Cross-Country Road Trip in the COVID-19 Era

The past few months have been trying, to say the least. What was supposed to be a joyful, optimistic culmination to our two years in Ann Arbor became an uncertain, abrupt and bizarre end to our time in Michigan. Without a clear “what” and “when” to our next steps, Marisa and I (and Zoe) decided to pack up and move back to Portland. 

This is my account of the drive across the country. If you are planning a move and/or road trip during the COVID era and/or just want to read about two people and a dog cramming into a Mazda and driving through the heartland, you might enjoy this post. I will take you through the planning and execution of the ~35-hour drive (it’s shorter on the empty, coronavirus roads), which we completed yesterday. 

Heads-up that we might come across as neurotic and that that is a fully accurate description of the Bell-Zimmerman crew en route to Portland. 

The Planning

The first major debate was whether to drive or fly across the country. Cost implications (shipping a car, moving more things, etc.) were considered, but we really were just hoping to not get infected. 

Like all of you, we have been glued to COVID-19 Twitter. COVID-19 Twitter is a scary place. Don’t visit it. In the month leading up to our departure, I saw posts of empty planes, posts of completely full planes, posts excoriating people for complaining about full planes while contributing to a full plane, and posts responding to posts about people complaining about planes. Flying seemed like a crapshoot and, since our rescue dog is a little high strung and has never flown, we weren’t sure if there was enough Xanax in the world (for her and for us) to fly without crippling anxiety. 

So, we decided to drive. Our goal was to minimize contact with people, stay in places with low human turnover in the days preceding our arrival, and just truck across the country as fast as we possibly could. My brother put the fear of god in me just before we left, asking if we had researched which bathrooms would be open along the way. Marisa and I have both taken our fair share of long trips, but we have always used gas stations. The rabbit hole I got into of reports of gas station and rest area closures in certain areas of the country made my head and bladder spin. Truckers were revolting in the Northeast!

My dad did some research as we packed up the house and reassured us that the highway rest areas in all states, especially the ones we’d pass through, looked to be open. That gave us some relief (get it?). 

Thirty five hours is also an awkward amount of time, in that a two-night drive is really ambitious but a three-night drive feels like criminal laziness. I was personally committed to making the trip in three days, because, I don’t know, maybe COVID wouldn’t be able to match our pace? Marisa, noted break lover, eventually relented, and we planned just two stops. 

The first was in Grand Island, Nebraska, in the heart of flyover country and, as we learned today but not two days ago, a newsworthy town home to a fully infected meatpacking plant. The second would be somewhere in Utah or Idaho, depending on our endurance. The third night would be spent in Portland, where we could begin to get reacclimatized to a life of coastal elitism. 

Intermission: Rest Areas, Ranked

We are now connoisseurs of blue sign, highway rest areas. Each state clearly has a unique budget and commitment to its public facilities, and we put a lot of effort into analyzing, dissecting, and discussing each stop. 

Here is how I would rank states on I-80 and I-84, from best to worst. 

Elk Mountain Rest Area in Wyoming. One of the country’s premier rest-inations.

1. Iowa. With shocking attention to detail and cleanliness, Iowa’s rest areas blew every other state’s out of the water. Take an extra pee as you drive through the Hawkeye State, just to get your money’s worth.

2. Oregon. I am biased, but the I-84 rest stops, although not glamorous, are nestled among some of the most beautiful highway scenery in the country. Once you enter the Columbia River Gorge, you’ll want to start guzzling cold brew for the excuse to get out and snap a few photos.

3. Wyoming. Similar to Oregon, you’re peeing in Wyoming for the scenery. The facilities are clean, but the real value can be found on the rest area nature trails. Hit the stall and then hit a quick stroll. 

4. Utah. A bit disappointed by ole’ Utah. Although the setting is much more appealing than the prairie, the prairie dog infestation during our stop lit my actual dog’s prey drive on fire. 

5. Idaho. We were listening to a thriller on tape (it was really bad) and it was getting dark. The speed limit was 80mph, there were deer corpses all over the road, and it was beginning to rain. Idaho believes the best way to pee in these conditions is far removed from the road, where nobody can see you. We were ready to be a chapter in the thriller. Also, there was no soap at a stop near Boise. 

6. Nebraska. I don’t even know where to begin. We should have just worn diapers through Nebraska. Part of me wishes their rest areas were closed. I am not sure anyone has ever written this sentence or will ever write it again, but they should really follow Iowa’s lead. 

(I started paying attention after Michigan and Illinois, but I would guess that they fall in between Utah and Idaho.) 

The Execution

Things went mostly as planned. I drove all but one (1!) hour of the trip, but I actually enjoyed it because it kept me engaged. 

Marisa was a front seat wizard. We packed supplies, and Marisa would find a way to make us lunch, while we were driving 80mph, in an extremely cramped space. That eliminated all potential lunch stops. Same thing with snacks, as we were essentially traveling with a mini mart in our car. 

Hygienically, we had copious amounts of hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes, which we used religiously after pumping gas, frequenting the aforementioned rest areas (shoutout Iowa once more for the hospitality), and when entering our accommodations at night. 

Now, we also had masks. In Ann Arbor, this was not notable. Almost everybody had masks. In Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Idaho, this was very notable. I remember Marisa going into a Casey’s in Nebraska to get some coffee, and she looked like she was about to steal $1.09 of caffeine. It was a weird encounter with a different part of the country. Infection rates in most places were relatively low, and we understood why residents of the smaller towns didn’t feel like they could be impacted by COVID-19. But Marisa and I, in a strange sense, were the exact vehicles that could bring the virus to their small towns. 

I’m about to break in and sanitize your door handles.

Did we get looks as we rolled up to gas stations and rest areas with our Michigan plates and got out in our black masks? Yes, every single time. Did some dudes scoff when they saw me taking a leak in Nebraska? Definitely. Did we care? Sure, but not enough to not cover our faces. Like I said above, we were trying to minimize the potential of spreading the virus as much as we were trying to protect ourselves. Not all heroes wear capes. 

Masks were optional in virtually every state we went to. When we checked into a La Quinta, a massive, Wyndham-owned chain, in Idaho, the front desk staff were not wearing masks. Guests were swimming in the pool! Some fast food and Starbucks workers (you thought I could drive 35hrs without any fast food?) weren’t wearing masks. It just was what it was, and we tried to be as careful as possible, given the conditions.

Beyond the sanitation routine, the BYOF/B, and the minimal stops, the drive was fine. Generally, we felt safe, although we definitely were exposed at times. There was zero traffic, which was insane, and we made pretty incredible time. We left Monday at 8am EST and reached Portland on Wednesday at 4pm PST. 

I never want to drive again. 

Bonus: Favorite Town Names

1. Montezuma, Iowa

2. Normal, Illinois

3. Persia, Iowa

4. Grand Island, Nebraska

A Day with the Elephants

Of all the Thailand suggestions we received, visiting an elephant sanctuary was at the top of most lists of things to do in Chiang Mai. Elephant Nature Park (ENP) was the best known in the region and arguably one of the best programs of its kind. It seemed like a no-brainer when we booked a half day a few months ago, and it did not disappoint.

The shuttle picked us up at our hotel around 8:45. It was already about half full, and we collected two more parties along the way. Our group was pretty diverse: a pair of guys from Paraguay (heh), a mother and son from New Jersey, two young women from Argentina, and two couples from the US and Germany (I think). The drive to Elephant Nature Park was about an hour, but our time was occupied by a video about the sanctuary created six years ago (now featuring outdated stats) and a few words by our group leader, Ten. We were run through the dos (be chill, stroke their trunks and shoulders, take pictures) and don’ts (stand directly behind them, pick up food that they’ve dropped, ignore your group leader), which several people in our group immediately ignored as soon as we saw elephants.

We arrived a little after 10 and were given some time to use the bathroom before our first elephant encounter of the day. Right before we were about to walk over to the feeding station, some idiot in our group informed Ten that he forgot his cell phone in the shuttle, which had since driven away from the dropoff point. Ten was pretty agitated, but he was gracious enough to arrange for him to pick up his phone from the shuttle driver near the feeding station. Given that everyone paid a lot of money and just spent an hour in the van to meet the elephants, this was a pretty aggravating delay. It is exactly the kind of thing that annoys me about tour groups.

Except this time, I was the idiot. My bad.

