Happy Feet In Antarctica

Hi Cyber Travelers,
Well this is it... the ultimate....I finally made it to Antarctica....
I managed to flash pack my way down to the south of Patagonia to a small town called Ushuaia. ...... which happens to be the last place on earth you want to go to.....literally...its the last town on the bottom of the globe.
I negotiated a half price ticket and was set to leave in a few days after being fitted out with my cold weather gear... including penguin poo proof boots.

I was so excited as you can imagine... a dream of a lifetime was about to come into reality. When I was picking up my ticket I was talking to a traveller in the office. She just informed me that she had been moved onto my ship as her ship almost sunk. Her ship was on its way back from Antartica and hit uncharted rocks....... it took in 300 tonne of water into the hull.mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Do I still want to do this?

And of course there was the Clelia II, which was an icebreaker which got hit by 50ft waves when crossing the Drake passage last year........ the impact punched out one of its engines.
Great ......I was just about to board the Titanic......

After many prayers we all finally borded the Antartic Dream (Dream....yea right)and headed for a 10 day expedition. First off....a 2 day crossing across the infamous Drake passage. This passage (named after Sir Francis Drake) happens to be one of the roughest stretches of ocean in the world.

Let me just give you the picture.... this crossing is not for the faint-hearted..... (I get sick catching the Manly ferry on the way to work). Equipped with my herbal ginger tablets...(I chose to go natural).....I watched people stick on their illegally imported sea sickness patches .....and the excitement was uncontainable. We spent the next 2 days battling the rough seas (15m (50ft) )and 55 knot winds of the Drake Passage.

Now might I say.... god bless ginger.....I think this is the seventh wonder of the herbal world. As some people spent either the next 2 days in bed.....or throwing up...
I had a great time....working out at the gym, eating fine food and hanging out in the sauna....Although running on the tread mill was more like a cross country race.

Day three..... we woke to find ourselves in calm water and surrounded by beautiful mountains. Equipped with our life jackets and penguin poo proof boots we motored across to land on our zodiacs.

Then one of those magic moments in life occurred..... a memory that I will never forget. Awaiting on land were the most welcoming group of locals cheering us on and waving their little arms...... eager to get us on their home land and show us around.
Hundreds of little penguins chatting to us in their own language, pecking at our boots and very excited....they were so friendly and curious.

Over the next several days we had great opportunity to hike across the great white continent. Observe several thousands of penguins and families of seals.....
As we were hiking... my hiking buddy and I were watching a seal which was about 20 metres away..... Thinking he knew what he was talking about... I was listening to his instructions on what happens if a seal approaches you .....He tells me to wave your arms in the air and make noise.... So as I was taking a photo of a seal I noticed that the seal was getting larger in my view finder. I could hear my buddy making noise as he was standing next to me...
As the seal was now several metres in front of me and now completely filled my viewfinder there was a deadly silence from my buddy.....Yep, you guessed it...... my buddy was now no where to be seen and the seal was now chasing me..... great..... I didn't see my last minutes on this planet being eaten by a seal....

The Antarctic region covers 20% of the Southern hemisphere. The passage to get in and out is only open 8 weeks of the year as most of the year round its frozen. There is a small post office there and recently there was a vacancy for a job there.... anyone interested.....???????

The scenery is beautiful... in fact one of the best I have seen in the world...It is so majestic..... Have you ever seen something so beautiful .....it just takes your breath away.....???????

One morning I came up to the dining room for breakfast and was alarmed to see an iceberg floating past our ship. What was so disturbing was that the iceberg was bigger than the ship we were on. Our ship was 12m wide and 83m wide. Now considering that icebergs are 80-90% below the water... that was pretty scary.

Well I must say ... put this one on the bucket list.....

warm hugs
Katrina

My Forrest Gump moment

Hi friends and family,
Well the journey continues......this time through South America.
First stop Bogota in Columbia. I managed to catch up with one of my Anthony Robbins family members, Dennis, his beautiful wife Adriana and his adorable baby son...Bruce.... A huge thank you for your hospitality of showing me around your country.

We spent a great afternoon at the Salt Cathederal.The Zipaquira Salt Cathedral, is an impressive work of architecture created by the people of Bogota. The Cathedral is enormous and is constructed from the salt mine and has baptist font.
There are twelve stations found inside bearing different crosses which are made out of salt rock. One of the crosses is filled with a stunning blue light. It was built in the year 1995 by the people of Colombia.

