alanstrip

MY MAIN MAN DROOPY

2011-08-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

February 2011!!

2011-02-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

I am getting on a plane this morning. Pretty stoked to be going to Arizona. Its gonna be awesome to get to spend some time with my family. Eric and Kelly are both flying in!! And its Kelly's Birthday!! How awesome is that. So we should have a great time watching baseball and hanging out for the weekend then it is off to COLORADO
! Im so stoked to go to this fest its gonna be amazing!! Pictures to come!

L-wiz - Straightjacket

2011-02-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

L-wiz is the shit!!! Been a fav dubstep artist for years.

This one.............. HUGE

Great Song

2011-02-04T01:18:00.000-08:00

ITS JANUARY 2011!!!

2011-01-31T19:21:00.001-08:00

Can you believe it?? 2011! Thats crazy. I'm happy to be hear with you.

Now it is the last day of January, haha, but it still counts. I'm writing this because I miss writing these sort of things and I plan on continuing to do so.

It has been a pretty crazy last 6 months. I could have never imagined today would be as it is. I am now single, I have been working at Apple for just over 4 months now, and I am happy to be starting a new chapter of my life. The break up was very hard on me, so I have been trying as best I can to appreciate all that is around me. I mean I grew up very well off in most standards. The town I live in is absolutely lovely and its so easy to live here and check days off the calendar. But that isnt necessarily what someone needs in their life at all times. I really miss the dirtiness, the truth, the rawness of the big cities in our society. It paints a more realistic view of the living conditions of the majority of the global population. Plus it gives you the chance to talk to so many more people throughout the day and thats always a good thing. Its going to be a unique opportunity for change in the future and I plan on jumping on board....

I've been really liking this song recently.

Paris, France

2009-12-20T13:36:00.001-08:00

My last stop! I can’t believe the trip is over. It was really an amazing journey and I thank every for being there to support such a long trip. I had an amazing time and a million experiences, which I was happy to have documented here on this site. I hope everyone enjoyed some stories and I hope to share stories and catch up with friends and family and get to know what you guys have been up to over the last few months. I am very excited for 2010 and the unknown to come! Thank you all for being in my life!

Paris was a very short stop for me. I was upset because the Musee du Louvre was closed on the one day that I would have been able to visit it, but thats ok I will save it for another time. I was lucky enough though to see Eiffel Tower and to climb up it as far as I could by foot. It is a beautiful view up there and a cool way to learn some history and see the beauty of Paris. I stayed at a small British chain hostel called Winston’s St. Christopher. It was really nice and not very crowded so I felt very comfortable there. I enjoyed the last night chatting with a group of very diverse world travelers sharing stories and having laughs. Paris was really nice to see, I think next time I will book a little bit more time there because there is truly a lot to see. Hope you enjoy the few pictures.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2009-12-20T13:21:00.001-08:00

Sweet little 3-day trip to Rotterdam. I stayed in a really nice hostel that is known as the Rotterdam Cube Hostel. This is because the building is designed with all sorts of different cubes. It is called StayOK and is part of the same chain I stayed at in Copenhagen. Rotterdam was a smaller version of Amsterdam just much quieter and more peaceful. I really enjoyed a little slower pace of life after the craziness of Amsterdam. I also went to see another cool music show: Noah D at Club Watt. I was lucky enough to see his first and last show of the tour. I also went to a movie theater and saw "2012", I missed little things like watching movies. Rotterdam was a nice place to relax and a great city to visit.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2009-12-20T13:19:00.002-08:00

Amsterdam is a must visit when in The Netherlands. It is a beautifully designed city with canals running almost everywhere making many streets very wide and full of bridges, but also increasing the ability to navigate. Many people live on boats and wake up every morning able to decide which street they would like to live on next. I decided to rent a bike while I was there, which made it exponentially easier to learn the city and travel to places a little bit farther away from the city center.

During the two and a half weeks I stayed in Amsterdam, I was lucky enough to see culture, history, beauty, and music. I visited the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum, which were amazing. Both are definitely in the top 5 museums I visited during this trip. I also visited historical landmarks and plazas including Dam Square, Vondelpark, Rembrandt Park, Red Light District, Rokin, Singel, and Amstel. I went to many art shops and places selling souvenirs and things. My favorite was called Conscious Dreams, which has the best art and vibe of any other shop I found. I saw many musicians while I was there including Easy Star All Stars, Yellowman, Little Boots, Slightly Stoopid, and Barrington Levy. All amazing shows mostly reggae. Really fun big city. Great experience.

Barrington Levy concert

My Favorite Art Shop - Conscious Dreams

Kelly also came to Amsterdam. I am so happy that Kelly came so I could see her one more time before I left. We hung out with Marisa and her friend from Portugal went to a bunch of different restaurants and bars and wandered the city. Time flies in Amsterdam so it feels like the blink of and eye, but I am so glad she came and we got to be together for our first visit to this historical city. I hope she had fun and I think she did.

Kobenhavn, Denmark

2009-12-20T13:19:00.001-08:00

This city is amazing. I only stayed for a few days but really loved it. By far the cleanest and most impressively designed metro system, Copenhagen was really easy to navigate. I stayed in a hotel/hostel called Stay Ok Copenhagen. It was really nice because it had private rooms and free Internet as was much more of a hotel than hostel. StayOk is a hotel chain that is known for having good quality for a reasonable price. I visited Copenhagen as a suggestion from a friend and am very happy I went. I liked the vibe in Copenhagen, lots of really cool people.

Lund, Sweden

2009-12-20T13:18:00.004-08:00

I was really excited to visit Lund because one of my college friends is doing his masters there right now and it was nice to see a good friend and have a place to stay. My friend Nate is living in a really cool little student community in Lund that is perfect in many ways. The best reason is it is free. Sweden pays for all of his studies he only pays a reasonable monthly rent. He also lives with all people his age, the people are beautiful and friendly, and fun is everywhere thanks to student run student clubs. This was a really nice weekend that I enjoyed a lot, and I think that finishing a college or masters program here would be a really worthwhile and amazing experience.

