Once upon a time there was a turtle who wanted a new shell. He couldn’t explain to his friends why exactly, he just new he had got everything he could out of his old shell. He knew there was a Shell Service Station across the valley and as he started to pack up his headbands and a spare pair of pants he couldn’t help but feel excited.

As he turned off the TV at the wall and checked his rabbit had food in the automatic dispenser he stepped out of his front door into the crisp, fresh, delightful air.
At the very moment his foot hit the welcome mat a wave of anxiety crashed over him like a Hawaiian breaker, buckling his knees with the pressure. What was he doing? He was just a little turtle in a big scary world. Why should he feel like he needs a new shell? All his other turtle friends seemed happy in their old shells, what made him special? Why should he feel different? The journey was a long one and, while not impossible, it was surely a challenge. 

He was on the brink of turning back to the comfort and safety of his crib when something caught his eye. It was a gigantic billboard, sauntering on the opposite side of the road. It sure hadn’t been there yesterday but there it stood, almost inconspicuously despite its size. It was an advertisement, depicting a scene from the film Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels with the phrase ‘Chill Winston’ in big bold letters. Now I haven’t told you this but our turtles name happens to be Winstein (on account of his Jewish step uncle). Not an exact match perhaps but nevertheless old Winny took it as a sign that he should release his anxieties and, doing so, he stepped clear of his door and closed it shut.

As it clicked he felt a massive weight lift from his heart. The sun seemed brighter, his step lighter, Winsteiner the Shiner was off like a stoned rocket as fast as his awkward little legs would take him. Off, across the valley in search of a new shell…

Hey All,

Long time no see uh? Well on my never ending mission to make it back home I have found myself on the little island of Malta, somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Its not quite Italy, not quite Africa but somewhere beautifully in between. Its funny that since I left the land of the long white cloud Aoetearoa I’ve only spent 3 months on mainland. Seems like you can take the boy outta the island but island outta the boy!

So I’m posted up here for the winter months looking after a big sailing boat called Nostromo making sure she stays beautiful for when the sun comes out. Not so bad I reckon, while I’m here I get to stay in a wicked water front flat with this for a morning view

so life could be worse! But I promise, as good as it all seems I’m still dying to come home. I miss all the girls and boys I haven’t seen in what feels like years: hold up, how long has it been? 

Anyways, would be a trip to hear from you all! I’ve got a bit more time on my hands these days so I promise I’l get back to you on point!

And if anyone needs a place to stay in Europe I’m your man :)

Peace!

What would you write about, if you could just let the pen voice the unformed and unapproved thoughts in your head. If you switched off the filter that checks for content, relevance, possible reactions by imagined future readers.

Do you think thats how you write something great? Do you call it Divine Inspiration if something wonderful appears in the chaos of free and unrestrained thought? Is it chance? Or is it that great stories simply must be told and we are merely the instruments used to translate and transcribe the vague shadows of ideas into a format simple enough to be understood and shared.

A beginning

A middle

An end.

Stories are life and life is a story in the making.

How good is your story?

Would you read it yourself or get bored halfway through, somewhere around the point where the main character stops pursuing their original dreams and crazy schemes. Around the point where they begin to settle in, to grow up, to settle down.

You are the author, at least of this one great book. The beginning has been written already, the base is there. The plot, the characters, their loves and losses, failures and triumphs, glimpses of magic and snatched views of other worlds. Everything is there waiting to be added, created and destoryed, nourished or pushed aside for a better fit.

Would you read your own story?

back on the grind again after taking the winter out and it feels pretty good. I’m full time working again on a boat called nefertiti that looks like this

beautiful boat and awesome people makes it a pretty wicked job. so far we started here

cruised the tuscan archipelago off the coast of italy north of roma up to nice and st tropez in the south of france. At the moment though we’re back in palma getting ready to do more cruising around ibiza so looking forward to it. anyway thats work but what i wanna start thinking about is studying back in NZ pretty soonish into next year, anyone have any ideas? dont wanna be in auckland but not really into freezing our balls of down south either so where does that leave us? pretty excited about maybe coming home soon!! its been what, nearly 3 years? tu meke cuz miss everyone too much and miss the beaches and waves and good good vibes.

but yea anyone who has any knowledge or ideas get at me!!

oh yeah also since the last update my folks have moved here to Palma so its good to have family around, even though it might seem like i’m trying to move away from them again! its been a wicked adventure living on the other side of the world but it feels like time to get to know kiwi land properly and introduce my lovely girl to the most beautiful country in the world at the same time.

anyway thats it for news i think, probably lots has happened but i’ll get to that sooner or later.

miss you all!

So been a while since the last one but after leaving Barca we came back to Palma, originally to do another crossing back to the Caribbean but as it happened we’ve ended up hibernating here for the winter, and what a winter its turned out to be! We’ve lived in three flats so far (this time around anyway!) and we were SO glad that we’d moved into our new flat with an actual heater when this happened…

Yeah that’s snow on the beach. First time for me being snowed on and for it to happen in this city, a once in a lifetime thing, was epic. I was back to being a kid, running round at 2am throwing snowballs at passing spanish people from behind cars. 

Apart from the amazing snow, weather here has been awesome. Clear skies and sun almost every day! We’ve been extremely lucky by the sounds of things to pick this year to stay over. 