Next stop into Lima Peru, and then to the Amazon Basin. Now I decided not to spend too long here since the week before I got here ,the town of Iquitos was in epidemic due to dengue fever.
Although it was rainy season, the humidity was uncomfortable.

I met some great people and we hung out at the local markets. Now walking through the butchers is not for the faint hearted... it almost made me throw up... the meat consisted of the usual local suspects ... monkey, turtle, lizard and iguanas. Thats it............. vegetarian for life...
I hope you all understand.. I decided not to attach photos.

A visit to a local animal orphanage was exciting...... we spent the morning playing with a 4 month old jaguar ...rescued after its mother was killed for its pelt.... It was just like Miss Amanda... only with sharper claws....Kez you would have loved him.
The turtles and the Amazon Anaconda (snake) were interesting but not as fun...although the Anaconda does eat people..cool.....yes I did hug him too.

I have always wanted visit Lake Titicaca....Why.... Why not.... I just love the name.
It is located between Peru and Bolivia and is one of the most fascinating lakes in the world. Its the largest lake in South America and is at an impressive 3800m(12,500ft) above sea level. Its the sacred place for the Inca civilisation. It hosts itself to the famous Uros islands, which are 42 small floating islands made from reeds.

The next day I decided to bail out of Peru... as the locals were having riots in the town .......it was getting a little dangerous so I jumped on a bus headed for Bolivia.
I thought that all my troubles were over... but they were just beginning....

By now the rainy season was setting in... and by the time I got to the border of Bolivia .....the locals were also having riots over petrol prices. The bus driver told us to get our backpacks and to walk to the nearest town after leaving us at the border. So picture this... walking 8km to the next town in the rain with my whole wardrobe on my back....which weighed about 20kg.... I found a buddy to walk with...someone to be pissed off with...

So as I am walking conteplating my life... (and trying to work out what I could dump out of my back pack)...mmmmmmmmmmmmm perhaps the stilettos...nope......I need them for tango dancing..What about my book on intimacy..... I may need that one too...

Then along comes a boy about 8 years old with a trolly....Bring on the Law of Attraction...... Now if you are thinking.. would she engage in child labour in a third world country?...the answer is YOU BET..... So my girlfriend and I paid him a few bucks we were off.. Poor kid.. I dont think he knew what he was getting into....We finally arrived in the dark and of course no beds left in the hostel....lucky my new found friend had booked a room..so I could crash on her floor...

The next day I travelled to La Paz.. the capital of Bolivia which was a typical third world city. Then the unthinkable happened..I woke up and had an amazing sense of completeness in my life..I had my Forrest Gump moment...(remember when he was running for several weeks across the USA... he just woke up one day and stopped running and went home.) Yep ... thats what it was like.. I felt like my eat, pray love journey was over.... except I hadnt done the eating part.......Oh no.. I still wanted to eat pasta in Italy.....
I felt like I had a sense of inner peace within me. Its so difficult to explain.. but what I was certain of was that I no longer needed to travel the world looking for who I was anymore....OH MY GOD what next....

I knew that I couldnt go back into the USA for a while ......as several months ago I managed to get detained at the Canadian/USA border and had my passport taken off me.
I was suspected of trying to stay in the USA and I spent an hour being interrogated. After being granted a visa they did flag my file.

Argintina here I come.... What an amazing country... I especially loved Buenos Aires. What a great city... I think God put the most sexiest men and women in the world there. Great food, great looking people, great dancing, great shopping and great weather.... And of course Yes I did do tango lessons and got a dinner invite by my dance teacher.

I now decided to head south to Patogonia. Patogonia is a region of Argintina and hosts one of the worlds most spectacular glaciers. I had the privledge of spending Valentines day with a packpacking buddy (in fact she was a Cameron Diaz look alike)at the glacier. ...... After jumping the barrier (which gave a stern warning of not pass... I think over the past several years 32 people have been killed by flying ice whilst watching the glacier break off )we enjoyed a spectacular showing of the Perito Moreno glacier shearing off and crashing into the ocean. The glacier is the worlds most stable glacier (in that its not melting), with 250km2 (97 sq mi) of ice formation.... Its 35 km (19mi) long and 60 meters high. The impressive show was never ending.