Anyway, now that the crisis was averted and I could post lots of things to Instagram, we made our way to the first feeding station, which wasva wooden platform with a pretty clear “do not cross” line that virtually everybody crossed. We were given bananas, watermelons and pumpkins to feed a family that happily greeted us. It was fun watching the picky eaters fling watermelons over their shoulders, as well as the differences between elephants that picked favorites among the visitors and those that systematically spread the love, moving back and forth along the platform and taking food from all comers.

The elephants at ENP are Asian elephants, which are different (obviously) from African elephants. Asian elephants are a bit smaller and grayer, have a two-domed (humped) head and are generally more friendly than African elephants. They also have a one-finger trunk tip, which is surprisingly adept at picking up food.

Now a little about ENP and why it exists. In Thailand, private citizens are still, somehow, permitted to own elephants for the purposes of “work.” Despite ending the ivory trade in 2014 (2014!), there still hasn’t been much progress when it comes to their legal protection. Work, in this case, is always bad, frequently horrendous. From their use in the lumber trade to their inclusion in circuses and tourist traps, domesticated elephants are subjected to pretty intense abuse in order to be, well, domesticated. But in a poor country, their use generates some monetary value, which the government sees as a net positive.

At ENP, elephants have been rescued with conditions that include broken legs, emaciation, ear loss and, as perhaps the shittiest example, complete blindness caused by whips from an angry human trainer. If that made you cringe, good. The positive news is that ENP is leading the way in elephant protection and awareness, and now have over 70 elephants on several hundred acres of land. (For the record, they also rescue dogs, cats and water buffalo.) The project is wholly funded by donors and ecotourism, so your money is doubly beneficial.

This is Jenpeng. She's 80, loves bananas and enjoys getting blinged out with an ear corsage. 

Back to the day. We stepped down from the platform and walked along the grounds toward one of the elephant stations. A pair of female best friends, aged 80 and 60, eagerly accepted another banana offering and some trunk stroking. Elephants apparently can live past 100 and have an average life span of 70. We saw multiple octogenarians during our brief time there. Also, although some of the elephants were rescued as family members, many form their own families and friend groups or adopt new elephants into their own.

After a few more meet-and-greets, we had lunch, chatted with our groupmates, and prepared for the afternoon stations. Here’s another thing I have in common with elephants: they tend to get cranky after lunch. There’s a strict no-petting policy in the afternoon, because the elephant behavior becomes a bit more unpredictable and they prefer to chill with their friends/family and have a nap, which they do either standing up - using their trunk for stabilization - or lying down on their side. This is totally fair. Don’t touch me during nap time.

The rest of the afternoon was spent meeting different groups of elephants. Toward the end, we looked across a narrow river to see a group of tourists riding elephants at a neighboring attraction. NEVER RIDE AN ELEPHANT. This is bad. It hurts them. A lot. And the training required to make elephants rider friendly is, again, really bad. I like to think that most people who still do this are just ignorant, but I’m sure there are still folks who just really do not give a shit. Those are bad people. If you are one of these people, stop riding elephants.

We peppered Ten with a few more questions before it was time to leave. I picked up a fanny pack at the gift shop (all proceeds go to ENP) and we hopped in the shuttle back to the hotel.

Ten forgave me enough to take this picture. 

A quick thought before I close. Before we rescued Zoe (our dog) a few years ago, I used to think that people who obsessed over their pets and attributed human affect to them were really weird. I have always liked animals, but not to the point where I fully understood the deep emotional connection that I’ve heard described. That changed as soon as she came home with us. Now, I feel like a father to her.

I say this to mention that elephants are way smarter than dogs, and their love and appreciation for (good) humans is just as strong. The way they positively responded to their new keepers and the perpetual stream of new visitors was incredible to watch. It’s obviously not as good as a life in the wild, but knowing that they are receiving world class treatment and rehabilitation, especially in a developing country, is heartwarming.

Overall, this was one of the best experiences of my life. If you ever need some random elephant trivia, I'm your guy. And if you’d like to learn more about what you can do to help protect these gentle giants, please check out this site.

Tuk Tuking in Thailand

(I had this blog post written and finished a few days ago, but my Chromebook crashed and I lost everything. This is punishment for being a shtity travel partner who spends time blogging. But here we are - sorry for the delay.)

Toward the end of last week, we were beginning to feel some vacation fatigue. The temples were starting to blend together, we were feeling a little fluffy and, worst of all, Marisa was getting really sick of my jokes. 

Our last day fixed all of that. From the period of noon to midnight, we:

• Had gyoza for lunch

• Had second lunch at a sushi train

• Received a funky but effective Japanese massage from a man with what seemed like a sinus infection

• Had dinner at that "modern kaiseki"

• Had second dinner at the Izakaya we visited the night before

This final day was a microcosm of our full 10-day trip. Good drinks. Exciting culture. Kind people. Endless eating. 

Leaving Marisa was tough. We travel really well together, and it's fun getting to explore a new place with someone who can (usually) deal with me and is equally into food. I am a big advocate for traveling with a partner early and often in a relationship. At least in my experience, we've always grown quite a lot during our time away, as it forces us into compromises and uncomfortable situations that we normally wouldn't face in our daily lives back home. She is and probably will forever be a better traveler than me, but it's fun to observe how in sync we can be while exploring a new place.

Our view from Giro Giro Hitoshina. 

But now I'm with Steve.

My flight from Narita to Bangkok was 6.5 hours, about as long as it takes for me to fly from New York to Portland. When I arrived, I was met by a surprisingly nonexistent customs line. I barreled my way through the airport, picked up a mobile WiFi (had one in Japan as well; highly recommended), headed outside, immediately started sweating in the humidity and proceeded to catch a cab.

Now, I didn’t do much research before this trip, but I did read about how to deal with taxi drivers in Thailand. When you arrange for your ride, you’re supposed to kindly request “meter, please,” signifying that you want to pay by the meter, not by a negotiated price. Normally the drivers are cool with this, but some will give you a hard time. If that’s the case, you can ask to leave the car and grab a different cab. 

So here I am, confident travel blogging guy, walking up to my cab driver and asking for the meter. He said yes, put my bag in the trunk, and then started the car. He did not, however, start the meter. We begin driving off and I ask again, “meter, please,” and he says “NOOOO 800 Baht.” I know this ride is supposed to cost in the vicinity of 400 Baht, so I again say “no, meter.” I then ask him to let me out of the car, but he continues to drive. I ask one more time, and he yells at me in Thai before turning the meter on. 

Apparently I was also supposed to pay for the highway tolls, but I couldn’t understand what he was asking. What followed was a tense, five-minute negotiation in our respective native languages where neither person understood the other. Finally when we got to the toll, it made sense. I’m not in Japan anymore!

I finally got to the hotel after midnight, where I met up with Steve, one of my good friends from college. He took the world’s 27th-longest commercial flight (16 hours) from JFK to Guangzhou (China), where he switched planes before heading to Bangkok. Steve arrived earlier that morning. Guess who was more tired? (Me.)

Steve could only lend a week to this trip, which meant we had to pack a lot in a little. (A week is definitely not long enough in Thailand. I know this because everybody likes to tell us when they find our we’re spending a week in Thailand.) Anyway, our research led us to believe that we only really needed a day in Bangkok to see the big sites. This proved to be true.

A tuk tuk. I stole this from Wikipedia. 

Some late night Googling led me to a service called Tuk Tuk Hop, an on-demand, hop on, hop off tuk tuk service that brings tourists to nearly 50 different temples, markets, and more. Think of it as Tuk Tuk Uber, but with unlimited rides and a daily rate of less than $10. In just a few hours, we were able to see Wat Trimitr (Golden Buddha), the Grand Palace, Wat Arun, Wat Pho (home of the Reclining Buddha), the Flower Market, the Marble Temple, and the Democracy Monument. 

Bangkok was definitely a change of pace from the past 10 days. While Japan is very orderly, Bangkok features controlled(ish) chaos. The first few minutes on the tuk tuk involved bracing myself for impact from any combination of cars, scooters or humans. But once you realize that there’s a bit of a method to the madness and your tuk tuk won’t get t-boned by a Chinese tour bus, it’s really fun to watch people just weave in and out of each other like it’s second nature. 

"No, you hang up!" (Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho)

Oh, and have I mentioned that it’s hot in Thailand? It is really fucking hot in Thailand. The combination of heat, humidity and relatively no breeze is my weather nightmare. I walked around looking like I just played a few hours of basketball, but luckily for me, everybody is sweating. As long as I avoid wearing white and becoming a one-man wet t-shirt contest, I can deal with it. 

