CRAZY first day in Vienna

ummmmm. not exactly the apartment i had in mind. the landlord reveiled to me that we actually cant move in completely yet. apparently she booked some people already. what's wierd about this place is its more of a vacation rental place, not a permanent apartment. there's a lot of people staying for 3-5 days. so in a week from now, we can have one of the rooms, with living and kitchen area, for only 900 euros a month. DIVIDED BY 3. really insano cheap. but i wish we could move and stay in it right now. i just want to get settled in. so since there is no place for us to stay for the next 6 days, the landlord and her husband said we can stay at her house 50 kilometers of of the city. WTF. sorry to say that but seriously...wtf. we are gonna roll with it but its pretty freaking wierd. they seem really nice though. hopefully its not one of those horror movie situations. i don't even want to think about it. anyways, we go there tomorrow night, just at nights when they head out there. ill check it out, but if it sucks because they head out there too early, i'll probably crash on sarah's couch for those days, or call some other people that might have a spot. whatever. WHEN IN ROME. or vienna i guess.

well for tonight we get to stay in the place that was promised to us (amazing), so i'm kicking it here w/my new roommates, packed in a tiny room w/three beds. one of them is a girl. both are chinese. i love it. this is going to be so wierd and ridiculous and probably annoying at times. im pretty easy going about the whole room-sharing thing, but i dont really know how this girl is going to feel. SOON ENOUGH. they are both really great people though. im excited to get to know them. sort of feel like i'm back in china right now though. haha. they bought a rice cooker today. SO MONEY. i love rice. especially in austria. well im going to bed. my first night in austria. kinda uncomfortable, sketchy, and of course, very new. the time is about to fly by though, as usual.

im stoked to go find a cell phone, see the city center, find the churches ive been in contact with, and of course...EAT MORE BREAD!

Vienna here we come!

sarah and i are on the high speed train to vienna now. just stopped thru salzburg where mozart was born. kinda cool. might have to come back. we shall seeee. EVERYTHING is green. its nuts. its like the germans dropped all of their houses onto completely green pastures everywhere. lots of church. i mean LOTS of them. but i dont know if anyone actually goes......

sarah and i both have a place to say in vienna now. last minute stuff for sure. i only had a place as of 2 days ago. seriously cutting it close. but who knows what will happen when i show up there. these viennese people are so flaky. me and two students from the So Cal Institute of Arch in downtown LA are getting a place together. should be interesting. may or may not be sharing a single room with both of them. but if we do, it will be so cheap that i might spend less by living in europe than La. definitely worth it.

we start school on thursday. craaazy. not ready for that. kinda of scary in fact. zaha is supposed to be there. who really know if she will show up though. she's a busy woman...had places to be ya know? i'm definitely going to get a picture with her. sarah and i have a plan to make it happen, even if she's 50 feet in the distance.

haha..there's a little girl sitting next to me right now. she's really cute but won't shutup. her mom keeps speaking to her in german but she's obviously not telling her to be quiet...i can't help but like her though because she keeps coming up to me and handing me some of her rice cake ball snack thingies...pretty delicious actually. i keep telling her "danke" because that's like the only german word i know how to say without thinking about it. that's about to change once im on my own in vienna. no wulf to help me out.

Munich - beer, bread, and cheese

made it to munich from amsterdam safely. dont think i lost anything this time. my friend wulf picked me up from the central munich train station. holy crap im in germany. awesome! wulf has a pretty sweet place (in the gay district - kinda like the west hollywood of munich), but its really nice and there's enough room for both of us easily. (and no, he's not gay). it's right in the middle of munich and there's tons of little coffee shops and bakeries lining the streets with little european cars sitting outside everywhere. pretty amazing to finally see first hand.

seriously though there is bread everywhere. and its the only thing thats cheap. the exchange rate sucks so bad. its really awful. adios to my cashflow. i spent a ton of money on the first day here, it was retarded. i think i lost some too. and by the way, "think" is the keyword. i don't really know if i lost money or not. kind of up in the air. i'll i can say is...oktoberfest + hospital + handcuffs = lost money? not sure, but i encountered some unfortunate circumstances that i'm not proud about. lesson learned...anyways thats a story for another day. but by the way, oktoberfest is COMPLETELY insane. never have i seen so many people drinking constantly in the same room. definitely not the best place for me to be. but nontheless, i was there. im not gonna lie about it. wulf and his friends go there alot...geeeez. and the tent are crazy inside. people chant american songs over and over ike YMCA and drink huge liters of special oktoberfest beers until they pass out in their leiderhosen. i didn't have any (because they are super expensive) so some lady bought me a stupid shirt that looks like fake leiderhosen. i looked pretty retarded, but then again, so did everyone else. they are all really awesome guys though--really hospitible. and they all speak great english. its crazy. i guess they learn when they are like 4.