So thats it my friends.....for this posting..

warm hugs
Katrina

-22.22222222222222222222

Dear friends and family,
After 14 months on my continuing eat,pray, love journey, I had a great urge to sit in the wilderness in silence....(yes for all those who know me personally... silence).
A friend of mine suggested a 4 day silent meditation retreat in Montana. So within a week .....I was off to Montana after Bridgewatch.
Now I just need to get this straight... I dont even know where Montana is... but what I do know is its cold.

After having completed a 10 day silent retreat with Vipassna in the Blue Mountains...I said to myself...4 days... in the mountains... piece of cake...

So on a cold chilly morning at 6am I departed San Francisco Airport for Billings, Montana.- where ever that is.We soon landed at midday.. in the snow...(yea) and 10 beautiful women boarded the Fidel Ranch Bus and headed for the retreat...We soon arrived and got settled...

It was a real American Ranch with cows, goats and chickens... and snow... lots of it.
Day one I set my intention... worthiness. to meditate on... so we were up at 5.30am.
We were given our words of wisdom to meditate on for the day.... mine read...
"What lies behind me and what lies in front of me, pales in comparision to what lies inside of me"".... great the universe is playing in my sandbox again....

So let me give your the picture... 10 women... now allowed to connect with each other or talk for the next 4 days.... mmmmmmmmmm.
As the group started to wander in....... in what appeared to be Artic Expedition attire.... I knew immediately I was underdressed. I managed to borrow a pair of ski pants before I left Boston, and buy what looked like a dead racoon hat which took me straight out of a Dr Sharvargo movie.

We all lined up our reclining deckchairs on the outside deck (yes outside)..... climbed into our sleeping bags and began to meditate. I have a duck down jacket, two pairs of socks, 5 jumpers, a balaclava, my dead racoon on my head, two sleeping bags and two blankets. And I am still freezing....

Meditation has begun... and we are waiting for the sun to rise.
me: shut up and be silent
my mind: wonder how the people are going back home
me: shhhhhhhhhh
my mind: its bloody cold here and I dont think I can feel my toes
me: will you stop being dramatic
my mind: I wonder if I have frost bite and my toes are going to fall off....
me: shhhhhhhhhhhhh
my mind: If my toes fell off I wonder if could still ski or hike...in fact I wonder if there is any sport I can do without my toes...
I love my toes... thank you god for my toes.
My teeth is chattering... is that cheating...??

People are getting adjusted and making noise, moving around and getting comfortable.
My mind: Cant they see that I am meditating, cant they be quiet.
me: shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I am still waiting for the sun to rise. The next thing I open my eyes and I think I have falled asleep.Oh no I have missed the sunrise. Lucky I still have tomorrow.

Now the benefit about meditating is.. if you close your eyes and fall asleep... noone knows...they think you are meditating.... but if you do it in the Montana... when you wake up you may find that its so cold... that your eyelashes are frozen and stuck together (yepp you betcha).

My nose is cold, I cant feel my toes, my fake racoon is snap frozen and my eyelashes are falling out.... and I have to go to the bathroom...Why do I always have to go to the bathroom when I meditate?
I can leave now... but I will become one of those noisy people who bothered me at the beginning... or I can hang on and wonder if my bladder will explode.
Then the chime goes off ... I am out of there....

You may ask why would I subject myself to this?....... I am glad you asked...... After two days I managed to get the left side of my brain to finally stop chattering and open the right side of my brain.. It is there where I find a place of absolute peace, serenity,love and creativity. A place that has no concept of time. It is when I come out of that place where I managed to create the structure of my book in which I have been trying to write for the past 14 months.

Whats with the -22.22222222222222222............. well thats what the temperature was one morning when we were waiting for the sun to rise.(thats -8 for the USA people).

Where to next... South America to thaw out my toes

Chow...
Katrina

Christmas 2010...............

Hi friends and family...

Well its official... I have finally ticked off No 5 off my list.... I finally had my white christmas....
This year I am proud to announce that Marcy, Alex and I celebrated Christmas at Lake Tahoe...
It was a few firsts for me...
First white Christmas
First night Skiing
First Black diamond run in Tahoe
First official whipeout by a chairlift
First car spin out in a blizzard... hitting a guard rail.....
coooool... my life is so enriched....