That evening, we took a one-hour domestic flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second biggest city located in the north. This is a city famous for its food, more temples and an interesting mix of locals and expats. Our hotel was just around the corner from one of the famous night markets, where we went for a late dinner before passing out. 

The next day was similar to the one before, as we kicked things off with a self-guided tour of Chiang Mai’s temples. These were also gorgeous, but after seeing so many in such a short period of time, they began to blend together. I do wish each site had a bit more historical information available to its visitors. At a minimum, it would give a little more context to what we were seeing. I could also just look this up on the internet, but it’s a bad look to be inside of a shrine while staring at your phone. 

At that point, it was time for our first real Thai lunch. We found a place called Huy Phen, which came recommended by the hotel. We were the only foreigners in the place, which served delicious Khao Soi (Chiang Mai’s most famous dish) and other types of curry and spicy* salads. Spicy gets an asterisk because it wasn’t that spicy, even though we were warned. My guess is that we got the gringo treatment, as this became a trend at a few more restaurants. 

Steve at Huy Phen. I told him I'd overeat spicy food if he didn't smile for at least one picture. 

That afternoon, we took advantage of the hotel pool, which was very welcomed in the sweltering heat. Dinner was at another restaurant, although this one was definitely more tailored toward tourists. Regardless, it became one of our favorite in Chiang Mai, so much so that we ate there twice. It was either at lunch or dinner that I made a comment about how well my stomach was holding up after blasting it with thai food for 48 hours. This trip was beginning to make a man out of me… until later that night. I won’t go into details, but I made my bed and I was forced to lie in it. The things I’ll do for Khao Soi. 

Tummy troubles were a good excuse to go to bed, as the next day we had an early wake-up call to head to the Elephant Nature Park, one of the best elephant sanctuaries in the world. That trip deserves a post of its own, which I promise to do soon.  
 

Pace and Space

Murin-an Villa.

The internet is your best and worst friend while traveling.

On the one hand, Google Maps is extremely dependable in Japan for all public transit information, down to the time it takes to walk to a bus stop, the number of the bus, the number of stops you'll pass and the cost of the ride. We have never been truly lost, despite having no idea of where we are at any given time. RIP physical maps (6th century BC - 2018). 

On the other, the internet is extremely overwhelming when it comes to making decisions. There is so much to sift through, and separating meaningful insights from cyber trash is difficult. Then there's TripAdvisor, which, despite being the most visited travel site in the world, is a cesspool of bad taste and competing opinions. "I found God in the Ariahiyama bamboo grove." "The Arashiyama bamboo grove is great if you don't value time or fun." (The Arashiyama bamboo forest had a 1:1 ratio of people to bamboo. Skip it.) 

Morning tea. Not pictured: the hole I ripped in the crotch of my pants that makes sitting cross-legged pretty awkward for everybody involved. 

No matter where you go or how long you stay, the fact is that you'll never truly have enough time to see everything. And that's okay! Everyone has a different version of an "ideal trip," from their activity levels to food preferences. Some folks really emphasize experiencing as much as they possibly can, even if that comes at the expense of sleep or relaxation. Others get to know a place through the conversations they have at the bar. Both are fun, neither is wrong. 

What is important is that you don't get psyched out by Instagram or a TripAdvisor comment by John from San Diego. Fuck John from San Diego - you probably wouldn't get along with him anyway. Travel at a speed that makes sense for you. If you need a minute to chill out alone, chill out. To steal a strategy from modern basketball, traveling is all about pace and space. The more I've accepted that, the more I've gained from my time away.

Marisa and I will leave Japan in a few days knowing that we'll have missed some of the key sights, which would likely get us ostracized from the TripAdvisor community. We didn't fed the deer in Nara, eat at the robot restaurant in Tokyo or bathe at an onsen. But we won't lose any sleep over it, because we'll hopefully be back and we've had an amazing time stumbling upon amazing places that weren't on the must-see lists. 

So now that I've successfully eliminated any chance of being sponsored by TripAdvisor in the future, here are a few updates and observations from the past few days:

-After reaching a bit of a tourist boiling point, we've been hellbent on starting our days with visits to serene and uncrowded temples. Yesterday began with Myoshinji, which came highly recommended by Marisa's parents. We walked around the vast grounds, visited a beautiful garden, had tea and even did a short meditation. This was my first time practicing without Headspace, and it actually went pretty well. We were virtually alone. It was calming. 

Myoshinji Temple.

-The respectfulness of Japanese culture is so refreshing and illuminating. There's a lot of hostility in the States that we just accept as normal. A great illustration of this is any time we rage on the sidewalk because somebody is walking slowly. I am 100% guilty of this; I am the Sidewalk Sheriff. But here, people genuinely go with the flow, as to not be disruptive or aggressive. They also respect the rules, and I love me some rules. They wait in line. They don't run for trains. They stand on the correct side of the escalator.

-Some may scream recency bias, but I again think we've had two of our best meals in recent days. For dinner last night, we had shabu shabu, which is the boiling of meat (usually beef and pork) or tofu in specialty broth. It was an all-you-can-eat affair, and we got our yen's worth. And then today, we waited an hour at an udon restaurant that we just came across while meandering near the Philosopher's Walk. This was my favorite dish of the trip, despite it not being very photogenic. 

Curry udon. If it looked as good as it tasted, it wouldn't be fair to other food. 

-We've gotten more comfortable using "Osusume wa" (What do you recommend?) at restaurants and bars. It's a nice way to break the language barrier and experience the best offerings. Normally this is good. It was slightly less good when I accidentally ordered a $50 shot of Japanese whisky. 

Tomorrow, we're wrapping up our trip with a two-hour massage and dinner at one of the more popular modern restaurants here (Giro Giro Hitoshina). My next post will come en route to Thailand, where I'll be meeting up with my friend Steve for the week. 

(Let me know if you're enjoying the blog in the comments. I would love to answer any questions and/or take suggestions for future entries. I'm having a lot of fun doing this. Thanks for reading.)

Vacation with a Purpose

Kyoto, Japan 

"What are you going to do with all that time?" That was the question I fielded most often in the weeks before my final day of work. It's also a question that I've asked myself repeatedly, knowing that in order to have a good answer for you, I need to have a good answer for myself. "Traveling" is insufficient in my case, because I've had and will have opportunities to visit some really exciting places. Plus if I just treat the next four months as a long vacation, I'm going to have a pretttty rough time readjusting to all of the stress that I recently escaped. 

Instead, the cheesy but honest reason for this time off (besides eating) is to improve. It hasn't even been two weeks since my final paycheck and I already look and feel and think so much healthier. I'm a high-strung guy. I wear my emotions on my sleeve, can be stubborn as hell, don't always make the perfect decisions under pressure and can really get better at coping with stress. This improvement shouldn't require an extended period of unemployment and reflection in front of Japanese shrines, but, in going back to the first post of this trip, I'm really fucking lucky. 

So how can I make the most out of the next few months and truly develop as a human without sacrificing the fun that I can and should be having while traveling? 

Let's get the easiest one out of the way first. This is long overdue, but I'm going to actually try to practice mindfulness on a daily basis. I've been doing some #millennialmeditation through Headspace each morning. Just a few minutes of guided practice where I try to redirect my thoughts away from getting trapped inside of a train station (more on that in a minute) and sushi and where I'm going to do laundry. We're still in the finger painting stages of meditation, but I do feel like I'm getting slightly better. 

Just in case you're getting bored with the philosophizing, here's a pic of some fire curry udon. Bury me on a bed of udon noodles. 

Next, I want to constantly push the boundaries of my comfort. I'm a pretty risk-averse dude, and it would be pretty easy to travel with training wheels. Instead, I'm forcing myself to have uncomfortable conversations with people who don't speak my language and buy tickets for trains in characters that I don't understand.

A few days ago Marisa and I got trapped inside of a train station in Osaka. She lost her metro card, so I bought her what I thought was a one-way ticket. Turns out I bought the wrong ticket, and she couldn't get out. So I got out to look for help, then re-entered when I couldn't find any. Turns out both of us were now stuck because I think I violated some sort of one-in/one-out rule. Why am I telling a story about a nothing problem? Well, historically, even something this simple would have really stressed me out! But this time, we just laughed about it. It took some searching and patience, but we found a conductor-looking fellow who took us upstairs and gave us a freebie. 

