Go check it out! willrl.com

Ispent the majority of the first two months living in El Conventillo, a cool house in Almagro filled with 9 other people, all of whom hailed from somewhere in Europe. The housemates were all super friendly and helpful, and gave me a good chance to get over being shy with my terrible Spanish! We had some seriously epic house parties, too.

Mostly I’ve just been working a lot, and on days that I’m not working I’ve been meeting up with people to grab some mate and chat in Spanish (and English). I really quickly have gotten a hang of the city, but I keep having to remind myself not to spend so much time with study abroad students and expatriates! It’s just too easy to get sucked into the expat community because I can express myself fully and all of the people I’ve met have been super friendly and have really extended some helping hands.

I thought I would’ve gotten a bike but I really just get around with the subway, buses, and taxis.

Come January 5 I’m headed to Montevideo, Uruguay, to meet my two brothers, John & Will, who are coming down to do some adventuring with me. I’m positive getting a little more movement in the schedule will push me to take more photos!

The pictures for this post are the only I’ve taken since getting back to the US and are from a trip to Bodega Head at night with my friend Kevyn.

Returning home, I was broke; but with the help of a couple friends was able to secure a good job within a week of getting back. It’s surprising, no matter how much people warn you about it, how quickly you get back into a schedule. I am writing this more than a month after getting home, because the time that I hadn’t blocked out after getting home got filled up so quickly!

Final entry still to come!

Karen ditched her sorority meeting to come meet up with me, and we went out across town to get some food at a little restaurant called Golden West that had In-N-Out Animal Style burgers for $11 (which I did NOT test for authenticity). The next day I sat in on some sexy bio-chemistry lectures and heard a lot of funky words. I got the answer to one professor’s question right without really knowing what he was talking about, but I wasn’t brave enough to volunteer it. We tossed a frisbee around, figured out my route to D.C. the next morning, and got some pizza downtown with her boyfriend. The pizza was crazy-delicious, AND came in a square shape. Who could ask for more?

The next morning I got to D.C. by train and took a short walk to the capitol. The Mall is surprisingly cool, and I really liked the center of the city in general (the little that I managed to see). I went inside the library of congress and checked out the supreme court before heading off to find my local representative. From the 6th district of California. I got into the building with all of the congressional offices with just a quick walk through a metal detector, and made my way through a couple underground tunnels before finding Lynn Woolsey’s office.

I talked to the girls working in her office, and they gave me some tickets to the Senate and House galleries. I went into the House chamber first, but nobody was in the room, let alone doing anything. I then made my way to the Senate chamber and saw a few “celebrities.” There was a senator from one of the Carolina’s rambling towards an empty chamber about the questionable history of one of Obama’s nominations, but the room was largely empty. Soon after, loads of senators started piling into the room to cast their votes on Obama’s nomination. In strolled John McCain, John Kerry (who is ridiculously tall), Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, and even Al Franken! There were at least 30 others that I couldn’t name, but it was pretty cool to see some ‘action’ while I was there.

I also cruised by The White House, The Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial, but had to rush back to downtown to literally run and catch a bus towards Dulles Airport. I ended up needing a transfer bus but had no cash, and the driver was kind enough to let me on anyways, helping me avoid what could have been another disaster. That was that and my east coast experience was over. Next stop: SF.

The next day I managed to sort out a phone for being back in the USA. I ended up walking about 100 blocks to the Virgin Mobile store, using it as an excuse to tour half the city. I continued down to Battery Park, past the WTC, and through the Wall Street area. The whole downtown area has a much different feel than farther north on the island, and being near the site of the old WTC was not comforting.

I made sure to hit up Times Square at night on my way back to the hostel, and it was seriously cool. I ended up talking to a girl from Taiwan named Doris who was sitting next to me in Times Square. After discovering that we were both tourists for a couple days in New York, I asked her to come with me to the top of the Empire State Building the next day. The next day I cruised through central park, got some business done at the bank, and poked my head in a few museums. I met up with Doris in the evening and we went to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, which was ridiculously high. It is serisouly impossible to gauge the height of the building from below, and it is shocking to come out of the elevators at the top. I strongly advise going on a clear night, as the scenery at night in such a bright city is truly breathtaking. Dress warmly though, because the top levels feel about 20 degrees cooler due to altitude and winds!

Super late that night, after being offered cocaine and crack a couple times, I managed to meet up with Neil, my couchsurfing host for the night. He had agreed to host me for the night, but he would be headed to the airport early in the morning so I knew that I would only be able to get a few hours of sleep. Neil is from London and was a cool host, it was really a shame that I could only stay for one night. The next morning at around 5 we got up and he headed to the airport. I got some breakfast, and then napped at the first laundromat I found open in the morning. I went to Columbia University to try and meet up with the author of the book I had just finished, but he wasn’t available when I went in. I toured around the Columbia campus, which was pretty cool, and made sure to check out the business school while I as there, since I had been considering applying to business schools on the east coast when I got back.

