@ -0,0 +1,382 @@ |
||||
--- |
||||
title: >- |
||||
Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 1: Europe |
||||
description: >- |
||||
Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love tomatoes. |
||||
--- |
||||
|
||||
## TODO |
||||
|
||||
## Outline |
||||
|
||||
- Denver |
||||
- What I had |
||||
- Why I left |
||||
- Loadout |
||||
- Road Trip |
||||
- Ibrahim notebook |
||||
- Choosing destinations |
||||
- The First Leg |
||||
- Munich |
||||
- Silence |
||||
- Relative |
||||
- Italy |
||||
- Milan |
||||
- Ostello Bello, friends |
||||
- Duomo |
||||
- Walking/Getting around (Google maps) |
||||
- Ravenna |
||||
- Currency |
||||
- Old monastaries, mosaics |
||||
- Florence |
||||
- Museums |
||||
- Celia |
||||
- Rome |
||||
- Tourism's effect on a city |
||||
- Too much to see in Italy, too little time |
||||
- Spain |
||||
- Barcelona |
||||
- La Sagrada Familia, churches |
||||
- Madrid |
||||
- Royalty, revolution |
||||
- Cordoba |
||||
- Playing things close |
||||
- Granada |
||||
- Flamenco |
||||
- Peace |
||||
- Lisbon |
||||
- Hostels |
||||
- A city where people still live |
||||
- Escher (Granada/Cordoba) |
||||
- The Second Leg |
||||
- Munich |
||||
- No more pictures, no more tourism |
||||
- Diet |
||||
- Belgium |
||||
- Brussels |
||||
- Communism and french fries |
||||
- Comic book museum |
||||
- Drawing |
||||
- Bruges |
||||
- Beer |
||||
- A fucking expensive fairytale |
||||
- So cold, so scarfed |
||||
- Camina Del Santiago |
||||
- UK |
||||
- London |
||||
- Cost of museums, theft of culture |
||||
- Dublin |
||||
- Housing problems |
||||
- Glendalough |
||||
- Edinburgh |
||||
- Reading/Writing |
||||
- Harry Fucking Potter |
||||
- Amsterdam |
||||
- Pub crawl (partying vs ...) |
||||
- Van Gogh |
||||
- Weed |
||||
- Sex (museum) |
||||
- Copenhagen |
||||
- Freedom (Christiania) |
||||
- So many chairs |
||||
- Stockholm |
||||
- Tradition |
||||
- Berlin |
||||
- History |
||||
- Movie |
||||
- Prague |
||||
- Wandering |
||||
- Planning |
||||
- The Third Leg |
||||
- Munich |
||||
- Alps, Olympics |
||||
- Passport |
||||
- Venice |
||||
- Beauty in spite of tourism |
||||
- Rijeka |
||||
- Hitchikers |
||||
- A strange beauty |
||||
- Vienna |
||||
- Riches and empire |
||||
- A day at the palace |
||||
- The Couchsurfing Cult |
||||
- Athens |
||||
- Culture |
||||
- History |
||||
|
||||
# Munich, Germany |
||||
|
||||
I arrived in Munich late at night on January 14th. My friend Caitlin met me at |
||||
the train station near her house and we walked over to it to drop my stuff off. |
||||
Jetlag hit me real good at this point, so I only barely remember her taking me |
||||
to a nearby biergarten to get some food and catch up. The next day we headed |
||||
down to the center of the city, and she showed me around the sights, like |
||||
Marienplatz and the Frauenkirche (one of many famous churches in Munich). |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html |
||||
src="mr-worldwide/munich-victory-gate-2018.jpg" |
||||
descr="Siegestor (Victory Gate), Munich, 2018" |
||||
%} |
||||
|
||||
As we walked and ate our way through the day Caitlin told me all of the things |
||||
that are different in Europe, like how water is never free anywhere, nor are |
||||
public restrooms; like how many buildings which are still used and lived in are |
||||
older than our entire country; like how people use cash instead of card, and get |
||||
irritated if you make them break a large bill, or they just might not do it at |
||||
all; like how even in a large city like Munich everything can still be closed on |
||||
a Sunday. |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html |
||||
src="mr-worldwide/munich-moosach-2018.jpg" |
||||
descr="Moosach neighborhood, Munich, 2018" |
||||
float="right" |
||||
%} |
||||
|
||||
The thing which struck me most about Munich was how quiet it was. The din of |
||||
traffic is so ingrained into me that I don't even hear it until it's not there. |
||||
And to not hear it inside of a city was very strange. More than sound, there was |
||||
a quietness of life. It didn't feel like people were rushed, with too much to do |
||||
and too little time. People crowded onto the subway, but not with impatience, |
