"I left my heart in San Francisco".... Ms. Pauline Hanson

Well, San Francisco is definitely one of the more "interesting" places I have visited on my travels around the States. They say that crazy people come here so that they can feel normal because everyone here is fucking crazy. Our local hosts, Sean and Erin reckon that as San Franciscians, there is NOTHING that they can see that will shock them.

Although I have only spent three days (with a sore throat) in this city, I have felt so at home in it's bay-based, foggy and crazy but friendly atmosphere.

Checking out the Golden Gate Park was pretty damn beautiful, and offered something for everyone, from Synchronised Skaters, to Hippie Hill, to an ice skating rink, to a sports stadium, beautiful botanical gardens and museums....

Citrus Club on Haight Street (the Brunswick Street of SF) was definitely one of the best meals I have had in the States and for an extremely reasonable price as well.

Meeting cool children of the earth on the bus and a WHOLE PILE of Aussies at the Hostel made this location more of a social one and saw me exploring downtown and Chinatown with a Thai American lost soul, and drinking sake cocktails with Cam's awesome salesforce hookups, Sean, Erin and Alan, withi earth child (previously mentioned) joining us and exploring Alcatraz (old Max security prison AKA "the Rock") with random English dudes, hoping to see the Statue of Liberty on the tour (real comedians) and fellow Aussies from the Hostel. Rooming with cool Irish chicky babe doing her PHD in tourism on female backpackers 30+ and hearing about her travels was awesome, as was sharing the hostel with some of the weirder locals... like Wanda, who is about 90 y.o. and didn't know what the internet was until Helen took 30 minutes to explain it to her and Peter E Bloch, Philosopher, student of life and photographer extroadonaire.

Yeh, so more to come, but gotta run so you all take care, kisses and hugs.

Melski.

BTW, we come home in 30 hours!!!

ccan not wait!!

Memoirs from an American Thanksgiving

What a great excuse to stuff yourself full of rich and scrumptious food, get all 4 generations of a family together and drink to your hearts content!

I was lucky enough to experience my first "real American" Thanksgiving with the Bernard family, Eddie and Chris' (back from the manhunt days) family.

I believe there was something like 15-20 dishes on offer for the main festivity, that is , thanksgiving dinner and I am proud to say that I tried every single one of them (and liked most of them).

Other highlights included a treasure hunt in the beautiful Huber woods with 4 kids under 7 years old and a bunch of grown up who were kids at heart too. Seeing how high one can bounce a four year old on a big trampoline and chillin out watching movies and playing old school music during the days.

I loved my time in New Jersey and also got to catch up with some of my old Middle School Friends - Erica Moran, Carly Calvert and Alyssa Arentoft. It's so funny how as much as things change, they also stay the same. It was great to see the whole gang again, this time, grown up! Although we didn't have all that much time together, it was well worth the 4am bedtime and sore throat the next day!

Am now heading off to San Francisco to see what everyone is talking about!! Really sad to say goodbye to the East Coast and my tweenhood, but it had to happen sooner or later and I'm sure there will be lots to see and do in SF.

San Fran will be my last stop before I head home on November 30th.... and as awesome as the whole trip has been, I think I'm ready to come home.....

Thinking of you all (and the warm weather down under) and looking forward to touching down into the Silly Season in Oz

Love,

Mel

Memoirs from America's capital

Washington DC was on my list of things to do because my best friend of all time, Erica, is now working down there for the National Institute of Health as a Research Assistant in the Child and Maternal Health division... pretty heavy stuff.

After gaining a couple of years of work experience, Erica plans to apply to grad school and spend the next 7 years getting her PhD and.... well you get the idea. I am in awe of Erica's ambition and achievement to date and seeing her again after 9 years time was always going to be intense....

Well after a quickly passing 4 hour train ride, I rocked up to Washington DC, the nation's capital. As it was a Sunday night, and freezing out, may I add, Erica could pick me up from the Train Station when I bumped in. After an awfully awkward greeting, her and I sat down in her new looking apartment and chewed the fat of the last decade of our lives. Mike, Erica's housemate joined in a little after and we spoke to the early hours of the morning.

The following day was a Monday and Erica had to go to work, so she gave me a bit of a briefing before leaving me in bed to get up at my own leisure (oh what a treat that was) and left for her "dreaded real job". DC was the first place I had visited where the weather had not been on my side and it poured down all day... I managed to venture out in the arvo to travel into the city and gather info and "a plan" for the following day from the Visitor's Center.

That evening, mike and Erica treated me to a lovely meal out at a quaint Ethiopian Restaurant, before we headed back to the Apartment for good wine and D and M's.

On Tuesday, I braved the less than savoury weather and headed out to see what I could see of Washington DC.

I visited the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, as well as the Museums of Natural History and Air and Space and also went on a bus tour of the city. All in all I found each of these landmarks to be really interesting and informative however the city overall had a glazed over and polished kind of feel. A lot of patriotism and a very clean city only tells half the story of USA's history, I suspect....

