Romania!

Look's like I'm coming back to Europe! Albeit for a much shorter trip than last time (ten days compared to nearly a year). Still though, it's exciting. The story behind the trip is that my friend and professor is leading a trip to Transylvania focusing on vampire folklore in the region, as well as the historical Vlad Dracula. She needed a second chaperone, and since I'm a grad student and her TA for another class, she asked if I wanted to go. Obviously I wanted to go, but since I have zero money I needed the school to pay. It seems that she'll be able to get the school to pay for me, in which case I'll get to go. I would really love to take some extra time and visit some familiar places and faces, but it all depends on how the expenses work out. Anyway, I'll be there in late May, so if anyone happens to be in Romania in May, look me up.

Back East

Denver was weird. I have a massive lists of things I would have liked to do while here, but obviously I didn't get to do any of them. Sadly, I only saw the Rocky Mountains from afar, but my brother promises that next time I'm here we'll get drunk and go to some of the taller peaks. Speaking of getting drunk, I did succeed in doing that. In fact, I did that really well. It started with lucking into a free ticket to a hockey game, really got going with a rickshaw ride through downtown Denver, and ended with me spilling way too many embarrassing details about myself to complete strangers. It was fun at the time, and honestly it's not like I haven't done that before. Well, I haven't been in a rickshaw or gone to a free hockey game, but the other stuff I've done plenty of. It's just what happens when I start to drink. The day after that wasn't so fun, as I spent most of it hung-over in the hospital with DebraLee and the baby, but that's fine. In all, the trip was a success. I got to help out my brother, arrived to town on the day his first child was born, and spent a lot of time with some cool people while showing off my expert skills as an uncle. I look forward to visiting Denver again in the future.

Waylon

Remember how last night I said that this week was going to be weird? Excuse me for saying so, but....HOLY SHIT. I woke up at 4:30 Eastern time to shower and drive to the airport. At 5:40,  just as Dad and I were driving down the pre-dawn Downtown Expressway, I got a surprise phone call from Mom, who had been sleeping when I left the house just a few minutes before. As it turned out, Jonathan (my brother) had just called and told Mom that DebraLee was in labor, and was being admitted to the hospital at that moment. They had been planning on using a midwife for a natural birth, but it's a scientific fact that reality always trumps well-laid plans. The baby was in danger of being a breech baby, which was something that the midwifery wasn't prepared for. Hence, the hospital.

We got to the airport as fast as we could, went through the check-in without hassle, and at 7:30 I boarded the plane to my layover in Newark, New Jersey. A little over an hour later, immediately after I landed in Newark, I called Dad to check the situation. While I had been in the air, DebraLee had undergone a successful C-section and gave birth to a healthy, red-headed, teeny tiny baby boy. His name is Waylon Cole Meadows, and he's the coolest baby I've ever seen. Of course, the problem was that the I still had a long flight before I could get out to see them; also, since Jonathan was at the hospital, I didn't have anyone to pick me up at the airport in Denver.

After a very long, very stressful flight west, I finally touched down in Denver at 13:00 Mountain time (which is 15:00 Eastern time). It had already been a long day, but now I had to find my way out of the airport (not easy since Denver's airport is the largest in the United States) and meet up with Scott and Natalie, two of Jonathan's friends who had been dispatched to pick me up. After running around the airport for twenty minutes, I met up with the two of them and together we hit the road to the hospital for our first look at Waylon. I should mention that Scott and Natalie live in Denver, just two blocks from Jonathan and DebraLee's house. I mention that because we unexpectedly got lost, meaning that in all the chaos it was over two hours from the time I touched down to the time I reached the hospital.

After spending most of the day traveling, I finally got in to see the baby. I was pretty travel weary, but immediately upon entering the room Jonathan thrust Waylon into my arms. I don't know how long I held him, but it was quite awhile. Not much needs to be said about the next few hours, which consisted mostly of sentimental family moments. It was nice.