||||
and people walked home from the train station after work without hurry. It was |
||||
like the priorities of the whole culture were different in some fundamental way |
||||
that I could never quite put a finger on. |
||||
|
||||
Caitlin worked during the week and so I was set free into the City for a few |
||||
days. I visited more churches, ate more food, hung out at the library figuring |
||||
out the next steps of my travels, and just generally wandered around the city. |
||||
|
||||
One snowy day I had lunch with a distant relative on my mom's side, who is an |
||||
artist in Munich. I met her at her studio, and from there we wandered around |
||||
various museums where she gave me essentially a private guided tour of the |
||||
exhibits. We talked about politics, with Trump being the main topic of course. |
||||
We talked about art, and school, and our different cultures. She told me that |
||||
Europe had always looked to the US as a kind of older brother, but now that |
||||
image was starting to fall apart, and I told her about the tiny house and |
||||
minimalism movement that is hopefully picking up steam in the US. (TODO finish |
||||
this paragraph). |
||||
|
||||
A week after arriving it was time for me to continue on. One cold morning I |
||||
hopped onto a bus, rode through a snowy Switzerland, and hopped off into a |
||||
bright and sunny Milan. |
||||
|
||||
## Milan, Italy |
||||
|
||||
My first impression of Milan was: "Wow, this place is sketchy". The streets were |
||||
dirty, old, and covered in graffiti. There were homeless everywhere, people |
||||
selling bootleg clothes in the street, scammers targeting tourists, and a |
||||
general disheveldness which Munich didn't have. But on the other side of that |
||||
coin, Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, and everywhere I looked |
||||
there were also beautiful people in expensive looking clothes, driving fancy |
||||
cars, and eating at fancy cafes. Where Munich was simple and wealthy, Milan was |
||||
lavish and disparate. |
||||
|
||||
My hostel in Milan was called the Ostello Bello, and was probably the best one I |
||||
could have gotten as my first hostel in Europe. The hostel's downstairs area was |
||||
a restaurant/bar, with tables reserved for hostel guests. Upon arriving they |
||||
immediately sat me down at one of those tables, where others were sitting, and |
||||
said "this is Brian, talk to him". They did this with every person who arrived, |
||||
as well as giving us free food and drinks, so that every night turned into a |
||||
small party. |
||||
|
||||
It took a while for me to fully break out of my shell and get used to meeting |
||||
people in hostels, but if it weren't for Ostello Bello it might not have |
||||
happened at all. Every night I got to hand out and make friends with people from |
||||
South Korea, Scotland, Argentina, France, Switzerland, and locals from Milan |
||||
too. So despite all the negative things I'm going to have to say about party |
||||
hostels later, I'm grateful for Ostello Bello. |
||||
|
||||
As far as Milan itself, the only thing which really impacted me was the Duomo. |
||||
And boy did it impact me, so much so that I visited it twice. It's the third |
||||
largest church in the world, but my experience of it was even better than when I |
||||
went to St. Peter's, the first largest. The interior is so cavernous that all |
||||
sounds echo virtually forever, creating a low hum which reminded me of the Hindu |
||||
Om. To think that the words of a book carried such force that, 2000 years later, |
||||
people were erecting and maintaining incredible structures like the Milan's |
||||
Duomo in their honor floored me. There's a lot of criticism which could and |
||||
should be leveled towards the Catholic Church, but damnit they know how to build |
||||
a building. |
||||
|
||||
Besides the Duomo I also visited some museums and other sights, like the Sforza |
||||
Castle, walking from one to the other as the days went on. Walking became a |
||||
frequent past-time for me during my traveling. Between Google Maps and an |
||||
external batter pack I always had with me there was never a worry about getting |
||||
lost, and with hostels generally being clustered near the sights it was rarely |
