My Setup in Split, Croatia

I didn’t do any work.

I didn’t have to don anything but to enjoy the sun, beach and good company.

Sometimes You Just Have to Jump

Me taking a dive in Split, Croatia. Life can be scary sometimes. Once you face your fears the payoff can be huge.

100 Days on the Road

As I sit here on a train from Berlin to Budapest shoved into a couchette like a sardine who’s too large for its can I contemplate the last 100 days. Traveling is about expecting the unexpected. Sometimes you get 5 star treatment, other times someone will piss on your tent and you will be just fine with it. Life is a bit that way you see, some days everything seems to work just fine. You leave home and the car has a full tank of gas, the traffic lights all turn green as you approach them, the elevator is at the first floor and the steak you order for lunch is perfectly seasoned and cooked to perfection. Other days you wake up late, rush only to find out the car needs gas, traffic is a mess, you barely have time for lunch and the toilet paper in the office bathroom is wet. I am sure you can relate to both scenarios.

Traveling is a lot like that. You have to be willing to take the bad with the good and move on. Here are some of the things this trip has taught me, some of them may be useful to you.

Don’t take for grated the comforts of home. Being able to control the temperature of your room is a lot more important than you would otherwise think. Your bed is the only clean bed, period. You lose your ability to control the noise levels during the hours of the night as soon as you leave your house.

People you don’t know have a very different sense of humor, you are gonna have to tolerate it. Some people will seem like assholes, others pretentious, if you don’t accept that that’s who they are, you’ll be constantly annoyed.

Routine is usually bad at home and while traveling the world. Spontaneity, is priceless.

You will have to defend yourself, but don’t push too hard. Sometimes the person on the other end is not as selfish as you think they are. On the same note, people are selfish, just accept that and learn to deal with it.

Reading maps and navigating a city becomes easier as time goes by. Eventually they start to make sense.

Missing home has nothing to do with the things you owned. It has to do with the connections you no longer have with people you enjoy. Having a place to call home is overrated, having friends nearby is highly underrated.

Traveling is usually more tiresome than not traveling. You will have a lot less free time that you imagined you would. You will read a lot less books than you imagine while away.

Baggage is annoying, both literal baggage and figurative baggage. Carrying as little as possible makes things a lot simpler. Being attached to little is hard but gives you much more flexibility. Learning to live with very limited stuff will make you look deep inside yourself and realize what’s important.

Simple things like doing the laundry, going to the supermarket and finding a good restaurant become small projects. Everything is more difficult in a new place. Searching for a place to eat and avoiding being taken advantage of takes real effort.

You will make mistakes, you will be taken advantage of. The important part is realizing it quickly and making sure to spot it in the future. Move on!

The grass continues to be greener on the other side. Sometimes I look at people in their nice air-conditioned cars driving by me and wish I could be them. A couple months ago I was, and I wanted to backpack around the world. Go figure!

Decision making is an art, practice and make perfect. Dwelling on futile aspects of a decision becomes really stressful. Listen to your gut instinct, quickly analyze the facts and decide. This is a very valuable skill to have.

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Reliable Internet is Hard to Come By

I just don’t understand what the problem really is. After traveling for over 90 days, I have experience internet connectivity problems virtually everywhere we’ve been. I can speak for United States including Puerto Rico, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and The Netherlands. Places like McDonalds and Starbucks and mostly all other spots which advertise in big bold letters: “WI-FI” more often than not have non-working internet connection. What’s so difficult about keeping a working internet connection?

I understand the difficulties involved in proving WI-FI at a conference where hundreds of people are connected in large room, repeaters, DNS leases, etc. At a small restaurant where 2 people are trying to check their mail… Give me a break! Both McDonalds and Starbucks are multi-billion dollar corporations with thousands of employees and they can’t figure out wireless internet?

I don’t want to rant only about the big players. I have been to countless so called “hotspots” which don’t work. Patronized stores to partake on the patron-only WI-FI only to hear the lame excuses of the employees: “it hasn’t been working”.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Here is how this should work. Contract a business class connection from a reliable provider. Purchase a good quality modem and wireless router. Spent at least $300 on a business class N router. Configure the router to NOT broadcast the SSID but don’t require a password. Requiring a password diminishes the signal strength and causes more problems than it’s worth, specially for a free hotspot. Provide the SSID to patrons on the purchase receipt. Enjoy!

How difficult is that? Sure you can get fancy with a router that load balances dual ISP connections, but this would be way too difficult for a company that only knows how to make crappy hamburgers.

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Amsterdam, Cologne and The Rhine River Valley

The past couple weeks have been pretty interesting. I haven’t written in a while, mainly because I haven’t had time to sit with the computer for long enough to write. Today I am writing in reverse chronological order as it makes the most sense to me right now.

I am currently on a train from Amsterdam to Hamburg, Germany. Amsterdam was a blast. The city clearly caters to tourists, in a nice way though. We took a Sandeman’s city tour the first day we were there, after 4 hours of walking around downtown with a very knowledgeable guide I felt like I knew the city. We enjoyed the city’s architecture, photography museam and the local culture ☺. After spending 4 days in Amsterdam my wallet is drained, time to go back to Germany.

Amsterdam

The cost of living in Amsterdam is really high, you have to pay for everything, literally. Bathrooms cost $0.50, anywhere, even McDonalds. Hot water costs an extra $0.20.

We decided to take a day trip out to Zaanse Schans, a 20 minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal. This town stands for the invention of industry in Europe. With about 300 years of history, the world’s first and last standing (and operating) windmills. The site is picturesque to say the least. An open air museum featuring working windmills, cheesemaking shops, a clock museum, farm animals and even a river boat ride. You really have to see this place to believe it.

Town of Zaanse Schans

On our way to Amsterdam we passed by Cologne, Germany. During a two hour train connection we explore the city center and Europe’s biggest and baddest gothic cathedral

Cologne Gothic Catedral

Before getting to Amsterdam we camped for a couple days in St. Goar, Germany right on the Rhine river. The place was beautiful. It’s pretty incredible to wake up to a beautiful mountain top castle along the Rhine river. The food in the Rhine region was very good, hearty and best of all inexpensive. We could eat and drink all we wanted and still stick to the budget. Not in Amsterdam.

Town of St. Goar

Before St. Goar we stopped in Munich for 3 days. I was impressed. Bavarian food is also delicious, the prices were affordable and the beers were big. We had a chance to catch a handful of World Cup soccer matches while enjoying local brews at the nearby beer halls. We also took a 30 minute train ride out to Dachau, the nazis first concentration and extermination camp in europe. A very sad and revolting sight to see which must be experienced to be understood. The cruelty, and torture inflicted on people on that place is a scary thought.

Dachau concentration camp

Munich is full of life, museum, castles and palaces. A large city but very easily manuverable. Public transportation is excellent. We stayed at The Tent (the-tent.com) which is literally a hostel with big (30-60 person) tents where you can either sleep on bunk beds or on a mat on the floor. Suffice to say this is a party hostel. With facilities to accommodate a ton of young people, even during Oketoberfest this place is where the party is at.

At the BMW World Headquarters, Munich

Next we’ll be spending some time with Paula’s family in Hamburg, Germany before we move on to Denmark. I am looking forward to spending a couple of days relaxing and catching back up on things tech.

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