Teeuwsen.com

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

The BIG 50! 🙂

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Hi all,

I’m back in Nha Trang. The bicycle is fun but also destroying. When I got up to Dalat, the mountain town I was headed to, I collapsed into a hotel and barely had the energy to drag myself over to a reasturant where I ordered two meals. It took me three and a half days to get up there. The first day was good, just flat roads and plenty of people around. As night neared some people on motorbikes pulled up beside me to chat. They said they would show me to a hotel, so I rode alongside them for the last ten km of the day. They wanted to hangout and practice their English, so I had them into my room and poured some drinks from a little bottle of whisky I had. When, the one guy looked really excited about it, the girl said no and their friend made a face at his first sip I began to susspect their age. It turned out all 16. I don’t usually try to booze up minors so I felt pretty silly, but it was only one drink, so even though it was strong I think it was alright. I’m such a terrible judge of age…..

I got into the countryside the next day and spent such a sweet night camping out in the jungle, with my hammok, a flute and all the tangled noises of a wild place that both, scare me a little and get my imagination going a lot. The next day started with my first great down hill of the road. It was following a tight river valley with tall trees and vines whizzing by. Shortly after I got my first huge and punishing uphill. It kept going and going for 11 kms. I was dizzy peddeling up in the bright sun and sweating all the salt out of me, but I got up eventualy and had a little help with the last km. I held on the back of a slow rolling truck; a trick I learned from the tricycle days. I know it’s cheating, but I’ll sacrifice my sence of acomplishment for a few of my dieing breaths back.

The lady who ran the shop I ate in that night didn’t like the idea of me sleeping outside and offered me her couch. It was a little akward sittling in her families living room that night, with me having almost nothing to say because I haven’t learned much Vietnamese besides counting, but they were nice. I slept well and headed out early in the morning. It was quite hilly most of the next day. I was so happy when I saw the road marker 12 kms to Dalat even though the road was turning up hill again, but then it kept going up and up and didn’t stop till I pulled into the hotel. Hence the collapse and the over eating when I arrived.

The jungle had changed into pine forrest as the elevation rose. It was great being some place dry and cool. I hung around Dalat for a day. There’s a cool water fall near town and some fun single track bike paths around (Somewhat reminicent of Jasper biking, Dan). I finaly got my rewarding downhill as I left Dalat the next day. There were great views of the lowlands as I neared the coast and a gorgous sunset sharpening the features of the rice patties and kids on their way home. I sat down to enjoy it all, but I didn’t get any pictures. I had decided to just soak it in, rather than frame it up. I pulled back into Nha Trang quite a bit later in a cool night rain which was exactly what I needed. I had a bad pain in my left akilies tendon and constant pins and needles in my right hand from leaning on the handel bars(i won’t get into how much I hate my new nemesis the bicycle seat, which was laughing at me the whole way for not buying bicycle shorts), but I made it with enough time to chill out with my friends from Taiwan for a day before they left for Paris so I was happy.

It’s a couple of days later and I’m still in Nha Trang and I still have pins and needles tickeling my right hand which is a bit unnerving, (pins and needles, unnerving… get it? HA!I’m so funny) I just searched the internet about numbness in the hand from bicycling and a few articles came up talking about exactly what I had. It’s nice to know it’s pretty common and not carple tunnle. It’s some other tunnel. They gave some tips on how not to agrivate it, so it should be alright.

I’ve started reading a couple old favorite books likeCatch-22, 1984, On the Road, and Still Life with Woodpecker(4 at a time is new for me, but I already know what’s going to happen so it’s easy to keep track). Actually the last one got cut short. It dropped off my bike on the road near Dalat. I turned around a little ways down the road after a truck passed and I saw someone getting off their motorbike and picking up my book. ‘Hey, Thanks!…wait, don’t get back on your bike, hey that’s my book, hey! you proabaly can’t even read English…. jerks…’ They totally made off with my book. I was shocked. And the book was just getting so good… the mad bomber was in the middle of seducing a princess who wanted to build a piramid and was marrying an oil rich Arab for the money. ah well. I have read it before.

(most of this text was stolen from a previous letter to a good friend, I’ve appologized for this kinda thing before. I’m too lazy to write the story twice 😉

I hope all is well and there are preperations for a monster of a party comming up in the house of Teeuwsen. I wish I could be there for it. Cheers on your B-Day Mom. I’ve just reached quarter century and you’re hitting a half. I wonder if it’s polite to broadcast that to the whole WORLD WIDE WEB (big, scary and full of possibility, i know), but I just can’t contain myself. I think it’s darn cool that I’m exactly as old as you were when you had me. Wow, you were a uncontainable, 3 kids by 25. And tough, I don’t think I could have delt with all 4 of us boys and done such a good job of it. I love you!