||||
more than a half-hour walk to any given thing I wanted to see. So I got used to |
||||
walking a lot, and taking public transit infrequently, and never once used a |
||||
taxi or rental car while in Europe. |
||||
|
||||
Five days after arriving in Milan I left it, having made many friends and |
||||
having learned a lot about Italy and Italians. I also learned I was spending too |
||||
long at each city: It was almost 2 weeks into my 3 month-max trip (for visa |
||||
reasons), and I'd only been to two! From then on I kept to two or three days per |
||||
city, depending on how much I cared about it, with a couple of five day-ers when |
||||
I really needed a rest. |
||||
|
||||
## Ravenna, Italy |
||||
|
||||
After the hecticness of Milan I needed something more quiet. Before leaving the |
||||
US a friend had told me about Ravenna, the once capital of the Western Roman |
||||
Empire and now small Italian city, where some of the world's oldest Christian |
||||
structures still reside. Mosaics retain their original quality over time far |
||||
better than many other mediums, and Ravenna was full of ones from as early as |
||||
the 6th century. While not as glamorous and fast-paced as Milan, Ravenna really |
||||
hit me with the depth of its history. As someone from the US I'm not accustomed |
||||
to seeing anything built before 1500, and yet here were buildings in excellent |
||||
condition which were built a thousand years prior. |
||||
|
||||
Another thing which took some time to get accustomed to was using cash. By this |
||||
point in the trip it had become somewhat second-nature, but only by way of many |
||||
mishaps previously. In the US using cash is usually a backup option, with |
||||
credit/debit cards ruling supreme. ATMs never give out bills bigger than $20, |
||||
and no establishment would ever complain about having to break a $20 except for |
||||
maybe the smallest purchases. In Europe the ATMs (or cash machines, whatever) |
||||
almost always give out €50 bills, which absolutely no one wants to break except |
||||
big chain stores. I still remember the exact location of an ATM in Munich which |
||||
gave me €10 bills, it was that exciting of a find, and I went out of my way to |
||||
go back to it more than once. |
||||
|
||||
So in addition to needing to keep an eye on your cash and get more out |
||||
periodically, you also need to keep an eye out for places which will break your |
||||
bills and plan accordingly. Before leaving the US I had gotten a debit card with |
||||
free international ATM withdrawls at any ATM, so finding places to get cash out |
||||
wasn't a problem, but breaking it always was. |
||||
|
||||
By the time I got back to the US, I missed doing everything in cash, and even |
||||
kept doing it for a while in spite of my culture. While having to find places to |
||||
break fifties was a pain, a little friction to making random purchases wasn't |
||||
necessarily a bad thing. Instead of impulsively buying whatever was in front of |
||||
me, I was incentivized to wait until a better opportunity arrose, generally by |
||||
waiting until I could buy multiple things at the same time, which generally |
||||
meant buying more efficiently because I was actually putting thought into it. |
||||
Also, by always paying in cash, I had a better sense of how much I was actually |
||||
spending day-to-day. In the US we abhor inconvenience, but in my opinion our |
||||
reluctance to use cash is a good example of how that abhorance can be to our own |
||||
detriment. |
||||
|
||||
## Florence, Italy |
||||
|
||||
The train from Ravenna to Florence (or, as Italians spell it, _Firenze_) was |
||||
uneventful. Finding the best route between cities turned out to be pretty |
||||
straightforward. There's an app called GoEuro which helps compare different |
||||
methods like bus, train, plane, and taxi/ride-sharing. There's another app |
||||
called Rome2Trio which does roughly the same thing. There's a bus company called |
||||
FlexBus which I used quite a bit; their prices are good, their buses are new, |
||||
and the UI of their site was made in the last decade. |
||||
|
||||
Florence was by far my favorite city in Italy. On the one hand it was very |
