I’ve gotten my Turkey trip photos uploaded to Flickr. There are close to 200 photos so it might take some time to look through all of them but I recommend using the photo album feature with caption info. Let me know what you think here or on Flickr!
Europe, here I come. Last night I decided that I’d procrastinated too long, over-analyzed too long, waxed ponderously far too long… so I booked the flight. Happily, my 100k frequent-flyer miles actually paid off. I’ll be spending two and half weeks in turkey with a three day stopover in Amsterdam, starting in late May. I’m flying into Istanbul, which is technically on the European continent, so to answer your question, “Yes, I will be in Europe.” Time to learn some Turkish.
Posting this from Midway in Chicago. My flight on United was cancelled yesterday, so I booked another flight on Southwest for early this morning. If you’re planning on going through Chicago I wouldn’t recommend booking on US Airways as they use United as their operating carrier. United is having plenty of its own problems with staffing levels, and the problem gets compounded when trying to rebook a cancelled flight through a carrier that your reservation was not booked. Anyway, I would not get to Seattle until 12 midnight today if I didn’t book a flight through Southwest. It’s starting to look like an expensive christmas between flights, parking and cabs.
Otherwise, the Christmas holiday was great visiting the family and seeing friends. The quote of the trip is Grandma P telling me “Awesome, Bro!” When she said it, I thought, “awesome…. bro,” as in awesome, grandma. Wish me luck getting back to Seattle. out.
Some photos from the camping trip out to Olympic National Park earlier this past week.
I keep finding reasons to not go skiing. Well, my primary reason is I don’t really have anyone with whom I can go skiing. Did you see the lengths I went to in that last sentence to ensure it didn’t end in a preposition? “With whom”, I don’t even know if thats grammatically correct. You see, for one, I can go skiing alone, that’s all good, but any time I tell myself I’m going to go skiing the next day, I inevitably sleep-in. Like today, I went to bed at midnight and got up at 11:30am, talk about loving sleep and being lame. Ultimately, it didn’t matter because I couldn’t have driven up to Snoqualmie without chains on my tires today (time to get some chains).
I’ve convinced myself that if I had someone to ski with (this implies they’re a relatively good skier, *toot toot*) then I’d get up in the morning because I’d have someone waiting for me. Nonetheless, I’ve promised myself, ski buddy or no ski buddy, ski car pool or no car pool, I’m going to ski next weekend. No back country yet, don’t have the equipment or the people to do that yet, but some nice steep or bumpy terrain. “We shall overcome,” as one player on the Seahawks put it in his post-game interview. I like that complete misuse of a civil rights rallying cry.
In other news, I had a great Christmas break. I managed to get a week off (took one day to work from home) and went to Michigan. I flew into Chicago on one of the most wild flights I’ve ever been on. I sat next to a girl that insisted our row have a drinking contest with the row in front of us (she was already drunk), so that’s what we did. We even had competing male flight attendants, very chichi. The lady behind us even stood up and told us to “please be quiet, you’re not the only people on this plane you know!” That set some fireworks off, but we managed to be a bit more quiet, but the drunk girl didn’t like that at all, and even got the lady to stand up one more time as a result of semi-hushed insults thrown her way. Dang!
In Chicago, I got to see Mr. Jd Ryznar and Miles Raymer at the Empty Bottle for JDs showing of the Yacht Rock series. Good stuff. In Spring Lake/GH it was a good family time, hanging out much with the Sis, parents, grandparents, and getting my ass handed to me in Guitar Hero by my stepbrother Lukas. Saw other friends in GR and Ann Arbor as well. It was a whirlwind trip that ended back in Seattle where I went out to a couple house parties for NYE 2006. Now I’ve been back a week and finally settling back into this wildly urban lifestyle I lead, grocery shopping, sleeping-in, drinking beer and surfing the veritable Web.
Speaking of, if anyone can answer my question, please do. I’m dying to find a real bagel.