Student Club

Antwerp, Belgium

2009-12-20T13:18:00.003-08:00

Getting to Antwerp was a mess because there was a workers strike going on the day I arrived which meant that all trains from Brussels to Antwerp were cancelled. So, some other stranded people and I decided to try to haggle with some taxis to get a good price to Antwerp. Most cabbies wanted 50 dollars per person for the 35-minute drive, but we only wanted to pay 20. There were 5 people that all threw in to give one guy a hundred for the trip, but the other cabbies were not having it and started a fight. This was a really intense scene watching these two cabbies physically fighting each other especially because one was greedy and wanted us to pay more per person. I tried to put my bag down in the trunk and one of the angry rejected cabbies took a swing at me but missed. Money and greed are everywhere. Either way, we made it to Antwerp and fortunately one of the other passengers in the cab lived in Antwerp and directed me to a nice inexpensive hotel.
I wanted to visit Antwerp to see a concert that I had heard of and also check out the city, the diamond, the beer, and the chocolate. All were amazing. I really wanted to see an up and coming west coast producer named Noah D while he was on his European tour and I am glad I did. He played at Untitled’s 3rd birthday bash with Mala, Hijak, Sgt. Pokes, and Science. The Belgium scene was very cool it was fun to meet so many young people all coming together for some good music. That show was a very memorable evening.
The next day I went to the Diamond museum. The museum had 3 treasure rooms with an amazing collection of gold and diamonds displaying the immense wealth of the previous owners of such treasures. I really liked two diamond pieces the best, one of which was a broche of diamonds imbedded in gold shaped to look like grapes on a vine, and the second was a group of diamonds shaped to look like a dandelion. The diamond museum was very cool to see especially for the amazing detail and artistic value in there one of a kind diamond collection. During the stay in Antwerp, I tried a bunch of new Belgium beers and even shelled out some dough for some really nice chocolates that were totally worth it. I enjoyed my stay here and would definitely like to come back to Belgium.

Valencia, Spain

2009-12-20T13:18:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately Kelly had to leave and go back to school so Mom, Eric, and I journeyed onward to Valencia. Valencia was really cool. We didn’t know too much about Valencia going into it besides that they have a really great aquarium. And wow is it great; I really enjoyed this aquarium visit. My favorite part was the underwater tunnels. They had a tunnel that replicated what it would be like to travel by submarine from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean that I thought was pretty intelligent. My favorite tunnel was the deep-sea shark tunnel though; very cool. I took a ton of aquarium pictures some of which I really like and will post.

We also went to the Valencia Open pro tennis tournament and got to see some really good tennis matches including a match played by Andy Murray. Eric and I somehow were able to keep getting lost so mom dubbed us the infamous alias of “the swamp boys”. Hahaha. We did however stumble on some really wonderful food and were happy to have visited Valencia even for such a short trip. I am so happy I got to spend time with Eric and Mom in Spain I think we all had a good time.

Andy Murray

Alicante, Spain

2009-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

It was so nice to get to spend time with Mom, Eric, and Kelly all together in Spain. Alicante is absolutely beautiful. I also wanted to see a slightly smaller Spanish city so Alicante was perfect. We stayed in a pretty central area called Plaza de la Puerta del Mar. This was perfect because there are a lot of little markets and shopping, the beautiful coastline, and a small harbor with lots of good restaurants and nightlife. We stumbled around looking for a place to eat the first night we were there, which happened to be Halloween, and landed at a perfect little tapas restaurant thanks to Eric’s suggestion. Luckily it was a big opening night at the restaurant and we ate and drink all night for free. Chef Sabor was the owner and operator and treated us very kindly I think we would all recommend this place for some good food. We all got a kick out of calling him Chef Flavor. Hahahaha
The next day we decided to do a little hiking and climbed Alicante’s famous hilltop castle. The view from the top of the castle was breathtaking. This was a pretty ideal fortress which I’m sure was a perfect castle to defend. Check out some of these pictures of the view. We spent the rest of the day hanging at the beach and went out to a really nice dinner that night for Paella. I really enjoyed the Paella, which I think was the best I had tried during the trip. I think we all really enjoyed this dinner, great gazpacho, vino, and everything. Too bad mom wore the wrong shoes. Hahahahahah j/k
Great little family vaca in Spain. Loved it.

Basel, Schweiz

2009-11-03T16:39:00.000-08:00

Some more pictures from Interlaken :)

Basel was awesome. I like Switzerland a lot and think it is a very peaceful lovely place. Everyone seems to be enjoying his or her day in Switzerland when you walk around and it makes you enjoy your day that much more. I was really happy that Eric got to come out here and do this it was really nice to spend some time with him. We were lucky and just happened to be in Switzerland for this 2 week festival that happens annually in die Schweiz. There were carnival rides and games in many different spots all over the city. It was cool to just be able to go out and all day there was people playing games and riding ferris wheels and just enjoying themselves. There was also really interesting food stands and eateries some of which were really good. Eric had to work a lot so I walked around and visited different carnivals and checked out the local book stores and shops and went to a museum called the Kunstmuseum. This museum was amazing. It has such a large collection of Picassos. I also got to see famous artists like Henri Matisse, Van Gogh, Henri Rousseau, Yves Tanguy, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. This was a really good museum experience. I also bought a bunch of chocolates and enjoyed staying in a nice hotel. The highlight for me was definitely HANGGLIDING. We took a day trip to Interlaken by train and met up with a really nice guy that took both Eric and I hang gliding. It was pretty intense to be running full speed off of a cliff to get going but once you were in the air it was amazing. We got a bunch of photos and a couple videos overall it was a thrilling experience. I would love to do this again.

Miss everyone lots. 1 more month. Crunch time. Gotta see it all. Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Holland here I come. See you all soon.