||||
trourist-friendly, and on the other it still retained the feeling of being a |
||||
historic city. I split my time there between visiting museums and churches and |
||||
finding the best cheapest spots to eat. Before leaving the US a friend had told |
||||
me to avoid any restaurant in Europe that has pictures on its menu; they're |
||||
targeted at tourists and priced accordingly. My strategy for finding food |
||||
involved marking off hole-in-the-wall spots in my maps app whenever I came |
||||
across them during the day. |
||||
|
||||
On my second day in Florence I was sitting by the Uffizi, eating a panini, and I |
||||
randomly met an art history student from Madrid who was also visiting Florence. |
||||
Together we went to a bunch of museums, saw the David, and just generally hung |
||||
out. I asked her a lot of questions at the museums, because, to be honest, I'd |
||||
never understood what to make of art in museums. |
||||
|
||||
I'd already learned that, even if I could see a picture of something online, |
||||
seeing it in person is way different. In person the colors in a painting pop out |
||||
more (many even have gold leef paint which doesn't really show up in pictures at |
||||
all, but makes a world of difference), there's a lot more detail to be seen, and |
||||
the size of some is absolutely baffling. I also enjoy learning about history, |
||||
and the history of art is effectively the history of the world. So museums had |
||||
become a meditative place for me; I could go to one and just wander, taking in |
||||
art pieces at whatever rate I liked, learning and thinking about history as I |
||||
went. |
||||
|
||||
What had always confused me, though, was how to _judge_ art. As in, what makes |
||||
one piece better than another, or what makes one artist better than another? Why |
||||
do some paintings become famous and others remain obscure? What my friend from |
||||
Madrid told me is that there's not really a metric. Some paintings become famous |
||||
for historical reasons, either due to where they were originally displayed or |
||||
some story associated with them. Same for some artists. Ultimately it's up to |
||||
the individual to judge them. There was a painting in the same room as the |
||||
famous Birth of Venus painting which I liked far more, and was happy to admire |
||||
it alone as throngs of other tourists vied for good selfies with the more famous |
||||
piece. |
||||
|
||||
I left Florence with a greater appreciation and understanding of museums, as |
||||
well as a good friend who I would be able to visit later while making my way |
||||
through Spain. |
||||
|
||||
## Rome, Italy |
||||
|
||||
Rome surprised me when I got there, though to be honest it's not clear what my |
||||
expectations actually were. The city center, aka the tourist center, is |
||||
absolutely _massive_, and all of it is completely tourist-centric. Living in |
||||
Rome must feel like living inside of Disney World. The city no longer exists for |
||||
its residents, but instead has been completely swallowed by the tourism |
||||
industry. Every street corner and storefront is filled with souvenir shops, |
||||
overpriced food, clothing stores with "I <3 Rome" shirts, gelato shops, walking |
||||
tour agencies, bike rentals, "experience" vendors (helicopter rides over the |
||||
Colosseum! Oh my!), shitty jewelry stores, and so much more, all aimed at |
||||
someone who has too much money and not enough time to spend it all. |
||||
|
||||
My hostel was one of the cheapest I could find, but since I was only staying |
||||
two full days I figured it'd be fine. Seeing all the sights of Rome in only two |
||||
days is not recommended, but I did the best I could. The first day I went |
||||
straight to the Vatican, getting there as early as possible to try |
||||
(unsuccessfully) to beat the line. St. Peters is the largest church in the |
||||
world, but being rushed I wasn't able to enjoy it like Milan's Duomo, and a lot |
||||
of it was closed off unless you wanted to pay more. I wasn't able to spend |
||||
enough time in it to enjoy it. |
||||
|
||||
The Vatican museum was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. For starters |
||||