Once DebraLee and the baby were ready to sleep, I finally got to go and relax. Jonathan gave me the keys to his Jeep, and I set off down the unfamiliar freeways of Denver to their house, where I'm currently hanging out with Dixie and Irie (their dogs). One last thing: tacos!!!! Before I left the hospital, I asked Jonathan where I could grab a bite to eat. He and DebraLee shouted in unison that I go to the Mexican place around the corner and get some tacos to go. They told me exactly which items and in what quantities to order. I took their advice and, wow, they were right. These were the best tacos I've ever eaten. I loooooooove Mexican food, and I've never had Mexican that good. It's not TexMex either, which is the most common brand of Mexican in the U.S., if not in much of the world. This was real Mexican, and was insanely delicious. Needless to say, I will be eating more tacos. Hopefully many more, if I'm being honest. And now I bid you goodnight. I've been up for most of the day, traveling and handling babies and tacos and whatnot, and now I just want to finish this beer (Denver is home to a huge amount of fantastic microbrews) and go to sleep.

Denver

I've only been on break for a couple of days, and it's already been crazier than I had expected. Two weeks ago, my plan for Spring Break was to sit at home, maybe get a case of beer, and curl up in front of the tv watching movies and writing my thesis. Instead, I've attended a goodbye barbeque for Alex and Athena, two old friends who are leaving on Friday for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. Destination: Kyrgyz Republic. That's one of the most intense and craziest commitments I've ever seen anyone take, but I have faith in their ability to roll with it. As weird as it sounds, if you had forced me to guess which two friends would be moving to the Kyrgyz Republic for two years, I would most definitely have picked them. So Godspeed, Alex and Athena! Keep updating your blog so I know what the hell is going on with you, and if I'm ever in Turkey I'll let you know.
Also weird: I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I'm traveling to Denver. I'm heading out there in just a few hours, and I found out just a little while ago that DebraLee, my brother's girlfriend, has been having more and more contractions lately, which means that it's possible that the baby will drop while I'm there. Weird shit tends to happen whenever I go somewhere new, so the fact that I might induce labor while in Denver would be pretty much par for the course. If the baby is born while I'm there, then great. I can't complain about that. But it will make the visit a whole lot more insane than I had expected.

I do plan on finishing my Oktoberfest story sometime soon, but I've been very busy the last few weeks and just haven't had the free time to sit down and give it the respect it deserves. And finally, I've noticed that a substantial portion of the traffic for this blog comes from Estonia, so I just wanted to say: Marili, if you're reading this, thanks for keeping my cold feet warm all winter. 

Not cool, Blogspot.

I just wrote up the entry for Oktoberfest Part 3, which blogger.com then failed to process. It did not save. It was a really good post, too. I worked hard on it. Anger.

Headed West!

Looks like I'll finally be getting to travel again. This time it's just a short trip to Denver, but at least it's something.
The purpose of my trip is to visit my brother and his girlfriend, who are expecting a baby in the next three weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to help them out in some way. I don't expect it to be a crazy time, but I'm looking forward to it all the same. I don't see them much anymore, so catching up before their world turns upside down could be a good thing. I've never been to Denver, so I plan to take some pictures and maybe write about it a bit. Unless nothing happens.

That entry seems a bit pointless, right? Nobody needs a memo that I'm going to Denver unless I plan to drop some worthwhile information. I'll remember to make this more entertaining in the future. Maybe I can spice it up a bit. Get a fog machine, some lasers. I'll think about it.

The Oktoberfest Incident: Part Two

Thursday Night: Having unloaded our gear in the hostel, we stepped out into Riga's Old Town for a few beers and something to eat. After wandering for a bit, we settled on a decent looking Irish pub. There's nothing particularly noteworthy to speak of about the pub, except to say that it was filled with vacationing Irishmen who were totally plastered, playing fooseball quite terribly, and harassing the terrified waitresses every chance they got. At one point, one of them was tossed out of the bar. Fortunately, our politeness went a long way towards winning the favor of the waitresses, who focused their attention on us far more than the drunks. So that was nice.