Cognac, France

2009-11-03T16:29:00.000-08:00

Cognac was absolutely amazing. I am really lucky to have visited such a small French town. Everyone I met was really nice and helpful and tried to work with the language barrier. I really enjoyed this visit. I tried many of the local spirits, went to a museum, and enjoyed the quiet beautiful countryside. I visited the Hennessey, Otard, and Martell Cognac distilleries and took a tour at each. These tours were very interesting and taught me a lot about the distillation and aging of this region’s biggest export: Cognac. I really did not know too much about what goes into this aperitif, so I am happy to have learned something. Most of these pictures are pretty self-explanatory but there is a lot of effort that goes into production similar to that of a fine wine. I guess they only use the white grape from only a small region of 5 different types of grapes. Also, the aging process in handmade oak barrels is what really gives the cognac its colour. I found all this very cool and I was fascinated to see such a small city become world famous selling a fine quality product that is unique and profiting from it handsomely. I hope you enjoy these pictures and I would love to chat about this visit to Cognac with anyone interested.

Castle at the now Otard Co. distillery

old way

new way

P.S. a ham and cheese croissant in France is amazing

Barcelona

2009-10-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

Zurich - On the way to Barcelona my train was 20 minutes late so I missed my overnight train to Barcelona and I ended up staying the night in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich was nice but I had the worst Hotel experience of my life in which I decided to walk out at 5 in the morning.

In Barcelona I was lucky to stay in Marcellos cousin’s apartment, which saved me some good money to spend on other things. I met up with Thomas and Shawn who had already gotten keys to the apartment so it was all very easy. I didn’t end up taking many pictures in Barcelona but we had a good time checking out the history, culture, and nightlife. We decided to buy 2 day passes to the double decker bus system running that took you to a bunch of different must see locations. It was a very tourist thing to do but very helpful to get around and see the city. My favorites were Sagrada Familia, Port Olimpic, Catedral Gotic, Placa Espanya, La Pedrera, and the Torre Abgar. All of these sights were really cool to see very interesting architecture and amazing beauty. I am glad we rode this tourist bus. Barcelona was relaxing especially having a nice place to hang out and keep all of us stuff. Shawn also knew a friend that was playing some Frisbee so we went and watched a little Frisbee game and met some cool people that were studying abroad. I really enjoyed this visit but wished Marcello’s cousin was there to hang out and show us around a little bit more.

Olympic Stadium

Sagrada Familia

I was stoked because Kelly got to meet up with us in Barcelona, which made the weekend. We all went to this Spanish club that was playing some cool hip-hop, which was actually a really cool scene. We walked around a lot and visited the Ramblaus and checked out all the local street performers and little shops. Barcelona was overall a really fun place.

Wien, Austria

2009-10-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

I think Austria is great. I don’t know why I decided to come here but I am so glad that I did. I like traveling this way because it seems when you just let things happen they work out in the best way. Vienna was a really great city. There is so much art and history, great food, and lots of people to meet. Every single person I met was incredibly friendly even when there were obvious language barriers. I was staying at a pretty famous independently owned and operated hostel called Hostel Ruthensteiner, which was very accommodating, and in good location. The first day in Vienna I probably walked 10 miles at least. I first journeyed to Schonbrunn palace. Schonbrunn is an amazing palace and national park that was once occupied by Napoleon and has housed many great historical noblemen and leaders. It was enormous. The grounds have a huge forest surrounding the main garden and palace which all center around a small hill which overlooks the entire city. Breathtaking. The grounds also have a Labyrinth, Zoo, small lake, and many intricate fountains. This was such a cool place to spend the day and especially because the weather in Austria was amazing. Hot all day and quite cold at night gave it the best of both worlds. Austria has a very good public transportation system so I took the metro to the city center and walked around Karlsplatz and got to see Stephansplatz church and the bustling center with loads of shops and restaurants and things. I know these things may not mean much but they are fairly historical centers in town. So I kept going and made it through Petersplatz, Michaelerplatz, and Josefsplatz to end up at the Volks Garten and the Neue Hofburg. I lounged in the Volks Garten, which is quite big and very green starring up at the Neue Hofburg which is pretty famous museum and tourist spot. Just next to this area of town is the Natural History Museum and the Kunst History Museum which are probably the most famous museums in all of Austria. I was approached by some people and was informed that tonight was the Lange Nacht Der Museen, which translates to the Long Night of the Museums. It only happens once a year, so why not especially when an 11 Euro ticket grants you access to 94 museums all over Vienna. I went to seven museums: The Naturhistorisches Museum, The Kunsthistorisches Museum, designforumWIEN, Kunstlerhaus, Leopold Museum, Museum Moderner Kunst, and Choco Vienna many of which were at the Museums Quartier. I think my favorite was the Natural History museum because it has all these cool little tables set up with microscopes or live animals so it was very interactive. It also had a huge collection of birds, mammals, fish, and invertebrates all on display. I had never seen so many butterfly species in my life. They also had jewels, all sorts of minerals, and a large collection of fossils. My second favorite was definitely the Kunsthistorisches because I got to see a large collection of art history. I also got to see “The Art of Painting” by Johannes Vermeer, which has been my favorite painting for a while now because I did a project about it in school. This was amazing to see I was literally in awe and felt like I should be talking to everyone around me about what was in the painting. It was so great to finally see this painting. I also got to see paintings by Bernardo Beletto, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Rembrandt, and many others. I really enjoyed this museum. The Modern art museum was pretty cool a lot contempory paintings and sculptures. In the Leopold I really liked an artist named Theodor Van Hormann. At the Kunstlerhaus there was a Darwin Evolution exhibit that was small but interesting. I took that picture of the two birds at the Kunstlerhaus Museum. The Choco Vienna exhibit was really cool too, I got to try some samples and see chocolate art. There was also a spirits and chocolate exhibit at this museum. I am glad I made this trip.