got to see where they live as well. definitely cool. one guy had a birthday party in his backyard for the day in rural germany. breakfast of sausages and other random bavarian treats, beers, rifle shooting, and lounging on the lawn. pretttty nice! sarah and her sister met up w/us later at the festival. and later wulf was able to show us around the city. he's a pretty good tour guide and gave us some history info on the nazi reign and showed us some sweet contemporary architecture like the bmw world headquarters and the olympic stadium from the 70's. also went up inside one of the many church steeples there and saw the entire see in 360 degrees. its beautiful because its all old and nothing can be taller than one of the churches at the city center. HIT THE AUTOBAHN. so money. went a billion kilometers per hour no problem. and no cops. love it. i must say it was a pretty solid four days. lots of sausage and bread, which are both completely awesome here.

Amsterdam Airport, not as cool as it sounds

sitting in amsterdam. cant see much. airports kind of suck like that. its kind of interesting that there much more english that dutch in this airport, even for flights that are to other cities in the netherlands. pretty crazy to be here. wish i could go outside and play. but we are boarding again in like 15 minutes for munich. its 7 am here on sept 24 (10 pm sept 23 in LA). days fly by when you keep traveling this direction around the world. looking around right now, i realize that europeans love dress socks. i feel out of place because my socks are white at the moment. with any sort of outfit, they wear random dress socks. ive seen this in the states too, but im really noticing it right now because i have nothing else to notice in an airport. dang time to board again. servus!! (meaning, see u later in austrian german). man im so cool. look how fluent i am.

NYC baby

what can i say about new york except that its so money! everything about it is awesome (at least when you visit for the first time and the weather happens to resemble an LA spring). kelly, jared (the guy we stayed with), and I had the best time together. jared and i hit it off pretty well. did the touristy stuff of course, but also found some awesome local spots that made the trip so much more meaningful...

stuffed my face with nyc's best pizza (grimaldi's under the brooklyn bridge). ate delicious burgers in little holes in the wall. drank local beers in the oldest bars in new york--like so old that G Dub (George Washington, that is) and Abe Lincoln used to kick it there--and by kick it i mean give important speeches to the colonies and write amendments..that sort of stuff :)

walked the brooklyn bridge. stared at the statue of liberty for a while. napped in central park while some guy nearly stepped on my face every five minute while trying catch a frisbee. challenged kelly to a ridiculous new york pizza eating contest--3 massive slices of pizza from Koronet Pizza @ Columbia University (i tend to get involved in this constantly). Saw dinos (T-Rexes of course) and van goghs @ the MET and the Natural History Museum. met interesting people that were actually nice (contradictory to my previous belief--from others--that all new yorkers are supposed to be mean for some reason). saw a comedy show with colin quinn (from weekend update on SNL) in the basement of an old building in the West Village. Kick it in Brooklyn like a gangsta (not at all, actually). Saw Shrek the Musical on Broadway (kelly and i laughed so hard we cried...the animals in the show were hillarious...but it doesn't take much for me to think animals are funny). contemplated a lot of serious matters while watching construction at the WTC site. took a ferry to staten island only to find out that staten island sucks in almost every way--except for the view it provides of the entire city of new york. did the times square walk, which included borrowing some guy's "free hugs" sign and used it to get some great hugs for myself. received multiple, memorable hugs from random people. bought stuffed animals at the craziest toys-R-us ever (there's a ferris wheel inside of it..not a toy one, a real life size one!). went to the top of the rochefeller center. saw the city in its entirety at sunset (very romantic for kelly and I...had no choice but to cuddle a little). crazy thing--saw a friend from ucla up there--freaking small world for sure. what are the odds, really? randomly got a chinese back massage at a 24 hr hole in the wall massage place--but it was actually supposed to be a foot massage, so that was kinda wierd. creeped a University of Penn student out at 5 am in the subway, prob cause she was all alone in a subway at 5 am listen to two guys that wouldn't stop talking about stupid things (that's us).

saw the restaurant in seinfeld. made some meaningful friendships w/people there. probably gained about 10 pounds in 3 days. sat next to spiderman on a subway train...yeah that's right--spiderman. kicked it on wall street (and yes, touched the bull's balls @ merril lynch or however to say it). walked thru columbia university and nyu..columbia is much better :) ate too many street vendor hot dogs...but you gotta, right? watched live blues music. ate at an indian place at 5 am that served me a half tuna melt and side salad w/carrot dressing. wierd. slept on a a fluffy animal skin rug from 5 am to 10 am every day (exhausting to the max). ate quite possibly the best pastrami sandwich that has ever been built (also gave me the worst heartburn that a cheesy sandwich can give). saw obama's train of blacked out suv's speeding away from a hotel in times square (he was there for the UN meeting or something). watched a variety of bums pee on various subway walls. by the way, new york goes underground like 6 stores---everywhere! its crazy.