After leaving the pub, we went in search of a more relaxing place to drink. I don't remember the name of the bar we settled on, but I do recall that it was fantastic. They played every single song that I wanted to hear. That is one good thing about traveling through Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In large part, they're still stuck in the 90s, so if you're someone who grew up with 90s music, then you can turn on almost any radio station and hear the music of your youth. We hung around for a few drinks until the music started to change and people around us began to make out. After that, we grabbed our coats and walked back to the hostel for a well-deserved night's sleep.

Friday: Having taken the bus to Riga the night before, we were fortunate that we didn't have to get up early. We took our time in the shower, packed up, and took the absurdly long tram ride to the airport. Not much of a hassle there, except for Ali holding up the security line owing to a suspicious looking hair brush in her bag. We queued up for the shuttle to the plane, and when it was time to board, everyone went on a total free-for-all. If you're not familiar with Ryan Air, then be aware that there are no assigned seats on their flights. Basically you just get off the shuttle and push your way through the aisle until you find a decent seat. I took an aisle seat in the very last row, Max was crammed in somewhere nearby, and Ali was somewhere way up front. I have no idea how that happened. We settled in for the flight, and about two uneventful hours later we landed in Germany.

The trip had started getting awesome the night before when we settled into our super-friendly hostel and found that great bar. Once in Hahn, they got even more awesome. Our immediate goal was to find the car rental place, which we did, only to find out that our hatchback wasn't ready. They did tell us that there was an alternate vehicle available for basically the same price if we were willing to take that. Not really caring about the car as long as it was cheap and got us to Munich, we said fine. We hopped into the shuttle van and drove the three minutes to the car lot. There we were confronted with our reasonably priced rental: A basically new Mercedes-Benz. Europeans may not understand how sweet this is. In the US, a Mercedes is considered a high-priced luxury car. If you want to rent one, you usually have to request it, and you're damn sure going to have to pay a high price for it. The fact that they just gave the keys to three twenty-something American students for the same price as an Opal was a little bit overwhelming. We were pumped.

Little happened on the road. What was supposed to be a drive of just a few hours slowly stretched into one of 6-7 hours, mostly due to traffic making its way to Munich. Again, this was not a big deal because we had a sweet Mercedes. It was getting late by the time we finally arrived at our campsite. We went into the registration center/beer hall and got our tent assignment. Throwing our packs into the tent, we went back inside the beer hall for our first liter of Oktoberfest beer. Something cool happened right from the start. Shortly after we cleared off some space on one of the benches, a Swiss guy with a Jimmy Johnson NASCAR leather jacket sat down next to me. We struck up a conversation, naturally asking each other about our hometowns. He told me the name of a town in Switzerland, which sadly I can't remember. I told him I was from near Washington D.C.. This isn't exactly true of course, but I find that it saves a lot of time in conversation to tell people that I'm from the D.C. area, since most likely many Europeans have never heard of Richmond. In this case, I was mistaken. The Swiss man, whose name I've since forgotten, told me that though he'd never been to Washington, he HAD been to a city just a couple hours south of there where his best friend lived. It was called Richmond, had I ever visited? I chuckled and told him that I was in fact from Richmond. He went further, by saying that his friend actually wasn't from the city, but lived in an area just to the west. He couldn't remember the name, but it started with an M. By this point I was pretty much floored. The Swiss man's best friend was not only from Midlothian (my hometown), he also lived in Woodlake (my neighborhood). This guy's best friend lived about three minutes away from me.

With my mind sufficiently blown, Ali and Max dragged me away so that we could take the train to downtown Munich and see some of the nightlife. Of course, we had to find the train first.