Schonbrunn Palace

Stephansplatz church

Neue Hofburg

Kunst History MuseumNatural History Museum

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

The Art of Painting

Overall I am very glad I got to do such cool things revolving around art and history in Austria. The next few days I walked around and saw Parliament and Rathaus Park and just spent time relaxing and checking out the city. This was a great weekend visit.

Oktoberfest!

2009-10-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

What can I say about Oktoberfest? Munich the first time I visited compared to now was completely different. Munich transformed into a crazy party city filled with tourists, and drunk singing Germans, and loads of police. HOW FUN DOES THAT SOUND??!!? Hahahaha. I was lucky to find a hostel to stay at. They all seemed full online, especially the two that I wanted to stay at. Luckily Wombats my first choice had one night open so I decided to go for it. When I got there I asked if they had more room and sorted me out for 4 nights. Worked out perfectly. The next day, I was a little nervous about getting a spot in the tents so I got up at 730 and made it to the tents by 8 o’ clock but found nothing open and all the tents closed not opening until 10. This was not what I expected because I had heard everyone gets up at 6 and there is a big line to get in and yada yada, but no. You can easily find a spot in the tents and probably your own table until 12. Anyways, I was thinking I was going to the Augustinian tent because I heard this was a great local tent, but randomly decided to wait out of a tent I had never heard of. I am so lucky sometimes. I got my own table at 10 when it opened and was amazed at how beautiful this tent was. Blue painted sky on the ceiling and beautiful paintings of Bavarian people outlining the whole tent it was incredible. They put a lot of effort into building these tents for only 3 weeks a year. Somebody told me they start in July. The tent I ended up in was called Hacker-Feltzet and is known as “Heaven for Bavaria”. This tent was the Bayern tent that many local Bavarians go to and seem to know all the songs and doesn’t have many tourists. I had my own table for maybe 15 minutes before a group of young kids asked if they could sit down. 8 guys from south Munich but only one spoke any English. I enjoyed this they taught me a lot of German sayings and showed me the Bavarian way to get down at Oktoberfest. They all had Lederhosen so I felt a little left out of place but my inhibitions soon left and the tent started getting pretty rowdy.
Night time in Oktoberfest is wild. There are carnival rides everywhere and all sorts of people from everywhere on the planet drunk and screaming and falling over. My favorite ride was this little tent you pay 3 euro to enter. And it’s basically like a bunch of people sitting around watching this spinning disc throw people off. There was an announcer and he would say something in German and all the guys would run up there and pile all over each other, then the disc would start spinning and who ever was able to stay on was the winner. Then the last person would be lassoed by a couple of wranglers until they were able to pull him off. This was basically a German rodeo. Sometimes it would be all girls, sometimes all Ledehosen, sometimes all pants, sometimes all guys, and sometimes 2 guys would have boxing gloves and try to box while this disc was spinning. I thought this whole scene was absolutely hilarious and tried to stay on a couple times but pretty much got flung off right away.
There were also loads of police walking around and garding every city block surrounding the festival. They were all in leather jackets and kind of looked like Indiana Jones to me. Unfortunately, I had many interactions with the police. Stupid Taliban made a threat on Oktoberfest and Berlin so there was a huge police effort to stop such an attack. I got stopped 4 times at least by police thinking that I was some sort of il Talibano. One day it took me an hour to walk 4 blocks to the festival. Ridiculous. It was definitely the beard (they even told me so) which made me feel like cutting it. I felt bad in this situation because the police even said that they had to resort to racial profiling in order to try to find any threat, but I guess I don’t know what else they can really do. So everyday I would walk around for a while looking for a barber but only found 1 and chickened out. Hahaha. I’m thankful that they put such effort into stopping an attack, but I didn’t want them wasting their time on me.
I rode lots of carnival rides including this huge swing that goes 100 feet in the air, definitely scary. I went to almost every single tent I think as well. I took pictures of each one. Although my favorite was still Hacker-Feltzet the first one I went to. Those liters of beer are huge good luck trying to take down very many of those. Big ups to the Germans. They also had a dish called Die Hendl, that was easily the best roast chicken I have every eaten. I liked the bio-hendl, which they described as “happy chicken”. They Germans should probably be considered carnivores because the only vegetable I ate the whole time was Sauerkraut. They even eat a traditional white sausage for breakfast, which was actually quite tasty. I had a great time at Oktoberfest. I love the craziness of festivals especially when you can feel apart of it and can contribute to the fun.
I happened to have a group of Nurses from an American military base north of Munich staying in my room in the hostel, which were all very cool and had lots of cool stories. It was interesting to learn about the trauma of wars in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan from someone who actually treats the soldier’s injuries. A couple of them were also hardcore nurses and gave themselves saline IV drip hookups to re-hydrate the day after drinking I was totally shocked and had never been so close to this process before. Quite interesting. I went to the Hofbrau Haus, wore funny hats, sang the German songs and all that riot it was great.
I extended my stay 1 more day although 5 nights and 6 days may have been a lot. But, I really enjoyed the atmosphere and was meeting lots of new people everyday. On my last day I went to the BMW World, which was really cool. They had all these amazing new models that were so luxurious it was incredible. The décor of the building was quite impressive as well. I got to sit in all the cars and on the motorcycles and was stoked to do something a little different on the last day. Overall I spent a good amount of time in Munich and absolutely love that city. I hope to go back there soon.

Before

After

These are all the different tents.

I loved the Hendl!

So scary riding this thing..

View from the swing.

Best game at the whole festival.

Launching frogs.

BMW World

Miss everyone lots. Wish you could have been there.

Milan & Cinque Terra

2009-10-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

Milan

I checked out of Plus Florence and headed to Milan for the weekend. Milan was rainy and wasn’t really all that exciting for the moment so I decided to head on another day trip and followed a tip from one of the staff members I met at Plus and journeyed to Cinque Terra.