REALIZED THAT DOING ALL THIS IN THREE DAYS MAKES YOU INCREDIBLY EXHAUSTED. CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THREE MONTHS. by the time i get to vienna i will have to sleep for three days to recoup. ALSO REALIZED ONCE AGAIN THAT ALL THIS DOESN'T COMPLETELY SATISFY ME. yeah, its fun stuff. but its not necessary. hmmm too serious a statement for now.

so stoked to sleep on the plane to amsterdam, which is boarding now. officially leaving the country now..

Phone Numbers Galore

Thank God for my parents!! had 10 messages when i landed in new york, filled with a variety of phone numbers that i frantically sribbled down in the office of a jetblue airways baggage claim in new jersey. then, greatly relieved, i proceded to call about 100 people and spend about 1.5 hrs on that office's phone (for free of course, even though it was a landline and i was constantly dialing california numbers).

With God's help i was able to make it to zach's buddy's place in the upper eastside through this whole ordeal. its crazy how much we need our phones these days, or at least think we need them. when i get back i guess im gonna write them down or something so i'm not completely screwed when i go somewhere. (like the good old days, when people used address books). I was also able to get ahold of my buddy Kelly, who is on his way down from boston the first night, not knowing whether or not he would ever hear from me or know where to meet me in a new city the size of like 30 san franciscos.

train's here for manhattan from new jersey. on my way to the eastside yo.

cell phones are more important than you think

wow. you guys arent going to believe what i just did. as much fun as sitting in a dive bar with some old buddies in seattle last night was...it was NOT worth what i did the next morning:

went to bed at 4, set my alarm on my phone for 7 am. woke up. frantically unplugged charger and ipod. went to the restroom. woke up zach. packed up charger and ipod. walked out the door. drove to seatac airport. said goodbye to zach. got in security check line. went through security. put my hand in my pocket. searching for my phone. searching...seearching...seeearching. #$*@!!!!

you should have seen my face when i realized i left my phone at zach's place in seattle. no phone numbers...no phone. not sure what to do when i got to new york. haha. awful.

i proceded to bother a variety of people for their cell phones right before boarding the plane. i had to make these people really understand what i was going through so i make sure that they realized how hard life would be w/out their phones...that way they would feel sorry for me and not think im creepy for trying to use them.

unfortunately no one answers their phone at 7 am on a saturday morning. wierd. so i left a lot of messages to certain people asking for certain numbers and stuff to be left on my voicemail. had to board the plane without knowing if i would have any messages or phone numbers when i made it to new york. thats some serious anticipation! a five hour plane ride to think about how retarded i am for leaving my phone. even though i only had a few hours of sleep, i was suddenly not tired anymore..

Seattle Layover

and i'm off! layover in seattle approaches...not just your typical layover tonight, however. A full night extravaganze with a good buddy from Cal Poly. He lives in Olympia now so he's driving up to meet me and kick it for the night. works out pretty well in the whole scheme of things. i'm excited to see him because it's been over two years since the last time we hung out...crazy how time flies.

k its plane boarding time...

Boba is actually good

I used to think boba drinks were kinda wierd. that's from the simple fact that there are small balls of goo in a drink that's supposed to be refreshing. hmmm. but you know what, those little ball of goo are pretty addicting, as i find myself searching for those and avoiding the drink itself. The reason i bring up boba in the first place is because im at this coffee shop / asian fusion restaurant / tea house / study room that is known for "boba". might as well live the edge and try a little boba. haha. Stephen's here with me, doing a little prep work for an interview he has in the morning. I'm writing this right now but i'm actually here to do something like study german, or learn maya (a program for my architecture skills), or find a place to live in Austra. Oh ya i just found out that I have a place to crash in NYC. yeayaaaaa....i finally got a bite from a couchsurfer and he seems pretty dope. lives right in midtown manhattan and says he'll take us around and show us a good time. now i really don't have to sleep in the park! i think im going to hit up the german flashcards now...

wie geht es inhen? sehr gut, danke! und inhen? prima! wie ist ihr name? mien name is Ryan...blah blah blah...

One Week Till Departure

I'm at work. besides being at work and doing work (of course, right?!) I'm busy considering the 5 billion things that need to be done before I leave a week from Friday. I don't even have a place to live yet...in Austria or New York. It's not like I didn't expect this. Who would actually want to give me a place to live in Austria when they can't meet me? I could be really sketchy and want to steal from them or something. I don't know. As for New York..I feel that people that want to house couchsurfers are less likely to accept people from the United States..in the United States. I wouldn't. I'd rather have someone from Madagascar or Botswana come. Either way...I may be sleeping on a park bench in Central Park for four days. That would definitely be exciting.

I can't believe this summer is already over! As much as I want to go to Austria, there's nothing like summer in LA with great people...Why would I want that to end? im probably just scared of being around things like...oh i don't know...rain, snow, cold. hmm...maybe I shouldn't bring my flip flops...