it's huge, with tons and tons of things to see, including, obviously, the |
||||
Sistene Chapel. I took my time wandering around. After the museum I left the |
||||
Vatican and wandered over to some other sights, like the Castel Sant'Angelo and |
||||
the Pantheon. As the day wore on, and more and more tourists started pouring |
||||
out, everything became impossibly crowded. It was difficult to really enjoy |
||||
anything, what with everyone taking their phones out to capture anything and |
||||
everything the guidebook said to, without really taking the time to take in the |
||||
thing itself. |
||||
|
||||
This was something I began to struggle with while I was in Rome. It wasn't |
||||
always clear to me _why_ these people cared about these sights, with myself |
||||
being included. My pessimistic self would say that people just want the social |
||||
media points gained by a nice selfie in front of Trevi Fountain, and that the |
||||
tourism explosion which has started in the last decade is driven by narcissism. |
||||
My charitable self might say that everyone understands that the journey matters |
||||
more than the destination, and that seeing the sights isn't really the point, |
||||
but rather prefer the adventure taken with friends and/or family, and so they |
||||
snap a quick picture and continue on with their good time. |
||||
|
||||
The reason people travel and visit tourist spots is really only their business, |
||||
and I can't be one to judge. It just seems unfortunate to take an entire city, |
||||
arguably the most important city in written history, and turn it into a theme |
||||
park for the sake of people who don't actually care all too much about it. I |
||||
carried this realization with me for the rest of my trip, that tourism is a |
||||
deal-with-the-devil, taking the money of people who, ostensibly, find some place |
||||
interesting, in exchange for driving away the original inhabitants of that place |
||||
who made it interesting in the first place. |
||||
|
||||
Later on I would learn that the creep of tourism and the dreaded plague of |
||||
"gentrification" were spoken of as the same thing in popular destinations. The |
||||
problem of wealthy people driving out the inhabitants of a city in order to take |
||||
part in the city culture the original inhabitants created is a global one, and |
||||
one I'm certainly a part of. I moved to Denver because I liked the culture of |
||||
that city, and was fortunate enough to be able to afford to do so, but then left |
||||
only three years later, and was now doing the same in even shorter time periods |
||||
in cities the world over. |
||||
|
||||
I obviously didn't stop being a tourist after Rome, but I made a conscious |
||||
attempt to be a better one. I put down the guidebook (or, in my case, the guide |
||||
app) and tried to explore more naturally, taking in each sight as I found it, |
||||
and learning as much about it as I could. Rather than trying to see a little of |
||||
everything I find something which really called out to me and focus on that. |
||||
It's a tough predicament to be in; it's important to go out and see the world, |
||||
to meet people from all different cultures and see all the ways they live, but |
||||
doing so is, often, detrimental to those cultures. It was tough to find a |
||||
balance I was comfortable with, and I'm still not sure a "correct" balance |
||||
actually exists. |
||||
|
||||
My second day in Rome I spent at the Colosseum and the Palatino, but I was so |
||||
utterly exhausted and brain-melted I barely remember them. I left Rome |
||||
with a ton of things left unseen, but without any regret about it. Italy itself |
||||
had far too much for me to do in this trip, and I knew I'd be back one day, both |
||||
to Italy and to Rome itself. On the third day I hopped on a plane, flew across |
||||
the sea, and landed in Spain. |
@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ |
||||
<div style=" |
||||
box-sizing: border-box; |
||||
text-align: center; |
||||
padding-left: 2em; |
||||
padding-right: 2em; |
||||
margin-bottom: 1em; |
||||
{%- if include.float %} |
||||
float: {{ include.float }}; |
||||
{% endif -%} |
||||
{%- if include.float or include.inline %} |
||||
max-width: 49%; |
||||
{% endif -%} |
