I'm sitting in the student lounge at YWAM Oak Ridge. The travel here was.... crazy. I've discovered that I don't particularly mind flying in itself... but hanging out in a metal tube thousands of feet in the air for 12 hours isn't particularly my cup of tea. Speaking of tea they drink it quite a bit here. I might find myself picking up on the habit. Anyways, the flight over the Pacific really wasn't that bad. Trevor, an accountant from Wellington, shared my row on the plane and is a very nice guy. Bought me a cup of coffee and a peice of carrot cake in the Auckland airport after we got in. Also met Ki and Herbert, who turned out to be exactly the kinds of fellows I can hang around and enjoy myself. We had a party on the plane. I also managed to sleep for several hours. Then I had to wait 8 hours in the Auckland airport for the YWAM pick-up. Let's just say I got to know the airport pretty well. The first leg of the trip was pretty fun... hung out with a friend for the day, so it was good.

The first couple of days here have been pretty chill. I was prepared for it to be all hardcore right off the bat, but they've been easy on us. There are 11 other students in the DTS. I'm sharing a bedroom with Jaeho from Korea and Manuel from Germany. I like them both a lot.... so far. It has only been two days. The base is nowhere near anything "civilized" which is awesome. The country here is beautiful. Rolling grass hills with bands of trees. The green is the most vivid green you've ever seen when the sun is shining. Unbelievable. We went to a local community church this morning, very friendly loving people. And genuinely so.

I think it's going to be a challenge for me to play the student again. It's been a while since I had to go to classes and do homework and projects and things. I'll be fine I'm sure but it's definately going to take some getting used to for a guy who's in the habit of getting up early and swinging a hammer right away. I'm definately one of the older students here. So the other challenge is for me to jump into a dorm-like setting after having lived on my own. So far nobody's really driven me nuts and I'm hoping it stays that way. We'll see how I do.

The sunrise this morning was gorgeous. I've been taking a few pics but I haven't tried plugging my camera into the computer yet. The internet here is pretty slow, so we'll see if I'll be able to post pictures or not. I'll try pretty soon here.

So far everything's going good. Can't believe I'm actually here.

It's 10:45 in the morning on wednesday. I'm sitting at my folks place, spending time with the fam before I head for NZ. I'm flying out of PDX tomorrow at 11:05. Crazy. I'm setting up a blogspot. Bookmark it.

Central Oregon is pretty awesome. I think I forget that most of the time. The sun shines here like a good friend, the land is wide open, and you will probably have to have a fire in your house the night after you were outside in shorts. It's pretty great, actually. This town (Redmond, OR) has changed a lot since I moved away three years ago. I hardly even know how to get anywhere anymore. I'm a little offended that people would commit a hostile coup of my childhood reality... but I'll get over it.

Bought a camera to take on my trip yesterday.... a little ultra-compact canon powershot. First camera purchase. I'm scared I'm going to ruin it. I'll try to keep some current pictures up from NZ.

Well the creative literary juices don't seem to be flowing too well right now. I think I'm a bit distracted. So.... laters.