remove mr worldwide posts

_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md

@@ -1,432 +0,0 @@
----
-title: >-
-    Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 1: Europe
-description: >-
-    Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love tomatoes.
----
-
-## TODO
-
-## Outline
-
-- 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
-
-On Febrary 14th I returned to Munich. Having been on the road for a little over
-3 weeks, I was utterly exhausted, and neglected to take any pictures at all. In
-fact, I hardly remember _what_ I did there, except go to the library a lot.
-Munich has a fantastic public library, which I spent a considerable amount of
-time at every time I was in town. I'd create my rough plans of where to go next
-there, as well as do miscellaneous coding and writing. I was through being a
-tourist.
-
-After Rome I had begun really putting my strategy of "wander around and see what
-calls out to me" to the test. By the time I was in Munich it had really sunk in,
-and the only thing which really called to me in Munich was the peace and quiet
-of the library during the day, and hanging out with Caitlin and her friends at
-night. For the rest of the trip I wouldn't take so many pictures as I had been
-doing, and wouldn't go way out of my way to see something which didn't truly
-interest me.
-
-After I left Italy I had begun eating differently too. Italy is, obviously,
-known for two foods: pasta and pizza, and I had a lot of those while I was
-there. At one point I had the awkward experience of an Italian guy asking me if
-Italy had better pizza than the U.S., and me having to try and find a way to
-both be honest and not seem like too much of a dick when I told him: "no". It
-would be fair to say that, in Italy, your money goes a lot farther in terms of
-quality than in the U.S.; or, in other words, their average quality is higher.
-But it's not like Italians know some secret the rest of the world doesn't, and
-you can easily find a good, crispy, thin crust, wood fired pizza anywhere, if
-you look for it.
-
-That was the real lesson for me: it's not that Europe has _better_ food across
-the board than the U.S., it's that even their cheapest restaurants will be
-pretty high quality, whereas finding good but cheap food in the U.S. can often
-be quite difficult. So someone like me, who's on a spend-as-little-as-possible
-budget, can still enjoy pretty good food anywhere.
-
-All the same, I would largely stop going out to eat at all from this point in
-the trip onward, and instead I began visiting grocery stores frequently. During
-the day I'd always have in my bag: a bottle of water, a loaf of bread, a block
-of cheese (usually gouda), almonds, and dates or dried figs. These I would munch
-on throughout the day, and for dinner I'd make something simple like pasta or
-rice with veggies and tofu. Having a kitchen would become a requirement for me
-to stay at a hostel, and many hostels have a "free stuff" section filled with
-food items people had left behind, like garlic or salt or whatever, so I often
-didn't need to go shopping at all.
-
-Of course, I didn't abstain from eating out _completely_. Every country has some
-claim-to-fame food item, which I'd try once or twice while there, if it didn't
-mean going way out of my way. But food wasn't a primary concern of my trip, and
-so I tried my best to spend as little as possible on it.
-
-Having spent a few days in Munich, recuperating and figuring out my next steps,
-I continued on... to Brussels!
-
-## Brussels, Belgium
-
-The bus arrived in Brussels super late at night, and I woke up to the voice of
-the bus driver over the intercom: "Welcome to Brussels! Donald Trump says it is
-the shithole of Europe, and he has it right!" So it was a warm welcome. I only
-stayed in Brussels for two nights; it was more of a pit-stop on the way to
-Bruges than anything. My hostel was, apparently, on the site of one of Van
-Gogh's old studios, but that fact was played up in favor of actually making the
-hostel any good. But the city was nice enough, and despite the bitter cold I
-enjoyed myself.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="brussels-2018.jpg" width=556
-    descr="Comic murals like this can be find all over the city. Brussels, 2018"
-    float="right"
-    %}
-
-Besides being the capital of the E.U., Brussels is also famous for its history
-of comics. Not just superhero comics, but also political, children's, humor, and
-historical comics too. While wandering around I visited a number of comic stores
-with huge selections, almost entirely in not-English (Belgium has three
-official languages), and there were huge comic murals all over the city.
-Brussels' comic history would also provide me with my favorite museum experience
-of the entire trip.
-
-The majority of museums I went to in Europe were only loosely ordered. Large
-collection museums would organize be era, and maybe by year within the era, or
-perhaps by artist. Those museums are fine for wandering around, but the really
-good museums are those that tell a story. The Escher exhibit in Lisbon, the
-Picasso exhibit I went to in Barcelona, and the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam
-tell the story of a single person's life, and by having that focus can be really
-compelling for the visitor. Those with a more broad focus have more difficulty
-being as compelling, but the Belgian Comic Strip Center nailed it.