||||
{%- if include.inline %} |
||||
display: inline-block; |
||||
{% endif -%} |
||||
"> |
||||
<a href="/img/{{ include.src }}" target="_blank"> |
||||
<img style="max-height: 60vh;" |
||||
src="/img/{{ include.src }}" alt="{{ include.descr }}" /></a> |
||||
{%- if include.descr %}<br/><em>{{ include.descr }}</em>{%- endif %} |
||||
</div> |
@ -0,0 +1,201 @@ |
||||
--- |
||||
title: >- |
||||
Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 0: Bailtrain to Bailtown |
||||
description: >- |
||||
Wherein I quit my job and prepare to leave the country |
||||
--- |
||||
|
||||
## Denver |
||||
|
||||
In mid-2015 I moved to Denver, CO while continuing to work remotely at the |
||||
company I had helped to found back in Gainesville, FL. Florida had been my home |
||||
for my entire life, up until that point, and it felt like a change was needed. |
||||
Denver was certainly a change, and ultimately I think it was one in the right |
||||
direction, but it turned out to not be enough. |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html src="mr-worldwide/denver-2017.jpg" %} |
||||
|
||||
While in Denver I'd rented a tiny studio apartment, which over the |
||||
course of two years I'd learned to live in. Living large is pretty easy; for |
||||
some reason we (generally) find it more difficult to throw something away than |
||||
to exert the effort to make space for it in our lives. It takes a non-trivial |
||||
amount of trial-and-error to figure out a smaller lifestyle with fewer things. |
||||
So minimalism is something I started to practice, and continue to practice, in |
||||
the literal sense of the word, often failing at it. But I find the challenge to |
||||
be worth it. |
||||
|
||||
I'd always separated my work-place from my living-place, mentally. Eventually I |
||||
realized that just because the two places were physically separate doesn't mean |
||||
they aren't a part of the same thing. At the most basic level I work in order to |
||||
afford basic necessities, like food and clothing and shelter. I have a dedicated |
||||
home because it's the most efficient way to keep myself fit and healthy and |
||||
clean, because it allows me to having my own ammenities and routines which work |
||||
best for me. |
||||
|
||||
But the more I work, the more I burn out and need to recuperate at home. The |
||||
more time spent at home, the more things accumulate there and the more upkeep of |
||||
the home is needed, which in turn requires money which requires work. The one |
||||
leads to the other, and so they are really part of the same thing. I neither |
||||
want to work nor spend a lot of time at home, but that's what my life had turned |
||||
into. It was unbearable, and I had to change it. |
||||
|
||||
## Mr. Worldwide |
||||
|
||||
In early 2016 I took a trip to Japan with some friends. It was the first time |
||||
I'd been out of the US (sans a family trip to Nova Scotia when I was like 9 or |
||||
something). Going to Japan might as well have been a trip to an alien planet, |
||||
and yet it was also familiar. I learned that no matter how different our |
||||
cultures are, the individuals of the world aren't that different at all. By the |
||||
end of that trip I felt as at-home in Japan as I did in Denver, if not more so, |
||||
because of how much time I was able to spend exploring (rather than being couped |
||||
up working). |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html |
||||
src="mr-worldwide/kyoto-2017.jpg" |
||||
descr="Kyoto at sunset, 2017" %} |
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|
||||
By the end of 2016 I knew I wanted to travel and see as much as possible, while |
||||
working as little as possible in the meantime (except on my own ideas, as they |
||||
came up and I felt like working on them). I began trimming down my life, with |
||||
the aim of only having as many things as would fit into a backpack. It probably |
||||
seemed to everyone like I was preparing to become a homeless person. In a way I |
||||
kind of was. |
||||
|
||||
My plan wasn't that I would never work again, or never live in a home again. |
||||
Vagrancy isn't a sustainable way for me to live. But finding a life which didn't |
||||
