I’m ready to go back to civilization. After five days of living on a jungle island, you start to realize the things you’ve taken for granted in the city. Things like internet access, air conditioning, electricity. Hot water would be nice. So would flushing toilets

That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed my time here. I’m just really tired of sleeping (or rather, not sleeping) in the same room as screeching bugs and wailing rats.

It’s strange how much these things make up our daily lives, and how turned around we can be without them. Ten years ago, hardly any of us even had internet, much less Facebook or Twitter. How many hundreds of years went by where electricity was just something to see on a stormy night? (Click here to read more…)

Hey there Internet!

One of the perks of living in “The Most Romantic City In the World” is the excess of opportunities to plan completely over-the-top romantic gestures. Almost everywhere I go I’m awed by the visual unity of the buildings and the boulevard/monument master plan of the city. Granted, Baron Haussmann had to displace a lot of disenfranchised poor to make room for his sexy “New Paris,” but so it goes.

It’s nuts. I can’t cross the street without getting hit by a stunning blonde with flowing hair riding a Vespa, sans helmet or buy a crepe without walking past twelve statues of triumphant angels or dead-kings-on-horseback. Don’t get me started on cathedrals. God damn the French like their churches.

It was fitting, I’ve since decided, that I should find my “proposal spot” here, the place where I’m going to propose to my wife-to-be. Not sure who it is yet, but I’ve got the location down. It’s going to be on the bridge over the Seine between the Rive Gauche and Ile de la Cite east of the Notre Dame, about three-fifths of the way to the left bank of the Seine, on the west side of the bridge. (See above.)

(Click here to read more…)

Weekend trip to Barceloooooooooooonaahhhh (sounds like recurring song in Woody Allen film). The bus ride to get there was brutal, but as fate would have it, the ride was much more cozy than it would prove to be on the return route. We got a flat tire and were stranded in the middle of nowhere for almost four hours– Hooray for lack of roadside assistance and bus driver ineptitude.

Nonetheless, Barcelona was really fun. We weren’t there for long enough. Not even close. But it was a lively city. Compare Bilbao’s quiet artsy feel–think Stanford–versus Barcelona’s sketchy but lovable Berkeley with a beach. Tons of people everywhere. It was moving all the time.

There was just a feel of cool about it. I don’t know if it was saying the name of the city, the way it sensually flicks off your tongue like a Nabokov title. Say it with four flicks of the tongue BAR, CE, LO, NA. So good you can taste it. (Click here to read more…)

Europe isn’t terribly big.

It’s not small, of course, but it’s so much more dense than the United States that the distances between points of interest are so much smaller than back home. There are no “flyover states.” Getting around in the states is such a hassle; not so over here. One of the upshots of hanging out in Paris for an extended period is the ability to ride the rails for a few hours and end up in a completely different place.

London is 3 hours away. Geneva is 4 hours away. Amsterdam is 5 hours away, and Berlin is 9 hours away. Hop on the metro after dinner, get cozy in your train seat, and wake up in Deutschland. For mono-cultural Americans, it’s like travel porn.

To make this all a bit easier, all the major rail companies banded together and started offering the “Eurail Pass,” only available outside of Europe, allowing unlimited train travel for different periods of time. When I took my first eurotrip fall semester ‘07, I had a tw0-month continuous Global pass, which allowed me to go anywhere in Western Europe for two continuous months. It was about a grand. For this trip, I bought a 10-day 3-country Selectpass, which let me travel for any 10 24-hour periods (midnight to midnight) within 2 months, within France, Germany, and BeNeLux. It cost me $395.

(Click here to read more…)

For those unfamiliar with the staple Mediterranean dish: Fattoush is a pleasant salad combining several kinds of vegetable, toasted or fried pita chips and stomach-eating bacteria. Or at least that’s what I imagined the recipe must look like as I spent the larger part of my weekend curled into a ball at the foot of my bed cursing the follies of human digestion and my own hubris.

I could blame this on cruel fate, but the truth is, I got cocky. I heard the warnings: Don’t eat the salad. Lebanon is a bottled-water kind of country, where cooked food in restaurants is fine but too much lettuce (washed in liquid evil) is to be avoided by all travelers, especially those with delicate foreign sensibilities.

But I had been fine so far. I had downed my tabbouleh like there was no tomorrow. Those were happy times.

(Click here to read more…)

I ran trains on Madrid. And buses. Friday through sunday. All day every day. Well, this weekend at least.

Friday, I guided a half-ass (more like a quarter-ass or even an eighth-ass) walking tour of Madrid. My Lonely Planet book had so carefully laid out a perfectly confusing and irrational walking path of historic Madrid. I’m no Lewis or Clark with a map, but I’m certainly no Clark Griswold either. Let me stop here to appreciate my off-the-cuff creativity. That was almost a good reference.

Thank To-Whom-It-May-Concern (for all you non-denominationalists out there) or in my case God, for Avi, one of our program’s monitors, who came with us. I was planning on leading the tour like this- (Click here to read more…)

Photo Credit: Thomas Tan

It feels like I have been in Spain for a lot longer than four days. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, jet-lag or excitement, but I’ve enjoyed my time here so far. My first day here was Sunday. After a layover in New York, I got on a 10-hour flight to Madrid. I tried sleeping on the plane but it was difficult… the noise, the lights, the cramped space between two boys, one of whom consumed 12 beers during the first few hours, was cut off, then made his friend get him more cans of Miller Light. I guess he was starting his party early with the free in-flight alcohol.

I took the Metro to Calle de San Bernardo, which was a surprisingly easy ride (I was proud I didn’t get lost!) and it only cost 2 euros. I had a little more trouble finding the place once I started walking and spent a good amount of time circling it before I finally found it. I desperately wanted a nap but unpacked, showered and got ready to go out with the rest of my classmates. One of the guys in the group asked a local where a good place to go was and he led us to a place called Shanghai Club. We all got in free and danced the night away. The DJ gave us a shout out in English (“Put your hands in the air if you’re from California”) and proceeded to play Michael Jackson, “The YMCA” and other notoriously “American” songs. It’s a bit hard to get used to all of the smoke everywhere and I came home reeking of it, especially my hair. (Click here to read more…)

It’s gorgeous here. No, it’s not even worth it to try and describe it in words. All the brochures, all the travel guides, all the photos; none of it does it any justice. Outside of Bangkok, there is a seemingly endless expanse of jungle paradise. White, sandy beaches, purple and orange sunsets, warm and beautiful waters, the list goes on and on. I’ve met people here who say they’ve been here for 20 years; just came here and never could pull themselves away. The people are gracious and eager to please, everyone is ready and willing to show the foreigners a good time in the Kingdom of Thailand.

It seems so easy to lose yourself here. Hang loose, chill out and have a good time. Too often I forget that I’m here for class and study. Our main curriculum is to interact with local communities and help them with their own projects, often things I never would have done if I was here on my own. (Click here to read more…)

Video: David Liu
Location: Zurich, Switzerland (Grossmunster)