In San Francisco....I managed to catch up with Lisa and Dianna.. my girlfriends whom I stayed with when my journey began. We spent a fun but cold evening on a San Francisco trolly...... singing Christmas carrols..... wearing Santa hats... spreading Christmas cheer and sightseeing the Christmas lights on the beautiful Victorian archtecture.

I managed to skip the fireworks on New Years Eve and had an early night.... in preparation for the Bridge Watch programme. A friend of mind Brando Jessie created a programme called Bridge watch. The purpose of the programme is awareness and prevention of Suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. He is a truely wonderful and inspiring person..So we spent 10 hours .... walking 10 miles back and forth across the Goldengate bridge ....connecting with people... and watching out for people wanting to jump.... It was cold, windy and raining... but at the same time rewarding....The walk was a great place to start the new year, reflecting on
the completion of 2010 and its blessings, and choosing to celebrate life itself.
There have been over 2000 people who have jumped... but none on 1 January 2011 this year...
www.247woc.com/bridgewatch.htm

And December 2010 also bought us the passing of our Grandy back in Australia.
My heart and love goes out to Mam, the English and Boyle Family.

Take care and god bless..

Katrina

Where is Kat now??????

Hi family, friends and blogspotters,
It has been a while since I last wrote to you all.
Sorry, but I have been busy.....you may say... busy doing what when you are not working and travelling the world...?????
Well ... here is what I have been upto since last time we connected...

The last time we spoke... I had just finished volunteering at the Autism Treatment Centre. I met a wonderful grandmother of a beautiful austistic boy, her name is Mukee. She is Australian and now living in Phoenix. She was such a beautiful soft organic woman who reminded me of the fairy godmother. She offered her house in Phoenix to me and as I was thinking about it.. she handed me her business card...
There it was "Mukee Okan"....... "your orgasm's best friend, sexuality coaching and education"
....tantra... erotic intelligence....www.spiritfireproductions.com... so what could I do... but book the next flight out of town to Phoenix. Now every woman (whether flashpacking or not) can use a fairy godmother to teach you a little bit of erotic intelligence.... So I was soon off to Phoenix to spend the week with Mukee.

As I entered (excuse the pun) her house the most beautiful Native American erotic paintings decorated her walls. She had painted them herself..She had hundreds of books on sexuality and sensuality filling her bookshelf. I asked her if I were here for a week what should I read.. she handed me a book... and there it was "tantric Orgasm for Women" by Diana Richardson. Over the next week my speed reading skills came into good use.... as I devoured 4 books. I found myself each morning meditating to her famous Orgasm poster .....and absorbed every morsel of information that she was willing to share with me. ...I finished the week with my first traditional pipe smoking sweatlodge ceremony and some new found skills. (yes she does run courses in Australia).

I found myself back in New York staying at Miss Tess' place in Brooklyn.(thank you so much for accomodating me) and after escaping Guatelmalas earthquakes, volcano eruptions, sinkhole and mudslide....earlier this year.... I managed to find myself
in my first tornado....the wind blew so hard I thought it was going to shatter the
windows .... and I have never seen the rain fall so hard and in circles. That night Tess and I took a walk in the area... trees uprooted and fallen on cars, traffic lights torn out of the ground.... I had just survived my first tornado... cool... and it wansnt even on my list.

In October I went to my first David Deida course... a speaker who I have been following his work for several years...who teaches feminine and masculine energy and polarity. He has not been working for the last year so I was excited to be able to see him... those in the Anthony Robbins world are familar with him.
The practical part of the workshop was interesting.... yes we had our clothes on.

Talking about the Anthony Robbins world.. I managed to crew an Unleash the Power Within event with Anthony Robbins in New Jersey. Its funny it doesnt matter where you are in the world.... you can crew one of those events and its like walking into family again... it was fun to lead a firwalk lane again ...but this time in the rain. I am looking forward to crewing UPW in Italy this year... I have attached a crew photo...

In November 2010 I found myself celebrating my first traditional American Halloween and I am proud to admit that I managed to carve my way through my first pumpkin after being guided by two great kids.... We spent the night with a set of 3 year old twins door knocking for candy....it was so cute when the 3 year old girl greeted each candy giver with the words "does your chocolate have nuts... I cant eat nuts."