-
-The museum started with a walkthrough of how comics are actually made, from
-initial blocking, to pencil sketches, to coloring, and finally inking. It
-covered materials used in past and present, and how digital tools like
-Photoshop and 3D modeling, which allow the entire process to be done digitally
-and quickly, have changed the landscape.
-
-From there the museum opened up into different sections, some focusing on
-specific countries, others on a particular artist, others on a theme. Each had
-a series of wall texts guiding you through the section, not just by giving
-information on a specific piece, but giving overall information on context.
-There were sections on specific Belgian artists, famous comic characters, a
-whole section on comics in propaganda, chinese and japanese comics (_not_
-manga), and much more. There were sections on the different mediums that comics
-appeared, e.g. newspapers, comic books, and posters, and even a whole section on
-the Smurfs. Overall it was one of the most thought out, well designed museums
-I've ever been to, and it made the trip to Brussels worth it on its own.
-
-After the Comic Center I didn't have much else I wanted to do. I wandered
-through the tourist-y area, saw the statue of the peeing kid that's apparently
-famous, and ended up walking a long while to visit what is, according to _the
-internet_, the best belgian fries joint in the city. It was pretty good (though
-the best belgian fries I'd have would turn out to be in Amsterdam), and I sat
-down in a little plaza to eat them. While there I caught the eye, for better or
-worse, of a guy coming out of a bar, and he immediately bee-lined for me. His
-English was not solid, but that didn't slow him down in the least.
-
-He opened by telling me he was waiting for his taxi, and then immediately
-launched into a tirade against capitalism, in favor of communism. I told him I'm
-from the U.S. and we (mostly he) talked about consumer culture, the plight of
-the working man, and the like. After a few minutes his taxi showed up, he wished
-me a good trip, and we said goodbye. It was a fun but extremely odd interaction.
-"Are all Belgians so eager to espouse communism to random passerby?", I'd wonder
-to myself.
-
-After wandering a while longer I decided to just catch a bus back to my hostel.
-A woman walked by with her two kids while I was waiting at the stop, and turned
-back to tell me something, though she didn't have hardly any English to work
-with. After some struggle we managed to land on "no bus". Damn. So I walked down
-to the metro station to take the train instead. While waiting for the train I
-overheard on the intercom: "Train delay due to worker strike". Which explained
-everything instantly. The Brussels public transit workers were on strike, so
-there was no bus, and no train, and a man (I'm betting one of the workers) was
-drinking in the middle of the day, waiting for a taxi, and super primed to talk
-about worker's rights.
-
-While it was a funny situation, in a way, it did make my life quite a bit
-harder. Once I finally got back to the hostel I stayed in for the night, and the
-next day headed on to Bruges.
-
-## Bruges, Belgium
-
-I'll be honest and say that 90% of the reason I wanted to go to Bruges was
-because of the movie, _In Bruges_, which is one of my all time favorites. The
-movie was shot almost completely in the city, and makes a lot of fun out of
-tourists coming to see it. "It's a fucking fairytale" is a common refrain in it.
-Bruges always had a pretty solid tourist game, but after the movie it really
-took off, so that most of the other people in my hostel said they had only
-really heard of the city from the movie too.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="bruges-pano-2018.jpg" width=1492
-    descr="View from atop the the Belfry of Bruges, 2018"
-    %}
-
-The city itself is actually beautiful. Once out of the busy tourist area,
-centered around the Belfry, the streets and canals wind around through quiet
-neighborhoods and small parks. Bruges is sometimes called the Venice of the
-North (though Amsterdam also calls itself this), due to its history as an
-important historical commercial port built on top of a maze of canals. There are
-many canal boat tours available, but I was too ~~cheap~~ poor to spring for one,
-so I took a free walking tour instead.
-
-"Free" walking tours are a fairly common business in European cities. The tour
-guides collect people from various hostels they have arrangements with, and walk
-them around the city, talking about whatever is worth talking about. Most that I
-took were quite good, weaving together the history of a place, its culture both
-then and now, and current events, all while giving you a good lay-of-the-land
-and two-ish hours of being out-and-about. At the end of the tour the guides ask
-for tips/donations, and most people give between $5-20.
-
-On the tour of Bruges our guide had pointed out a sea shell cemented into the
-pavement. This was part, he said, of the Camino De Santiago. In the middle ages
-the Catholic Church considered pilgrimage to be a suitable form of atonement for
-sins/crimes, and so many people throughout Europe were sent away from their
-towns to travel by land to the Santiago de Compestela Cathedral in northern
-Spain. Over time the various routes materialized into a network, denoted by sea
-shells or sea shell symbols, which stretches throughout Europe and which people
-continue to use today.