Cinque Terra

Cinque Terra is a gem!! I recommend this place highly to anyone wanting to see the beauty of the Italian coastline. Wow I wish I planned to have spent more time here. Cinque Terra is a small city built into the rocks of the coast of northern Italy. It consists of 5 small cities by the name of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, ManaRola, and Riomaggiore. Absolutely amazing place to visit. I spent most of my time there hiking from city to city amazed that this little town existed and that it was not more world renown. I randomly ran into some people I met at the hostel and we hiked around from city to city trying to find the hard to see places and grabbing some food and drinks here and there. My favorite city was Riomaggiore because they had this beautiful little cliff walk named Lovers Lane that lovers would come and bring locks and lock them on the fence or somewhere along the trail to symbolize their love locked together forever in Cinque Terra. It was darling. I also really enjoyed Monterosso because it had a lovely beach and the sun was shining and it was kind of the main port town with lots going on. I think the most beautiful was Manarola or Corniglia because they were the highest up and overlooking a beautiful countryside and ocean view. Anyone that comes to Italy must come here.

Monterosso

Lovers Lane

Vernazza

MMMMm Bufala

Pisa

2009-10-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

On one of my last days in Florence, I took a day trip to Pisa. I didn’t sign up for a tour or anything just hopped on a train and went to Pisa. This was awesome. Sam you were right, I couldn’t miss Pisa. The leaning tour was slightly smaller than I expected. After some of the towers in Munich and Big Ben in England I expected a monster tower. But it was still incredible I love the design there should me more things on a tilt this (haha). My favorite part about Pisa was the Cathedral. This was one of the biggest Cathedrals I have been in as of yet, and was spectacular. Check out some of these pictures and you will see. I think the most famous piece of art inside the Cathedral was the pulpit sculpted by Giovanni Pisano. This was amazing. The pulpit was designed to capture different historical events in the marble sculpture and had many hidden meanings in the carefully detailed figures. The cathedral also has tons or beautiful stained glass windows surrounding it, which created a sort of glowing reverance. It also had many different tombs including a glass tomb, which was pretty intense to see. I also visited the cemetery called the Camposanto Monumento and the Battistero dome, which were also both at La Piazza del Duomo. Pisa was a really interesting place to visit, lots of history there.

Cathedrale

Firenze

2009-09-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

Wow Florence! Lots of pictures up on here.

I loved Florence for many reasons. The first is the amazing hostel I stayed in. This hostel was clearly the best so far and was complete luxury for about 22 euro a night. It is named Plus Florence and I guess “Plus” has a chain of hostels around Europe that are all equally as nice. This hostel was 5 stories with a roof top terrace overlooking the entire city which was perfect for watching the sunset over Florence which I did every day. The first night I was there, there was a beautiful orange sunset on one view of the horizon, and on the opposite a raging thunderstorm with enormous lighting bolts illuminating the sky. This was absolutely surreal. This hostel also had a small workout area, an indoor pool, a sauna, Turkish bath, night club, restaurant, laundry, and load of fun events put on by the staff. For these many reasons my 3 day stay turned into 8. I also was really excited to be in the Toscana region obviously for historical reasons but for cultural reasons as well. I was fortunate enough to travel to the Uffizi gallery, Academia, The Medici Palace, The Basilica of San Lorenzo, and others. All the art was overwhelming at times but it was really nice to get to see the classical art and historical importance or the region. Obviously seeing David was a huge highlight because of his massive size and amazing detail. I also really enjoyed visiting the Medici Palace and church because I had just studied the Medici family during my last quarter at UC and so it was cool to get see some of the history I actually knew something about. I got to visit Cosimo the Elder’s burial site and the infamous treasure room, which blew me away. All the palaces and churches in Florence are a must see for anyone traveling in Europe. I had a great time just walking around and seeing the sites.

Chianti

One particular highlight for me was a bus tour I took to the Chianti region in Toscana. This was awesome! The tour originally was designed to go to a vineyard and pick some grapes for harvest, go through the process of refinement, see how they make the wine according to Chianti standards, and then taste the wine and move on to another winery for lunch and another series of tasting. But we changed the trips plans on the way to the winery because of rain warnings and stopped off first in a small town of San Gimignano. This was actually perfect because this town was small and full of local art and food and was a nice little place to get to see. They were acclaimed with the “Worlds greatest gelato” parlor so I had to try some out that and I also bought a bottle of wine to try. The tour guide was actually from Tuscany and was really funny and taught us all sorts of interesting things about Italy and wine and told us about the strict standards that Chianti wine is restricted to. There are 3 kinds: DOC, DOCG, and SuperTuscan. We got to try all three on the tour, the SuperTuscan obviously being the highest quality but by far the most dry. The owner of one of the wineries also taught us the “proper” way to taste wine so when I get back I’m sure ill be some sort of stuck up wino. Hahhaha just kidding. Luckily, the rain never came and by the time we got to the winery I was super stoked to go out into the vineyard and pick some grapes (unlike some of the rest of the group, but I think everyone enjoyed it in the end). This tour only goes during September 2 times a week so different tours get to pick different types of wine. We were picking the white grape while I was there but we still got to pick some red grapes and try as many as we wanted straight off the vine. We then put the grapes in a machine that separated them from the vine, then sent the juice into a distiller as we walked through the inside of the winery trying to figure out all the machinery. I loved this part of the tour. I would love to do this myself someday or learn more about it in general. We next ate lunch and tasted 4 different hearty helpings of wines. They had a Rosita that wasn’t nearly as sweet as the normal ones I’ve tried which I really liked. We then went to the next winery for a second tasting and go to try the SuperTuscan, a delicious type of olive oil with truffles in it, and a 30 year old balsamic vinegar. This balsamic was like syrup it was so delicious but was extremely expensive (like 50 euro for an 8 oz bottle). There were tuns of Aussies, Kiwis, and Americans at the hostel so I also met a bunch of people this day and had a great time doing it. Overall loved this tour and learned a lot.

