(REVAMP!)

At the moment, I’m sitting in the airport bar in Portland, Oregon drinking a bottle of water and watching the Blazers beat up on the Houston Rockets. Alone. It’s weird. For some reason, despite most of the restaurants being closed already, I just got the fresh scent of McDonalds’ french fries. I’ve never wanted a happy meal more than I do right now. 

You know how you’re supposed to be at the airport an hour before your flight leaves? That is only contingent on you knowing the exact time of your scheduled departure. Somehow I managed to get confused over mine. Thought I was leaving at 10, when really I was leaving at 9. Needless to say I showed at the check in desk five minutes before my plane was supposed to be leaving. Even the nice ladies at the counter couldn’t help me. I think I’d be a lot more upset if there was something I was going to be late to. In this case, the only consequences are that I’m having to sleep in a chair and smell french fry grease all night. I’ve got with me my laptop, ipod, two books, Arrested Development season 3, and a Cliff bar for breakfast. If there’s one thing my tenure in the Boy Scouts taught me was to be prepared for the worst. That kind of stuff sticks with you. I’ve even got toothpaste and clean underwear if I should need it. 

In the event that this blog is your only insight into my life, meaning that we don’t connect by any other means and you thought I just died when I stopped writing, I live in San Francisco now. It’s probably been the best decision of my life. Absolutely love my city, however that apparently hasn’t satisfied my wanderlust. It seems my only desire these days is to work for a while, save as much money as possible, and go traveling. Fine by me. Not sure what my family must think of their stupid, drifter 21-year-old, but I guess that’s part of independence. 

Portland has been great for the past week. Flying back to San Francisco in the morning, doing some laundry, running a few errands, looking for a new apartment and then I’m off to New York on Saturday for a week. I’ve never been to the city before, but I’m really looking forward to it. Staying in a hostel in Harlem for the first four nights and again in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the final two. I consciously made the decision to stay in Harlem as opposed to Times Square, they were the same price. I’m oddly proud of this decision as I don’t think that the Justin of 9 months ago would have. I truthfully am not even that stoked on seeing the sights of New York. I more or less just kind of want to walk around and try to find the best Indian food in the city and meet some people in the local taverns. I’ve got a hunch I’ll still end up seeing some iconic things, but I’ve promised myself to not plan anything for the entire week that I’m there. Just go with the flow. 

Speaking of flow-going. I’ll write again, whenever the heck I want to! 

Yours,

Justin

Upon arriving back at the San Francisco airport, I was called aside from the rest of my flight for a “random inspection” of my bags. The funny thing about this is that during all my travels I’ve neglected to shave in attempt to see how burly I could get – or as Muslim as I could look. Of course, they never said anything about this, but I’ve got a hunch that could have been a prime factor in my getting “randomly” searched in the airport’s room without cameras. Maybe I was a bit rude when I made the comment “come on, man. I know I’ve got a beard, but seriously you’re not going to find anything.” Needless to say, this didn’t stop him and in my own private room, my bags were extensively searched. All of the souvenirs I brought home were taken out of their bags, all my socks turned inside out, my San Francisco Airport blueprints thrown in the trash, and my favorite clock was torn from its package and dewired.

Anyways. I’m here now. Watched six hours of the NFL draft today (which was AWESOME), and I’m probably going to be in bed here before nine on account that I can’t keep my jetlagged eyes open any longer. I posted an ad for housing wanted in all San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle Craigslist today. We’ll see what comes of those. I’ve also been doing a lot of looking into volunteering for a summer camp. I found a Nike Baseball summer camp in southern California that provides free living and meals to their staff. I’ve been playing since I was five and have even got experience coaching, so that would be right up my alley if I managed to pull that one off. There’s going to be a lot of decisions to be made in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I’ll just be taking it easy. Gonna be seeing Colin Meloy of the Decemberists play an acoustic show in Santa Cruz on Tuesday, then taking a bus to LA to meet up with some buddies (Chiz, do you still read this? Can I stay at your house?)

I miss Europe. I can’t wait to go back. Hopefully with a better plan next time.

I met a girl that was working at my hostel in London. She was originally from Tennessee and was just working out in the UK for a number of months. She apparently applied for her work visa and had it two days later. She got on the next flight to London and asked for a job at said hostel – she’s been working there ever since and living for free. Wouldn’t that be a bitchin experience?

Of course, I’d rather it be in Sweden – but I’m not picky.