On Tuesday evening, I had the pleasure of meeting Erica's most recent Ex, Rich, a Law Student at Uni of Virginia and we all went out for tea at a Mexican restaurant, where they served delicious margaritas before heading back to the apartment again for more drinks and convos. The next day was Thanksgiving Eve, and all four of us (in three seperate cars, might I add) were headed for NJ/NY area to visit the fams for Thanksgiving.

The looming 6 hour car ride turned out to be Erica's and my best chance to make up for lost time, even if feeling suicidal in the horrific traffic!

Hitchiking through Babson College

Hey Venture Tribers,
Hel and Mel are still hitchhiking the USA and besides the beaches of Puerto Rico, the woods of New Jersey and the atmosphere of Boston, we have some more news for you'all back at home....

After checking out Seton University in New Jersey we have since headed to Boston and have had an absolute blast. We checked out Harvard and most importantly Babson College! We managed to tag along on a tour of the campus and an info session of the business degree course that they have...it was interesting to compare it to ours! Colin gave us the contact details for the Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Babson...we tried to arrange a meeting but unfortunately couldn't catch her!!! Her name is Patricia Greene and she will be coming to Aussie next year for the international business conference. We built some rapport (as Mel would say :-) with her PA...there may be a possibility for her to speak at the VT youth entrepreneurship day...Mel thought maybe around the subject of Women's Leadership in Business, as apparently she is a pretty amazing woman (according to a few people we spoke to). So yeah...

We are absolutely loving our time and surprisingly are totally into visiting these Unis (what nerds, lol!)

Anyways we are back in New Jersey for 1 night before heading to New York tomorrow!!! Mel and I will be meeting back up with Joe, Nic and possibly Linda along with our Puerto Rican friend (and Joe's very close friend;-) Meli!! Ah, summer love!!!

Anyways, later
Hel and Mel

Memoirs from Boston

After a saga of a night (two nights previous to arrival in Boston) Hels and I had spent on Mark Moran's computer looking for accomodation in Boston, the best we could do was a dodgy hostel just south of the city center that was located above a Hooters and next to a Coyote Ugly Bar and across the road from the World's Best Bar that had rave reviews about a dreaded 2am curfew and biting bed mites!!!! And all these value adds for $40 per night-- what a bargain...

Anyways, the following night which was the night before we left for Boston, we caught up with the Trammels which was cool, admidst a kickin house party at our host family's house. Sarah, a really old school friend of mine mentioned that another old school friend of ours, Eddie, from back in the Manhunt days was studying in Boston and she was able to put in a call to him for us.

Luckily enough he was just drunk enough at the time to say, "Melina from Auuusssstralia? Sure, they can come and stay with me." Sweet! Without really knowing what we were in for, we had a roof above our heads, with hopefully no bed mites and banging parties, but with cautionary warnings from Sarah about "macking on and getting wasted".........


After one hell of a day of travel to get to Boston, Hels and I stepped out of the train station and almost died as we stepped into the icy wind... who's great idea was it to pack light (and send a bunch of stuff back) and just buy stuff when we got there!

It was late at night (which was unplanned thank you mother, but as travellers ,we are always running late) when we rocked up and walking around the Bostonian streets down town with massive packs on our backs and only two layers on was not the funnest of activities.... what's more, we had both woken up with colds that morning, so we were particularly cranky.

We decided to head to Eddie's apartment after buying some cold stuff even though Eddie wasn't there yet. We knocked on the door and interrupted a very important catch up between Eddie's housmate, the infamous Elay ( an intense physics and philosophy student at Boston Uni) and Yonaton (a laid back neuroscience and philosophy major at Harvard Uni) and got straight into deep discussions with them about the meaning of life, the evilness and goodness of capitalism and other topics that really aren't small talk ice breaker material. What's more, we interupted their dinner, so we joined them instead.

A couple of hours later we were all sitting around the dinner table talking and laughing like old friends, when my ol friend Eddie walked in the door after a whole day of travelling. It was a funny moment cos as Elay pointed out, we were better friends with them now than the weight mine and Eddie's f'ship from 9yrs ago carried. "they're my friends"

Although Hels and I were sick and bone tired (does that work?) we had a great night of jamming on the households music setup and chillin. good times....

Boston, now here's a place I could live....

The next few days went way too quickly in my opinion as Eddie basically put his life on hold to show us a good time in his uni town. Over 250 000 ppl come to Boston to study so as you can imagine, it is quite youth-friendly. Lots of shopping, a visit to the Boston Commons and rippin it up at a Raggae nite at Phoenix Landing kept us always busy. What's more Hels and I spent a day up a Babson College, gathering info for VT and the BBE Course and building some rapport with the Entrepreneurship Course Faculty.

The visit to this amazing city was finished up with a visit to Walden Ponds the home of Thoreau (poet, author, a pioneer in trancendentalism) and Hels got to see the place that her grandparents farm was named after. Beautiful mirror lake surrounded by gorgeous colorful trees made a great spot for a brisk walk and some reflection before rushing off to catch our transport back to our home base on the east coast, NJ.