Medici Palace

I also went to a political concert in Santa Croce . The live act was called bandobardo. So many people going crazy it was awesome.

Venezia

2009-09-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

More pictures :)

Lots to see in Piazza San Marco

San Marco Basilica

I absolutely LOVE Italy. Italy makes me feel good. I am not sure whether it is the people or the food or what but I love the culture here. I want to come back out to Italy to live here for at least a month. It is so beautiful here. I spent 3 days in Venice roaming around seeing the sites and eating dank food. I had the best Gnocchi and pizza of my life. An amazing cingue formaggio pizza that I had dreams about later that night. Hahaha I plan on attempting to cook the amazing dishes I have tried when I get back home. I rode the AquaBus all around the city one day. This was a really cool way to get to see Venice because the Canal Grande flows right through the center of everything. I really enjoyed walking through the Rio Terra Lista Di Spagna because this street loops around the island almost the whole way and is famous for its small shops and eateries along the way. All the shops have painted masks, all sorts of interesting Murano glass objects and jewelry, and a variety of hand made leather bags and wallets and things. Venice is a lovely city. I have been in the best of moods here and have really enjoyed myself.

I didn't get to take a Gondola ride myself because they were frightfully expensive. But it seemed fun if you had a date.

Santa Maria della Salute

Venice has been wonderful so far. Still here for one more day, then off to Florence.

CROATIA CROATIA

2009-09-18T03:50:00.000-07:00

Oh man. Best Festival I have ever been to ever!!! Will add more to this very soon including a cool video. I took 53 or some odd videos which would take me a year to upload so I will pick one cool one that shows a overall view of the venue. More to come...

Budapest, Hungary

2009-09-18T03:13:00.000-07:00

Budapest was quite an adventure. Shawn, Thomas, and I decided that because we will be leaving in the morning we might as well not get a hostel. This actually worked out pretty well because we just stayed out all night looking for new places to go and more things to see. This was quite an adventure. During the day we walked around and visited as many historical sites as we could fit in. This included Budapest's government building, Chain bridge, Castle Hill, and this really cool island park that I forgot the name of. Overall this was a fun trip a bit short to experience the whole of Budapest but still fun.

Castle Hill

We also got to randomly see Portugal's national team (including Ronaldo) checking back into their Hotel after a practice before the nights World Cup qualifying match.

MMMMMMMm Hungarian Kebab :)

Hahha. I can't believe how long I am out here for.

LOVE YOU!

Munich, Germany

2009-09-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

My last day in Munich, I went up into this tower and took some panoramic photos of the city.

This is one of the famous clock towers.

The Maypole. The Germans guard these things like the keys to the city. If another city can manage to steal one of these, the "victim" city has to buy it back with either money or beer. Once the pole is back each city throws a party. Pretty awesome. Now a days people steal these monster poles with firetrucks and helicopters.

Germany was really awesome. I loved the pace of life in Munich. We were very fortunate to be staying in such a nice house on a quite part of town. The rail system here is excellent so it was very easy to get to the center and back. We walked around Munich mostly looking for good food and drinks to try but also spent some time seeing some historic sights. We went on a really awesome bike tour. There is much history in Munich so it was nice to take a guided tour. The tour went through Munich showing many historic towers and churches including the Town Hall building and this famous church. The tour also stopped at the Englischer Garten so we got to eat at the Chinese Tower bier garden. There were also people surfing this river in the middle of the park very cool. I got more flags to add to the collection, a German flag and a Bavarian flag. They sell really cool beer mugs and coo coo clocks that have impressive craftsmanship, but they are all expensive. The food in Munich was amazing though, check out this German meal I ate. Unfortunately, learning the German language was been very difficult for me, but maybe it will get easier over time. I loved staying in Germany this time around and am excited to come back for Oktoberfest.

Munich's Town Hall -Marienplatz

Famous Catholic Church

Dachau concentration camp

This was really intense to see. I was glad I got to travel here to experience this. Walking around you could just feel pain that occurred there. There were hundreds of rocks placed all over Dachau representing visitors paying respect. Most of the barracks had been disassembled but we got to go into one showing where prisoners slept. This first picture demonstrates how packed each room was. Some barracks were meant to hold only a few hundred people but held thousands. Very heavy place to visit.

This was a memorial representing the bodies of prisoners entangled in the barded wire trying to escape.

Love you everyone! Miss you!

Madrid Street Art

2009-09-07T22:38:00.001-07:00

There was some really cool street art all around the streets of Madrid. I thtought I would show some.

Hahaha. These people were so nervous and thought I was taking their picture but obviously was going for Bob.

Spain - Madrid

2009-08-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

Madrid was a wonderful time. What a fun city! I really enjoyed my stay. I met so many people at Juvenil Albergue all friendly and very fun. It was very exciting to get to spend some time with Dad and Joy in Spain so I'm really glad I left a little early from Sardenga. Mirrasierra suites was awesome and a fantastic luxury for me thank you 10x.
I wish Kels and Marisa the best in Madrid. I know they will have a good time once they get settled and spend some time immersing themselves in the culture meeting new people and putting themselves out there with the Spanish language. I know you both will have no problem doing this. Madrid was a wonderful city, but very tiring. There was people on every corner at every hour of the day and night, very crowded, and lots of walking. If you go out you don't come back until 6 or 8 sometimes even 10 o'clock in the morning. This made siesta completely necessary.
Kelly and I found this market that everyone would have loved. It was called Mercato de San Miguel. This was amazing because it had all sorts of different shops including a wine bar, cafeteria, oyster bar, flower shop, pastries, olives, nuts, appetizers, and an open area to sit and eat and drink for lunch or dinner or whenever. It was a very nice place to go always busy and always delicious. I ate oysters almost everyday after we found this place. On my last day in Madrid, Kelly and Marisa met up with me at the Mercato and we got a bunch of snacks and lunch items and went to El Retiro park for a picnic. It was so nice it made leaving really harder. I didn't want to leave and wish I was still there. Madrid was a beautiful city and I'm sure Kelly will have a wonderful time there. I can't wait till I go back in October to visit once more. I miss Kelly a lot already but am so excited for her that she is on this trip doing something so new and exciting.