Steve

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So, yes it is true, I did go to Vegas last month. The city of overindulgence. It was pretty cool to see, especially since it was my first time, I was a Vegas Virgin (VV).

So off to see the sites. First up Hoover Damn… er Dam.

It was pretty cool, and amazing that they built this so many moons ago in some pretty gnarly terrain. Nice glasses eh, yeah they were made for a woman. I am quite secure in my masculinity.
Next stop, party time on Freemont St. It is the old strip I think, actual downtown Vegas.

The girls scored some beads from these two lovley individuals.

And DJ and Nicole got the big money…

… well fine it was some religious propoganda about saving our souls from the firery inferno.

Cruising the strip was cool, seeing all the themed hotels and such. My favorite was the Sirens fo TI show at Treasure Island. I know it isn’t really new for every one but for this VV it was cool to see them sink a pirate ship.

The Bellagio water show was cool as well.

Inside Ceasers Palace, DJ chilaxin’ with the girls.

Vegas was pretty cool. Probably the best highlight was Cirque du Soleil show, Mystère, we saw. Oh and we stayed at the Luxor, thanks Ron. Pretty amazing construction, being a pyramid and such. The four faces of the building are the whole structure, the inside is completely open.

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Lots of love from all of us to you! It is great to see your adventures and we are thinking of you often. Hopefully we will see you soon. 😉

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This was a big weekend in the life of our house. It was started….

Now we only need to wait 6 more months. 🙂

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Well… I have committed a cardinal Teeuwsen.com sin. I went to Chile and didn’t post anything about it. No stories, no pictures, no notice…

First no pictures, because I forgot my camera. I tried to buy one, but the only one there was an underwater camera and the lady behind the counter wouldn’t sell it to Gringos. Not a very nice lady.

So here is my story…

First we land and we have to go through customs. I am of course searched, because in my suitcase are 4 hard drives replacements for the server that I have to setup. Needless to say the customs people don’t speak very good English and I don’t really speak Spanish at all other then Hola. After some very awkward conversations I ended up paying a bunch of money so that I could bring the hard drives in and everything was ok.

Taxi driver took me to my hotel. Along the way most of the houses I saw were small, crowded and squished together. There was quite a few little shacks and odd little homes and garbage in the river and generally quite poor. Then we drove through a long long tunnel came out the other side into their new downtown. It was like entering a new world. They had all kinds of nice huge skyscrapers, fancy hotels, restaurants, and nice cars. The downtown is really nice and they have people constantly cleaning. In the morning when I would walk to work there would be someone mopping the sidewalks and then when I cam home at night someone else would be picking up any leaves that may of fallen during the day.

Side note: Almost all of the cars in Santiago are new. The increased emissions standards and all the old ones were no longer allowed. However cars in are cheap. A lot of people buy Hyundai’s for approx. $8000. There is no tax on cars as they do not manufactuer cars in Chile. As well they have just signed a deal with China where they will be buying a new Chines car for about $3000 or $4000. Crazy…

Anyway, my hotel was really nice. I barely had to open a door the entire time I was there. When I walked into my hotel room there was a Kitchen and beside it a living room. Through the sliding doors was my bedroom, then down a mini hallway with two closets was my big bathroom. I had three phones all in the most necessary locations, beside my bed, beside the couch, and beside the toilet. The phone by the toilet was actually easier to get to then the toilet paper.

The first two days there I went on a couple of tours. One of Santiago (older part of town) and one to the beach. The city tour was pretty good, but they don’t have a lot of really old architecture. There are some nice buildings and a big church, but I believe a lot of it was destroyed during earthquakes and each building looks like it was designed by a different society and hardly any of it looks Spanish.

The second tour was the beach tour. We drove through the country side and learned about their wine making. I guess there is an formally extinct grape that the French use to use all of the time in their best wines and was thought to be lost until just recently. They discovered the Chileans were using it in some of their wines. So the French brought it back to France and tried to grow it so that they could again make some of specialty old wines, but with no success. As it would turn out they only place it grows is in Chile. The tour guide is confident that Chile will be really famous for the new wines that they will be releasing using exclusively this special grape.

On the beach tour, I got to run through the ocean, sit on the beach for a little bit, see some more interesting architecture and hear tones of stories about things that happened or that they had discovered or lost. Now this would be the time that the camera would come in handy, but… well… you know. I might have to go back again and if I do I will take lots of pictures and I will write more. 🙂 To note in one of the towns we went to it had the most diverse architecture yet including a community of Victorian homes that the British built when trying to start a colony.

