roam the earth

There is nothing better than telling the funny parts of a trip.
One of the things we have done on our trip to New Zealand was to feed the ducks. We actually were just trying to feed ourselves. We had a nice bag of sandwiches for a picnic and innocently seated near the river that crosses the main park of Christchurch. It was a beautiful day, the water is crystal clear and the ducks are supposed to be so cute.
Have you seen that old Hitchcock movie called “The Birds”? Basically it’s about a town where the birds go crazy and attack people. So that is what the cute ducks reminded me of. They went for our food! They would take it out of our hands, bitting our fingers.
Not only that, they thought my dad’s toes were food and tried to eat them! Also my cousin’s anklet: they loved the dangling bits trying to rip them out.
Even the babies were like that.
We had a laughing fit and had to eat it all very quickly deflecting ducks and keeping the hands high.
Across the water we saw a father with a small daughter of around 2 years old come to feed the ducks and leave running with the baby on his arms.
Such undisciplined bunch those crazy ducks! But I laughed so much!

(Orble Votes: 48)

Someone just called me “one of a kind”. I like it. My whole life I felt different, like an alien hiding among humans. The funny thing is that I like to be “something else”…
This “something else”, being me, just came back from vacations in New Zealand, where I did a lot of nice things and one very stupid one. I had the bad taste of falling from a horse on a canter in a very hard field.
Confidence, my people, is the enemy of safety. Whenever you go for a touristic horse ride, remember to answer NO, I have never ridden a horse before. Even if you had, even if you have done Equestrianism before, even if you have jumped obstacles, ridden with no equipment, gone for horse rides other times after that. Still answer no. Otherwise you might end up like me: on the floor.
Of course, as the horse pointedly showed me, I wasn’t that good, on top of not having gone for a ride in two years, the horse had been a racing horse, feisty beast, and it proved to be even more stubborn than me. I went on a canter and it decided to pull its head down until it got rid of me.
I fell slowly at first. I remember my exact train of thought:
– Oh! I may fall.
– NO, I am NOT going to fall.
(I lost a bit of my balance)
– No, no, I am not gonna fall.
(I’m to the horse’s side, trying to regain balance and pulling the reins with all my might)
– No, no, I am NOT GOING TO FALL.
(It’s a lost battle, the horse has pulled its head stronger and I’m parallel to the floor already, but still holding on)
– Oh! I am going to fall… who had this stupid idea of horse riding? Me? Stupid!!! And if I get hurt, how am I going to dance??? Dumb idea!
Then I’m on the floor. None of my riding companions saw me, It took my sister a while to realise the horse trailing hers was missing its rider.
But the dog saw me. We had two beautiful sheepdogs with us for the ride. One of them saw me, sat beside me and waited until someone came to the rescue.
Anyway I didn’t give up. I went back to the riding for another hour and a half.
At the end of it I asked if I could cry a bit as my arm was hurt, but I am proud to say I didn’t give up.

(Orble Votes: 49)