-
-Even as the guide was telling us about it I knew I wanted to do. As the trip
-wore on I talked to a few people who had done the pilgrimage, and for every one
-I became more and more convinced that I must do it.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="bruges-canal-2018.jpg" width=1920
-    descr="Canals of Bruges, 2018"
-    %}
-
-I made a few friends in my hostel, our friendship having been forged in the
-struggle of trying to find an affordable meal in Bruges. Every restaurant in
-Bruges, it seemed, did "full" meals, where you pay a fixed amount and get two,
-three, or four courses. But the fixed amount was never lower than €45, and so we
-spent a lot of time searching for alternatives. After a lot of searching we
-found a couple places which were reasonably priced for the couple nights we were
-all there, and one of the group knew of a hard-to-find pub which made and sold
-13% alcohol beer for a few euro. After all that Bruges wasn't as unaffordable
-as it first seemed, and was a lot of fun, but it took a bit of work to make it
-so.
-
-After Bruges I took a bus back to Brussels, where I hung out for a while waiting
-for my next bus which would take me across the pond.
-
-## London, England
-
-Getting to London was honestly one of the most exciting parts of that trip. The
-Channel Tunnel, or "Chunnel", runs from France, underneath the English Channel,
-and pops back up in England. In the tunnel is a giant train which ferries cars
-and buses through the tunnel. Taking the Chunnel was as easy as buying a bus
-ticket from Brussels to London, and passing through three passport checks along
-the way (the UK check being the most intense passport check of my entire
-journey, for whatever reason).
-
-While the London Underground (The Tube, as the British call it, in their very
-endearing habit of giving everything an endearing nickname) was easy enough to
-use, though _very_ expensive, so I spent a lot of time walking in the bitter
-cold. London is a _huge_ metropolitan city, filled to the brim with shops and
-restaurants and plenty of other attractions to grab tourists. But despite their
-best efforts, none were more grabbing to me than the museums.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="london-steg-2018.jpg" width=1920
-    descr="Stegosaurus at the Natural History Museum. London, 2018"
-    %}
-
-All the major museums in London are free to enter. This includes the National
-Gallery, exhibiting paintings and art from the world over, the Natural History
-Museum (my favorite), with its seemingly infinite halls of fossils and stones
-and pre-historic artifacts, and the British Museum, which exhibits many of the
-archeological treasures the British have stolen from other cultures throughout
-history.
-
-There's a significant amount of controversy surrounding the British Museum, and
-whether or not it's right for it to keep artifacts like the Rosetta Stone, and
-sculptures from the Parthenon of Athens. The argument is that the British were
-not really _given_ these artifacts by the peoples/cultures which originated
-them, and so the museum is effectively parading stolen property.
-
-The British Museum argues that, in fact, it's encouraging the spread of culture
-and understanding by collecting these artifacts from around the world and
-displaying them in context to each other, and that its mission is charitable to
-the cultures from which the artifacts are taken. And additionally that: "[the]
-restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an
-original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other
-great museums of the world".
-
-The argument that they're actually spreading culture is pretty patronizing, as
-if the people they've stolen from don't know how to do this best for themselves,
-and as if they should obviously _want_ this to be done for them. As for the
-argument that restitutionism would empty the museum, I can only imagine a
-restitutionist responding: "Yes, that's the point". It's one thing for a museum
-to be given or loaned an item for display by another people, but quite another
-to assume the right to take an item regardless of its peoples' wishes.
-
-Besides some very good fish and chips, London didn't have all that much else for
-me. The museums were insanely crowded, with everyone pushing over themselves to
-fill out their selfie-with-famous-objects-bingo-cards; my hostel was weird (all
-of my hostels in the UK were weird, in fact; more on that in Ireland); and
-everything was quite expensive. I wasn't too sad to leave.
-
-## Dublin, Ireland
-
-My bus dropped me off at a small ferry terminal in Holyhead, a town in Wales.
-From there I took the couple-hour ferry ride to Dublin.
-
-I spent only a couple of days in Dublin, but one of those days I struggled to be
-a living human while fighting off the flu. I still managed to walk down to
-Trinity College to see The Book of Kells and the college library's Long Room,
-but the memory of it is fuzzy. I'm sure I looked as dead as the people who wrote
-those books.
-
-That day I mostly hung out at the hostel. Hostels in the UK have a very
-different atmosphere than everywhere else; there's a fairly bad housing crisis
-occurring in most major cities (like the three I went to), and often it's
-cheaper to live in a hostel than to rent an apartment. So the hostels I stayed
-in were filled with people who'd been there for months, some of them working,
-others trying to find work, others just lounging. But the dichotomy between
-people who were just passing through and people who were there long term made it
-a less than stellar experience. The long-term residents all knew each other and
-formed cliques, and generally took up the common spaces, so if you weren't
-already traveling with others (like me) it was pretty easy to feel excluded.