No resolutions this year, none other than keep enjoying sleep a lot.
The mobility lady thought I was crazy when I didn’t want to take a flight out to Seattle. Everyone I talked to said it would take us, at the minimum, three days to go from Michigan to Seattle. Well, I ain’t crazy, but my Dad and I combined are. Amazon took care of shipping my belongings, but we decided to take a roadtrip together to get me out there. You know, one of those father-son bonding things.
We left last week Wednesday morning from Spring Lake, MI and arrived on Friday at 4pm in Seattle. Most of the trip was straight driving (we drove 14 hours on Thursday). In total, it took us about 56 hours with stops. There were points in the trip where we got to head off the beaten track and do some touring. In South Dakota we hit The Badlands, Wall Drug and Mt. Rushmore. I recommend all of those stops for anyone driving on I-90. Rushmore was a lot more impressive than I had expected - sculpture in a mountain!
The trip was a good chance to hang out with Dad, something I hadn’t done in a while since I lived and worked on the other side of the state. We only tried to kill each other once, with me probably actually trying it and him thinking about it. When you spend that much time with a parent you start to notice how much like them you are, as scary as that sounds. I obviously am the better half of both my parents, and their parents, and so on… obviously.
After our arrival it was a weekend of touring around Pikes Place Market, the SpaceNeedle, Amazon HQ, a great dinner at the Oceanaire, and we caught an exciting Mariners (vs. Padres 6-3) game with Ariana and Andrew. Early Monday morning I took the Old Man out to SeaTac Airport, and bid him farewell… After, I went back to get ready for my first day in my temp housing downtown apartment (that I couldn’t afford otherwise). I’ve linked some roadtrip photos…
I’ve posted my photos of Guatemala in my Photo Gallery. I apologize about the abundance of scenery photos. I didn’t feel all too comfortable shoving my camera in everyone’s face in a foreign country, my first real foreign experience. Enjoy!
Did you know that Gallos do there loud cock thing all day long. yes, they do.
I arrived in Guatemala this past monday night, About 5 days ago. Im gonig to be here for about 15 more. Im in Guatemalas second largest city, Quetzaltenango. Basically, Im here for language school and so far it is going fairly well. My ability to speak isnt quite where i want it to be, but hey, im not doing this for academic credit.
Healthwise, everything was going fine until today. I went to a discoteca last night and needless to say i felt like crap the next day, cos its way to easy to get drunk off two beers at 6000 feet. But my problem isnt the beer now, its the diarhea that has set in. Oh joy. Its raining like hell right now and the streets are awash. Most streets are set on a hill, so use your imagination to think of narrow streets with narrow sidewalks awash in downpour. Im gonna get outta here soon and take some cold and flu medicine, and some lypromocine. mmmhmmm…. reporting from Guatemala, hopefully more later.
Finally! I have something worthwhile to post about. Ah just kidding, my life is always so grand and exciting that its hard to get a break from all the razz and matazz. But once in a long while, like now, I do.
Mid-May I’ll be heading down to Guatemala for some fun in the sun. No! OH wait. I’m going down there to attend spanish language school for three weeks in a mid-sized town called Quetzaltenango (’Xela’ pronounced Shayla). I’ll be attending the Ulew Tinimit school.
Along with brushing up and advancing my spanish speaking skills, I’ll hopefully be seeing some cool sights around the mountains. I’ve got a lot of research and prep to do before I go, but this is only my second time to Central America and I’d like to make the most of it. The first was in a tourist mode, and I’d like to think that I am attempting to be more immersive this time. If anyone has tips on things to bring, places to go, let me know. I also need some tips on good backpacks and raincoats for travel. So shoot some comments my way. Thanks!
Also, I have been mildly obsessed with making a real home page lately, not like my crappy current one. One that looks just like Mike Cowlishaw’s, which i would consider to be the apex of all that is dorknical and cool at the same time. Someone please remind me to do this.