*In the next installment, our heros get lost unintentionally exploring the water drainage system of Munich, drink beer, and nearly die of exposure! Will they survive? (yes) Stay tuned!*

The Oktoberfest Incident: Part One

*When I sat down to write this post, I had no idea how long it would be. As I do have a number of things to do, including writing a thesis, I have to write up the story in two parts. Here is part one. The second will come as soon as I can post it.*


If you're planning on having an emotional/physical breakdown, I do not recommend the Frankfurt-Hahn airport.

Let me try to explain in as much detail as possible my Oktoberfest trip in order to make the previous claim more sensible. Prior to this trip, I had always wanted to go to Oktoberfest. Call it one of the burning desires in life. I am a big beer drinker. I love everything about it. I love its taste, I love its smell, I love the way it can make you feel in moderate doses, and I love the way it can bind together a group of people into harmonious bliss unlike any other drink or substance. Take copious amounts of the stuff, toss in tilt-a-whirls, lederhosen, pretzels, half-chickens, and put in a beautiful and vibrant city as a backdrop, multiply it by ten, and you have Oktoberfest. It can be beautiful, and it can be evil. It's up to you to decide how that power will be wielded.

My trip began several weeks before the actual event in Tartu with two like-minded friends. First there was Max. Max is another American who studies in the same program as myself. In what I will forever refer to as "The Oktoberfest Incident," I consider Max to be an accessory to the crime. He definitely wanted to go to Oktoberfest, but I think he mostly wanted to go just to say that he went. A few beers, some laughs, nothing more. The real culprit is Ali, my platonic soul-mate from Alaska. Once, when drunk, Ali and I were trying to describe our friendship. She broke it down into the most correct assessment of a friendship that I have ever heard: "We are the same kind of monster."

After having casually mentioned that Oktoberfest was on my lifelong To-Do List, Ali set to work with an intensity that is almost scary. Despite being very late in the game, she had found us a cheap tent set in the old Munich Olympic grounds, just outside the city. In order to make the cost even cheaper, we went after Max hard and fast. Fortunately, he was easy to persuade. We tried to find a fourth, but everyone else in Tartu looked at us like we were insane. In retrospect, we most definitely were, but that was not going to stop us. The next step was finding a cheap flight, which Ali again found with lightning speed. She managed to find empty seats on a flight from Riga, Latvia to Frankfurt-Hahn with Ryan Air early on a Friday morning, giving us maximum time to make the most of our trip. With a leaky nylon roof to sleep under and a budget plane to get us to Germany, we needed a way to get from Frankfurt-Hahn to Munich, since it's several hour drive. Max took this particular task, and managed to reserve a hatchback with an automatic gearbox (none of us drive stick; I didn't even have a license, as my previous one expired in July) for a very reasonable price. Things were coming together.

Plans for the trip had shaped up surprisingly quickly, but the week before we set off, we realized there was a snag. The trip from Riga was set for early in the morning, but the bus from Tartu to Riga would have gotten us to the bus station there with only 30 minutes to spare. That was not enough time for us to get to the airport and get checked in. We needed a Plan B. With Max and Ali already handling their share of the adventure, it was my time to shine. With the swiftness of Mercury (I may be exaggerating, but go with it) I found an alternative bus line which almost nobody in Tartu knew about, putting us in Riga on Thursday evening. I also managed to find accommodations at a reasonably priced hostel  for the night. With all tickets booked and reservations set, we spent all week pumping ourselves up for the trip. Ali drank less beer to lower her tolerance (I laughed at this) and the three of us watched "Beerfest" with anticipation. From here, I will break the trip down on a day-by-day basis:

Thursday: The excitement was building. After our morning classes, we spent the afternoon preparing for the journey. After packing, I went to a local store and bought a package of blank CDs for Max to make a driving mix. Several weeks before, we had thrown a 90s dance party, with Max acting as DJ. Having blown everyone away with his fantastic song choices, we wanted to relive the experience, only this time in a hatchback cruising down the Autobahn. Around 6pm, Max and I took the ten minute walk to the bus station. With about five minutes left, Ali showed up and jumped on the bus. We were off!