The lesson in all of this is that, for us anxious folks, things are never as bad as they seem. Most big problems are really just a collection of tiny problems that can be solved one at a time (shoutout my old boss for this insight; it's again very basic but equally profound). So yeah, I want to get stuck in train stations and reinforce this lesson over, and over, and over again.

Lastly, I want to discover and explore things that truly give me joy. I feel that when I'm barreling through life, I seek refuge in a comfortable but limiting routine. I get up, I go to the gym, I go to work, I eat dinner, I mess around on the Internet, I get depressed reading the news on the internet, and I go to bed. There are other things that I love doing - writing, for example - that are sacrificed in order to avoid straying from the routine. I want to use the next four months, both at home and on the road, to prioritize those things and add a few more to my list. 

I hope that answers the "lol ur just traveling?" question a little better. Maybe that entire explanation got a massive eye roll. And maybe this will just turn into an extended vacation absent of true self-improvement. I can't make any promises, but I'm going to do my best. 

"Just tell us about the fucking food you ate." - everybody. 

Here's the cliff notes version of what's happened in the past few days: 

-We spent the last two days in Osaka, where we stayed at the Imperial Hotel Osaka (I got a ridiculous deal). The hotel was right on the river, which had a riverwalk adorned by the sakura (cherry blossoms). It was beautiful. It also had a bar near the top floor with allegedly the best view in the city. During our lone drink in said bar (cheapest drink was $14), we saw a sumo wrestler arrive with a posse of four guys in suits. I'm not sure if he was famous, but I'm going to tell people he was. 

-We visited most of the neighborhoods in Osaka, from the heavy tourist areas (Dotonbouri) to the more hipster spots (Nakazakicho). The one downside to our hotel is that it wasn't centrally located and was about .7 miles from the closet metro. Again, champagne problems, but we walked a lot. 

-We ate so much good food. I gave you a little sneak peek above, but I've had two udon meals in the past three days that have been unbelievably good. Our first stop in Osaka was at a tiny, locals-only, 12-seater restaurant. We both had the restaurant's staple, which was udon with beef in a beef broth. The broth was the richest and most flavorful beef broth I've tasted. 

I would sell my soul to this bowl. 

-We also had our first yakitori (chicken on skewers) experience. It was pretty good, but not as memorable as our other meals. Additionally, we had ramen, sushi and yakiniku once again, so we've essentially completed our second lap on the Japanese cuisine circuit.

-We did a little shopping. I bought a hypebeast shirt that I really like but is way too cool for me.

-We stumbled into a random motorsports themed bar, full of 10 people who seemed genuinely shocked that foreigners walked in. But they greeted us warmly, gave us a few seats at the bar, and were nothing but amazing to us as we pretended to enjoy motorcycle racing on TV. The bartender was also thrilled when I told her I was from Daytona (she had visited for one of the races). I told somebody I was from Daytona and it wasn't embarrassing!!!

Vroom vroom, bitches. 

-We are now in Kyoto, where we arrived this morning via train. I again messed up and stuck us on the local train, so we made about 20 stops instead of four. We spent the late morning/early afternoon eating and walking to a few different shrines. Kyoto is a beautiful contrast to Tokyo in Osaka, with most of the urban sprawl giving way to forest and shrines. It is once again slammed with tourists, but there are pockets to escape to. If you aren't hellbent on seeing the cherry blossoms, I would actually recommend coming when they aren't in bloom. It may not be as pretty, but it's worth the sacrifice to avoid the swarms of people. 

In front of the weeping cherry tree in Maruyama Park (Kyoto). 

Thanks for reading. By the way, follow me on Instagram (@zbzimmerman) for pictures and videos of our trip. I'm posting to my story regularly, much to the dismay of Marisa.

Sushi, Shrines and Shibuya

We are not the only visitors in Japan. I guess the spreadsheets and by-the-quarter-hour itineraries I received from several friends in the months leading up to the trip should have tipped me off.

On that note, Marisa and I didn't really put together a detailed itinerary or, really, any itinerary. We booked lodging in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, saved some must-eats on Google Maps, and have generally structured our days around eating and the guilt-filled walks that immediately follow. The nice part is that every neighborhood seems to have a handful of key sights that make the post-meal stroll purposeful and enjoyable. 

Not to brag, but we walked something like six miles yesterday. We didn't quite get piss drunk in Piss Alley the night before, although we did do a few quick field sobriety tests in the apartment to make sure there wasn't a delayed hangover on the horizon. We passed and, at 9:30 a.m., made the decision to head to the Tsukiji Fish Market. You've probably heard stories about visitors waking up at 3 a.m. to make their way to the market, sit in a cold waiting space for a few hours and fight off sleep in order to watch the famous fish auctions. We were profoundly not about that life, and instead heeded the advice to go in the late morning and eat at basically any of the sushi restaurants on the outer market. 

This is Shou. This is where I had the best sushi of my life. Don't tell anyone about Shou. If I see Shou on TripAdvisor I'm going to be upset at you. 

We made it to the market around 10:30, and quickly identified the shops with the highest TripAdvisor ratings. Instead of the hour-plus wait, we hopped in a small line outside of Shou, a 12-seat shop that looked promising. A friendly hostess/server took our orders (the eight-piece tuna special), gave us some miso soup while we waited and smiled through an American couple behind us audibly debating if they should eat at Shou since it was "obviously not as good" as a neighboring restaurant with a massive line. *Watches Chef's Table once* 

I love you. 

Twenty minutes later we were at the counter and being served our first piece of tuna. The entire experience was incredible. Every piece of tuna was the best piece of that type of tuna that I had ever had before. The marbling and texture on the fatty pieces was unlike anything we had seen or tasted. And, I hope you're sitting down for this one, I even had a little bit of morning sake to top it all off.

Since yesterday was our last full day in Tokyo, we knew we had some work to do to check off some additional boxes on our culinary list. The sushi left us satisfied but not completely full, which is often my intention but rarely my reality. With that, we headed to Shibuya in search of second lunch 

We exited the train station and found ourselves in Shibuya Crossing, a famous scramble crossing where a high density of pedestrians cross the street from all directions. It was fun to do once and really epitomized the TV-version of Tokyo that I grew up with. Tall buildings, overstimulating billboards, and tons of shops and restaurants.

The next stop was Ichiran Ramen, which usually has a long line during peak hours but had available seating for our early afternoon lunch. This place, like many ramen spots in Japan, requires patrons to order at ramen vending machines. You punch in your requests, grab your small paper ticket and head to your own private slurping booth, which is semi-enclosed by a small wooden partition. The ticket is placed in front of a small window before it is taken from a member of the Ichiran staff. After just a few minutes, a fresh bowl of ramen appeared at my window. Once again, efficient, delicious and requiring minimal interaction. 

If you thought the explicit English instructions were enough to make this easy on me, think again!

I am going to say something incredibly elitist but let me rock. This ramen was very good, but it was not as good as Marukin Ramen, a restaurant that only exists in Tokyo and (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Portland. A special tip of the cap to Marukin in Pine Street Market, which out-ramens some of the more popular Tokyo ramen. 

Two lunches deep and I was feeling a bit squishy. While in Shibuya, we decided to do some light shopping before walking to Harajuku and making our way down Takeshita Dori. Folks, this street was packed. I didn't really understand the appeal, but I am not a teenage girl and that, I am told, is the target demo of this area. 

Needing a cleanse from crowds and consumerism (give this guy a Pulitzer), we kept up the walking theme and made our way to the Meiji Shrine, which neighbored the beautiful Yoyogi Park. The shrine was gorgeous, as were the forested pathways that led to it. I love how easy it is to quickly escape the dense city streets and find some tranquility. Tokyo is definitely no less busy than New York, but I do find escaping the chaos to be much simpler.

At this point, it had been two hours since our last meal. There was an important decision to make: eat at a well-known tempura restaurant (Tempura Tsunahachi) and risk the consequences or go home and rest our hogs. We chose tempura. 

There was a strict no-phone rule, so I couldn't take photos of the lightly battered fish and vegetables. I know I'm a broken record, but I promise I will tell you if the food isn't good. This was really fucking good, and put into perspective how bad much of the American tempura is. Like all Japanese styles of cooking, this is an art. There is more involved than throwing a piece of broccoli into the deep fryer. 