Well the rest of my trip was less exciting. I worked a lot, met some really nice people at the place where I worked and they took me out for some good food. I also only bought one present and it was for Kim, not you. A bracelet and necklace made with Lapis Lazuli.

Now I promise to keep everyone a little more informed especially as soon there will be a new Teeuwsen in the world. Boy or Girl we don’t know yet, but life is about to get a little crazier.

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A big “Happy 75th Birthday” to Henry “Grandpa, Dad” Teeuwsen!

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Hello SNOW!

Shortly after Christmas Jon, Jordan and I headed up Wudang Shan and I got my first taste of snow in a long time. It was hugely foggy on the hike up and the wind was howlling when we made it to the monistary on the top of the mountain. “Tut tut, feels like snow poo bear”, I said to Jon.

We ate a load of rice and veggies in the dining hall. It’s really funny to see the monks come in out of the wind and crowd around the t.v. to watch Chinese soaps. It’s the new China I guess.

There were scurying sounds coming from the empty bunk above us that night, but we tried not to think about it as we huddled for warmth in our heaterless dorm room. We stuffed up the hole in the window with our hats, but it was still pretty drafty.

In the morning there was a thick new layer of windblown frost on everything and snow falling in the trees as we slid our way down the mountain. It was so sweet to be throwing snowballs after all this time with no snow. I know I you’re probably thinking, “oh, poor Steve with no snow. It’s almost as tough for him as it is for Hawii with three days of shade”, but you’d miss it too.

Happy New Year 🙂

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Although it is a mild winter everyone still wishes they were some where nice like Hawaii, but have you seen the weather forcast for Hawaii lately…. Hawaiian Weather Forcast.

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The first rule of Santa Project is you don’t talk about The Santa Project. The second rule of Santa Project is YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT SANTA PROJECT. The third rule of Santa project is if you’re in Santa Project you have to be a Santa.

It was Jon’s first Christmas away from Iceland and he really felt like he needed to do something big for the season. Especialy since after he left us on the tricycles he’d ended up back in Beijing and the hostle was becoming his own personal Hotel California. He bought thirteen Santa suits for the thirteen Icelandic Santas of yor and we all agreed to met up in ZhengZhou. Jon recruited some more Santas in Beijing, so the crew was13 strong.

I arrived in ZhengZhou on the 22nd but, I located them late on the 23rd. Before I got there they bought loads of candy and small gifts. We celebrated the Christmas reunionin of everyone dancing in the hotel that night and planned where we were headed the next day: to the nearby village DengFeng.

On Christmas Eve we danced down the street handing out preasents and candy on our way to the bus station. We passed a stage that was having some sort of promotional show and one of the organizers grabbed us and asked if we would throw some gifts for them. To a hard techno beat we got jiggy with it on the stage and threw out little key chains with the stores name. We wished them a merry Christmas, ‘Cheng Deng Quia La’ and continued off to the bus station.

When we got to DengFeng we gave out what we had to any passing child. There were a few terrified kids that couldn’t compute the mad seen in frontof them: 13 people with big white beards and red suits running over to them with maniacal smiles. There were also some really appreciative kids that just stared at their new ball or stuffed dog. We found the town park and the seen slowly degenerated into bedlem. Everyone realized what was going on and we started to get mobbed. After some group pictures we split up to try and give stuff without getting trampled by grabby kids and their even more grabby parents. Once everything was given away we still had a huge crowd and so we started singing christmas songs, but even our group didn’t know all the words. I started teaching the kids in the circle head and shoulders knees and toes. It’s the easiestEnglish song there is. It was like I was leading excersize time at school again. The hoeky-poeky really took off and then the Chinese Santas lead the kids in some Chinese versions of the songs we were singing. After, we climbed the park hill to a pagoda that over looked the town for a few group pictures and to escape our fans.

On our way back to the bus station the guys gave even their costumes away.

We returned to the city we had our Christmas dinner in Pizza Hut. Which is quite a fancy affair, like when in Demolition Man Stalone gets invited for dinner and dancing atTaco Bell. We stayed in the hotel for the evening with our Christmas tree. We had two people from Iceland, two English, TwoDutch, One German, four Chinese, one Israeli and one Canadian. On Christmas day we cuddled and watched dvds for most of the day.

Tomorrow we’re splitting up. I’m going to keep on heading south to warmer and warmer weather. I want to be in Vietnamin a few weeks.

My Christmas is never as good as when sitting with Mom, Dad, Jer, Dan and Keith in the living room and eating chocolate. I miss you a lot and love you tones, Merry Christmas, I hope you get the most out of the next year =)

love,

Steve

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