SO anyway back to us, at the moment Rebecca is working at a new restaurant in town called Royale and has been there a couple months now. I’ve had a couple months of day work on various boats since we arrived and sailed a short trip back from Malta but apart from that its been pretty quiet so I’m looking forward to next month when things will hopefully start picking up again. Need to start saving up money to head back home for a visit!!

Yep that’s right, plans are being put into motion for us to be down under sometime around the end of the year so keep your fingers crossed for that!

So our dream period in Barcelona is coming (slowly) to an end as we’ve just been offered another crossing back to the Caribbean on the same sailing boat Stravaig that we crossed on earlier this year. Its been an interesting couple of months, filled with food, wine, cervezas, mas cervezas, Dona Marias and Rrrrricardos to name a few. We’ve seen most of the ‘must see’ sights around town including Tibidabo

the hundred year old theme park at the very top of the city, La Boqueria,

the 800 year old market in the centre of Las Ramblas, watched Barca win at Camp Nou (Go Messi!!!!)

and heaps of other stuff too. We’ve been having fun with everything in this city, even the rubbish. One night after Barca beating Madrid (again) we found this painting in the trash on the street (after several beers)

and managed to carry it all through the city claiming it was the lost Picasso. It now sits proudly in our room. Mostly though we’ve just been kicking it Spanish style which means doing as little as possible during the heat of the day and drinking, eating and partying at any given excuse during the night.

But the best part of any place is the people and there have been lots of awesome people we’ve met along the way, and not always the people you’d expect to meet in a city like this… Of course there’s Gemma, the Catalan chica who we shared our first flat with and love to bits. She introduced us to the Catalan spirit and showed us how and why we should fall in love with this city. Then there’s Ryan, the American scientist here to do his Phd who, at times, can seem like anything but a scientist and his friend Simon, the only scientist you’ll ever meet who’s head is completely shaved except for 3 or 4 dreads and has tattoos all down one arm. I guess that’s one thing you have to get used to in Europe and especially in Spain, nothings what it looks like. 
Anyhow right now we’re living right next to the biggest city park here called Parc Ciutadella
 
where any given day you can find people practicing juggling, flips, stick fighting, ukelele (how do you even spell that?) human shape building, fire sticks, tight rope walking, guitar and bongo jamming and on a Sunday, you get all of that at once. Its something epic to walk around in the centre of the city being treated to a unique show, all for free. If you want to, you can live the best life here with hardly any cash and I think thats how the Spanish get their “Manana manana” attitude, its easy for someone like me to fall straight into that…

But now, sadly, its almost time to move on and back to Palma to get back to work. But hey, its just a couple of months and who knows where the next stop will be?Gonna be hard to stay away from this though!…

So continues the ‘Adventures of Rebecca & Liam’, we now live in Barcelona! We arrived almost a month ago and have been doing our best to see and experience as much of the city as we can. Whether its watching an outdoor screening of the origional ‘Phsyco’ in spanish or having a cheese and wine picnic in the middle of the old city you can’t say we haven’t been getting stuck in. There’s so much going on that its hard not to. In one night we found 2 entire street festivals and 5 bands playing on the street in different parts of the city, all for free! Any excuse for a party and the Spanish are into it.

When we first arrived we moved into a flat in Poblenou, one of the outer city areas 5 minutes walk from the beach. We’re sharing with a awesome chica called Gemma who has looked after us and laughs every time we tell her our stories of asking for things in spanish by just adding o’s on the end of every word. Its a big, old and amazing city packed with everything you can imagine and every kind of person you could think of all sharing the same space and not minding it at all. The vibe you get from the place is so relaxed and chilled it makes you wonder why it can’t be like this everywhere. And I can’t wait to see it once all the tourists go! 

After a few weeks of seeing the sights we’re ready to get stuck into learning Spanish (so we can make some friends) and hopefully finding a source of income to make our stay here longer. We are, fingers crossed, moving into and awesome huge wicked apartment in the middle of the old city at the end of the month so if anyone wants to come to Barca feel free to come and crash in the guest room!

Oh and if anyone has any idea’s of things we can do or see here or ways to make a living in Spain then send me a message!
btw our number here is +34 634 307 773 if anyone wants to drop a text or call.

Vale, Ciao! 

Check this out. So becks and I go to the beach, hang out, swim and chill. We get hungry so we go for a walk to find somewhere cool to grab a bite. We end up finding a sick little place in the backstreets called The Black Cat and have the best food we’ve had since arriving in Croatia. We decide to come back for dinner that night…

Later that night… We rock up to have dinner and I hear this voice say, “Is that Liam?” and turn around and see, WTF, Megan, Asha and George. In croatia dude. In some RANDOM little restaurant. How epic is that. This world is truly a small one.

Thanks girls for the sweet dinner and dope night. Good to see some folks from home! 

Who’s next?!!?

wicked. Have just spent a week in Cavtat, a small fishing/holiday village south of Dubrovnik with Becks and her family. The water is the most insanely clear water I’ve seen anywhere in the world, absolutely sick. Rebeccas folks then left to go back home to work and commitments in Sweden while we continued our relaxations in Split, a 4 hour bus ride from Dubrovnik. Cool as old town with authentic old school restaurants and people, plus awesome art gallery’s and pubs. Wicked place.

Oh and somewhere along the way we decided to move to Barcelona! So on Monday we fly there to, hopefully, live… SICK! We’ve got a place to stay worked out while we look for our own place to rent but if anyone knows anyone or anything to do/see/talk to in Barca that would be epic!

So wish us luck!