I mentioned potential consequences above. We didn't make it back until about 6 p.m., and, after a nap, knew there was no chance in hell we could stomach any more food or drink. So we called it a night, with three neighborhoods, three full meals and six miles of walking pushing us to bed. 

We are traveling to Osaka today and got off to an early start. I know I was cocky about how easy it was to navigate the train system. That was before I went to Tokyo station and had to take an intercity train. 8:45 a.m. on a Sunday is apparently not early for Tokyo station, but after purchasing the wrong tickets and overcoming a strong language barrier to correct our mistakes, we got on the bullet train for Osaka.

I'm hungry. 

*CLICKBAIT* I QUIT MY JOB TO TRAVEL THE WORLD

Hi, dedicated reader of my blog. It has been 270 days since my last post. If you assumed that I had been killed by that enchilada plate in Santa Fe, you were partially right. However, I did make it back from New Mexico, and I've had a pretty unbelievable stretch since then:

• I applied to business school

• I got into business school

• I proposed

• She said yes

• I chose a business school (Michigan; Go Blue)

• I quit my job

• I flew to Japan

On all of these points, I am extremely lucky. I am lucky to have the opportunity to go back to school. I am lucky to have a partner willing to marry me and move to Michigan. And most of all, I am lucky to be able to quit my job and travel. I've watched my fair share of YouTube videos and read numerous blogs of various young people romancing about their "wanderlust" and encouraging others to leave everything behind and explore the world and find themselves and try exotic foods and marry an Italian. 

But no matter how cheaply you travel, it is a luxury. The amount of good fortune that has come my way over the past six months has given me even stronger perspective than I had before. Specifically, that I am lucky, and that what I write between now and the first day of graduate school - no matter how weird or inane or (wannabe) funny it is - will be with tremendous appreciation for everything that made these past, present and future experiences possible. 

With that caveat out of the way, we are off on the first trip of the extended summer. 

Days 1 - 2: Vancouver and Tokyo

Our trip to Tokyo was broken up by a five-hour layover in Vancouver. If you've never been there, Vancouver is a larger, more Canadian version of Portland. The city is worth a visit regardless of where you live or what you're into, but my favorite part is the best dim sum in North America (sit down San Francisco). 

My Japan reading led me to believe the train system there was the most challenging escape room in the world, so we decided to get some light practice in and take the train to Richmond, a heavily Chinese neighborhood just outside of downtown Vancouver. After walking around for a bit, we stumbled into an authentic dim sum restaurant on the second story of an exclusively Chinese shopping center. We were the only two people of a large and completely full dining room speaking English. This meant that we definitely found the right spot, but also that my chopsticks anxiety was peaking. 

Nothing says I'm ready to fly for 10 hours like ingesting a kilogram of MSG. 

We took the train back to the airport, and after a short wait boarded the flight to Narita. This was my first time traveling this far west, and since our flight left in the early afternoon, we were chasing the sun the entire way. Tough to sleep on a 10-hour flight void of darkness, but it did really help the jet lag. 

After crossing the date line (shoutout Flat Earthers), we arrived in Japan the next day at 4:30pm. We took a 90min bus into Shinjuku, one of the more popular areas of Tokyo, where our AirBnb is located. On the way, I got really tired on the bus. And listen, there are few times that I get this tired, but this was "you are going to have to pry my unconscious body off of this bus" tired. But I looked at Marisa. And she looked at me. And she gave me the look that I wasn't allowed to go to sleep, because we hadn't had sushi, and she said for weeks that we were going to have sushi the night we got into Japan. So after unloading our things and showering some life back into my body, we found a small and delicious sushi restaurant just a few blocks away. 

Night 1, Blowing through our yen. 

Then we fell asleep for 12 hours. In separate beds. I love being engaged. 

Revived and hungry, we dedicated today to eating in Asakusa, which is about a 35-minute trip from Shinjuku. Tourists best know Asakusa for the Sensoji Temple - which was nice if not very touristy - but we were there to eat. We began the day at a soba (buckwheat noodle) restaurant that featured a long line of locals. Although the language barrier in Tokyo thus far has been pretty significant, everyone has been nothing but kind to us. (I am very good at saying thank you and can count to four, but that's about it.) The staff sat Marisa and I, cross-legged on cushions, and gave us our cold soba noodles with tempura shrimp and a warm dipping sauce. I forgot to take a picture, but that would have blown my cover as an American anyway. This meal, from the food to the experience, was exactly what we were so excited about leading into this trip.

One beautiful aspect of these restaurants is that the seat turnover is very quick. You are there to eat, and then to pay, and then to leave. I get a little aroused by efficiency.

We left and began our street food tour. We had sweet deep fried cakes (age manju), pork steam buns, gyoza and a warm bread filled with matcha ice cream. It was after the ice cream that I was recruited to a local sumo academy, but I politely declined. Needing a break, we popped into Don Quijote, a chain super market-type store that carried a lot of the Japanese cosmetic products that Marisa had spent a lot of time researching. She found what she was looking for, but the store was overstimulating. Each product's display case had a small monitor playing an ad. Combined with the lights, it felt like I was at a makeup casino. 

We wrapped up our afternoon with a walk through Ueno park, where the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom. Then it was back on the train and back to Shinjuku, where I am wrapping up this blog while Marisa naps away her jet lag. Again in separate beds. 

Hanging out with a few of my friends at Ueno Park. 

Dinner tonight is still up in the air, but we plan to hit Memory Lane aka Piss Alley for a special Friday night in Tokyo. 

Santa Fe: Days 2 - 3

Day 2:

Thursday started early. It had been unusually hot, and we wanted to get a short hike in before things got ugly.

We did a small portion of 22 miles of trails in the foothills above Santa Fe. The path was mostly shaded, save for a few nice views of the valley. More importantly, I did some cardio at altitude, meaning my Portland coworkers will finally accept me.

Hook me up to an iced matcha latte IV. 

Our hike was capped off by breakfast and a few iced matcha drinks (shoutout matcha) at The Teahouse, one of our favorite cafes that happens to be close to where we’re staying. The Teahouse is on Canyon Road, which features Santa Fe’s famous stretch of art galleries. We’ll get to those eventually, but I have to mentally prepare myself before making a commitment to viewing art.

A two-hour nap and some reading split up breakfast and a late lunch on the plaza. We had about 45 minutes to burn before the day’s grand finale, so we grabbed a couple of margaritas on the rooftop of La Fonda (Spanish for ‘The Fonda’), the old luxury hotel in the center of town. They always say that the best thing to do before a massage is drink sugary alcohol in the sun.

Then came Ten Thousand Waves. We were there for three hours. It was amazing. I wasn’t able to smuggle my cell phone in this time, so here’s a doctored stock photo from the website.

Gotta keep the glasses on and eyes wide open for full effect 

My favorite part was the salt glow, which involved being covered in hot oil and viciously scrubbed with generous amount of salt. It felt great, but I got a little ticklish on the stomach portion of the treatment. I am a child.

Day 3:

Last time we were here, we saw lots of people trekking along the side of the highway as part of a religious pilgrimage toward Chimayo, a holy site about 30 miles outside of Santa Fe. Chimayo is well known for its healing mud, which is claimed to have rid people of ailments stemming from bad backs to cancer.

Chimayo. 

The actual grounds were relatively small, and the healing mud was in a small hole in a cramped room in the church. As you entered, the walls were lined with crutches allegedly ditched by those cured on site and photos of loved ones in need of healing. 

We stopped at Chimayo on our way to Taos, another popular artists town about 70 miles away from Santa Fe. To get there, we took the High Road to Taos, a 56-mile scenic byway that takes you through Carson National Forest and past several small villages.

Taos was a bit uneventful, mostly because people were forced inside due to the heat. We walked around for a bit, got some lunch, looked at leather goods we couldn't afford, and took the low road back into town. 

Dinner time. Here's a little secret about the first meal I posted: it was bad. But tonight was Tomasita's night, and Tomasita's is not bad. We both ordered the blue corn chicken enchiladas and split about a pint of the house margarita. I had to request that we stop and sit on a few different benches on our walk back from the restaurant, but the chili was worth the suffering. 

Zach vs. Food Rd. 2. 

Tomorrow is art day. Time to get cultured. 

Santa Fe: Day 1

Day 1:

"I'm going to write so much after this trip.” - Me, circa September 2016, after my most recent post.

It took nine months of writer’s block, regret/surprise from the auto-renewal charge from Squarespace and half a year of sitting on my PTO, but I’m back. This time, we’re off to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The people I’ve told about this vacation fall into two groups.