-
-On the second day I decided to go on a day trip out of Dublin. The city was
-neat, but I wasn't finding all that much I wanted to do inside of it. I found a
-bus company which did day trips to Glendalough, a valley which holds
-the ruins of a 6th century monastary, a beautiful lake, many hiking trails, and
-some sheep. I spent the day hiking, wandering around the ruins, and escaping an
-incoming snow storm. By the end of it all my sickness from the previous day was
-completely gone, and I slept the whole bus ride back.
-
-## Edinburgh, Scotland
-
-I left Dublin just as the Beast from the East made landfall. A giant cold wave
-brought in tons of snow and unseasonably low temperatures, stretching all across
-Europe. My plane must have been one of the last ones to land in Edinburgh,
-because for the next 2 days the entire city was completely snowed in, and most
-stores and attractions were closed.
-
-The tourist industry heavily plays up that Edinburgh is the city where JK
-Rowling wrote most of the _Harry Potter_ books, and you can see its influence
-clearly. The towering gothic cathedrals, castles on cliffs, old graveyards,
-dense cobblestone streets and dark alleys all feel like something right out of
-the books (though really it's the other way around). There was a cafe only a few
-blocks away from my hostel where JK Rowling apparently first started writing the
-books, a piece of trivia which the cafe has not failed to cash in on.
-
-The city was quite peaceful, probably because everything was closed from the
-storm, but it felt like it might always be like that even in good weather. Most
-days I'd find a spot to hunker down and draw for a while, then in the afternoon
-go explore some sight or another; the castle, the royal mile, Calton Hill... Or
-I'd go in search of decent groceries, which were strangely difficult to find.
-The city is (said to be) built on seven hills, like Rome, and between the many
-steep stairways and narrow alleys navigating them, and packed snow and ice, it
-was quite difficult to explore too far.
-
-While I spent five whole days in Edinburgh, I don't have much to talk about for
-it. It's probably one of the most unique cities I visited, with a lot of beauty
-and history and things to see, and I absolutely would love to go back. But
-despite all that, there was definitely a feeling a depression while I was there,
-like I was totally alone. When I got onto a plane and took off, I was more
-relieved than anything else.
-
-## Amsterdam, The Netherlands
-
-One of the first things I noticed when I landed in The Netherlands (which is
-such a strange name for a country, now that I'm typing it out) is that they have
-a sun. It's a stereotype that the UK doesn't get much sun, but it was absolutely
-a true one while I was there. There was literally cloud cover the whole time.
-That probably had to do with why my mood was down the whole time, unbenownst to
-me.
-
-With my extremely pale ginger self back under the sun, it felt like I'd been
-holding my breath for weeks and I was now finally able to breathe again.
-
-Amsterdam is sometimes called the Venice of the North. Like Bruges. Unlike
-Bruges, Amsterdam is gritty and in some places delapidated. The buildings are
-sinking into the soft, slightly-under-sea-level Holland soil, and so lean
-precariously over the streets. House boats line nearly all canals, many
-appearing abandoned. Most canals have a layer of debris and trash floating on
-them.
-
-Some parts of the city are littered with bars and clubs and "coffee shops",
-giving them a grunge feel. And others had wildly colored houses and quiet
-corners on the canal. And then the museum district, with the amazing Van Gogh
-Musuem and the laborynthian Rijksmuseum (those were the two I went in, there's
-like five in that little square). And still there's the red light district, with
-sex shops and cheesy tourist shit and live shows and, obviously, prostitutes.
-They each have a little window where they try to grab your attention from. It's
-kinda weird.
-
-Despite that, Amsterdam was probably my second favorite place I visted on the
-whole trip. Like Lisbon, the city feels real. The grunge lets you know people
-actually live there. The hostel I stayed in was really cool, and I made a bunch
-of friends. One of the nights there I confirmed a long-held suspicion: that I
-would hate bar crawls. Now I know for sure. On a different night me and friends
-went out, visited a "coffee shop", and hit up the Sex Museum. This turned out to
-be a great idea; it wasn't even that raunchy, just kind of mind-boggling.
-
-Amsterdam also turned out to have the best Belgian fries I've ever had, for
-whatever reason, and they ended up being my lunch almost every day. I'd grab my
-fry-cone and wander the canals, finding small corners and tucked away cafes to
-sit and read at. I wouldn't have thought that a city known for nightlife could
-also be home to so many serene little spots; nevertheless, the city is full of
-them.
-
-My bus out of Amsterdam was an 8 hour overnight journey which deposited me in
-Copenhagen. Before getting on the bus I killed the last of my "coffee" that was
-in my pocket, contorted myself into a ball fitting into the two seats of space I
-grabbed, and got the best sleep I've ever gotton on a bus.