I managed to find a new friend DR Barry Taylor... natropath, sharman and healer...
I have been very fortunate with volunteering in his practice in Boston for the last 2 months. Learning, growing and getting my health into great shape..
We managed to do some great volunteer work with the Gourmet Guys. We had about 40 men come in with delicious home made dishes raising money for a battered womens shelter. We came equipped with our famous Curry Carrot soup.... (guaranteed to extend your eye sight by another 40 years).

Thanksgiving bought us to feeding the homeless at a Mens shelter near Boston...It was so rewarding to spend the morning feeding these beautiful lost souls....Barrys two sons were there to complete Team Taylor..

so where am I now.............. Boston......

love and hugs
Katrina

A place for Miracles

Hi friends and family,

I have now finished a 9 week volunteer placement at the Autism Treatment Center of America. Now I must say, this place is one of the most inspiring places I have ever visited in the world.

In the 70's Barry and Samahria Kaufman's son Raun was diagnosed with severe and incurable Autism.
When Barry and Samahria were told to institutionalize their son, they designed a home base program in the effort to reach out to their little boy. Raun went from a withdrawn severely Autistic mute little boy (with an IQ less than 30) to a highly verbal,near genius IQ young man. He graduated from university , and is now in his 30s and shows no signs of Autism. In fact he is now an international speaker.

The programme that the Kauffman's created is called The Son -Rise progmame and has been running for almost 2 decades from the USA. It has touched 66 countries around the world, and their story was made into an award winning NBC TV movie called "Son-Rise A miracle of Love."

The Kauffmans have written 12 books in 22 languages (over 3 million copies sold) and have been read in over 280 Universities around the world.

They run their programmes out of this beautiful 100 acres of sanctuary in Massachusetts which is where their home is. This very sacred haven of learning and contribution .... was certainly a humbling place to work. I was blessed to work in the the marketing section with an inspiring team of people wanting to make an impact in the world.

Here they also run a number of Adult education programmes including Inner Strength, Calm Amid Chaos, Couples Course, Parenting , Extraordinary man and recently I took one called Radical Authenticity. So you can all see why I was drawn to this place.

The volunteer team were great with about 12 of us... including 4 Polish volunteers, who are now taking the programe back to Poland and opening a school there.

In my first week I had the great opportunity of working with twin boys with Autism from Poland. David and Luke were 4 and identical twins...and full of life... I was blessed to have spent the weekend with them...they were so much fun....

here is the web address www.autismtreatmentcenter.org

Well I am now in LA and off to spend a few days with an Australian lady in Phoenix
Until next time.....

Love and hugs

Katrina
ps life is a playground not a battlefield

Flying high with Eric

Hi guys

I was flying today from Panama City to San Francisco and had a hilarious trip with an unnamed airline.....its a true story and I thought that I would share it with you all...
As we are seated the flight attendant comes out and announces the following....

"Ladies and genttlemen if you have an Ipod, I Phone or I touch... we are completely impressed.
We ask you to turn off your equipment when the aircraft is taking off.
For those who dont understand what Off means... that does not mean game mode, aeroplane mode, or sleep mode...
OFF MEANS OFF
But you can look up the meaning in the dictionary... but dont google it now... because if you do, its a $25,000 fine and if you can afford the fine then you would have flown with United."

"Now there are 20 ways to leave your lover.... but there are 6 ways to leave this plane in a case of emergency... we have signs overhead and disco lights on the floor.."

"If we are lucky enough for this flight to turn into a cruise.... the life jackets are under the seats... we have 4 lovely designer matching oxygen masks available....
nitrus oxide... sorry oxygen will be flowing at 75cents for the first minute and 25 cents for each additional minute after that....."

"If you are travelling with a small child...............WHY?????????
or if you are sitting next to your husband who is acting like a child... then put the mask on yourself first......"

"This is a non complaining, non whining, non smoking flight.....
Federal officers prohibit the tampering, destroying of smoke detectors in the toilets.... Blah.... Blah..... Blah.... Blah.....
If you must smoke, the smoking area is outside on the wing... if you can light it, then you can smoke it... and feel free to watch our inflight movie out there...
GONE WITH THE WIND.."

As we land... his departing words were
"Now get off the plane"

KT