• The first thinks I’m going to Mexico (I’m not) and makes jokes about how tan I’ll be when I return (I won’t be)

• The second tends to call this decision random and doesn’t understand why I’m going to New Mexico and not Old Mexico

*goes to the gym once*

The takeaway from this is I didn’t do a great job describing my experience after the maiden voyage to Santa Fe.  Aside from getting eviscerated over a shirtless Instagram post at Ten Thousand Waves, there wasn’t a lot of discussion around that trip. Here's why I went back. 

I’m not a very spiritual guy. I’ve never commented about the energy of a particular area. There are places that have made me feel better than others, but it’s always been more of a surface-level “I’m on vacation” feeling than anything else.

Santa Fe was different. There is something so unique and truly indescribable about the town and the surrounding landscape. I can’t articulate why, but I can confidently point to that trip as several of most peaceful days of my life. And since my anxious mind isn’t always so accepting of peace, making a tradition out of a short, annual pilgrimage seemed like a good idea.

This was the fourth take. For some reason, she didn't think this was a picture occasion.

So how did I kick off my peace pilgrimage? By forcing us to get to the airport two hours early so we could take advantage of our sweet new credit card perks. Marisa and I both found a way to rationalize getting cards with expensive annual fees so we could travel like assholes. Just look at the happiness caused by free sparkling wine in an overcrowded airport lounge.

One-thousand combined dollars (annually) well spent!

We arrived in Albuquerque around 7:30 p.m., and decided last night that we would grab traditional New Mexican food nearby before the one-hour drive to Santa Fe. And if we’re being very real with each other, I actually planned out exactly when I would allow myself to eat New Mexican food during our stay.

Why? Look at this plate:

RIP my stomach. You would have to stretcher me out of bed if I didn’t set some limits.

Until tomorrow.

Eastern Europe: Days 10-11. Sept. 12-13, 2016

At the top of Kotor's city walls, looking for intruders. 

If there's one extremely valuable takeaway from this trip, it's that you can never trust a weather forecast in this region. We expected four days of pretty dismal conditions, and have instead been blessed in Kotor by near-perfect skies, save for a quick shower or two.  

Yesterday, with talk of our post-trip diet heating up, we decided to burn off some of the shame with a hike up the city walls. The full loop is 4.5km but  is a vertical ascent of 1,335 steps. Marisa thought it would be a good idea to go a fast as we could, which would have been a phenomenal suggestion had we not binged on sweet breakfast crepes made by our hostess just an hour before. 

The peak of the city walls was Kotor's version of Srd. The view was almost postcard worthy, but was partially tainted by the massive cruise ship parked in the bay. This has been an ongoing theme during our stay, with as many as three(!) cruise ships docked at any given time. Predictably, this floods Old Town with the same crop of cruise ship tourists as Dubrovnik, making daytime in the heart of the city pretty unbearable. Fortunately for us, our apartment is on the other side of the bay, so we have a nice refuge from, what we have begun dubbing, "the bullshit."

That ship photobombed every picture from every angle. 

After the hike, we stopped at the closest grocery store and grabbed food to make a few meals. It felt good finally abandoning meat and going with a plant-based alter-- just kidding, we made beef stir fry because that was our only option. The lone thunderstorm of our trip hit in the afternoon, and we used it as an excuse to read, recharge and hang out. 

This morning, we finalized our last-minute plans to take a four-hour, semi-private (not that rich) sail around the Bay of Kotor. The morning was sunny and warm, so we took a dip off the dock directly in front of our home. We began the walk over to the Old Town docks right as our neighbor, Goran, was going into the apartment with a handyman to fix our broken hot water heater, which was dripping all over the bathroom floor and may have led to low toilet water pressure. I don't want to get into details, but the last thing you want on an Eastern European diet is low water pressure in the toilet. 

In Old Town, we grabbed a few beers before meeting our Russian skipper Yuri and hopping on his ship, the Virtus. We were joined by a British couple, Jane and George, who were the perfect company. They shared their two bottles of sparkling wine, gave us fun conversation, and split time between mingling with the full group and keeping to themselves. Let me know where I can find people like that in the US. 

I am still the captain now. 

Yuri's English was good enough to explain things at a high level, but we didn't necessarily have a full narration of the tour of the bay. Still, it was a really therapeutic, sun-filled excursion that we needed. It's truly a bummer that the water is so highly trafficked by cruise ships, because it is really one of a kind. 

After getting off the boat, we had dinner at a local barbecue. The food wasn't great, but we got a full chicken, grilled veggies, two beers and a water for 14 Euro. We then made the 20 minute walk home, and I went for a sunset swim before heading inside and taking a warm (thank you, Goran) shower. 

Getting in a sunset float off of the dock. 

Eastern Europe: Days 8-9. Sept. 10-11, 2016

The secret beach. 

Moments after I finished my previous blog post, I went to take a shower in the cramped bathroom of our apartment. If you've been to Europe, you know that most hot water heaters are not centralized like in the US, but rather in the bathroom directly above the shower. I was shampooing my hair, and accidentally hit the faucet to the left. It took me a couple seconds to realize that I had just launched a stream of near-boiling water onto the left side of my body. The pain and redness only lasted a night, but I now have a fear of European showers.

I hope that you'll continue reading, because if you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best. 

Yesterday was our final day in Makarska. We downloaded the Makarska Beaches app (this is a real thing), and took a quick trip up the coast toward a beach that was at the base of a deserted hospital for children with asthma. It was definitely a creepy structure, with broken windows and graffiti, but it was reassuring that these kids just had asthma (no offense to asthma) and not something more lethal and ghost-inducing. 

Shoutout Crash Bandicoot on PS1. 

The beach itself was nice, but we continued to be haunted by the weather. We stuck it out on the cloudy bank for a few hours before the rain began to fall, and we had a quick cup of coffee at a nearby beach bar before returning home. I then took the nap of the vacation: a two-hour, dream-filled nap from which I awoke disoriented. If you don't know where you are when you wake up, that means you had a great nap. 

We then followed that up with our best dinner of the vacation (the bar is really low in this neck of the woods) on a small square off the beaten path in Makarska. This experience was neutralized by a vicious stray cat-on-leashed-dog attack that I saw unfold like I was watching a lion hunt on safari. To be fair, the momma cat was instinctually protetcing her nearby kitten, but the dog she went after is probably served kibble in a golden bowl. 

Anyway, with a pretty uneventful Makarska behind us, we said our goodbyes and made our way south toward Kotor, Montenegro. About 40 minutes from town, we once again stopped at the secret beach, where we finally got a few hours of sun. Our new favorite term is "FKK friendly," which means a beach is down with nudity. FKK stands for Freikörperkultur, which is a German word that translates to Free Body Culture. Today, there was a little Russian boy who was as FKK friendly as he was loud. He spent about 20 minutes yelling "NYET!" at his mom while standing on the shore with nothing on but his water wings. 

"Take a picture of me reading."

Our bodies toasted, we began the ~4 hour drive toward Kotor. The drive went by pretty quickly with the help of a This American Life podcast that made us both tear up. When we got near Kotor, we realized that there was a ferry across the Bay of Kotor that would save us nearly an hour of driving. We took it for four Euro, and got a really beautiful view of the new country.

The view from the Kotor ferry. 

We just wrapped up dinner in Muo, the small town in which we are staying. It's about a 15 minute walk from Old Town Kotor, but it is right next to the water. Our hostess offered to make us crepes with the honey harvested from her husband's bees, so I am going to turn up tomorrow at 8 a.m.

Eastern Europe: Days 6-7. Sept. 8-9, 2016

One week in. Pictured here pretending to like each other. 

The sun was finally shining when we woke up yesterday, and we wasted no time getting ready to go to Kravice Falls. We pumped ourselves full of Bosnian coffee, which makes that shi-shi Portland cold brew look like water, jumped in the car, and began the (what we believed to be) one-hour drive toward the Croatian border. 

Google Maps once again took us along the scenic route, which exposed the bizarre layout of the country surrounding Mostar. Without rhyme or reason, random supermarkets and strip malls would pop out of nowhere, seemingly without anybody nearby. We learned a bit more about how the population is dispersed (and unfortunately segregated) across the country later in the day, but even that didn't explain why I could buy a La-Z-Boy on the hillside in rural Bosnia.

