave, (c) a TV cable so we can watch 120 channels, (d) lawn chairs so we can sit comfortably and drink our cheap beers, (e) an invitation to dinner with the family and friends, (f) a view from our patio which includes the outdoor theatre stage at coachella, (g) open use of Warren's work car (which happens to be a vintage Mercades Benz) to drive around indio, (h) a guitar which we proceeded to write a pretty kick arse song on, and (i) full use of warren's shed and wood to build a cricket bat to help pass the hours before the festival... not to mention resident passes to the festival allowing us backstage and out the back door which is a whopping great 200m from our RV. the long and short of it? warren and barbara are the raddest people we've met so far, and honorary adoptive parents of all four of us.

so after all of that what have we got? absolutely no idea what americans are like. if they were all like the people in LA i'd say go straight from mexico to canada. but if there's even one more couple as lovely and kind as warren and barbara then i'd say come to the USA, buy a campervan and go move into their back yard.

in the end american's are indeed an interesting bunch. some are most certainly far to complex for a simple soul like myself to understand, and some are so abounding with generosity and kindness that it's almost unfathomable. in regard to the latter i sincerely hope that one day all four of us may repay the kindness shown to us at indio by not only warren and barbara, but by frank, jim, theresa (who makes awesome date slice) and all the other poeple who so willingly took us in and made us feel so much at home. i'm sure that any american we meet in the future is going to have one hell of a reputation to live up to.

take it hell easy skaters - make up your own mind about americans... but definitely come and check it out first before you do. it's one amazing place with some truly weird and wonderful people.

check

cookie, shannon and the crew

welcome to post number one. hopefully we have distributed word well enough that a few people back home are getting this message and will know that we are both kickin tail.

this post will be a short one on account of the fact that we are in mexico and the lineup to the computer is progressively growing. we only spent a day in USA at santa monica but it´s going to have to provide alot on our return to top mexico so far. the place is amazing. everything is cheap as hell and it´s nowhere near as scary as you´d imagine. the people are really nice and put up with our shithouse spanish without complaint. we went and had a gander at the cathederal which was the most amazing thing i´d ever seen. massive walls of golden statues and cedar doors like 15 feet high. just incredible. they just announced the new pope here as well so the town´s in a bit of an uproar - kids taking the day off school and heading downtown.

the place we´re staying is really cheap ($11) and includes breakfast and dinner. it´s only a stone´s throw from the very centre of mexico city. we´re sharing a room with a nice - non offensive american called ellie and so far we´ve met really great travellers.

but back to the important... this message is distracting us from our goal of getting some damn cheap corona´s and lying on hammocks. (yes - they have hammocks here for us to lie on)

take it hell easy skaters and we´ll see you (or at least talk to some of you) soon.

Adios Amigo´s

Cookie and Shannon