Surf Roots, Software Thoughts

Barcelona was absolutely awesome. The trip started with the most fun train-ride ever. We had three three-hour trains between Nice and Barcelona; the first two were standard, boring trips, but the third was legendary. We were happy to be out of expensive Nice, so we treated ourselves to a few beers at the train station bar. At first the train seemed pretty normal, but at the first stop, just a few minutes after we got on, a slew of kids with camping backpacks boarded the train. These kids had just finished some sort of summer camping trip, and they were ready to rock. The camp counselor started singing camp songs, the kids followed suit. Having taken two years of Spanish in high school, I was feeling confident in my Spanish singing abilities, so I tried my best to sign along with all of the kids. They were laughing at me, not with me.

After a few Spanish songs, our group decided to try and whip out some English songs that they would know. We sang the “Macarena,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “We Are the Champions.” Only shortly after our on-key (not) harmony, a passenger on our train complained that the noise level was irritating, so we stopped singing. The rest of the train ride was spent speaking broken Spanish to 11-year-old Spanish kids. It was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had.

Barcelona was tons and tons of fun. During the day we swapped between sight-seeing and beach sitting. My favorite visits were those architected by Gaudi: Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Let’s just say he can make some ridiculously insane cathedrals, buildings, and landscape. Sagrada Familia was easily the most impressive building I’ve ever seen. Las Ramblas, the famous, busy promenade, was also a sight to see. It’s a huge street with lots of walking traffic and the best statue performers I’ve ever seen.

The food in Barcelona was also unbelievable. I ordered tapas as often as possible. Tapas are little finger-food dishes that are shared between the table to make up a complete meal. My favorite tapas were Spanish Omelets, spicy potatoes, salamis, ham, tomato-bread, and olives.

At night we wouldn’t even go to a bar or club, which I somewhat regret now. The bars and clubs are known as some of the best in Europe, but we were too cheap to pay expensive covers. Instead we just hung out in public places such as squares, Las Ramblas, and playgrouns, bought one-euro beers from the beer-men (guys that just walk around selling beer), and had a grand old time with miscellaneous people we would meet. Bargaining with the beer-men was also a lot of fun. The best I did was 10 beers for five euro.

War story: our flight left Barcelona airport, a 45-minute train from downtown Barcelona, at 8:30am. We discovered that we would be unable to get to the airport in the morning, so we were forced to spend the night in the airport in order to catch out flight. We stayed up as late as we could, drinking Port and playing Hearts, settling into “bed” for only a few hours of “rest.” It was miserable and also kinda fun.

Learn more about my Europe trip here.

Naughty Nice wasn’t that naughty in our experience, probably because we were too cheap to go out much. As expensive as Nice is, there’s plenty of cheap eats and activities to occupy the time of a starving college student. And by expensive I mean insanely expensive; we watched the Eurocup championship, where Spain met Germany, at an English Pub and spent 7 euro ($10.50) on a pint of beer. It was terrible. We spent plenty of time at the pebble beach, learning how to juggle with rocks and finding large rocks to pull us to the ocean floor while we ran across it. We did splurge on one or two meals, and the food was wonderful.

The highlight of our Nice stay was our trip to Monaco, the richest country in the world. Our mode of transportation was 125cc rental scooters that only cost 36 euro for the entire day. We made the 30-minute scooter to Monaco, checked out the scene, and scooted back. While we were in Monaco we saw the Monte Carlo a.k.a. BALLER casino, tons of sick cars, ridiculous yachts, and the palace. I’ve never seen so many Bentleys and Rolls Royces in one place, and each car had a driver as well!

War story: none of us can read French, and Monaco street sign signs aren’t that comprehensive for non-French speaking people. On our way back from Monaco, Dustin led us onto a freeway with a 90 kmph speed limit; our scooters maxed out at 50 kmph. No sooner than we realized the blunder, a Porsche screamed by us going what we thought was 150 kmph. We ended up turning around, got off the freeway, and made our way back the correct way.

War story: to put a scooter on its kickstand, you have to pull the scooter back towards you and kick the kickstand down. Dan and I were putting my scooter on its kickstand, and as we pulled the scooter back the boiling hot muffler touched Dan’s leg. He got a pretty good burn. Watch out for the mufflers on scooters.

Nice was a lot of fun, but I wish we spent time in Cannes and Antibe, which are smaller cities in the French Riviera.

Learn more about my Europe trip here.

Caen and Bayeax are both little towns in Normandy, the historical region where allied troops landed on D-Day during WW2. I did some Google searching to find a good place to stay that was close to the beaches, and I stumbled upon a place in Caen that claimed to be a 10-minute walk from the beaches. Once we arrived at the hotel, located in the middle of a truck stop, we learned that we were over 30 miles away from the beaches. We did some research and found a Normandy WW2 tour leaving from Bayeax. We took the 15-minute train from Caen and upon arrival realized that we should have stayed in Bayeax. It’s a wonderful little city with a stunning cathedral, riddled with WW2 history, whereas Caen is a very boring, empty town, at least from what we could tell.