Side note: This is one of four identical billboards we saw along the way. I explain what it means below, but at the time I was low key scared of taking a photo. So I had Marisa do it. 

When we finally made it to Kravice, after a few missed turns and dirt roads, we discovered that this was far more developed tourist site than we had read. Still, it didn't take away from the beauty of this natural wonder which, again, is in the middle of rural fucking Bosnia. 

Had to install a Chrome extension that prevented me from making this caption "don't go chasing waterfalls."

We didn't bring towels, which was a bit of a buzzkill, but we managed to have lunch at the grill on the shore and watch tourists, most of them Spanish, get whistled away by the "lifeguards" from playing dangerously close to the rocky ledges of the waterfall. One thing that was novel to both Marisa and me, but which is common in a religiously divided nation like Bosnia, is the juxtaposition between women in in full hijab and those in more liberal attire. At the shore, we saw a woman tanning in a thong bikini next to a woman whose only visible skin was on the toes she was dipping into the water. This dichotomy was present all over Mostar and extended into the sites around the city. 

Feeling like our time had come, we toweled off and sped back to Mostar. After a quick nap, we walked into Old Town to begin the Death of Yugoslavia Tour, which was the No. 1-rated activity in Mostar according to Tripadvisor. Our guide, Dario, was a rare Bosnian-Muslim/Bosnian-Croat mix, had served in the Bosnian army, and honestly gave the best tour I had ever been on. For just more than two hours, he gave us a full history of the rise and fall of Yugoslavia under Tito. I won't go into specific details of the account -- if you don't know the background, you should absolutely read about it -- but it was a tremendously sobering yet fascinating experience.

We stopped in three different places: one of Tito's many secret underground tunnels/shelters, the city center of Mostar, and a now-neglected war memorial built by Tito in the 1950s that recognizes the many lives lost during the country's fight for independence. It's really hard to be funny when discussing the Death of Yugoslavia, because the people across the entire region, and especially in Bosnia, have endured so much shit over the past 75 years that it's visible in both the people and places we encountered. Even Dario, who has given this tour many times per week for several years, became emotional when recounting both his personal experiences and those of the entire country.

For a quick intermission, look at this picture of Tito's bunker. Village kids with sticks snuck into the tunnel to try to scare us. Dario told me to yell before they did so we could establish dominance.

Y'all don't know scary until your tour guide turns off the lights to his van in a bunker Tito built to shelter himself from atomic bombs and hide Russian planes he illegally bought with US dollars. 

The current government of Bosnia is unfortunately very corrupt. There are three presidents, each representing one of Bosnia's three groups -- Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs. Dario said the government takes 50% of each paycheck and generally keeps it to themselves. If you walk around Mostar, you'll see that there is rampant poverty and buildings in various states of deterioration. Which brings us back to the billboard referenced above. I asked Dario what that meant, and the loose translation is that it says "30 years of the current regime -- when will it end?" and uses North Korea as a symbol to represent what the people of Bosnia fear their government is becoming. The current regime, Dario says, gives them very little. But the one thing they do have, something they didn't during the time of Tito, is freedom of speech. Count your blessings in America. 

Feeling nice and uplifted, we had a Bosnian dinner and talked about our days ahead. Dario had been very candid with us about what we had left to explore in Mostar: nothing. So we managed to wiggle our way out of the final two nights in Bosnia, and made another change to our plans. I'm currently writing this post from Makarska, a Croatian beach town north of Dubrovnik and about two hours from Mostar. We'll be here for two nights before driving down to Kotor, Montenegro.

Along the way, we found a secret, locals-only beach. I'd show you a picture of it, but I'd be violating a centuries-old code of secrecy (I'll show you tomorrow; it's on Marisa's camera in another room.) 

Eastern Europe: Days 4-5. Sept. 6-7, 2016

Yesterday morning, we set our alarm early to check the weather and potentially take the single ferry out to Mlijet, a gorgeous national park/island about two hours from the coast. Marisa woke up for just long enough to hear a violent gust of wind, and grunted (I assume) to voice her displeasure with the plan. So back to sleep we went, accepting that our sunshine-filled Dubrovnik escape may have to wait for the few days closer to our departure.

Instead, we decided to climb Srd, the mountain behind Dubrovnik that overlooks Old Town and the sea. I'm a big fan of words without vowels, so I was down with the mission. From the top of Srd, you are able to see the entirety of Old Town Dubrovnik, Lokrum and a panoramic view of the Adriatic Sea. The hike is a series of 12 switchbacks, and at the end of each is a piece of art illustrating one of the 12 Stations of the Cross. My deeply religious background (I don't have one) enabled me to educate Marisa (I didn't) along the way. Unfortunately, Marisa's body began reacting to our bread-only diet, so we were a bit slower up the mountain than we expected. 

What an ab-Srd view. I'll see myself out. 

That evening, we ate at the restaurant Azur, which occupied the ground floor of our apartment building. On Tripadvisor, Azur is described as "European, Mediterranean, Asian, Asian Fusion, Thai and Thai Fusion." I like most of those things, and I wasn't disappointed. The hardest part was being accompanied by a cat that looked like our dog, Zoe. My dog is so bad and I miss her so much. 

This is cat Zoe. I bet she is a bad cat. 

We went to bed early in preparation for our drive across the border into Bosnia and Herzegovina. This morning, we picked up a rental car, said three Hail Mary's, and began the ~2 hour drive northeast. We had a beautiful view of the coast for the first half of the journey, and then trusted Google Maps to take us the rest of the way. What we got was remote, rural Bosnia, complete with remnants of the war, extremely narrow roads, and a Croatian radio station hellbent on playing Bon Jovi and Aretha Franklin. It was a refreshing albeit sobering experience to finally get away from the English-dominant confines of Old Town Dubrovnik and drive head on into very recent, very violent history. 

On the way to Mostar, we stopped at Počitelj, an Ottoman-era fortress destroyed in the 1990s and rebuilt to form a functioning yet humbling village. 

If there's one thing Eastern Europe loves more than meat, it's stairs, and Počitelj was no exception. Still sore from our trek of Srd, we climbed to the two highest points of the village, and took in Bosnia for the first time. It was nice to get some fresh (although humid) air, after escaping one-lane death on the rural Bosnian roads nearly a dozen times. Before we continued on to Mostar, I had to snap a picture of a satellite dish on a small home in Počitelj. I love pictures like these, and have tried to capture them ever since I attempted to take a picture of a monk eating KFC at the Frankfurt airport but left the flash on.

*Lives in a 16th-century Ottoman village; doesn't miss Bears football on Sundays*

Ready for a quick shower and some lunch, we proceeded to the Muslibegovic House, our home for the next few nights. The GPS only betrayed us three times, and we were greeted by the extremely nice receptionist. Somewhat surprisingly, she said she had a lot of visitors from Portland, in addition to NYC, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles. She also told us that she occasionally got visitors from Texas, who were really hard to understand. She said that because the first Western movies that came to Bosnia were, in fact, Westerns, speaking to Texans was like watching a John Wayne film. I thought that was funny. 

We quickly rinsed off, and made our way into Old Town Mostar (we're team Old Town in case that wasn't apparent -- New Towns are for millenials). Mostar is most famous for Stari Most, the famous bridge that was also destroyed during the war but rebuilt shortly thereafter and renamed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the early 2000s. This bridge was swarming with tourists, but for good reason. It was absolutely gorgeous, and worth a day trip in and of itself.

Dudes ask for money and then dive from this bridge. You can get "lessons" from them for 20 Euro. Marisa won't let me do it. 

Tonight, we plan on grabbing dinner on one of the many restaurants overlooking the river. Tomorrow, we'll head to Kravice Falls where it will hopefully be sunny and warm enough to dip in and enjoy some of the natural beauty of the area. 

Eastern Europe: Day 3. Sept. 4-5, 2016

A man of my word, we hit the town hard last night and went to one of the top-rated restaurants on Tripadvistor (shout out to all my Tripadvisor reviewers out there -- you're doing the lord's work). After Lokrum I quickly showered, put on my finest Banana Republic t-shirt, and made my way to Restaurant Dubrovnik. I committed a serious travel foul by not taking pictures of the meal, but we ordered a bottle of local wine and had beef carpaccio, tuna tartare, black ravioli, tuna steak and turbot. I basically blacked out from fullness after the starters, but Marisa tells me I enjoyed the full meal. 