In the evening I headed to the lower-west side to meet up with Cat Roberts, one of Megan’s friends from High School that was living in a really cool flat in New York. We had a little Wine  Cheese party for her house-warming party, and I met a bunch of her friends and got a real feel for the vibe of living in NYC they way I would probably want to do it. I crashed her couch and then in the morning headed out to find the megabus terminal and make my way to Baltimore.

My mitfahr was with four dudes headed to Oktoberfest also. Two were from Austria, and one had even lived in California for awhile. Once again the mitfahr saved me a bunch of cash over taking the train (20 euro). They even dropped me off just a few train stops from the festival. After arriving I made my way straight to the festival where I was repeatedly searched by ‘the popo’ because I was carrying my backpack.

After roaming around for a bit, I asked a few strangers if I could use their phones and eventually someone agreed to help the foreigner. I called up my friend Heather who I had met in Prague, and her two friends from Slovakia. We all spoke German as a second language, but Heather and I, the Americans, didn’t hold it down very well with the Slovakian girls who had been in Germany for a couple years already! We checked out the must-see Hofbrau tent, checked out a number of rides at the festival, but I had to make my departure fairly early and head out toward Chiemsee to meet up with my friend Ronja (who I had met in Cologne) and her family.

Ronja’s family was super friendly, especially considering I was little more than some guy their daughter met at a hostel across the country! They picked me up from the train station and had me at their dinner table. I definitely felt at home. The next day was one of the most interesting of my whole trip, and involved shadowing Ronja during her day at school. This was even more interesting considering the fact that her school was built inside of an old castle at the base of a huge mountain. It was epic to say the least. I also got to sit it on her art and English classes, contributing something to the class in both cases. I spent most of the day touring the little town that lies at the bottom of a beautiful valley, and has a river running through it. It was beautiful and very serene. I relaxed and got to hone my stone skipping before heading back in town with Ronja to experience a second day at the Oktoberfest. (Not your typical after school activity, now is it?)

We got a couple of beers at the Loewenbrau tent which had some cool outdoor seating, where we managed to make friends with some Americans that were sitting at the table next to us. A few were from Cali, and several of them were living in Germany. The most memorable of the crew was Mary, the peacecorps-bound girl from Colorado who was touring Europe before heading to Africa for two years. She was definitely at the beginning of a big adventure, while I was nearing the end of my own. Ronja and I ended up running to catch our train back to her hometown as the time had gotten away from us (no surprise). On the train-ride back we chatted it up with german lawyer who had lived in texas for awhile. We just couldn’t escape English that day!

Early in the morning I got a ride from Ronja’s dad to the train station which had an express train to the airport. I was a bit underslept and a tad hungover, which definitely didn’t help when I discovered that I was 24 hours late for my flight, which had left on the 29th, not the 30th. DISASTER!!! After very nearly losing my cool, which would have probably ended up with me in a German prison cell, I sucked it up and bought a ticket on the spot. The same ticket I already bought for the same flight but a day earlier. Only this time it cost me 500 euros, in addition to what I had already paid on the first ticket. Fun, Fun! I managed to let it go after about an hour of being grumpy, and enjoyed my flight to NYC.

Katja, the most closely connected of our Stuttgart crew, had us picked up by her boyfriend, Joachim, from the train station, and we were taken around Fellbach to visit Katja at her volleyball tournament, before heading back to her Katja’s parent’s house where we were almost immediately fed some delicious home-cooked foods (including Goulash, some regional swabian foods and a delicious pumpkin soup). Katja’s parents Ebbe and Karin joined us at the table, and I was given ample opportunity to show off my German in front of Megan, which I’ll admit felt pretty cool. They all spoke excellent English, but numerous times the conversation needed to switch to a hybrid German-English to get the point accross.

We then found our way up to the vineyards which Katja’s family has a stake in, and made our way around the beautiful hillsides rising over Fellbach and Stuttgart, from which we were given a brief panoramic tour of the area. We also made our way to tour a massive castle called Ludwigsburg castle. The tour was pretty cool, but I was far too tired to get the most out of it as I hadn’t slept since waking up in Rome at around 10am of the previous day.

We made our way back to the house where I was offered some delicious and local plum pie (how could I refuse) before heading into a massive nap. I woke up in time to head out to a seasonal wine-restaurant affiliated with the nearby vineyards and ate lots of meat and drank lots of wine. It was quite appropriate.

I was only in Stuttgart for a short time, but thanks to Megan’s hookups I had a really great, local experience. I would have liked to have spent more time in the area, but at this point I had little flexibility in my travels as I needed to leave from Munich on the 30th, and it was already the 27th. Surely enough, the next morning I was off to the Oktoberfest! How’s that for contrast?