_posts/2018-09-20-mr-worldwide-pt-0.md

@@ -1,202 +0,0 @@
----
-title: >-
-    Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 0: Bailtrain to Bailtown
-description: >-
-    Wherein I quit my job and prepare to leave the country
-series: mr-worldwide
----
-
-## 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 dir="mr-worldwide" file="denver-2017.jpg" width=1696 %}
-
-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 cooped
-up working).
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="kyoto-2017.jpg" width=5257
-    descr="Kyoto at sunset, 2017" %}
-
-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
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="notebook.jpg" width=3036
-    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
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="loadout-packed.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="All packed up, one for overhead and the other for under the seat"
-    inline=true
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="loadout-unpacked.jpg" width=4048
-    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
-past 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_.

_posts/2018-09-29-mr-worldwide-pt-1.md

@@ -1,682 +0,0 @@
----
-title: >-
-    Mr. Worldwide, Pt. 1: Europe
-description: >-
-    Or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love tomatoes.
-series: mr-worldwide
----
-
-# Munich, Germany
-
-I arrived in Munich late at night on January 14th. My friend Caitlin met me at
-the train station, and walked me over to her house 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
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-victory-gate-2018.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="Siegestor (Victory Gate), Munich, 2018"
-    %}
-
-As we walked and ate our way through the day Caitlin updated me on all of the
-things that I should expect to be 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
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="munich-moosach-2018.jpg" width=3036
-    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 a private guided tour of the exhibits. We
-talked about politics, and about how immigration is affecting it, and about
-Trump (of course), and about art, and school, and our different cultures. She
-told me that Europe had always looked to the U.S. 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 U.S.,
-and about my friend who is living in a van and traveling around the country. I
-learned a lot that day, and when I headed back to Caitlin's afterwards I felt
-much more at home in the country and continent than I had before.
-
-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 people 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.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-street-2018.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="The streets of Milan, 2018"
-    %}
-
-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 some 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 hang 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 thing which impacted me the most 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 would
-go to St. Peter's, the first largest, later on. 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.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-2018-0.jpg" width=1292
-    descr="Milan's Duomo. In the lower left, tourists being scammed by a dude with pigeon food, 2018"
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="Interior of Milan's Duomo, 2018"
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="milan-duomo-interior-2018-1.jpg" width=727
-    descr="Milan Duomo's creepy ass statue of Saint Bartholomew, 2018"
-    float="right"
-    %}
-
-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 the
-external battery 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 cities! 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
-U.S. 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 U.S., 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.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 2018"
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="ravenna-mosaic-2018-1.jpg" width=727
-    descr="Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, 2018"
-    float="right"
-    %}
-
-Something else which took some time to get accustomed to was using cash (what a
-segway!). By this point in the trip it had become somewhat second-nature, but
-only by way of many mishaps previously. In the U.S. 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. It's a giant pain. 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 U.S. 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.
-
-But by the time I got back home, 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 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 U.S. 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. And 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 home, a friend had told
-me to avoid any restaurants with pictures on their menu; they're targeted at
-tourists and priced accordingly. So 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, and returning later when I was hungry
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="Florence's Duomo near sunset, 2018"
-    %}
-
-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.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
-    descr="River Arno, and the houses which still stand on it, Florence, 2018"
-    %}
-
-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.
-
-<div style="text-align: center;">
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-0.jpg" width=2688
-    inline=true
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="florence-painting-2018-1.jpg" width=2688
-    inline=true
-    %}
-<p><em>Not pictured, the crowd of selfie-ers behind my trying to get a shot with
-The Birth of Venus, Florence, 2018</em></p>
-</div>
-
-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 I was only staying two full
-days so it was fine. Seeing all of the sights of Rome in only two days is not
-recommended. 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.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-3.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="Pope for the day, Rome, 2018"
-    %}
-
-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 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.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-2.jpg" width=4048
-    descr="Did you know that Rome has more Egyptian obelisks than any other city in the world? That's a rock fact. Rome, 2018"
-    %}
-
-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 that
-narcissism. My more 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; it takes 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, which 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 would 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.
-
-<div style="text-align: center;">
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-0.jpg" width=4048
-    inline=true
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="rome-2018-1.jpg" width=1920
-    inline=true
-    %}
-<p><em>All that said, the Colosseum was pretty baller. Rome, 2018</em></p>
-</div>
-
-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.
-
-## Barcelona, Spain
-
-Barcelona definitely made my list of favorite places I visited. Having come from
-a city which didn't feel like much more than a playground for tourists, it was
-refreshing to be in one which felt more real. Spaniards seemed to be friendlier
-than Italians as well, and my hostel was filled with characters from the UK to
-Brazil to Russia.