Next on the itinerary, the Big Apple, NYC.

Love you all, make sure you let me know what you've been up to.

Mel

xx

Email update from Hel and Mel

Hey guys,

Hel and Mel hear, writing from Seton Hall University in New Jersey! You will be happy to know that we have been spreading the word about Venture Tribe and Australian Entrepreneurship!

We have to make it quick as we are about to head into an entrepreneurship class held here at Seton's business school ;-)

To start with, the CEO conference in Orlando was great!!! Venture tribe won second place in the exhibit competition! The speakers were fantastic and we recorded notes which we hope to compile and share with everyone. Of course there was the partying...imagine...800 students staying in a luxury hotel!!! We also checked out some orlando nightlife!!! Awesome!!

After the conference Linda headed her own way, Johnny Frost back to Swedish land, and Nick, Joe, Mel and myself headed to Puerto Rico with some Puerto Ricans from the conference!!! We had an absolute blast with a 10 day itinery which they had planned for us!!! We could not have asked for anything more. We also got to go to their university to give a presentation about the conference, Venture Tribe, The ICSB conference in Australia next year including the Youth Entrepreneurship day!!! Great opportunity for us!!!

mel and I have now left PR and are checking out the entrepreneurship happenings at Seton Hall University with a lecturer we met in Orlando. Tonight we will attend their CEO club meeting and listen to a guest speaker who is the CEO of the fastest growing high tech company in New Jersey...22million revenue!!!

In the next couple of days we are hoping to go to Boston and check out Babson...maybe make more noise there as well!!!

So exciting!! Gotta run!!

Love
Hel and Mel

Memoirs from Puerto Rico 2

Since Old San Juan we have ridden on horseback through the foothills of the El Yengue, the PR National Rainforest (to salsa music in some parts booming from a construction site-- how sophisticated). We then trekked through the forest to the most beautiful waterfall (in the pouring rain) where we all were speechless by it's beautiful cascading water and actually got to go under it! Words can't do it justice so I won't try.

The following day we visited the world reknowned Flamenco Beach on Culebra Island, a short, but hellish boat trip from the island. The beach was amazing and what really struck me was the lack of commercial tourist prescence there. There was only really a strip of shops and a couple of food carts down near the water, which gave you more space to enjoy the beach and nature. The water was a lovely light green blue and so warm we swam until we wrinkled.

Another highlight of our time in PR was visiting the factory outlets with our friends and going bargain hunting in store like Gap, Polo Ralph Lauren etc. My most exciting landmark of shopping PR was finally purchasing a replacement for my (7 y.o.) tired old Royal Sneakers. I LOVE my new shoes and so far they have proved to be ultra comfy!

It was really hard to say goodbye to all of the wonderful people that we met on the Island of Puerto Rico, but I know we will be seeing them again.

Memoirs from Puerto Rico

Beautiful country, beautiful people, beautiful accents, what can I say…. I am falling in love with Puerto Rico. The CEO Club of the university of Puerto Rico has shown us a fabulous time—visiting the most beautiful beaches and islands, learning about the history of PR at the indigenous reserve, Maricao (the coffee city), attempting the salsa at a local bar on the water in Ponce, visiting the bioluminescent bays of Mayaguez, ripping it up on the dance floor of local clubs, drinking rum and learning how to dance raggaeton style and the meringue . . . you get the picture.

The guys have been so amigables, attentos y excellente guias, I know we will have a tough act to follow when they come down to Australia to visit our homeland for the Youth Entrepreneurship Conference next year.

Today we are going to visit Old San Juan, see Castillo San Felipe, a 500 year old fortress before experiencing the nightlife of the new San Juan. I don’t think words can describe what an experience we are having here…. It makes the idea of following onto NYC from here seem cold and distant. Some of the friendships that we have made here will be for life and I will be sad to leave the Island of Enchantment that is Puerto Rico.

CEO Conference

After a couple of days in transit, with nothing to eat but deep fried stuff we have finally made it to the CEO Conference in Orlando, Florida. Linda and I left the Paradise Backpackers in the morning and made the trip by bus to the Sheraton World Resort where the conference will be heard. Orlando is so weird; I can't imagine actually living here, everything revolves around Disneyworld and seems like such a fantasy land.

We arrived at the Sheraton about 30 minutes before we were due to speak at the Chapter Development Sessions, giving others advice on how to improve their clubs. A little dramatic, but all was good and we pulled off our 3 presentations without a hitch!

Had a great orientation dinner tonight at Rollins College and met lots of American College Students.... it's going to be an interesting two days.

Just trying to decide whether to go out to Pleasure Island (Disneyworld for adults) or stay and chill at the hotel... am yet to have a good nights sleep or an ultra healthy meal, but apart from that am having a ball.

Cheers,

Mel