involve spending all my energy working while also not being homeless is surely |
||||
possible, I knew, though maybe I wouldn't find it in the US. I began saving as |
||||
much money as possible, and began thinking about where I might find that life. |
||||
|
||||
Europe seemed as good a place to start the search as any. |
||||
|
||||
## Leaving Denver |
||||
|
||||
By the end of 2017 I was ready to go. I had saved nearly $20k, had put in notice |
||||
that I'd be leaving my job at the end of the year, and had given notice to my |
||||
landlord of the same. My friends in Denver saw me off, and my friend Ibrahim |
||||
gave me a small notebook to take notes in as I traveled, with some helpful |
||||
phrases that might aid me along the way |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html |
||||
src="mr-worldwide/notebook.jpg" |
||||
descr="Ibrahim made sure I was covered if I ever found myself in a tight spot" |
||||
%} |
||||
|
||||
I drove all my things back to my parents' house in Miami just before Christmas, |
||||
and enjoyed Christmas and New Year's with them. In mid-January I grabbed my |
||||
single backpack, said goodbye to my parents, and headed to the airport. It had |
||||
worked out to be cheaper to fly back to Denver before flying to Europe, so I |
||||
spent another day there saying hello/goodbye to everyone again, collecting some |
||||
recommendations of places to go while I was there, and continued on to Europe. |
||||
|
||||
## The Loadout |
||||
|
||||
(Wherein I give a summary of what I had with me throughout the trip, with |
||||
affiliate links sprinkled in, cause money. You can skip this section if you |
||||
don't really care). |
||||
|
||||
I'd already had a [40L backpacking bag](zulu) which had done me well enough on a |
||||
couple trips already, so I decided to try and only use that. Other ~~homeless~~ |
||||
backpackers tend to go a little bigger, but they risk not being able to fit |
||||
their bags in luggage overhead on planes. I also ended up needing a smaller day |
||||
bag almost immediately, since being out and about all day necessitates bringing |
||||
some things with you. The big bag/day bag combo is a classic amongst ~~the |
||||
homeless~~ backpackers. |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html |
||||
src="mr-worldwide/loadout-packed.jpg" |
||||
descr="All packed up, one for overhead and the other for under the seat" |
||||
inline=true |
||||
%} |
||||
|
||||
{% include image.html |
||||
src="mr-worldwide/loadout-unpacked.jpg" |
||||
descr="(Almost) everything, unpacked" |
||||
inline=true |
||||
%} |
||||
|
||||
Most space in the bag is taken by clothes. Which clothes I actually had along |
||||
changed as the weather changed and I gained and lost things. But my general |
||||
clothing strategy consisted of a few key points: |
||||
|
||||
* All things need to be re-wearable, 2 to 3 days at least. This is more |
||||
difficult for under layers, but wool is ideal as it's durable, warm, and it |
||||
quickly-dries (which means the fungi/bacteria, which would otherwise cause |
||||
smell, quickly-die). Wool socks were easy to find on sale for $5 a pair at the |
||||
end of winter. Wool undershirts (smart wool or merino) are findable on eBay |
||||
with some difficulty. [Uniqlo][uniqlo] makes good undershirts to fill in |
||||
when wool undershirts are too expensive. [ExOfficio][exofficio] is worth the |
||||
money in the underwear department. A pair of leggings is also super worth it |
||||
for the cold. |
||||
|
||||
* For pants I went with three pairs; one beat-up pair, one casual, and one a bit |
||||
nicer, and a few wool shirts/sweaters. Later in the trip, as summer rolled |
||||
around, I'd pick up some shorts as well. My couple of wool shirts/sweaters |
||||
were trivial to find on eBay. |
||||
|
||||
* For shoes I went with a pair of flip-flops and a pair of [waterproof |
||||
boots][timbs] (also from eBay). The boots I chose for being able to be used in |
||||
basically any occasion where flip-flops wouldn't do (marathons excepted). |
||||
|
||||
* I really can't stress enough how great wool is. That said, I would have died |
||||
without [this jacket][jacket], which was well worth the relatively tiny amount |
||||
of space it took up. Same can be said for my [linen towel][towel], which |
