Around the World in 60 Days

The Queen has been let down once again by her servant, Newt Verne. Instead of monitoring our progress, and the happenin's on our pages, he was off frolicking with the skuas. The Maine page had a broken template, which I am happy to report is now functioning normally once again. You may have heard reports of flooding in the Northeast. We sent a skua out on a reconnaisance mission, and expect a "flood" of photographs any time now of the situation in that part of the U. S. If you have any photos to share, please feel free to drop me a line and I will personally post them to the pages. I am also considering candidates for the position of my "trusty" servant. References are required. Cheers!

Well hello again! I bet you thought we'd fallen into a crevasse or something, didn't you? We've managed to explore every nook and cranny of this island, and found some interesting tidbits along the way. Got a minute or two? Good. Grab a towel, some shorts, and follow me. Huh? Oh, I'm sorry... we're headed to the sauna. It'll give us a chance to catch up. Yes, it will do you a lot of good, and relax you too. Don't forget your water. You should be drinking at least a gallon a day, you know, or you'll dehydrate something fierce!

Okay, now that we're settled, I tell you what has been going on. I told you about the killer attack skua - he tried to eat our balloon. But Newt's been very resourceful - he found the skua barn. The skua barn is a place where you can put stuff you don't want anymore, instead of throwing it out. You know what they say, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Here, we recycle everything. There was a plastic poncho in the skua box; granted it was torn, but we needed it to patch our balloon. The glue is a different story. Newt and the boys are playing chemistry set - experimenting with different chemicals to find a permanent, but flexible glue. The "Winter Over" community is a very tightly knit group of people. "The tourists," people here for the summer, have all gone home - leaving a small skeleton crew to maintain the equipment and monitor ongoing experiments until August.

People are keeping themselves busy - one man makes sculptures out of scraps he finds in MacTown. Near the bus stop is an amazing sculture of a whale made from heavy chain, nuts, bolts, and sheet metal scraps. You really should see it before you go. One of the guys that works in the Heavy Shop made it - talk about talent. We've also had a few accidents. Somebody went out on a snowmobile and ran out of gas. You'd think it was a no-brainer to check the gas, but apparently this guy wasn't running on all four cylinders. He had a little too much rocket fuel to drink. Yes, rocket fuel - JATO (jet assisted take off) juice. It's drinkable if you dilute it with bug juice. It'll fry your brain cells too. Anyway, rocket man was up at medical for a few days - dehydration mostly, and a little frostbite. Some people have no life...

I regret to inform you that our balloon is not flyable at the present time. A hungry skua mistook it for a tasty pastry, leaving a nasty tear. We are expecting a timely repair, but meanwhile, we are enjoying the multi-cultural diversity, and hospitality, of our hosts here in McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Cheers!

Can you believe it - a Fairy penguin? They are also known as Blue penguins.

Eagle eye Newt found this lovely nesting pair of Canadian bald eagles; and the best part is that there's a video camera set up to watch the eaglets hatch! Click here to join 73 million others in the baby watch! It may be slow due to the huge numbers of people (and other living beings) watching for the eaglets; but if you get tired of waiting, here's a link to videos and screenshots of previous days.

Late Breaking news...
As of this afternoon, there have been sightings of TWO eggs in the eagle's nest! Awesome - can't wait to see them hatch!


Here is a screencapture of another eagle family from Maine.

I'm sorry - Maybe the heat is getting too me, or I've snorted too many spices, but I've had more than enough of the desert. Do you need to cool off too? Well then, hop onboard for a trip south.

We'll have a whale of a good time!

Some people will do anything to make money. But this made me sick. How could anyone think thousands of people dying is funny? I mean, that's why the "souvenir" was made, right? Because it's funny? How about a "souvenir" of someone being decapitated. That's funny, right? Or what about a cafe? Wouldn't you want a "souvenir" of a cafe that's been blown up, all bloody, with twisted metal and dead bodies strewn everywhere? That's funny, too, right?

Fortunately, most of the people we ran into were not so crass; but there were several demonstrations in front of the United Nations building, and on a few occasions we weren't allowed to leave our flat. So while we did manage a few trips to the souk, we didn't get to see the saw an archaeological dig actually in progress. But we ate some delicious shwarmas, and got a few shots of some well placed sculpture. Check it out!

Overall, I have to say I was disappointed in our visit to Bahrain. Not because of the heat, but mostly because of the way they view women. Being a faerie, and a Queen no less, I expected to be treated accordingly - NOT as some cur dog. When I can't sign for purchases made on MY faerie credit card, then there is something seriously wrong! I am obviously a foreigner, and as such I fail to recognize why the locals couldn't treat me as they would any male visitor, and not as a dog that is not fit to sign for her own purchases! Yes, it's been a week and it still irritates me to no end. How the Silly Bahraini Girl puts up with it is beyond me. But I suppose, if that's all you know, then you wouldn't know that freedom is so much better, now would you?

Welcome to New Zealand! Christchurch (Otautahi) is a faerie heaven. Bordered by hills, the sea to one side, and the Southern Alps in the distance, it is a colonial city of floral portraits and wide streets. Its old stone buildings, lush tree-filled parks and peaceful streams give Christchurch the air of an English town.

In fact Christchurch was designed to be an English utopia in the South Pacific. The founding fathers planned an orderly, tiered society - the first settlers had to provide references from an English vicar attesting to their sobriety and respectability. An aristocracy and the Church of England would head this utopia, and an underclass of artisans and minions would serve them. They named their fledgling city after an Oxford college (Christ Church) and laid it out like an English city, complete with a Cathedral, University, and private schools.

This beautifully ordered existence was a far cry from the realities of Maori civil war in the early 19th century. The Maori people (pronounced Mowri - ow as in cow)occupied Canterbury for several centuries before the arrival of European peoples, but by the 1840s, only 500 Maori remained in Canterbury. Their population was first decimated by tribal wars, and then by raiding parties from the North Island. Today, evidence of their culture can be seen throughout the city.