The tour we took was a powerful experience to say the least. We visited Point du Hoc, the American cemetery, Omaha Beach, and the Aramanches Beach artificial harbor. Seeing these sites made me proud, aware, sad, and happy all at the same time. I think the pictures do more justice than I ever could with words, so take a look below.

War story: The only restaurant within walking distance of our hotel was a little truck stop that only served ham and cheese sandwiches. After eating four sandwiches in less than two days, we decided we needed to find a new place to eat. We started speaking with the hotel manager who didn’t speak a word of English. He told us that McDonalds was just over some train tracks and that we could walk there. We spent about an hour trying to find a crossing, all the while being totally confused because the manager made it seem like we could just walk over the tracks. We got desperate after an hour, so Dustin began exploring in the bushes. To his surprise he stumbled upon a poisonous bush that made his legs tingle for a few days. The other three of us couldn’t help but laugh hysterically as he cursed in agony.

Learn more about my Europe trip here.

Paris … where do I begin. Paris is a wonderful city with lots to see and experience. If the many famous sights and museums tire you out, and they will, then there is a wonderful cafe and park scene to help you relax and reflect on your day. Cafes serve anything from coffee and croissants to baguettes, steaks, and other dishes. The food in Paris is unbelievable. For nearly all of our lunches we would buy meat, cheese, and wine from the grocery store along with a fresh baguette from a nearby cafe and enjoy a picnic at one of the many beautiful parks.

Paris is an awesome city, but the rumors are true about Parisians – they aren’t friendly at all. Upon arriving at the train station, I attempted to ask the ticket attendant, in French, if she spoke English. She responded with silence and one of the dirtiest looks I’ve ever received. The language barrier was also somewhat difficult; we found ourselves pointing and counting with our fingers a lot. It was fun :).

We did all sorts of things: climbed the Notre Dam, visited the Eiffel Tower, visited the Arc de Triumph, went inside the Louvre, and ate in the Latin Quarter.

War story: We decided to check out the Sacre-Coeur, which is a large white church on a green hill. On our way up the green hill, we were all approached by a group of men. These men made us stop and grabbed our hands. They placed a string ring around each of our pinky fingers and proceeded to use the ring as an anchor to make a bracelet. I told the guy to stop, but he insisted that I needed it to enter the church. He was talking very fast while making the bracelet. While this was going on I was insanely worried that one of his buddies would try to pickpocket me, but to my relief there was no attempt. Instead the man asked for 10 euro once the bracelet was finished. I argued with him and told him that I didn’t even want the bracelet in the first story. I eventually agreed to give him five euro for the bracelet, but I only had a 50-euro bill. He took the bill and gave me change. As I continued walking up the hill with my silly, $7.50 bracelet, I realized that I only had two bills in my pocket. I took the bills out of my pocket and immediately realized the guy short-changed me and charged me 20 euro ($30). I was so furious I cut the bracelet off and threw it away. Money well spent. NOT.

Learn more about my Europe trip here.

Our first visit to Amsterdam was very brief, because Dan wasn’t interested in spending much time there, and Morgan, joining us on the latter half of the trip, badly wanted to see Amsterdam. The decision was made to only stay in Amsterdam a night and save the city for the latter half. We reserved the cheapest hostel we could and didn’t even plan on seeing downtown.

We arrived in Amsterdam airport at 12:30am after a hugely delayed flight and couldn’t figure out how to get to our oddly located hostel. The decision was made to sleep in the Amsterdam train station, so we started setting up camp only to learn that the train station closed at 1:00 or 2:00am. We broke down camp and headed for the city. We bar hopped as long as we could, until about 4:00am, and bummed around the city for a few hours after that. We then caught the 6:00am or so train to Brussels and slept for the entire train ride.

It was an adventure being in Amsterdam with no place to stay. Being new travelers we were totally scared, but the night brought us together with a few fun locals and some fun photo-shoots. It was a great experience and I’m somewhat glad that our hostel fell through.  We also utilized the public urinals that, at least in my opinion, should be installed everywhere.

Some random drunk dude we met in a bar.  He kept kissing Lindsay on the cheek.  Haha.

Public urinal.  They need these everywhere.

Amsterdam Central Station.

Nap time in the train station at 5:30am or so.

A photo of Dan taking a photo.

Learn more about my Europe trip here.