-
-There was an architect in Barcelona named Antoni Gaudí, who died in 1926, but
-left an indelible impression on the city. If I hadn't known when he lived and
-died I might have thought he founded the place, he's that ubiquitous. His style
-is completely strange; his exteriors look like something out of Candy Land,
-while the interiors seem to come from a utopian sci-fi.
-
-What blows my mind is that, for whatever reason, they let him build a church.
-
-La Sagrada Familia isn't actually completed yet. Gaudí took it over in 1883, a
-year after it had been started, and worked on it until the day he died. He knew
-he wouldn't live to see the completion of the project, and so laid out the plans
-such that it could be completed without him. The church has been slowly
-constructed using private funds and donations since then.
-
-<div style="text-align: center;">
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-outside-2018-0.jpg" width=1080
-    inline=true
-    %}
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-outside-2018-1.jpg" width=1080
-    inline=true
-    %}
-<p><em>Outside faces of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
-</div>
-
-The outside presents two faces, one a mishmash of sculpture which resembles
-melting ice-cream, and the other highly geometrical, both filled with biblical
-scenes and small details. Neither really prepares you for what the inside will
-be like.
-
-<div style="text-align: center;">
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-0.jpg" width=1080
-    inline=true
-    %}
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-1.jpg" width=1080
-    inline=true
-    %}
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-2.jpg" width=1080
-    inline=true
-    %}
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="sagrada-familia-inside-2018-3.jpg" width=1080
-    inline=true
-    %}
-<p><em>The incredible interior of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, 2018</em></p>
-</div>
-
-I'd been in a lot of churches and cathedrals up till this point. Even when they
-were as mind blowing as Milan's Duomo, they all followed a similar pattern:
-gothic, brooding, ornate, almost dark in a way.
-
-La Sagrada Familia is none of those things. It shirks the gothic style almost
-completely, instead adopting one inspired by natural shapes and patterns. It
-feels more like being under a canopy of trees than being in a building. There's
-light, and color, and organic shapes, like the tree-trunk-like columns and the
-flower ceiling. And yet there's also a geometric pattern-ness to everything,
-which hints at an order and intent for everything in sight, so your eye is drawn
-in to investigate every detail without needing ornamentation to grab it.
-
-It's lucky that I hadn't made any other plans for that day, because I spent
-nearly two hours at that church, walking around, taking it all in, sitting
-and contemplating, holding back tears a lot of the time, not being successful at
-it the rest. This might have been the first building I'd ever felt gratitude
-for. Where the traditional catholic building has, as a foundation, a call to
-authority, this one had a call to nature and humanity. And rather than being the
-crackpot dream of a single person, it had been carried on and supported and
-built by many others long after he had died. It was a reflection of an ongoing
-change in a society which I was grateful to see.
-
-I left Barcelona with a new understanding of churches, and what they might
-represent, even for someone who's not catholic. They're a space that's been set
-aside with the fundamental purpose of sitting quietly and thinking about things
-larger than oneself. Thinking about one's place in society, or in nature, or in
-the universe, and thinking about how that affects one's actions. Every society
-on earth has these spaces, though they go by different names, and have lots of
-different decorations. Each one of these spaces carries a message about what
-that society has ascribed importance to, and the message La Sagrada Familia
-carried with it was refreshing.
-
-## Madrid, Spain
-
-Originally I hadn't planned on going to Madrid at all, but in Florence I met
-someone who lived there and so decided to spend a couple nights hanging out.
-Going on a tour of a city is one thing, but going with a local is something
-completely different. We saw some of the things a tourist is supposed to see,
-like the opera house, the palace, and whatever this building is:
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="madrid-2018.jpg" width=3036
-    descr="This Schweppes building is called the Edificio Carrión, and is famous for reasons. Madrid, 2018"
-    %}
-
-But more than that, I got to see what it was like to actually live in a city
-like Madrid, as a normal person. A fancy tapas restaurant is too expensive
-there, so we went to a local bar that did it more simply and cheaply. We also
-ate kebab, which is the European equivalent of the corner mexican or chinese
-joint in the states; a place with cheap, good food, open late, run by
-immigrants.
-
-Mostly, we walked around and talked. We talked about colonialism, and oppression
-and guilt, and about the Spanish Civil War and fascism, and about Catalan and
-its desire for independence, about capitalism, and the pain it causes, and about
-tourism and gentrification, and about royalty and aristocracy, and about
-language and culture. Like in Munich, I learned a lot, and felt a lot closer to
-Spain than I had when I arrived.
-
-I only spent one full day in Madrid, and afterwards took a bus, continuing
-south, down to Córdoba.
