Apartment & Travel Surprise

2017 January 23

I have some small updates, and a big travel-related one at the end of this article. Read through this article or ignore my hard work and scroll immediately to the bottom to find out what it is!

My New Place

Welcome to my new place!. The apartment building is called The Palisade.

I know it’s not big, and if you value space, you’d probably think I’m insane for paying what I’m paying for 215 square feet, but let me talk to you about location. Every time I step outside my building and look to the left, I see this:

Anytime I search for anything I need, I see this:

And anytime I need to Über or Lyft downtown, the ride is short and cheap, especially when splitting the fare with friends. But I’ll start walking more once the weather warms up:

And if I don’t feel like going downtown on the weekend there’s this place:

The Church Club. It’s situated about 20 feet from the window of my apartment. Sure, Friday and Saturday nights can be a little annoying with their thumping bass drops if I’m trying to sleep… but not sleeping gives me perfect opportunity to write articles for this blog!

And parking is a pain. However, with my new job, I hardly need to drive anywhere. I often work from my apartment or one of the many coffee shops within walking distance.

New Line of Work

Now that I can work whenever and however I want, life is overall better. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not slacking off and working whenever I feel, watching Community all day and maybe getting around to finishing projects – believe it or not, I’m not that lazy. But now I can optimize for when and how I get the job done, something that can’t be done as effectively at a 9 – 5 desk job. I’m determined and motivated to make this work. By the way, if you haven’t visited my website and need some web work done, what are you waiting for?

My new job as a freelance web consultant means I now get to determine not only when and how I get work done, but also where. This mostly means I pick between developing in my apartment or developing in a nearby coffee shop. But starting February 1…

(This Is the Travel-Related Update) I’ll Be Working Remotely from Europe for a Month.

Which is the life I’ve been working towards supporting for a long time now. Assuming all goes well and I can continue supporting this lifestyle, this means I’ll have more, better content for this blog. Remember to subscribe!

Anyway, Europe!

Europe sounds (and mostly is) expensive. However, if you’re constantly searching for the right deals, planning well, and taking advantage of modern technology, it can be made much cheaper. Using Google Flights, I was able to find a ticket for $390 for the month, a ticket that usually costs around $1000 or more. Booking is also a lot cheaper if you’re willing to stay in hostels and Airbnbs, but the best way to book is to meet friends abroad, stay in touch, and let them know you’ll be in their city for a few days. Of course, you should never expect them to just give you a place to stay when you’re in town, and if they don’t offer up their couch, they have their reasons. But by keeping in touch with friends from high school and people I met in Montréal, I have places to stay in Paris, Clermont, Valence, Coimbra, and possibly Porto and Valencia, which cuts the amount of booking I need to do by about half.

Researchapalooza

I found some consistently good websites that deal with working abroad, backpacking in Europe, and finding the best train deals on the continent. These may seem like endorsements, but, no, I didn’t get paid to talk about these sites (though that would be amazing).

A Little Adrift is a great resource to research working abroad. The author, Shannon O’Donnell, is so nice that she even responded to my email about questions regarding lifestyle and doubts. This post can be very helpful to anyone going through a major life decision or regretting the choices not made. After all, in 6th grade I planned on living as a traveling jazz trombonist, and I still think about what I would have been like – the answer is hungry, very hungry.

Seat 61 is a great resource for European train travel as well as train travel in other parts of the world. When I finally travel within my own country, I’ll be returning to this site.

The Savvy Backpacker is a website dedicated to backpacking throughout Europe (side-note: I love the web design here – it strikes the perfect balance between having a large amount of content without information overload, and works well on mobile). I especially liked the article on backpacking Europe in the winter and found the packing list article indespensible.

The Itinerary

So far, I’ve split my itinerary into two parts – about half of the days are strict and I must be in certain locations because of scheduling and booking, the other half of the days are freer and more flexible since I won’t need to decide on exactly where I’ll be or when until a couple days beforehand.

Amsterdam

The first stop is Amsterdam. This may be weird, but I’ll only spend 2 days in the city before moving on. I would normally spend more time in a city like this, but I’ll save it for a different trip. The flight I found for so cheap happened to fly into Amsterdam. This time, I’ll mostly be enjoying Switzerland, France, Portugal, and Spain.

Kevin, my friend from high school who is doing grad school in Portugal, will meet up with me in Amsterdam.

Gstaad

The next stop will be in fancy-pants Gstaad. For those that may not know, Gstaad (pronounced Kshtott… kind of), is renowned for its skiing and snowboarding, and now that I’ve been snowboarding again for the first time since 9 years ago in Minnesota, it’s time for me to try it in Europe. I’ll compare and contrast, and bring with me knowledge of peoples in far off lands, peoples united by culture but separated by geography, about how in Europe the color system of determining the difficulty of the slopes is a little bit different, and how people drink wine on the slopes instead of beer.

Geneva

And then I’ll visit the first city where I’ll spend more than 2 days. Since it’s the first full work-week I’ll have in Europe, I’ll do some web design work here while meeting up with a friend from college who will be visiting Europe at the same time. Patrick, who was in Model UN with me, and I will be visiting the UN Geneva office and CERN, because we’re both huge nerds.

Paris

And later in the week, I’ll travel to Paris to meet up with Rico, a friend I met in Montréal. Not a lot is planned here yet, but I’ll probably go to, like, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, etc, etc. There’s plenty to do in Paris, of course, so I’m not worried about planning ahead on this one (this is part of the loose itinerary). And according to the end of La La Land, there’s some good jazz in Paris, so I’ll probably check out a jazz bar, or something.

Clermont-Ferrand

Then I’ll be traveling to Clermont-Ferrand in Southern France. I don’t know a lot about the city, but I’ll be meeting with Margot, another friend I met in Montréal. I’ll need to do some research.

Lyon & Valence

And then Lyon. I’ll be meeting with Edwin, another friend I met in Montréal.

You meet a lot of French people on holiday in Montréal.

Portugal

Then finally on to Portugal, the entire reason for researching tickets in the first place. For about a week, Kevin and I will explore Porto, Coimbra (where he’s studying), and Lisbon before he resumes classes and I go to Spain. This is also part of the loose itinerary, and the part where I leave the planning to someone else for a bit. He knows what he’s doing with the area better than me.

Spain

And Spain, the first foreign country I ever visited way back in 2011, not including the UK’s Heathrow Airport. (I don’t think that counts, but I heard a lot of English accents and saw a double decker bus outside my plane window, so I think I got the full English experience.) This will be the most relaxed part of the itinerary. It makes sense since Spain is much cheaper compared to countries like Switzerland and France, so not planning ahead is more affordable, and relaxing will help me fit in with Spanish culture. No need to get up at 5:00 in the morning to catch a train when you’re in Spain. After all, nothing there opens until 9:00, except McDonald’s, and that’s mostly for the youngsters who were out partying the night before in the European Church Club equivalents. If you don’t get the reference, you skipped the beginning of this article and should feel bad about yourself.

Valencia

The last city I’ll visit before returning to the United States. The reason why I’ve already planned my stay in this Spanish city is because I’ll be attending the lindy hop swing dancing festival called Move Your Bottom. There probably isn’t a better way to transition back to the United States than an American-style dance convention for the weekend – also I’m assuming the plane ride back will go through that Twilight Zone episode airplane time portal and transport me to the 1920’s.

Kevin will be in Valencia too.

Stay Tuned!

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