I still havent seen Barcelona, Paris, OR London – the three places that everybody is expected to go see on a trek through Europe. Ive got 8 days before I need to be back home and 6 days before I need to be back in Ireland. I need more time. I need more money. All this charging on my credit card is really going to come back and haunt me sometime in the not-too-distant future and I get so incredibly depressed when I think of having to go back, get a hundred jobs, and work forever to pay off all this. Furthermore, the only realistic place I know that I would be able to even dream of getting ahead financially is back in Reno…blegh. Not what I want to do in the least bit. I miss California. I miss Portland. I miss Seattle. I really want to see Chicago, Boston, and New York. I want to see Michigan and Ohio. I hate feeling like this.

I want to stay here. I want to go to the American embassy and ask them for an extension on my passport, get a job at a pub or a hostel and stay here. Maybe even teach English to Swedish kids. I’ve heard that there is a big industry for that sort of thing in Europe. I met a girl in Amsterdam who is getting free room and board at the Flying Pig Hostel in exchange for cleaning rooms – I wonder what I’d need to do to get that.

Yeah…come to Switzerland with me next summer. Im going to start saving as soon as I get back.

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS! only problem is that every time I go to type in the letter Y, it comes out as a Z and I feel retarted.

okay, that was my excitement…back to blogging.

Long story short, I didn’t want to spend another night in Prague on account that I had already been there 8 and I felt like I was wasting valuable time. Since I missed my flight to Paris the other day on behalf of that food poisoning, which I am thankfully over, I had four days of unplannedness…so what does one do in that kind of a situation you ask? You go to the nearest train station and take the next train to Berlin!

That’s right. I’m in Germany and I had wiener schnitzel and a dark German beer last night. I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but I’m super glad I’m here. I’m booked at this hostel until the 7th, but lord knows I could always stay longer if I’d like. I heard that Against Me! and Dropkick Murphy’s are gonna be playing together in Amsterdam on the 12th…I’d like to check that out if I can’t think of anything else to do.

Umm…but yeah, I’m safe and this keyboard is driving me insane. I have had to push the backspace key at least forty times in the last two minutes. I’ll update later.

Cheers!

Justin

Yuck.

This is the first time I’ve been homesick. I just want to be back at home on my parents couch right now. =(

The Czech language is ridiculous. I have been trying to figure stuff out, but I can barely even pronounce the words they teach you in my phrase book. Also, the Czech Krown is really weird. The smallest bill I’ve seen is 100 krowns. I’ve currently got in my wallet bills ranging from 100 to 5000. I feel rich, but at the same time I don’t know what the hell to do with it. I got a badass chinese meal yesterday for 80 krowns, the equivalent of 3 euro…yeah. I feel rich.

I picked up this travel magazine yesterday called “Packed” and it was probably the best thing that could happen to me so far. It told me a whole bunch of cool events and festivals going on around Europe for the next month. I’m totally going to try and make it to Finland for the Helsinki International Beer festival on the 11th. That would mean only being in Amsterdam for three days, but it sounds worth it. Apparently it’s like the Scandinavian Oktoberfest. Updates to come.

Here’s what is for sure:

Tomorrow morning I am flying alone into Prague for the next week. I booked a hostel called Plus Prague and it’s supposed to be amazing. I got it for only 10 euro a night and I’m booked all the way up until April 3rd. On April 3rd I will be flying into Paris at 6 in the morning to meet up with Fei Fei and our friends from Rome for four days. On April 7th I will be flying from Paris to Amsterdam and that is all that I know for sure.. I’m doing my best to get in touch with Ollie, my old foreign exchange friend from High School to see if we could meet up in Germany for a couple days. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one. I’m really happy I’ve got all this taken care of now. Yesterday, I happened to stumble upon an American bookstore here in Rome. Crazy, huh? I nabbed a couple of pocket translator books for English to Czech, English to Dutch, English to German, and English to French. I’m pretty excited about all that.

Considering I’ve still got nearly two weeks after what I have already planned, I’ve got a lot more to check out. I’m considering going to stay in Amerstam all the way up until the end, but we’ll see how much I end up liking it. In the event that I feel like traveling still and have the money left for it, I’m going to try and see Geneva, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Athens, Liverpool, AND London…that might be a lot for two weeks – but I’m just seeing where the wind takes me. That’s what backpacking is all about, right?

My hostel in Prague apparently has internet, so expect to hear from me soon.

Ciao!

 Culture shock finally set in for the first time since I’ve been here. Getting by in English is very hard in Italy, I’ve found. It makes me feel sorry for the immigrants I run into in America because I’ve now experienced first hand how hard it is to communicate by a game of charades.

Gotta run. I’m hoping to be on the computer as much as possible, but I can’t make any promises what tomorrow brings. Hope all is well.