It turned out I was only able to get service in the middle of the road, so Megan played lookout for me while I pulled up Google Maps. To our great surprise, it turned out that our Hostel was literally directly underneath the pizza place we had stopped at before for food. We were literally eating underneath our future sleeping spots without even knowing what part of town our hostel was going to be in! The chance of that happening seems unfathomably low, especially in a city as large, and as populated with hostels and pizzerias, as Roma.

We setup shop in the hostel before adventuring out to the colosseum at night, which definitely came up on us as a huge surprise. We knew we were going in the right direction but it really seemed to jump out of nowhere as we came over the crest of a hill that lies near the ancient ruins. We walked around the big plazas on the West side of the Colosseum (which we had to ourselves!) and took some great photos before getting yet another fix of pizza, and some great gelato on our way back to the hostel.

The next day (Sep. 23) we went to spend some more time around the colosseum and the Roman forum. We continued our foot journey to a most-massive white building in St. Peter’s square adorned with even more massive statues of chariots and their angelic drivers. We also made our way to the Trevi fountain which was extremely claustraphobic due to massive tourist overcrowding, and after meeting up with Geleen and Lorraine (friends we were connected with by Marina!) we made our way to the Pantheon, and back to Geleen’s for a pasta dinner.

The next morning I dragged Megan along a couple wrong turns, but after realizing we were off-track, I followed my gut and (to Megan’s surprise) got us back on track after a bit of walking on a walled street with no sidewalk and fast traffic. The place we came out was atop a huge hill overlooking the entire city, and it truly was a beautiful view! Soon after taking in the sights, we set ourselves up with another cheap & delicious picnic lunch in front of the Vatican’s Basilica. Afterwards we hopped in line to get inside the Basilica, which I can say was definitely by far the most intense and epic cathedral of them all. The sheer size of the interior space of the building would have been truly impossible to grasp, if it weren’t for some guy walking around up in the rafters (who was actually difficult to see due to distance, despite being in the same room and in no way ocluded).

We later sat down to dinner at a little patio of a cafe and got some decent pizza, and chatted it up with the waiters who had some interesting English, but no shortage of conversation. Roman pizza is good, but I think the deep-dish adventures taken by American pizza makers of the past have won my favor too much for me to really appreciate pizza in Rome. I hold it to a strange standard again other varieties that many Italians probably wouldn’t even call pizza! Old Chicago Pizza comes to mind. Gelato on the other hand, is unbelievably cheap and delicious.

The next day Megan and I threw together another picnic from diperdi in a random square and had a good long think-tank session talking about our futures! We did the requisite tour of the Vatican Museums, which were very beautiful and unbelievably well stocked with ancient sculptures and paintings. We got dinner with Rob and Lisa, a British dude and Australian chick who we met at our hostel. After dinner we all walked together to see the Basilica & the Trevi Fountain at night. They were both really nicely lit at night, but the Trevi fountain was still far too crowded for my likings. (good thing we were in Rome off-season!) We also made our way to the Spanish Steps which provide a great view over the city at night. That night my chat with Megan about the future, in combination with the approaching ‘end’ of my trip, gave me a lot of trouble sleeping due to too much thinking.

On our last day in Rome Megan, Lisa (the aussie) and I ended up just hanging out in a park almost the entire day. We had grand plans, but the breakdown of the metro proved to be a problem too cumbersome for the three of us, and also forced Megan and I to further complicate our exit strategy for Rome. Our travels to Stuttgart ended up being exceedingly complicated, but that will come at the beginning of the next post!

After arriving in Munich, we only had a couple of hours before we had to meet up with a mitfahr that was going to bring us to Northern Italy! Our path from Austria to Padova is anything but direct, but arranging it this way allowed us to save about $50 each, so it was definitely worth it. Also, it allowed us to take a drive straight through the Alps, which was filled with epic forests and mountains and cliffs on all sides. It was seriously incredible terrain! Our drivers were a couple from near Berlin, and despite knowing some English, they opted to speak German the whole time. Megan was very patient but I still felt bad because I know very intimately how it feels to get cut out of the conversation, as had recently happened regularly in Hungary and the Czech Republic.

We were dropped off in the ghetto of Padova, which really isn’t that ghetto, but we still had no direct contact with the people we were possibly meeting up with in the city. Eventually, despite difficulty making contact due to phone issues and bad directions, we managed to meet up with Gracie, Ryan and Marina, yet more friends from my time at the International House in UCSD. We went to Ryan’s flat to make some pasta before having a little walking tour of downtown Padova, followed by our first taste of the regional drink favorite called a spritz! At the bar that served Spritz, we were ambushed by some obnoxious Americans, and tried our best to dissociate ourselves from them, with limited success.