||||
struck a perfect balance between packability and being a towel. |
||||
|
||||
* Other random things which were must-haves: rubber bands (for tying up |
||||
clothes), sewing kit, external phone battery, tape, super glue, umbrella, and |
||||
a small package of baby wipes. |
||||
|
||||
* I also insisted on bringing a laughably small and old netbook with me, cause |
||||
I get cranky if I can't code now and then. |
||||
|
||||
Even before deciding on doing this trip I had begun purging all my old clothes |
||||
in favor of a much smaller set of more durable, though perhaps more expensive, |
||||
ones. So a lot of these clothes carried over from that, and all that I just |
||||
described is really my current wardrobe. |
||||
|
||||
[zulu]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015SBLO28/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B015SBLO28&linkId=84ffbb4c20cf4dfcee00485312c1d5c3 |
||||
[uniqlo]: https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men/undershirts |
||||
[exofficio]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001M0MN0C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B001M0MN0C&linkId=a1a2a1fac9c23c44c0633d0e7170fb98 |
||||
[timbs]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019CVV1AK?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=B019CVW406&th=1 |
||||
[jacket]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013HAXSLC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B013HAXSLC&linkId=44efbeb32af7cc0f303180ec70da207e |
||||
[towel]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WBC17N4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mediocregophe-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B00WBC17N4&linkId=dec48e5d729a51790abad2286f08fe34 |
||||
|
||||
## (Lack of) Planning |
||||
|
||||
The trip was deliberately not planned out. I knew I would show up in Munich, |
||||
because I have a friend who lives there as well as a distant relative. But |
||||
passed that I figured "show up and look around" would suffice. My motto for the |
||||
trip would eventually become "plans are just lists of things which won't |
||||
happen". From start to finish the only plans I had figured out at any moment |
||||
was a general trajectory and my next destination. Rarely was my next place to |
||||
sleep booked more than a week ahead of time, or my next bus or train ticket |
||||
bought more than a day before. |
||||
|
||||
It could not have worked any other way. For a short trip it might be viable to |
||||
have an itinerary with a list of destinations/sights which will be visited and |
||||
all the traveling needed in between, but the strictness of an itinerary always |
||||
adds tension. Rather than spend some pre-allotted time at each sight, adding a |
||||
feeling of being on a timer no matter where you are, I would rather just meander |
||||
around and spend as much time as feels right at each place. There's zero chance |
||||
of seeing all there is to see, no matter how much is planned, so might as well |
||||
see each thing in as much depth and detail as you feel like. |
||||
|
||||
And looking back, I don't think I _did_ miss all that much. Each city has its |
||||
notable sights, and you can know by looking around and talking to other people |
||||
which ones are right for you. Start with those, if there's time do the others, |
||||
but you won't feel like you've missed anything if you don't get to them. |
||||
|
||||
Much later in my trip someone would ask me and another backpacker (who'd been |
||||
traveling even longer than me) if we had advice for him. The other backpacker |
||||
immediately replied "Just keep your head on a swivel". As in, just look around |
||||
you, keep your eyes open, you'll see all you want and need to. My grandma gave |
||||
me similar advice before I left, when I asked her what I should do in Spain (her |
||||
home country): "Oh, you don'thave to do anything. You see something you like, |
||||
you go there. You see something else, you go there instead. There is nothing you |
||||
have to do". |
||||
|
||||
## Bailing |
||||
|
||||
In the next post I will actually leave and begin my _adventure_. Stay tuned! |
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