The trip to Riga was uneventful. It was about four hours, and each of us prepared for the upcoming adventure in our own ways. Max slept, Ali watched the on-board entertainment (music videos from the late 80s-early 90s), and I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Eventually we made it to Riga, and after a few minutes of searching, we managed to make it to our hostel.

Now, I need to make it clear that one of the beauties and one of the frustrations of international travel is anonymity. I love the feeling of being in a crowded square, completely oblivious to the bustle of unknown language around me, taking in the sights and smells and the general vibe of the natives. In those moments, I like to be completely unknown, completely unobserved. But just try to get anything done and it becomes one hell of a hassle. So when that anonymity is unexpectedly shattered, there is a momentary shock. You ask yourself, "Is this good, or am I in trouble?" This is serious introspection time.

Why does this matter? As I said, we finally found our hostel, a shabby gray building located on the fringe of the Old Town. As we walked into the lobby/pub, a drunken Irishmen staggered up to me, grabbed me on the shoulder, and looked me in the eye. Using his beer-holding hand, he pointed at the center of my chest and said, "You mus' be Kyle."

I was freaked out. A number of questions popped into my mind, chief among them, "Why does this drunken Irishman know who I am?" As it turned out, this was not the beginning of a horror movie. Actually,  it was just damn good customer service. The gentleman sat us at one of the three tables, served us each a complimentary pint of beer, and checked us in. Fears allayed for the time being, we stowed our bags under our bunks and walked out into Riga's Old Town, in search of a few beers before turning in.

To Be Continued....

This is a blog that I've created to more easily keep in touch with my friends' blogs.  I don't have too much to write about, but I do hope to write a little bit here from time to time when I've hit a block while working on my MA thesis (which happens frequently). There probably won't be too many people who care much about this, but that's fine. It's purely for my own amusement.
A little bit about who I am, and why this is a "non-travel travel guide":

• First, I am currently a graduate student in West Virginia. I'm originally from Richmond, VA, and I still consider that my hometown, even though I've lived in Morgantown, WV more or less full time since the fall of 2004. I earned my BA at WVU in History and Religious Studies, and I am currently earning an MA in History. 
• I'm also earning an MA in International Relations, but not from WVU. This degree comes from Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, Poland. I'm part of a Trans-Atlantic program funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education and the European Education Commission. 
• Because of this program, I lived abroad for about a year. The majority of my time was spent in Warsaw, but I also spent several months living in Tartu, Estonia. I also had the chance to travel around Europe, though not nearly as much as I would have liked to. There will probably be a lot of stories on this blog from my travels. 
• I use the term "non-travel travel guide" because, as you can see, I'm not currently traveling. I had intended to keep a blog while abroad, like many of my less lazy traveling buddies, but I didn't. There's no excuse for that. I just didn't do it. That said, I have a lot of blogs to keep up with, so this seems like a good way to do it, while also taking the time to add thoughts from some of my own travels. I think it might turn out that writing of my trips in retrospect will provide some new perspectives for me. Or it will make me look like a jackass. One or the other. 
• Finally, I love traveling. Everyone wants to be a nomad at some point in their lives, but very few of us get to really experience it. Spending a healthy bit of my mid-twenties bouncing around in budget rate planes, sleeping with one eye open on overnight trains, and staring at monochromatic landscapes in the winter - time Baltics on a bus for eighteen hours was not exactly fun, but it was always an adventure. I want to do it all over again, especially since I get cabin fever very easily. You give me a plane ticket, and I'm out. That said, and despite my current state of poverty, I'm always looking out for my next opportunity to get away. I have at least one possible trip in the works, and if it works out I'm sure I'll bring it up again. 

So that's that. That took more words than I thought, but it's a pretty fair reflection of myself. If you think this could be fun, check back. I might add something new. Also, check out my friends' blogs. I'll link them. They're good people.