This video upload has taken hours. Sorry, I tried. I will put it on youtube soon.

Love you Kelly!!

Sardenga

2009-08-24T16:04:00.001-07:00

Absolutely Beautiful. I loved this island. The people were very nice (for the most part) and the weather was absolutely perfect. I got the worst sunburn of my life on the first day and had to spend the next few recovering in pain. It healed and was all good. THE FOOD was absolutely delicious. The Guarro family made some wonderful meals and I made sure to keep a close eye on what was being cooked. We ate pizza almost everyday though as well. I also made sure we had a fresh piece of Gorgonzola to enjoy everyday as well. I loved all the bread and cheeses and was excited to get to try all these new things. The vino was ridiculously cheap you could buy 2 liters of wine for 4 Euros. I collected business cards from the eateries that were particularly spectacular and will save them to remember. I also loved the Gelati... amazing. I will add more to this soon..

Overall the rental car experience was pretty awful. We had to pay an extra 18 euro per day for a young drivers fee and only 1 person could drive the car and it wasn't me. This was pretty inconvenient but oh well we lived with it. Finally arriving to Sardenga was so exciting we all had huge grins on our face and couldn't wait to get into the water. The beaches were insanely crowded everyday everywhere we went but it was fun to watch the Italians and their interactions on the beach. Similar to Mexico there was vendors selling all sorts of things on the beach but none of it appealed to me at all. Most people that were there seemed to be visitors from the mainland and weren't actually Sardinian locals, but we did meet one or two people that lived on the island year round. I really enjoyed staying at Marcello's house. It was small but cozy and very practical for a beach house and luckily every room had AC. They had amazing view of the surrounding hillside and a view over the ocean that could see all the way to Corsica on a clear day. Sunsets were absolutely amazing. Each sunset everyday was different but most days you could see every color in the spectrum it was absolutely beautiful. They had a hot tub with speakers so most days at sunset we would get in the hot tub and play some music and watch the sun go down. This was perfect; such a relaxing vacation. Unfortunetly, Sardinians also have a very slow construction and property management processes so there were still some unfinished features of the house mostly lighting but the funny part was that the contractor lived next door. Either way the house was awesome and it was really nice to have a home base for nearly 3 weeks.
We went to different beaches Capo Testa, Stintino, Alghero, Santa Teresa (to name a few), and all sorts of other beaches surrounding the northern part of the island. The waters at the closest beach were filled with Medusa (Jellyfish) so each of us got stung, with Shawn winning the medal with 7 stings. We also went on a boat tour that stopped at a bunch of different little beaches and island attractions including one stop at a beach in Corsica. This was a fun day, Sam and I had fun walking around an arts and crafts market near one of the beaches drinking some wine and seeing the sights. Sam and I also went out to a really nice restaurant called Mediterraneo that was delicious and a wonderful time. It was nice to go out and do something with just the two of us because it was hard to satisfy everyone all at once in a bigger group of 6-9. Overall this Italian island experience was a joy.

View from Marcello's House

Marcello's House

Stintino

Bye Sardenga...

I really enjoyed Sardenga. I hope I can go back someday.

Berlin to ROMA

2009-08-24T13:20:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody!!!

Berlin was awesome. After all the drama missing trains and changing trains 5 different times to get to Berlin I was extremely happy to have a place to stay and meet up with Shawn. Berlin was a really cool city. We went to all the shops around the Crown Plaza where we were staying and visited all sorts of different places I had a hard time pronouncing. There was a beautiful park in the middle of the city and filled with several beer gardens and cool places to hang out. Marcello met up with us and took us around to some cool sites. One particularly cool place was the Reichstag which is basically Berlin's main goverment building. We went to the Haus Der 100 Biers and tried a few new flavors. On the last day we were in Berlin, Shawn and I rented bikes and traveled all over the city and ended up at a Harley Davidson festival. This was pretty cool and we had a good time walking around checking out the hundreds of different bikes and ate some good food. Overall Berlin was fun.

House of 100 Beers

Harley Davidson Festival

Rome was beautiful. This first video is taken in a train station in Frankfurt on the way to Roma. Give you an idea of how we have been traveling and I thought it was pretty funny. I don't have of the pictures that we took at the Vatican on my computer, but I have some cool photos of other things we did in Roma. We ate pizza and drank wine everyday and walked around to see different sites including the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and Coliseum. Roma was a wonderful place to visit but we came at the hottest time of the year and were anticipating the ocean breeze and sunny beaches to come in Sardinia. I really enjoyed the Sistine Chapel and all the artwork at the Vatican particularly the map room. It was neat to see how geographers viewed everything back then and were able to record everything including topography. We would end up at the Coliseum every night really late and were pretty much mesmerized for hours. It was beautiful. I really enjoyed Roma and hope to go back soon.

Coliseum

Miss you all!!!!!!

London

2009-07-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

London was a really interesting place. I wasn't prepared for how expensive the city was. Even a taxi ride would cost up to 20 pounds and sometimes more! It was still very fun to be in London because I met up with Samantha and Kristen who are on their Europe trip as well and we went to a few really fun shows and some amazing attractions. The best show for me was at a really small venue called Corsica Studios. This place had amazing bass, was really small, and featured a handful of artists that were very exciting to see. My favorite of the night was Silkie. It was a producer named Mala's birthday so he played a special birthday set as well. This is Silkie in the middle and Mala:

The next night we went back to Fabric and saw a bunch of cool DJs, one particularly famous one named Goldie. He was pretty good and has been around for years. Fabric was really a tiring evening, and we didn't get back until really late but was totally worth it. The next night we went to this interesting bar / nightclub called The Legion. Here is where I finally got to see one of my favorite producers right now named Joker. He was really good to see live, but I wish the sound system had been a little better. This is Joker in purple. On his right is El-B one of the original UK garage producers.