-
-## Córdoba, Spain
-
-It was on the bus to Córdoba that I remembered to actually book a place to stay
-there. I quickly grabbed an AirBnB in town, though, as it turned out, messed it
-up and it didn't get reserved. So there was an hour there, waiting at the
-Córdoba bus station, where I was trully homeless. I spent it booking another
-AirBnB, properly this time, and eating some bread and cheese from my backpack,
-and watching some birds fight over a loaf someone else had dropped.
-
-This was the first AirBnB I'd gotten in Europe so far, up till this it had been
-only hostels (and one hotel, in Ravenna). While I'd enjoyed hostel life
-initially, especially my first taste of it in Milan, it had begun to wear on me.
-
-What I'd found is that, first and foremost, hostels were trying to hit a certain
-feel. _Good vibes_ were words which I saw in many a hostel description and
-review, though didn't often actually experience. It's in the public
-consciousness that backpacking through Europe, going from hostel to hostel, is a
-journey filled with new experiences, new people, and lots of partying. And while
-that is _true_, a lot of hostels ignore hospitality in favor of playing up to
-that fantasy, to their own detriment.
-
-A hostel's primary goal, like a normal hotel or AirBnB or whatever, shouldn't be
-to provide you with experiences, or help you meet new people, or enable your
-drinking and partying. These are certainly secondary goals it might have, if it
-wants. But the primary goal should be to make you feel comfortable and at home.
-And while the conceit of a hostel is that you are exchanging some physical
-comfort for cost, by having shared bunk rooms and common bathrooms and all that,
-comfort can be established through more than a fluffy bed. Some hostels I stayed
-at got this, most didn't.
-
-If someone feels comfortable in a hostel they'll open up on their own, and
-naturally want to meet the people around them, go out partying, and have cool
-experiences. Or not. They'll do whatever the fuck they want to. But if a hostel
-is too focused on being cool and hip and showing off how good its vibes are,
-it's neglecting the basics, and then there's no partying, and the vibes aren't
-good.
-
-So I was tired of party hostels, as I began calling them, having just been in
-one in Barcelona a few days prior, and instead spent the night in what turned
-out to be a brutally cold old building which had neither heat, sealed windows,
-or cooking device with which to make a hot meal. Which is what I get for being
-a snob, I guess.
-
-In the morning I visted the Mosque/Cathedral of Córdoba. This site has had the
-odd history of having originally been a church, having then been converted to a
-mosque when the Moors took Spain in the 700s, and then converted back to a
-christian church in the 1200s when the catholics took Spain back, and has since
-been designated a cathedral. It retains much of the Moorish architecture, but
-with a church in the middle, and is an utterly fascinating place which I
-neglected to take any pictures of.
-
-## Granada, Spain
-
-This was probably one of the most interesting places I visited while traveling.
-Granada was once one of the most important Moorish cities in Spain, then briefly
-became a Jewish state, and then the seat of the Nasrid dynasty (the last Muslim
-dynasty in Spain), and then eventually went back to being a part of the Catholic
-empire. During this time it also had a large influx of Romani, and out of this
-mishmash of culture it became one of the birthplaces of flamenco.
-
-My bus got in at night, but I was lucky enough to catch the last public bus from
-the bus station towards my hostel. It dropped me off in the Albaicín, an old
-Muslim quarter in the city, where the houses retain the old architectural style
-and the streets are narrow and winding. From there I walked uphill a ways to
-the Sacromonte neighborhood, the traditional home of the Romani in Granada. Here
-the people had dug out caves in the side of the mountain, and made them into
-homes. My hostel was in one of these caves.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="granada-2018-0.jpg" width=1329
-    descr="The view from my hostel, Alhambra on the left. Granada, 2018"
-    %}
-
-The hostel was small and quiet, overlooking both the Alhambra (the castle on a
-hill, built by the Nasrids) and the rest of the city. The guys running it
-were chill; the owner was Dutch, and the other was Scottish. The Scot had come
-to Granada to live and study flamenco, and it was obvious from how he spoke
-about it that he was completely in love with the art and the people. On one
-night they took me out to a "real gypsy bar", as they called it.
-
-The flamenco artists in town, the singers and guitarists and dancers, make a
-living performing for tourists, but this bar is, according to my guides, where
-they go after the shows to hang out. There was no music in the bar, but, as the
-night went on, three or four cliques formed up naturally, each around a guitar
-player and singer, with dancers circling around, the rest clapping to an
-indecipherable rhythm. The Scot knew the names of a few of the people playing,
-and told me that it was at gatherings like this that the musicians tried out new
-things and pushed the art further. It was the "real" flamenco.
-
-After that we got kebab and went back to the cave.