My Europe backpacking trip began and ended in London, England. My best friend, Dustin, his sister, Lindsay, and I flew directly from Los Angeles to Heathrow International Airport to meet another best friend of mine, Dan, whom I hadn’t seen in four years. The four of us started our 51-day journey the following day. The trip went as follows:

London, England – 6/19 – 6/20 (1 night)
Amsterdam, Netherlands – 6/20 – 6/21 (1 night)
Brussels, Belgium – 6/21 – 6/23 (2 nights)
Paris, France – 6/23 – 6/26 (3 nights)
Caen and Bayeux, France – 6/26 – 6/28 (2 nights)
Nice, France – 6/28 – 7/4 (6 nights)
Barcelona, Spain – 7/4 – 7/9 (5 nights)
Rome, Italy – 7/9 – 7/12 (3 nights)
Florence, Italy – 7/12 – 7/14 (2 nights)
Venice, Italy – 7/14 – 7/15 (1 night)
Salzburg, Austria – 7/15 – 7/18 (3 nights)
Munich, Germany – 7/18 – 7/23 (5 nights)
Prague, Czech Republic – 7/23 – 7/28 (5 nights)
Berlin, Germany – 7/28 – 8/3 (6 nights)
Amsterdam, Netherlands – 8/3 – 8/6 (3 nights)
London, England – 8/6 – 8/7 (1 night)

We started and ended in London because a roundtrip ticket in and out of Heathrow was much cheaper. The same thing goes with Amsterdam being on each end of the trip — flying in and out of Amsterdam was cheaper. Other than the journeys between Los Angeles, London, and Amsterdam, the only other flight we took was a one-way between Barcelona and Rome. All other journeys were made on train using our Eurail 15-day flexi-passes. Dan left us in Rome, and Morgan, Dustin’s girlfriend, met us in Rome.

We realized very fast that traveling with four people during the busiest travel time requires that hostels be reserved a few weeks ahead of time. This was unfortunate in some ways because we couldn’t be as free and agile as we would like, but making reservations also allowed us to usually stay at the best hostels.

There is no way I can sum up such a trip in a matter of paragraphs, so all I’ll say now is that my backpacking excursion across most of Western Europe was utterly amazing. Very soon I will have completed a post for each of the cities listed above, and these posts will be an attempt to share my experience with you. I’ll update the list above with links to these posts as I make them and also link each individual post to this summary post.  I’m not going to write a post for London, though, because we barely spent any time there — the pound-dollar conversion was too terrible (1:2.11).

I hope you enjoy, and please, please comment or email if you want any advice or have any questions.

Dan, Me, and Dustin in Rome.

Me, Dan, Dustin, Morgan, and Lindsay in Rome after eating really, really good food.

I’ve been home now for three days or so, and I’m insanely behind on my Europe documentation.  The plan is to write a post for each city that I visited along with a summary post.  I have a few more days in Los Angeles, then I’m off to Cape Cod for a week, and finally I’m off to Shanghai.  This should be ample time to get some good posts out there, so stay tuned!

In other news, I got my China visa application in on Friday.  Unfortunately they’re being insanely stringent with their visa issueing, so I was only able to apply for a 30-day business visa.  The plan is to reapply once the olympics are said and done, staying in Hong Kong temporarily if leaving China is necessary.  Should be fun :).

We just arrived in Amsterdam after spending six nights in Berlin.  Berlin is the best large city I’ve ever spent time in.  While I’m here I should say that I plan to give each city its own detailed post once I’m back in the states and able to upload photos, so for now I’ll summarize.  I’ll also say that having traveled for a little over six weeks now, I’m getting tired and am ready for my return flight in a few days.

Berlin is probably so wonderful because its so new yet so historic.  All of the monuments, memorials, museums, and sites make sightseeing a multi-day excursion.  If sightseeing doesn’t take enough out of you, then there is a raging nightlife that can keep you awake until the mid-morning.  To top things off, everything is insanely cheap and residents are friendly and kind.

Without a doubt Berlin is the best city I’ve ever been to.  We’ll see what Shanghai has to offer, though.  I just wish I could have spent more time in the city; six nights wasn’t enough.

Another quick update.  Prague was awesome — lots of history, sights, etc.  We’ve been in Berlin now for three nights with three more nights to go.  Berlin is unbelievable!  Everything here is cheap, the kebab shops are plentiful (2.70 Euro for a kebab), there are lots of late-night eats, the nightlife is wild, the city is clean and new, there is plenty to see and do, and it’s just all-around awesome.  For the first time in my life I left a club to be greeted with sunlight.

More to come soon but only one more week to go!

Munich was awesome.  My favorite city thus far for sure.  Everyone is insanely friendly, the food is fantastic, the beer is flowing, and everything is affordable.  We went to beer halls every night and sometimes at lunch.  A beer hall is basically a big place, sometimes outdoors and sometimes indoors, where parties share tables and most people, old and young, order large quantities of beer.  Typically you can only get the beer that the particular house brews, but one thing is always for sure, it’s all good.  Apart from the beer halls, we visited a concentration camp, Dachau, and a gangster castle, Neuschwanstein.

Despite all that has already been mentioned, the best part of Munich is the people.  The locals are insanely friendly, and lots of cool people flock to the capital of Bavaria.  We met a 40-year-old local named Biernhard, two patent lawyers, a ton of Australians, more Germans, some Canadians, some Spanish, a few Americans, etc.  I love it.

After five nights in Munich we left today for Prague.  The first impression is good — half liter beers for around $1, cool sights, and an insane hostel.  I’m super excited for the days to come.

Bonus story: China is being ridiculous with their visa policies now that the Olympics are coming up.  More information to come soon.