We spent a lot of time going around London enjoying the sights and visiting all sorts of different tourist attractions. We visited Big Ben and Parliament, the Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, London Tower, Green park, and others. It was fun hanging out with Sam and Kristen.

We also went on the London Eye which was really cool. You could see the whole city of London and the beautiful sunset that (we caught it at the best time possible). This is a picture of London from the top of The Eye:

This is a picture of me with Parliament and Big Ben taken on The Eye:

London was really nice. A little too crowded and busy for my taste, but it was definitely a great place to have visited. The hotel Sam and Kristen stayed in was really strict and not very hospitable so that was kind of a downer. But all the hostels I have stayed in so far have been pretty good. The only thing that I haven't enjoyed is really old men snorers and really young chatty girls keeping me up, but thats just part of the experience. I am in Berlin right now getting ready to leave to Italy really soon. I'm TOO excited for Italy! I miss everyone tons! Hope all is well in Cali..

Love,

Alan

England

2009-07-21T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have really been enjoying England since arrival. There is so much to do here and so many people to meet. I have been staying at the YHA in Bristol, which is a very busy place. They seem to sell out all the time and have huge groups of students coming and going all the time. I think I am the only one that has stayed for more than 1 week. Bristol is a really nice city because it is relatively small, full of great music, and very beautiful. All the houses here have spanish tile and when you are on a hike or someplace looking down at the city it is very pretty. England is full of small cities surrounded my lush green countryside. My first week I met many people and mostly stayed in Bristol trying to get into the swing of things. I went to the Bristol University and saw an exhibit featuring a local graffiti artist known as "Banksy". Some of his art is up on my YouTube. I though his style was very interesting and creative. I have become a regular at a local bar and cafe called Mackenzies, which has the best food i've found yet. I went to London for one night and visited a world famous nightclub called Fabric. Fabric was a lot of fun there was 3 rooms of music and one of my favorite current artists from the UK "Silkie". This was definitely a highlight so far. The weekend after Fabric I was mostly just hanging out walking around and visiting new places around Bristol including some local records shops. I met a group of local DJs at a bar called the Tube which was really exciting because I have heard of a few of these DJs all the way from CA and it was cool to just get to hang out with some accomplished musicians. I am going back to the Tube on Wednesday the 22nd to see a few more DJs that are on tour right now. I have been trying all different types of ciders, which is what the English drink instead of beer. It is brewed with apples and pears in the same way you would brew a beer and is delicious. My favorite so far is a local brew called the "Old Bristolian" and is nearly 8.5% so you can only drink one or 2 but are very good. I have been going to different places meeting new people but some have been slightly strange. Some guy came up to me at a bar and licked the whole side of my face. He said his friend dared him to lick my sideburns. This was really strange and uncool and I think he was just looking for a fight. Some words were exchanged but nothing happened and they got kicked out of the bar. Very weird. Some people have had some very weird reactions to the beard. Anyways, I couldn't stay at the YHA on last Wednesday so I walked up the street to another hostel called Full Moon Backpackers Hostel. This hostel was much smaller but had a friendlier vibe. I only stayed one night and the next day met up with a group of kids that I met online that live in Bristol and we took a charted bus to Glade Festival. Glade was absolutely insane. I didn't think I could handle it and wondered "What did I get myself into?" on Thursday night because it was raining really hard and was cold and seemed like it wasn't going to be very fun. I lasted through the night and the next day was really excited to hear some good music and meet some new people. I met so many people over the weekend it was overwhelming. I've always been kind of bad at names so I have been making a point to get better while I am on my trip. Even the friends I was with were surprised at how easy is was for me to talk to anyone there and how much people would come up and talk to me. It was very fun and I had a bunch of good conversations with a lot of people, mostly the English. Thursday was the hardest rain we experienced throughout the weekend but it still rained here or there. I bought some wellie boots which were crucial to stay dry and out of all the mud. I was so dirty by the end of it, all I wanted was to take a shower. There was 10 different stages playing music, and all sorts of smaller tents and private set ups playing music for nearly 20 hours a day.

Friday I saw a bunch of DJs and musicians including:

DJ Ben & Lex
Ollie 303
Mystery
Lukie B
A Skillz
The filthy dukes
The egg
DJ Zinc
Alkemy
Ironside
Stivs
Femi Kuti
DMZ - Coki, Mala, Loefah, & Sgt. Pokes
Pinch
Mutant Clan
Dave Clarke

Saturday I saw:

Beardyman
Jazzsteppa
Hudson Mohawke
16 Bit
Milanese
Squarepusher
Carl Craig

Jazzsteppa then Hudson Mohawke and then 16bit was an amazing line-up definitely a huge highlight.

Sunday was the best line up. I never left the same tent except to catch a few artists I needed to see. The Overkill tent line up was:

downshifter
MarkOmen
Reso
Channel One Soundsystem
Mumdance
Raffertie
Starkey
Rusko w/ Rod Azlan
Tayo
Drop the Lime
Benga

Wow, I couldnt believe that line-up all in the same tent. 11 hours of awesomeness. I also saw that day:

Stereo:Type
Noisia
Andy C
Underworld

Overall amazing event and I had a great time. I didn't sleep very much during the weekend. But I did make this video: (I am so awkward on camera its hilarious)

I love my family. You are my strength and my backbone. I cannot thank you enough for being so supportive of this trip. You are all very important to me there are not words to describe my undying love for you. I miss you all so much but am excited to be here and have been having a really good time so far. I have just been relaxing since the festival and I am going to a few shows later this week. I am so excited to be going to Italy and then Spain! More to come...

Love,

Alan

Welcome

2009-07-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

dont worry im not going to be stripping.......

hahha

check this out for new posts and messages!!!!