-
-Sacromonte is situated on the face of a valley, with the Alhambra being on the
-opposite side. So to get to the Alhambra I had to venture down to the valley
-floor, where Granada proper is, and found a very familiar tourist district
-filled with all the crap I'd seen in every other city. The Alhambra itself was
-interesting, but also packed, and I hadn't realized they only sell a limited
-number of tickets per day to get inside the castle, so I missed a lot of it. So
-I went back to the peace and quiet of Sacromonte.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="granada-2018-1.jpg" width=1329
-    descr="Sacromonte and the valley below. Granada, 2018"
-    %}
-
-Being uphill and difficult to access by car, the Sacromonte was, in many ways,
-warded off from the wave of tourism which has swept the world and sucked the
-heart out of its cities. Only those willing to carry their bags 20 minutes
-uphill could disturb it. I found the absolute best spot possible, with benches
-overlooking the Alhambra and the city and the sunset, sitting and drawing for
-hours, and was only disturbed by one or two couples sharing the view in all that
-time.
-
-I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking
-with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to
-Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did.
-
-## Lisbon, Portugal
-
-Sometimes called the San Fransisco of Europe, Lisbon is a city with beaches,
-historical buildings, perfect weather all-year round, earthquakes, and a large
-orange-red suspension bridge across a bay. Unlike San Fransisco, it's an
-affordable place to visit and the people who live there haven't been priced out
-by tech companies ([yet][google-lisbon]).
-
-Part of why I liked Lisbon so much is that, while tourism is an absolutely huge
-industry, it didn't really feel that way. The Baixa district, where my hostel
-was, was certainly an area just for tourists. But it wasn't very big, and once
-outside of it you find yourself in somewhere like Alfama, which has been a
-blue-collar district since the Moorish invasion, and retains its winding
-cobblestone streets and narrow alleys. If you look at the skyline of Lisbon you
-won't find any highrises or office buildings, just 4 to 5 story apartment
-buildings and churches. It's a city meant for people to live, first and
-foremost, with business being secondary. And so, despite being the biggest city
-in the country, and 9th most visited city in Southern Europe, it still feels
-quiet and cozy.
-
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-2018.jpg" width=1772
-    descr="The facade of a museum I was too poor to go in. Lisbon, 2018"
-    %}
-
-Another part of what made Lisbon stand out to me was the hostel I stayed in, and
-the people I met there. The hostel was _homey_. There was a small dining area
-with a single long table, a small living room with couches and chairs
-arranges in a circle, a decked out kitchen that anyone could use, and free
-sangria every evening. Rather than focus on partying and yolo and whatever, the
-owners focused on making it a home, where people would cook and eat and talk and
-hang out together. So that's what we did, every night, and in the mornings we'd
-meet up one more time to eat unlimited free pancakes from the kitchen. It was an
-amazing time.
-
-While I was there, a museum had an exhibit devoted to M.C. Escher, the Dutch
-artist known for his tesselations, fractals, and generally paradoxical work.
-Escher had always been an artist I was aware of, and a year prior to this I had
-read the book _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter and become even more
-interested. So I couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in person. And boy,
-did it leave an impression on me.
-
-Having traveled to Córdoba and Granada in his early twenties, Escher was
-impressed by the Moorish architecture, specifically the tesselating tile
-patterns they used in decoration. He began trying to replicate their work, and
-ended up following what amounted to a mathematical investigation of geometry, in
-the context of art. The museum presented his work in largely chronological
-order, and, in seeing the progression of his ideas over decades, it really
-struck me both what a genius he was and how dedicated he must have been to have
-spun his wheels on the same problems for most of his life.
-
-<div style="text-align: center;">
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-escher-2018-0.jpg" width=513
-    inline=true
-    %}
-{% include image.html
-    dir="mr-worldwide" file="lisbon-escher-2018-1.jpg" width=341
-    inline=true
-    %}
-<p><em>Tesselations, paradoxes, and tricks of perspective, Lisbon, 2018</em></p>
-</div>
-
-For the rest of my trip, even through Asia, I would spend my time doodling
-tesselations of my own, trying to find the tricks that Escher found which let
-him make such complex images. I would find some, but certainly Escher still has
-the leg up on me.
-
-Having traveled most of Southwest Europe at this point I flew back to homebase,
-Munich, to recuperate and figure out what my next steps would be. I left Lisbon
-promising myself that I'd be back, even considering finding a way to live there
-one day. While my life plans have since changed, it's not something I've totally
-ruled out.
-
-[google-lisbon]: https://econews.pt/2018/01/29/from-google-to-amazon-technological-companies-are-moving-to-portugal-why/
-
-## To be continued
-
-In my next post of this series I'll tell the story of the second, and longest,
-leg of my European tour, where I go to Belgium, the UK, Scandinavia, Prague, and
-Berlin!