The next day we made our way through town, which mainly consists of cobbled streets and foot and bicycle traffic, to the University of California study center, which is near the middle of downtown and is there to serve the couple-dozen-or-so study abroad students in the city. We also got involved with some Grom gelato, which is crazy delicious, and found its way into our diet several more times before we left. We made some sandwiches with delish prosciutto, mozza, basil and tomats, and enjoyed them with some vino for our little picnic in the main square of Padova (prato della valle ), which is a really cool place to hang out day or night. We also found our way to bar500 for Ryan’s cute little Italian sweetheart, before heading out with her to some other spots around the city.

Eventually Ryan and I ended up separated from the others, and after calling them we were told a general region of the city, and that they were at a “party.” Armed with next to no Intel, Ryan and I set out, and with help from a few random Italians in the streets of Padova, we found our way to this almost mythical party. To our surprise it was the right party, and we hung out for awhile in a house party that had pretty clearly become dominated by American students.

On the 19th of Sep, (a.k.a. the next day), we woke up late and got involved with our second batch of picnic-style sandwiches. An old cafe in the center of the town, that had originally been really important for the unification of Italy, was busy with some kind of bicycle showcase, that included a number of old-school penny-farthing bikes, among a few other strange contraptions. It even included some old Italian men dressed in the time period of the bikes, and was a pretty cool little experience. We also witnessed a number of Italian students who had recently earned the Doctorates, which is naturally followed by a tradition of public humiliation, including embarassing costumes and general drunkeness.

I also found myself searching for broadcast internet in the streets of Padova, with a need to send a T-Shirt design I made for the group Zion-I and Ninja Neishon. In the process I was scolded by some strange Italian woman who seemed to think I was stealing something, or invading people’s privacy, by using the internet they are broadcasting publicly. After taking my licks, I walked to the next street, and fired off the e-mail I needed to send anyways.

The next day, Ryan, Gracie, Megan and I took a bus to Venice for the day which only cost $3! We ended up walking through the tiny streets and hallways that comprise the entire city for almost the whole day, and it truly is a sight to see. It’s a shame how well known the city is, because even during the middle of the week, and in the off season, it is almost over-run with tourists. We made it back to Padua for some Spritz with Ryan’s home-stay brother, and met up with Marina one last time before Megan and I would leave the next day.

We relaxed the next morning, printed out our boarding passes, and were soon enough airborn on our way to Roma!

It turns out that vodafone doesn’t exist in Austria, which isn’t true of any other country I visited in Europe, so I was in for a small shock. After asking around I was able to find an affiliated phone company where I could fill up my phone, and I made it back to the train station after two hours of searching with little more than 5 minutes to spare before meeting up with Megan at our scheduled time. Megan and I made our way around Vienna, stopping to check out various epic buildings, statue, and squares, of which Vienna has anything but a shortage!

In the evening we met up with our couchsurfing host who lived in a nice part of Vienna pretty near the center. Our host Johann was quickly in the kitchen whipping up a big batch of crepes for dinner, with a good combination of savory and sweet toppings. It was quite delicious, and was only the first among many nice things Johann did for Megan and I during our stay in Vienna.

In the morning we had another batch of crepes left over from the night before, and worked out our travel plans for the following few weeks, which would send us through Munich, Padova, Venice, Roma, and Stuttgart. We had another day walking around the city and checked out the main downtown area, including the old cathedral. Vienna truly may be the most beautiful and clean city in the world, as nearly every place we went was beautiful and clean. We were about to pick up some food when I got a text from our host Johann saying dinner was already on the stove, so we put back the food we were about to purchase and headed back to Johann’s house for a surprise dinner. We had some delicious pasta, and then we all headed out to the Vienna Opera House, where we were going to see the world premiere of a new ballet.

The ballet was called Neues Welt des Ballets, or something similar to that, which means “The New World of Ballet,” and the title seems appropriate! The ballet was great, and took many opportunities to poke fun at the traditional form ballets take. The auditorium was literally laughing out loud at several parts during the show, and it was full of fun and bewildering surprises! Afterwards, we went out for a beer and met a friend of Johann’s who had studied at UCLA several years before. It really is a small world.

Megan and I woke up late the next day, and capitalized on some crepes with nutella and strawbeery jam that were waiting for us. We took a tram around the city in a search for some wifi, and did a tour of the natural history museum which had a pretty impressive collection. We headed home early to get in the kitchen in our attempt to return the favors Johann had already afforded us. We made some delicious thai chicken curry, which was followed by a pretty serious youtube sharing session.

We had to get up really early the next morning to catch our bullet-train to Munich, and Johann was up before us to walk to the station! It all went by quickly, and as per usual my blog entry about it seems somehow deficient. Johann really made our experience in Austria a special one, but once again I was on my way to a new city, but this time accompanied by my friend Megan.