After dinner, we had drinks on the main thoroughfare of Old Town and people-watched. A table of Irishmen behind us provided the soundtrack to the night as they serenaded an outdoor bar of ~100 people with drinking anthems for 90 minutes. The highlight was spotting a couple from our plane walking the streets of Old Town. During the flight, and after they had both bombed two glasses of wine in 10 minutes, the man spilled a full glass on light wash jeans. He was wearing shorts last night but appeared to be having a good time despite losing his favorite pair of pants.  

If you ever need the Wi-Fi code to Cele, it's 12345678. They take cyber security very seriously. 

Who has two thumbs and got cocky about conquering jet lag? This guy. After returning to our apartment at a decent hour, Marisa fell into a deep slumber and I stayed up until 3 a.m. watching YouTube videos and waiting for the Ambien to kick in. Unfortunately, when both of us awoke, we were both experiencing the lethargy that infamously hits on the second day of any international vacation.

So, we decided started our day with a light lunch, pictured below: 

Papardelle with beef steak. 

(It's really dope that calories don't count on vacation, or else I would be in serious trouble.) Still feeling groggy, we washed down our pasta with two Americanos each and made our way over to the Dominican monastery, where Marisa pretended not to be embarrassed by my lack of art history knowledge. My favorite part was learning about the patrons who commissioned massive, religious paintings and inserted themselves in the bottom left hand corner as these little gnome-like figures. If I ever pay for a major piece of art, I want to have a dominant presence and occupy no less than a third of the work. 

It then began raining, and we used this as a valid excuse to come home and take a two-hour nap. We also began searching for alternate destinations since Albania was beginning to look like less of a possibility. The revised itinerary is below, but we will be heading north instead to Bosnia and Herzegovina for four days. The con is that we really wanted to go to Albania. The pro is that most people I know haven't been to Bosnia and Herzegovina, so I'll still have something to brag about. 

There was a torrential downpour at dinner, but we braved the rain and made it to (another) Italian restaurant. In order to stay warm and forget about our saturated pants and shoes, we had a "few" of the local drinks. We're both carboloading to maintain our endurance for the remainder of the trip.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Dubrovnik and the weather is supposed to rebound a bit. We're hoping to get some more sun before heading up to Mostar, where we will be spending four nights in a museum/hotel. 

9/3 - 9/7: Dubrovnik

9/7: Travel from Dubrovnik to Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

9/7 - 9/11: Day trips from Mostar to other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

9/11 - 9/15: Kotor, Montenegro

9/15: Back to Dubrovnik.

9/17: Depart Dubrovnik for PDX. 

Eastern Europe: Day 2. Sept. 3-4, 2016

Day 2:

We made it into Dubrovnik last night after about 17 hours of travel. We were greeted by our hostess Marija, who walked us from  Pile Gate (the entrance to a castle wall, no big deal) to our attic-turned-loft. Along the way, she asked where we were from. Marisa said Oregon, and I began to explain where in the US it was located. Marija waited for me to finish describing its location as the “state directly above *had motion for above* California" before telling me she knew exactly where it was. I haven’t said a word since.

Because of the conversion, our apartment is funky, with really low, sloping ceilings in several rooms. The pros are that it is located directly in Old Town, has a beautiful view of the sea and has a five-star AIrbnb rating. The con is the shower:

Sup?

We both got a little snooze in on the plane, so we decided to have a nightcap at a bar 100 meters from our apartment. I’ll get a pic of it tomorrow, but it’s a (literal) hole-in-the-wall that is situated on the rocky coastline and overlooks the ocean. We each had a beer, and as is customary, we both agreed that it was the best beer we had ever had because any local beer in its native country is the best beer in the world. At the base of the bar is one of dozens of ladders leading to the Adriatic Sea, serving as an entry point for certain former high school swimmers to show off for the multinational tourists.

After our drinks, we grabbed a late-night snack before trying to navigate home. We got lost several times before a drunk local pointed us in the right direction by pissing on the stone wall in an alleyway. We knew at that moment that we had probably made a wrong turn, so hats off to you, buddy. We appreciate the tip.

Our night ended as abruptly as this section of the post, because we each took half an Ambien to mitigate jet lag.

Today, we had a quick breakfast in Old Town before getting on the 15-minute ferry to Lokrum, an island just off of Dubrovnik with ample places to swim, a beautiful view of the mainland and a small nudist beach. Hoping to see some Eastern European supermodels, we laid our towels down adjacent to this stretch of the island. Unfortunately, everyone there seemed to follow the global nude beach rules that require you to: 1) have fond memories of the 1940s, 2) not be a model and 3) make sure that everyone nearby knows that you are naked.

The view from Lokrum. 

We ate some lunch, slept a bit more on the rocks, and went for a few beers on lounge chairs that we stumbled upon on the other side of the island. A man approached us with a receipt machine and billed us 50 Kunas per chair. On vacation, international currency is play money and I don’t want to do math. I hope that was a good deal for one hour of chair time.

On the way back, we stood at the front of the ferry. I took a cool video of me saying “I am the captain now” and we got a picturesque view of the city as the sun was setting. I highly recommend the Lokrum day trip for anyone visiting Dubrovnik. It’s definitely not empty, but it's a great escape from Old Town and has plenty of room to stretch out. Old Town itself is like the Times Square of Dubrovnik, with more Australians in their 20s than locals.

At the front of the ferry. Marisa didn't get sick! 

The weather is supposed to get hairy over the next few days in this region, so tonight we’re going to try to eat at a restaurant with a view while it's still good. The incoming system also means that we may call an audible on our travel. There are three full days of thunderstorms currently expected to hit Valbona during our planned hiking days, and we don’t hate the rain but we just left Portland.

Eastern Europe: Day 1. Sept. 2-3, 2016

Day 1:

This marks the inaugural blog post of our trip through Eastern Europe. I’ve had internal and external debates about what qualifies as “Eastern,” and the best answer I could come up with is that a European country is Eastern if you’re not looking forward to its food.

Marisa and I will be out of the country for exactly two weeks, and will be visiting Croatia, Albania and Montenegro. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about why we chose this specific trip. The PC answer is that we really wanted to hike the Accursed Mountains in Albania and explore the beautiful cities of Dubrovnik and Kotor. The honest response is because Marisa has traveled extensively and if we were going to be around each other nonstop for two weeks, I wanted to minimize her elitism. I would like to be a tourist and make mistakes and not go somewhere she’s already been. That eliminated most countries.

Anyway, no matter the distance of the journey, departure day always brings two of my favorite things. The first is the chance to obliterate the airline I’m flying on Twitter. Given that we were flying Condor, which is what you would get if you bred Lufthansa with Spirit, I pregamed the flight by loading a few really good tweets into the chamber. And considering that I’m writing this first entry from the middle of a 2-3-2 formation, best believe Germany is about to get that thunder.

The second reason I look forward to the first day of any trip is because I get to eat at PDX, America’s best food court. Today, I had my sights set on the Pok Pok foodcart, an extension of the insanely popular, Anthony Bourdain-endorsed Thai restaurant in Southeast Portland. This food cart only serves their famous wings, which is great because that was the only thing I wanted to eat before a 10-hour flight. To be completely candid, Pok Pok airport wings accounted for about 5% of my decision to take this trip.

Guess who we discovered no longer had a food cart at PDX?

Instead, we pity ate burgers at Rogue Brewery and drank a beer to get to the perfect level of bloated where you’re uncomfortable for the first few hours of the flight. At the gate, a bunch of multilingual German kids conversed in fluent German and English, a classic intimidation tactic by the European youth. I confided in Marisa that traveling always brings out my American insecurities.

We land in Dubrovnik, Croatia, at 8:45 p.m. tonight after a four-hour layover in Frankfurt.

Full travel agenda is below. Excited to bring you actual updates that don’t involve the airport, Twitter or German kids.

-Zach

9/2: Depart PDX at 6:45 p.m.

9/3: Arrive in Dubrovnik at 8:45 p.m.

9/3 - 9/7: Dubrovnik

9/7: Travel from Dubrovnik to Shkodër, Albania. Spend the night in Shkodër. 

9/8: Take bus and ferry to Valbona, Albania. 

9/8 - 9/10: Valbona.

9/10: Hike to Theth, Albania, in the Accursed Mountains. Spend the night at a guest house.

9/11: Minibus back to Shkodër; bus to Kotor, Montenegro.

9/11 - 9/15: Kotor, Montenegro

9/15: Back to Dubrovnik.

9/17: Depart Dubrovnik for PDX.